Xcalibur Xc
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[Shazam] Ch: 18 [Bang Baby Blues]
🕑 Added 2025-08-27 23:35:03 +0000 UTCAN: Quick Note: Bang Baby: Metahumans. In Static Shock, metas are called Bang Baby
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The girl across the street lingered like a shadow that forgot how to fade. Harley leaned against the doorframe, chewing gum, squinting through the neon glow of J&H Pizza’s sign. The kid looked no older than nineteen. Oversized blue hoodie, ripped jeans, beat-up sneakers. Her skin had a pale bluish tint, not like makeup or a bad night’s sleep but like frostbite trying to live on a human face.
The girl’s eyes flicked to the shop and away again. She hugged herself against the night air, though it wasn’t cold. When Harley caught her looking, she ducked behind the streetlight like it could swallow her whole.
Harley’s grin stretched wide. Trouble had found her.
“Well, well, well. What have we got here?” Harley whispered, popping her gum.
She ran inside, apron still tied crookedly around her waist. John was at the counter, rolling bills into neat stacks, precise as always. He looked up.
“Don’t shoot me for askin’, sugar,” Harley said, flopping onto the counter and nearly crushing the tip jar, “but did you notice the Smurfette lurkin’ outside?”
John set the cash aside without answering right away. That was his thing, chewing on silence like it was gum. Finally, he said, “She’s been there since seven.”
“Oh ho ho!” Harley pointed at him like she’d caught him red-handed. “And ya didn’t tell me?”
“She wasn’t a threat,” John replied calmly. “Hungry maybe.”
“Hungry’s still a crime in my book if it means starin’ at my neon masterpiece for hours,” Harley said. She hopped off the counter. “I’m goin’ in.”
“She is a...” John started, but she was already halfway out the door. "Bang Baby."
[Outside]
The girl startled when Harley walked across the street. She shrank into her hoodie, eyes darting left and right like a cornered cat.
“Relax, kiddo,” Harley said, stopping a few feet away. She popped her gum. “I ain’t the cops. Though technically I got an apron, so that makes me a waitress with jurisdiction over mozzarella-based disputes.”
The girl blinked. Confusion beat fear for half a second.
“Name’s Harley,” she continued, hands on her hips. “Yes, that Harley. And before you ask, yeah, the rumors are true. I once dumped Penguin in a fish barrel and imported him to France. Don’t ask why. Long story. What’s your name, Blueberry?”
The girl muttered something too quiet to catch.
“Speak up, hon, I ain’t got sonar.”
“Maureen,” she whispered, voice raspy from either nerves or exhaustion. “Maureen Connor.”
Harley tilted her head. “Cute. But you look more like a Maureen-the-Bluebell to me. What’re ya doin’ out here, freezin’ up my sidewalk with those big sad eyes?”
“I was just… looking,” Maureen said. Her gaze drifted to the sign again. “It looks… warm in there.”
“Well, duh. We got ovens. Two of ‘em. But lemme guess…” Harley squinted. “You’re one of them Bang Babies, ain’t ya?”
The girl stiffened.
“Ohhh, nailed it. Don’t gotta tell me twice. I've seen enough shades of weird in Gotham to recognize a metahuman glow when I see one.” Harley leaned closer, lowering her voice. “What’s your trick, huh? You breathe glitter? Spit fire? Pull rabbits outta your ears?”
Maureen hesitated. Then she opened one palm. Frost spiraled across her skin, spreading in jagged little veins of ice. Steam curled into the air.
“Ohhh! Cool!” Harley said without missing a beat. “Can you make popsicles?”
Maureen snapped her hand shut like she’d shown too much. “People don’t usually… think it’s cool. They think it’s scary. And I guess, I can make popsicles.”
Harley rolled her eyes. “Sweetheart, I once fought a cannibal and nearly got stomped by a freakin' giant. Scary’s relative. C’mon, you look half-starved. First slice is on the house.”
She hooked an arm around the girl’s shoulders and dragged her across the street before Maureen could argue.
...
[Inside J&H]
The warmth of the ovens hit Maureen like a wall. She froze at the doorway, blinking against the glow of string lights Harley had stapled haphazardly along the ceiling. The place smelled like garlic, basil, and flour.
John glanced up. His gaze lingered on Maureen for a moment, steady and unreadable, before he returned to the cash register.
“Don’t mind him,” Harley chirped. “That’s John. Looks like a brick wall, acts like a brick wall, but secretly he’s a giant teddy bear who snores like a chainsaw.”
“I don’t snore,” John said.
“Liar,” Harley shot back automatically.
Maureen stood awkwardly by the counter, tugging her sleeves down over her icy hands.
"Sit," John said without looking at her.
Maureen took a seat at the corner table, next to the counter.
Harley darted into the kitchen and returned with a steaming plate, slapping down a slice of pepperoni big enough to fold in half.
“There ya go. Eat up before it melts into existential despair.”
Maureen eyed the pizza like it might bite her. Slowly, she picked it up. The first bite was cautious. The second was hungrier. By the third, she was inhaling it like a vacuum.
Harley clapped her hands together. “Attagirl. Nothing heals teenage angst like carbs and grease.”
Maureen swallowed hard. “I’ll pay you back. Somehow.”
“Pfft. You kiddin’? The only currency we accept here is smiles, awkward hugs, and the occasional body disposal. You’re good.”
John set the last stack of bills aside and finally spoke again. “You live around here?”
Maureen froze with the crust halfway to her mouth. “Sometimes.”
“That mean you got a home or not?”
Silence.
Harley smacked John lightly on the arm. “Subtle, big guy. Real gentle.” She crouched in front of Maureen, grinning widely. “Don’t listen to him. He’s got all the bedside manner of a cinder block. You crashin’ somewhere sketchy? Some alley, maybe?”
Maureen looked down at her shoes.
“Bingo,” Harley said. “Alright. New plan. You’re hangin’ with us.”
Maureen’s head shot up. “What?”
“Don’t argue. I can see your ribs through that hoodie, and it ain’t fashion, it’s malnutrition. Plus, I don’t trust Dakota’s streets after dark. Too many creeps with bad breath. You can have my bed, since I'm always crashing in with the cinder block, eat our cereal, maybe help fold pizza boxes if you feel fancy.”
“I don’t want to be a problem.”
Harley ruffled her hair. Frost clung to her fingers, but she didn’t flinch. “Kid, bein’ a problem’s kinda my brand. You’re safe here.” Then she turned toward John. "Can we help her?" She then made puppy eyes. "Please?" She pointed her finger at Maureen. "She got cool ice power. We can make our own slushy and ice cream brand, instead of buying them from outside."
John sighed, the kind of heavy exhale that meant Harley had already won but he needed to make a show of resistance. He set his elbows on the counter and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Harley,” he said evenly, “You want her because you think she’s a walking slushy machine.”
Harley gasped in mock offense. “Excuse you! That’s only, like, sixty percent true. Seventy tops. Maybe eighty if she can do soft serve.”
John’s eyes flicked toward Maureen. The girl shrank into her chair, shoulders rising, as if waiting to be told to leave. Her fingers gripped the remaining little crust of her pizza like it might disappear if she let go.
“Look at her,” Harley said, softening her tone. “She’s one sad Disney montage away from bein’ a tragic ice princess. We can give her a roof. You got any idea how hard it is out there? She’ll freeze her butt off, and that’s sayin’ something.”
“She won’t freeze,” John muttered, glancing at Maureen’s pale skin. “Not with what she is.”
“Okay, wise guy, but she’ll starve. Or worse.” Harley planted her hands on her hips. “You’re the one who made me promise we’d do good here. Feed people, help the community, blah blah blah. She’s people. She counts.”
John’s jaw tightened. He held the silence again for a few seconds. Finally, he leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.
“Fine,” he said. “But there are rules. Roof and food in exchange for help around the shop and chores. I'll pay you for your work too. You don’t work, you don’t stay and you don't get paid. Clear?”
Maureen blinked at him, surprised he had spoken to her directly. She nodded quickly, too quickly, like she was afraid the offer would vanish if she didn’t accept it fast enough.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Don’t call me sir,” John replied. “It’s John.”
Maureen lowered her gaze and whispered, “Okay.”
Harley squealed and practically tackled the poor girl in a hug. Maureen stiffened at first, unused to the sudden warmth and contact, but Harley squeezed tighter, rocking her side to side.
“Welcome to the family, Bluebell!” Harley announced. “Keep your head down, carry your weight, and who knows—maybe one day I’ll even slap your name on the sign. J&H&M Pizza! Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but hey, neither does mozzarella.”
For the first time all night, Maureen smiled. Just a flicker. Small and Fragile. But it was there.
...
[That Night]
The room Harley cleared out for Maureen wasn’t much. A spare bedroom in the small apartment above the shop. The paint looks new. There was a dresser that leaned slightly to the left, and a twin bed with fresh sheets, the pillow soft, and the blanket heavy enough to bury her under its weight.
Maureen sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the ceiling fan as it spun lazily. The warmth of the room wrapped around her like an alien thing. She wasn’t used to it. Not this kind of warmth. Not the kind that seeped into her bones and told her she didn’t have to stay awake to keep watch.
Her hand trailed across the quilt. "So soft." Not a pile of jackets in a train car, not a cardboard box with newspapers shoved inside. Real fabric, smelling faintly of detergent. She drew the blanket around herself and for the first time in years, felt safe enough to close her eyes without bracing for footsteps in the dark.
But sleep didn’t come easily. Memory and guilt came first. Her past and the real reason she was waiting out the joint.
Comments
Calvin Ellis
❤️Thank you for this moment.❤️
Gabriel Teets
Great chapter permafrost was one of the saddest characters in static shock really a tearjerker with her episode
Kal Odinson
Great chapter
