Chapter Text
Billy liked to think he was an open person. He never really hid anything regarding his civilian life like Batman or Superman did. The rest of the Justice League just never really asked. It didn't really bother Billy, to be honest. If anything, it was somewhat amusing to see what assumptions other heroes made about his civilian life.
Wonder Woman thought he was as ancient as the gods. Superman initially thought he was a Kryptonian, but Billy had to gently break it to the man he was not. Billy didn't know what the man thought he was now. Billy didn't know what Batman thought about him, either, although that wasn't surprising.
No one knew a lot about Batman. This obviously rubbed some members the wrong way, but Billy understood wanting to keep the flashiness of being a hero separate from a quiet civilian life. There was still some division in the team, however.
Hence the team bonding activities that were set to become a monthly occurrence in the Watchtower. Hal suggested beer pong. Barry put forth Never Have I Ever. Diana suggested watching a movie as she was quite behind on the last two-thousand years of media and everyone was quick to agree. It quickly became a long discussion of what to watch.
"Nineteen-Eighty-Four," Green Arrow immediately proposed.
"Oh, they turned it into a movie?" Billy hummed with interest. "Have people's opinions changed on it? It was banned in the majority of the US when I read it."
"Jeez, have the book bans gotten that bad?" Barry scratched the back of his head. "I remember being required to read it back in high school. Also, we are not going to watch that, Arrow—it's too depressing."
"Animal Farm," Green Arrow countered and Barry sighed.
"No. As the king of fun, you are banned from suggesting movies. We need something lighthearted."
"Hey, didn't some people make an indie Superman film recently?" Hal remembered as he was scrolling through various movies. Barry and Green Arrow turned towards Superman like sharks smelling blood.
"Oh ho, the big blue got put on the big screen," Barry ribbed a blushing Superman. "C'mon, have you seen it? Is it any good?"
"Yeah, did they get your hair curl right?" Green Arrow joined in. "And the voice! Did they get their voice right?"
Diana, ever the diplomat only smiled. "I think it's wonderful that you've made such an impact on people's lives that they would want to immortalize you in film."
"Yeah, you're the first of us to get a film made of your heroic deeds," Hal added. Billy glanced away from the conversation. It was wonderful Supes had a movie made out of him, but Hal's statement was simply factually incorrect. However, Billy was reluctant to take away from Superman's achievement by correcting Hal—better to just keep quiet about it and not kick up a fuss. Unfortunately, Batman fixed his attention on Captain Marvel.
"Captain?" Batman prompted. "Is something wrong?" Drats.
"Ah," Billy winced. "I actually have you beat, Supes." Hal and Barry rounded on Billy, surprise evident in their postures.
"Since when?!"Hal demanded.
"1941?" Billy cringed as the room went silent. "Look, I'm sorry about taking the spotlight from you, Supes; like Diana said, it's amazing that you made such an impact that they wanted to make a picture out of you—"
"No, no," Superman waved away a small frown on his face. "No apologies needed, Captain. We're just surprised you've been active for so long—I think the majority of us assumed you were relatively new to the hero scene, so hearing that someone made a movie of you back in the forties is…perspective changing."
"Yeah," Barry nodded quickly, turning his head into a red blur. "I thought you were only active for a year before joining the Justice League, so to hear you've been active since the forties is insane, man. How come we haven't heard of you before?"
"The time bubble," Billy said. He received blank stares in return. "The time bubble over Fawcett? Sivana—one of my villains—tried to put me and other heroes in a time bubble to stop us from interfering with his plans, but the plan went kerplunk and he managed to get the entirety of Fawcett stuck in his time bubble—including himself, I might add. It popped back in the seventies. Gods, that was a nightmare to deal with."
Billy grimaced at the way they had been treated in the seventies. A bunch of White men in suits coming in and telling them how to run the city without any care for how things were done in Fawcett.
"Is that why Fawcett is semi-autonomous?" Batman hummed. Of course the man knew about the time bubble judging by his complete lack of surprise.
"Yeah, they couldn't figure out the taxes," Billy shrugged. "Thank gods for that. I thought they would never leave us alone—even Sivana was ready to throw a fit if they continued to try to change Fawcett."
"Taxes are bad," Green Arrow nodded wisely. "But we're getting off track. C'mon Cap, tell us about the movie. How big was it? Did the actor who portrayed you look good? Did more people swoon in your presence after it was released?" Green Arrow waggled his eyebrows to emphasize his point.
"It was a good picture," Billy shrugged. "Although I'm sure it wouldn't be up to snuff with your modern movie making magic, it had really good special effects when it came out—they were even able to make it look like the actor was flying."
"Does a copy still exist?" Diana asked. "I was under the impression such old film degrades after some time."
"There's still an annual showing on the day I debuted," Billy remembered. "And I'm sure a few film archives have it, too."
"No need, Cap," Hal grinned. "Someone uploaded it to YouTube. We can even watch it for free."
"Well, it looks like we decided on the movie," Barry smiled, triumphant. "Next time we'll watch Supes' indie film."
"Ah," Billy weekly protested. "The film serial is twelve chapters—it will take more than three hours to get through them all."
"We'll just divide it in half," Green Arrow waved away. "First six chapters today, the last six chapters next week, and then Superman the week after that."
That was exactly what they did and if Billy blushed at the soft compliments the other heroes gave, well, no one had to know.