Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thy Rage, Implacable

“Why? Why not me? Why him?

Please bring him back, not him! Not him!

Don’t leave me alone.

Please.”

A young woman sobs and screams and yells until her voice is hoarse. No older than twenty three as her lover is covered in a sheet, loaded into the back of an ambulance and driven away. To the morgue or to the coroner or to a hospital, she doesn’t know. She’ll have to find out and tell his parents, his sister, his niece, his best friend. She thinks he may have agreed to give his organs should they be useful, in the event that he is no longer in need of them. She hopes no one gets them so she doesn’t have to lose any piece of him. She hates herself for that thought the next day.

An EMT tries to help her, bandage her, get her to let someone check if she’s okay. But why should she be okay when he is not?

They’re asking too many questions.

An officer in a badge wants to know if she saw the car that hit them. Did she see a license plate or a color or a make or a model?

No! Go away! Just leave me alone!

She prays to any god who will listen. Aphrodite listens. To grief, Aphrodite always listens. She has no choice. The goddess of love and passion is no stranger to grief. For what is grief if not love persevering? For what is loss without something to hold close? For what is pain if there was no pleasure?

These days, so many forget that love is in every part of life. They all take it for granted. That the goddess has no choice but to be present or be called to funerals as often as births, to divorces as often as marriages, to abuse shelters, to orphanages, to a child’s recital with no parent in the audience and to nursing homes where every lucid moment is a moment fought for and cherished to live on in the love of those they leave behind.

So, Aphrodite wraps her arms around the young woman. Suddenly, the EMT and the officer have other people to talk to. Suddenly, the young woman’s injured leg and ribs have been bandaged and set. Suddenly, the young woman has a moment of peace to grieve. She has a moment to love him, not for the last time, but for the first of many times on her own.

The EMT remembers patching the young woman up. The clipboard in his hand says so. The officer remembers getting her statement. The notepad in her hand says so. The young woman thanks them later. They offer condolences. She nods and stays silent. The EMT tells her to follow up at the hospital or with her doctor. She says she will. The officer offers to give her a ride home. She says her sister is picking her up.

No one thanks Aphrodite. Not that she needs it. Not that she’d ask for it. Perhaps in jest, but never for real. Where grief lives, she will follow. She has no other choice. She sees the young woman get home safely and fall asleep with her sister with a whispered “I’m here for you, you will get through this. You are not alone, I’ll stand by your side.”

All Aphrodite hears is, “I love you”.

The first time Aphrodite met Percy Jackson was unremarkable. In fact, she doubts he remembers seeing her at all. Before Artemis had been captured, Aphrodite had been at Camp Half-Blood on the first day of the summer arrivals. She was curious about Zeus’s daughter, Thalia Grace, and how her life would intertwine with the others and where her love would lead. Thalia Grace was full of passion, but it wasn’t always clear who, or what, that passion would lend itself towards. There was no great love or heartbreak that Aphrodite could see, and after the young girl’s fate as a tree became clear, Aphrodite believed her lack of foresight had resolved itself. But now Thalia Grace was back, vibrant and passionate as ever before, so Aphrodite found herself curious.

But it was Percy Jackson she saw first.

She was standing in the forest line just outside of camp, a clear view of the beach to her left and the mess hall and cabins to her right. Percy was walking from the mess hall to the beach and even then, at just thirteen, she could see the battle instincts that would make him the twice-named Hero of Olympus. It was in the twitch of his hand to the pen she knew he kept in his pocket and in the sweep of his eyes across his surroundings. Whether he knew what he was looking for didn’t matter yet, he was looking anyway. As a child he may not have trusted his instincts, but they were all he had so he made due. As he grew up, he became battle-hardened, world-weary and he relied on those instincts above all else. What else should he trust?

The Gods? Percy Jackson trust the Gods?

Even the Fates could not force him to. He would snip that string and choke the one who tied him to it before ever letting himself be led down a path he did not choose for himself. Percy Jackson was a decider of his own fate, for better or worse, whether he believed it or not.

So as Percy swept his eyes along the tree, she saw him see her. And double take. But she hid herself quickly. Even then, when he looked back the second time, it was like he could still see her. It was unnerving, even for a goddess. She wasn’t used to being truly seen, but she knew that he was not seeing her as anyone else. Most saw her as a version of their strongest desires. In hindsight, she would have expected him to see her with brown eyes, braids or dark skin—a version of the girl he would jump into Tartarus for. But Percy Jackson saw her as herself and it made her uncomfortable enough to flee back to Olympus. Few had ever seen her that way. And she’s not sure that he even remembers now. The next time she saw him was at the Garden of the Gods as he trailed after Thalia Grace’s quest where he would hold the sky and trick the Titan Atlas into taking it from him.

He did not see her as herself that time.

A shame.

She would have liked to ask him what he saw.

It was Poseidon who came to her first.

Expected.

He asked her to check in on his favored demigod child. It was after the breakup with Annabeth Chase, Architect of Olympus, and Poseidon came to her claiming that Percy was acting different. He was still interacting with the young campers, but he was steering clear of the campers of his generation—the veterans. That was unusual.

Poseidon didn’t know why and, frankly, Aphrodite was disinclined to insert herself into the lives of Percy Jackson and his cohort of non-God-fearing demigods. They were as protective of him as he was of them, and when any one of them felt the threat of a divine being, they all reacted. It was like Percy Jackson had taken his fatal flaw and infected them all with it.

It was Dionysus who came to her next. Not so expected. Dionysus went out of his way not to involve himself in the affairs of the demigods. He cared, in his own way, but he avoided the appearance of any type of attachment to avoid the consequence of it severing. Aphrodite pitied him. Grief could be beautiful too, but Dionysus was determined not to mourn a demigod save his own children. In fact, this was the first time Aphrodite could recall Dionysus ever saying his name.

“He needs you, ‘Dite. Percy Jackson is one bad day from being a real life example of ‘mad with grief.’ He wears it like a second skin. And his eyes... even I have a hard time looking in his eyes lately. It’s like he can see right through my skin and trace the path of my ichor, which on its own would be unnerving don’t get me wrong, but I have a feeling,” and at that he paused glancing down before meeting her eyes in an out of character sign of solemnity. “I have a feeling that if I...if I were to see into his mind, see into his madness, he’d tear me apart with it.”

She ignored the very idea that he could wield a god’s domain against him. She’d heard the rumors but lingering too long on a possibility had a way of making things real. She knew as well as Dionysus did that any demigod with that kind of power was dangerous, but Percy Jackson with that kind of power? He would never use it to start a war, sure. But they both knew he would use it to end one.

“It’s not like you to invest yourself in the life or wellbeing of a demigod, Dio, especially not this particular demigod.”

“We have an . . . understanding. They all, all those demigods, need him. He cares loud enough to fill up the silence left by all of us.” It was true. Even her brother, Zeus, King of the Gods, arrogant as he is, knew, whether he admitted it or not, that Percy Jackson filled the void the Gods left and ensured a new generation of demigods to protect Olympus. Not because they were loyal to the Gods, but because they were loyal to him. And the Gods may not have had his loyalty, but neither did any of their enemies. And that had to be good enough. For now.

If the use of Percy’s name wasn’t enough, Aphrodite could tell just by looking at him that Dionysus was serious in his request. He often played to the character he had crafted for himself, he was like Percy in that way though she was sure neither would appreciate the comparison, but he wore no character now. Dionysus hadn’t looked this distraught since his child, Castor, had been killed. “He’s been too quiet and it’s putting everyone on edge.”

“Like the calm before the storm,” she added. Dionysus rolled his eyes.

“Yah, yah, the sea does not like to be restrained and all that.” Dionysus rolled his hand over itself as he basically threw out the words. “Poseidon always loved a good turn of phrase,” she chuckled, shaking her head.

“It doesn’t make it untrue. Jackson has been holding himself in. I’m not sure exactly what it is he’s holding in, but it’s not good. And it’s not healthy. And he covers it all in grief, like a mask, makes himself invisible so no one asks any questions or pushes too hard. They’re all grieving, so why should his grief be called out?”

“He’s always been smarter than we gave him credit for,” Aphrodite agreed. Percy Jackson was unique in his introversion. Unlike any hero of old she could recall, Percy Jackson kept his victories close to his chest, preferring to be underestimated than overestimated, preferring to blend in even if his very nature made him stand out. Glory was meaningless if even one life was changed for the worse, if even one person was hurt that he decided he could have protected—an impossible standard for even the best heroes.

“Just help him,” Dionysus stood up with his final words.

“If he goes, they all go.”

“Why are you here,” he demanded more than he asked, keeping his eyes down at the textbook he certainly had not been reading.

“Tell me what ails you, Percy Jackson. Heartbreak? Unrequited love? The never-ending search for a happily ever after?” she asked flippantly. She knew that him and the Chase girl still had love for each other, so much of it, but something had changed in Tartarus. She knew their breakup had been mutual and changed very little about their place in each other’s lives. She knew Percy Jackson did not take lightly to digs at those he loved. And he may not be in love with her, but he certainly still loved Annabeth Chase. So, she knew what her questions would do. And true to his nature, he finally lifted his eyes to hold her gaze.

There he is.

The anger in his eyes was familiar, if not a little bit darker these days—the disdain and contempt felt more earned, more pointed. Percy Jackson, for all that his reputation was that of a fun, sometimes goofy and mischievous demigod, grew up in war and he came alive in his rage and indignation. She had seen it before, in the Garden of the Gods. As soon as Ares influence had hit him in the car, his eyes gave him away, dark with the wrath of the oceans and the earth, ancient, cold and dangerous.

This boy was more God than he knew.

She saw it then. She saw it now too. When she met his gaze, she almost dropped her eyes out of instinct, used to seeing that look only on her Brother just before he assumed the form of the monster he truly his, before he let that monstrous wrath consume him. For the Gods are nothing if not monstrous in their own right.

“How dare you? You were there. You know exactly what we’ve lost, and you think I’m sitting here crying over my love life?” he demanded, pulling his shoulders back as if readying himself for a fight. She could see his hand twitch towards the pen on his nightstand. He made no move to wipe the tears from his eyes though. Interesting. He may underplay his strengths, but he does not often bare his weaknesses.

“What you have lost,” Aphrodite said seriously now that she had his attention, sitting on the bed across from his. “Grief need not be communal, Percy Jackson. You, more than most, should remember that.”

Percy lightened his gaze, if only a little. He still looked too much like his father for her to totally let her guard down. But Percy seemed to realize she did not come for trivial gossip and so he asked, “Why are you here?” and Aphrodite knew that this time the question was real.

“I am called to grief.”

“That’s not your domain.”

“Isn’t it though?” she asked with a small smile. He did not seem as amused. She acquiesced.

“True, there have been others with this domain. There was Penthus. Once. He was the personification of grief, of lamentation, but he spent more time tormenting those in mourning than helping. And as you can imagine, his offerings dried up rather quickly. There were once the Algea, three sisters, who were made of pain and suffering, but they have long since faded. As we Gods have moved and relied more and more on the offerings and the belief of so few, those with only the less,” she paused finding the word, “savory domains have faded too.”

She looked at him. He was waiting, ocean eyes expectant. So, he had met her then.

“And of course, Akhlys, daughter of Nyx. Goddess of misery and suffering. And it’s true, she can be called to grief, but not all grief is miserable. Not all grief must be suffered. Besides, she does not come to the surface these days. She resides elsewhere.” Aphrodite paused. She could see the flicker in his eyes. He was remembering. 

“I believe you two have met,” she tested. Suddenly, the hero was gone and, in his place, an eighteen year old boy, too young to appear this weary and worn down. She could see what Dionysus had seen—he cloaked himself in his grief and let it drain the life from his eyes, like a tide pulling the waters from the coast to build a tsunami. If the tsunami made landfall, she wasn't sure she wanted to know who would be around to drown.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, eyes dead but still endlessly defiant, like a default setting he couldn't shake. She found she did not like this Percy—one who was afraid to feel. She had always respected his instinct to act on feeling and passion. His loyalty was never born out of duty or honor, it was born out of love. And those who earned his love . . . it was like being blessed by a God.

“Yes, you do,” she said. He eyed her critically, sizing her up. Perhaps he forgot that she was smart too. “Nobody knows about that,” he said, raising an eyebrow. Not quite an accusation, but close enough. She should tread carefully now.

“Annabeth Chase knows it.” She elected to trample. She needed his anger. It was the only way to honesty. And she got it. If grief was his shield, then anger was his sword.

“She would never tell you.” Definitely an accusation, cold and sharp, a sword to the throat. Aphrodite had seen him quiet the entirety of Olympus. It was no secret his words could spill blood as easily as his pen.

“And she did not. But let’s not pretend that you are not a hero, Percy Jackson. And heroes’ stories have a way of being told, whether you want them to be or not.”

“I never asked to be a hero,” he said as if he’d had this conversation seventeen different times in seventeen different ways and knew exactly how it would go. Somebody would inevitably list his accomplishments and he would keep his head down and wave them off in resignation. She did not have time for that. 

“That’s a coward’s answer, Percy Jackson. And I know you are no coward.” He shot his head up and there it was again, his anger. Good. “You brought the bolt to my Brother with the warning of my Father's return. You chose to carry the world to save Artemis. You shouldered that prophecy for Hades’ boy yourself. You made those decisions, nobody else. You may have felt you had no choice, but you did. A coward would not have chosen like you. So, do not insult me with your humility.”

Apparently, he was in no mood to argue his hero status. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here in my cabin talking to me about grief?” He stood and began pacing as if he could not stand to sit still one moment longer.

“I told you. I am called to grief. So, tell me what ails you, Percy Jackson?” she asked. She knew he could see her question was real this time too. He seemed to accept it and began walking out of the cabin. “Follow me,” and so she did.

They walked through camp, along the creek until they reached a clearing. There was a large stone in the middle with names carved into it. At the top, a phrase.

“Kalō thanatein, apothnainein machomenos,” he read the Ancient Greek aloud. “To die noble, to die fighting,” she translated and looked at the names listed below. She recognized some.

Bianca di Angelo. Silena Beauregard. Michael Yew. Zoë Nightshade. Castor Angevin. Charles Beckendorf. Ethan Nakamura. Luke Castellan. Leo Valdez. And there were so many more.

“Not all of these names fought for Olympus,” she said turning to him. He stayed looking at the stone, leaning against a nearby tree. “No, they didn’t,” he agreed.

"Yet you list them anyway?"

“They all fought for this camp and for the demigods who train here. I may not agree with them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand them. And it doesn’t mean they deserve to be forgotten.”

“Don’t let your Uncle hear you say that,” she knew he would know she was referring to Zeus, “he would call it treason.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe I don't like that just because I saved you all that the gods are the ones who get to decide who the heroes of that war were. Maybe I want to make sure that demigods coming through Camp hear the real story.” 

She bristled. As if sensing her shift, he turned to look at her. “Be careful how you speak to me Perseus, I am still an Olympian and a Goddess. You would do well to remember that I am just as old as your Father and I can be just as vengeful.”

He met her eyes, standing to his full height from where he had been leaning on a tree. “That’s a coward’s answer, Lady Aphrodite.” Someday she would stop being surprised at his defiance.

“You know as well as I do that faith based in fear is just obedience,” he said. “That’s what led to the war the first time. The reason you all need me is because my faith isn’t because I’m afraid, and it’s not blind either. I know exactly who you all are, I know exactly how ‘vengeful’ you all can be. I choose to fight for you anyway because I know the alternative.” He really was smarter than anybody gave him credit for. “Whether they died fighting from fear, honor or something else, they died fighting for us. So, we will honor them.”

The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death.

She had always believed Percy Jackson to be like Hector. A man of honor. A sword of the gods. A warrior who never sought war but was thrust into it anyway. But perhaps he was just as much Achilles as he was Hector. A man of passion. A sword, but an unpredictable one. A warrior who did not seek war, but would welcome it, would fight for those he loved until victory or death.

Or perhaps . . . perhaps he was something new. He did not have their pride—Hector in his fear of shame and disgrace, Achilles in his arrogance and conceit. She could see Hector in Percy’s compassion, and she could see Achilles in his courage. She knew he had Hector’s obstinance. She wondered if he had Achilles’ cruelty—if that was what Dionysus would see if he looked into Percy’s madness. Was he capable of that? Of dragging the body of his enemy across a battlefield for days on end? Would Percy Jackson be tempted by revenge, blind with rage?

“What would you have done? If Luke Castellan had not plunged the blade into his own body?” His eyes sharpened, a rip current ready to drag her away. “I would have killed Kronos. Or died trying, probably.”

Achilles.

“That would be killing Luke too,” she said. Not a question, but his answer was not the whole truth either.

“Luke was already dead. There was nothing I could have done to save him.” Again, not a real answer.

“But you would have tried, even after everything he did?” she couldn’t help but ask. “I hope that I would have,” he answered, looking away again.

Hector.

“But I don’t know. I didn’t understand him then like I do now. Did you know Luke was younger than I am now when he died? How can I blame him for his choices? They could have just as easily been mine, but he made them first. He showed me what that path looked like, he gave me a reason not to take that path. So, instead, I was left to clean up the mess he left behind.” And there was his grief again. He felt the loss of youth in himself and in those whose names were immortalized in this memorial.

“You cannot keep hiding behind your grief, Percy Jackson.” The rip current was back, but she was born of the sea just like him and she would not be swept aside.

“I’m not hiding anything, It's not like I'm pretending to be sad, who does that?” he denied, clearly offended by the very thought that he was being disingenuous in his grief. The idea was laughable.

“Pretending, no. I don’t think you are capable of being anyone but yourself, Nephew, much to our family’s dismay. But you are complacent in it. There is something you are hiding under it, and that does not mean your grief isn’t real. It just means it’s what you are choosing to feel instead of whatever is beneath it. What is harder for you to feel than grief?”

He studied her. She held his gaze before sitting down, back to the tree facing the stone memorial.

“I think something inside of me is broken. I think it broke down there.” Tartarus. “I saw him, you know. He took on a physical form down there,” he sat down next to her. It took all of her effort not to shiver at the idea that this child was face to face with the primordial King of the Abyss.

“How did you survive it?” The question came out before she had a chance to stop it. He turned to her. “I had a lot of help. And Annabeth was with me,” he stated simply.

“I told you not to insult me with your humility, Percy Jackson. Annabeth Chase would not have survived without you, of that I am sure. And no other demigod in your place would have survived, with or without the help of Annabeth Chase.” His eyes hardened.

“It’s not humility to recognize those who fought with you. If I said I survived down there because I’m so awesome and brave, I’d be lying. And that would actually be an insult. Not to me, but to them and to Annabeth.”

“You’re avoiding my question.” He looked away.

“What did you do down there?” she asked carefully. He did not answer.

“Percy,” he turned to her and she knew he was back there. “What did you do?” To say his eyes were the color of the deep sea wasn’t enough, his eyes were the color of a deep sea chasm. This felt like the tip of something, maybe a cliff, maybe Tartarus. Maybe this is what it felt like to look over the edge of it. How could he see this and jump anyway? Even she did not think that love could conquer this, but the love of Percy Jackson was a love she hadn’t seen in centuries.

“I did something I shouldn’t have.”

“Is this to do with Akhlys?” she guessed. All anyone seemed to know was that he and Athena’s girl had met the Goddess of Misery, but nothing else.

“I almost killed her. I would have if Annabeth hadn't stopped me.”

I have a feeling that if I...if I were to see into his mind, into his madness, he’d tear me apart with it.

“But I knew it was wrong, too. I was too caught up in the moment. As soon as she snapped me out of it, I could feel it in my gut. It burned,” he pressed his hands to his stomach before he slid his hands to his sides, crossing in the front. Like he was holding himself together.

I think something inside of me is broken.

She saw it now. What Dionysus had seen, what she was sure Akhlys saw when he almost killed her. He was holding himself together by grief literally. Grief was the most human thing any being could feel. She and her family played at grief, felt something akin to loss, but it required an acknowledgment that something could be temporal. That it could end. You cannot grieve something you will have forever, and immortal beings could not comprehend that. Maybe that’s why Dionysus could see Percy in a way that Poseidon could not. Dionysus was once mortal. He was once temporary.

So, Percy covered himself in grief to make sure he could still feel it. He used it to hold the part of him that broke in Tartarus together.

It burned.

“Percy, what broke in you down there. You know as well as I do, you cannot put it back together. Not with grief, not with anything.” She wasn’t sure he had allowed himself to recognize it, to acknowledge it. Did he know it was beyond repair?

He looked at her, daring her to say it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And this time she did tread carefully. Because she did care for him, and he had earned the right to take this at his own pace. She wanted no part of a Percy Jackson forced to recognize what was happening to him against his will.

She wondered if he had Achilles’ cruelty—if that was what Dionysus would see if he looked into Percy’s madness. Was he capable of that? Of dragging the body of his enemy across a battlefield for days on end? Would Percy Jackson be tempted by revenge, blind with rage?

She feared the answer was in that recognition. She feared it was inevitable. She feared he would turn it inward. Because Percy Jackson was a decider of his own fate, for better or worse, whether he believed it or not. And maybe in this, the result would be the same no matter the path, but he would be the one to choose that path. Fates be damned.

“Yes, you do,” she stated simply, not looking for a fight, or an acknowledgment. She stood. “And should you ever need me, Percy Jackson, I’m here for you, you will get through this. Should you ever worry, know you are not alone. I’ll stand by your side. Many of us would. All you need to do is ask.”

Perhaps several centuries or millennia from now, she would compare a new demigod to the hero, Percy Jackson. Perhaps she would wonder if that demigod would carry the best or the worst of him. If he would become a hero of old. But perhaps there was something new and indefinable about him. Percy Jackson was singular, incomparable, perhaps even eternal.

She could not help herself before she left. “Percy.” He looked up at her from his place on the ground. “What do you see when you look at me?”

He turned back to look at the stone of names.

“I see them.”

Chapter Text

The Mask of Sanity

Bored.

That’s what he was. Parties on Olympus had grown dull as the world settled down after the war with Gaia. Frankly, they hadn’t been all that exciting to begin with. His Father had put him in charge of general party planning in the first century of his divinity and at first, it was the perfect role. A way for him to get to know his knew Olympian family and it’s what got him his spot on Olympus in the first place.

In his mortal days, Ancient Greece was all for a good party. It was where they told stories, celebrated their heroes and, of course, worshipped the Gods. His feats of strength and valor may have kickstarted his ascension, but it was his domain that got him his spot in the Twelve. He, more than any of the others, was an Olympian of his era and he could feel it in every version of himself that this was a new era.

So, he was bored. He would have rather been with Ariadne, or at Burning Man in the middle-of-the-desert Nevada, or at any of the many, many wine festivals happening at any given time. Gods, he would have preferred being at Camp at this point. At least each day was new, it didn’t feel like a repeat of the last several centuries.

“I spoke to him.”

Dionysus turned to look at Aphrodite as she sat next to him. “You spoke to whom exactly?” he asked. He knew, but he was in a bad mood and whatever had possessed him to look out for the kid was just out of his reach at the moment.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Don’t take out your bad mood out on me, Nephew. You know exactly who I’m talking about.” He inclined his head but he didn’t want to have this conversation right now.

Apparently, Aphrodite did not care what he wanted. “He’s scared, Dio.” And it was his turn to scoff.

“Peter Jacobson doesn’t get scared,” he turned to her. “He gets angry, he gets righteous, he gets frustrated, maybe he gets sad,” he listed. “But scared? Don’t think so.”

“So, we’re back to forgetting his name again, are we?” she raised one annoyingly perfect eyebrow at him. “He’s survived two prophecies. He fought Akhlys and nearly killed her. He’s survived Tartarus. He saw Tartarus. You really think he wasn't ever scared?" Dionysus stayed silent. "Regardless, clearly, he’ll be around for a while, so you should probably make an effort to learn his name.” And wasn’t that a more weighted statement than it would’ve been a year ago. 

For a while...

“And this is why I don’t try to help those brats, because now you’re coming to me with updates like I’m his guardian or something. He has two parents and several oddly attached divine relatives, not to mention his merry band of demigods, all of whom I’m sure care far more than me about what you talked to Paul about.” Truthfully, he had gone to Aphrodite in the first place so that she could tell him he was overreacting, that what he had seen behind the kid’s eyes was just anger or heartbreak or whatever stupid thing eighteen year old demigods feel these days.

The fact that she came to him now, like this, meant that she had seen exactly what Dionysus thought he had seen behind his eyes. An abyss. He wasn’t sure what Tartarus looked like, but he imagined it was something like that. How could he see that and jump anyway?

The only thing worse than a hero, was a foolish one.

“You know you are one of the only beings he could possibly turn to that would know what he’s dealing with, Dionysus. At some point your neutrality is just apathy, and you're just going to feel cruel,” she said, an accusation in every word. “He is not who you think he is.”

Dionysus dropped his head to his hands, rubbing his eyes, dragging his hands down his face. “You presume that I spend any time thinking of him at all,” he drawled out, purposefully monotone.

He scanned the party again, seeing Hermes and Apollo arguing with Artemis, who looked a moment away from firing an arrow straight their skulls. She’d hit them both with one arrow, he’d seen her do it before. He saw Poseidon dutifully avoiding his younger brother in favor of his older. Both Hades and Poseidon seemed to be attempting an escape if it weren’t for Athena clearly watching form the corner of her eye. She knew, as well as they did, that should they leave, it would be all Zeus talked about the rest of the party. Having Poseidon and Hades around reminded Zeus that there was a system of checks and balances on him these days—once a younger brother, always a younger brother.

“You do,” she said simply. He almost wished she would have been angrier, just so he could feel justified in being angry. “For you to ignore him would require that he be inconsequential, which we both know he is not. But he is not who you need him to be to continue ignoring him either and that is eating away at you. Dio, it made you desperate enough to come to me about it. Now, I’m telling you that you need to go to him because Percy is going to be exactly what you hoped he would never become, what he hoped he would never become.”

Giving up on convincing her of the lie he so desperately needed to believe, “wouldn’t that be a better job for any of those aforementioned family and friends?” he tried. Traitorously, he could hear the concern and the fear leak into his voice as he posed the question. Percy Jackson was, in many ways, terrifying to Dionysus. He was pretty sure that Percy Jackson had seen and felt true madness in a way that Dionysus never had until he ascended. It scared him that even as a mortal, Percy Jackson had that kind of power.

Dionysus was also pretty sure that Percy Jackson was becoming a very real embodiment of another of his domains—inspiration. He saw it every day at Camp. He saw it during the war. He saw it in every argument he had with the kid over the climbing wall needing safety gear because “if one more kid breaks an ankle unnecessarily, I will use every deck of pinochle cards for sword practice,” and the infirmary needs to be stocked with mortal medicine as well as Greek medicine because “every kid should know how to use fucking Neosporin when they run out of ambrosia and they’re stuck in the middle of wherever, Missouri on a quest one of you entitled hypocrites decided to send a thirteen year old on.”

Truly, Percy Jackson would be his favorite character in this story if Dionysus wasn’t so often written on the same page.

“You are his family, Dionysus. We all are, now more than ever, and tomorrow more than today. And,” she paused, “you worry he would tear you apart, but I worry he would tear himself apart first. That he would take all that light and that power, and he would just implode into himself.”

“Like a supernova,” Dionysus said, meeting her eyes.

“Like what happens after,” she said before leaving.

A black hole.

Dionysus did not go to him. He waited until Percy Jackson came to him, because he always did for some reason or another. As if on cue, the door of the Big House opened with a bang and the shouted, “Dionysus!” came ringing through the house.

“When did it become Dionysus instead of Mr. D?” he didn’t even lift his head up from the pinochle table where he was certainly losing to Chiron yet again.

“At least it’s your actual name,” came the very predictable response with the equally predictable amount of attitude.

“If you’re going to use my full name, you could at least use the full title to show some respect.”

“Respect?” he had stopped to lean on the doorway now. “Yah, how about ‘Lord Dionysus’ from now on?” Dionysus said more to himself than anything knowing Jackson wouldn’t hear a word.

“Respect is actually crazy,” Jackson continued. Definitely hadn’t heard a word. “I'll call you Lord when you call me Percy.”

“I am a God, you know, I could—”

“What can we do for you Percy?” Chiron cut in before either could really get rolling.

“The Fields,” he said, and Dionysus was ready to descend into his own madness just to avoid this conversation again.

“We’ve had this conversation already,” Dionysus sighed.

“I know, but Katie said—”

“I don’t want to have this conversation again, the Fields are—”

“—and Pollux thinks it would be great if we could—”

“—we only have a contract for the strawberries—”

“—and Will would be so grateful, the infirmary—”

“—how many times do we need to talk about this?"

“Until you actually listen, fuck’s sake!” Dionysus was pretty sure he was the first God that Jackson ever really cursed at. “Sorry, Chiron,” he added as an afterthought. There was something Dionysus oddly enjoyed about being the only God that Jackson routinely let his New York slip out with. It was when he sounded the most human.

Chiron stood on all four legs, looking between the two, and backed up saying, “Actually, I think I’m needed over in the stables right about now, so I’ll leave this in your capable hands, Mr. D.”

“Coward,” Dionysus said at the same time Jackson did. He let his lip curl in disgust at that, while Jackson just rolled his eyes and sat down at the table rather ungracefully.

Then, Jackson leveled him with the look. This particular look was one Dionysus had become quite familiar with in the last year. It was the look that said, ‘I will not leave until you listen to what I have to say and even then, I still will not leave until you do what I just said.’

Dionysus usually found doing what he asked was the path of least resistance, but this particular ask required a fair amount of effort on his part and thus was the source of their latest argument. “I’m not expanding the Fields to grow anything else.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

“Don’t say it’s because you would have to talk to your Father again.”

“I would have to talk to my Father,” Dionysus leveled his own look right back at him.

“Look, if we started growing more things, we could sell more and use more.”

“Jetson—”

“For instance,” Jackson talked right over him, “thyme has a lot of benefits in helping with infection and respiratory issues, but it’s also something we can sell as both a fresh and dried herb.”

“Phillip—”

“And,” he was on a roll now, “thyme grows super well with strawberries, so you wouldn’t even have to change the terrain.”

“Are you done?” Dionysus leaned back, crossing his arms.

“Are you going to do what I want?”

“No.”

“Then no. Catnip also can be grown with strawberries. We could sell it, and add it to our Quest packs for any potential cat-like monsters—”

“Catnip, really?”

“—and it also can be used in teas to help with restlessness and anxiety,” he raised an eyebrow at Dionysus. “Wonder if a bunch of ADHD-riddled children and war veterans could use that?” Dionysus rolled his eyes.

“I’m well aware of the benefits of expanding the Fields. Do you know why, Petersburg?”

“Isn’t Petersburg a city?” Jackson muttered,

“Because you have told me all of this several times now.”

“Then what is the problem?” He put his hand flat on the table, leaning forward. “Literally all you have to do is say ‘Hey Dad, we’re going to start growing a couple more things in the field because it would create more financial, medicinal and Quest-related resources,’ which I feel like is not the kind of request that would make Thunderbolts lose it. In the grand scheme of things, I’ve asked him for a lot more very recently.”

And he was right. Zeus would be unlikely to say no, but the problem with a change like that at Camp Half-Blood is that it would require the vote of the Olympian council, for the sole reason that everybody would want an opinion on what should or should not be grown. And that kind of vote would get attention, might even entice some gods and goddesses to come down and visit Camp.

And therein lied the problem. No one could come down here, look at Percy Jackson and not see it. Even sat across from him now in his ratty, old Camp t-shirt, a pair of jeans and beat up sneakers, no one could mistake him for an average demigod. His skin always seemed to have a faint glow, hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking for it. But Dionysus was looking for it. He’d been looking for it since the kid was thirteen. And they would surely be looking for it. At an even closer look, Dionysus was pretty sure he could see right into the swirl of gold and red in his veins.

But it was his anger that gave him away, always so quick to surface these days. Percy’s anger, even as a new Camper, had been difficult to ignore, but these days, his anger could level Camp. It would suspend the water in the air, it made everyone freeze in place, scared to take a step. It made the Earth feel unsteady and the shoreline darken. Percy’s anger was divine, and no one could mistake it as anything else.

So, no, Dionysus was not inclined to practically invite a bunch of Gods and Goddesses, who are already far too invested in Percy’s mortality status, to the doorstep Camp Half-Blood to watch him like a zoo animal.

“It’s more complicated than that, it’s—” Dionysus started.

“It’s really not, though, it’s just a question—”

“—it would require a vote by the entire council and—”

“—seriously, we could start as soon as next week—”

“—then the Cloven will want a vote for the satyrs, and the nymphs—”

“—I’ll go ask him myself then if you won’t.” Percy stood up and began walking out of the House.

“Pedro, wait, you can’t—” Dionysus got up to follow him. He should have expected this, honestly.

What is the worst possible choice Percy Jackson could make right now? Naturally, the choice he is currently making.

“No, if you won’t help, then I’ll find someone who will. Maybe Demeter or Apollo—”

“Percy.”

And at that he turned around, raising an eyebrow. He had his arms crossed still, but the use of his name had caught his attention. This was where they understood each other most, in these moments.

It had only happened once before in the last year when Dionysus found Jackson on the beach, sitting in the water as wave after wave washed over him.

There was a storm rumbling overhead and Jackson was the source. Dionysus sat on the beach and waited. It only took moments for Jackson to realize he was being watched—vigilance was a requirement for him, not a luxury.

When he saw Dionysus, Jackson came walking out of the water. “Sorry, is the storm hitting Camp?” he asked. His exhaustion was apparent in the lack of sarcasm. Dionysus shook his head, “no, you picked a spot far enough down the coast.”

“So why are you here then?” Jackson sat down next to him on the sand, looking over.

“I was just strolling along the beach. Particularly nasty loss against Chiron in pinochle. I needed out of that house,” Jackson chuckled lowly. “And I saw you and figured I’d make sure you didn’t drown,” Dionysus finished.

Jackson’s eyes shuttered. That was new. Fear of drowning? Then his eyes went flat, they looked sad, sure, but it was a mask, covering whatever was under there.

“I can’t drown remember, Son of Poseidon and all that,” he tried to joke.

Normally, that would’ve been enough for Dionysus to roll his eyes and leave the conversation at that. But normally, Jackson didn’t sound like he knew he couldn’t drown because he had recently tested that theory.

“Right, you can’t drown,” Dionysus agreed. But would you if you could? Dionysus was so tempted to look into his mind, he was standing at its precipice and could see just endless, perpetual nothing ahead. He almost took a step, but then, he felt it.

A shove.

He looked up to Jackson’s eyes and saw the same never-ending darkness and whether Jackson knew it or not, there was something iridescent about him and it wasn’t just the full moon out.

“Get out of my head,” he snarled, and Dionysus could only blink at him in surprise. If he had been standing, he would have taken a step back at the force of it. He had never had someone push him out of their head like that. He’d faced stubborn minds and even divine minds, which were nightmarish mazes, honestly, but never like this from a mortal.

But then again maybe mortal wasn’t quite right anymore.

Jackson had stood up and before he could stomp away, Dionysus grabbed his wrist, “Percy.” He stopped, turning to him, eyebrow raised expectantly.

“Don’t. If you’re given the choice again, say no.” Dionysus let him go.

So, Dionysus knew that by using Jackson’s given name, he had his attention. “You can’t. Changing the Fields requires a vote by the council.”

“I didn’t realize adding thyme to the Strawberry Fields was on the same level as whether or not to kill me,” Jackson stood there, expectant still. Dionysus rolled his eyes. “Walk with me, kid.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he followed Dionysus as he walked along the Fields towards the Stables. “You know what a vote by the council would mean.”

“At least half of anything we make will have to go to various gods because why would anything we do be only for our benefit?”

Dionysus stopped, took a breath, in and out. To be fair, he was right, but it was not the point. And Percy knew that, even if he didn't know what the point was yet. “Could you maybe, for five minutes, leave your All-Gods-Be-Damned attitude out of the conversation?” He turned to face Jackson. They were at Zeus’s Fist now—how appropriate.

“Fine,” Percy matched Dionysus’s deep breath. “What’s the problem with Olympus voting on the Fields? I genuinely don’t think they’ll have an issue with it other than probably wanting some of the crops as offerings so what am I missing?”

And at least he knew he was missing something. That was the first hurdle. “You’ll have to speak to them. You’re the only one they really listen to.”

“Yah, and? I mean, I don’t love going to Olympus, but I will if I need to. I can always use the time to see my Dad, maybe hang out with ‘Pollo.”

Apollo. Apollo would’ve noticed. Apollo managing to keep a secret on Olympus was truly revolutionary, but there is no way Apollo, God of Healing and Prophecy, wouldn’t know what was going on with Percy. And, if it were any other hero, there’s no chance that Apollo would not have added Percy's story to his weekly poetry nights, of which Dionysus unwillingly attended as few as possible.

But, of course, Percy Jackson inspired the loyalty of all, even the Gods.

“Do they know? Your Dad and Apollo?” Dionysus asked, sitting on one of the rocks nearby. Percy chose the grass, leaning back, letting the sun hit his face. “Know what?” he asked, closing his eyes, and Dionysus was momentarily distracted. Anyone who looked at Percy Jackson like this would have no doubt he was destined for divinity. His face carved of marble and curls to his shoulders. He had gained weight since the War, thank the Gods, because seeing him after his venture to Tartarus was like seeing half a person. Even Dionysus had trouble maintaining his typical aggressive indifference. But here, and now, he looked every inch the Saviour of Olympus that he was.

And for a split second, just a blink of an eye, Dionysus could have sworn he was looking at Hercules in his prime. In the slope of his nose and the pride in his shoulders, it was like looking back in time to when he and Hercules had fought side by side. When they had ascended together, Dionysus was sure Hercules would join the Olympic council. Hercules was the Protector of Heroes, Mankind’s Divine Protector, and Dionysus was the God of Wine and Madness. Which one would fit on Olympus? Surely, not him. Surely, it would have been Olympus's golden child. 

“Whatever it was that happened in The Pit,” Percy’s head snapped to him, but it wasn’t anger like he expected. It was trepidation? Alarm? No, he was calculating. Surprising from the demigod known for act first, think later. Dionysus didn’t realize he knew how to be still.  “Something happened down there, Percy, I can see it. I can feel it. Aphrodite knows, I’d bet Apollo knows. Obviously, Athena’s girl knows. Who else?”

“Aphrodite doesn’t know much, just that something happened. Apollo and Annabeth are the only ones who really know,” he looked forward again. “My dad knows something happened. He asks, but,” he paused. “I don’t think it’s something he can help me with. It’s not—” he stopped.

“It’s not what?” Dionysus leaned forward. What could he tell Apollo and not his Dad? What could he have possibly done that made him scared to tell the Sea God?

“What happened down there, after talking to Apollo about it, I don’t think it’s in my Dad’s domain. Or at least no part of his domain that any book or legend or myth knows. That’s what ‘Pollo has been helping me with,” he scoffed. “Research.”

“And Apollo was your first choice for that?” This was certainly not the biggest question that came out of what Percy just said, but it seemed the easiest to tackle. “Surely, research is easy enough for the Daughter of Wisdom, herself.” He couldn’t help the sarcasm towards the end. He and Athena never quite saw eye to eye—a touch of madness could turn the wise into a genius, but wisdom so often resisted greatness in favor of consistency.

Percy took a hand to his hair, yanking his curls as if reminding himself of some unseen pain. “Annie and I don’t talk about what happened down there. Not anymore. Not really. We did, we’ve been through it all and gone over it again and again, but there are things that happened, things we,” he corrected himself, “things she saw, that hurt more than help to talk about.”

He fought Akhlys and nearly killed her.

“Did you really almost kill Akhlys down there?” he wondered. And the thing is, he could feel Percy’s response before he heard it. He felt the chill run through his body, the silence, the staleness in the air. It was suffocating and oppressive.

He wasn’t sure what Tartarus felt like, but he imagined it was something like that.

“Yes.” Percy did not look at him, but it felt like he was. Dionysus knew that Percy was, right now, more aware of him that he had ever been before. As if he could see into his veins and feel the ichor moving in him. It made him scared to move, to twitch. But Percy had answered the question, right? So, Dionysus forged ahead.

“How?” he spoke quietly. Not on purpose necessarily, but it felt like the only appropriate volume in the silence of the moment.

Still, Percy stared straight forward. Not a glance to the side, not even a flinch. He was not in the forest of Camp Half-Blood. He was in Tartarus.

“She was supposed to help us. She was going hide us in the Death Mist, so we could get to the Doors.” The Doors of Death. “Actually, she gave us an out first. She tried to give us some plants so we could die ‘peacefully’ if we wanted,” he scoffed. Was he tempted? “We said no, obviously. But she gave us the Death Mist and it was so heavy. It was like,” he paused, and Dionysus almost felt like he had to turn away. It didn’t feel right, seeing him like this—traumatized. It felt like a vulnerability Dionysus hadn’t earned, and frankly, did not feel qualified to handle.

There was a reason he told Aphrodite he wasn’t the right person for this conversation. Dionysus had been cursed with madness twice, by Hera as punishment and by his Father as his domain. But it never felt like anything but a curse. Percy Jackson had chosen madness in a way Dionysus never had, never would. Percy Jackson chose madness when he jumped into Tartarus. Percy Jackson chose madness when he went to Alaska to battle the giant Alcyoneus. He chose madness when he rejected godhood the first time after defeating Kronos. He chose madness when he willingly held the sky for Artemis. He chose madness when he fought Ares on a beach. He chose madness when he snuck into the Underworld. Percy Jackson chose madness the moment he pulled a sword on the Minotaur and in every other moment since.

So, yes, Percy Jackson looked vulnerable, fragile. But not like a flower or the wings of a butterfly, fragile like a bomb, like a star—one moment from a supernova, shining so brightly but so capable of violence. But by the time anyone notices it, it’s too late. Light never travels fast enough for us to see the moment it happens, only the damage left behind. Dionysus accepted long ago there are parts of the universe even Olympus cannot reach.

“It felt like my insides were all being dragged to the ground. Like there were fifty pound weights hanging off of my ribs and stomach and arms. So, when she attacked us with her poison, with her misery,” he spat the word out like it had personally offended him, which, Dionysus supposed, it had. “We couldn’t fight her. We couldn’t run or do anything. She had set the perfect trap and we walked right into it,” he said, sounding angrier at himself than he was at Akhlys.

“And so, I did what I could. I grabbed for whatever water or liquid I could find. And I used it against her. Whatever she sent to us, I sent right back.” Whatever she sent them?

“What do you mean by that?” Dionysus asked carefully, needing clarification. There was no room for guessing, for assumptions. 

And at that, Percy turned to look at him. “Her poison. Her tears. Her misery. I wanted to see how much misery, Misery could take. I wanted to drown her with it. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her to beg me to stop.” And his eyes, his eyes, that was true madness.

You worry he would tear you apart, but I worry he would tear himself apart first.

“And then Annabeth yelled to stop, that some things aren’t meant to be controlled. And I could feel it in my gut that it was wrong. It was burning, it felt broken,” Percy scrubbed his hands up and down his face now, like he was trying to scrub himself clean of some perceived sin.

It was no sin. It was a touch of madness. The kind that could take a hero and make him a God.

Dionysus knew that Percy was measuring himself against a moral standard that was never built for him. The only reason Percy was labeled a hero and not a monster was because people chose to love him. And those were the ones who were writing his story, who were telling his tales, they made him a hero because they believed he was one. They were the ones that forced him into ascension, they turned inspiration to idolization and adulation.

Dionysus needed to choose his next words carefully. He felt like this conversation was the moment, the one that would make him either an ally or an enemy in the Legend of Percy Jackson. “What you felt break wasn’t your gut telling you that what you were doing was wrong. Or bad. It was something else. And I think you know that,” Percy still wasn’t looking at him.

“Mine was my head,” he tried another avenue. He saw Percy perk up. He wasn’t looking at him, but he was paying attention. He pulled his pen out and started fidgeting with it. Percy Jackson was never one to sit still in the face of danger.

Restlessness. There can be no progress without first a need to move.

“Started at the base of my skull and then spread up to my temples. It felt like I had a splitting headache for months and months. Part of the reason I created wine. It was the only thing that stopped the pain, or at least made me forget to remember it hurt.”

Percy was watching him carefully now. “Yours starting in your gut makes sense, I think. And the burning, that will last a while. As long as you hold it in. Until you let it burn its way through you, it will hurt.”

Still, Percy was silent. He was listening, but silent.

“Can you say it yet?” Dionysus asked. Percy shook his head. “You’ll have to eventually, you know. It’s not exactly reversible,” he paused. “I know,” Percy said. And that was enough acknowledgment for now. “Though if I had to bet on someone in a battle of wills against the Fates, there are worse champions I could choose.”

Success in the faintest twitch up of Percy’s mouth, not much but enough. “Is that a compliment, Lord Dionysus?” Percy Jackson was the only person who could make his proper title sound like a worse insult than if he had called him ‘the wine man’ again.

“Absolutely not. It’s a diagnosis. I suggest you seek help immediately. I’d offer wine, but you’re not twenty one, unfortunately,” Dionysus stood. And you never will be. “Perhaps Apollo will have a better suggestion.” Sincerity wrapped in levity.

Percy, clearly in no rush to leave, leaned back on the grass and laid down, but he was still again, pen loosely held in his right hand across his stomach, left arm stretched behind his head.

“And what about the Fields?” Percy asked. Dionysus could not hold back the eye roll. “When you’re ready, I’ll go to Olympus with you. But until then, you’ll have to find other ways to keep your Hero status,” Percy’s mouth twitched again, more of a smile this time.

“I’m tired of being a hero.”

And yet, a branch cracked to the left, pen became sword and his hand tightened on the hilt anyway.

Chapter Text

The Harvest of Blood

“That means I can smash him to a pulp as often as I want, and he’ll just keep coming back for more. I like this idea.”

Percy Jackson the God didn’t sound half bad if Ares was being honest. There was no demigod alive that embodied war, anger and courage more than or all at once like Percy Jackson, not even Ares’ own children. Clarisse and his other children were heroes in their own right, sure, but Percy Jackson was a chess piece in this war before he even knew where the lines were drawn. He started as a pawn and won the war as one. Even with the power of a King, Queen, Rook, Bishop and Knight combined, Percy Jackson never left the frontline. That was something that earned Ares’ respect, even if begrudgingly.

He may not have like the brat, he looked too much like his dad and Ares’ achilles always tingled a little around him, but a worthy and honorable opponent wasn’t something Ares was prepared to dismiss so easily.

Then, Jackson responded. “No.”  And wasn’t that interesting?

Ares glanced at his Father. Zeus. King of the Gods and the Skies. Lightning forming behind his eyes, thunder in the distance. “No?” he asked. “You are . . . turning down our generous gift?”

The tone of his voice screamed danger and everyone, God and demigod alike, was looking at him. But Ares looked at Percy Jackson, Hero and Saviour of Olympus. He would go on to earn the titles Bane of Titans, Giants and Gaea alike, Pristinus praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, and Hero of Olympus again. But even before all that, at sixteen years old, Ares knew that Percy Jackson did not fear the storm gathering.

Percy Jackson was, first and foremost, a child of the sea, and whatever lightning was in Zeus’ eyes, Percy Jackson stood like he knew it could not touch him. As if he was a manifestation of the deep sea itself, as if he carried every chasm and abyss, where neither lightning nor rain nor wind could touch. Percy Jackson stood before the King of Gods, not an ounce of fear and said no.

And damn it all if that didn’t make Ares hope the Fates would just take the decision of Percy Jackson’s mortality out of his hands entirely.

“Dad, or, uh, Father, or Lord? Lord Ares? I don’t know if you’re listening, but I’ve been having really bad dreams and I’m messing up in training and if you’re there and you can help, I’d really . . . well I’d be super happy about it. In the dreams, they take my mom, and my brother, and my dog and I can’t save them. I’m too weak and too small and I . . . But if I can’t train, how I can save them? Percy says I should get some rest and pray for good dreams, so,” a pause, “can I have good dreams? Please?”

Ares heard the prayer float through his mind and shot off a message to Morpheus to see if he could help. Dae was a new camper, only eight years old, but Ares tried to claim his kids as soon as they came to Camp. The campers were getting younger and younger as the Greek and Roman camps worked together to locate, protect and educate young demigods across the country, so Ares saw no reason to wait. Why should his child float through Camp unclaimed when he could give them people to rely on?

An army is built on trust. Without trust, soldiers are just a bunch of reckless fools, just as likely to hurt each other as their opponent. 

Ares was irritated to once again hear Percy Jackson’s name in his child’s prayers. It was becoming more and more common that all the prayers sent to him, by his own children especially, were some version of “Percy told me to pray for...” or “Percy said that you might be able to help...” or, on occasion, from Clarisse, on behalf of one of her siblings usually, “Prissy wants me to make sure you all are holding up your end of the deal so can you...”

It wasn’t that Ares was irritated with the prayers or annoyed with his children. It was quite the contrary, actually. The only demigod in recent history to truly earn Ares’ ire was the Son of Poseidon himself, so there was something about Jackson being the one to get his kids to reach out to him that made Ares regret voting to keep him alive.

And Ares knew he had a long way to go to earn back his older children’s respect, especially Clarisse, and that actually it was probably Jackson’s encouragement that had helped them make the strides they had. He can’t remember the exact moment he forgot that he was a father as well as a god, but he absolutely hated that it was Jackson who had to remind him. So, when his daughter’s prayer floated into his mind, it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Then Ares found himself outside a small cottage on a beach in Montauk.

At first, he couldn’t really tell where he was, or more importantly, why his consciousness brought him here. Until he heard something move in the waves and saw Percy Jackson walking out of the ocean onto the sand looking right at Ares. He missed the days where he could rely on Jackson for a good fight, where he could see the hatred in his eyes, but something about Gaea or Tartarus or some combination of the literal and metaphorical hell this kid had to go through changed him. Now he just saw indifference, apathy, tolerance on a good day.

But tolerance is just kind indifference. And indifference is the antithesis of war. No war has ever been won or lost for a cause no one believed in.

So, seeing the clear dismissal in his body language was not what Ares had been looking for. He wanted a fight, even if he hadn’t thought through why yet, and he knew that Jackson could give him a good fight.

He came to stand in front of Ares, broader and stronger than he’d been before. What wonders regular meals and sleep can do. Jackson carried himself differently these days, like he knew nothing in this world could break him. He no longer had the Curse of Achilles, but it seemed to float around him if only as his own manifestation, a layer of impenetrability built brick by brick while he fought his way through Olympus, Earth and Tartarus alike.

And his eyes. Ares’ eyes were Greek fire burning like oxygen was flooding in, but Jackson’s eyes were a black hole, like the darkness right after a fire goes out, like there was no oxygen left to burn. But it had burned. The last fading light of a deep, vibrant blue was proof that it had burned hot, hot enough to level cities, to level civilizations.

“Why are you here and what do you want?” he asked, crossing his arms. Bored. Apathetic. Ares hated it.

So, he said the first thing that popped into his head. “Could you stop telling my kids to pray to me? I’m sick of hearing your name in my head.” Where that usually would have started a fight, Jackson simply raised his eyebrows, staying silent, waiting.

“Well?” Ares couldn’t sit in the silence. Part of the reason he avoided Camp these days is because it felt like he was walking on a graveyard everywhere he stepped. He could feel every fallen soldier on either side, hear every scream of agony seeing a friend or a sibling fall to a sword or spear. Even worse, sometimes he heard nothing. When he walked through Camp, sometimes the silence was a battlefield at a midday break, when the guns stop firing, the canons need reloading, the injured need tending, and the dead need counting. He couldn’t stand it. Jackson’s silence felt like that. But, of course, Percy Jackson wore the violence of war like he was born for it, and carried it with him all the way to a beach in Montauk.

 “If you really want your kids to stop praying to you, you can tell them yourself. I’m not your messenger boy.” Jackson sighed, looking down. He let his arms fall.

“That’s not what I said, punk, my kids can ask for my help whenever they need it, but I don’t need you butting into their problems.” Jackson just looked more confused. Ares got angrier.

“What?” he asked. “What does that even mean? How is any of that my fault?”

“It’s your name.”

“So?”

“So, it’s your fault.”

“I’m going to ask you something,” now Jackson was just being patronizing, which was . . . fair. “And I mean this genuinely.” Nevermind, Jackson was a brat. “What exactly are you angry about? Or at? If you want to pick a fight, just say so, so that I can say no thank you and go back to what I was doing. But I know that you’re not actually mad your kids are praying to you so let’s move on from that if you can actually be reasonable for half a second.”

And the fact that Jackson nailed it in one go. To borrow a truly Jackson-esque phrase, fuck him.

When Ares didn’t respond, Jackson turned away and began walking back to the house across the sand. And suddenly, Ares found himself on a recliner chair in a small living room, kitchen off to the side, as Jackson walked in the front door.

When he spotted Ares in the chair, there was a flicker in his eyes. A flicker of something that wasn’t apathy and it wasn’t indifference. Now they’re getting somewhere.

“Seriously, what do you want? I’m not doing any quests for you,” he said, moving into the kitchen. And Ares couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I would not be asking you to do a quest for me.”

“You would, and you have, but okay,” Jackson responded, and Ares tightened his fist.

“That was my Roman counterpart, not me,” Ares was well aware he was being petty, but it’s like he couldn’t help it. Like he was being affected by his own domain.

“Fine, whatever. If that’s all, then bye,” Jackson opened the refrigerator and started making what appeared to be some type of sandwich. Ares stood to approach the counter. “No,” Ares had to clarify. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jackson put his face into his hands, dragging his hands down. “Unless you’re going to actually tell me why you’re here then I seriously, sincerely do not give a—”

“Wrong God,” Ares interrupted.

“I’m converting.”

“That’s blasphemous.”

“Be careful, you sound like your dad.”

“I do not,” Ares clenched his fists.

Why Ares was so easily riled was beyond him at the moment. He did know he wanted to piss Jackson off though, just to see what he looked like angry these days.

But Percy Jackson was made of water, he had no fear of burning. “Smite me, then.” And the thing is, he knew Jackson meant. He said it flippantly, a throw away phrase as he smeared something onto a piece of bread. But he meant it too, like some kind of test. Ares could feel it, that there was something he wasn’t seeing, a piece of the chess board just out of reach.

And Ares wasn’t just the God of anger or violence, he was the God of courage and fear too. So, the fact that his kids no longer feared him, that they had the courage to ask for help? Because it did take courage to ask for help, Ares could recognize that. It just didn’t make sense that Jackson would be the one to encourage that, not from him.

So, Ares changed tactics. “So why are you telling my kids to pray to me? You hate me, didn’t think you’d be giving me, or any of us frankly, a five star Yelp review on parenting.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jackson just sounded tired. Resigned to the conversation, but only half interested. “Hate is exhausting. It’s not worth the energy.” And Ares had a half a mind to be offended. He wasn’t worth the energy?

But the other half of Ares’ mind wanted to poke at that. Just how far did his apathy go?

“There’s no one you hate? Really? After everything that’s happened?” Ares asked. “No,” Jackson said. “I don’t have time for that. Also,” Jackson paused holding a plate of whatever sandwich he made. “Names have power whether you think them or speak them. Hating means thinking and thinking means you give whoever it is you hate more reason to exist.” Sometimes, Ares forgot that Jackson was smart too. Under all of that impulse and instinct, there was a mind that saw not just one or two, but seven steps ahead of his opponent. He didn’t just see the casualties of war, he saw the bullet being made that would fire the first shot.

How do you stop the fruit of a poisonous tree? Make sure the seed never gets planted in the first place.

“Not even my Father? Not even down there?” Jackson flicked his eyes up, the first time he had made eye contact with Ares since entering the house. But he knew he was getting somewhere because at least it wasn’t indifference anymore. He could see some of the anger, the same kind he saw when the kid was twelve years old outside that decrepit diner in Denver. “No lingering resentment for any of them?”

“No,” Jackson said, jaw clenched and hands tight on his plate as he moved to the couch. There it is. “You really expect me to believe that? You’ve basically told all of Olympus and the divine world to fuck themselves so forgive me if I don’t really buy all this Zen bullshit,” Ares argued gesturing to, well, all of him.

“When I tell you, I do not give a wet rat’s ass what you believe or what you buy, please,” he paused. “Please believe me.” He even put his hands together as if to prayer. But still, it fell flat. It was Percy Jackson at half capacity, as if he was playing the character of Percy Jackson. Argument at the ready, but none of the true defiance. Where was the Percy Jackson that stood before the King of Gods and denied immortality?

To be silent is to know how to scream at the top of your lungs. To hold back is to know how to give yourself entirely. To be gentle is to know true violence, true cruelty.

“What happened to you down there?” Ares prodded. “Lots of things,” Jackson responded, vague, still tense, walls up.

“That is not an answer.”

“I don’t care.” This forced apathy was grating. And hiding was never Jackson’s style so what in the Hades was he hiding from?

Ares was fed up. “Is there anything you do care about anymore?”

“I care about lots of things. Just not this conversation.”

“I am still a God, Percy Jackson. You may have walked through Tartarus, but we are not equal,” Ares leaned forward on his knees.

“Don’t say that name,” Jackson shot back.

“You don’t get to ignore me just because you’ve gained a couple more titles since we last spoke.”

“Shut up.”

“Until one of those titles is God, then you better give me the respect I am owed.”

“I owe you nothing.” And now Jackson was getting angry. Ares fanned the flames.

“Nothing?” Ares was incredulous. “You think you fought in two wars, didn’t die and have nothing to thank me for?”

“What do you want from me, Ares?” Jackson yelled, standing up.

“For you to stop acting like a prisoner of a war you already won!”

Even with the power of a King, Queen, Rook, Bishop and Knight combined, Percy Jackson never left the frontline, even if the battle was just in his mind.

“I’m not acting like a prisoner—”

“You’re not in fucking Tartarus anymore, Percy—”

“I told you not to say that name,” Percy’s voice had dropped down to a whisper. But Ares heard it. And he froze.

It took Ares a moment to realize that he did not freeze of his own volition. He could not move his arms or legs. He could not turn his head. He could feel his veins pull on the tissue and muscles in this physical form. And when he looked up, Percy’s eyes were on him, iris and pupil gone, like a black hole sucking all the oxygen from the room and right out of Ares’ lungs.

Percy Jackson was, first and foremost, a child of the sea . . . he was a manifestation of the deep sea itself, as if he carried every chasm and abyss, where neither lightning nor rain nor wind could touch.

Ares couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t move his lips to speak, couldn’t even close his eyes just so he didn’t have to keep looking at Percy. This is the warrior. This is the Hero of Olympus and Bane of Giants, Titans and Gaea alike. This is every inch a soldier, a leader, divinity emanating from him.

This was the Percy Jackson that made monsters run the other way, that chose to shoulder and then survived two prophesies. This was the Percy Jackson that would be painted on temples and memorialized in history books. This was the Percy Jackson his children would hear about for generations to come.

This was the Percy Jackson of legend.

More desperate than he had felt in a long while, Ares tried a different route. What are you doing? He asked as calm as he could into Percy’s mind.

Percy blinked quickly and released whatever it was he grabbed a hold of, taking a step back. Ares could move. “I’m sorry,” Percy choked out. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Yes, you did,” Ares countered, calm because he recognized a moment of surrender when he saw one.

Percy shook his head, sitting down, and lowered his head down between his knees. “No, no, no,” he sounded on the verge of tears. “I wasn’t supposed to do that, not again.”

“Do what?” Ares asked. “Control it,” Percy looked up, seeming for the first time to be as young as he was.

He could feel his veins pull on the tissue and muscles in this physical form.

And Ares knew a weapon when he saw one. “My ichor?” he whispered. Percy just looked more distraught. “You controlled my ichor,” it was a statement and a question.

“No, no, I can’t,” Percy went back to muttering to himself. “That’s why you’re scared of your own anger,” Ares knew he was right. Percy’s anger had always seemed uncontrollable, but maybe it was more controlled than Ares thought. Not controlled by Percy himself, but limited by what he believed he was capable of. And now that he knew he could do more, and only Gods know how he figured this one out, he didn’t know how to control that anymore, so he just avoided it entirely.

Then, another thought occurred to him. “Your Father can’t do that,” Ares tested. Percy didn’t respond, he just had his head in his hands, eyes closed.

“Percy,” Ares said more forcefully, and Percy finally opened his eyes. “Your Father can’t do that.”

“He can’t.” Percy said this as if he had already realized this, which he surely had, but Ares was processing.

Ares hesitated. “So why can I?” Percy asked it for him, still out of it, talking to himself.

“So why can you?” Ares echoed. And this time, Percy actually heard him. Or it seemed so because he immediately stood up, bringing his now empty plate to the small sink. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“Yes, you do.” Ares got up to follow him. “I don’t,” he insisted. Useless. The kid was lots of things, but a good liar was not one of them. Manipulator? Sure. Stretching the truth to fit his agenda? Definitely. But outright lie? Not Percy.

“Yes,” again, Ares said more forcefully, “you really do.” Percy’s jaw clenched.

Crack.

Percy had broken the plate he was washing. Shards of glass scattering in the basin, slicing his fingers.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Percy refused to look at him, which was fine because Ares wasn’t watching him. He was looking at Percy’s hands. “Your hands are bleeding,” Ares said because he didn’t know what else to say.

Percy turned on the water quickly and Ares watched his skin heal itself and his blood swirl down the drain

Red and gold.

Chapter Text

The Rivers of Hell Are Calling

Hades was on the move.

That damned sea brat. How dare he?

On his black and gold chariot, Hades rode with nightmare horses and hundreds of Roman legionnaires and British redcoats. Soldiers made of bones and smoke but an army nonetheless, and Percy Jackson was in for a reckoning. Hades searched as far as he could see to the left and to the right. It took three passes across the landscape before Hades spotted him.

“THERE!” he shouted, speeding up.

He could hear Nico yelling at him to stop, but Hades could not, would not, risk it. He hadn’t built his palace in the Underworld, the safety of its walls and guards, for his idiot brothers to screw it up by losing the fight to his Father. There was no chance they were going to stop his Father in time and so Olympus would fall. They had barely been able to beat his Father the first time and that was with the element of surprise and all his siblings working together. He wasn’t convinced his siblings would be quite so unified this time.

But Hades would protect his family, his real family—Persephone and his son, even if his son didn’t like his methods. Hades had never been a priority to his brothers and sisters so why should he make them, or their children, a priority? And to trust a child of Poseidon with the prophecy? The prophecy that tells of a child who will preserve or raze Olympus? To trust that to a child who seems to have inherited every aspect of his brother, including his temper and his vengeance? Hades could not trust that. He would not. Hades had no doubt the kid would fight as hard as he could for those he loved, but it made him reckless.

Percy Jackson was more God than not. And the problem with Gods was that their love and their wrath often left the same scars.

So, yes. Hades was going to put a stop to Jackson’s endeavor into becoming the hero he so clearly wanted to be. One sort-of-brave demigod in exchange for Hades’ chosen family? His chosen home? There was no contest. The demigod could be lost to Tartarus for all he cared—this thought, and only this one, Hades would regret later.

“You will not escape me this time, Percy Jackson! Destroy him!” Hades shouted, making eye contact with the demigod himself. He wanted to see the realization. This petulant child who had stood up to him all of those years ago, looking every inch a version of his brother, Poseidon. He wanted to see him afraid, if only to prove that this already famed demigod could feel fear.

And yet.

Hades saw the moment Percy Jackson decided he would not be such an easy opponent. In years to come, Hades would swear this was the moment Percy Jackson’s blood saw its first drop of gold. This was the moment Percy Jackson stopped looking like his Father and started feeling like him.

Feeling divine.

Because when he yelled, the River Styx yelled with him. Ink-black water rose up ten stories high, casting shade and cold across the space between him and the Lord of the Dead. The Underworld was dark, but the air darkened with the wave, pulsing with anger. Hades could feel the air rush from behind him towards the wave, as if the wave was gathering strength from every available source, even the moisture in the air. Hades felt himself drawn to it, as if his body was being pulled to the wave, to its energy, as if the wave was drawing water from him.

When the wave smashed into the army, spears and shields flew everywhere and half his army dissolved into smoke. Jackson sliced through the remaining soldiers like an echo of Achilles or Odysseus. In many ways, Jackson was the same, but he was different in at least one. Achilles, Odysseus, and even Heracles, were constantly living up to their own shadows, trying to prove that they were the heroes in the stories told about them. But Perseus Jackson seemed to constantly loom larger than any shadow he cast, the stories didn’t quite do him justice. Because despite what he had heard, Hades still found himself pulling on the reigns of his steed, if only to watch in morbid fascination. Because Percy Jackson was a child, he had smatterings of acne and his voice still cracked sometimes. He was lanky, and he leaned into humor to distract from any serious conversation that wasn’t based in anger.

He was a child.

And yet.

Percy Jackson was also a cyclone, a typhoon, a hurricane. He was the wrath of the deep sea and the fury of a winter storm as he fought threw Hades’ army singlehandedly. Again, Hades was reminded of the heroes of ancient times in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Not just the amount of power, that had been undeniable since Jackson was a child, but the way he used it, the way he wielded it. It wasn’t like most demigods who used it only as a weapon, like a spear or an arrow. Percy Jackson used his power in every step he took, to heal wounds as they happened, as a shield and a locator. Every splash was like a beacon for his next target and he used water not just to attack, but to hold off, to defend, to distract. He used it like it was part of him, like it was in him, not just around him. It was incredible.

It was divine.

Hades raised his staff in an effort to fight back, but Jackson’s path of destruction had sufficiently distracted him. Not for long, but for long enough.

Next thing Hades knew, Jackson’s knee was planted in his chest and he had Hades’ collar in one fist, the tip of his sword right in his face. Hades found himself face to face with the Son of Poseidon. And he was angry.

Hades could see the violence in his eyes. How anyone at Camp Half-Blood ever looked at this boy and saw anything but the ancient power of the oceans was a mystery. If the deep blue color wasn’t a dead giveaway, then the whirlpools that lived in them should have been. But that wasn’t what Hades saw right now. Right now, this moment, would be the first time Hades saw Jackson’s eyes anything other than ocean blue. They were as dark as the River Styx itself, and just as alive, brimming with the kind of vengeance that only ever existed in the dark, in the crevices and caves where heroes hid that which would make them villains.

Most would say the beauty of the ocean was in its clear shallow water. But, for those who know it, the ocean’s true beauty lies in its strength and its power. Strength and power that could only be found in its darkest depths, in its deepest chasms.

The next time Percy Jackson came to the Underworld was a bit less antagonistic.

He showed up at Hades’ door, or more accurately, the Hollywood sign where he bribed Charon into a ride across the Styx. Hades is fairly convinced Percy could find his way on his own, but nonetheless, across the Styx he rode. He came equipped with a new toy for Cerberus and a self-sustaining bouquet of surface-level flowers for Persephone, surely from the combined efforts of Percy himself and the children of Apollo and Demeter. Maybe his satyr friend as well.

And what gift did he bring for the Lord of the Dead himself?

“Nothing?” Hades scoffed. “You brought me nothing?”

“Sorry, hard to buy something for the god of precious gems and jewels. Didn’t think the trappings of late stage capitalism would work for you,” Percy scoffed right back. “Weak excuse. Really? Nothing?” Hades pushed.

“Doesn’t the happiness of your wife and your dog count for anything?” he asked as he walked with Hades along the Fields of Asphodel towards the Main Gate. Hades sighed. “What do you  need Perseus?”

“It’s Percy.”

“Don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not about that, I don’t,” Hades shot back, rolling his eyes. Calling him Perseus was the last line of defense Hades could maintain. Many of his siblings and other divine family members already considered Percy a cousin or a nephew, but as long as there was even a drop of red in his veins, Hades would not risk it.

“So, what is it Perseus? Do you need a favor, need to talk to a soul? Is it Nico?” Hades asked in succession. Percy was usually pretty forthcoming, if not abrasively blunt, so the evasiveness was weird and out of character. “No, no, Nico is fine. Everyone is fine. I wanted to ask you about the river down here. Well,” he paused. “The rivers, actually. All of them.”

“All of them?” Hades asked as they reached the shores of the River Styx. “Yah, all of them,” Percy nodded, walking right up to the edge of the inky shores. “The Styx, the Cocytus, the Acheron, the Lethe, and the Phlegethon.”

Hades raised his eyebrows, turning towards Percy. “The Phlegethon?” he asked. “That’s not really my jurisdiction these days, you know.” Percy lifted an eyebrow in response, “I do know actually,” he said with an upturn of his lips. It wasn’t happy though and it dropped as quickly as it came.

“Yes,” Hades turned back towards the Styx, “I suppose you would. What is it that you want to know about them exactly?”

“Whose domain did they fall under before they were yours?” he asked. So, he had thought about it. Hades had been wondering himself since that day Percy leveled his sword at him. He wasn’t exactly surprised that Percy had a curiosity about the River, but that he thought to come to Hades about it and thought to ask about its history. A pursuit of knowledge was never expected from a child of Poseidon, but, then again, hasn’t Percy proven time and again he is no ordinary child of Poseidon?

“You mean before the Ancient times?” Hades clarified. “Yah,” Percy agreed, “before you all split the domains the way they are now.”

Hades paused for a moment, thinking where to start on his answer. “Well, I think they were your dad’s. Or they were the domain of a version of your dad I guess,” he opted to be direct in the same way Percy had.

“You guess?” Percy turned to look at him with a tightness around his eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. Hades couldn’t tell if it was frustration, exhaustion or both, but clearly that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

Hades tried to explain. “Yah, I mean, an educated guess, but truthfully, the era before the Ancient times, the Mycenaean era, is a little blurry for me. I wasn’t what I am today, not in this form or with these domains. Gods may persist, but we change with our domains. We don’t remember everything in the same way I can remember what happened when I was in this form as I am now. But the memory isn’t as great from the times before. I do know your dad was a pretty big deal in those days though.”

Percy flexed his fingers, Hades could see it out of the corner of his eye. The Styx started swirling along the banks, like it was trying to form waves, but wasn’t quite sure where the waves were supposed to go. Instead, hitting each other and ricocheting back into the water. Hades made sure to keep his eye on the River.

“It wasn’t a very long time before Zeus took over the role of King of the Gods, but when we first overthrew our Father, it was your dad that was going to take the role. Zeus was young, and I was tired, but your dad was steady and willing while we all got ourselves together. My sisters trusted him more. So, your dad carried a lot of the domains, more than most of us. He was always the strong one, still is to be honest. Like in the first war with you all, he never told us how bad it had gotten in Atlantis. I had an idea, and Zeus would’ve known if he cared to pay attention, the signs were all there, but your dad never wanted to burden anyone.”

Percy’s face remained focused on the Styx, not letting anything show. The only sign of distress was in the persistent flexing of his fingers and a tightness in the ridge of his shoulders. And if one were paying attention, which Hades was, the currents of the Styx changed directions with each clench of his fist.

“I suppose that’s something you got from him, isn’t it?” Hades could see Percy roll his eyes before responding.

“I don’t like asking people to fight my battles for me.” If Hades hadn’t seen him practice what he preached as many times as he had, he would call Percy an imposter and move on. But for all that Percy was a natural leader, he was a protector first.

Hades could see little whirlpools forming in the inky waters of the Styx. Small, harmless for now. “There’s a difference between asking people to fight your battles for you and to fight with you.”

“I know that,” Percy started. “But if I can handle it myself, I’m not going to get someone else involved who’s just going to get hurt.”

Hades just shook his head with a smile. “Gods, you sound just like your dad. When I asked him why he didn’t tell us about Atlantis during the first war he said almost the exact same thing,” Hades puffed his chest and lowered his voice in what was, of course, a very accurate impersonation of his brother. “’I can handle it myself, H, I don’t need you all to get in the way.’” Hades couldn’t hold in the laugh, and Percy just followed suit.

“He does kind of walk around like that, doesn’t he? Like he’s not quite used to standing on land and has to overcompensate,” Percy said still smiling. 

“Well, you know what they say about the sea,” Hades offered, knowing what his response would be.

“It doesn’t like to be restrained, I know,” Percy answered, monotone.

“True. But, it’s also an easy place to get lost in,” Hades corrected gently. And Percy turned to him, finally. Some part of Hades’ brain noticed that the River next to him finally seemed to all go in one direction.

How fitting that he would be the first the Goddess Styx allowed to manipulate her waters in centuries. This boy whose honesty and sincerity could surely render oaths unnecessary.

Percy’s eyebrows pulled together. “That’s not what dad says,” was his automatic response before he clamped his mouth shut as if he didn’t mean to say that. Hades chuckled, which earned him another small smile in return. “Your dad is far too invested in his catchphrases,” Hades was still smiling. “And he likes the mystery of it I think. But there’s a reason he stays down in Atlantis and not in Olympus.”

“After we overthrew our Father, and your dad was in charge for that brief time, we were all recovering. But your dad went out to sea, and it was like he never really came back. I don’t totally remember what happened, we were still ‘forming’ for lack of a better phrase, but whenever he was back with us, I could tell he just didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want to be in charge and so he handed it off to my brother, who was all too ready to assume the throne.”

This time Percy scoffed, his disdain for Zeus never far away, and Hades couldn’t help letting a smile slip. Hades had long ago accepted being the black sheep of his family, but that Percy clearly singled out Zeus in his obvious contempt was amusing, at the very least.  

“And your dad went back to Atlantis and basically stayed there. He comes back for the Council, sure, but he keeps his distance, I think for all of our benefit really. Zeus doesn’t appreciate being reminded that he was never the leader we chose, he was just the one we ended up with,” Hades explained, happy to have the protection of his domain so his brothers wouldn’t hear.

“Ah, so that’s where the inferiority complex comes from then?” Percy’s smile grew into his signature smirk. No doubt thinking of the multitude of ways he could use this information the next time him and Zeus disagreed.

Hades chuckled. “Probably. Not like you do much to help that, challenging him at every turn looking like a mirror image of your father.” Percy rolled his eyes.

“Do I really look that much like him? I feel like we just have the same hair color.”

“Maybe not as much now,” Hades acquiesced. It was true that Percy had grown into something uniquely Percy in the last couple years. His path had shaped him in ways that gave him edges where Poseidon curved and vice versa. “Though it certainly isn’t just the hair color, but you do look like him from back then. It’s like you look like my earliest memories of him, before he . . . settled.” Hades wasn’t sure that was the right word for it, but it was the best he could think of. Percy looked like the version of Poseidon that they all looked up to and trusted, who looked so alive, so divine.

Poseidon always seemed to wear divinity differently than the rest of them back then, even now sometimes, though he so infrequently let his full divinity show. Hades would watch his siblings, Zeus in particular, and see them cloaked in divinity, wearing it like ice, frozen in time. It was like they used immortality to stay still, but Poseidon had always used it to keep moving, cloaked in divinity like the ocean he controlled, never quite staying still. Percy wore it the same way, and Hades could see his divinity dancing along his skin.

The ocean and its waters go where it wants to go. Nothing, no power, can fight against it. It is patient and confident in its power. How else would it wear down stone for its rivers?

“So, hypothetically, would I be able to inherit one of those old powers from my dad? From before?” Percy asked hesitantly.

Hades raised a single eyebrow when Percy looked over at him. “Is that what’s been controlling the Styx this whole time? A hypothetical?” Hades asked. Percy’s eyes widened slightly, like he had been caught, but nevertheless he ignored the taunt.

“Not just the Styx though,” Percy said and that truly was something unexpected. The Styx was unique among the rivers. It flowed through Hades’ domain, but it wasn’t technically his. It was the Goddess Styx, though she had faded to more of an intangible force, not able to take a physical form anymore. The other rivers were his, again technically because he didn’t make it a habit to venture into Tartarus so frankly the Phlegethon was not his concern, but the Styx could be manipulated by any water deity if she allowed them. Hades had no control over that and Percy was the first in centuries who she had granted that permission, so Hades had never needed to concern himself with it anyway.

“Which other rivers have you controlled?” Hades wondered cautiously. He wasn’t sure he was going to like the answer.

“The Styx, which you know,” Percy started, throwing in a crooked, if hesitant, smile to which Hades lightly rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do know, thanks for that.”

“Right, so the Styx, the Lethe, the Cocytus and the Phlegethon.”

“You can’t control the Acheron?” An unnecessary clarification but all Hades could think to say.

“I haven’t tried.” Yet. Hades was pretty sure the ‘yet’ was just an unspoken certainty.

“Okay,” Hades started nodding to himself. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Okay?” Percy asked, voice raising at the end. “Okay is all you have to say to that?”

Hades could feel his eyebrows scrunch together as he held his hands out. “What exactly would you like me to say, Perseus? That’s cool? That’s weird? What is the appropriate response to the fact that you can control the rivers of the Underworld, including the one in Tartarus—”

“Don’t say that name,” Percy cut in and Hades felt like he had just walked into the Styx itself at his tone. Noted.

“Right, got it, so you can control the rivers of the Underworld, including the one below the Underworld, which may or may not have been part of your dad’s domain from over three thousand years ago. What do you want me to say?” Hades could feel his voice rising as he talked, could feel himself start to pace at the banks of the river.

“I don’t know, but something more helpful than okay would be nice here.”

Hades sat down on the banks, indignity be damned, he needed to sit. Percy started laughing, hysterical almost. “I mean, I just told you I can control the Rivers of the Underworld, which you don’t even control, you just use as far as I can tell. So, I can control these Rivers, that nobody has controlled in thousands of years,” he emphasized the ‘thousands’ in a way that made Hades clench his jaw, “and all you do is say ‘okay’ and sit down?”

“Well, why don’t you just take a seat with me and chill? Let me think for a damned second.” Hades was also feeling a little overwhelmed if he was being honest.

He could feel more than see Percy’s deep breath, pinching his nose. “Chill? Chill, he says. Come to a God for advice and that’s it. That people used to pray to you all for advice is wild. Just ‘chill,’ that’s all. Easy peasy, why not?” Percy plopped down next to him, seemingly foregoing any grace or agility. He wasn’t quite as lanky as he used to be, having finally gained back the muscle mass he lost in the Second War and hitting another growth spurt along the way if the fact that Hades had to look up at him ever so slightly throughout this entire conversation was anything to go by. He would have to adjust his physical form next time—no way was he going to let Perseus Jackson be taller than him.

With Percy sitting next to him, Hades let his mind wander back to those early days, back to when he first took over domain of the Rivers of Hell. Percy wasn’t exactly wrong that Hades used the Rivers more than he controlled them. Styx was, for the most part, amenable to whatever Hades needed her to do, but he knew he couldn’t do what Percy did with this river. And if what he did with the Styx was any indication of what he could do with the others then Hades was certain that he could not do what Percy could.

But Hades wasn’t sure what to tell him. He knew Percy wanted answers, but he was venturing into unfamiliar territory, not that the unknown would ever stop him from going. Even sitting down, Percy was restless. Looking to the left, Hades could see he had his trusty pen out tapping on his left knee, which he had pulled up to his chest and his left foot tapping on the ground.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the right answer for you, Perseus. Your dad is probably be the best source for these questions.”

Percy hung his head. “I don’t want to talk to my dad about this. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’ll be excited about it. About what it means. He won’t want to know the why or the how, he’ll just see the end result,” Percy looked over to Hades. “It’s not something I’m ready to celebrate yet.”

How do you look someone you love in the eye, someone who’s always wanted you to fly, and tell them you’ve grown a pair of wings, but you’re scared of heights?

Hades caught the implication there. He was ascending. “So, it’s for real? You’ll be joining us in eternity? As the God Perseus Jackson?” Hades could see the flinch, as if Percy’s entire being was rejecting the notion.

“Whether I want to or not, apparently.” And Percy sounded so immeasurably sad that Hades had the ridiculous urge to reach out and pull him into a hug. But that was dramatic, even for him, so he settled for a hand on his shoulder. Percy turned to look at him in surprise. Grey eyes latched onto Hades, the color of a rainy day when it feels like any step outside is a step against nature. As if the Gods themselves are telling you, life isn’t worth it today, just go to sleep.

Hades wasn’t sure what the right thing to say was. Percy seemed to have accepted it but accepting and wanting were two different things, and Percy was someone used to deciding his own fate. He chose a potentially fatal prophecy in his third year of knowing this world even existed just so that Nico didn’t have to. So, Hades couldn’t understand how Percy had arrived at this melancholy acquiescence. If he was to be forced into immortality, it should be kicking and screaming with Riptide in one hand and a tsunami in the other.

Fate may be inevitable, but that does not make it predictable, ideal or desired. Fate can lead the willing, but it drags the reluctant.

“So, what? That’s it? You’re just giving into it?”

“Giving into it? It’s not something I can really avoid. Trust me, I’ve tried and, clearly, the Fates have other plans for me.” The disdain in his voice was potent, like a poison just before the kill—lethal but contained. But who was the target?

“Listen Perseus, you may not be able to control the ‘eventually’, but you can control the now. You can control the path it takes to get to ‘eventually’ and I’ve never known you to follow a road just because someone told you to.”

“I’m just so tired. I’m tired of all of it. I never wanted to be a demigod, let alone a god. I didn’t want to be a hero or a soldier or anyone. I’m tired of my mom looking at me like it’s the last time she’ll see me every time I leave the apartment. I’m tired of my friends looking at me like I have all the answers. I’m tired of fighting with all of you over literally everything and I’m tired of trying to change a world that clearly doesn’t want to fucking change!”

He took a deep breath in and released it, rolling his shoulders back. But that didn’t stop Hades from noticing that the waters of the Styx had been crawling up the banks, the normally nonexistent waves hitting knee height as they hit the shore, and waterspouts popping up in the distance. His anger had always felt divine, but this was more than that. This felt eternal.

“Yah, but it’ll change anyway. It has to.” Hades knows this suddenly with certainty. That there was a reason Percy seems to be collecting powers in the domains of every Olympian. If he had to guess, his domains will be variations on water from his father, some type of law or justice from Zeus, war from Ares, the rivers from Hades, and so on and so on. Clearly the Fates wanted a change, and they thought Percy was the way to do it.

“What?” Percy asked, all the anger drained out of him, looking impossibly young for all that he had done in his eighteen years.

Hades heart broke for him. “I’m sorry you have to keep doing this Percy, I’m sorry that you have to keep saving us. I’m sorry that we keep needing to be saved. I’m sorry that being the Hero and Saviour of Olympus is never going to be an accomplishment for you, that it’ll always be a job. I’m just,” Hades sighed. “I’m just sorry.”

Hades could see the first tear fall from Percy’s eye. Percy heaved a sob so deep, it felt like the whole of the Underworld breathed with him. The Styx was restless, and the skies darkened. And for the first time ever, it rained.

Chapter Text

To Live Forever in the Stars

“Heroes,” Artemis started as she stepped down from her throne, returning to her typical physical form. She was careful to keep her face neutral, knowing that any favoritism, any emotion would alienate her Father. He needed to listen.

“The Council has been informed of your deeds. They know that Mount Othrys is rising in the West. They know of Atlas’s attempt for freedom, and the gathering armies of Kronos. We have voted to act.” She could hear her family mumbling behind her but ignored them in favor of watching the demigods in front of her.

“At my Lord Zeus’s command, my brother Apollo and I shall hunt the most powerful monsters, seeking to strike them down before they can join the Titans’ cause. Lady Athena shall personally check on the other Titans to make sure they do not escape their various prisons. Lord Poseidon has been given permission to unleash his full fury on the cruise ship Princess Andromeda and sent it to the bottom of the sea. And as for you, my heroes . . . These half bloods have done Olympus a great service. Would any here deny that?”

Artemis hated the surprise she saw in the demigods’ eyes before she turned to face her family. She hated that her and her family, for surely her own apathy to the heroes had played a part, were so self-involved that simple acknowledgement of these demigods’ sacrifice shocked them.

“I gotta say these kids did okay. Heroes win laurels—”

Thankfully, Hermes interrupted Apollo before he could gain any momentum, which of course led to Ares then Poseidon and so on. Artemis could only roll her eyes at her family’s bickering but tuned back in at her Aunt’s addition.

“—children of the three elder gods such as Thalia and Percy, are dangerous,” Athena said before gesturing in Ares’ direction. “As thickheaded as he is, Ares has a point.” Quickly, Artemis realized that this idea was gaining steam. Athena, ever her Father’s little princess, wanted to make sure Zeus got what he wanted. And Zeus wanted Percy Jackson gone. But Athena forgot as she always did that Zeus had other children. And Zeus considered his children an extension of himself, no matter how distant they were. He would not sacrifice them in the same way he would not forgo his pride. So Athena had miscalculated because Zeus did have another child that factored into this decision.

Thalia Grace.

Artemis chanced a glance behind her to see the demigods watching her family argue like it was a swordfight and all the demigods had were pens, and not Percy Jackson’s pen. She felt her eyes naturally drift to Jackson himself, to see if he too looked like he was waiting in line for his execution.

No, of course he didn’t. If Percy was a ship set aflame on the water, he would make sure whoever lit the match went down with him, swallowed by the same smoke and saltwater. And even the abyss would flinch at his arrival.

Before he could say something undoubtedly stupid and impulsive, Artemis stepped forward. She didn’t speak up often, but there was something about this young boy, this young hero, that she wanted to speak up for. If for no one else, for her beloved lieutenant Zoe, who could never see injustice and stand by silently, who she could feel watching her from the stars.

“I will not have them punished.” All eyes swung to her, mortal and immortal alike. But it was Percy’s she could feel in the back of her head. She knew it was him. She was the Goddess of the Hunt and she knew what it felt like when a predator was watching her, sizing her up, deciding if she was friend or foe. She straightened her spine.

“I will have them rewarded. If we destroy heroes who do us a great favor, then we are no better than the Titans. If this is Olympian justice, I will have none of it.”

Percy Jackson had become the bonus little brother Artemis neither asked for nor wanted.

“You’re spending too much time with Apollo.”

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. “At least I’m not speaking in sonnets or iambic pentameter.”

“Yes, but you do know what iambic pentameter is,” Artemis pointed out earning a small glare. “And that is already too much.”

Percy continued walking forward.

“See, you know I am correct,” Artemis added, taking the lead back on their path.

“That’s not how acceptance works. Silence isn’t a yes, you know,” Percy argued back to which Artemis turned around with a grin to meet Percy’s amused eyes. “Well, you didn’t deny it. So, in this case it is, I think.”

“No, it isn’t. I feel like you need to watch the tea video they made us watch in sex ed.”

Artemis pulled to a stop. “Tea video? What do herbs have to do with anything?”

“It’s not about the tea, it’s about like if you want tea or if you don’t want tea then you wouldn’t bring me tea, like if I said I didn’t want—” Percy cut himself off. “You know what, I’ll just show you the video when we get back to base camp.”

Artemis turned to continue to walk, adding a short, “If you must.”

“Oh, I must. In fact, I should do a showing on Olympus—you all could do with a refresher on consent.” Well, Artemis though, he wasn’t wrong.

“I thought you were avoiding Olympus these days,” Artemis pulled back to walk alongside Percy glancing to the side as he kept his eyes dutifully forward. “Word on the cobblestone streets is that you skipped the last Winter Solstice.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why they want me there. All they wanted to do was congratulate themselves and act like the last seven years are already in the past. It’s like we all are already dead to them, so they can retell the story as they see fit.”

Artemis knew he was right. She had seen it firsthand. The last solstice, only a couple months ago, had been disappointing to say the least. Artemis kept to the sidelines as she typically did, but she barely lasted through the first speech her Father gave before she left.

“They say history is written by the victors.”

Percy chuckled, but it was cold and heavy. “Well, tell your dad next time that he should remember who actually won those wars. Who actually fought in those wars. Better yet, he should remember who actually died in them.”

“Don’t act like I am unfamiliar with my Father’s cruelty. Or that I am unfamiliar with loss.”

They had danced around this subject before, but Artemis could admit that she and Percy were similar in their approach to grief—best not to talk about it.

“I know that you have lost, Lady Artemis, but—” he cut himself off.

“But?” she pushed though she was tempted to let the subject drop, she knew that they would have to at least acknowledge their grief given that in at least one instance, it was shared. For her beloved Zoe.

“But can it really be the same for you? I know you have lost, I know that,” he emphasized this as if already defending himself. “But I know how you are with the Hunters from Zoe, from Thalia, from you. It’s not . . .” he trailed off and she could appreciate that he was choosing his words carefully, but she did not appreciate the implication.

“You think that I do not feel loss the same way because I have, what? Seen so much of it that I must be accustomed to it by now?” Artemis asked, a bite to her tone that Percy took note of in a careful flick of his eyes, no doubt gauging exactly how likely he was to be bitten.

He held his hands out in a placating gesture. “I just mean that when you lead the troops, when you’re moving the chess pieces, then maybe you don’t feel the same when one of them dies as you would if you were on the frontline, if you were just a pawn.”

“And in this scenario, you think yourself ‘just a pawn’ all these years?” Artemis asked sharply. Percy Jackson was smarter than he wanted people to believe, and he was well aware of his role in the last two great prophecies. She did not appreciate his attempt at humility.

“Yes,” he replied, more confident than she anticipated. “It took me years to even figure out where the board was and what the pieces were. It took me years to figure out who was on my side and who wasn’t.”

She went to cut in, but he barreled on. “I am well aware that at some point,” he looked to her, “at some point years in, they started to look to me as a leader, but I wasn’t controlling shit. I didn’t choose to play, I didn’t choose to take those risks, that decision was out of my hands. You get to choose. You choose to let people in that you can lose. When I fought the Minotaur, I didn’t know immortality was even a thing, I didn’t know that was on the table at all.”

Artemis stayed silent, considering, part of her indignant, part of her wondering if he was right.

“I’m not saying that you don’t deserve to grieve. I know you loved Zoe, and all of your Hunters. But I think sometimes I just wish you all would get that it’s different—you, your dad, my dad, all of you. It’s like you guys all get to choose when to care and when not to care. Dionysus knows every campers’ name and refuses to ever use it in some twisted fucking game to keep himself from caring. My dad chooses to care about me and when he loses me—” Percy corrected himself with a frustrated groan.

“If he were to lose me, then I know he would move on until he has another above average kid. It took me turning down godhood, which was a waste of fucking time apparently, and forcing all of them to swear on the Styx to get them to acknowledge their kids, which are basically the only non-immortals you all interact with anyway. And I know you don’t have children and you have your Hunters, but—”

And this time Artemis did cut him off. “I get your point.”

“So,” he said, gentler this time. “When you all host a party and the people, the children, that died don’t even get mentioned? I have a hard time believing you all understand loss the same way we do.”

And the thing is, Artemis sort of agreed. She had seen the looks on the faces of the veterans who did show at the Solstice, which had in fact been the sixth Olympic party since Gaea had been scattered, and she could see how angry they all still were and less of them showed up to each party. So, she let the subject fade to silence, understanding that perhaps Percy just needed to speak out loud, and she could not fault him for growing weary of carrying the grief of children killed, children he knew and fought with.

They continued to walk in silence, growing closer to their destination. Artemis had been working with Percy for months now on getting him more familiar with terrain and wilderness. Weeks after his eighteenth birthday, Artemis overheard Percy lamenting to Thalia that he felt he had lost his connection to nature and the wild while in Tartarus.

He had always been connected to the wilderness, more than most children of the sea. The others always respected nature, they got along fine with nymphs and nereids of the rivers and lakes. But in the end, most sea demigods were fish out of water, always just slightly off kilter, eyes a little too dry, shoulders drawn too tight, as if the trees and the grass and the moss on the rocks sucked the water out of their pores.

But Percy Jackson was made of water in ways no other had been. When he walked through trees or along flower beds, or even just through weeds on the road, it was like every stem of life could feel him, opened up to him, knew that he wasn’t there to cause any harm. Percy Jackson always gave parts of himself so freely, Artemis was convinced he didn’t even realize it most of the time.

Even now, walking through the White Mountains along the California-Nevada border, Artemis could feel the wilderness wake up to welcome him. Otherwise dried out brush and trees were suddenly just a shade greener and the water in the creeks trickled down just a touch clearer than it had before. Whether her Father realized it or not, whether he would admit it or not, Artemis was pretty sure it was this version of Percy that he feared the most.

Water is the essence of all life, even the gods, not air, not love, not blood. Water can exist without life, but no life can exist without water.

“Is this the tree?” Percy asked, having made it ten yards ahead of Artemis without her even noticing. He stood next to the base of a mangled pine tree, growing up diagonally with leafless branches sticking out in all directions as if in its quest to reach the clouds, it took a few wrong turns. “Yes, this is the tree.”

“What was it called again? The Mesuthello?” Percy asked stepping up beside and tilting his head back to look to the top of the tree.

“The Methuselah.”

He ran his hand along the bark and asked, “so why are we visiting with Methuselah today?”

And Artemis could see the tree recognize Percy as a friend. A breeze came through and it was as if the Methuselah let out a sigh of relief, as if it had been carrying the weight of all its years on its branches and that’s why it was all twisted up.

But Percy had always been good at carrying others’ burdens. He shouldered them as if they pulled him up instead of weighed him down.

“How old do you think this tree is?” Artemis asked.

He ran his fingers along the ridges, dragging his hands to the base of the tree where the roots sunk into the earth and back up along the branches as far as he could reach, which, Artemis noted, was decidedly higher than he had been able to reach last time they were in California together.

Artemis let him take his time. This boy-turned-man, child-turned-soldier, demigod-turned-hero had taken his impulsive nature and learned how to take his time. She had seen it first hand as they walked mountains and canyons and plains. Without fail, every time they reached their destination for that particular day, he would take a deep breath and run his hands over anything he could reach. Though Artemis was fairly certain he was reaching even further in his mind. Sometimes she felt like he was studying her but when she would look at him, his eyes would always, always, be closed.

But she was the Goddess of the Hunt and she knew when she was being watched. And Percy Jackson was always watching.

“At first glance, she seems—”

“She?” Artemis raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, she, Methuselah,” he didn’t even spare her a glance at her tease. These were the moments where she could see why Percy and her brother got along so well. Percy may not be academic in the way Annabeth Chase was, and she truly was brilliant, a daughter of Athena for the legends, but Percy was intuitive, and he was curious, and given the time and opportunity, he could be brilliant in his own way. He was also, like her brother, quite . . . eccentric.

“. . . seems younger based on her size. There were larger pines of the same species on our way in, but I don’t think so.”

“What do you think Percy?”

“I think she’s seen a lot. I think she’s been here longer than any human has been. Maybe longer than some gods.” For the first time, since finding the tree, Percy looked at her and his eyes were clear blue, almost translucent as if waiting to reflect the world around him.

Artemis stepped towards him, laying a hand on the bark herself. “That’s correct. Methuselah has been here for nearly 5000 years, dating back to the era of our Fathers’ youth. It’s the oldest individual tree in the natural world right now.”

“Individual?”

“There are some plants and trees that can . . .” Artemis searched for a word that would apply. “Reproduce? That’s the most accurate description. Certain plants and trees can reproduce on their own so whole forests are genetically identical. Methuselah does not do that. She is the oldest living tree that is entirely unique from any other of her species.”

Percy took a step forward, and just to prove that Artemis was right to defend him all those years ago at the Solstice, he bent forward and touched his forehead to the bark.

Paying his respects. Because Percy Jackson could recognize the quiet beauty in battle scars and the bravery in simply enduring a storm.

He stepped back and took a seat, pulling his backpack off to undoubtedly take out the multitude of blue foods he always packed for their adventures.

“So,” he started after he got settled. “Back to the original question, why Methuselah today?”

Artemis took a seat next to him. “I thought perhaps you’d like to see it.” He looked up, raising an eyebrow. “And?” he dragged the word out.

“You have been struggling with the concept of eternity, have you not?”

“Are you telling me this tree is immortal? Really?” He was putting up walls, avoiding the topic more than her she hoped.

“No, but 5000 years is an eternity for you in essence right now, is it not? I thought perhaps putting a time into perspective, that a lifetime does not mean 72 years for every species.”

He was just watching her, calculating. Percy Jackson was more cautious than most gave him credit for. He was labeled impulsive, easy to do, when it was actually just his instincts. It was trusting himself without hesitation, moving before the rest of the world has caught up.

She was the Goddess of the Hunt and she knew what it felt like when a predator was watching her, sizing her up, deciding if she was friend or foe.

Artemis was sure she had long since proved that she was a friend. So, she waited and eventually, Percy took a deep breath and he let those walls down brick by brick. His shoulders dropped, and he rested his head on his hands covering his knees, which he had pulled to his chest. He turned his face towards her.

“It’s not the length of time that scares me, it’s the . . . it’s like there’s no end in sight. There’s no stopping. There’s just forever. And what am I supposed to do with that?” He lifted his head to look at the Methuselah, like the answers lived in the weather scars carved into its trunk and branches. And what was she supposed to say to that?

How do you convince someone to walk a road if they know that once they start, there is nothing waiting for them at the end but another road to walk?

Percy broke the silence before she could think of a response. “You know, Chiron told me once that immortals have to live by ancient rules, that the ancient rules are all of your restraints, but heroes can go anywhere, do anything, challenge anyone. And I think that’s my problem. That’s what I don’t understand—”

“Please do not say that the sea does not like to be restrained. I fear your Father would engrave that on his forehead if he could.”

Percy shook his head sharply, frustrated. “No, that’s not—I mean—the sea doesn’t like to be restrained. That’s true but also not true at the same time.”

“I do not understand.”

Percy shifted his whole body, turning towards her on the ground and his eyes had found their muse. The color of midnight, deep blue and endless, agitated in the way only a night sky can be right before lightning or thunder. They were the feeling of a new moon, darkness and shadow hiding galaxies and supernovas and black holes alike.

He continued. “The sea doesn’t like to be restrained, right? But that doesn’t mean there are never any limits at all. The tide is constrained by the moon, the waves by the tide, the shoreline carved by the waves. Even the animals of the sea are tied to their migration patterns, to their breeding seasons.”

Artemis cut him off before he could keep going, though she liked seeing this passionate side of him. It reminded her of her brother when they were young in their godhood, so eager to learn and figure out the world and his place in it.

“What’s your point?” she asked.

“My point is that I liked my limits. I liked being mortal. I liked knowing that I had one life and I could choose to live it how I wanted. That I could risk it how or for whoever I wanted to. It was mine. I don’t know how to live for something if I can’t die for it too.”

Ah, she could see it now. What would this hero, who had only ever fought to survive, fought not to die, do if he could not die? What would he fight for? He had learned to use his life as a weapon, as a bargaining chip, he did not fear Death. He had dared gods and titans and primordials, secure in the knowledge that even if he died in battle, he would take his enemy with him.

If Percy was a ship set aflame on the water, he would make sure whoever lit the match went down with him, swallowed by the same smoke and saltwater. And even the abyss would flinch at his arrival.

“Then grieve it,” Artemis said.

“But I’m not dying?” he asked.

“Aren’t you? You are losing a life, are you not?”

“So that’s it? My life isn’t mine anymore?” Percy asked. And he was devastated. She could hear it in the emptiness of his voice. Percy came alive in anger and joy, but he died in sadness, in resignation.

“No, but you still have a choice. The battlefield may have changed, but you still get to play the game. You still decide how to play. I wish that I could fix this for you, I would undo it if I could,” Percy deflated a little at that, as if he had been holding onto hope that her patronage of eternal youth could turn the gold in his veins back to red. “But the Fates do not listen. Even to the gods,” Artemis offered, sad for this boy who had grieved beside her for Zoe, who had grieved for his friends and his foes.

The world is cruel in its need and Percy Jackson had always shown too brightly to just burn out. Some stars must be seized from the sky before they can fall.

“But then what’s left of me?” Percy asked.

“What do you mean?”

Percy stood, walking back towards the Methuselah. He ran his hand along the bark again before turning to her.

“If my life isn’t mine, then what’s left? If I’m doomed to forget these eighteen years after a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years have passed . . . then what will be left?”

Artemis stood as well, walked up to stand in front of him. This, she knew, was important. Percy Jackson was a hero, he was the Hero of Olympus, twice, the Savior of Olympus, Bane of Gaea and Kronos and Giants and Titans, Slayer of the Minotaur, Bearer of the Curse of Achilles and Atlas, Demigod of two Great Prophecies and a Survivor of Tartarus. He was all of those things and she hoped he would be remembered for them.

“Who’s to say you are doomed? It’s still you. What’s left is the part that remembers. The part that has always fought. The part that no one can steal, not Kronos or Gaea or Tartarus,” his eyes flashed, cold and dark and dangerous, “that’s the part that’s left. Guard it with everything you are, Percy Jackson, and it will be more than enough.”

“Really? Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” she said fiercely. “This ancient world, our world, has always been yours, more than you know, more than any of use cared to admit. So, if you want the rules to change?”

And she saw the moment it clicked for him. She was certain that if there had been any left at the beginning of today, that in this moment there was not a drop of red left in his blood. He straightened, standing tall, somehow taller than he had been just early today though it wasn’t a tangible growth. Like the sea itself had stretched him out, like the storms in the sky were pulling him up. He wasn’t the rebellious child who had stumbled through Camp Half-Blood, he was a God ascended in the battle-stricken streets of New York and Olympus, in the flames of Tartarus. He was more than he had been, carrying a quiet confidence he didn’t have the luxury of until now, but he was still exactly himself all the same.

With a familiar mischievous glint in his eye, the beginning of a smirk daring the Fates to do their worst, Percy Jackson answered her challenge.

“Then I’ll change them myself.”

Chapter Text

The Enemy of My Enemy

“Fine animals, horses. Wish I’d thought of them.” Hermes tried for a joke. Percy Jackson didn’t laugh. Hermes sighed. 

That’s fair. 

Percy turned to face him, half surprised but half not. Even as young as he was, Percy Jackson had already grown accustomed to divine intervention. 

“Hermes?” Percy asked. He was exhausted, eyes a dull blue, heavy with more than a thirteen year old should have to carry. He offered Hermes a half smile, an attempt at levity that didn’t quite land. 

Hermes offered one back, just a twitch of muscle, nothing else. But truthfully, Hermes didn’t feel much like laughing either.  “Hello, Percy. Didn’t recognize me without my jogging clothes?” 

Even though he wasn’t here to make small talk, even though he could taste the bitter resentment building in his throat towards this child, a child , Hermes couldn’t help himself. He’d never known how to confront things head on. Never known how to start the conversations he needed to have. And what kind of messenger god doesn’t know how to have a conversation? What kind of messenger god has nothing to say? He had always been better at passing along truths from person to person than delivering his own. 

“Uh,” Percy hesitated. And it almost made Hermes angry. He could feel that bitterness land on his tongue and sit behind his teeth. Percy Jackson had stood up to gods and monsters, but it was this that made him hesitate? “Oh, listen, Lord Hermes, about Luke,” he hesitated again , “we saw him, all right, but--” 

Hermes had no patience for the rambling. “You weren’t able to talk sense into him?” 

Maybe it was cruel. To ask the question as if it was Percy’s failing and not Hermes’, but Hermes sort of felt like it was. Percy had managed to do all these impossible things. He was already a demigod of legend and he was barely a teenager. If he couldn’t pull Luke out of this, then who could? Hermes knew better than to think Luke would ever find comfort in him, but he had held onto the hope that maybe he could have found it in Percy Jackson. 

A hug and an apology will never undo the original hurt. Sometimes it helps the healing, but sometimes the hurt has already sunk in, bone deep. Too little, too late. And hurt is hurt is hurt. 

“Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death,” Percy tried to shrug it off, but Hermes could see the tightness in his shoulders and the way he wouldn’t meet Hermes’ eyes, looking just over his shoulder or down at the ground. 

“I see,” Hermes took a step forward deeper into the stables. “You tried the diplomatic approach.” 

Percy still wouldn’t look at him. He had turned from taking care of the horses, but he was leaning against the stable, arms crossed in front of him, kicking his toe into the ground. 

“I’m really sorry. I mean, you gave us those awesome gifts and everything. And I know you wanted Luke to come back. But,” Percy grimaced. He was so young . In this moment, Hermes couldn’t see any of the legend he would one day become. He just saw a tired, awkward child not quite aware of the length of his limbs or the strength of his convictions. 

“He’s turned bad. Really bad. He said he feels like you abandoned him.” 

Hermes wanted to be angry. He wanted to yell and scream. Angry at Percy for giving up, for accepting that Luke is beyond saving. Yell at his Father for that stupid decree, for making him a bystander more than a dad. Scream at the Fates for, well, all of it.

Hermes wanted to say he was sorry too. Apologize for being too proud to interfere when he saw Luke was unhappy, too confident that The Fates would take care of it. Apologize for asking Percy to interfere instead, for putting more weight on his already tired shoulders. 

Hermes sighed. “Do you ever feel your father abandoned you , Percy?” 

At this, Percy looked up at him, meeting his eyes in a challenge. It was a question with no good answer. Yes, because Percy had a tough life even as short as it’s been and Poseidon knew about it but did nothing to help. Yes, because Percy walked into this life being told he was a mistake but a powerful one, a weapon. Yes, because he had lived his life believing he needed protection but the older he got, the more he would start to believe that he was what people needed protection from. Yes, because he was limited not by power, but by his ignorance of his own power and that scared him more than any monster he would face. But also… no, because Percy didn’t know he had someone to miss until a year ago and even then, Poseidon had never made promises he couldn’t keep, he was smarter than Hermes for that. No, because if any part of Percy relied on Poseidon now, it was small and hesitant. No, because Poseidon’s fatherly assistance was convenient but unnecessary in Percy Jackson’s life. 

So, Percy gave no answer and Hermes did not wait for one. 

“Percy, the hardest part about being a god is that you must often act indirectly, especially when it comes to your own children. If we were to intervene every time our children had a problem,” Hermes trailed off, looking down. 

“Well, that would only create more problems and more resentment. But I believe if you give it some thought, you will see that Poseidon has been paying attention to you.” And that was true. Hermes could say with absolute certainty that Poseidon was always paying attention. “He has answered your prayers. I can only hope that someday, Luke may realize the same about me.”

Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t right. And he could feel Percy’s eyes pinning him down, telling him, you idiot, that door is closed, the hurt is in Luke’s blood now, it’s in his DNA, your hope is wasted on him . But Hermes wasn’t ready to accept that. “Whether you feel like you succeeded or not, you reminded Luke who he was. You spoke to him.”

“I tried to kill him.” 

Percy said it with finality, with a confidence Hermes had forgotten about while Percy was masquerading as an awkward pre-teen talking to his slightly estranged cousin. Now, Hermes could see the boy who challenged gods and monsters alike, who would go on to do more, so much more . And now, Percy was challenging him , seeing if he would . . . what? Punish him? Smite him? Reason with him? Ask him not to do it again? Hermes knew this was a test, a poke and prod to see what kind of reaction he would get, but Hermes couldn’t tell what the right response would be or if there even was one. He felt suspiciously like no matter his response, it would prove Hermes to be exactly as Percy expected.

Hermes sighed. “Families are messy.” Not his strongest start, but there was something not just challenging, but predatory in Percy’s eyes. It made Hermes feel like he was talking to his Uncle, not his Cousin, as if a storm was building off the coast, having already decided to make landfall but trying to figure out where it could go to cause the most damage. And those on the shore could only wait for the storm to decide.

And anyone who says they do not fear the storm is either a fool or a liar. And sometimes they are even both. 

“Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related, for better or worse,” Hermes thought of every fight he had with his cousins, his siblings, his Father . 

“And try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The corridors of Olympus were decidedly quieter than they had been in the last year or so, since the war with Gaea, or, as his Father would say, since the “unquestionable, indisputable Olympic victory against Gaea.” The first time he made that particular pronouncement, Hermes could feel the anger in the air, could see Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, Grover Underwood, all the veterans, pull their shoulders back, stand up a little taller, Hermes could taste the divinity, the rage , in the air rolling off of them. Thalia had broken the tension first, then Annabeth, then Clarisse and so on through even the Romans like Piper and Reyna. They all had something to say, an objection to lodge, yelling over each other in indignation, desperation or something in between.

The surprise was Percy Jackson, who had stood in the back, arms crossed, looking every inch the true victor of a war. He was angry, of course he was, and Percy’s anger had never been quiet. It permeated the room, spread through the air and into the ground. But Percy never opened his mouth.

Hermes could see Athena and Ares watching him closely; Ares knowing what the calm felt like before all out war and Athena being smart enough to never take her eyes off the most dangerous weapon in the room. Because that’s what Percy was, that’s what he had become, a weapon, but the trouble was that with the war over, nobody was really sure what he would fight for, or against, now. 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. At least, until the common enemy is lost. And we remember, we were never really friends in the first place. 

That was the last time Percy Jackson had been seen on Olympus. Until today. 

The Olympic Council had not convened yet. But they would, soon. Hermes was sure that his family all knew Percy was here, he never went anywhere unnoticed anymore, but they were giving him a wide berth, they saw the same danger in him that legends would one day try to capture in poems, songs and stories. 

Because right now, standing at the edge of Olympus, Percy Jackson looked dangerous. He looked like something raw, unfinished, all sharp edges and unpolished walls. Hermes had seen ascension before, in his siblings, his cousins. They usually wore it like it was tailored just for them. The moment their blood turned gold, it was like the world could be remade in their image. Apollo burst into song, looking like he was lit by the sun from within while Dionysus had dove headfirst into his madness, ready to drown in it. 

Percy Jackson didn’t look like that. He looked like someone who missed being able to die. He looked like a hurricane barely contained beneath his skin, like a thunder storm before the first strike of lightning. Heavy, weighed down by a kind of gravity, a magnetism that pulled mortals, demigods and gods to him. It wasn’t the weight of ego or ambition that he had seen in Apollo or Dionysus, it was the weight of something far more dangerous. The weight of conviction. 

Conviction only means something if it costs something. You can’t really stand for something if you know you’ll never fall for it. 

Percy turned his head to the side, so Hermes could see his profile. He could see Percy’s camp beads glint in the sunlight, hanging on by a thread, daring the wind to send one more gust and sweep them away. 

“So you’re the only one brave enough to come near me right now,” Percy said, half of a dry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Hermes barked out something between a scoff and a laugh, torn between taking the threat seriously and laughing it off. “Brave? Should I be scared?” Hermes stood even with Percy, changing a glance to the side. 

“I don’t know yet.” So Percy’s honesty hadn’t burned away along with his mortality. 

Hermes kept his gaze parallel to Percy’s, looking out at the makeshift horizon that drew the line between New York City and Olympus. “You used to be funnier, you know. Sarcastic, dry. Usually,” Hermes paused. “Well, especially, when the world was ending.”

“Is the world ending?” he asked. 

“Not that I’m aware of.” 

“Well, maybe that’s what I’m waiting for.” There was that jagged edge again. Unpredictable. One wrong step and it would cut, and someone would have to bleed. 

Hermes had to ask, because Percy Jackson wasn’t stupid, no matter how much he wanted people to believe he was. “You do know why they’re all avoiding you right?” 

“Do I?” Percy turned to him sharply. His eyes. He remembered when Apollo first uttered the phrase, ‘if looks could kill,’ the first in a long stint of poetry about Medusa to provoke Athena and Poseidon both. Hermes felt the truth of those words now for the first time in centuries. Percy’s eyes were black ice, see through but impenetrable, invisible in a way that only made the ice that much more dangerous. 

“They don’t understand it. What the Fates have done to you. It scares them.” 

Anyone who says they do not fear the storm is either a fool or a liar. And sometimes they are even both. 

“Like I fucking understand it? Like I was the one who chose this ?” Percy hissed it out, his eyes sharpening, hollowing out. He didn’t radiate divine light, he absorbed it, extinguished it. Percy’s hand curled into a fist. And Hermes couldn’t help the glance down, his eyes caught on the fingers curling into his palm. He felt himself flinch. It felt like the whole of Olympus held its breath, waiting to see what he would do.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. At least, until the common enemy is lost. And we remember, we were never really friends in the first place. 

But Percy saw him look down, saw him flinch. And that was his mistake. “Did you actually just flinch?” Percy scoffed out, some poor imitation of a smile curling at his lips, a touch of madness bleeding into his eyes. A question with no good answer. 

Admission made him a fool, telling the threat that he felt threatened. Denial made him a liar, threats do not take kindly to being ignored. 

“That’s how you see me? After everything? A threat?” Lightning waiting in a building storm. The first shift of tectonic plates before the earth cracks open. 

“No, I don’t,” Hermes started. But Percy wasn’t done and he was already angry. He took another step forward, Hermes had to stop himself from taking a step back. 

“You think what? That I’m the next big bad monster? The next Kronos? Gaea?” Percy’s smile widened. Wrong. “You think that I’m the next villain in the ‘unquestionable, indisputable Olympic victory’ your dad will rewrite the story of?” 

“No,” Hermes interrupted him, taking his own step forward. Clearly, this was something that had already been building. Clearly, Percy had already been teetering on the edge of something. Whether it was being back on Olympus or something else entirely, Percy was radioactive. And Hermes felt like he was diffusing the bomb with no instructions.

“I don’t think that, Percy. I think you’ve been through a lot, I think you’ve lost too much. I think you’ve been chewed up and spit out by this world, by our world. I think everyone is waiting to see where you fit and worried that you won’t. That’s what scares them.” 

Whatever had curled his lips up, pulled them down now. “Then let them be afraid. Let them be cowards, hiding in the shadows!” And that he yelled, looking around them at the corners and walls that surely hid more than one eavesdropper. 

“Careful, Percy.” Hermes felt his gaze harden. He was still a God after all. 

Percy closed the distance. They were less than a hand's width apart now. “Why?” Percy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What are you going to do about it? Are you going to smite me, Lord Hermes? For bruising your godly ego? Do you think you even can anymore?” 

He asked it like an invitation .

“Would that make you feel better?” Hermes snapped back at him. “If we treated you like the villain you cast yourself as? You think any of us want to deal with you right now? Like this? We’ve watched you escape death and do impossible things over and over and over again. The rules don’t apply to you. You think that shouldn’t scare us? You think it shouldn’t scare the ones that wrote them?”

And if anger was his sword, then grief was his shield. And Percy had his shields up now. But instead of protecting himself, Hermes felt like Percy was protecting him.

“I don’t know! I never asked for any of this,” he yelled back, trailing off at the end, voice cracking. A leak in his shield, letting his grief through.

Even the strongest dam gives way to the river eventually. 

“We know that, Percy. You think we don’t know that?” Hermes let his own laugh out now, sharp and hollow. “Do you really think we are not all painfully aware that you never wanted this? They’re not afraid because of what you can do, but because you don’t even want to know all that you can do. They’re afraid because you’re the only god who’s fought this hard against it, who mourns the person they were instead of figuring out who you are now! You won’t even risk it!”

And suddenly everything went wrong. The sky, the light, the wind. It all went wrong. Hermes was familiar with storms, tempest winds, violent typhoons. He had navigated the world through every major storm and weather pattern in history, but this was something else. This was something that bled from the ground through the railings and columns, into the sky. It felt like it pulled at his tendons and bones, holding him in place. Hermes felt like if he turned to look at that makeshift horizon, it would be vibrating, shaking with something. 

Percy’s voice came out solid, steady. “You all think this is mercy? That I haven’t razed Olympus to the ground because I’m merciful?” The echo of the prophecy hit Hermes like a tsunami slamming through a city, taking skyscrapers and lives all in one swoop. 

Hermes had seen Percy angry before. He didn’t think there was any immortal who dared to cross his path who hadn’t seen him furious, especially the gods. 

Percy’s anger had never been quiet. It permeated the room, spread through the air and into the ground. 

So whatever anger they were used to, the fleeting flame of a teenager’s rage, this was not that. This was the wrath of the deep sea, this was violence meant to swallow ships whole. This was eternal and ancient. This was potential. But gods didn’t have potential, gods were finished products, stagnant. 

There’s a reason they say to know thy enemy. You don’t fear an enemy for what they’ve already done, you fear them when you don’t know what they’re willing to do.

And Percy Jackson was still holding back. None of them, not Hermes, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis or anyone knew exactly what he was capable of. They had all just assumed he didn’t know either, but apparently that was their naivete. Because the Percy Jackson that stood before him was not someone ignorant of his own power. This Percy Jackson had explored all of the ragged edges and contours of what he could do. Of the havoc he could wreak. Hermes had the distinct feeling that he was still holding back. That he hadn’t even played his Ace yet. And there was an Ace, Hermes had seen it in Ares eyes months ago when he came back with sand in his boots smelling of salt.

Now, Hermes let his gaze drift, to see if he could see what had changed, to see what Percy was holding back. He still looked like his father, of course, but something had changed. He was still mortal-esque, but he wasn’t all at the same time. His figure didn’t bulk like Ares, it wasn’t polished like Apollo’s. It wasn’t even weathered the same as his dad’s, who looked like he had spent centuries in the sun on a beach somewhere. 

Percy Jackson looked like he had earned his immortality. Calloused hands from his sword, muscles built on a battlefield not a training ground, scars littered across his skin in a constellation of the stories that would one day be the Myth of Percy Jackson. Where immortality usually smoothed out the edges, unblemished the skin, immortality kept Percy Jackson frozen in time, like it had given up after it won the battle for his blood. 

So Percy’s threat landed. And Hermes, son of the King of the Gods, stepped back. Percy matched his step, his eyes flashing. 

“I’ve dug more graves than I can count. I’ve fought gods. And I’ve saved them too. I’ve held the sky. I’ve defeated the Minotaur, Medusa, the Hydra, Hyperion, Iapetus, Akhlys. Am I missing anything? Oh! I fought Kronos. I fought Gaea!” They were eye to eye now, noses almost touching. “I walked through Tartarus. I looked him in the eye .” 

Somewhere, something cracked open. Hermes didn’t know what, didn’t know if he heard it, if he saw it, if he just felt it. Hermes could feel his hands twitch, every exit route on Olympus flashing through his mind. His mind was flashing DANGER. But Percy wasn’t done.

“And now what,” he took a step back, turning in a circle directing this to the shadows again with his arms out, inviting his audience forward. Nobody stepped out. “You’re all waiting for me to explode? Huh? Is that it?” 

Now he was facing Hermes again. And Hermes didn’t know what to do .

Because he knew that Percy Jackson wasn’t bluffing. He wasn’t posturing. He wasn’t putting up a front. This wasn’t even a threat. He had no desire to rule Olympus so he had no need to threaten them. So here was this boy-turned-demigod, demigod-turned-hero, hero-turned-god, barely keeping himself together because he didn’t want to break Olympus just by existing. And Hermes could feel it, feel something, in his veins, in his ichor holding him there, forcing him to bear witness. 

“I may not have chosen this, Lord Hermes , but don’t think for a second that I won’t use it. Because I promise you, if I wanted to, if I really wanted to, there wouldn’t be a third war. There would be no rubble, no casualties. There would be nothing.” 

And for the first time, in a long time, Hermes felt real fear. Not the wariness and distrust he and his family often dressed up as fear. This was ancient. This was the kind of fear that carved warnings into stone for generations to come. This was a line in the sand and Olympus had stepped too close. 

Hermes raised his hands slowly. “Percy,” he started, taking one slow step forward. “I’m not your enemy.” 

And Hermes could feel it, even as he said it, how close he was to being wrong. Because for just a second, just a moment, Percy’s eyes flashed to an abyss, to a chasm, a void. And that was scarier than anger. 

Anger could be irrational, but it wasn’t without reason. And it could be reasoned with. It could be understood. But a void? That nothingness? That would swallow the world whole.

But the flash was gone and Percy Jackson was once again standing before him. Angry, tired, indignant, but still Percy. “Then for fuck’s sake, stop treating me like I’m some kind of nuclear bomb you’re just waiting around for and hoping will detonate as far from Olympus as possible.”

And then Percy let out a sigh. The smell of salt still lingered in the air and the ground still felt unsteady, but Olympus let out whatever breath it had been holding too. 

“Don’t make me into that, Hermes. Don’t make me be the monster. I don’t want you all to turn me into the thing I fought my whole life against.” 

And before, maybe Hermes would have told him, ‘Percy, you’d never do that,’ but Hermes knew better now. He knew Percy had the capacity for darkness just like the rest of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to use it, it wasn’t even that he wasn’t willing to. It was that he still cared about the consequences of it. The crime still had to be fit for the punishment. And to punish the entire world with his rage required a crime that hadn’t yet been committed.  

That’s what made him dangerous. That’s what made him necessary. Who but the gods could commit a crime big enough to need a reset?  

Olympus had more than enough gods who stood above the world, high on their pedestals, moving the chess pieces around as they saw fit. What Olympus had been without, had never really had, was a god who remembered it, who remembered what it felt like to bleed. 

And Percy Jackson was the only one who could do it. Of that, Hermes was sure. So, if Percy Jackson didn’t want to be a monster, then Hermes would not make him one.

“Then, don’t let us. ” 

Chapter Text

The Power of Yielding 

The Hall of Gods hadn’t felt like this in millenia. Hestia’s family were all seated in their respective thrones, Zeus at the head, dark and thundering as he waited. The whole room felt on the precipice of something out of their control. 

You all think this is mercy? That I haven’t razed Olympus to the ground because I’m merciful?

They had all heard it. They may not have been hiding behind pillars like Percy had thought, but they could hear it. Olympus, the city itself, sometimes had its own agenda. And Percy Jackson had screamed for an audience, so Olympus made sure one was listening. Although, looking around, Hestia isn’t sure they all heard quite the same thing. 

Zeus heard a threat, no doubt. His eyes sharpened, his divinity barely contained, turning his dark skin to obsidian, glinting off the lightning in the storms gathering overhead. Athena was watching her dad carefully, cautiously. Apollo was too, though not in the same way as Athena. She watched Zeus like a referee, someone who knew the risk that someone would be hurt, but only really cared about who got the penalty after. But Apollo watched like a medic in war, having been there too long to believe the rules of warfare would stop the bodies from ending up in his tent. 

Ares had gone still, like a sharpshooter holding his breath to find his target. But if you looked closely, you could see his finger, just the pinky on his left hand, tapping on the armrest of his throne. The fidget was uncharacteristic, Ares was so physical in his disposition, he usually didn’t need reminding of his ability to move. Dionysus, for once, had no distraction in hand, no glass of wine-turned-water, no magazine or newspaper. His eyes were fixed down at his steepled hands, looking for the first time in decades like he did when he still had red in his blood. 

Artemis and Aphrodite forced Hestia to pause in her observations. They were near mirror images of each other, something Hestia couldn’t remember having ever seen. They both sat with a leg crossed sitting back in their thrones, an air of indifference while their eyes tightened and their knuckles whitened on the armrests. 

Poseidon and Hades were looking at each other, no doubt in a silent conversation, devising who would step in if things went as bad as they thought it might. Whether they were stepping in to protect Percy or stop him, well, that had yet to be decided. 

Then the Hearth flickered, crackling like somebody had shaken the coals from below. It was rage, it was defiance, it was messy, written in the language of smoke and ash that her family had forgotten how to speak long ago. When Percy Jackson stepped foot in the Hall of Gods, looking like the physical manifestation of a summer storm, dark and foreboding like he had been dragged from the deepest trenches of the ocean, she could only wait and watch to see if he would extinguish the fire or let it burn. 

Would he learn to hold the flame, as she did, to keep him warm without letting it burn him to the ground? Without letting it consume everything?

When Percy stopped, it was in the middle of the chamber, next to the Hearth. He turned to her and she could see it in his eyes, the grief, the loss, the end of the line. He was tired of fighting himself, though she wasn’t convinced he was tired of fighting them just yet . 

When none of her family spoke up, she stood. “Welcome home, Percy.” He gave her a bow, just a short incline of his head, not of obligation or duty, but of respect earned. “Thank you, Lady Hestia.” She returned it. They waited, a moment suspended in time, to see if anyone else would speak up. No one did. 

Then let them be afraid. Let them be cowards, hiding in the shadows!

Percy turned to face the rest of them. “What?” he raised an eyebrow. “Nothing to say? You summoned me here. So?” Though his voice boomed through the Hall, it was clear the target was singular and it hit. The King of the Gods bristled, narrowing his eyes. 

But it was Hera who spoke. “Don’t play stupid, Perseus, it doesn’t suit you,” she said, voice sugary sweet as if that would disarm him. And she accused Percy of playing stupid?  

“You know why you are here,” she finished. Percy didn’t even look at her when he spoke. “And you are not the one who summoned me, Hera, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to hear from the one who did.”

She stood, face twisting into a scowl. “You dare—”

But Hera froze when Zeus held his hand out to her, palm out. Percy hadn’t even flinched. “Perseus, while perhaps out of turn, my wife is not wrong. You know why you were summoned. You are a god now, we must—”

“What?” Percy interrupted him. “Figure out what to do with me? Take another vote? Your usual option of killing me is off the table so what’s the multiple choice we’re dealing with today?”

She could see Poseidon wince. Apollo went to stand, a low “Percy” slipping out in warning, but Zeus sent him a sharp look and he sat back down, if reluctantly. Hestia knew this was a power move. Zeus was posturing. When he summoned Percy here, he had wanted an audience and it didn’t matter if he changed his mind. 

Olympus was listening.

“You are a God now, boy. The days of acting like a petulant, impertinent child are over. In this room, we show each other respect, ” he practically spat the word. 

“Oh, do you now?” Percy asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer. “And let’s clarify something here, I didn’t choose this. I am a God now,” Percy paused a moment here, the only sign of uncertainty, as if he had never heard those words from his own mouth before. “But I did not choose this, I didn’t want it. Nobody asked my permission, the Fates just did what they wanted, as always . There was no deal, no bargaining, there were no terms. I am a God, one you all helped make, by the way. It was this or die, and by the time I realized this was happening, dying was impossible. So trust me, you’re not the only one disappointed that killing me is off the table.” 

The chamber stilled. Poseidon’s face crumbled. Ares smirked, though not unkindly, almost sad, as if it was a confirmation of what he already knew. Hermes flinched. Aphrodite pulled both her hands to cover her mouth. Artemis looked down. Even Hades, from his guest throne, leaned forward, hand half-raised before he caught himself. Hestia watched. The silence was a threat, a sword sharpened. It was a line drawn in the sand that no one in this room could plead ignorance to anymore. 

Immortality was a sentence, not a gift, and Percy Jackson was serving it before he’d ever committed a crime . So what did he have to lose? How would he earn his sentence?

“So what is it you want then?” Athena was the first to recover, direct as per usual, knowing that you cannot fight an enemy if you don’t know why they’re fighting. 

Percy sighed. “That’s my question,” he said, still not turning his attention from Zeus. “What do you want from me?” 

Zeus tilted his head, his face thunder wrapped in disdain, but still performing . “I think we’re all curious what your next steps will be, Perseus.”

Before Percy could form an answer, Dionysus stood. “He will take my seat.” 

And whatever breath Olympus had been holding was released in gasps, scoffs and a chuckle bordering on hysteria from Hera.

“What?” Percy whispered as he looked away from Zeus for the first time.  

“You can’t do that!” Hera scolded Dionysus as if he was still a child. Hestia stood. “Yes, he can,” she said, meeting Dionysus’s eye with a nod he returned. After all, she had done the same for Dionysus when he ascended. 

“When I ascended, we were dependent on the blind worship of mortals,” Dionysus started, looking at Percy only. He began walking forward and Hestia watched the vines on his throne begin to wither. Irreversible. 

“People wanted to forget, they wanted ecstasy, they wanted us to be untouchable so they always had something to reach for. They told our stories and sacrificed to us at ceremonies and celebrations. Once upon a time,” Dionysus flicked a glance at Hestia. “They even worshipped us in stories, fables, legends passed down around meals, around campfires .” 

“That’s not what it is anymore, that’s not what they want.” Dionysus said it with finality and a confidence that had become unfamiliar on him. Though a good reminder to those who had forgotten, Dionysus was ancient and eternal like the rest of them. It made everyone listen, it kept them from interrupting. “They want someone they can touch. They want something tangible, something real, someone who can bleed . They want you, Percy. You inspire them in a way I just can’t anymore. That’s the only reason I was on the council in the first place, but my era has passed.”

Dionysus was face to face with Percy now and he put a hand on his shoulder. “I was worshipped because I let them forget. But you didn’t become a god by being worshipped. You are a god because you survived, because you forced them to remember .”

Percy’s brow furrowed as he took a step back, shaking his head. “No, I’m not—”

“You are.” Apollo said, voice light with something like awe. “That’s one of your domains, inspiration, it has claimed you.” 

Percy looked to Apollo and then back to Dionysus, brows pulled together in a question. Dionysus nodded, a half smile pulling at his left side. Percy stared for a half beat and then nodded back, shoulders settling under their new weight. The abandoned throne grew new vines, of seaweed and tree roots. A throne built from the sea and the earth, grounded and strong.

“Don’t disappoint me, Peter.” 

And for a moment,  just a moment , it seemed like everything would be okay. But Hestia knew better. She watched the flame in the Hearth flicker once, twice and then still, not steady but tense, waiting . Then, the sky darkened above them, the energy went static, the smell of ozone poisoning the air. 

Zeus was angry . 

Not the irritation they were accustomed to, the kind he used to silence petty arguments and dissent. This anger was older, sharper, electric and dangerous in its power, the kind that could take sand and make it glass. He stood. 

“You have overstepped. Presumed there was a choice where none existed.” His gaze landed on Dionysus, accusatory. “It is not your choice to abandon your seat on this council. It is not something you can discard so easily.” 

Dionysus gestured to his, no Percy’s throne. “And yet,” he said calmly. 

“And you,” Zeus snarled, thunder humming through the Hall. Everyone was tense, waiting to see where lightning would strike. “You strut in here, having just threatened my council, threatened to dismantle all of this, dismiss my wife, my daughter, insult the gift of immortality again and now you plan to take a throne you never earned?”

Another shift. Poseidon straightened, meeting eyes with Hades across the Chamber. It felt like the whole of Olympus was torn between leaning in and taking cover. 

But Percy didn’t move, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t perform. And the fire in the Hearth bent towards him anyway and the storm above darkened. The clouds deepened. The storm changed . This wasn’t an Olympus storm, this was the storm that lived underneath Percy’s skin, born of the deep sea, designed to drag ships down, designed to drown.

When Percy spoke, it was cold. It was pressure. It was laced with something ancient. “I may not have asked for this throne, but let’s not pretend I didn’t earn it.” 

This time it was Percy that took a step and the marble cracked . 

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Even, and perhaps most especially, when it is carried as a burden not a right. 

“I know you all were listening out there,” Percy’s mouth pulled into a cruel smile. “I won’t bore you with a recitation of my resume. All the ways I’ve carried your responsibilities while you all sat up here in your towers. All the battles I’ve fought while you sat in your thrones and watched kids bleed .” 

Zeus practically growled. “That’s enough, Perseus.” 

But Percy wasn’t done. He took another step. Crack . “No, you have to listen to me now. I’m an Olympian, Uncle, and in this room, we respect each other, right?” Percy threw Zeus’s words in his face like a curse. “So let’s be honest with each other, out of respect . You’re not angry because you don’t think I earned it. After all, you’ve offered immortality to me before, remember?” 

Percy’s voice was steady, he wasn’t yelling, he was angry, sure, but quietly, kept tucked behind his teeth not looking to draw blood. Another step. Crack . “You’re angry because I didn’t bow to you. Because I won’t.” Percy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re angry because I didn’t flinch when you raised your voice.”

Lightning cracked. The wind whipped overhead, battling itself for control. The floor rumbled, the air static enough that any stray spark would burn Olympus to the ground. 

“Remember who you speak to, boy!” 

Another step. Crack . They were only a couple feet apart now and Percy hadn’t broken eye contact once. The room shifted. The wind whipping overhead had picked a side. Something ancient stirred in the stone. Even Apollo’s throne dimmed. This was a story that needed to play out, it was inevitable. It wasn’t just Olympus watching, the Fates were too. Hestia could not begin to fathom the amount of strings that depended on the result of this moment.

“I know exactly who I’m speaking to, Lord Zeus .” A collective breath. “ Do you? ”

Zeus’s eyes went white, glowing against his skin, a lightning strike against a moonless night. All of Olympus flinched, not in surprise, but in remembrance. They had seen this before, the reminder of who the King of the Gods truly was. 

But Percy didn’t flinch. He didn’t move. And before anyone could act, Zeus threw the bolt. Not as a threat, as a strike, meant to hit its target, white-hot and deadly aimed right at Percy’s chest. 

Poseidon jumped to his feet, as did Hades. Apollo stood, hands glowing. Dionysus lunged forward from where he had retreated next to Hestia. Ares leaned forward, hands on his knees. But it was too fast, too sudden.

And then it was gone.  It didn’t land. It didn’t miss either. It was just gone, died mid-air. Percy hadn’t moved. There was no shield. There was no show of power, no performance. It just disappeared, as if it had been swallowed by a void so deep that the sky could not follow.

Percy Jackson was, first and foremost, a child of the sea, and whatever lightning was in Zeus’ eyes, Percy Jackson stood like he knew it could not touch him. As if he was a manifestation of the deep sea itself, as if he carried every chasm and abyss, where neither lightning nor rain nor wind could touch.

The air smelled of salt and blood. Zeus was frozen, hand still stretched out. Percy hadn’t shouted, he hadn’t threatened or fought back. There was no eye for an eye. Another step. Shatter . The marble floor cracked into webs surrounding him. 

Percy just existed and all of Olympus felt the weight of it. 

“Do it again,” Percy whispered, voice steady. “I dare you.” 

I may not have chosen this, Lord Hermes, but don’t think for a second that I am unwilling to use it. Because I promise you, if I wanted to, if I really wanted to, there wouldn’t be a third war. There would be no rubble, no casualties. There would be nothing.

And there it was. The thing . What had made them all wary, made them all cautious. Percy had always looked like his father, but they had never felt the same. And now, Hestia could tell why. 

Percy Jackson wasn’t just of the seas and the oceans, he was forged in fires even the gods tried to forget existed and there was no better way to start a fire than with a strike of lightning. He was sharpened and honed in chasms, in the abyss, in Tartarus itself. However Percy had survived the things he had, the choices he made had consequences and it seemed Olympus was only now starting to see them. 

And Zeus, King of the Gods, God of the Skies, hesitated , his hand still frozen in mid-air. Just for a moment, but long enough that she saw everyone take note in a quick tilt of the head, blink of the eye, flinch of the knuckle. This wasn’t familiar anymore . 

“You challenge me?” Zeus asked, voice strong and confident like a default setting, but the crease in his forehead said otherwise, the uncertainty in his eyes. “You are handed a seat on Olympus and now you challenge me for the throne?” 

No King will concede power without there first being a demand for it. So does it follow, by default, that those immune to the power, who would use their own body to shield others from it, must be seen as that demand? 

“You think I want to fight in another war after the last two? No, I don’t. I didn’t come here to declare a war, you brought me here to make sure that when the next inevitable battle comes that I’ll be on your side. You want me to be afraid of you, I know that. Because if I’m afraid of you, then I won’t want to fight against you, right?  But I’m not and I never will be afraid of you. Fear isn’t the same as loyalty and my willingness to fight for you was never made of that. So,” Percy paused, looking towards what was now his throne before turning back to Zeus. 

“So, if someone has to keep you all in line. If someone has to be willing to say enough is enough, to make sure you keep your promises. If that someone has to be me, then so fucking be it. That’s what I’ll be.”

Hestia could see when it clicked for Zeus, where Percy fit in this story. He was a physical check on divine power. He would never bow, he would never be silenced or bribed. The burden he carried was not to rule Olympus, it was to hold it accountable, to hold up a mirror to it. There would be no rose tint, no blurry edges, Percy Jackson had seen the worst of what this world could offer, things worse than gods. And it wasn’t just that he had seen it and survived, he had made the choice not to become it when he was given every opportunity to. He carried darkness, more than most, but he refused to let it be all that he was. He was dark and light, in equal measure. He wasn't afraid of his darkness, he didn't use the light to ignore it. He could take both, he carried both, and so he was the only one who could hold that mirror to all of them, who could see the dark and the light and not be tainted by it. 

Apollo gasped, quiet, but enough to cut some of the tension. “Yes. Yes, that's right. Percy Jackson, God of Inspiration, God of the Abyss, of the Deep Seas, but also, God of Balance, of Reflections, of Reciprocity,” Apollo paused, looking up. Percy turned to meet his eye, something passing between them, a conversation the rest of them were not privy to. “God of Mirrors.” 

So, no, Percy Jackson would not rule Olympus. But when the King took a step, made a move, threatened the delicate balance of the universe, he would feel eyes on him. Percy would keep Zeus honest. He could not prevent from him from acting, but he could prevent the rewriting of the story.

Because even Gods, no matter how divine, no matter how powerful, even the Gods needed witnesses.   

Chapter Text

Good in Moderation

Zeus was angry . 

Athena could feel it. It was an old and ancient kind of fury, brittle in the way something once strong is weakened by its own inability to bend. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t once strong. It doesn’t mean that the anger can’t still incinerate the world. 

When Zeus stood, Athena didn’t flinch. She was too familiar with her Father’s anger, but she paid attention. She watched closer as she saw him take a step down from his throne, the thunderstorm gathering creeped in closer, the edges of the Hall of Gods darkened. 

Zeus turned his ire to Dionysus first. “You have overstepped. Presumed there was a choice where none existed. It is not your choice to abandon your seat on this council. It is not something you can discard so easily.” Athena did not disagree. This was a brick pulled out in the foundation of the carefully crafted power structure her Father had built and maintained. Dionysus was new to the Twelve by Olympian standards and to abdicate his place without permission from Zeus was a threat to that. It brought all of their thrones into question. 

Great empires don’t fall all at once. Great empires fall in degrees, in bits and pieces. Great empires toppled by enemies can rise again, but those that crumble from within will never rise again. 

But the thing was, the thing was, the Fates did not lift empires, they were not loyal to kings. So when Dionysus acknowledged that his throne had already accepted Percy, Athena stayed silent. She watched and waited, she could feel it. This wasn’t just a change in players, this was the Fates rewriting the rules. 

She watched Zeus turn his jagged anger to its real mark. Percy Jackson, the boy-turned-hero-turned-god, stood in the center of the storm, shoulders back looking into the eye of the storm. Even if it hadn’t always, Zeus’s power fed on fear and the one thing Percy Jackson would not give him was fear. The Hearth bent in time with the lightning flickering above their heads, but Percy Jackson did not flinch. 

“And you, you strut in here, having just threatened my council, threatened to dismantle all of this, dismiss my wife, my daughter, insult the gift of immortality again and now you plan to take a throne you never earned?” And that was his mistake. Zeus’s accusations were the antithesis of every decision Percy Jackson had ever made. 

It was becoming clear that Zeus misunderstood Percy on a fundamental level. It was the wrong logic on the wrong heart. Percy Jackson did not fight for power, in fact he rejected it again and again and again. Athena was sure Percy would have rejected it today if he had been given a choice. 

I am a God now, but I did not choose this, I didn’t want it. Nobody asked my permission, the Fates just did what they wanted, as always. 

This was not about ambition, this wasn’t even about power, this was necessity, this was the Fates shifting the scales. And so the storm and the clouds shifted too. Tornadoes became a hurricane. 

“I may not have asked for this throne, but let’s not pretend I didn’t earn it.” Zeus had issued an ultimatum, he had demanded submission for power and this was Percy rejecting it. This was how lines were drawn, this was a declaration of war. But Athena stayed silent. The rules were still changing, the players hadn’t been set yet. 

“I know you all were listening out there, I won’t bore you with a recitation of my resume. All the ways I’ve carried your responsibilities while you all sat up here in your towers. All the battles I’ve fought while you sat in your thrones and watched kids bleed.” 

Athena tried to read her siblings and for the first time in a long time, she couldn’t read them. Ares was watching, but he wasn’t itching, he wasn’t moving. War was brewing and Ares was still . Poseidon, who normally kept his eye on his Brother, ready to step in at any moment to protect his prodigal son, wasn’t watching Zeus, he was watching Percy. The pieces weren’t moving the way they were supposed to. 

Zeus tried to draw another line, but Percy rejected it. “No, you have to listen to me now. I’m an Olympian, Uncle, and in this room, we respect each other, right? So let’s be honest with each other, out of respect. You’re not angry because you don’t think I earned it. After all, you’ve offered immorality to me before, remember?”

Percy Jackson was impulsive and reckless and dangerous and immature, but he wasn’t stupid. And he knew, just as she did, that Zeus’s anger wasn’t truly about Percy being powerful, it was about Zeus feeling powerless. It was because Zeus believed in a finite amount of power in the universe and he thought that Percy’s share of the power would take from his. 

“You’re angry because I didn’t bow to you. Because I won’t. You’re angry because I didn’t flinch when you raised your voice.” 

Her Father tried one more time to keep the scales from tipping away from him. “Remember who you speak to, boy!” 

Percy Jackson set his checkmate. He issued his own demand, his own declaration of war. “I know exactly who I’m speaking to, Lord Zeus. Do you?” 

Athena held her breath. She saw the bolt form in Zeus’s spine before her family did. She rose a half second sooner than they did. She felt it in the air. She saw battle lines and tried to place her family on their respective sides, but everyone kept moving around, uncooperative and unpredictable. 

And then—

The bolt was gone. 

It vanished. 

But there was nothing, as if the bolt had shot straight into a darkness the lightning could not survive, a chasm that swallowed it whole. And while every other god in the chamber reacted, jumping forward, Athena’s mind was working as she sat back down. She watched Percy take a step forward and she could see it. Percy Jackson was a child of the sea, he was salt and sand, but here and now, he was also the God of the Abyss, he was Tartarus made conscious and for a moment it seemed like Tartarus was calling him back. He took a step and the floor almost gave way beneath his gravity. 

“Do it again, I dare you.” 

The scales had shifted. 

“You challenge me? You are handed a seat on Olympus and now you challenge me for the throne?” And for once, Athena didn’t believe the threat from her Father. 

It was an old and ancient kind of fury, brittle in the way something once strong is weakened by its own inability to bend. But that which is brittle can always break. 

And Athena knew, she knew , that Percy Jackson was the Fates’ attempt at balance. He hadn’t retaliated, not because he couldn’t, but because he wouldn’t. Not yet. He had restraint in a way none of them did anymore. It was his self-imposed limitation that made him dangerous and he would hold them all to the same standard. 

He was the line they could never cross. And that made him more powerful than anyone in the room. Because what would keep him from crossing it?

Athena feared the Fates may have overcorrected.  

God of Inspiration, God of the Abyss, of the Deep Seas, but also, God of Balance, of Reflections, of Reciprocity, God of Mirrors. Percy Jackson. 

Apollo may not have spoken it into existence, the Fates are the ones that forced divinity on a hero who had never shown it any interest, but Apollo made it real. He made it tangible and forced them all to look it in the eye. He’d left no room for doubt in his prophecy. Percy Jackson was a God and they had eternity to grapple with it. 

So that’s how Percy found her. Grappling. 

She had watched him stare down Zeus in a battle of wills in the middle of the Hall of Gods and she had watched her Father step back. He didn’t yield, not exactly, it was more like an acceptance. Like a man who knew he had been haunted his whole life and was finally seeing the ghost emerge from the shadows, surprised not by its existence but perhaps by the shape it took. It was a man, a god, who didn’t fear his ghosts but knew enough not to want them in the light too long. 

Athena had watched Percy hold still for a moment, take a breath while her Father stepped back. He let the audience, Olympus had no doubt been listening, marinate in the brief ceasefire. The message was clear. Percy would never be the one to cross the line, but whoever did would be making their final move, attempting a checkmate but underestimating their opponent as Percy so often had been. And they would lose. 

And then he took his seat in the throne and her Father said something no one really listened to before dismissing the council and storming out. Poseidon, in a moment uncharacteristic of him, followed his younger brother, not his son. 

It was Artemis that first approached Percy, followed closely by her twin. Artemis wrapped Percy in a hug with a gentleness she hadn’t seen from her sister in ages. Percy was smiling . Apollo followed after with a hug of his own and whispered words. She watched Hades, Lord of the Dead, who as far as she knew held no real love for the new God, walk up and lay a hand on his shoulder. Percy reached up and gripped his wrist as he listened to whatever Hades said in a voice too low for her to bother trying to hear. She watched as Ares walked out of the Hall of Gods and though he didn’t approach Percy directly, she could hear him call out. 

“You let me know when you’re ready for a rematch, kid. I’m here.” Percy’s smile turned wicked as he nodded. 

What?  What part of the board was she missing? Had the rules been rewritten before she even realized Percy was in the game? Why was no one else grappling?

She watched with her arms folded, hidden in the shadows at the edge of the Hall, while everyone else filtered out, everyone except Percy. And for just a moment, she saw him unguarded, he took a breath touching the roots looped around the arms of his throne, but before he even finished the exhale his shoulders tensed and Athena knew she had been caught. But he didn’t speak.

Percy was calm, waiting for her to make the first move and Athena was still grappling. 

But Athena would not be caught hesitating so she stepped out of the shadows, voice thin as a blade. 

“You should not have done that.” 

Percy turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. “Which part exactly? Or did you have an issue with the whole thing? Because if I recall correctly, you didn’t exactly try to stop me,” he trailed off and Athena narrowed her eyes. 

“What did you hope to accomplish with that performance, Perseus?” She walked towards him, the echo of her footsteps bouncing on the walls. 

They were alone, Olympus had turned away. 

Percy scoffed. “You think between me and your dad that I was the one performing up there? Really? We both know you’re smart enough to see what just happened.” 

Athena stopped just in front of him, raising her hand to point a finger to his chest. “You are a god now, Perseus, you have to act like one. You are an Olympian, this council is built for eternity, it is a structure that has worked for ages and it is far older than you. There are rules that you cannot ignore just because you do not want to follow them.” 

She didn’t yell, but her voice was firm. And Percy just held her gaze. He had his own weight now, a gravity that pulled in the shadows around him, heavy and solid with the strength of someone holding back simply because he can. 

“Rules are not the same thing as justice and I care a whole lot more about justice than rules written from before I was born,” he argued. 

“Justice without rules is just chaos, Perseus. An eye for an eye, a life for a life, revenge run amuck.” 

“And rules without justice is just another way to say tyranny, Athena. I will not bow to a tyrant just because someone told me too.” 

And there she saw it, what Apollo had spoken into something she could touch, something she could talk to. A mirror. She was the Goddess of Justice and here he was reminding her of her own importance. Because it was the unspoken, I don’t know why you bow to one, that forced her to really look at him, to see parts of herself reflected in him in that way. 

She had studied in marble halls with ancient scholars and learned strategy from a tent with generals of legend. She learned the theories and the laws, then applied them to debates and battles. But Percy was forced into war before he even knew his role in it. Rules and philosophy were something he learned by doing, by being on the frontlines, by making the tough decisions philosophers created in their heads. His was the story they wrote proverbs and fables about, the kind they told kids around campfires to teach them right from wrong. 

And suddenly she remembered a Percy Jackson from years ago, mortal, young, who still didn’t quite fit in their world if only because their world hadn’t figured out how to mold around him yet. 

In each case, your loved ones have been used to lure you into Kronos’s traps. Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty, Percy. You do not know when it is time to cut your losses. To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world. In a hero of the prophecy that is very, very dangerous. . . The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation. Evil is easy to fight. Lack of wisdom . . . that is very hard indeed.

The problem was that Athena had been wrong. She had believed it to be lack of wisdom, lack of intelligence or thought, a type of recklessness that put himself at risk in ways he could not understand. But she had learned. She had learned that Percy Jackson was smarter than she had ever given him credit for. He cared about fighting for the right thing more than fighting the right way. He didn’t care to win, he cared not to lose. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done the same calculus she had, he knew the risks and the rewards, but his scales didn’t look like hers. Each risk and reward carried a different weight for him.

What was more dangerous, the one who would kill to win or the one who would die not to lose?

“He fears you, maybe not in a way he can understand yet, but he does. And if you keep speaking like that, others will begin to fear you too,” she said and his eyes went dark. “I know that,” he said. “But what you all still don’t seem to get is that I don’t want to be feared. That’s not my goal, I’m not like him .” 

Athena let that sit in this room. She hoped maybe the Fates were listening, hoped they could keep his thread away from that path. Because her Father did want them to fear him, he did want power. And though this version of Percy Jackson still felt unfamiliar to her, she did not want that version of him. The version that wanted power just because he could take it. 

“You are right, you are not. Not yet, anyway,” Percy’s eyes flashed at that, deep as the parts of the ocean no mortal has dared explore. “You were never meant to be here. Perseus, you were never meant for this.” 

It wasn’t meant as an accusation, but there was a version of Percy Jackson who would have taken the bait. Instead, this version didn’t rise to it, he didn’t turn away either. He wasn’t reacting in the way she had learned to expect, like a boy reacting to a god. He was reacting like a god, a god who had just as much right to stand here as she did. 

“You were not raised for this, you were—”

She took a moment to find the right words. And he gave her that moment. She knew he could see her hesitate, he could see her grappling. And she hated that he could see it. 

“We all were born into this. There have been no new gods, no ascensions in ages. You are the first to rise from an era that did not grow up with us as religion, as a way of life. Dionysus was inevitable from the moment he was born, even if he will never admit it. There was never doubt. But there was doubt with you, Perseus. Not doubt that you could, but doubt that you would. At some point, it went beyond doubt, it was a certainty. You would live and die with red in your veins.”

“But I won’t,” he said with the type of weight only battlefields and cemeteries can carry. Where simultaneously there is death and grief and love and loss and nostalgia and life. 

“No, you will not.” 

“So, what’s your point? You didn’t expect it? You don’t want me here? I can’t say I’m exactly surprised if I’m being honest.” 

“It does not matter what I want,” she cut in, low and sharp. “Just as it did not matter what you wanted. You are what the Fates have forced us all to endure, but you are not one of us, you are—”

“A mistake?” It was his turn to cut in. And that stopped her for a moment. Because as much as he barreled through life, nobody tripped and fell into godhood. He had been right when he said it to her Father earlier. 

I may not have asked for this throne, but let’s not pretend I didn’t earn it. 

“No, Perseus. You are not a mistake, but you are a correction. You are a,” she searched for another word. “You are a bandaid, a repair on a system that has admittedly become complacent in its detriments, but one does not wear a bandaid forever, corrections do not last forever. Eventually the wound is mended.”

She was thinking out loud at this point, trying to figure out where he fit into the history clearly being written. What would the legend of Percy Jackson be in a hundred years, five hundred years or a millennium? 

“And if you are the line, if you are the bandaid keeping the blood from rushing out, the dam keeping the flood at bay, what happens if you break, Perseus?”

“I won’t.”

“But if you did?” 

“If I did then what, Athena?” he hissed. She wasn’t used to hearing her name from him, and it made her feel out of place, like she was in another time. “What would happen, huh? You want to know? I’d figure it out. That’s it. I’d figure it out, like I have everything else. With no real guidance, no rules, no instructions. Certainly no help from any of you.”

She could feel the Hall of Gods reverberate with each word out of his mouth. “Gods do not change easily, Perseus.” And even as she said it, it felt wrong to apply that to Percy. Because if any god was going to change, it would be him. He hadn’t hardened yet, he hadn’t calcified. They all arrived at divinity in their final form and Percy arrived at divinity still bursting at the seams, unsettled, unfinished. 

“I’m not like you” he whispered, low and dangerous. She had never been the target of Percy’s disdain, not like this. He had always tended towards some version of respect or diplomacy with her because of her daughter, Annabeth. He was still Percy, but it was Percy toned down. This was Percy at full capacity. And it was a good thing Athena knew how not to flinch. Because Percy at full capacity felt like standing at the edge of Tartarus, looking into the abyss, knowing you were going to fall in with nothing to pull you back out. 

“That’s what makes you dangerous.” 

“That’s what makes me useful.” Not a denial . 

“Useful to whom?” Athena asked. Because for Percy to need to change, to need to change drastically, then something had to go drastically wrong. 

“To whoever’s left.” It was said quietly, a reluctant truth but a truth nonetheless. 

The Hall was still. Silent in the way that only came after something big. It felt static, like the bolt had left its ghost in the Hall with them. 

And then she realized. She knew what had been bothering her, why she couldn’t fit Percy into any of the boxes she had mapped out in her mind for the rest of her family. It wasn’t that he had that kind of power or influence, it was because he didn’t want anything from it. There was no hunger for power, no drive for glory, which a part of her had always known even when she was in denial, painting him as a typical hero. 

It made him something entirely different, the type of god they had never seen before . 

Because if he didn’t want power, if he wasn’t reaching for something, then . . . 

“You do not wish to sit on that throne forever, do you?” she asked. 

Percy sighed, reaching to the roots and earth wrapped around his throne again, running his fingers along the ridges, reverent. “No,” he said simply, as if it wasn’t the one wish they all were too scared to say out loud in fear of it actually coming true. “But I will, if I need to.” 

And that is what scared her. Because when she met his eyes, she knew that he knew, she knew he was scared too, not because he didn’t know if he could do it, but because he knew that he would. 

There had been heroes branded by duty and honor, who fought because it was the right thing to do, but even then, they wore their titles with pride and happily indulged in the retelling of their accolades. But to act out of duty or honor still had an air of needing to prove something, needing to prove that you were needed. And Percy didn’t need to do that. He spoke calmly, without any arrogance or ego, just self-assured in his importance to the world. He knew the role he had to play and he knew how well he could play it, he had no need to prove it. 

She turned to leave, letting her words fill the silence of the Hall. “Be careful, Perseus. Gods do not take to change easily. We are not like you .” 

Athena waited. The war room was quiet, the calm before the storm. Or maybe the silence after one. 

There was something stoic about this room that she sometimes forgot belonged to Ares too. He wasn’t just posturing and brash antagonism, he was also cold strategy and quiet pride, even if only in this room. Where maps covered each table and artifacts lined the walls, Achilles’ xiphos from the Trojan War, Ajax’s spear next to it, and the harpe sword Perseus used to kill Medusa. All relics of warriors of old. There were no trophies or gold ribbons, the goal in this room may have been victory, but it was never ostentatious.

Quiet pride.

She heard footsteps walk up, purposeful and heavy, not trying to hide. “I’ve been waiting,” she said, turning to face Ares as he walked into the room. 

“Did we have a meeting?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he stepped to a work bench along the side.

“No, but you know we need to talk.” 

Ares sighed, long suffering as if they had revisited this topic for millenia rather than for the first time because Percy Jackson decided he was going to continue his legacy as the exception-to-every-rule into godhood. 

“Fine, then talk,” he turned to face her, leaning up against the bench, arms crossed. 

Athena once again found herself grappling. She had expected an Ares enraged, an Ares offended, but this was the other part of him. This was the part that tossed out a half-hearted taunt to a boy-turned-God in a unspoken offer of help. “You saw what he did, Ares, what he can do. You must know that changes things.” 

“Has changed things,” Ares corrected. 

“What?” 

“It has changed things. This has been a long time coming for most of us. Just because you weren’t paying attention doesn’t mean the rest of us weren't,” he explained. 

Athena paused. “You knew he could do that?” she asked carefully. Exactly how much had she missed? 

Ares scoffed, something almost amused, something bitter around the edges. “Did I know the kid could swallow a lightning bolt? No, Athena, I didn’t know that. But I knew he could do something.” 

She tried to fit the pieces together. Something must have happened between him and Ares. “What do you mean by ‘something’? What happened?” 

Ares shook his head. “That’s the wrong question.”

Athena stayed silent, her jaw tightened. 

“Have you ever seen a blade being made?” Ares grabbed the blade of Percy’s name sake off the wall and ran his finger down the blade. “And I’m not talking about in lecture halls or books, I mean the real thing with a real fire and a real hammer.” It was a question that wasn’t a question. Ares didn’t wait for a response and Athena didn’t offer one. “At some point,” Ares continued. “The question isn’t about what it is, it’s a blade, the question is what made it that sharp. What did it have to survive? What did he survive ?” 

Athena narrowed her eyes. “I do not have time for your philosophizing Ares, just tell me what you mean. Percy Jackson is more than simply a blade, we both know that. He’s a new piece on the board, he’s a new variable, an unpredictable one and unpredictable variables—”

“—break the board?” Ares finished, smug. “I know how you think, Athena. You’re brilliant, but you’re predictable, at least lately. But he can't be a check on Father if he's not a threat too. The balance only works if the other side carries just as much weight.” 

Athena glossed over the jab, not wanting to waste time on a petty argument. “If you know what the consequences could be, then why are you so calm? I have seen you pick a fight with Apollo because he wore leather pants on the same day as you, but Percy Jackson swallows a lightning bolt and all but declares war, war,” she emphasized, “which is your domain by the way in case you forgot, and you are do nothing?”

Ares remained silent, though she saw his jaw lock as he looked to a point behind her. But he was still and she didn’t know what to do with an Ares who didn’t want to pick a fight. That’s how they strategized. He made the bold first move and she made sure to cover from behind. He championed the front line, and she guided the strategoi in the back. 

“Ares,” she tried again, still keeping her voice steady, taking a step towards him. “What am I missing here?” 

He snapped his eyes back to her. “I don’t have to answer that, I don’t actually owe you that answer. You’re not entitled to it just because it’s a question you haven’t bothered to ask until now.” 

“We are on the same side, why can you not—” 

“Are we?” He cut her off. 

And there she was again. Grappling . “What?” she whispered. There was something in his body language. She took stock of the folded arms, his tight shoulders, the stillness, it was a forced calm. 

“We’ve underestimated him, Athena. All of us, since he was a kid. We’re still underestimating him. No rules we create are going to control him. Those wars changed him—”

“Wars change everyone, they—”

“Not like this.” Ares said and Athena let him. “Not like it changed him. And then Tartarus. He survived that—”

“Annabeth was there with him—”

“And between the two of them, who do you think is the one that pushed the bounds of their divinity? Who do you think carried the dark parts of Tartarus? Who do you think was willing to cross a line if it meant they both survived? Who do you think actually did?”

There was nothing Athena could say to disagree. 

In matters of survival, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, there is simply the choice to act or not. Morality comes later, in hindsight and explanations. 

“So, it’s not about what he is. It’s not about the fact that he’s a god now, it’s what he survived to get him here. And it’s beyond us, Athena, you have to know that. That what happened today is just part of it,” he rushed out, voice tight with reluctant respect. Athena hadn’t anticipated that. “That was him restrained .”

“So he’s powerful, maybe too powerful, volatile, unstable, he’s dangerous, Ares.” 

Ares nodded once. “Yes, he is. Of course he is. We were born into divinity, he survived into his,” Ares echoed the same thing she had told Percy just hours before. “We don’t know how to lose. Our Father doesn’t know how to lose, but Percy does. And he gets back up over and over again. That's the most dangerous thing about him.”

Ares turned his back to put the blade back in its original position. “So, what?” Athena bit out. “You respect him now? Despite the threat we both know he is?”

He turned his head slightly, she could only see his profile. “Yes. I do.” And it was something about the way he said it, like he was saying more in that sentence. Like he was accepting something in himself. 

Athena didn’t know if she wanted the answer. This wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. She had come here for an ally, but somewhere along the way alliances had changed and nobody told her. “If it came to war today,” she paused. “If Percy had retaliated, if you had to choose a side right then and there, which side would you have chosen?” 

“The winning side,” he said quietly, confidently, not as if he was deciding for the first time. He had decided already, some time before today. Somewhere along the way, the battle lines had already been drawn and she was somehow left behind. 

Athena blinked. “You think he can win?”

And his answer scared her more than anything. Because Ares never wanted peace, war was who he was, it's what kept him going. 

And yet. 

“I know he can, I just hope he doesn’t have to. ”