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Billy has come up with countless ways he’d tell Rosa and Victor ranging from sitting down with a PowerPoint followed by begging on his knees to still be allowed to go out as Shazam to showing up to family dinner as Shazam in a t-shirt with glitter letters saying “I’M BILLY.”
Okay, yeah, that last one was Darla. But still.
However, none of them ever was getting turned into a kid as Shazam while retaining all of his Shazam powers but none of his memories.
It took a lot for Freddy to wrangle the crying child Billy who had just gotten out of his first bad foster home and had to pretend to be a social worker trying out a new schtick to get him to calm down.
When Freddy tells Billy that he’s bringing him to a new foster family, Billy immediately tries to run, and can he just say that it’s significantly harder to catch a kid when they can fly and have superspeed and superstrength.
Freddy thanks all of the Gods that the powers of Shazam tire Billy out much faster when he has the body of a nine year old.
Freddy runs them back home and doesn’t think further than that.
Which is why, like an idiot, he comes in not checking to see if Rosa and Victor were in the sitting room.
And yes. They are.
They immediately stand with alarm. “You’re—”
“Yes, I know, hold the autographs, I’ve got—” He stops. What is he gonna tell them? He can’t exactly tell them how Billy turned out this way and he certainly can’t pull the social worker in a costume bit with them too. Knowing he’s been standing there in silence for too long, he finally blurts out: “Your son got caught in the blast of a magician.” Which, frick, is the truth.
“What? How?” Victor asks with a gasp.
“Uhm. Stray magic beam.” Which is apparently the right answer because Rosa and Victor immediately run to take the little Billy from Freddy and check over him.
“Dios, how old is he?” Rosa murmurs.
“Seems to be about 9,” Freddy says.
“That’s when…” Victor trails off. He shakes his head and looks up at Freddy. “Thank you for bringing him to us.”
“He doesn’t remember anything, just so you know. And, uh, there may be other effects of the magic. Like, say, I don’t know, sudden gain of magical powers.”
Their eyes go wide.
“I’m gonna go now—”
“Wait,” Rosa says. “If he doesn’t have his memories, how did you know to bring him to us?”
“Uhhh,” Freddy says. “It was… in his wallet?” Rosa narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Okay, gotta go! Evil magician on the loose!” With that Freddy speeds out and waits a few minutes before coming back in. “Hey guys what— aw man. Did the social worker just drop this one off? They didn’t even give us any warning!”
Rosa shakes her head, clearly still shaken up by the whole situation. “No. This… this is Billy. Somehow.”
Freddy pretends to be shocked. “Whaaat? That’s crazy! How could this happen?”
Before she can reply, Darla skips downstairs and her head cocks. “Who’s that?”
“Billy,” Freddy says, trying to get across with his eyebrows and silent communication what's going on. Darla doesn't seem to get it.
“Just when I think the world can’t get any odder,” Victor mutters.
At his words, Billy starts to stir awake. When his eyes open, he flinches away from Rosa and Victor’s touch.
“Hey, you’re alright,” Rosa says. “You’re safe. My name’s Rosa. This is my husband Victor and two of our kids, Freddy and Darla.”
Billy looks around the house and at them with a calculating gaze. When Darla beams at him, Billy sends her a shy attempt at a smile back. Clearly not something he has been doing a lot recently and it breaks their hearts at the sight.
“How about we get you a snack while we get you settled in?” Rosa says. “Would you like that?”
Billy’s eyes go big and he nods enthusiastically. Rosa takes his hand and leads him to the kitchen, preparing him a bowl of his favorite crackers and another with fruit salad.
When she places it in front of Billy, he looks at it as if she’s given him the holy grail.
He eats it cautiously and slowly, savoring the taste as he goes back and forth between the bowls, and looking up at her, waiting to see if she’ll take it away. She just nods encouragingly and talks to him with a soft tone.
“Do I get to stay?” Billy asks, the first thing he’s said since he got here.
“Yeah, honey. You’ll stay here with us.” She almost says ‘until.’ Until you turn back to your normal age. Until the spell wears off. But he doesn't need to know that. He just needs to feel comfortable in a home where he won’t get hurt.
Darla climbs up on the stool beside Billy and he startles. “Do you wanna color with me? I’ve got glitter glue.”
Billy nods silently and she shoves a pack of crayola crayons in his hand.
She leans in to him conspiratorially. "This is the good stuff.”
Billy nods again with a soft giggle and takes a blue crayon.
Rosa watches with a soft smile as the two color, Darla chatting Billy’s ear off as he colors, his head rested on the crook of his elbow as he draws. Rosa peeks over his shoulder and recognizes the glitter glue covered figure.
“Hey, I recognize him,” Rosa says. “Was he there earlier with you?”
Billy shakes his head and taps his temple.
“You know him?”
Billy shakes his head again and taps his chest.
“You… you’re… him?”
“Uh… nooo,” Darla says, not convincingly at all. “No way Billy’s a superhero. I mean, he’s a kid! We’re kids. We’re definitely not also superheroes.”
Rosa, frozen as the implications sink in and with no one but two 9 year olds to give her answers. Wait…
“Freddy!” She calls.
Freddy hurries in, frazzled and worried. “Yeah?! What?! Where’s the fire?” Rosa crosses her arms and Freddy cringes. “Oh no.”
“You want to tell me about the apparent shared superpowers you, Darla, Billy, and I’m guessing the rest of your siblings have.”
“Uhhh,” Freddy says. “No?”
“Freddy.”
“It’s Billy’s fault! He was the one who took the subway to the Rock of Eternity and got the powers from the wizard!”
“He what?!”
And if things couldn’t get any worse, Billy says in a tiny voice “Shazam” and a bolt of lightning strikes through the ceiling, returning Billy to his proper age.
“Oh,” Rosa says. “You are so grounded.”