Chapter Text
Mary...Mary was angry.
She knew something was wrong when Billy never came back home. Word soon came out that Shazam was dead, executed, but she refused to believe in such a thing. Billy was strong, he was wise, he wouldn’t die so easily, right? She shoo'd away any rumors and made sure none of it fell on her sibling's ears. Billy would be back. He always came back.
Wrong. It was unfortunately all wrong.
Mary didn’t believe Billy Batson, her dear adopted brother, was dead until a strange crazed looking lady showed up on the doorstep, carrying a huge hammer. She apparently had seeked specifically her out. It took a while for Mary to realize who she was, she and the siblings weren’t really that well versed in the whole Justice League shenanigans as much as Billy was. It was Harley Quinn.
“Yous," he said, pointing directly at her, right as she opened the door. “Yous Billy’s sister?”
Instantly, Mary had gone completely suspicious and on high alert. She glanced behind her, seeing her siblings were safe she stepped out to face the woman. Good thing Victor and Rosa was out at the moment.
“What do you want from me?” Mary asked warily.
Harley Quinn looked at her, with something burning in her eyes. “I don’t really wants to be the bearer of baddest news...but…” She looked softly at the ground. “Billy would have wanted yous to know. He talked about you lot a lot. Mentioned a ‘Mary’ a lot too.”
Would? What with all the past tense?
Mary’s heart dropped. No. Not this. Tears began forming in her eyes just in anticipation of what she might hear.
“Billy? Where is he?” she questioned the woman. “Where is he? He hasn’t come home in months. We’re all worried.”
Harley Quinn looked her straight in the eye, angry, not her, but at the situation. “He’s a dead man. Killed by Supes in cold blood. Flashy boy told me everything, when he turned.”
“What?” Mary’s eyes widened. “No, that can’t be right. You’re lying. I don’t believe you.” Mary tried to argue, but just looking into her eyes, Mary knew she was right. Her heart twisted into knots.
“Shazzy’s dead," Harley Quinn said softly. “I tried, I tried to talk him outta it, y’know? Supes is totally crazy, even more than me. But he’s a good kid, he tried to see the good in him Regime folks. Like a hero.”
Mary had fallen onto her knees, hands on her mouth trying to suppress her tears. They were just getting into being a real family together. Then this horrible chaos pops up, with all the heroes fighting each other. Billy promised, he promised that he’d find a way to make it stop, not to worry, and just to keep Fawcett City safe while he was away.
“I should’ve...I should’ve gone with him…” Mary choked out, the tears just dripping out of her eyes. “If I did...maybe he wouldn’t have…”
Harley Quinn, who watched the young woman utterly break down in front of her, crouched in front of the lady, a hand on her shoulder. For someone who used to work for one of the most insane people alive, she was kind, Mary thought. “We both did our best. Billy woulda wanted nuthin’ more than that.”
“Superman killed him?” Mary asked, looking up at Harley Quinn with murderous eyes. “Did he kill my brother?”
The older woman nodded, sharing the same murderous eyes.
After the sadness sat in, Mary still couldn’t really believe this was happening. She really hoped that Harley Quinn was just playing some sort of sick prank and Billy would come flying in, just in time for dinner. But even so, the unbridled rage began to set in. She was angry, no... beyond angry. Mary had never felt so much fury in her entire life.
“I’ll kill that man. I don’t care if he’s the bigshot, I’ll tear him apart," Mary said, clutching the ground, scraping her nails on the concrete of the porch.
Suddenly, the door opened behind her and the rage faded away when she saw her siblings poking out from behind the door, all looking worried.
“Mary? What’s wrong?” Darla asked, coming outside, but as soon as she saw Harley she backed up a bit.
“Who is that?” Freddy asked, coming in to step in front of his younger siblings, along with Pedro who eyed the woman evenly.
No. They can’t find out. I won’t let them-
She sprang to her feet and ran to her siblings, giving them a small hug and ushering them inside. Mary looked back to Harley Quinn, and gave her a look that she would be back soon and the woman nodded in return.
She brought her siblings to the living room.
“Why are you crying, Mary?” Darla asked, concerned.
“We heard you shouting," Freddy explained.
Eugene pushed up his glasses. “Isn’t that lady Harley Quinn? On Batman’s team now I think?”
Mary looked at her siblings sadly. They all loved Billy. Rosa and Victor did too. Mary was angry, but at the same time she was afraid to let them know. She couldn’t lose anyone else too. Billy would’ve wanted them safe, that’s the whole reason he got involved with the Justice League shenanigans. She’ll let them know after Superman was done and dealt with. Not until she seen that kryptonian blood on her hands.
The tears dried as she looked to her siblings softly.
“Hey guys, I may have to go for a while. I need...I need to help Billy with some stuff," she explained.
“Is he coming home soon?” asked Freddy, looking concerned and curious. He looked suspicious of her behavior.
Her voice got stuck in her throat and she instead smiled. “I want you guys to take care of the house and the parents while I’m gone.” She looked to Freddy. “You’re in charge, Freddy.”
“Will you be gone for long?” Darla asked, looking like she might start crying as well.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll keep in contact, I promise," Mary said. “Tell mom and dad for me, okay?”
The siblings reluctantly agreed with her, dispersing into the house again as before, and she quickly packed a backpack with some supplies. As she was packing, she stopped by Billy’s room, now empty.
He hasn’t slept in it for such a long time. It pained her so much to know that he’ll never see Billy in here again. Feeling depressed, Mary decided to make Billy’s bed, clean it up and make sure it’s all and tidy. She didn’t know why she did it, seemed like the right thing to do. After the room was cleaned, Mary patted the covers with one hand, letting the fibers of the blanket where Billy once slept comfort her and turned to leave. It was the only thing that seemed to make her feel a bit better.
Freddy met her at the door, a look of disbelief in his eyes.
“Mary, I don’t know like, what’s going on, but if you can’t tell the others for some superhero reason, tell me," he said seriously, blocking her way out.
Freddy was Billy’s best friend. Mary tried to brush it off, but Freddy stood his ground. He wasn’t moving until she told him.
“Freddy, you have to promise not to tell the others. Especially Darla, not now, later I’ll tell them myself," she said, seriously, holding him by his shoulders. “ Swear to me, Freddy.”
Freddy looked at his older sister with surprised eyes. He has never seen her so enraged before in his life. It was a bit scary, but Freddy nodded. “Right, of course. Count on me.”
“Billy is dead," Mary told Freddy straight, careful to keep her voice low.
Freddy looked at her and started laughing. "Nice joke. Real funny, Mary, didn't take you as a part-time clown..." He chuckled nervously. When her expression didn't change he started growing pale. "Y-You're joking...right? Mary?"
Mary just sadly look to the ground. She anticipated this kind of reaction from him.
“What? No!” Freddy began to panic as he realized she was telling the truth. She grabbed her brother’s shoulders and stabilized him. “B-but...Wait…”
“Freddy, promise me, Freddy. Keep the family safe. If anything goes wrong, take everyone and hide in the lair. And don’t come out until it’s safe," Mary told him, as her brother tried to make sense of everything.
“Billy’s…! No, that’ can’t be…!” Freddy was still stammering, looking at his sister with horrified eyes. He finally slumped. “He’s my best friend...I don’t...want him to die...right? He’s not really...” he looked to his sister in earnest, his eyes begging her to tell him it was a joke or a lie.
It wasn’t. It hurt Mary that he couldn’t.
“Freddy, I’m going to take care of it. I promise you. But you have to keep the family safe. For Billy’s sake.”
Freddy already looked like he was already crying hard. Billy and him had been so close. Freddy had been suffering from withdrawal symptoms when Billy went to deal with the faction nonsense, but this is something that Freddy would take a long time to recover from. Maybe not at all. He stayed silent for a while, but he finally spoke.
“Who did it?” he asked. “Who killed him?” Freddy’s voice wavered as he thought about his best friend’s death.
Mary wished she could confess but she steeled herself. “I’ll tell you later. I don’t want you or the others running off to get revenge. I don’t want anyone else taken away.. You can maybe tell Pedro, but you can’t tell Darla, Eugene, or the parents. They...won’t be ready to hear the news.”
Her brother looked like he was about to object, but then shot his mouth when he heard Darla talking from upstairs. He was already freaking out and frustrated, but he couldn’t imagine how Darla would feel if she found out Billy was freaking dead.
“What are you going to do? Where are you going? I’ll come with you, Pedro can-” Freddy protested.
“No? Freddy. It’s just me. You have to stay here and protect the family. I promise I’ll be okay.” Mary assured him.
“Billy said that too, and he’s dead!” he whimpered at her, almost wailing.
Mary quieted down after hearing that. Instead she reached over and pulled Freddy into a tight hug. In the hugs, the two siblings collapsed into tears, over the death of their brother, and the whole situation. What injustice was this? Mary would make Superman pay.
“I have to go, Harley Quinn is waiting for me," Mary told him, releasing him out of the hug. “Promise me you’ll protect everyone. Billy would want you to.”
“Okay," Freddy said in a small voice, looking like he wanted to scream and cry. “You promise me, whoever did this. Pay them back. If you need help, don’t hesitate to call me and the family. All or none."
That statement gave her goosebumps. Billy's favorite line, he had always been about family. She bit back tears as she hugged Freddy and the two silently mourned the loss of their brother.
Mary gave all her siblings one more hug before she finally left the front door. She made sure that the house was in order before she finally left. Harley Quinn was sitting on her hammer, seeming to be deep in thought before she noticed Mary coming out the front door.
“Ready to squish a supa-fly?” she asked the woman.
“I won’t stop until Superman pays for what he’s done. Tenfold," Mary told Harley.
“Good, been lookin’ to get to some Supe-smashing with someone who cares just as much about ol’ Billy like me..” She lifted her hammer to her shoulder.
Mary glared into the sky, determined to avenge Billy’s death.
“Shazam!”
A bolt of lightning. The name tasted bitter on her lips, a sour forgotten echo of the kind smile her brother had, turn foul by his blood on his face.
And the two zoomed off together.
-~*~-
No matter how much Flash wanted to apologize to her, there was no way Mary would be able to forgive someone who watched her brother get executed in front of him. Batman tried to reason with her, that if Flash attacked, he would have been dead too, but there was no excuse. Billy was a good kid, he always was. It wasn’t fair, he always did his best.
Flash could’ve done anything, anything, to stop Billy’s death. But he stood and watched. In her eyes, Flash was very much the killer as Superman was, but she was reasonable enough to know that he would be useful against Superman. That’s all she cared about.
He saw good in the Regime, he wanted to believe what they were doing was right. He was their morality pet...almost. He died believing that anyone could be brought to the light, even that psychotic and murderous Superman.
Mary had always believed in heroics, to do the right thing. But in this world where chaos reigns supreme, is it even right to be a hero? She only joined the Insurgency because Harley Quinn and Batman promised her that she would bring justice to Billy’s death. As long as she’s on the side fighting Superman, the killer, it didn’t matter to her.
It won’t matter until she had that Kryptonian by the throat and fry his eyes out.
She’s become aware that she’s become a bit unhinged since she left home. Without the love and comfort from her siblings and parents, the only thing that kept Mary going was her violent drive for revenge and the messages she received from home once in a while. Knowing her family was safe was her only light, but revenge was all dark that followed.
Eventually, Mary started to notice a change in her powers. She had taken the name Mary Marvel, unable to associate with the name ‘Shazam’ anymore. Eventually, she realized that she spent a lot of time in her ‘hero’ form. She didn’t know why, it just made her feel stronger, in control. Eventually, her lightning had a tinge of purple and for some reason, her suit changed black.
How appropriate. Funeral colors. She almost laughed, it was almost a joke.
The cynical outlook on her life and the desire for revenge, it changed her. But Mary didn’t mind. She just wanted her family back, she wanted her brother back.
She wanted blood.
Memories of Billy became skewed, Mary couldn’t really see Billy as anything other than a martyr, someone who was too good for this wretched world. Her idealized memories of Billy only made her justified of her raw desire to kill Superman.
She spent a lot of time with Harley Quinn, who filled her in on the details and everything that had happened. Mary had never gotten close to the other supers like Billy had, she didn't really know anyone, but Harley had made sure she had a friend. Harley had apparently also been a good friend with Billy, and had tried to talk him out of the Regime, but poor believed in Superman too much. Harley wasn't family, but she was glad that someone else shared her same sentiments about Superman.
Sometimes, between battles, where they could only sit and wait, Mary would often find herself looking up at the sky, feeling the vast lonliness of the world.
She missed Billy. She missed her siblings. She missed her parents. It hurt to know that even after this is all over, nothing will be the same again.
They will pay. Superman will pay, for taking their idyllic life away from Billy, from her.
Batman and the others (minus Harley) had been concerned for her
Finally, the day finally came when she met Superman face-to-face. She clenched her fist, fighting the urge to just tackle him right now, but she wanted him to know, she needed to let him know.
She needed him to understand pain.
“And who might you be?” Superman asked with a cock of his eyebrow. His eyes were cold, lifeless, hardened. Mary would feel no remorse for killing him.
“The name is Black Mary," she told him icily. “Sister of Billy Batson, the boy you murdered.”
Superman almost flinched, but he floated in place unmoving, looking at her with sharp eyes. “Out for revenge? That isn’t much of a hero of you.”
“I stopped being a hero the moment you took my brother’s life," Black Mary told him coldly. “I will never stop until you pay for what you've done to Billy Batson."
“What she said," Harley agreed, readying her hammer. She was with her too. “Don’t really care if it’s good or not, but justice for Billy sounds pretty good to me.”
“Shazam couldn’t defeat me, what makes you think you can?” scoffed Superman.
That was all it took for Black Mary to lose it, dashing towards Superman with all the fury in the world in her hands. As she stared down into Superman’s shocked eyes as he rushed towards her, she relished in the thought that this was the same face that her brother last saw. How great would it be to see it in all shades of pain.
Somewhere deep inside her, Mary wondered if Billy would’ve approved of this. He wouldn’t be consumed by revenge, he had a good heart, that’s why the Wizard chose him. Billy would have…
Well, that didn’t matter.
Billy was dead after all.
And nothing was going to bring him back.