Chapter Text
Despite what most people thought, Percy’s first title wasn’t ‘son of Poseidon’ or ‘defeater of the minotaur’.
No, his very first title was Perseus Odysseus Wayne, Prince of Gotham.
Gotham’s press went wild the day he was born –partially, because his father was only twenty two when he had him. While Gotham obviously wasn’t very conservative, it was still quite the scandal. Especially given that Percy’s other parent was completely unknown.
His face was plastered across every headline for three weeks and would be a frequent part of the news for many years to follow. Being the only child of Bruce Wayne, the sole Wayne family heir, was a very big deal.
Not that Percy really cared.
Look, a lot of people thrived on the kind of attention you could get with Brucie Wayne as a father. He just wasn’t one of them. Press, galas, all of the other stuff that socialites liked to take part in –or at least pretend to– Percy despised with a passion.
(When he got older, Percy would reflect that was probably partly the undiagnosed ADHD. Trying to stay still and ‘well mannered’ was practically torture to four year old him)
Sure, he could do the whole performance. He could do the cute giggles and the big gap-tooth smiles for the cameras, his father made sure of that. But try convincing a five year old that you need to ‘look like a happy family for marketing’. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Well, father didn’t really need to try, he had tried several times and each time Percy would stare at him like he was speaking a foreign language, so he would take the approach of bribery, which he could get on board with.
The problem with being that level of fame was that the performance hardly ever stopped. Every time he stepped outside the manor, he had to be Perseus Odysseus Wayne. Not Percy. There was a difference, a big difference, between Perseus and Percy. He wasn’t sweet, or relaxed, or an angel, as the press said. Percy was sarcastic, energetic and found it hilarious to prank Alfred at every opportunity.
Not that his father, who fed all that information to the news, would really know that.
Most of his care was left to Alfred and the tutors his father hired. Usually, he went weeks without seeing father, except for the awkward dinners every night. As long as father was in town, Alfie would never let him miss it, even if he grumbled about paper work the entire time. Honestly, Percy would much rather they stopped the dinners all together but Alfie was insistent. It was like he thought he could force father into caring.
He didn’t, though. No matter how much Percy tried, father never seemed happy. He was too loud, too blunt, too stupid. All of the fathers he saw on tv looked at their sons like how Alfie looked at him, with love and warmth. Father just looked sad. Or disappointed.
He tried his hardest to be the good, perfect, Perseus the media thought he was. In spite of how difficult it could be to focus, he would try his very best at his studies. It was just never enough, he always seemed to let father down in one way or another. There was always a critique or reprimand on the tip of his tongue.
Alfie told him it wasn’t his fault, that father was having a difficult time at work, or that he was just tired, or some other lie. Percy wasn’t stupid, he knew it was him.
The only time his father began slightly approving of him was in self defense classes. Though he often had the most critiques about the way Percy fought, he also gave the most compliments and sometimes, they even had one-on-one training sessions together.
They were his favourite part of the month.
Half of the time he dreaded them and the other half he thrived in them. That much attention from his father was the only time he felt like part of a normal family. Like his father didn’t dislike him, like he wasn’t missing his mom, like he was just any other kid. The illusion never lasted long, but it was nice while it did.
His joy from those sessions stopped entirely by the time he was four, mostly because that was the year Dick Grayson was adopted.
Don’t get him wrong, Percy loved Dick. That was his big brother, and anyone who said otherwise was going to get punched.
Dick was everything Percy failed to be. He was sweet and father treated him like he was an angel, despite the fact Dick was an absolute menace. Ugly, horrible jealousy rose inside of him every time father called on Dick instead of him, patting him on the back and whispering praises.
He wasn’t angry that Dick was brought into their family, he was angry that Dick was getting the father he’d never had.
At least Dick tried. He would sneak them both into the city when father got really busy and take him for ice cream or skate boarding in the park. If father was around, he would force him to engage more than usual, always including Percy when father wasn’t sneaking Dick off somewhere secret for ‘big boy’ things.
Having a brother was fun, it was like having a best friend. In fact, it pretty much was having a best friend, because Dick was pretty cool. Not that he’d ever tell him that, of course.
Dickie took his role as big brother extra seriously, taking some of the pressure to perform in front of paparazzi and teaching him loads of cool tricks, like how to do flips and cartwheels. One time, Dick even taught him how to hang off the chandelier, although Alfie wasn’t very happy when he found them.
Father only seemed to distance himself more and more from Percy, though. So long as Dick forced it, they would spend time together, but when he didn’t, father would disappear. Somehow, he always seemed to magically reappear just in time for Dick to need him. It got to the point that Percy just accepted that father didn’t like him. He liked Dickie well enough, after all, so being bad with children couldn’t be the issue.
That was fine, he understood. Percy was awkward and stupid compared to his brother.
The next few years were still much better and significantly less lonely. Despite knowing he was being left out of stuff between Dick and father and the fact that father still hardly looked at him unless he did good in his self-defense training, he at least had a brother, a family.
Babs came into his life a few years later. Well, she didn’t necessarily come into his life, he kinda knew her as an extension of her dad as one of Bruce’s friends. How his father became friendly with the city's police chief, he didn’t know.
Jim brought her around because he was reluctant to leave his fourteen year old alone. She treated him like he was any kid, something most people –including his father– never did. During their meetings they would play together, usually games like hide and seek or tag.
Now, she came around more consistently, hanging with him and Dickie. Despite the age difference, she treated him amazingly and never seemed to get bored of him like father. Percy thought she was honestly the coolest ever, especially after seeing all the awesome stuff she could do with tech.
Though she wasn’t actually his sister, Babs might as well have been. She would kiss his cuts better and help him with difficult homework from his tutors when Alfred or Dickie couldn’t.
Jason came along five years after Dick. Percy wasn’t sure how father found him. Honestly, he didn’t care. Jason was awesome.
He knew all the amazing spots in Gotham, ones that Percy wouldn’t have considered looking for in a million years. Like Percy, he had a mischievous streak, taking every available opportunity to prank father or Alfie. Furthermore, he was sarcastic and witty in the same way Percy was.
Press and paparazzi ended up calling them the ‘Wayne twins’ in spite of their age gap because they very quickly gained very similar reputations for being unafraid to throw a punch or shit talk a reporter. When he was around, Dickie thought it was hilarious, especially when Jason would grumble that he was ‘so much older’ than Percy.
It wasn’t always like that between them, friendly teasing and cool hangouts. At first, Jason was angry, bitter and prone to lashing out. Unfortunately for him, Percy didn’t scare easily and pretty much kidnapped him on trips to the city until he ‘got used to his stupid face’ as Jay always said.
Another thing about Jason was that he understood Percy in a way Dickie never had. Their situations were vastly different, obviously, but they both knew what it was like to have a shitty father and an absent or dead mother.
They grew ridiculously close. Practically inseparable. Percy wasn’t normally cheesy, but if soulmates –platonic ones obviously– were real, Jason would have been his. Two pieces of the same puzzle that fitted together perfectly.
With another sibling in the mix, Percy and his fathers relationship got worse. Technically, part of that was because Dick and father were no longer speaking. Something happened between them –probably, something to do with the secrets they kept from him. Whatever it was, it was worse than any argument before, leading to Dick moving out entirely.
Sometimes, he would visit Percy and Jason, sneak them out of the mansion like he used to, but those days were few and far between. Though he had asked many, many times, Dick would never tell him what exactly they argued about, just that he father did something shitty.
Yeah, Percy wasn’t exactly surprised by that.
He was, however, surprised by Dick’s willingness to leave. There was this lingering feeling of abandonment –similar to the one he felt towards his mother– that he just couldn’t shake around him. Sure, father probably fucked up badly. Percy could totally see that. Why did that mean Dick had to half disappear from his life too?
If Jason hadn’t been there, Percy would’ve gone mad with loneliness.
Anger wasn’t exactly the right word for what he felt towards Dick. Resentment, maybe. Father wasn’t always great with Dickie, but he was much better than he was with Percy. How come he couldn’t just stick it out for Percy like Percy had for Dick?
With Dick’s absence, Percy grew equally cold towards his father as his father had been to him. Not that father noticed, of course. He would’ve needed to give a shit about him in the first place to see Percy suddenly withdrawing.
It took him missing two of what were now routine training sessions every three months for father to finally notice. He was pissed, raging about how important it was for Percy to protect himself and ‘do you want to get yourself killed?’.
Where Percy’s anger towards Dick was small, his anger towards father grew into frosty silences, small rebellions in the form of pranks and sharp, withering glares. Before, it made no difference to Percy if father was an ass towards him. At least, he had Dick. Who would praise him, love him and while he wasn’t his father, he was enough.
Now, he had Jason, who was a great brother –don’t get it twisted– but who just wasn’t able to be there for him like Dickie was. They both fit into his life in different ways, and as much as he tried, he couldn't fill that hole with just Jason.
Not just that, Dick was also clearly devastated over whatever father did. He looked at the manor with such heartache, Percy’s own eyes welled with tears. A fierce, protective feeling rose in his chest whenever he saw it. It didn’t matter that it was father that caused the look, Percy was half way convinced it was worth fighting him over it.
He wasn’t just angry that father drove Dick away, he was angry that he had hurt him badly in the process.
For some reason, father decided it was a good idea to send him away to a camp in New York with no explanation. Just a day's warning, a half scribbled letter to Dick and a hug from Jason –that may or may not have been slightly tearful– and Percy was on his way.
Thankfully –or not really given the circumstances it took–Percy’s relationship with father finally began to make a bit more sense as he learned more and more about Camp Half-Blood and what it meant to be a demigod –which was still absolutely insane, by the way.
To be honest, he wasn’t completely sure how exactly he was created. Apparently, Athena could create children out of her mind, so maybe father and Poseidon had done that? If they had, it didn’t make much sense because well, father hadn’t ever liked him. Why would he allow a god to create a kid with him? Did he do it without his consent? Was Percy a mistake to him? A burden?
There was at least a partial explanation for the distance, though. Demigods didn’t live long. The oldest at camp was Luke Castellan, his new friend, who was only nineteen. All the others had died in mostly horrific ways, like being gutted by a monster.
Seeing as father sent him to camp, it was easy to assume he knew exactly what his son was. Perhaps that was part of the reason father looked at him with such sadness as a child. Did he know Percy was a dead boy walking?
Definitely, it was the reason Percy had been given a shit ton of training and why father forced his tutors to teach him a bunch about Greek and Roman mythology. In his own way, father had been protecting Percy the entire time. It didn’t make things better, but it relieved some of the bitterness.
Kind of.
At the very least, Percy was able to impress Luke with his pre-existing fighting skills.
Luke was epic. He couldn’t do flips like Dickie or throw a punch like Jay, but he fought like hell with a sword.
And, when Percy managed to become an outcast in the literal fucking camp of outcasts –yeah, he was just brimming with jou about that, not bitter at all– Luke continued to train him. While Percy had the basics down for sword fighting, Luke improved his skills greatly. He told Percy that fought really well but he fought like he was trying to win, not survive. At first, he hadn’t understood-
(Seventeen year old Percy understood with a painful, scarred clarity)
-but after his quest…
Yeah, he got it.
The quest itself was insane.
With his new friend, Annabeth –a badass daughter of Athena– and Grover –the satyr who accompanied him to camp– he managed to kill Medusa, a Chimera on the St. Louis Arch, escaped the Lotus Casino, get tricked by Ares –yes, the actual fucking god–, go to the underworld, escape the underworld, defeat Ares and return Zeus’s lightning bolt to him at Olympus.
Literally insane.
It did give him clarity, though. The gods were assholes, that wasn’t hard to see from the beginning, but the quest helped him see how truly awful they really were.
Ares tricked him and fought him, even though he was literally only twelve. Zeus denied that Kronos could be rising to save his own pride, despite it being incredibly obvious that he was. Hades decided that again, that twelve year old was the one who stole his helm. Poseidon…
‘I’m sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero's fate and a hero's fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic.’
Percy didn’t know how to feel about him. He was no better than father and seemed to regret having him just as much. The god offered no explanation for his complete absence. To be honest, he didn’t want one anyway. What good would one do now?
He hardly had time to think about Poseidon much for a while, anyway. On the quest, Percy figured out who the ‘lighting thief’ was and it wasn’t solely Ares.
Luke spoke openly, especially to him, about his hatred for the gods, he was a child of Hermes with a gifted pair of magic shoes from his father, he was the oldest and best trained person at camp.
The conclusion was painfully easy to make, though not as painful as the reality.
Luke had become something similar to what Dick was to him, almost similar to what father should have been. His betrayal hurt. A small part of him considered, just for a moment, allowing Luke to continue. The gods were evidently awful, overthrowing them didn’t seem a totally terrible idea.
Except, Luke had betrayed him and attempted to send him into Tartarus, where he either would have died from the height of the fall, or been killed by whatever evil beings were down there. His version of saving them also included Kronos, the titan of time, who was not known for being particularly loving to his relatives.
After returning, he did give Luke a bit of time. To come clean, maybe, or because he was struggling to actually break apart their relationship.
Fortunately, Luke approached him first. Unfortunately, it was an attempt to recruit him. No matter how much Percy cared about Luke, how much he agreed-
‘Didn’t you realize how useless it all is? All the heroics—being pawns of the Olympians?’
- he just couldn't do it.
If he was willing to betray Percy once, then he would be willing to do it again. Next time, it might not have even been Percy. What if it was Annabeth? Or Grover? Joining and enabling Luke were risks he couldn’t take. That opinion was only solidified when Luke attempted to kill him with a pit scorpion.
Fun, right?
Most of what happened after being stung was a blur. He knew that he dragged himself to a creek, where the nymphs were able to bring him to Chiron, though that was only because he had been told so. It took a few days to wake up once he passed out and a little longer to stand without tipping over.
By that point, Percy was done. He just wanted to go home and see Jay again. His big brother couldn’t protect him from monsters, but he still made Percy feel safer than anything else at that stupid camp.
Father sent round one of his usual drivers as summer break came to an end, so Percy didn’t feel obligated to do the usual ‘sweet kid, who wasn’t bratty’ act. Instead, he laid back and napped for the most of the drive. Sue him, he was tired. When he managed to sleep now, it was always broken up by nightmares.
Seeing the manor again allowed Percy to release a breath he didn’t know he was holding. For the school year, he could just be a kid again.
Oddly, when he got back, he couldn’t seem to find Jay. Although, his brother had been alone with father for a while, so he was probably just waiting somewhere to prank Percy…
He changed direction to slip down into the kitchens, where Alfred was probably making dinner. That was normally a safe place, since Jason was banned from the kitchen after he accidentally exploded a toaster.
Again, weirdly, Alfie wasn’t in his usual place either.
That was strange, perhaps father had called on him for something. Percy changed directions again, intending to try and find wherever he was hiding. Usually, he was all for pranks, but right now he really just wanted a hug from Jason.
Finally, he found Alfred in the library upstairs, clutching a newspaper.
“Alfie!” he cheered.
Alfred looked up, surprised, “Master Percy, I… was not informed you had returned.”
“Father sent a car ‘round.” Percy said, frowning, “Whatcha got?”
“I…” Alfred trailed, for once unsure of what to say, which wasn’t right because Alfie always knew what to say.
“What's wrong?” he asked, anxiously. Logically, he knew that everything was probably fine.
Monsters and gods were apparently his thing, not Jason’s or Dick’s.
Alfred’s expression crumpled, more openly sad than he had ever seen the man before, “Percy, Jason…”
“Jason, what?” Percy questioned, panic rising, “Alfie, what happened to Jay?”
Percy left Wayne Manor permanently a few weeks later, after his brother's funeral.
He did not return. Not when he saw that Bruce took in other children, nor when he saw that Bruce had another biological child.
It wasn’t his home without his family, his best friend, in it.