Chapter Text
There aren't a lot of things that Captain Marvel can't handle. He's one of the League's heavy hitters, after all - he can go toe-to-toe with Superman in terms of strength, speed, and hardiness. So, as a rule, people usually leave him to do his thing in battle.
Billy likes it this way. While at first it was exciting for him to be a part of the Justice League, it wore off fast when he realized that being on the team also meant letting the team get to know him.
Friendly he may be, but Billy doesn't like getting too close to people. When he's not Captain Marvel, he's a homeless fourteen-year-old fleeing from foster care. He knows what he looks like. It's enough of a gamble to be seen in public at all, let alone being visible enough to truly get to know someone, especially if they're a concerned adult.
It's a bit of a lonely life, but he makes do. After all, he isn't completely alone. He has Tawky Tawny, he has Freddy, and most important of all: he has Captain Marvel.
Because as Captain Marvel, he doesn't have to hide. He can just…be.
Or at least he could, before everyone started digging.
And he gets it - he's been on the team two years now. That's more than enough time for people to get curious. Everyone else has shared their identities. It's a show of mutual trust, of comradery. And it makes sense to Billy, it really does, so he tries not to be resentful about it.
It's damn exhausting, though.
Nonetheless, Marvel has an image to maintain. So Billy plasters a smile on his face, begs off events where others in the League expect him to be out of uniform, and keeps his distance whenever he can.
It's a Tuesday afternoon when everything goes wrong.
"It's always robots," Billy-as-Marvel mutters to himself as he takes a swing at….whatever the hell this thing is. He thinks it's a robot, at least, because the outside of it is made out of some kind of metal. It's not normal metal, that's for sure. Even Superman is having trouble denting it.
And it shoots lasers. Because of course it does.
Needless to say, it's big, it's causing a lot of damage, and it needs to be dealt with, like, yesterday.
"Need some help?" A distorted voice asks from Marvel's left. Marvel turns his head.
"Phantom! Man, you are late. Bats is not going to be happy at debriefing."
Phantom shrugs, smiling sheepishly as he charges an ectoblast, "Couldn't help it. I didn't get the memo until I left the Ghost Zone a few minutes ago. You know-" he lets the blast go. It flashes a poisonous green, "-Signal issues."
Marvel doesn't know enough about the Ghost Zone to contest that, and it would be hypocritical for him to try with all the secrets he's keeping himself, so he turns to the task at hand:
This robot's gotta go.
After a few minutes of little progress, something weird happens. The robot does what, until today, Marvel would have thought impossible - it multiplies into three.
Now they have three enemies. No one is pleased by this turn of events.
From his vantage point, Phantom whistles. When Marvel shoots him a glance in response, he says, "Yeah, that's uh. Not from around here. Definitely ghost tech."
After a pause, Phantom turns to him, "Hey, you got this one? I think Wonder Woman needs some help over there."
Marvel, preoccupied by trying to keep the robot from knocking a skyscraper over with an arm, nods in response.
"Okay, awesome. Good luck!"
The battle goes on with very little progress. Things aren't looking good. Marvel can tell that his teammates are tiring and there's not much he can do to help when he's busy with his own robot. He calls upon his Lightning - typically a last resort because it tends to sap him of energy. The arm he aimed at sparks, so he shoots at it again. He flies around the robot, shooting at various spots.
It seems to be working, but he's quickly tiring himself.
Then, he realizes what he can do. His own lightning may not be enough, but he does know of a lightning much more powerful than his own.
He looks over at his teammates. They're preoccupied with their own robots - no one is looking his way.
He has to end this quickly, so he places his hands near the robot's chest - where he assumes the power source must be. Then, he utters the magic words -
"Shazam."
Captain Marvel may be a hero, but Billy is an elementary school dropout. 4th grade, to be exact. And even before he ran away from his most recent foster, he missed a lot of school for. Reasons. Billy didn't think beforehand of exactly how well a large metal robot might conduct electricity. So when the metal amplifies his lightning far better than he expects, he isn't prepared for the immensity of subsequent explosion.
The world goes black before he can transform back. He falls.
…
Danny feels the heat of the explosion before he sees it. He'd been a little too distracted to check over his shoulder, sure that Marvel had his own robot handled. Sue him.
Out of the corner of his vision, something falls from the cloud that was once Marvel's robot. Danny is fast, but he's also the only one who can put a dent on this thing, so doesn't put much thought into it. After all, Marvel can take a hit. When Danny's finished with both his robot and the last - thank you late-blooming electrokinesis - he flies to meet his coworkers on the ground.
They're all standing around a large crater - this must be where Marvel fell. Standing in the crater, Superman holds something in his arms. A pre-teen - maybe twelve at the oldest given the size - with black hair.
As Danny gets closer, he realizes that the boy's features are strikingly similar to the ones he has seen on his teammate.
Why would a child be in Marvel's place? They aren't working with time magic here - Danny would know.
It takes him a moment.
As Danny tunes out the confused murmur or the rest of the League, he thinks about Marvel. How he sometimes moves like he doesn't know how big he is. How he stared on, utterly bemused, when Danny showed the team the ecto-weapons that he designed for them. How Marvel speaks, constantly using Gen-Z lingo - much like Danny himself.
Suddenly, he understands. The child in Superman's arms is Captain Marvel.
Well. Weirder things have happened, Danny supposes.