Don't Waste A Second
Summary: Billy the Kid x Fe!Reader -> You and Billy have been close for a while now, but what happens when your life is put in danger and he has to bargain for your life?
Disclaimer: MDNI: Criminal Minds level (16+ subjects mentioned although not all are carried out, just (kind of) talked about. ANGST, self-deprecation though Billy won't stand for it. Talks of death, blood, gore and gunfire. Fluff splattered around. Not proof read.
First came the sound of gun fire.
Your heart leaped from your chest and you could feel every morsel of your being being pumped with adrenaline by the minute.
The head of the rival gang in town sat beside you until he heard the second gun shot before he himself stood and brought you with him.
“You’re my leverage for my life, woman. Say a word and I will kill you myself.”
It wasn't long until the owner of the gunshots appeared by the door.
“Well, if it isn’t the Kid himself?”
“Let her go.”
He pulled you higher to his head. Even with a shot like Billy’s, this could pose a danger if he wasn’t careful.
“Ah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Let her go.”
“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to kidnap women?” You spoke before you even thought.
“I thought I told you to shut up!”
“Hey!” Billy had the man’s attention once more. “You don’t talk to her. You talk to me. I’m the one you have a problem with.”
“Which makes it all the more fun having her here, right by my side.”
Billy raised his gun a little higher.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. One wrong move and the bullet goes straight through her skull.”
That made Billy falter a little.
“Now, I know better than anyone that you have a little soft spot for her, so how about we cut a deal?”
“It’s not worth it, Billy.”
“Shut up!”
“I’m not worth it, Billy. Don’t do it. No matter what he says.”
“I thought I told you to shut it!”
The man’s hands dragged roughly around your neck, forcing you to look at the rotting ceiling.
“Please, Billy. Don’t do it.”
“How much is she worth to you, Billy? Huh? Lookin at her, I’d only give a couple bucks but I have a feeling she means more to you than just a few crummy dollars. What do you say, Kid?”
Whilst the man was talking, you were able to move your hands just enough to remove the silver knife from his pocket. The one he had been spinning in his hands just moments before Billy’s gunshot rang through the house.
“You got it?”
The man thought he was talking to him, but then you replied.
“Yep.”
In less than 3 seconds, the man felt a sharp stab go into his thigh causing his grip to loosen allowing you a swift escape. However, not before you took the opportunity to drag the blade down his leg, opening the wound further allowing Billy a clear shot of the man’s head if he wanted to take it.
And he did.
Moments later, the body dropped in front of you and you scrambled back on all fours until you got to your knees and found Billy level with you in height.
He pushed your dirty hair from your face, and checked you over for any visible wounds. There was none yet, that he could see.
“Let’s go home.”
Hours later, you found yourself washed and dressed whilst Billy tended to some of your larger wounds.
When you had been getting washed, you hadn’t noticed Billy sneak a glance through the gap in the clothing divider. He saw the blood. He saw the brides. He saw the scars.
Then he heard your voice, trying to be quiet in its pain as you lowered yourself into the tub and tried to clean yourself off.
He had asked if you needed any help, but you were stubborn. He knew your answer before you even gave it.
But he gave you no choice afterwards. He would tend to your woods and that was final.
So, sitting beside him on the worn sofa whilst the fire crackled to keep you both warm. Billy pressed some ointment to the scars that littered the side of your body.
He had called for the town doctor to come and see you. Of course, he came right away and saw to you- at least, what you would show him. He gave you a small prescription for the pain and some cream that would help keep the wounds clean until they finally healed.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“Did they…did they do anything to you?”
“Billy. You are applying ointment to my scars and my body is covered in bruises. You’re seriously-“
“Did they touch you?”
You sighed, and moved a little to lift your shirt back up. “No. Not in that way. Though I doubt it would have been long before they did.”
A silence fell over you both once more, Billy breaking it a few minutes later.
“What did you mean before?”
“Before what?”
Billy sighed and replaced the lid on the tin of ointment. Resting his arms on his knees, he leaned forwards and pressed his hands together. You lowered your shirt and looked at him.
“Before, when he had you…he tried to make a bargain for your life. You said it wasn’t worth it. That you weren’t worth it. Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s true. Because I’m not.”
“But you are.”
Billy took your hand in his as he spoke to you.
“Billy,” you chuckled a little. “ I teach five days a week at the local school. I serve people drinks on the weekends. People come and go and I am still always asked about who I am. I am…me. I’m nobody important.”
“You’re important to me.”
You paused when Billy looked you in the eyes. His hands still held yours.
“You are everything to me, you hear? Everything. I haven’t been in the same spot since I was a kid. The reason and the only reason behind that is you. You are the reason I stayed. You are the reason I wake up in the morning and make sure everyone is safe in this town because even if just one of them isn’t, then that puts you in danger. I never wanted to see your life be put in danger because of me. You are everything to me, Miss Y/N Y/L/N. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Billy,”
“I mean it, Y/N. You have my whole life. You are my whole life.”
In that moment, a whole other silence took over and you found Billy moving closer to you and found yourself doing the same to him.
He paused for a moment, your noses brushing. He questioned you with his eyes. He needed to know if he was about to be kissed back or punched.
Instead, he saw you nod slightly and he moved in, pressing a kiss to your lips before his hand came to the side of your face to draw you in closer.
Of course, you had been fond of Billy since the moment you met him. But you didn’t realise you loved him until just a few moments before you found yourself being towed away by a stranger, who had first told you he was one of the children’s uncles - a child who you taught at school and helped out with after class when he couldn’t just quite find the confidence to read out in class, causing his stutter to worsen.
Billy knew the moment he stepped foot on the school grounds something was wrong. Like it was in the air, or something.
He held a freshly picked bunch of wild flowers he’d found riding through the hills on his way to meet you. He did this every time, and everytime the pick would be different. He knew you didn’t like gifts - he had heard as much from the town’s local gossip woman when he stopped by her store to pick up some fresh dressings.
At the time, you had just walked past the store. All Billy had to do was turn around to see when the woman was staring at and found you, with your head buried against a pile of papers and a pencil in your hand, scribbling away as you managed to avoid almost everything that stood in your way.
“I heard she was engaged once to some fella outside of New York.”
“You hear right.” the woman told the people in the store. “Apparently he broke her heart and she came out here to teach our kids.”
“What did she do back in New York?”
“Governess from what I heard. But the kids grew up, that was just before her engagement.”
Billy would come to learn that the ‘fella’ you were engaged to did break your heart, but not due to his own failings. He had been on a city inspection job when, during his inspection of one of the machines, a water pipe that ran directly under the building exploded.
Even if the shrapnel hadn't cut through his skin and caused him to bleed out, the weight of the machine that he fell into probably would have crushed him. He died later on in the hospital, but not before dictating very slowly to one of the nurses what he wished he could say to you first.
You had been given the letter by the nurse shortly after she found you in the waiting room after you had seen his body.
“Did she ever find anybody else?”
“A couple tried. Hell, some rich railway fella practically tossed diamonds at her feet, but she didn’t want them. She smiled, kissed them on the cheek and made her way back through town. All she does is work and sleep.”
Over some more comments made through the gossip fueled conversation, Billy came to learn that you didn’t like grand gifts or gestures. But rather, subtlety. Subtlety and truth.
On the weekends when you served multiple drinks, he got to know you and before both of you knew it, he was showing up outside of school when you finished teaching and one day, whilst on a ride back into town, he brought with him a bunch of flowers, just because.
A few hours later when he rode past your house, he found them in a vase in your kitchen window.
So, after months of being friends with one another, and having a yearning for more, it came to your realisation that, even just the thought of Billy not turning up or not seeing him every day, knocked you sick.
There wasn’t a world where you didn’t want to be with him.
But, on your way out of the school gates, you were met with an ‘Uncle’.
Pulling back from the kiss, you kept your head against Billy’s. “Wait.”
“I’m sorry, we shouldn’t- I shouldn’t have-”
“No, Billy. It’s not that. I just…”
You pulled back but kept your eyes fixed on Billy, only tearing them away for a moment as you looked to his hand that you took in yours.
“I need to know that you’re being truthful with me and not just saying all of this because of what happened today. Because, if it’s true, then there are more than just your feelings in this. I just…I don’t want to be hurt, Billy.”
“Darlin’, look at me?”
You looked up and Billy cupped one of your cheeks in his hand. “Everything I have just told you…it’s all true. Even if today hadn't happened, I would have told you. I’ve been wanting to tell you for so long, but I was being a coward. I love you.”
The next moment felt like an eternity for Billy, until finally, he found the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I love you, too, Billy.”
He didn’t have to think about what to do next. Pulling you in, he kissed you like he had waited a thousand years just to see you one last time.
And neither of you were going to waste a second.
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So. ive been going through your billy batson tag bc im very normal and super hinged about this kid and you ARE right about Billy growing up the normal way and how that would effect him, but I need us all to consider the opposite: The Magic went "Ah, he's pure of heart bc he is but a lad", and not *letting* him grow up. Billy being immortal but stuck as a kid forever. The realization everyone is going to grow up w/o him. That he is *always* going to be a kid. That could be a very bad time too.
OH MY HEART. you're so right and i'm kissing you on the mouth. okay i need to marinate in this now stand by
so I think it's fairly accepted now that the Wizard chose Billy to be Shazam when he was so young because all of the previous Champions were adults, and that went Badly (see: Black Adam). So obviously, if the adults can do the whole superhero thing, then we should give the role to a kid. But then, to take it a step further: if the adults can't do the superhero thing, then we should make the next Champion stay a kid.
And like, it takes a hot minute for Billy to notice. Say he became CM at 8 - he doesn't know the average rate of growth for a boy. He just thinks he's not getting as tall as quickly as his peers. It's not like there's adult supervision around to go "hello small small child, why are you still small and a child?" I could see him going at least a few years before realizing there might be something wrong. Then it takes him a little bit to figure out what exactly is wrong, and then a little longer to be in denial, before he finally has to come to terms with, yeah, he really is 8 years old for the rest of forever.
I wonder how it affects him, mentally? Because you could go one of two ways: either he stays mentally an 8 year old forever and doesn't mature, although he gains knowledge and experience with time, or he does mentally mature and becomes an adult, just stuck in the body of a child.
For angst reasons, I like the second one, but realistically, the whole reason he's in this mess is because the Wizard wanted someone who was pure of heart to stay pure of heart. Why go through all the trouble to not let him physically age but allow his mind to change? So now we have an eternally "both mentally and physically a child" situation.
I feel like, when you're that young, you can't really... process how devastating that is? He's only a little kid - at that age, you can't even imagine turning 18 yet, much less living out the rest of your life as an adult. He doesn't know what he's lost. So instead of Billy angst, it's outsider POV angst. Everyone is growing old and watching Billy stay the same as always. I imagine he reveals his identity at some point, a while into being Captain Marvel, and they have a Twilight moment of "I'm 8" "....how long have you been 8?" ("no, but actually, we've known you for 12 years, you can't actually be 8. what do you mean 'a wizard did it'."). Everyone is just quietly mourning the person Billy could have become, had he not been chosen to be the Champion of Magic, meanwhile Billy is living out the eternal childhood dream of Superpowers + Adult Body w/o Adult Responsibilities. It's tragic in a way Billy can never comprehend because of what the wizard did to him.
Feel free to add onto this post!
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