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Captain Marvel has been oddly tense and quiet. Odd because he is hardly ever either. Diana noticed after they returned from their fight against the Injustice Society. Black Adam arrived with the rest of the bunch, but had left in a burst of lightning not long after he and Marvel fought. Bruce questioned him during the debrief as to why he hadn’t followed. Marvel responded curtly by simply saying, “He wasn’t fighting anymore.”
After everyone was dismissed, she found him in the cafeteria putting fruit and a few flavors of power bars into a bag. It confused her for a moment because she thought Marvel didn’t need to eat, but she wasn’t going to question him considering she had a more important objective, and it wasn’t the weirdest thing she had ever seen him do.
“Marvel,” she gets his attention. He hums in surprise as he turns to see her. She thinks this is what she must have looked like to her mother when she was caught playing in the armory as a child. She smiles at the memory but also at him.
“Oh,” he puts the last container of fruit back on the counter. “Hi, Diana.” He smiles, but it’s clearly fake. With all the emotions he wears on his sleeves, it isn’t hard to tell.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
“Of course,” his smile widens, and his head tilts to the left in confusion. The why is at the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t ask.
“You seem off,” she answers anyway.
“Ah—I—uh,” he stutters. There is something wrong, then. He has a few false starts before deciding on what to tell her: “It's just memories.”
Her face shifts in understanding and sympathy. “You don’t have to combat them alone,” she offers.
She gives him time to speak, and he takes it, leaning against the countertop.
“As Champion,” he says softly, not looking at her, “I hold the memories, the experience—the lives—of every Champion before me.”
It’s easy to forget Marvel is the Champion of Magic, that this kind, optimistic man is powered by divinity and Old Magic. Diana didn’t know the Living Lightning acted as a sort of knowledge well for those connected to it. At least in the way the Champions are.
“Everything they went through, everything they felt, I remember it. As they would. Most of the time, it’s great!” He’s rationalizing with himself, Diana realizes. “I’m the hero that I am because I’m able to use what they learned, analyze situations in a perspective that isn’t uniquely mine, and have every skill they acquired.”
Marvel doesn’t talk about himself or his powers often, but Diana wishes he did. Not just to quail her own curiosity, but to see him talk with such amazement and pride in himself. He wonders himself with his abilities. It tugs at the corners of Diana’s lips and wrinkles the edges of her eyes.
“I know their lives, Diana,” he emphasized. “I am the last person who remembers them in totality. They live on because I remember them as people, not just as warriors. Their experiences as mortals and as Champions; I remember them .” His tone is wistful and acutely desperate. Like he needs her to understand.
And she does. In a manner of speaking. People she knew intimately a hundred years ago aren’t remembered by people today. Not as the people they used to be. Steve is remembered in legacy, what he accomplished. And while she is happy with that—proud, even. No one remembers him as she does. It’s an insatiable, lonely thing.
She can only imagine what it means for Marvel. As mortals and as Champions, he said. He’s been named the Earth’s Mightiest Mortal, but from the legends she learned from as a child, she would never have named a Champion “mortal.” She knows, of course, they can die. Many legends are the stories of how they died, passing onto Elysium. Diana knows the Champions only as Champions. Their individuality is blurred.
As mortals, he said. Diana only knows Marvel as Champion. As Captain Marvel, member of the Justice League, kind soul, and friend to all. She doesn’t know him as mortal. She doesn’t know where the line between mortal Marvel and Champion Marvel begins or ends; if he can still take a mortal form. To be Champion, you must be chosen, she knows that much.
To be chosen, you must be someone before. Diana looks at him, really looks at him, and wonders: who was he before Marvel?
She wants to ask, to extend her hand, and offer him comfort. Even so, Diana doesn’t speak. She settles against the counter and listens.
“My gods speak to me when I’m conscious,” he continues. “Whether that be by literally talking to me, granting me their power, or just existing, you know? They’re always with me. And it’s the same for past Champions, too, but I connect more to them when I’m asleep: in my dreams.”
Diana has heard Marvel goat about not needing to sleep to other JL members and one time to a child. She’s glad he does rest. Knowing the hero he is and the schedule he keeps, she’s comforted to know he does rest; however little that maybe.
Marvel pauses, and ducks his head. Diana brings her hand to his arm. Usually, she has to be extra mindful of the pressure she uses, and for the first time in a long time, it’s like she’s comforting a sister.
When Marvel looks up, it’s with tears in his eyes. “I know more about Black Adam than he would ever want me to know. I—Sometimes it feels like a violation. I mean, he doesn’t want me to know, to remember, to—anything. But I do. And—Diana, he used to be a great person.
“He was a slave before he was a pharaoh, and he was a pharaoh because of the Champion he was. He cared deeply about his people and their freedom, but more importantly, he loved his wife and two sons. They were everything to him. More than any power he had as Champion or king.
“I can feel how he grieves them,” he says, sucking breath through his teeth, tears flowing in steady streams down his face. “Even now, days after my dream. I can feel it through the infinite expanse that connects us.”
She hugs him now. Diana holds him as he gasps, catching breaths his body doesn’t physically need.
“He—” his voice breaks, “He was gone, couldn’t—there was nothing he could do,” he cries into her shoulder. “He couldn’t save them. His city, his world, went up in flames and he couldn’t be there to save it.”
He stopped talking, words caught up in tears falling down her shoulder. They were like that for a while: Diana holding Marvel as he fell apart to memories that weren’t his. She stroked his back, and he held onto her.
Her heart hurt for him. Everything he experienced was second hand, but he feels that pain like it’s his own, an unwitting partner in Adam’s grief.
“I’m here,” she finds herself saying. “You’re not alone.”
“Adam found them charred, Diana,” he whispers.
She pulls back to meet his gaze. His eyes don’t reach hers, so she holds his face in her hands. His face squishes. That together with his boyish features and puffy eyes make him look like a lost boy. Her heart clenches.
Adam was alone , her eyes tell him, now that’s how he chooses to live.
“You never have to be alone, brother.”
The sincerity makes him sob again. He embraces her tightly, and she returns it in equal muster.
“Not while I breathe,” she promises.
Again, time passes as they hold each other. He breathes in and pulls away when he’s ready.
“Thank you,” he says. “You never have to be alone, either. I know you’ve gone through a lot, and I’m here for you… sister.” He tries the term out, not fully comfortable with it. She smiles.
His eyes trail to her shoulder. It's wet from his tears. With wide eyes and a heated face, he apologizes.
“What for?”
“It’s kind of… gross.”
She chuckles softly. “It’s alright. If I minded, I wouldn’t have allowed you to. Besides,” she smirks, “I’ve had much worse on me.”
“Still,” he cringes, “I’m sorry.”
Marvel is feeling better, evidently, after being able to talk and cry it out. She doesn’t want to just let him leave yet, however. She doesn’t spend much time with him recreationally, and that was a very emotional conversation.
She smiles at him, knowing the perfect question to ask: “Would you like some ice cream?”
His face lights up. “Yes, please.”
Bonus fluff:
Barry was about to leave when Hal runs up to him.
“Hey,” he greets. “I thought you went to get a snack.”
“I did,” his eyes are wide. “I went into the cafeteria, y’know, to grab a bag of chips before my shift starts, and d’y’know what I find?”
“No,” he says trying to match the manic energy Hal is throwing at him, “tell me.”
“Captain Marvel.”
Barry gasps.
“And Diana.”
He gasps louder. “No.”
“I know. And Cap was crying.”
Barry’s face contorted in concern.
“Like hard-core, body-rattling sobs.”
“Over what?”
“I dunno,” Hal admits.
“I—Okay. And Diana?”
“She was hugging him.”
Barry gasps.
“I know.”