Devil's consultancy 49

It didn’t take long to inform Billy that they had an appointment to get to, finish up their meals, and leave, dropping a hundred dollar tip because even the waitstaff at actually nice restaurants don’t complain about that unless it’s a large party, and Tanya saw no reason to pay waitstaff at more modest establishments any less. 

But enough complaining about one of America’s most irritating cultural idiosyncrasies, they had a kryptonian to meet with. While they could just teleport over to somewhere private, that would waste her previous efforts, so instead Tanya led Billy, by the hand and while skipping, to a park with a secluded gazebo, where Clark Kent awaited. 

“Aren’t you a little young to be trying to give Bruce a heart attack?” Was Clark’s first words as he saw Tanya bring her date to the interview. 

“I am absolutely the right age to be giving Daddy a heart attack.” Tanya said with an amused grin. Billy still seemed a little discomfitted by her child persona, but he also seemed to be having a hard time keeping his blush down, so her goal was accomplished. “This is Billy Batson. We met on a Justice League fansite, and I decided to come visit him because I don’t have any other friends my age!”

“Oh?” Clark said, clearly as amused with the idea of Bruce’s reaction as she was. “Does that mean that the richest ten year old in the world has a boyfriend?”

Tanya faked a moment of thought. “Yep!” She said, “Just goes to show that the internet is a great place to find a ten year old boyfriend!”

Guffawing at her absurd statement, Clark took a moment to recover. “Okay, I haven’t actually talked to Bruce about this yet, so now that I know the story, what’s this about Captain Marvel?”

“Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou.” Tanya muttered as she established a relatively minor privacy spell. “He’s Captain Marvel.” Tanya said, her voice flatter but still not completely without her amusement at her joke. “Empowered with the best traits of six ancient heroes and gods, destined to do battle with another empowered by a different set of six even more ancient heroes and gods.” She took out the soul prison that she put Shazam into. “This idiot of a ghost’s idea of saving the world, picking someone young, untested, but with a heroic spirit.”

“Don’t just tell him!” Billy hissed, ‘Who is this guy anyway?”

“Wisdom of Solomon my hiney.” Tanya said, bleedover from her childish persona censoring herself, “This is Clark. We spoke on the phone.”

“Clark Kent.” He said, holding out his hand for Billy to shake, who politely returned it. “Heroic spirit, huh? What’s that mean?”

“You’d have to ask the idiot.” Tanya said, “But from what he said earlier, I presume that Teth-Adam, the villain in question, was previously empowered by the same wizard, and misused the gift. He prioritized averting that possibility above all other considerations, so it was probably some kind of moral character assessment.”

“That makes sense.” Clark said, frowning. “He still shouldn’t have put that on a kid, but I know better than most how important that can be.”

“If that was all he did, that wouldn’t make me so angry.” Tanya said, bearing her teeth and practically snarling. Clark did vaguely know that she turned more demonic when angry, but he probably didn’t grasp how inconvenient it was when it happened. “It’s not like starting an apprenticeship young cannot be done without compromising freedom of choice.”

“You said something about living alone?” Clark prompted. 

“The idiot isolated Billy.” Tanya summarized. 

“Hey, I have friends.” Billy insisted. 

“She means that your previous mentor probably gave you the idea that you couldn’t trust anyone with your secret except him.” Clark said softly, “That defending Earth from this Teth-Adam fellow was your responsibility alone, and that the Justice League couldn’t help you. That Superman couldn’t help you.”

“I tried to join!” Billy argued. “She wouldn’t let me!” He added. 

Tanya huffed. “You threw up so many red flags that even if I did let you on, I’d have been overruled.”

“You know Bruce trusts your judgement, Tanya.” Clark said consolingly. “He’d just call you to confirm that it wasn’t a paperwork error.”

“I do NOT make paperwork errors.” Tanya insisted, metaphorical hackles raised. The very idea… “I should add that I was right that Shazam was shady. We’ve had people attempt to join with malicious intentions. Some of them actually got in.” Like Shayera. “A bureaucratic ghost with a mysterious backer? Too much risk.”

“It would have turned out fine.” Billy insisted. 

“Doubtful.” Tanya said, “While some people-” sometimes Bruce got cocky “-might have hewed to keeping enemies closer, letting him in and discovering his identity after the fact, it wasn’t all that long before he arrived that those saboteurs showed up.”

“Right, the ones with the bomb collars.” Clark said, remembering the incident. “Sorry I wasn’t there to notice them before it was too late.” He said, sincere as always. 

“We have those robots now, it shouldn’t be a problem going forward.” Tanya said reassuringly. Clark was still resistant to letting his robot army come out from their arctic warehouse, but Kara was just as much a member of the Justice League as he was, and she was better at manipulating the kryptonian technology than he was, so she was able to procure and program a few of them to act as security, which included some excellent explosives scanners. 

“But I’m not a sabo-whatever!” Billy whined. 

Tanya scoffed. “We had no way of knowing that, and what evidence we did had pointed to you being a patsy.”

“One of the things you need to remember in this business is that people don’t need to be bad people to cause problems.” Clark explained softly, “Lots of villains prefer to work at a remove, never doing anything bad themselves but forcing others to do bad things for them.”

“Like Dr. Sivana!” Billy said, gasping. 

“Think back to Sabbac.” Tanya added, “Even you said that he should be given a break, because he’s a kid. He wasn’t fully responsible for his actions.” Billy winced as his hypocrisy was pointed out. “For simplicity, let us assume SivMana’s efforts created Sabbac,” She had a hunch that was the ‘breakthrough’ that Mr. Karnes, Ibac, had alluded to. “Imagine if Sabbac pretended to be a demon on the side of the heroes, like myself. He spent the same amount of time as you did, two weeks, doing some heroism, to set the stage. Just like you, he refuses to reveal his identity in any way, and mentions, offhand, someone he calls ‘the doctor’. He refuses to elaborate on the identity or inclinations of this doctor, and breaks away instead when pressed.”

“I get it…” Billy said, unhappy. “I should have just told you all because the adults know best...”

Bluntly, yes. However… “It’s not because the League has adults.” Tanya said, “Adults can be very stupid.” Over the years, Tanya had collected quite a few pieces of wisdom that were easily digestible by superpowered children. Few of them would subscribe to authority through seniority, but reframing things to be more complex and accurate allowed one to draw them back to respecting the chain of command. “But it’s a matter of expertise. You didn’t trust the foremost superheroes in the world to know how to help you be a superhero. How to defend the planet. Not wanting to reveal your identity, even after our assurances that we’d help you keep it secret instead of revealing it, that was understandable, respectable even.” Tanya’s expression hardened. “Not telling us about Teth-Adam, on the other hand, was absolutely you being a glory hound, an unfortunately common but detestable pitfall of the profession. I’m not going to sugar-coat that for you, it was the wrong decision.” Billy’s eyes stayed downward at the scolding, not meeting her gaze. 

“Even I’m guilty of that one, sometimes.” Clark added, “It’s one thing to say that you can handle something, and not need help, or that you need to act now, there’s no time, but it’s important to remember that what matters is that the bad guys get stopped, not that you’re the one who stops them.”

“...Really?” Billy said, looking back up. “But you’re Superman!” He paused, as he realized that such was only implied, not stated. 

“Superman has weaknesses.” Clark said, silently confirming. “If something that uses those weaknesses shows up, it’s useful to be able to tag out. But yes, I’m usually the one getting tagged in instead.”

“Moving on-” Tanya said, “Because we’ll be here all day if you continue to talk shop, the topic we need to actually discuss is the fact that he needs a guardian. You’re the best fit.”

“I can see why you say that.” Clark said evasively. “But I’m not sure Lois would-”

Tanya interrupted him. “I can make her see reason.” She asserted, “But he needs a mentor who is stronger than him. It’s the only way to get the lessons to sink in, he’s too thick-headed to heed lessons from those weaker than him.”

“Hey…” Billy said, offended.

“If you were being given lessons on going into a burning building without breaking it, and it was being taught by Rush, would you listen to what he was saying?” Tanya asked, in an entirely reasonable hypothetical. 

Billy’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Justice League’s public descriptions of their membership came in handy. “What would he know? He can’t fly, he doesn’t have super strength or speed.” he scoffed. “Besides, I’ve done it before, I don’t need a lesson.”

“He’s been a firefighter for fifteen years and has heightened senses, and so knows even subtle signs you could be paying attention to.” Tanya deadpanned. It was why she used him as an example: he actually does teach those lessons.

“Well how am I supposed to know that?” Billy asked, upset. 

“That’s my point: You don’t.” Really, on the first day of lessons he’d tell the students that, but that weakened her rhetorical point. “But what you would know is that, of all the options in the entire world, the Justice League decided that he was qualified to teach the class. Once more, you demonstrate a lack of trust that we know what we’re doing in favor of your vaunted Wisdom of Solomon and the word of Shazam in its infallibility." Tanya looked upward, back at Clark. “Do you see what I mean? He needs firm guidance, the kind that only you can enforce.” Involuntarily, Tanya’s mind flashed back to the ‘social worker bingo’ card that Richard sent her a few months ago. Argh, she just got bingo from ‘needs firm guidance’. Damn you Richard. 

Clark chuckled. “So you’re saying that your new boyfriend’s a delinquent?” He said, amused. 

Tanya was about to deny it, but paused, flushing as she realized the man had a point. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” She said instead. 

Clark’s chuckling increased to actual laughter. “So you can fix him? Is that it?” 

“Shut up!” Tanya said, her face incandescent. Maybe this prank wasn’t such a good idea… “Are you going to foster him or not?”

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it.” Clark said, after his laughter calmed down. “It can’t be too much harder than dealing with Kara when she first got to Earth.”

“You mostly foisted her off on your parents, and she was twelve when she showed up.” Tanya pointed out, “You’ll need to be a bit more involved this time.”

“I don’t think you understand how much of a problem Kara had when dealing with humans at first.” Clark said. “It took months to get her to accept that humans were people.”

“Point.” Tanya conceded. Yes, there were plenty of actual humans that struggled with the concept that other people were, in fact, people. Billy was not one of those people, as far as she could tell. “Now, there’s a lot of little things that need to be handled, and keeping opsec going will add several layers of difficulty, so let’s get started.”

“So Superman is going to be my Dad now?” Billy asked, hopeful. 

“Just your guardian for now, Billy.” Clark said, tempering expectations. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to be called that.”

“Functionally, yes.” Tanya said, “But for now, it’ll be a foster relationship. Like you had with the Freemans before your uncle took custody.” Yet another reason why Billy could not be trusted with his own living situation: get kicked out of the house and didn’t even ask his old foster parents for a place to stay. It was typical of a ten year old’s decisionmaking, but it being age appropriate didn’t mean you ignored it. 

“I’ll take it!” Billy said, grinning widely. 

“So, I’m sure Bruce’d know what to do at this point, but I’m lost. What first?” Clark said. 

Tanya brought out a stack of paper. “Paperwork. We have people in child services to backdate, expedite, obfuscate, etcetera. So leave dates blank for now.” Fortunately, the Justice League put soft pressure on social services to give special treatment to kids they personally rescued all the time, so Billy wouldn’t look that strange. 

Clark sighed.

-----------------------

With the Billy Batson case finally dealt with, or at least dealt with enough that she could call it a day, she finally returned home. Well, Clark flew her home, which was nice of him, but… details. 

Bruce was, as usual, on the Bat Computer in the late afternoon, performing the various tasks required before he left to patrol. Her ritual room was down here, and if she was going to undo the demonic mutations her loss of temper acquired for her, she needed a few things she kept in there. Jason was doing his homework at the workbench, being a more studious boy than Richard ever was, and neither Diana, Ace nor any other visitor appeared to be around. Alfred seemed to be taking inventory of the medical and forensic supplies. 

“I’m home!” She announced with somewhat forced cheer as she walked down the stairs. 

“Welcome home, Miss Tanya.” Alfred said, turning slightly to flash a polite smile. Jason grunted in greeting, focused on his task. 

Bruce got up from his work and met her when she passed by, picking her up and giving a hug. After setting her back down, he paused. “...what happened?” He asked, suspicious. “Why do you have that on?” He looked closer at her eyes. “Are those contacts?” He added.

Oh right, her prank. She almost forgot about it. “I had to look good for my date, Daddy. You taught me that.”

Whatever theories Bruce was running through his head, his thoughts visibly came to a screeching halt. “...what did you say?” He asked weakly. 

“I met a boy when I was in Fawcett, and we went on a date.” Tanya said simply, trying her damnedest to force her face into a ‘pleased smile’ and not a ‘shit-eating grin’. 

Bruce’s expression as he processed this information could only be described as ‘haunted’. “W-who?” He asked. “I thought you were going to investigate Captain Marvel.”

“Look, I have a lot in common with Captain Marvel.” Tanya said, which led to Bruce making a choking sound. “Like being secretly ten years old.” Bruce struggled to breathe. 

“For real?” Jason asked, clearly amused at Bruce’s rapidly developing stroke. “Isn’t that weird the other way, though? You’re gonna eat him alive.”

Tanya chuckled. “How much dating experience do you think I have?” She asked, “I’ve never had a boyfriend before. Heck, even dates with girls could be counted on two hands, and none of those relationships lasted long enough for me to even remember their names.” She didn’t really get close enough with anyone back then to really remember them very well after her experiences in Hell. 

“Ah, I see.” Jason said, stroking the ugly teenager scruff he had developed since the morning like it was a full beard. “How’d it go?”

“Does it have anything to do with the fact that your teeth appear to have become fully carnivorous?” Alfred added, once more demonstrating powers of observation that put Bruce to shame. 

Bruce snapped out of his cognitive arrest. “Wait.” He held her head and pulled back her lips, inspecting her teeth and eyes. “...Those are contacts.” He said, no longer distracted from his initial question. 

Tanya closed her eyes and shoved the contacts into her pocket dimension. Bruce inhaled sharply at the new glowing eyes. “I may have lost my temper today.” She said, the exhaustion from her day suddenly catching up to her now that her prank had run its course. “I need to meditate.”

“Did you kill someone?” Bruce asked, more concerned than angry. 

“He was dead when I got there.” Tanya repeated, taking out the soul prison she had Shazam inside. “Put this somewhere. I still need to interrogate the arrogant fool and I’m going to rip his corpus apart with my teeth if I still have the ability when I next hear his voice.” They did test at one point whether or not her teeth could interact with soul matter (using matter drawn from The Red, of course) when they were sufficiently mutated: they started to do that the moment the last of her molars were transformed. 

“What is that, some kind of faberge egg?” Jason asked. It did somewhat resemble one, albeit more crystalline than velvet covered. 

“It’s for containing ghosts.” Bruce summarized, “Dead when you got there, huh?”

“Dead when I got there.” Tanya said bitterly as she turned to go meditate until she felt human again. Most of the things she got from being a demon was useful or neat, but some days it just… sucked. Why’d she have to get so worked up over some long dead wizard’s stupidity? 

…At least Billy’s going to be okay now. 

-----------------------

Fortunately, she was able to suppress the involuntary demonic transformation with only a minor addition to her permanent mutations: the interior of her belly button was now permanently silver, but it was easy enough to disguise: she got the thing pierced and started habitually wearing jewelry there every time she wore something that either exposed or risked exposing her stomach so that no one would notice without close inspection. 

Shazam was interred within a new offshoot, just as heavily secured as the Zeta Tube machine, of the Batcave. The wizard was not particularly helpful on topics other than Teth-Adam at first, but once the man came and was handily defeated by ten of Earth’s mightiest heroes, including Captain Marvel (Billy had apparently had been on his best behavior so as to keep that privilege), Shazam was much more contrite over his arrogance and became a valuable source of magical lore. More importantly, he and Nabu represented checks on each other, as anything that was potentially suspect from one could be verified with the other. Well, sometimes anyway. 

She turned eleven, and the ‘Wedding of the Century’ as the tabloids have labeled it, grew ever closer, with planning proceeding apace. Tanya was initially surprised at how much she liked participating in the wedding planning, but she really shouldn’t be: she tended to like planning in general, and it wasn’t like she needed to decide things like color or music; she stuck to more practical matters. 

Part of this planning involved her interacting more directly with Gotham’s high society than she ever did before, introducing them to Diana as she was the soon to be Wayne matriarch, although the prenuptial agreement kept a strict separation between Wayne assets and Diana’s Themysciran ones. Even if most of those meetings were nominally the other way around, introducing the newest member of Gotham High Society to the movers and shakers. 

In other news, her growth spurt had finally started, albeit more slowly than anticipated, and the root cause of that was absolutely not easier to deal with than it was the first time around. Worse news, jumping up five centimeters in height over three months was apparently some kind of signal to the other high society families to step up their semi-subtle matchmaking, which led to her having to speak with, and sometimes even dance with, the same five boys aged twelve to fourteen at every high society function. They had yet to start asking her on dates, though. Tanya figured they would wait until her rate of growth was better understood before doing that. 

The good news was that at least the boys were cute. The bad news was that that was good news. Her demon form still allowed her to think unencumbered by her hormone soaked brain, but just like the last year and a half or so of her previous life before her execution, she got to experience having her train of thought forcibly derailed by attractive people once more after years of enjoying the benefits of a more or less fully rational mind. 

Which was why she decided to arrange for a plausible interaction with Billy Batson, so she could occasionally use him as a shield against the other boys. This was not difficult, and Clark was glad to have an excuse to interact with Bruce publicly. 

Surely, this could not possibly go wrong.