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Chapter Text

Teth Adam awoke, back to life; the wizard’s hold on him had finally weakened enough to return to the living. He was free at last! Burrowing through the ground, out of his secret, long-forgotten tomb—his prison—he surveyed the land about him. Kahndaq. A once beautiful, prosperous land. But now, he discovered, it was one marred by war; famine and plague; the dead, dying, and those who would kill them. He could hear the blood of innocents, of his people, cry out from the ground, pleading for justice. The women, hoping their children would never be born, so as to never enter this living hell. The children, too weak to hope for the death which stalked their starving and mistreated forms, hiding from both the light and from the evils of the land. He cursed the wizard for taking away his people’s protector. Teth Adam had returned, to rule and deliver justice from on high.

()()()

He could feel it in his bones; not only had his people been abandoned, but the wizard had chosen a new champion. As he scoured his lands of the evil filth which had held his people in oppression for far too long, he could feel the magic; as his people had suffered and died, this champion had cavorted about across the globe. Even as his newly freed people massed around him, listening eagerly to his decrees for justice and promises of the future, cheering joyously for the rightful lord of the land, he was distracted. He must confront the usurper, before he could truly have peace. Yes; once he had brought total security to his lands, and fully comprehended this modern world—which in his heart, he had already realized, was ruled by the same struggle between powers as his own age—he  would confront the wizard’s puppet. Perhaps, he mused, the champion would see the truth, and turn on the wizard as he once did. If not, well, -- he would kill him.  

()()()

The first time Billy Batson saw him was when he was age eleven—ok, ten and ten months. He had just come back from a wacky space journey with the Justice League as Captain Marvel and was exhausted. Being Cap was great, and he could have squealed for joy because he seemed to finally be fitting in with the Justice League (Superman had challenged him to a friendly arm wrestle, and they had sat there for a couple hours, just talking as the rest of the Leaguers watched the struggle in awe—it had been a draw, but he THINKS he could’ve won, if they hadn’t all been randomly teleported to War World. Long story.). And he had just discovered J’onn’s love for Chocos (which JUST so happened to have been created in Fawcett City), so he was going to invite the Martian down to try out some of the famous Choco milkshake bars down here. (J’onn really needed to get out more, anyway). Billy  just needed to earn some more money doing side jobs because he wasn’t quite sure if J’onn even had human money, and he couldn’t let anyone know that he himself didn’t even have enough to get a milkshake…

Lost in that thought, he had been walking down a side-street, looking for something to eat. He knew there was a bagel shop around here which sometimes threw away PERFECTLY GOOD (just a little stale or moldy) bagels, and he hadn’t eaten since before his Justice League mission. He had discovered that while he didn’t need to eat as Cap, or even if he DID eat as Cap, he still needed to eat as Billy, unfortunately. Also, he needed to sleep as Billy—but that problem would have to wait until he hopefully found something to eat. A large boom suddenly then sounded from across the city—that was never good. He sighed, (just a little—he had hoped to eat something today), but then reminded himself: people could be in danger. Looking around, and ducking from the obscure side-street to an even more obscure alley, he looked to the sky, and called down the familiar magic: “Shazam!”

()()()

Teth Adam paused midway through crunching the car—he was on the very top floor of a parking garage, smashing these ghastly modern machines together. He had scoured the city for a week, hoping to find the Champion without much fuss—he would have assaulted the Rock of Eternity directly, but he had wanted to approach the Champion without the wizard’s potential interference. After a week of no signs, no sightings, and no magic—he could no longer feel the Champion’s presence here—he had given up on the tact approach and had set about making his presence known. He hoped he wouldn’t have to threaten the citizenry, but then again, did this champion even care about them? But, the city seemed to love him. A conflicting image of who this champion proposed to be had arisen in his mind, and he wished to ascertain which discrepancies were true or not. He dropped the car from his hands, back onto the garage roof, and paused. Yes, he had felt right—the magic was back—the champion had seemingly transformed—and was approaching quickly. Arms crossed, hovering, he waited as a red blur sped toward him then pulled up short. The usurper, hovering a couple dozen yards away, froze as he stared at Adam. Before Adam could begin to question the man, the red-caped crusader frowned and questioningly asked: “Black Adam?!”

()()()

Captain Marvel hadn’t been sure what to expect (Sivana’s crazy antics had long ago stopped internal questions such as ‘Why would a villain want to trash cars in a parking garage?’ or ‘Why would a billionaire send a huge robot to destroy a Chocos factory?’)—but he hadn’t been expecting BLACK ADAM! The wizard had warned him about Black Adam! There hadn’t been a lot of details, but he knew this dude was bad news—he had been the former champion, betrayed the wizard, killed a whole lot of people, might return someday for vengeance, and —yeah, he was just really bad news. He knew the wizard would just want him to attack immediately, but he didn’t want to, well, just attack someone before trying to talk it out, at least. Maybe it wasn’t actually him, and just looked like the guy the wizard had shown him through his magical looking glass-whats-it (he still had to ask what that thing was called). But when the guy’s eyes narrowed (in anger?) as he queried ‘Black Adam’, he sighed again, inwardly this time. Of course he wasn’t that lucky.

()()()

“Why are you here, Black Adam?”

“So”, Teth Adam spat, “the wizard had already spun his stories of lies to you. I should have guessed.”

Sensing his rise in anger, Captain Marvel waved his hands in an attempted friendly gesture.
“Whoa, whoa. I don’t want to have to fight you. But if you’re hear to hurt the wizard, or anyone else, I’m afraid we’re not going to get along.” He stopped and thought a second, and continued on more hesitantly. “Oh wait, I also think you might supposed to be in jail, uh, you know, for all the bad stuff you did. So….uh… you wouldn’t happen to want to go along peacefully, would you?”

Teth Adam ground his teeth. “Listen, usurper –”

The fool interrupted. “Uh, actually, it’s Captain Marvel.”

“Usurper! I am here to offer a choice. We are both Champions, imbued with the powers of the gods, meant to be protectors of the earth. When I was Champion, the wizard’s chosen, I protected my people. But while I was off fighting in the wizard’s own wars, my people were left vulnerable. Evil attacked, but the wizard did nothing.”

He paused, as faded images flashed through his mind—his wife, Shiruta, his sons, Gon and Hurut: once, he could conjure images of them happy, full of life, but all he could see now were their broken and bloodied bodies. He could not bear to say their names.

“…Lives were lost. And when I took it upon myself to deliver swift justice to those who had brought violence into Kahndaq, my home—the wizard decided to put a stop to my actions. He could not retract the blessing of the gods, so he cursed and imprisoned me—buried me—for thousands of years.”

Noting the other champion’s startled face, Teth-Adam scoffed. “It seems the wizard did not tell the whole story, did he not?”

()()()

Billy really wished he had been able to eat that bagel. Because he wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating the whole thing from not eating for several days’ periods, or if he was actually hearing this. (Would starving as Billy even affect him as Marvel? He’d have to test that later.)

More importantly, had the wizard lied to him?

“I’m really sorry that people you cared about died.” The Wisdom of Solomon suggested he inquire further. “But did you kill all those people? Even if they were bad guys.”

Adam stared him down, and Marvel met his eyes unflinchingly (though, it may have taken a little bit of the Courage of Achilles at this point).

Adam continued. “As I said, I offer you a choice. Though I may have done…distasteful things, they were done in the service of my people, for the protection of the innocents.” He gestured to the sprawling cityscape around them. “Much like how you protect your city. But the wizard will inevitably use you for his own purposes, his own wars, his own vendettas—and while you fight his battles, your people will suffer, and die, as mine did. And he will not care. For he has not cared about mankind since he severed himself from his own humanity. But if we were to join together, with the power of the gods in our grasp, we could protect this world—our peoples!” He sighed in suppressed rage. “We are like brothers, like family—both with the blessings of the gods running through our blood, both who wish to see justice done against evil!”

()()()

Marvel looked troubled. “But, you killed. I don’t kill. You’re not supposed to just kill people.”

Adam nearly growled in frustration. “Your thinking is juvenile. To truly vanquish evil, you cannot let it fester and grow, you must cut out its roots and burn it. The wizard is not on your side. I killed in the wizard’s name, do you not think he will make you do the same?”

Marvel was taken aback. “No, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”

This time Adam did growl. “The wizard is not on your side! He is using you, as he once used me!” His anger boiled over into a shout. “Will you not join me, and help destroy the wizard?!”

Gods, why did the usurper look like he was about to cry.

“He ISN’T using me. He’s on my side, he—he’s the only one who actually cares for me!”

“He cares for NO ONE.”

“I won’t let you hurt him.” The red-costumed hero clenched his fists in anger. “You—you’re just a liar and a killer and I’m taking you DOWN.”

Adam hardened his spirit. He had hoped the usurping champion would see the truth, but he was too firmly in the wizard’s grasp, all too willing to sacrifice everything for him. There would be no convincing him now. He narrowed his eyes at the champion. “If you will not join me, and choose to stand in my way, I will have no choice but to end your life.”

Marvel’s fist sped towards him, giving no reply.

“Very well.”

His fist returned in kind.

()()()

Fawcett City Chief of Police Peter Falk watched the ensuing brawl in awe. When the goon in black had first showed up, banging up the cars in the garage, they had made sure to evacuate the whole garage and had started moving people out of the surrounding buildings. He wasn’t surprised when Cap showed up and started talking to the guy—he always did try to talk them down first—but was more surprised when not only Captain Marvel threw the first punch, but the guy in black struck back—hard. They had been throwing haymakers (and cars) at each other for nearly fifteen minutes, and he had made sure to pull back his roadblock even further as the two duked it out. Watching the fight, now through binoculars, he marveled that the guy in black had been going toe to toe with Cap for this long, and worriedly noted that his costume seemed to be the same as Caps, except all in black. Hopefully not some long lost evil family member or a weird clone—those kind of situations were always messy and would require way too much paperwork.

()()()

Their artistic dance of blows had turned into a street brawl.

They both were sweating, he realized.

They both were tired, he noted.

But, somehow, he was the one who was weakening. Not the usurper.

(He should have realized that his recent reconnection to the powers of the gods would not yet be able to supply him with full strength.)

His wisdom prodded him to retreat, regroup.

He ignored it.

His wisdom reminded him of the other champion’s already-noted penchant for transforming from his powerful form to his weak and vulnerable human form. That he could retreat, and follow the man until he transformed—and then strike!

That would be dishonorable, he argued.

But necessary. He would only stand in your way, or take you down. You don’t have time to meet him on even grounds, at full strength. The world groans in suffering.

His heart finally hardened in resolve. He had taken lives before, some ‘dishonorably’—but it would not be dishonorable, in the truest sense, but merely necessary. This “Marvel” was no innocent, no non-player, but an extension of the wizard himself.

Dodging Marvel’s next punch, and moving from their battlefield of the parking garage and surroundings—now mostly decimated—he used the Speed of Horus to fly past the police barricade and grab another car. This time, it had passengers. Hefting the car, barely hearing Marvel shout ‘No!’ behind him, he threw the car into the sky. (He kept the speed of his throw to a minimum, he had no wish to kill innocents even here). A red blur took after the car, and Adam used the opportunity to speed out of sight.

He would wait. And follow. And strike without mercy.

()()()

After safely catching the car and returning it to earth (thankfully, its passengers only had whiplash at worst), Marvel helped the police force clean up the roads and area. He chided himself for not being more careful with the effects of his fighting; he had ignored Solomon quite a bit during that fight. But he was still so mad at Black Adam. He really was a liar. The wizard cared for him, he knew that—he had been the only adult to care enough to help him at all. The rest just tried to hurt him—whether in the foster homes or on the street. He was really ticked off that he had escaped, he would have to ask the wizard what to do about him. He spent the rest of the day clearing the roads and helping move the trashed cars from the top of the garage.

It was sundown, and there was still quite a mess, when the police chief approached him. “Cap, you’ve helped enough. Why don’t you go home and take a load off.” He tried to protest but the chief waved his concerns away. “Look, you don’t have to rebuild the whole durn parking garage. That’s not your job.” He chuckled. “Besides, I don’t think the unions would like that.”

“Oh.”

“You hungry?”

Marvel hesitated. Food sounded SO GOOD right now, but anything he ate as Marvel wouldn’t stick to Billy. And he really needed to sleep as Billy, at least. He could always go longer without food, right?

“Sorry chief, I’ve got…superhero business to get to. You know. All that stuff. Maybe another time.”

Falk chuckled again. “I know, I know. You always say that. Which is why I got you something to go.” He tossed a rolled up brown bag towards Marvel, who caught it—and the irresistible aroma of a hot cheeseburger and seasoned fries wafted up from the greasy bag.

Marvel gaped. “Thank you!” He hesitated. “But, ah, I don’t have any money on me.”

“Nah, it was on the house,” the chief retorted, gesturing to the nearby burger place. “Folk around here appreciate what you do for us.” He waved his hands at Marvel. “Now go on, git on with your superhero business and enjoy the burger.”

Marvel smiled, said his goodbyes, and sped off into the fading sunlight. He made a beeline for the subway system—he couldn’t WAIT to get back ‘home’ and actually eat some non-dumpster food as Billy.

Had he been more observant, perhaps he would have noticed a figure in black following him, avoiding the last few dying rays of sunlight.

()()()

Marvel expertly weaved through the sparsely lit tunnels of the underground subway system. Using Marvel, he had discovered an offshoot abandoned tunnel system—even the rails had been removed—and a broken, abandoned subway car, deep where almost nobody would dare to go. As Marvel, he had piled up a good amount of rocks and debris left behind, and found a large boulder he could place in front of a hole he left, so only he could lift it to get through to this last area of the tunnel which housed his railcar ‘home’—he needed a safe place to be able to sleep as Billy and nobody could trace him back here as Marvel since Marvel could fly out from any of the subway exits.  Placing the rock back, and landing in front of the rail car, he peeked around—nobody but the rats—and called the magic name: “Shazam!”

A small stroke of lightning fell, its illumination flashing through the blocked off tunnel, whose only other light was a dim overhead lamp from the elder days of the subway—which the city apparently never disconnected from the grid. He didn’t want his lightning to damage basically the only light source down here. Billy had discovered that through just willing it, he could will the magic lightning to come down in a fairly small bolt, and, he assumed, large also—(he hadn’t gotten around to trying to make it super big yet). But being able to transform using a small bolt helped when he had to transform in public, it attracted less attention. Also, he had discovered, he could will his lightning to hurt or not (that had taken a little trial and error; his transformations used to burn the grass around him or ruin any sort of electronics, and he had hated trying to explain to Batman why he needed a fifth replacement for his Justice League communicator). He wondered if he could use it as a weapon; if he could will it even stronger than normal, but he was a little scared to try that too.

But anyway, BURGER!

Clutching the burger bag, he opened the subway car door and stepped inside, closing it behind. It was a small metal subway car, probably one of the first iterations, hence its abandonment. There wasn’t much inside. Not that he had much to begin with. He had a thin, worn blanket (a small tablecloth from one of the diners’ dumpsters), an extra sweater (also very worn, but red at least!), a flashlight (which now was out of battery, since the only batteries he could scrounge were used ones), and a couple plastic bottles of water which he would fill up at the park’s water fountains. He also had a couple dozen faintly glowing glow-in-the-dark stars scattered around the area, emitting a faint light (sometimes, he couldn’t believe the cool stuff that people would just throw out). He reminded himself to bring them up as Marvel to recharge in the sunlight tomorrow. He took his Justice League communicator and shoved it under a ledge under one of the metal seats; it wouldn’t do for anyone to find Billy Batson with a Justice League communicator. Now deep underground, and very aware of his thin, cold body, Billy threw on his extra sweater, pulled the ‘blanket’ around him, and sat in the corner of the subway car on a pile of cardboard boxes (he found using these helped keep the cold of the metal away better). He settled the burger bag in front of him, paused, and pulled out his last and dearest possession from its hiding place in the corner and onto his lap: his stuffed tiger, Tawky Tawny.

It was the last thing he had from his family.

Shivering and dizzy, alone in the near-dark and cold, he tried not to cry, focusing on Tawky. He always felt warmer when holding Tawky, but he was no substitute for having a family. He tried to recall the faces of his dad, mom, and sister, but it was all blurs. He shivered in fright this time. Was he forgetting his family?

No, no, he just needed to eat, he told himself. As Billy, he hadn’t eaten in four days. (He really wished he could sneak some food from the Justice League cafeteria, but he didn’t want anyone asking any questions).

He pulled out the burger, reveled in its smell once more, and chomped down on the delicious, juicy medley of meat and cheese.

And then the world exploded.

()()()

Teth Adam had almost lost track of the usurper in the tunnels. Thankfully, with his speed and wisdom, he had been able to keep close, careful to use the cover of darkness (still, was this Champion oblivious?). The man suddenly took a sharp turn down a tunnel without rails, and, flying to what seemed like a dead end, stopped in front of it. From the corner, Adam watched. The usurper pushed a man-sized rock out of the way and stooped through, lifting it back into place.

Adam noted the rock’s position, but waited. He heard a faint “Shazam!”, felt the magic thrum, and grinned. The man was now vulnerable. His wisdom told him to wait a minute longer, and approach quietly. Hovering to the rock and landing quietly, he deftly moved it out of the way and stooped through himself. Raising back up, his sight revealed that the tunnel in fact expanded further, and not more than a few dozen yards in front of him was an abandoned, derelict subway car.

He could feel it, under his skin—the champion was in there. He did not question why, but only steeled himself for the kill. Gathering all his strength, he flew at the metal structure, intent on ramming through its metal shell and slaying the champion before he could even breath in to speak the wizard’s name once more.

- - -

The force of his body slammed into and through the carriage door, sending the entire subway car flying into the dead end, metal shards twisting through the air as the structure crunched. As in slow motion, breaking through the metal shell of the door, Adam flew, hand outstretched toward the neck of the figure he saw hunched in the corner, grabbing his jaw and lifting him up as the metal screeched around them.

“Now, ‘Champion’, you will d—”

Ancient brown eyes met young, cornflower blue.

Gods, a child?

- - -

In shock, he dropped the child.

With most of the roof of the carriage gone in the destruction, the dim tunnel lamp shone through, illuminating his features. A thin, tiny child, with black hair and dirty clothes, gasped at the impact of the drop, raised his head to look at Adam, opened his mouth in a silent attempt to speak, and promptly collapsed. A scruffy stuffed tiger fell from his fingertips.

Gods, the cursed wizard had set up a mere boy against Mighty Adam?

He looked closer at the collapsed figure, and realized with dismay that the boy was bleeding profusely; shards of metal had pieced his thin clothes, and his head was bleeding from being thrown against the wall from the concussive blast of his entry.

Fear had shone in the child’s eyes.

Gods, he had harmed a child.

He dropped to his knees amidst the twisted metal of the floor.

He tried to shut his eyes from the sight. But even in his mind’s eye, all he could see was the body of a broken child.

Gon. Hurut. And now, this child, a child he did not even know the name to.

He bellowed in grief.

The Wisdom of Zehuti chided him. The boy might still live, if he acted quickly.

Yes, he would take the boy. Save him. Save him from the wizard’s grasp. Save him from this destitution—he had seen this frailty before, from starvation and neglect, in the children of his country before he had overthrown their corrupt dictator.

He could not save Gon and Hurut, but he could save this child. He would be his child now, and grow up happy and strong, as Gon and Hurut should have.

Firm in his resolve, he uncoupled his half-cape. He gingerly picked up the broken child and wrapped him in it, before halting, and on second thought, grabbed and tucked the stuffed tiger under the child’s limp arms.

He quickly flew out of those cursed tunnels of darkness.

Nobody would ever be allowed to hurt this child again. He would not make the same mistake twice. Fate had offered him a third son, and he would not let anyone take this one away.

Chapter Text

- - -

His eyelids felt too heavy. But that was all he could feel—the rest of his body felt like it was floating, yet something weighed him down from the top. He tried to move but nothing responded. What was going on? Staticky, faint voices seemed to float behind him, in and out of reality.

“ -- -  -  until we reach Kahndaq. - -- -”

“-- - -, Mighty Adam.”

Adam?

Adam!

Black Adam!

His mind whirled. Ohmigosh—that’s the last thing he remembered.

Black Adam had been in his hideout!

But where was he now? Who was even talking? Everything was so fuzzy in his mind, and he still couldn’t open his eyes. He tried to concentrate, to move his hands. He didn’t succeed, but his brain finally recognized the fuzz under his right hand, rubbing against his palm; what once was plush fur now matted with grime, dirt, and old tears. At least Tawny was here with him.

The next thing he noticed was that his mouth felt weird. He couldn’t swallow. Why couldn’t he swallow? And why did breathing feel so weird?

Something rumbled, beneath and around him. The world lurched, and he hurt. Why did he hurt?

He tried to move his hand again, energized by Tawny’s warmth. And he moved it!—a little… but not enough.

The voices picked up, but he was too tired to pick out the words. Who knew moving a hand could be so tiring?

Even his thoughts began to spiral. He then felt a peculiar warmth laid on his collarbone, and remembered how Dad used to cup his shoulder before drawing him in for a hug.

It was nice. But there was no hug here. His family was dead.

With that thought, the world dissolved into silent darkness again.

- - -

Teth Adam looked at the child, swaddled in blankets and nearly buried in medical equipment: IVs, bandages, intubation. He looked over at the doctor, who had once served the military dictatorship in Kahndaq under threat of death. Now, he served Teth Adam, his padshāh, rightful ruler of Kahndaq, by choice. And with undying loyalty.

“How is the boy?”

The doctor inhaled and exhaled audibly. “The boy is…currently stable. The initial procedure removed the most life-threatening metal shards, but he needs additional surgery to remove the rest. And these conditions are not…ideal.”

Adam nodded. “I am aware. Keep him sedated until we reach Kahndaq—call ahead and have whatever necessary preparations begun at the palace infirmary.”

They were currently on Adam’s private plane—a ‘gift’ from the former Kahndaqi rulers. He had no need for such an opulent plane—or any at that—but it was necessary in order to transmit his personnel over to the Americas. While he had stalked Fawcett City, he had wasted no time in sending out Kahndaqi emissaries to various North and South American countries. The countries bordering Kahndaq were…volatile, to say the least. A problem he would deal with shortly. Not that he needed allies to deal with troublesome neighbors, but by securing allies through means such as lucrative deals per Kahndaq’s newly revitalized oil fields—well—he could shield Kahndaq from most international outcry should any…necessary force be needed. 

“Of course, Mighty Adam.”

And now, the plane would carry him and this child safely back home.

Cracking open the cockpit door, the co-pilot called back: “Permission to take off, my padshāh?”

“Granted.”

The engines rumbled to life, and the plane lurched as it rolled forward.

Teth Adam walked back to the medical stretcher where the boy laid, worried that the movement could have shifted the medical equipment.

He stared at the boy’s frail features, now pale from blood loss and the exertions of surgery. Immense guilt washed over him, threatening a migraine.

“I am… sorry,” he whispered, inaudibly, needing to say something—anything—to ease his guilt.

You are being foolish, something inside him rebuked, this is your enemy.

Ignoring the voice, whether it be his Wisdom or not, Adam continued to stare at the boy.

No, he is my child now.

The boy’s hand twitched, and lifted itself up as if attempting to paw the air, before dropping back down.

“Doctor!” Adam raised his voice in concealed concern. “I said to keep the boy sedated!”

Flustered, the doctor hurried over, rechecking and adjusting the IV drip.

Not knowing what to do, but unable to stand there doing nothing, Teth Adam tentatively laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, unsure if the boy could even feel it.

Gods, his hand encompassed his shoulder—the boy was tiny.

It felt like the right thing to do. Even if the boy then seemed to flinch.

He reluctantly pulled his hand back, and stalked to the nearest luxury seat as the plane began to take off.

“And make sure his painkillers are adequate.”

He knew the boy was unconscious, and yet, worry gnawed at him: What if the boy rejected him? Could Adam willingly let the boy limp back to the grasp of his uncaring master, the wizard? Back to the streets? Back to the endless wars?

Never.

- - -

The next time Billy woke up, he felt different. Though he still could not open his eyes, his mind felt clearer. This time he could actually think, and know what he was thinking. He could feel the feeling return to his body; it felt like a weighed blanket had been thrown over him, but its weight was slowly lightening. He could almost feel movement in the room around him, and a sort of awareness that he had been ‘awake’ for a while, but his brain had only just woken up. He knew he needed to get up and move, but he didn’t want to. Everything still hurt. Even his throat hurt, but at least it didn’t feel weird anymore. And he was warm and sleepy. And—

Did I just doze off again?

Ok, round two. Time to get those eyes open. You have things to do.

Man, he was thirsty. Really thirsty. He could feel his lips were chapped; he tried to wet them with his tongue and—

There was something over his mouth!

He panicked, and his throat spasmed, trying to swallow but unable to from the dryness. The effort fluttered his eyes open.

His vision was blurred, his cognitive recognition slowed, and the room was pretty dark, but he took in the sights of the room. He was in some sort of bed with plastic guardrails lining the edges, his body half propped up. It looked like some sort of hospital room. There was a door to his center-left, a chair to his right, and a very large window on the wall to his right covered with thick wooden shades, blocking out most of the light.

Ok, got it, I’m in a hospital. Good news, that meant no Black Adam. Bad news, he would be stuck right back in the foster system. Unless he got out, right now.

He tried to push his arms back in order to prop his upper body higher up onto the incline. But both his wrists were velcroed to the hospital bed!

Crap! I guess my runaway reputation finally caught up to me.

He tried to pull on his wrists, but all that elicited was a groan as a sharper pain shot through his body.

Drat. He really was hurt, wasn’t he. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he escaped from the actual foster home, at least. Once he got better, he’d get the heck out of dodge.

His thoughts of escape were interrupted from movement to the shadows on his left, from a portion of the room largely obscured from the bed’s guardrails. He tried to blink the blurriness out of his eyes, as a figure emerged from the darkness, walked around his bed to the other side of the room, and adjusted the blinds. Light streamed through the window, stinging Billy’s eyes but helping him focus them better on the figure who now approached his bedside, looming over him.

And brown eyes met blue once more.

()()()

The child made a sound, breaking Teth Adam’s thoughtful reverie. He was waking at last. The past week had been busy for the both of them; the boy had needed several surgeries, and had seemed to be recovering nicely, before a secondary infection had threatened his life once more. Adam had stood there, helpless to save the child, as his best doctors worked furiously to keep him alive; the boy had been so starved, deprived, and weak that it had nearly done him in. He had wished he could stay every moment by the child’s bedside, but he had a kingdom to run—something his Wisdom never failed to keep reminding him of. In the past week, Adam also had taken time to tie a few things up—he had assigned some of his best Kahndaqi security personnel to investigate the mysterious child: his origin, history, name—he hoped to hear results soon—and also, at the insistence of his Wisdom, he had the necessary device invented and built by a Kahndaqi inventor.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

Adam stood up and adjusted the blinds, letting in some much-needed light. He approached the bed, looking the child over. Squinting blue eyes returned his gaze, but then widened in fear.

“Boy,” he began, but the child started to writhe in fear, shaking the bed as he fought against the wrist restraints, half-shrieking in pain or fear as he kicked his blankets off, unable to form coherent words due to the gag and throat hoarseness from intubation.

“Boy!” He attempted once more, but the boy merely continued to struggle.

Gods, the child was going to hurt himself.

“Child! Listen to me”, Adam spoke, voice slightly louder. “You have nothing to fear, I will not harm you.”

The boy still did not seem to listen. Desperate, Adam placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. At the firm but light pressure, the child seemed to slow his struggle in confusion. “Please do not struggle, you will hurt yourself.”

The child’s gaze met his again momentarily.

In his face he saw a shadow of Gon and Hurut. The boy’s eyes were glistening with tears, as theirs had many a time—but their tears had always been about some childish thing, or some bruise or scraped knee. Never were they tinged with this fear, accompanied by this hurt. Hurt that he himself had done.

He hated himself.

“Listen, child. If you will calm down, and listen, I shall remove the restraints.”

Regaining part of his composure, the boy glared at him.

“I swear so”, Adam added.

The boy finally nodded, but his muscles remained tensed up.

“I know this must be confusing. I attacked you before, and for that I am sorry. I did not know you were but a child.”

Adam continued, reaching for the first wrist restraint. “I have brought you here, to my home country of Kahndaq, to escape the wizard’s corrupting influence and web of deceit. You should not be his tool.” He un-velcroed it, and the boy made no move other than to stretch his newly-freed wrist, continuing to stare him down.

“Here, you shall be as my own son. You will never have to answer to the wizard again. No more of his wars, no more starvation, no more neglect.” He unwrapped the other wrist, and the boy rubbed it with his free hand, his glare morphing into more of a frown of confusion—or derision.

“Do you understand what I am saying?”

The boy nodded again.

The moment of truth. He prayed to the gods for favor.

“I will remove your gag. Do not call down the magic.”

The boy sat there, frozen and tense, as he untied the fabric around his mouth.

A beat passed. A second. Adam took a step backwards, leaned to return to his seat, when—

“SHA-ackhk –” The boy’s attempt failed as his word transformed into a racking cough, which was then muffled as Adam covered his mouth to prevent another attempt.

By the gods, even with the Speed of Horus the boy had almost gotten the word out—he might have succeeded, if not for the irritation of his throat from the previous intubation.

He stared the boy down, part cross at the boy’s disobedience, and part saddened at what he had to do next.

()()()

Billy knew he was dead. He shouldn’t have tried it, but he had to take any chance at escape.

And now he was so dead.

Black Adam seemed SO BIG as Billy; his hand seemed nearly as big as his face, and he knew how easily the man could just squeeze and it would be, well, bye-bye Billy. He tried not to hyperventilate as he breathed precious air in and out of his nose, hoping the man wouldn’t cover that too and suffocate him to death. He couldn’t run, couldn’t squirm out of his grip, and could barely hope to move, so, yeah. He was so dead.

He felt Black Adam’s other hand on his shoulder, pulling his upper body away from the bed. Was the guy going to throw him out the window or something? He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see himself get hurt. It was almost worse when he could see it coming.

But, instead, the hand covering his mouth left—and before he could even think of trying to say anything, he heard a click and felt something cold and heavy around his neck. The hand on his shoulder firmly pushed him back down on the bed’s incline, and the other hand did not return to his mouth.

He opened his eyes in surprise.

Black Adam stood there. And was that a disappointed look on his face?

He tried to look down at his neck. Duh. Can’t see that. Carefully, more fearful of the hulking brute who could snap him in half like a twig standing right there, he felt his neck with his hands.

It felt like… a collar?

No! His mind screamed.

“No!” he tried to gasp.

But all that came out was a garble of gibberish. It felt like his voice was stuck in his throat, that it would not, could not cooperate to make the words. All that he felt in his throat was a weird buzz.

He tried “Shazam!”

“Shklhfff” came out instead.

The deep voice broke through his inner terrors.

“The collar sends electrical impulses to disrupt your vocal chord muscles. Do not worry, it will not hurt you.” He sighed. “I am sorry it came to this. Perhaps, when we trust each other a little more, things can be different.”

Billy wanted to yell, scream, but all that came out was a hoarse gargle.

Black Adam stood. “I will get you some water, it will help soothe your throat.” He walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Billy tugged at the collar like a wild animal, eyes welling with tears and nearly hyperventilating as all his efforts accomplished nothing, with the metal band remaining snug against his neck.

He wanted to curl in on himself, to protect himself from the nightmare, but the IV stuck in his arm flared with pain went he bent it too much, and the rest of his body screamed from unknown wounds.

He couldn’t do this. Not again.

- - -

Justice League Watchtower – yesterday:

“Dude.”

“What?”

“Dude!”

“What?”

The Flash poked Green Lantern in the shoulder, hard. “Five minutes before team meeting, and… Look who’s missing from the room.” He paused for only a millisecond before blurting out the reveal: “Captain Marvel!”

Hal looked around the room. Yep, Supes, Diana, and J’onn were there, and Batman never bothered to enter the room until the minute the meeting started since, well, he was the one usually running the whole thing. But no Captain Marvel in sight!

“Ok, that is weird. That guy’s never late.”

“I know!” Flash agreed. “I think he’s always the first one here.”

“Hmmm…” Hal racked his brain for possibilities. “I bet he’s stuck at the North Pole!”

“Why would Cap be stuck at the North Pole?”

“Barry, pal, remember what I told you last meeting? The guy’s gotta be related to Santa or something. Red costume, way too cheerful, you know—I bet he’s helping his old man out up at the North Pole! At the Christmas bash, the guy totally got offended when the Question started ranting about how Santa was just an invention of the fossil-fuel industry!”

Flash rolled his eyes. “Hal. C’mon. It’s way more likely that he’s busy with family stuff.” Flash paused before finishing excitedly. “Or… maybe he got pulled into a magic hat or something and is stuck in a crazy world with magical fluffy pink bunnies! He definitely deals with crazy magic stuff all the time!”

“Nahhh. 20 bucks says he’s at the North Pole.”

“You’re on. How about— ah, ahem.”

The two guilty conspirators quieted down after catching Superman’s disapproving glare from across the table.

“It’s not nice to gossip about teammates.” Flash opened his mouth to interject but Superman beat him to it again. “Or bet on them.”

Wonder Woman gracefully took her seat as Batman entered the room to start the meeting. “I must admit, it is strange for the Captain to not show up to a meeting.”

Superman didn’t reply. But he did agree that it was strange. And as Batman’s gaze ran over Marvel’s empty seat, Superman heard him give a nearly imperceptible, disapproving hum.

Welp, here comes Bruce’s next obsessive project.

- - -

After the meeting had concluded, and the other members had dispersed, Batman consulted the League computers.

Nobody had seen Marvel in at least a week. Nobody had heard from him. Marvel hadn’t replied to any League communications or sent any messages. From any other person, it might not be the most out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. But people have patterns. And those patterns don’t randomly break without a reason.

Marvel was consistent in his duties. Almost fearful of letting others down. Always wanting to help. The check-in message he had sent Marvel still hadn’t been answered. No matter. The real test was tonight at 11pm—in just a few hours, it would be Marvel’s shift at monitor duty—something Marvel not only never missed, he never even attempted to have another Leaguer pick up for him.

So he waited.

11pm came and went.

At 11:30pm, someone opened the doors to the computer room and flew in. It was Clark of course—Marvel always knocked.

Clark sighed as Bruce turned around. “A no-show, huh?”

“You’re up late.”

Clark ran his fingers through his hair. “Ok, I was curious about Marvel.” He tossed a newspaper to Bruce. “I did a little digging, and the last official sighting of Cap was of him fighting some guy one week ago. And according to eyewitnesses, the guy apparently had a very similar costume to Marvel’s.”

No new information there—he had already pulled up videos of the fight from adjacent security cameras and bystander recordings from the internet, but he indulged Clark and his old-school sensibilities.

Clark continued. “Which I’m sure you already knew. But from my personal experience, it’s never a good thing when some villain shows up sporting a similar costume—clones, evil universe doppelgangers—I’ve got to admit it’s got me a bit worried. Any word of a sighting since then?”

Batman shook his head. “Marvel stayed to mop up the mess, but nobody’s seen him since. I’m currently running a search to see if these systems can pick up a sighting from other security systems in the area.” He entered a command on the computer keyboard and a video popped onto the screen. “Amateur video from a bystander picked this up. Our mysterious villain here made quite a tactical retreat.”

Clark huffed, then hmmed in acknowledgement. “Most belligerent villains don’t know to retreat when the going is good.” He stared at the screen as the clip replayed. “That car throw almost looked… deliberately gentle.”

“Gentle.”

“Well, gentle for getting your car thrown into the sky by a crazy-strong supervillain, at least.”

Batman brought up another video. “What I find more interesting, is the fact that Marvel threw the first punch.”

“Ok, that is a bit out of character. But we all can get angry.”

Batman stopped the video. “Exactly. He knew how to push Marvel’s buttons. Chances are, they know each other. That, coupled with the costume resemblance, strengthens that possibility, and points to a more personal connection—such as a familial relationship.”

Clark could hear the unsaid words. “Bruce, I don’t want you digging any deeper than necessary. I told you already to not try to uncover the Captain’s secret identity. Once he’s ready, he’ll share that information on his own.”

Batman stood, eyeing Clark. “We don’t know anything more about him than when he first joined. And he’s been with us for nearly a year. It’s a liability to not know who our teammates are.”

“I trust him.”

“You’re too trusting.”

“Look. You can look into his disappearance. But don’t go digging into a man’s life for no reason. Just be considerate, please. I trusted and shared my own identity with you in my own time.”

“I would have figured it out. And you looked through my cowl!”

“Ouch, okay, okay. I said I was sorry for that. But seriously, maybe we should give it a few more days before making a fuss—he could be dealing with some weird magic problem like—”

“Don’t say fluffy pink bunnies.”

“No! No, I definitely wasn’t going to say that.” Clark hesitated. “Magic is awful and weird, who knows?”

“My point exactly. We don’t know enough about Marvel, or even what he deals with as a ‘magical’ superhero. Where he came from, what his motivations are, what—”

“Bruce, you know just as well as I do that Marvel is completely trustworthy—you just don’t like that you don’t know everything about him.”

“Hmm.”

Clark walked towards the door. “If you think this is serious enough, and we don’t hear from Marvel soon, then we should bring this up with the other League members. Maybe call up Zatanna, or some of the League reserves who are magic-users, see if they know anything.”

He had already contacted them. Nothing.

“Well, I should be going now. Say hi to the boys and Alfred for me. Goodnight!”

Superman flew out of the computer lab towards the Zeta-tubes, leaving Batman lost in thought.

He could activate the emergency beacon in Marvel’s Justice League communicator. Though, he understood all too well how important one’s privacy and secret identity were. But… no, he shouldn’t second guess himself. The pattern had been broken. There had to be a reason.

He pinged the communicator’s GPS, and checked the recently cached GPS data.

And raced to the Zeta-tube transporter himself. Why would Marvel’s communicator be in the Fawcett subway tunnels—for the past week? 

- - -

Chapter Text

- - -

He remembered which number it was. #11. The eleventh foster family he had been placed in.

Every foster family either tossed him back after getting bored with him, or only kept him until realizing his troublesome behavior wasn’t worth the checks.

And after #10 ended in disaster, he hadn’t had much hope for the eleventh. Why was he such a bad kid? He was eight-and-a-half—he knew he should know better, like they all told him. Why couldn’t he just be good, like they wanted?

Maybe Mary was in a nice foster family. He couldn’t imagine her being a ‘bad kid’.

He tried to convince the caseworkers that she was alive, that she was somewhere out there, but they never listened. They never went looking. And when he tried to look for her, he was just being a ‘bad kid’ again.

He really tried to get along with the foster families, and not run away. He really did.

After all, each disappointing or straight up awful one he was placed in, meant she wasn’t with that particular family. It meant that no other foster kid was in that place.

But sometimes, it was all too much—and he would run. He never got too far, or got away for good—after all, he was just running ‘out’, and not ‘away’. Each time, he knew it was so selfish and wrong. He shouldn’t be disappointing his foster parents. He should be grateful. And in the really bad foster homes, the one good thing in his power to do was to make sure no other foster kid lived there—but he would fail at even that.

He had resolved after #10 gave him up, that he would finally make sure to be good for #11. To do everything right. But it all felt too wrong being there, so Billy had wanted out. Needed to get out.

So he did get out. But stupidly got caught at a soup kitchen—he had been cold and hungry, unsure of how to survive, and hadn’t realized they were on the lookout for runaway kids. He would avoid those next time.

But he didn’t get a next time. His foster parents hadn’t been so keen on their extra source of revenue running away—no Billy, no monthly checks for nasty stuff like the drinks and pills they liked so much.

So they stuck him in a dog collar—and it shocked him when he took steps too far from ‘his’ area. He felt really bad for the actual dogs stuck in collars like this. But if he was in this one, then this particular one couldn’t hurt any dogs. So that was a bright side at least. He really liked dogs.

He knew his foster parents had some control over his collar, but he didn’t know why they did it. Sometimes the shocks seemed random. Sometimes it came at times where he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t broken any of the ‘house rules’, but it still shocked him. Sometimes when he was sleeping.

It hurt worse when he wasn’t expecting it, so he tried to keep on guard.

Stayed up at night, bracing himself for any shocks. Pulling on the collar, wanting to take it off. But he already knew what would happen if he did. Didn’t want them to hurt him with their fists and kicks and slaps again. Didn’t want to be yelled at. For now, the collar kept them happy. So he kept it on. It was just so tiring to keep running, to keep trying to do what he wanted, to keep resisting. After all, wasn’t the system supposed to protect him? That’s what all the caseworkers said. Wasn’t he supposed to listen to his foster parents? Make them happy? Maybe if he was better at making them happy, they would keep him around longer.

Curled up on his thin bed mattress, fingers latched around the collar on his neck, he felt an insistent warmth at his side.

Tawny.

Tawny had been a gift from his parents—their last gift before leaving—and…and…

As he hugged the tiger close to his chest, holding in the warmth of the memories, he thought about his own life. His own parents.

Parents were supposed to love and protect. To keep safe and hug and kiss away any flus, say funny things and read stories and make yummy meals and teach things and be there no matter what you did wrong. That’s what his parents did, until they couldn’t anymore.

Until they died.

All the foster families he had been in. All the foster parents he had tried to please. ‘Parents’, they were called. A realization came over him.

Even if he was a ‘bad kid’, like he heard in the words of the adults around him, parents should act like… like parents . Like mothers and fathers.

But they didn’t. And that was…wrong.

Tawny almost seemed to warm in his arms in agreement.

It wasn’t right for Billy to be treated like this. It wasn’t good.

“Do good, and good will follow”, his parents whispered in his dreams.

But was staying in this house, letting this collar squeeze around his neck, really the “good” that they had wanted? The good that they had dreamed Billy would do someday?

It was good to obey parents.

But these people weren’t parents.

But… maybe it was still good for him to be here. So that no other foster kid would be here instead. That sounded good, right?

Tawny seemed less warm to the idea. He hugged the tiger tighter, trying to think of what to do.

Maybe…

Maybe he should run, for good this time. –FOR GOOD THIS TIME!

He could do good outside of this place. Help people somehow. Look for Mary. Help other kids, other people. And do good to anyone and everyone he ever met—like his parents did. The sort of good he could do out there, instead of “being good” by hiding away here.

Just “be good” seemed selfish. But “do good” would be action. It would help people. It would be worth it.

He would leave, Billy resolved. Tawny seemed in agreement, and Billy smiled into the comforting warm fur.

It took a few minutes of struggling, and imagining Tawny cheering him on, but he undid the collar. Tossed it to the other side of the room. Grabbed what little stuff he had that was his. Didn’t want to start this whole thing off by stealing, after all.

He snuck by his not-parents, passed out on the couch. Figured out the locks and ran for freedom.

The night air felt light, but full of opportunities.

“All right Tawny,” Billy smiled, “let’s go do good.”

They disappeared into the night as a world-weary wizard watched from his cave with interest.

- - -

He opened his eyes.

He must have fallen back asleep. His blankets were back, tucked around him. A Styrofoam cup with a straw, placed on the bedside table now within arms-reach. His heart frantically beat as he scanned the room—no Black Adam, thank goodness. But—there was still—his fingers scrabbled to his neck and the room around him seemed to lose its realness as he tried not to fall back into his memories and—

A warmness pulsed by his feet but it couldn’t break through the crumbling dam of emotions and shadows and—

“Billy!”

There was a voice—right there at the foot of his bed—who?

He refocused his eyes.

“Hullo Billy, old pal!”

Billy rubbed his eyes, dumbfounded.

At the foot of his bed, sat a tiger. A tiger in a striped, green tweed coat, matching hat, red tie and formal slacks, nonchalantly leaning on the side of the end of Billy’s bed.

A talking tiger—Holey Moley!

The tiger grinned. “What, dontcha remember your old pal Tawny?”

Tawny! Tawny was alive. (He knew it!)

Billy grinned and tried to lean towards the tiger for a hug but Tawny beat him to it, gripping the boy in a side hug before gently pushing him to lay back down.

“Whoa, there, better be careful not to hurt yourself.”

“What happened? Have you always been alive?”, Billy tried to gush, but only a garble of sounds came out. He whined in sadness before a bout of coughing overtook him, spurred from the scratchiness of his throat.

Tawny grabbed the cup of water and offered it to Billy, who gratefully began to sip it. He didn’t think it was poisoned. Tawny wouldn’t let that happen to him.

“I’m not really sure what happened. I’m still Tawny, but…now I can do this! Pretty cool, right?” The tiger did a cartwheel, suit and all, in the middle of the room as Billy gazed in awe.

You can hear me?

“Of course I can, Billy—you are my human, after all.”

Billy didn’t doubt it for a second—magic was a funny thing.

As Tawny prattled on, hypothesizing as to why he was now sentient and, well, really alive, he pulled out a bamboo cane from somewhere and began to smoothly tap-dance around the hospital room.

Grinning, Tawny looked to Billy for approval. “Always wanted to do this!”

Inordinately thrilled by the sight of a sophisticated tiger tapdancing, Billy couldn’t help letting out some giggles, and his hands reflexively moved to cover his mouth but then he somehow brushed against the cool metal of the collar and the room spun out of reality again and—

Tawny stopped cavorting around the room, realizing the change falling over Billy’s face.

“Billy, I’m here. Don’t let the fear control you.”

Billy stared at nothingness.

Tawny took his large paws and placed them over Billy’s hands.

Soft, warm fur on his skin.

A warm voice rumbled. “You’ve done it before, Billy. You can do it again.”

But I can’t take it off. It won’t come off this time.

“Let the fear go, Billy. You’re strong enough to do this. And I’m here to help.”

Soft, warm fur on his skin. Reminding him of past smiles - “Take care of Mr. Tawny for us, Billy” – Always by his side – “Let’s go do good” – Keeping him in the moment if the past was too much – the only friend he had – and now he’s alive! and---

Billy blinked. Tawny?

 The tiger smiled, meeting Billy’s eyes, and held out a paw for a fist bump. A paw bump? “Nice job, chum!”

Billy sheepishly returned the fist/paw bump. Sorry about that. You know.

Tawny nodded. He knew. He had been there. But now… he could do more to help.

He returned to his nonchalant pose, leaning on the side of the bed.

“Well, pal, looks like we’re in quite the pickle.”

You said it, Billy huffed.

“Yeah, I said it. Since you can’t. Which, I think, is the first thing we need to figure out.”

It’s sturdy. Won’t come off. Can’t feel any clip or anything I can tear or break. I think we should make a run for it, then try to find something to break it off.

“Hate to break it to you Billy-boy, but despite being on the mend, you’re in no condition to outsprint a flying whats-it.”

A flying whats-it? Billy inquired, amused.

“The big flying guy. In black. Not sure what his deal is. But I don’t think he’ll just let you walk out of here.”

Right, Black Adam. Well, Billy pondered, I don’t really know what his deal is either. He did almost kill me, but he also patched me up, mostly. He gestured to the collar. And if he didn’t want me to call down the magic, he could’ve just done me in already instead of resorting to this thing.

“True, that”, Tawny interjected. “He doesn’t seem like a Billy-murderer, or a Tawny-murderer, at least. He did get me a bath!”

Uh, What? Billy was going to have to ask about that later. Anyway. I know he has beef with the wizard, and I guess that includes me, but I don’t understand his weird comments; he made it sound like he wants me to be his kid? Billy threw up his hands in frustration. Like, what is even that??? But you’re right. I can’t outrun the guy. But if I could just get this stupid collar off, I could turn into Marvel and fly the heck out of here. Maybe after punching Black Adam for being a jerk.

Tawny purred. “Ah, violence. But, I propose a plan in the meantime. You will rest and get better, so you can run for more than a few steps without keeling over. I shall search for a way to get that thing off, which you can help in once you can, you know—” he gestured to the IV still attached to Billy’s arm “—actually get out of bed.”

Yeah, If he doesn’t just lock me up first.

“I believe we are already locked up, in the palace at least.”

Billy leaned forward and eyed the window, trying to peer between the blind slots to see if they were too high to escape through there. As if on cue, his chest ached. Right. So no climbing down a blanket rope (he’d always wanted to try that)—not yet, at least.

The collar had to go. Billy looked expectantly at Tawny. Well, can you go find me a… I don’t know, a hammer or something?

Tawny winced, picturing what that tool might do against the metal collar snug against Billy’s neck. “Maybe that wouldn’t be the best choice. But! Tact before claw. I—” Tawny adjusted his hat “—am going to go do what tigers do best!”

Billy fully sat up, pulling his legs close into a half-crisscross position, hiding evidence that the sudden movement caused his chest to ache again from reaching his face.  What, he chortled, are we going to jump out the window? He’d also always wanted to try the blanket-parachute trick—he’d seen it before in movies and it looked absolutely epic.

“No, no. I am going to do something sneakier than that.” Tawny bounded over to the door and creaked it open as Billy picked up on the word emphasis and scowled. “Besides, I’m a tiger, so if we jumped, I would bounce, but you would splat.” He winked at Billy. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.” He closed the door behind him, leaving Billy alone in the room.  

Immediately bored, and not wanting to space out and get all introspective again, Billy shook the water cup in his hands, now empty except for the ice jingling and shuffling in a pleasant distraction. Well, score one for Black Adam—that had been some pretty good water. And he could’ve poisoned it, but didn’t.  

Right?

- - -

When Black Adam had returned with water for the boy, he had already fallen back asleep—and Adam had no desire to wake him and be the cause of further fits from fear. Receiving notification that his intelligence forces had information on the boy was a welcome development and a distraction he eagerly seized upon. He retired to a private room connected to his sleeping quarters. There, he had an array of high-end technology, computers, and monitors which cycled through Kahndaqi intelligence reports and surveillance, international reports, and databases of potential allies and threats, including a catalog of all known powered beings who operated on earth. Stalking over to the main grouping of monitors, Adam tapped several commands and pulled up the intelligence sent by his agents still stationed in America. He was now fairly used to navigating the incredible technology—he found his Wisdom helped him adapt quickly to this strange new world he had woken into—and once realizing the prevalence of advanced technology in this time, he had made sure Kahndaqi security had access to the best available in the name of protecting his people.

But now, he would use it to find out more about this child.

He pulled up the data, spread out across multiple monitors. A photo of the child, from several years ago at least, from the Fawcett City foster program database. A list of his previous foster homes, dates, and notes—and, what he was primarily looking for: his name.

William Joseph Batson.

A strong name, a good name. But he wanted to learn more. How had this child found himself under the wizard’s thumb? If his own experience was any indication, the wizard liked to pick his tools from those broken, discarded, or kept down by society. He scrolled through the notes from the files—all of which were incredibly vague and apparently disinterested in any sort of detail about who the boy actually was, what he was like. But he did find some interesting adjacent details.

The boy’s parents had died, when he was six. He had been tossed to-and-fro eleven foster homes until age eight-and-a-half—at which time he completely disappeared from the system. A runaway.

Why had he run? Why live on the uncaring streets? Was the wizard to blame? But according to his records, ‘Captain Marvel’ had not shown up until over 6 months later. He scoured the notes again, hoping to find more details.

A faint, cheery whistle sounded from somewhere behind him—he had left the doors to the rooms open, fearing nothing, and the sound echoed throughout the stone halls of the palace, bouncing off the walls and concealing its origin. Confused, Adam stalked out of the computer lab and his room and into the hallway, which was lined by large potted plants, but no one was in sight. A strange occurrence, but perhaps just a servant on his rounds.

He returned to his quarters and resumed reading, but not more than a few seconds had gone by before he heard a voice from the same, unknown origin.

“You should be ashamed. Kidnapping a kid and putting a collar on him. Awful stuff, chap.”

The voice was a cross between a whisper and a thought, almost similar to how Zehuti would dispense Wisdom, but Zehuti quickly informed him that he was not the source of the voice.

Rising from his chair, and entering his main room—empty—Adam chose to respond, hoping to pinpoint the voice. “Who are you? What is your purpose here?”

The voice was quiet a moment before responding. “Well, sonny, I’m your conscience, y’know! And as your conscience, I’m telling you to stop hurting the kid.”

Adam, frustrated as the voice echoed indeterminately, shot back. “I am not hurting him, I am helping him!” He stalked into the hallway, and again—empty.

This time the voice almost growled. “You’re no better than the last people—always controlling, and- and hurting Billy—”

Billy? “Billy?” Adam queried, interrupting the voice. It took a second for him to put the pieces together. The boy—William—perhaps also went by the name Billy? He walked back into his room, scanning every corner. “Who are you?”

“Hey-o, you know. ‘Always let your conscience be your guide!’ and all that—and you better get your act together, or—yipe!”

The voice cut off. Seconds later, a cleaning servant walked by the doorway: in one hand, a dusting rag. In the other, a familiar object—the boy’s stuffed tiger. Catching sight of Adam’s stare, the servant stopped in his tracks and bowed low, addressing his ruler in Kahndaqi. “My padshāh!”

Adam gestured to the stuffed animal, responding in kind with the native language. “Where did you get that?” A few days ago, while the boy had still been unconscious, Adam had finally noticed how bedraggled and filthy the toy actually was. Not wanting to throw it out, having seen how the boy had clutched to it even as he was unaware of the world around him, he had ordered it to be washed and put back in the boy’s room once cleaned. Had it never been returned? Surely the servant had not stolen it.

A little confused, and greatly nervous, the servant responded: “My padshāh, I was dusting the hallway plant basins, and I saw this tucked behind the one there—” the man gestured behind him “—so I retrieved it, intent on bringing it to the esteemed head housekeeper as I was not sure where it properly belonged. My deepest apologies if I was not meant to do this.”

Adam didn’t need Zehuti to tell him the man was telling the truth, he could see it in his eyes. “It was no trespass. Here, I will take the toy. You may continue on.” The servant handed it over, bowed, and scurried away. Adam studied the stuffed tiger in his hands, lost in thought.

How had the toy gotten here? It had been cleaned, as ordered. Perhaps, it had fallen out of the clean washing as it was being carried down the hallway. Perhaps one of the palace staff’s children had grabbed it at some point, and abandoned it in play.

It was not a pressing issue. What concerned Adam at this point, was that he had no idea where that voice had come from.

It did not seem to want to harm him, at most, only warn him. In fact, it had almost seemed concerned for the boy. William, he had to remind himself. Or was it Billy, if the voice indeed possessed some greater knowledge? There was a familiar feeling, almost on the tip of his tongue, which spoke to the culprit of the voice being tied to magic. The feeling almost still seemed to permeate the room. There could be many an explanation: with magic, there could be a million possible causes; a messenger from the dead, from a powerful living mage, roaming mischievous or malevolent entities; it could even be merely a byproduct of Kahndaq itself: the country was known for many a strange sighting or experience, having thousands of years of magic buried deep within its sands. This mysterious voice should be investigated, especially should it reappear. But something else pricked within his mind also. Something the voice had said.

“You’re no better than the last people… always controlling… hurting Billy…”

Spirits, if this was indeed one, could have otherworldly knowledge about people they were tied to. Glimpses into their past. Could that statement be an insight into William’s past? Some secret, past history, found in no notes? He wanted to know more.

But first, to return this wayward tiger.

- - -

Billy was waiting for Tawny to return (and definitely did not doze off again) when the room exploded into a flurry of action.

Some guy came in (and he just looked like a doctor) and did a lot of hemming and hawing and poking and prodding, asking him to nod if it hurt here or there—and half of Billy wanted to yell at the guy to stop even if the words would’ve come out in complete gibberish, and the other half was waiting for the guy to actually tell him something useful, because, y’know, if he was actively dying or something he wanted to know.

Billy didn’t think he was, he actually was feeling pretty okay except for the achy chest and the feeling like he’d been laying here forever—but you never know. It’s not like he’d been to the doctor’s since… well, probably before his parents died. He was never with a foster family long enough for them to actually start thinking about long-term things, like setting up a doctor’s appointment. He shook himself out of the memories before he got sucked in. The doctor guy went around and removed the bandages from Billy’s chest to ‘air out’ the stitches (he caught a glimpse of some gnarly scars!) but the doctor seemed satisfied with however Billy was healing because he removed the stupid IV (finally!) and stuck a band-aid where it had been. Billy silently lamented the fact that it was just a boring brown band-aid.

And then Black Adam walked into the room and Billy definitely did not get spooked despite preparing himself for the inevitability of his reappearance. He had to stop doing that—as Cap, he’d faced down monsters and demons and all sorts of bad guys before. He might not have the courage of Achilles, but he should still have the courage of Billy. In the past, no concerned caseworker had ever swooped in to help him out when he was stuck with a horrible foster family, and there obviously was no one coming to help Billy here. He had to get out on his own. He had done it before, and he’d do it again.

Adam spoke to the doctor in some foreign tongue and Billy really wished he still had Cap’s language interpretation abilities because he hated not knowing what was going on around him. As they talked, something caught his eye—something was tucked under Adam’s arm, nearly hidden from sight.

Tawny!

You great big lummox, you got CAUGHT, didn’t you! Billy huffed in exasperation. Very ‘sneaky’, yeah, right.

Tawny didn’t respond, the coward. Once they got a moment alone, Billy was going to chew him out for not just finding a blasted hammer and sneaking it back to the room. He knew he should have tried climbing out the window while he had the chance.

Finishing his discussion with the doctor and dismissing him, Black Adam turned his attention to Billy, who froze for a breath before settling on a decided glare.

“Here. Your tiger seems to be a wanderer.” Billy snatched Tawny back, with special attention on maintaining his glare, when Adam proffered it to him. “My physician says you are healing well, but has recommended regular exercise to prevent further complications. One of the palace servants will accompany you on a short walk, once you have had something to eat. Are you hungry?”

Billy was indeed hungry. But the fact that this guy was asking him a question, when he literally could not talk because of him, made Billy do his best to make his frown even frown-ier, gesturing emphatically at the collar in derision.

“Ah, that won’t be a problem.” Black Adam seemed almost aloof to Billy making a scene, which almost made Billy blush from shame from acting out—no, no, maintain the glare!

As if on cue, a young maidservant entered the room, bowed, and set down a tray of food and a glass of water on the bedside table before handing something else off to Adam and leaving the room.

Adam pushed the bedside table so it hung over the hospital bed within reach of Billy and handed something towards him.

It was a small handheld chalkboard, about eight inches in length, and a small cloth bag of chalk.

Seriously?

Billy placed the chalkboard on the bed next to him, half incredulous that this guy expected him to communicate through a chalkboard. Like, come on dude!

Ignoring the delicious smells coming from the array of food which he refused to look at, Billy crossed his arms, hoping his glare was still intact as he stared Black Adam down. The food was probably loaded with some sort of mind-control chemicals or something evil. He’d heard all the stories from the other Leaguers, plus he himself had once dealt with a planet full of weird mind-control worms—caterpillars?—aliens? And Dr. Sivana had once tried to brainwash the city into not liking Chocos anymore (the dude hated Chocos for some reason, which baffled Billy). Bad guys always loved dabbling with mind-control stuff. And I am not playing your games, dude.

Black Adam met his eyes, his face still neutral. “The food is not poisoned, William.”

Billy couldn’t help it. He did a double-take and the glare probably dropped clean off his face in the process. Darn it. Why did he know that name? How??

From the gleam in Adam’s eyes, Billy knew his reaction had been noted and his battle plans were in disarray. The only thing he could do was grab the chalkboard and furious scribble out a sentence in the hopes of turning back the tide: [Not my name!]

He settled back, trying to reestablish the glare. It was technically true, he didn’t go by William—the name felt stiff and formal and too reminiscent of cold, official rooms where the name had no more meaning than a number.  

Black Adam seemed unfazed. “Hmm. So you do go by Billy, then. Very well.”

Billy’s jaw dropped. His mind screamed confusion at the familiar name coming from the lips of this, this—this bad guy! WHAT. THE. HECK.

TAWNY, I SWEAR IF YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS, I WILL SELL YOU TO A ZOO!!!

- - -

The boy—Billy, he reminded himself—seemed utterly shocked and disturbed that Adam knew his name.

Perhaps that had been an oversight; names were powerful and personal. Perhaps he should have asked the boy directly and tried to have a conversation.

Well, a ‘conversation’ as well as one can have when one person has to use a chalkboard.

Billy seemed to have recovered from the shock and resumed his glare. It almost amused Adam—it reminded him when Gon or Hurut would have a childish spat from some slight and attempt to pout their way to victory. The unbidden memory then saddened him, and he tried to banish the image from his mind—usually, because of the gods’ blessings, he had more control over his mind and could prevent these emotional lapses, but it seemed that his mental dam for his now-ancient memories became weak in the presence of this boy.

The boy who continued to glare at him and made no move to touch the food in front of him despite the growling of a hungry stomach that Adam could hear from here.

Billy was far too thin. He needed to eat. And Adam had already overstepped his boundaries with the boy by springing the whole name debacle, so his presence wasn’t helping matters, nor would it encourage the boy to eat, he decided. He inclined his head in acknowledgement of the child.

“I shall be going for now. Once you have eaten, I shall send someone to escort you around the palace for a walk before nightfall.”

He left the room under fire from a continuous barrage of glares, reminding himself that patience would be necessary. And perhaps a reevaluation of his tactics.

- - -

Once he was finally alone in the room again, Billy set Tawny at the foot of the bed and continued to maintain the glare.

What is your deal?? You were supposed to help me escape, not tell the literal supervillain my NAME!

Tawny appeared back in full size and rubbed the fur at the back of his neck with a guilty grimace. “I didn’t mean to tell him. It just kinda slipped out.”

‘Slipped out?’ Why were you even talking to him? Billy’s initial anger slipped into worry. Does he know about you? What if he decides to, I don’t know, lock you up and put you on display as a talking tiger circus act?

“No, no! He doesn’t know about me, per se. He thought his conscience was talking to him, I made sure of it.”

Billy’s jaw dropped again.

“You should really eat some of that food before it gets cold, it looks pretty good.”

It did look pretty good—a big bowl of some sort of soup, some soft, warm bread with butter, and some fruit—and Billy decided he could simultaneously eat and yell at Tawny (if the food really was mind-control contaminated it would all be Tawny’s fault anyway).

Hold on. Please tell me you did not try to go all Jiminy Cricket on this guy!

Tawny decidedly ignored Billy, electing to stare at the far wall, as Billy went to town on both slurping the soup and berating him.

Tawny! No, come ON! You can’t just try to do that. You weren’t even knighted by a Blue Fairy or anything. You gotta be licensed and stuff—there are rules to this sort of thing. Billy snorted in half-derision, half-acceptance of the fact of this new reality. Ok, new plan. I come up with the escape plans from now on. We’re not going to get out of here by having Adam grow a conscience.

Tawny harrumphed, arms crossed. “I still thought it was a good idea.”

Billy sighed. He wasn’t actually angry at Tawny, just disappointed that they hadn’t been able to make a quick escape. I know you tried your best, Tawny, so thanks.

Tawny gave a toothy smile in return, then brightened up as he remembered something. “Oh! Another thing. Black Adam has a bunch of computer thingies in his room. Maybe we could contact the Justice League?”

Billy almost choked on a piece of fruit. Ah, no. We’re not contacting the Justice League. I can’t compromise my identity any further. Also, I literally have no idea how I could contact them without my Justice League communicator. It’s not like I have Batman’s email or something.

Tawny duffed his hat. “Rats!”

Billy shrugged his shoulders as he finished up the last bits of food. He couldn’t let these initial setbacks discourage him—they would just have to get a little more creative, he guessed. He would have to really be on guard for opportunities, this wasn’t like escaping a one-story house in suburbia.

He’d barely put the licked-clean spoon back into the now-empty bowl when the door opened and someone entered. It was a short, older woman in a simple, dark brown cotton dress with white embroidery; the colors contrasting against her light brown skin and dark but graying hair. She had a sort of half-apron tied around her waist with all sorts of deep pockets full of unseen objects. She wasn’t short from being hunched over, but was just really, really short—just a head or two taller than Billy himself. She had a crinkly face which seemed more tough than old, lots of wrinkles where the corners of her lips were pulled into a hint of a smile, and her twinkling eyes seemed to squint at the same angle. The sight reminded him of Carrie, the old woman who hung out in the alley by the betting-parlor who always seemed to lose the blankets Cap or Billy got for her. The sharp pang of worry for those he would look out for back in Fawcett City was interrupted by the old woman’s introduction.

“Hello, little prince”, she spoke, in a hoarse but not unkind voice, thickened by a foreign accent. “I am Nakia, head matron. These are for you to put on, now.” She handed Billy a pile of clothes and a pair of sandals as he barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at the unexpected honorific. That would probably be rude, and she seemed nice enough for now. But why was she calling him a prince? Just a weird cultural thing?

He examined the clothes he had been handed in noticeable disappointment. He was thankful for the chance to get out of this stupid hospital gown, but these weren’t the red sweater and jeans he had owned for so long, but instead appeared to be loose leggings and a tunic. (They weren’t even red, but a dark mahogany). Where were his perfectly fine, comfortably familiar old clothes? He really didn’t want to wear these.

The old woman seemed to read his thoughts, and her wrinkles stretched into a visible smile. “I burned the bad clothes.” She wrinkled her nose. “No good to wear.” As Billy stared in horror, she queried. “My English is O.K., yes?” Billy nodded, secretly crushed. It had taken him forever to earn enough money doing odd jobs to buy those at a garage sale—(he never liked to take free clothes from clothing drives; there were always other people who needed better clothes a whole lot more than him, he knew). And now they were just gone?

He wanted to glare at the sweet, evil old lady but couldn’t bring himself to do it. The elderly woman continued to smile. “Do you need my help?” Billy shook his head, so she went to the door. “I will wait outside the door. You knock if you need anything!” She closed the door behind her, but Tawny stood guard just in case anybody tried to barge in as Billy hopped out of bed with only the slightest of winces and shrugged the clothes on. It was actually pretty easy despite the achiness when he moved; he was suddenly glad at how loose the clothes were compared to his barely-fitting jeans.

Billy grabbed the stupid chalkboard, sticking the chalk bag in his pocket, scooped up Tawny, and opened the door where Nakia was waiting. She gave another crinkly smile and held out her hand like she wanted him to hold it but that was a bridge too far for his liking, so he clutched the chalkboard and Tawny to his chest with both hands, pointedly ignoring the hand. She slightly shrugged which Billy told himself shouldn’t make him feel bad as she began to walk down the hall, pacing herself until Billy would walk alongside her. As they walked, she pointed out some different rooms to which Billy nodded in acknowledgement, though he really wasn’t interested in random empty rooms and servant quarters, he wanted to know where the exits were! Finally, they went down a set of stairs, which Billy couldn’t help admiring as they were made of a dark, finely polished sort of stone. In fact, as they left the sort of ‘hospital wing’, which according to Nakia was a fairly new addition at the order of Black Adam, the style of the palace grew distinctly ancient. (And apparently, Billy picked up on, Black Adam was the sort of ruler of this country? He remembered the guy mentioning his home country of Kahndaq—Billy had no idea where the place actually was—but apparently he was the king or something now. Very weird.) Finally, Nakia led Billy to a set of double-doors that actually looked like some sort of exit, and his heart leaped in anticipation. She opened the doors and—Whoa. He walked through. Around him, was all sorts of greenery; small decorative trees, plants, and flowers which shone in the gleaming sunlight from the now-sunset. He thought he even heard running water. He walked down the stony path in front of him, momentarily distracted from thoughts of escape by the lovely sight, drinking in the sunlight after being inside for what felt like forever. As he scanned his surroundings, he grew a little disappointed. The garden was a large one, but enclosed by all four walls of the palace, as if someone had scooped out the little plot of land from the middle of the building. That Nakia hung back somewhat and let him explore the area further without getting too close, cemented the fact that there was no immediate escape from this area.

Silently sighing, but still encouraged by being surrounded by the natural beauty, he continued down the path. The sound of water falling grew louder. A waterfall? He turned the corner of the path around some larger bushes and saw the origin of the sounds: towards the center of the garden was a large ornamental pond, with a little bubbling fountain in the middle disturbing the water. The edge of the pond was surrounded by a bunch of reeds, tall grasses, and several water lilies dotted the murky water. Looking closer, his sandals squishing in the mud, he could see at least a foot in depth and thought he spotted the gleam of some fish.

As he peered in, standing at the water’s edge, a wild idea suddenly sprang into mind. He looked backwards, where Nakia was just rounding the corner to keep him in sight. His eyes met hers and she must have somehow had some idea of what he was about to do next because her eyes widened and she shrieked something in her own language.

Well, there was nothing for it.

As he jumped forward, still clutching the chalkboard to his chest, he felt Tawny wiggle out of his grip to the ground (what, was he afraid of a little water or something?)

*Ker-Splash*

- - -

As Teth Adam stood on the balcony attached to his room, drinking in the last rays of the sun, he noted movement below him: Nakia taking Billy through the palace garden. A fine choice for a walk; he knew he had made the right choice by having Nakia take charge of the boy. While technically the head matron of the wing of the palace Adam had upgraded as a hospital, she did not have so many duties nowadays and grew increasingly desperate for busy work despite her age. The hospital wing had been established as a place for those without help to turn to for medical attention, but now as his country was enjoying peace and increased prosperity, it was fairly empty these days. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cry from the garden. Refocusing his attention, Adam turned his eyes to Billy just in time to see the boy take a running leap into the fish pond!

By the gods, was the boy trying to drown himself?

In a blur, he flew over to the pond where Nakia was about to wade in—bless the old woman—and hovered over the water for a millisecond. The pond was no more than four feet deep, so either the boy was trying to keep himself underwater, or had succumbed to his injuries and could not stand to his feet. Diving in, careful not to dive onto the boy, he managed to grab underneath Billy’s arms despite the murkiness of the water and fly to the surface. Depositing the spluttering boy onto dry land, Adam landed at the shore himself as a worried Nakia fussed over the crazy boy and his soaking wet clothes.

Concerned, and angry that he didn’t know what had just happened, Adam placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder to turn him around to meet his eyes. Billy flinched a little as he was spun around, but Adam’s immediate concern was for answers, now.

“Were you trying to drown yourself?? Explain yourself, now!”

- - -

After jumping into the water, Billy used his arms to push himself downwards against his natural buoyancy, leaving the stupid chalkboard to drown. He had to be completely underwater for this to have a chance to work.

With one hand, he grabbed at the collar, as he continued to fight the buoyancy with the other.

C’mon, this had to work.

This thing used electronics, right? Electricity? He continued to pull at the collar, bubbles escaping in frustration. He knew electronic parts and water did not mix, so why wasn’t this blasted thing coming off? Was it water-proof?

He pulled at the collar with both hands, desperate, and something—someone—suddenly plucked him from the water as Billy nearly choked on water from the surprise.

Next thing he knew, he was being nearly smothered by Nakia before being whirled around to face—Black Adam!

Strike two for Billy!

“Were you trying to drown yourself?? Explain yourself, now!”

Crap. Can’t let him know I was trying to get the collar off. Maybe the collar did get damaged from the water, but just needs a little more force to get off. If he knew he might replace it.  

He tried to say “Uhh…” to stall for time, but as he heard his own garbled voice, he couldn’t help but smirk. He didn’t have the chalkboard, so he couldn’t answer. He shrugged in an exaggerated motion, reveling in the moment.

Unamused, Black Adam swiped the somehow half-floating chalkboard from the pond and pushed it into Billy’s hands, clearly not going anywhere until Billy gave an answer. Drat it!

Feigning defeat, he shoved the chalkboard under his arm as he pulled the bag of chalk out of his pocket and grabbed a piece. It crumbled into a chalky mud as he tried to write on the board, so Billy made a good show of spreading the noncompliant chalky mess around the board with his fingers in an attempt to write out his short but sweet message as he used up multiple pieces of the soaking chalk. He grinned sarcastically as he proudly thrust the message on the board to Black Adam, which read in large, messy letters:

[Wanted a fish!]

- - -

Holding the wet chalkboard, Adam could only stare at Billy.

What kind of wild gremlin child was this?

Right, he should say something.

“Don’t… do that. The fish aren’t meant for catching.”

He ignored his Wisdom yelling at him for the weak reprimand. He knew he should give a more forceful reply, but he was just so baffled by what the boy had done. Why jump into the pond? He sighed. 

“Nakia, have Billy clean up and call back Doctor Intef to check him over.” The boy frowned a little, probably at the mention of his name, but grabbed his surprisingly still-clean stuffed tiger from the bank of the pond and willingly walked back into the palace with her. Or perhaps it was unwillingly, but Nakia had one of her hands tightly on the boy’s shoulder, as if to steer him away from any future shenanigans. As they walked indoors, Adam saw Billy’s free hand reach up and tug at the collar at his neck, and something clicked.

He had been trying to get the collar off.

He hadn’t wanted to keep the child mute forever. He had hoped he could build enough trust with Billy that he could actually trust the boy enough to remove it without him immediately running back into the clutches of the wizard, but it was clear that said trust could never be built while the collar was in play, nor while the boy was rendered mute. He would have to find a creative solution, it seemed.

- - -

After getting to take a lovely warm shower and receiving some new clothes (this set was also mahogany, and not red, sadly), Billy had to see the doctor again—who looked decidedly annoyed this time. Apparently, it wasn’t a good thing to be jumping into fish ponds with still-healing wounds, and now he had to take some extra medicine to prevent infection. Oops.

But finally, after enduring a third lecture in broken English from Nakia, she had ushered him down an especially-luxurious corridor, all the way down, and stopped at a set of double-doors to the right of the corridor’s dead end. This was what would be his room, apparently. The floor was lushly decorated with a soft white carpet, and several different spotted furs adorned the wood-paneled walls (something he was sure Tawny growled discreetly at). In one corner, there was a sitting table with ornate, cushioned armchairs gathered round it. In the middle-back of the room was a four-post bed with a dark wooden frame, with a thick mattress and piled with all sorts of blankets and pillows—and it definitely was the biggest bed Billy had ever seen! Right beside it, was a small bedside table covered in a long, lacy-white cloth with a lamp on top. He ran over to the side of the bed, relishing the softness of the carpet under his bare feet. By the side of the bed was a new pair of sandals (unless his old ones had been fished out of the pond and cleaned) and thankfully, also a step-stool—because he didn’t think he would’ve been able to climb into the giant bed by himself otherwise. And he wasn’t going to admit it, but he was really tired and felt especially achy. Once he climbed up, he saw something on top of the bed. It was a small whiteboard, with a magnetized dry-erase marker. Nakia supplied a smile and an explanation.

“A little more waterproof, in case you catch fish again.”

Right. Billy suddenly felt guilty. Clearly, Nakia had been put in charge of him, and he had made a whole mess of things under her watch. Was she going to get in trouble? Be punished or something because of him? Uncapping the marker, he wrote out [Sorry for trouble].

Nakia continued to smile, but he sensed it grew a little—he wasn’t sure, sad? “Do not worry, little prince. My little Aken gave more trouble than you.” She turned towards the door behind her. “Now, no trouble. Please sleep.” She left the lamp on the bedside table on but turned the main light off, closing the door behind her with a click. And then there was another click.

Right. It wasn’t so much ‘don’t get into trouble’ as it was ‘you won’t be able to get in trouble because you’re locked in now.’  Still, he hopped down from the bed and tried the door on principle (yep, locked) and examined the room more closely as Tawny provided commentary.

“You really should get some sleep. Fishing is hard work.”

Half-smothered by the heavy fabric curtains he couldn’t fully push aside, Billy tried to open the window. Locked as well. Yeah, I’m sure you’d know, Mr. ‘I’m-scared-of-pond-water’.

Tawny huffed dramatically. “I’m not scared of ponds, I had just had a bath, thank you very much. At least one of us was being sensible, ‘Fish boy’.”

Billy walked out of the adjacent bathroom. It was a nice, clean bathroom, but had no windows or large-enough vents to crawl through. I was being sensible! My plan made sense! Of course Black Adam had to be annoying and make this stupid thing water-proof. How was I supposed to know that?

Disappointed in the lack of escape options, he crawled back onto the bed with a huff of his own. What we need is a hammer, I’m telling you.

Tawny yawned. “Just hush up and get some sleep, ‘Aquaman’.” He curled up within reach of Billy, back into a mere stuffed animal.

Stretching from the edge of the bed, Billy dimmed the lamp’s light to a minimum—the room felt too… empty fully lit, but he didn’t want the room to feel dark, either.

Be quiet yourself, ‘Jiminy’.

- - -

He hadn’t wanted to fall asleep. Just… to rest his eyes a little—and the room had been a little cold, so he had pulled the covers up. But the bed had been so soft and warm, and with a weary body and full stomach, he had fallen asleep within minutes without meaning to, snuggling with his stuffed animal deep under the layers of blankets.

But, as he had naturally tossed and turned in his sleep, something suddenly startled him awake with a flash of fear. His hands flew to his neck—the collar had shifted and was uncomfortably digging into his neck from his sleeping position. Nearly smothered in blankets, he struggled to sit up, eyes blinking rapidly from the blur of sleep. Where was he? This wasn’t home. This wasn’t safe.

The blankets, covering up to his waist, suddenly felt like they were constricting him like a python. He wriggled out, pulling his knees to his chest, feeling the blast of the temperature contrast from the cold room. He didn’t want to be here. He hugged himself closer into a ball, then stiffened as he felt the collar again with the movement. He had been so stupid. Why had he fallen asleep? He could get shocked any second. He should know better. Of course he would be punished.

He pulled at the collar desperately. It wasn’t like before. Before, he chose, he triumphed—he had escaped. But now he couldn’t pull it off, couldn’t escape, couldn’t make that choice—he was stuck, stuck, stuck all over again. He couldn’t do it again. Not again.

The first time the shocks had come, there was no warning. No escape. Once the collar started hurting him, he had tried to pull it off—but they wouldn’t let him. He backed up, tripping and falling backwards, away from their reach. But he couldn’t crawl away from the shocks, they kept following him. But all he could do was keep backing up, looking desperately for relief, arms raised as if to guard against the pain—but he couldn’t block the shocks, and they still hit him anyway. He kept backing up, crying—he wanted to be good, he wanted to be good—but he still needed to learn his lesson, to be punished for being bad, they said.

He pulled and flailed and blocked and crawled but it just kept whirling around him in a wheel of shame and awfulness and pain and all he could do was cry and hope it would end like it once did.

Had it ever ended?

- - -

A muffled crash broke Teth Adam out of his sleep. With the gods’ blessings, ‘sleep’ was more of a reverie or deep meditation than actual unconsciousness. Immediately aware, he reviewed where the sound had come from. The room next door, where he had had Nakia prepare a bedroom for Billy, since he had wanted to stay relatively close to the boy in case of any problems.

He wondered if perhaps the boy was an early riser. But no, it was still very late, so it seemed unlikely. More probable that it was an attempted escape. Silently, he rose and entered the hallway. He didn’t think Billy could escape, but worried that the boy might harm himself in the process by accident. Stopping by the boy’s door, he reached to turn the button lock and—was that—crying?

His wisdom warned him. Was he equipped to handle a child crying from possibly homesickness? Or really, any cause? No. But he had to make sure the child was unharmed.

He opened the door, the faint light from the hallway streaming into the dark bedroom.

Huddled in the corner made by where the bed met the bedside table was a distraught little boy. A corner of a lacy tablecloth was clutched in one of his hands; scattered on the floor by him was the lamp, now deposed and broken. Adam moved toward the boy quickly, fearing injuries. He kneeled on one knee in front of Billy, but the boy did not seem to see him. He was staring past—through—Adam, other hand scrabbling at his collar, almost assuredly scratching himself in the process, whimpering at some unseen enemy.

Gods.

He had seen this before. When he had liberated his country, many of its oppressors had seen fit to abuse the children they held in slavery. Most of the children, as he had swiftly dispatched their oppressors, had cheered and celebrated being set free. But some had been unable to weather the cruelty, and despite being free had continued to drown in reliving the horrible events. Some had seemed fine, before falling back into the awful memories. As padshāh, he had his court devote countless resources to helping these children regain some semblance of closure and comfort. All he had personally been able to do was bring swift justice to those who had hurt them; he had not been suited to be the one to pick up the pieces.

And now, he was seeing a similar thing before him. A child lost in memory. His Wisdom was at a loss as to what to do. He softly called the boy’s name, hoping its familiarity would shake him out of the self-inflicted trance. “Billy, Billy.”

Nothing.

He tentatively reached out to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, but the second his hand touched Billy it seemed to trigger something: the boy squirmed away, kicking against the floor as if he were trying to back away further despite already being sequestered in the corner, letting out a wordless sob as tears streamed down his now-averted face, an arm raised against an unseen foe—still, Adam could tell, not seeing him there, but someone else.

Now what? The boy was completely weeping at this point. Adam was at a loss, as was his Wisdom, but he reached out again, hoping he could at least move the child out of the dangerous minefield of broken glass scattered around him, when—

A noise to his left, movement—blankets rustling—an intruder?

He barely clambered to his feet when a roar sounded as a blur bowled him over to the ground, dazed—what had the strength to--? He raised his head.

Now between him and Billy, teeth bared, eyes flaring, loomed a massive tiger. Its claws dug into the floor, gouging it easily, as a threatening roar escaped its fearsome mouth as it spoke—or rather, thundered.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

- - -

Plunged out of hibernation by a thud and a subsequent crash, Tawny immediately tried to sit up to assess the situation, hoping Billy hadn’t tripped trying to use the stepladder.

But he was stuck under the blankets still.

Struggling, he tried to find his way out as he reached out to Billy through their bond to see if he was alright (and could get these durn blankets off him!). But no response. Just a frantic static, punctuated with blips of fearful pleas—~I’ll be good, I’ll be good, please~—and Tawny’s heart quivered in anger at what he realized Billy was reliving. He needed Tawny now, and here he was, failing his responsibility as a tiger, trapped under some stupid blankets. His rage rose as he clawed at the blankets in desperation, though he paused momentarily at the sound of the door being opened—maybe help had arrived?

But no—Tawny heard the person’s voice—it was Black Adam. Of course there was no help in this place. He renewed the struggle, still thoroughly trapped, not knowing what was happening to his Billy, when he suddenly heard him cry out in pain and Tawny’s whole being raged and he felt something inside him tear and stretch and grow as a pent-up roar exploded from his lungs—and he lunged and suddenly found his claws and strength matched his righteous indignation. In one smooth motion, he burst from the constricting fabric, cutting through it like soft butter, and half-leapt, half-rammed at the form of Black Adam standing to his feet beside the bed, his force throwing the man several yards away onto his back.

Standing on all four legs as his scarily-large claws dug into the floor beneath him felt weirdly unfamiliar, yet right, as he made sure he was positioned between his Billy and the villain. His inner thoughts broke through into a full roar.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

- - -

As the massive tiger yelled at him, Adam finally put it all together. The same mysterious voice, the protectiveness over the boy, the stuffed tiger—the boy had some sort of…animal familiar? If it was truly one, it was unlike one Adam had ever seen or heard of. This time, he cut his Wisdom off from hypothesizing about the animal’s true nature. Clearly, it had some sort of spiritual and magical bond as the boy’s protector and had assumed he had been hurting the boy. He slowly raised himself into a sitting position as the tiger’s hackles lifted in warning, so Adam made no attempt to stand or make any move reminiscent of a potential attack.

“Tiger, I was merely trying to help the boy. I did not attack Billy.”

The oversized animal growled, fur and sinews rippling with tension. “LIAR!”

Adam tried again. “I have seen this before. In the children of my people as I rescued them from a living nightmare.” He gestured to Billy, who had curled in on himself, still not yet fully aware of the events transpiring around him. “Unseeing reality, yet reliving horrors magnified in their own mind. You and this boy have some sort of spiritual connection, so you must know, then—” Adam raised his voice with natural indignation: “WHO. HURT. HIM.”

The tiger stared, unyielding—then bowed his head, as if taking a second to collect itself. Raising his head once more, the tiger spat his next words with a venom of incredulity.

“You want to know? You want to know who hurt Billy?” The tiger slowly began to step forward, gnashing his teeth, as Adam stayed seated, silent, waiting for answers.

“You don’t realize, do you? How much worse you’re making everything. We were fine on our own, until you came along and hurt Billy and slapped a collar on him—just like the last place! Just like every other adult, you say you’re helping Billy, but you’re not, you’re just as bad as the rest of them!”

A silence permeated the room, punctuated only by the panting of an angry tiger a mere three feet away now, as Adam sifted through the revelation. As realization began to dawn, he forced himself to ask for clarification—for confirmation of the dread fact.

“His last foster family…hurt him?...collared him?”

The tiger stood still, bristling with anger, meeting him eye to eye.

“Like an animal. Just. Like. You.”

Adam felt his body chill over, frozen by the depth of the revelations. He stood unsteadily to his feet, shaken in spirit and body. He had hurt this child in more ways he could have even imagined—instead of rescuing him, he had subjected the boy once more to his worst nightmares.

“I…No.”

How could he had done such a thing…and…his mind shifted, focused—and how could they have done such a thing?

As Adam stood, still frozen, unsure what to do now, the tiger before him met his eyes with one last sorrowful glare and bounded over to Billy. Adam did not think he had blinked, but one moment the animal was a massive tiger, and the next, there was a stuffed tiger yet again nestled within Billy’s arms. The boy was still softly whimpering, but as Adam watched, the tiger’s presence seemed to somewhat calm the boy, whose glassy-eyed stare was broken up with a series of blinks.

Now somewhat aware, confused by his surroundings, the boy turned his head and caught sight of Adam, illuminated by the light pouring through the door from the hallway. He stiffened in surprise, and an indecisive Adam was stuck between two options: either make a paltry attempt to comfort the boy, something which would likely just make things worse (and felt horribly out of place given Adam’s abject hypocrisy had just been revealed)—or…

The flurried footsteps of Nakia echoing down the hallway settled his decision. She would be a much more welcome presence, if any. Breaking his eyes away from the boy’s suspicious and surprised gaze, Adam stepped back into the hallway to intercept the worried woman. Using but a few words, he explained the situation: the boy had experienced a nightmare, required comforting—and perhaps something to eat and drink—and there was some broken glass that needed to be cleaned up. He himself had a very pressing engagement to see to. Striding past the old woman, he ignored her unsparing, judgmental stare. He knew she was judging him for leaving at such a moment, without adequate explanation. But he didn’t want to talk. He had long ago relegated himself to the fact that he would never be a ‘comforting’ figure. But he was much better at other things.

Like dealing swift justice to those who had it coming.

- - -

Thankfully, Nakia had been the first of the servants to get to the scene. With her padshāh’s approval, she had secured a temporary room by the beginning of the corridor, and, at the sound of what almost seemed to be a roar, she had flown out of bed as fast as her joints could allow. Stepping into the hallway, she had assessed what she could (unfortunately, without an angle to see into the bedroom): from the noise, some sort of altercation seemed to be transpiring within the little prince’s room—an intruder?—and she almost ran towards the bedroom herself, when she heard Teth-Adam’s voice, and knew he would keep the boy safe if that were the case.

Doing the next best thing, she instead hurried in the opposite direction to head off any other curious servants. One of the head maids had made it there first, almost barreling into Nakia, followed close behind by one of the night guards, and Nakia quickly stationed them at the corridor entrance to prevent anyone from coming any further, assuring the guard that the padshāh had it handled—the last thing needed was for any gossip-seeking servants to get caught up in whatever mess this was.

Of course he would have it handled, they all knew…but…she wanted to make sure the little prince was alright. And if Teth Adam got fussy about her prying into his personal business, well, he shouldn’t have dubbed her as the prince’s caretaker.

Turning back, she rushed down the hallway to the half-ajar double doors, and in turn almost barreled into Adam himself. He quickly explained the situation to her—and then left. She looked after him for a beat as he strode past. That gleam in his eyes, focused in anticipation—she had seen it before, and knew it would not bode well for whoever found themselves on the receiving end. Whatever he had gone to do, whatever justice he sought to extract, she knew his very action as padshāh made it appropriate, necessary. But she still was disappointed in his judgement—there was a time and place for such things, and the responsibility of caring for a child—especially one in need of comfort—should always come first. At that thought, she hurried into the dark room, pushing open both doors to their fullest to let in the most light.

She took in the scene, and her heart softened. Dodging the scattered bits of glass from the broken lamp, she slowly walked over to the child, who was making a hesitant attempt to stand to his feet.

“Are you hurt, my love?” A soft shake, no—eyes downcast on the mess surrounding him. He leaned back down, and Nakia could almost see the thought forming in his mind—he felt he had to clean up the mess.

“No, no. Don’t worry. Not your fault, little prince.” She stepped forward, still keeping her movements slow and unsurprising, but intent on intercepting the child before he accidentally cut himself. “Someone else will clean up.”

The child immediately stopped his motion before straightening his stance, finally looking right at Nakia. His eyes were swollen with tears, his face still red and streaked with evidence of prior crying, his stuffed tiger haphazardly flopped over one arm. Nakia wanted to scoop the child up in her arms and smother him with hugs until he smiled—the poor child was likely underweight enough for her to do so despite her own diminutive stature—but she knew such a trust for that had to be earned for one who had—she now realized—seen too much of the world, such as this one. Such as her Aken.

Settling, she bent down instead, grabbing the child’s forgotten sandals from where they stood out from under the bed, shaking any potential glass off before setting them back down in front of him. She held out her hand. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

The tearful face was stony and betrayed no response, as if it would hurt to feel anything, any emotion, yet his all-too-little hand slipped into hers.

- - -

As she gently guided the silent child to the kitchens, she gave a flurry of whispered orders behind his back: she sent someone to clean the room; someone else to grab the boy’s whiteboard and marker; and gave strict orders for no one else to enter the kitchen unless she allowed it.

Finally in the servant kitchen, she led the boy to take a seat at the servant’s table by one of the stoves and began preparing some hot chocolate. A rich, chocolatey scent soon filled the air, with hints of spices flowing around the kitchen. As she quietly prepared the drink, she kept a hidden attention on the child. He simply sat at the table quietly, running his thumbs over the fur of his stuffed animal, staring at something yet nothing, not responding or reacting to the few simple comments Nakia attempted in the emotive sense, let alone using his board to write out a response. Her mind hummed with worry.

With the hot chocolate finished—a recipe of her own design, honed by years of experience with her children and then grandchildren—she placed a steaming mug in front of him, before taking a seat at the table beside him with a mug of her own.

Relying on experience, she opted to wait for the child to make the first move. Despite the alluring, sweet and spicy scent of hot chocolate before his nose, there was still no break in his stony yet blank facial expressions. Still lost in thought—no good thoughts, no doubt. Minutes passed into over half-an-hour, and Nakia knew she had to reevaluate her strategy. This was not healthy; the child had to be broken out of his depressive catatonia—without breaking what little trust had been previously established. What to do? Her Aken always liked silence during one of his moments, and would take some time to collect himself before engaging with others, but that approach seemed to be failing Nakia in this moment.

She shouldn’t have assumed the same thing would work. Perhaps a different approach? Softly, she tried to ply the child with simple questions, comments—slowly sharing innocent staff gossip and humorous stories, watching the further minutes tick by, hot chocolate now stone cold—still no reactions, no smile, no responses, no engagement.

She had one last idea. It had the potential of backfiring greatly. But…it might just be worth the risk. Slowly getting up from the chair, she walked over to the kitchen exit—where, unsurprisingly, one of the servants was oh-so-dutifully sweeping the outside hallway—one which had undoubtedly been swept dozens of times in the past hour in order to retain the chance of scooping up potential gossip. Nakia inwardly sighed. Unashamed gossips, the whole lot of them. But she called the woman over and shared her new orders. Returning to the kitchen, she waited, and set about whipping up a fresh batch of hot chocolate. It would certainly be needed.

Not more than three minutes later—half the palace staff had been up, anyway—a strange procession began to traipse into the kitchen. Some still rubbing their eyes, some bouncing, wide awake, at the promise of hot chocolate, no less than fifteen children, ages varying from four to fourteen, hopped, skipped, or stumbled into the now-bustling kitchen. Immediately the kids set to work; some hopped into the free chairs, some opted to go under the table, and some began an impromptu game of tag, racing about the room. A few of the more daring souls took the seats by the despondent little boy or stood nearby, most aware of the fact that this was the ‘little prince’ that they had heard so many whispered rumors about lately, with a couple of the more observant staring, unsure at why he seemed so weirdly out of it.

Nakia quickly served the additional portions of hot chocolate and set out some crackers as well, before retreating away, back to the stovetop to guard it from any accidents, as the excited group of babbling children surged around the table full of goodies. She intently watched the results, ready to pull the plug should things go wrong. Laughter filled the room; after all, what a strange and wonderful day it was, to be able to have Nakia’s famed hot chocolate and snacks in the middle of the night, past any reasonable bedtime—it was like a special sleepover but without any sleep!

One little girl, no more than six, had managed to snag one of the chairs at the table and was standing on top of it, next to the little prince’s own chair. Her face framed by dark, open curls and a dimpled smile, she greedily stuffed crackers into her mouth until she seemed to notice something wrong. As all the other children continued to enjoy their hot chocolate and crackers, the little prince had sat there, unmoving, not touching his own hot chocolate, nor having taken any crackers. Standing on her chair, stretching over the table, the little girl grabbed a small handful of crackers and in turn deposited the bunch on the tablecloth directly in front of the prince. Still, no movement.

Tilting her head to the side, the little girl seemed to recognize the redness, bleary eyes, and evidence of tears on the boy’s face; a universal sign requiring no translation. Stretching once more, she grabbed another handful of crackers, and this time, sat clumsily down on her chair, reaching over for the little prince’s hand.

Nakia held her breath.

The little girl grabbed the boy’s right hand, pressing into it a smushed handful of crackers. “Don’t cry, please! Here are some crackers!” She heard the little girl plead in Kahndaqi, a reflection of the boy’s silent sorrow now on her face, as her hands swung his, trying to help his limp hand keep a hold on the crackers.

The boy blinked, and turned his head, confusion now rippling across his face—but he did not pull his hand away. Nakia saw him stare at the girl, meeting her eyes, unsure, before his own eyes shone with a sort of recognition. The little girl patted his hand, smiling, and he returned the smile—a small one, but a smile nonetheless—before looking down at the mess of crackers in his hands. The little girl nodded in encouragement, pushing his hand up and closer, and, taking his other hand, the little prince pushed one of the crackers into his mouth.

The little girl laughed in delight. “More, more!”

Not recognizing the meaning, but the sentiment, he gave a small nod, still showing his hint of a smile to the girl, and continued to eat, now turning his head around and taking stock of his surroundings as if they were brand new. Once he had finished the handful of crackers, he was drawn in by the now unignorable scent of hot chocolate permeating the kitchen atmosphere and reached for his mug, which had been re-filled with fresh hot chocolate minutes before. He took the tiniest sip, before taking another, and another—only stopping for a breath of air.

Taking note of the newly energized prince, one of the boys to his left leaned forward and began to excitedly babble in Kahndaqi, asking if the prince was truly from America as had been rumored, and if there truly were clowns just running around, as he had overheard his parents say. Aware that a question had been directed at him, but not knowing Kahndaqi, the little prince grabbed the whiteboard in front of him, and wrote out: [English?]. Each stared at each other in confusion, realizing the language barrier, before the other boy motioned for the whiteboard, which was obliged. Wiping the word off with his hand, the Kahndaqi boy simply drew out a three-by-three grid. The little prince looked on, confused, before the other boy drew an “X” in one of the boxes. The prince’s eyes glowed with recognition and delight, and in turn took the marker and drew an “O”.

Nakia turned back to the stovetop and couldn’t help but smile. Having the palace staff send down their young children had been a risky move—she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm the child—but it seemed he desperately needed the comfort and feeling of safety that came from being around those his own age, rather than adults. And with children, a language barrier was less of an issue than one might think. Though she would have to talk with Adam about getting the child some Kahndaqi lessons—while some western languages had inevitably trickled through Kahndaq through the years due to the previous influx of mercenaries, weapons dealers, and general opportunity-seekers, not many native Kahndaqis were proficient in English. She refocused her efforts on completing another batch of hot chocolate. Such matters would have to wait for better days, and for now she was content to bask in the presence of happy children, temporarily distracted from the worries of the world.

- - -

As time ticked by, minutes into hours, to the arrival of early morning, some of the palace staff hovered by the kitchen entrance, waiting to pick up their kids, but not wanting to cross the threshold and risk Nakia’s wrath. Once Nakia had stopped the flow of hot chocolate an hour earlier, fearing that the children might get sick from too much sugar, the central hub of activity had moved from the table to a relatively clear corner of the kitchen, where the children were entertaining each other by passing around the whiteboard and sketching out different pictures, giggling at the more humorous attempts.

At the sight of their parents, the kids began to filter out, each waving goodbye to the little prince—and Nakia’s heart warmed when he also waved back. The little girl, who had been leaning against Billy and playing with his stuffed tiger, was the last to leave—and ambushed the boy with a hug before running back to her mother.

Knowing that the ‘sleepover’ was coming to an end with the dawn, Nakia had set about making some scrambled eggs, which she finished and set on the table right as the room grew quiet again. Not wanting the silence to last for fear of a lapse, she beckoned the child over to the table. “Would you like some scrambled eggs?” She took a seat of her own, glad to get off her weary legs.

The little prince nodded, grabbing his whiteboard and marker before he hopped into a chair at the table—the chair he chose, she couldn’t help but notice, being right next to hers. Taking it as a sign she could press further, she spooned out a large helping of eggs and a piece of toast for him before asking a quiet question. “Are you doing okay?”

He nodded, scooping some eggs with his fork into his mouth, before grabbing his whiteboard and writing: [Where did they go?] – she noted the marker was looking a bit worn; she’d have to start carrying around some spares in her apron pockets.

“Your new friends? They have school!” She picked up on the unasked question. “They wanted to stay longer. Would have. But all kids have school, now.” He nodded again, and resumed eating, and she knew the answer had at least comforted him. She ventured a question of her own.

“Do you like school?”

He paused his eating, and she worried she had pressed too far. But he picked up the whiteboard again and wrote: [I don’t know. Not really done school.]

Now what did that mean? She needed more details. “When did you last go to school?”

He seemed hesitant to answer. “It’s okay,” she supplied. He picked up the marker.

[Like 2 years? Didn’t go much as foster kid anyway.]

Displeasure spread across her face involuntarily before she could hide it, and she could tell he noticed.

“Not mad at you,” she clarified, “You should have school too; I will get school for you, soon.”

“If you would like,” she added, to not sound too forceful (but she was definitely going to get this boy some schooling).

The child seemed to weigh her words, before writing out: [Maybe.]

- - -

She let the child finish his eggs in peace as she chopped up some fruit into a bowl—he looked far too pale to have been eating properly. Setting the bowl on the table, she sat back down as silence dwelled. At least this time, the silence was a healthy one, and didn’t feel wrong, so she was content to let it settle. She was mulling over what steps she should take once breakfast was done, when the little prince surprised her by reaching for the whiteboard unprompted.

[Thanks for hot chocolate,] he wrote, before erasing the last two words and adding [friends], then [company]. He looked right at Nakia, giving the same hint of a smile, before replacing the last word one more time: [yummy food].

She smiled in return. “You are very welcome.”

She wasn’t expecting the child to feel the need to continue writing, but didn’t dare interrupt as he labored once more over the whiteboard, writing in small letters: [Thanks. It was like good memories.]

Like good memories…

“What did it remind you of?”

This answer was short. [Family.]

Ah, the chance for insight. Insight from the child’s heart that no report possessed. Insight she could in turn use to help him. Should she press the chance?

“Could you tell me about them?”

A pause, and a downward squint she knew was a last-ditch attempt to hold back tears. Too far, Nakia, she chided herself. She handed the hardly-touched bowl of fruit to the boy.

“Can I tell you about my family instead?” He nodded, grabbing the bowl, grateful for the shift in attention. Skipping over the many sordid details, she recounted a vague tale of her family members—her beautiful mother, and her strong father with a very ticklish beard (she skipped the part where they died tragically amid retaliation raids during the uprisings); how she had borne a bubbly child herself, whose cooking skills outshone her own (a baby who had been initially…unwanted, given the circumstances—but one look at her beautiful baby girl and she had realized she could never blame any previous pain on such an innocent creature). And that child, in turn, once grown, had managed to carve out a lovely family of her own (amid the evils of the land—a miracle in its own right), and given Nakia multiple, lovely grandchildren: Abram, Dina, and the littlest—Aken. She shook her head, reminiscing.

“My Aken, always gave so much trouble. Even when he was little—once, when he was eight, he managed to tie the tails of two rats together—and oh the chaos!” She looked over to the child sitting next to her—who surprisingly, was listening rather intently.

“How old are you now, little prince?” He held out both hands. Ten. He still looked too little for his age, yet his eyes seemed to speak that he was a much older soul.

“Ten! Heavens. My little Aken is little no longer—he is twice that age, now.” She hesitated, feeling moved to share a further glimpse into her life but not wanting to reveal too much heartbreak.

“My Aken is no longer so little, but I am still there for him. He…he has not had a…happy life. Troubles, bad people, hurt him. But he is getting better, now. Every few days, I go to visit. And I make him hot chocolate, and tell him stories to try and make him smile, and somedays, the good days, he will smile and hug me back.” She blinked back the tears, before looking the boy straight in the eyes.

“I tell you this, little prince, because I do not know what troubles you have seen. I don’t presume to know. But if you ever need to share your troubles, or just some hot chocolate, or stories, or even a hug, please know I am here, for anything.”

The little prince looked at her, eyes concentrated with some sort of unreadable emotion.

- - -

The past few hours had been a daze. He knew he had been having a nightmare of sorts, before Tawny brought him out of it, but then everything else had been a blur of movement and lights and voices which he just tried to shut out—and then he had suddenly found himself being patted on the hand, by a little girl he didn’t know yet his mind shouted at the familiarity, at the memories he once had, as he and Mary would play and look out for each other in that way twins do best; her hand in his. And then the next few moments had been yet another blur, but a happy one this time—of playing games, and laughing, and feeling safe in a way he hadn’t felt safe as himself for a while, he realized.

And as the moment had faded, he finally realized who had concerted the effort—keeping to herself, never asserting her presence and authority over him or any of the other kids—Nakia, he remembered. Nakia, he realized—who actually felt safe to be around (a buzz of warmth told him that Tawny seconded the motion).

And the whole time in the kitchen had felt like such a memory, like one he had, or maybe one he should have had more of, that he wanted to talk about his family. He wanted to make the wisps of memory real by telling someone about his mother’s breathy kisses into his rumpled hair, his father’s strong hugs that would shield him from everything else, the warmth of his sister’s hand in his and that she couldn’t be gone, she had to be out there somewhere, he knew it. But then he realized that he couldn’t actually tell anyone anything because he couldn’t talk—and the whiteboard felt so paltry, small, and insufficient to try and describe his family with it, his broken, lovely, family, and the tears had threatened to return and—

And then Nakia hadn’t pressed, hadn’t demanded answers or gotten angry, like the caseworkers would, but moved on. And shared about her own family. And amid the flitting stories and snapshots he could tell that there was something broken in her story too, in what she shared and what she purposefully did not share; the way her hoarse voice graveled further, her eyes glistening with undropped tears—she had been hurt, those she loved had been hurt.

And then she had promised him hot chocolate, stories, and hugs should he need it, want it. And amidst the daze of that past day, Billy didn’t know exactly what he needed, other than to go back home to Fawcett City, and he wasn’t even sure of what he wanted, if maybe there were certain things he should want that he hadn’t yet realized. But looking at the sad but strong old woman, decades of wrinkles worn into her face from both weeping and smiles, he knew he wanted to do something, anything, for her.

So, he half-leapt off his chair towards the woman.

And hugged her.

Because the one thing, the one want, which had been constant in his own heart for quite some time, was wanting to do good. And who said he could stop doing good just because he had been kidnapped to a foreign country?

- - -

The hug had been quick, with barely enough time to reciprocate, but Nakia would cherish the moment for the rest of her life. Her heart was full, because of the empathy of the sweet little prince, but Nakia knew she couldn’t let his outreach distract from the reality that the boy himself was in desperate need of a support system.

When he had pulled away from the hug, a little abashed, he had quickly grabbed his whiteboard and pestered Nakia into letting him help her clean the admittedly messy kitchen space. And it was really no place for a prince to help with the cleaning, but one look at his pleading eyes, blue as the windswept desert skies, and Nakia knew she would have no little trouble saying ‘no’ to them from now on.

Once the kitchen was sparkling once more, and the little prince now yawning near-continuously, Nakia plucked the mop from his sleepy grasp and managed to coax the half-asleep boy back to his bedroom with the promise that she would tell the story of how her Aken had once jumped onto a crocodile’s back for a dare when he was just thirteen.

The glass had been cleaned up, the room looked pristine, and the child was so exhausted from everything—he was still recovering from injuries, after all—that he climbed into the bed with no hesitation. Pulling up one of the available armchairs to the side of the bed—my, these things were comfortable—Nakia spun her story, basking in the comfort of happy memories as the little prince’s eyes finally drooped to a close. Nakia tapered off her story, not wanting to wake the boy, but after a few moments of silence his eyes shot open and his body stiffened, a bit dazed, scanning the room.

“I am here, little prince. Want more stories?”

He nodded, relief etched across his face. He sank back down into the mattress, then a second later turned and grabbed the whiteboard laying beside him, writing on it for a moment before turning the board to Nakia to read.

[Call me Billy please. Not a prince.]

Well, maybe he hadn’t been before, but he was undeniably now a prince per his adoption by Teth Adam. But Nakia knew it would be detrimental to press the point at this time.

She smiled. “Very well, Billy.” He returned a sleepy little smile.

Leaning back into the comfort of the armchair, she continued weaving her stories, noting with pleasure how quickly the boy fell asleep again; a peaceful expression on his face as he was curled up towards her, as if leaning into her words, his constant tiger companion peeking out from beneath the blanket’s edge. Continuing to speak, not wanting to break the spell of sleep prematurely once more, she rummaged through her apron pockets before pulling out some crocheting materials. Perhaps she could crochet a little sweater for his tiger friend. Maybe a red one, she mused.

- - -

Chapter Text

~Previously, Fawcett City~

Batman surveyed the mangled pile of metal in front of him, the scene flickering from the inconsistent, buzzing light from the ceiling fixture above him. He smothered the urge to put the old light out of its misery with a batarang so he could use his night-vision lenses, not wanting to contaminate the crime scene.

The crime scene. If that’s what it was.

He had crept through the bowels of Fawcett City via the subway system tunnels, which had been a hassle in itself—between the maintenance tunnels, past construction avenues, and abandoned tunnels, the underground of Fawcett City was a maze which did not match the schematics he had pulled from the city’s database. Not that Gotham’s official schematics were much better, but he had long ago mapped out all of its tunnels using some drones. He made a note to do the same with other superhero-affiliated cities later on, just in case.

The GPS hadn’t been much help for pinpointing the exact location of the communicator, given the several tons of concrete surrounding him, but he had finally, by process of elimination, found the tunnel in question, which had been blocked off by rocks and seemingly inaccessible—except a door-sized rock had been pushed out of the way. He had lifted two sets of fingerprints off its surface: one, belonging to Captain Marvel, the other, to an unknown. An unknown, who apparently could also lift a rock which likely weighed nearly a ton.

Anything of note scattered amidst the carnage of the twisted metal—which had once clearly been a railcar—had also been quickly catalogued: the JL communicator, a tablecloth, flashlight and dead batteries, water bottles, some stale fast food, and—peculiarly—some little plastic stars. The other objects had seemed to be a utility, and he wasn’t quite sure what purpose cheap plastic shapes could have but he filed that thought away for later. There was also a myriad of prints he was able to dust out, and—

And the dried blood.

Someone had been wounded here. Who? He didn’t have Marvel’s blood type on file—in fact, they had never even seen the man bleed in a fight before. The mysterious assailant? Or—he kept his breathing from betraying his distress, despite the lack of witnesses—the unidentified third party. The third party whose fingerprints—everywhere in the railcar wreckage—were small enough to be that of a child.  

There wasn’t much blood. Just a few long-dried splatters, really—whoever had been wounded either hadn’t been wounded much, or had only been here a short while. But it was concerning nonetheless.

The questions the whole scene raised were even more worrying.

This whole situation was bad, and stunk of something far bigger. There was no doubt now, he needed to find Marvel. And find out who he really is. He had to dig; it was now necessary for everyone’s safety. The evidence was too compelling to act otherwise. And if Clark had a problem with it, well…

Well… wait. He could use this. He liked working alone, but this mystery had a much wider web. And any venture with Superman’s support was de facto officially sanctioned Justice League business. He pulled out his communicator and initiated the call. It connected within seconds.

“Superman, my location. I have information about Marvel.”

He heard a muttered affirmative response, before a rush of background noise. A yawn, and then a voice crackled back--

“You know, Bruce, I almost think you’re trying to get on Lois’ bad side. She swears she’s going to write an expose on Batman if you tear me out of bed like this again. Don’t you ever sleep?”

He didn’t dignify that with a retort—perhaps in part due to his own lack of sleep—and only growled back. “Just get here.”

Superman didn’t press the banter attempt any further. “Is Cap okay?”

“…I don’t know.” 

- - -

Moments later, Superman stood by him as he filled him in on what his investigation had picked up so far. 

“Spot anything I missed? Any more fingerprints?” Batman asked, as Superman hovered around the busted railcar, examining the scene with his enhanced vision.

“No, I don’t see anything you didn’t already find.” Superman landed with a sigh. “And just the three unknown fingerprint types.”

“One of them is Cap’s.”

The sigh deepened. “Do I even want to know how you got Captain Marvel’s fingerprints? I assume you didn’t just ask nicely, right?”

Batman ignored the not-so-subtle gibe. “If anything, this whole situation shows I should have investigated him further.” He pulled out a small tablet which displayed the fingerprints he had scanned. “Marvel was here. So was another person, who we can assume was the assailant, more likely than not the one Marvel fought earlier the day he was last seen. But these fingerprints—" he tapped on the display to pull them up for closer viewing, “—are different, and small enough to likely be that of a child. So now we have even more questions to add to the list: Who took Marvel? Why? How did they beat him? Why was there a child down here, and what connection do they have to Marvel?” Batman paused. “Superman, of all the League members, you’ve probably had the most interactions with Marvel. You vouched for his induction. Has he ever mentioned any family?”

Superman rubbed his hand up and over his face, pushing back his hair. “No, he never mentioned any kid, or made any allusion to a family or anything. Maybe…” he stopped, trying to think of potential scenarios, “…maybe Cap was fighting someone down here, and the kid was just a random bystander caught in the crossfire. Have you checked the hospitals?”

“No kids with mysterious injuries or anything of the like in Fawcett’s hospitals from the last week; the food and the blood point to this all happening a week ago, which lines up with the same day theory. But I don’t think it was just some random kid. Take a closer look at this again.” Batman held up the Justice League communicator.

Superman peered at it for a second, before understanding spread across his face. “Both Cap’s fingerprints and the kids’ are on there!”

“And that points to a deeper connection, one we don’t know about.”

“Maybe one we don’t necessarily need to know about.”

Batman bit back his frustration. “There’s a potentially wounded kid out there, whether it be as a random hostage or relation; Marvel’s missing—and if that blood isn’t the kids’ then we have another problem because Marvel’s up against something that can make him bleed. We need to get all resources on this!”

Superman groaned. “Sorry, sorry, you’re right. Too many late nights playing devil’s advocate for Lois’ stories.” he mumbled, before speaking up. “Has anyone seen Cap?”

“Nothing. Last sighting I could find is a red blur flying into these subway tunnels from a camera outside…and then a dark blur flying in afterwards.” Tapping the tablet, he pulled up the footage. “And within a half hour, what appears to be the same dark blur flying out, sans Marvel.” The footage played back, a dark smudge barely visible given the poor camera quality and concealing darkness of nightfall. Batman had sent the footage into the enhancement program Tim had helped create, but due to the poor quality and darkness of the footage, no additional details could be pulled from it.   

Superman frowned again. “I scanned the tunnels coming in. Marvel’s not down here, nor any kid—no one. Alive or…not. So how’d this guy get both of them out of here?”

A beat. Neither of them wanted to voice the next possibility. It always ended up in disaster. And multiple headaches.

Magic.

He knew he shouldn’t have added a magic user to the team without better contingencies in place.

Superman broke the silence. “We have to bring in the League now that a member’s confirmed missing.”

It was Batman’s turn to sigh. “I’m going to call up Zatanna again.”

- - -

~Present Day~

Well, this was embarrassing.

Billy was almost hoping what had happened last night—or had it been technically this morning?—would turn out to be just a really weird dream. But, nope, the way Nakia kept watching him with both concern and a smile mirrored in her eyes confirmed that yep, he had definitely made a fool of himself.

Rule #3 of being kidnapped: Don’t let the kidnappers catch you being a crybaby. (He supposed that Rule #1 was to not get kidnapped in the first place, and that #2 was to not get moved to a second location. Oops on all fronts). But he wasn’t doing too well on the whole don’t-get-kidnapped-thing because after ‘talking’ with—writing to—Nakia to confirm the date, it apparently was DAY NINE of being kidnapped already.

And he still had no idea how to get out of this mess.

(Admittedly, he had been unconscious for about a week of that, but still). 

On the bright side, at least it had been Nakia to deal with it all. She was really nice, and didn’t try to hurt him at all, and made killer hot chocolate. Which was something he had never really realized he missed from before. The hot chocolate, he meant. From when he still had a family. She also didn’t really seem like she had been in on the whole kidnapping business, so she was cool in his book.

Black Adam on the other hand… Honestly, Billy didn’t think he had been present last night. Everything was kind of fuzzy, and Tawny was being mysteriously untalkative concerning the whole incident, but it made sense. He still didn’t really understand why he had been kidnapped instead of, ya know, ended, but he knew the whole comforting-a-crying-kid was not Black Adam’s thing at all.

The mental picture of that was both hilarious and also made him kind of shudder.

With that thought, he stretched and bumbled his way down the stepladder out of bed. Nakia had left a moment earlier, to go find him some more clothes, apparently. Which he had protested, since his current clothes were more than perfectly fine, but apparently it was ‘wrong’ for him to not have ‘proper clothes’. He had promised not to get into trouble, but…he just wanted to see if the door was locked this time. And maybe do some exploring for a proper exit. At the special insistence of Tawny that he did not want to be left behind in the bed, Billy hopped up in place, stretching to grab Tawny from the edge. The scars on his chest twinged with the movement but otherwise felt fine.

Now armed with Tawny, he pattered over to the door, foregoing the sandals for now. He grasped the handle, pulling down—it gave way—and he pulled it backwards with a small grin of satisfaction. The door swung open.

Not more than twenty feet away, about to enter one of the rooms, towered a man in black. The gold accents in his costume, which usually drew the eye, were eclipsed by a colorful new addition of red. Dark red.

The dried blood crusting on Black Adam’s fists.

- - -

~Earlier~

It hadn’t taken too long to fly back to America. The address, sent to the handheld device he now kept on himself, as well as pictures of the offenders in question, was not hard to find. The target streaming, closer and closer, into his vision; the crash through the roof. But the next minute was blurry.

One punch. Then another. Full of anger, raging. Babbled pleading in the background. Unconscious silence. Two still-beating hearts that didn’t deserve to keep beating. His anger boiled, raged, raged at—

The prodding of his Wisdom finally broke through: Anger at them, or himself? (He was guilty too?)

Should he receive the same condemnation?

The thought broke the dam. And the anger gave way to thought. The records, what about the records? The dates, his mind supplied. These people had hurt the child, before the gods’ blessings. Years before. Yet why…

Why hadn’t Billy returned to enact vengeance?

He had the power, the motive, the opportunity…but had never returned.

(Was this truly his vengeance to deal out?)

He thought back to the child’s apparent horror, even in his other form, against willful killing.

If he truly wanted to get on the child’s good side, his Wisdom supplied, then he should not do this. Should not end their miserable lives.

(But he didn’t need the child to like him. Just to keep him safe.)

A siren sounded in the background. Time was running out. He didn’t want his presence known.

Perhaps it would be best to leave and reassess. Work on the next part of his plan so he could actually have a conversation with the child, and see how, if, Billy wanted to find closure.  

He looked at the blood staining his hands, the floor, their still-breathing bodies.

He wanted to do more. But his Wisdom warned of misstep. So he flew up, away, back home.

It would have to be enough, for now.

He could always come back.

- - -

Cradling the door handle like a lifeline, pressed up against the door, Billy gawked in horror at the blood on Black Adam’s hands.

Holy crap.

He’s just killed someone.

Billy’s pretty sure he just tried to say something to the effect of: “HOLY CRAP WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!?” but all that fell out of his mouth was a garble of syllables.

And then Black Adam made eye contact with him and looked way too intense so he almost stepped backwards but thankfully his indignation outweighed his fear right now.

Because he’s furious. Furious that someone has obviously gotten hurt, maybe even died at this guy’s hands, and he wasn’t there to stop it. Because of said guy.

(Or maybe, because he hadn’t been a good enough hero).

He was so mad that he almost missed what Black Adam said next, his deep voice rumbling with unsaid meaning.

“You don’t have to worry about them anymore. The… foster parents that hurt you. They won’t be hurting anyone else.”

Holy Moley.

“What did you do?!? WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Billy shouted, but all that came out was the same garble, a wall of noise, and the intensity of his voice creating a weird numb tingle in his throat. The realization started to set in.

Oh my gosh. He’d killed them? He’d killed them. How had he even known? About them, about anything they did?

Everything was hazy and he felt Tawny tense up like he wanted to leap out at Adam or something, so he clutched him even tighter to his chest because no one else was going to get hurt because of him.

He couldn’t help it. Hot tears, a mix of anger, sadness, and confusion, burst out of the corners of his eyes. So much for Rule #3.

And he just stood there, unmoving, the freaking murderer—the monster—the, the, the…

“You did not care for these…people, did you?” The emphasis caught on Black Adam's lips, almost spit out, as if he didn’t think they were people. But they were! They were! They were awful people. But still people!

Subconsciously, unwillingly, he had started to shake his head. He didn’t “care” in that he didn’t “love” them. But they were still people, and people had value. People could change, could do better. He was supposed to protect people, remember? He hoped Black Adam hadn’t noticed the head movement, but knew his moment of weakness had been spotted by the gleam in Black Adam’s eyes. Weak, Billy. Too weak. (Nine days in the bad guys’ lair, and he was already falling to the Dark Side?). His face scrunched in anger as he shouted back.

“They were still people! They didn’t have to die!”

The meaning lost, but the sentiment not, a weird expression appeared on Black Adam’s face. One of disappointment, but also almost…relief.

“I didn’t kill them. But they won’t hurt anyone else.” And with that particular revelation, Black Adam entered the adjacent room, closing the door behind him, leaving Billy still clutching at the door in shock, thoughts bounding back and forth across his mind.

He didn’t kill them?

Thank God.

Can I trust him?

What did he do?

He didn’t kill them.

Thank God.

But he did do something.

He hurt them.

A little voice snuck in a dangerous afterthought.

…Good.

With that, he stumbled backwards, letting the door swing closed, gasping in dismay. Letting Tawny fall to the ground, he staggered into the bathroom, shutting the door quickly, and turned on the sink and shower. He needed noise. Noise to drown out the thought. He sat on the bathmat, leaning against the tub, hunched over on himself.

It had been years. Years and years and years. He thought…he thought he had been strong enough, good enough to forgive them, for what they did. It was the right thing to do. But turns out he hadn’t been good enough at all. He hadn’t forgiven. He had just tried to ignore it all. The pain still lurked in his mind.

Was all of this a lesson? He hadn’t been good enough?

He thought about them. What they did. Did he actually wish harm on them? Did he actually find…joy in them being hurt?

No, he didn’t--he wasn’t sure--he didn’t think so. But that doubt, that darkness, that little sporadic voice which craved some form of justice (or was it vengeance?), he could feel its call. How easy it would be to just…change what ‘good’ really meant. To do his own version of ‘good’ rather than THE good.

But then he could see it: Captain Marvel’s red and yellow suit with a new shade of red, blood on his hands, not dried but dripping red, red, red.

No. Nononono. Never!

He clenched his fists and lifted his head. He could never, would never go down that path. When he got Cap back, he would keep doing good. THE good. The good his parents wanted. The good that transcended all his darkest thoughts. He could never let himself become…that other thing. That dark thing.

He focused. He couldn’t let himself, as Cap OR as Billy, become that. Never.

Was it wrong for him to be feeling all of this? But even the best Jedi felt the pull of the Dark Side at some point, right? What would Obi-Wan Kenobi do?

(He thought back to watching the movies with the Flash and Green Lantern, who had insisted on a movie marathon once they’d figured out he’d never seen Star Wars. How light everything felt back then, how easy every choice, every belief, seemed.)

Maybe this was a lesson? He had been tested before. Survived a trial by fire--green fire. The whole world, his teammates--had all once relied on him to not succumb to the darkness hidden in himself, to evil. And he had passed! But not without help. Maybe he had to get better, do better, be better at forgiving and all that other hero stuff, without the help of the gods’ blessings or his teammates—all on his own. 

So maybe this was a test. But he could get back to all of that, that lightness, that ease and comfort in belief. He knew it. He just had to survive Kahndaq. He just had to survive…Tatooine.

He couldn’t help it, he grinned, just a little.

Alright, Billy. Operation, Tatooine: Do supergood even without the ‘super’, don’t fall to the dark side, and… catch the first spaceship out of this dustbowl.

Great. Simple. You can do this. You gotta do this. Quickly. Fawcett just needs to hold on a little longer without Cap.

A knock broke through his inner monologue. Was Nakia back already?

“Nakia’s coming back. You good in there, Billy?”

Oh, right. He had ditched Tawny out there. Oops.

He stretched to his feet and turned the shower and sink off, reaching back to Tawny through their bond.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

- - -

He took a moment to clean up, dealt with some Kahndaqi business, then went back to his personal business.

The business of getting back Billy’s ability to speak, without calling down the magic.

He hadn’t meant to spook the boy earlier. It probably had been quite the sight; seeing him with literal blood on his hands. Playing into every misrepresentation the wizard had drilled into his impressionable head, that he was some sort of murderous monster who killed all in sight.

He was almost glad he hadn’t killed the foster parents. That he hadn’t caught himself in another of the wizard’s twisted webs by accident. That he hadn’t been outplayed.

(Part of his mind told him, what did it matter, really. All he had a duty to do was to keep the boy safe. Billy didn’t have to like him.)

But another part of him admitted a truth: he wanted Billy to…not hate him. Not just to spite the wizard. Before, when he had not known his true identity, he had offered up the chance for a brotherhood, a kinship—one not born of blood but from something more. And then, after the truth had come forward, it was as though Fate itself had offered him another chance, to do for his family (and for himself) what he had failed at before. To keep him safe and well, and out of the wizard’s selfish clutches. By Kahndaqi cultural standards, he had already claimed the boy, and thus Billy was his son, his heir, the prince, sealed and under his absolute protection. But there was no bond, no relationship. No trust, both ways.

He hoped his next order of business would help effectuate the beginning of that trust.

But it could also destroy any chance of that being realized, his Wisdom warned.

No. This was the only way to move forward, even if it meant an initial step backwards.

He hardened his resolve as he stared at the computer screen, which outlined the next part of his plan. A potential ally, a powerful one, discarded by his compatriots, locked up to be ‘treated’. Perhaps unstable, or perhaps too dangerous for their liking. But necessary; the wizard’s hold was simply too strong on one so young and impressionable for conventional solutions.

He downloaded the details to his handheld device and set out for his private airfield, where the aircraft would be waiting.

There weren’t many individuals with telepathic powers, and even fewer he had a chance of procuring services from. He didn’t think a Justice League member like Martian Manhunter—those high and mighty do-gooders—would even consider his proposition for a second, no matter what reward he offered.

But with this Brainwave…well, there was a chance.

And not that Adam would admit it, but he was desperate.

Chapter Text

The glow left Zatanna’s eyes as she lowered her hands onto her crisscrossed legs, wrapping up the meditation with a frown.

“There’s…not much here, Bruce,” she explained, “I can detect some echoes of magic, but nothing that tells me which way this unknown could have transported two people out of here. Most portals leave some sort of…calling card, at least to as the method used, but there’s nothing like that here.”

Batman’s jaw tightened. Two days had passed since Batman had confirmed Captain Marvel’s disappearance from the subway. Two days, without any further sighting of Marvel. Two days of additional investigation—which seemed to be producing no further evidence.

“There’s nothing you can pull from the scene?”

Zatanna’s nose twitched in disappointment. “Nothing concrete, sorry.” Her eyes caught upon something on the ground and she reached forward, picking up a dusty discarded glow star, one of many scattered amidst the debris. “Oh, these are cute,” she murmured, as she rose smoothly to her feet, “used to tape these over my bed as a kid.”

“What I can tell you, though,” she continued, flipping the glow star back to the ground, “is that these echoes of magic? Most of them are older than a week. A lot older at that; at least a year.” She gazed around, seeing yet unseeing. “This whole city has this weird haze around it; some powerful magical presence.”

“Is that abnormal? Fawcett is Marvel’s home, or work area, at least.”  

“Maybe, maybe not. Powerful magic use and users do typically leave a sort of energy residue, which can build up after a while. But to have such a strange magical haze in such an otherwise magically unremarkable place—it’s out of the ordinary. All of the typical magical residue here is muddled, blurred, overshadowed—by something bigger, hidden. As to what that is?—I can’t tell.”

Zatanna’s eyes widened slightly as she cut Batman’s inevitable next question off: “Oop, sorry, I’ve got to go. Another demon uprising in the works. But I’ll see if I can figure out what’s up with the magic here, see if this Marvel copy-cat’s popped up on anyone’s radars—and maybe bring in some friends to work on it.”

“…Hmm.”

Zatanna laughed. “Oh, Bruce, don’t look so glum! If I have to bring Constantine in, I’ll supervise him this time, promise!” Stepping back, her eyes glowed as she motioned her arms. “!emoh em tropeleT” – And then she was gone.

Batman surveyed the empty scene. No evidence, no leads, and nothing but more questions.

Where on earth was Captain Marvel?
- - -

By the time Nakia had come back with his clothes (a dull beige, how disappointing) and brought him down to the kitchens for a very belated meal, it was late afternoon. It wasn’t the most efficient start to the day, let alone the Plan, aka Operation Tatooine, but Tawny assured him that he shouldn’t worry about it too much, given everything that had happened last night and even that morning.

Tawny seemed weirdly on board with the Plan (which at this point was simply: get the collar off and get out of the palace, or vice versa) and still wasn’t talking about what actually happened last night. Which was fine by Billy, he’d rather ignore the whole deal and focus on getting out of this place, but it almost seemed like it was Tawny who was the one shaken from last night’s events, so (1) that was weird, and (2) Billy probably needed to talk to him at some point about it. But first things first.

Billy left his fork on his plate by his half-finished lunch—(or would it be linner at this point?): (‘Beid Bel Basturma’, Nakia had called it. It looked more like strange steak and eggs to Billy, but he wasn’t complaining. It tasted delicious.) He picked up his drawing board and wrote a question as Nakia looked back from the sink where she was finishing up the dishes.

[Can I go outside?]

Nakia’s smile peered out from beneath her wrinkles. “Sure, Billy. I’m sure you would like to explore the garden, not just the pond.”

Tawny snickered silently behind her back as Billy felt his face grow hot. He glared at the tiger in the seat next to him.

Stuff it, Tawny, or I’m throwing you in the pond next.

The snickering continued. They both knew he wouldn’t follow through on the threat.

Anyways, Billy had no intentions of letting himself be relegated to the mere garden today. He tapped the board, shaking his head and getting Nakia’s attention, as he underlined the word ‘outside’ before adding ‘leave here’.

Instead of contemplation, Nakia began to tut, and Billy, seeing the opportunity for a quick escape dwindle, tried to pour every ounce of pleading into his expression. From the way Nakia’s face softened, he thought it might work. But of course, nothing was that easy.

“Oh, Billy,” she explained gently, “I would let you explore, but you are not to leave the palace. The padshāh will be away for a day or so and I am to keep you here for now. When he returns, I am sure he will bring you to see the city.”

Billy blinked in confusion. Padshāh?

“She means Black Adam,” Tawny supplied.

Right. The fancy title.

He poked his food with the fork in thought. There went that plan. If Nakia wasn’t going to let him into the city, then he wouldn’t be able to go find…someone to help him get out of here. He wasn’t really sure what he would even look for in the first place. Could he go to the police? An embassy? Did Kahndaq even have police? Were there even any more English speakers? Did everyone actually like Black Adam—would they even help some kid trying to run away from him? If he ran down the street and started shouting that he was kidnapped, would anyone even notice, let alone care?

Was anyone even looking for him?

Tawny seemed to catch onto the overspill of his inner thoughts.

“Don’t worry, we can keep working on a plan. And I bet the Justice League is looking for you right now—”

Hah, Billy mentally scoffed at Tawny, Even if they were, they wouldn’t know where to even start looking. And I don’t even know if they’d want to look; there’s plenty of better superheroes they could have on their team.  

He cut off Tawny’s unspoken retort. Besides, there’s no way to contact them. I have to do this on my own. We can’t rely on anyone swooping in to save the day.

But he had to try something, today. It was too good of an opportunity that Black Adam would be out of the palace and hopefully far away enough that he could have a head start on an escape attempt. A thought shivered in the background: was he out hurting someone else?

Nope, nope, nope. Not doing these fun thoughts right now. You can volunteer for the blame game AFTER you get your powers back. Focus.

Maybe he could sneak out of the garden?

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Tawny pointed out.

Billy poked stuffed-Tawny in the side. Thank you, Captain Obvious!

Just as Billy was debating on whether to agree to the garden idea just to actually follow through on the whole throw-Tawny-in threat, a young boy rushed into the kitchen, babbling in a foreign tongue. He waved at Billy as he sped by, over to Nakia at the sink, who ruffled his hair and produced a glass of water out of seemingly thin air. The boy gulped down the water, excitedly talking between breaths and sips, eyes bouncing from Nakia to Billy.

Billy felt a little out of place, like he was maybe intruding. Should he leave? Was he allowed to leave? He made a move to push back his chair, when Nakia finally spoke in English, looking at him with a smile.

“Billy, this is Zayd,” the boy smiled and waved again as his name was mentioned, “he and some of the other palace staff children are going to play…ah,” Nakia questioned, “…what is the English phrase? Seeking game? Do you want to play?”

After a moment’s worth of back-and-forth explaining the rules, Billy quickly realized that the proposed game was really just hide-and-seek, which of course he knew how to play (not that he’d played it recently). He probably would have agreed to any game, but fortune seemed to finally be on his side, because this seemed like the perfect chance to explore the palace and get some intel without being stopped. (And, it sounded like fun.)

So he smiled, and nodded, and grabbed Tawny with one hand as he was nearly dragged out of the room by the overexuberant boy to meet with the other children.

- - -

Thirty minutes later:

Tawny fidgeted inside the lower cupboard amidst the uncomfy pots and pans, unsure how they had somehow walked around the whole palace for a new hiding spot yet ended up back in yet another kitchen. Billy was somewhere outside the cupboard, having claimed he needed to ‘grab something real quick’ first. He heard Billy rummaging around in the drawer pulled out over him, a sense of glee leaking through their bond.

“Billy…?” Tawny questioned. Oh, there was definitely a tinge of guilt now, too.

“Lemme see what you have,” Tawny growled, pushing his head out of the cupboard (he couldn’t take his eyes off this kid for a second, could he?)

Uh… Billy stepped back from the countertop, guilt quickly fading to insolence with how obviously he was caught holding the object in his hands. A knife?

“No!” Tawny yelped, leaping fully out of the cupboard he had hidden himself in. “Nuh uh, little buddy, why do you have a knife?” The last words slipped out loud verbally in his panic.

Billy glanced around, before sliding to the floor so he would be fully hidden behind the kitchen counter island. Shush! he ordered, through their bond. Do you want us to get caught?

“Again,” Tawny scolded, “why do you have a knife?”

Oh, this? Billy hefted the knife in his hand as Tawny gulped (that was definitely not a butter knife). Billy half-smirked, incredulity rising on his face (as if Tawny was the problem here, the nerve)—Relax, Tawny, I’m not going to use this on anyone.

(Whew, not like Billy would ever do that, but still, hearing that was a relief)

The boy continued, nonchalant as ever. Just myself. He raised the knife towards his neck.

ACCKCKCK NEVER MIND PANIC--!!!

- - -

Ten minutes later:

After Tawny had tackled him, practically screeching as he stole his knife (seriously, the tiger was wound up way too tight), they’d nearly been found by the seekers, so Billy had had to relocate to a different hiding spot, this time to some room that seemed to be a sort of art gallery, with lots of paintings and even more large (ugly) sculptures which were at least useful to hide behind. And then he’d had to explain what he’d thought was his very obvious plan to get the stupid collar off, but Tawny kept freaking out about the knife for some reason. Sheesh. It wasn’t like he was going to stab someone, he just wanted to see if he could cut the collar off or damage it enough to talk. And despite his very reasonable plan, Tawny still refused to give his knife back! Outrageous, really. It took a couple more minutes of arguing and for that wild look in Tawny’s eye to dissipate before Billy was able to convince him otherwise, and the tiger only relented with the stipulation that they had to use a mirror.

Which now that Billy thought about it, that probably was a good idea. But he wouldn’t admit it, and grumbled about having to find yet another hiding spot—this time, with a mirror, instead.

And now they were holed up in some unlocked guest room, seated in front of a large mirror on top of an even larger bathroom countertop. Why it was necessary for a one-person room to have such a long countertop made no sense to Billy. There were even two sinks! Ridiculous.

He hefted the knife in his hand again, using the mirror as a guide as he moved its sharp point close to the collar.

“Don’t STAB yourself!!” Tawny mentally shrieked, half-hunched over in horror.

I’m not an idiot, Billy pouted. I’m just going to sort of scrape at it. If you’re so worried about sharp things you should’ve found me a hammer, instead.

“Yeah, because blunt force trauma to your throat is much better than being stabbed.”

Billy raised one eyebrow as he moved the edge of the knife right to the collar.

Tawny quaked, paws covering his eyes. (Maybe blunt force trauma wouldn’t have been so bad a risk after all, Tawny belatedly realized).

Whoa! Billy mentally shouted, and Tawny flung his paws away, fearing the worse. “Are you okay??”

Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! Billy amended. But look at this! He brought the knife towards his throat again, and Tawny couldn’t help but flinch. Billy rolled his eyes. Get closer, you big lummox. Look.

Tawny leaned in, squinting in confusion. As Billy brought the knife the collar, its edge almost looked like it was touching the collar. But upon closer inspection, he could see the tiniest bit of space between the knife and the collar, and an invisible disturbance in the air, almost like the shimmer of a heat haze. I can’t push it any further, Billy added, putting down the knife, it’s like there’s an invisible layer of…I don’t know…something there.

Curious, Tawny reached forward with his paw, tentatively extending his claw to the surface of the collar. The moment his claw made contact with the invisible layer, he felt a strange shiver, almost like a hum, streak up his arm. Billy jerked back, having felt the same.

Uhhh… what was that? Billy exclaimed. Wait, try that again.

Tawny brushed his claw against the metal again, this time trying to dig deeper. He still couldn’t contact the metal surface, and the same shiver rattled through his arm.

Billy eyed Tawny. Whoa. I think that’s magic.

Tawny wasn’t all too familiar with magic, despite apparently being magical, but he’d take Billy’s word at it.

Billy continued hypothesizing. I mean, it’s gotta be some sort of magical shielding. But it’s weird. I guess I didn’t really notice before, but it’s the same sort of weird magic hum that I can hear as Cap, just a lot quieter. Which, I’ve never ‘heard’ as Billy before, so that’s kind of cool.

“Well, me clawing it still doesn’t seem to have broken it. Know how to break a magic shield whatsit, then?”

Uhhh…

Despite being the “Champion of Magic”, Billy apparently didn’t know all too much about magic, either. It turns out the wizard hadn’t put Billy through the same magical training that Black Adam apparently received.

This bites, Billy griped. The wizard teaches Black Adam magic, yet sends me off without any spells?

Tawny raised an eyebrow. Billy threw up his hands. It never came up in conversation, alright? Not that the guy ever talks to me much anyway. He basically just said ‘you have all the power you need’ and went back to sleeping on his chair. He glared Tawny’s way. And don’t judge me, you weren’t there. He sighed. An instruction manual for all the magic stuff would’ve been nice, at least, if the bad guys got one. Or a wand or something, I don’t know how this works.

Tawny hummed sympathetically. Well, it was a frustrating result, to say the least—things just got much harder, since the collar’s shield probably had to be magically deactivated before the collar could be removed, which meant somehow getting all the way back home and to the Rock of Eternity through the subway station. Though Tawny was secretly glad the knife idea was definitely out of play. (He made sure to secretly slip it into one of the bathroom drawers, just in case).

Okay, Billy exhaled, re-focusing. So it’s a no-go on getting the collar off first. We’ll just have to get back to Fawcett somehow, and I’m sure the wizard can remove it, no problem. Tawny concurred.

But now what? Billy huffed, his exasperation showing.

“Well,” Tawny paused in mock-concentration, “Seeing as how there’s nothing we can do about the collar in this moment, we could get back to what we’re supposed to be doing, y’know… playing hide-and-seek…?”

Oh. Billy had forgotten about that momentarily. That’s… not a bad idea. Recon and everything, you know. Very important.

“Of course,” Tawny soothed. “Extremely vital.”  

- - -

After heading back to the main area of the palace that the game seemed mostly contained to, their tangential journey undiscovered (wow, hide-and-seek really was a great game for recon), they continued playing rounds for nearly three more hours, dispersing at dinner-time. In those three hours, Billy learned several things:

First, playing games with other kids was way more fun than any of the games he used to make up to amuse himself when alone.

Second, he was apparently pretty good at hide and seek. (Tawny was not).

Third, the palace was big, with multiple floors and even some underground areas.

Fourth, there were guards at every single exit point.  

He apparently had free reign of the palace otherwise; the few roaming guards would let him pass without problem except those standing by doors which seemed to lead outside. He was able to scope out the lay of the land pretty well: there were servant quarters, various kitchens, all sorts of supply and maintenance related areas, too many fancy spaces to count, a creepy hallway in the basement that led to a very empty dungeon (he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing), and a bunch of other areas he didn’t have time to explore since, you know, he still had to hide if he didn’t want to immediately get caught by the seeker. Almost everything was weirdly unlocked, as if nobody was worried about things being stolen, which was a little disconcerting given that even in Fawcett, if you didn’t lock up or hide your belongings, there was always a good chance it’d be gone by the time you came back. He really had been blessed to have that old railcar to sleep in…

Focus, Billy… Right then.

Fifth and finally, the room that seemed to be Black Adam’s had been unlocked; he was truly gone. But apparently he hadn’t gotten the whole supervillain-memo-thing about supervillain-plans, because there was no handy-dandy remote or doodad to turn the collar off anywhere in his room.

Really, Billy, he chided himself, you’ve gotten too soft from dealing with Dr. Sivana’s wacky plans.

The whole computer thing—not that Billy had anyone he could even contact, as he had explained yet again to Tawny—didn’t work out either, since he didn’t know the login password.

(Great spying job, Tawny).

Sitting down to a late dinner with Nakia, Billy mulled over the revised plan:

Ideally, he would wait until the staff were asleep and sneak out of his room in the middle of the night, wait for the changing of the guards at one of the exits, and make his way out of the palace with no one the wiser until morning. Then he could head into the city, lay low for a bit, until he could find a way to get back home. Which was a whole other problem he would think about later.

(He hadn’t been able to stay and watch the guards for long, not wanting to look suspicious, but he assumed they had to change positions at some point during the night…that was a guard thing, right? At least it always worked in the movies.)

If that failed, well. What else was there? It wasn’t like he could fight his way out of the palace, right? He didn’t even want to risk hurting anyone, even if it was a bluff. Plus, he had to admit it, he was a tiny child. And while he was distracted, Tawny had hidden his knife so now he didn’t even have that. Maybe he could find materials to start a fire, and everyone would evacuate the palace? Nope, same problem: people could get hurt.

He stole a glance at Tawny as he finished up his meal (it was a strange but wonderful mix of pasta, rice, and spicy tomato sauce with veggie toppings; “Koshari”, Nakia had called it.)

Tawny could sense his nerves, but was resolute. “We’ll figure it out. We’re getting out of here.”

Yes, we are, Billy agreed.

(Though, he would miss Nakia’s cooking. And regular meals, really.)

- - -

It turns out, the first first order of business was to prevent being locked in for the night once again. Billy had Tawny positioned right inside the door, perfectly placed so as to sneak up and prevent the door from fully locking, should need be.

But when Nakia walked out of his room for the night, she didn’t even try to lock the door, and instead reminded him that her door and the end of the hall would be open and that he should come and wake her up should he need anything at all.  

(Scratch that, he would miss Nakia in general). And it felt a little lousy to play her like this, but he had to get out of here. He hoped she wouldn’t get in too much trouble, maybe he’d check back once he could be Captain Marvel again just to make sure she was okay.

Billy tried to wait a few hours, so that most people would be asleep, before he dared to leave his room—and in the process almost dozed asleep on several occasions, but thankfully Tawny was there to poke him awake. He wasn’t exactly sure how much time had passed, but it felt late enough and he couldn’t bear to wait any longer. Grabbing his sandals (he’d only slip them on once outside, to prevent anyone from hearing his footsteps) and foregoing the whiteboard, he silently slipped out of the room.

The palace was so silent he thought he could hear Nakia breathing as he crept past her open door, desperately praying that she was a heavy sleeper since it felt like his own breaths echoed down the cold hallway as loud as clashing cymbals.

But Billy made his way to the target exit, thankfully without much hassle. The general lack of light apart from moonlight streaming through a few scattered windows and the occasional lamp lent concealing shadows to his cause as he slipped through the hallways unbothered, hugging the walls around corners. He was able to make it down the flight of stairs to ground level without any trouble. He didn’t spot any patrolling guards for a good while, until there was one close call where he had to duck behind one of the numerous large potted plants dotting the wider hallways as a pair of guards were about to cross an intersection; thankfully, though the guards were silent, the lamps they were carrying had given enough light to betray their presence before they rounded the bend. And, doubly fortunate, they were going the opposite way, so Billy was able to slip by and make it to the exit. An exit which seemed, triply fortunate, to be unguarded! Unfortunately, that was where his luck seemed to run out.

Looking down both ends of the hall—no guards in sight—he tentatively snuck over to the doors; an older double set made of a sturdy wood. Could it really be this easy? Dropping his sandals, he grasped one of the large, ornate brass handles and ever-so-slowly—cognizant of all the past times he’d had to sneak out of foster homes that had doors which would loudly click if opened quickly—pushed it down slowly, all the way. Holding his breath, he then pushed, and—and nothing. Locked? He tried pulling instead, and—Yep, locked. He tried the other handle. Nothing either. Moving with the same silent carefulness, he released the handles and drew back. What now? he silently asked Tawny.

“Maybe we could check one of the other exits?” Tawny mentally responded, maintaining the silence.

Billy grimaced. The whole point of choosing this exit, out of all the others, was that it seemed like a back entrance, maybe a service entrance used more by palace staff than in an official capacity. During one of the hide-and-seek rounds, he saw a servant walk through, and from the peek he got outside he’d basically be home free if he could get through. Plus, it had been the only entrance he could confirm that seemed to have cleared space behind it; the rest of the palace was hemmed in by walls, creating a narrow corridor that would absolutely trap him if he had the misfortune of running into an outside patrol; a problem which also unfortunately applied to the idea he had considered of trying to go out a first-floor window. And the other potential exits, at least during the daytime, had had a lot more guards and a much bigger potential for foot traffic—and thus of getting caught.

He looked around for inspiration, eyes finally landing on one of the few sparse windows, a few yards to the left of the doors (this area of the palace seemed older and had much fewer windows, presumably to keep out the heat). Walking over, he gingerly peered outside—or rather, tried to. The arch-shaped window was shuttered—on the outside. Ok, don’t panic Billy, surely that means the shutters can be opened from the inside—so he reached up to unlatch the window—and THAT was locked.

“Well,” Tawny silently drawled, no longer in his stuffed form, “this is quite the pickle.”

Billy fumed as he stood onto the windowsill to get a better look as he fiddled with the locked latch, hoping it would magically come undone despite the small keyhole on the latch and his glaring lack of a key. “You’re kidding me. I’m stuck in some ancient palace run by an ancient villain, and the guy has modern locks on his rear windows!”

Tawny looked thoughtful. “You know, I think there’s a movie called…”

Billy gave up on the window latch, slipping back down to the ground with a mental hiss. This is not the time for random movie trivia, Tawny!

He desperately looked back at the window. It was hard to tell in the near-darkness, but the shutter behind the window seemed flimsy enough. Maybe if they just broke through the window…? They could easily fit through it…

“Someone might hear it break,” Tawny warned.

He was right. But they were running out of time. We’d have a head start…, Billy argued. He was restless, and ready to run. He had moved more today playing hide-and-seek than he had since this whole thing started—and he felt ready, that he had to run, that he COULD run, outrun them all, given the chance. The scars on his chest barely twinged! As he felt the cool night breeze flowing in from the edges of the door, a foretaste of the freedom behind it, he could almost smell it in the air—it was now or never, everything on the line, but it had to be tonight. Once Black Adam got back, there would be no escape.

…We have to risk it, Billy grimaced.

Tawny looked dismayed, but supportive. Billy looked back at the door, before his eyes glistened in recognition.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t be smart about it.

He beckoned Tawny over to the door, pointing up. There was a small peephole on the door, covered by a jointed hatch—at a spot most certainly above Billy’s eyeline. Think you can take a peek outside? Billy asked, looking a little sheepish. Tawny grinned as he straightened his tie in an exaggerated motion. “Hey, what are five-foot friends for?” Billy rolled his eyes with a smirk as the tiger tried to disguise the fact that he himself had to stand on his tiptoes anyway. Billy’s smile faltered, though, as Tawny quickly stooped back down after peeking through the small hole, his own grin gone. “I’m sorry, Billy. Looks like at least half a dozen guards out there, sitting around a campfire. Real close by; if we’d waltzed out that door or window we’d have been caught already.”

Billy tried to breathe, tried to ignore how everything was crashing down around him. Tawny stared at him, his kindly face taking on a certain hardness. “We’ve got to get you out of here, Billy. Maybe I can make a distraction, have them run after me.” Billy shook his head vehemently. No, no. We’re getting out together. And they may need to keep me alive, but who knows what they’d do to you? I can’t risk that. You’re my best friend.

Tawny gave a sad smile, ruffling Billy’s hair with his paw. “And you’re mine, kid.”

They stood there for a few seconds, both desperately trying to come up with another plan. The windows were a no-go, the exits were a no-go, what was left to try…?

Billy rubbed the threatened sleep (or tears?) from his eyes: it was all going wrong, the whole plan was going up in flames—he pushed at the metal collar riding on his skin, suddenly feeling like it was somehow shrinking, stealing not just his freedom but his ability to breathe and—he couldn’t do this—

Tawny placed a paw on his shoulder. “Don’t panic, Billy, we’ll figure it out, remember?”

Billy relaxed, just a little, leaning into the reassuring weight on his shoulder which was all too reminiscent of his late father’s memory. He didn’t know what he would have ever done without Tawny. Tawny had been with him through the hardest moments of his life, and now, he would help him get through this as well. Despite today’s rotten luck, he had to be the luckiest kid in the world to have a friend like Tawny. With that thought, he threw his arms around Tawny for a tactically quick hug. (And if a few tears escaped and stained Tawny’s suit, nobody said a thing).

“Whoa. Not used to hugs at this size, buddy,” Tawny half-heartedly protested in surprise, though he returned the hug with gusto nonetheless.

A hug is always the right size, Billy sniffed in retort.

Tawny smiled with a great, big, tiger-smile. “That it is.”

“Now,” Tawny continued, “got any ideas in that big brain of yours?”

Billy crinkled his nose as he pulled away from the hug. What he wouldn’t give to have the Wisdom of Solomon right now. Alright, Billy, he told himself, rapping his fingers on the side of his head, Think, think, think. The rest of the first-floor windows would also likely be locked and have nearby guards. And they hadn’t even had time to scout out potential escapes from the upstairs windows, which were more numerous, but also likely locked like his room’s window was. Nor did they know if it was even possible to rappel down if they could somehow get the blanket-rope trick to work without being seen or landing right on top of a patrolling guard. And there was no time to figure all of that out before Black Adam came back or some guards stumbled on them or his room was discovered empty.

Once his disappearance was noticed in the morning, the palace and probably the whole city would be on high alert, looking for him. He knew that; that was always part of the risk in trying to get out of the palace first before getting the collar off (but now, they had no choice). That he’d have to somehow lay low in a foreign place, survive, stay out of sight, until the heat of the search wore off. They always stopped looking after a few days, from his experience, and this time would be no different. No one ever really cared about finding him; they only cared about finding what they’d lost: typically, a monthly check from the government. In this case, he suspected, revenge against the wizard. No matter, same result: they always stopped looking, quickly, as they found less troublesome means of securing their goal.

So the first step had been to get out of the palace, then the same rules could apply: dodge the authorities, stay out of sight, go to ground until things calmed down.

But they couldn’t get out of the palace.

Hold on…

They couldn’t get out of the palace…yet.

Some muffled voices shouted out from somewhere in the palace, echoing around the halls and breaking Billy out of his thoughts.

Tawny voiced his concerns. “Billy, I don’t know Kahndaqi, but I’m preeeetty sure they’ve realized you’re missing.”

Billy winced. He’d bet his cape that Nakia had been worried enough to check up on him in the middle of the night. Why’d she have to be so nice?!

Tawny shook himself, speaking hurriedly. “Look, if we go out that window, I think I can fight off the guards if I get mad enough—”

Nuh uh, Billy dissuaded, Please. I’m not having a harmless tiger go up against a bunch of goons with swords and guns. “But…” Tawny tried to protest. The muffled voices in the distance grew louder. End of discussion, c’mon!

He grabbed Tawny’s hand, pulling him along. Tawny obligingly went back to stuffed-mode, thankfully, because despite being a tiger he was very much lacking in the stealth department. And they had to be quick and silent for this to work.

“Uh…what’s the plan, chief?” Tawny asked, as he bounced around in Billy’s grip as they sped down the hall. “Claim we got lost looking for a midnight snack?”

Billy skidded to a stop at an intersection of hallways, trying to remember which way to go. Nope, unless you now want to be locked up in that room for the rest of your life!

Loud footsteps echoed in the distance down one of the branched halls. “They’re coming…!” Tawny caterwauled, as Billy didn’t immediately answer, finally sprinting down one of the halls. Right, this way, on we go!

“But where are we going?”

So, explained Billy, as he breathed heavily as he continued running, you know how the plan was to lay low outside of the palace?

“Yeah…?”

Well, Billy turned another corner, eyes dotting back and forth across the rows of doors lining each sides of the hallway, surveying each door as he ran past. We’re gonna lay low inside of the palace instead!

“What!?”

Yeah, and- Oop!—he backtracked a few yards, having missed the door he was looking for—sorry, everything looks different in the dark. He pulled open the door, quietly closing it behind as he began to gingerly make his way down the near pitch-black stairs in front of him.

Anyway, Billy continued, Remember hide-and-seek earlier? We only had time for a peek, but…he reached the bottom of the staircase, where the path split off left and right.

“I remember. But there’s only that dusty dungeon and storeroom down here, not an exit. How does that help?”

Well, the dungeon’s pretty useless, so, you’re right. Or, well, the dungeon’s right. But we’re going left, Billy exclaimed, as he started down the left hallway. ‘Cause look at this! He stopped in front of an old wooden door and pushed it open, feeling against the wall for the light switch. A small overhead bulb flickered on, bathing the room in a faint yellow-tinged light, reflecting against the old beige (yeck) paint. Across the sizable room were all sorts of boxes and barrels and jars and bags of who-knows-what, piled up on the ground. Lines of dried fruit were strung from the low-hanging ceiling, and a distinctly earthy smell permeated the air.

Tawny was unimpressed. “Yeah, it’s the same storeroom we saw earlier. Not sure how this helps…”

Billy cleared his throat.

“…but I’m all ears.”

Billy threw his arm out for effect. Don’t you understand? Look at this, Tawny! Look at how much food there is! We can stay down here for as long as we need to!

He sighed. Listen, we hide down here, until alllll the guards and security and so on is focused on searching the city. And anyway you know as well as I do that they’ll soon lose interest. Once things cool down, *bam* we’re out of here.

Tawny was still a little skeptical. “I dunno, Billy…I’m sure they’ll search down here eventually, right?”

Billy sighed. This was Plan B, okay? Or maybe C at this point, I don’t know. Point is, it was either go back and likely never be let out of sight again, or take a risk. At least we have a better chance this way than trying to sprint past a platoon of guards! And even if they do come down here to look, it’ll probably take a while, so we have time to find an empty box or something to hide in.

Billy turned and pushed the door closed, and was ecstatic to find a turn deadbolt, which he eagerly flipped. Even better, they might not even try to get in here if they think it’s been locked this whole time.

Tawny relented. “You’re right, you’re right. Nice thinking on the spot, kid.”

Billy smiled. Thanks! Now let’s find a good spot to hide, just in case.

The two started rummaging through the boxes, trying to find a big one empty enough to hide in. Billy opened a box towards the back of the room, frowning at the realization it was full, before perking up at what it contained. Well, he smiled at Tawny, at least we won’t run out of water. He closed the box full of plastic water bottles and moved on to the next. “Billy!” Tawny called through the bond, “Catch!” He tossed something red towards Billy as the boy fumbled to catch it in mid-air, nearly dropping the object. A flashlight? Billy wondered, as he flicked the switch on and off to test if it worked. “We can’t keep the lights on for long,” Tawny explained. “If they come down to search they might realize someone else had been here if the light is on; I don’t think this place is used very often. Looks like an emergency stash of stuff.” He gestured over to one of the boxes he had opened. “There’s a whole box of flashlights, and some flares I think too?”

So fireworks basically. Cool! Billy grinned, before shifting his attention back to the door. It’s been a few minutes, we probably should turn those lights off soon. Find an empty box?

Tawny shook his head. “No. Maybe we can stack some boxes up higher and hide behind those?”

Billy scanned the room, deep in thought, noting how spread out all of the boxes and barrels were. I dunno, he worried. They might notice if we move too much stuff. He spied one of the larger wooden boxes, over by the far left corner of the room. Well, we can hide behind that one; if we sit down they’ll only see us if they walk all the way into the room. Maybe we can figure out something better later, I just want to make sure they’re not coming down here first.

Tawny obligingly went over and shut off the light, the both of them switching on their flashlights as they huddled behind the box. The adrenaline of the sudden flight was starting to wear off, and Billy was feeling a bit tired. And sneezy; there was a lot of dust in the room but he tried to hold it in.

Tawny noticed. “You should be fine sneezing, you know. We’ll be able to hear them if they start walking down the hall.” He rapped his claws on the tile floor to demonstrate.

That made Billy remember something. Ahh, rats. I think I left my sandals by that window.

Tawny eyed his obviously bare feet. “You think?”

Billy rolled his eyes. Okay, OBVIOUSLY I meant that I wasn’t sure as to where I actually left them, but I clearly know for sure that I’m not currently wearing them, and you know that’s what I meant. Tawny snickered. Don’t you dare laugh, you jerk. But Tawny kept snickering, and his snickering was contagious, the big jerk.

- - -

Earlier:

It hadn’t been hard to find. An even easier task, to get in. Concrete walls ripped like paper under his fingers. Adam wondered if his intelligence had been wrong; if this man was truly not as powerful as the reports had insinuated, to be kept captive in a mere mental hospital like this.

He entered the padded room, pushing down the door with ease. A young man with golden-blond hair raised his head up at the sight of him, seated in the corner of the room, dressed in loose clothes but constrained by a straitjacket. A strange device was wrapped around his head, nearly slipping over his eyes.

Ah. Perhaps this place was not so ill-equipped; Adam assumed the device blocked the man’s mental abilities.

Adam strode over, and with one swift motion tore the device off the man’s head, tossing it to the side. To his credit, the man didn’t even flinch, and merely watched him, intently—waiting.

There was no point in mincing words. “I have come with a proposal,” Adam began. “I have use of your abilities, and in return I will help you escape from this place.”

The man, still making eye contact, quirked the edges of his lips ever so slightly. “Why shouldn’t I just make you help me? And leave under my own power?” His eyes glowed red, and Adam could feel a sudden pressure inside of his head, something scrabbling to get in. He tightened his mental shields, which were already honed by years of experience and bolstered by purposeful application of the Wisdom of Zehuti, having fought men and monsters with mental powers even those thousands of years ago—there truly was nothing new under the sun. “Because,” he warned, “you would not be able to break into my mind before I would break your neck. Do not cross me.” The scrabbling pulled back, gone, and the red glow faded from the man’s eyes.

The man’s skin stretched as he smiled. “And the terms of your…proposal?”

“I offer you the chance at a temporary alliance, one that will ensure you great personal gain, if your abilities are as powerful as rumored; and the potential of an allyship of a more permanent nature, one that will secure your permanent freedom from the meddlesome ‘heroes’ that trapped you here, and whatever riches you desire.” 

The blonde’s closed-mouth smile widened. “Go on.”

Adam continued. “There is a boy, my kin,”—he almost said ‘son’ out loud, but the matter still seemed unofficial, the word almost slightly off; he cursed his reluctance to speak the truth, and doubly cursed the wizard’s claim on the boy: perhaps if this worked, if he saw this through, it would all be made right—he resumed his explanation: “who has fallen under the claim of a destructive influence. I have need of your abilities to expunge the presence, the very memory, of this being from his mind, altering nothing else. Can you do this?”

“It is achievable,” the man matter-of-factly replied, smoothly standing to his feet despite the straitjacket. “albeit at the cost of the integrity of the subject’s mind.” 

Adam’s heart faltered momentarily at the thought of damaging Billy in such a cruel way. “No. No damage. That’s unacceptable.” His wisdom reluctantly proposed a counter-offer. “What about a word? Could you remove the memory and knowledge of one word entirely, without permanent damage?”

The man slowly cocked his head. “How interesting. Why one word? What word would you have me remove from a mind?”

“I shall show you the word momentarily. Are your abilities up to the task?”

The man’s eyes glowed red, and his straitjacket ripped itself apart. “I am. You make a peculiar offer, but I accept.” He gestured, flexing his arms. “Lead the way, then.”

- - -

After settling down, Tawny had suggested playing some rock-paper-scissors to pass the time, and Billy obliged a few rounds, but they both soon agreed that it was too distracting to simultaneously play and keep a watchful ear out for any sign of approaching people. Not that an advance warning would do them much good, other than to turn off the flashlights, since they were trapped like fish in a barrel if any searchers actually wanted to get in. But they kept quiet, listening intently for any hint of the squeak of a shoe or the slap of a sandal against the tile floor of the hallway outside.

It was nerve-wracking and almost boring all at the same time. Despite wanting to stay alert, Billy couldn’t help getting distracted; he started to brush some of the dirt on the tile floor into little piles, wondering what made a dust bunny a dust bunny. Did it have to look like a bunny to qualify?

He traced out the little grooves separating each of the square foot tiles that he could reach, feeling the coolness of the concrete or whatever they had used to cement the tiles in place. It was times like this he really wished he had a phone or something; other people who had phones must be so smart since they could just look stuff up whenever they had a question. But all he had here were dust bunnies.

Yeah, he was definitely bored. But it was too nerve-wracking to just sit there with… wracked nerves or whatever that meant.

Mind desperately searching for some sort of stimulus or distraction, Billy subconsciously brought one hand to the collar on his neck, marveling at how he could now pick up the weird hum emanating from it, now that he was thinking about it. He guessed it was sort of like singling out white noise from the background, like the sound of a fan, and then being unable to push it back into the background noise once you were specifically aware of it.

Billy couldn’t help but feel a little bit giddy, thinking about the possibilities if he could truly ‘feel’ magic while still as Billy. And also really curious, because he had no idea how any of this worked. He hoped once they could get back to Fawcett and get everything sorted out back to normal (and Black Adam in jail), that he could get the wizard to explain some more magic stuff to him. Because as cool as the wizard was, he…hadn’t really given him much direction in this whole super-hero-business thing. Which was okay, he’d done well enough on his own, like usual, but now that Black Adam was a problem he probably needed some actual magical knowhow other than the random blurts of information the Wisdom of Solomon sometimes shared.

Which… now that he thought about it…

Billy scooted a few feet away from Tawny, back to the corner of the room.

“What are you doing?” Tawny hissed.

Meditating, Billy retorted, crisscrossing his legs. (Because that’s what magic users did, right? Or was that just Jedi?)

He scrunched his eyes closed, mentally focusing on the hum resonating from the collar, trying to stretch out his senses, to see if he could ‘sense’ Tawny, who, he realized, he’d also have to ask the wizard about, because he clearly was also tied to some kind of unknown magic.

As he concentrated, though his eyes were closed, he could almost sense a warmth waving off from the direction Tawny still sat—yep, there was another sort of hum, too, when he really focused: familiar, soft, golden, warm—he almost opened his eyes then and there, delighted that he hadn’t been imaging it—he really could feel magic!—when he felt something else.

Something cold—sharpened by emptiness—old and coppery, lost, but not wanting to be forgotten.

Something right below him.

Billy scooted off the tile he was sitting on, brushing off the layers of dust with a hand, and shining his flashlight closely to the surface. It was just a tile, plain and simple. But there was something there, almost thrumming.

Tawny, noting his antics, made his way over. “Now what?” he jovially scoffed, “you needed more dust?”

5 out of 10, Billy smirked, could have been funnier. Just—stop fooling around and look at this! He leaned his head down the floor, eyes barely a few inches from the floor, looking at not the tile but the grooves around it. He brushed his finger across it; the concrete surrounding this particular tile was flaky and flecked with gray like soot, in contrast to the paleness to the material across the rest of the floor. He dug into it with his nail, and it strangely crumbled under the pressure like half-frozen dirt.

“Okay, what?” Tawny questioned, picking at the decaying grooves with his own claws.

C’mon, help me dig this out! Billy breathed, excited from the allure of the unknown. What was it? Treasure? Not that treasure would help their current situation, but…it would be awesome!

Tawny joined him, his claws working much better than Billy’s fingernails, and the two of them were able to scrape away the sealant holding the tile to the ground within just a few minutes.

Well, Billy grinned, gripping one side of the tile; Tawny, the other. Moment of truth, I guess.

They hefted the tile up and to the side, sliding it onto its neighboring tile—it was heavier than it looked—and quickly scrambled to grab their flashlights again to examine what they had unearthed.

The weak light revealed…dirt.

“Dirt.” Tawny deadpanned. “Hooray.”

What? Billy was incredulous. I know I felt something, I just know it! He reached forward with the flashlight, using it to brush aside the layers of dirt flaked with the remains of the concrete dust. There’s gotta be something h—

Under about an inch of the coarse dirt, he finally saw it.

There, nestled in the dirt without any reasonable explanation, was a knife. No more than ten inches long, it barely reflected the flashlight’s weak light, its blade made up of a dull gleam of gray that looked more like stone than metal. The handle, if one could call it that, seemed to be merely a crudely-wrapped sliver of leather around the base. It looked like a hand-crafted shiv more than anything. Even the kitchen knife he had earlier looked more…knife-like. More impressive.

On an impulse, trading the flashlight to his other hand, he grabbed its handle. And gasped.

It was cold, way colder than it should have been. And it felt—yep, this had been what he had felt, he felt a little vindicated—almost what he had felt before, except it was laced with a chill up his spine. And, the feeling had shifted a little more than that; it didn’t feel lost anymore. Which, duh, he had found it. But it was still weird that an inanimate object had felt lost in the first place.

Of course, Tawny immediately freaked out and nearly fainted at the sight of him holding another knife. “Drop it!!” Tawny mentally yelped, sliding over to Billy’s side like a desperate baseball player trying to steal home.

Billy didn’t immediately oblige, since straight up dropping a knife seemed pretty stupid. Hey, don’t blame me for this, he complained, placing the knife onto one of the tiles next to them.

“WHY do you have ANOTHER knife??” Tawny pleaded, staring at the object like it was about to come to life and attack them.

Gee, I dunno Tawny, I guess I just can’t keep squirreling them away, you know? Billy’s sarcasm quickly dissipated. Seriously, Tawny. You already know I don’t know why. You wanna stick around and ask Black Adam why there’s a weird knife buried in his basement?

Tawny didn’t immediately answer, his attention turned to the knife in question. Its appearance was unassuming, but there was something unsettling about it, apart from the fact that he didn’t want his human anywhere near sharp, pointy objects. There was a scent in the air which seemed to permeate into his bones, a scent not just of coppery blood—old, yet lingering on—but of something else…

Tawny reached forward to nudge the knife with his paw, brushing against the handle. A shiver rode up his spine, and he recognized the scent and feeling as one and the same, one that he instinctively knew was associated with death. He yanked his paw away.

“That’s… not good.” Tawny whispered.

What? Billy queried, reaching for the handle of the knife, what’s not good?

Tawny grabbed his hand midair, not letting him touch the knife. “That,” he emphasized, “is what’s not good. It’s evil.”

Billy drew his own hand back. Wait, are you serious?

“Dead serious.”

Billy scrunched his eyes closed, trying to feel the knife again. The chill he had felt had faded when he put the knife down, but when he concentrated, he could feel a cold twist in his stomach, and something lurking deeper behind the feeling, as if the cold was a barrier hiding further secrets; but he didn’t want to go any further. He opened his eyes, now also dead serious.

I…think you’re right, Tawny, Billy grimaced, it’s different, from when I’m Cap. If I come across something cursed or dark magic, I just know it’s bad news, without even trying or really understanding it. And I’m not really feeling the same feeling here, but I think it’s… too cold to be anything good. He sighed. I wish I wasn’t absolutely clueless as Billy, sorry, that’s all I can tell.  

“You’re doing great, Billy, don’t worry about it,” Tawny assured.

They both stared at the unassuming knife.

Now what? Billy mused.

“Now,” Tawny was emphatic. “We don’t touch it, and we forget about it.” He started nudging the knife with his flashlight, pushing it back towards its previous resting place in the dirt.

Billy didn’t quite see the logic. Well hold on, I touched it, and you touched it, and we’re not dead or anything so I don’t think it’s going to start doing anything. And there’s NO WAY am I leaving a probably-evil knife in Black Adam’s basement.

Tawny scoffed. “Yeah, it’s not ideal, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about than leaving a magic knife in his basement. Such as getting you out of said basement.”

Well, duh, Billy rolled his eyes. But when we get out of here, I’m taking the knife with me. I really should put it in the wizard’s vault for safekeeping, pretty sure keeping magical artifacts out of bad guys’ hands is somewhere in the job description for ‘Champion of Magic’.

“Fine!” This time Tawny rolled his eyes too. “But let me find something to wrap the thing in, ‘kay? I don’t want you touching the nasty thing again.”

Fiiiine, Billy groaned, and Tawny was about think up some retort or reference which would definitely rank a 10 out of 10 on the funny scale, when they both heard the worst thing possible.

Voices, getting closer.

Tawny could feel their bond flare with rising panic as they both fumbled to switch off the flashlights, huddling behind the box. They could hear the rumble of the foreign language, the voices distant enough that they probably had just exited the stairs down the hall. Tawny kept a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he mentally soothed, “maybe they won’t come down this hallway—”

No cigar. Billy stiffened as the voices got closer, now loud and babbling, the harsh syllables of the foreign language clanging like alarm bells, urging them to run to safety—but there was nowhere to run. He could hear the hurried clacks of shoes as they rushed closer. Tawny peeked over the box. A ray of light suddenly shone from the crack under the door’s seal, then it was overshadowed as someone stepped in front of the light source, right in front of the door. The doorknob rattled as the lock held. Billy clamped his hands over his nose and mouth, trying to quiet his heavy breathing.

Move on, just move on, please, Tawny willed, mentally begging the searchers to just keep going and not investigate any further. Just go away—!

The rattling stopped. A foreign voice barked out a flurry of words, clearly directed to someone else. A clatter of receding footsteps. He felt Billy sit up, a hint of hope ghosting through their bond. Misplaced hope, Tawny faintly realized, an ache growing in his heart.

Are they gone? Billy asked, trying to straighten up to look towards the door. Tawny silently cursed the Kahndaqi’s thoroughness.

“No. See the light? They left someone at the door.” He slid down next to Billy again. “I think they sent someone to get a key. I’m sorry, Billy, I think the jig is up.”

Tawny felt a blanket of fear stifle their bond, a breathless sort of hopelessness that he hadn’t felt Billy feel in a long time, more reminiscent of the past unbearable situations he’d had to deal with back in his foster days, before the hope and escape of Captain Marvel had banished that sort of dread. Tawny gripped both of Billy’s shoulders, fearing a slip back into the memories of that time, trying to keep him in the moment. “Courage, Billy. We’ll get another chance, or make another plan; we will get out of here. And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Billy ignored his touch, bringing his hands up to grip his hair. You don’t understand, Tawny. They’ll lock us up. There won’t be another chance. I—I can’t do this. He slumped down. Before, you remember—before, I always had the chance to escape. It was just a matter of getting up the courage to do it, and making the right plan; their doors could be unlocked, their collars broken. But this? he gestured, to the collar, to the air, This? I can’t escape this, even with your help. This was our one chance to get out. And I blew it.

“It’s not your fault,” Tawny tried to console.

But it really is, Billy argued. I’m the one who got ambushed and kidnapped, I’m the one who’s not back in Fawcett, protecting people. I—I can’t even bear to think about all the people who are counting on me back home, who need Captain Marvel’s help, and I’m not there! And now I’ll never be there! They’ll think I abandoned them, and—and people will get hurt, and it’ll be my fault, because this was our last option!

Tawny couldn’t make himself believe that this was their last shot at escaping; there always had to be hope, somewhere. But he had to admit that they had underestimated their enemy, and now his boy was stuck in this horrible situation, unable to protect himself. Though… maybe he could do some more protecting, now.

“Billy,” Tawny offered, “if you’re up for it, when they open that door, you should run for it. I’ll distract them, or maybe I can clear the way for you, depending on how many guards there are. Maybe they’ll have unlocked one of the exits during the search.”

What? No, no way, Billy was defensive, I don’t want you getting hurt. Who knows what they’d do to you.

Tawny was adamant. “I think I can take care of myself. More than that, I think I can take care of you, or really, that I’m supposed to—I didn’t tell you yet, I really should have, but I honestly didn’t understand it either—but last night, I went big. Like, real tiger big, maybe even bigger. Big enough to take on some guards, I think. Big enough to hopefully protect you. And I’m not exactly sure how I did it before, but I’m going to try again.” Tawny didn’t want to hurt anyone, but the realization that he might have to cross that line was coming to a head, if he really wanted to get Billy out of here. Maybe he could be patient, and wait for another opportunity, but with how Billy was reacting, he wasn’t so sure that his boy could survive being stuck in this place for much longer, even with his support. And Billy was right, the people of Fawcett City did need his help.

His own mind racing, Billy wilted away from Tawny’s touch. He could sense the genuineness flowing through their bond, but he knew Tawny’s plan still wouldn’t work. Okay, I’m a little confused still, but that’s still a no. What don’t you understand about me not wanting you to get hurt!

Tawny’s eyes glimmered in the dark. “I’m supposed to be protecting you. And I’ll do whatever’s necessary, if this is the last option.”

Hooold on. Nope. Nuh-uh. Billy suddenly decided that he now had to refuse to accept that there was no other option, even if that’s what he’d just admitted moments ago. Because there was no freaking way he was going to let Tawny get hurt because of him. There had to be another way out, some other option, some other chance—

Footsteps, voices sounded out again, coming closer. Billy could feel Tawny tense up, fur bristling, and strangely—the warmness Tawny usually exuded, rising hotter and hotter, like it was about to boil over—no, no, no, he had to get out, but he couldn’t let Tawny get hurt, there had to be something else—

Wait.

There was something else.

The spillover of Tawny’s flaring warmth crashed and clashed against the sheltered coldness secluded in the dirt a few feet away, flickering at the edge of Billy’s awareness.

The knife.

An ember of hope lit in his heart. It was a magic knife. And maybe, just maybe…

Billy half crawled, half dove towards the knife, snatching it up by the handle. Tawny whirled around, startled. The din of voices rose, and a distinctively jangle of keys sounded from behind the door.

Now or never.

Ignoring Tawny’s mind flare of panic, he raised the knife edge to the side of his neck, dragging the tip against the collar. There was a distinctive snap, and a nearly-electric crackle as the magical hum of the collar disappeared, dissipating into the air. He dug the tip of the knife deeper, finally feeling the scritch of metal being scraped, and then he felt an actual electric buzz as something gave way, flaring and dying within the collar. A hiss escaped him as he felt the knife accidentally dig deeper, cutting into his skin, and he dropped the knife with a clatter.

Tawny rushed to his side, aghast. His heart had lurched at the sight of Billy holding that knife again, and when his bond with Billy had suddenly flooded with pain, he feared the worse. “Are you okay?? What happened?”

Billy winced, holding his hand to his neck. In the dark, Tawny could smell the coppery scent of blood, old and new, mixing together. Then Billy’s grimace wavered. With both his hands, he pulled at the collar at his neck, which Tawny now saw had a gash running through one side, wires visible. He yanked, and the collar fell apart into his hands. Billy’s eyes flashed with a rush of relief and glee all at once, his expression swirling into a smirk as his eyes met Tawny’s.

A crystal-clear thought rushed through their bond. Scissors beat paper; magic knife beats collar, I guess, the sentiment bubbling with unspoken laughter. His lips parted, releasing a whispered word brimming with endless potential.

“Shazam.”

 And the lightning roared in reply.

- - -

He was nearly home. Adam nearly paced the length of the plane in anticipation, barely constraining himself to remain in the pilot’s seat as he pondered his next steps, glad for the crutch of autopilot. This time, he’d taken a small, unmarked and untraceable plane to act as transport, one he could pilot himself (with no small help from his Wisdom; modern machines were so fickle) so that none of his people would be in the line of fire, should the mission go awry.

It was a shame that there was no way to expunge the wizard’s past influence entirely, but at least he could ensure that the boy could no longer be used as a weapon in whatever selfish plans the wizard dreamed up next. And once he could actually hold a conversation with Billy without the chance of the boy transforming into the wizard’s Champion and running off to his master, maybe the boy would be more open to understanding the truth of the situation. Maybe even, years down the road, when the boy finally grew into a man, he too would renounce the wizard’s bond and claim the gods’ blessing for his own, as Adam had done.

But, for now, he was still a boy. And now under his protection, not the wizard’s.

Adam regarded his new ally sitting towards the back of the plane. A peculiar man, seeming almost hollow. Adam disliked having to choose an ally in such a rushed manner, wishing for the chance to better judge the man’s character beforehand. His wisdom whispered warnings about the emptiness behind the man’s eyes. But sometimes, in war, one could not always choose allies with similar alignments of character, but had to rely on power, on their usefulness. And an ally such as Brainwave could be very useful indeed, in not just this personal matter but in the inevitable challenges he would face in protecting his country from those who would dare to seize the chance to harm it, to harm his people.

Adam’s mind was lost in the potential of what was to come, in pictures of the future he would herald for his people, when he was suddenly snapped out of his reverie by the sensation of a searing flash of power, resonating far off in the distance as the balance of magic shifted.

The unfamiliar lurch of fear smote the breath in his lungs.

The boy had called down the magic. Somehow, he had done the impossible and broken the protective spell Adam had cast over the collar, destroying both.

He looked out—they were nearly to Kahndaq, over the unforgiving, uninhabited deserts which acted as a buffer at the western border; the endless dunes and rock formations silent and empty amidst the last fading moments of the night. Moving quickly, he cut the plane’s engines, a new silence filling the air as the plane began to lose altitude. Alerting Brainwave to the change in plans, he tore a hole in the side of the plane—air screaming through the gap—and grabbing the ever-nonchalant man, flew him out the side, watching the plane’s fated arc drone on; it would soon find its resting place in a sand dune. The plane was no large loss, especially compared to the potential of losing his son—he would not refrain from saying it once the boy was safely returned home, he resolved—

He couldn’t lose anyone else.

- - -

Billy—Captain Marvel—gasped as the lightning transformed him. It was exhilarating—terrifying—invigorating—overwhelming—as his senses were flooded by the familiar influx of his powers, and the instant clamor of the gods. They were loud. Insistent, frantic, tinged by his own emotions. The Wisdom of Solomon spoke clearest, urging him to calm his mind and focus on the situation at hand. Right.

He ignored the primal urge to fly straight up and flee this stupid nightmare of a place, the Courage of Achilles and Wisdom of Solomon smoothing his harried instincts in tandem, letting him evaluate his next steps with a level mind. It wouldn’t do for him to fly straight through the palace’s foundations, surely endangering those in the building by damaging its structure. He turned his attention to the door, re-noticing the hubbub of voices, this time recognizing the meaning of the foreign language: apparently the guards, though spooked by the strange noise they had just heard, had finally found the correct key on a ring of several, and were about to open the door.

Captain Marvel grabbed Tawny—who had reverted back to stuffed-form with a silent whoop of glee—and hooked him in the crook of his left arm, grabbing the knife from the floor with the same hand. He could practically hear Tawny’s sniff of disdain at the proximity of the knife, and he understood the tiger’s disapproval better in this form—the knife practically reeked of dark magic; he definitely couldn’t leave this for anybody to get their hands on. His Wisdom perked up with some sort of intuitive but unclear recognition of the blade, but he shoved that aside for later analysis—it was time to leave.

The door knob turned, as if in slow-motion, and he used the Speed of Mercury to zip to the side of the door, where he waited a split second. The guards on the other side of the door pushed it open, hanging back, clearly unsure of what waited for them, and he again used his Speed to zip right past them, down the hallway, and up the stairs before they even saw more than a red blur. Another split second, and he was out an exit, out of the palace, up, up, up into the clear night sky—and he was FREE!

Captain Marvel laughed in delight as he flew past the palace, which jutted out from a city sprawling out in all directions, its limits colored in by the twinkle of lights from homes below, their inhabitants starting to wake with the end of night. Noting the first few rays of light in the east, heralding the return of the sun, he turned his attention, west, towards home. He quickly outpaced the limits of Kahndaqi civilization; the markings of development growing scarcer and scarcer, until even the few sparse houses were replaced by flowing dunes, sometimes interrupted by striking orange sandstone formations jutting up from the sand.

He stayed fairly low, not knowing if Kahndaq possessed high-tech radar systems; he had no wish to immediately fight Black Adam—right now, the plan was to get back to Fawcett City, get to the Rock of Eternity through the subway system, and warn the wizard about Black Adam’s return (and hopefully, he’d give him some insight on what to do next). There was no way of knowing whether the wizard already knew of Black Adam’s return, but chances were that he didn’t know, given that most of the time the wizard opted to ‘sleep’ to conserve power, rather than observing the world’s happenings all of the time. Which, he understood why the wizard did that—he had to keep the Seven Deadly Sins of Man and all sorts of other nasty stuff trapped—but it still stung, just a little, that the wizard had never really gotten involved enough to give him that much advice as to how to do this whole superhero-thing right, other than warning him about some stuff like Black Adam. Which, in retrospect, he really should have taken that warning more seriously, if possible. Though, it wasn’t entirely his own fault, since he got ambushed as Billy.

Speaking of which, that wasn’t good. How had Black Adam found him, and known to strike at his weakest? Another thing to figure out, later. As if the floodgates had been opened, his mind whizzed with a blur of all the things he needed to catch up on. He was pretty sure he’d missed his appearance at the monthly clothes drive to drum up donations, and his weekly visit to the hospital—shoot, he’d already missed the week prior because of the off-world Justice League fiasco… and drat, that also meant he had missed monitor duty… and he still had to check on the street ‘regulars’—Carrie probably needed another blanket by now, maybe he could convince her to actually stay at the shelter this time, and he needed to make sure nobody had started squatting in that abandoned home filled with black mold, and then make sure Sivana wasn’t hatching some escape plot from jail, and then…

*BAM*

Something hard, invisible whacked against his whole body from above him, and he felt like a fly suddenly swatted out of the air by a giant frying pan. A little stunned by the surprise of the hit but not hurt, his flight momentarily faltered, sending him tumbling towards the ground. In the process, he accidentally dropped the knife—it fell out of sight somewhere—but instinctually clutched Tawny tight so he wouldn’t be ripped out of his grasp by the rush of air. Thankfully, muscle memory took over, and he managed to right himself a few yards before he could slam into the ground, landing the rest of the way right side up, feet half-burying themselves in the shifting sand.

All senses now on high alert, he scanned the growing light of the sky for what had hit him—and he reluctantly steeled himself for a fight at the sight of the figure dropping out of the sky before him.

Black Adam.

Another person also dropped to the ground behind Black Adam, eyes glowing red. Captain Marvel had no idea who he was, and frankly, didn’t care at the moment, eyes only on Black Adam. His Wisdom cautioned him to not make the first move—his priorities were to get Tawny to safety and warn the wizard, not engage in a fight. Fine, but if Black Adam wanted a fight, ooohh boy, would he get one. His blood roared, itching for a release, and he could feel a surge of protectiveness from the rest of the gods as they geared up for a good ‘ol beatdown.   

Tawny mentally growled, clearly having his own idea about who actually needed protection, but he remained in stuffed-form, waiting for his input. Don’t make your presence known unless necessary, Marvel cautioned. If Black Adam attacks, stay out of his way. I don’t want you getting hurt.  

The anticipatory tension of the situation rippled through the air, thrumming in tandem with the ancient hum of the swirling sands as Captain Marvel and Black Adam stared each other down, silent—watchful—waiting.

Black Adam finally made the first move, stepping forward. “My…apologies for the rough landing. My companion was a little overeager, but I am glad we can talk face to face, Billy.”

Captain Marvel’s face twisted in disdain. “You don’t get to call me that, Black Adam.”

“It’s Teth Adam, boy; the wizard’s curse does not define my name, and neither should his approval seal your fate as his lackey. His pawn.” He sighed, as if a weary teacher explaining a concept to a confused student for the 100^th time. “Transform, and return with me to the palace, and we can continue this discourse.”

“Hah! Fat chance, loser.” Marvel scoffed, anger rising. “Your plan failed, and now the only thing I’m going to do is fly out of here. And don’t you dare get in my way, or you’re going to get beat up a whole lot sooner rather than later.”

Black Adam narrowed his eyes. “Your impertinence betrays your immaturity, in both your grasp of the gods’ blessings and your understanding of how the world works. I cannot allow you to fall back into the wizard’s grasp, so you will be returning with me.”  

“Okay, dude, seriously?” Marvel nearly laughed. Really. How dense could supervillains be? “How messed up can you be, thinking you have any say in what I will or will not do.”

Black Adam’s face remained still. “You are my claimed, my kin,” his expression hardened. “…my son.”

With that statement, Marvel did laugh, but Black Adam didn’t seem to find the situation as humorous, and almost seemed confused. “Why do you laugh? It is legitimate; I already claimed you as my own.”

The Captain’s voice took on a mocking tone. “Well then, this is the first I’ve heard of it.” His gaze shifted to the man standing by Black Adam. “Hey Eye-Glow-Guy, did you hear? Apparently Black Adam’s adopted me, what a surprise! Guess I forgot about all the legal documents, and the court hearing, and allll of that, huh?” His gaze shifted back to Black Adam. “Get over yourself. You’re delusional.”

Black Adam responded, serious as ever. “I do not recognize your American practices. I am lord of this land, padshāh of my people. As such, I have the authority; I only needed to state my claim to you.”

Marvel spluttered, incredulous. “What, you just say the magic words, and I’m adopted, just like that?” He paused, anger rising. “Which, now that I think about it, when did you even do that? Oh, was it maybe when I was FREAKING UNCONSCIOUS because you nearly KILLED ME??” He ground his teeth, trying to keep his self-control intact. “That’s messed up dude, you need a check up from the neck up.”

Black Adam paused. “You’re right,” he stated, ignoring the start of confusion from Marvel at those words. A new timbre entered his voice, as if he were addressing a crowd. “By the magicks of this land, and the dust of my forefathers, I claim you, William Joseph Batson, to be under my familial aegis, bound to no bond but this; to be under my protection as kin till my own blood stills or my own claim be sundered. May the gods bear witness as I declare this, with the authority vested in me as their instrument on this earth and rightful lord of my lands.”

Good grief, he’s actually serious. Marvel couldn’t believe this; this was new levels of delusion. “Well, I don’t accept!” he argued back. Don’t let him get to you, Tawny warned. Remember the plan.

Black Adam remained unamused. “That’s… not how this works.” He paused. “Last chance, I do not wish to have to discipline you, but I will do whatever is necessary to ensure your protection. You will be coming with me, willingly or not.”

That was it. “Ohhoho,” Marvel chuckled, without any mirth. “Just try me. Consider this your last chance to BACK OFF.” In a smooth motion, his feet left the ground, moving up to hover a few yards above the sands, Tawny still sheltered in the crook of his arm. His eyes finally broke contact from Black Adam’s, looking past him to the horizon. For Tawny’s sake, he’d first try a burst of speed to outpace Black Adam and his henchman, before resorting to a fist fight.

“Very well. If you would, Brainwave,” Black Adam ordered, and Marvel had a millisecond to distantly catalogue how his voice almost dripped with reluctance before something slithered behind his forehead and seized at his mind with a shriek of agony.

- - -

As the standoff had lingered, Tawny had taken the opportunity afforded to him as a bystander to examine the man lingering behind Black Adam. Billy didn’t know who he was, and Tawny didn’t either, but the man stared at Captain Marvel with some sort of familiarity, in an almost…hungry anticipation. Tawny didn’t like not knowing what the guy was capable of, and he certainly didn’t like that look in his eyes. Other than the man’s intense stare, eyes softly glowing red, he did nothing but stand there. But just as he and Cap were about to fly out of there, Black Adam gave the guy an order and his eyes flared into a vicious red, like an exploding firework—and the sheer amount of pain Tawny suddenly experienced through his bond with Billy left him momentarily stunned; and he knew his boy was far worse off.

Captain Marvel hit the ground with a whuff, the impact throwing Tawny to the side as the Captain’s hands flew to his head, crying out in pain—and Tawny could feel him trying to fight… whatever it was that was hurting him—and all that Tawny needed to know was that the ruffian with red eyes was responsible, the same ruffian who then landed by his struggling boy, eyes-aglow, intently focused on hurting his human.

A familiar rage seeped through him, threatening to claw its way out—and this time, he didn’t just let it, he reveled in it—galvanized it forward. He tore and stretched and grew in that rage, anger climbing, stature building, all gathered and rushed and sped up to a split second where that pent up protective rage propelled him forward, claws sharp with righteous fury, his previous form gone and replaced by a hulking figure of a tiger, sinews rippling with the power and intent to shred any who dared to touch his friend—and the thug who had so dared had not a second to react before Tawny plowed into him, claws raking at flesh without any hint of his previous hesitation.

As the man cried out, tumbling away from the force of his assault, Tawny felt his boy’s pain vanish, as Captain Marvel clambered to his feet, dazed. He ignored the background squawk of indignation, likely from Black Adam, focusing instead on his bond with Billy.

Are you alright?

Yeah, Billy panted. Thank you.

You deal with Black Adam. I can handle this punk, Tawny promised.

He felt Billy give a ghost of a smile before the boy turned and intercepted a furious Black Adam in the air, who had clearly intended on aiding his comrade. Turning away from the ensuing duel of the Champions, confident in the abilities of Captain Marvel to hold his own in a now fair fight, Tawny refocused his attention on the fallen man no more than twenty feet away.

At the sight of blood seeping through the man’s clothes, Tawny felt just a speckle of guilt. He hoped he hadn’t killed the man. He felt a little better, though, when the man suddenly lifted his head up, eyes turned towards Tawny. He started to stalk closer, still in his behemoth form—he could practically smell the man’s fear—and the man in turn tried to scrabble backwards, still looking towards Tawny, largely failing to gain any ground amidst the shifting sands as he tried to move himself backwards on his hands. Tawny faltered, sensing his desperation. He didn’t like playing the part of a fearsome beast, and hoped it was no longer necessary, that he could talk the man down from interfering any further.

As he walked closer, he let his natural form resurface, his tell-tale green tweed jacket brightly contrasting against the dull tones of the sand. “You really tried a two-v-one, eh?” he growled, letting the last of his verbal venom out with the comment. “Disgraceful.” The man’s movements slowed, giving up on trying to crawl backwards on his hands. Tawny continued forward, hoping to convince the wounded man to stay out of the fight—or, if necessary, knock the man out. “This fight’s over, and you know it.” The man’s eyes flitted up, towards the sky behind Tawny, where Tawny knew Captain Marvel and Black Adam were duking it out nearby; he could sense Billy’s anger, but also his confidence in his ability to win. “Give up, and we’ll get you to a hospital. Or else, you know,” Tawny sprinkled in a threat, gesturing with his claws for effect, “I’ll kill you.” Which, he would never purposefully do, but he assumed it was much more threatening than just promising to knock the guy out.

The man’s jaw clenched. “I think,” he sneered, “that I’ll kill you instead.” His eyes pulsed red, and Tawny couldn’t react in time as he saw something shoot out of the sand from by the man’s feet, barreling towards him, quicker than he could ever hope to move out of the way of, and he winced in anticipation of some blow—but the man growled in frustration, eyes sparking wilder in anger.

Tawny could understand why. The object which had sped towards him—the magic knife, which Tawny had completely forgotten about until now—had suddenly stopped, no more than a millimeter from his chest, the blade wreathed in the same glow of the man’s eyes. He’s telekinetic, Tawny faintly realized.

He didn’t know why the knife had stopped, just before it would’ve stabbed him—and clearly, the man didn’t know either, given his increasingly confused and livid reaction—but clearly some property of the magic blade didn’t allow it to pierce him—? Something to ponder later. The glow in the man’s eyes faltered, apparently losing the strength to keep trying to push the knife forward, Tawny assumed. Tawny moved his paw up, grabbing the knife with the intent to keep it out of play in case it could hurt anyone else, when the man’s eyes blazed like a red sun.

The blinding flash seemed to sear Tawny’s eyes, soaking in and coloring his own vision the same monochrome shade, tendrils reaching back and sinking into his very being, wrapping themselves around his mind, his limbs, his will. His paw, curled around the knife’s handle, moved on its own accord, and Tawny only had a second’s flash of fear to realize that he didn’t have control of his own body anymore before his hand blipped towards himself, imbedding the stone blade into his chest.

Tawny lurched for a heartbeat of silence, forward, backward, before collapsing to his side on the uncaring sands, the red tinge of his vision now dissolving into grays as he witnessed his triumphant assailant rise to his feet before him, ears rushing with static yet hearing no noise.

Suckered. Fooled.

Dead.

As the last bits of his consciousness slipped away, all he could think about was how he had failed, yet again, to keep Billy safe.

I’m sorry, Billy…

And then he was gone.

- - -

“Very well. If you would, Brainwave,”

With the first tendrils of something foreign pawing at his mind, the Wisdom of Solomon immediately attempted to bolster his mental defenses, but the barrage of the unfamiliar attack—somehow inside his head—began to gnaw away at his meager defenses, hungrily advancing, trying to take over.

He hadn’t felt something this powerful before. Distantly, he recalled dealing with the planet of mind-control caterpillar-aliens, but they had needed to literally get inside his head—what a gross nightmare of a situation that had been—to mentally control him; but they were all long dead. He remembered Martian Manhunter’s offer, to help train his mental shields, but he’d only tried some of the general exercises, never letting the Martian actually try to enter his mind for practice, fearing he’d see the truth of his secret identity. And then—

The Wisdom of Solomon frantically chided him to not to get lost in memories or coulda-shoulda-woulda regrets and instead focus.

Focus—focus—focus—he tried, he tried, he couldn’t tell if he was beating the hungry thing back as it burrowed around his mind, trying to slither in through a vulnerability or a crack in his shields—it hammered away, again, again, again, malevolent and vengeful, and—

And the pressure suddenly vanished.

The gods roared at him to stand to his feet and he did so, shaking the dizziness off. How—?

Tawny. Tawny had rescued him, yet again. And whoa, was he big. He hadn’t been exaggerating with the whole big-tiger comment.

Are you alright? Tawny worried.

Yeah. Thank you, he breathed.

You deal with Black Adam. I can handle this punk, Tawny retorted, and Captain Marvel mentally smirked his way as he turned to intercept a now-furious Black Adam, who had been beelining it towards Tawny. He shot into the sky like a lightning bolt, catching the other Champion off guard with a mid-air tackle to make some distance, not willing to give the man any chance to interfere with Tawny’s fight.

Black Adam quickly managed to spin him off, but hovered in front of him momentarily.

“I have no wish to fight you, Billy!” he barked, eyes blazing with emotion.

“Oh yeah? You too scared to face me in a fair fight now?” Marvel retorted, “Well too bad! You went too far, and now I want to fight you.” He flexed his hands into fists, ready to give the villain another beatdown, when his mind suddenly murmured with alarm, the gods’ presences growing louder as they made their frantic point known.

You should flee, Champion! He faltered, confused.

Solomon’s Wisdom at least added some context: You are not trained enough to take on so powerful a telepath as his ally. Flee now, or risk ruin should the man recover enough for another attack.

Captain Marvel shoved their concerns to the side, or, more accurately, kicked them to the curb as he followed through on his intended punch and a subsequent flurry of blows. He knew he could win this fight—he’d noticed how Black Adam had gradually weakened during their fight in Fawcett—and he could feel a surge of reassurance from Tawny, and knew that he too had his side of the fight handled. The gods weren’t always right.

Black Adam, also, didn’t seem to want to fight now, mostly attempting to dodge his blows or block his strikes without attempted follow-ups, spitting out variations of his same platitudes about ‘not wanting to fight’ which he wholesale ignored. Marvel could tell he was on edge with his ally out of the fight, and Marvel knew he could beat him. He pressed his advantage, unrelenting with his blows, knowing Black Adam’s would wear himself out with his faltering defense eventually.

This ended today, whether Black Adam wanted to fight with words or fists.

As he bunched his arms like springs, ready to unleash another barrage of blows on Black Adam, a sudden keening pain slid between his ribs, like a shard of ice to his heart. He gasped, coughed, body spasming, faltering in the air as his flight failed him, crashing into the ground. He reached out towards the source of the hurt, ignoring all else in the world.

Tawny…?

I’m sorry, Billy, came the whisp of a reply, as his world shattered in realization. His heart jolted in staccato as the truth blipped before his eyes as if in a serious of blurry snapshots as he staggered to his feet.

His friend. The knife. The monster’s red, glowing eyes. His sadistic smile as he turned his way—

The gods began to scream. To flee, to use his Speed and retreat, that he had to get out of range, recalculate, fight another day, that victory was no longer tenable—

But Captain Marvel, at heart, was still Billy.

And Billy could not fly away, or restrengthen his shields, or do anything—all he could think about was Tawny. Tawny, who he suddenly couldn’t feel in their bond. Tawny, who wasn’t getting up.

Tawny, who was just a little stuffed animal lying on the sand, cottony fluff spilling out of his body, being tickled by the desert breeze.

He could feel Tawny’s warmth fading into the ground like invisible blood. Vile bubbled in his throat.

He ran forward, the gods screaming at him that it was the wrong direction, but it wasn’t, it was towards his friend, his friend who he could feel was dying, his friend who he couldn’t hear anymore, his friend who was now just a few feet away and he was reaching for but then a bolt of pure malic struck his mind and he stumbled to the ground, unable to move, vaguely recognizing that the man with red eyes towered over him. He felt the Wisdom of Solomon crumble away, all his mental strength dedicated to reaching out to Tawny.

Tawny, Tawny, can you hear me?

               Please answer me

                              It’s going to be okay I won’t let them hurt you—

Marvel felt it crawl through the cracks in his mind, a red flare of enmity looking for something, a catch in his throat as he felt the pressure-pressure-pressure build—an involuntarily yell escaped from his lips and he felt his back arch from the agony—then a pull and a compulsion and then something else broke through his lips—

               “Shazam!”

—and then what little shields he thought he had were gone as the gods’ blessings were whisked away by the lightning with one final scream of disapproval and he felt like he was drowning in that sickly red light, seeping in, coloring all his memories, his thoughts, crawling over, taking everything; no stone left unturned, nothing secret left, it was all his—its—and then the light flared, searing him, scorching him, burning away part of him forever, his hands withering to ash as he tried to hold on to the stolen pieces, then the rest of him burned away with the atomizing sear of red light pulsing into white—then emptiness—nothingness—

—

His lungs gulped in air, instinctively trying to keep him alive. He hadn’t been breathing.

His head pounded, threatening to send him into blackness, unconsciousness. No! He had to stay awake! Where was Tawny?!

Billy could feel his mind weeping with a thousand cuts, inflamed and red-red-red like the color of blood.

He heard the emotive growl of Black Adam’s voice, the cold emptiness of the other’s.

But not Tawny. He couldn’t hear Tawny, couldn’t feel Tawny.

Tears welled in his eyes. He could feel the rough scratch of sand against the side of his face. Blinking, he tried to push himself up, faltering, unable to support his own weight, finally resorting to a crawl, clutching the sand as he pushed himself forward towards where he knew his friend laid just a few feet away—

A tuft of his orange/black fur blew softly in the wind, and if Billy didn’t look at the rest of him he could almost pretend that it was Tawny moving…but he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t.

With a wail, Billy threw himself at the stuffed tiger. He flung the cursed knife away into the ever-hungry sands from where it laid beside his friend, it having fallen out, but not before leaving a gaping slash, clumps of Tawny’s inner stuffing bulging out, some already scattered and lost to the breeze.

He tried to focus, to feel Tawny’s constant warmth, his hum, but his head screamed in refusal when he tried to think, nearly blacking out. His hands pulled the tiger’s small stuffed form to his chest, trying to hold the stuffing in, mind whirling—how could he fix this?—how could he fix this?—and then calling, calling, hoping Tawny would answer and this’d just be another stupid nightmare, crying, rocking his friend to his chest, begging Tawny to take some of his warmth; just to please wake up.

Their voices fluctuated in the background, demanding attention, but Billy couldn’t dare to listen; all he could focus on listening for was the low rumble of Tawny’s voice, saying something stupid or hilarious, please please please just say something to me i'm sorry—

Shadows towered over him, and he finally looked up at the new threat. Tears blurred his sight, but not enough for him to not recognize the villains, those cruel monsters, who had hurt his friend.

His pain and grief boiled into fury as he clutched his fallen friend close, recognizing the two, as the man in black reached his hand out towards them, and Billy knew he had to call down the magic. (Why had it left?) He would call it down and strike down the scumbags who had dared to lay a hand on Tawny, and then he would fly Tawny back to the wizard. And Tawny would be okay. Because the wizard was magic, and magic could fix anything.

He opened his mouth. But—but—

He couldn’t do it.

He didn’t know the word.

The red sores in his mind wept as his mind raced through memories, each wound marking the absence of the key to his magic. And then the man in black grabbed at him, and he couldn’t stop him, rumbling something but everything hurt too much for Billy to even hear his words.

“The magic…” he mumbled, tears and snot croaking his voice. “You took the magic…”

His magic was gone.

And so was Tawny.

- - -

Brainwave only half listened as Black Adam promised he would send proper transport and medical care back shortly, as he needed to take the boy back immediately.

He really looked worse than he was. The tiger had not clawed deep enough to kill, which, once his surprise had worn off, he had used to his advantage. And he could regulate this body’s pain, with careful application of thought.

Brainwave also only faintly listened to Black Adam’s not-so-hidden-threat, as he warned of consequences should the boy’s mind have been damaged, since he was lost in thought.

Thought, which had once been spent on carefully concocted, tangled webs of plans, only waiting for release to begin implementation. Yet in the span of just a few hours, here he was. He would almost call it fate, if he believed in such a thing.

Brainwave watched as Black Adam flew off with the boy cradled in his arms, the mighty Captain Marvel felled by a word. He tilted his head to the side, lost in fresh, new strings of possibilities.

“To think,” he pondered aloud, “that it was always that simple.”

Fascinating.

Chapter Text

Air streamed against him in a cold, unrelenting blow to the side of his face, manifesting in a harsh, whistling shriek in his ears which clouded all other senses. His unfocused eyes uselessly fluttered as he tried to blink away the water in his eyes, sprung from the blasting bite of the air as it rushed by and the weary tears which streaked out and away from him, lost without notice to the wind.

Billy kept himself curled around Tawny, his glazed-over eyes finally clamping shut as he relegated all his focus inwards, ignoring the dreadful reality that he was being held, carried, trapped. The coldness in his core, the frigid fur of Tawny’s stuffed form, galvanized his racing thoughts, pushing him to find a solution. Magic, magic could fix Tawny. Of course it could. But how could he get help for Tawny if his own magic was gone?

His mind skimmed over past memories, searching—searching for some sign of the word he knew should be there but wasn’t. He tried to think back to the first time he had heard it, at the Rock of Eternity. He could almost hear the wizard, back when Billy had first met him and gotten his powers:

“I am the Wizard //////”

A piercing red sheen filled his mind, flooding his senses with pain. Where there should have been a word, the word, (had it been the wizard’s name?) there was nothing but a gaping wound, part of his mind ripped out, pain bleeding into the fringes of the recollection and staining his consciousness with a bright, dripping, crimson deluge that would have bowled him over had he been standing.

He choked back a whimper. Swallowed. And dove back in. The first time he had called down the magic; the awe. The first time he had jumped off a building before transforming; the elation. The first time he fried his Justice League communicator; the panic. The first time he successfully transformed without fritzing his surroundings with the magic lightning bolt; the satisfaction. Again and again, memory after memory of all his past transformations, he tried to remember. And on a surface level, the fragments of memory surrounding it were all there, but bathed in a blood-red pain that threatened to drown him should he dive too deep, his subconscious spitting him back out, afraid to tread too far. But it—he couldn’t have taken it all. The magic had to be there, somewhere. So Billy kept jumping back in, over and over.

And all that existed was the coldness, his mind, and the red, red pain.

- - -

The boy hadn’t even shifted in his arms yet, his head curled into himself as he protectively cocooned his stuffed animal, completely unreactive to the ground speeding below them at an impossible pace as Adam flew him back to the palace.

Adam’s heart thrummed unsteadily, worried by Billy’s uncharacteristic stillness, especially in contrast to the boy’s heartbroken cries just moments earlier.

It had all gone wrong. Billy wasn’t supposed to have gotten hurt. His tiger—animal familiar—or whatever it was, wasn’t supposed to be either. He delicately sidestepped the fact that the very act he had sanctioned could be classified as harm, that altering a person’s memory was already a violation of the highest order. It had been necessary. With access to his powers left intact, Billy would have chosen—he had already tried—to run right back into the wizard’s clutches once again. And that…Adam could not allow that to happen. So his choice of action had been right, surely.

But he still worried, holding the frail form of his ward. If only he had gotten back sooner. Before Billy had somehow broken through the protective shielding he had cast over the collar and transformed. It had been a rudimentary spell, of course, but as to how Billy had broken through without access to the wizard’s magic, when he could tell the boy clearly had no magical wellspring of his own…?

An investigation for another time. Nonetheless, it had made things much more complicated. What was just supposed to be a conversation had now resulted in this….mess.  

As he flew over the scattered outskirts of the capital city, Adam felt relief at the sight of the palace ahead. Seconds later, he landed, opting for his room’s balcony, being careful to do so lightly, so as not to damage the older stonework nor distress Billy with a rough landing.

He stood there, a few seconds, before the realization set in that the boy still had not even shifted upon the end of the flight; his tiny body like dead weight in Adam’s arms. Had he fallen asleep…?

His concern immediately spiking despite the benign possibility, he strode into his room, nearly bowling someone hurrying over in the process. Nakia. The elderly matron’s clear distress remained on her face, though her eyes lit up at the sight of Billy.

“Thank the heavens, you found him,” she rasped, slipping with ease into their native tongue. Adam bit back the anger building in his throat; that yes, he had found Billy, despite not being told that he was missing in the first place, as Nakia continued speaking. “I was afraid you were still occupied; the Security Council hadn’t received any responses to the messages I had them send to you once Billy went missing last night.”

This time Adam bit back a curse, only now remembering his personal communicator for emergency correspondence with the Security Council that he had left on the plane, unchecked, since he had first left Kahndaq to retrieve Brainwave, so intent on his mission. Curse modern technology, and curse his own oversight; if he had known any earlier, maybe…

It’s done, focus on the moment at hand, Zehuti soothed.

Moving forward, Adam laid the boy down on the room’s bed, that first ember of concern now flaring as Billy still did not stir. “Contact the Security Council and have them send a transport and medical team out immediately, a quarter mile west of the mastaba ruins,” he ordered Nakia, “Tell them to retrieve the man waiting there, and report back here.” The elderly woman’s eyes shifted towards Billy before she backtracked out of the room with a slight bow of acknowledgement and down the hall.

Returning his attention to Billy, he cupped the boy’s face with a hand. No response. He seemed asleep, eyes moving under his eyelids as if he were in deep sleep, but on closer inspection, his breathing was wrong—it was shallow, fast-paced, and—Adam moved his hand to feel Billy’s pulse at his neck—his heart rate fluttered as if he were on the edge of near-panic.

And then Billy’s head lolled to the side with the movement, and Adam saw a cut on his lower neck, emitting a slow trickle of deep crimson.

Adam felt the uncomfortable and largely unfamiliar emotion of panic bubble in his own core. How had this happened? When had he gotten hurt?

It wasn’t a fatal wound; it looked like barely more than a scratch, but the sight of blood, on the boy once more, nearly sent Adam’s thoughts spiraling into unwanted memories, so he clung to his patrons’ blessings, grounding himself in their whispered presences and rebuilding the walls in his mind.

“Billy,” he called, insistent, patting the boy on the cheek lightly. Billy didn’t open his eyes, but his breathing erratically staccato-ed, and Adam felt his own breath seize in his chest.

“Billy!”

- - -

It was too cold to move, too loud to think, too red to breathe—the weight was crushing, uncaring; he’d jumped and jumped but now he couldn’t even crawl out to try again, and the pain which had been happy to spit him out now seemed content to let him drift in the undertow, aimless and powerless as a piece of seaweed, with no strength left to dive to the bottom and find the answers; the waters too dense to pierce and too heavy to lift his head towards escape and air. So he drifted there, for hours, days, years—

—And a sound cut through the red noise, muffled at first but growing louder as it repeated, drawing him up, up, up till he breached the water—

The world around him whirled, blurred but with sharp edges, eyes confused as if they’d never seen something besides red, before his burgeoning pinprick of clarity landed on the striking gold lightning bolt from the direction of the noise—it was his—his head pulsated with achy red echoes—sigil, the wizard’s sigil, a name—a word, on the tip of his tongue but drowned in the unrelenting weight of liquid pain, holding him down under the surface, not letting him get back up and breathe—

“Billy!”

Billy blinked. Then took a breath. His lungs felt tiny, like they could only hold a handful of air, so he took another, trying to take in more air, hoping they hadn’t shrunk for good. Had he slept for too long? Why did he feel so…wrong? He flexed his fingers; they responded, but slowly—cold and stiff like they’d been unused, or he’d slept on them funny, or—

—his fingers brushed against fur; they’d been clutched around something just as cold, colder than him— something—some thing—some thing—!

His mind came rushing back. It was a thing, but it hadn’t been a thing. It had been his friend—he had been his friend—a warm, living being—but now cold, empty. A thing.

“Are you…well?”

At the voice, his eyes snapped—back open. He hadn’t realized they were closed, again—and sought out the origin of the noise. Eyes momentarily settled on the gold lightning insignia—he tried to escape the immediate headache that that brought on, trailing his gaze up to the face of—

Black Adam.

Billy scrabbled backwards in a wild flurry of limbs on pure instinct, away— get away— and—

*thud*

A pained hiss escaped his clenched teeth—what had…?—oh, he was on a bed, and he’d hit the back of his head on the protruding wooden backboard, and wow, did that hurt, but not as much as the realization, as his mind caught up, that this was real. It…everything, it hadn’t been a nightmare. This was real.

As real as freaking Black Adam, who was just right there and reaching for him—

“Get away from me!” Billy growled, or tried to growl, the dueling emotions of fear and anger unsteadily trembling his voice.

Black Adam didn’t walk any closer alongside the length of the bed, but instead opted to sit on the bed’s edge, which was somehow worse because he could just reach out and grab his legs; Billy couldn’t help but imagine the mental picture of the man grabbing one of his ankles and throwing him like a ragdoll into the opposite wall with ease.

Black Adam just stared at him, eyes shifting, as if searching for something, and part of Billy wanted to hide his face behind his knees, but anger won out and he returned the stare with a glare of his own.

The man suddenly spoke. “How did you injure your neck? Do you have any other injuries?”

The edge of Billy’s glare unwillingly softened with the shock of incredulity at the question—was that concern on his face?!

Concern. He wanted to pretend to care? After everything he’d done? To him? To Tawny!?

Billy nearly gasped. Tawny.

The stuffed tiger lay on the bed, between him and Black Adam, left there in his panic to get away, and Billy tried not to choke at the realization that he had forgotten Tawny already.  

With a quick motion that made the back of his eyes ache, Billy leaned forward, stretching his arm out and snatching the stuffed animal, before sequestering himself back against the headboard, pulling his knees as close to himself as possible, the only barrier he could offer if Black Adam moved to attack again.

But the man didn’t make any motion, just continued staring, expectant, and Billy realized he was waiting for Billy to say something—so he could what, gloat? Crow over Billy’s failed escape; his supposed revenge against the wizard??

“Are you—” the man began to ask, his next words dying down as Billy interrupted him.

“Are you serious?! You—I can’t believe—hah!” Billy disrupted his own sentence with a laugh of derision, at how messed up this all was. “The wizard was right, he was right about everything,” he fumed, ignoring the achy red pulse in the back of his mind. “The power’s gone to your head and— you’re crazy and evil and awful and—and how do you not realize what you’ve done??” Billy practically spat the next words out, rage boiling in the pit of his stomach. “They need me. They need Captain Marvel. People are going to get hurt. They’re going to die because you took the magic. But—but—” he searched Black Adam’s face through his own newly brimming tears, looking in vain for any sign of understanding, “…you don’t care about that, do you.” He clutched Tawny tighter, shivering at the cold underneath his fingertips. “You’re just a power-hungry monster,” he seethed, “who doesn’t care for anyone or anything except yourself.”

A beat of silence. Billy kept his eyes fixed on Black Adam despite the pounding of his heart, trying to anticipate how the man might retaliate, nerves fluttering in expectancy of whatever new awfulness he had next planned, unable to glean anything from the man’s ambiguous expression, and all too aware of how easily the villain could just snap him in two like a twig without a moment’s notice, should he choose to do so.

Would he do that? Billy had no idea. And that was scary.

Something shifted in Black Adam’s face, like he was about to move or speak, and Billy’s breath caught in his chest in morbid anticipation. This was it this was it—

And then there was a noise, movement in his peripheral vision, at the room’s doorway as someone entered the room. Nakia!

When his eyes met her gaze, the grandmotherly figure’s eyes crinkled in a silent smile directed, he knew, towards him, and for a second Billy’s heart leapt with hope, not fear. Nakia cared, right? Surely she would say something, do something, help him or Tawny or do something to fix this whole nightmare. Surely she could see that this was wrong and would care about that.

…right?

But Black Adam turned her way, and as Billy watched and listened, the two exchanged a rapid-fire conversation in Kahndaqi, the foreign syllables clanging together with increasing discord. And when Billy finally managed to meet her gaze again, letting every ounce of desperation seep from his eyes, all she did was look at him.

And then she just left.

Billy felt something inside him crumble as she walked out the door, the click of it closing sounding out with a morose finality.

What did he expect? Nobody had ever cared before. He should have known; it was the same old story, just like in years past, when he had landed in the first foster home to hurt him. The social workers, who had always said they cared, that they would be there, that they wanted to help—when it came down to it, they brushed it off. They didn’t care that much. Back then, Billy hadn’t been enough to reach whatever minimum standards they had for caring. The only thing that had changed, was that he had finally gotten the power to make his own choices—and now, all of a sudden, he didn’t have any power, or any choices, or any way to make people care. He was just some pawn in a stupid revenge scheme. It didn’t matter what he felt, how he or others were hurt. And he was powerless to do anything about it.

He couldn’t save himself. He couldn’t even save Tawny.

- - -

Adam kept still and let Billy snatch his stuffed animal back, watching as he retreated back towards the opposite end of the bed, scanning the boy for any visible sign of other injuries. Rather than answer his previous question, Billy continued to glare.

“Are you—” Adam attempted to ask if he had any further injuries, but chose to bite off the end of the question as the boy interrupted him.

“Are you serious?! You—I can’t believe—hah!” Billy laughed, a mocking, wild thing. “The wizard was right, he was right about everything. The power’s gone to your head and— you’re crazy and evil and awful and—and how do you not realize what you’ve done?? They need me. They need Captain Marvel. People are going to get hurt. They’re going to die because you took the magic. But—but—” Billy peered at him with watery eyes, the vitriol in his voice faltering for a moment.  “…you don’t care about that, do you.” The boy’s hatred then rebounded through his scornful voice. “You’re just a power-hungry monster, who doesn’t care for anyone or anything except yourself.”

Adam kept his face steady, swallowing back a reply. He shouldn’t feel the need to justify himself to a child. He had to remind himself that the wizard’s influence could not be dispelled immediately; he’d had time to mold the child’s thinking. Plant his head with lies. Shape a child given the powers of the gods into a fighting animal to pit against him and any other proclaimed enemies of the wizard’s plans.

But…as he looked past the boy’s bravado, past his presented indignation and fury, Adam could see another emotion shifting behind Billy’s features, gradually revealing itself under his scrutiny.

Fear.

Billy was…afraid of him. It was more hidden, than before. Sheltered behind a plastered façade. Not so much the fear of change, of the unknown, of unsettling circumstances, like before. No: this time, it was—and Adam almost hated how he could now recognize the expression—the same flash of fear he had too often seen in the face of some enemy, before he dispatched them. Before he killed them.

Gods, how could Billy think that he would ever do such a thing to him…? Hadn’t Adam made it clear that he wouldn’t hurt him?

Adam nearly opened his mouth to attempt to remedy this clear error, when Billy’s eyes broke from his glare to flick towards the doorway. Adam turned, as Nakia entered the room.

“The team is on their way, my padshāh,” the elderly woman reported. “Is the prince alright?” she queried, eyes taking in the scene.

“Yes—no,” Adam switched, “He has a shallow cut. Go to the hospital wing and retrieve the necessary supplies to treat such immediately.”

Nakia’s wrinkles hinted at confusion, clearly reluctant to leave the room. “But what happened? He’s clearly terrified—”

“—He will be fine. Go.”

The old woman’s gaze shifted from Adam to Billy, then back, her features subtly betraying her displeasure. “As you command,” she replied, as she finally turned to attend to her errand.

With the close of the door, Adam turned back to Billy, who somehow seemed to shrink back into the unyielding headboard even further, chin slipping down to shield himself further behind his knees, apparently giving up on maintaining his stoic glare.

Adam finally spoke. “I’m not going to hurt you. You should know this.”

His words sat in the air for a few empty seconds, and at first, Adam almost thought Billy hadn’t heard him.

“You hurt Tawny,” the boy belatedly blurted out.

“I—what?” Who was ‘Tawny’?

“I can’t feel him anymore.” What volume existing in the boy’s voice died down to a near mumble. “I—I don’t know if he’s gone, he can’t be gone, he can’t.” With his last words, Billy clutched the stuffed animal in his arms even tighter. “You hurt him.”

Ah. The tiger was this ‘Tawny’.

“I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t touch your tiger friend. He shouldn’t have fought.” Adam would rather the animal—entity—whatever it was, to not have been hurt, but he had attacked. Brainwave couldn’t be blamed for defending himself.

“He shouldn’t have—?” Billy’s near-whispers rose in volume again, his voice trembling with emotion. “He was protecting me. You—you sicced your henchman on me, on him.” The boy’s eyes went hollow, reflecting back some unseen horror. “He stabbed him. I felt it. I felt it all.” His pupils glassed over with unshed tears. “And now I can’t feel him. I can’t feel him anymore.”

Adam didn’t know how to unpack that. Clearly whatever connection between him and the animal had been deeper than realized. And something inside Adam shriveled with the realization that Billy had been hurt under his watch, if not with physical wounds.

The Wisdom of Zehuti wasn’t infallible, either, when it came to magical knowledge—and Adam only knew so much. He didn’t have a grasp of the complexities and intricacies of whatever sort of being the tiger was, and what that entailed, and how whatever sort of attack Brainwave had implemented would do to such an entity.

“You can’t…feel him?” Adam asked, curious.

He could see the boy’s shoulders tense for a few seconds, as if he was debating whether to answer or not. “I can’t feel his magic anymore,” Billy eventually murmured. “He’s too cold.”

That…didn’t help him figure things out. Billy didn’t have the aura of a magic user, even an intuitive, untrained one; there should be no way for him to sense the presence and then lack of magic.

As Adam let the seconds pass in contemplative silence, considering the possibilities, Billy suddenly raised his head. Adam watched, noting how the boy took a few deep breaths, before clenching his jaw and reaffixing his stare. “You have to let me go. I have to get back to the wizard. His magic can save Tawny.” Billy resolutely kept his gaze steady, but his voice quivered as he added one last word. “Please.”

Adam kept his response blunt and honest. Not even if hell itself were to freeze over would Adam let the wizard get his hands on Billy again.

“No.”  

Billy fully sat up, agitated. “Please. You have to. Tawny is magic. He needs magic to get better, I know it.”  

His eyes shone with anguish, and Adam couldn’t help but feel unsettled. But going to the wizard was out of the question.

“My word is final,” Adam made clear.

Billy’s gaze lingered on his, before his eyes tinged in a blaze of anger which was quickly smothered by a crestfallen expression. His eyes flickered about the room, searching for something, before turning downcast to regard the stuffed animal pressed against him, rubbing his fingers in a circular motion against the artificial fur.

Then Adam saw something crack, deep beneath the surface of his expression, as if he were faced with the reality of some repulsive, nightmare-spawned horror.

“You have magic,” Billy whispered, slowly bringing his gaze back to Adam’s. “If you fix him, I won’t try to run away. I’ll do whatever,” he stuttered, voice laced with resigned desperation, “I promise. I—I won’t hurt anyone for you. But I’ll do whatever else.”

Adam regarded the forlorn little boy, feeling the weight of Billy’s request, knowing he wouldn’t say such a thing lightly. His own heart ached at the wretched sight; this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He’d never wanted to hurt Billy like this. And this time, somehow he had, without even throwing a punch.

“I—” Adam found himself momentarily lost for words, an unfamiliar sensation. He wasn’t even sure if he could do anything to fix the stuffed animal’s magic, though he resolved to try. He extended his hand, palm out. “Would you, hand it over…?”

The boy silently regarded his outstretched hand for a moment, before scooting just close enough to shakily deposit the stuffed animal in his hand, quivering slightly, as if undecided whether to retreat back or stay close to the tiger.

Holding the tiger closer, Adam inspected the stuffed animal. It was looking rather bedraggled, its inner stuffing exposed where part of the fabric was sliced open, the looseness of the area showcasing that a decent amount of its inner fluff had already escaped. Closing his eyes, focusing inward, he let his other senses examine the plush toy, searching for some spark of otherness, of magic. Unlike when the tiger had first confronted him, Adam could not sense the same sort of general magical presence which had permeated this very room. He peered deeper, letting the gods’ blessings guide his endeavor, delving for some magical core or spark or wound.

But there was nothing there.

No core, no spark, no life.

Just the faint flavor of something dark, its last echoes already slipping away, dissolving into the air, its work already done.

There was no wound to be healed, no problem to be fixed, nothing he could feel either. Because this was now just a mere stuffed animal. Whatever more it used to be was gone, for good.

Adam opened his eyes, resigned, and held the tiger back towards Billy, who hesitantly grabbed it back.

“I am sorry. There is nothing left to fix.”

Billy’s face paled. “No, no, please, just do something, please,” he breathed, voice hoarse, “You have to. Or just let me go to the wizard, please.”

Adam wished he could have helped, but there was no denying the truth. “I would fix your tiger friend if I could, but there is nothing left. Not even the wizard can resurrect the dead.”

Oh, how differently things might have turned out if the wizard could.

- - -

Not even the wizard can resurrect the dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

The word seemed to slither inside his chest and sink its poisoned fangs into his heart. Tawny couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be gone forever and ever; this, this wasn’t how the story was supposed to go. They were supposed to be free. The bad guys were supposed to be in prison. There was supposed to be a happy ending. It wasn’t supposed to be hurt after hurt after hurt until there was nothing left.

Billy didn’t hold back the tears anymore. He suddenly couldn’t care if Black Adam saw him crying like some little baby. He was all alone, more alone than he had even dreamed was possible, because somehow reality had become worse than any nightmare.

Behind the blur of tears he saw Black Adam reaching towards him—to do what?—and managed to bat his hand away, retreating back to the headboard, knowing the little distance offered only the illusion of safety. “Don’t touch me,” he half-choked, voice hoarsened as his tears deepened into sobs which started to escape his throat. “Just get away from me.”

Billy sunk his head behind his bent knees, arms curled on top, trying to control the shudder of the sobs that slipped past his lips and discount the fraying reality around him, but couldn’t yet fully ignore the hulking presence of the man who had settled back down just on the other end of the bed.

The silence building in the room was only punctuated by the occasional muffled sob, until Black Adam finally spoke. “I won’t hurt you, Billy.” Billy clenched his eyes closed, as if he could physically block out his platitudes. You already did.

The pressure in the knot in his throat grew, and his sobs escaped without any semblance of control. His breathing came in ragged intervals as it choked the space against his knees where he’d hid his head, nearly drowning out the words the man spoke next, his voice quiet.

“I never meant to.”

…So what? That doesn’t fix anything.

 Distantly, Billy heard the click of a door opening. Sounds, voices clamoring; pinpoints of sound that spoke of a reality transpiring beyond his scrunched-closed eyes. But he couldn’t make himself care. Not anymore. There was nothing left to care about.

- - -

Adam hated the helpless feeling constricting his throat. Billy was in clear distress, and maybe that shouldn’t unnerve him so much but it did nonetheless, and Adam didn’t know how to fix the increasingly tense situation. There were no monsters left to punch, no action to pursue for closure. Admittedly, the wizard was still out there, but Adam felt himself push his own thoughts of revenge to the back of his mind with the knowledge that such plans were useless in the here and now. What was he supposed to do in this moment?

He turned with the click of the door. A rolling medical cart piled with various supplies trundled through the door, followed by the diminutive Nakia, mumbling as she rummaged through the cart’s nearly-overflowing contents on the move.

Taking in the sights of the room yet again, though, she slammed what she was holding to the top of the cart’s shelf with a disruptive clatter. “What in Bastet’s blessings is going on!?” She fiercely whispered, “I am not gone but for a few minutes, and the poor boy is crying.”

The accusatory tone underlying her words was not ignored, and Adam resisted the unbecoming urge to throw up his hands. “If I knew how to make him stop crying, I would do so!”

“Acht!” She tsked, and apparently did not mind throwing up her own hands as she nearly twirled in a visceral reaction. “May the gods help him. He sees a crying child, and wants to make him stop,” she muttered to the air beside her. She whirled back. “Mighty Adam, when you are faced with a crying child, it is never a matter of how to make them stop crying, but to determine why they are crying. Then all answers come.”

“Now,” The old woman stared him down. “Why is he crying?”

“I—” The events of the past ten days since he’d met the child washed over Adam. He’d hurt Billy. Wounded him, back in Fawcett. Scared him. Treated him no better than Billy’s past enemies. Contributed toward the erasure of his tiger friend. Broken his trust before he could even attempt to establish it. He hadn’t meant to hurt him, give him any reason to cry, yet it had happened all the same. The words escaped him.

“I have erred.”

“You have…erred?” The woman’s tone rang with barely-concealed disapproval, most likely directed towards the lack of detail in such a sentiment. Adam knew he was under no compulsion to explain himself any further, but…

“I have done him wrong.” The words rolled out anyway. “I have no need to explain all, but I share this because I know you care for Billy in your own way. You have seen the reports, you know of his previous situation—”

Nakia nodded. Of course, as Adam had seen to, she had been informed of a version of the truth, that Billy had been living, mistreated and alone on the streets, before being found by Adam, badly wounded—but she knew nothing of the wizard and his meddling.

“—a situation, in good conscience, I could not have left him in. But, Billy believes otherwise, and resents my involvement.” All truth, albeit understated. “He was scared and disoriented from the change, I now see. He also was uncomfortable with the medical device because of a past experience with a former guardian.”

Adam had managed to explain away the voice-disrupting device to a curious Nakia as a medical device meant to supposedly promote the healing of the boy’s vocal cords following some unintended side effects of intubation for surgery. Zehuti had certainly helped him out with that explanation.

Nakia absently frowned, almost certainly trying to recall the notes of the reports she had read.

“They had collared him,” Adam explained. Like an animal. Just. Like. You. echoed through his mind, and he pushed away the tiger’s guilty words.

Nakia’s expression slipped into one of horror. “I saw to it,” Adam assured. She read the meaning in his words, and her grim satisfaction at the assumed justice shone in her eyes. Adam looked towards the uncharacteristically uncurious boy, still huddled on the other side of the bed as he shielded his face and soft sobs, before turning back with a sigh.

“He’s almost certainly been overwhelmed by everything. I found him outside the city; he was running away. There was an outburst of magic, an ambush. I, and a new ally, by the name of ‘Brainwave’, thwarted the attack, but Brainwave was wounded, and Billy’s…stuffed animal was badly damaged in the chaos.”

Nakia’s face crinkled with worry. “Another magic outburst? Then they are becoming more frequent.”

Adam nodded. In the thousands of years since his disappearance and imprisonment, the magical environment of Kahndaq had fluctuated; the area became known for its strange encounters, unexplainable sights and experiences, and, occasionally, dangerous spiritual attacks. Kahndaq had always been a strange place in the magical sense, and that mystical element had only deepened with time, blood, and history—and with Adam’s subsequent reappearance and taking of the throne, the energies of the place had kicked into overdrive. The overflow of effects was mostly neutral, if not positive, (and would continue to improve, Adam hoped, as the land and its people healed) but a land as blood-soaked as Kahndaq had previously been could not be home to such a permeating magical presence without some unintended consequences…and entities. It was an easy lie to slip into.  

He finished his explanation without fanfare. “I was unable to protect him as I should have. And now… he does not trust me.”

Nakia hmmed. “Are you sure that Billy was not wounded, other than the cut on his neck?”

Adam tried not to grimace. “I do not believe so. But I am not sure. My questioning was…ineffective.”

She hmmed again, and began sorting through the medical supplies on the cart. Adam stood up, with the intent to leave, but she fixed him with a glare at a speed which would rival that of Horus. “Stay,” she ordered.

“My presence will only hinder your efforts at treatment,” Adam replied. The fact that he was the supreme leader of Kahndaq, imbued with the gods’ own blessings, and veritably looming over her own significantly shorter stature did not seem to faze the woman at all.

“Thank you for your words. I understand why you left, that night Billy had nightmares, to see justice done. But that situation is like this is now.”

Adam’s confusion must have shown somewhere on his face because Nakia made another exasperated noise as she continued. “Billy needs you, here, now.”

“I don’t believe he wants me here.”

Nakia’s face twitched, and she never said “You fool” out loud, but Adam was fairly certain it was mentally addended. Apparently, there was still one line of disrespect left that she wouldn’t cross against her leader.

“You think his life is better here.” She asked—stated, eyes digging for an answer.

“Yes.” Of course; despite all his missteps, the boy would have been far worse off lingering in the wizard’s clutches, living on the streets, fighting a war that was never his.

“Then take care of him.”

The works prickled confusion. He was already trying to provide for him; food, clothing, shelter, safety…

Nakia didn’t wait for him to comment. “There is more to caring for a child. You have to be here, present. Even if your presence is not at first wanted. It is needed; it is necessary—and if you truly think that familial bond will come, then even broken trust can eventually be rebuilt. Though—” she emphasized, eyes slivers, “that is not Billy’s responsibility, it is yours. You cannot fix trust by avoidance; if you let it settle it will settle wrong.” Her eyes fell towards her hands gripping the edge of the medical cart, before her head momentarily dipped.

“I take responsibility for Billy running away under my care and will accept such consequence.” She lifted her gaze and a hidden steel entered her voice. “But I ask that you not run away from your responsibilities to this child, or he might truly be better off elsewhere.”

The old woman’s words sank into his mind, weighing his thoughts as he pondered. Part of him felt rankled that she was speaking to him as if he were clueless in caring for a child—he did know, didn’t he? Gon and Hurut had been his; he had raised them, and…

And that was more than a lifetime ago. That experience, those memories, locked away where their stinging reminiscence could not so easily resurface and paralyze his every waking moment. There was a distance, reinforced by his own utilization of the gods’ blessings as a buffer against the searing loss the breath of memory could bring.

It was his life, but sealed behind a wall of glass. He remembered the old years, but he did not draw on them for matters of today. The emotions of his memories pushed him forward, but the core of such was at arm’s length—had to be kept at arm’s length, to keep going. It was his life, yes… but it almost felt like someone else’s entirely.

As was only fitting. Part of himself had surely died the same day as his wife and sons.

Resting on his patrons’ willingly offered help to not succumb to the pull of distant memories, he judged Nakia’s words, both he and Zehuti finding them sound. Elders were admittedly good at giving advice, usually—in both this century and his original, it seemed. And not that Adam would give her a reason to attempt to follow through, but he distinctly noted her thinly-veiled threat to steal away Billy should she judge him unworthy, choosing not to comment on it.

“I hold you to no fault,” he finally spoke out loud, “and your words are heard with respect. You are a wise woman, Nakia.”

He was sure her hum this time concealed a smugness that could only come with self-knowledge of her veracious opinion, but he did not press; they had more important matters at hand.

Nakia made a final survey of the items she had pulled from the cart as she pulled on gloves. “Now;” she spoke, all business, “You said he had a shallow cut. How did it happen?”

Adam thought back; there shouldn’t have been the opportunity for the boy to have gotten physically hurt himself, even during the chaos of the moment. “I am not sure. I believe it happened before I found him.”

Nakia tutted, rolling the medical cart over to the back of the bed; Adam made sure to stay standing by the other end, hoping his distance would keep the boy from spooking too badly. The old woman suddenly tapped her head in a flutter of remembrance. “So, he has been talking? Are his vocal cords healed well enough, or should I retrieve his drawing board?”

“He can speak.” She didn’t pry, and that was the end of it; the lie safely retired, to his secret relief.

“Billy,” she softly called, and though the boy didn’t raise his head to address it, his shoulders arched with nervous energy.

“Billy,” she repeated. No response. But Nakia didn’t back down. “Billy, it’s Nakia. I need to see the cut on your neck, okay?”

Billy mumbled something undiscernible.

“…Billy?”

More volume entered his words. “I said leave me alone.”

“Billy,” Nakia patiently explained, “I can’t leave until we are sure you’re okay. How did you hurt your neck?”

There was a sullen silence. “I need to know, Billy, so I can help.”

A huff of breath. Another beat of quiet. Then he finally mumbled out a reply.

“…knife.”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise in tandem with Adam’s, their gazes snapping to each other. A series of unspoken questions and answers were exchanged, with the quick conclusion reached that neither of them had any clue as to how Billy had gotten a knife wound.

Correctly sensing that this was no time for interrogation, despite her worried curiosity, Nakia instead refocused her efforts. “Okay, little one, I just need to take a look at it and clean it, and then you can rest.” She gently laid a hand on his shoulder as encouragement for him to uncurl so she could get a better look at the cut.

The last thing she expected the poor boy to do was to flail his arm out, knocking her back with an unexpected force, vitriol seeping from his voice.

“Don’t touch me!”

Nakia stuttered a step back from the bed, an expression of helplessness twisting on her face.

“Why can’t you all just stop?” the boy cried, letting his limbs jerkily flail as he moved to the other side of the bed, tightly gripping the arm of his stuffed tiger, “Just leave me alone!”

He then half jumped, half stumbled off the edge of the bed, and Adam finally stepped in to stymie what was a likely attempt to run for the door (or possibly, the open balcony) by intercepting the boy’s path with his superspeed.

“Don’t hurt Nakia, she’s only trying to help you,” Adam admonished, trying—unsuccessfully—not to loom over the small child.

Billy’s only response was to rear back his foot and attempt to kick Adam in the shins, which he delicately sidestepped, not wanting the child to hurt himself in the process. The boy, eyes rimmed red from crying, tried to throw an unsteady punch, nearly tripping in the process. Crouching down, Adam gently caught his free wrist.

“Calm yourself, please,” he ordered, trying to keep the gruffness out of his voice.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked the elderly woman, as Billy unsuccessfully tried to squirm out of his grip.

“I am fine,” she replied, “only surprised.”

They both stared for a moment, before Nakia admitted, “I would typically say to let him rest, calm down, but his wound has already been left untreated for far too long, assuming it happened shortly after he disappeared. And he should receive a tetanus shot as well.”

Adam nodded, and turned his attention back to Billy, who continued to writhe in frustration. “Billy, will you sit still for Nakia, please?”

“Billy,” Nakia entreated, “I need you to let me clean your cut so it won’t get infected. You don’t want to get sick, right?”

Billy twisted his wrist stuck in Adam’s grip with such mindless ferocity Adam feared he might hurt himself just in an attempt to pull free. “I don’t care,” the boy growled, “Just leave me alone!” He continued to pull at his wrist, and Adam finally let go, not wanting to hurt him.

The boy backed up towards the open balcony, eyes darting back-and-forth with a broiling anger.

Nakia finally sighed in defeat. “You’ll have to hold him.”

“He won’t like that,” Adam pointed out, keeping a steady eye on Billy as he edged towards the balcony, ready to swoop in and stop him if he did something as foolish as trying to jump.

“I know, but it has to be done.”

Adam hesitated. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt him.”

Nakia pinched the bridge of her nose, the tiredness of a sleepless, frantic night finally starting to show. “This isn’t hurting him, it’s necessary medical treatment. If you’re uncomfortable helping, I can track down some of the staff to help, but that might be scarier for him than a familiar face. I hate to distress him any further, but he needs that wound cleaned and the shot as soon as possible; his immune system is likely still weak.”

“…I’ll do it.”

“Billy,” he called, directing his full attention towards the boy, “last chance—please sit down so Nakia can help.” Billy’s only response was to switch from slowly edging towards the balcony to breaking into a full-out sprint.

Figuring it was better to swoop in with superspeed than grab the unwilling child in real time, Adam sped forward and gently scooped the boy up, positioning his back to his chest so Billy couldn’t hurt himself by lashing out, before returning to the bed and sitting down on the edge closest to the cart.

Billy hissed in frustration, trying to flail his arms until Adam carefully pinned them by draping one arm over in an almost-hug, holding his far arm still. The boy continued to try to writhe his way out before being forced to conclude that he was well and truly trapped. His frustration turned to bitter tears as what little energy he had from adrenaline quickly dissipated, and he gradually went slack, finally relenting.

Nakia quickly went to work, grabbing the cleansing spray, silently thanking the gods that the cut was small enough to not require stitches. As she applied the antibacterial dressings, murmuring soothing assurances, Billy hissed silently, head twisted away, his breath hitching in pain.

“Distract him,” she muttered to Adam, knowing her own consolations were falling flat as she carefully cleaned out the cut, before stepping back to find the proper adhesive strips in her pile of supplies.

Distract him? Adam felt wholly unqualified for such a task. Chances were that anything he might say would agitate Billy even further. The boy’s breaths were already coming in and out with unsteady shudders.

But as he listened to the reverberations of his wobbly respiration, Adam suddenly realized that Billy wasn’t merely breathing, but that there were words, drifting under each exhalation, almost imperceptible as they were repeated like a mantra, breathed out and hardly audible.

“I hate you. I hate you…”

Adam’s own breath caught in his throat. He knew who the sentiment was directed towards. Rightfully so. He thought back, to just a day ago, to when he had fully committed to this avenue of action, of recruiting the telepath to help rid the boy of the wizard’s influence, or at least prevent his access to the magic which the wizard used through him as a tool. How he had seen it as a necessary step to one day effectuate mutual trust. How his Wisdom had even warned him, that in doing so he could destroy any chance of realizing such a future. And now, he was struck by the pang of regret:

Had he pushed too far? Was it too late?

Nakia had said that even broken trust could eventually be rebuilt.

But was he up to such a task? To not just care for Billy’s needs, but to try and bridge that gap?

…How could he even dare to fill the role of a father again?

Nakia’s prodding stare broke his thoughts, still requesting a distraction; in his reverie, she’d finished applying the bandages, and turned back to the cart. She rustled through the items before pulling out the vaccination needle and supplies.

Billy stiffened at the sight, breath and hidden words frozen silent in dread as he stared down the needle. And with that pang of childish fear, a fear finally not directed at him, something hooked itself around Adam’s heart, and of his own accord he suddenly found himself tousling the boy’s hair with his free hand, softly shielding, guiding his face to turn away from the sight of the needle.

The child sniffled in surprise, and Adam himself almost stopped kneading his hair, surprised at himself. What had prompted him to…? Why was this familiar, instinctive?

A vision, unbidden, entered his mind; a picture, he realized, that should have been familiar—an old ritual, repeatedly tread in life yet somehow nearly forgotten: The last streaks of sunlight, fading from the heavens; Shiruta, her dark hair framing her face, her dusky skin ingrained with the daily caress of the sun, its warmth sparkling from her ochre eyes even after daylight’s end. Her hands, deft and graceful, laying their boys to rest as the stars emerged from the darkened sky; his own, steady and gentle, ruffling the hair of his children, grounding them in the security of his presence, an unspoken reminder that he would always be there to watch over them; that no perceived horrors of the night could ever harm them. Her lips, eternally curved with a soft smile, pursed in anticipation as she intertwined her hand with his, and then the familiar song, ages old even then, brimmed over with a low croon as she sang the lyrics of protection over their children, weaving the tune with a voice more beautiful than any heavenly spirit could hope to match.

How had he forgotten this? That passion of love, binding their souls together; an instinctive, protective fire beating in his chest—not one of rage, but of the warmth of the hearth of the home—burning, warming, innately knowing that this was what he lived for, strived for, this peace of soul and spirit.

As her words echoed in his ears, the continual buzzing of the gods faded into the background, but instead of being flooded with panicked rage, the soothing notes coated his mind like a balm of honey, and he found himself joining in the ancient ritual, murmuring the once-familiar lyrics to the boy sheltered in his own arms, both separated from those they loved by the march of time and the impenetrable divide of life and death.

“Run out, thou who comest in darkness, who enterest in stealth, his nose behind his face turned backward, who loses that for which he came.
Run out, thou who comes in darkness, who enterest in stealth, her nose behind her, her face turned backward, who loses that for which she came.
Comest thou to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss him.
Comest thou to soothe him? I will not let thee soothe him.
Comest thou to harm him? I will not let thee harm him.
Comest thou to take him away? I will not let thee take him away from me.”

_________

Chapter Text

He was trapped. Trapped, trapped, trapped, and his neck hurt but not as much as his heart; his limbs felt like jello unceremoniously plopped out of a mold, quivering and weak and cold—and there was a needle lurking out there, waiting to hurt, but then also something carding through his hair, a warmth blossoming around him as his ears resonated with the rhythmic rasp of unknown words, some deeper meaning rumbling through him; lost in translation yet received.

And the warmth pulled away the ache in his neck, the sting in his arm, and the last frantic fumes of his strength, lulling him into a sense of security, false or otherwise. It was a different sort of warmth than Tawny’s, but it felt familiar, comforting—and so he let go; drifting into the cloying darkness of oblivion, lost in the notes of a music which brought something familiar to the surface of his mind; deep waters stirred by upheaval yet smoothed by a blanket of rest.

- - -

One shoe squelched against the muddy pedal, the other planted on the ground, squirming against the slippery grass for purchase, weight unsteady without the grounding balance of training wheels. One hand grasped the rubber grip of the bike, the other gripped the sturdy stick, rough bark prickling his palm, wrist pushed against the other side’s handlebar for balance.

A girlish laugh from his right; she was there: matching bike, matching stick, eyes glittering with anticipation at some unseen enemy down the hill from them, somehow hidden from them in the trampled, waterlogged grass. The lukewarm, humid draft around them weighed on his skin, teasing of recent rain and maybe more to come, but his awareness seemed fogged by something more; memory stifled by some wayward cloud drifting too close to earth.

Unaware of his struggle, she inclined her head to him, messy brown bangs tickling her eyes in waves, pushed out of place by the shifting weight of her helmet.

Are you with me? he heard, the volume of her words muted by the unnatural, watery haze.

Mary, his mind exhaled, recognition clutching at his throat.

Say it, Billy, she huffed, trying to blow the loose hairs out of her vision, the impatient bite in her tone peeking through the murkiness.

To the death, he whispered, completing the somehow-familiar line, voice lost as if stolen by the tendrils of fog wafting around them.

Satisfied, she raised the stick in her hand to the air, wielding its weight like a majestic weapon, and shouted her battle cry to the air—the form and substance of the words lost amidst the unnatural murkiness, as if the overcast skies had come and swallowed the earth.

She slipped her resting foot onto the second pedal, and he felt himself do the same, as the heavy air suddenly swelled with music, a gallant melody which echoed the gallop of horses, the righteous shine of swords and jangle of armor, pitted against the roar of foes cresting the lands before them, and he answered its familiar call. He pushed himself forward, following his sister, teeth rattling with the bumps, feet carried at a frightening pace by the gears of his bike as gravity shot him down the hill faster than he could ever dream of achieving on his own.

The world blurred in conflicting light and shadows, clarity and haze, and just as the ground began to level out, his eyes suddenly fixed on something ahead—he tried to turn to avoid it, but with only one hand on the grip he overcorrected—he dropped his sword as he tried to regain control—but he was going too fast! His feet slipped out of the mud-slick pedals when he tried to brake, and in his panic he couldn’t steer out of the way of a blurry, different obstacle—where had that come from?—which he tried to flail away from but hit anyway with a shuddering thud which radiated from his helmeted forehead to his stomach.

He wasn’t moving, he didn’t think he was moving any more, but the world remained blurred. A shout; someone shrieked in concern, in the distance. His heart quavered. What happened? What’s wrong? His hands slapped against the muddy ground, trying to push himself back up, but the ache in his head pounded him back down, the remnants of rain soaking his clothes. The pain he hadn’t noticed was suddenly there, and tears began to flow with an instinctive wail.

Oh, Billy, a new voice fretted, the warm baritone piercing the blanket of misery around him, and he sensed the pressure of the helmet strap against his neck fall away, then felt himself being held like he weighed nothing, hands searching, comforting.

Are you okay? the voice echoed through the fog.

He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if he said anything. Or if he could. The world tilted, then sped up, and he closed his eyes as if he could hold back the nausea.

It’s okay, I’ve got you, the voice soothed, and he clung to how the words rang true despite the cobwebs fuzzing his recollection of their identity. You gotta stay awake, Billy-boy, the voice insisted, and his eyes fluttered back open. It was all blurry, and he was moving again, and it hurt.

Billy, you have to stay awake, the voice vowed, quiet but unyielding. A pause. I need your help, can you hum or sing along?

He opened his eyes again—they’d somehow closed without him realizing—excited for the chance; he wanted to help! He always wanted to help.

The man’s soft voice washed over him, lilting melody tickling his ears with a buzzing familiarity, words rumbling against him like the soothing patter of rain.

~Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy,
Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?...~

He felt more than heard his own clumsy lisp join in, almost automatically breathing out the frequented folk lyrics with his uncooperative tongue, the familiar words etched on his heart by love and memory. He nestled further into the embrace holding him, basking in the warmth which radiated the assurance of safety. He still wasn’t sure if he was ‘okay’. But now that Dad was here, he knew he would be.

- - -

The past reality, the memory, collapsed into patterned shadows, dissipating into formless tendrils of recollection, fleeing from his grasp like the uncatchable breeze.

The fire glowing in his heart faded away into cold embers, the artificial warmth of the blankets he could feel giving little consolation in the face of that monumental loss. Billy blinked, trying in vain to hold onto the fleeting memory, but was forced to face the present reality—he was still here. In this…in this awful place. He sat up, slightly, stomach souring at the fact that he was back in his bedroom.

Well, it wasn’t his bedroom—he didn’t claim it!—but…oh, forget it, he knew what he meant. He winced as the movement highlighted pain across his body—a dizzying pulse from his head, a weary ache in his arm, a throbbing itch on his neck…and a distinctly cold spot digging into his side. Billy looked down at the cause, and the colors in his vision slid into blunted grays.

He grasped the stone-cold stuffed tiger up, fingers tensing from the drop in temperature, mind catching up to the reality of the situation.

If…if Tawny was gone, if he was dead, then… then this was just a dead body.

Billy stared at him. At it. What was he supposed to do? Bury the body? He didn’t know how to do a funeral; they hadn’t even been able to recover his parents’ bodies.

The stuffed animal dropped from his fingertips.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t even think about this.

Billy snatched the edge of the covers, pulling, throwing them over his head, ignoring how the motion knocked the stuffed animal off the side of the bed.

He tried to wade back into the warmth of the dream, but it was long gone, so he let the fuzziness of not being able to care any longer dull his senses enough, hopefully enough to ignore the unfair, greedy world around him which had already taken far too much.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt him anymore. It’s not like he had anything left.

- - -

The correct move, Adam had thought, would have been to be by Billy’s side as he woke up, after the boy had hastily fallen asleep from the shock of the previous day’s events. But Adam still had duties to his country, even so.

In a world of corruption and international politics, the Security Council had been a welcome addition to the structure of Adam’s rule of Kahndaq. Staffed by loyal Kahndaqis intent to never let their countrymen fall prey to the beguiles of outsiders and greedy, despotic insurgents again, they had been all too willing to help after Adam had freed them from the previous regime. Adam preferred action to talk, but talk was often necessary, nonetheless.

Kahndaqi’s largely untapped wealth of oil made it a target by other powers as potential allies (though all knew if Kahndaqi showed any weakness, Kahndaqi’s status would soon change to its previous, that being, a weak nation ripe for the picking by conquerors), so Kahndaqi ambassadors had been cultivating potential allyships and heading off the hungry dogs sniffing at what they thought was just another rise and fall of leadership typical in tumultuous third-world countries.

It was almost ludicrous, that so many assumed that he was just another power-hungry despot. That he was stupid or desperate enough for power that he could be bought. Almost ludicrous, given that this was apparently the way this world worked, that countless other people struggled by in countries which barely had tattered borders, let alone supportive infrastructure, as their so-called leaders cashed in on the fruits of success that came with the title of leading a country, even if the only place they were leading it to was eventual destruction.

Case in point, their technical neighbor, Bialya. A nation under the iron rule of the aggravating Queen Bee, who kept propositioning Kahndaq with alliance offers—which read more as suggested acquisitions of Kahndaq’s newly revitalized oil fields—acting with a smug, confident innocence that might have worked on other nations separated by the distance of geography. But as neighboring countries, Kahndaq was well aware of the reality of Bialya. How starvation, slavery, abuse, and corruption ran rampant—and the very, very few who dared to speak against their precious Queen were quickly dealt with. The truth that the once war-torn Kahndaq was a better place than Bialya had slowly begun to trickle past Bialya’s impressive propaganda defenses, as more and more refugees began to escape across the harsh stretch of desert which made up Bialya and Kahndaq’s border. Adam had seen the look in their eyes—most had come seeking only a better death, not daring to hope for something more; confused at being met with aid rather than the chains of slavery.

The veneer of civilization Bialya painted for the sake of the richer western nations was thin, if one chose to look closely. But as they plied their indifference to the plight of others, willingly giving aid and funding to such a progressive-minded country, soothing their consciences with Queen Bee’s endlessly touted supposed reforms--as they simultaneously grew rich from the profit of her sins, Bialya’s people suffered greatly.

It was only through this web of political corruption, and Queen Bee’s own manipulation of the masses—who felt the full brunt of her indoctrination—that the woman had maintained her rule for so long. It had made her arrogant. Overconfident. Demanding.

So Adam now had to deal with another of her summons, the ridiculous woman. She had been on his list to deal with eventually, once Kahndaq was locally stabilized and had gained footholds globally.

Seated around the long table, the Security Council quickly updated Adam to the situation. Queen Bee was now demanding a meeting, something Adam had avoided so far, wanting to give Kahndaq time to rebuild. Bialya possessed a large military, and had enough western-supplied arms for total war.

Adam himself had no worries, none of their weapons could harm him. But the Kahndaqi people? They had no suitable defenses, not yet. Even a few mere missile attacks on civilians could be devastating—Adam could not be everywhere. And the political situation was…frustrating, in a word. Bialya had connections and was even part of the Protections Treaty. Were Adam to attack himself, as a nonpolitical entity, and kill Queen Bee, it could be seen not as a military conflict, but as a supervillain attack. Which could then give meddlesome heroes like the Justice League legal approval to step in and attack him under the Treaty’s terms. Though, without Captain Marvel’s might on their side, they were now weaker than they could have possibly realized…but Kahndaq’s people would suffer all the same, if enough sentiment turned for other countries to enact sanctions on the country itself.

And if he did declare war—even if he successfully undermined Bialya’s political power, there would still be an issue concerning the common people. The Kahndaqi people were still rebuilding, and while the military was also being built up, they could not go toe-to-toe with Bialyan forces. Forces which were largely indoctrinated and conscripted into fighting for Queen Bee—perhaps not all innocents, but victims of Queen Bee’s regime all the same. And once those fell, he knew Queen Bee would not hesitate to urge the women and children onto the battlefield to valiantly defend their queen, uncaring of how many innocents would perish to secure her own survival and decadent reign. Adam would do anything for his people. But that…that was not a preferable option. Even if Queen Bee was one of the first to fall, the majority of her people would press onwards and fight till their needless deaths in honor of her name.

Now, listening to Queen Bee’s condescending demands, which were accompanied by more than mere insinuations of Bialya’s military ability for an incursion, Adam considered his position. To outsiders, even Queen Bee, Kahndaq still seemed on the edge of a knife, that they could slip any day back into civil war and weakness. But Kahndaq was in actuality remarkably stable, although still militaristically underpowered. Unofficial allies were being cultivated. The economy improved drastically with each day. Kahndaq’s people were strong; their wounds healed quickly—and they would not suffer the bonds of another oppressor, having tasted freedom for the first time in generations. Queen Bee underestimated the power of his people. Underestimated Adam’s own might.

Perhaps it was nearly time to meet, face to face.

- - -

After his meeting with the Council, on Adam’s return to the palace, he first sought out Nakia, who intercepted him outside the kitchen. Adam had left his meeting with the Security Council with more than knowledge, he also had acquired an additional personal communicator, which he gave to Nakia, with the express instruction that she could and should contact him directly if something related to Billy transpired if he were away. Nakia gladly accepted the communicator, and Adam was about to set off to take care of the next business on his agenda, when the old woman spoke up, concern glinting in her eyes.

“I was hoping to speak with you, about Billy.”

“Is something the matter?”

She hesitated. “He has been… somewhat unreceptive. He has been up and around, yes, but still has a glassiness in his eyes. I fear he is shaken by not only recent events but echoes of his past.”

Nakia beckoned Adam to take a peek inside the kitchen, where Billy was sitting at the table, eating slowly, a distant expression on his face, one which hinted at a forlornness but kept up appearances of neutrality. “Before,” she continued, “when he was like this, after his nightmare, he cheered up in the company of other children. But now—” she gestured helplessly “—now, nothing works. I tried, the children tried, he is just empty. I wish I knew more, maybe then I would know how to help, but--”

“What would you have me do?” Adam asked, with more curiosity than defensiveness.

Nakia shrugged. “Take him outside, somewhere new. He spoke the other day of wanting to visit the city. Maybe new surroundings will gently push him out of his stupor—why not take him through the bazaar? Sitting in here is doing no good for him!”

Adam almost gave into his urge to flee the situation, almost told Nakia to take Billy instead, but was met with a second instinct, to banish the lifeless dissociation from the boy’s eyes, to dissipate the emptiness too much associated with the dead and dying.

He would not dare think too long about what part he himself might have played in its existence.

- - -

Everything felt sort of washed out and dull, a monotone, ticking consistency, as if he had accidentally used the washing machine with the faulty lock mechanism down at the ratty old coin laundry, and now his clothes were thumping around and around, over and over, until all the color was washed out and threadbare, all while the unfeeling machine refused to relinquish its contents as it spun, uncaring, out of his control.  

Thump, thump, thump, thump

“Are you awake, Billy?”

Thump, thump, thump, thump

“Why don’t you play with the others, Billy?”

Thump, thump, thump, thump

“Are you hungry, Billy?”

Thump, thump, thump, thump

“Come along, Billy.”

Thump, thump, thump, thump

*

*

*

The buzzing, fraying, monotone tried to push back against the rush of noise, light and warmth, but it gathered itself up and swept through the greying fringes like a gurgling creek resupplied by crisp snowmelts, finally overcoming the unseen threshold within his mind.

Billy blinked.

The sun was hot against his skin. The dry heat of the air wavered with sounds, each singular one discordant, yet together they made up a not unwelcome whole, like the jangling of a huge ring of keys. There was shouting but it did not feel unkind—it was energetic, calling for attention, clamoring for an audience. Conversation, too, bubbled around him; he swirled past as if he was a leaf in a stream, its meaning unknown. The sparse pockets of children laughing in the distance needed no interpretation.

Billy could feel the dirt shuffling under his sandals, its sounds nearly silenced by the wave of noise as he walked down the…

…street?

The dirt beneath him was the dullest thing he could see—all around him, before him, as if lining a funnel, were colorful tapestries, rugs, fabric, and other things he couldn’t even identify except for their brightly colored hues. Groups of people, moving at nearly an unnaturally animated pace, gathered around what seemed like miniature versions of the storefronts of the Fawcett mall pulled onto the street, except there were so many things, and so many colors—shining jewelry, beautiful clothes, books, toys—and now he could hear, could pick out the sounds of far off squawks, chitters, and bellows, as if there was a zoo of animals hiding behind the tiny shopfronts. The air shimmered with layers of music—live performers playing for pennies, tinny echoes of prerecorded radio hits, and indecipherable hums of an ancient quality reaching farther out from the distant wild sands. And some of the shops weren’t shops for things at all, but for food—

He'd thought the handful of concession stands in the Fawcett Zoo were neat, but this was something else entirely. Markings of a language he couldn’t read were emblazoned on the food carts and storefronts, seemingly every few feet, there were so many, their goods further advertised through the loud sizzle of frying oil, the yells of vendors hawking over the crowd’s hubbub, and the smell of spices piercing the air—delicious scents he had no words to even describe, there was no way that anything could taste as good as how that smelled.

There was a strange sort of joy at watching people go about their day, so lively, amidst all the color and noise and..

and…

Something pulled at the corner of Billy’s mind, not unlike the first rays of reason that slowly shine down after groggily waking from a too-long nap.

He, he was…

Billy snatched his hand out of the man’s grasp with a short gasp. He was, there was..

There was a man, beside him—they weren’t walking any longer—and Billy stared at the man’s hand—it stayed still, it made no move to grab his hand again—and he drew his eyes, up, up, past the large swatch of black robes edged with gold, up, up, to the man’s face—and Billy knew, even as his mind sped through the day’s events, even before his sight confirmed—it was Black Adam.

A sickening anger flailed within him as their eyes met. That the villain would show himself, after everything he’d done, and taunt, mock Billy like this? The magic’s gone. Tawny’s gone. Mary’s gone. Mom’s gone, Dad’s gone, they’re all gone gone gone.

Just wait, just wait and he would rip Black Adam apart, for all the evil he’d done, there had to be justice, punishment, vengeance—

A splinter of ice in his heart ached. No, no, no, he couldn’t, even if he could. And he couldn’t keep thinking like this, because then maybe he actually would. He, he had to, he had to—

He had to get out of here.

“I want to go back,” Billy quietly stated, in a shockingly steady voice.

The man stared at him for a few seconds before answering. “Of course.” A pause. “Do you—”

Billy had already turned and started walking in the opposite direction. The nearly imperceptible curves of the street disqualified it from being classified as straight, but it offered an easy path back towards sight of the palace.

As he walked, all too aware of the enormous man walking beside him, watching his every move, he couldn’t help but feel the previous simple joy at watching the busyness of the bazaar slip away, with the bitterness of the realization that the world could keep spinning without those he loved still in it.

- - -

The boy had acted like a puppet, lifeless itself, only going where led. It was not until a few minutes after entering the bazaar, the din of the marketplace washing over like a wave of atmosphere, had he noticed any change in the boy’s monotonous behavior—a blink of his eyes, the stuttered step in his previously slow, rhythmic trod, before his realization and subsequent distancing.

And it had seemed, for just a moment, that an ember of anger burned behind his eyes, before being covered, put away. It seemed a strange thing to wish for, but Adam would rather see the boy’s eyes alight with hatred, hatred for Adam himself, than with that emptiness which had haunted Billy’s gaze before.

Adam wished he was better at interpreting the emotions of others, because it had almost seemed like that same emptiness had slid back into place, mere moments after being expunged. Despite seeming to have awakened from his apparent walking stupor, the boy had opted to return to the palace, directly made his way to his room, and closed the door in Adam’s face—not in apparent anger, but as if he was disinterested with Adam’s presence, a puzzling reaction.

Adam stood for a moment before the door, before making a decision and stalking away. If Brainwave’s ‘alteration’ had permanently harmed Billy… there would be hell to pay.

- - -

Billy closed the door to the bedroom and backed up against the end of the bedframe, staring at the doorknob, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Footsteps outside heralded Black Adam’s apparent departure, but it wasn’t enough—one unlocked door wasn’t good enough.

Feeling a chill in the air, artificially inspired by the contrast in temperature between the hot outdoors and the stone-sheltered palace, Billy padded over to the side of the looming bed, pulling at the corner of the bed’s top blanket, which had been neatly tucked in during his absence. After a few yanks, the blanket came free, bundling over the edge in rolls of fabric.

With it, also falling to the floor, came a familiar stuffed animal—Tawny. A small sliver of emotion—was it hope?—flared in Billy. The stuffed tiger no longer seemed to be leaking cottony fluff, but instead wore a bright red, perfectly-sized crochet sweater. Peeking a glance back at the still-closed door, Billy scooped up the blanket and tiger together, hurrying into the relative privacy of the bathroom, which thankfully still had a lock.

Locking the bathroom door behind him and throwing the blanket around his shoulders like an oversized cape jacket, Billy sat to the floor against the wall, gingerly holding the body of Tawny.

Lifting up the edge of the little red sweater, Billy could see, feel where the gaping wound had been. After the desert battle, Tawny’s body had been thin, much of his cottony fluff spirited away. But he felt plump now, as if it had never happened, the lost material replaced. He could feel strong but thin stitches webbed across Tawny, nearly invisible under his fur, a careful handiwork that Billy suspected could only be the work of a certain someone named Nakia. Was it enough?

Tawny?

He tried again, seeking out that familiar warmth, like a moth drawn by second nature to light, trying to pull it to himself, as he had subconsciously done so many times before.

Are you there, Tawny?

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Billy bowed his head in grief. It hadn’t made any difference. Slipping his hand against his own chest, he felt his own scars, little etchings left on his chest—but they were still healing, nearly—surprisingly—healed, not stagnant. Tawny’s scars weren’t a part of a recovery. Just extra stitching. The little red sweater, made as a kind gesture, now felt weighty and sinister—a funeral shroud, mere dressing on a composing body, red as the eyes of the monster who had taken Tawny from him. A nausea boiled in the back of his throat.

Keep going, keep going. That’s what he had always told himself. To keep looking on the bright side, to keep dreaming, or even just aim to maintain the norm, yet he still kept slipping further and further down, down, down. “Do good and good will follow.” Well, Billy wasn’t sure who the good was following, but it certainly wasn’t him!

Was it wrong, if he were to give up? What else did he have left to give up? Who else could he rely on?

Dad and Mom had died, Mary could be dead, or out there, forever lost; Uncle Ebenezer had abandoned him, his foster ‘parents’ had failed him, no one was looking for him, he had thought himself alone.  

And now Tawny—Tawny, who, he’d only had a few days of Tawny being more alive than ever, but now, now the comforting warmth Tawny had provided so selflessly, that love, it was gone, replaced by an empty, yawning maw of cold. Looking back, from the day his parents had introduced Tawny, he’d never not had a flicker of warmth. But there was less of Tawny here in his hands than the Tawny Billy had had all those years prior, all those times he thought he was alone; he had been mistaken.

Now—now, he truly was alone.

And with that realization, Billy could feel the emptiness clawing back up, threatening to fill the space in his heart once holding hope. To just give up, and let the emptiness sink him, or to let the spark of anger spread like a wildfire, free and untamable.

Billy sat there for a few moments in contemplation. To give up, or to give in…it felt… like a betrayal. A betrayal of the love and memory tied to all his loved ones, all his lost ones. Life… honestly sucked, sometimes. But at the same time, where there’s life, there’s hope. He’d heard that enough, it had to be true, really. Could he have a little trust in the magic of the story of life?

Life sucked—his parents died, and he’d mourned them, and survived. Back, way back, when he’d first been bundled into a horrible foster family, he hadn’t expected to escape the foster system. Yet just a few years later, he was suddenly being ushered into a magical cave, in the presence of an ancient wizard, who gave him superpowers. The power to help people who needed it. The power to survive in a cruel world and keep on loving.

And, and maybe nobody was looking for Billy, but maybe people were out there, looking for Cap, missing Cap—and it sucked so much that he wasn’t there to help or be there for them, but maybe he would be again someday. And the Justice League—they were so freaking nice: Superman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, even Batman—even if they didn’t know to look for him, even if they didn’t truly know him, they cared, he knew they did.

And even if all the villains in the world teamed up, to take away every single choice he had the chance to make, to take away every little grain of power and autonomy he still possessed, they could never, never take away the love others had poured into him. The kindness of strangers. The camaraderie of superheroes. The achy love of his mom, dad, sister, Tawny that he felt so deeply as the loss just kept scraping away the cold iciness of his heart.

The realization hit him—all these years, he’d been loved. Poured into. Maybe not with the same level of consistency or breadth or specificity as others, but he had drank it all in like a greedy houseplant thirsty for more, more, more water and care. But he hadn’t done the same yet, not really, not enough. He wished, he prayed, he hoped he could someday have the opportunity to do that, to be able to express such a wellspring of love to someone else, to find a family to love. But more than that, he wished he had the chance this very second, to give some of that oh-so-rich love back to those who had imparted it to him.

Heart bursting, Billy squeezed the lifeless body of Tawny even tighter, silent tears rolling down his face.

“I’m sorry, Tawny,” Billy whispered. “I took and took and took all those years, you kept me warm with love and I didn’t even realize it, and now you’re just so cold.” A hiccup interrupted. “I wish, I wish I could give some back. Can you—” he sniffed “—can you please just come back, I love you so much.”

With every second without a response, the crack in Billy’s heart deepened, and he finally let it break—not giving up to emptiness, not giving in to anger—but letting all the love he felt for his dad, mom, sister, Tawny spill out, mixing with the protective swirl of love for his superhero friends, the people of Fawcett, the kids on the street, all the people he’d saved and those he’d yet to save, even though he hadn’t met them yet—Billy unchained all his pent-up love, letting it pour out, unrestrained.

True love, as it does, seeks out others—to fill them up, bolster spirits, soothe souls. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And that powerful deluge of love poured into the nearest release—the empty form of a tiger, cradled in a little boy’s arms.  

As Billy pushed the warmth of his love towards the void of cold of his tiger, feeding that hungry emptiness, channeling all his love outward rather than pulling the warmth from others inward for his own comfort—as he did so, a most peculiar thing happened.

The cold, empty maw…got filled. And Billy felt something.

It was like the little prickle you get in your fingers when you’ve been out in the freezing cold of winter without gloves, when your hands are so frozen over that you can’t even feel them, and you finally enter a heated room. Your fingers aren’t warm, you can’t even comprehend that they will ever be warm again since they were so cold, but there’s a little electric static of feeling that reminds you that yes, you still have your hands.

And Billy wasn’t sure if he was imagining it—he wouldn’t even dare to think or to try to draw the little feeling closer to get a better look—but it almost, almost seemed like, right where that frozen void had been, some little ember of warmth let out a tiny flicker—something so negligible, yet utterly incompatible with the cold of nothing that had once inhabited the same space.

A blitz of joy shuddered through Billy, and he shot to his feet out of pure, bewildered excitement.

“Tawny?!”

No answer.

But there was also no nothing. The little ember of warmth was still there!

A smile, a genuine smile broke out across Billy’s face, and he could have whooped out loud from pure joy. Maybe he did, he wasn’t sure. He felt like he’d just run a mile with how tired he was, and how heavy he was suddenly breathing, but he didn’t care—he twirled in place, still holding Tawny close.

“You’re still in there, you are, you are!!” His gleeful smile suddenly took a serious twinge. “Don’t worry, Tawny, I’ll take care of you. I don’t really know what just happened, but I do know that you’ve shared your warmth with me this whole time, so now I’m going to do the same.”

There was no response, no shift in the steady flicker of the ember’s warmth to show any sign that Tawny could hear him, but that was okay. He knew Tawny was in there, somewhere, and that was all that mattered at this point.

“Yeah, okay,” he murmured to himself. Billy knew, he had to step up, for Tawny to have any chance. He couldn’t give up—he couldn’t give up on Tawny, he couldn’t give up on himself, he couldn’t give up on anything. He had to calm down, focus, not panic, and focus on helping others, not himself.

Billy clambered onto the stepstool placed in front of the bathroom mirror to look himself in the eyes. Despite his strange fatigue, the elation of his victory was invigorating. Thoughts turning to the villains too-close-for-comfort, Billy felt part of his anger leak into annoyance-fueled determination.

Frick Black Adam. Frick his red-eyed goon. They couldn’t take everything. Not his hope, not his love. And now, not Tawny.

They dared to take his powers, his freedom, his choices? Well, Billy was going to make durn sure that they regretted it. He was going to be the most insufferable kidnappee possible and still do good, even without powers, just to stick it to them and the suckiness of life. Operation Tatooine was still in effect, after all, and part of that was doing supergood, even without the “super” part. Even if he no longer had the power to make all the choices he wanted, Billy knew he couldn’t let the desperation of captivity take over. If he lost himself, Tawny might be lost forever as well.

Seized with resolve, Billy stared hard at the mirror. He was going to make every choice he could still possibly make and relish every single little victory, starting with—

Billy broke his gaze to look at the sink counter, a pretty pink quartz, espying his toothbrush on the counter. Despite his previous nausea, he thankfully hadn’t thrown up, but there was a slight sour taste in his mouth all the same. It was a baby step choice, yes, but a choice he could make all the same. And he was going to brush. his. teeth. right. now!

Billy grabbed the toothbrush, rolled a blob of toothpaste on it, brought it up to his mouth, looked back up in the mirror, and—

—and twisted around with a horrified yelp, nearly falling off the bathroom stool as he flung the toothbrush at the figure looming behind him, floating in the air, the figure’s pale face tinged with blue and a contemplative smile, his dark hair spiked, akin to horns; his young appearance suggesting a level of juvenileness at odds with his outfit of choice, a formal black suit and tie.

The poor toothbrush scored a direct hit, staining the strange figure’s suit with sudsy toothpaste, before falling onto the animal held with the boy’s arms, a large orange tabby cat. The toothbrush finally ended its sad journey, tumbling onto the floor, all of its former toothpaste left in its wake. The strange boy’s eyes narrowed, and the cat began to hiss.

Back still pressed against the quartz counter, Billy stared in disbelief, before finally finding his voice.

“Oh! Um.. Hi?”

- - -