Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Barry sipped from his sugar-laden mug of coffee as he read the latest advancements in forensics technology, his discarded cowl resting on the table. He didn't turn around when he heard footsteps pad across the carpet, nor when the coffee maker sputtered to life.

I could've sworn Snow was working on something similar to this.

Someone really needed to look at that dinosaur. The little one-serve machine was a fixture in the common area since the Justice League first moved into the Watchtower. There was a bet pool going on when the thing would finally give up, how it would die, and who would get fed up enough to buy a new one.

Oh, they're tracing light bleaching patterns instead of chemical scarring.

He overheard Batman calling the thing a dirt-gargling piece of rusted metal one time, which was hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Do not get between any Leaguer and coffee. Just don't.

It could work, but how are they compensating for different light sources? And how is it limited spectrum-wise?

The blond hummed and turned the page to read an article on the latest science fair at his nephew's school. The tips of his gloves bunched up a little and crinkled the corner, which he smoothed out.

Congrats, Wally! I'd better make sure to file for a half-day to celebrate with him.

The coffee maker beeped its 'merry' jingle-- which actually sounded like an ice cream truck on crack-- then someone poured a cup. There was some fumbling as whoever it was cleaned the machine for the next person. That narrowed it down to three people: Victor, Clark, and--

I wonder if Wally would like a caffeine chemistry set. Is eleven too early for him to have coffee, even if it is for educational purposes?

Barry heard the distinctive rattle of chocolate chips. White chocolate chips with dark chocolate pips, to be exact. The white chocolate was softer than most kinds and thudded rather than plunked, while the pips sounded like the seed beads in Iris's sewing kit.

When is Valentine's Day again? I should probably stop by her favorite crafts shop and pick up that tiered box she's been talking about.

No matter how many times he searched the local grocery stores, he could never find that combination. Fortunately, this particular person didn't mind sharing their stash, saying something about the kitchen having a pocket dimension for exotic ingredients. Probably said in jest, but that would be so awesome.

Maybe some chocolates would be good too. Is her current favorite orange-infused or lemon-infused?

"Hey, Cap, may I have a small cup of chocolate chips?" The movement stopped for a moment, then he heard a cabinet open and glass scrape. A grin broke out across his face. "Thank you!" There was no verbal response, but the rustling continued.

Cap's pretty quiet at the moment. Is everything okay?

Barry took another sip of his coffee, making a face when he noticed that the sugar had already started to separate from the liquid. He heard the television on the other side of the room turn on to a nature documentary, then footsteps again.

Ah, he turned on one of those peaceful 'life' shows. Sounds like he just had a rough night. The poor guy seems to work 24/7.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a shot glass of chocolate goodness and a coaster float over to the table, the floppy piece of rubber wavering in the air before firmly planting itself on the surface and the glass following suit. The speedster grinned.

I still don't know how 'magic' works, but it seems to still adhere to some semblance of physics. Maybe it's related to the way some 'sorcerers' can jump dimensions?

Barry popped a pinch in his mouth before pouring the rest in his coffee, swirling the liquid to mix it all together. The white chocolate melted quickly, but there were still some dark flecks.

Maybe Wally would like a chocolate kit instead? I'm probably over-thinking this.

He continued reading his article, enjoying the coffee and the calm music in the background- although his eye twitched every time the narrator said "nuculer" instead of "nuclear." At least the documentary didn't try to use a soundtrack meant for action films to hype up the nonexistent drama. 

For a guy who's lived for millennia, he sure enjoys learning new things. I hope I continue learning as much in my later years.

Barry chuckled when he remembered the times Captain Marvel used the facts he learned on a mission. Who knew a giant kraken would be susceptible to a sudden change in pressure? The thing was just ticked off that it was brought out of its home in the deep.

Sounds like a certain simian friend of mine. Wonder how Solovar is doing.

"Cap, did you know that NASA's space probe found evidence of life in the vacuum of space?"

A voice squeaked from the other side of the room, "Really?! That's awesome!"

Barry winced. Did demigods get colds? The guy sounded like one of those chipmunk from the shorts Wally liked to watch when he was little. He shrugged. Maybe one of the guy's rogues Silvia (Snazzy?) did something weird earlier and it just hadn't had time to wear off yet.

I really hope Wally doesn't have to go through the squeaky phase when he gets older.

Looking over his shoulder, the speedster asked, "You doing okay, Cap? Your voice sounds a bit off there." But he didn't see the characteristic white cape draped over the back of the couch or broad shoulders as expected. Instead, an unruly tuft of black hair poked over the cushion. He frowned.

Maybe he's slouching? I know I've told him to relax, but that seems out of character.

The voice squeaked again. "What're you talking about? This is how I normally speak." Now that he was paying attention, Barry could hear a slight lisp turning the 's' sounds into 'th'.

When Wally just started talking, his pronunciation was perfect, and he chattered about anything and everything the moment he thought it. But, from how Rudy and Mary were going on at the time, I suppose that having trouble with speaking is typical for younger children.

The world fell to a crawl as he stood up, abandoning his coffee cup and magazine. The blond decided to not push in his chair just yet so that he could return to his reading if it was just nothing.

Though when is it ever 'just nothing'?

He took care to not trip over the edge of the carpet as he walked-ran to check on Cap. Leaning over the arm of the couch, he raised his eyebrows at the stranger in the hero's normal place. Or rather, child. "Who are you?"

A pair of big blue eyes tore from the TV as a little boy turned to look at him, his small hands clutching at a cup of mocha. The red hoodie the kid wore swallowed his body, but thin wrists and slim shoulders hinted at a smaller frame.

His feet barely passed the edge of the cushion.

"What d'ya mean, Barry? It's me." The boy's voice was light and familiar, as though he encountered him on a daily basis, and the corners of his eyes were crinkled with confused amusement.

Hold up. Blue eyes, black hair, slight build? If not for the different speech patterns and get up, this kid can pass as one of Batman's flock. (That dude has a problem.) Although the face structure and fondness for red does seem familiar...

"...Cap? What happened to you?"

The boy bleerily blinked once, his brow furrowed as he looked back at Barry over his mug. "Yeah...? What are you--oh."

Cap looked down at his hands and sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose with the free one in an all-too-adult fashion. "I'll take care of it."

The raven slid off the couch, chugged the remaining drink, and stalked off. A moment later the Boomtube announced Captain Marvel's departure.

Barry blinked and opened his mouth only to close it again.

What the-what just happened?

"What do you do when you fly too high?"

Clark looked down from the stars at the sound of a young voice.

He saw a little boy in the glass.

The little boy's hands were stuffed in the pouch of his oversized red sweatshirt, his shoulders proudly, confidently rolled back and his feet shoulders' length apart as though he could take on the world.

But the little boy also looked exhausted. Too thin were his limbs, too clouded were his eyes (the color of which were obscured by the reflection of the thousand stars and planets that the boy was watching quietly), and the boy himself was too...too...rundown. The boy looked like he was a few minutes away from falling asleep.

Clark did not know the little boy, nor how he had gotten into the Watchtower, and he was concerned.

He hadn't even heard him walk over, and his heartbeat and breathing were...muted, indiscernable, just barely there for him to know the boy was alive.

Or was he?

His spine crawled. Perhaps the boy was another ghost, or a hallucination. He was tired after all, and they had many artifacts in custody. The boy didn't look like one of Batman's brood, nor like his own boys.

Clark kept his voice light, not wanting to startle whatever the boy was, human or ghost or otherwise. "Well, I've never gone too high," he told the little boy. "My body makes it possible to fly high enough to breach the atmosphere and go beyond."

The boy nodded once, his chin touching the fabric of his collar. "Okay."

They stood there in silence, Clark watching the boy's reflection out of the corner of his eye, and the boy looking out at the Earth with a strange, knowing innocence. The description was contradictory, but it fit.

"Are you sure?" The boy still did not look at him, but the question was there.

Clark nodded. "Yes, I am sure."

The boy furrowed his brow. "What if somebody's with you? What then?"

"Well," Clark shrugged. "I suppose I just fly lower."

"How do you know you're flying low enough?"

Clark frowned. "I just do. Why do you ask?"

The boy sighed. "I'm scared, sometimes, that I'll fly too high by accident. Icarus did, you know, and the wax of his wings melted in the sun. He flew too high, defied his place on the earth as a human, and the gods smited him."

The boy looked him in the eyes through the reflection. "So, Supahman, what do you do when you fly too high?"

"I don't know," Clark admitted. "I just try to do my best. That's all we can do after all, isn't it?"

The boy nodded, more satisfied with this answer, and his eyes drifted back to Earth. He bounced on the balls of his feet, thinking of something. After a moment, he turned and looked at Clark. "Thanks. I needed that."

Clark smiled. "No problem."

The boy took one hand from his pocket and put it up to shake. Clark turned to look at the boy, and realized that the boy was real.

He took the boy's hand in his and shook it, wondering at how thin and scarred it was, how human the boy seemed, then let go.

The little boy grinned. The dimpled smile was familiar. So were those cornflower eyes.

When the boy turned away, there was a hand stitched yellow lightning bolt on the back of his sweatshirt.

Clark realized with a jolt that the little boy was none other than Captain Marvel.

By the time he thought to call after him, the boy was gone.

The next night, Captain Marvel was laughing at some joke Flash had told as if nothing had happened.

Captain Marvel was an adult.

Clark never found out what that little boy was after all.

Chapter Text

The electricity from the magical lightning strike left behind sparks, and it almost stung when he breathed a quiet "Holy Moly."

The first thing Billy noticed after he turned back for the first time was the taste of battery acid, which he remembered from when he was testing an expired package of AA's for his flashlight.

The second thing he noticed was bone-deep exhaustion. Not necessarily the physical sluggishness-at least that he could attribute to malnutrition, the cold, and sleep deprivation, but rather a mental ache. His head felt like something was trying to push out. When he blinked, a cold flash pulsed right above the base of his skull, as though a ghost was squeezing his brain like a loofah.

The young boy slumped under the overpass, barely catching himself on a rusted rail when he almost fell down the stairs. He hissed as the corroded metal bit into his palm, but immediately after he was seated safely on a step his hand moved to his right side, which was throbbing painfully. Under the thin red fabric of his hoodie, his skin felt rough and hot to the touch, as though all the lightning had targeted that spot.

Panicked, Billy thought back, trying to figure out where the injury came from as his breaths came in ragged gasps. Damn, if it didn't hurt more after he touched it.

He didn't fall on his side (or fall period) while he was an adult, and the lightning had gone through his left side through his heart because apparently that was the seat of magic in humans. Looking around, his eyes landed on the tracks.

The tracks.

Before he found himself in the cave, he had been running away from some bullies. Since the rail hadn't been used in months, he figured it was safe to use it as a shortcut back to his place, but apparently the subway didn't know that.

Billy remembered getting his foot caught in one of the tracks, being frozen in fear as the train came chugging towards him. The bullies cursing, the conductor behind the glass trying desperately to stop when he saw a boy trapped in front of the giant metal bullet, and a burst of white.

He widened his eyes. He could very well be dead.

But something in the back of his mind scoffed at the notion.

(Do you need to breath? Yes, and you should start doing that before you turn blue. Are you breathing? Yes. Do you have your senses? Yes, they are screaming, but yes. Do you think? Yes, you are over thinking everything and should get out of the gross puddle of miscellaneous origin and do something, geez.)

The voice didn't sound like his own. It sounded like a snarky teenager, maybe like what his voice would be in a couple years, but it was not him.

(Shush, it'll all make sense soon.)

He was crazy.

(Nope.)

Of course. Every time something good happened in Billy's life, something always had to come in and spoil it, like a voice in his head that talked back.

(Well, that's not how I would see it, I'm a beautiful ray of sunshine, but if that floats your boat.)

Billy felt a twinge in his shoulders, as though he had just seen someone else shrug and reflexively did the same. The sensation sent a shiver along his spine. It felt like something was hollowing something out in his skull, making its home for the long-term like a parasite.

(Well, it would be more of a symbiotic relationship, and I'm not getting rid of anything, but we're all hopefully going to be roomies for a long time, so I'm stretching the space out a bit. You're welcome.)

The young boy laughed hysterically and buried his face in his hands. He was too tired to deal with whatever this was, and it felt safe to assume this was part of the Superhero shtick. Was every superhero crazy?

(They run around in tights taking the law into their own hands, what do you think they are, sane? But you're not a superhero, just a little kid with powers he doesn't understand yet. At least you want to use them for good, unlike some people.)

Shazam was dead, so he couldn't get the Wizard to take it back (huh, you knew to properly capitalize his Title, good for you, the voice interjected), and he was crazy enough to not want to.

But Billy was smart enough to realize that his name didn't exactly inspire confidence in his competence for those he met (Imagine Superman calling himself Sammy or Clark or something, that would be a hoot), so he needed a different name.

Captains were leaders, and his dad's favorite word was Marvelous.

Capelous, Marvain, The Marvelous Captain-

Captain Marvel was a good name, like in those comics he and Mary liked to read. It was like that one hero who named himself after a country, but surely no one would notice, much less try to sue him or something. He didn't even have money for that sort of thing.

Captain Marvel was the superhero of Fawcett City for three years, and Billy Batson had lived on Earth for thirteen years (maybe a little less for both, considering that he didn't know where either body goes when he said Shazam, but his birth was thirteen years ago and Captain Marvel's first appearance that decade was three years ago, so maybe it didn't matter after all -- it doesn't, you anxiety-mongering child), when he was approached by the Justice League.

Of course, it was Captain Marvel who received the invitation (It would be peculiar if they approached a child, and suspicious.). And that was the problem.

You see, that meant that, even if he didn't accept the invitation, Captain Marvel would still be ever the slightest more active. After all, The Superheroes knew his moniker.

Would that be bad for Fawcett City? No.

Would that be bad for Billy Batson? Yes. Yes it would.

Because Billy Batson needed to eat. And Captain Marvel didn't legally exist as a human being, even though the city treated him like a person because its people were awesome for the most part, so he didn't have a wallet. Not to mention that the Justice League didn't, you know, pay.

So Billy had to work to get money to eat. And increased Captain Marvel activity would get in the way of that.

But Captain Marvel did accept. Billy did too indirectly -- not by extension, because he was also Captain Marvel, if a bit more juvenile, but-- ah, never mind.

Why, you might ask?

Because he needed human interaction with someone.

Captain Marvel didn't have to deal with all the Champion shtuff (Yes he does, you petulant child. You might notice that it is he, not you, who fights for the good of mankind.-- Shut up, man). Sure, he fought bad guys and knew magic and how to throw punches, but he didn't remember how he knew the stuff.

Billy remembered that shtuff, and it was shtuffy.

And, since his life in general was shtuffy because, you know, parents being dead, uncles being evil, too many foster parents being screwy, gods being loud (hey!), and him living in a rundown yet costly apartment building, Billy didn't get human interaction with people as an equal.

Either Billy was a scruffy poor little kid among adults, or Captain Marvel was a superhero among civilians.

So, would it be so bad if he was able to talk with people that were equals? And just...not remember for an extra couple hours?

A year later, exactly three hundred sixty-five days (with spare change, which I think I'll leave on your desk because I'm a nice guy. -- Thanks, maybe.) later, Captain Marvel put in a request for more shifts at the Watchtower.

It wasn't the first time, but for some reason Batman (The Batman-- who is emotionally repressed because of all the sh -- Shush, I don't need to know his backstory) gave him a long look over a cup of dark-as-his-soul coffee as Cap wrote it on the giant duties calendar.

The thing was put in the cafeteria as a joke, but Cap used it because he didn't trust that said Batman wouldn't track him down if he went to the library as Billy and put in the request that way, so the paranoid totally-not-a-billionaire could just go suck it.

He ignored the look, as he always did.

At least, until The Dark Night Knight cleared his throat. "Is everything...okay...at...home?" His voice was faltering and hoarse, as though he had a cold. Those always sucked.

Cap capped his red marker and dismissed it into his backpack at the apartment, then looked down at Batman with a smile and a thumbs up.

"Yep, everything's coolio in Fawcett City! All the usual suspects are either cooling their heels in jail or spending time with family, and I helped with some Thanksgiving projects and other stuff until they all told me to basically screw off and take a break 'because even superheroes need a holiday', so...Why do you ask?"

Batman slowly blinked, the white lenses closing then opening again. Cap wondered how long the man had been awake. He would bet on three days, but you could never tell. Could be a week or two, for all he knew about the man.

It was another couple moments before the man nodded. "No reason."

But that was also not the first time Captain Marvel was asked a similar question when he put another request on the calendar, even though every request was approved within twenty-four hours on his com.

So he didn't accept that.

He sat down in the seat across from Batman (The Batman. Gosh, I wouldn't have imagined sitting down across from The Batman even six months ago, but here I am-- We're here too, you know D: -- I'm very aware).

He crossed his arms on the table as opposed to over his chest because he didn't want to look aggressive but also didn't know what to do with his arms. It had the dubious benefit of making him look smaller, but it was a good table.

And he asked a question.

"Why does everyone ask that particular question?"

Captain Marvel watched as Batman's shoulders went stiff then forcibly relaxed. To someone who wasn't looking for that reaction, it didn't happen, but it was a confirmation of sorts to him. It meant that the question in, well, question mattered.

That was why, when Batman drank more coffee and gruffly said, "I do not know why my colleagues ask that question," he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not sure that you ain't a mind reader, but I am sure that you know why you asked the question. So...spill."

Batman looked scandalized at his direct approach, and Cap made a note to study diplomacy tactics as Billy next time he went to the library.

The man opted to stand up and take his coffee elsewhere instead of answering the question, and he winced. That didn't go as well as he'd planned.

"Walking all along the Watchtower," Cap dittied as he strolled from the teleporter to the meeting room.

He heard a pair of feet patter before falling in step to his left, so he said, "Hello, Flash. How is your day?"

The speedster distractedly said, "It's good," and left it at that.

Cap frowned. Usually The Flash would start talking about his day. Gush about how his nephew was totally demolishing his science classes, complain about traffic, things like that. Was he okay?

He looked over and was relieved to see that the dude was just trying to balance three coffee holder tray thingies. "You need any help carrying that?"

The blond looked up from his feet and grinned. "Thanks, man."

So Cap walked into the room with one carrier and held the door open for Flash.

Superman smiled when he saw the coffee. "Are the coffees for us, Captain?"

Cap startled. "Um-"

Flash put his trays on the table and said, "Yep. I stopped by the cutest coffee shop last week and decided to get you all some. They even had a drink for each Justice League member."

He took the container from Cap and placed them on the table, squinting at the writing on the lids. "Batman Black Cherry double espresso (geez that's a lot of caffeine) with lemon, Superman Blueberry mocha with strawberry whipped cream, Green Lantern Sparkling Limeade..."

The speedster distributed the drinks until there was only his own and two others.

"...and here is the Captain Caramel Macchiato. The other one is just there because there's a discount for twelve drinks or more."

Cap looked at his drink with wide eyes. It was a light brown with an orangish tinge and smelled of sugar. He took a sip and nearly burnt his tongue, but it was delicious.

"Thanks" was all he could manage, but the speedster grinned and gave a thumbs up.

For the rest of the meeting, Captain Marvel was focused on the speaker like every other member, but he didn't touch his drink until the very end.

He picked it up, said his goodbyes with his usual enthusiasm because superheroes, and left for Watch duty.

Somehow the drink lasted the entire shift.

He could've sworn it refilled in the middle when he turned his head to look at the time, but he wasn't sure. (Aw, they care.)

Chapter Text

It had been six months since Captain Marvel was sworn into the Justice League, sixteen months since he became a recognized superhero, and eighteen months since Batman first started trying to figure out the man's secret identity.

Captain Marvel was an unknown factor, with unknown limits and unknown intentions. With every question answered about his origins, twenty more surfaced, more than a couple being philosophical in nature.

A man the magic community declared the World's Mightiest Mortal, who had a diverse skillset that made him a match for Superman, and had records dating back to Mesopotamia. And he fell off the face of the earth at the end of his patrols.

Batman wouldn't even feel as disgruntled if the Captain left a single trace of a mortal life. But no, there weren't any accounts of a stranger with his face renting an apartment or driving a car that checked out. It was as though the man just...didn't have a life outside saving lives.

The worst? Captain Marvel, for all his secrets and capabilities, had the emotional bandwidth of a child. Albeit a child with The Wisdom of Solomon and The Strength of Hercules (or Heracles, the stories weren't clear on which), but he chattered about the most inane things. 

Take for example one conversation Batman accidentally got pulled into during Monitor duty: 

Batman  rubbed his eyes under the cowl and leaned back, staring bleerily at the giant three-screen monitor. He was on his fifth cup of coffee and would have already finished it and gotten another if Hal hadn't cut him off. He didn't want to brew any of the peppermint tea they had stashed away in the cupboard, so the coffee was busy separating from the creamer as his fingers drummed silently on the desk.

Sure, he could've just gotten another cup anyway, but Agent A had expressed the same concerns. There was something about anxiety and addiction , but he was too busy organizing his notes to really catch what he was saying.

Robin (who recently took on the moniker 'Nightwing') would probably do 'jazz hands' and say "Totally not normal for this guy, amiright?" in an overly bright sarcastic voice. But his son also said a lot of things like 'whelmed' and 'aster', so the kid probably already did the jazz hands and sarcasm before and he just blocked it out.

So, instead of having a fresh cup of coffee to bring him through the end of the shift, Batman only had a lukewarm mug of sadness and an almost overwhelming sense of boredom.

"Hey, Batman, what so you think about that?"

He spun in his chair quickly. Was there an emergency? A hostage situation? Environmental disaster? Anything to cut the lulling sensation brought on by the whirring of the air circulation vents and the spinning of the artificial gravity system.

But instead of blaring red lights and klaxons, he saw Captain Marvel and Green Lantern looking at him expectantly.

He snapped, "What?"

Captain Marvel put his hands into a steeple. He leaned forward, his weight balanced evenly between the chair and the balls of his feet, and Green Lantern mimicked him with a smirk. He took a deep breath.

"Getting ourselves trademarked."

The World's Mightiest Mortal was discussing branding. At three o'clock AM. At work.

The idea admittedly had some merit, but then Captain Marvel started talking about fake identities (which...were illegal, but they were all using fake identities, so that was kinda gray) and using the offshore accounts to manage the cash, and Green Lantern piped in occasionally to offer his own insights, and it all started to sound like the beginnings of a criminal enterprise.

The confused look the man adopted when Green Lantern grumbled about finally reining in the playboy magazines and other stuff that used his likeness was hilarious, but the subject itself was...

So that idea was tabled for later (hopefully never) discussion.

From that conversation, Batman learned seven things:

1. Captain Marvel and Green Lantern should not be left together unless with a responsible adult. He himself does not count.
2. Captain Marvel has done a lot of research into trademarks.
3. His money managing schemes, however, were better for short-term.
4. Captain Marvel does not have experience with managing large amounts of money, or taxes, but he does have experience with the legal system.
5. The above may or may not be a concern.
6. Captain Marvel does not, for whatever reason, know what playboy magazines or adult toys are.
7. The above may or may not be a concern...but he was NOT going to look into that. Or introduce him to that sort of thing, for that matter. Just...going to leave that alone.

Bruce Wayne, coincidentally, had the legal team look into superhero merchandise licensing (Well golly, does Batman get anything from all of the merchandise floating around?). But it didn't get very far.

Apparently, since superheroes didn't have legal identities, they could not file for a trademark of their brand.

Batburger was fine, though. There could be worse things.

Anyway...

Two months later, Bruce Wayne went to Fawcett City for a meeting with Sivana Tech.

That meeting room was then flooded with knockout gas of unknown origin.

He then received a smack to the back of the head.

That was fun. Not.

"Hahaha," Sivana (the youngest son, not the CEO) cackled (he actually said "hahaha." Such a stereotypical mad scientist. Captain Marvel got the special ones. [the man said unironically]) as he waved around a juiced-up cattle prod (see?) and strutted across the room. It looked more like a drunk pigeon than anything.

Bruce was honestly disappointed in himself for being captured by this guy, Brucie persona or not. But the metal chair he was chained to was welded to the floor, which was also metal for whatever reason, so he couldn't just rock himself to safety like he usually did.

The small man turned toward a television camera that he propped up on a decrepit bookcase. "Big Red," he sneered. "I have your precious little league sponsor. Surrender yourself, or he'll become extra crispy. I sure want to find out how you wouldn't. Ciao."

And with that he clicked a button, and the camera let off a small pop and a puff of smoke. Sivana frowned. "I thought that would work." He shrugged. "It makes no difference on his end, but I sure do like an explosion." The man spun on his rubber-soled heel on the second syllable of explosion, ratty lab coat smacking him in the face when he stopped. 

Bruce considered the pathetic man. Then he considered the giant Faraday Cage and battery setup, the bottoms of which were insulated with rubber. Then he looked back at the pathetic man. He gave a dopey Brucie grin. "What's this do?"

The scientist promptly rambled about a powerful element that could only be created if one zapped two particles with magical lightning and rammed them together.

What the powerful element did he didn't know, because a window shattered somewhere above them. The scientist groaned. "I'm not getting that security deposit back, am I?"

And a voice boomed, "You will not. Release Ba-ruce Wayne immediately."

Sivana whipped the cattle prod in Captain Marvel's direction, nearly falling over with how hastily he did so. "You will find, Mister Sparklefingers, that it would be better if you simply step into that cage." The cattle prod sparked. He grinned. He lowered the cattle prod to the floor.

"I am wearing rubber boots. You are immune to electricity. But Baaaruce Wayne," he exaggerated the pronunciation error with a sneer, "has no such precautions or powers, does he?"

Captain Marvel gave the scientist a long look, and he only glanced at Bruce momentarily as he walked toward the cage. His steps were heavy and slow and made the room ring, unlike his normal light stride.

Bruce took the opportunity to maneuver himself out of the chains, the rattling of which was covered by the excessive noise Marvel was making. They were wound tightly, but they were not fastened.

The moment he was out of the chains, Captain Marvel grabbed him, and five seconds later Bruce was standing on the sidewalk outside. He watched the window. There were shouts and a few bursts of light, but in another couple minutes the Mortal was flying toward the police station with Sivana.

He could've sworn Captain Marvel nodded at him in passing. The implications of if that were the case would keep him up running calculations for months.

Chapter Text

Captain Marvel first knew something was wrong when Superman grumbled, "This is boring. I canceled a date with Lois for this?"

Now, that was strange in and of itself, because the dude didn't talk much about his love life. Scratch that, personal life in general. It definitely confirmed some bets floating around, but that wasn't the big deal.

But that (kinda) wasn't the thing that felt off.

No, what did was the fact that he said this in the middle of a MEETING with the Justice League.

Batman had just finished a slide on his PowerPoint of Doom and moved on to drone about the Photocopier of Heinous Proportions (okay, he felt the same way, but at least he didn't say it) when Superman put his head in his hands and muttered that not even under his breath right during that awkward transition period between slides.

Batman's Baton (it had a little bat on the end, like he was a spooky fairy godmother. Apparently it was a gag gift from one of his kids partners.) froze over the statistics of how many paper jams they got last month. Then Batman turned around. And pouted.

"I worked ten hours on this. Ten. Does no-one appreciate what I do?" Were-were those tears?

'What. The. Fuck.'

Everyone's heads whipped from between Superman and Batman to him, and he realized that he'd actuslly said "what the fuck" out loud.

"Shit, I said that out loud?" He slapped a hand over his mouth. Wonder Woman started cackling.

"Oh my gods, I knew it."

"Knew what?" escaped unbidden from his mouth, albeit muffled.

The princess of Themiscyra laughed. "I knew you weren't a stereotype."

He winced and lowered his hand. "That was uncalled for, ma'am."

Eyebrows raised around the room. She winced in turn and said, "Sorry, it slipped."

He sighed and put his hand back up again. She did so as well. Superman and Batman quickly followed suit.

Martian Manhunter cleared his throat. "I think I might have...accidentally not washed my hands properly after handling the water sample from Mister Mind's last visit. And used the doorknob for once."

Implying that it would have been better if he just went through the door. That passive aggressive energy was sparking.

"Shit, so is this like the Naked Truth episode from Star Trek?" Green Lantern also put his hand over his mouth, his face turning red (Everyone knew he was a closet nerd, so it was okay). The rest of the room took preemptive action and did the same.

"No, fortunately. The water sample had a strain of mold that could not survive outside Venus's acidic atmosphere for more than a week. While our actions are unaffected for the most part," the Martian eyed the three leaders, "Exhaustion does exacerbate the effects."

He shrugged. "Everyone's just going to be telling the truth."

Captain Marvel rose his hand, keeping the other on standby. "I've got a lot of secrets I'm protecting. Can we leave?"

"Not if you want to spread it in your home city. Don't worry, it will die out in three days."

Captain Marvel sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit. At least I don't have anything tomorrow." It was school break and a Tuesday: his job at Whiz Radio was only on the weekends. His eyes strayed to the front.

Batman had a dangerous look in his eyes. He could tell, even though the cowl covered them. He just knew.

Captain Marvel looked blankly at "Stalkerman" and pointedly put his hand over his mouth.

The newly-dubbed Stalkerman's face said wtf. Everyone else's were commiserate.

Apparently that bit slipped out. All the better to accentuate his point.

Batman sighed and pocketed the baton. "Everyone dismissed."

Chapter Text

When Billy turned into Captain Marvel for the first time, it became one of the best moments of his life, right next to meeting Tawky Tawny the Tiger and being swung around by his dad.

When Captain Marvel turned into Billy for the first time, it became one of the worst moments of Billy's life.

"...and you know what happened next?" Hal and Flash leaned forward, their eyes wide as the World's Mightiest Mortal froze dramatically, then continued with an expression of awe painted over his features.

"Unbeknownst to Sivana, the door opened behind him, letting in a small ray of light. The Cleaning Lady stood there, like a knight of old with her dark gray armor and sky blue mask."

"The Cleaning Lady," Cap said this the same way he would say 'The Green Lantern' or 'Batman', "pushed open the door. The laser had been put behind the door to hide it from view, which meant the door could not open far enough. The doorknob would not let her cart pass. She looked around the door and saw the laser. So you know what she did?

"She marched in and told Sivana to move the 'eyesore' so that she could do her job."

What on Earth? Hal could tell that he was gaping, but geez.

Cap nodded with a knowing smile. "It's true. She walked right up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him to please move the death laser so that she could clean. And when Sivana gave attitude, she said, word for word, 'I need to clean twenty more classrooms after this. I don't have the patience for whatever cocked-up scheme you're planning, so unless you want me to throw it away, take that thing and leave.'"

Cap leaned forward. "Sivana refused. So she shrugged and said, 'I told you so.' And he was too slow to stop her from unplugging the laser, which turned off the beam keeping me frozen and foiled his dastardly plans, so that she could vacuum. And that is the Legend of The Cleaning Lady."

Hal asked, "Wait, why didn't she just move on to another room?"

Cap shrugged. "It was on her route, I guess. Shortly after, the cleanup crew and police arrived, so I'm assuming she called 922."

Flash held up his hand. "Hold up, 922?"

Cap nodded. "Yep. 911 is general emergency, and it gets rerouted through the separate departments, but 922 is our designated number for super villain crimes that require both an arrest and cleanup. 921 is just an arrest, 923 is just cleanup, and an extra 'one' means emergency care is also needed.

"Why is 923 just cleanup?" Flash had a mildly disturbed look on his face, and he didn't blame him.

"Sometimes I take the criminal to the station before the police arrive, and that caused some confusion, so we made a system."

Hal let out a shaky laugh. "Good, 'cause for a second I thought it meant-"

Cap shook his head. "Nope. And honestly I hope it never comes to-"

"Captain Marvel."

Cap turned. Batman was standing right behind him, which was kinda creepy.

"Yes, sir?" Unlike during his storytelling, Cap's voice was quiet. The switch was jarring to those listening, and made him sound afraid in comparison to the previous few minutes, but that was not the case. Hal could tell.

Cap was just listening.

Batman gave him a small stack of papers. "I couldn't seem to find your home address, so I am delivering your paperwork in person." It was implied that it would be easier if Cap just told him his secret identity, but the Mortal just smiled.

"Thank you. I'll be sure to finish these and return them by, when is it?"

"This Wednesday." It was Friday, so Cap had five days to complete it, give or take. Hal didn't think it was a bad deadline.

The Mortal froze for but a moment, but that moment was terrifying. Unlike during The Legend of The Cleaning Lady, this was not for dramatic effect. There was no sudden gasp of breath or look of terror. Cap still had that smile on his face, but it was wrong. It was too still.

That moment passed, and Cap nodded, his smile smaller as he confirmed that he would bring the paperwork in by next Wednesday.

He left shortly afterwards.

Captain Marvel did a brief patrol around Fawcett City after he stepped out of the Zeta Tube, as per usual.

The first time he left for the Watchtower, he'd been late for his normal patrol at ten o'clock in the morning. By the time he came back at one pm, a decent-sized number of people had assembled to conduct a search for their resident superhero.

When he'd asked, assuming that they wanted him to get to work defending the city, they all said that they'd thought he was in trouble and wanted to help. Captain Marvel would be lying if he said that didn't bring a tear to his eye.

So he told them that he was fulfilling his duties as a member of the Justice League, and they struck a deal.

If he did a patrol around Fawcett City when he came back, even if it was only a couple blocks, they wouldn't take the patrol into their own hands.

He sighed. Other cities didn't have this problem. (But he wouldn't trade it away for anything in the world.)

When he was done, Captain Marvel having stopped some petty crimes and helped some reconstruction workers lift some rubble, he landed in Fawcett Square, a full fifteen miles away from the Zeta Tube.

He smiled at the people passing by, talked with some about their day, and even took pictures with a couple tourists.

It was a productive day.

Right when Captain Marvel was about to lift off to go home, he felt a tug on his cape. He turned around. There was an old woman standing there, a sheet of paper clutched in her hand.

He asked if there was something wrong, and the woman held out the paper. He took it, handling the delicate paper carefully. He looked down and saw his own face smiling back.

Not Captain Marvel's. Billy Batson's.

The name printed on the bottom was "Billy the Bard," his performer name on the streets.

The missing date was a couple months ago.

He looked up and saw tears in the woman's eyes. "Is this your grandson, ma'am?" Captain Marvel asked, knowing the answer but wanting to know what the woman was going to say.

The woman shook her head. "He's a boy who used to tell the most marvelous stories, right over there." She pointed to the corner beside the boutique. "Billy usually showed on Wednesdays and Saturdays, had been for the last two years, but he stopped coming last month. This is the only picture I could find of him."

It was a picture of him with a hand beside his mouth, a twinkle in his eye as though he was telling a big secret.

Probably from "Winton Whipperall" (A garden gnome joins forces with a thief to bring back Spring) or "Tap Toe Fly" (An aviator falls in love with a dancer who used to live with giants in the sky).

It was from five years ago.

Captain Marvel swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, "Do you have any idea of where he could be?"

The old woman shook her head again, and tears dripped down her cheeks. "I showed the picture to the police, and they ran it through the computer." She wiped her face with a handkerchief. "And he ran away from a foster home six years ago. Six! And he's fourteen! I thought he was ten because he was so small."

She looked up at him. "Can you find him?" Hope shined in her eyes.

Captain Marvel's throat felt dry when he nodded and said, "I will try."

William "Billy" "Billy the Bard" Batson was a storyteller, and a talented one at that.

His "Pan and the Panic at the Disco" made businessmen and women alike double over in laughter, and "One Last Dance" brought even the hardest of hearts to tears.

Billy loved talking. He loved performing. He loved the way he could make his voice boom or creep, sing or belch, celebrate or cower.

He loved the way he could spin yarns and weave stories, like a colorful, warm heavy blanket over his shoulders at night.

He could have almost sworn that that was the only way he survived the hardest winter Fawcett City had seen in half a century, the first winter after he ran away: telling himself stories about Superman having misadventures when he was a kid like him, in a small town, kissed by the sun most days of the year, that cared about him.

It certainly wasn't the threadbare sheet or thin walls of his apartment.

But Billy knew that didn't make sense.

After all, stories weren't warm. The Little Matchgirl was far from it, and he didn't feel cold or nostalgic when he told it, only lonely. And when he told the story of Annie, he didn't find a person he could call home. When he acted out A Christmas Carol, his uncle's heart didn't warm.

So Billy knew stories weren't magical, but he loved telling them anyway.

And if the stories he made up himself made that corner just a little brighter, well, that was just a coincidence.

Billy believed in coincidences.

Captain Marvel stopped a hundred feet over the city. It was sunset, so the motley of yellow and white lights were starting to turn on.

He took a moment to admire his city, then crossed his legs and took out a phone book and pen to start his paperwork. The moon was full, so all he had to do was turn so that his shadow wasn't in the way of its light.

Unbeknownst to him, a small yellow light began blinking on the edge of the city.

Billy wanted to be an author.

He wasn't able to read very well, but the books he did manage to get his hands on scratched an itch that he couldn't scratch otherwise.

There were so many stories out there. He wanted to share his, too.

The boy held this hope wish prayer goal tight in his heart, fed it with new ideas and new words he'd found in the sun and the moon and moldy books, even when he felt alone.

Captain Marvel chewed on the cap of his pen as he looked over the mission report he'd submitted a month prior. The form attached asked how he could improve his performance.

The Mortal was in the process of checking "Conflict Resolution" when something hit him on the back of the head.

Startled, Captain Marvel nearly dropped the stack of paperwork. He let out a calm shaky breath in relief when he did not so so. That would've sucked.

He put the paperwork and the book and pen in the Rock of Eternity as he looked around, thinking that a bat or owl hadn't seen him.

A glint of silver caught his eye, and he turned. That was a mistake.

A jolt of lightning hit him in the back.

He fell.

Billy didn't like bullies. So when he saw a couple high school dropouts hassling a couple of nerds, he threw a rock and told them to get lost.

They chased him into the abandoned train station.

Turned out the train station was still in use.

A white light flashed, and the boy found himself in an ancient cave.

Captain Marvel blinked the stars from his eyes.

The room was dark.

When his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting, he saw peeling paint and whirring machinery.

When the Mortal tried to move his arms, he found that they were restrained from behind.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw that his hands were submerged in a metal wall up to the wrists.

He looked to the side and saw a face protruding from the wall.

He looked down at his feet and saw a timer counting down. There were three minutes left.

What did the two have in common?

He looked back at his hands again. The metal was up to the middle of his cuffs. He was losing sensation in his fingertips.

He looked to the side and saw that the metal was covering the cheekbones in the face.

Captain Marvel assumed that the timer was counting down the time until the metal (metallic? It didn't seem magical in nature, but it could be alien) wall was completely covering him.

His eyes scanned the room. The machines looked old, but they extended throughout the room, even in the metal wall, and all were still moving.

The Mortal had to concentrate a bit too much to release a small spark of lightning, but the machinery stuttered and the wall recoiled slightly. He grinned. That was a plan.

But when he reached for another spark, he didn't feel anything. He looked down. The metal had turned back and was quickly spreading across his chest, covering the lightning bolt and sapping his energy. For the first time in so long, he felt genuinely afraid for his life.

He shouted The Wizard's name as the sound of whirring became muffled.

The metal retreated entirely as a bolt of lightning struck his form.

Billy stumbled to the floor.

Billy loved being a superhero.

The feeling of power, of strength, of freedom, of everything, was amazing.

In his stories, he'd described the sensation of flying as the awe of seeing everything below, but it was actually the wildness of the wind going past his ears and his fingers as he stood still in the air.

The boy almost didn't want to turn back.

But he did so anyway. It was Saturday, after all.

He had a fantastic idea for a new story.

The boy fell on his shoulder and winced. 'That hurt,' he thought, but only a wheeze escaped his lips.

'Where am I,' he wondered but did not say.

Billy looked up and recognized the bathroom of the abandoned train station.

He looked back and saw nothing but bathroom stalls and assorted trash.

He looked down and saw a stack of paperwork. He sighed.

'The wonders of bureaucracy and Batman,' he thought sarcastically.

And, of course, he did not say it.

When the lightning struck and Captain Marvel became Billy for the first time, his throat burned fiercely, as though he'd swallowed an inferno and doused the seared flesh with rubbing alcohol and set it aflame again. Or gulped some water and belatedly realized it was vodka. Either way, it hurt.

His mind screamed, but only a high-pitched whine escaped.

Immediately he knew something was wrong. His voice was healthy and alive, not a dying balloon.

He brought a hand to his throat. Just the smallest tendril of scarred tissue snaked over his Adam's apple, but it ran deep.

He tried saying "Hello" at a normal volume, but only a croaked "Yo" came out.

Billy was ten.

Billy walked home from the train station.

The apartment was on the outskirts, condemned years ago but forgotten because memory worked strange like that in Fawcett City.

Fawcett City was a place out of time, only delicately nudged by the tendrils of time.

It had some of the oldest people in the country, and while many looked their age, others also looked thirty years old and had a family.

He felt bad for the old woman. Her calendar was only nudged by time recently, and she was worried and wanted to help a ten year old who turned fourteen in what was a month to her.

(And the worst part was that her mentally facilities were fine. She went to the police first, then to him, and she knew what she needed to say and didn't have to repeat anything.)

Billy sometimes hated the tricks his city played on people.

(But he knew it wasn't playing tricks. Far from it. In Fawcett City, bullets flew at a lower speed, emergency care came just a little sooner, and people aged slower as they aged more. The city protected its people the only way it knew how: temporal anomalies.)

But he also sometimes hated magic, but he couldn't exactly tell a dead Wizard to take it back, could he?

(Get it? Because he couldn't tell anybody to do anything?)

Billy stepped over the rotten step and hopped the rest of the way to his room.

He went through his usual routine.

Check for anybody in the room, make a peanut butter sandwich, drink some bottled water, and squint at a book on mythology.

After struggling through a myth about Apollo harassing a nymph so much she decided 'Eff this noise' and turned into a tree, Billy sat back in the lawn chair and let out a sputtering sigh.

Gods were messed up.

He ignored the small pain in the back of his head as he turned to the paperwork.

Billy smiled. He enjoyed editing stuff that he'd written as Captain Marvel. He actually learned stuff from it.

When Tim was filing all the paperwork for the Watchtower, he was bored.

B insisted that he learn the bureaucratic side of superhero (vigilante) business so that he could learn to circumvent it, but he couldn't help but feel frustrated with all the busywork.

That was, until he found one set of papers with two different handwriting styles. One was elegant script, the other was childish scrawl. He looked at the name at the top and frowned.

What was up with Captain Marvel's paperwork?

He showed B the paperwork, and Batman agreed that was worth investigation.

Billy was reading another myth when he received a notification on his communicator indicating that there was another meeting scheduled.

He sighed. 'Great. More professional development. Not like I have a life or anything and this couldn't be sent via email. They had a space for that on the form, after all.'

The boy climbed onto the fire escape. He turned around and hoisted himself onto the railing. He held tight and leaned back until he had an unobstructed view of the sky.

It would suck if it went through the railing and set the apartment on fire.

Billy said the only word he was able to say. "Shazam," the boy shouted, and his voice did not crackle or wheeze. It was an intonation, a chant, a word of power like those his characters used but with more oompf, more meaning. It rang deep in his throat and chest, hinting at the voice he would have had if not for the Wizard.

A bolt of lightning rang down from the clear blue sky. It struck him. He fell back.

Captain Marvel flipped in the air and flew.

Bruce and Red Robin asked Diana to look at two mission reports. It was an unusual request but not unprecedented.

Usually it was Green Lantern and Green Arrow heckling over details though, not the League's lead detective and his apprentice.

She found something odd, though.

While the report with tasteful cursive was straight to the point and used precise words, not unlike the language used by the educated of eighteen century England, the one with blockish print waxed poetic and seemed almost...theatrical in its telling despite the limited vocabulary.

They both had Captain Marvel's name at the bottom, with the date and time and location, but they did not seem like they came from the same person.

She texted Bruce on her communicator.

Captain Marvel heard his name and designation number as he rematerialized on the Watchtower.

He also heard three voices say it as he stepped off the transporter.

The Mortal raised his eyebrows as Wonder Woman, Batman, and Red Robin all stepped toward him.

He saw two papers in Red Robin's hands. He frowned.

"Did I mess up something on the paperwork?"

The Mortal put his hand to his mouth, eyebrows raised in confusion. He wasn't the only one.

Captain Marvel his question again, slowly, hesitantly, but it was the same.

His voice was young, that of a teenager.

The Mortal's eyebrows furrowed. He stood there for a moment before his face cleared.

To Tim's surprise, the man was smiling.

"I'll be right back," the Mortal said in that young voice. "But first I need to do something."

And he ran back to the Zeta Tube as though the very demons of Hell were chasing him.

(You finally went back, kid, Solomon said exasperatedly. And to think the Wizard forgot to tell you. What a travesty and waste of opportunity.)

(What do you mean?)

(Every Champion has that little spark of something that the lightning hungers for. And you were supposed to go and take it back., but apparently the City took pity on you and gave you a little nudge.)

(Ah. Makes so much sense. Not.)

(That is what it is. Nice, isn't it? Having your Voice back.)

(...yes. Yes it is.)

Captain Marvel nearly broke the sound barrier as he rushed to the abandoned train station. This time, when he turned onto the tracks, he looked for a glint of silver between the tracks.

When he found it, he yanked at it hand by hand. It stretched like putty and made an awful squelching sound, but he soon had it in his hands.

He said the Wizard's name. Lightning rang down.

The metal (Dude, it's a parasite, not tin foil.) shriveled and burst into dust. Billy reflexively coughed as some of it got in his lungs and sinuses, but it was enough.

He looked up at the hole in the overpass. He grinned, and his smile shone like a million stars.

The boy opened his mouth.

"Once upon a time," he said, and the words had weight and settled over his shoulders like a cloak, cape, mantle blanket. The burnt out light overhead flickered.

He blinked back tears at the lack of pain in his throat. He said it again, louder and clearer, and the tunnel echoed with his voice. The light came to life, casting the long dark station in its cheerful yellow glow.

"Once upon a time, there was a boy named Billy Batson, and he was a storyteller..."

For the first time, Billy told his story.

The City purred.

And the Justice League got no answer when Captain Marvel came back lighter and happier with a normal voice.

When they asked about the paperwork, he shrugged. "They were both written by me."

And that was that.

Chapter Text

Alright. Three days. That didn't sound hard. Captain Marvel had done a lot of stuff in three days.

But first he needed to prevent The World's Greatest Detective from uncovering all the nitty gritty stuff in his personal life.

Like being:

a. Ten years old (but sir, your Robins started out younger, he could plead, neglecting to mention that he started when he was eight.)

b. A Runaway Prematurely Emancipated (I'm better on my own, he could say, omitting that he dropped out of the Foster and System at the age of seven because he was put in the care of all the wrong people. Which sadly meant that he couldn't meet a certain pair of right people.)

c. Homeless A Free Spirit (But I do not require such amenities, he could protest, keeping quiet that it was getting cold outside)

c. Human (I'm not when I'm Captain Marvel, he could point out, not mentioning that it also was his only source of human interaction at the moment.)

d. A Batson (What a coincidence, he could exclaim with no small amount of embarrassment, not knowing that his backstory would have put him on the Adopt list if Batman found out)

e. All of the Above

Plan: Keep His Secret Identity Secret

Idea 1: Think Before Speaking.

(Sure, he had spoken his thoughts in the meeting ("Stalkerman" in point), but surely with the warning it would be easier.)

Captain Marvel felt peckish, so he stopped by the kitchen.

One look at the fridge, which was full of containers with claiming sticky notes, and he closed the door with a muttered "nope." He was not touching that minefield.

His eyes drifted across the sleek stainless steel countertops. There was a spice shelf, condiments shelf, cereal shelf (again, with a minefield of 'mine' sticky notes), but he didn't see a bread bag anywhere.

Okay, no sandwich. He didn't have the patience to explore the cabinets to prepare anything more complicated.

His eyes landed on a fruit bowl. Bingo.

The Mortal picked up the bowl and turned it, inspecting it from all sides to make sure there weren't any sticky notes or tags indicating it was for decoration (wax fruit was diabolical and not fit for civilized society). He found no evidence indicating it wasn't for general consumption.

He selected a yellow splotched red apple from the bowl and inspected it for scarring or bruising. Any of either was minimal. He raised it to his mouth and was about to take a bite when a voice spoke behind him.

"Tt. Are you not going to wash that?"

Captain Marvel looked back. Ah, Robin. "Mini Stalkerman", if the rumors were correct.

The smallest Robin crossed his arms. "What did you call me, you buffoon?" The boy had a deep frown on his face, which seemed to be meant to be intimidating...but he'd seen worse.

Robin's hand drifted to his belt, resting on one of the birdarangs. "I am extremely intimidating, Captain Marvel. Must I repeat my question? What did you say?"

He raised his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture. He didn't want the counters to get beat up over a misunderstanding. Deflect. "Sorry, didn't think dirt and microbes would threaten my immune system, but I should set an example." He sidestepped around Robin to get to the sink.

He turned on the cold water.

The bird's glare burned into his head, and he took an extra couple seconds to make sure the apple was clean. Just setting an example. Not intimidated at all.

Then he wiped the apple dry on his cape, and the boy let out a scandalized gasp.

Captain Marvel rolled his eyes and took a bite. "Dude, it is an apple." He swallowed and took another bite, turning toward the apprentice vigilante and holding the piece of fruit in the air. "There is an axiom that many hold dear: 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away'. This comes from the nutritional value of an apple: it has antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and fiber."

"So," he swallowed. "I don't think not cleaning an apple before eating once in a while is such a big deal." 'It would be a waste of water and time.' He took another bite and waited for the vigilante's response.

Robin cocked his head to one side and gave him a long look. Still frowning, the boy grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and, after inspecting it scrupulously, took a ferocious bite.

Captain Marvel would have gaped if he hadn't had a mouthful of apple.

Robin defensively snapped, "What?" He looked like a very angry chipmunk.

He shrugged and swallowed. "Nothing. Have a good day."

He was barely two feet away from the kitchen when he heard the boy declare, "Father, I don't have to wash apples after all." He stopped in his tracks in horror.

Oh shit, he corrupted Batman's son.

He heard a questioning rumble, which was too low for him to hear, but he knew the detective had just asked where the kid had gotten such a stupid idea from.

"Yes. Apples have sufficient nutritional value that we do not need to waste water and time cleaning them."

Oh shit. No, he meant that not washing an apple once in a while wasn't as scandalous as the kid was making it! And he didn't mean to say that last bit out loud.

"Yes, father. Captain Marvel told me that 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' is a common saying. He even took into consideration resource conservation. He isn't as much of an imbecile as I'd expected." Oh shit. And the final nail in the coffin...

"May I test using apples as projectiles at our next encounter with Harley Quinn? Or Poison Ivy? Or Doctor Freeze? Or Scarecrow? Or Manbat? Or..."

He was screwed.

Captain Marvel picked up the pace to a brisk walk. When he heard a distinctively deep voice growl "Marvel," he may or may not have flown clear to the other side of the Watchtower near the ceiling where Batman couldn't reach him.

Not that that would stop the Dark Knight from kicking his ass for introducing his kid to stupid ideas, but still.

Idea 1: Think Before Speaking.

...

Idea 2: Do Not Engage.

(So. That did not go well. But Captain Marvel had learned his lesson.

Don't talk to people, and don't respond. That seemed easy enough. He did that all the time ("What the fuck" still standing).

He had two days left. Surely nothing would happen in that time.)

He watched the Monitor with a bored stare, his fingers tapping on the table as he clicked through the cameras.

Woo, no villains doing dumb shit in his city. Or in Metropolis. Or Central City. Or Goth- okay, there was always something in Gotham, but the city's vigilantes were already on it.

He sat back in his seat and sighed.

B. O. R. E. D.

'Bore. Or. Ore. Red. Ed. Bed. Bod. Rod. Rob. Orb. Bo. Do. Doe. Roe.'

"What are you doing?"

He looked over at the person beside him. It was, you guessed it, Robin. He raised his eyebrow.

Robin clarified, "Why are you saying random words like an imbecile?"

Thought I wasn't as much of an imbecile? He didn't rise to the jab.

"Making anagrams of the word 'Bored'."

The boy wrinkled his nose. "That sounds like a waste of time."

Cap shrugged. "I suppose so," he said, and left it at that.

He looked up at the Monitor. Still nothing. He checked in on That City. Black Adam wasn't doing anything.

'Any. Thin. Thing. Ting. Tin. Gin. In. An. Ant. -'

"How do you do an anagram?"

"You choose a word and rearrange its letters into as many other words as you can. Preferably in the same language," he replied, pointedly watching the screen.

There was a fight in the alleyway by his apartment. He bit his lip nervously but moved on. Those sort of thngs unfortunately weren't considered drastic enough for him to interfere (he'd asked, and the raised eyebrows made the answer obvious).

"Lie. Bile. Mile. Limb. Climb. Eel. I. I'm. Me. Hmm..."

"Lime. Ice. Mice. Be."

He felt the boy's glare in the side of his head, but he ignored it. For the most part.

"How did you know which word I was working with?" The boy demanded.

Cap shrugged. "I like word puzzles. Sorry if I threw you off." And because Imbecile was the kid's favorite word, but he did not say that

"...I forgive you."

He clicked on a camera in Antarctica and cooed at the baby polar bears. The clacking at the next computer over froze.

He heard a chair squeak, then wheels rolling.

Suddenly Robin planted his elbows on the table. The boy stared intensely at the screen.

He leaned away slightly because geez that was fast.

The kid didn't seem to be moving anytime soon, so Cap rolled to the kid's desk.

He checked the time. Two hours to go until he could crash in his assigned room.

'Assigned. As. Sign. Ned. Sad. Sag. Nag. Gin. Sin. In. End. -'

"Diss."

His head whipped around. The boy was watching penguins waddle around (Antarctica), but his ears were turning red.

Okay. Right. Poor filter at the moment. He looked back at the computer.

"Ass."

He tried to hold back a snort of laughter, and had to cough when it made his nose all weird.

For the rest of Monitor duty, they watched the cameras and exchanged anagrams. It was surprisingly entertaining.

When it was time, he left so the next guy didn't have to wait.

He stepped around Batman awkwardly.

Behind him, Robin started, "Bat. At. Man. Tan. Tab.-"

Without thinking, Cap continued, "Bam. Ban. An. Am. A. Nab. Ab."

He refused to look back, even when The Dark Knight asked, uncharacteristically perplexed, "What was that all about?"

And when Robin replied, "Captain Marvel taught me how to do anagrams, father. They will be useful for the next time we encounter the Riddler," why he just kept walking.

Just. Kept. Walking.

Not running. Just...speed walking.

Idea 2: Do Not Engage.

...

Idea 3: Quarantine.

(Fuck this noise.

One day left. Just one day. He'd stayed put for longer, and he had no scheduled duties for the day because he had serious overtime dating back from his first month as a member onward, so he could just stay put in his room for the next twenty-four hours.

And this time, he had no parentheses to say otherwise.)

Captain Marvel stocked up on cereal bars, bananas, and a 2 Liter of water (none of which was claimed) and holed himself up in his assigned room.

He got a couple funny looks walking down the hall with his cape wrapped around the lower part of his face like an oversized scarf or Neck Gator, but it worked damnit.

Since he hadn't used his assigned room often (read: never), it was pretty bare.

He dumped the food and water on the coffee table, grabbed the tv remote, and sat crisscross apple sauce on the twin sized bed, which creaked slightly under his weight.

"What movie to watch, what movie to watch indeed," he mused to himself as he clicked through the channels. A bright colored icon caught his eye.

"Huh, what is The Lego Movie about?" He pondered out loud.

"An adventure played out by toys that reveals a child's insecure relationship with his overbearing father."

Captain Marvel let out a sigh. "What are you doing in a vent?" He looked up at the grate in the ceiling, where a pair of blank white lenses stared back at him.

"Tt, why wouldn't I be in a vent?" The lenses turned away. He heard rustling and a couple muttered curses in Arabic.

He shrugged. "Touché."

More rustling. More cursing. Wow, that kid knew some delightful ways to tell a cape where to stick it. He smiled.

"Do you want to watch it with me?"

The lenses turned back in his direction. "No, why would I? Television is a waste of time."

But Robin did not move. Cap shrugged. "Okay, suit yourself."

He got his cape and put it on like before, then leaned forward and started the movie. He heard the rustling again, and assumed Robin was moving on.

The movie was awesome okay. The bit about the Seer dying right before he could tell Emmett something important was hilarious in a morbid sort of way. The end made him cry a little bit.

He exited out of the credits, and a voice tentatively piped up in the vent, "Can we watch Kedi?"

"Sure." His voice was muffled by the cape, so he nodded and gave a thumbs up to get his point across.

The grate fell to the floor, and Robin's arms pinwheeled for a second before he stuck the landing and sat on the slab of metal because why not apparently.

The vigilante even brought a backpack full of snacks.

He decided to not question it.

They watched The Lion in Your Living Room, then Die Hard (which turned into a marathon because they both liked the explosions and comradery), then some of the original Star Trek movies, then Finding Atlantis (which drew so many conclusions from insufficient evidence that they were both scandalized at how it got on National Geographic), then this movie, then that movie, then...

Before he knew it, there was a knock on his door. He got up to answer it.

Robin froze, a skittle brought halfway to his mouth. He quickly popped it in his mouth and looked up at the vent.

The vent was approximately six feet above his head, four when standing.

He slumped and accepted defeat when he realized that he couldn't get away.

Captain Marvel didn't see any of this, for he was busy opening the door.

Batman was standing behind it awkwardly, his hand up for another rap. (Pff, Batman rapping.)

The Dark Knight hastily brought his hand back and coughed as though that was what he was planning all along. "...can I have my kid back?"

He raised his eyebrows. "So you didn't know he was in the vents?"

Batman grimaced. "Yes...but I couldn't fit in the last juncture."

Captain Marvel pinched his nose before realizing his cape was still over his face. He took it off and asked, "Why were the both of you doing in the vents?"

"Racing."

"Okay." He decided to not ask questions.

"Father, could we have 'movie nights'?"

Idea 3: Quarantine

...

The mold was dead, so everyone was told they could go home. Captain Marvel was looking forward to checking on Fawcett City and reading some more books (and so not looking forward to late fees.).

"Thank you for watching Robin."

Captain Marvel looked over his shoulder at Batman. He grinned and gave a thumbs up.

"No problem at all." He didn't have to worry about spilling his secrets at the drop of a hat anymore because of a truth mold, so he didn't feel so awkward talking to The World's Greatest Detective.

He turned and tapped in the last sequence, and the Zeta Tube blinked to indicate it was ready.

Captain Marvel spun on his heel with excitement as he stepped on the transporter.

"It was fun hanging around somebody my age." Instant regret.

Well shit. He looked up.

Batman's face evolved from perplexed to realization to triumphant until it finally settled on shock.

That was terrifying to watch, so he jumped backward further into the teleporter and blurted his designation.

As the room pixalized, he saw the World's Greatest Detective run towards him, his mouth open and shouting a question or demand he couldn't hear.

Welp. That was what he referred to as a Future Billy problem.

Plan: Keep His Secret Identity Secret

{Partly. At least Batman didn't actually know his secret identity}

Chapter Text

Captain.

"Get down!" Billy bellowed, pulling his platoon mate down before a lightning bolt struck where they were standing. Looking up from the dirt, his heart pounded at the thunderous laughter of a madman drunk on power

He was confused. He was terrified. He wondered what events would bring that moment about.

---

Captain.

Billy laughed as his papa swung him around like a superhero, reaching for the ceiling like Superman as they chattered about going into outer space to save the world.

He felt sad that the man would die in a couple weeks. He seemed like a good man.

---

"Marvel."

Billy startled as he fell into another moment. Looking up, he saw Batman throw a batarang at a Parademon with a frustrated growl. The man briefly looked back and barked, "Get your head in the game."

He didn't even know what time they were in, but out of all the memories he had, the pests had demonstrated that they were not sentient, so he grabbed one by the wing and threw it at its compatriots with deadly force, and the wet crunch was barely audible over the pandemonium. Batman seemed surprised (was it the brutality? the strategic aim? the spontaneity?), but Billy decided to ignore that. It wasn't like this was the first time he acted in a manner uncharacteristic of his current development.

---

"Ah, Flash, how's it going?" The man of speed tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and face planted. Billy winced and quickly brought him back to his feet. "Dude, you okay?"

"What the- who are you?" Barry looked so confused. And young. Billy face palmed.

"Let me guess, the year is prior to the date of the one year anniversary of the founding of the Justice League." The man blinked and mouthed the last two words slowly (for him, at least), so Billy rubbed his forehead and sighed. "Just forget this conversation even happened."

Before he flew away, he gave the young man a word of advice: "Be sure to spend some time outside the suit. It's not like you can take your helm out for coffee."

---

Billy found himself nursing a cup of coffee in a small kitchen on the Watchtower. Since he didn't know how many times the coffee was poisoned or spiked or chipped (that last one was weird), he poured the liquid into a clear mug and waited a moment. When nothing separated out, he downed it, shivering in disgust at how overly sweet it was, and immediately felt more awake.

"Do you not like sweet things?" He turned to Martian Manhunter and, after a moment of consideration, shrugged.

"Eh," Billy tilted his free hand in a seesaw motion, "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It just depends on...on my mood, I guess." On whether he was actually a kid at the moment or not. He asked, "What about you?"

The man lifted his orange-colored smoothie. "Sugar does not occur in such concentrations on my planet, so it has been an adjustment. Tart and sweet is currently my preferred combination, though." This was accompanied by a dignified slurp.

---

"So what is it like living in Fawcett City?" Billy looked up from the chocolate milkshake at Clark 'Totally-not-a-Kryptonian' Kent and thought for a moment.

"Well, asides from the utterly wasteful urban sprawl and terrible foster system, Fawcett is a cool city. We have a bunch of museums, a beautiful park, a thriving anachronistic culture (fashion from the '20s --the 1720s to the 2320s-- is 'in' right now) and not much crime-" he stirred his milkshake and smirked, enjoying the confused look and the anticipated reaction to his joke, "-at least, not as much or as crazy as Gotham, although the comparison does set the bar low." That got a laugh. As expected. He waved his free hand toward the mild-mannered reporter. "What is your impression of Fawcett, sir?"

Something exploded outside the diner before Clark could answer, and glass rained down like a million locusts.

---

"Ah, Captain, you finally made it."

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge. Billy recognized that voice. He turned around and bit back a gasp groan sigh. "Adam, I cannot say that setting eyes on you is anything but an inconvenience at best. Do you not have a kingdom to rule?"

The king raised an eyebrow. "Why, what formal language you have. William, I am here to claim my right."

Billy said nothing. Teth Adam laughed. "What, you thought the magic leaking from your person would escape my attention? You do not even look surprised. How many times have you experienced this moment?"

Billy squared his shoulders. "You know better than I what you would have to do to take the mantle." He jabbed a thumb toward the swarm. "Get rid of those, then we shall talk." He raised his eyebrows at the faux-innocent look the man tried to pull. "I know you used a favor to get control of the swarm, now get rid of it." The man was upwards of three thousand years old and he still tried such childish attention grabs

The creatures flew away, leaving the two of them alone in the center of the battlefield.

---

Billy breathed in and out as he pressed a hand against his side, the blood oozing oddly and leaving him dizzy. His shield was almost split in two by a grenade, and his ammo was used up. His only chance was to play dead and hope for the best.

---

"I, Teth Adam, as a bearer of the power of the gods, challenge Captain Marvel, William Batson, for the mantle of Champion."

"Take the staff and say my name, young Batson."

Billy squared his shoulders, the lightning bolt on his chest glowing as bright as the sun. "I accept the challenge."

"Hey, dinguses, pick on someone your own size."

His cape fluttered and whipped as he fought to both defeat Teth Adam and contain the damage. As a result, Billy took damage as he ushered his teammates out of the area, much to their protests. But he could not fight when he didn't know if they would get caught in the crossfire.

"Do good and good will follow."

In the split second it took for him to look back, Teth Adam lunged and seized his throat, the force smashing him against a building. Glass shattered, then glittered as they caught the lightning. Time slowed to a standstill, the only things moving in that space him and his adversary.

When the pyramid collapsed, Billy was the only survivor. It took emergency responded three days to dig him out of the rubble. The dirt was stained a dark red, and the back of his head was matte with blood.

Billy tried to break out of the hold, a knot of dread tightening in his gut as his mind raced to fill in the blanks.

In the hospital, the young boy muttered in his sleep about war.

He never saw this moment, only the past and years in the future, but he should have seen it coming.

Peeking over the barricade, Billy saw a figure shrouded in darkness and surrounded by dead earth. The sky flashed again, and he saw the emblem.

"Shazam," the man growled. Lightning struck them both, and the magic gave him one final second, a brief moment of clarity.

In that flash of once-familiar light, Billy saw Teth Adam.

Chapter Text

"So, Freddy, you excited?"

Billy's friend was vibrating in his seat like a crazed chihuahua, an equally manic look of anticipatory joy twisting his face into a disturbing spectacle of adolescent emotion. If Billy didn't care so much about the kid, he would've told him to knock it off.

However, he did put his hand on the brunet's shoulder to try to calm him down.

Freddy jolted, then shot him a sheepish grin and settled back into the faux leather clad bench. "Yeah, man, I'm really, really, really excited." The boy put his shaking hands on his face to hide his reddening ears. "I mean, man, I know you see the dude a lot, but I'm excited. This means a lot to me, seeing as the dude doesn't have superpowers."

Billy furrowed his brow, and his friend rambled on. "I mean, I know you can do cool stuff with your powers but," Freddy put his hand on his crutches and shrugged, "the reminder is nice, you know..."

He shrugged and replied, "I can see where you're coming from, I guess." He then smirked. "But Superman is still cooler."

The conversation briefly descended into chaos before the two twelve-year-olds finally conked out, much to the teachers' carefully hidden relief.

"Wow, would you look at that!" Freddy took another picture of a gargoyle with his phone as he nattered about casting technique.

Billy nervously looked around as he held his friend back by his jacket. "Are you sure we're allowed up here?"

"Why not?" Freddy tried to lean forward to capture a snarling expression, and Billy tightened his grip on the window sill.

"Maybe because we're five million feet up without guard rails or supervision?"

"When have we ever needed supervision? And besides, it's only four hundred." The boy attempted a fancy hand movement and dropped the device. It was only the strap on the case that saved a pedestrian from getting his head cracked open, but the instinctive lunge Freddy pulled nearly sent them over the edge.

Billy decided enough was enough. "Alright, we're done, no street pancakes to see here." He pulled them both back in, shutting the window.

Someone called their names, and they ran off, not noticing the toxic yellow smoke billowing in the distance.

"You still think Batman is cool?" Billy yelled over his shoulder as he ran through the chaos-ridden street with Freddy on his back, the boy's crutches slamming against the backs of his legs as he tried to not drop his friend. "Because this place is a bit, I don't know, crazy-prone, to be considered cool!"

Freddy coughed and used one crutch to nudge a screaming child out of the way, wincing at the blank looks of terror shared by all the people around them. "I don't know, man, isn't Metropolis a bit nuts, too? It even gets alien invasions from time to time."

Billy sneezed and used his shoulder to wipe the tears from his gas-irritated eyes. "But this place is all homegrown nuts, is that its charm?" He fought the shudder of artificial fear and bit back a scream of genuine fear as a creepy man with a sack for a head came sauntering their way.

His head turned towards the crowd, Freddy didn't see the nutjob as he shrugged and said, "Well, at least we know where it comes from. There is a lot of history in...these..." His eyes finally made their way to the front, and Billy felt his friend stiffness behind him. "Billy."

"Yeah?" He did not like the blank voice, no he did not, why was he talking like that??

"Is that who I think it is?"

Billy had begun backing away from the creep, not taking his eyes of him as he carefully enunciated his words. "Are you seeing a dude so ugly his own mother told him to wear a sack over his face to spare her delicate sensibilities?" The man stopped. Even though he couldn't see the man's face, he could tell that the man didn't expect him to talk, much less talk trash about him.

There was a pause as his friend parsed through the description. "Oh."

Billy sneezed again. The image of the dude was still there, as crazy as it looked, and it had resumed its approach. The posture indicated it was angry, very, very angry. "Oh what?"

"Oh Scarecrow, that's what." Freddy leaned forward and whispered not-quietly-enough into his ear, "Run."

"Sheets, why didn't you just say so?!" Billy nearly toppled over as he spun them around, sprinting back where they came.

As he ran, Freddy said, "Did you just say Sheets? Why didn't you just say sh-"

"Because," Billy wheezed, the gas hurting his lungs as he panted, "Because I said it in front of Batman and he told me to set an example."

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you like to rate your visit?" Billy continued holding the bag of frozen peas to his face as he turned to his friend. "Oh, I don't know, what do you think we should rate it? The super villain was a nice touch, added some ambiance to the scene, don't you think?"

Predictably, his friend nodded seriously. "And the fight scene was awesome. Batman just went pow and wham and..." The boy proceeded to punch and kick at the air as he described the takedown until the nurse told him to sit still so that she could clean the scratch on his face. "And look, I got pictures!"

Billy caught the now slightly more battered camera and clicked through it.

Traffic, an idiot tripping over a crack in the sidewalk and spilling his double frappe whatever coffee on the sidewalk, gargoyles, pigeons, Billy tripping over a discarded disposable coffee cup, them making faces in front of a picture of goofy looking clowns, Freddy talking a selfie with a statue of Robin, Batburger, a Batman figurine he got with his meal alongside the melted one Billy got, a bunch of goofy poses of the two Batman figures, more gargoyles, a passerby running in plain terror, a burning building, Scarecrow, Batman beating up Scarecrow, and a picture of the two of them with the responder who sat with them on the way to the hospital.

"You know you can only take about a million more photos, right?" Billy joked as he handed the phone back. Freddy laughed and pocketed it.

"But seriously, what should we rate the trip?"

Freddy shrugged. "10."

Billy squinted at his friend, and the boy shrugged. "What? It was cool."

"Uh huh. I'm putting down a seven."

"But the ambiance!"

"Fine, a nine." Billy scratched out the first answer and put an eight, then waved the fretting PR intern over. "I'm done with our paperwork."

Chapter Text

Billy couldn't help but gasp when he saw the Earth for the first time.

It was his first trip to the Watchtower, a huge honor for a small town hero like him, and right as he stepped off the Zeta, the station had rotated enough to bring the planet into view. His first instinct was to back away, for it looked like it was coming straight at him, dizzying in its massive size and close proximity...but then his curiosity kicked in and he drew closer to the window.

Captain Marvel had time, he rationalized. The meeting was in an hour, and the map in his pocket showed that the route would be straight forward.

The glass was foggy, probably from the air vent pointed at it, so the view was indistinct at best when he stood right in front of the window. Billy frowned and tried to figure out how to fix the issue. Hands left oil and other residue on windows, and he didn't have a rag to clean with.

Wait...he did have a rag, a large red rag that he carried on his back and never figured out a use for other than looking cool (Unbeknownst to the World's Mightiest Mortal, his sponsors took great offense to the insinuation that the Cape was a frivolous waste of space). He cleaned off the condensation with his cape (they threw a fit), his brows furrowed as he concentrated on the task.

His first thought when the glass was cleared up was that the Earth was beautiful. The jewel tones of the land and sea were laced with mere wisps of clouds, which made the planet look almost frosted, like a snow globe at rest.

The hero unconsciously placed his hand on the glass as he leaned closer to the sight, defeating the purpose of the desecration of a symbol of godlihood, and breathed. The window fogged for a moment, then the impact of the breath dissipated. The ocean washed out the color of the reflection of his eyes, leaving only the faint shine of wonder.

His second thought, as he looked past the planet into the color-speckled black and saw just how much space there was, was that the Earth was so small. Each swipe of his cape revealed the sea of darkness in which the planet bobbed along in, like a cheery rubber duck that refused to drown.

It was a mere bobble, knick-knack, tchotchke, a pretty little thing collecting dust in the museum of an ancient universe. His heart dropped as he gazed into the dark. Compared to the stars, Earth was fragile.

He absently ran the cape along the edges of the window, his nails digging into the sharp corners through the fabric to scrape out the accumulated dust.

The Sun blazed less than one trillion miles away (entire alien races could make jumps like that in a heartbeat or less), the moon was so close it was laughable (how many plots had there been to destroy the orbiting object? Five? Twenty? Too many.), the Watchtower was crammed full of people who were powerful enough to save it and destroy it and even kept those who wanted to wreak havoc on the Earth locked within its depths, and the Earth was small.

And the people on the Earth were infinitesimal.

Billy knew that his apartment was not visible from space, few places of residence were, but he had thought that there would be at least some mark made by his hometown. But there was nothing.

And Gotham wasn't visible either. He'd thought that that pea soup they called sky would've been visible from a million miles away, let alone a couple thousand, but it wasn't. Metropolis did not show, and they had gleaming sky scrapers. 

The cities they lived in were microscopic on a small Earth, and the people were infinitesimal in turn. Billy shivered, his ministrations halting as his hand pushed against the glass for support. His eyes closed for just a moment, nothing more.

Were their efforts all for naught, if infinitesimal people were left to protect a small planet against the larger galaxy, no, universe? Its people had made a name for the planet in the grand scheme of things, which invited invasion if not utter destruction. Memories flashed in the orangish pink of planets he had been called upon to assist, of beings gorging themselves on entire planets before his eyes.

But then he remembered that they had protected the Earth from larger invasive forces and beings of mass destruction. Not only that, but some of their members were from other planets, and they frequently worked with entire galaxies-worth of heroes.

Earth was small, but it was not defenseless. It had help, and it had its own strengths. It had heroes, and even some of its villains helped from time to time. Billy was there, a member of a new generation of heroes, even if his colleagues didn't know his age.

Captain Marvel was strong, but he was of a larger number who cared, and he was learning how to be a better hero, no, human, every fight and every conversation and even every meeting no matter how asinine.

Someday, he would become a teacher of new heroes, and long after he was relieved of the mantle there would still be heroes. There were even more heroes than there were capes, a thousand to one, and he was reminded of that every time he helped with clean up.

Or whenever someone noticed him cleaning a window like an idiot. Green Arrow seemed particularly concerned when he'd fetched The Mortal for the meeting.

But regardless, Earth was safe.

So, when Captain Marvel saw the Earth for the second time, walking out of the meeting towards the Zeta Tubes, he felt not awe or fear, but pride.

"Someday," Billy the Very Mortal Boy whispered to himself when he transformed in a back alley, "I want to be a hero too."

Chapter Text

The residents of Fawcett City have an extensive archive of funny videos relating to their favorite hero. With the rise in popularity of the Big Red Cheese tag, people from out of town find the forum through Wikipedia trails and bring in more content, much to the delight and occasional chagrin of the locals. 

One year after his debut, the moderators announced a new category after many requests and unofficial tags.

CAPNAPS (4242 videos)

Captain Marvel Bird confirmed? (25,000 views | 18,000 likes | 4,500 shares)

The camera shakes a little when it turns on. As a result, the resolution is utter shit, but it is clear that it is sometime during the day. Rumbling cuts in and out of the audio intermittently.

Someone quietly giggles to the side of the camera.

A young male voice, assumed to be that of the photographer, shushes his companion. "Shush, I need to focus."

With those words, the camera focuses on a light pole in front of a Buy N Large. Inside, an old lady in an old-fashioned sales uniform is cramming a pillow into a cardboard box. The footage is grainy, and a motorcycle passes by, signaling that they are across the street.

The rumbling pauses for a moment before returning with a vengeance.

There is some more shaking as the photographer readjusts the camera, angling it upwards. The footage takes a couple seconds to adjust, and the photographer mutters something in another language, likely some variety of Gaelic by the flow of it. The camera refocuses.

The only thing captured in the frame is a pair of yellow boots planted on the curved portion of an old light fixture.

"O' for the love of- give me that." There's a mild scuffle between the original photographer and the companion, then Captain Marvel is fully captured in the frame.

He stands upright with his cape over his head, much like how you may cover a bird cage at night. The hero's arms are straight by his sides, and the pole does not seem to be affected by the weight of a muscled demigod.

The new photographer clears her throat. "Here is our resident NPC, who seems to have broken the matrix."

The fabric blows out occasionally, and it becomes clear that the sound is that of chest-deep snoring.

A door opens with a chime, and the photographer hastily zooms the footage back out. The camera takes a second to readjust, but with a crisp zip the scene comes back into focus with a cleaner resolution.

The old lady from before lugs a cardboard box of bedding outside and drops it, uncaring of the loud thud it made. She looks up with her hands on her hips. "Young man, take your nap somewhere else, you're scaring off the customers."

There is no response. However, there is some more snoring.

She kicks the pole hard enough that it shakes, and Captain Marvel snaps awake with a yelp. His arms pinwheel before the obvious realization that he can fly, and he crosses his arms in his signature pose and looks down.

"May I help you, ma'am?" he says, briefly holding his hand to his face to cover a big yawn.

The old lady crosses her arms as well. "You can take this and sleep on the roof like a sane flier. Don't bother bringing it down when you're done, I will send one of my grandsons to fetch it when you leave."

After a brief attempt to deny the favor and an equally brief shutdown, the hero thanks the shop owner and flies up with the bedding. After a minute, the rumbling resumes if muffled by the infrastructure.

The usurped photographer cleared his throat. "That was Captain Marvel, our resident super-canary."

Captain Marvel tries to keep the naps to his city, but when you have to nap you have to nap.

Batcave Blackmail Book (700 entries)

Subject: Captain Marvel

Contributer: Red Hood

Date: 10 August 20X3 C.E.

On this day, I had the undeniable pleasure of claiming the first Justice League member entry in this holy book held by the Batman Associates, and with it the most coveted prize: Alfred's pretzel recipe.

Let me set the scene.

Arkham Asylum had just cleansed its bowels into the cestpool that is our beloved city. I was the hero of the hour, being the only one able-bodied and able to confront the pestilence. Unfortunately, as superb a specimen as I undoubtably am, I am just a human, and I forgot to pick up the updated filter. I braved the clouds of fear and laughter and jungles of man-hating plants with nothing more than last week's gas mask and a single rubber bullet (magazine, forgive me for the slight exaggeration).

The hour was dark, but I survived.

Imagine the pained relief when I took the general vaccine so that I might live to fight again that night. Imagine my bone-deep exhaustion when I dragged my aching body to the armory. Imagine the joy when I found the keys to the Batmobile.

I set back out into the night, confident that I could put on yet another bandaid on the festering wound that is our crime population. I succeeded, of course.

Note: I did receive help after a couple hours when people were able to slip away from the Gala.

In celebration, I took the Brat Small Child out to Batburger. We ate in and ate heartily, he of a vegetable burger and orange smoothie (feel free to judge or take inspiration) and I of a napoleon sundae and strawberry shake (feel free to admire or take inspiration), then went back out to the Batmobile. I set my half-finished shake on the roof and fumbled with my keys. As I was distracted with being a responsible role model, I was more focused on making sure that he locked his door and fastened his seatbelt (quite a feat, I might add) than on what was on the roof.

I was tired, so I was understandably confused when the Small Child was able to slurp noisily on his smoothie and I could not. When we returned to the Batcave, I remembered that I left my shake on the roof and checked to see if it was still there, possible contamination be damned.

My shake was miraculously there. It was in the hands of a confused demigod, who miraculously did not fall off.

In case you were selectively illiterate, the demigod in question was Captain Marvel. Apparently he had been in the Batcave waiting for our oh-so-wise Batman and decided to take a nap on the roof of the car like a boss (or "as though an imbecile," as the Small Child declared immediately -- your pick).

As the rest of the events are dull and already in the logs, I end my report here.

Captain Marvel can shrug off strangers and coworkers-by-association interrupting his naps. However, he considers the same act committed by friends an utter betrayal.

His best friend doesn't give a shit.

"Billy, it's time to go."

The boy grumbles and buries his face in his sweater, perfectly comfortable where he is. Freddy nudges the desk with a crutch, then he repeatedly taps said crutch on his foot. "I said get up, man. Test's over."

Captain Marvel had fought magical aliens in Mosco with the Justice League until one in the morning. Billy is going to get some sleep.

"No."

Freddy readjusts his grip on the crutch and taps Billy on the back with the handle. "Come on, Rosa's waiting."

Billy is going to get some sleep later.

With a big yawn, he uses his foot to kick out the unread book he'd stashed underneath the desk. Freddy, satisfied that Billy is up and moving, makes his way over to the door, scooting the desks that were a bit too close together for comfort out of the way.

The black haired kid follows, rubbing the crust from his eyes and the drool from his cheek.

It's pretty nice to have friends that care.