I have a theory that people don't like OCs because they generally suck or because they're awkwardly paired with other characters. So, I'll start by saying that there will be no slash or pairings in this, because this is about elementary-age characters, and frankly, I don't want to force that on them.

I've proofread this to kingdom come, so if something sticks out, go ahead and tell me. But nothing will. I'm just amazing like that.

Warning: Billy Batson is an awkward and adorkable little fifth-grader. He needs more stories about him.

-M. Mint

Charles Hudson Elementary School had every type of kid you could possibly have in a classroom at one time. There were the kids from various socioeconomic backgrounds, kids of every sort of ethnicity, and kids with all kinds of upbringings. There were the kids that everyone knew, the shy kids (who everyone knew), the kids that you wanted to be friends with but knew you never could, the kids you thought you were friends with but realized later on that they didn't feel the same way, the classic bullies, the smart kids, the friend-hopping kids, the popular kids, the funny kids, the loud kids, and always that one kid that seemed either way too old or way too young to be in your class.

Stephanie Schmitt fell under the somewhat unique category of 'I-would-be-friends-with-her-if-she-acted-like-she-liked-me'. Her hair was always in very large, shoulder-length curls, she always wore dresses or skirts, and her shoes would always make a satisfying clack as she neatly paced down the hallways. She had a very obviously fake air of polite kindness around her, but since it was far better than her treating you like trash, most people just went along with it.

If there was anyone in his class whom he could deal with knowing his secret identity, Billy would have placed her at the bottom of his list. But, of course, Stephanie Schmitt had to have been the one to find out.

It had just become independent work time in class when Billy Batson strode in through the doors, looking pretty fine with coming into school forty minutes late. He went to the teacher's desk, handed her a piece of paper, speaking a few words with her, and with her approving nod, he made his way to his desk in the back of the classroom.

Most of the students didn't even look up from their work. Billy was often in and out of school due to his medical condition, so him coming in late was nothing new. But Stephanie noted every time he was in the classroom, and every time he got up to leave, and she was still searching for a pattern. She was fairly certain that he had no medical condition. It wasn't that she didn't believe in such things, or that she underestimated the effects one could have on a person. It was simply that she couldn't imagine Billy ever having one. He just wasn't the medical condition 'type,' in her expert ten-year-old observations of what 'type' of people had medical issues. The other reason that she couldn't let him off the hook was that she was simply not a fan of anyone who was just allowed to leave class. It was unfair. The rest of the fifth grade had to sit through almost seven whole hours of school, and then this nobody could just come and go willy-nilly. This frustrated her and caused her to dislike Billy immensely. His desk also happened to be adjacent to hers, meaning that she had to watch him stand up and sit down every time he was on medical emergency. If nothing else, he was a constant distraction.

Setting his backpack on the ground, Billy slid into his seat, pulling out his materials and checking the board for the problem set, even though it was the same every day—one through seven, but skip six (the paragraph answer). A couple rows ahead, a boy turned around in his chair to wave to Billy, who poked his head up and waved back with a little smile. Stephanie rolled her eyes and let out an audible sigh.

"You're late," snapped a voice from beside him, and Billy could not tell if she had put more distaste into the first or the second word.

He rolled his head over his shoulder. "Uh, no duh," he replied, and then returned to his work, knowing he would have about two seconds' peace before Stephanie would continue. It always happened.

After four seconds (maybe she was feeling forgiving today?), she added, "Where were you?"

Billy had, of course, been fighting with the Justice League. But, for the obvious secret-identity-keeping reasons, he gave one of his usual responses. "At the hospital, doing a blood test. Where were you?" he added dryly.

She ignored his obviously sarcastic question. "That's stupid," Stephanie replied immediately, tossing one of her impeccable red curls back. "I don't think you even need to do those."

"I mean, I don't need to," he grumbled through his teeth, going back to his work, "unless I want my circulatory system to function."

"I think your parents just let you leave school so you can mess around," she said smugly, as if there was no other solution. As if he hadn't been using forged doctor's notes since the third grade to go fight crime.

"I think you're stupid and your theory makes no sense. Anyways, I'm going to try and catch up on Language Arts, if you don't mind."

Apparently, she did, for she just shrugged and remarked, "Oh, wait. It's your fat, old uncle that lets you fool around."

Speaking of blood vessels, one of Billy's had probably popped.

First of all, no one insulted Uncle Dudley, a.k.a. the kindest and most caring person in the whole entire world who took in Billy when he was younger simply because he cared.

Second of all, she had no clue what he was doing, and saving hundreds of lives every day was not exactly Billy's definition of 'fooling around'.

Forgetting where he was at all or any semblance of what a good kid he was, Billy shot out of his chair, which flew out behind him. Turning to face her with unexpected swiftness, he grabbed one of her curls and jerked her head towards him.

"Don't," he growled, not quite sure what to follow it up with, but angry enough that it didn't particularly matter at that moment.

Stephanie wasn't really that scared. She knew that Billy was too much of a goody-two-shoes to actually hurt her, but the moment Miss Harding took notice of the situation and looked at her, Stephanie burst into tears.

Naturally, Stephanie, a ten-year-old from an upper-class family, had long ago perfected her crocodile tears, and she could flip them on and off at ease. This time was no exception. Scrunching up her face, she emitted a high-pitch squeal/sob, the type that always got someone's attention, and clutched her skirt into her little curled up hands.

Miss Harding stood up out of her seat, looking shocked. "Billy!" she scolded, already out from behind her desk and making her way over to the two. The rest of the class watched in excitement. Something like this hadn't happened in at least two or three days (when Austin and Rick had both fallen out of their seats and had, as expected of the two, blamed the other for his misfortune).

Billy's eyes widened, and he immediately let go of Stephanie, shifting his attention towards the teacher. He looked as though he couldn't even comprehend what he had just done. That irritated Stephanie a bit. Why couldn't he ever honestly do something wrong? He acted like he was some perfect child who was always justified in his actions and always did the right thing. She bawled even harder, if that was possible at this point.

"Billy, why did you just hurt Stephanie like that?" Miss Harding ordered.

Stephanie watched as Billy clenched his fist, but, surprisingly, said nothing. He bit his lip as if it was something he was debating telling the teacher. This immediately set Stephanie on guard. Why didn't he just tell her what she had said? Miss Harding would certainly be at least a little more sympathetic towards him. What didn't he want to say? Her suspicion of Billy Batson's 'medical' circumstances rose substantially.

Finally, he muttered, "She…she was being annoying…" face flushed and head bowed.

Miss Harding glared at Billy, clearly ashamed at his behavior, and then turned to Stephanie with a more concerned look. "Stephanie, what did you do to Billy?"

She toned down her howling to more of a quiet sob so she could say, "I don't know, Miss Harding! I just was asking him if he was okay, you know, because of his medical condition."

Their teacher turned to Billy, and again, he remained silent. Why?

But at this point, Miss Harding seemed to have guessed that Billy wasn't telling her everything. She wasn't the fifth grade teacher for nothing. "Billy," she said at length, sternly, but not angrily, "I want a word with you after class. Please finish your work at the corner desk." The bad kid table? This was a shock to the rest of the class, seeing as it was almost always reserved for either Victoria or Joey.

Without a word, Billy nodded, picked up his stuff, and migrated to the very back of the classroom, near the windows that looked out on the playground.

The next day, Billy came up and formally apologized to her. "I'm sorry for frightening you like that yesterday. I don't know what came over me."

Stephanie looked him over. He didn't look mad. Maybe a little frustrated, but definitely repentant. Not that she cared.

"You should be," she replied sweetly, relishing the audible sigh he let out before sitting down at his desk.

Nothing on that scale happened for at least another week. Billy kept himself in check with every offensive remark Stephanie hurled his way. He wasn't quite sure why she did it, but none of the other kids really seemed to mind, because she put on her good girl act around them. And they knew she did, but it sure beat being in his position, where every interaction turned into her personal heap of insults.

"I dunno," he said one day to Dinah when they were in the Hall of Justice at the same time. "I just think she likes being rude."

"To everybody?" Dinah asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

He nodded. "Yeah. I mean, she acts nice, but she always has that face like she's judging you and you should know it."

"Hm. You know, sometimes the way someone acts at school is caused by their life outside of school."

"Like, how I leave school sometimes to go help out the League?"

"Not quite like that." She set down her mug on the coffee table, getting up from her armchair and taking a seat beside Billy on the sofa. He immediately scooted up to her and snuggled up around her outstretched arm (recently she had revealed that 'of course he was allowed to cuddle with her', and so he had happily obliged to do so on numerous occasions).

"Think about your home life, Billy," she continued. "Dudley loves you very much, but he doesn't let you do everything you want to do, right?"

"Well, he won't let me do a lot of things, actually—"

"And so, you've grown up knowing that you can't get everything you want. But think about this Stephanie. What if, for example, her parents let her do whatever she wanted. Then she would grow up knowing that she can have whatever she wants. It's only natural."

"But why does it matter?"

She ran her fingers through his hair, ruffling his little black locks. "It just means that sometimes someone has been taught different things, morally. And that's hard to deal with, I know. But, sooner or later, that person will come to. You just have to wait."

"I don't want to have to wait that long, though. That's hard!" groaned Billy.

"It is. But sometimes you have to just man up and do it."

The next week, Stephanie almost got kidnapped. Or mugged. She wasn't quite sure what the difference was between the two.

She didn't mean to. She just wanted to follow Billy home to see what exactly he was wasting away doing all this time. Yes, she may have tricked her driver into leaving her behind, and, yes, she may have turned off her phone so that no one could try and locate her, but, to be fair, the driver had never noticed that she was doing it, so it was all right.

That morning, Billy had skipped Math and Lunch. And yet he came in with this beaming smile as if he had just saved the world. He had said it was because the tests were going well at the doctor's office. She didn't believe him. She was fully convinced that every moment Billy was gone from school was spent playing video games or skateboarding at Sycamore Park. And now she was going to prove it.

Her plan was very well thought out, and it was almost carried out perfectly. Billy always walked home from school, so that made things ten times easier. Way before he had even started off, she ran up to her driver (who was always early) and pleaded the woman for five more minutes to speak to the teacher. And thus, she was able to go back into the school, get lost in the crowds of students, and casually slip behind the tall oak trees and wait for Billy to pass by. He fell right into her trap, and soon she was tailing him without him ever knowing she was even there.

After about fifteen minutes, it occurred to her that she didn't really know how far away his house was. He hadn't made any signs of slowing down, which was surprising, seeing as he kept on darting in and out of alleyways in what to her seemed a nonsensical pattern. The farther along they went, the worse the living conditions became. The streets were lined with two-story apartment complexes. Trash bags heaped up along the brick bases of shabby homes. This felt like the glorified slums of Fawcett City. Did Billy live here?

She realized that she was getting a little too close to him, so much so that he would see her if he turned around. Quickly, she tiptoed back around an alleyway corner and stood there, waiting for him to get ahead again.

That's when she was grabbed from behind, one large hand over her mouth, the opposite arm wrapping around her stomach and lifting her off the ground a couple feet. Completely caught off guard, Stephanie tried to scream or bite his hand or something, but she had not the strength to overpower a full-grown adult. Her cries only came out as frustratingly quiet breaths out her nose.

Stephanie was frightened out of her mind. Oh my gosh. She was getting kidnapped! In all her life, she had never even comprehended that something like this would happen. She didn't know the feeling of having to struggle against a physical restraint; she didn't know the feeling of a stranger's touch. In fact, she had branched out pretty far just by coming to this dung heap. This just wasn't something she had ever had to deal with, on so many levels.

Never having taken any self-defense courses before, she let the natural instinct of human nature take over. She kicked, she squirmed, and she stilltried to scream, all the while being pulled further back into the alleyway.

Suddenly, in the middle of the day, without a cloud in the sky, Stephanie was blinded by a bright flash of light that she could have sworn was a lightning bolt.

She heard the man whisper, "What the hell…?" She couldn't have put it better herself. Had a power line fallen down nearby?

There was a brief moment in which both captor and captive stopped to ponder what sort of phenomenon had just occurred, a moment which was broken when something landed on the ground behind them so hard the cement cracked and the entire street vibrated. If Stephanie could have turned around, she would have, but she didn't have to, for the man holding her quickly spun around to see what had happened this time.

As there was plenty of daylight to go around, there was no flickering street lamp needed to reveal the figure in front of them. He was probably only a little taller than her captor, but he was huge. His bulky muscles gave him an overwhelming presence that seemed to make the entire alley that much smaller. His suit was red and cream and gold, his cape hanging behind him, and on his chest was a lightning bolt emblem.

Captain Marvel.

It's great, really. The feeling when one has nothing to fear, for they simply have nothing to challenge them. Billy loved that feeling. No one could touch him, and there always was this amazing moment when he realized this and when his opponent realized this. It was when Captain Marvel stood up and arched back his shoulders and just let the enemy behold what was coming his way.

The smart thing for the man to do would have been to drop the child and try to get—wait! He knew that child!

It was…Stephanie?

Why on Earth was Stephanie Schmitt here? He knew for a fact that he was the only kid who ever would plunge this far into the back alleys of the city to get home. Stephanie always was driven home in a white Maserati.

Of course, he was going to save her either way, it was just…geez, was she following him home? Had she no better thing to do?

Ah, well, her assailant hadn't let her go yet, so he brushed back his current muddle of thoughts and went in to the rescue. Not much to it, though. All he really had to do was grab one of the man's wrists and squeeze it. Eventually, with a loud mess of gasping and swear words (a couple were new to Billy, in fact), the man dropped Stephanie, who, for some reason, didn't run away in tears.

There was a moment of silence between the three parties, each glancing between the other two, until the man finally spat, "You gonna let me go now?"

"Thinking about it," Captain Marvel admitted. "Maybe take you to the nearest police station." He turned to Stephanie, trying to act all mature and totally not like a fifth-grader. "You wait here."

She nodded hurriedly, eyes wide, and he had to hold back a smile. The way she looked at Captain Marvel was so awe-filled, so not like she glared at Billy that he had trouble not just transforming right in front of her and blowing her mind from here to Mars. That would definitely teach her to treat him better!

Unfortunately, that wasn't the way the world worked, and Billy probably wouldn't even trust her with his backpack, much less his secret I.D.

Surprisingly, when he came back from the police station a few minutes later, she was still there, not having run off home. Wide-eyed, she watched him as he flew down to the ground, his cape fluttering out.

Stephanie stared at him for a moment, looking as though she was desperately trying to formulate some sort of sentence, but nothing came out of her mouth.

At long last, Captain Marvel asked, "So…are you…lost?"

"N-no, sir," she replied hurriedly, shaking her head. "Thank—thank you for saving me from getting kidnapped, sir."

Kidnapped? He almost snorted. The man had clearly had 'mugger' written all over him. But, wow, sir. She only said that to their Music teacher, Mr. Baxter.

"Well, do you…need a ride home…?" he found himself saying, and then he immediately regretted it. Had he just offered to fly Stephanie Schmitt home? What sort of offer was that? What good had she ever done to Billy to earn a ride home with Captain Marvel?

It didn't matter how generous he unintentionally had acted, though, because Stephanie shook her head again and said another, "N-no, sir. I called my ride while you were gone. She should be here any minute." As if waiting for this cue, from around the alley's corner drove up a white Maserati that probably cost about twice as much as one of the houses in this neighborhood. The passenger's seat window rolled down to reveal a woman at the wheel with a tight blonde bun, looking slightly displeased, but not at all worried that her passenger had been wandering around the slums alone in the afternoon. That made Captain Marvel at least a little bit troubled about the amount of care anyone currently took for this girl.

It wasn't that he didn't trust the driver in the slightest, or, heaven forbid, he was concerned for Stephanie, but he did make sure the car got home safely before he himself got back home. But it wasn't because he cared about her or anything…

Of course, since her Billy Catching Plan A worked so obviously well a couple weeks ago, now that the hype from that event had died down, Stephanie had finally concocted a Plan B.

Following him home hadn't quite worked the way she had anticipated. The whole attempted kidnapping had been a minor setback. But this time, she was going to do it right. She was going to leave school right alongside him.

It had been a while since Billy had skipped classes, so she knew it was only a matter of time until he did it again. She knew for a fact the way he took home now. All that was left was for her to manage to leave school when he did, and before he could get away, she would purposefully reveal herself to him. Now, to any other person, this may not have seemed like the best plan, but it was flawless in Stephanie's mind. Once she caught him in the act of leaving school, he would have to show her whatever he was doing. If he was innocent, he could just show that he was doing his whole diabetic-test-stuff. But she knew he wasn't. And if she caught him about to do something wrong, he would have no choice but to turn himself in. It was foolproof.

Her opportunity came during History when Billy out of nowhere stood up out of his seat, looking as if he was about to collapse.

"Miss Harding," he managed, his face pallid and sickly. "I-I don't feel so good. I think I need to…to…"

Their teacher looked at him understandingly, making Stephanie furious. "It's all right, Billy. Do what you must." He nodded hurriedly and ran out of the room quickly. Too quickly in Stephanie's opinion. He wasn't exactly Captain Inconspicuous.

She hurriedly set to work. Raising her hand high in the air, she asked, "Miss Harding, ma'am, I'm sorry, but can I go to the restroom?" Miss Harding nodded but gave the rest of the class a face that said I-am-fully-prepared-to-slice-the-throat-of-the-next-child-who-asks-to-be-excused-from-class.

The moment Stephanie was out of the classroom, she took a quick perimeter sweep to make sure no one else was watching, and then she booked it down the hallway as fast as her little legs could carry her. She knew Billy wouldn't waste a moment, and so neither would she. Before anyone could catch her, she reached the window at the end-of-the-hallway staircase, the one that was always propped open, and slipped out into the bushes, pulling closed the frosted glass behind her.

Her heart was pounding. She was leaving school. She was breaking the rules. It felt exhilarating, like she had just been dunked in an ice-cold pool on the hottest day of summer. Stephanie wondered if this was how Billy felt, being such a frequently observable rule-breaker. Peering out over the bushes, she saw Billy almost a moment before he could meet her gaze, and she hastily dropped her head back down into the bushes. He had almost seen her, but Stephanie was pretty sure she had ducked out of his view in time. Now she just had to wait until he was the perfect distance from school to catch him.

"Come on, Batson," he panted in between the large mouthfuls of air. "You can't be this spent already." Billy knew he needed to improve his stamina when he was already tired before he was even off school grounds. It was true that he had gone full-sprint the minute he left class, but he was still a little depressed at how exhausted he felt. But this was a big deal. It must have been, for Black Canary's text to have simply said "NOW" in all caps. He was worried, definitely, but more excited, an excitement that he had thought could fuel his run over to the area of battle. Thought, though the execution of such an idea was far less successful.

Thankfully, recess had long since passed, and no one was outside to prevent him from transforming into someone who just happened to have the Stamina of Atlas. So, he ran over to his personal favorite patch of shrubbery for hiding, squeezing through the branches until he was surrounded in secrecy. It was a nice little spot that the landscaping team at school seemed to have neglected for about five years and the rest of the school's population generally overlooked.

Gasping, he doubled over, catching his breath just enough that he could at least call out his words of transformation. "SHAZAM!" The familiar bolt of lightning arced down from the sky, and Billy stretched out his arms as he doubled in size, the large form of Captain Marvel taking over his puny prepubescent body. Finally, he had something to do! He almost flew off to the battle.

But then he heard a scream.

At that moment, many of the teachers on the ground floor of CHES called an afternoon snack break for their classes. The oblivious students were all too happy to oblige, and the teachers got to work texting each other and figuring out what was really going on. There was no security team at CHES, so they would have to either figure this out themselves or call the cops. But they had all heard a piercing scream of a young girl, and it didn't sound like it had come from inside the building, so this couldn't have been the run-of-the-mill student acting up in class.

The available staff and faculty of the school set out to find whatever child had screamed, but their sweep of the school property proved unsuccessful in that category, so they went back inside to regroup after about ten minutes and continue the investigation.

A teacher paced alongside the unkempt foliage along the brick walls of the building. 'No one on the north end,' he quickly texted to one of the other adults, quickening his pace and passing the bushes to go back to the main doors.

Captain Marvel waited a solid minute before letting out his breath. But he didn't get back up off the ground, nor did he take his giant hand off of Stephanie's mouth.

Gosh darn it, Stephanie Schmitt! Why was she always around?

If she had seen him transform, he was dead! He wasn't quite sure what he would do, but…well, he hoped that wasn't the case!

She stared at him with wide pale green eyes the size of softballs. Not that that was unusual. A lot of people looked at Captain Marvel like that. But he did feel a little embarrassed. He was on all fours, crouched down over Stephanie, who lay on the ground directly below him. Their faces were less than a foot apart. Eww!

Once he couldn't hear any more teachers on patrol, he peeled his hand away from her face. She took in a large breath.

"What on Earth do you think you're doing?!" he whispered as loudly as was physically possible. "Are you trying to get caught?!"

Stephanie took a couple of moments to catch her breath. And then she opened her mouth again. If she screamed one more time—

"Billy?" she managed to gasp.

Of course. Sure. As soon as he was hoping things wouldn't be worse than they already were. The world just loved to prove him wrong, didn't it? Captain Marvel was speechless. He got up off the ground and ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

His silence must have been an affirmation, because her jaw just about dropped to the ground. "Y-you're Billy Batson." Her face wore this odd expression that looked a careful blend of incredulity, astonishment, and offense.

But he wasn't really paying attention to her. His world was currently falling to pieces in front of him.

She knew.

Stephanie Schmitt knew that he, Billy Batson, was actually Captain Marvel.

Goodbye secret identity. Goodbye normal childhood. Hello paparazzi and interviews. Hello adults.

The last thing he wanted to give up was his freedom. And now that was going to happen. People were going to either treat Captain Marvel like a kid or Billy like an adult. All he wanted was the ability to be able to choose when he was a kid and when he was an adult, and now people were going to get to do that for him.

Because Stephanie hated him. And she would do everything in her power to ruin his life. She had already been trying to for a while now.

"But…you saved my life."

Her words caught Captain Marvel's attention, and he jerked his head up to face her. By this point, she had also gotten up, dirt still clinging to her dress.

"If you really were Billy, you wouldn't have done that."

Ah, such an easy out! All he had to do was just say, 'Yup, you're right! Clearly, we're not the same dude!' and fly away awesomely, and Stephanie would be left feeling like an idiot for even entertaining the notion that the two could be the same person. But that Solomon Wisdom seemed to be telling him to do otherwise. She couldn't possibly be left thinking Billy was that terrible of a person. Well, Captain Marvel always seemed to know what was right, so it was best to just roll with it.

He bit his lip nervously. After all, he had never really done this before, revealing his identity to practically a stranger. "S-Shazam," he spoke softly, and miraculously, Stephanie managed not to shriek when the lightning returned, and Captain Marvel was replaced by Billy Batson.

"I am Billy, though," he replied, already starting to clench and unclench his fists nervously.

If it was possible, she looked even more confused. After a couple tense seconds where she looked him up and down like he was some mythical creature, she shook her head, narrowing her eyes. "I don't get it. Don't you hate me?"

"What?"

She shrugged, an embarrassed little smile curling across her face as she shook her head. "Y-you know," she started, her face a little red, "because I get away with being mean to you all the time…?"

"I…kind of have an obligation to help those in need," he told her matter-of-factly, also turning a little rosy around the cheeks. "S-so, now I guess you know why I leave class all the time."

Somehow that hadn't clicked even after Stephanie had learned the whole secret identity thing going on here, but after he said it, everything made sense.

This was it! She was right! He didn't have any sort of diabetes! And he was skipping class! Well, the superhero thing was totally unexpected, but it didn't change a thing. She finally knew. At last, she could finally serve justice to Billy for all his misdeeds.

But in the moment after he had said that to her, in that split second before she said anything back to him, several things crossed her mind.

She had treated Billy like trash. She had gotten away with every horrible thing she did to him, and not once had he ever fought back. Even when he had grabbed her hair that one time, he had had full right to tell the teacher exactly what had happened. But he didn't. He had never retaliated. And after all that, he saved her life. After all those things.

When her suspicions had first arisen about Billy's medical conditions, she had assumed that he was messing around outside of school playing games and rolling around in the mud, the types of stuff boys did. Now she was faced with the reality that he left Spanish sometimes to save the world. If anything, he was sacrificing his time. He probably spent a lot of his time outside of school hours fighting crime, too.

All this ran through her mind. "Yeah, guess it makes sense," she replied to his comment as if she hadn't just undergone this major ethical crisis.

He almost smiled, but suddenly, his face blanched. He whispered to himself, "Oh my gosh, I have to go, it's been, like, fifteen minutes since Canary texted me." He looked at Stephanie straight in the eye, and it struck her that he still was a ten-year-old. He was her age.

Billy pressed his hands together in front of him and bowed very low to the ground. "Please…please…Stephanie, please don't tell anybody. I-I'll do anything, really, just—"

"Oh, all right, whatever."

His head shot up.

She felt her face flushing, but she still tried to act standoffish. "I mean, it's not like anybody would believe me. And, I mean, I guess I can use it to keep you in line or something." But she could tell he wasn't falling for her excuses. He looked so relieved, and she could practically see the way his whole body relaxed.

"Thank you so much," he grinned, now the one staring in disbelief. "I have to go, but, thank you."

She opened her mouth to let out some witty retort, but by that time he had already Shazam-ed up and left her speechless once again.

"I'll be back," he told her. "But you should probably get back to class."

"You better be back," she snapped as he took to the skies, although she had confirmed now that he was too good to actually play hooky. Sheesh. How noble did he have to be to leave school only to go and work some more? How frustrating!

And, oh, she couldn't stand to look at him as he flew away. It was so embarrassing! Like every girl in Fawcett City, she had a teeny tiny crush on Captain Marvel. But now she knew that he was just the scrawny little boy who sat next to her in class and had twice as many cooties as the other boys. Eww! How could she look at the dashing, heroic, clever Captain Marvel and his handsome, chiseled face the same way?

As she climbed back into the school hallway (by some miracle no one spotted her), she couldn't take her mind off of Billy and Captain Marvel, the formerly separate entities. How could she?

The next morning, Billy arrived at school on time, but he could barely keep his eyes open. It had been a very long night, and though Atlas gifted Captain Marvel with the stamina equivalent to multiple shots of espresso, the full weight of how long he had been fighting hit Billy hard when he had transformed back. Given that he had arrived home so late, Uncle Dudley had insisted that he stay home and rest up, but he knew he would never hear the end of it from Stephanie if he did. So, here he was at CHES, bright and early, ready to fall asleep where he stood. He immediately noticed that there was a redheaded girl sitting at her desk staring at the doorway with an owl-like attentiveness. Stephanie had obviously been waiting for him to come in, so he was not surprised when she confidently strode over to him in her shiny black shoes and stood next to him, watching closely as he put his backpack in its cubby.

"You didn't come back yesterday," she remarked curtly, tossing back her curls.

Billy sighed, turning to her. "Yeah, I just spent the past eighteen or so hours in Moscow exterminating a bunch of radioactive oversized mosquitoes that some weird Russian villain let loose and are each basically as strong as a Kryptonian and really hurt when they bite you. I couldn't really find the time to make it back to school for science yesterday, but the numbers have gone down enough in Moscow that I could fly back to come to school today." He let out a large yawn and rubbed his eyes, as if it wasn't clear enough that he was ready to collapse.

She raised an eyebrow. "Eighteen hours? How much sleep did you get?"

"Uh, how about none?" he suggested, pulling out his textbook. "But check it out! Here I am, back at school just like I promised. Happy?"

This didn't seem to please her. "You just love making me feel guilty, huh?"

"You got it, Steph."

"Ew. It's Stephanie. Don't ever call me that again." She shook her head, though, as if that was unimportant. "Anyways, did you say you were in Russia?"

"Mm hmm."

"Wait, so have you traveled all around the world?"

"Jealous?" he grinned as he took his seat.

She let out an indignant huff as she pulled out her own chair beside him. "Of course not. I just think it's terrible that you do all that traveling and probably don't even have a passport."

"Sure. I bet even if I told you I did, you wouldn't care." He yawned again, but he looked smug. "I think you can't stand that I get to travel the world so easily."

"No," she immediately replied. "I think you just tag along with the rest of the Justice League and try not to get knocked out in battle."

"Ha, ha. Did you think that when I single-handedly took out the ten missiles headed towards Fawcett City two months ago?"

"That was—"

The bell rang to signal the start of Language Arts, but Stephanie still finished quickly, "—it was not much of a threat, and I bet the missiles weren't even set to detonate."

"That's stupid," he whispered hurriedly before class began.

"No, it's not," she whispered back.

"Yeah, it is."

"Nope."

The argument continued through lunch and recess and probably for the next couple weeks. Then she was on him for almost punching Wonder Woman during a fight against Mr. Freeze. Then it was how he was always using the same battle tactics.

It was always something. Stephanie always found something with which to insult him or to provoke him, but she somehow still kept her word. She was the only person in all of CHES, and, besides Uncle Dudley, the only person in all of Fawcett City to know that Billy Batson was actually Captain Marvel. And she was faithful to her promise to keep it that way.