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~ Demetrius, Act 4, Scene 1
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
In which Rose Wilson learns how to be her father's daughter, his soldier, and everything else that makes him.
Maybe u should check out my rose and slade fic! pretty please!
Alternate universe where Kal-El’s baby pod comes down behind Wayne Manor. (ao3)
chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4
Wayne family problems always happen at 2AM.
Zatanna gets the call on her cell in Athens and it takes her a full minute to register the buzzing before she rolls over and paws her phone from the nightstand. Scraping her hair form her face, she squints at the name on the phone. Private line, proxy number. She checks the time and figures there’s still only one person who would call at 2AM her time.
“Bruce? Is that you?”
“He went public.”
She hangs up.
Thirty seconds later she drops onto Bruce Wayne’s kitchen island in Gotham, bare feet slapping the two-hundred grand black-marble countertop. Her hair crackles, a writhing nest of post-teleportation static and half-grounded etherium. Her eyes, she knows, have the fairy-light glow of a woman riding wild and uncontrollable forces dimension to dimension. Point of fact, that kind of chaos suits her and the static roar in her blood just now. Chaos suits her fine. She understands the appeal of it, standing there, lit up from the inside. Panic in her teeth.
Bruce looks at the tangled sorceress crouching half-dressed on his kitchen counter, he just says, calmly, “Do you need a bathrobe?”
She’s in shorts and a crop top. She hops off the counter, ignoring him. “Where’s Kal?”
“Metropolis.” He unmutes two mid-sized televisions mounted on the wall by the sink and another by the bar. One is Metropolis Daily, the other CNN. The scroll bar reads: super-human hero saves hundreds. “Suspension bridge collapse. He’s currently holding the bridge in place while everyone evacuates. He’s been there for three hours now. Every news network on the globe is re-casting the live coverage.”
“Metropolis. So he didn’t go far.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Bruce has his laptop open on the counter and pulls up a dozen news articles in various languages, no photos except of what appear to be blurry phone camera stills. “This is the first time he’s slowed down enough to be caught on film, but based on his speed and eye-witness accounts, they’re linking him to series of similar interventions all over the world. Disaster interventions mostly. I think he’s been operating internationally until now. He’s doing exactly what I told him not to do.”
“What’s the damage?”
“So far? His face is all over global news.”
“My god. He’s not a wearing a mask?”
“No. As far as I can tell, he’s wearing some kind of uniform based on his family colors and house crest.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Bruce says nothing. So she looks at the footage.
“Holy shit, you’re not kidding. He’s wearing primary colors. Why does he have a cape? Why is it bright red? What the fuck?”
“Either habit or tactics. If the material is bulletproof like the material from his Robin uniform, then he might be using it to protect civilians.”
“How is he funding this? Did he access his trust?”
“No. He hasn’t accepted anything from me since…” He glances at her. “Since he left. I assume he’s found employment.”
“But not as Clark Wayne.”
“Not that I’ve found. But he knows how to forge documents as well as Alfred does. If he wants to, he can be anyone.”
“Where is he now?”
“Still under the Grandcross Bridge. Rescue and construction personnel are approaching now, but as far as I can tell he’s having no trouble holding position.”
“How is he holding the whole bridge? I don’t doubt he’s strong enough, but he’s too small to just –”
“The five of the suspension cables along the right side of the bridge seem to have snapped. The bridge was going lopsided, cars sliding into the river. He’s just leveling it out. You’re right though. It’s collapsing. He’s a single load-bearing point where there were five. The civil engineers are trying to get close enough to talk to him, I believe.”
“No lives are in danger?”
“No. But…”
“Breaking news,” says the television. “We’re cutting to a live feed from the crisis at the Metropolis Grandcross Bridge. Fire and rescue personnel have deployed a rescue drone to open communication with the meta-human currently holding up the remains of the now highly unstable Grandcross suspension bridge. Live momentarily.”
Alfred, from the kitchen door where he’s just arrived, says, “Bloody hell.”
On the television screen a slightly wobbling drone camera cuts a path toward the belly of the suspension bridge. In the feed, you can hear the whine of the little turbine motors as it zips through the dust toward a blue and red figure braced like Atlas beneath the bridge. The drone flits uncertainly for a moment, buffeted by wind and for a moment captures a turbulent image of Kal Wayne – changed remarkably in just two years, but also not, not at all changed, but different nonetheless – looking slightly to the left and blinking at the little drone.
He follows it with his eyes as the camera swings in a way to frame his face, zooming in. his eyes in the camera are… frighteningly blue, alien blue, almost colorless and iridescent. Zatana’s never seen him do that with his eyes and in that moment, staring into the camera, expression curious and faintly distracted, she thinks the world’s going to change. This is the face of things to come. Something shivers through her, an old primal kind of shudder, deeper than physical… archetypical and ancient. Like every ley line in the world just hummed.
On TV, a loud speaker crackles, barely loud enough to hear over the drone’s motor.
“This is Kathy Motomori of Metropolis Fire and Rescue.” Live captions scroll across the bottom of the screen. Kal shifts his shoulders slightly against the concrete above him, his palms spread flat against the stone. “Are you in danger, sir?”
He blinks. “Oh! No. I’m fine.” A pause. “Thanks!”
“Jesus,” says Zatana.
Bruce has one hand on the counter next to him and it becomes a fist instead. On screen Kal shakes dust from his hair and says, loudly, “Everyone is clear of the bridge now right? Do you need me to keep holding it up or should I let it go?”
There’s a momentary pause from the other side. “My engineers are saying the bridge won’t last even with your help. It’s going to come apart on top of you. We’re recommending you try to get clear. Can you do that without our aid? Do you need assistance? My people are willing to come in.”
“No, no! Don’t send anyone!” He shakes his head slightly and a single dark curl of hair gets free from his bangs, coiling against his brow. Zatana doesn’t know it right then, but that’s the image that’s going to go around the world. “I’m okay. I can get clear on my own.”
“Then good luck, son. Get out of there safe. Understood?”
“Understood, ma’am.”
The drone wobbles and withdraws, pulling back but continuing to zoom in on Kal as he glances up at the massive shelf of stone he’s bracing… then rolls up so he’s bracing his hands and feet against it, creating the optical illusion of being stuck to the bottom of the bridge, his cape flapping gently beneath him. Then, lightly, he pushes off and floats free beneath. The bridge holds, but in the feed the crack and groan of steel instantly fills the audio. The camera pulls back, zooming away as the bridge buckles and falls. Kal watches it for a moment. Then he notices the camera now watching him and looks, momentarily, flummoxed about the attention.
He decides on a kind of half-wave, half-salute kind of thing. Then he turns in midair and throws one arm forward as if into some kind of forward stoke and arcs with that familiar thoughtless momentum into the free air over the Metropolis River. Then the sound barrier breaks in the distance. The camera screen beholds nothing but empty sky.
“Welp,” says Zatana.
“Goodness,” says Alfred.
“…” says Bruce.
From the door, just behind Alfred, Dick Grayson – still in his pajamas, frazzled with bedhead, all of fifteen, dark-haired and thrilled – says, “Cool.”
“The President official gave Superman the Medal of Freedom today for his actions during Hurricane Roger.”
Bruce says nothing.
“He’s ducking my tracer spells by the way.” Zatana takes a seat on the desk, moving Bruce’s files aside to make room. “I’ve tapped a few sources in the magical communities and a handful of them say they’re passingly familiar with someone matching Kal’s description but no one linked him to any of the traceable Superman events. Lois Lane did a pretty bang up job with the international angle. They’re saying Superman’s saved the lives of about five-hundred people and counting just this last year and that’s the incidents people have come forward with.”
Bruce says nothing.
“Bruce, I’m sure he’ll come back at some point and not for nothing, he is bulletproof and mostly magic proof.”
Bruce says, “Kal is an adult now. He can do as he likes.”
Zatana says, “Obviously, but he’s still your little brother. You’re allowed to worry.”
“His approach is reckless and dangerous and literally everything I warned him not to do.”
“He’s insanely popular, well-loved by everyone, and he hasn’t told a soul that he’s an alien. He just keeps insisting he’s nice city boy who want to help. A nice American city boy by golly-gee raised right here wherever here is I won’t commit but hell I’m sure just like you, boss. He’s really good at that. His blandish is excellent. Lookit me, folks, I’m just so adorable blue-eyed relatable and cute. I saved a puppy today. I played baseball with a bunch of kids in Bangladesh. There’s a hundred blogs dedicated to how cute my butt is in my weird uniform that is definitely armor, but no one is talking about it.”
“Just because he’s good at getting people to like him, doesn’t mean he’s safe.”
“Obviously not, but he’s doing the absolute best that he can with the option that he’s taken. He’s popular Bruce. You can get away with murder if you’re popular and there’s precedent for it. You have that Flash guy in Star City. That Green Arrow person. You… kind of… you’re pretty popular in Gotham for a dude everyone thinks is demonic sewer monster.”
“It’s Gotham,” says Bruce, like that explains it.
Zatana picks up her tea and sips.
“Look, Gotham loves two things: Its football team and Batman. Therefore, Batman gets away with a lot. Keeping that mind, Metropolis loves two things –”
“Being owned by a libertarian asshole and over-priced sushi?”
“No, Bruce – is that thing? Stop distracting me! They love being progressive and they love Superman. Okay? If Metropolis likes Superman than a good portion of the country follows. Daily Planet says they like him, then most of the internet says they like him. Metropolis may be owned by a libertarian douchebag, but even Lex Luthor knows to pretend to be progressive and likeable. His blandish is right up there with Kal’s.”
“Yes, there’s a comfort. Lex fucking Luthor talking to Kal-El.”
“Right, because Superman totally didn’t graffiti his pent-house office window last week with vague implications that Lex is a capitalist monster.”
Bruce smiles. Like, not with his mouth, but it’s there. Zatana can see it.
“See, and the beauty of it is Lex can try to take legal action but he won’t because it’s political suicide. Kal know what he’s doing. He’s smart and capable and has an IQ over one-forty and an interest in communications. He’s Metropolis’ favorite son right now. He’s America’s favorite son. You know how I can tell he’s going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread? He’s just a little bit brown and he openly spoke fluent Cantonese in front of cameras and people aren’t trying to nuke him out of the sky. That’s how I know he’s reached the adoration nadir necessary to survive the public. Okay?”
“You can stop trying to comfort me, Zatana. I know you have better things to do.”
“Better things to do than hang out in your mansion and eat your fancy toast?”
“How can toast be fancy?”
“I dunno, man, but you do it.”
“I’ve accepted that Kal is going to do as he likes. I don’t have to like it, but it’s how it is.”
“It’s been nearly a year since he came out as Superman.” Zatana taps a nail meaningfully against the side of her mug. “You could try to get in contact with him you know.”
Bruce says, “I figure he’ll do that himself.”
Zatana says, “Ugh. You’re both children.”
And Dick, who’s been hiding in the rafters in the dining room says, “So am I gonna get to meet him finally or what?”
“Get down from there. What did I tell you about –!”
Six months later a giant albino mohawked dude on a space-faring motorcycle shows up in Metropolis.
Then he beats Superman within an inch of his new superheroing life.
Jimmy Olsen, armed with a smart phone camera and more balls than his resume would grant him, captures most of the carnage on a Facebook livesteam where the hulking alien tries to tear Metropolis’ golden boy limb from limb. In later interviews, Jimmy would admit that he and Superman have a rapport and most of why he stayed was simply because he couldn’t bring himself to leave while Big Blue was fighting for his life. Something, he was certain, Superman had never had to do before.
The world gets a first-hand look at intelligent non-terrestrial lifeforms as one tries to curb stop Superman’s skull open in the middle of Broadway Avenue. Then it gets to watch as said lifeform hurls him into the ground with enough force to break the sound barrier. They watch intelligent alien life rip Kal’s cape from his shoulders, watch it kick him in the ribs, try to strangle him, gouge his invincible blue eyes out and get their thumbs lasered off for their efforts. (Oh, yes, Superman has laser eyes. No one knew that. Now everyone knows that.)
Then the whole world gets to watch Superman do something like panic and beat this monster into a crater with the wreackage of its own motorcycle. Then they get to watch him grab and hurl this alien out of the stratosphere with enough power to splinter the ground beneath him like plaster and send the beast rocketing out of Earth’s atmo. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera captures the moment of aftermath where Superman stands there, uniform torn, blood running from his nose and mouth, staring anxiously into the sky and breathing hard, breathing like his ribs are fractured. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera transmits, live, the moment where Superman collapses to one knee, then collapses entirely and –
Jimmy Olsen, dropping his camera, crying, “Oh my god! Supes?! Superman, are you –?”
Before the feed cuts.
“Look, I’m just saying he’s not that mad at you.”
Dick Grayson, eighteen, wearing a pair of sunglasses with his boots up on the spare chair next to him – he’s got an ice cream cone in one hand and he thinks the whole thing is kind of dumb.
Across from him: Superman in a blue button-up and jeans, blinking at him from behind a pair of un-convincing thick-rimmed glasses. He’s got an untouched basket of fires and a burger in front of him. It pleases Dick just a little bit to note that at eighteen he’s already about Kal-El’s height if not quiet his build. Not, mind you, that Superman has many options in body building and it’s sort of ridiculous to compare physiques when one of them (not him) can pick up a bus and throw it across the country.
The point: Kal doesn’t look very intimidating sitting in a burger joint with an anxious look on his face.
“It’s been almost three years.”
The July sun curves a scorching path into the mid-day sky. It’s pretty hot.
Dick adjusts his sunglasses and says, “Look, Kal. I get that you guys had some big falling out or whatever, but at the end of the day you’re both being huge assholes and should just talk to one another. Zatana says so. Alfred says so. I say so and I’m the guy who’s doing your old job so I feel like I have special permission to tell you to suck it up and stop being weird about it. You weren’t weird about talking to me and I expected you to be a lot weirder in person. So you have no excuse.”
Kal looks genuinely curious. “Why would you think I’d be weird in person?”
“I dunno. You’re so good in front of a camera I thought you might be a little strange when you turn off the whole All American Alien shtick. Any particular reason you try to come off like a home-grown suburbanite when you’re a Gotham kid?”
“Technically, I was raised internationally for most of my childhood, I’m an alien, and mid-western accents are practically un-detectible to anyone not looking for it?”
“Solid call. Solid call. Anyway, you’re not weird.”
Kal looks wry. “Thanks, I try. Look, Dick, I appreciate what you’re trying to say, but I’m not sure if you understand… the history with Bruce and me.”
“Says who? I’m great at understanding. I’ve also been living with Bruce for the better part of three years so, like, try me.”
“Well, first of all, I’m an alien that landed in his backyard when he was sixteen and he decided to adopt me.”
“Yes, he has impulse control problems in that area. I’ve noticed.”
“My childhood was weird.”
“I grew up in the circus and then signed on to be Boy Wonder Two Point Oh. My childhood was also weird. What is it you’re worried I won’t understand?”
“I don’t know… so much of how I was raised was based around this… It’s weird. I am bulletproof. Literally, I’m one of the toughest living things on the planet, but my whole childhood was a lot of fear and hyper-vigilant measures to make sure I was safe. Now, I’m just… it’s like a threw all that away. I feel like a bastard sometimes. Ungrateful I guess? But I don’t regret it. Not… not at all. Not even a little bit and I feel like that’s the part that’s going to make it impossible to talk about.”
“You know how stupidly noble that sounds right? You’re like an afterschool special.”
“Grayson,” he says in this tone that has this low sub-tonal quality that literally makes the air shiver.
“Okay, so you’re afraid you’ll have to defend your decisions to him and he’s going to be judgmental and disapproving, basically? Because, that’s kind of what dads are there for.”
“He’s not my dad.”
“Right.”
Kal looks uncomfortable. “He was always really clear on that point, actually.”
“Oh. Sorry. What I meant is you are family at the end of the day.”
“I know…”
“Jeez, this is really eating at you. What specifically do you think will happen? Worst scenario.”
“I tell him I regret nothing that I’ve done and by extension he takes that to mean everything he ever did for me was pointless and all the work he does is also pointless and he basically realizes he raised a totalitarian monster that rejects all his personal axioms?”
Dick lowers his sunglasses slightly to stare at him over the rims.
Kal looks, thankfully, embarrassed. “Worst case scenario! I literally did the exact thing he raised me not to do and I just don’t see how he’s going to forgive me for that.”
“Because you’re his little brother and he loves you. Wow. That was easy. Let’s go to Gotham right now.”
Kal jerks a little when Dick makes a mock-move to stand up and that tiny fear response makes Dick feel just a little bad. He sits back down.
“You honestly think he’s not going to forgive you for going out on your own?”
“He has strong opinions about things.”
“He’s also just a dude with a thing for Vantablack.”
“You wouldn’t be scared to disobey him?”
“Are you kidding? Petrified. But I’d still do it if I really believed it and, honestly, I think as long as you’re not drowning puppies in buckets or getting a mullet he’ll probably respect what you did.” Dick shrugs. “I mean, it’s hard to argue with the results.”
Kal looks skeptical.
“I’m not saying he won’t be a huge tool about it at first, maybe, but he’ll get over it. Seriously. Just… reach out. I don’t think he’s going to do it because he thinks you… want it this way or something. I can tell you don’t so just fix it. Or at least try. You’re Superman. You can’t possibly tell me it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
Kal almost smiles. “I’m really glad you signed on to be Robin Two Point Oh.”
“Okay, well, don’t spread it around but I’ll probably upgrade from that pretty quick here.”
“You’re thinking about leaving?”
“I’m eighteen. I’ll have to leave eventually.”
“And… the rest of it?”
“You mean the cape and cowl?” He frowns. “I mean… I think I’ll always want to do that. Just not… not in Gotham forever. And I can’t be Robin somewhere else; I think that’s a really specific role. Look, it’s just something I’m tossing around. You left. I can leave. It’s just the normal progression of things.”
Kal thinks about it. “You picked out a name yet?”
Dick blinks behind his glasses. “No. Why?”
“I might have a suggestion.”
It was, perhaps, inevitable that it would happen this way.
Or that’s what he’s thinking while he’s falling from 10,000 feet up, every on-board system fried, auxiliary flight components shredded, the dark terrain racing up to meet him. He goes through possible scenarios. Anything and everything he could do to prevent slamming into the planet at terminal velocity and he’s got nothing. The sky above him: a rolling orange swath of flame, the steel monolith coming apart in continental shards of alien alloy. The mechanism of mass destruction slicing a fiery path toward the ocean.
Even if he could fly, he’s not sure he could get clear of the wreckage – likely to fall miles around.
His armor’s melted in places – fused to his ribs, his right thigh, his boots have melted at the sole. The pain is… intense actually. Intense enough he’s a little relieved it’s probably going to stop very soon. The wind in his ears roars. Through the roar, his comm still just barely crackles with Dick’s voice, frantic and far away, saying his name (is that really his name?) over and over again from too far away to help.
His primary regret: Dick is going to watch him die on fucking monitor.
“It’s fine,” he says, which is fucking stupid of course.
“No!”
“You’re going to be fine, Dick.”
These are the worst last words in the history of last words. He just doesn’t know what else to say, the earth rushing up as it is, so fast he’s not going to be able to speak. Bruce rolls into a para-trooper flat, belly down, arms and legs out, facing the growing ridge of the mountain that, it appears, will be his final destination. The comm’s damaged. Dick is saying something. He can’t make it out and he’s not sure why that – not the screaming air, not the pain, not the inevitable end – is getting to him. Seconds before his death and all he can think is he’d trade anything to hear what Dick is trying to say.
There’s static now.
There’s no one with him for this part.
That’s fine.
It’s fine.
Really.
It’s…
The mountain below him suddenly snaps. It vanishes. There’s a bright primary blur that baffles his eyes before snapping back into focus and, like a glitch in the universe, Kal-El is between him and the earth. His eyes: wide, colorless blue, inhuman in their hue and containing every human fear possible. He’s moving at terminal velocity, backwards, propelled by the mysterious gravitational forces that live in his Kryptonian physiology. He’s wearing his uniform. Superman – flying exactly fast enough to be exactly within arms’ reach, face to face with Batman as he falls.
He’s shouting something.
Bruce throws his arms out at the same moment Kal grabs for him, seizes his elbows and pulls him into his chest. Bruce feels three of his ribs crack when Kal miscalculates the speed, slams into him with enough force to stun. He doesn’t have the air to scream as Kal balls around him and pitches, hard, right. His arms cage him like a roll bar in a flipping car. The G-force briefly curdles his brain, dark edges closing. His teeth in his skull seem set to explode. Lungs crushed, surrounded by a splintering construct of calcium.
Then it stops. Planes out. Bruce opens his eyes and the sky is framed by trees, the hole in the canopy of evergreens. The ground underneath him smells of pine and shredded earth, a Superman shaped crater in the forest floor. He must have blacked out for the impact. Kal is looking down at him with a panic in his face that steals all his adult years and Bruce sees him – five years old, stuck on that goddamn bunker ceiling.
“Bruce! Bruce?! Are you okay?”
He grunts. Gets his breath.
“Sloppy catch.”
Kal stares.
Bruce grimaces and sits up. “We practiced that about a hundred times in the Philippines.”
Kal stares.
“If you don’t learn how to match velocity in mid-air, you can’t expect to save civilians from –.”
Kal moves forward and hooks both arms around Bruce’s shoulders and silently buries his face against his shoulder.
Bruce hesitates… then loops one arm around Superman’s back, palm flat against his shoulder blades.
“Nice of you to drop by,” Bruce says.
Kal laughs. “Dick said I should.”
“You couldn’t call me before alien warships are flying over Gotham?”
“You couldn't call me before you pick a fight with an alien warship?”
"I don't have your number."
"Dick has my number. You have my number if you wanted my number."
Bruce sighs, pressing a hand into his ribs. “Any chance of flying out of here that isn’t you carrying me bridal style?”
“Not really. You crashed the Bat Jet into the side of their ship.”
“It’s not called the ‘Bat Jet’. It’s just a jet.”
“Dick says it’s the Bat Jet and he also says, you still call the car ‘The Batmobile’. So…”
Bruce glares.
“Are you glaring? I can’t tell with the new cowl. Is that, like, a heavy combat version or…?”
“I’m glaring.”
“Okay. Thought so. You know you can admit I'm good at naming things.”
“Unbelievable.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You should have let me drop into the goddamn mountain.”
There had been a rule about doing acrobatic flips off anything and everything in the manor for as long as anyone could remember - well, for as long as Dick had been around, as it was without a doubt his fault that the rule now existed.
A rule which he was actually not the one to break.
Something that Dick would feel slightly proud of, if he weren’t standing in the middle of the front entryway staring at a shattered chandelier, eyes darting between a slightly guilty looking Tim and suspiciously ‘innocent’ looking Damian.
“I don’t even want to know, do I?”
“Probably not.”
Send me a ship/character(s) and a one word prompt and I will write a 5 sentence fic about it
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If you're still doing mini fics Jaime Reyes and X?
X. A flashof anger.
“FUCK!”
“Jesus!”
“Beetle!BEETLE, STOP!”
host-friend, jaime reyes. thetactical advantage is yours. force is excessive.
And that’swhat gets through. Finally. Not his teammates, not the screams, nothing cutsthrough the red fucking static but the blue machine calm math-speak of thescarab wired into his brain. Khaji-da cuts through. Then the world snaps backinto focus and the hissing molten slab of screaming metal in front of himregains human shape and Jaime sees – he sees–
Superboytackles him.
It’s likegetting hit by a super-sonic freight train and the armor compensates instantly,absorbing and dispersing the impact but Jaime goes limp and lets Conner takehim to the ground. The slam into the floor, meteoric force punching a holethrough concrete instantly. Jaime barely feels it through the armor. He feelsConner bear hug him, pinning his de-weaponized arms to his ribs. There’s noise.Screaming and the buckling whine of building structures coming down, of peopleyelling and running. Somewhere, he can hear cheering. Somewhere, he can hearchildren weeping, so loud he can’t stand it. Khaji-Da instinctively dampensaudio-sensory feeds and mutes the world to the vibrato that hums up from theground through the rest of his body.
He can’thear Conner properly until he presses his forehead against the side of Jaime’shelmet and shouts, “It’s okay! It’s okay, Blue! Just calm down!”
It’s onlythen Jaime realizes he was yelling.
Conner wrapsan arm around his shoulders, grips tight. His palm against his bicep has thecrushing force of five tons and all Jaime can think is thank god for that. He’snot going anywhere. He just curls over and lets his teammate hold him inplace. Blanks out entirely. Gone. Eventually Conner lets go. He sits up on hisknees. Jaime remains where he is, lying on his side in the bottom of thecrater. Seeing this, Superboy gently touches his arm and Khaji Da graduallyretracts the sound dampeners so Jaime can hear him.
“Blue,” he’ssaying. Then, lowering his voice, “Jaime, can you hear me?”
“I’m sorry.”
There’s arattle of gravel as someone else climbs down into the crater with them.
“Blue.Superboy. Are you okay?”
It’sBatgirl. The squad leader for today. He can hear her sliding down the side ofthe crater, boots scraping the rubble until she hops down into the bottom ofthe hole with them. She kneels down with Superboy, also puts a hand on Blue’s shoulder and another hand on his ribs where his armor carriers the still-hotbattle damage, molecular laser, alien hardware. Almost hit skin before scarab got ashield up. The blisters are already knitted beneath the battle-skin.
“Blue,” Barbara says. “He’s alive. It was aclean use of force. Just try to relax, okay?”
Jaime covershis ears, or his helmet where his ears would be. “Oh god…”
“It’s okay,Blue.”
“No, it’snot.”
“He’s stillalive,” Batgirl says. “He’s lucky. He was trying to kill you and every refugeein that warehouse. You reacted. That’s it. You’re okay.”
“I meltedhim!”
“No, youdidn’t. He’ll live. Blue, he was trying to kill everyone. He would have burnedeveryone else alive if you hadn’t stopped him. It’s okay.”
“He was… hewas laughing at them.”
“I know.”
“He was laughing, Babs.”
Batgirlglances at Superboy, then leans down so she can awkwardly wrap her arms around herimpossibly armored teammate. She runs one gloved hand along his arm, clearly ata loss what to do besides be there while, above, the chaos of evacuation andclean up runs on. Superboy just crouches there.
“It’s okay,Blue. Just breathe. Just relax.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Justbreathe. It’s okay. You did fine. It’s okay.”
The thingabout magic: it tends to localize. At least, the magic that bounds Billy Batsonto his immoral alter-ego. That kind of magic tends to anchor itself in theancient roots of its source planet and draw down the great cosmicwhateverthefuck that binds all irrational energy. Or that’s how Wonder Womantried to describe it. To the part of him that is Billy Batson, that makes aboutas much sense as anything else. To the part of him that’s ancient, immortal,and composed from the living breathing ether, it makes waaaay more sense.
But he’s alittle surprised to find that his powers haven’t waned this far from his parentworld.
“Magic isbullshit,” Shazam says, cheerfully.
Superman,who’s standing next to him, gives him a puzzled look.
“Huh?” hesays.
(Note:Superman is a hell of a lot less eloquent in familiar company than he is infront of other Leaguers.)
“Magic. It’sbullshit. None of the rules make sense. It’s all arbitrary belief-based and yetsomehow holds whole planes of existence together on a quantum level. Itconnects directly to the material rational world, yet acts irrationally uponit. I’m standing on a diamond cliff on some shattered moon lightyears from myhome planet, but the dumb spell that makes me invincible still works.”
Superman,who hates magic to begin with, says, “Look, this is the best view for sevensystems, let’s not have a discussion about pulling rabbits from hats.” He holdsup a hand when Billy starts to open his mouth. “Do not talk to me about thedifficulty of inter-dimensional translocation. Zatanna already did that. Ihated it. Let’s just not. This is the only thing Batman and I agree on.”
“That magicis bullshit?”
“Yes.Exactly.”
“Isn’t Batmantechnically a trained warlock?”
“He’sBatman. He’s technically trained in everything from spellcasting to croquet.”He points. “Look. Don’t miss this.”
Billyfocuses on the alien horizon, aware peripherally of Clark crossing his arms andrelaxing, of the invisible shift in the other hero’s aura – as real to Billy asthe blue of his eyes or the photosynthetic heat that burns in every cell. Theywatch a row of silver planetoids rise like pale, luminous suns along the curveof the broken moon. The infinite dark of space glows purple through the thin atmosphere.Billy Batson, who is currently Shazam, laughs out loud and holds up one hand,palm out, so it covers the first planet.
“Does thisever stop being cool?” he demands, grinning.
