Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Apollo is banished. It’s the middle of the war, and he’s banished. For what—doing his job? Octavian is—not his favorite, not by far, but he’s still one of Apollo’s descendants, and Apollo is trying to do better. To be better. But it’s hard, okay? To change thousands of years of habit. 

But his father is banishing him to live as a mortal , blaming all of this—the war, Gaea—on his prophecy when his whole shtick is literally prophecies! 

Anyway, he’s banished, and he doesn’t really know what that’ll entail—being stuck in a flimsy mortal body and having to do—urgh—quests, would be his best guess, if his father didn’t just look at him wearily and sigh.

“Apollo,” he begins, exhaustion pulling on his face.

“Yes, father?” Apollo answers through a clenched jaw. It’s not fair that he’s being punished for this. It’s just–not. 

But before Zeus can say anything else, a bright light fills the room and three old ladies—the Fates—descend from the ceiling. 

“Apollo,” says one.

“You have done your job, and done it well,” continues the second one.

“However, there is a task you must fulfill,” the third one finishes.

Apollo gulps. He doesn’t like the sound of that—is this what their children feel when they get a quest? “What task?” he ventures hesitantly. 

“As a mortal.”

Apollo stares. What? 

Sure , Zeus was about to send him down as a mortal, but this–a task commanded by the fates, and he doesn’t even know what it is. And he doesn’t—at least he can guess how his father will send him down. But the Fates? 

“I don’t understand.” And he really doesn’t. 

“We know. And so will you, eventually. For now—”

The middle one waves her hand, and Apollo blacks out.

.

Dick likes singing. His parents are very good singers, and loads of times the entire troop will gather around after dinner and sing together. His mom says that he has an amazing voice, a rare talent. His dad says he got it from his mom, and his mom blushes and hits his dad playfully and Dick will hug them both and beg for them to teach him new tricks on the trapeze.

And then his parents fall and he’s thrown in juvie and he’s taken in by fucking Batman , holy shit, and he’s Robin! He’s a superhero! It’s awesome , even if he doesn’t really sing that often anymore. Sometimes, though, when he’s alone, he’ll hum a lullaby his mother taught him. It makes him feel like she’s there with him, just for a bit.

He meets Leslie, and is immediately taken with her. He begs her to teach him about being a doctor because it’s so interesting, and if he ever stops being a vigilante, then hey, it’s always nice to have a back-up career! 

Maybe, Bruce jokes after hearing him belt out Never Gonna Give You Up as a prank, he’ll be a famous singer, writing songs and traveling around the world.

Maybe, Dick thinks. He likes helping people more, is the thing. The thought of being onstage, in front of thousands of people—well, he has enough of that at galas, is all.

Bruce teaches him piano and signs him up for guitar lessons. Dick soaks it all in, every note and riff and strum. He plays when he can, for his friends and family. He doesn’t want people to watch him to pick out mistakes—he wants them to watch him so they can feel his love for them through the melody.

He thinks—hopes—he gets that across. Playing his instruments are an outlet; for sadness and joy, anger and happiness, love and regret.

.

Dick loves the sun. Whether it’s glaring down on a hot summer afternoon, or peeking through the clouds after a heavy rainstorm, Dick will go outside just for a glimpse of the warm yellow rays. It makes him feel invigorated, like he’s recharging. The sun is special to him, he knows that–he just doesn’t really understand why.

But. Does he need a reason?

“No, I suppose not,” Bruce says with a quiet smile. He reaches out and tugs on Dick’s hair. Dick squeals and bats his hands away with a peal of laughter.

“B, quit it!” he says firmly, stomping his foot on the ground for emphasis.

“Sorry, sorry.” Bruce chuckles warmly. “My little ball of sunshine.”

Dick glares at him with all the fierceness of a ten-year-old boy being called cute . Still, something in him preens at being called sunshine. He still doesn’t know what it is–maybe he’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter, not really. 

He likes to stargaze, too, likes to imagine that he can see the moon waving to him, keeping an eye on him. He memorizes as many constellations as he can, sharing the stories with anyone who would listen. And there are a fair few, Bruce and Alfred and Clark and Wally and Roy and more and more as the superhero community grows and Bruce trusts a little more.

He loves the sun, but he also loves the moon, the soft glow warming him with its cool light–contradictory, maybe, but the truth. Sometimes, Dick feels as though the moon is watching him, keeping an eye on him, making sure he’s safe. Sometimes, when he can’t sleep and he’s not on patrol, he goes up to the roof and just…lays there, basking in the cool warmth of the moon.

And that’s another thing—truth . Dick is a good liar. He spins and weaves stories through his words, beautifully eloquent and much, much better than his age would suggest. Especially considering that English isn’t even his first language. Dick brushes off concerns, deflects invasive questions, and dodges accusations with a grace that only one who’d been doing so for years have. And yet he is good at it.

And he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like lying, doesn’t like being so good at it. He likes telling stories, capturing people’s attention through his words but he doesn’t like lying. He tells the truth when he can, omitting some details and exaggerating others, and, well, the best lies are formed from truth and he’s good at truth, at being honest. He’s blunt and sharp and all hard angles when he can be, brusque and clipped and hey, it’s just the truth. Not his fault the truth hurts sometimes.

It does hurt, though. He likes being as honest as he can but sometimes all that leads to is hurt feelings and broken friendships and wouldn't just a little white lie have been so much better? It could have salvaged their relationship, and besides, it’s barely a lie. It’s only to make them feel better.

But the words, the phrasing, those matter. They matter a lot. And Dick knows that, has used that to his advantage even as he doesn’t know where he’s pulling from. And he knows it’s something, knows something’s just the tiniest bit off. There’s something there, so close and yet so far away that leaves him feeling empty. There’s something so intrinsically connected to his entire self that’s been ripped away and Dick wants it back, He just doesn’t know how, yet. 

But he will, someday. He’ll get it back, whatever he’s missing. 

.

He’s fourteen when Bruce fires him.

He’s fifteen when Deathstroke captures him. 

He’s nineteen when his brother dies.

21 when he’s put in charge of a city, of a child that’s not his, will never be his, not completely. Still twenty-one when Bruce returns and Dick is booted back to Bludhaven. 

He works and works and works and gets fired and gets hired and reaches out and gives and gives and gives and nothing ever gives back, no one ever reaches out to him and he’s so tired.

He does his best to repair his relationship with Tim, does everything he can to make Jason feel comfortable around him, gives Damian somewhere to go when he feels caged, does everything he can to be the perfect brother, the perfect son.

And then he’s twenty-three and two thousand and everything in between. He knows. He remembers. And he wishes he hadn’t.

.

Apollo wakes up in his bed, in his room, in his apartment, in his city, and promptly lets out a series of swears so vulgar and explicit even Ares would have blanched. 

He sits up, puts his head between his hands, and screams. Quietly, so as not to disturb his neighbors through the walls, but also pretty loud, especially after he grabs a pillow to muffle himself. 

“Gods—fucking—dammit," he groans. He lets his head fall back onto the mattress. He knows he has to get up. He knows he has to go back. But he doesn’t want to. He likes being Dick Grayson–no matter how hard it can be sometimes. He likes his life. He doesn’t want to just–give that up.

“Brother.”

Apollo doesn’t look. He pushes himself out of bed, grateful he had worn sweatpants to sleep. 

“Sister,” he acknowledges, even as he turns his back to her to rifle through his closet and throw on a hoodie. It’s Bruce’s college sweater, the bold GCU standing out from the dark gray background. It’s the sweater Bruce gave to him when he was thirteen and high on a combination of Ivy’s pollen and Fear Toxin. He had drowned in it then and it’s still large on him now. It’s the softest thing he owns. (it makes him feel safe, makes him remember when Bruce would wrap him in his cape and he knew that nothing could touch him, not with his dad there to protect him.)

He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to. 

“Apollo . . .”

Artemis sighs and he can hear her sit on his bed, sinking into the mattress. He knows why she’s here, and she knows he knows, which is why she remains silent, waiting for him to speak.

“When?”

Artemis doesn’t need clarification. She answers with a curt, “Noon.”

“I’ll be there,” he says reluctantly. He turns around and his breath catches as he sees his sister for the first time in well over two decades. Yet for her–for her, and everyone else, it’s only been a year. She looks the same–curly auburn hair pulled back into a high ponytail, large dark eyes standing out against skin as pale as he is tan. She still wears the same twelve-year-old skin as always, and Apollo feels a part of his soul slot into place.

She gives him a small smile, and opens her arms. He falls into them, clutching her desperately. They curl up together on the bed, Artemis shedding her skin for one that looks nearly identical to Apollo’s own. They’re twins, the other half of each other’s soul, Apollo’s sun to Artemis’ moon, and for the first time since he was reborn he feels whole .

They stay there for what feels like seconds and hours at the same time; not talking, just soaking in the other’s presence. 

“I missed you,” Apollo whispers, and it feels like a confession.

“And I you,” Artemis replies, and it feels like salvation. She nudges him, throws her legs over the bed and stands up, throwing him an expectant look. “Well? You have food, yes?”

Apollo barks out a surprised laugh. “Are you asking me to make you breakfast?”

“Perhaps.”

Apollo laughs again, loud and full of joy because he’s missed this, missed bickering with his sister and her bossing him around and reprimanding him whenever he tries to flirt with her Hunters. And that reminds him—

“I have put Cleo in charge for the moment. Thalia is spending some time at Camp Half-Blood.”

Apollo makes a noise of understanding and makes his way to his kitchen, taking out the ingredients for pancakes–he can cook, just like he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. (He just doesn’t.)

“So what’ve I missed?”

Artemis fills him in while he mixes the batter. He’s missed a lot, apparently. Leo Valdez is alive—Apollo hadn’t even known he’d died —and is dating Calypso. Apollo winces. Yes, it is mainly his father’s fault for not releasing the girl, but Apollo hadn’t thought of her either, hadn’t reminded his father. It’s not his fault, not really, but still. 

Percy and Annabeth are engaged and attending NYU—New Rome being too far away and Percy not wanting to leave his mother or be too far from camp. Artemis was told this by Thalia, who had recruited Reyna to the Hunters.

And—Apollo almost burns a pancake when he hears this particular piece of news—Will Solace, his son, is dating Nico di Angelo, who, incidentally, is attending therapy sessions with Dionysus. 

“Goddamn,” he says, turning off the stove. “Well, opposites attract, I suppose.”

Artemis eyes him. “You’re okay with this?”

Apollo snorts. If he could have sex with the guy who kidnapped him, tried to kill his friends, and was nearly successful in brainwashing him into hurting said friends practically the moment he turned legal, then he certainly won’t begrudge Will liking a son of Hades. Of course, he doesn’t say any of this aloud, but the sentiment still stands.

“I’ve dated aliens, Arty. This,"  he gestures, setting down the plate on the table, “isn’t even the top ten weirdest relationship I can think of.” Not even top fifty, if he’s being honest. Although to be fair, he knows some pretty ‘out-there’ people, including but not limited to an alien princess and a guy who dresses up like a bat every night to fight crime who sometimes has flings with a lady who dresses up like a cat to steal things. 

He gives Artemis a plate and takes one for himself, helping himself to some pancakes. Artemis does this same, and they eat with minimal small talk. It’s nice, though. Just existing with his sister.

Eventually, though, he has to face the music. He can’t just sit around all day watching cheesy sitcoms, no matter how entertaining Joey and Phoebe are. It sucks, but…well. 

Artemis flashes away after squeezing his shoulder and he appreciates it, he does, he just…needs to psych himself up. He paces in front of his t.v. and worries, going over contingency after contingency. 

He can’t put it off forever, so he takes a deep breath and throws himself to the wolves.

.

He sprawls on his throne (eugh), and runs a tanned hand through his golden-blond hair. He misses his black hair but there are certain expectations he needs to meet, and if he can get away with it at all, he’s not going to say a word of where—of who —he’s been.

He surveys the room. Only Artemis and the kids have noticed him—and how fucked up is that? Gods, he feels like such a major douchebag right now.

He doesn’t say anything, and puts a finger to his lips to tell the kids to do the same. Percy rolls his eyes but looks away and Will gives what he can only assume is an exasperated sigh, leaning on Nico. and they’re cute, now that Apollo can see them in person. He definitely approves.

Finally, after like five minutes—and really, he’s disappointed—Athena clears her throat. 

“Father,” she says, nodding towards him.

Zeus startles when he finally notices Apollo. 

“Ah,” he says, obviously embarrassed but trying to hide it. And failing. Apollo does his best to capture this moment to memory—it’s hilarious. “Apollo. Welcome back.”

Apollo smirks, and with centuries of experience of pissing people off, salutes lazily. “Sup,” he greets. Zeus grits his teeth and Apollo knows that nobody—except maybe Artemis—thinks he’s changed at all. And honestly? Besides from trying to be a better dad, he wants to keep it like that. He’s found it’s easier when people underestimate him.

“Dad,” Will says, stepping forward. Apollo lets his smirk fade into something a little more genuine. He stands up off his throne (thank the gods) and strides over to his son.

“Gonna be honest, I did not see that coming,” he says, ruffling Will’s hair and nodding towards Nico. He can feel Will stiffening and adds, “Congratulations. But if he hurts you, let me know and I’ll make him babysit.”

Will tilts his head in confusion. “Babysit?”

“I have a friend with a few hyenas,” he says, grinning. Everyone in the room except Percy takes a step back, or leans back, or does something to move away from him. That’s fair. It is Harley. He does have to give credit to Percy though, no matter how much he wishes he didn’t. Kid’s tough, for all the wrong reasons.

“Dad,” Will hisses. Apollo laughs—he consciously does not snicker—and goes back to his throne (maybe he can like. Import a copy of Bruce’s office chair? It’s comfy, and definitely less pretentious than what he has now). 

“Hyenas,” Percy repeats. 

“Hyenas,” Apollo agrees, nodding. He schools his face into something serious, even though he desperately wants to laugh. This is hilarious.

“Enough nonsense,” Zeus thunders. He looks pissed, and Apollo feels a sharp sense of satisfaction. Good. How much farther can he push Zeus before he breaks? “Apollo.”

Apollo straightens. “Yes, father?”

“The Fates had given you a task. Have you completed it?”

Apollo barely holds himself back from snorting. Task? What task? To be a traumatized, fucked-up person who can barely hold himself together on a good day? What was his task, hmm? To die? Because he’s done that. Most of his family has done that. His best friend has done that. He doesn’t know why he was sent back, and honestly? He doesn’t want to think of what would have happened if he hadn’t. Would there still have been a Dick Grayson? Would—nope. Not thinking about it. He really doesn’t need to have an existential crisis, especially not now.

“I don’t know,” he says. “If I did, I was given no sign.”

“Then it was for nothing?” Zeus demands. “What reason—”

“Father,” Athena cuts in, glancing at Apollo. He shrugs, grateful for her interference. “As of right now, it does not matter.”

“You dare—”

“If he has completed the task,” Athena continues, “then we can forget about it and just welcome him back. If not, then I’m sure that when it comes time he will do everything in his power to do…whatever it is he has to do. Right?” She glares at him, wordlessly telling him to agree, even though he would have without her trying to drill holes in him with her eyes. 

“Right,” Apollo says, sighing. He props up his head with his hand, making a fist against his forehead. Gods, he’s so tired. Shouldn’t being a god cancel out sleep deprivation? 

Zeus scowls. “I…suppose,” he concedes reluctantly. “You are to resume your duties at once.”

“Yep.”

Apollo spaces out after that, drumming his fingers on his leg. He can sense eyes on him–Hermes is trying to be subtle but Percy is just straight up staring. Will is too, but he’s at least attempting to act normal. Eventually, finally, the meeting is over and the demigods start heading back to camp. Apollo kind of wants to go with them, if only because he really doesn’t want to deal with the council. Alas, he has his duties.

He also promised to pick Damian up from school which ends in like, two hours, so he really hopes that they can be done soon.

“Welcome back, Apollo,” Hera says, almost warmly. He’s impressed, and annoyed. 

A few of the others echo her, and Apollo thanks them. 

“I appreciate it, but if you all wouldn’t mind, I have duties to attend to.”

No one ever said he wasn’t a master of getting out of things.

He flashes out before anyone can argue, landing in his room. He changes into something a little more comfortable, running a hand through his dark hair and slumping on the bed. 

“Fuck,” he says to the empty room. He laughs hysterically. He drops his head into his hands, wonders if he can get away with murder. Which, yes, he absolutely can. Not only has he been trained by both Batman and Deathstroke he’s also a literal fucking god. He wonders if Percy would help him murder Zeus. Probably. He wants to. He really wants to. Zeus is a bitch and a pain in the ass and way too paranoid. Unfortunately, there are worse options, and as long as those options are out there, Zeus stays on the throne, the lesser of two evils.

He doesn’t like it, can absolutely see where Luke Castellan was coming from, and hates being complicit, but there’s little he can do except start being there for his children.

.

Damian clambers into the car, and Dick feels something in him relax. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says. “How was school?”

Damian huffs. “It was…adequate, I suppose.”

Dick grins. That’s high praise, coming from Damian. 

“How was yours?”

“Ah, you know, same old, same old. Hey, you wanna stop by Batburger?”

Damian looks at him, brow furrowed in a way that’s nearly identical to Bruce, and Dick nearly laughs at the similarity. It’s adorable how much Damian is like Bruce, and although he objects to the comparisons, Dick knows he likes it. Dick liked it too, when people would compare him to his dad. Of course, there’s not many people around that knew him enough to compare, but Dick treasures what he knows, holds the knowledge and the memories close to heart.

Damian agrees and Dick turns left instead of right. 

Chapter Text

Dick calmly takes a bite of his noodles. He dips his fork back in his bowl and swallows the next forkful, ignoring everything and everyone around him. He mulls over what happened at the council while he eats. 

Athena was surprisingly helpful, saving him from an interrogation from Zeus. he makes a mental note to thank her, leaning to the side to dodge the plastic knife that whizzes past his ear.

He should visit camp soon. He’d been gone for a year, and he really does want to be a better dad. (He was already miles ahead of the others in terms of being present in his kids’ lives, but he can do more. Be more.)

“Fuck you!” Jason shouts, slamming his hands on the table. Dick wonders if bringing presents would be too much.

“Master Jason,” Alfred says reprovingly. Dick debates whether shooting one of Roy’s glitter arrows would be worth the mess.

“But Damian—”

“Jaylad,” says Bruce, giving him a disappointed look. 

Jason grumbles but sits back down. Damian smiles smugly. Dick decides that yes, the glitter arrow might be a bit overboard for the first visit. Maybe the third?

He wonders if he can rope Hermes into visiting with him. He doubts Hermes had been there since before Luke Castellan, and Dick is pretty sure the kids would benefit from seeing their dad. Maybe.

Maybe he shouldn’t go after all? There’s bound to be some resentment–even if it hadn’t exactly been up to Dick for the past year or so, he could have done more before that. Found some sort of loophole in the Ancient Laws. 

(Okay, yes, he’d already been doing that, but still. )

“So apparently Greek Gods are real,” says Tim conversationally, and Dick chokes.

“Holy—”

“Are you okay?”

“The fuck, Replacement.”

Dick coughs and takes a sip of water. Once he calms down and deems himself suitable for this conversation, he waits for the voices to die down. They do, eventually, and once it’s clear that Dick is okay, they turn to Tim.

“Um. Elaborate?” Duke asks, eyes wide.

“Obviously they exist,” Damian scoffs. “Wonder Woman would not exist without them.”

And isn’t that something, that Diana is Dick’s sister? His family is so insanely fucked up. Dick is kind of scared of it, and he feels bad for whoever tried to keep track.

“Yeah, but.” Tim stops, fiddles with his napkin. “Okay, so earlier today. . .”

And Dick listens with mounting horror as Tim spins a tale of monsters and saviors, how demigods are real and how Olympus is on top of the Empire State building because it moves with civilization. How he and Steph have the blood of gods running through their veins and how they only just convinced the half-blood who found them to let them come home for the night. 

“We’re meeting her in New York tomorrow, and she’s going to take us to Camp Half-Blood,” Tim finishes. 

Dick sits, stunned. He should have—he should have known , should have sensed something, anything—

“Where exactly is this camp?” Bruce asks. He looks skeptical, and Dick’s honestly impressed he managed to hold out so long.

“It’s in Long Island. Mortals only see the strawberry farm, though,” Steph answers. “Yael, her dad’s Ares. I don’t know who our parents are, apparently half-bloods get claimed at camp.”

Duke looks awed. “Do you have powers? Do you live longer than normal humans? Are you related?”

Dick breathes in sharply and tries to hold in his laugh. No, they’re not related in the ways that count. If they were, either there would be no dating or a hell of a lot of incest at camp. Of course, that doesn’t stop some of them from leaning into the family angle; Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace, and Nico di Angelo, for starters. 

Now that he thinks about it, he can sort of guess who Tim and Steph’s parents are. Tim practically screams Athena, and Dick can see Hermes’s mischievousness in Steph’s smile. 

“Dick? Are you okay?”

Dick looks up at Steph, who’s ignoring the questions in favor of staring at Dick. Dick plasters on a smile that doesn’t fit right in his face.

“I’m fine,” he assures her, “just tired. Gotta save some energy for patrol, right?”

“Right,” Steph repeats. She doesn’t look convinced. 

Still, Dick already decided to not tell them. He’s not going to change his mind just because a few of his siblings happen to be half-bloods. It’s fine. His two worlds are intersecting and he hasn’t even had a full day to process but it’s fine, he’s fine. He has to be.

He’s not going to tell anyone. As of now, Artemis is the only one who knows, and that’s because they’re twins. It’s a special bond, godly twins, one that is hard-pressed to break. This? Turning into a mortal with amnesia for a scant few decades? Not even close.

Although . . . maybe he should wait a few days before going to camp, just to be safe. Not that he thinks anything will happen, but hey. He knows his brother. Tim will latch onto the slightest thing and won’t let go until he’s proven wrong or right, and he’s usually right. 

Not to mention he still has work tomorrow. It’ll be a short patrol tonight so he can get a few hours of sleep, and then he has to drive straight to the station in the morning. 

“How long will you be gone?” asks Damian. Dick coos internally. 

“Aw, are you gonna miss us?” Steph teases. Damian huffs.

“I merely wish to know what will happen with patrol, Brown, ” he replies. He used Steph’s last name instead of an insult! Dick has never been so proud (that’s a lie).

“At least a week,” Tim says, frowning in concentration. “Most demigods only go for the summer.”

“That’s not for like, two months, though,” Duke says.

“Yeah. So we’ll check it out tomorrow, stay for a bit, and maybe go back for the summer . . . ?” Tim ends it with a question, looking at Bruce for confirmation. 

“If you have any problems, or need me to pick you up—”

“We’ll keep in touch,” Steph promises. “But we’re not going until tomorrow, and I want to crush y’all at Mario Kart.”

Jason snorts. “In your dreams, Blondie,” he says, grinning viciously.

Tim scoffs. “You’re delusional if you think you can beat me.”

 Bruce sighs as they run off, Damian and Duke hot on their heels. “Kids,” he mutters, shaking his head. Dick stifles a laugh and Bruce glares at him half-heartedly.

“Regretting your decision?” Dick teases, standing up and piling the plates on top of each other. Bruce collects the glasses and together they clear the table.

“Never,” Bruce answers seriously. “Taking you in was the best thing I've ever done.”

Dick swallows, his throat suddenly dry. “Bruce—”

“Chum.” Bruce moves so he’s in front of Dick, and places his hands on Dick’s shoulders. “You are my son, and I love you.”

Dick ducks his head, smiling, and wraps Bruce in a hug. “I love you too, Dad. But I think I should go make sure no one gets maimed,” he says, wincing as yells drift from the living room where the others are clustered. 

Bruce chuckles, his voice deep and warm. “All right,” he says, releasing Dick. “Holler if you need me.”

“Will do!”

Dick gives Bruce a two-fingered salute and goes off to find the others.

.

Patrol that night is quiet–in terms of crime. Actual quiet? Not tonight.

On the rare nights that most of them are together (with Cass away at the Titans for a little girl time with Raven and Kory) and there’s nothing serious, somehow it always devolves into a game of tag.

Dick, who’s it, scans the city from his perch on his favorite gargoyle on top of the old library. “Got anything for me, O?”

Barbara’s laugh fills his ears. “Nice try, Boy Blunder. I’m banned from helping, remember?”

Dick pouts at a camera, knowing she sees it. “Damn,” he sighs. He perks up when he spots a flash of purple, and runs after Steph. He’s good at creeping, and Steph has only managed to hear him sneaking up on her a few times, so he hopes tonight won’t be one of those times.

Steph is crouched on the corner of a roof, and to anyone else, she’s practically invisible—but not to Dick. He slinks up behind her and taps her shoulder, and breathes, “You’re it.”

Steph shrieks and the comms explode with laughter. Steph spins around and glares at Dick, who has to bend over, arms across his chest.

“Holy hell, Wing!”

Dick cackles and takes off, Steph shouting at his back.

Patrol that night ends with Dick victorious, having started as It but not being tagged, and everyone heads back to the cave around the same time. Dick can’t wait to take a hot shower and collapse into bed. 

Tonight was good, he thinks as the warm water streams down his back. A nice distraction, definitely. Still, it was a long day, and Dick is exhausted, so he finishes up and throws on a pair of sweatpants before falling into his bed. It doesn’t take long before sleep overtakes him. 

.

Dick cracks open Tim’s door, only to find him up and at his desk. Dick sighs and enters entirely, closing the door carefully behind him.

“You should be asleep,” he murmurs, pillowing his arms on Tim’s hair. Tim yawns.

“So should you.”

“Nope. I got work.”

Tim twists around, shrugging off Dick’s arms, looking him up and down. “You’re leaving already?” he asks, disappointment clear on his face. 

“So are you,” Dick reminds him gently. “I’m just leaving a bit earlier than you, that’s all.”

Tim bites his lip. “I guess.”

Dick smiles softly and tugs Tim out of his chair, resting his head on Tim’s hair as he hugs him. 

“Have fun at camp, yeah? I love you.”

“Love you too, Big Bird,” Tim says, hugging back tightly. 

Dick gives his hair one last ruffle before he ducks out of the room. He goes to Steph’s next, shaking her awake to whisper goodbye before she immediately goes back to sleep. Dick rolls his eyes as he slips out the room and goes downstairs. 

“Leaving already?”

Dick blinks in surprise, turning around to see Jason at the table. 

“Hi, Little Wing,” he says. 

“You just found out that Greek gods—that demigods exist, and you’re ditching. Wow, Dickhead.”

Dick frowns. Yeah, okay, so maybe he could have shown more enthusiasm—more anything, really, but it’d been a long day. Sue him. 

“Work waits for no man,” he replies. “And I’d really rather not get fired, so . . .”

Jason snorts. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he mutters. “Whatever. Later, dork.”

Dick grins at him. “Love you too, Jay!” he chirps. “I’ll see you next week.”

And with that, he leaves the manor and goes off the Bludhaven.

.

He got shot. Of course he did, literally nothing's going right this week, what’s one more thing to add to the list?

Still, it’s only a graze, so he tunes back into the situation.

There’s shouting, and gunshots, and Dick doesn’t really like guns (he doesn’t hate them, more neutral) but right now he’s just grateful for the standard issued gun that he got when he became a cop. 

He’s on the ground, but he manages to find a good angle and shoots the serial killer’s leg. She goes down screaming bloody murder, and Dick scans the area before sagging back against the wall he was knocked into.

Someone takes her into custody and Dick grips his shoulder to stem the bleeding. Someone rushes over to him—Amy—and asks him a few questions that Dick can’t quite make out. It’s like everything is underwater, and Dick is swimming against the tide. 

“Someone get an ambulance!”

Dick groans when his hands are removed from his shoulder and something presses down, hard.

“No hospitals,” he mutters.

“Yes hospitals,” Amy hisses. “You're going to bleed out with no hospitals.”

Dick, in his probably-concussed state, actually finds the situation a little funny. He's the god of healing and he can't heal himself for risk of being discovered. He giggles, then coughs. 

Ow. 

Amy swears and shakes him. Dick groans again, curling in on himself. His shoulder burns.

“Grayson, so help me if you fall asleep—”

“I won't,” Dick grits out, fighting to stay awake. His mind is the tiniest bit clearer, and he knows he can't sleep, no matter how tired he is. “Don't let me,” he orders Amy. 

“I won't.”

True to her word, Amy keeps Dick from fading until the ringing in his ears is coming from something real—the ambulance—and not just his messed up brain. 

He's loaded into a stretcher, and after a few minutes of questions (interrogation, more like), they let him pass out, which he does.

.

He wakes to beeping and a warm hand gripping his own. 

“Ugh,” he says eloquently, blinking his eyes open slowly. 

“You're awake,” says Bruce, relieved. He makes to let go of Dick’s hand, but Dick clutches tighter and refuses to let go. Bruce chuckles, and Dick relaxes. 

He's okay. His dad's here. 

Bruce calls the nurse, and she unhooks him from all the wires. He sits up and stretches, wincing when he gets to his right shoulder. 

“How long was I out?”

“Only a few hours,” the nurse—Jordan—assures him. “The bullet missed all of your vitals, and there was no nerve damage. You're a lucky guy, Mr. Grayson.”

He smiles at her, thanks her, and she leaves after telling him he's all set to check out of the hospital. 

“About five hours,” Bruce says before he can say anything. “The killer was arrested, and you and one other officer were the only ones injured. Acton, I think his name was?”

“Mark, yeah,” Dick says. “He okay?"

Bruce nods. “Dick. Are you okay?”

Dick fidgets. “You heard the nurse, right?”

Bruce shakes his head. “Dick—”

“I'm okay. Really.”

Bruce frowns but doesn’t refute it. He wants to, Dick can see it in his face, but he’s holding back for Dick’s sake. Dick smiles gratefully and pushes off the bed, standing shakily for a moment before Bruce steadies him. 

“Come back to the manor,” Bruce says quietly. 

“Bruce—”

“I know you can take care of yourself,” Bruce interrupts. “You’re an adult. But you are also my son, and I worry.”

Dick swallows. This is the second time in as many days Bruce had reaffirmed Dick being his son—and he has no idea how much Dick needed it. How much he needs the separation from who he had been. Because he’s not, not really, not anymore. He hasn’t been since the moment his mom gave birth to him. 

And Bruce doesn’t know that—can’t know it, has no way of knowing, but he knows something and has done his best to be there for Dick even though Dick had done his best to appear as though nothing’s wrong, and—

He wants to. He wants to go back to the manor, wants to drive Damian to school and help Duke with his homework and spar with Jason. But. He has a life, he can’t just move back in, can’t just abandon his city–that’s not what Bruce is asking, he knows, but . . .

“Can’t.”

“Dick,” Bruce starts, but stops when Dick leans on him. 

“I have things to do,” Dick says, but he buries his head into Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce sighs heavily, tired, but his arm comes up and rubs Dick’s back. When he eventually pulls away, Bruce gives Dick a small smile.

“The manor is your home,” he says. “You are always welcome. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.”

Dick blinks hard to prevent the water from leaking out. He flashes back to when he was thirteen and splitting his time between Gotham and the Titans, and the arguments, the yelling, and Dick storming out and not coming back–the manor wasn’t his home anymore, he wasn’t welcome–and feels a tear escape through his eyelashes.

“I know,” he answers, evening his breaths. “I–thank you.” He presses his palms to his eyes, lifting his head so he faces the ceiling. His home is–his apartment, that he bought with his own, hard-earned money, with his clothes and pictures and personal belongings. The manor, filled with warmth, joy, noise, and the occasional stabbing. Filled with his family. 

Home is—not Olympus, cold and impersonal. Not his temple, where he has little to nothing that he has to physically keep. 

At the risk of sounding cheesy, home is where the heart is, and his heart is in his cities. 

“Drive me home?” he asks, and he knows Bruce understands.

.

After Bruce drops him off, he curls up on the couch with a bowl of Lucky Charms and turns on Supernatural. He flicks through the episodes until he lands on Mystery Spot. He stays there, mouthing along with Sam as he tries to tell Dean about being stuck in a time loop. 

It takes four episodes—almost two hours—before something happens. And something does happen. Dick’s just surprised it’s not bad.

‘Dad, it’s me. Will. If you can hear this, then please come to camp. I—we—miss you.’

Dick freezes, spoon halfway to his mouth. That–shit. Shit. He’s heard buzzing in the back of his head, sometimes, since the day before, but this the first—and it’s Will. It’s—dammit. 

He can’t—he can’t ignore it. He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to be a shit dad, doesn’t want to be present in looks and stories only. He wants to be there, he wants to talk about crushes, wants to give the shovel talk to partners, wants to help with school, wants to see his kids graduate and get jobs and get married and have kids and he doesn’t want to be like Zeus.

He wants to be a good dad, he wants to give his kids the whole world, wants them to know he loves them so, so much. 

Tim is there, at camp, right now, with Steph, and they’re learning about this world, and Dick isn’t there with them because he’s too much of a coward. 

He wants to go—wants to go so much it hurts. But he’s a dirty, rotten liar who’s poison —

Someone knocks on the door. 

“Dick? You in here?”

Wally.

Dick relaxes and fumbles for the remote, pausing on Dean’s face. 

“Here!” he calls hoarsely. 

Wally pops his head through the door and winces. Dick gives himself a once-over and does the same. 

“You look shit,” Wally informs him.

“Gee, thanks.”

Wally snorts and wrestles the half-empty cereal bowl from Dick, who makes a noise of protest. Wally levels him with a look that he’d learned from Dick and puts it on the counter in the kitchen. Dick scowls.

“I was eating that,” he grumbles petulantly. Wally pets his hair and Dick leans into it, complaints forgotten. 

Wally grins. “I swear you’re more of a cat every time I see you.”

“I am not, ” Dick says, offended. He crosses his arms and frowns—okay, fine, he’s pouting. He pouts at Wally who just laughs at him. “Rude,” he mutters.

“Scooch,” Wally says, plopping on the couch. He drags a blanket over both of them and tangles their limbs together so Dick doesn’t know where he ends and Wally begins. Wally makes sure that his shoulder isn’t irritated, and Dick loves his best friend so fucking much.

“Seriously?” he can’t help but ask.

Wally shrugs and grabs the remote. “Can’t fight cuddle time,” he says, grinning broadly. "I can’t believe you got shot there again.”

“Oh, come on —”

“What is this, the third time?”

Dick turns his head away and refuses to answer. It’s not that bad, right? When the Joker shot him, one time with Slade, and now this. Of course he gets shot; he's a vigilante and a cop, it’s quite literally in his job description. 

“Shut up,” he says, sticking his nose up. “Not all of us have super-healing.”

“And not all of us are human rubber bands,” Wally returns. “Anyway, super-healing doesn’t mean I don’t have scars.”

“I am not —” he cuts off when Wally just laughs at him. “Whatever. I hate you. Go to hell.”

“Love you too, Rob!” Wally says cheerfully, unpausing the show before Dick can say anything else. Dick scowls playfully and knocks his knee against Wally’s. After a minute, Wally goes on to say, "I’m pretty sure the universe just hates your shoulder."

Dick snorts but doesn’t answer. He’s pretty sure the Fates have some sort of grudge against him–why else would they orchestrate all this? 

“Ugh,” Wally groans. “They’re so—”

“Yeah,” Dick agrees. “Want to skip to season four?”

“Uh, yes. ”

Dick snickers and selects season four episode one. 

“I am so happy I’m pan,” Wally says as Dean talks to Bobby. “Also fuck Ruby.”

“A-fucking-men,” Dick says, nodding. Being bisexual is great, especially when watching shows with dumbass gays. Destiel, in this specific instance. Wally cards a hand through his hair and Dick melts. They quiet down after that, content to bask in each other’s presence in the moment.

Dick smiles. He’ll go tomorrow, he promises himself. For now, though, he’s going to watch Supernatural.

Chapter Text

It’s three a.m. and Dick can’t sleep. 

Oh, he’s tried, but with no patrol and no work there wasn’t anything to do, and sometimes Dick needs to work himself to exhaustion. (It’s not healthy. He knows it’s not healthy, but it works for him, and isn’t that all that matters?)

It’s not like he needs to sleep, is the thing. He’s a god, after all. But sleep is an excellent way of wasting time. . . . And nightmares. Okay, so maybe it’s a good thing he can’t sleep, especially since every time he closes his eyes all he can see are all the ways he’d failed.

(Ca—she was right. He ruins everything he touches. Daphne, Hyacinth . . .)

Wally had left around eleven after a call from Iris. He had apologized, but Dick had waved him off with promises of hanging out again soon. And they will, Dick will make sure of it. They hadn’t spent enough time together, lately, and Dick had felt that. He had missed his best friend. 

Anyway, it’s three a.m. and Dick is bored.  

He could go on patrol—and Bruce would be worried. He could do paperwork—and Amy would lecture him. He has the week off, there’s no need for him to do anything for the precinct. Even if he wants to. 

. . . .He could go to Olympus. 

He could go to his temple, take the time to actually process. He could do that. He should do that. He hasn’t given himself the time, trying to find ways to distract himself. He should be able to hold himself together enough to visit his children. 

He should.

He really should.

But he doesn’t want to. 

Processing means a breakdown. Processing means accepting what happened. Processing means accepting that he isn’t Dick anymore. And he—he doesn’t want that. He wants to live his life, wants to see his siblings thrive, wants to be able to retire from his job.

He’s always known he’ll die young. Hell, he has died young. So had so many people he knows, so many people he knew. He doesn’t want to die, but he’s accepted it. It’s a hazard of the job.

And now that he won’t—can’t —die? Now that he is literally incapable of dying? Now, it’s all he wants to do.  

. . . . He doesn't mean that. He doesn’t. It’s just—there’s a reason he’s been warned not to get too close to people, over the millennia. And he does. He gets attached, and then they die, and then he’s alone again. Alone but for Artemis, who doesn’t need him crying about a random mortal dying (even if they weren’t random to him, never random to him. He falls hard and he falls fast, and sometimes that means the end for those he chooses). 

And now he’s processing. Great. 

It’s healthy, probably, to acknowledge traumatic experiences so he can start to work through them, but how does he get through thousands of years of abandonment and heartbreak and being an asshole? 

(He almost laughs at that—if nothing else, he is aptly named.)

He slides off the couch and leans against it, drawing his knees in close. He rests his cheek on them, and his hair falls in his eyes, so blonde it’s gold. 

He sniffs, and the tears finally, finally come out. They start slow, but then come faster, and Apollo trembles and shudders and huddles further into himself and falls apart in his lonely little apartment in a city he’s all alone in. 

He loves his apartment. He loves his city. But damn if he sometimes wishes he lives closer to his family.

Snot drips from his nose no matter how many times he inhales, water collecting at his chin and dampening his pants. He’s a mess, right now, and he thanks his sister that he’s alone right now. 

He doesn’t want to be who he was before. He doesn’t want to be that person. He thinks—it’s like in Stranger Things. Steve—season three, season four Steve—hates King Steve, hates who he’d been in high school. He was an ass and he owns up to it, and he tries to be better. He’s there for Robin, for the kids, and he takes responsibility. He doesn’t just say ‘sorry’ and leave it at that—he makes an active effort to be better.

And Apollo—that’s what he wants to do, too. He wants to be there for his kids, wants to be a reliable adult they can go to, and yeah, he already figured that out before, but this just cements it. Because he’s not the same person, is he, and he’s going to take that change and embrace it and be the best damn dad ever.

Screw Zeus, screw the laws, those kids deserve someone, and even if he's a shitty option, he’s still an option, and he’ll do his hardest to make sure he becomes less shitty and better. It’s the least he can do, really, considering what they have to go through just because of their parents.

(just because of him. )

He presses his forehead to his knees and breathes. He needs to—there’s still—he gets up, grabs a pillow, and screams. He screams until his throat feels raw, screams until he feels like his stomach has stopped trying to climb out of his throat and it hurts, but it hurts so good. It’s cathartic. He can almost imagine he’s screaming into the void instead of a pillow in his apartment with thin walls.

He’s still crying. Doesn’t think it’ll stop for a while, so he sinks back down the floor—sticks the pillow under his ass, it had started to go numb—and holds himself in a bad facsimile of a hug.

It doesn’t—it doesn’t help, not really, but the shakiness eases and he’s not dripping mucus anymore and he feels gross and his shoulder really fucking hurts.

He should take a shower. 

He should.

It’s the responsible, adult thing to do, get off the floor and take care of himself. Or he could snap himself clean—no. That’s—it’s too artificial. He won’t do that, if he can help it. He’ll stay away from godly things as much as he can help it. He doesn't want to relapse, if that even fits. He just thinks that maybe staying close to being human will help. It’ll give him something to hold on to.

(it’ll give him reason to break even more, when they’re gone.)

He doesn’t want to move, though, so he stays on the floor. It takes hours, or it feels like it, but he finally falls into a light sleep, tear tracks drying on his face.

.

He wakes up with a crick in his neck and his shoulder burning. He winces, stumbling to his feet and into the kitchen, downing some ibuprofen. And—well. Tim and Steph are at camp, and Tim is like, scary smart, and Dick really doesn’t feel like being figured out, so he lessens the pain. Just a little—getting rid of it completely would be weird and conspicuous, and Dick’s trying to go for an incognito mode type of thing.

So he hides it, and his other scars. He shifts—Dick is a mortal, with a family and a life and an ongoing existential crisis. Apollo is a god, with no blemishes. 

He looks at himself in the mirror and hates himself. He hates his hair, hates his perfect skin, hates his perfectly tan body, hates how he looks like one of the popular jocks in a show or book.

He doesn’t linger long, only staying long enough to grab a granola bar (at least it’s not cereal, he thinks, and wishes someone were there with him) before he flashes into the archery range.

It’s a hot day, even though it’s still early-ish. Around ten? He was wiped out after his, um, cryfest, and he hadn’t stirred for hours (which is. Good? But also not because he doesn’t know if that actually constitutes as proper rest), and he had basically rushed his morning. 

An arrow flies at him and he catches it with one hand, stopping it right before it pierces his chest. He looks down at the arrow, then up at the person who had shot it.

“Oh my gods,” Kayla says, mortified. “I am so sorry.”

Apollo laughs and hands the arrow to her. “Don’t sweat it,” he says. Gods, he’s so tempted to make a joke right now. He’s just barely holding himself back, and it’s the hardest he’s had to bite his tongue since the last gala when someone had tried to get handsy with Duke. 

Kayla takes off the quiver that was hanging on her back and slides the arrow in. “I missed you,” she says softly, because it’s private and people are gathering around now.

Apollo smiles at her and places a hand on her hair. “I’m here now, right?”

She nods. “Right.”

Apollo takes a deep breath and turns to face the masses. “Hiya, kiddies!” he chirps. Many of the demigods make faces while the others just look confused—Apollo assumes those are the newbies. “If you don’t already know who I am—”

“Apollo,” Percy says, cutting to the front of the crowd, Tim and Steph trailing after him curiously. Annabeth follows with Will and Nico, and Kayla slips away to put away her supplies and hopefully tell his other kids he’s here. 

“Percy!” he cheers, swinging an arm around probably the only person with the balls to stand up to the gods. “My favorite cousin!”

Percy grimaces and ducks out of his hold. The crowd whispers, and the confused faces slowly morph into awe.

“Dad!” Austin says, carrying little Ellie. “You came.”

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “Sorry it took so long.”

Percy narrows his eyes and Apollo keeps his posture relaxed. He really is sorry. He just has to prove it.

“Apollo,” Tim says dubiously. One of Athena’s spawn elbows him and whispers a warning into his ear. “ You’re Apollo. Like, the god?”

“Yup,” Apollo agrees. “That’s me.”

Steph elbows in front of Tim, bouncing on the tips of her toes. Before she can say anything, Tim grabs her. She pouts, but Tim gives her a look. Apollo knows exactly what he’s doing, and it’s cute, but he’s long since decided not to do anything to the people who ‘disrespect’ him. Besides, Dick invented that look. Or, well—Bruce invented it to stop him from being reckless, not that it ever did anything.

“And you’re here . . .” Percy trails off. He sounds irritated, like Apollo had just ruined his day—he probably had. Any of the gods would probably ruin his day. 

“To spend time with my kids,” Apollo says, shrugging. “I’ve got a lot to make up for.”

He smiles, and hopes it doesn’t come out as bitter as he feels. 

Ellie squirms out of Austin’s arms and runs over to Apollo, slamming into his side. He grins, hoisting her up. She’s grown, eight years old and heavier, closer to what an eight year old should weigh. Which is—good. It’s really good. Camp is good for the kids.

“Daddy!” she cries, draping her arms around his neck. 

“Hey, Ells,” he laughs, ruffling her long hair. “Did you miss me?”

She nods into his neck, and Apollo feels the pit in his stomach grow. He can’t focus on that right now, though; he literally just broke down.

“Daddy,” she whispers in his ear, even though everyone can hear her. “Will got a boyfriend!”

Will groans and buries his face in his hands. Apollo gasps dramatically.

“Really?” he asks, incredulous. Theatrical. Like he didn’t know.

She nods, her face serious. 

“Oh, gosh,” he says. “That’s—a boyfriend? ”

Will looks up to the sky with a what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this look and Apollo snickers. Will glares at him half-heartedly, and Apollo grins back.

“Well,” he says, “why doesn’t Will’s boyfriend join us?”

“In what?” Ellie asks.

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

Ellie’s face lights up. “Swim!” 

Austin groans. “Worst part about being in a magical summer camp is that the kids always want to swim,” he informs Apollo. 

“What if,” Apollo starts, “here me out. What if we have a little beach party? Just Cabin 7—and Will’s boyfriend.” He winks at Will who drops his face into Nico’s hair. Gracie pats his shoulder sympathetically, and Yan and Kayla just laugh at him. 

Annabeth clears her throat. “Right, well, have fun. The rest of you!” She claps her hands and whistles. “Back to whatever you were doing before.”

There are groans and mutters, but the crowd disperses until it’s just Apollo, his kids, Nico, Percy, Tim and Steph.

Tim is looking at him, eyes squinted, like he’s trying to remember something and it’s just on the tip of his tongue, but it keeps slipping away. Apollo hopes it keeps slipping. 

Percy looks doubtful, but Apollo understands. He’s a god. Percy hasn’t exactly had the best experiences with them—no one at camp did, really, plus Apollo could—excuse the pun—a bit of a dick. And all Percy had wanted was for them to be better, to do better, after the Second Titan War. He wants to prove Percy wrong, wants to show that he’s capable of being better.

And he’s taken the first step. He thinks Hermes has dropped by maybe once or twice, since the war, but Apollo’s been here at least four times before Zeus had sealed off Mount Olympus (not that that means much, in the grand scheme of things). Still, he’s going to keep taking those steps—maybe set a schedule? So people know he’s busy and don’t try to contact him or anything.

“Can you sing?"

"Steph, ” Tim hisses. Apollo blinks. Steph is right up in his face, so he gently sets Ellie down, and she runs to Mahira. 

“What?” Steph demands. “He’s the god of music, right, so he should be able to sing.” She crosses her arms and tries not to pout. It doesn’t work. 

“I’m so sorry for her,” Tim apologizes. He looks like he’s swallowed a lemon, or like he’s trying his best to be polite in front of snotty old cis-het white men. 

“Why? It’s just a question.”

“Some of the others would smite you for your insolence,” Apollo says mildly. Steph freezes.

“Are you going to?” she asks. She’s doing a good job of hiding her nervousness, but there’s an indent in her cheek where she’s biting it and she’s twisting her fingers. Not enough for most people to pick up on it, of course, but then again they’re not normal, are they? 

Percy’s taken up a battle-ready stance, like the first wrong move will get Apollo a sword in the gut.

“No.”

Percy relaxes and Tim glares at him and Steph looks unsure and his kids look almost scared. 

“Not many people have the balls to talk to a god like that,” he says. He hears at least two people choke. He smiles at Steph, a small, genuine smile, and tells her, “I like that. People can get caught up in their egos if they don’t have people to bring them back down to earth.”

Steph swallows, and Apollo puts a hand on her shoulder. He leans down to whisper in her ear: “Just remember who you are when you mouth off. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am, Batgirl.” He steps back and pivots on his heel. “So? Beach party?” 

He starts walking without looking back and hears footsteps behind him. A hand grabs his and he glances down to see Henry, who looks back shyly. 

“And for the record, I can sing,” he calls out. He keeps walking, and squeezes Henry’s hand. “Hey, little man.”

“Hi, Dad,” Henry says softly. 

Apollo smiles at his son. “If you want to talk, talk. I’ll listen.”

Henry lights up and starts rambling about a show—She-Ra? At least, that’s what he thinks. It’s a good show—he had watched it with Cass a while ago. Still, he can’t concentrate. The pit in his stomach grows a bit more when he thinks about Steph, freezing because she was scared. Of him. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He doesn’t want that to happen again, but if Steph had said something like that to one of the others—well. He wasn’t lying, about being one of the nice ones.

Still, insolence —he wants to go back in time and take it back. Steph is his sister, not just some random mortal that happened to be curious. He doesn’t like hurting his family. He’s done too much of that already.

.

Eventually, all of them spread out on the shore of the lake. Apollo is lounging in the sand, a few of his children around him. Some of them, who don’t care about getting dirty, go into the water and start a splash fight. He can see Kayla at the head of it, Yan leading the opposing team. 

Will and Nico sit together a bit further, whispering to each other. Apollo idly wonders what they’re talking about. 

“Dad,” Mahira starts, then stops. 

Apollo tilts his head towards her, and smiles. “Where was I?” he asks knowingly. Mahira flushes and nods. “Well, kiddo, that is a long and boring story.”

“It can’t be that boring,” Gracie says. “It’s been a year. ”

It was a little longer than that, Apollo thinks spitefully. He’s very spiteful. And petty. And it only grew under Bruce’s watchful eye. Dick took great pleasure in pranking everyone in the Justice League multiple times before he turned eleven. It was great practice, and a great bonding experience. 

Nico comes over before he can say anything. “You smell like death,” he says bluntly.

Apollo feels his smile tighten. It’s not actually that surprising, what with his family being what it is. Most of them have died. Hell, he’s died. Not as long as some of the others, maybe, but it counts.  

“Is that bad?” Will asks, face creased with concern. 

Nico shrugs, staring at Apollo like he can see straight into his soul if he does it long enough. “It’s not recent, but it’s powerful enough to cling to him.”

Apollo takes a deep breath. It’s powerful . . . well. Jason came back to life—they still don’t know how, because he’s told them that he didn’t get lazarus’d until sometime after he’d woken up. Maybe that’s it? Did Jason rub off on him? Or is it from his own death? Maybe he could ask Zatanna or John later. 

“Maybe it’s my will to live,” he says with a straight face. Mahira giggles in surprise, and the rest look startled.

Will and Gracie have twin looks of horror dawning on them, and Apollo smirks. 

“Oh no,” Will says.

“Oh no,” Gracie echoes.

“Oh, yes,” Apollo cackles. 

“How—”

“Wait.” Gracie sits up. “Most gods don’t really know pop culture. Only Hermes really references it. Were you a mortal?"

Apollo blinks. That was . . . sooner than he’d thought. He’d hoped he’d have a bit more time. He figured that only the gods knew what the Fates did, and even then, they don’t know just who he is. Was. Whatever. Artemis knows, obviously, but she’s Artemis. He couldn’t hide from her if he wanted to. 

“Holy shit, you were.” She sits back on her heels. 

The others start coming up from the lake, forming a circle. 

“Who was what?” Kayla asks.

“Dad was mortal,” Charlie informs them. 

“Really? How old are you? Where do you live? Do you have siblings? What—” 

“Sam,” Dean chides. He flicks water at Sam, who makes a face and shakes out his hair like a dog. “Let him answer.”

Apollo laughs at his children’s antics. Is this what it’s going to be like, going forward? His kids not afraid to talk to him, having fun around him, because of him? He hopes so. He really, really hopes so. 

Slowly, they all settle down. Will and Nico sit directly across from him, and Henry tucks himself into Apollo’s left, while Kayla claims his right. Ellie sits herself right in his lap, and he wraps his arms around her, tucking his chin into her hair.

“Is this an interrogation? Am I being interrogated?” he jokes. 

“Yes,” Kayla, Gracie, Yan, Carson, and Sam say in unison. It’s almost scary. 

“Okay then.” Apollo breathes in. “What do you want to know?”

“What’s your name?” Gracie asks immediately. 

“Classified,” he shoots back. “Look, I’ll tell you a little, but I’m a pretty private person, okay?”

There are grumbles of disappointment, but he looks at each of them in the eyes. He doesn’t smile. This is something he really wants to get across, because keeping his lives separate is important, okay, even more so now that Tim and Steph are at camp. When he’s satisfied they all understand, he nods his approval to keep going.

“How old are you?” Sam asks.

“Twenty three,” Apollo says easily, smile firmly back on his face. 

“That’s old,” Ellie says, wrinkling her nose. “You’re old.”  

“Sweetheart, I’ve been around for thousands of years. Twenty three is nowhere near that.”

“You’re still old,” she pouts, and he concedes to that.

“You should meet my dad,” he mutters under his breath. Actually—wait. Wait. Does this mean he can’t make fun of Bruce for being old and gray anymore? Oh, gods, he’s older than Bruce. He’s older than Diana. Oh, wow, he really didn’t process this, did he? “Okay, basic run down—I’m the oldest of I don’t actually know because my dad has an adoption problem, I’m a cop, and almost everyone I know has daddy issues.”

Austin chokes on air. “What—”

“What?” Apollo grins innocently. “At least I’ve gone to therapy. Kind of.”

“Kind of?” Dean asks incredulously. 

“I’ve had conversations with a psychiatrist?” He shrugs. “She’s not, uh, the sanest person, but she’s got the credentials, so . . .”

“I don’t think that counts,” Gracie says, face pale. “Are you okay?”

Apollo snorts. “Nope!” he says cheerfully. “Being okay is overrated. So is sleep, actually. Not sleeping is great. There should really be more hours in the day. But, uh,” he says when he sees all the looks his kids are giving him. They’re worried, and it’s sweet, but one time he went six days without sleeping and only passed out when he ran out of coffee. “You guys should sleep. Not sleeping is unhealthy.”

“You,” Yan says, “are the biggest hypocrite I have ever met.”

“Hey,” he protests, fighting down the laugh. He fails, and it bubbles out of him, and then Ellie giggles, and so does Henry, and suddenly they’re all laughing. 

“When you say daddy issues,” Dean says after they’ve all (mostly) calmed down. 

“Uh. That's, uh. Complicated?” 

“Complicated how?” Carson asks, eyes narrowed.

“It varies?” Apollo says, though it sounds more like a question. “Like, some are dead, some are kind of present, and some are just kinda shit.”

“Language,” Will mutters.

“Shit!” Ellie repeats happily.

Will glares at him and Apollo smiles guiltily. 

“Oops?”

“Oh my gods, you were mortal,” Austin says. 

Apollo blinks. “Is that not what we’re talking about literally right now?”

“Well, yeah but,” Austin starts. “It’s one thing for you to say you were mortal and another thing to act like you were.”

There’s a sour taste in his mouth when Austin says were, but he does his best to ignore it. He’s spending time with his kids right now, not having another crisis. 

“That makes no sense,” Yan deadpans.

Will tilts his head in thought. “No, I get it,” he says. “It’s like, Dad acts like a god, right? But he’s saying things that most gods wouldn’t because they don’t get it, but he does.”

“Exactly,” Austin agrees, nodding along. Then, he grins, leans forward, and asks, “What’s your favorite show?”

“No. No, you cannot ask me that,” Apollo denies. 

“Why not?”

“Do you know how many types of shows there are? Live action, cartoons, anime, and that’s not even getting into the genres, and subgenres and the standards—”

“Okay okay,” Austin says, rolling his eyes. “Favorite cartoon.”

“Mm . . . Gravity Falls, probably. Or ATLA.”

“ATLA?” Henry asks.

“ Avatar the Last Airbender. Not to be confused with Avatar the movie, which is the one that has the blue people.”

“Are you a nerd? You seem like you were a nerd in high school,” Kayla says.

“I’m the geek, my friend’s the nerd,” Apollo replies. “Well. We’re both a little of each, I guess, but our other friend gets really annoyed when we talk about nerd stuff so we tend to talk about it more when he’s around.”

“Understandable, have a good day,” Kayla says, nodding sagely. “That’s the most based thing I’ve heard all day.”

“That’s ‘cause you do the exact same thing with Alex and Nora,” Austin says. Kayla flips him off.

“Woah, hey, keep it P.G. over here,” Apollo says. 

“Shouldn’t it be Y-7?” Gracie asks. “With Ellie and Henry.”

“I’ve seen P.G. stuff before,” Henry pouts.

“What’s P.G. mean?” Ellie wonders. 

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Apollo says, pressing a kiss to her hair to hide his laughter. “It’s not important.”

“How many siblings do you have?” asks Will. “You said you were the oldest?”

“Um. Legally, biologically, or emotionally?”

“What,” Nico says flatly. He hasn’t really talked much, now that Apollo’s thinking about it. 

“Well, the youngest is the only biological kid, most of us are adopted, and some refuse to be.”

“Refuse to be adopted?” Dean asks. “Why?”

Apollo shrugs. “One of my sisters is more like that one cousin that hangs around for the free stuff,” he says. “And another actually still has a dad, she’s just also part of the family.”

“Your family is so weird,” says Sam. “Like, both of them.”

“You’re telling me?” Apollo mutters. 

“But how many do you have?” presses Kayla.

“Uh. Hang on.” He counts mentally, ticking them off one by one. Jason, Tim, Cass, Steph, Damian, Babs, Duke . . . do Harper and Cullen count? “Seven?”

“Is that a question?” 

“I genuinely don’t know how to answer that,” he says honestly. “Like I said, my dad has an adoption problem.”

“I thought you were joking,” Kayla says.

“I wish,” Apollo sports. 

“Hey,” Percy calls, picking his way over with Tim and Steph in tow. “What are you guys talking about?”

“How dumb your face is,” Nico shoots back. Will makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. 

“Death Breath,” Percy says, ruffling Nico’s hair. Nico scowls and jabs him in the ribs. 

“Fuck off, Kelp Head.”

Ellie squirms off his lap and runs over to Percy, who picks her up with ease. Apollo smiles. He’s not surprised. He’s pretty sure Percy’s just the camp big brother. It fits him. He stands up, brushing off some dirt as his kids disperse from the circle. 

“What’s your favorite food?” Steph asks Apollo. 

Oh, gods. It takes every bit of restraint he has not to say dry cereal. He bites his tongue. “Coffee,” he says instead.

“That’s not a food,” Henry says. “And coffee’s gross.”

“How dare you.” 

“Coffee is the only valid food,” Tim says.

“Okay, well, that’s not exactly—”

Tim stares at Apollo. His eyes are slightly narrowed like he’s trying to figure something out, and at this point, Apollo can only hope it isn’t him. 

“Coffee is love, coffee is life,” Tim intones in a creepy, monotone way. Apollo regrets so much. 

“It’s not a replacement for actual meals,” he says. “You still need to eat.”

Tim narrows his eyes a bit further. Maybe Apollo should lay off the big-brothering for now, but it’s instinctive by now. Tim’s basically addicted, it’s not healthy. Actually he’s pretty sure most half-bloods live off of coffee. Which is again, not healthy. Not that he’s one to talk, but hey. Do as I say, not as I do, and all that, right? 

“Do you even need to eat?” Steph asks. “Or sleep?”

“Technically, no,” he answers. “But food tastes good.” 

“Hmm . . . pancakes or waffles?” 

“Steph,” Tim says. His eyes keep flicking from Apollo to Steph to his kids and back. “Maybe lay off the literal freaking god, yeah?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Apollo says. “It’s actually pretty refreshing. Plus, longer I’m here, the less I have to deal with the others.”

“Are they that bad?”

Apollo glances up at the clear, sunny sky. “I plead the fifth,” he says dryly. 

Percy snorts. “Worse,” he tells them. “First time I met Clarisse’s dad he tried to kill me.”

“Definitely not opposed to you kicking his ass again,” Apollo says, grinning. “He sulked for weeks after that, it was amazing.”

“So glad to be of entertainment for you,” Percy drawls. 

Apollo stiffens. “That’s not what I meant,” he says carefully. 

“Then what did you mean?” Percy asks, stepping closer, a challenge laced through his words. 

Apollo takes a deep breath. He has to step carefully here, but there’s a part of him that just wants to say fuck it. He can see Annabeth and Thalia out of the corner of his eyes. 

“He shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have had to go through that—none of you should have had to go through what you did. But you did, and that was our fault, and I can’t—I won’t —speak for them, but I am so, so sorry. I was an egotistical asshole, and I’ll spend the next millennium making up for it, if I have to. You’re all kids. Some of it was my fault, yeah. I didn’t try to be a good dad, I gave you stupid quests that were dangerous and annoying and dumb, and that’s on me, and I’ll never stop apologizing for what I put you through, for my part in hurting you. But—if you’ll let me—I want to try. To be here. So.”

He swallows. That was a lot more raw than he thought it would be—not that he thought this out at all. There’s a big part of him that wants to leave, but he squashes that part down. He can’t run away. Not from this. He also didn’t think he’d be giving a whole speech about how shitty he made their lives, but hey. When has life ever given him a break?

They're all staring at him. He shifts uneasily, seriously debating just going back home. 

“Do you mean it?” Percy asks, lowering Ellie. His stormy eyes bore into Apollo’s, who meets his gaze head on.

“Every word.”

Tim makes a sound, slamming his fist into his palm. “Sorry,” he says when he realizes everyone’s looking at him. “Just remembered something I have to do later.” He looks at Apollo when he says that, and Apollo has a sinking feeling he knows what the ‘thing’ is.

A body slams into Apollo, and soon enough he’s been dog-piled by his children. 

“We believe you,” Mahira says, eyes bright. 

“And it’s not your fault,” Austin adds. 

“Well, some of it is,” Kayla says. “But most of it isn’t. And I believe you’re trying to change.”

“Love you, Dad,” Will murmurs. 

Apollo laughs wetly. “I love you guys too.”

Somehow, he thinks the hug gets tighter. He basks in it, the love of his children. He really does love his family.

Chapter Text

Eventually, Apollo has to leave. He doesn’t want to; he’d much prefer to stay with his children. Unfortunately, however, he has things to do. Crime sleeps for no injury, after all.

He flashes into his apartment and grabs a banana on his way to changing. He eases up on the containment on his shoulder and winces. Ow.  

He grabs his laptop on his way to the couch; if he can’t go to work, he can at least do some here. And then he opens Twitter instead. And immediately groans.

Someone had tagged him in a fanart of him and Bruce. Okay, sure, let people be creative! He’s absolutely all for that. He’s not all for people shipping him with his dad and shoving it into his face. Even worse—it’s not even him as Nightwing, it’s him from when he was still Robin. The artist had even specifically stated that it was the original Robin! 

“Gross,” he mutters, already drafting a response in his mind.

“What is?”

Dick yelps and nearly loses his balance, only barely managing to keep the laptop from falling. 

“Jesus, Arty,” he says, laying a hand on his heart. “Don’t do that. Or at least warn me!”

Artemis just smirks. “Now where would be the fun in that?”

Dick groans. “You really suck sometimes,” he grumbles, but when she sinks on the couch next to him, he leans his head on her shoulder. 

“What’s gross?” she repeats. 

“Oh. People are shipping me and Bruce.”

“Your father?”

“Mhm. Well,” he adds, “adopted.”

She makes a noise of understanding. “Is that any different from mortals pairing us up?”

“ Yes,” Dick says, frustrated. “First off, things were different back then. Second, he’s over twenty years older than me, and I was nine when I first started! Nine! Not to mention the undertones of incest! And technically, we don’t have DNA. It's very different.”

Artemis rubs circles into his back, and he’s reminded yet again of how lucky he is to have a sister like her. He leans into her a bit more, basking in her warmth. 

“Sweet home Alabama,” he mutters. 

Artemis raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything about his comment. Instead, she asks, “Can I come with you tonight?”

He glances at her. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Because I want to spend time with my brother? Because I want to see what you’ve been up to?”

He blinks. “I—sure, I guess? Just don’t interfere.”

“I wouldn’t anyway,” she says. “It’s against the rules.”  

He snorts at the cheekiness dripping from the last word. “Fair enough.” 

Dick puts on a movie and sinks into his sister. Gods, he loves her so much. He actually doesn’t know where he’d be without her. It’s possible he wouldn’t be at all—their father had always been sweet on her; Apollo not so much. It had gotten worse after the attempted overthrow, even though he wasn’t even a main instigator in that—mainly backup.

Still, his father had decided to punish the lot of them, and Apollo had accepted that. After that, however, even over a century later, Zeus had still been harsher with Apollo than any of the others, including his uncle. Even when they were minor transgressions, Zeus had always made him an example of what not to do.

It had grated on him. Ares had done much worse, and yet he got a slap on the wrist compared to Apollo. 

Now, with the hindsight of studying psychology in college (before he dropped out), he can look back and see: Zeus was jealous. 

Apollo was charismatic, handsome, and kinder than Zeus could ever dream of being. That’s not to say he wasn't cruel—oh, he could be very creative when he got mad. But Apollo had a certain aura that frightened Zeus, and he feared being overthrown. So when Apollo had been roped into his uncle’s plans, Zeus had taken that as confirmation.

But the thing is, the thing that Zeus would never be able to understand—Apollo doesn’t want to rule. Uncle Poseidon is content with the ocean, and Uncle Hades has his hands full with the Underworld. None of them want to take on the burden. 

Of course, Zeus couldn’t see past his own assumptions, and decided that since Apollo obviously wanted to rule, he’d punish him in advance. 

Dick understands that now. He doesn’t like it, and it’s really shitty, but he knows the reasons for some of the things that happened. And he’s not—he’s not happy about it, not really, but what can he do, really?

“Apollo,” Artemis says softly. “It’s getting late.”

Dick hums in agreement and pushes off the couch. “I’m gonna go change. Meet me on the McDonald's roof in ten?”

“Sure,” Artemis says. “Is there something specific I should wear?”

Dick thinks for a minute. “Well . . .”

.

Dick lands on the roof quietly, with naught but a whisper to announce his presence. “Duskwing,” he greets his sister.

Artemis turns around, and Dick grins at her outfit. It’s really just the red version of the Nightwing suit, but with finger stripes to match his current suit. It suits her. 

“Nightwing,” Artemis says, inclining her head. “What’s the plan?”

“Just going around the city,” Dick replies, peering over the edge. “There’s nothing really happening tonight.”

“I’ll race you to that building,” she says, pointing a few blocks away. Dick gives her a wolfish grin, and takes off. 

They run and swing and fly together, and it’s the most fun Dick’s had in ages. Dick gets there first, of course, because a goddess his sister may be, he is the only one in the universe who could ever be considered her equal, and he knows this city like he knows her and like she knows him, which more than they could ever know themselves.

There's barely a second between Artemis touching down and a shriek coming from the ally below them, and Dick glances at Artemis before throwing himself down.

Three large and obviously drunk men are closing in on two girls, one blond, one brunette and both very obviously minors. They’re fifteen at most, the brunette looks even younger, and a flash of fury slashes through Dick.

“Hi!” Dick says brightly, landing between the groups. The blond is in front of the brunette, who’s shaking. The blonde's chin is up, like she’s trying to be brave, but Dick can see the fear in her eyes. “What’s going on here?”

“Nightwing,” one of the men whispers fearfully. He seems to be the most sober, and turns on his heel to try and run—but Artemis is there, blocking his way. 

“Were you going somewhere?” she asks, tilting her head. “Because I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“We weren’t doing anything,” one says, quite clearly the leader of the little posse. Dick recognizes him—Billy. He was almost arrested once on the charges of sexual assault on one of his employees, but someone paid his bail before he ever saw a cell.

“I wasn’t asking you,” Dick says anyway, and turns to the girls. “Hi, I’m Nightwing. That’s Duskwing. What’s your names?”

Behind him, the third idiot runs at him and the brunette stifles a scream. Artemis knocks him away before he gets within three feet of him, however, and Dick keeps his attention on the girls. Artemis has his back.

“Kyra,” the blond says. “This is Talia.”

The brunette clutches onto Kyra tighter. “Hi,” she whispers.

Dick crouches so he’s the one looking up at them. “Hi,” he says back. “Were those men scaring you?”

She nods fearfully, and Dick smiles gently, holding out a hand. “It’s okay,” he tells her. “My partner will call the police, and you’ll never have to see them again.”

“They were going to r-rape us,” Kyra says, stumbling over the word. “That’s more than just scaring us.”

“We were just going to have some fun,” Billy mutters. Dick spins around and knocks him out with his escrima, turning back to the girls in one fluid motion.

“What?” he asks when Artemis looks at him. “He was getting on my nerves.”

“Hello, Kyra, Talia,” Artemis says softly. “I am Duskwing.”

“You’re new,” Kyra says, narrowing her eyes. “I’ve never seen you before.”

Artemis looks amused. “Yes, I am. Nightwing and I are old friends.”

“Were you a Titan?” 

Dick coughs to hide his laugh. “Uh—no. No, she’s a newbie. This is her first night out.”

“Cool,” Talia breathes, looking at Artemis with awe. Dick grins with pride. Hell yeah, Artemis is cool.

“Can we walk you home?” Dick asks. 

Kyra frowns, looking between Talia and them. “I . . .”

“Please,” Talia blurts. Kyra looks at her, wide-eyed. “I don’t—what if there are more?”

Kyra hugs her, and whispers something that Dick can’t quite catch, but it works to soothe Talia.

“Okay,” Kyra says, “you can walk us home.”

.

“You’re very strong,” Artemis says later. It’s been a few hours, and they’ve intercepted two muggings and a hostage situation at a twenty-four hour bakery. Dick’s tired, but not nearly as tired as he could have been. 

“What do you mean?” He swings his legs in the air, watching the traffic below. 

Artemis looks at him, leaning forward to meet his eyes. “I would have killed those men,” she says. “It takes great strength to deliver them to justice, and not just take matters into your own hands.”

“Bats don’t kill,” Dick quotes with a wry smirk. 

“You are a god, not a ‘bat’,” Artemis replies. “You have more power than any of the so-called ‘Justice League’ could ever dream of. Except perhaps Diana.”

Dick laughs as Artemis smirks. She’s right—sometimes it takes every ounce of his self-control not to go ballistic and just get rid of all the assholes he comes across. There’s a part of him, though, that still believes in some kind of fairness. 

He can beat up criminals, deliver them to the police, and that’s where his power ends. Compared to his vast life, his time spent as a mortal is barely even a blink of an eye, but he’s learned so much more in twenty measly years than he has in a millennia. He likes to think it makes him a (somewhat) better person. 

His head lands on her shoulder with a soft ‘thud’, and he revels in the peace of the moment. It’s so rare that he gets to do this—just spend time with his sister. They each have their duties, and he knows that, but he treasures every second he can get.

“Artemis?”

“Mm?”

“Thanks,” he says, looking down at the bright lights of his city. “I’m really lucky that you’re my sister.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolds gently. “Luck had nothing to do with it.”

“Must be Fate, then,” he says, tilting his head up. He can see faint impressions of the stars through the smog obscuring them, and while it’s always nicer to see them clearly, he takes comfort in the fact that they’re there at all. He spots Zoë’s constellation and dips his chin down slightly in a nod. 

“Whatever it was, you won’t get rid of me that easy,” Artemis says. 

It’s said teasingly, but Dick just beams at her. 

(he has issues, okay, not in the least abandonment. Which is another reason why he’s striving to be a better father—he knows what it’s like to be thrown away without a second thought, and he doesn’t want any of his children to die without them at least knowing that he loves them. He can’t do that again. Lee, and Michael, and Jason, who he blamed for so long. He can’t let it happen. He won’t let it happen. Not again.)

And the thing is, he knows she won’t leave him. Not after they'd been separated. There’s a small part of him that’s always afraid of people leaving him (which is utterly illogical, especially after Bruce had reassured him, but then again, fear isn’t logical), but he and Artemis are connected through something that no mortal is able to comprehend. It blows his mind, too, just how intrinsically intertwined they are. 

In a good way, of course. With Artemis, it’s always in a good way. 

“Right, well,” Dick says, standing, “I need a shower. Coming?”

Artemis shakes her head apologetically. “I need to return to my hunters,” she says. 

Dick pulls her into a hug. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Of course.”

She smiles at him and disperses into a cloud of silver light, leaving him alone on the rooftop. 

.

Mount Olympus, Greece, 413 B.C.

“Apollo,” Zeus rumbled. 

Apollo bowed his head to hide his scowl. His legs were sore from kneeling, but he didn't dare try to shift his position. It wasn’t fair.  He wasn’t doing anything wrong! His father was just blowing things out of proportion, again.

“Yes, father?” he said, doing his best to appear meek and malleable. It wouldn’t do for Zeus to think he was trying to present as a threat. No, that would just make whatever punishment he’d dole out worse. 

“You were specifically told to stay away from my daughter,” Zeus said, glowering. “And yet Ares caught you on top of her.”

Apollo doesn’t look up, but he can almost feel Ares laughing at him. Ass. He wasn’t even doing anything of the sort. He had been strolling through a meadow, basking in the sun, and he had stumbled across a beautiful maiden picking flowers. 

He had asked if she would be opposed to some company in her task, and she had smiled at him and invited him to join her. Together, they had gone through the field, plucking pretty flowers and making small talk. A few hours in, she had fallen, and Apollo had extended his hand to help her up. 

She had grasped his hand, and instead of rising, had tugged him down with her. He collapsed on top of her, and they had both laughed, and that was when Ares had appeared, with a leering smirk. 

“I was assisting her,” Apollo said. “She was picking flowers, and she fell. I was just helping her up.”

“And that ‘help’ included being on top of her?” Zeus pressed. “You will only make this worse for yourself if you keep up this false pretense.”

“It’s not a pretense! I was helping her up and she pulled me down!” Apollo burst out, straightening up. “Ares is lying, Father—”

“How dare you?” Zeus said, slamming a hand on his armrest. Apollo flinched. “How dare you accuse my children.”

Am I not your child as well? Apollo thinks bitterly. “I’m not accusing—”

“And how am I to know that you are not lying to make things easier on yourself, hmm?”

“I am the god of truth, lying isn’t exactly something I’m fond of—”

“ENOUGH,” Zeus thundered. Apollo drew back, eyes wide. “I will not stand for this anymore. You are not to leave Olympus for the next fifty years, at least.”

“Father, please,” Artemis cut in. “How would he drive the sun chariot?”

“Hn. You may drive the sun chariot with whatever amount of your being is needed, and that is all.”

“Yes, Father,” Apollo said through gritted teeth. He wants nothing more than to argue, but he knows that doing so would only hinder him further. 

“Dismissed,” Zeus said shortly. 

Apollo threw a glare at Ares, who was smirking, before gathering himself and teleporting to his temple. Ares had done so much worse in even the past week, but did he get grounded? Noooo, because it was only him that fucked up. It was only him that did something so heinous as to deserve a punishment from his father.

And he knows that he would have had it so much worse if not for Artemis. There’s a part of him that wants to be mad at her, that wants to yell at her, ask her what she had that he didn’t that made their father love her so much more than him. 

He wasn’t, though. It wasn’t her fault, and it would be useless to blame her anyway, because what could she do except try to lessen the punishments?

(it’s bullshit, and everyone knows it. He wasn’t the only one who participated in the ‘revolt,’ but he was the one who got the worst of it. It’s total bullshit, but there’s nothing he can do except suck it up.)

Chapter Text

Troy, one month before the war starts in earnest.

Kassandra smoothed her skirts out, sitting gracefully. 

“I would have thought you’d do anything to avoid me,” Apollo said dully. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m your biggest fan at the moment,” she admitted, “but you looked so pitiful I couldn’t help it.”

“Watch yourself,” he warned, shooting her a sharp glance. “Appearances say nothing of the inside.”

She smiled wanly. “What could be worse than what you have already done to me?”

Apollo rested his chin on his palm. He couldn’t tell whether she was here to console or insult him. He would have assumed the latter, but then again Kassandra was one of the few people he could never read. 

She sat with him in silence. The sun was just peeking out from the darkness of the night, and part of Apollo was driving the chariot, while another was in his temple on Mount Olympus. 

When the sky was almost fully pink and orange, Apollo looked over at Kassandra again. “You’re shivering,” he observed. She was flushed pink from the wind, and it suddenly occurred to him that too much cold could be dangerous for mortals. 

“How astute,” Kassandra said, rolling her eyes. If it was anyone else, Apollo would have smited them the second they sat next to him. It was Kassandra, however, so all he did was frown at her. 

“Why are you here?” he asked. “I have nothing to offer you. I will not grant you salvation, nor will I save you from the coming war.”

“I never expected you to,” she sighed. “I, more than perhaps any mortal, know what you are like. However,” she continued, turning to face him, “I do have something to tell you.”

“Just me?”

“Who else would believe me?” she answered wryly. “And this concerns no one else.”

Apollo frowned. “If it concerns me, why do I not know it?”

“Even gods aren’t all knowing,” she told him softly. She reached out and put a hand on his knee. He froze. 

The insolence—

“Before you decide to kill me,” she said, “you must know this.” She grasped his hand and met his eyes. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Her gaze bore into his, earnest and intense.  “It is vital, Lord Apollo, for otherwise I fear you will not survive.”

Apollo wanted to scoff, but something in her eyes stopped him. It was like she was looking right through him, like his soul was laid bare, and he didn’t like the feeling.

“Speak, Princess,” he commanded. “And pray that you are correct.”

.

He wakes before the dream finishes. 

His phone is ringing, and it’s loud and he should probably pick it up. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, rolling over and groping for his phone. 

“Mmyeah,” he mumbles.

"Good morning to you, too," Babs says, amused. 

“Ugh,” he replies, turning on his back and throwing an arm over his eyes. Gods, it’s too early for this. 

“So,” she starts. “I was reviewing footage from last night’s patrol—”

“You were spying on me—”

“And I found something interesting,” she continues, unbothered by his interruption. “Who’s Duskwing?”

Dick is half-awake now, which is two-thirds more than he was a minute ago. He yawns and slides off his bed, padding to the kitchen—and more importantly, coffee.

“A friend,” he says. He pokes at the machine, glaring when it beeps sadly. “Remind me why I thought this was a good idea?”

“Because you were being pissy,” Babs tells him. He can almost hear the eye roll. “Who is she, Dick?”

“Ughhh,” he says. Fuck him. What is he supposed to say? 

“You know,” Babs says conversationally, “you’ve got a lot of time off. Maybe you could come back to Gotham? Cass is supposed to be back by Wednesday, and I know Damian would appreciate you being there.”

She doesn’t say it, but Dick knows that the conversation about Duskwing isn't over. He swallows roughly. “I can’t always drop everything just to go to Gotham,” he says. 

“But you’re not dropping everything,” Babs persists. “What are you going to do for a week? You’ll be bored out of your mind.”

Dick taps his fingers against the counter as the coffee maker whirs. “I guess . . .”

It would be nice to hang out for a while, he supposes. And he won’t need to rush out for work. 

“Jason’s been tracking a drug ring,” Babs says. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your help.”

Dick snorts. “Sure. My help. You know what? Fine. I’ll be there. Just give me a few hours, okay?

“Okay! See you soon, love you!”

She hangs up, leaving Dick with his mouth hanging open. He needs better friends, he decides, pouring himself a cup.

He drinks his coffee. What should he do in the time he has? He could catch up on a show . . . or go bug his brother. He grins into his cup. Yeah, that sounds perfect. 

.

Apollo, with his earbuds in, walks casually along the path to his brother’s temple. A playlist of mixed musicals blasts in his ears—some combination of Hamilton, Heathers, Aladdin, Lion King, and Beetlejuice, among others. Steph and Jason had made the playlist when they were bored, one day; this one makes the most sense out of the ones they created. At least all the songs are from musicals. There’s a common theme there. Others, not so much.

He whistles as he walks, in tune to the music. He ignores the stares. He knew there would be stares, knew people would stop what they were doing once he was spotted. He knows why. He just doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. 

(anyway, this kind of staring he’s mildly okay with. It’s definitely better than being ogled by rich, white people who pretend they aren’t blatantly checking him out.)

He’s missed Olympus. He can admit that, at least. The fresh, unpolluted air, the beautiful scenery, the architecture—Annabeth Chase is very good at what she does. And the people, too. The satyrs and nymphs and gods and goddesses—and his siblings. Granted, he doesn’t really care for some of them, but he’s decent with most of them.

Ares is an asshole, though. He’d be proud of Dick when he was younger, Apollo thinks.

He laughs at the thought. Would he be proud? No. The only ones he’s proud of are his children, and even then only rarely. He’d be slightly impressed. Dick had thirsted for blood, for vengeance, and it was only Bruce and Alfred who managed to pull him back out.

He remembers going out those first few times, not Robin yet, not anything, just a kid who’d lost his parents. He remembers the anger, the grief that had threatened to swallow him and never let him go. He remembers nearly killing Zucco in the name of revenge, remembers Bruce stopping him, remembers yelling and struggling and crying when they returned to the manor that night. 

He didn’t kill Zucco that night. But he was still so angry. He was so entrenched in his grief that it overwhelmed him. He took it out on the streets, on Bruce, on anyone he could find (not the Titans, though. They were his safe space, no matter how bad things got with Bruce). And then he was benched, and benched again, and he started working outside of the city.

Splitting his time, fighting with Bruce, Slade, and then Bruce took in Jason. He remembers the shock, the anger he felt when he realized there was a new Robin. The fighting got worse. He tried to push it aside for Jason, he did—but not well enough. It was only when Tim came along, so small and determined, that he finally managed to forget the anger long enough to develop an actual relationship. 

He laughs when people call him the ‘nice’ Robin. He was the youngest before Damian, sure, and made puns and jokes and smiled and laughed and cackled. He was bright for the people. He was the light to Bruce’s shadow. But he was not nice.  

His feet take him along the path automatically. He hasn’t been back here for well over two years, ever since it was closed off. Living somewhere for millennia beats being away for a couple of years, he supposes. 

Soon enough, he’s standing in front of Hermes’s temple. 

Before he can do anything like knock, the door bursts open and Hermes appears, grinning like a maniac.

“Apollo! Perfect timing, come on!”

He grabs Apollo’s wrist and drags him inside. Apollo yelps in surprise but follows his brother deeper into the temple. 

“Hi, Hermes, how are you? I’m doing just fine, thanks,” he says, rolling his eyes. He yanks his hand free and falls into pace with Hermes. 

“Yeah, hi.”

Apollo tilts his head curiously. Hermes seems . . . preoccupied, which isn’t really out of character for him, but this is odd. He wonders what happened to make him so distracted. 

Hermes leads him to a chamber off to the side. It’s innocuous, pale walls with a painting on one of them, a few chairs, a couch, and a table. There’s a T.V. mounted on the wall, and a popcorn bucket laying discarded on the table, next to a slim brown package. Hermes heads directly over to the table, picks up the package, and hands it to Apollo.

“What is it?”

Hermes shakes his head. “I don’t know. It just appeared here, a few days ago. It’s addressed to you,” he says, nodding to a dangling tag. “It’s not anything dangerous, not that I can tell. I would have given it to you after the meeting, but you left before I could catch you.”

“Huh,” Apollo says, and slips it into his pocket. 

“You’re not going to open it here?” Hermes asks, slightly disappointed. 

Apollo shakes his head. “Afraid not, brother mine,” he says. “I didn’t come here for mysterious packages."

“Aw, you missed me!” exclaims Hermes. He throws an arm around Apollo’s shoulders. 

Apollo ducks out of his hold and flicks the other god’s forehead. “You wish,” he teases. “I wish I could have gotten more time away.”

Hermes pouts. “Boo,” he says. “Hey, it’s your first time back since the meeting, right? You haven’t seen anyone else?”

“Except for Artemis, no,” Apollo says. “Why?” 

“Well,” Hermes begins, dropping down on the couch. Apollo sits next to him, cross-legged. Hermes wrinkles his nose. “Why are you sitting like that? On a couch?”

“It’s comfortable,” Apollo defends. And second nature, at this point. He prefers the butterfly pose, but this is more casual, and also Hermes hasn’t seen him in a year and he figures that maybe dumping his entire life story on him is a bit too much. 

Can gods be ADHD? Because if not, then Apollo’s pretty sure he’s the first. 

Hermes stares at him for a moment. “What happened to you?” he asks, soft and just a little angry. 

Apollo’s not surprised. He’s always been closest to Hermes (besides Artemis, but she doesn’t count, not really), and even though technically Hermes is younger than him he’s developed a vicious protective streak. 

“Nothing you can do anything about,” he replies gently. “So what happened? Artemis caught me up on some things—”

“Mortal things,” Hermes interrupts. “Trivial things. She told you how Valdez is alive and with Calypso?” At Apollo’s nod, he goes on. “She told you nothing of what’s happening here, I imagine.”

“Is there something happening here?” Apollo asks, startled. He’d thought . . . well, he’d thought that nothing had really changed. 

“Something is stirring,” Hermes says grimly. “No one can quite figure out what, and Father refuses to look into it, but it’s there.”

Of course Zeus wouldn’t look into it, Apollo thinks bitterly. Why would he? Why would he take the chance of another war? 

“And you think it has something to do with me,” he concludes after a moment of silence. “Because of the package?”

“The package, the timing, it lines up too well. Apollo, when did you get your memories back?”

Apollo swallows. This is very serious, then. He straightens. “A few days ago,” he says. “The morning of the meeting.” 

“Four days ago,” Hermes says, face creased with thought. “Could it have been when you regained your memories?”

Apollo frowns. “You think someone set it up so the package would appear the moment I got my memories back?”

“Perhaps . . . there might be a clue of who sent it,” Hermes says. “You don’t have to open it now. But if there is something . . .”

“I’ll let you know,” Apollo promises, suddenly grateful that he doesn’t need to open it in front of an audience (it’s just Hermes. He trusts Hermes. What is this package?). 

Hermes nods, apparently satisfied with that. “Thank you, brother,” he says. 

Apollo subtly slips his hand into his pocket to feel the package. He nods back, feeling a bit unsteady. 

Before either of them can break the silence that has fallen over them, there are footsteps. Hermes stands and crosses the short distance to the main chamber. He’s back in a moment, leading Athena. 

“Apollo,” she greets coolly, inclining her head and settling gracefully in one of the chairs. 

“Athena,” Apollo returns cautiously. 

She looks at him calmly, gray eyes observing him. He shifts uncomfortably. What does she want?  

“You task,” she eventually says. “Do you know anything of its contents?”

Apollo takes his turn to observe her before he answers. She’s sitting straight up, as always, and her face is carefully blank. Her eyes, though . . . she’s worried. About the task? About him? No. not him. The task is part of it, he thinks. 

“As of now, no,” he allows, settling back on the couch, this time in a more socially accepted position. “You think whatever is stirring is part of it.”

Athena hides her surprise well. “You know of it,” she says, matter-of-fact. As always. 

“Not much. I only know that there is something and that Father is being his usual self.”

“And what self would that be?”

He smiles thinly. “What do you wish to tell me?”

Athena narrows her eyes. “You are different,” she states.

“Of course,” Apollo replies. “I’ve been hurt by many people, many times over.”

He’s forgiven more than a few of them. Bruce, his brothers . . . he loves them, but how is he the most emotionally competent person? He wishes, sometimes, that he could tell them exactly what he went through so they’d understand. He hates being the ‘golden child.’ 

He loves his family, loves his friends, but the most terrible hurts come from the people you love. 

Trust issues don’t just come from nowhere, after all.

Athena says nothing. 

Apollo resists the urge to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. He will not turn into Bruce. He refuses.

Finally, Apollo snaps, “Cut to the point, Theeny. I don’t have the time nor patience to deal with your bullshit right now.”

Athena does not flinch, but her eyes widen before she is able to control herself. Apollo notes this smugly. He’s been through too much to be treated like a child.  

“Very well,” Athena says primly, clearly restraining herself from snapping back. Apollo rolls his eyes. Athena, catching the very obvious gesture of exasperation, glares.

“Talk,” he demands.

Athena begins.

Chapter Text

“Two months ago, a water nymph came here to tell the council of a strange feeling her sister had.”

“Her sister—”

“In a completely different part of the world,” Athena says sharply, gray eyes narrowing. “Now may I continue, or are you just going to keep interrupting me?”

Apollo carefully keeps his face blank. “I was just clarifying,” he says, and it sounds clipped even to him. For fuck’s sake, Athena, can you try to be civil? Gods. He misses Cass. He almost wishes could go back to being an only child (but he was never an only child, was he, he was always Apollo, always a son of Zeus, always a brother and a father and a son and he had no idea, he’d had no idea ), but then that’d mean giving up movie nights. 

And—okay, yeah, he could do with less stabbing and death threats, but—it’s nice. 

“Allegedly, her sister was having a completely normal day when out of nowhere, she got the feeling that something was . . . watching her. Something inhumane.”

“A monster?”

“A monster,” Athena corrects. “A monster of old.”

Apollo swallows, his throat suddenly dry. He doesn’t . . . where is she going with this?  “And you think it has something to do with me.”

“It is curious,” she muses, “that she comes to the council mere months before your return. Tell me, brother, have you been sleeping well?”

Apollo breathes in sharply, nostrils flaring. “I fail to see how that’s any of your business.” 

Athena makes to reply, but before she can, Apollo’s phone starts to ring. He stills, then curses, digging out his phone. Athena falls silent, cocking her head curiously. 

Dammit. He wouldn’t answer, but it’s Jason—and Jason almost never calls, unless he needs help, and even that's an ongoing battle. The one time Dick doesn’t want to talk to his brother and he calls. He’d ask what he did in a past life to deserve this, but . . . . With a groan of frustration, he stalks out of the room and makes his way to the far side of the main chamber.  

“Who’s dying?” he asks immediately after picking up. Athena is right there—but Jason is more important. His family will always be more important. 

“Why is that your first—”

“Me. I’m dying.”

Jesus Christ. Dick pinches the bridge of his nose. “Aren’t you supposed to be at camp?” he asks. He’s going to go gray because of this family, mark his words. 

“I mean technically yes, but there were more pressing matters—”

“Where’s your first aid kit?” Jason interrupts. Tim makes a noise of protest and lets out a groan right after. It sounds pained. Dammit Tim, why didn’t you stay at camp?

“Depends,” Dick says, “where are you? And what happened?” Why are you in my safehouse was left unasked.

“Replacement got stabbed; y’know, the usual. And I would have gone to one of mine, but yours was closer and I didn’t feel like getting the Pretender’s blood out of my couch.”

“ Jay—”

“We’re in the one around the corner from that coffee shop, the one that has pride flags all year round.”

“I know the one,” Dick mutters. “The kit is in the bathroom, cabinet under the sink.”

Jason grunts, and Dick hears a clatter, and then fading footsteps; presumably Jason leaving to get the kit.

“Tim?” Dick says, gentling his tone. “Why are you back in Gotham? It’s barely even been two days, right?”

Tim doesn’t answer. Dick frowns. There are very few things that could bring Tim home when he’s doing something—ah. 

“Is Damian okay?” 

Tim says, “Yeah, he’s good. I almost was too, but they got the drop on me—finally, asshole, what took you so long?”

Jason snorts, tinny through the speaker of the phone. “Just be grateful I’m here to patch you up.” 

There are sounds, and Dick can almost picture what’s happening: Tim, on the couch, bleeding (somewhere; Dick doesn’t actually know where), Jason, with bandages and disinfectant, cleaning the wound and wrapping it up. It almost makes him smile—and then laugh at the thought. 

The usual. For them, yeah. This is basically their version of family bonding.

Still . . . .

“Why was the League in Gotham?”

He can see Athena’s eyes narrow—wonders what she thinks. As far as he knows, Artemis is the only one who knows where he is, and that’s only because it’s Artemis. No matter how far they are from each other, no matter how long it’s been, their bond is one of a kind. He can almost liken it to the one he has with Donna (they’d get along well, he thinks. Maybe—maybe someday) except a billion times more intense. 

Gods. 

When was the last time he talked to Donna? Like, actually talked to her?

Tim’s voice filters back through the phone and he curses internally for letting his attention wander. 

“—not sure whether it’s an attack on someone specific; it could be me or Damian or Bruce, or someone else completely—”

“By that logic I could be the one targeted,” Jason points out. 

“Okay, but—”

It devolves into bickering from there, and after a while Dick honestly thinks they’d forgotten about him. Both Athena and Hermes are eyeing him, though Hermes is more plain curiosity and Athena looks like she wants to sniff out all his secrets. 

“Oh, Dick,” Tim says suddenly.

“Yeah?” Dick hums. His shoulder aches.

“Can you, uh,” Tim sounds sheepish, and Dick is—not on high alert, maybe, but he’s heard this tone before. “Could you drive me back to camp tomorrow?”

There it is.  

“Sorry, baby bird,” Dick says, frowning. It’s not that he’s avoiding Tim, okay, it’s just—Tim’s smart. Like, really smart. If there’s even a chance of him figuring out Dick—which there is, because he saw Tim realize something, and Dick might not know what but he’ll bet it’s something to do with him. “Amy asked me to take care of a few things for her.”

“Oh,” Tim says, and Dick can hear the carefully hidden disappointment. Dick bites his lip. “Okay. I’ll—I’ll ask Kate, or something.”

Jason clears his throat. “Right, well, as fascinating as this has been, Timber’s about to pass out, so—”

“I am not—”

Dick laughs. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you guys later?”

“Dinner?” Tim asks. Dick can almost hear him perking up, and, well—he did promise Babs.

“Dinner,” he repeats. “I love you guys,” he says teasingly.

Jason groans and hangs up before Tim can answer, and Dick snickers. That’s his brother, alright. Always running away from emotions. 

…Although he’s not really one to talk, is he? Running away, by this point, is a skill he’s honed. Should he take pride in what is essentially being a hypocrite? Probably not. Is he going to anyway?

. . . . 

It would be weird to think something like I plead the fifth when no one’s around to hear it, right? 

Well. Whatever. His point still stands. 

He slips his phone into his pocket and takes a deep breath, trying to center himself (or whatever it was that Harley said). He debates just. Fucking off back to his apartment, but—no; that’d just make it worse for when he inevitably has to face Athena again.

So he turns around, and—yep. Lo and behold, she’s staring daggers at him, her gaze calculating. It’d almost be scary, if he hadn’t seen that exact expression on Tim a hundred times before. It’s freaky, how much resemblance there can be to someone who looks almost nothing like them. 

Tim is definitely an odd one out, with his blue eyes instead of gray. In terms of intellect, however? Definitely his mother’s son.

“No,” Di—Apollo says. He can’t be Dick right now. He can’t. “I’m not telling you, you can’t force me, whatever dirt you think you have on me means absolutely nothing, stay out of my business.”

“You’re still consorting with mortals,” Athena says, eyes narrowed. “I think that puts it on my priority list—”

“ Consorting?” Hermes mutters from somewhere behind her. His face is drawn tight—concern, maybe. 

“It’s none of your business,” Apollo snaps. 

“They are mortals, you are not—”

“Tell that to your children,” Apollo snarls. “Are they lesser simply because they’re only half?”

Athena draws herself up to her full height—six-foot-three, in her current form. Apollo rises to meet her, grows a few inches, and stares her down with an inch on her. Her eyes glint with indignation, and gods, it’s so obvious that Tim’s her kid. If he had known—

Then what?

What if he had known? Would he have done anything? Could he have done anything? Sent him to camp earlier, and Steph, too. Could he have gotten her away from her dad? 

No. No, that way of thinking is dangerous. He can’t focus on what-ifs, what-could-have-beens. He can’t let himself get lost in a spiral. 

“Don’t you dare insult my children,” Athena says quietly. It would be scarier if Apollo hadn’t seen Diana face down larger and more dangerous creatures. 

…Oh.

Oh, gods. 

Oh, gods—

Okay. No. He's just. Not going to think about that right now. It’s—nope. Hasn’t he had enough crises? Apparently not.  

He sucks in a breath. Calm, he thinks. “And yet,” he says, “I’m not the one using them as bait—”

“How dare you—”

“Okay!” Hermes intervenes loudly. “Why don’t you both take a break—”

“Oh, go feed your snakes,” Athena retorts. 

“ Hey,” Apollo snarls. “Do not take this out on him.”

“Oh, like you’re suddenly best friends?” Athena scoffs. “Please. Spare me.”

“Gods,” Apollo mutters. He’s so done. “What do you want?”

“Answers,” Athena snaps. “I want answers, and you refuse to give them to me like a cowards—”

“Answers to what?” Apollo cries. “All you’ve done is tell me that ‘something is stirring’ and it has something to do with a monster of old! You’ve asked no questions, and you’ve also been rude as all hell. Might just be me, but I don’t really think that’s how you get your answers.”

Athena growls, clearly frustrated. “Where have you been? How long has it been for you?”

Apollo stares, slightly open-mouthed. He’s never seen her lose it like this. It’s . . . kind of frightening, if he’s being honest. . (and also slightly cathartic. sue him, they’ve never exactly been on the best of terms.)

“I—”

“ Why ,” she continues, steamrolling over him, “did they choose you?”

Apollo rears back. “What?” He can’t stop the slight hurt that slips into the question. He can’t help it—he feels drained . The past hour has been exhausting. He’s better at masking his feelings, usually, the past few days have been—

Overwhelming. 

He just wants to sleep.  

Athena starts to speak, but Hermes steps in front of her, somewhat blocking her view of Apollo. Apollo blinks in tired surprise. Maybe he shouldn’t be

“Oookay, that’s enough for now,” he says with a strained smile. “Athena, I think it’s best you leave.”

Athena frowns, but—in a surprising move—acquiesces. She sneers, and huffs self-righteously, but she does turn to leave. 

“You know,” Apollo starts before she goes, “I might have answered some of your questions if you were a bit nicer about it.”

He leaves before she can say anything else, his last view of her being slightly open-mouthed, and Hermes, standing beside her, a slight smile of approval. 

.

He lands back in his apartment, because as much as he wishes, he can’t actually just pop over to the manor without an obvious mode of transportation, and he has to take his car instead of his motorcycle because of his shoulder.

And speaking of that—

He tugs off his shirt, making his way to the bathroom. He lets the wound show and prods at it, hissing. It’s not infected, thank—well, thank him, but it’s still—it still hurts. He has to fight against the urge to heal it fully. 

He grabs the bandages, sits cross-legged (it’s a fun way to sit okay don’t judge him) on the floor. The small package sits snugly in his pants pocket—he’s careful not to crush it against the floor. His phone, next to him, vibrates with a call, and he swipes up with his elbow.

“‘Ello?” he mumbles through a mouthful of gauze. A warm laugh comes through the tinny speaker, and Dick can feel relaxing a little as the sound washes over him.

“My, Dick, hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to speak with your mouth full?” Kory teases.

Dick spits out the end of the bandage and raises his elbow, hissing. “I’ve learned that manners kind of go out of the window when you get shot,” he says wryly. 

“Ah,” Kory hums. “Yes, I heard about that. Are you alright?”

Dick ducks his head even though he knows there’s no one to see him. “Worse than I could be but better than a few months ago.”

Kory sighs, and Dick grins, smoothing over the gauze on his shoulder. She had called in Dick and Roy for help with a mission, and it had ended with Roy getting a minor concussion and Dick with a sprained ankle and two-degree burns on his side. 

“Somehow I don’t think that’s as reassuring as you meant it,” Kory says, exasperation and fondness coloring her tone in equal measure. Dick huffs a laugh and stretches his arm as much as he dares to. Deeming it okay, he grabs the phone and pushes himself off the floor, kicking the discarded shirt all the way to his room.

“Aw, come on. It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Kory doesn’t reply, and that’s an answer in it of itself. 

“Kor, c’mon,” he complains, drawing out the syllables, rifling through his closet. 

“Stop pouting,” she says. Dick can hear the laugh in her voice. It makes him smile.

“I’m not pouting,” he replies, pouting. He pulls out an old t-shirt and tugs it on, being careful of his arm. “So. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing much,” she says. “Just spending time with one of my wonderful boyfriends.”

Dick groans as she laughs. “Do I really need to know about this?” he sighs. He looks around his room and shrugs. Anything he’ll need will be at the manor. 

“Can’t a girl love her partners?” Kory asks playfully. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you and Jason were actually related.”

“Seriously?”

“You have much in common,” she says sagely. Dick huffs a laugh and snags his keys. He presses his phone to his ear and starts heading down towards where his car is parked. 

“Oh? Please, do tell.”

“For starters, you both tend to gravitate towards a certain kind of hair color—”

“Kory!”

.

The call goes until Dick’s almost at the manor. It’s really nice—Dick’s been so caught up in all the godly stuff that he hasn’t really taken the time to just be with someone (excluding movie night with Wally). 

Gods. 

He really needs to spend more time with his friends. 

The package burns in his pocket the entire ride. He does his best to put it out of his mind. 

He makes it to the manor in one piece, and selfishly really really hopes Tim isn’t there.

Chapter Text

“GO TO FUCKING HELL, YOU SON OF A BITCH—”

“QUIT BLAMING ME FOR YOUR OWN INADEQUACIES—”

“OH, FANCY. YOU WANNA FUCKING GO—”

Dick sighs. Tim’s heading back to camp in an hour—Bruce is dropping him off in New York and he’s meeting Rachel there. And. Rachel. Fuck.

“I’m gonna—” Dick gestures to the doorway, and Bruce gives him a tired nod. 

Dick hurries away, rubbing his temple. He loves his brothers, he really does, but dear lord they are loud. He makes his way through the halls, sighing in relief as the voices get fainter the further he walks. Eventually he comes to stop, sinking down onto the bench he’d had placed. 

He gazes over the equipment that Bruce had had installed for him, as a child, so he could keep up his training (the equipment he’d replicated for his secret gym below Titan’s Tower), and tries not to slip into a flashback. He can’t—he’s had enough of crying. He’s had enough of spiraling and second-guessing himself and he just wants to breathe. 

He takes out the package, the unassuming brown wrapping hiding something. It feels normal, all things considered. He turns it over in his hands, the only thing standing out being his name—Apollo written in fancy lettering.

He keeps turning it over for a while, just staring, but…well. He can’t not open it. So he prepares to rip it open, when—

“Dick!”

Dick bites back a swear and shoves the package back in his pocket. “Donna!” he exclaims, turning to his best friend, getting up and throwing his arms around her. “What are you doing here?”

“Diana and Clark are ‘discussing’ something with Bruce,” she says, rolling her eyes, “so I decided to tag along. Babs mentioned you’d be here.”

“You and Babs are a terrifying image,” he tells her, stepping back and keeping a hand in hers. Donna laughs, bright and clear, and by all the gods, Dick’s missed her. “It’s been way too long, holy shit.”

“It really has been,” Donna agrees, eyes as bright as her laugh was. “You’ve gotta catch me up! What’s the family drama this time? Did someone get kidnapped? Is there a secret meta?”

“Ah,” Dick says, blinking. “Not…quite.”

“Dick,” Donna says, clasping her hands to his cheeks and staring him in the eyes, “Dick, what the hell does that mean.” 

“So you know how Diana’s dad is…well, Zeus?”

“Kinda hard to forget, yeah.”

“So. It turns out that…Tim and Steph are—there’s other gods with kids?”

“Demigods,” Donna breathes. Her hands fall to her sides. “Oh. Oh, of course.”

Dick tilts his head. “Hm?”

“I…” she sighs, tugging him down to the chair. It’s not quite big enough for two people, but they make do. “Politics suck.”

“ Politics?”

“Yep,” she says. “Did you know gods have politics?” Yes. Yes he does know, considering he’s been at the center of it. They fucking suck.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish,” she groans. “So—you said Tim and Steph?”

Dick nods. “They’ve been at this camp for the past few days—Tim’s going back soon, he’s only here because the league was here yesterday.”

Donna winces. “Everyone okay?”

“Mostly?” Dick shrugs. “Tim got slightly stabbed, and Jason has a few cracked ribs, but it’s pretty fine otherwise.”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t trust your definition of ‘fine’.”

“Donna,” Dick gripes. “Seriously?”

“One time you said you were fine and then passed out less than half an hour later,” she says flatly. Dick boos her. She smirks and flicks his forehead, and he groans and lets his head fall on her shoulder. “Anyway, godly politics.”

“Ooh, right, spill,” he wheedles, a smirk on his face. Internally? Well. He’s curious as to what an outsider’s perspective on what happened is like, but he also really just wants to not think about it—which is impossible with the package sitting stubbornly inside his pocket and Tim still in the house. 

Donna chuckles and concedes. “Well, I don’t know how much you know about demigods—”

“Just what Tim’s told us so far,” Dick says. “Something about a huge war a few years back, and a ban on kids?”

“The big three,” Donna nods, running through an explanation. “A few years back, one of them—Percy Jackson—made them all promise to claim their kids.”

“Have they?”

Donna shrugs. “There’s definitely been more claims, but who knows if that’s actually all of them.”

Dick lets out a breath. She’s right; although there’s certainly been an influx of claimed demigods, that’s not nearly all of them. He’s been trying, Hermes too—he knows Demeter as well, who, as well as Apollo himself, has a good record of claiming her kids, has been putting in more effort. 

Of course, there are some that don’t try (cough ares cough) but for the most part, the war was a wakeup call for them. Mostly. For them sans Zeus. 

“Gods are fickle,” Dick mutters. “It goes all the way back to the original myths.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I just wish they’d actually care for once.” Dick squeezes her hand sympathetically. “Anyway. So you know the myth of when Poseidon and Apollo got turned human?”

“And they had to work for a mortal king and build a wall, right?” Dick knows. Oh, he knows. Punished for no reason except to feed Zeus’s ego. Oh, sure, Uncle Poseidon was punished for the coup, but Apollo? He wasn’t even part of it. He had no part in it, and yet. 

“The walls of Troy,” Donna confirms. “Yeah. Basically: he did the same thing, just without Poseidon.”

“Turned a god mortal?”

“Turned a god human.”

“...Huh.” 

“Apollo,” Donna goes on, “was being punished for his part in a prophecy—which is really dumb because he doesn’t actually control the prophecies, he just gives them—in the second Gigantomachy when the Fates interfered. They did…something, I’m not sure—no one is, actually, except Apollo himself,” (ha, he thinks, no i don’t, i’m as clueless as the rest of you all), “and he disappeared for a year before showing up at a meeting between the gods and a few of their children.”

“What happened to him?” Dick asks, frowning a little. Gods, he’s so fucked, isn’t he. 

“Well, he—what’s that?” 

Dick blinks at her, and she tilts her head down to the brown sticking out of his pocket. Her sharp eyes narrow, and Dick swears internally when he realizes that Apo is visible. 

“Just something that came in earlier,” he says nonchalantly. Donna raises an eyebrow. Dammit. Dammit. Should he tell her? He can’t brush it off, she won’t believe him, and it’s Donna. But she’ll be mad at him for not telling, but is that better or worse than keeping it a secret? 

“Dick.”

“Donna.” 

She sighs, and he manages to keep from cringing, somehow. 

“Hey,” she says, catching his wrist. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Wally said you seemed off,” she says, “and then there was that new vigilante you patrolled with? And that—” she nods to the package. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I—yeah, of course,” he answers. Her eyes are so, so soft and he doesn’t deserve it. She’s too good for him. Too good to him. 

“Then tell me what’s been going on,” she says, eyes pleading and soft and fuck, but Dick is so weak to Donna. 

“I…”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” she wheedles, “not even Bruce.”

Dick laughs at that, gets off the chair, and runs a hand through his hair. ”It’s. Um. Complicated,” he says with a wince. “Please don’t be mad?”

“Why would I…” she trails off when Dick flickers, hair going from black to gold and back to black, skin darkening to a surfer’s tan and settling back into his white-passing brown. He smiles weakly at Donna, who had closed her open mouth and had turned to staring at him. 

He bites the inside of his cheek, already regretting it. “I—”

“What the fuck,” she says blankly. Dick winces again. “What the fuck, Dick, holy shit.”

“Sorry?”

“ Don’t—” she cuts off with a frustrated groan, pacing back and forth. Dick opens his mouth, but she cuts him off with a sharp glare, and his jaw snaps close. “I am. So fucking furious.”

Dick cringes, stuffing his hands in his pocket and fingering the package (what is it he wants to know he wants to see ). 

“Not—” Donna sighs and walks over to Dick and engulfs him in a hug, and he stands there, frozen, until she tugs his arms around her and he remembers how to breathe. “Not at you,” she murmurs softly. “Never at you, I promise.”

Dick snorts, and she chuckles. “Tell that to fifteen-year-old me.”

“When it’s not warranted,” she corrects with an eye-roll. “I’m not mad at you. Swear.”

“Then—”

“Your dad,” Donna says, pulling back so she can look him in the eyes. “It’s—fuck him, seriously, what the fuck—”

And Dick can’t help it.

He bursts out laughing, doubling over with a wheeze. He wraps his arms around his middle and laughs 'til he cries and then Donna is laughing a little too, hurrying to lower them both to the floor. His eyes hurt and his head throbs and it’s the best he’s felt since this whole thing started. 

“No,” he gasps, “no—no fucking him, he's got enough people to fuck—”

Donna wheezes, and Dick lets his head fall onto her shoulder with a dull thud . Gods, has he missed her. 

“Jesus, Dick,” she breathes, and Dick chokes on something that might have been a laugh or a sob. 

“Wrong religion,” he says with a small smirk. It falls a little flat, though, when some of his exhaustion seeps through his words. He's so tired. He wishes none of this had ever happened. He just wants to be a—well, not normal, per se, but…gods, he wants to be mortal and able to exist with his family without fear of discovery or retaliation or anything worse.  

“Hey,” she says, grasping his hand and gentling her voice, “breathe. It's okay.”

“It's not,” he objects, because he doesn't think it'll ever be okay again (if it ever was), but he concedes to her, letting his chest rise and fall to the beat of her heart. 

“Maybe,” she says, “but you're here, aren't you?”

“My entire existence is a lie,” he says flatly, swallowing past the lump in his throat. Because it's true. His existence as him, as Richard Grayson? It is a living breathing falsehood that tastes of bitterness and ash. He, the god of truth, made to lie and deceive who his very being is. Could there have been a more fitting punishment? 

“Is it?” Donna looks at him sympathetically, squeezing his hand. “I don’t think it is.”

“You don’t under stand,” Dick says desperately. “It’s—all of it—”

“Hey,” she soothes, “hey, stay with me, you’re okay.”

He shudders, leaning into her more. “Remind me never to leave you and Artemis in the same room together,” he says, exhaustion taking over suddenly. He slumps a little, taking in a deep breath. “Fuck.”

Donna smiles a little, pressing her face into his hair. “What, scared?” she teases gently.

“Terrified,” he confirms dryly. She laughs a little, and his lips twitch up into a smile. 

“Actually, I have a question.”

“What’s up?” 

“That new vigilante that patrolled with you the other night,” Donna starts, “I saw a few pictures of Twitter—she looked nearly identical to you.”

“Duskwing? Oh, yeah, That was Artemis,” Dick nods. “She, uh, she wanted to ‘spend more time with her brother.’”

Donna snorts. “You think she was babysitting you?”

“She totally was,” he groans. “She’s always like this.”

“She is your sister,” Donna laughs. “I can’t blame her.”

Dick pouts at her, and she swats at his head. He ducks and elbows her lightly, and she retaliates by pinching his arm. He yelps, giving her a dirty look.

“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I should go say hi.”

“You don’t have to,” she says, deliberately casual. “We could stay here.”

“For the entire day?” he snorts and shakes his head. “No. C’mon."

“If you’re sure,” she says doubtfully, but takes his hand when he pushes off the floor and extends it to her. 

She links his arm with his as they walk down the hallway, and they follow the noise until they make it to the kitchen, where Clark is telling a story to Jason and Diana and Bruce are a little ways off knees-deep in their own discussion of the gods know what. 

Clark spots him first, lighting up like a golden retriever. “Dick!” he exclaims happily, making his way over. e tugs Dick into a hug, and Dick laughs, returning it gladly.

“Hi, Uncle Clark,” he greets with an easy smile. “What brings you to our humble abode?”

Clark’s eyes twinkle as he laughs, a low, infectious noise. “Very humble,” he agrees, “the most humble.”

“Clark,” Bruce says with a sigh, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick grins at his dad, resolving to open the package another time.

“Just league business,” Clark tells Dick. “Boring stuff.”

“This ‘boring stuff’ wouldn’t have anything to do with the LoA, would it?” Dick asks with a tilt of his head. Bruce’s hold on his shoulder tightens minisculely. Dick frowns, catching Donna’s eyes. She shrugs, grabbing one of the cookies that sit on the counter. 

“Dick…”

“It's my city too,” he says. “I deserve to know what’s going on.”

“Your city is Bludhaven,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “As you love to remind us.” He narrows his eyes at Dick. “Is this about why you didn’t want to drive Tim back?”

“What, Bludhaven?” Dick blinks. “That had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh really? Then what about that new vigilante?”

Dick winces. He knew that was going to bite him in the ass. “She’s not…a permanent fixture,” he settles on, ducking out of Bruce’s hold. “She just…wanted to keep an eye on me.”

“Who is she?” Bruce growls. Dick bites back a sigh. Dammit, Jason.  

“A friend,” he says, then turns to Diana. “Aunt Diana! Hi!” he calls to her across the kitchen cheerfully, pointedly ignoring Bruce. Bruce growls again, and Dick rolls his eyes.

“Hello, Dick,” Diana says, amused. “How are you?”

“Pretty good, actually,” he says warmly. “What about you?”

“Good as well, if not for the work we have,” she says, and he nods in understanding. 

“Actually,” Donna interrupts, “ is it because of the LoA?” Gods, Dick loves her so much. 

“The LoA is—”

“Very much my concern,” Dick says smoothly, “seeing as it’s tried to kill multiple of my siblings in the past.” Donna slips her hand in his and squeezes, and he gives her a grateful look.

“The vigilante—”

“Has nothing to do with this,” Dick says, barely able to keep from snapping. “Bruce, I’m serious. If this is about the LoA, I want to know.”

Know why Clark and Diana are here about it, is what he doesn’t say. 

Bruce sighs. “You know they were after Tim?”

Dick nods. “Did they come here to draw him out? Because he was at camp when they came?”

Bruce nods, looking so, so tired, and Dick feels just a little bad for him. 

“Apparently,” Bruce starts, “apparently they know about demigods.”

Dick sucks in a sharp breath, and Donna squeezes his hand. Oh. Oh, shit. That’s bad.

“Why were they after Tim? Besides, you know, the usual,” he asks, dreading the answer. Unfortunately, Clark, Bruce, and Diana exchange a glance.

“We don’t know,” Clark says gently, and DIck is reminded of the conversation he’d had with Athena. Who was that water nymph? Just what part of the world was she from? 

A bad feeling stirs in his gut. He doesn’t like this at all. 

“Dick,” Bruce says, then stops. Dick eyes him, then rolls his eyes. 

“Her name’s Artemis, she’s a friend, and probably not coming back,” he says. “Okay?”

Donna snorts, and Dick resolves to never let them be in the same room ever lest he want to be utterly destroyed both physically and emotionally. 

Later, Jason catches up to him in the cave, where he’s going against a punching bag.

“Who is she really?” he asks, holding it steady. Dick grunts in thanks, throwing another punch and imagining it’s Athena’s face. 

“I told you,” he says, clenching his fists. 

“You told Bruce,” Jason corrects. “I know better than to think that’s the full truth.”

Dick sighs, dropping his arms to his sides. “I dunno what you want me to tell you,” he says, rolling back his shoulders. That’s a lie. He does know. He just can’t tell him. (can’t? or won’t?)

“Yes you do,” Jason says, stepping closer. “Dick—”

“She’s a friend,” Dick says through gritted teeth. “Nothing more, nothing less.” Sorry, sis, he adds mentally. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

Jason looks tired, running a hand through his hair. “Fucking—the cult, asshole.”

Dick raises an eyebrow. Jason glares at him, but grudgingly relents. 

“They want something to do with half-bloods,” he says. “They were here to draw Replacement out of the camp.”

Dick sucks in a sharp breath. That’s…that’s not good. That’s really not good. Is this what Athena meant by unrest? Does it have anything to do with whatever is ‘stirring’? Dick doesn’t know, and he hates that.

“Did they say anything?”

“Just taunts and shit,” Jason says dismissively. “Although…they did try to get the location of the camp out of him.” 

“Did—”

“They get anywhere?” Jason fills in. “no. Timbit’s too stubborn for that.”

Dick lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“Why do you care?” Jason asks, eyeing him suspiciously. 

“He’s my brother, what do you mean why do I care?”

“The demigod shit,” Jason says. “It’s like you’ve been avoiding it ever since Tim brought it up. But now you’re all worried?”

Dick frowns at him. He hasn’t been…no. He hasn’t, but to them it would look like he has. “Two of my siblings are demigods,” he says tiredly, rubbing his temple. He can feel a headache coming on. (he can will it away, can’t he? But wouldn’t that be cheating when none of his friends can? But he can. but—)

“And you somehow got out of driving Tim. or—being around Tim, lately. What’s up with that?"

“What’s up with the interrogation?” Dick jokes, but it falls flat when Jason only raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m just—busy. Didn’t have time."

“But you have time to get a girlfriend?” Jason mutters, and Dick sort of wants to throttle him. Just a little. (maybe a little more than just a little, but hey. That’s part of being an older brother, right? Wanting to kill your little siblings? [he has been sort of killed by his siblings before and also done the killing but that was to his immortal siblings and he doesn’t really like all of them that much and he’s supposed to be mortal now so he can’t do that—] he’s the oldest, too. He just has to stuff down the feelings and take it out on him by kicking his ass in Mario kart the next time he has a chance.)

“She is not my girlfriend,” he snaps. “She’s—she’s like a sister to me!” Take out the ‘like’ and there you have it, he thinks. Whatever. It’s not like he could avoid it forever. 

“None of us have ever even heard of her before,” Jason says. “I feel like you would have talked about her if you were that close. Besides, she looked almost exactly like you.”

Dick winces. Having the same conversation in such a short amount of time, except Jason doesn’t know and Dick can’t tell him? Might be the most stressful thing he’d dealt with since trying to mediate between all of his siblings during a rare movie night. 

“Plenty of people look alike,” he says, trying to take deep breaths. “Everyone has at least a few doppelgangers.”

“Dick,” Jason says, and he sounds so much like Bruce that Dick nearly double-checks that he’s not a teenager again (not that he’d ever say this out loud; Jason would kill him). “I won’t tell Bruce, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Dick snorts. “Thanks,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “I feel so much better now.”

Jason narrows his eyes, and Dick grabs a water bottle, taking a long drink. “What are you hiding?” Jason asks, and Dick nearly laughs in his face. What is he hiding? He’s always hiding something, whether it’s injuries, or his mental state, or things from his past he’d rather wasn’t dragged up—he can’t remember the last time he wasn’t hiding things. 

“I’m hiding that I was the one who told Steph to put glitter in your shampoo,” he says, completely deadpan, and then he imagines Ares’ face as the punching bag and hits it. Hard. 

“Jesus,” Jason says. “What did the bag ever do to you?”

“Ha, ha.”

A silence falls over them after that; not awkward or oppressive, but not quite easy, either. Dick focuses on pummeling the bag, and eventually, he can tell Jason gives up.

“I’ll get an answer one day,” he says warningly, and heads towards the exit. 

“Love you too, Little Wing,” Dick calls back nonchalantly. Jason flips him off, revving his motorcycle, and Dick sweatdrops internally. He can try to hide, and he is— for the moment. But he knows his little brothers, and he knows they won’t stop until they get answers. 

And right now? All he can hope is keeping his siblings away from his other family. 

Chapter Text

The door is locked. Everyone is out of the house. He is alone. 

Dick sits in his room, tossing the package from one hand to the other. The paper crinkles as he holds it up to eye level. He doesn’t have x-ray vision. The only way to know what is in the package is to open the package. He tears the brown wrapping off of it, and rips the tape off the box. Something falls into his lap, twinkling in the light, and he sucks in a sharp breath. 

He picks it up, admiring it in the light. Something foreboding curls in his stomach, and there’s a niggling feeling in the back of his mind. 

He doesn’t know what this means. 

He’s not sure he wants to find out. 

(he doesn’t want to find out.)

(why is he always lying? he’s the god of truth.)

Artemis appears in front of him, summoned by his prayer to her. He glances up at her from his place on the bed, fingering the cool metal. Ruby eyes glint up at him from where they’re set firmly in the snake’s face. It’s beautifully crafted, a golden ouroboros bracelet that sets off a dark feeling in his gut. 

“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs, sitting next to him. She matches him in appearance, dark hair curled to her neck and eyes as clear as the sky. 

“Hermes gave it to me,” Dick says, leaning against her. “Said it appeared in front of him a few days ago, with my name on it.”

“Apollo,” she says softly. Dick clenches his fist. “May I put it on you?”

Dick, after a moment’s hesitation, holds out his wrist. Artemis clasps the golden bracelet around it, the tail slotting in the mouth easily. It feels chilly against his skin, feeling more like the coolness of silvery moonlight than the warmth of the golden sun. 

“Apollo?”

Dick ducks his head, playing with the intricate chains. 

“Something is wrong,” he says. “And I don’t know what it is.” 

.

It is a normal night. 

Or it would be, if not for the woman who stands behind Dick. 

(and dick is already mildly annoyed—it had taken ages before he managed to convince bruce to let him patrol tonight.)

“What do you want, Talia?” Dick asks without turning around. “Why is the League in Gotham?”

“The answers to those questions are not the same, child.”

Dick snorts. “I am far from a child. I was the one who raised your child when B was gone and you were…wherever you were.” No, Dick isn’t bitter about Damian being abandoned by his mother, no matter how good she thinks her reasons were. (dick is all-too familiar with the abandonment of children by their parents—people who are meant to love and protect them—and he is trying to be better, is already better than some about claiming but it still rubs him the wrong way when parents leave their children for reasons other than divine rules.)

“And I thank you for that,” Talia says. “But you are still among the weakest of my beloved’s children.”

Dick cocks his head to the side. Perhaps if he were not who he is, that would be true. Perhaps not. He is the eldest, which grants him certain capabilities that the others just don't have (not to mention his training). He runs through the others quickly in his head; if Tim is the strongest, according to Ra’s, followed by Damian and Jason, then that would leave Dick somewhere with Duke and Steph depending on how they’re ranked. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Children should not be ranked. “Why is the League in Gotham?”

“Is that truly what you wish to know?”

“What are they after?”

“A god,” she whispers. Dick turns. 

“A god,” he repeats dubiously. She can’t mean—no. No way. 

“There have been stirrings,” Talia says, “about the resurfacing of a god who was banished by the Fates. I am sure you know this already. The Amazonian and her protege were here, were they not? I find it hard to believe that they did not inform you of the reappearance of Apollo.”

This…this is not good. 

“I was told, yes,” Dick says carefully. “Is it not a good thing?”

“No one knows.”

“What do you know?” Dick presses. “And why tell me?”

Talia gazes at him calmly. There is an ancient sort of knowledge in her eyes. “There is something about you, Richard, that leads me to suspect you are more closely involved in this than you would have your family believe.” 

Well. 

“If I was,” Dick says, choosing his words carefully, “could I trust you to keep it a secret? Even from your father?”

“My father,” Talia says, dripping with derision, “is deluded. He thinks he can find a way to control a god.”

Ah. So that’s what this is about. Dick takes a deep breath. He weighs his options. He could play dumb, pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, or he could reveal himself. The way he does so, however…

“Your father doesn’t stand a chance against Apollo,” Dick says bluntly. 

“So you do know something.”

“Yes.” 

Silence. Talia examines Dick, and Dick looks back unflinchingly. He holds his head high, staring down the daughter of the Demon’s Head. 

“What are you,” she murmurs, “why are you here?”

“I am a vessel of the sun god,” Dick says, and it’s true enough that it eases some of the strain. “He has many duties, moreso now than ever before, and he has decided to…delegate.”

“Delegate,” Talia repeats. “And why should I believe you?”

“You, who cornered me in the first place?” Dick shrugs. “Believe it or not, I don’t really care. But,” he says, looking Talia in the eyes, “if you don’t get your people out of my city, then rest assured, I will prove it to you. And I doubt you will like the consequences.” 

“I will do my best,” Talia says, conceding. “They are under orders from my father. I will not speak a word of this conversation, that I can promise you. Not to my father, nor my beloved or my son.”

“Good.”

Dick holds her gaze for a few seconds more before nodding sharply and turning, rocking back on the heels of his feet and stretching. She slinks back into the shadows, presumably to talk to her people, and refocuses. 

“All right,” he mutters, cracking his neck, the joint making a satisfying noise. “Let’s do this shit.”

.

“That’s a cool bracelet,” Duke says the next day in the kitchen, as Dick is reaching into the cabinet for a cup. There’s already coffee, still warm, and Dick guesses that it was Bruce who made it. Either way, better for him. The sooner he gets his coffee the better. Duke shoves a spoonful of cereal (with milk, not dry even though dry cereal is obviously superior) into his mouth. 

“What? Oh, thanks,” Dick replies distractedly. Dammit. Luckily, it’ll be easy to pass off as just a trinket (he really hopes that it is ‘just a trinket’).

“It suits you,” Bruce says, a hand on Dick’s (uninjured) shoulder as he passes by. “Where did you get it?”

“A friend gave it to me,” Dick says, pouring some coffee into his cup and taking a long sip. He sighs as warmth spreads through him. “I wasn’t sure about it at first but I dunno, it’s grown on me.”

“The eyes are really cool,” Duke says, peering down at Dick’s wrist. “Are those real rubies?”

“I doubt it,” Dick laughs. They are. And it’s real gold, too. “Alright, I gotta head out—”

“How’s your shoulder?” Bruce interrupts. He frowns, glaring down at the offending part of Dick’s body as if he can see all the bones and skeletal structure within. 

“Mostly healed, actually,” Dick says. “Donna had this nectar thing she wanted me to try. Not real nectar, it was an experiment—and it worked!” A little white lie never hurt anyone, right? 

(except he more than anything knows how much a lie can hurt and needs the truth and longs for the truth and it hurts a little to lie now, maybe, more than just the inherent uncomfortableness that he’d grown up with.) 

“That was dangerous,” Bruce says, frown deepening. Dick rolls his eyes. 

“You really think I wouldn’t have tested it?” he asks with a sigh. “Come on, B, you’re not the only ultra-paranoid bastard in this house.”

“What’s up with you this morning?” Duke asks, squinting his eyes. “You’re acting…I dunno, like you don’t really care.”

He’s acting bitchy, basically. 

Dick shrugs. “Sleep deprivation, probably,” he says, taking a long drink of his coffee. “I’m okay, kiddo, I promise.”

Duke squints harder. “You’d tell us if you weren’t?”

“Yeah, kid,” Dick says (lies), pasting a smile on his face. “I’d tell you.”

Seemingly pacified, Duke nods and goes back to his cereal. Dick narrows his eyes at the bowl. That’s his cereal Duke is eating. Dick holds back a pout, the indignation pushed down by the churning in his stomach. They’re just white lies. He’s been telling them his whole life, so why is now when they start to affect him? He’s lied many, many times in the past, even as a fully realized god. He doesn’t understand and he doesn’t like it. 

“So,” Dick says. “Any updates on the League?”

Bruce grunts. Dick takes that as a no. For a moment, he wavers; should he tell Bruce about his run in with Talia? but—Bruce would want to know what they talked about, and that is something that Dick is still desperately trying to not slip up about. No, he decides. Bruce doesn’t really have anything to do with it, anyway, save for being the father of two demigods. One of which, to be fair, is the subject of stalking by Ra’s—but still. 

He won’t tell Bruce. (yet. There is a tiny, infinitesimal part of him that longs to tell his dad everything.) He does wonder what Talia is planning on doing with the information she now has. Does she believe him? Or does she think he’s hiding something? 

He is hiding something, but—anyway. He’s getting lost in his thoughts.

“Where are you going?’ Duke asks. 

“I gotta drop off some files at the GCPD,” Dick says, ducking around Bruce and grabbing an apple—if only so he won’t be scolded by Alfred. “Just ‘cause I’m injured doesn’t mean I get to stop working.”

Bruce frowns at that, and Dick rolls his eyes. 

“You should be resting.”

“I’m mostly healed,” Dick repeats, a hint of exasperation leaking into his tone. “Besides, it’s a favor for Amy. I’m already in Gotham, and the commish knows me, so it’s easier than sending someone down from Blud.”

“Be careful,” Bruce says, worry lines creasing his forehead. I love you.

“I will,” Dick says, clapping a hand on Bruce’s arm as he passes. I love you too. “Have a good day, kiddo.”

“You too!” Duke calls through a mouthful of cereal. 

.

He finds Jason a while later, after he returns from the precinct. He'd managed to snag a late lunch of a burger and fries, which, while maybe not the healthiest, is something, at least. Fast and cheap. 

Jason is, predictably, in the library, curled up with a well-read—and well-loved—copy of Othello. He looks…happy. Content. It’s a good look on him, one that Dick once thought that he would never be able to see again. Being here, with him, right now? It’s a gift. 

“So,” Dick says, dropping unceremoniously into an armchair. He grins at his brother. “Babs said something about a drug ring?” 

Jason sighs heavily and exaggeratedly, carefully tucking a bookmark in between the pages and closing the book. He places it next to him, on the armrest of the armchair he’s sitting in. “I don’t need help,” he says, and wow, Dick can just feel the love. Besides, Jason’s lying. Or—well. He might not need help, but whatever he’s working on would be better with two pairs of hands, and Jason’s gotten more used to not working alone—that is to say, someone will inevitably shove their way into his operation. Not just Jason, too. Something something it’s healthier to be around other people.

“But?” Dick wheedles. 

“But,” Jason continues with an eye roll (dick takes that as a win), “I guess…it might be faster with another person. I’m in charge, though.”

“Of course, of course,” Dick agrees, not bothering to hide his widening grin. 

“You know, most people wouldn’t be this excited about a drug ring,” Jason says conversationally, standing up. Dick follows him, hands in his pockets as Jason leads the way down to the Cave. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you’re not telling us?”

He’s joking, and the question is rhetorical. Sarcastic. Clearly meant to be either ignored or responded to in turn, but—but—gods, why is this so hard? It’s just a fucking joke, Grayson, get with the program. There are some times when Dick hates himself a little. (maybe a little more than some. maybe disliking himself is something he’s grown so used to that he’s not sure what it feels like to not hate himself.)

“Jay,” Dick says with a dramatic gasp that matches Jason’s earlier sigh. “However could you think that? I’m an open book, Little Wing, I’m an honest guy!”

“If you’re an honest guy, how come you still have a secret identity?”

Just banter. Just banter with his brother. This isn’t an actual, serious talk. Jason has no idea—Dick has made sure he has no idea. Secret identity? What’s that? 

Dick can handle this. He’s just talking to his little brother who he loves. That’s all. 

He smiles innocently at Jason. “Are secrets the same as lies?”

Jason shrugs. “Depends,” he says flippantly. “How big is the secret? How many people does it affect? There’s a lot of variables. Though I guess that's true for any situation. Some things are just too vague.”

Dick isn’t sure he likes the turn that the conversation has taken. Is it partly his fault for feeding into it instead of shutting it down? Maybe. Does he wish he’d never been put in the position where this conversation happened in the first place? 

…Well. No. He’d take a bit of discomfort if it meant being able to spend more time with his brother every time. It’s not even a choice, really. 

“Although,” Jason adds, “secrets are technically lies of omission.” 

“Point,” Dick concedes. “So—tell me about the drug ring.”

Having successfully diverted Jason’s attention, Dick breathes an internal sigh of relief. It’s an interesting topic, sure, but definitely not one Dick is particularly interested in right now (or ever). He listens to Jason explain what he found, and leans over his shoulder as Jason pulls up the files on the Batcomputer. 

“You think they’re working for Penguin?”

“As far as I can tell, yeah.”

Dick hums consideringly, looking at the files. “Who’s that?” he asks, pointing at a picture of a middle-aged man. The man in the picture is leaving a bar, his face blurry and half-hidden in the shadows. 

“Keisuke Itonokogiri,” Jason says. “Fifty-four, moved here from Japan about five years ago.” 

“Actually,” Dick says, "his name is Ishii Koji. He had dealings in Bludhaven about nine months ago. Got out on bail.”

Jason frowns, tapping his chin in thought. “He had other names. Keisuke Itonokogiri was where the trail stopped.”

Dick smiles wryly. “Yeah. He’s good at covering his tracks.” Dick is very acquainted with the numerous other names held by the man. The one that stood out the most? Tobio Hinata, which was so clearly a Haikyuu reference that Dick actually caught him by just using the worst volleyball jokes that he could think of. He got so angry that he stopped fighting just to lecture Dick about the ins and outs of the sport. To this day it is one of the funniest things that had ever happened to him on patrol. 

“Okay, well.” Jason cracks his knuckles. “Let’s get started, then.”

They spend a decent amount of time consolidating their information, Dick filling in Jason’s missing gaps. Between the two of them, a plan slowly forms.

“This would be so much easier with Tim,” Dick mutters, staring at the screen in annoyance. Then he sees it. “Oh, hey. If they're working for Penguin, why do they have—oh, fuck.”

“What?” Jason comes over to see what Dick’s looking at. He takes one look at it and swears. 

“I think they’re working together,” Dick says. Maybe He's seventy percent sure. What he doesn't understand is why. 

“What, Penguin and Joker? When did he even get out of Arkham?” Jason’s eyes flash green, and Dick knows he has to be careful about this. He takes out his phone, sighing when he sees the first thing that pops up is a bright, glaring article: JOKER BREAKS OUT OF ARKHAM!

Well, shit.  

“About…seven hours ago, apparently.” He reaches up to rub his temple, but thinks better of it and reaches out to catch Jason’s wrist before his brother can storm off instead. “Jay, hang on.”

“What,” Jason growls. His eyes are a bright green, with barely a hint of blue. “What, Dick.”

“We need to be smart about this,” Dick says. “We can’t just go rushing in guns blazing.” 

“It’s the Joker,” Jason says angrily. He rips his hand free of Dick’s grasp, jabbing Dick in the chest. But Dick stands his ground. 

“I know, Jason. But you can't be reckless. You can't give him another win.”

Jason swears at him, but he stays where he is so Dick takes it. 

“We need a plan.” 

It takes time, but about an hour later, they land on one that they both agree on. Dick is still worried, of course, but he trusts Jason, and he trusts this plan. He just hopes that Jason remembers to keep his cool and that he has Dick, now, and all the others in their family. 

“And you’re absolutely sure,” he starts before he leaves. He can't help it—big brother's prerogative. He doesn't want Jason to get hurt (or worse, a little part of his brain whispers. he shuts that voice down). He has complete faith in Jason's skills. He's just worried. 

“Yes, dickwad,” Jason says, exasperated. His eyes had returned to their usual blue a bit ago, and Dick is so, so thankful for that. “Go pick up your kid.”

“He’s not—”

“Yeah, right,” Jason scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Quit lying to yourself.” 

Dick flails for a retort. He’s—is he lying to himself? Is—is he so completely fucked up from his time as a mortal that he’d abandoned one of his most important aspects? He’s good at lying, is the thing, and he hates it a little but he can’t—

“Jesus,” Jason mutters, and a small part of Dick that isn’t freaking out distantly wonders if that counts as blasphemy. Jason gives Dick a light shove. “Look, I’m sorry I made you have a crisis or whatever, but you and Bruce are pretty much co-parenting at this point.”

“I am not having a crisis!”

“Uh-huh.” Jason gives him a look. Dick glares at him half-heartedly. He’s had so many crises in the past few days. He might have a genuine breakdown if he has one more. “Just—go pick him up. I’ll get the intel.”

Dick blows out a breath. “Fine. Be safe, okay? I think enough of us have been injured lately.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Dick takes his leave then, hurrying up the stairs. He has…maybe fifteen minutes before Damian’s school ends for the day. If he speeds a little, then he can probably get there just before the bell rings. 

“Dammit,” he says, in the car. Fucking traffic. “Hurry up, come on!”

Finally, the line of cars starts to inch forward. Dick groans. Maybe this, more than anything, is his punishment. Having to deal with city traffic. He just wants to pick his brother up from school, come on. 

So…

Dick lets out a breath that’s an equal mix of amused and exasperated. 

Hello, Hermes. Is this about the package?

….No?

Dick can’t help but laugh a little. Of course this is about the package. He’s a little surprised that Hermes hadn’t opened it, if he’s being honest with himself (does this imply that he isn’t honest with himself usually? Is this—okay, so maybe Jason did send him into a crisis—granted, not the one that he thought, but…)

Dick sends a mental image of the bracelet to his brother. He hadn’t actually taken the time to think about the implications of it yet, but. He’s still at least ten minutes out from the school, and there’s not a lot he can do to distract himself right now. 

Fuck, Hermes says in his mind. 

Yeah. 

Because if this is what he thinks it is—if he is back, and is working with—or at least using—the League of Assassins? Dick might just be screwed. 

Chapter Text

Jason will be fine. 

Dick knows that— has to know that. Dealing with the Joker is always a surefire way for him to lose his cool, but Dick has to believe that Jason trusts him enough for this plan. He has to, because he’s leaving Jason to scope out what’s happening. 

Dick, meanwhile, starts to look into the League of Assassins. 

The first thing he realizes is that Ra’s is laying low. Collecting power. It gives credence into Dick’s theory about Python working with them. He doesn’t know how Ra’s knows about the gods, though, and he needs to do that soon. Yes, sure, Diana is very openly proof, but—this is different. No mortal, not even one that has lived past their time like Ra’s has, should be able to know the ins and outs of Mount Olympus. 

No one, save for those immediately affected like the gods themselves and their children, should know about what happened to him—to Apollo. 

But Dick also needs a break, and it’s been a few days since he’s seen his kids, and Damian’s in school and Babs is out with the girls and Bruce has meetings all day and Jason is working the case, so he has a late breakfast with Alfred and bids him goodbye. 

Appearing up near the forest, Apollo heads straight for the Cave of the Oracle.

He enters silently, choosing not to announce himself. Rachel has a large brush in her hand that she uses to swipe long strokes across the wall of the cave. Apollo moves forward, eyeing the paintings. They’re good. Maybe he should introduce her to Damian; he has the feeling that they’d get along. 

Rachel, at the moment, is painting—oh. So. This really is what’s going on. At least he’s on the right track, he figures to himself. 

A large snake looms menacingly over a small figure, who’s painted with painstaking strokes in black and blue with an outline of yellow. Him, obviously. He can also make out a small crowd of other, indistinct figures that look to be fighting. 

Eventually, he says, “The shadows are a bit off on the tail.”

Rachel jumps, dropping the brush as she scrambles to turn around. “Lord Apollo!” she exclaims, eyes wide with surprise. Then they narrow, a little pissed. “It’s about time.”

Apollo offers her a small, apologetic smile. “Yes, it is. I’m sorry it took so long.”

She looks taken aback by the apology, but accepts it with a nod. “So,” she says, dropping into a beanbag chair, “are you here to explain what happened?”

“I am the god of prophecy,” Apollo says. Rachel looks surprised once more that he isn’t beating around the bush. He doesn’t blame her. He’d be surprised too if he met himself now. “When my powers were locked away, so too were yours, blocking your sight.”

“Locked away?”

Here, he hesitates. “How much do you know about…”

“You being turned into a mortal?” she finishes. “That’s about it, really.”

“Right. Okay.” Apollo runs a hand through his hair, tugging at it lightly. “Can you keep a secret?”

At this, she raises an eyebrow, looking around the cave with a deadpan expression. “Gee,” she says flatly. “I don’t know if I can.”

He smiles sheepishly at her. “Okay, okay, point. So—okay. It wasn’t only my powers locked away, but my memories, so I have, like, a whole ass life now. One I’m not exactly keen on giving up.”

“Do you have family?” she presses gently.

“Yeah.” He smiles fondly. “This is where the secret part comes in. You can’t tell anyone, mortal or half-blood or god or whatever.”

She straightens up, intrigued, as he stands and pulls his phone out of his pocket, flicking through his photo gallery until he finds a good enough picture. Turning to her, he points at each individual member.

“That’s my dad,” he says, zooming in on Bruce. Rachel’s eyebrows rise so high Apollo is almost afraid of them merging with her hair, obviously catching on. “He adopted me after my parents died. And that’s my brother, Jason. B took him in off the streets. That’s Duke; he’s like sunshine personified.”

Rachel gives him a look, and okay, yeah, that’s him saying this. He should maybe look into Duke’s ancestry. Maybe they’re actually related. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes and moving on. “This is Cass, she’s everyone’s favorite. Damian’s the only one who’s actually related to Bruce, he never lets it go. Alfred is technically the butler, but he’s our grandfather, really. He practically raised Bruce after his parents were killed. Babs refuses to be actually officially adopted, because she still has her dad, but she’s a saint. And you already know Tim and Steph, of course.”

“Richard Wayne,” Rachel breathes. “You’re Richie Wayne.”

“Dick, actually,” Apollo corrects with a wince. “And it’s Grayson-Wayne.”

“What the fuck.” 

Apollo smiles weakly, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Language.”

“Are you kidding me,” she says, staring at him. “You— seriously?”

Apollo holds up his hands. “In my defense,” he starts, “I’m a very annoying older brother. It’s just instinct at this point.”

“Do they even know?” she asks. “Your family. Steph and Tim. Do they know?”

Apollo doesn’t answer, and that’s answer enough. He ducks his head to hide his face. 

“Oh,” Rachel says, “okay. So you’re a coward.”

“Hey now,” he protests. “No need to be mean.”

“Then tell someone,” she hisses. “Actually, if no one knows, why are you telling me?”

“Well. Two people know, technically. Now three.”

“Counting or not counting you?”

“Not counting,” Apollo says. “Or, well. If Artemis even counts in the first place. Anyway. You know, and so does my best friend.”

“Your best friend,” Rachel repeats. 

“Mhm.” 

He is so, so grateful for Donna, no matter how much she’s bugged him about telling someone else in just a few hours. He doesn’t actually know why he’s telling Rachel. He just—she needs better than what he’s given her. So much better. And he’s not sure how to make it up to her. He used to know his oracles, used to be close with them, but then Hades and his curse had happened and he drifted away, and when he got Rachel he wasn’t sure how to deal with her. 

She stares at him for another moment before shaking her head with a snort. “You are so fucked up,” she tells him. “Your family is insane. Both of them.”

“Trust me,” he says, rubbing a tired hand over his temple, “I am well aware. And—you deserve an explanation. Something more substantial.”

“So do they,” is all she says before turning away. Apollo winces again. Ouch.

She runs a hand over the still wet paint of the snake, blurring the sharp edges and making it seem less…there. More of a vision, something flimsy, than something real. She leaves Apollo’s figure intact, though. 

“I’m assuming that’s you,” she says, pointing at it. He nods, coming closer. “Can I ask why those colors?”

“You’re the one that did the painting,” he says mildly. “But, uh. Blue’s my favorite color. Black is…um. Well.”

“Black for Batman,” she says. Not a question, not like she’s looking for an answer, but like a fact. Apollo knew he picked the right choice. Rachel is smart and fiery and dear lord he can never let her meet Babs. 

“Yeah. You probably didn’t realize it, but,” he says, tracing over the center of the figure that represents him, “you even painted the Bat Symbol. Right here.”

Rachel follows his hand, bends down to pick up a thinner brush, and dips it into yellow paint. Apollo watches in interest as she carefully traces it out. The black and blue are for Nightwing, and the gold is for Apollo, but the Bat—he’s not used to wearing a Bat. He’s always had his own symbol, whether a stylized R or a bird. But he likes it. He likes the style, likes the abstraction. 

“You’d like Damian,” he says softly. “You’re both artists.”

Rachel looks at him, and there’s something in her eyes that he can’t quite discern. He feels like he’s passed some sort of test. His phone buzzes, and he takes it out to check. It’s a text from Jason—he has a location. Dick takes a deep breath and responds with a thumbs up before putting it away. He looks back up at Rachel, an explanation readied on the tip of his tongue, but her soft smile stops him in his tracks before a single word can come out.

“You’re a good guy, Dick,” she says, and oh. “Go talk to your kids. Go, shoo!”

She makes shooing motions with her hands, grinning, and Dick grins back, laughing as he ducks out of the cave, pushing the curtains aside. 

He finds Will, Kayla, Austin, Mahira and Ellie at the archery range. Various other campers mill around the area, bowing to him and murmuring respectful greetings when they notice him. Ellie is holding a bow, trying to string back an arrow and struggling with the weight. Apollo stifles a laugh.

“Here, sweetheart,” he says, crouching down behind her. She lights up, throwing her arms around him, the bow skittering a few feet away. 

“Daddy!”

He laughs, sweeping her up. “Hi, darling. You learning how to shoot?”

“Mhm!”

He sets her down, ruffling her hair and grinning at his other kids. “What, not happy to see me?”

“We are,” Kayla says, “but you were just here a few days ago.”

“Yeah, well. I want to be better. And for you to believe me I need to prove that. Actions over words, right?”

Before she can reply, Ellie tugs at Apollo’s shirt. “Daddy, daddy! Can you show me how to shoot?”

“Sure, sweetheart,” Apollo says with a grin, pulling his bow off his back. Ellie makes a sound of awe, her eyes wide with excitement.

“That’s so cool! You made it outta nothing!”

“Not made,” Apollo corrects gently, “summoned.” He snaps his fingers and another, miniature version of bow appears in Ellie’s arms. She gasps delightedly. 

“First thing you need to do is…”

He spends some time with Ellie, teaching her. His other kids drift in and out, some staying and some leaving. Kayla departs with Yan, and Will goes to find Nico, while Apollo ends up teaching not only Ellie but Henry and Sam. Dean sticks around as well, and Thalia shows up to challenge Apollo to a contest. 

He accepts, of course, because who is he to back down from a challenge? 

Thalia gets a bullseye from twenty feet away. Apollo stands fifty feet away and with another snap of his fingers has the targets moving. He shoots three straight bullseyes in three different targets with his eyes closed, and the next arrow he draws splinters Thalia’s bullseye. 

“Showoff,” she mutters, scowling. Apollo bows. 

Every time someone says that to him, all he can think is: well, yeah. I was raised in the circus. Of course, he can’t exactly say that here, but his point still stands, okay. 

He doesn’t see Tim, but Steph comes over for about ten minutes to strike up a conversation with Mahira. Apollo is glad. Mahira could use a friend like Steph. 

His phone rings, once. He takes it out, sees the caller ID, scoffs, and puts it away. 

“Daddy,” Ellie says curiously, “who was that?”

“Nobody important, Ellie-belly,” he says smoothly, ruffling her hair. She giggles at the nickname. “Come on, try again. You were really close last time!”

Distracted by the arrow he holds out to her, Ellie turns back to the target. Apollo watches her stance, adjusting her limbs accordingly. 

“Good,” he says approvingly. “Now, shoot.”

She releases the string, and the arrow flies mostly straight, only veering off towards the last few seconds. It hits the edge of the target, and she turns to him excitedly. 

“I did it, I did it!” she exclaims, jumping up and down.

“You did!” Apollo agrees, eyes bright. He picks her up, twirling her around. “I’m so proud of you, Ellie!”

She beams at him, smacking a kiss onto his cheek before wriggling out of his arms and running over to Mahira, who turns to her with an indulgent smile on her face. 

And Apollo—Apollo is so freaking proud of his kids. They’re so strong and so brave and he hates that he’s not able to take credit for helping shape them into the young adults they are (hates what it took to bring him here, how indifferent he used to be even when he wasn’t). 

He loiters around camp for another hour or so, moving on to Henry who struggles with finding his footing. He has the absurd thought of Henry in Titan’s Tower, Roy teaching him to shoot. 

(How would Roy react to learning about Apollo? Would he hate Dick for keeping it a secret, jealous of his bow skills, blame him?) ( He wouldn’t. Dick knows this. Roy is, along with Wally and Donna, his best friend, one of the people who knows him best no matter he drifted away after getting with Jason and later Kory. Roy loves Dick. He knows this. It’s just…hard to remember sometimes, is all.) (He’d scoff at Dick’s insecurities, make a sarcastic remark, and move on. He’d be there for Dick no matter how stupid he thought Dick was being. It’s not fair of Dick to think of Roy this way.) 

“Right,” Apollo says, clearing his throat. Will has wandered back over with Piper and Clarisse at one point; Ellie had darted over to Katie and begged her to let her pick some strawberries, leaving Apollo with Mahira, Sam, Dean, and a few others. “I need to head out, now.”

“Aw,” Dean says disappointedly. “Already?” 

“Sorry,” Apollo says, ruffling Dean’s hair. “I have work.”

“Ugh,” Sam says, wrinkling his nose. Apollo laughs.

“Be good, okay? I love you all.”

“Love you too, Dad,” Austin says, having stuck around the whole time. He’d drawn Thalia into a discussion after Apollo had thoroughly beaten her at the impromptu challenge.

“Love you,” Henry says quietly, darting in for a quick hug and blushing. Apollo feels a sharp pang of fondness, smiling down at him. With a lazy salute, he’s gone, reappearing in a safe house back in Gotham. It’s a bit after noon, and he has a few hours ‘til dark, so Dick gets to work on research. 

At one point, he stands, stretching, and his gaze falls upon a picture of Slade. Maybe…maybe he’ll see what he wants. He does wonder why Slade had called earlier. It’s getting dark out, though, so he shelves the thought away for later. Jason should be somewhere in the area of the warehouse, so Dick sets the papers strewn about the table in a folder, stacking the notebook on top and placing them both neatly into a drawer that with a narrowing of his eyes and a twist of the Mist ensures that no one should be able to see either of them, and heads towards his room get changed. 

.

“Okay,” Dick murmurs into his com. “Are you ready?”

Jason grunts an agreement. With sharp eyes, Dick scans the warehouse—the thugs standing guard at the entrance, the people gathered inside—and lets a slow grin spread across his face. Gods, he’s missed this. He’s not been on a proper patrol in—a while. 

And this? Busting a group with his brother? Hell yeah.  

Tim and Steph are due back tomorrow, which means it’ll probably be the last time in a while he’ll have a ‘normal’ (or what constitutes as normal for them) team up, so he’s inclined to take advantage of it. Besides, he owes the Joker. Owes him a thorough beating, that is. 

Beneath him, Jason kicks open the door, drawing attention to himself. The Penguin isn’t here—he’s back in the Iceberg lounge, and Dick had called in a favor from Harley to keep him busy—and the Joker is in the back. It’s Dick’s job to take care of him while Jason deals with the canon fodder. 

He hears Jason’s gun go off, and taking that as his cue, slips through the rafters and ducks under the door while the guards are distracted. The men are all drawn to Jason by the thuds and shouts and gunshots, leaving Dick an easy path to the barred door at the back, where a toxic green gas seeps out from under the crack. He slips his rebreather on, braces himself, and shoves his escrima into the wood. 

It splinters under the force (Dick having imbued just a little extra strength because there are never too many precautions to taking down the Joker), and the gas rises immediately, filling the hallway behind him. 

Dick stands, his grip on his escrima tightening, as the Joker turns around to face him. A hysterical cackle slips out of the Joker, but Dick doesn’t flinch. Why would he? He is all-too familiar with that laugh, and he’s been on both ends; when he was younger and Batman was still a myth, Robin just a whisper in the wind, he’d absolutely freak the fuck out of people with his now-signature cackle. It worked. He doesn’t do it as often now, but when he does it feels good. Now, though? He doesn’t really feel like laughing right now. 

“A little bird!” the Joker says delightedly. Dick holds back a scowl. He hates that name. “And the original, too! How special. And hereI was, oh so hoping for the second…”

Dick tightens his grip around his escrima, desperate not to lose control. “Joker,” he replies with forced calm. “Are we doing this the easy way or the hard way?”

“The fun way,” the Joker says, maniacal grin stretching just a little more. He hefts a bright pink-and-green bazooka, aiming at Dick. It's giant. It looks like it weighs at least thirty pounds. Dick jumps, flipping over the Joker and avoiding the ammo. He slams down on the Joker’s back, crossing his escrima across the front of the Joker’s neck.

“That’s enough,” he says through gritted teeth. “Put down the gun.”

Tellingly, the Joker just laughs. He doesn’t seem to care that Dick’s practically choking him. Actually, thinking about it, he probably thinks it’s kinky or something. Ew. 

“Now, why would I do that? We’re having so much fun!”

Dick tightens his grip, a wheeze slipping out of the Joker. Dick is—Dick is angry. He wanted Jason to be able to not be overcome, but Dick has killed the Joker before and it had been for nothing. But. But Dick is a god. And the Joker has been free for too long.  

“Don’t you want to say hello to your friend first?”

Dick freezes just enough for the Joker to throw him off. Stupid, he thinks angrily, jumping to his feet and crouching. 

“Who the hell are you talking about,” Dick growls. Did the Joker take someone? Did Dick miss something?

“Ooh, little birdie stopped smiling~” the Joker croons. He steps forward and Dick tenses, his knuckles going white under his gloves. “You should get some scales to match some of those fangs!”

No.  

Dick stops breathing for a moment (not that he needs to breathe in the first place, really, but it’s a habit that he's not very inclined to break) as the Joker’s words register.

The Joker—the Joker knows, somehow, and Dick doesn’t know how much he knows or just what he knows (or thinks he knows) but whatever it is it’s too much. Anything the Joker knows is too much. He’s been able to run free for too long. It’s high time someone puts him down for good. And if this means one less thing for his family—Bruce and Jason and Tim and all the others who have fought him but haven’t been taken or beaten or killed by him—to deal with? All the better.

The Joker says something else, but Dick doesn’t hear it. He leaps at the Joker, kicking his back and knocking him down. Right before he strikes his head, he leans down and whispers in his ear. 

“The Bat is the least of your worries,” he hisses. “You’ll go back to Arkham, and there you’ll rot.”

He slams his escrima on the Joker’s head before another word or cackle can come out, and Dick straightens up, panting in the now silent room. With a wave of his hand he clears the gas, tearing off the rebreather. He staggers over to a wall, leaning against it for stability. 

The Joker will be dead in a matter of months. It will be long and it will be painful and there will be no cure. 

Taking one last deep breath, he swipes a vial of what he assumes to be the Joker’s laughing gas and shoves it in his pocket before stepping over the Joker’s prone body. Someone else can clear the rest of the out. He’s sure Gordon will delight in dragging the Joker back to a cell. 

.

Later, after a long shower (and a quick hug to Jason, who’d allowed him a rare one), Dick picks up his phone and dials. “Slade? Yeah, it’s me. I need a favor.” 

Chapter Text

Dick decides that he hasn’t spent enough time with his siblings. This has nothing to do with the looming battle in his future and how they’ll all probably hate him for lying (aka going against his very being) and pretending to be something he’s not, and everything to do with Dick being reminded of how shitty Damian’s childhood was. 

Talia might care about her son, might even truly love him, but that doesn’t erase the years that Damian spent being raised in a literal assassin cult. And, okay, Dick might be slightly sleep-deprived (again), but who cares? And, also, again. He’s a god. Sleep should be an afterthought to him.

Anyway.

The point is, Dick misses his kid brother, so he knocks on Damian’s door.

“Enter,” Damian says. Dick pushes open the door and doesn’t bother hiding the smile that immediately lights up his face. Damian scowls at him, pointing his paintbrush at him like a knife. It’s adorable. “You look foolish.”

“Thanks,” Dick says. He’s been called worse. Besides, coming from Damian, this is almost a compliment. “What are you working on?”

Damian shifts to the side, exposing the canvas in front of him. Dick makes a little sound of awe, leaning over Damian’s shoulder to get a better look. It’s—him. It’s Dick, a soft smile on his face as he gazes off into the distance, an oversized hoodie comfortably fitted. 

“This is amazing, baby bat,” Dick says, his breath catching in his throat. “I—seriously, it’s—”

“It is how I view you.”

Dick suddenly feels so, so warm. He pulls Damian into a hug, ignoring the protest, and just—holds him. He presses his lips to Damian’s hair, feeling his heartbeat, and relishing in having his—his brother in his arms. Damian lets him, settling down after a moment. His small arms come to wrap around Dick’s back, and Dick tightens his hold. 

“You’re so good, Dami,” he murmurs, heart clogged in his throat. Damian stills, then burrows deeper into Dick’s arms. 

“Do not be foolish,” he scoffs, but the scorn is there just for show and Dick can sense the soft gratitude under the exterior. After a moment, he detangles himself from Dick. Dick doesn’t whine at the loss—he doesn’t— but it’s a close thing. Then, Damian asks, “Did you need something?”
“Oh!” Dick had nearly forgotten, overcome as he was by emotions. “Yeah, I heard the zoo has a new exhibit, and I was wondering if you wanted to go.”

“Now?”

“Now or whenever,” Dick says with a shrug. “Just us.” 

“I…suppose that would be satisfactory,” Damian allows. Dick grins. Damian looks at his painting consideringly. “Half an hour should be acceptable.”

“Yes!” Dick cheers. Damian lets out a small -tt-, but he’s smiling, so Dick takes it as the win it is. 

Exactly half an hour later, Damian meets Dick by the door. Dick swings an arm around him and leads him to his car, chattering on about random, unimportant things. Damian interjects every so often with a scathing comment or a scoff, but his eyes, when Dick glances over during a red light, are bright.

The conversation shifts to Damian’s school, and Dick listens with great interest as Damian goes on about his classmates and his teachers. 

“You know,” Dick says, breaking at a stop sign, “you could give them a chance. You’ve made friends over your art before, right?”

“She is not my friend,” Damian snaps, crossing his arms over his chest. Dick is just barely able to hold back a bout of laughter. “I merely put up with her.”

“Okay, but a few years ago you wouldn’t even do that,” Dick points out. “You’re making progress! You should keep it up!”

Damian doesn’t say anything, and Dick flicks his gaze over to check if he’d gone too far. 

“I…do not know how to…” Damian cuts himself off, and Dick can hear the embarrassment in his tone that he tries to hide.

“Yes you do,” Dick says encouragingly. “You have Jon, right?”

“That’s…different.”

“Maybe,” Dick concedes, merging into the highway. “But he’s still your friend. And—friends don’t have to be complicated. There’s an art club, right? Why don’t you check it out, see if you like it?”

“Maybe.”

Dick lets it go there, humming a song. He can’t remember having a conversation anything like this with his other—with his children. He remembers Bruce pushing him to get closer with his classmates and fellow sidekicks, hidden under a veneer of gruffness and secrecy. He thinks he would have liked to have this talk with his kids.

Maybe…maybe he’ll be able to, from now on. If he keeps visiting camp, if he keeps making an effort, showing that he’s changed….

They pull into the zoo’s parking lot a few minutes later, the sound of the engine like a sign to begin talking anew. 

Dick reaches under his seat and grabs the sketchbook and pencil he’d brought, presenting them to Damian with an easy grin. Damian takes them, catching them close to his chest.

“You…why?” he asks, and Dick can hear the unspoken words under the question. Why do this? Why make such an effort? Why care?

“You like drawing animals,” Dick says with a shrug. He hopes Damian can hear what he’s not saying. “And you left it in your room—I figured you’d appreciate the live subjects instead of pictures.”

I love you , he doesn’t say, I want you to be happy and I want you to do things that make you happy and I want you to ask for things you want and to understand that I don’t care about what you did in the past. 

He’d be a hypocrite if he did care, anyway. Death, murder, inflicting hurt—he’s done it all, uncaring of the consequences, uncaring of everything besides the wrong that had been done to him and his.

Damian looks down, his hair covering his eyes. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Dick waits patiently. He’d wait a thousand years for him, if need be. For all of them, yes, but Damian—his blood runs red, his skin a shade darker than Dick’s own, but—

“Thank you,” Damian says finally. He grabs Dick’s sleeve, looks up at him with something in his eyes that Dick recognizes from the mirror when he was young and Bruce had brought him to his favorite ice cream place after a hard patrol, Wally looking up at Barry when the latter would ruffle his hair, Jason when Bruce would read to him and do the voices and so much more, and Dick, though he wants to linger on the feeling, wants to search inside him for what it means even though he’s known since the moment he looked Damian in the eyes and lied, rests a hand on Damian’s head and brushes it off. 

“Let’s go,” he says, guiding him over to the entry. “I want to see the animals!”

-

So maybe Dick is overcompensating for his failures as a father by smothering his siblings. Just a little. 

He and Damian return from the zoo a little after one, overly-expensive stuffed animals from the gift shop that Dick insisted on buying in tow, and a few less free pages in his sketchbook, and Dick had been able to draw out a few (real!) smiles, so it’s worth it. 

And there’s plenty of time left in the day for him to go bug some of the others. He’d not spent much time with Duke, which is something he needs to change. Duke is so kind, so sweet; he shines so brightly that sometimes Dick wonders if there’s any of his blood running through his brilliant little brother’s veins. 

…Dick would really rather not dwell on that thought. It’s just—weird. 

So Dick pushes the thought out of his mind and goes to find Duke.

 Duke grins shyly when Dick invites him out, and he looks so happy and Dick has been criminally negligent of his newest brother, so he grins back brightly and asks if Duke wants to go by car or by motorcycle.

“I can ride it? Really?” Duke perks up and Dick laughs, messing up his hair. 

“I’m driving, of course,” he says. 

“Right, of course,” Duke agrees, suddenly looking nervous. “I don’t even know how to drive one, I couldn't possibly…”

Dick perks up. “You don’t? Really?”

Duke shakes his head. “I’ve ridden with Jason and Tim a few times, but I don’t think I’d want one of my own.”

“Why don’t I teach you?” Dick suggests after a moment. “You’ve not gotten a proper experience until you’ve been in the driver's seat. So to speak.”

Duke laughs nervously. “Maybe some other day,” he says. “I appreciate it, though.”

Dick grins at him. He throws an arm around his brother and leads him out, coaxing him into a conversation about school. 

Dick slings his leg over the bike. “Helmet,” he reminds Duke, who latches his on and climbs on behind Dick. He shifts a bit, hugging Dick’s waist tightly. His warmth against Dick’s back is almost enough to drive away the iciness of the lies, and Dick revs the engine. 

“The arcade?” Duke asks when Dick parks. 

“Yep!” Dick takes off his helmet, running his hand through his hair, the light glinting off his bracelet. “Usually I go with Tim, but I realized I hadn’t taken you yet. Is that okay?”

“Definitely.” Duke nods. “I’m so gonna kick your ass.” He grins at Dick, rushing into the arcade. Dick gapes incredulously at his back before hurrying to catch up. 

“You little shit,” he says, pride filling his voice as he noogies Duke. “It is so on.”

Dick, having had the foresight to swipe Bruce’s credit card before they left, gets them both enough credits for—well. He gets them a lot of credits. 

Duke kicks his ass at air hockey, and does it again when Dick challenges him to two out of three. They tie at the clown game, working together to knock them down. Dick crushes Duke at basketball, scoring one hoop after another.

“How are you so good?” Duke demands, staring at the score. Dick laughs.

“B and I played basketball pretty regularly when I was a kid,” he says. “Said it was ‘for training’ but I knew it was just an excuse to spend time with me without sacrificing the big bad bat image.” He laughs, nostalgic, as he remembers. 

“Sounds like him,” Duke agrees. He jiggles the tickets out of the dispenser, folding them up carefully and putting them in his pocket. “Tim said that you’re pretty good at skeeball.”

“Did he,” Dick says, snorting. 

“Yeah,” Duke says. “He said you must have been cheating. Something about a bet?”

“I didn’t cheat!” Dick protests. “I’ve just played it a lot!” He steers Duke over to the skeeball machines as he talks, swiping the card. He glances over at Duke. “Watch this.”

He picks up the first ball, spinning it in his hand, before stepping back and readying his aim. He lets the ball roll, and with a satisfied smirk, watches as it lands neatly in the right-hand corner hundred. 

Duke makes an awed sound, and Dick winds up for another. 

-

“That’s insane,” Duke says, shaking his head. “Seriously.”

Dick preens. It might not make much sense, considering that it’s just an arcade game, but Dick likes being freakily good at skeeball. It’s something normal that he can brag about. 

“Right, well,” he says cheerily, folding the tickets neatly and stuffing them in his pocket, “shall we go on?”

They end up at Dance Dance Revolution, and Dick pushes Duke forward. 

“Ready?” he asks.

Duke looks nervous. “No.”

“You’ll do great,” Dick assures him. Then, after a pause: “Great for someone who’s about to lose, but the point still stands.”

Duke narrows his eyes at Dick and gets into position. The music starts, and Dick moves. He absolutely demolishes Duke, of course, because Dick isn’t known for standing still and dance and gymnastics are just different flavors of each other, and soon, Duke backs off completely. Dick grins, sharp and ready, and flows from one station to the other and back, twisting his body in a way that, according to Roy, makes him look like ‘a human pipe cleaner.’ 

(Does it even still apply, if he’s no longer human?)

Dick gets lost in the dance, a little, and when he resurfaces from the focused haze, he realizes that he’s attracted a crowd. 

Duke bounces up to him, beaming. “That was so cool!” 

Dick laughs, just barely out of breath, pride swelling in him. 

“You’re Richard Grayson!” someone in the crowd shouts, and suddenly the cheers and applause gets even louder. Dick bows, then hustles Duke out of there quick enough that they aren’t stopped. He can feel eyes on him still, but that’s okay; as long as they don’t disturb his time with his brother. 

“So,” Dick says, bringing out a handful of tickets, “prize time?”

“Hell yeah!” Duke says excitedly. 

He takes a second to scan the counter once their tickets are all counted, and, after making sure one last time that no, really, he can have all of them, Dixk doesn’t want a prize, he points to a Wonder Woman plush.

“Good choice,” the girl behind the counter says approvingly. “It’s no Batman, but at least it’s not Superman.”

“I’m surprised they even have Superman themed prizes here,” Dick mutters to Duke as they leave, drawing out a startled laugh of agreement. 

They make it back to the manor around three p.m., having luckily left before traffic hit its stride.

“This was really fun,” Duke says, smiling at Dick. “Thanks for inviting me!”

“Of course,” Dick says, messing up Duke's hair. “Let's hang out again soon, yeah?”

“Yeah!” 

Duke beams before it fades a little. “Ugh,” he says. “I have an essay due next week.” 

Dick laughs. “You got this,” he assures. Duke makes a face but jogs off, hugging the Wonder Woman plush tight to his chest. Dick watches him go with a faint smile before turning and startling. 

“Oh—hey, Steph,” he says. His sister narrows her eyes at him. “Did you need something?” 

“Waffles,” she says, crossing her arms. Dick raises an eyebrow, tilts his head in consideration, and nods. 

“Waffles,” he agrees. “Give me a minute, I'll meet you in the car.”

Steph's glare turns into a grin, and she bounces on her heels. “Sweet! The usual?”

“You know me,” Dick says with a laugh. Steph darts in for a hug, which Dick gladly returns, and runs off. Dick waits until she's out of earshot before taking out his phone. 

[Pirate]

Found something. Call me. 

Dick debates before sending a text back. 

[Wing]

Busy. Can you send it over?

[Pirate]

Sensitive. Might be better to do it in person. 

[Wing]

Tomorrow, then. Which one?

[Pirate]

I'll let you know. 

Don't do anything stupid, kid. 

[Wing]

Not a kid. Thanks. 

Dick shoves his phone back in his pocket, heading for his car—a 1975 Blue Chevy Corvette Stingray, aka his favorite car of choice. He runs a hand over the sleek hood before sliding into the driver's seat. 

Luckily, Steph starts up a stream of chatter right away, leaving Dick no time to dwell on the what-ifs and speculation. It won't do him any good, anyway. 

“And then,” Steph says, making a gesture, “he said I was too blond!”

Dick blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I know!” Steph cries out. “It's stupid! It's—hairist!”

“I don't think that's a word…” Dick says, flicking the turn signal and switching to the left lane. 

Steph huffs. “You're one to talk.”

“Point,” Dick concedes. “Though, even disregarding the word itself, is it even possible to be hairist?”

“Dumb blond stereotype,” she reminds him. “Redheads have no soul?”

“Point again,” he says. “Please tell me you knocked some sense into him.”

“Of course I did,” she says, and he can just hear the eye roll in her voice. He brakes, turning into the parking lot. “Who do you take me for?” 

Dick laughs instead of answering as he parks. 

“You haven't mentioned camp yet,” he notes once he reaches her side. She jumps out of the car, linking her elbow with his and tugging him along into the cafe. 

She shrugs. “Do you want to hear about it? ‘Cause you've been kind of cagey whenever someone brings it up.”

Dick laughs sheepishly. “If you want to talk about it, I want to hear about it.”

Steph narrows her eyes at him for a moment, but he smooths his expression into an expectant grin, so she nudges him playfully. Relief flashes through him and he mentally thanks Bruce for hiding his emotions so often that Dick couldn’t help but pick up on it. 

“Okay, so like,” she starts, pushing open the door, “you didn't hear it from me, but—”

She’s interrupted by someone shoving her to the side as they leave. She grunts, rubbing her shoulder from where it had banged into the wall. The person, a shock of white hair tied off into a braid that swings down their back as they saunter away, doesn’t even glance back. 

“Hey!” Dick calls out, scowling at them. “You’re not even going to apologize?”

The person turns around, and they meet Dick’s eyes, and Dick is frozen in place, flashes of—of—

“Sorry,” they say, derisive, their red eyes burning a hole into Dick’s skull. Dick chokes on his words. His bracelet feels like it’s clawing under his skin, attaching itself to his nerves and sending fire racing up his body—

They turn away and the connection is broken. Goosebumps pop up on Dick’s arms and the hair on the back of his neck stands up like he’s been electrified. He stares after them, clutching his chest.

“What the hell,” Steph says, looking at him and at the retreating back of the being. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Dick says automatically. Steph raises an eyebrow. Dick lets out a jerky breath, rubbing his arms. He shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t. But part of him does, and that part burrows deep within him and refuses to be let out, and it latches onto the parts of Dick that he desperately avoids acknowledging. 

“Right.”

Steph sounds doubtful, disbelieving, and Dick…doesn’t blame her. He shudders away from the memory of those red eyes, and twitches when the sunlight bounces off his bracelet’s ruby eyes. 

“Can we just…” Dick gestures weakly at the cafe. And he loves his sister so, so much because she stares at him for a moment more before nodding decisively and grabbing his wrist, chattering on about gossip and scandals that she had picked up from her time at camp. 

Dick listens, grateful for the distraction and grateful that she doesn’t try to draw him into a proper conversation, because he doesn’t know if he’d be able to handle that right now. 

“Dick,” she says, half an hour into her bitching, and Dick meets her eyes, because that’s a tone she rarely uses. “You know I love you, right? And that I’m here for you? I know we’re not exactly big on talking about emotions and shit, but—you can talk to me. If you ever need to vent, or anything.”

Dick smiles, feeling so, so warm. “I know,” he says quietly. “I do. And I love you too.”

He reaches out and messes up her hair, and she shrieks, and the moment is broken but Dick is so unbelievably lucky. 

(Even so, he’s the older brother. He’s the one who they go to, not the other way around.)

Tim corners him when they get back.  Dick is—tired, too tired to avoid his brother, too off-center from the encounter earlier to have all his walls up, and also he’s missed Tim, he’s missed his little brother, so he just smiles when Tim asks to talk.

“What’s up, baby bird?” Dick asks when they enter Tim’s room. Tim sits down at his desk, rolling the chair over to the bed where Dick settles.

“You knew about Camp Half-Blood before we told you,” Tim says. “Your reaction was too artificial.”

Dick dips his head in acknowledgement. No use denying it. It’s…he’s getting tired of it if he’s being honest with himself (and he has to be, because who can he be honest with if not himself?), tired of secrecy, and the lies—he’s just tired. It’s been—what, a week? And the anxiety is piling high with the task looming in front of him, and he has maybe more than a vague idea, now, but—

Tim looks at him. Dick can feel his stare, deep in his soul. “What are you hiding?” Tim asks, and Dick—Dick laughs.

Dick laughs until he cries, until he pulls his knees to his chest and buries his head in the smallest space he can make of himself and trembles under the weight of the lies. 

“Dick?” 

Tim’s voice is small. Dick sucks in a deep breath and pulls himself together. Today has been—a long day. Rewarding, and overall good, but some parts had knocked him off-kilter and he doesn’t have the energy to right himself, not this time. He smiles. 

“Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat, “sorry, I just—you’re so smart, Tim.”

A faint hint of pink rises on Tim’s cheeks and he ducks his head. “What brought that on?” he grumbles. Dick snickers, reaching out and messing with his hair. 

“Just wanted to say it,” Dick says. He leans forward. “So. Tell me what you think.”

“What?”

“What have you figured out? I want to hear it.”

“I—I might be wrong—”

Dick’s smile turns a bit more genuine. “Yeah, but when was the last time that happened?”

Tim takes a deep breath, pauses, and says, “Are you, in any way, related to Apollo?”

Dick bites back tears a smile. 

“Tim,” he says gently, “I am Apollo.”

Chapter Text

Tim stops. Opens his mouth. Closes it. 

Dick watches quietly, not wanting to interrupt. He's so tired. Part of him wishes (most of him wishes) that he could go back to not remembering. It's so much. His entire life is built on lies, and here he is, pretending like he's some paragon of truth. 

“That—but—how does that even work?”

Dick stays silent. 

“Why now?” Tim demands. Dick looks up in surprise. What does he mean by that? “Why are you telling me now? You clearly kept it a secret before, so why—”

He cuts himself off, making a noise of frustration. 

“Tim,” Dick tries.

Tim whips around to face him and Dick shuts up. 

“Don’t,” Tim says, “don’t you— god, Dick—”

It’s rare to see Tim speechless. Rare to see him scramble for something to say, words that are able to contain the magnitude of what he is feeling. A pit of guilt, so wide it threatens to swallow Dick whole, opens up in his stomach. He wipes away the dried tears that had crusted on his cheeks, trying to come up with something, anything to say in this moment.

“Who else knows?” Tim asks finally, his face stony. Dick blows out a breath.

“Mortal-wise?” Dick checks. He winces at the bluntness of it. “Um. Donna. Rachel.”

Tim waits. Then Dick sees realization dawn on him. 

“That’s it,” Tim says incredulously. “That’s it? Christ, Dick.” 

Dick shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s not like I go around advertising it.”

“Fine,” Tim mutters, both hands in his hair. “Fine, okay. What about, uh, non-mortals?”

“Artemis,” Dick says, then pauses. “Maybe Hermes? I’m not actually sure if he knows who I am or just knows something. They all know I was turned mortal, but they don’t know who I am, so.”

“Who you are,” Tim repeats flatly. 

Dick blinks at him uncomprehendingly. 

“Who you are. Don’t you mean who you were?”

And Dick—Dick flinches. Because he’s right, isn’t he? He’s not Dick Grayson anymore, he can’t just go around like nothing is wrong, like nothing has changed, because so much has changed and he wants to be Dick Grayson, he wants it so bad but it’s a lie. And he—he is the god of truth, his domain is the antithesis to his life here—

“Was it all a lie?”

Tim’s words cut through Dick’s conflict like an ice-cold arrow, straight into his heart. 

“No,” Dick whispers, bowing his head. “No, it wasn’t. You heard—some of what I said to my children, yes? And the rumors? I wasn’t ‘missing’ by choice. I didn’t know.”

“So when did you?”

“The day that you discovered your origins,” Dick replies. He clenches his hands into fists, eyes caught on the glint of the ruby. It reminds him of earlier that day, just a few hours ago, when that being—

“And you didn’t say anything,” Tim surmises. Dick laughs. It comes out pained.

“How could I?” 

Tim is quiet. Dick is so tired. He should keep the conversation going, should answer Tim’s questions like a good brother, but he’s so tired and the day isn’t over yet. So he sits there, staring at his bracelet, and says nothing, and eventually Tim gives up, or just needs space, or something but the point is he leaves and Dick is alone. 

And then he blinks and he is in a safehouse, braced against the counter and trying to remember how to breathe. His hair falls around his face, blocking his peripheral vision.

“Shit,” he exhales, because he can. “Shit, shit, shit.”  

He should have kept avoiding Tim. He should have faked his death and never interacted with any of them ever. He should have done more to keep everything separate but it’s all falling apart and shit, is Tim going to tell anyone?

Is he going to tell Bruce?

This train of thought isn’t helping, he knows, but he can’t stop; his mind is awash with possibilities that all end with him being kicked out at best and at worst—

There is a hand on his back. There is a hand between his shoulder blades, pressed there firmly, and it anchors him enough that he can suck in a breath without coughing on it.

“Again,” Slade commands, voice deep in Dick’s ear. He complies, drawing in another breath, and another, until he’s breathing normally and Slade removes his hand. 

“Thanks,” Dick mutters, tilting his face towards a window, high up enough that someone would have to either fly or stand on someone else’s shoulders to peer in. 

Slade eyes him. “You look terrible, little bird.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Great, that’s so helpful.” 

Slade smirks at him. 

Dick inhales, holds, and blows out. “Right, well. I'm here. What's so sensitive that you have to tell me in person?”

“Ra’s is attempting to capture a god.”

“Talia told me, yeah,” Dick says, twisting until his back is to the counter. He pushes himself up, kicking his legs just slightly. 

“Did she tell you he has assistance?” Slade asks, cocking his head. Dick narrows his eyes. 

“Assistance?”

“From what I was able to find, he is working with someone called ‘Python’.”

Here, Dick sucks in a slow breath. The bracelet feels cold against his skin. This is just confirmation, really, he'd suspected it for a while now, but to hear it out loud? To hear the name of the one he had defeated so long ago, hungering for revenge? It sends a chill down his spine. 

He bows his head, closing his eyes. This is—it will be fine. He will handle it. He has to. 

“Dick,” Slade says, and there are two fingers on his chin, lifting it. Dick stares at the man, grim and tired. “Explain.”

“I'm tired of explaining,” Dick sighs. He's so tired. He just wants to sleep without having to worry about secrets and everything else that's going on. 

“Explain it to me,” Slade says. His voice is even, low, and it shouldn't be soothing because this is the man who has kidnapped him multiple times, but it is, it is soothing because Dick knows when to dip his toes into the gray, no matter what Bruce thinks. 

He debates for a moment. How much should he tell Slade? How much does he trust the mercenary in front of him? 

Enough, he decides, bracing his arms against his knees. 

“I…I told Talia, a little while ago, that I am…a vessel, of sorts, for the god they are trying to claim.” A vessel. Because isn’t that what he is? This body, this form, it’s just a way to pass off as normal. Is it even him? He knows all of the scars on his body, but is it really his body, or is he just kidding himself so he can hold onto the tiniest semblance of hope?

“A vessel,” Slade repeats. His eyes narrow. 

“Yeah.” 

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling the full truth?” Slade muses, and Dick winces. 

“Because I’m not.”

“Then why should I trust you?”

“Because,” Dick says grimly, “you know as well as I do what the consequences will be if Ra’s gets his hands on what he wants.”

A heavy silence settles over them. Dick waits.

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Slade asks finally—following Dick’s lead, rare enough that Dick knows not to take it for granted. 

“Kill him,” he says simply. Then he elaborates: “Python, I mean. If you get me alone with him, I can deal with him, make sure he’s no use to Ra’s or anyone else.” His tone has darkened, but he doesn’t care.

“This is personal,” Slade says, a realization and an accusation all at once. 

“Yes.”

“You really could stand to be a bit more forthcoming, little bird,” Slade remarks once the silence has dragged on long enough that it’s clear Dick is done speaking.

“Probably,” Dick agrees. “We need a plan.” 

The distraction works, and with one last considering look, Slade moves, expecting—rightfully—that Dick will follow. He leads them to a table, taking out a laptop and positioning it so they can both see. 

“Wait,” Dick says suddenly. “We need Donna.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she—she can help.”

“Little bird,” Slade says quietly. Dick can almost imagine there’s concern in his eyes. 

“I know,” Dick says. “I know. But she needs to—I need her for this.”

He waits as Slade takes his time to consider. If he’s bringing in Donna for this, which he is, Slade’s approval or not, should he bring in Artemis? Hermes? His children are out of the question, of course, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have some more firepower?

…No. 

No, Python is his. Dick—Apollo—can take care of the snake on his own. Besides, if this is the task set to him, then he should do it himself. 

“Fine,” Slade says, interrupting Dick’s inner monologue. “Call her.”

Dick nods, fishing out his phone. It’s ringing within seconds, and it takes barely two for Donna to pick up. 

“Dick?” she yawns. 

“Hey, Donna.” 

Immediately, she’s awake, her tone gaining a worried edge. “What’s up? Are you okay?”

“I need your help,” he says. He glances at Slade. If this is happening—and it is, he knows it is, everything’s already falling apart so what’s one more domino to fall—then there’s really no point in trying to hide it, especially if it’ll hinder their plans. “Remember how I told you about me? When you tagged along? Do you remember what they were talking about?”

“Something about the League of Assassins. Dick, what’s going on?”

“Ra’s is trying to capture a god.” He hears Donna suck in a breath. “He has—help, now. We need to stop him.”

“...We? Where are you?”

“Safehouse,” Dick answers. “New York.”

“Whose safehouse?”

“Don’t be mad,” Dick says with a wince. “Slade’s. He’s been getting me information.
“Dick—”

“Donna, please,” Dick says, a pleading lilt entering his voice without his permission. “I need you on board for this. We’re trying to come up with a plan, but I—Donna—”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then, blessedly, she says, “Send me the address.”

Dick does so as soon as she hangs up, relief shooting through him. She’s a little pissed, maybe, but she trusts him and that’s all he can ask for, really. 

She’s there within an hour, the door closing with a snick as she enters the room and surveys the scene in front of her. 

“So,” she says, dropping down next to Dick, pressing their thighs together. “What have we got so far?”

-

Dick blinks home exhausted but satisfied. The plan they’d come up with isn’t perfect, not by any means, but Dick has backup upon backup upon backup, and they’d gone over every possible thing that they could think of, creating contingencies for the smallest thing. Donna had eventually forced Dick to go home, leaving before him if only so Dick can make sure that she won’t pick a fight with Slade. She’d played nice while they were planning, but, well. Donna’s always had a protective streak in her. 

He stands in the middle of his room for a moment, emotions swirling around in his gut. He’s too tired to pick them apart, too tired to do anything more than flop backwards on the bed, his limbs spread out on the blanket. He covers his eyes with his arm, the light blocked. 

“What am I doing,” he says out loud, helplessly. 

-

Tim doesn’t look at him during dinner, nor during patrol. He avoids him the next day, and the day after, and then he goes back to camp. Dick should be reaching out, trying harder, but, gods, what if he just fucks it up even further? What if he irreparably damages their relationship? 

…Did he already do that? Does Tim hate him? What if he never speaks to Dick again? 

He goes to camp, to see his children but also because he just wants to know Tim is okay, and he doesn’t see Tim at all.

“I ruined it,” he says miserably. Rachel hums, concentrated on her current canvas: a small creaky desk, old and cracked. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t,” she says. “You’re being stupid.”

“What happened to the girl that was too scared to talk back?” he complains. “I miss her. Bring her back.”

Rachel turns, and, making sure he’s looking, rolls her eyes. Dick grumbles, sinking down further into his beanbag.

“Where even is he? I’ve been here for hours and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him all day.”

“He’s fine,” she says, exasperation mixing with amusement. “I think he went out to the city with a few others.”

Dick hugs his legs to his chest. “I messed it all up,” he says pathetically. “He’s never going to talk to me again.”

“You are so dramatic, god.” Rachel drops the brush and goes over to him, kneeling beside him. She lays a hand on his knee and squeezes. “Look. He just needs to process, okay? Give him time.”

“I have,” Dick says. “It’s been a few days now. He avoided me at home and then came here.”

“Okay, then, give it a day or two more and then, I dunno, confront him. You’re his brother, you know him better than I do.”

“Yeah,” Dick mutters. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Rachel says, “seriously. You know we met once, at a gala?”

Dick looks at her in surprise as she continues.

“Yeah, I was like, maybe twelve or something, you were a few years older. It was the first one you’d been to in a while, and my dad was off talking to some asshole, and a reporter kept asking me question after question, and you came up and told her to shove it.”

Dick blinks. “Did I?”

“Not in those exact words, maybe,” she concedes. “You were like—somehow you avoided all her questions and insulted her and told her to fuck off without actually saying it like that. It was crazy. You have a silver tongue.”

Dick laughs, a little huff of a thing. “I don’t remember that,” he admits. 

“That’s okay,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t expect you to. But, just. You’re a good person, Dick. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

“Yeah,” Dick says, swallowing. “Thanks.”

Rachel just stares at him for a bit longer, searching his face for something. He’s not sure if she finds it, but eventually she stands, stretching. 

“Go hang out with your kids,” she says, nudging him. “Can’t hide out here the whole time.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He groans, flickers from blue to gold, and leaves with one last glance at the mural of him.

When he makes his way down to camp proper, he doesn’t see Kayla, or Will. 

“They went out,” Austin explains quietly when Apollo asks. “With Tim and Nico. They’ll be back soon.”

Apollo nods gratefully. It’s—he knows Tim can take care of himself. He’s well aware of that (see: quest to find Bruce when everyone was against him when Dick was trying to hold himself together because what else could he do—). It’s just that maybe he feels better because now he knows Tim has company, and part of that company includes Nico who can shadow travel and it’s always harder to kidnap someone if they’re with other people, and Dick doesn’t trust Ra’s not to try something the second he has an opportunity. 

“Daddy,” Ellie shouts, dragging Henry with her as she runs up to him, eyes bright. “Daddy, look at what Hen drew!”

“It’s not that good,” Henry says softly, blushing and looking at the ground.

“Nonsense,” Apollo declares. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s terrific.”

Henry takes out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, thrusting it towards him. Apollo takes it, gently smoothing it so he can see past the wrinkles. 

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, Henry, this is fantastic.”  

“R-really?” 

“Yeah, kid,” Apollo says. Austin peers over his shoulder to look at the paper: drawn in crayon and marker is a sun, shining brightly down on Cabin 7. A few burning arrows are raining down, and different music notes are scattered around the background. 

“Can I keep this?” Apollo asks. 

“Um, okay,” Henry whispers. 

“Awesome,” Apollo says, grinning widely. “I’m gonna hang it up on my fridge.”

Henry lets out an adorable little squeak and Apollo ruffles his hair. Ellie is bouncing on her heels next to him, beaming.

“I toldja!” she says excitedly. “I said Daddy would love it!”

“Ells, it’s not nice to say ‘I told you so’,” Apollo scolds gently.

“And yet you say it all the time,” says an amused voice from behind him. All around, campers turn and stare in shock.

“Dad!” yelps Connor Stoll. 

Hermes grins. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!”

“Yes, but I’m a god, and when I say it it’s because it’s warranted,” Apollo says, narrowing his eyes.

“Uh-huh,” Hermes says, dripping with a mocking sort of disbelief. “Sure, Pol. Sure.”

Apollo rolls his eyes. “Go spend time with your children. You can concede your defeat to me anytime.”

“You,” Hermes says, pointing a finger at him, “are the most dramatic person I know. Besides Father.”

With that, he spins on his heel, heading for Connor, who hasn’t stopped staring. 

“Says you?” Apollo calls after him incredulously. “Dude!”

Hermes, predictably, only throws a rakish grin at him before ignoring him completely. Apollo stares after him, not sure whether his amusement drowns out his exasperation. 

Next to him, Austin snickers. Apollo flicks the side of his head in response. 

“Ow, Dad,” Austin complains. 

Ellie giggles, and Austin sighs, leaning over to carefully pick her up. A warm feeling spreads throughout Apollo’s body. He’d never thought he’d have this. It’s a pipe dream, made reality, and he is undeserving of the rewards he reaps. 

The next hour is spent, once more, at the archery range, where he shows off some of his better arrows, like the one he and Wally had designed for Roy, to release a large glob of sticky goo wherever it lands. He doesn’t use the glitter arrows, because those are messy, and also he’s saving it for the next time he gets pissed off but in a petty way and not in an angry way.

“Hey, Dad?”

Apollo turns to Austin. Austin is fidgeting with his bow, avoiding Apollo’s gaze. 

“What’s up?” Apollo asks, frowning slightly. Is something wrong? 

“I just—wanted to say, uh, that we all really appreciate…this.” Austin waves a hand at Apollo. “You’re here, and you keep visiting, and it’s—really nice. I think, uh, some people thought you’d get bored of it—of us— but you’re still here. So. Just. Thank you.”

Apollo stares, unsure what to say. “I—of course I’m here. You shouldn’t be thanking me for doing the bare minimum.”

“But it’s not,” Austin insists. “Or—it is, but it’s not like you have to care about that. Most gods don’t. And even before, you’d visit every so often, which is more than most people here can say. You’ve always tried, at least a little, and now that you’re actually putting in effort, it shows.”

Apollo swallows. “It wasn’t enough,” he says quietly. “It will never be enough.”

“For mortal standards? No, probably not. But,” and here, Austin glares at him, though it’s half-hearted at best, “you’re not mortal, Dad. You play by different rules. The important thing is that you’re trying, and that you keep trying. Yeah, it’s not a perfect system, or ideal, but it’s something, and we’d rather have you like this than not at all.”

Apollo presses the palms of his hands to his eyes. “Crap,” he says roughly. This is—gods. The guilt he never manages to squash down comes up, but this time, at least, it’s nowhere near as all-encompassing as normal. He doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, not after how much he’s failed them—them, Michael, Lee—

Arms encircle him, and a head of blond hair is pressed against his shoulder. On instinct, he tucks Austin’s head under his chin, hugging him back just as tight. A few stray tears dampen Austin’s hair, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“We love you, Dad,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Dick whispers. 

He stays for another few hours. It’s nice. He hangs out with his kids, focusing on them instead of Tim or Slade or Ra’s or worrying over the plan. Unfortunately, he has to leave, so with apologies and promises to return soon, he blinks back to Gotham. 

Mere seconds after he does so, Nico appears in the middle of camp, collapsing onto his knees. When asked what happened, or where the others are, all he says is, “They took them. They’re gone. Will made me leave to get help, but—someone took him—”

It takes him a few minutes to calm down, but when he does, he adds, “Tim knew them. I don’t know how, but he knew them. Weren’t on very good terms, though, from what I can tell.”

Dick, just having gotten comfortable on the couch downstairs, takes out his phone as it rings, swiping up. 

“We have a problem,” Slade says before Dick can do more than hold the phone by his ear. “Ra’s has your brother, and two others. He’s planning on using them as bait.”

Then he hangs up, and Dick is left on the couch, an icy chill going down his spine as he registers the words. 

Ra’s has Tim.  

Chapter Text

He only doesn’t break his phone because Titus pads into the room, barking. It startles Dick out of his haze, the phone dropping down onto a cushion with a soft thump. This is bad. This is really bad. What had Slade said—his brother and ‘two others’? 

Will and Kayla, Dick realizes in a jolt. They were out with Tim. So was Nico, Dick remembers, and the white-hot flash of anger disappears as quickly as it arrives, because if Nico was there, he likely barely managed to escape, and Dick shouldn’t blame him for not being able to save his children and his brother. 

He needs to get himself together. 

He picks up his phone, sends a message to Slade and Donna. Blinks into the safehouse and waits. 

-

(There are so many things he should have done. So much he should have done better. This is his fault. If only he’d gotten there sooner, or sat Tim down for an actual, real conversation, or even never told him at all.)

-

“We need to move, now,” he says when Donna enters. The sun is just beginning to set, drifting lazily over the horizon. It feels like an omen, a heavy dread settling in his limbs. “We can’t risk waiting. Stick to the plan. Don’t be reckless.”

Donna nods, her eyes hard. She’d been briefed—his text to her had included who had been taken and where. Dick loves her so much. He hands out the comms, takes hold of both their wrists and blinks them to the island. 

“Shit,” Donna whispers, wobbling. Dick grabs her before she can fall. Slade is, irritatingly so, steady on his feet. Before Dick can leave, Donna hugs him. “Be careful. He might have some tricks up his sleeve.”

Dick buries his face into her shoulder. “I will. Get them out, yeah?”

“I’ll do my best,” she promises.

“If we’re done here,” Slade says dryly. “We’re wasting time.”

Dick nods, pulls away from Donna. He spares the two of them one last glance before taking off. He can’t afford to worry about them right now. He has to trust that they can take care of themselve. Which they can, obviously, but, well, that’s never stopped Dick before.

But. 

He’s got his own shit to deal with, now. The main building is just up ahead. Dressed in a faded black hoodie and pants light enough to not constrict his motion, he knocks out the guards and slips inside. He could be in and out if he used his powers, but he doesn’t know what Ra’s has planned. If he has a way to track Apollo. So Dick takes the safe route—the Bat route.

He’d memorized the layout ages ago. Call him paranoid, but he wasn’t going to risk not knowing where he’s going if his brothers got taken. Case in point, and all. 

There’s no rafters to hide on the ceiling. He’s got to take the ground approach. The guards to the front change every hour. Dick’s not sure if it’s luck, but the timing had worked to his advantage; the next change is in two minutes. He just has to sit quiet and wait. 

There’s a loud bang from the other side of the compound just as the guards are switching post. Dick waits until they’re distracted, then he grabs one of them and knocks them out. He changes quickly, stashing his hoodie because it’s soft and he likes it, and walks right into the front door without any commotion on his end. 

Down the hall, to the left, up the stairs and another left. He makes it halfway to his destination before he’s stopped. Not because anyone got suspicious, but because there’s something pulling him. 

He’s gone nearly thirty seconds before he realizes he’s walking in the opposite direction of where he’d meant to go. 

He swears internally before pivoting, pulling the mask he’d swiped from the guard further up his nose. He flexes his gloved hands. He’s got his escrima, his knives, and his wingdings on him. He’s prepared. He knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going. Ra’s has no way of knowing he’s here. So why does it feel like he’s walking into a trap? Why does this feel so wrong?

It’s too easy. 

Security, tight as it is with Ra’s paranoia (which is justified, he is the leader of an assassin cult),, is still too light. Nobody’s stopped him. There are no guards or sentries blocking his entry into what Ra’s calls his ‘throne room’. The door opens with no resistance. 

There, in the middle of the room, is Tim. Tied to a chair and looking pissed as all hell, but—thank god—no worse for wear. There’s a table in front of him. A chess board is set up, with white going to Tim and black going to Ra’s, who sits across from Dick’s brother, lips curled up into a smirk. Dick wants to punch that smirk right off his face. 

“Ah,” Ra’s says as the door opens. Tim jolts, head swivelling around until he catches a glimpse of Dick. “Hello, Richard.”

“What, I don’t get a nickname?” Dick quips. There are League agents scattered around the room. He could take them, but he can’t risk Tim. Ra’s is too close. Dick needs to find a way to distract him, or get Tim away. 

Ra’s turns that stupid fucking smirk on him. “Oh, don’t be like that,” he purrs. Purrs. Creepy ass pervert. His eyes are gleaming with amusement. “We’re just playing a little game, aren’t we, detective?”

“If that’s what you call kidnapping me, sure,” Tim mutters. His eyes flick between Dick, Ra’s, and the chessboard. “A-6 to C-5.”

Ra’s dutifully moves the correct piece, then makes his own move with barely a glance at the board. Tim frowns. 

“Let him go, Ra’s,” Dick says. He grips his escrima. “We can do this nice and easy, no harm done.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” replies Ra’s. “You see, I’ve got a plan, and I can’t have you ruining it, now can I?”

“What plan?” Dick challenges. He creeps forward the tiniest bit. “Bait a god? That won’t work, you know. Gods don’t involve themselves in mortal activities.”

Now, when Ra’s looks at him, there’s interest hidden in those dark eyes. Dick swallows down a bout of disgust. 

“And how exactly do you know that?” Ra’s asks calmly. Tim calls out another move, to which Ra’s knocks his own piece off the board, placing Tim’s rook down with a thump. Before Dick can say anything, Ra’s dips his head. “Ah. Wilson.”

Tim stiffens at the name. Dick’s not sure how much he knows of Dick’s relationship with Slade. He’d tried to keep it hidden as much as he can, because, well, Bruce wouldn’t exactly take too kindly to the notion of him being on friendly terms with a mercenary. Unfortunately, though, this was necessary.

“He’s got his uses,” Dick confirms. He’s close enough to see the board now without Tim’s head blocking him. “Come on, Ra’s. What’s your goal here?”

“You,” Ra’s observes, “are very irritating.”

“Thanks,” Dick says dryly. His mask hides his mouth, so he can’t bare his teeth at the fossil like he wants to, but he lets his eyes sharpen. “Let him go.”

“Hm. No.” Ra’s sounds bored, now, and frankly, Dick is insulted. “You are outnumbered and outclassed, Richard. I’d think twice about what I would do, if I were you.”

Flatly, Dick says, “it’s a good thing I’m not you, then.” He’s a few feet away now, and there are five assassins closing in on him. He’s trapped. “Wow. Tim’s really kicking your ass.”

Ra’s glowers at him. There’s too many variables here to leave anything to chance. Dick can still feel that pull on his mind, that ringing in his ears getting steadily louder like a siren’s song. Jokes on it, though, because Dick used to hang out with sirens every other weekend. 

He just needs to inch up a little more, get in arm length of Ra’s, and—

Now.

He glows, bright and all-encompassing, and tackles Ra’s to the ground. Ra’s gets a grip on his leg and tries to twist it, but Dick knees him in the gut and flicks a knife at the ropes blinding Tim. He’d imbued it with a bit of godly essence, so hopefully it’s enough—

A groan is punched out of him and he lands harshly on his side, glaring up at Ra’s. Tim is fighting off the grunts, weaving in and out like he’s at a gala and taking down two at a time even as more flood into the room. 

Dick lunges at Ra’s, digging his elbow into the hollow of the bastard’s neck. There are shouts, yells outside, the sound of fighting. 

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Ra’s hisses. His eyes are wild, his face purple with the strain he’s exerting against Dick. “Do you not understand? I will have a god under my control! A god!”

“Yeah,” Dick says, hooking his leg around Ra’s’ own and pressing down to keep him in place. “That’s kind of why I’m here. I can’t let you do that.”

“And why not?” demands Ra’s. “Hm? You could join me, you know. Your family does not appreciate what you have, what you are worth. I do.” 

Dick swears when Ra’s somehow flips them, a knife to Dick’s throat and an elbow to his chest. Ra’s’ gaze burns into Dick, searching him for—something. 

“There is something about you,” he muses, applying pressure to the knife and drawing out a bead of blood. Dick glares back. “What is it…hm. An aura…of…”

Ra’s’ grip slackens just as something hits the back of his head. Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Dick grabs the knife and slams the hilt into Ra’s’ head, kicking him once he’s crumpled to make sure he’s knocked out properly. He stands, wipes the blood from his throat, and picks up the object that had clattered to the ground. The white queen. 

He throws it up in the air and catches it, ambling over to where Tim is still fighting. The two of them make quick work of the lingering assassins, cutting through them like a storm. When the last one falls to the ground, Dick pulls Tim in for a hug. 

“Are you okay?” he demands, scanning his brother for hidden injuries. “Did he do anything?”

“Dick,” Tim complains, squirming out of his hold. “I’m fine, okay?” He puts some distance between him and Dick, and Dick’s heart drops. He’d almost forgotten. 

“Are you sure?” he asks anyway. He needs to know. Needs to know that Tim is okay, that he’s not hurt; if he is hurt, then Dick can heal him easily.

“Yes,” Tim snaps. Dick winces. 

“Okay.” 

Tim’s expression does…something. Dick’s got a feeling that it’s not exactly positive, so he takes a few steps back even though he’s loath to be even out of reach of his brother and looks over the room. Empty, save for the two of them and the bodies. 

Distant explosions ring in Dick’s ears, muffled through the walls of the compound. It’s not loud enough to block out the pull. 

“Where are you going?” 

Dick jolts back to awareness at the question. Somehow he’d gotten all the way to the door without even realizing he was moving. 

“I.” Dick blinks. “I don’t know.”

His wrist burns. He glances down to see the ruby eyes of the bracelet gleaming in the light. Shit. He can’t believe he’d forgotten—he hadn’t, but he’d been so caught up in rescuing Tim that it had slipped his mind—is that what it is? This siren song? Is it—

“Dick!”

Dick hisses out a curse, yanking himself back from the door like he’d been burned. 

“Dick,” Tim says, watching him carefully. His hands are in the air, hovering, like he’s braced to grab Dick is he—what? If he ran? “What’s going on?”

“We need to get Will and Kayla,” Dick says jerkily. “I need to—” 

“I’m coming with,” Tim says, looking him in the eyes for the first time in over two days, hardened with determination. Gods. Dick is so proud of him. “And don’t tell me I can’t, because I’m fine. I can help.”

“Okay,” Dick says.

“I can—wait, seriously?” Tim startles, surprise flashing across his face. Dick pulls down his mask to smile weakly at him. 

“Yeah, seriously. I could use the help.” Dick cocks his head. “Hopefully Donna and Slade have got what they need.”

“Wait,” Tim says. “Wait. Slade? So you are working with Deathstroke?”

Dick seesaws his hand. “Eh. Sort of? He owes me, I owe him, it’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” Tim echoes in disbelief. “Christ, Dick. I—wait. Why haven’t you just magicked us out, or something? Used your godly whatever?”

Dick closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe. “I would if I could. But it’s not—”

Everything just sort of stops for a second, his mind going blank as its overwhelmed by a tidal wave, the ringing in his ears increasing to a roar—

When he’s slammed back into awareness, the hardness beneath his knees tells him that he’d somehow fallen to the floor without realizing it. He blinks sluggishly, forcing himself to focus past the ever-present incessant ringing. What just happened?  

He drags his head up to meet Tim’s concerned gaze. His body feels heavy, like something is weighing down and crushing him. 

“Dick,” Tim says. His eyes are wide. Dick pushes himself to his feet, using the wall as support. 

“Sorry,” he offers. “I, uh, I dunno what…” But that’s not true, is it? He’s known the second he stepped foot onto this gods-forsaken island. He’s just too much of a coward to acknowledge it, because if he acknowledges it that means it’s real and the last time he faced it he nearly died even though he’s immortal and he’s scared.  

Tim just looks at him. Then he lets out a breath. “We should go.”

“Yeah,” Dick says gratefully, latching onto the out Tim had given him. “Yeah, we should.” 

He shoves the door open, and together they make their way to where the loudest of the explosions had gone off. Shouting, at first just vague, incomprehensible syllables begin to form into actual words. Words spoken by voices that Dick recognizes, that shouldn’t be here.  

He bolts to the open courtyard, Tim hot on his heels, skidding to a stop at the threshold to take in the utter chaos. 

Monsters, ghouls and hellhounds and at least two drakons, beaten back by demigods. Dick can see Austin and Mahira right off the bat, the two of them at the edge of what has become a battlefield and shooting as many monsters as they can. Nico and Percy are fighting back-to-back, with Clarisse La Rue off to the side. He can see a few more of his children, and over by the far arch are Donna and Slade, fighting together. Steph and Jason, too, are there, Steph executing perfect flips that Dick had taught her while he wore the cowl.

“Oh, wow,” Tim breathes. 

Dick wants to agree, because the sight in front of him, demigods and superheroes and mercenaries working together is like something out of a comic book, but he can’t. He can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything except stand there and watch. 

He sees the moment Austin spots them. He should be unrecognizable to him, because he looks nothing like he does when he goes to camp and he’s in stolen clothes to boot, but Austin’s eyes widen and he says something lost to the chaos but Dick can read his lips enough to make out the dad.  

Tim dives in, knocking away a hellhound before it can take a bite out of Jason’s torso. There’s so much going on. Dick needs to help. He needs to do something. But when he tries to move, to join the fight, instead his legs carry him around the edge of the courtyard and towards the building on the other side. It’s the same sort of thing that made him lose track of where he was going when he first got here. It follows the plan that he’d made with Slade and Donna, even, because he needs to do this even more than he needs to fight with his siblings and children and everyone else here. Did they all come to rescue Dick’s family? 

He clenches his hands around his escrima. He can’t get distracted. Not right now. 

He follows the pull to a door. When he tries the handle, it’s unlocked. So many things could go wrong. He’s leaving everyone outside to fight without him. They could get hurt, or so much worse. Can he really do this? 

Apollo…come…face me…

It doesn’t matter if he can do this. He has to. 

Dick opens the door.