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“So I tell her to put down the TV,” said Shazam. “And she starts yelling at me like you don’t get it, you don’t know what it’s like, I have bills to pay, you just sit there up in the sky, you have no idea how the world is.” He ate a french fry. “I’m just floating there like man, I work at Target, lady.”
Flash laughed.
“But I can’t tell her that,” Shazam went on. “So I’m just like, lady, please put down the TV and run, cause there’s a demon coming right this way and I don’t want you to get burned alive over a TV set. Even if it is 4K.”
It was at that point in the conversation that someone else managed to get a word in. “You work at Target?” said Zatanna.
She sounded about as incredulous as Mal felt.
The four of them were sitting together on the steps of a darkened building. Half the streetlamps on the road around them were still out. The whole area was pretty deserted due to the whole portal to hell incident. But a few blocks away a burger joint has, somehow, remained open. They’d got a hero of the hour discount.
“Part time,” said Shazam between bites. “Yeah.”
Zatanna snorted. “And no-one recognises you?”
Shazam looked down at her from his perch on the top step, chewing. “I keep telling you,” he said. “This isn’t my real face.”
Okay, so, evidently that wild statement was something the pair of them had already talked about. Mal was way out of the loop here. He was still getting his head around hanging with the Justice League – the portal to hell – seeing Shazam up close and personal – all of it, really.
Shazam and the Flash had got a crazy amount of food between the pair of them. Shazam, he figured, was a pretty big guy. He had no idea where the Flash put it all. Flash was shorter than he’d expected; Shazam was, somehow, even taller. On the rare occasions you saw the guy on TV he was always very polite and very formal. It was deeply weird watching him going to town on three burgers and making conversation like they were in a school cafeteria.
Honestly, Mal was still getting his head around the whole turn his life had taken since taken up the Guardian mantle. He was a freshman in college, for Chrissakes. Zatanna was only a year or two older than him but she’d been doing the whole magic thing for a long time, even if she was new to the hero thing. She was pulling it off. He was just trying to do his best to live up to the old guy.
“And it’s like, I don’t care if she takes the TV,” Shazam went on. “But it was a big TV.” He held out his arms by way of demonstration, ketchup and grease dripping from his burger. “You cannot run for your life with one of those things.”
Mal found his tongue. He’d finished his burger a little while ago while they were talking and was picking through his fries. “You don’t care if people steal stuff?”
Shazam fixed him with a look from up high. “I’m here to protect the earth from demons and otherworldly threats,” he said. “I don’t care about looters.” He stuffed the rest of his second burger into his mouth and reached for his third. Chewing, he said, “Just don’t tell the press.”
“Yeah, see,” the Flash jabbed a thumb at Shazam, “this is why we don’t let him talk to reporters.” He sat back on the step, scrunching his burger bag, and added, “Or the cops.”
“Pfft.” Shazam waved him off. “Reporters love me.” The Flash laughed.
Without thinking Mal said, “You guys are different than I expected.”
That got both of their attention. Two faces turned to look at him. It was sorta hard to read the Flash’s expression under the mask. “Well, what were you expecting?” he said.
“I don’t know – forget it,” he blustered.
Dropping her voice, Zatanna betrayed him. “He thought you’d be more professional.”
“I didn’t say that!” he protested. They were already laughing. “I didn’t mean it like that –”
“Oh, man,” said the Flash, still laughing. “And we used to be so much less professional.” He nudged Shazam’s leg. “Remember back when you first joined the League? When we didn’t even have an expenses system?”
Shazam nodded. “Yuh-huh.”
“You guys get expenses?” said Zatanna, sounding interested.
“We do now,” said the Flash. “Back in the day if we needed cash for a mission we’d just ask Batman and he’d give it to us.” He twisted to face Shazam. “How long ago was that now? Three years?”
“Something like that,” said Shazam with a shrug.
“You’d just,” said Zatanna. “Ask Batman?”
“Sure,” said the Flash.
“I kinda miss the old system,” said Shazam around his burger.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Shazam echoed, and swallowed. “He used to give me a couple of bucks extra and tell me to spend it on myself.”
“What?” The Flash clapped a scandalised hand to his chest. “Favouritism – blatant favouritism – I cannot believe – you kids wipe those smiles of your faces.”
“Sorry,” said Mal.
“Target not paying the bills, huh?” said Zatanna.
Shazam shook his head, but Flash said, “Don’t listen to him, he doesn’t pay bills. I got bills to pay.”
Pulling a face Shazam said, “I thought the mayor’s office was paying you these days?”
The Flash waved him off. “Not the point.”
“I didn’t mean unprofessional,” Mal got in. “I just didn’t think you’d be so – down to earth.”
In all honesty, he didn’t mean the Flash. It was pretty obvious from every TV appearance he’d ever done that the Flash was pretty much just a chilled-out regular dude. He had something weird going on – whenever anyone asked he’d say he got his powers by getting struck by lightning, which was a shameless lie – but still. Just a guy.
He’d asked Zatanna once what Shazam’s deal was and she’d told him, confidently, that he was some kind of ancient demi-god from the Rock of Eternity. Mal didn’t fully understand what that meant, but he knew the guy was an absolute powerhouse. Zatanna had worked with him before and from where Mal was standing seemed to be kind of in awe of him. By the way she was looking at him now, she was struggling to integrate works part-time at Target into her existing image of him.
Whatever he was, evidently he was embracing life in the twenty-first century.
“Ha.” The Flash demolished the remains of his last burger. “You want some JL insider info?”
“Sure,” said Zatanna.
“Okay,” said Mal, intrigued.
“Sometimes,” said Flash. “Cyborg likes to Donald Duck it.”
“Donald what?” said Zatanna.
“You know,” said Flash. “Shirt no pants?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t like wearing pants,” said Shazam, still ploughing through his burger. “But he’s got a bunch of football jerseys so he goes around that. It’s a little weird.”
“You look at him and you think,” said the Flash, “technically you’re less naked than normal. And, yet, somehow, more naked than normal?”
Zatanna rested her chin on her hand. “Fascinating.”
“So where is it you guys all hang out?” said Mal.
“If you play your cards right maybe we’ll show ya sometimes,” said Shazam.
“Yeah?” said Zatanna. “How do you get into the League?”
“Oh – hm,” said Flash.
“Uh,” said Shazam. By their reactions this wasn’t a real comfortable question.
“It’s a very prestigious selection process,” said the Flash, at the same moment as Shazam said, “Invitation only.”
The Flash shot him a look and added, “We vote on it.”
“So you can’t just – apply?” said Zatanna.
Shazam hunched forward on the step. “Why? Want me to put in a word for you?”
She’d been pretty confident in her questioning so far, but at that Zatanna shrank back a little, humbled. “Well, only if it’s no trouble.”
“I mean, you got my vote,” said Shazam. “How about you?”
It took Mal a second to realise he was being addressed. Startled, he said, “Me? Nah.”
“Is he even old enough?” said Zatanna.
“Hey!” Mal protested. “We’re the same age.” They weren’t, but close enough.
“Okay, uh.” Flash scooted forward on his step. “No questions about this, but. There’s no age limit.”
“Really?” said Mal.
“What do you mean, there’s no age limit?” said Zatanna.
“A bup bup!” Shazam held up a finger. “No questions. Like the man said.”
“Oh – kay?” said Zatanna, puzzled.
“It’s a pretty sweet gig,” said Shazam, which was a weird set of words to hear come out of his mouth. Pretty sweet gig. For real? “Let me know what you wanna do. It’d be really cool to get to know you guys.”
Mal’s heart thudded. Overhead in the clear sky, the stars suddenly looked within touching distance.
Offering his take-out bag to the Flash, Shazam said, “You want the rest of my fries?”