Chapter Text
The first time Telemachus was struck that morning, he laughed.
Not because it was funny. Not because it didn't hurt. And certainly not because he thought Antinous was particularly clever. He laughed because, after seventeen years of watching the suitors turn his home into a battlefield, he'd learned that sometimes the easiest way to survive a blow was to pretend it hadn't landed.
The sound came out wrong.
Too sharp, too brief, almost like a cough.
Antinous noticed.
"Oh?" the suitor drawled, stepping closer. "Did I amuse you, little prince?"
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Telemachus wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not particularly."
A few of the men laughed, and Telemachus made the mistake of smiling. Antinous's expression immediately soured. He shoved the prince hard enough that Telemachus stumbled backwards into a wooden pillar, pain jolting through his shoulder.
For one embarrassing moment, he couldn't catch his breath.
He refused to let them see it. Straightening his tunic, he lifted his chin and met Antinous's eyes.
"I'm beginning to think you have a rather limited collection of insults," he said. "Do you practise those in the mirror, or does it come naturally?"
The laughter stopped.
Telemachus realised, a fraction of a second too late, that he'd pushed too far.
The next blow sent him to his knees.
For a moment, the great hall of Ithaca went quiet except for the clatter of a fallen cup rolling across the stone floor. Then someone snorted, someone else returned to their food, and the noise of the suitors gradually swallowed the incident as though nothing had happened.
Telemachus remained on the floor for a few seconds longer than he wanted to. His shoulder throbbed, and his hands trembled as he pushed himself upright. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, refusing to give Antinous the satisfaction of seeing his expression.
He was the prince of Ithaca. Son of the legendary Odysseus. Heir to a kingdom that barely remembered how to be one.
And he had just been knocked to the floor in his own home while grown men laughed.
"Pathetic," Antinous muttered as Telemachus passed him.
Telemachus didn't answer. He walked out of the hall with as much dignity as he could manage, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and the awful tightness in his throat. He didn't see Penelope standing frozen at the top of the stairs, one hand gripping the railing so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
And he certainly didn't see the golden light flickering across the ceiling.
Because far above Ithaca, on a mountain where mortals were little more than passing stories, the gods had been watching.
For once, Olympus had nothing to say.
The first to break the silence was Apollo. "Well," he said, shifting uncomfortably on his throne, "that was unpleasant."
Nobody answered.
Apollo glanced around the council chamber. Zeus was watching the mortal world through the shimmering pool at the centre of the room. Hera's mouth had tightened into a thin line, and Ares looked irritated, although whether he was angry at the boy or the men who had struck him was difficult to determine.
Athena stood perfectly still.
That was usually a bad sign.
The goddess of wisdom had watched Telemachus for years. She'd seen him practising with a sword too heavy for his arms, sneaking into the courtyard to train before dawn, and sitting alone on the palace steps while the suitors drank themselves senseless inside.
She'd watched him try to imitate the fighting techniques he'd heard about in stories, correcting his own mistakes because there was nobody else willing to teach him.
She'd watched him ask questions nobody answered.
What was my father like? Was he brave? Would he have taught me to fight? Do you think he'll come home?
Questions asked to servants, to old soldiers, to his mother when he thought nobody was listening. Questions asked to the empty night.
Athena had always told herself that intervening would change too much. Odysseus's story was tangled in fate, and Telemachus had a part to play in it. She had called it
patience. She was beginning to suspect it had been cowardice.
"They shouldn't be permitted to treat him that way," Artemis said.
Her voice was quiet, which made it considerably more dangerous than shouting.
Ares turned his head. "They're mortals. Mortals hurt each other. What do you expect us to do, strike down every man who raises a hand against a prince?"
"No," Artemis replied. "Only the ones who repeatedly torment a boy who has done nothing to deserve it."
"He's seventeen," Apollo murmured.
Artemis slowly turned towards him.
"And?"
Apollo wisely shut his mouth.
Hermes, who had been leaning against a pillar with his arms folded, hadn't said anything at all. That was unusual enough that Athena glanced at him. The messenger god was generally incapable of remaining silent for longer than a few minutes, particularly when there was an opportunity to irritate someone.
His expression was unreadable.
Hermes was accustomed to watching mortals struggle. He carried messages, bargains, last words, and desperate hopes between worlds. He'd seen people lose everything and still find a reason to laugh the next morning. He knew how resilient mortals could be, and he admired that about them.
But something about Telemachus had caught beneath his ribs.
Perhaps it was the way the boy had smiled after being struck.
Hermes knew that smile. It was the sort people wore when they wanted the world to believe they were fine because they were frightened of what might happen if anyone discovered they weren't.
"He's been doing that for years," Hermes said finally.
Everyone looked at him.
"Making jokes. Acting brave. Pretending the suitors don't bother him. Pretending he doesn't mind that half the men in his own home think he's a useless little prince." Hermes's gaze returned to the pool. "I deliver messages to Ithaca. I hear things."
Athena's eyes narrowed. "What things?"
"Things he says when he thinks nobody is listening."
Hermes paused, his usual smile nowhere to be found. "Things like apologising to his mother for not being more like his father."
Silence settled over the council chamber.
"And last month," Hermes continued, "he asked a servant whether people who were abandoned by their fathers were usually abandoned by everyone else, too."
Artemis's expression crumpled. Only slightly, just a tightening around the eyes and a sudden stillness in her shoulders, but Athena noticed.
Even Zeus looked away from the pool.
"Where is he now?" Athena asked.
Hermes closed his eyes briefly before answering.
"Alone."
Telemachus had found his way to the old courtyard behind the palace. It was a small, neglected place hidden between a storage room and a crumbling wall, where olive trees grew through cracks in the stone and weeds had begun reclaiming the edges of an old fountain.
When he was younger, he'd imagined his father training him there.
He'd pictured Odysseus standing behind him, correcting his grip on a sword, laughing when Telemachus tripped over his own feet. In those fantasies, his father always caught him before he hit the ground.
In reality, Telemachus had learned to fall without making a sound.
He sat on the edge of the dry fountain and pressed a hand against his shoulder. It hurt. Everything seemed to hurt lately: his shoulder, his pride, the constant knot of anxiety in his stomach. Most of all, there was the enormous, ridiculous ache in his chest that never seemed to go away.
He tipped his head backwards and stared at the sky.
"Thanks for nothing," he muttered.
He wasn't entirely sure which god he was addressing. Possibly all of them.
"I mean, really. I know I'm not exactly important, but you'd think someone up there might notice."
A breeze stirred the olive branches overhead. Telemachus snorted and rubbed his face.
"Don't get excited. That wasn't a prayer."
He sat quietly for another minute, listening to the distant noise of the palace. Someone laughed inside. A door slammed. Somewhere, a servant was probably cleaning up after the suitors again.
Then, because the courtyard was empty and nobody could hear him, he let his expression fall.
"I'm tired."
The words barely made a sound.
He stared down at his hands. They were scraped from his fall, and one of his fingers was trembling. He curled it into his palm, annoyed with himself for noticing.
"I'm so tired."
And that was all it took.
Not the blows, not Antinous's sneering face, not the years of whispered comparisons to a father who had become more legend than person. Just the simple fact that he was tired, and there was nobody he could tell.
His eyes burned. He pressed his hands against his face, furious with himself.
"Come on, Telemachus," he whispered. "Get up."
He didn't.
For once, he let himself sit there. For once, he let himself be seventeen instead of a prince who was supposed to be brave, clever, strong, and capable of saving a kingdom despite never having been taught how.
And on Olympus, three gods made a decision.
Athena arrived first.
She didn't descend in a blaze of lightning or appear in a shower of golden sparks. She simply stepped out from behind the courtyard's stone archway, her grey eyes taking in the scene with an expression Telemachus couldn't quite interpret.
He scrambled to his feet so quickly that pain shot through his shoulder.
"My lady!"
His voice cracked.
Brilliant. Of all the humiliating things that could happen to him, apparently his voice had decided to betray him in front of a goddess.
Athena's expression softened.
"Sit down, Telemachus."
He hesitated. "I'm fine."
"I did not ask whether you were fine."
He sat.
Athena approached slowly, giving him enough time to move away if he wanted to. She lowered herself onto the fountain's edge beside him, her armour catching the afternoon sunlight. For several moments, neither of them spoke. Telemachus stared at his boots, trying to work out what he was supposed to do when a goddess appeared in his courtyard and seemed perfectly content to sit there without explaining herself.
Finally, Athena spoke.
"Why did you laugh?"
Telemachus blinked. "When?"
"When Antinous struck you."
His expression changed. For a moment, she thought he might lie, but then he shrugged and looked away.
"I don't know."
Athena waited.
Telemachus picked at a loose thread on his tunic. "People get angrier when you look upset," he admitted eventually. "If you cry, they laugh. If you get angry, they hit you again. If you pretend it's funny, sometimes they get bored."
He gave a little laugh, but it was a terrible sound.
"So I suppose it's just easier."
Athena felt something cold and heavy settle in her chest. She had taught heroes to strategise their way through impossible wars. She had guided kings, advised warriors, and helped Odysseus outwit monsters that would have swallowed other men whole.
And here was his son, explaining the strategy he'd developed to survive his own home.
"That should never have been something you needed to learn," she said quietly.
Telemachus stared at her.
He looked so surprised that Athena almost wished she could take the words back and replace them with something less devastating. Something less honest.
"Oh," he whispered.
His eyes filled, and he immediately looked away.
"I'm sorry."
Athena went still. "For what?"
"I don't know."
The confession came out so quietly that it nearly broke her heart.
"I just—I'm sorry."
Athena moved her hand towards his shoulder, then stopped before touching him. "Telemachus, may I?"
He looked at her hand, then at her face. Slowly, he nodded.
She rested a hand on his uninjured shoulder.
The boy held himself rigid for several seconds, as though he were waiting for her to tell him what he'd done wrong. When she didn't, his composure finally broke. He folded forwards, covering his face, and tried desperately to make himself smaller.
He cried quietly, as if even here, even with a goddess beside him, he was afraid someone might hear.
Athena stayed where she was.
She didn't tell him to be brave. She didn't tell him that heroes endured pain or that everything happened for a reason. She didn't promise that tomorrow would be better, because she couldn't possibly know that.
She simply remained beside him, her hand steady on his shoulder, while the prince of Ithaca cried for all the things he'd never been allowed to grieve.
And for the first time in a very long while, Telemachus wasn't alone.
Hermes found them twenty minutes later, carrying a small cloth bundle and wearing the expression of someone who had very deliberately decided not to make a joke.
"Well," he said gently. "I was going to bring snacks, but I see I'm interrupting something important."
Telemachus jerked upright so quickly that Athena had to catch his elbow.
"I wasn't—"
"Hey." Hermes held up both hands. "You don't need to explain anything to me."
Telemachus stared at him suspiciously.
Hermes sat on the other side of the fountain and placed the bundle between them. "Fig cakes."
Telemachus blinked. "What?"
"Fig cakes. They're sweet, they're delicious, and before you ask, no, I didn't steal them."
Athena raised an eyebrow.
Hermes sighed. "I borrowed them."
"From whom?" Athena asked.
"That's not important."
"Was it from Apollo?"
"Absolutely not."
A pause followed.
"Probably."
Despite himself, Telemachus laughed. It was small and startled, as though the sound had escaped without permission.
Hermes smiled.
There he was. Not the prince, not the heir, not the son of the legendary Odysseus. Just a boy who deserved to laugh without having to earn it.
Hermes nudged the bundle towards him. "Eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"That's unfortunate, because I brought enough for three people, and I'm a terrible judge of portion sizes."
Telemachus hesitated before taking one. He ate in silence, picking at the pastry while Athena sat beside him. Hermes didn't ask questions about Antinous. He didn't demand to know why Telemachus hadn't fought back, and he didn't offer some grand speech about courage or destiny.
Instead, he told a story about Apollo attempting to race a chariot through a cloud bank and getting his golden wheels stuck in a thunderstorm.
Athena corrected several details.
Hermes insisted she was ruining the story.
Telemachus listened, and slowly, without quite realising it, he stopped sitting like someone waiting for the next blow.
Eventually, Hermes glanced at him. "Can I tell you something?"
Telemachus swallowed his last bite. "Okay."
"Your father was a lot of things."
The boy went still.
Hermes noticed but continued carefully. "He was clever, stubborn, and infuriatingly good at getting himself into situations that required me to do extra paperwork."
Athena sighed. "That is an understatement."
"But he wasn't perfect," Hermes continued. "And you don't have to become him to be worth something."
Telemachus's gaze dropped to his hands. "Everyone keeps telling me I should be more like him."
"Everyone is an idiot."
Athena gave Hermes a look.
"What?" he asked. "Am I wrong?"
"No," Athena admitted reluctantly. "But you could have phrased it more diplomatically."
"I could have. I chose not to."
Telemachus's mouth twitched.
Hermes leaned back on his hands. "Listen to me, kid. You don't have to be a great warrior. You don't have to win every fight. You don't have to make the suitors respect you. And you certainly don't have to pretend that being hurt doesn't hurt."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"You're allowed to be a person before you're a prince."
Telemachus looked at him for a long time. Then he asked the question that had been sitting in his throat for years.
"Why are you here?"
Hermes frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You're a god." Telemachus gestured helplessly towards the sky. "You have things to do. Important things. So why are you sitting in a courtyard eating stolen fig cakes with me?"
Hermes looked at Athena. She gave him the smallest nod.
"Because," Hermes said, turning back to the boy, "someone should have been here a long time ago."
Telemachus's face crumpled.
"Oh."
Hermes's expression softened. "Oh, kid."
He opened his arms, offering rather than demanding.
Telemachus stared at him uncertainly. "Is that—"
"A hug? Yes. Unless you'd prefer I perform an interpretive dance about emotional vulnerability."
A laugh escaped Telemachus, immediately followed by a sob.
He leaned forwards.
Hermes caught him gently.
The messenger god,
who had carried messages between worlds and guided souls along their final journeys, held a trembling mortal boy as though he were something precious.
Because he was.
From the other side of the courtyard, Athena looked away to give them privacy, but she didn't leave. Neither did she miss the way Telemachus clutched at the back of Hermes's tunic, as though some part of him still expected the god to disappear the moment he let go.
Hermes didn't disappear.
He simply rested a hand between Telemachus's shoulder blades and waited until the boy was ready to pull away.
When Telemachus finally did, embarrassed and red-eyed, Hermes handed him another fig cake.
"Now," he said, his voice returning to its familiar, lighter tone, "shall we discuss the matter of a certain collection of deeply unpleasant suitors?"
Telemachus sniffed. "What about them?"
Hermes smiled.
"Oh, nothing much. Just a few conversations I'd very much like to have."
For the first time that day, Telemachus found himself wondering what it might be like to have a god on his side.
Artemis arrived at sunset.
She'd been watching from a distance for most of the afternoon, furious with herself for not intervening sooner. She wasn't accustomed to dealing with situations like this. She knew how to protect her hunters, how to track a threat through the wilderness, and how to put an arrow between the eyes of a monster that thought itself untouchable.
She knew what to do when danger had claws.
She was less certain what to do when danger wore expensive robes and called itself a nobleman.
Still, she came.
Telemachus was sitting on the palace steps with Athena beside him and Hermes sprawled across three of the steps below, loudly complaining that divine intervention was apparently terrible for his schedule.
"You're immortal," Athena pointed out.
"That doesn't mean I enjoy being inconvenienced."
Artemis stopped in front of them.
Telemachus scrambled to stand. "My lady."
"Sit down."
He sat.
Hermes grinned. "Careful. That's Athena's line."
"I can make it yours, too," Artemis replied.
Hermes shut his mouth.
Telemachus looked between them, and for the first time all day, he looked almost curious rather than frightened.
Artemis lowered herself onto the step beside him. "I've been watching you," she admitted.
His expression immediately shuttered.
"Oh."
"Not in the way you're thinking."
"I wasn't thinking anything."
"Telemachus."
He sighed. "Sorry."
Artemis closed her eyes briefly.
There it was again. That automatic apology, delivered before he'd even worked out whether he'd done anything wrong. She wanted to find every person who had taught him to apologise for taking up space and shake some sense into them.
Instead, she turned towards him.
"You do not have to apologise every time you speak."
He stared at her.
"Right."
"Or every time you disagree with someone."
"Okay."
"Or every time you make a mistake."
Telemachus looked down. "Okay."
Artemis studied him for a moment, then asked, "Do you know what I like about my hunters?"
Telemachus shook his head.
"They're allowed to be themselves. They can be loud, quiet, frightened, angry, or uncertain. They can make mistakes. They can ask for help. None of those things makes them less worthy of my protection."
She paused.
"And none of those things makes you less worthy of protection, either."
His lower lip trembled. He pressed it between his teeth, determined not to cry again.
Artemis pretended not to notice.
"If you ever need somewhere safe to go, you may come to me. There are places on my island where nobody will bother you. My hunters would be happy to have you visit, provided you don't complain about the early mornings."
"I don't think I could complain about anything right now," Telemachus murmured.
"Then you will fit in perfectly."
Hermes snorted, earning himself a sharp look from Artemis.
She turned back to Telemachus. "I mean it. You do not need to earn kindness. You do not need to prove yourself worthy of it. And you do not have to wait until you're at the end of your strength before you ask for help."
Telemachus stared at her.
Three gods. Three immortals who had watched kings rise and fall, witnessed wars that reshaped the world, and lived long enough to see entire civilisations disappear.
And somehow, impossibly, they were all sitting on the steps of his mother's palace because he had been hurt.
Because they cared.
He didn't know what to do with that.
"I don't really know how," he admitted.
Artemis tilted her head. "How to do what?"
"Ask for help."
Her expression softened. "Then we'll start small."
She held out her hand.
"Next time you're frightened, you tell one of us."
Telemachus looked at her hand. "And if I can't?"
"Then you try."
"And if I can't even do that?"
"Then we'll keep trying until you can."
He stared at her for another moment before taking her hand. Her grip was warm and firm, her expression steady.
It wasn't a promise that nothing bad would ever happen again. It was a promise that he wouldn't have to face everything alone.
For now, that was enough.
Far above them, the gods continued to watch.
But this time, they weren't watching a boy get hurt. They were watching a boy eat fig cakes while Hermes told increasingly ridiculous stories, Athena corrected his historical inaccuracies, and Artemis quietly promised to introduce Telemachus to her hunters.
They watched him laugh. They watched him lean against Athena when his exhaustion finally caught up with him. They watched Artemis drape her cloak around his shoulders without making a fuss about it, and they watched Hermes carefully adjust the fabric so it wouldn't slip.
On Olympus, Apollo wiped at his eyes and insisted it was dust. Aphrodite had stopped pretending she wasn't crying. Even Ares had gone quiet.
Zeus watched the scene for a long time.
"Perhaps," he said at last, "we have neglected the boy."
Athena looked up at the sky.
For once, she didn't disagree.
Down below, Telemachus yawned.
Hermes immediately pointed at him. "Ha! I knew you were tired."
"I'm not tired."
"You nearly fell asleep sitting upright."
"I was thinking."
"With your eyes closed?"
"Yes."
"Remarkable. A revolutionary new form of philosophy."
Telemachus laughed and shoved him lightly. Hermes pretended to collapse dramatically, sprawling across the steps as though he'd been mortally wounded. Artemis rolled her eyes, and Athena smiled despite herself.
For a little while, in a kingdom that had forgotten how to care for its prince, Telemachus was allowed to be nothing more than a boy surrounded by people who wanted him to be okay.
He didn't know what tomorrow would bring. The suitors would still be there, his father would still be missing, and Ithaca would still be a kingdom balanced on the edge of disaster. None of that had magically disappeared just because three gods had decided to sit beside him.
But when Telemachus finally closed his eyes that evening, wrapped in Artemis's cloak with Athena beside him and Hermes keeping watch at the foot of the steps, one thought settled quietly in his mind.