Chapter Text
Alexei has had everything before Ilya has, Ilya is beginning to realise.
He had Camp Half-Blood, he had that plated armour that Ilya had found in the Zeus Cabin. He had their father’s blessing, he had powers of influence that Ilya could not harness, he is older and stronger. Not many demigods survive til adulthood. Alexei is a force to be reckoned with.
And none of these things did Ilya care about. He could not give less of a damn if there’s another Zeusian child running around the world. Why should he care? It’s not his business, nor his problem. Alexei could blow himself up for all Ilya cares.
But Alexei has one more thing that Ilya will not — cannot — allow. He has Shane.
With Nike’s blessing numbing his pains and suppressing his exhaustion, it doesn’t take long for Ilya to track his way to Alexei’s skyscraper.
The office, high above the city, is near the clouds. Its glass walls gleam. A lighting rod reaching up into the sky like a conductor. Like he's not a natural conduit, not like Ilya is. Nike’s hands guide him as he jumps up into the air, the wind buffeting and billowing around him. She wraps invisibility around him, guides him higher and higher.
That’s when Ilya sees it, all of it.
Shane is pinned beneath Alexei’s grip, hands clawing uselessly at bloodied wrists. His lovely face turning red, eyes wide and bugging with terror. He’s smaller than Alexei, lither than him, kicking out against the glass-fragment carpet. Ilya's gotten to the fight late. Shane's already put up one hell of a fight, like he's been clutched by the divine spirit of Ares himself.
Shane's hand scrapes across the carpet, desperate for reprieve. He seizes.
Rage, rage like nothing else he's ever experiences. No.
The Aegis materializes in his hand, an extension of his limbs now, fuelled by confidence he's never felt before. It's a blur of silver, light and weight perfect in his grip, moulding to his forearm like its always belonged there. The invisible currents of his god-blood unfurl instinctively, wind tearing around him as he drops from the sky, slicing through the air toward the penthouse.
Alexei’s iron grip on Shane’s throat doesn’t waver. The older son of Zeus is a predator, all precise control and lethal intent, utterly confident. But Ilya sees something Alexei does not: Shane’s storm. Small, jagged, pulsing with Nike-blooded fury, but barely controlled, ready to explode.
Ilya’s eyes flare. “Don’t touch him,” he hisses under his breath.
Alexei leans close to Shane’s ear, whispering something cruel and low. Shane’s fingers claw at his throat, eyes wide, gasping, helpless. Rage surges through Ilya. White-hot and absolute. His movement must catch Alexei’s attention, as he tilts his head to peer through the glass.
He sees the moment that Alexei sees Ilya, truly sees him for the first time, the extent of how fucked he is must be hitting him like a freight train as his eyes go wide—
Ilya clenches his teeth and hurls the Aegis.
The shield spins in the air, catching the light of the city and reflecting it in a thousand jagged shards. Alexei moves but it’s too late. The shield crashes into the glass wall between them. The panes shatter in a deafening roar, spiderwebbing and breaking through.
Wind blasts into the room. He’s upon Alexei a moment later, grabbing hold of him by the collar and wrenching him up and off of Shane. Alexei goes flying, skidding over the carpet.
Shane sucks in a haggard breath like he’s just breached water, panicked hands clutching his throat. He’s coughing and shaking, on his knees, shards of glass embedding themselves into the skin of his hands and forearms, spilling in thin red ribbons. Ilya sees red.
Alexei hauls himself up onto his knees, outraged, like no one’s ever sent him flying before. No one has ever met his power with power. Ilya down grins at him, mirthless.
"You!" he spits. Ilya revels in the blood on his face, the crooked jank of his nose, the smear of crimson down his chin. Shane's cleaved out a hefty bit of damage. "I thought you were—”
Dead? Somebody else?
The realisation crawls over his face as Alexei cuts himself off. Ilya watches with vicious satisfaction as he puts the pieces together. “You,” he snarls, “You’re—”
Ilya’s boots crunch on shards of broken glass. Wind buffets and brackets around them, whistling through the high up office. Ilya wants to throw him out of the window. He summons the Aegis back, zeroing in on Alexei as he hauls himself up.
“Me,” Ilya snarls.
He dives, faster than thought, cutting across the room like a streak of storm. Every muscle coiled, every godly sense alert. He is Zeus’ son. That makes him faster and stronger and more lethal than possibly any other mortal on the planet.
Alexei’s eyes, wide with the shock of recognition, now narrow with recalculation. He sees the Aegis, the command of the storm, the divine fury that mirrors their father’s own temper. He sees a rival, a complication, a wrinkle in his plan.
Ilya sees only the man who wrapped his hands around Shane’s throat.
“Another stray,” Alexei spits, pushing himself fully upright. Blood from his broken nose paints his chin. “Brother, I guess. Another one of Father’s forgotten tantrums. Do you have any idea what you’re interfering with? This isn’t a camp game. This is the real world.”
“The real world,” Ilya echoes, his voice a low roll of thunder. He takes a step forward. The wind answers, howling through the shattered wall, whipping Alexei’s hair. “You mean your little game of numbers?” He scoffs, a harsh, dismissive sound. “There is nothing noble about this. Nothing glorious.”
Alexei’s face contorts. The insult to his power, his meticulously built empire, lands deeper than any physical blow. “I have built something lasting! Something meaningful! What are you? What have you done? Only in my way because of him.” He jabs a finger toward Shane, who is struggling to his feet, “how does that make you any better?”
For once, Ilya doesn’t look at Shane. He can’t. If he does, he’ll loose track. His entire being is focused on Alexei, a predator zeroing in. “You shouldn’t have touched him.”
With a snarl, Alexei moves. He doesn’t have a weapon, so he relies on what he has in the environment. A gesture, sharp and commanding, toward the massive desk. The heavy oak desk shudders, then slides with terrifying speed directly toward Ilya, aiming to crush him against the wall.
Ilya doesn’t dodge. He braces. The Aegis on his arm flashes with a deep, thunderhead grey. The desk impacts the shield with a sound like a mountain cracking. Wood splinters. The desk stops dead, shatters around the unyielding divine metal. Ilya doesn’t even stagger.
Alexei’s confidence wavers. His unstoppable force has met an unmovable object. If he was ever unstoppable, to begin with.
“You fight like pussy.” Ilya kicks aside the wreckage of the desk. “Where is your lightning now?”
He closes the distance. Alexei throws a punch, enhanced by godly strength. If flung at a mortal, it would break their jaw. Ilya catches the fist in his own hand. The sound of the impact is a sickening crunch of bone against his grip. Alexei cries out — more from shock than pain.
Ilya yanks him forward, their faces inches apart. “You have father’s blessing? His armour?” Ilya’s whisper is venomous. His face is dark. “I have his temper.”
And he proves it.
It is not a fight of skill or strategy, but a raw, untethered thing. Demigod to demigod, flesh to flesh. A demigod who has survived on cunning and influence is dismantled by one forged in pure, unrestrained divine wrath. Ilya is a force of nature in a confined space. Every blow is the crash of thunder. Every movement is the whip-crack of a hurricane gale.
He undoes Alexei, hit by hit.
Alexei tries to summon a defense, a gust of wind, a crackle of static. But his power is polite, parliamentary, compared to the primal storm Ilya embodies. Ilya feeds on rage, like an avenging angel, feeds on his already existing bruises, feeds on how far he has come, from Moscow, from Long Island, feeds on Shane behind him, scrambling through the wreckage into the next room, wise enough to get out of the way.
Ilya’s winds tear Alexei’s attempts to shreds. His lightning, when it sparks at his knuckles, is blue-white and vicious and arching. He pushes Alexei back and back again, until Alexei’s wild eyes finally widen as he realises there is no winning this fight.Alexei snarls and throws his hand out, not at Ilya — but past him. The air bucks.
Shane is ripped off his feet and hurled across the ruined office. He crashes through drifting debris and hits the floor hard, rolling, skidding, coming to rest near the far wall. Ilya hears the sound he makes on impact — a sharp, involuntary grunt of pain — and it cuts through him like a blade.
“Shane—” Ilya starts, already turning—
—but that half-second is all Alexei needs.
When Ilya snaps his head back, the corridor door is already swinging open. Alexei throws himself through it, vanishing into the hall in a snarl of torn fabric and retreating thunder.
Shane groans, then forces himself upright, one hand braced on the floor, teeth clenched. “Don’t stop!” Shane shouts, voice hoarse but fierce. “Go!”
Ilya hesitates for exactly one heartbeat.
Then his hand is in his pocket. He fishes out Tiebreaker and flicks his wrist. The key flashes through the air, catching the light, spinning once before Shane’s hand snaps up and closes around it with instinctive precision.
Ilya hits the corridor at a dead sprint.
The hallway is chaos as he explodes into it. Alarms are beginning to wail, emergency lights stuttering to life, glass and debris crunching underfoot. Alexei is already halfway down it, coat discarded, blood streaking the wall where he’s braced himself around a corner. He throws a glance over his shoulder and snarls when he sees Ilya gaining ground.
Security pours in from side corridors — men and women in tailored black, eyes glazed with that same too-smooth compliance. One of them steps directly into Ilya’s path, baton snapping open. The wind hits them like a freight train.
Ilya doesn’t slow. He doesn’t even look at them. The air slams forward, hurling bodies into walls, ripping weapons from hands, sending papers and shattered light fixtures spinning. Another pair rush him from the side, by sheer force of flesh Ilya staggers. But then the hands are stopped cold as a voice cuts through the din.
“Get away from them!”
David Hollander barrels out of the ruined office, face pale but eyes finally clear. The haze is gone, burned off like fog in sunlight. He grabs a nearby security guard by the shoulder and shoves, hard. The man stumbles, colliding with another, the two of them crashing into a display case.
“Stand down!” David shouts, raw authority flooding his voice. “All of you— stand down!”
They hesitate. It’s just a flicker, but it’s enough. Ilya’s momentarily taken aback. This is Shane’s father. Not that insipid, creepy mirage of him earlier. This is the man Shane was raised by, courageous and leading — this is the man Nike had a child with.
Shane stumbles out behind him, breathing hard, blood on his face, but upright. He brings Tiebreaker up and slams it down into the lock of the nearest service door as another guard lunges for Ilya’s back.
David intercepts them, slamming the door shut on grasping hands, planting himself in the narrow gap like a human barricade.
“Go!” David barks, shoving Shane forward. “Go, both of you! Go!”
Ilya doesn’t argue. He surges ahead, wind roaring, Shane pounding along behind him despite the pain, teeth clenched, refusal written into every step. Ahead, Alexei vaults a railing and disappears down another stairwell, his laughter echoing up the shaft — ragged now, fraying.
Ilya hits the railing and launches himself after him without breaking stride. Behind them, David slams the door and braces it with his shoulder, buying seconds with nothing but stubbornness.
Seconds are all they need. The chase plunges downward, into concrete and shadow, lightning flaring blue-white as Ilya follows Alexei into the depths of the tower.
The air grows thinner as they descend. The concrete walls sweat. Emergency lights flash red, bathing everything off and on and off again like a pulsing heartbeat.
Ilya thinks, fuck this, and hurdles over the edge of the stairwell. He hears Shane’s noise of alarm disappear behind him as he hurtles down through the gap between the winding stairs. He catches up to Alexei, grabs hold of the railing and catches himself. Using his momentum, he swings himself around and over, planting his boots firm in Alexei’s stomach and sending him flying.
Alexei bursts through the door and onto a lower level and, where he skids into a wide, unfinished space — a mechanical floor, all exposed beams and humming machinery. The doors behind him slam shut as Ilya hits them with a gust of wind, metal shrieking in protest.
Alexei whirls on his hands and knees, scrambling back as he heaves for breath. For the first time, there is no performance left.
“You don’t understand what you’re throwing away,” Alexei snarls, backing toward the far end of the floor. Beyond him, the structure drops away into a yawning maintenance shaft, open and unguarded, plunging straight down into darkness. The wind howls up from it, cold and relentless. “Come on. Brother. Brother.” he says it more emphatically the second time, more pleading. “I did this for us. You’re my kin. I did this for you, for father. You’re my brother.”
Ilya advances slowly, lightning crawling over his arms, illuminating the rage carved into his face. “You did not know I existed. You tried to kill me. You don’t get to decide what’s necessary.”
Alexei laughs, breathless and cracked. “You think this is about power?” His eyes flick past Ilya — to Shane, limping into view behind him. “I was trying to fix what our father broke.”
The words land hard.
“This world is ruined,” he croaks, “halfbloods are ruined. We spend all of our time hiding and running and being hurt. For what? We should rule this world. Claim it as our own, rule it the way father rules Olympus. I could’ve made it safe.”
“You used people,” Shane says, voice raw but steady. He plants his feet despite the pain screaming through his ribs. Tiebreaker catches on the light and gleams, bathing Shane’s face in gold. “You used my dad. You used me.”
Alexei spreads his hands, blood dripping from his fingers. “And it worked.”
Lightning snaps from Ilya’s hand, slamming into the machinery at Alexei’s side. Metal explodes in sparks. The floor shudders. Alexei stumbles back another step, then another, until the edge of the shaft is right behind his heels.
Finally, Ilya has Alexei on his knees again, one hand fisted in his blood-soaked shirt, the other pulled back, crackling with raw power. He felt the air leaving Shane, felt the dull current of his wheeze, and he wants to make Alexei suffer for it.
Even so, this is not for Shane. Ilya has trekked across the country for him, fought death spirits for him, almost died of hypothermia and had his consciousness consumed. All for him.
But this? Having Alexei spluttering blood, nose clogged and eyes swollen on his knees in front of him? This is not for Shane. This is for Ilya. Because nothing in his life has never been just for Ilya. It's been for the good of his mother, his father, his stepfather, for Camp Half-Blood, for Shane. Sacrifice after sacrifice, he’s given and given. All he’s ever wanted is to be wanted, for someone to put him first, to be powerful enough that no one will ever hurt him ever again. To be like his father, and his stepfather, incorrigible and distant, and merciless to anyone who would ever raise hand against him.
He has his brother before him, at his mercy, but Ilya cannot deliver the final blow.
He wants more, now. Wants more than distance and solitude and peace. He wants to be more than Ilya, now. He wants to be Ilya, with Shane. Shane’s gentle life, his gentle home, his gentle love.
Most people fall in love multiple times in their life, they can love over and over. But Ilya knows that this is it for him, just Shane. Shane is all it will ever be. He will never love like he loves him. He can travel the oceans, search the deepest parts of the jungle, and never find anyone he loves as he loves him. He can go to other universes and it will still only ever be him. It is Shane. And it will only ever be Shane. He’ll never have something like this again with anyone else.
“Do you see now?” Ilya growls. “You have nothing I want. Nothing I envy. You might be like father, but at what cost? He won’t stop me from doing this.” He raises his fist and strikes Alexei again. His head snaps back, the sound sickening.
The lightning at his fist sputters and dies. The wild wind stills to a grieving moan. He shoves Alexei away in disgust, letting him collapse in a heap of broken pride and broken bones.
The sounds of the world rush back in — the sirens, the distant shouts from the building’s interior, the rush of the wind through the broken window.
Ilya turns his back on his broken half-brother. He walks to Shane, the terrifying god of moments ago gone, leaving only a young man whose eyes are wide with a fear not for himself, but for Ilya.
He stands there, struck dumb for a moment. “That’s new,” he says, pointing at Ilya’s aegis. Ilya drops it, lets it fall to the ground with a resounding clang.
He reaches out, hesitantly, and his fingers, still buzzing with residual energy, cups Shane’s cheek, wiping away a streak of blood and glass dust. “Are you hurt? Are you hurt?”
“No, no, I’m fine, Ilya, I’m fine.” Shane leans into his touch, whispers with his voice thick, “you came.”
Ilya curves his thumb beneath Shane’s eye. “I’m sorry I doubted you, zoloste.”
The words are a soft, broken thing against the roar of the wind and the fading echo of violence. Zoloste. My gold. The endearment, spoken in the language of his childhood, hangs between them, like a benediction, like an apology, all at once. Shane takes hold of his wrist and clings there.
“Boys! Boys!” There’s a yell. They both tense. Ilya immediately steps between Shane and the doorway, aegis up. But the person that explodes through the door is not a threat. It’s David Hollander, his hair and eyes wild, darting around and gasping for breath. The door slams on the far wall.
“Dad!” Shane dives around Ilya and catapults towards him.
David Hollander’s face splits open into something raw and uncomprehending as he opens his arms and Shane ploughs into him.
“Shane, Shane, oh sweet— are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?”
Shane pulls back from him as David cups his face, eyes searching. Shane turns to Ilya and beckons him over, and Ilya freezes. It takes active effort for him to unroot his feet from the floor and close the distance between them.
“Mr Hollander. Nice to see you awake,” Ilya says stiffly.
He’s expecting anger, something hot or something cold, braces for a sharp retort or worse, but David’s face only splinters, crumples with something like guilt. “Yeah. With a thumping headache now, too. Ilya, right?” Before he can reply, David Hollander turns to Ilya and sweeps him into a crushing hug. “Thank you, my boy. Thank you.”
Ilya’s hands hover. He catches Shane’s eye over David’s shoulder as his hands come up to hover awkwardly over David’s back before giving him a reluctant pat between his shoulderblades. “Is okay,” Ilya says as David pulls back, eyes assessing. “Was not you. Was not any of you.”
David closes his eyes briefly. “I can’t remember much, but I know… I know it was wrong.” He looks disdainfully over at Alexei, and Ilya doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much potent hatred channelled into one singular glance before. “We all know what he has done now. He will be dealt with.”
Ilya exhales for what feels like the first time in hours. The electricity bleeds out of him, dissipating into the air. He looks down at Shane, really looks, and something tight in his chest finally loosens.
“You were very brave,” Ilya says quietly.
Shane turns from where he’d also been glaring at Alexei, and he huffs a weak laugh, forehead tipping forward to rest against Ilya’s shoulder. “I was terrified.”
“Yes,” Ilya says, tightening his arm just slightly. “That still counts.”
Sirens begin to wail in the distance now: real ones, mortal ones. Footsteps echo from far off, disorganized, uncertain.
David straightens, squaring his shoulders. “We should go. Before someone decides they’re still taking orders.”
Ilya nods. “He will not try again.” He says simply, and snakes his arm around Shane’s waist, pulling them tight to each other. “We will kill him if he does.”
Shane bumps their hips. “I have a feeling your dad will have a few choice words for him.”
“Your dad?” David echoes, frowning.
It’s Shane’s turn to be smug, pride peeling off of him. “Ilya is the son of Zeus, dad.”
Ilya rolls his eyes at Shane’s glee, and shifts so he is half in front of Shane, half beside him, a living shield without making it feel like a cage. As they limp toward the exit together, Shane glances back once at the empty shaft, the ruin, the place where he was almost broken. Then he turns forward.
Victory, Nike whispers somewhere deep and quiet, contently settling between Ilya’s ribs like a bird coming to roost. Sometimes it is simply walking away together.
The apartment smells like garlic and onions, oil warming in a pan. It is such a normal smell that it almost hurts. A cramp in Ilya’s ribs.
Shane sits at the kitchen table with an ice pack balanced against his ribs and a mug of tea gone lukewarm between his hands. There is a faint bruise blooming along his jaw, yellowing at the edges already, and a thin line of healing skin where glass had kissed his cheek. He’s still grinning, though. Grinning like he’s a cat with a bird between his paws. Grinning like he’s won something huge.
Ilya sits beside him, close enough that their knees touch, close enough that the contact feels intentional.
David moves around the kitchen with quiet purpose, sleeves rolled up, hair still a mess from the last two days. He hums under his breath as he cooks, something tuneless and absent-minded, pausing now and then to stir or taste. The sound of it settles something in the room. Ilya watches absently as he works.
“So,” David says, without turning, reaching to grab the soy sauce. “You’re going to have to tell me at least a little of what happened.”
Shane glances at Ilya. Ilya gives the smallest nod. “Well,” Shane begins, carefully. “There was… a lot of running.”
David snorts. “I believe that.”
“And some fighting,” Shane continues, choosing his words. “Nothing too dramatic. Mostly just trying not to get thrown off things.”
Ilya exhales a laugh through his nose before he can stop himself, sounding traitorously like a snort. Shane bumps their feet under the table, shooting him a look that says: shut your mouth. Ilya grins at him.
David turns at that, wooden spoon in hand, eyebrow raised. He looks at Ilya, who tries to school his face to betray nothing. He doesn’t know if it works. “That bad, huh?”
Shane shrugs, wincing slightly. “Worse for the furniture than for us.”
He leaves out the Keres almost ripping him apart, Ilya elecrocuting himself in the water, the way they both almost got eaten alive at the broder. The moment where he’d thought this was how it ended. He leaves out the terror, the helplessness, the sound his own voice made when he begged. Instead, he talks about stairwells and wrong turns, about Ilya showing up “right on time,” about small moments of success in the trip, about his aunt making an appearance.
David listens without interrupting. When Shane finishes, there’s a long pause. “I’m sorry,” David says quietly, finally. “For all of it. For not seeing. For not protecting you when I should have.”
Shane swallows. “I know,” he says.
The pan hisses as David adds something fragrant. He sets three plates on the counter, real plates, not takeout containers or rationed snacks. Pasta. Vegetables. Actual food. Ilya watches it all with something like reverence, his jaw working.
This— This is the victory he hadn’t known to want. Not lightning or dominance or proving himself stronger than another son of Zeus. Just a table and warm home-cooked food. A father who stands at the stove and feeds them because he can, because he wants to, because no invisible hand is guiding him anymore.
David sets a plate in front of Ilya, then another in front of Shane. “Eat,” he says, gently bossy. “Doctor’s orders. Or… father’s.” He rests a hand on both of their shoulders, and gives a warm, paternal squeeze.
Ilya’s throat tightens. He nods, unable to trust his voice just yet. They eat in comfortable silence for a while. The clink of forks. The low hum of the refrigerator. The city outside, distant and unconcerned. Ilya feels Shane lean into him, just slightly, shoulder to shoulder. He does not move away.
That is when the front door opens. All three of them go rigid. Shane’s hand flashes to Tiebreaker, Ilya reaches for his aegis. David closes his hand around the pepper shaker. They all turn in unison, only to see Nike stepping through the door, shutting it behind her with a particularly sharp gust of wind.
She walks inside like she’s returning from work.
Her coat is still on her shoulders, hair slightly wind-tossed, expression composed and unreadable. She toes off her shoes, crosses the living room, and slings her coat over the back of the couch without ceremony.
She does not look startled. She does not ask questions. But Ilya hadn't been expecting her to. She just takes in the scene in a single glance, Shane’s wrapped bruises, Ilya’s posture, David at the stove, and cocks her hands on her hips like this is the most natural scene in the world. “I’m starving,” she says mildly. “Is there a plate?”
David doesn’t hesitate. He crosses the kitchen in two strides, leans down, and kisses her — quick, familiar, relief-filled, a peppered kiss against her lips, full of devotion — and then turns back to the stove to serve another portion.
“Hi mom,” Shane croaks.
It is almost insane to watch the cold, brisk exterior of the Goddess of Victory slip off in real time like she's taking off her armour, plate by plate. She turns her attention towards her son and her expression just melts, her eyes like sunbeams of pure pride, of maternal love. She reaches out, fingers cool and steady, and cups his cheek with her palm. Her thumb brushes the edge of a deep wine-coloured bruise with clinical gentleness.
They’ll have to return to Camp Half-Blood eventually. Ilya knows there will be retributions to face, consequences for uprooting and running across the country without any warning aside from a note to Svetlana, written haphazardly. And in Russian, so she could lie about what it said if she so wished. But with Nike’s backing, and Shane by his side, and sitting at David's table, Ilya thinks he’ll be able to face it.
“You won,” she says. “And you came home.” The last word is spoken with such softness it makes something hot press against the backs of Ilya’s eyes: “Shane.”
Shane leans into her hand like he’s been holding himself upright by will alone and has finally been allowed to stop. His voice is thick. “I missed you.”
Her lip quirks up. “I missed you too.”
Nike’s gaze drifts to Ilya. For a heartbeat, the air changes with the shift of her attention as it swings towards him, measured and appraising.
“You fought well,” she says simply.
Ilya blinks. He nods once, throat tight, something prideful and warm stirring in his chest. Nike withdraws her hand and reaches for her fork as David sets her plate down with another kiss to her cheek that she takes like she’s basking in the sun. The four of them eat together.
No storms. No gods. No fate pressing in. Just a table, a meal, and the quiet, hard-earned peace of survival.