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The six of them sat in a circle on the ground of the abandoned subway station they called home. Behind them their tents and backpacks were all packed up and ready to move just in case they had to leave in a hurry. In the middle of their little circle they had gathered up what they would need to pull off what was probably a really, really terrible idea. There was a stack of slightly crinkled, but nonetheless very official looking papers, $35.67 in crumpled bills and stacks of coins, and some clothes pilfered from the lost and found at the library that were far too big to fit any of them.
Well, in their current forms at least.
It wasn't much. The money was certainly not enough to keep them going for more than a few days, but it was more than they had yesterday. And with the jobs they had lined up and Billy's potentially steady employment with WHIZ radio on the horizon, things were looking up for the ragtag little group for the first time in a long time. Which is why they were even entertaining this idea.
“There's no way this is gonna work,” Billy said as he tugged on a loose thread of the worn sleeve of the jacket they’d found for his disguise.
“Shut up,” Freddy snapped, swatting at his hand. “It will work so long as you don't act weird.”
Eugene nodded, shoving something into his hands. “You should put on some glasses, that will help sell it.”
“But I don't need glasses.”
“It will help you get in character,” Pedro insisted.
“And you’ll look so smart!” Darla squealed. “Like a professor or something! Ooh we should tell people that’s what you do!”
“We do need a cover story,” Mary said. “A name, a job, an address. We just have to keep it simple so we don’t get caught in the lie.”
“We’ll sort out the cover story later,” Freddy waved them off. “First we need to make sure this stuff fits him. I mean Cap is huge.” He turned to Billy, poking him in the chest. “So go get changed so we can see what we’re working with.”
Billy sighed and trudged a few feet away. With shout of “Shazam” he transformed into Captain Marvel. When he came to take back his place in the circle, the other kids all shifting to make room for his now much larger form, Mary held out various pieces of his disguise, looking far too excited about dressing him up as some sort of parody of their dead dad.
If he were being honest, he felt weird wearing such professional looking clothing as Cap. He felt old, grown up in a way he didn't usually feel when powered up. He tugged at his clothes, the collar oddly tight around his throat. “Do you really think they'll buy it?” he asked, his deep baritone echoing off the tunnel walls in a way his mortal voice never did. “I mean I don't exactly look like most of you guys.”
“Lots of kids have parents that don't look like them,” Eugene shrugged. “And if anybody acts weird about it we just say we're adopted.”
“It’s barely even a lie,” Freddy insisted.
“I guess so,” Billy said. Solomon’s whispering in his mind grew louder, reminding him of all the possible pitfalls of their plan. “Do you really think I can pull off being your dad?”
“You always give off dad vibes, especially as Cap,” Freddy informed him with a shrug. “Besides it's not like we're actually gonna make you our Dad for real. Just for the paperwork.” As if to emphasize his point, Freddy scooped up the stack of papers that would officially enroll them in the local middle and grade schools—all filled out save the Parent or Guardian Signature lines.
“And for permission slips and parent teacher conferences and stuff like that,” Pedro added.
There was a hum of agreement from the others. When they put it like that it didn’t seem so daunting. Just a couple papers to sign, a couple meetings to go to. If they all stayed out of trouble, his appearances as their dad would be limited.
All around the circle, his closest friends, his family, stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes.
“Come on, Billy,” Darla pouted, her bottom lip jutted out and trembling as she clung onto his sleeve. “Please?”
Billy knew right then that he was doomed.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s do this.” Anything else he might have said was drowned out by the cheers of the others as he signed the papers with a flourish. The ink glistened in the low light of the subway station, the name B. Batson shining up at him.
He could do this. He was going to be the best pretend dad any of them could ever hope for.
“Captain Marvel,” Batman called out, turning his eyes to the demigod in question as their meeting reached it’s end. “I'd like you to go with J'onn and Diana on this mission.”
Captain Marvel froze in his seat for a moment, his eyes darting towards the front of the conference room, over to the exit, and back again.
“Is there a problem Captain?” he pressed.
The Captain sat up straighter, a sheepish smile stealing across his face as he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Batman, this is kind of…awkward. But I can't go on this mission. I can't be away from home that long–at least not this week.”
Batman narrowed his eyes. “And why not?”
“I have plans.”
“Plans?” he echoed.
“Yes, it's a…personal thing,” the Captain winced at his own words, but didn’t break eye contact with him.
A murmur of voices rose up around the room, the surprise of such a statement overriding any sense of decorum the members of the Justice League had during these meetings.
“Personal? Since when do you do personal?” Flash blurted out, leaning forward across the table as if he would be able to see the Captain better from his new position.
“Is it a girl?” Hal asked excitedly.
“Or a guy?” Green Arrow asked with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Wait, do you have a job?” came an incredulous voice to his left that might have been Aquaman.
“Uh…”
Batman cut in before he could get fully overwhelmed by the questions. “Can't you reschedule?”
“No I don’t…I don't think so,” he said. “It’s kind of a…family matter. I promise it will just be this once though.”
Batman grunted, his eyes narrowed into a glare that made the Captain squirm in his seat. “See to it that you inform us of any such…conflicts in the future.”
“Yes sir,” he said sheepishly sinking into his seat.
The Captain sped out of the Watchtower the moment the meeting ended, obviously as eager to get to his personal commitment as he was to escape the sea of questions waiting for him.
Bruce had a curious itch just beneath the skin. It wasn't like the Captain to refuse to go on a mission–usually he couldn't volunteer fast enough. But for weeks now he'd been cutting back on his duties--not neglecting them, just taking a step back. And now he had finally given a reason, though he wasn’t sure what to make of it just yet.
Because now he apparently had a family—one he had never mentioned before.
It was possible this was a new development, a child that was born recently, a reconciliation with an estranged parent or sibling, the death of a distant relative. There were countless explanations for the sudden change in circumstances. But the fact remained that he needed to know whether this was going to be a problem.
So naturally, Bruce followed him back to Fawcett City to determine if this sudden ‘family matter’ was legitimate and if so, whether it was going to affect the Captain’s performance moving forward.
Using their communicators, he had tracked the Captain from the zeta tube downtown to where he had flown several blocks away, eventually coming to land in an alley between two buildings that were certainly not up to code. The Captain looked around him, checking both ends of the alley for any onlookers, but he didn't spot Bruce hidden high above him, just barely peeking out from over the rooftop.
Then with a snap of his fingers his uniform shifted into casual jeans, a white button up and dark colored jacket. He fumbled with a pair of glasses and a watch before straightening up and walking purposefully back towards the street. Despite very little changing about his appearance, he seemed to be a different person. It wasn't unlike when Superman became Clark Kent, a subtle transformation that somehow did wonders at hiding his identity.
Intrigued, he continued watching. The Captain slipped out of the alley, heading down the street somewhere in the heart of the city.
Bruce was carefully keeping to the sparse shadows afforded to him by the Fawcett City architecture. Despite his own exceptional stealth, he was sure the only reason he wasn’t discovered was that the Captain was clearly distracted, glancing down at his watch every minute or so, speeding up but never using the speed of Mercury to get where he was going.
Eventually he ducked into his destination: Beck Middle School.
Plenty of students, teachers and parents were milling about the entrance of the school, but the Captain made a beeline for one child in particular, a dark haired boy of about twelve or thirteen settled onto a low brick wall that surrounded a statue of a man Bruce didn’t recognize. The boy had a crutch leaning next to him, within easy grasping distance, though his nose was buried in a well worn book. His face lit up as the Captain came closer.
Bruce knew that he was probably intruding on something private, but this boy—the Captain’s son?—was an unexpected mystery. He adjusted the microphone in his suit to pick up the voices on the other side of the quad. It took some fiddling to tune out all the other voices and focus directly on the pair he wanted, but before long he could hear their voices crystal clear, as if they were sitting right next to him and not a few dozen yards away.
“…doesn’t like me much,” the boy was saying. “You know how she is.”
“I do,” the Captain said with a hefty sigh. “But don’t worry, with any luck I can get her to cut you some slack.”
“It’s a parent teacher conference, you just nod and smile,” the boy said. “And promise to discipline me at home when she mentions what a trouble maker I am.”
“You’re not a trouble maker Freddy,” the Captain said gently, placing one hand on his shoulder.
“Tell that to the Breyers,” Freddy snorted. “They want me kicked out for that last fight.”
“They started that fight!” the Captain huffed. “You couldn’t walk for three days!”
“Not the best argument,” Freddy grimaced. “I can barely walk on normal days.”
“Not funny,” the Captain said. “Just because their dad is on the school board doesn’t mean they can attack other students whenever they want. I’ll make sure Ms. White understands that and gets off your back. And if she doesn’t I’ll remind her that she has certain responsibilities to accommodate your disabilities. Even if it does make me sound like a Karen.”
Both of them laughed boisterously. The Captain pulled Freddy into a one armed hug, knocking their foreheads together. Bruce was struck by the fact that, despite their dark hair, the two didn’t look much alike. Freddy was much more angular, his features sharp, his frame slight. If the Captain was his father then the boy clearly took after his mother in most respects.
Freddy climbed to his feet, balancing on his crutch with ease that spoke to years of experience. “Come on, we don’t have long Dad.” He laughed again at some sort of inside joke. “If we’re quick we can snag some food on the way home.”
Bruce watched them walk into the building, idly discussing Freddy’s teacher, his classmates, his grades.
No this wouldn’t be a problem, even if the Captain had to take more time off from his duties. Bruce would have to rearrange a few things, make preparations to ensure they could handle certain emergencies without him, but those were things he should do anyways.
Because if anyone could appreciate putting their children above hero work it was him, even if he had much more trouble doing so at times than the Captain seemed to.
“A son? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Bruce replied, an edge of exasperation entering his tone at the need for repetition.
“Wow,” Clark breathed out. “I had no idea.”
It was hard to wrap his head around the thought. The Captain was an amazing hero to be sure, but raising a child was a completely different skill set. Though he supposed it made sense now why he was so good with kids.
“Why do you think he didn’t tell us?” Clark mused aloud. He could see the Captain chatting boisterously with Plastic Man as the two of them finished up their monitor duty shift and headed home for the afternoon.
“I got the feeling that it was a…recent development.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Just the way the two of them acted around each other,” Bruce said, as evasive as ever. “They’re certainly close, but perhaps not used to being father and son. I could be wrong of course.”
“A stepson perhaps?” Though the idea of the Captain getting married was as outlandish as him having children, it was still a possibility. And Clark could admit that he was a bit put out by the idea that none of them were invited to the wedding—assuming there was a wedding, which wasn’t a guarantee.
“Do you think we should talk to him about it?” Clark asked.
Bruce grunted. Clark chose to interpret that as ‘knock yourself out, I won’t stop you’, which was as good as a yes.
Clark jogged towards the zeta tubes, intent on following the other hero down to Earth. When he’d arrived, the Captain had already flown off until he was little more than a streak of red in the clear blue sky.
Taking off after him, Clark wracked his brain for a way to subtly let him know that he was there for him if he ever needed support as a fellow father and as a friend. He’d been rehearsing what he was going to say in his head, intent on showing the Captain that he had people to lean on. As far as he knew Bruce hadn’t mentioned to him that he’d seen him with his son—stepson?—earlier in the week, but Clark figured he deserved to know so he wouldn’t feel pressured to keep his child a secret. Then they could accommodate him better in the coming days.
Clark followed the streak of red to a quiet street downtown. He might have lost sight of him at that point if he hadn't heard Bruce's tale of his magical transformation into his civilian identity. As it was, his eyes were able to track a professionally dressed man with impossibly broad shoulders and a familiar face as he hurried down the street.
On the corner sat a short, stout building with a large antenna jutting into the sky, high above the neighboring buildings. Large neon letters advertised it as WHIZ Radio, a local news network that Clark was passingly familiar with from his occasional visits to the city. If he remembered correctly, the Captain was quite a fan of some of their broadcasts.
Standing in front of the building was an older gentleman, his neatly combed hair more white than gray, though there was still a lively bounce in his step despite his age. His hands casually gripped the lapels of his jacket and his round glasses glinted in the sun.
“Mr. Sterling!” the Captain called out as he crossed the street to reach him, effectively silencing any greetings of Clark's own. “Such a pleasure.”
He held out his hand and gave the older man a firm shake.
“Why the pleasure is all mine Mr. Batson!” Mr. Sterling responded with even more enthusiasm. Clark felt his ears burn at the words, the forbidden knowledge of his friend's true name so casually thrown about. He dropped down between two buildings to avoid being seen by the pair. “I have been dying to meet you ever since Billy first stepped foot in my office. That's quite a boy you're raising there.”
The Captain ducked his head, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I'm glad you think so, he's been so excited to work at WHIZ, it's like a dream come true for him.”
“Then we have that in common!” Mr Sterling beamed. “Your son is such a bright young man, he'll be a wonderful addition to our team, though I'm sure you're aware that there are a few particulars we have to discuss first.”
The Captain shrugged. “That's why I'm here.”
“Will Billy be joining us?” Mr. Sterling asked, glancing around as if the boy would pop up from behind a trash can or parked car. “I'm sure he'd like to have his say about everything.”
“He has schoolwork he needs to complete,” the Captain said quickly. “You understand how it is.”
Clark was surprised to find that the Captain was lying, though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why.
“Yes well he certainly needs to keep on top of his studies. That's one of the stipulations of his employment after all. I can’t have my rising star boy reporter flunking out of middle school now can I? Why don't we discuss matters further in my office?”
Clark let them wander inside the building, fragments of their conversation floating up to him as he turned to fly away. He’d already heard more than enough—certainly more than he ought to. He’d save his reassurances for a better time, when the Captain wasn’t busy taking care of family matters.
News that the Captain had a kid spread like wildfire through the Justice League. Everyone wanted to know more, it was all anyone could talk about. He’d spent so long being so tight-lipped about his personal life, they all jumped on whatever scraps of information they could get—and a secret kid was a major development.
So really it was still only a matter of time before the Captain was confronted with the rumors of his personal life. Oliver was merely doing him a favor by bringing it up himself.
“Look Cap,” Oliver began, clapping the much larger man on the shoulder as he settled into the seat next to him. “I just thought that you should know…we know about the kid.”
“Ollie!” Dinah hissed, smacking him on the arm.
Captain Marvel froze, his eyes comically wide. Oliver was sure that he’d stopped breathing altogether as his head swiveled around to look at the assembled heroes.
“Oh?” he asked, his voice tight, coming out smaller and squeakier than it ever had before. “And you’re…upset with me?”
“What? No of course not,” Oliver laughed. What did the guy take them for? He nudged him in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “We all totally understand why you kept it a secret.”
“You do?”
“Yeah! Lots of us try to make a separation between our home lives and our hero lives. You’re just better at it than most of us.”
“Thanks,” he said slowly, cautiously. “I guess I kind of expected a more…negative reaction.”
Dinah cocked her head to the side, leaning across him to talk to Cap more directly. “Why would we respond negatively to you having a kid? You’re hardly the only dad on the team.”
Cap blinked rapidly, clearly caught somewhere between relief and confusion. He must not have known about the other dads, or maybe just hadn’t made the connection with some of the sidekicks.
“Oh I see,” he said slowly. Then he swallowed hard, a fresh wave of nerves washing over him. “How do you know about that?”
Bruce cleared his throat. “I saw you talking to your son—Freddy was it?”
“It was Billy,” Clark said.
Bruce glared. “I know what I heard.”
“So do I.”
“Actually there is a Freddy and a Billy,” Cap said shifting awkwardly in his seat.
Oliver blinked in surprise. Now this was something. “Oh, you have more than one?”
“Yeah…” he trailed off. Then he clapped his hands together and jumped to his feet, already backing up towards the door. “This was a good talk, but I do have somewhere I have to be in like…fifteen minutes, so let's just put a pin in this conversation yeah?”
Dinah laughed beside him. “If you have to be with your kids, you can just say that.”
“Right, yeah,” he said. “Darla’s scout troupe is having a big camping trip this weekend,” he explained his voice wavering on the name as if he wasn't sure he should say it. “So I should really get going.”
Bruce furrowed his brow. “Wait, who's Darla?”
“You have a daughter too?” Clark asked.
“Darla's the baby of the family,” he answered. “She's nine.”
“Oh how sweet,” Dinah cooed.
“Yeah kids are great at that age," Oliver agreed.
“Yeah she’s a sweetheart,” Cap said. His cheeks were flushed and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. “And like I was saying, her scout troupe didn’t have any male chaperones—it’s a mixed gender troupe you know?—so I volunteered. So I’m gonna be busy the next couple of days, but we can continue this talk…later.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Oliver said, following after him.
“Oh I don’t know if that’s—“
“Nonsense,” he said. “I can keep an eye on the city for you while you’re busy with your little girl. Besides, I’ve got some stuff to do in Fawcett anyway.”
“Stuff? What stuff?”
Oliver brushed off the question and pulled Cap into the Zeta. The two of them landed in Fawcett City just a few moments later, Cap seemingly resigned to his fate despite being able to use his superspeed to make an escape if he really wanted to—so really, Oliver figured he didn’t mind as much as he pretended to.
With a wave of his hand Cap changed into his civvies. It was an odd sight—he seemed so much more grown up in a t-shirt and jeans, which was a strange thought. Once Oliver had shucked off his uniform in favor of his own civvies, the two walked in amicable silence down the street.
Oliver briefly wondered if he’d somehow accidentally tricked the guy into showing him where he lived and felt a swell of excitement at the thought, but then Cap turned towards the entrance to a city park.
At the gates a little girl with dark skin and glasses rushed at the Captain throwing her small arms around his middle. Her fingers were smudged with glitter that left sparkly trails on the back of his shirt.
“You made it!” she cried out. “I thought for sure your…” she glanced around before dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “meeting was gonna go on forever and you'd miss it!”
“Not for the world,” he laughed, squeezing her tight.
Her big brown eyes turned to Oliver. “Who’s this?”
He hesitated for a moment before answering. “This is Oliver,” he said. “He’s a friend from work.”
Her face lit up and Oliver knew that she knew what that meant, though she didn’t ask for clarification. “I’m Darla!” she said, bouncing on her heels and waving enthusiastically at him.
“Nice to meet you Darla,” Oliver said, grinning at the young girl. He searched her face for signs of the Captain in her features, and he thought maybe he saw something of him in her smile, but he couldn't be sure.
“Oliver’s covering for me while I’m camping with you, so he decided to see me off,” Cap explained. “That way there will be no interruptions.” The two shared a conspiratorial smile. “Now why don’t you show me where the rest of the troupe is?”
Darla grabbed his large hand in her own, pulling him towards a small group of assembled kids being herded by two harried looking women. They were instantly relieved at the sight of him. One with bottle blonde hair flashed him a smile and batted her eyelashes, no doubt hopeful that the Captain was single.
Cap and Darla waved goodbye to him and Oliver grinned back. This was definitely worth the extra hours he’d be putting in from his impulsive decision to cover for the demigod.
Barry hadn't expected to see Cap in Central City, especially not in civilian clothes. He nearly ran smack into glass of the front window of the Flash Museum when he recognized his friend's face among the crowd—his head towering over the other visitors.
He stood at the front of the museum alongside a gaggle of kids that were spilling out of a school bus, all chatting excitedly. One boy, Asian with glasses, hovered by his elbow, sticking close.
“I can't thank you enough for agreeing to chaperone,” an older woman was saying to him as Barry got closer. He assumed she was the kids’ teacher by the way they quit misbehaving the second she shot them a stern look. “I was worried we'd have to cancel the whole field trip when Jenny's mom called in sick.”
“Oh it's not a problem at all,” Cap said. “I know how much Eugene's been looking forward to this.” He dropped his hand onto the Asian boy's head and ruffled his hair. The boy scowled for just a moment, but his expression quickly morphed into a grin as Cap shot him a wink, as if the two of them were in on some secret joke.
“I have to say you weren't what I was expecting when Eugene said his Dad could fill in,” the teacher said carefully. She eyed him up and down, no doubt clocking the very obvious physical differences between the two of them.
“Oh?” Cap said, a hint of amusement in his tone.
“What were you expecting?” the boy, Eugene, asked in a falsely innocent voice.
She floundered at the question, clearly too embarrassed to outright say what she'd been thinking. Namely that she'd been as surprised to find out his dad was white as Barry was to find out one of his sons, and only one, was Asian.
"Well I suppose Eugene must take after his mother," she said carefully. "Physically at least."
"I wouldn't know," Cap said. "I've never met her."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm adopted," Eugene said bluntly. "Isn't it obvious?"
Before she could answer one of the kids shouted out, “Look! There he is!”
The pronouncement elicited cheer from the kids and their fellow museum goers as everyone’s attention swiveled to Barry's direction.
Barry puffed up his chest and zoomed towards the kids, ready to put on a bit of a show for them. After all, they'd come all the way from Fawcett City to see the Flash Museum, it was only right that they got to spend time with the hero behind it.
He caught Cap's eye, oddly proud to see at flicker of surprise on his face, and winked.
“Hey guys!” he said with an enthusiastic boom of his voice. He let his eyes land on Eugene as he spoke. “And who do we have here?”
The kid looked starstruck for all of three seconds before launching into an unprompted explanation about this being their fifth grade class trip and how they'd been fundraising for it for weeks.
Barry laughed, listening to Eugene ramble, excited about falling into such an amazing opportunity. The rest of the Justice League was going to be so jealous when they found out he got to talk to one of Cap's kids. Oliver had been lording that fact over them all for weeks.
Diana dropped into the seat beside Captain Marvel. They were both breathing hard after their sparring match. He was one of the few members of the League that could keep up with her during training, though they rarely had time to do so together, especially lately. But she supposed there had been extenuating circumstances. She had been wanting to talk to him about it, but hadn’t found the right time or the right words. She considered him a friend, a brother, and the more they’d learned about his large, loving family, the more she wanted to be a part of it.
“Excellent work today Captain,” she said, passing him some water.
“Thanks,” he said, guzzling down half the bottle in one swig. “But I think it’ll be a while before I can match you.”
“Not nearly as long as you think.”
The two of them smiled at each other, settling into a comfortable silence.
A soft ringing filled the air. Diana furrowed her brow and glanced around for the source of the sound. After a moment the Captain seemed to realize that it was coming from him. He reached out and summoned a small device to his hand. A cellphone, albeit an old model that had clearly seen better days, buzzed loudly in his hand.
“Hello?” he answered. There was a sense of urgency in his tone.
A small voice answered him, though Diana couldn’t make out the words.
In an instant, the Captain jumped to his feet. “I’m on my way. Just sit tight.”
“Is something wrong Captain?” she asked as he hung up.
He glanced at her, conflicted. “That was Mary. She’s my…she’s one of the kids.” He spoke oddly, as if distracted. It seemed that he was still uncomfortable discussing his family with the rest of them. Diana didn’t remember a Mary—the only girl she knew of had been young Darla, but she was excited to know that he had another daughter.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, she’s fine,” he assured, though his face was twisted with concern. “She just needs me to pick her up. She was supposed to stay after school for a club thing, but apparently she’s not feeling well.”
Sensing an opportunity, Diana stood up as well. “Would you like me to accompany you?”
He chewed his bottom lip for a moment before answering. “Yeah you can come,” he eventually told her. “Mary’s a big fan of yours, it might cheer her up to get the chance to meet you.”
Diana beamed, warmth spilling into her chest at the news. She always strove to be a good role model for young girls, that the Captain’s daughter looked up to her was proof that it was working.
When the two of them made their way to the local middle school, a young girl of about twelve or thirteen sat on a metal bench and beside her a middle aged woman with greying brown hair rubbed small circles into her back.
“Mary!” the Captain called out, rushing towards the girl. “Are you alright?” he asked, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead and using the other to brush her hair out of her face.
“I’m okay, Dad,” she said softly. “It’s just…you know.”
He frowned at her, not instantly comprehending her meaning. “What do you mean?”
She blushed deeply. “It’s cramps,” she muttered.
Understanding dawned on his face. “Oh,” he said. “Did you need me to pick anything up? Or—“
“Mr. Batson,” the woman beside them said. “I’m glad you and your wife could make it so quickly. I’m sure Mary just needs some rest and she’ll be right as rain.”
“Oh I’m not his wife,” Diana interrupted. “I’m his sister.”
“Oh my apologies,” the woman said, a light dusting of pink settling into her cheeks. “Is there not a Mrs. Batson?”
The Captain flushed a deep scarlet to match his daughter. “Oh no ma'am! Just me and the kids, you know how it is.”
Mary’s head had snapped up to look at Diana when she spoke, her eyes round with excitement, ignoring her father’s embarrassment.
The Captain gently pulled Mary to her feet and flashed the woman a smile. “We’ll take it from here Mrs. Johnson,” he said. “Thank you for waiting with her.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Johnson said. Then to Mary, “I’ll see you tomorrow dear. We can prep for the spelling bee then.”
“Thanks Mrs. J,” she said, distractedly.
The three of them wandered off campus, Mary glancing up at Diana through her eyelashes. She almost certainly knew who she truly was.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the teacher the Captain turned to his daughter. “So you haven’t properly met Diana yet,” he said. “But she was excited to meet you.”
“Me?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” Diana said. “I have been greatly looking forward to getting to know the Captain’s family. I know you aren’t feeling well, but I’ve always found that ice cream cures some of the negative effects of moonsickness.”
“Really?” she asked, unrestrained glee in her tone. “Can we?”
“As long as we bring some back for the others,” the Captain said.
“Do we have the money for that?” Mary asked, her joyful expression falling. Diana felt a stab of sorrow at the way she asked the question, as if convinced the answer would be no. And by the look on the Captain’s face he was thinking the same thing. It must have been hard for him to support so many children, even without the countless hours he spent trying to save the world and act as Champion to the gods.
“I can pay,” she said simply.
“You don’t have to do that Diana,” he protested.
“I owe you for your help with Cheetah last week,” she said easily, knowing that presenting her gift as a reward would help avoid any bruised pride. “And besides, it’s only right that I get to spoil your children when I get the chance.”
The Captain smiled at her. “If you’re sure…”
Diana smiled brightly. “So it’s settled then.”
Mary all but dragged them to the ice cream parlor on the corner in her excitement.
Hal stretched his arms over his head, pulling his muscles tight until he felt the satisfying pop of his joints. “Well I'm officially off duty,” he announced to the room at large, which was really just Cap as the two of them tagged in Arthur and J'onn for monitor duty. “What do you say we grab something to eat? Maybe catch the game in the rec room?”
“Sorry,” Cap said with an awkward shrug of his shoulders. “I've got plans to see a different game.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked eagerly. “Which one? If you’ve got an extra ticket I would love to tag along.”
“Well, there’s no tickets,” he said carefully. “But Pedro's got a baseball game that starts around one.”
“And Pedro is…?”
“One of the kids.”
“Damn another one?" Hal laughed. "I’m never going to be able to keep them all straight. I swear you're just making up new kids every time.”
“There's not that many.”
“And how many kids do you have?”
“Uh…six.”
Hal let out a low whistle. Six was a lot. Way more than he had thought. They'd seen most of the kids–except for Billy, though they'd heard him on the radio plenty over the past few weeks since Clark told them he worked there–and Cap was definitely vying for dad of the year with how involved he was in their lives and how much they clearly all adored him. Did they all have different mothers? From the descriptions he’d gotten, they all looked extremely different, though it would imply that Cap had way more game than he originally thought. Were they adopted? Barry had said at least one of them was. Or were they related some other way?
“More power to you,” he said instead of asking any of that. “I know I couldn’t do it.”
Cap shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
“So it’s a little league match?” he asked.
“Not little league,” he said. “He’s on the school team. They’re actually doing really well this year. Though the assistant coach got food poisoning last night so they asked me fill in.”
“No way, I would love to see that.”
“You can come if you want,” he offered. “I don’t know much about baseball, so I’ll just be shouting encouragement.”
He couldn’t just turn down the opportunity to spend time with Cap in civvies, even if it meant that he had to spend the afternoon watching middle schoolers play baseball. Which was how Hal found himself in the bleachers cheering on a kid he had never met.
“Whoo! Go Pedro!” the Captain called out brightly, his voice booming over all the other parents as a heavy set Hispanic boy stepped up to bat. The boy, Pedro, flashed a shy grin over his shoulder at him before getting into position.
The first pitch landed snugly in the catcher's mitt. Cap clapped loudly, laser focused. “It’s okay, buddy. You got this.”
The second pitch went sailing to the outfield with a satisfying crack. Pedro seemed almost startled to find he'd hit the ball, but the raucous cheers from the stands sent him running to first base.
When he rounded home base a few plays later no one cheered even half as loud as Cap.
After the game, Cap was the first one the field, high fiving the kids and cheering alongside them at the win. He pulled Pedro in close under one large muscled arm, eagerly commenting on his best plays and good form. He seemed to have figured out plenty about baseball during the game. Pedro ducked his head in embarrassment but a small smile lit up his face as he bumped his forehead against Cap’s shoulder.
Hal felt a bit like an intruder on their moment since he didn't even know the kid, but he was oddly happy to have come. Seeing Cap transform into proud Dad and temporary baseball coach had been worth it.
Hal got up and made his way out of the stands, letting him take his kid out for pizza with the rest of the team with just a wave. The kid had earned it.
Billy wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed it, but somehow he’d convinced just about everyone—his teachers, classmates, employers, and even the entire Justice League—that he was a single father of six rather than a semi-homeless preteen.
Well he supposed they weren’t homeless anymore. Between his salary from WHIZ and his job at the docks in his Captain Marvel form, they had never had such a steady income before. Mary had taken it upon herself to find them a nice little apartment—a legitimate one, with running water, electricity, the works. Besides the fact that he was somehow their only adult supervision, they could pass as a normal, if somewhat unconventional family.
Which really hadn't been his intention at all when he'd signed those papers at the beginning of the school year. And yet here he was, delicately walking the fine line between truth and deception. He wasn’t a good liar by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d found that as long as he avoided the phrases ‘my son’ and ‘my daughter’ the conversation flowed pretty naturally. And he got to brag about his little makeshift family which was always fun.
It was almost a relief. He could simply say he had things to do with the others and everyone let him go, praising him for being so present in their lives, so helpful, so loving. It would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so convenient.
Though he couldn’t help feeling awkward sometimes when the others brought it up.
Such as now when he walked into the rec room only to be confronted with his own voice warbling out from a speaker. A bunch of heroes were listening to his broadcast detailing yesterday’s attacks on Fawcett City. It was a surreal experience he found himself having more and more often these days.
“Your kids all seem really great Cap,” Superman said as the broadcast cut to commercial. “And Billy is quite the promising young reporter too. It’s hard to believe that you’re raising them all on your own.”
“Thank you,” he said awkwardly. It wasn't that they weren't great–they were the best–but he didn't have a hand in that. He wasn’t their dad, not really. He was just another kid in the group, one with a bit of magic and the ability to look older than he was. They were great because that was just who they were–even despite their less than stellar childhoods.
None of them had had a dad in a very long time, and the ones they'd had weren't exactly interested in the job. So maybe, just maybe, he felt a little bit of pride that he was a better dad than theirs had been. Better than his was.
“They are all pretty responsible, so they make it easy,” he added. “I barely have to do anything.”
Just when he thought things couldn’t get weirder, Batman clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing tight in what was probably a friendly gesture and said, “You shouldn’t sell yourself short, you really are an amazing father.”
Billy flushed deeply, but didn’t bother to hide the swell of pride he felt at his words. It was a rare day when Batman threw out compliments, he wasn’t immune to the effect they had on him.
“Raising that many kids on your own,” Superman said, pausing as he looked for the right words, the right way to show his support. Eventually he settled on keeping it simple. “That must be hard. If you ever need anything, I hope you know I speak for all of us when I say we will always be just one call away.”
“Speaking of support, I wanted to give you this,” Batman said handing him an envelope.
Taking it, he found it held a check with a lot of zeroes on it.
“I can't accept this,” he said immediately, trying to shove it back into Batman’s hands.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Batman said. “You do a lot for the Justice League, for your family, for the world. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to provide for your family considering everything you do for us.”
“But I—“
“Just take it Captain,” Superman said. “Otherwise he’ll just start doing more drastic things to help support you, whether you want him to or not. Like buy your apartment building. Or you place of employment.” He shot Batman a knowing look.
“Thanks guys,” he said, a little breathlessly. “You have no idea how much that means to me. And to my family.”
As he raced home, eager to tell the others exactly what had happened with the League and why he was coming home with several months rent in hand, he couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear.
Fatherhood, he decided, was a good look for him.