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w-m-blake · 5 years

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I’m very proud of the writing I’ve done this week! Mortal Truth; and You Wish You Didn’t Ask the Question came out on Sunday; You Are Dead, My Life, and I Still Breathe came out yesterday; and I just posted the fifth chapter of The Sands of Titan! This week has been very productive! To celebrate (and because I want to know what people are interested in reading next), under the cut I’m putting the titles and short synopses of fics I’ve got on my to-do list. Message me if you want more information/want to weigh in on what to write next.

If Even Death Were Grace: “we begin in the dark/and birth is the death of us,” Anne Carson, “antigonick.” Anthony Stark, son of Howard Stark, Titan of the Forge, and Maria Carbonell, Titaness of Family and the Hearth, God of Invention, finds himself like Iphigenia, a sacrifice—a pawn—to placate the furies of other deities, for transgressions he didn’t commit. Nevertheless, he holds his chin up and walks the path to Hel, averting a war and agreeing to a marriage both. Better this than the alternative. Frostiron, retelling of Persephone and Hades (at least inspired by) with Tony in the place of Persephone and Loki as Hades.

I’m Not Playing God: (All this time, I’ve been playing human.) Frostiron, ThorBruce. Tony Stark walks out of the abandoned bunker in Siberia having awakened, realizing he was a god born to walk with humans. Rewriting from about the end of Ragnarok to Endgame.

I Hear You Whisper underneath Your Breath/I Hear You Whisper You Have Nothing Left: Tony wakes from nightmares of a life he can hardly imagine, a life where he’s left behind in a freezing bunker by an enemy wearing Steve Rogers’ face. Loki tries to comfort him, to distract him from these visions, but they become harder and harder to ignore—until something has to give. Frostiron.

Desiring More Yet: Harley Keener is always hungry, always starving, always looking for the next thing to drive his teeth into. He burns through ideas, through petty lovers, through inventions and motivations and addictions, looking for something—anything—that will satisfy him. He was hungry before leaving Rose Hill, his hunger driving him to New York, and he's still hungry even now, even cared for and loved by Tony and Pepper, even in this place that was supposed to be everything that he wanted. Perhaps it was some kind of idle dream, expecting thing new place to be all that he wanted, all that he needed.It did, at least, provide more distractions from his hunger than Rose Hill, Tennessee did. Peter Parker is content with what he has. Most of the time, at least. Sure, sometimes he's a little lonely—but Aunt May, Ned, MJ, Tony, Pepper, they're all there for him, just a phone call or a text away at their farthest. Sure, sometimes he carries this guilt from not doing enough, not being enough, failing people—but he's Spiderman, and he can't afford to get too down, because he's got other people counting on him. He pulls through. Sure, sometimes, the night is so big and dark and he feels like it's so empty it's going to swallow him whole, but Karen's in his ear all night, keeping him going. He's fine. Really. Maybe he's not as fine as he wants to be. Parkner.

One-Part Sadness, Two-Parts Tragedy: a Harley Keener character study told in three parts: the first is his time in Rose Hill, the second his transition from Rose Hill to NYC with Tony and Pepper’s help, and the third NYC post-Endgame. Major character death, no happy ending.

Warfare and a Man at War: a Tony Stark character study that will be a series, beginning with Warfare and a Man at War, followed by Of Gods and Men and concluding with In Hope and Fear. Warfare and a Man at War will focus on human conflict, the struggles of human war and its effects. Of Gods and Men will be the introduction of aliens and Other threats, justified paranoia, and how one fights an outmatched battle to win. In Hope and Fear will conclude the series; it will be the end results, the conclusion, what happens to civilians once the threat is “gone.”

Brinesoaked Bodies: mermaid!au. Chapter titles: “Left Broadside onto Breaking Seas;” “The Black Hurricane;” “Worn by Winds on Every Sea;” “The Whole Uproar of the Great Sea Fell Silent;” “Serenity that Calms the Weather;” “Brinesoaked Bodies.”

Insensible Shades: a Rapunzel/Tangled au meets Orpheus/Eurydice. Harley is the stolen child of King Anthony and Queen Virginia. Peter, a thief/vigilante dubbed “Spiderman,” is on the run from the kingdom’s guards—a misunderstanding, he insists—and comes across a tower. He takes Harley to see the lanterns, initially rather unwillingly, only to accidentally drag Harley into the mess of his non-legal affairs. Peter sacrifices himself to save Harley; Harley, in turn, becomes like Orpheus and travels to Hel to trade for Peter. Parkner, angst with a happy ending.

Boyfriend Clothes: Harley Keener lives in the same dorm as his friend, Peter Parker. They aren’t the closest—Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones definitely take up more of Peter’s time than Harley does—but they share physics and engineering courses, and both work as personal interns for Tony Stark—which is kind of code for Tony pseudo-adopting the young geniuses. Harley’s best friend is Shuri. She laughs at how Harley gushes over Peter—so long as he isn’t around. In turn, Harley teases Shuri for how she stammers around MJ. They’re both disaster gays. One night, Harley sees Peter walking to/from the bathroom (or something similar in the dorm) in pajama bottoms (shorts, which barely come past the shirt he’s wearing over them) and a giant fleece button down. It reached down almost to his mid-thigh and hung off his shoulder a little, the top button undone so the shirt was open to about his mid-sternum. Harley took this as obvious evidence that Peter now had a boyfriend (maybe even staying in his room that very night) and had to get to the bottom of it; he had to at least know who Peter was with—if only for the purposes of moving on. Parkner, college!au, no powers, silly fluff & humor, shenanigans.

Untitled #1: In order to keep the Time Stone from Thanos, Stephen Strange liquefies it (the way that the Reality Stone becomes Aether) and places it inside the only one on Titan who has withstood an infinity stone before: Tony. Thanos retreats temporarily to plan again; Tony must learn to use his newly-gained magic before he returns in order to save the universe.

Untitled #2: Disturbances occurring in the magical “ley lines” or Circumstances lead to Stephen investigating the multiverse; the disturbances aren’t coming from within this universe, or perhaps even any specific universe. They seem to be coming from all universes and none of them at the same time; it’s the roots of Yggdrasil, shaking with anticipation for whatever is on its way. A horror lurks in the void between Yggdrasil’s roots, and Stephen has to locate and banish it. Frostironstrange, Ironstrange, multiple universes, alternate timelines, horror/lovecraftian horror.

Untitled #3: Space pirates. The Ironfam (Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, Peter, Harley, Morgan) are on the run from the imperial rule of the SHIELD system upon Tony, Rhodey, and Bruce discovering the way their military employers maintain and gain power. They’re pursued by a small task-force (Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Sam; Phil is their handler) from SHIELD and the Winter Soldier, a ship from the HYDRA system (once a colony of SHIELD which revolted and is now in the throes of a Reign of Terror, French revolution style) commandeered by a (brain-washed) captain proficient at hiding his ship using comets and ice rock fields. (The Winter Soldier is captained by James Barnes, a spy sent by SHIELD to keep an eye on HYDRA, only to fall into their hands.) The Winter Soldier has commands to capture Tony, Rhodey, and Bruce for their military & scientific knowledge. Yggdrasil is a system far enough from SHIELD and HYDRA that neither know of it; it’s ruled by Odin, king of Asgard and conqueror of Jotunheimr, Vanaheimr, Alfheim, Muspell, Svartalfheim, Niflheim, and Nidavellir. Loki was taken from Jotunheimr when it was the last planet to be subdued by Asgard, being the furthest planet from the system’s star; Odin intends on making Loki the ambassador for the Jotuns, knowing that they still mourn the loss of their prince. Loki doesn’t take this well when he finds out; his mother Freyja helps him to flee. Odin sends Thor after him to capture him “on grounds of treason.” Stephen Strange flees the Sanctum Sanctorum System when his planet, Kamar-Taj, is invaded by the rapidly-spreading empire Dormammu. The Ancient One had been grooming Stephen for taking her position as the protector of Kamar-Taj once she had stepped down, but Kaecilius, a jealous pupil of hers, aided Dormammu in infiltrating Kamar-Taj’s defenses as what he saw as retribution for being looked over for the position. The Ancient One, worried for the fate of the people she protects (not necessarily governs, though almost every government on Kamar-Taj recognized her as an influential power), sent Stephen away, having one of her trusted advisers, Wong, take him from the system. Kaecilius hears of the plot to sneak Stephen off the planet before the Dormammu forces could invade, and he attempts to prevent their escape. This fails, but Stephen does gain the favor of the Cloak of Levitation in this fight. Stephen and Wong escape, bringing the Cloak. Stephen intends on someday returning to rid Kamar-Taj of Dormammu rule, but he has a lot to learn from Wong and the universe first. All of these plotlines intersect, threading through, around, and with one another. Polycule: Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce. Eventual additions of Frostironstrange and ThorBruce

Untitled #4: sick!fic; I have the list of headcanons/ideas here. Parkner. Cute & fluffy, featuring trans Peter with an unidentified but minor sickness and Harley being a good boyfriend.

Untitled #5: Stardust!au. Part One: Tony Stark leaves Wall to explore the land beyond it which beckons him, but only for a short time, with people depending on him back home. He falls for an imprisoned fae, attempts to free him, but ultimately fails and must return to Wall. Not long after, the watcher of the wall brings him a child in a wicker basket named Harley. Part Two: Eighteen years later, Harley Keener is infatuated with a girl named Victoria. He, trying to win her hand over her other suitor, E.J., promises to bring her a star that they see falling from the sky. He expects something like a precious stone; he, instead, meets Peter. They get dragged into an adventure running from star-eating warlocks, meeting lightning-catching pirates—who always make sure to dock frequently, so their captain can see his alchemist spouse—and a wild scramble for a throne that seems to have no viable heir. (Whether the fae is Loki or Stephen, I haven’t yet decided. Weigh in if you have a preference.) Parkner, ThorBruce, either Frostiron or Ironstrange.

Beyond these, I have my NaNoWriMo story (rough hands//soft hearts) and my Clint Barton Bingo card.

#my work #update #okay I'm rlly happy about the SoT chapter ?? so i wanted to celebrate #& I also rlly like talking about what I'm working on #partially because it makes me think about it so I'm more likely to get it done sooner #but I also am just rlly excited to write them #!!

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bygosscarmine · 6 years

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Death and the Spring Goddess...Get Detention.

a Sky High Olympus AU fic (Warren x Layla)

4750-word one shot

PG/Teen at most for suggestive references

Olympus Academy technically floats above mortal reach, so only real gods or truly powerful demigods can get there. Because arcane laws are a traditional hobby of most pantheons, there is (of course) a rule that if you can get to the school, you can go to the school. (There is, in the margin of this bylaw, a rather hastily handwritten addendum that one has to be of the appropriate age of one's species or kind. One can well imagine why.) Persephone was wholly unknown to any of the gods until she arrived on the Academy Isle--piggyback on the world's fastest-growing conifer.

The fact that it seemed to continue growing once she'd hopped off it alarmed a great many of the adults in the area. Since the staff on campus included Minotaur the Reformed, the one-eyed giant Ted, and Hel, the average person might have thought this a little absurd. The ways of the gods are mysterious.

Anyway, Persephone (sixteen and bitter) had been planning this badass entry for at least two weeks now. She just strode right into the Administration Office without a backward glance--she could clean up later. Besides, she was making a point.

"I am Persephone, a daughter of Demeter," she announced, sweeping in the door, her floral Doc Martins planting against any comers.

Except--there was no one. The school office, a sort of half-way between Grecian and Gothic style, was deserted. Actually, when she looked closer there seemed to be a crowd of bodies behind a frosted glass door across the room. Annoyed, Persephone swept her kerchief hem with a hand (the right swirl required a little coaching) and headed to that door.

Belatedly, she noticed one person who had witnessed this botched entrance. He didn't seem to be all that interested, glancing up only briefly as she moved forward, He was young enough to be a student. Still, her steps faltered slightly. When she got close enough to hear words being spoken inside the Administrator's office, she got the distinct impression that this young man was trying not to hear them.

He sprawled in his chair as if unconcerned, but there was an intent look on his face. Or maybe he always scowled like that. He had overgrown black hair partly covering his eyes, often the sign of a perpetual sulker.

He shifted slightly, and looked out the window, away from her. Something was odd about his eyes, but she didn't quite catch what before they were hidden by the angle. Anyway, she had psyched herself up this morning to not be fazed by anything, so it was just as well. She reached the inner office.

"--it's apparent to everyone he is a recurrence of Hades, I don't think that is a question."

"You can't deny a boy his education based on old prejudices--"

"Old prejudices! Don't make me laugh. It's that boy, not some previous incarnation, who called up Cerberus to terrorize the cafeteria."

"Under extreme provocation!"

Persephone winced for the boy, despite her own preoccupations. She knocked, and counted it a service.

The abrupt silence seeped like chill around the doorjamb. Then an incredibly beautiful female with an incredibly unfriendly face peeked out.

"Yes?"

"I am Persephone, a daughter of Demeter. I am here to enroll at Olympus."

The woman gave her a quick up and down, a tad slow replacing her judgment of Persephone's sense of style with a smile of welcome.

"I'll be right with you, dear."

The rumbling inside resumed, but now about Demeter, and whether she had publicly announced any children in the last hundred years.

"She said a daughter of Demeter," came the voice of the goddess who'd seen her, "not the daughter of Demeter, so it could mean anything. But she's here, so if she wants to enroll she can. Excuse me."

As she stepped out of the office, it became obvious the goddess was Venus, or at least her most recent form. No one else would have dressed just like the headless installation that dominated the artisan's quarter of the city below, so that it was obvious to anyone her body had been the model. Or maybe anyone else caught trying it would have found themselves in a world of hurt. Venus wasn't known for sharing well with others.

Persephone tried not to be starstruck as she followed Venus to the front desk. That would be embarrassing. It was especially embarrassing to be starstruck by someone's butt just because it really looked just like the sculpture.

Hades was having a pretty ridiculous day already when a second freaking fertility goddess walked into the building. Dressed like an eco-terrorist, no less. She had on army boots, but they were embroidered with daisies or something. And she was wearing them with a green sundress, as if symbolism was an art completely lost on her and she instead chose to draw a chart.

He couldn't decide if her being bony and awkward was more disconcerting or comforting, in a redheaded nature deity.

He winced when she announced she was Demeter's daughter. His adoptive mom had versed him rigorously in all his past connections (as far as history could tell them) with past incarnations of various gods, and one thing he knew for sure was that he and that goddess found ways to hate each other in every lifetime.

His bio-mom thought worrying about former incarnations was laughable, and introduced her boyfriend as her "ex-brother" just to make him squirm. Meeting Rhea had explained a whole lot about his adoptive mom's attitude, really.

While Rhea continued to do a terrible job trying to keep him in this school, he watched the other fertility goddess in the building get the young one entered for classes. Green Dress seemed to be having trouble not staring at Venus's white drapery. Well, that was the whole point of the drapery, really.

Rhea wrenched open the door and emerged to glare at him.

"If you want to stay in this school and not be put down as unallied with Olympus, you need to come make some apologies."

About ten minutes earlier, Hades had been planning to tell them all to shove it up their unnaturally ageless backends. But there was a distant sound of shouting that the new kid seemed to be ignoring with intent. She hadn't relaxed like someone who had achieved their goal, either.

Maybe he didn't want to leave just yet. He went to do the most godly grovel he could muster.

Persephone had not come to Olympus for the better school environment. She quite liked it, especially when she found out that she could skip mythology class for a fairly advanced botany workshop as her personalize elective. No, she had come to get Zeus to do something about Earth's global warming.

Olympus Academy was the only standardized route for gods to get enrolled in Olympus as deities. Unlike she had hoped, though, Persephone couldn't get to the rest of Olympus from the levitating campus. Nor did it seem at all easy to approach the gods who could help her with her petition. So, to bide her time (and prepare for her political future), she made friends with the other students--when that was possible.

When it was not possible, she tried to at least not pick any fights.

All the students were technically young, not experienced as gods, and working toward being officially part of the Olympus Alliance. There were still clearly marked cliques and hierarchies.

She'd been a little astonished to be greeted with enthusiasm by a good number of her fellow students, despite the fact that her tree had taken up permanent residence in the squash court. (Some of the more athletic students soon adapted this into the world's highest jungle-gym, and even used it to sneak off campus for lunch. Persephone could not fly and did not think she was immortal enough to just try falling, so she had accepted her admittance to the campus dorm without any regrets.)

It was only after her first few weeks that she realized all the students who had befriended her belonged to a certain class at school. They were the nurturers, earth-mothers, healers, and emotion deities. As far as she could tell, they had the most fun anyway, so she had no regrets.

Still, there was no denying the Frights (as her new friend Pom called them) were somehow cooler.

Some of the Frights were loners, but the others had a loose network. Venus's younger sister Di wasn't always around, because she was intense about her archery training, but whenever she sat down she was instantly surrounded by girls with knife-sharp eyeliner and husky voices. She was thick as thieves with Mars, though apparently blood flowed when anyone suggested they were dating. When both of them were otherwise unoccupied there was an inevitable devolvement to war games of various forms.

So the first time Persephone made an absolute fool of herself was, naturally, in front of both of them.

The day before at lunch the Frights had been playing some card game. While the penalties for losing had been violent, at least it hadn't taken up the whole lawn where people ate lunch. (The weather was always good on Olympus, unless someone had really gotten Zeus upset. This happened only every few decades, and there were bomb shelters, not awnings, inside the school for these occasions.)

Today, though, it was a glorified version of capture the flag. Some god or other with constructive tendencies had offered up two hand-built forts for the Frights to guard, because of course they had.

"Persie, over here!" called Pomona.

While war was being set up, their own group had very sensibly settled within the line of oak trees. Since these trees were sacred to several gods (some of them adults) they were well out of the range of danger.

Pom was eating beautifully arranged sushi that did not come from meal services, and Persephone sighed as she unpacked her own lunch. It was apples, cheese, and peanut butter, and she hoped Pom wouldn't notice the apples weren't fancy ones.

"Did you hear that they're going to let Hades come back to class?" said a boy who went by Jay. This was clearly some kind of nickname, but Persephone had never seen any signs of what his godhood was, and had decided it might be better that way.

"Uh, did you not know he's been here?" said the guy who was resting his head on Jay's lap. Persephone had suspicions about him, but called him Eric anyway.

"This whole time? I haven't seen him."

Jay clearly thought this was a loss.

"He's been doing twelve-hour detentions, that's why," said Eric. "I hear him sometimes coming into the dorm. He's above my room, you know."

"Who's Hades?" Persephone asked Pom in a whisper.

"You haven't met him?" gasped Pom. Persephone should have known better than to try to have a surreptitious conversation with Pom. "He's like, the Fright of all Frights."

"Obviously, I've heard of Hades," Persephone said, blushing.

"Do you think it's true he appears when you say his name?" asked another girl, and the conversation mercifully turned to gossip.

It dawned on her slowly, as hints were made about what Hades had done to to earn near-constant detention, that he had to be the guy in the Administration Office that first day.

She was just trying to remember what she had noticed about his eyes when something hit her on the back of the head.

Hades had found a good corner where he could keep an eye on everyone while eating his lunch, and not be snuck up on from behind. He didn't usually eat lunch out on the grounds with the morons at school, but the structures that had gone up for today's wargame promised havoc. It was better witness havoc than try to piece it together by hearsay.

He wasn't watching, per se, when one of the jock morons pitched an apple at the nature crowd, but he saw it.

It hit the new redhead. She didn't always wear green, but today she had either worn or sprouted a crown of flowers. In a way, that kind of thing was asking those jocks to do something dumb. On the other hand, how thick did you have to be to use a piece of fruit to assault Spring Incarnate?

Dudes who grew up thinking of themselves as gods who might make something of themselves, apparently.

He set his dry sandwich down on his tray and leaned forward to watch what went down.

"Oops, sorry, Red!" came an amused masculine voice.

At first, Persephone just stared as the apple rolled by her then nestled against her knee as if seeking comfort. Then she understood--it hadn't been an accident.

She turned to look, already knowing who had spoken.

It was Ares, Mars' hanger-on. The guy had taken to lingering by her seat after Strategic Math, and while he hadn't exactly made a move, he probably would have, if she'd allowed him to make eye-contact.

"I brought you some more lunch, but it slipped out of my hand," he said. "You really don't need to diet for me."

Since one of Persephone's problems in putting together a good lunch was from all the sports-type guys complaining if anything vegetarian was served, this was particularly enraging.

She picked up the apple, stood, and threw it so hard and fast it had only grown a branch the thickness of her arm when it hit him in the face. (If she'd popped it up, it could have landed a grown tree. Hopefully entrapping Ares in its roots forever.)

"Nice arm," said Di from across the field. When she saw that Ares was bleeding from his nose, Di came Persephone's way. "I've got it--revenge plot."

Mars, kneeling at the foot of his fort to install some kind of whittled spikes, shrugged and said, "Sure. Fury of the women?"

"Persephone on my side with that arm, and Ares on your side with his."

There was a chuckle from some of the bystanders.

"No, I don't agree," Persephone said. "Di, you all are really cool, but no, I won't. I'm not good at games like this, and I don't care enough about it to get involved."

"Guess it'll have to be a good old kidnapping then," said Mars, grabbing Persephone.

Which was a really, really bad move.

Hades had his suspicions from that first day. After Rhea had stormed out, and Hades had been signing contracts about how much service he'd do to be taken off probation, there had been another meeting--and though the administrators were just as tense and argumentative as before, it wasn't about him. They had been interrogating Venus, and inspecting the files.

Something about Persephone besides her pine tree had disturbed them. Or maybe her pine tree had tipped them off to something, Hades couldn't be sure.

Today, he got to see it.

Persephone turned into Mars's grasp, only for him to shriek and let go, and then fall to the ground covering his head. Odd.

Turning the grass to blades beneath his feet was easy. And getting out of his grasp by leaning in rather than struggling was easy.

Unfortunately, by now there was the no-turning-back bubbling of power that occasionally overcame her, and while some small part of teenage Persephone wished to stop, the age-old nature goddess part was ready to take them all to pieces.

She did not. But it was very difficult to restrain herself. There had to be an outlet somewhere.

Her power curled out, lifting her usually straight hair into a nimbus, as it reached out in a circling pattern, telling her what she could do with her surroundings. All those standing in or between the forts were shouting, running for the forts to get off the stabbing grass.

The forts turned quickly to giant treehouses, formed of revived trees--different species now spliced together and creating strange bark-encased cages around the students who had been caught in them.

At the corners of her vision she saw things morphing and changing. At the edges of her hearing she heard shouts and crying. At the horizon of her existence, she knew she was losing herself, but the fierce expanding-green of Spring did not care.

The sacred oaks grew in dimension, until the crowd of nature-types at the foot of them were all hugging each other in the tightening gap between the trunks. Why didn't the idiots run? Hades did not get these guys.

Professor Apollo, looking harried, came running toward the meadow. He cast a look around, a white beard sprouting from his face with the stress, and then he bellowed, "Hades! I know you're here somewhere. Do something!"

Hades stood up and stepped forward.

An unnatural hush fell when the grass withered suddenly to brown all around them. The trees caging the Fright jocks ceased growing with creaks and instead became quiet carved wood again, though still in the shape of terrible trees.

His steps onto the lawn seemed to echo, though he knew no one but himself and Persephone would hear them.

She had turned jewel-green eyes toward him, her floating red hair swirling with the motion. She stayed still as she assessed her new enemy.

"Hey kid," he said, and with nerves his voice came out deep and rocky. "No one's really going to hurt you. You're all right. You're hurting the trees."

Step, step, step. He felt her waiting power crackle on his skin like a lick of sun. She had been wearing a purple dress today, a little more low-key nature goddess. Now, though, it was a raiment of flower petals, all fresh and even moving as though still unfurling, with a hem of twining stems where the fabric had been edged with lace.

Hades had accepted weeks ago that he was going to be aware of what this particular student was wearing at any given time. It wasn't just that she had that fertility goddess glow--it was that her power seemed to shout at his. It made sense; it was also a real headache. Now he had to declare that clash between them in front of the whole school.

Apollo's beard had stopped growing mid-chest, but the teacher was still clutching it in his fingers with anxiety.

But Hades hadn't been watching lunchtime battles so carefully for nothing.

He knelt in front of Persephone, and reached out to hold the edge of her dress, careful not to crush any petals but only hold the tougher stems.

"I won't touch you," he said. "If you calm down, no one will hurt you. But if you don't, I will have to stop the oak trees, and that will hurt you a lot, won't it?"

"Since when," said a crone-voice that was not Persephone's, "are you a hostage negotiator, Hades?"

He laughed. "Since my mother declared feud on Zeus two thousand years ago. And since you, Demeter, kept hijacking your daughter's destiny. And in this life, since my step-dad decided to start beating my mom."

Not Rhea. When Rhea had finally checked in long enough to notice what was going on, she had the man put away for a long time. A long, long, long time. Long enough for Hades to get very good at being a god before they met again.

"Oh my god," said Persephone, herself again.

She blinked, and her eyes were fading to blue. Then she crumpled toward the ground, nearly knocking heads with him.

Persephone had not planned on having her first meeting with Zeus in a disciplinary hearing. Her new plans had all revolved around the upcoming harvest feast. All the gods who were on speaking terms with Zeus joined the students at Olympus High for the festival, so it was a brilliant opportunity. She had been drilling herself on rhetoric for the occasion.

Now she was next to Hades in the hot seats of the principal's office, while a ruggedly fifties-ish looking man tried to charm her. Zeus hardly ever died, so he was more like fifty-thousandish. It was gross he wanted to look young. At least Apollo had the grace to look like he tanned too much.

"It's understandable to get upset," Zeus was saying, "but you really have to be cautious not to do anything in anger you can't undo."

He would know, she thought. Though she took the whole Daphne thing more personally, at least Apollo wasn't a hypocrite. Also, Apollo had self-ordered a restraining order on himself that was upheld through all his lifetimes--something she had found out when doing research in the Olympus High library for possible leverage.

Anyway, a lecture from Zeus didn't weigh much with Persephone.

It was sitting next to Hades that was making her twitchy.

"So, in punishment," said Zeus so she started listening again, "I will go easy on you, as a first-time offender and fairly new goddess, dear. Hades, you will show her the ropes on your detention, and she will serve a hundred hours alongside you."

"Sir," objected Hades, "that's work in my domain. She doesn't belong there."

"Right. Which is why she's only doing a hundred hours."

He stood up and beamed at both of them, reminding Persephone strongly of a overly peppy soccer coach she had hated as a kid--particularly for the way he made up nicknames instead of using her full name.

"Have fun, children."

Zeus winked, and was gone.

Hades looked over at her, and overlaying his default scowl there was a hint of apology.

She remembered very clearly the shock of looking into his eyes earlier, when she'd wanted to kill him for messing with her plants. One eye was warm brown, the other a black that faded to ash-grey at the center. All of her fury had seemed to sink into that dead-bone eye, as if he was an abyss that power just fell into.

"So what hell is it that you're working on for detention?" she asked, to get him to stop looking at her.

Because of an undesirable attuning to his own name, Hades had heard a great deal of gossip in the last 24 hours. Some of it between teachers.

And as he had suspected, something about Persephone really freaked them out.

Hades was used to freaking people out, himself. He even enjoyed it. All the staff here expected him to freak them out a little and acted accordingly. Apparently, though, a really powerful nature goddess was way more daunting than the god of Death.

Which is probably why they had unanimously decided to balance the two of them against each other.

At least today it was waves of Persephone's own hatred for him practically growing into a wall between them, instead of Demeter's.

The girl looked a little pale. In Zeus's presence she had bristled but now these defenses had fallen away, and she looked small.

Only looked small, though; Hades could still feel her power filling the space around them in the hallway. But a god could feel small even if they had a lot of power.

So he didn't say anything, just led her to the maintenance part of the building and down the stairs. Down, and down. Though she started to get nervous, she didn't ask why they were going down so far. Maybe she put two and two together.

Then finally he opened the door at the very bottom, its bottom edge scraping still-unsmoothed dirt, and showed her in.

"So," Persephone said, staring around at what seemed to be a glorified basement. Not really even glorified, just massive. "Did you do all the decorating yourself?"

"It's a fixer-upper. A fixer-downer? I only claim responsibility for the two thirds at the back. You may noticed a distinct trend toward shoddy worksmanship that direction. What can I say, I'm a destroyer not a maker."

Apparently, Hades had been waiting the whole time they were descending to his 'realm' only to launch into a comic routine.

"Wow, the god of death has a sense of humor?"

"Wow, the goddess of fertility doesn't?"

She stamped a boot with frustration. "What did you call me?"

"I...didn't realize that was inappropriate."

"Fertility! As if the only thing a woman and springtime and nature can be about is being FERTILE. Listen, buddy, it's not all eggs and pollen. Being called a fertility goddess is essentially writing someone off as overly feminine and therefore probably useless."

His weird mismatched eyes on her made her skin crawl. She'd been trying to fend off the sense of his cold, burying power and now she was surrounded on all sides by rock. Not just rock, dead rock. Rock leeched of nutrients and good minerals.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. "Despite how it may seem, I have only the greatest regard for life and the living."

He turned away, and walked toward a distant corner of the square, cave-like place. His hands were in his pockets, but the line of his back was anything but relaxed and nonchalant. She realized after a second that he was heading toward a wheelbarrow full of heavy tools, and hurried to catch up.

Hades heard the scuffing of her ridiculous boots, shorter paces trying to catch up with his, and slowed just slightly. She didn't step up to his side, though, until they reached the spot where he'd left his gear at the raw edge of the cave.

"I'm sorry, this is rough work," he said, hauling out and offering her a choice between pickaxe and sledgehammer.

"What are we doing, anyway?" she asked.

"Enlarging hell, what does it look like?"

Why did he have to be sarcastic right now? Was it some mythic law, "All Hades will be stupid around spring-slash-nature goddesses"?

"No, but why does Zeus want you enlarging hell? Under Olympus?"

"We're not really...under Olympus any more."

"Fine, wherever we are."

He hesitated. "Just like more life is always being made...death is also always being made."

"You mean, this is literally going to become more underworld, with ghosts in it?" Persephone sounded horrified.

"No," he said. "This is my new throne-room. Gods of death don't leave when they die. Look, if you aren't going to do the bludgeoning work, get out that spade. You can shovel the debris instead."

She had an intently innocent look on her face. Hades had seen that look before--when the Minotaur dude had burst into the administration office, saying, "It won't stop! The tree is cutting into the mountain!"

The Minotaur's voice had sounded more like a squeal than speech. Hades had enjoyed that.

Now he turned slowly, and saw that a vine had started to break up the wall, weakening the stone. "Will that help?" she asked.

It was impossible.

There was nothing for a plant to grow in here. His presence in this underworld should have stopped her, made it a locus of lifelessness. But as he stared at her handiwork, already causing small stones to fall out of the wall, he also noticed that the power she'd been expending to ward him away was no longer concentrated between them.

Maybe it hadn't been hate. Maybe it was fear. Though apparently Persephone did not have much to fear from Hades.

He didn't tell her it was impossible, however, because she really didn't need any more encouragement. He started shoveling the rubble her vines were creating into the wheelbarrow, thinking this could either be the longest or shortest hundred hours of his life. He hoped he didn't screw it up.

"So what's your big goal in coming to Olympus, Persephone?"

"To end global warming. Unless you want the whole planet dead, of course," she said--with an actual smile, however barbed.

"Not at all," he demurred, scraping another shovel-full of falling rock together.

"And what about you, Hades? Something bigger than being on Zeus's team got you coming to this circus?"

"Preparing for my rightful throne, obviously," he said, waving around.

After a few moments more of her concentrating on coaxing her vines to fissure the rocks, and getting on gloves to encourage it to fall, she said, "I really can't believe I've gotten myself in trouble. Zeus may never listen to me now."

Hades didn't share that he thought Zeus had reason to worry about not pleasing her, rather than the other way around.

Not yet, anyway. After all, they had another ninety-nine and a half hours together.

#Warren x Layla #Warren Peace x Layla Williams #Sky High #Olympus AU #fanfiction

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