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[sayshazam]

It had been about a million degrees lately, so Billy had decided it was time to brave the beach. He and his dog had gone there fairly early hoping to avoid the crowds but it seemed like everyone else had the same idea. Billy had managed to spend about twenty minutes in the water before deciding that it wasn't worth it and he and his dog left.

Going back to the apartment didn't really appeal to him either. It was summer and school was out, he wanted to spend it doing things he normally wouldn't be able to during the day. Which mostly meant eating food cart food. He'd gotten a few hot dogs for his dog and some sort of messy burrito thing for himself before heading to the park.

The burrito was almost overflowing and tricky to eat while walking, which is why he didn't see the girl until he bumped into her. Billy had to do a sort of awkward dance type thing to avoid spilling the burrito or knocking the girl over and he credited his lessons with Korra to his ability to not make a mess or hurt someone.

"Oh crap, I'm sorry," he said, turning to the girl. "I was, uh, paying attention to my burrito."

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[thefourthone]

"Is Superman here?" Steph asks at once. "Or ooooh Wonder Woman. I want to meet her." She doesn't ask about Batman, obviously. If he shows up, she'll hear about it. But Superman! That would be pretty awesome.

"You...have a point there," she says, smiling at him and not cynically at all. If the adventure is supposed to be everyday life, well, maybe she won't be so terrible at that. "I am exactly the right person to take on mini donut quests. So the burrito bump- in was all part of their grand plan, huh?"

[sayshazam]

"No, I don't think so. Mostly it's Spider people and Bat people and these girls named after planets," he admitted. It's not like a hero could really hide their presence here, not with how small this place was, everyone would hear about it pretty quickly. Billy kind of wished that Superman was here though, it would be nice to talk to him.

When she smiled at him all Billy could think was that she really did have a nice smile. It was kind of a stupid observation, but Billy didn't make a lot of people smile.

"I guess it was, so that makes it even less my fault than before."

[thefourthone]

"Girls named after planets?" Steph asks as a way to avoid talking about the Bat people. Does she even count as one? She knows what Batman would say, but he's not the boss of her anymore. "Like Janey Jupiter and Nancy Neptune, that kind of thing?"

She laughs. "Yup, we'll chalk it up to the inevitable will of our captors. So you have been here for a while it sounds like?"

[sayshazam]

"No, it's like 'Sailor Mars' and stuff. They're 'Sailor' and then a planet. And they have weird costumes. I don't get it but there's some sort of theme," he said. The girls were weird, but actually pretty decent once you got past the weird names and outfits. When Vanessa had become a giant sea monster they had really helped.

"Yeah, a few months. It's not so bad, I guess. Do you have your own place and access to your money? I know some teenagers don't."

[thefourthone]

"That is...okay, pretty abstract as far as superhero shticks go," Steph says doubtfully as she tries to imagine what they look like. Oh God, she hopes their leader is named Skipper Sun or something equally awesome. "But I am always going to be in favor of teen girl gang vigilantes, so I'm all about it."

"They don't?" Steph looks surprised. The money and the housing is all that made this bearable. Hard enough to deal with alternate dimensions after maybe dying, but so much the worse if she had to do it worrying about where her next meal would come from. "What do they do?"

[sayshazam]

"Yeah, I guess it makes as much sense as bats and cats and spiders or whatever else," Billy said. 'Shazam' wasn't all the thematic, but he liked it better because of that. It meant that no one else could rip him off, either. No one was going to be Lady Shazam or anything like that.

Billy paid for their donuts before Stephanie could. He knew how tight money could be early on and he didn't want to make a big deal of it. So he just paid for them and hoped she didn't say anything.

"They have to live in a group home and their money is looked over by a guardian. It really sucks."

[thefourthone]

"Hey, bats are pretty cool." You have to stick up for that whole-town pride. Even if she had never actually had a bat name, and it's was like 'Spoiler' even fit into a category. "And birds. Those things fly, that just makes sense."

Steph shoots him a little grateful smile and doesn't make a big thing out of trying to go halvsies or anything. She's not so proud she won't accept a free meal, not that donuts have ever counted as a meal. "I'll get next time. Maybe we'll find a mini waffles truck."

She makes a face. "Hoooooly crap that is the worst. Wow, someone really must like me out there. Miraculous wound healing and now not having to be in the foster system too."

[sayshazam]

"Bats are super, super ugly with giant ears and really gross noses," Billy said, making a bit of a face. Sure, Batman was super cool but he looked pretty much nothing like an actual bat from what Billy had seen. "Hawkman is pretty cool, I'll give you that. Green Lanterns? They're green rings, not lanterns."

It was weird talking about other superheroes to someone. It wasn't like he spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff but it was kind of like talking shop. Steph seemed pretty cool about it plus she knew what he was talking about, which was nice.

"Wait, miraculous wound healing?"

[thefourthone]

"Have you ever even see a bat? They are adorable." Not that Batman is adorable, more like the antithesis of all things cute, but come on. The Cave's bats were totally cute. "Cute yet creepy perfect for superhero-ing. And Hawkman</>?" Steph gives him a dubious look. "More like put on a shirt, buddy, no wants to see your nipples."

She has lots of Opinions about superheroes, even before she became a quasi-hero herself. "But Hawkgirl is pretty all right. And Black Canary is awesome, obviously."

"I was...kind of banged up when I got here." She waves a hand vaguely in what is rapidly becoming her go-to gesture for 'basically dying.' "But then when I arrived it was all healed up."

[sayshazam]

"I'm pretty sure that you have never seen a bat," Billy said, side-eyeing her a bit because who thoughts bats were adorable? Not everything smaller than a cat that had fur was adorable. "And how is cute perfect for superheroing? Superheroes need to get over the animal and power themed names. Flash sounds like his costume should be a trench coat."

Okay, so Flash was supposedly a really funny superhero and Billy kind of wanted to meet him. But he was making an argument here.

"And that's cool that this place healed you up. All I got was pulled here before I opened any of my Christmas presents."

[thefourthone]

"Uh, excuse me, I've been in caves full of bats, thank you very much. Hopefully this place has a zoo so we can go and see how wrong you are about bats." Okay, some of the bats were the kind with the weird noses which weren't really that cute, but she's dug into her position now so there's no going back now. "And you have to be intimidating enough to scare crooks but cute enough that a kid will trust you if he gets lost and needs help finding his mom." Being a superhero you really had to run the gamut. But Steph relents enough to ask. "So what do you think is a good name?"

She makes a face. "Lame. Hopefully they were all...socks or something."

[sayshazam]

"Clearly there was not enough light in those gaves to see them properly. And it does have a zoo. We're going right now and I will show you how ugly bats are," Billy said. He didn't really have anything better to do and if he had to do this to win an argument then so be it. Besides, she was kind of fun to argue with. "And a good name is, uh... Firestorm. Although that's kind of ability based..."

He couldn't come right out and say "Shazam" because only like... four people knew that name. But still, more heroes needed names that weren't animals or just their abilities.

"It's not a big deal. I'm used to not getting presents."

[thefourthone]

"All right. I'm sure the zoologists will be super excited to meet you since you're the foremost expert on mammilian cute-ology." Yup, that's definitely a thing. But she's enjoying herself, a perfect distraction from all her dark thoughts lately. Steph is willing to talk about superheroes forever, even if she has to be careful not to give herself away. "I guess Firestorm is a cool name," she allows, though he's not one of her favorites. "Oracle is sweet too, that's not ability based."

She nods and pops a mini donut in my mouth. "One year I got a box of cereal for Christmas."

[sayshazam]

"You're the expert on cute. Ology. Cuteologica- whatever! We're going to the zoo and we'll see how ugly bats are! And what's an Oracle? Who is Oracle? I've never heard of that hero."

Man, Billy really, really hoped they had ugly bats here because if they were somehow cute he wasn't sure what he would do. In the mean time they would just have to argue about superheroes and apparently never agree on anything.

"Wow. I think I'd rather get nothing than a box of cereal."

[thefourthone]

"She's sort of under the radar, but she's awesome. A computer hacker mega-genius who will ruin a super villain's plans before he even knows someone's on to him." Not here though, instead she's younger, less grumpy, walking Barbara. Which is good! But Steph still misses knowing Oracle's up in her clock tower.

After asking for directions, Steph locates the bus station for the one that heads downtown to the zoo. "It was kind of pathetic, but sort of nice. My favorite cereal didn't have a generic equivalent, so it was always too expensive to get. So one Christmas my mom got me this big box of my favorite kind."

[sayshazam]

"That... isn't really a superhero, is it? That's just a computer hacker. A really good one, but would she really be a superhero?"

Billy didn't even know what made someone a superhero. Not powers because Batman didn't have powers but he was definitely a super hero. Maybe a costume? Yeah, you probably had to have a costume. If this Oracle wore a costume while hacking then maybe that counted.

When she mentioned not being able to afford her favorite cereal Billy was reminded that just because someone had parents it didn't mean that had much else. Still, having parents was probably nice.

"Yeah, the orphanage didn't have any of the good cereal either. Just the generic stuff where it was spelled with a 'k' instead of a 'c' and stuff like that."

[thefourthone]

"Uh, no, definitely a superhero." She gives him a look that hopefully subtly implies she will fight him if he keeps saying Oracle isn't a hero. It matters when it's someone she knows and doubly so when Barbara's ability to do the punchy hero thing was taken away from her. "Plus, she leads the Birds of Prey."

Steph nods. "The kind that comes in the big bag instead of a box? I know all about that." Then, because he brought it up, so she thought it might be safe to ask. "How long were you in the foster system?"

[sayshazam]

"How is she a superhero? I mean, I'm not saying she isn't," he quickly added, because living with Alex had given him some social skills and recognizing when someone might hurt you for dissing something they liked was one of them. "And who are the Birds of Prey?"

Billy wished that he had kept his mouth shut about the orphanage. A lot of time people started to look at you differently because of it. Even if they didn't want to, they did.

"Longer than I wasn't in it," he said, trying to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal. "Sometimes I was on my own though."

[thefourthone]

"Because she has a codename, acts outside the law, helps people, and uses her special skills to fight supervillains. Just because she's not punching them in the face personally doesn't mean she's not a superhero," she says, and sounds so logical it's a little surprising. Positively persuasive. "And the Birds of Prey are an all-woman superhero team."

Steph nods and tries not to be too nosy. Doesn't ask what happened to his parents, if he ever knew them. "I know some people who are in it at home. Not good, or at least it isn't in Gotham."

[sayshazam]

Billy takes just a moment to imagine an all female superhero group. It's not that male superheroes don't have really hot costumes too, it's just that theirs are usually displaying muscles in a way that are kind of terrifying. Female costumes... are usually different.

"I'm not saying you don't have to punch people to be a superhero, it's just... okay maybe I was saying that. But I guess she's a superhero."

Billy appreciated that she didn't ask about his parents, especially because he still wasn't even all that sure what had happened to him.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad. I got taken in by a family just before I got sent here and they were okay but... it's a pain to have people acting like they're going to help you and stuff. They never stick around."

[thefourthone]

"She totally is," Steph says cheerfully, glad that he could change his mind and not be a total jerk about it. Some guy would have just dug their heels in and just gotten mean about everything. "And is totally awesome in a nice yet sort of scary way."

She nods. "Yeah, I can see how that would be weird. Like you're supposed to just be totally cool with total strangers being part of your family."

[sayshazam]

"Okay, how do you know how nice a superhero hacker is?" Billy asked, giving her a stare. It seemed like a superhero hacker wouldn't have a lot of interaction with people, although maybe they were on Facebook or something? Maybe they had a website with forums.

"Yeah, and they don't really get how weird it is because you're supposed to be so grateful," he said, although he had to admit that the Vasquez's were different. They were just... nice.

[thefourthone]

Oops. She shrugs and tries to play it cool. "You just hear things. Maybe it's different in Gotham than in other places, you know, since there are so many heroes and crazy crime or whatever. Like how probably everyone in Metropolis has met Superman." That's how it seems from the papers, anyway. It's why she really wants to go visit there and meet him.

"Yeah, ugh, that does sound sucky." She makes a face. "I almost got put in foster care a few times but my parents always finagled their way out of it. Which was good, and I guess what I wanted, but sometimes getting a whole new family sounded nice."

[sayshazam]

"Oh, yeah, I guess in Gotham you guys have like... resident superheroes and stuff," Billy said. The bus pulled up to their stop and they got off. The zoo was a short walk from here although it seemed pretty empty, like most of the people going to the zoo were already there. "In Philadelphia we had one guy show up there day before I left. Buff guy in a red suit and white cape with a big lightning bolt on his chest."

Billy would like to have said he couldn't imagine anyone disliking their parents so much they wanted new ones, but he kind of could considering some of the foster parents he had met.

"What about now? Do you miss your parents now that they're not here?"

[thefourthone]

"Resident superheroes and resident villains," she says with a bit of a sigh. Gotham is a hard city to grow up in, even if she does love it. "That sounds...sort of familiar. I don't think I know the name though. Does he have lightning powers?"

She shrugs as they walk along. "I miss my mom. I wish I could call her and tell her I'm okay." All of a sudden a well of emotion catches in her chest and she really misses her so much it hurts. But Steph is good at pushing these things down and shrugs again. "But having my own place is nice."