The Son of Ares is a Real Dick
1940
Edward Blake is leaning against the side of the Minutemen building nursing his broken nose. He hears a gruff laugh off to his left and groans.
"Well you really showed him, didn't you Eddie?"
Eddie takes out a cigarette and lights it, slowly breathing in the smoke and puffing it out through his nostrils.
"Who the fuck are you?" he asks, his voice a set monotone as he stares into the bricks in front of him like he's trying to decode a cryptic message.
The man grunts, not in an irritated way, but rather like "hey I your spunk, kid." He sticks out his hand to Eddie, who ignores it.
He eyes the man up and down , seeing that the guy's got some huge muscles; notices that he's also got some fucked up scarring on his face. The weirdest thing though, is that it's nighttime, and the guy is wearing aviator shades. Eddie decides right then and there that the guy is nuttier than a fruitcake.
Which in it of itself isn't a bad thing.
Eddie knows he's a bit of a fruitcake too, dressing up like a clown and fighting crime.
The bad thing is that this guy knows his name, and Eddie is outside the Minutemen headquarters dressed as The Comedian.
Eddie cautiously takes the man's hand, shakes it.
"You a friend of Hollis's or somethin'? How do you know my name?"
The guy gives a big, toothy grin, canines flashing brightly underneath the streetlight.
"I've know you for a very long time, kid," he says. "I've got some stuff to tell ya. You probably wanna be sitting for it."
Eddie narrows his eyes. "One of those assholes in the Minutemen put you up to this. Fuck you, man." Eddie tries to brush past the guy, but a heavy hand on his shoulder stops him.
"You're not going anywhere, kid."
"Oh yeah? We'll see about that." Eddie manages to wrench himself out of the man's grip and lands a heavy fist on the guy's jaw, cutting the skin there. When he pulls his fist back, he sees golden liquid on the tops of his knuckles.
"What the-?"
The man takes off his shades and hooks them into his collar.
"Nice punch," he says. "But I can do better."
In the late hours of the night, the two fight; bruising ribs and cracking jaws. For a second, Eddie swears he can see flames where the guy's eyes should be. And it feels like they've been fighting for hours, neither one wanting to give in to the other, knuckles and knees scraping against brick and concrete. When it finally ends, Eddie finds that his face feels even worse than before. He stumbles back into the wall and sits. He realizes now that he wasn't imagining the flames in the guy's eyes. The guy really is bleeding fucking gold, too. Oh fuck, good old Hooded Justice must have really hit me hard. I'm startin' to see things, he thinks.
His voice shaky and out of breath, he asks, "Who the fuck are you, man?"
The man sits across from him and cracks his knuckles. "Do you know anything about the Greek gods, Eddie?"
"You mean the Zeus shit?" That gets a roar of laughter from Mr. Flame-eyes.
"'Zeus shit!' Oh, the big guy isn't gonna like that one, ha ha. I fuckin' love ya, kiddo. Shoulda come to visit you sooner. But yeah, 'Zeus shit' fits."
Eddie takes out another cigarette and lights it, illuminating his face in the darkness.
"You look like hell," the guy across from him says.
Eddie coughs out and chuckles, "Don't you mean I look like Hades? He's the underworld guy, right?"
In the low light of the street lamp, Eddie can see the guy flash his toothy grin again.
"That's right, Eddie. He's real prickly bastard, too."
Eddie takes a long drag from his cigarette. Looking back up to the man, he asks, "So what's your point here? You still haven't told me who you are."
"Who do you think I am?"
"One of Hooded Justice's fuck-buddies. Am I right?"
"Boy, you've got a mouth on you, kid. I like that." Another toothy grin. "I am Ares, God of War." His flame-eyes peer more intensely at Eddie. "I'm also your father."
Eddie can't help himself – he bursts into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
"Oh man, that's great!" he chuckles through lungs filled with smoke. "H.J. really did hit me fucking hard, because I just heard you say that you were a Greek god – which is fine, so am I, where it counts. But then I heard you say that you are my father." Eddie stands up, angry now. "Now that's some bullshit."
"C'mon, kid! Open your eyes! Do I really look like a normal human to you?"
Eddie grunts. "I got cracked in the head pretty hard earlier today. I'm just seeing this, is all."
"Quit denying it, you know it's true. You're the son of a god, Edward Blake. You're a son of Ares."
Eddie shakes his head. " I don't fucking believe in old myths started by dead men. God doesn't exist."
Ares shrugs. "God as in capital 'G' God may or may not exist – even we little 'g' gods don't know. But 'gods' do exist. And since you're a demigod, the big guy upstairs – Zeus, not God – has decided to give you a quest."
"Why me? Why can't another demigod do it? Or YOU?"
Ares groans in irritation. "You're special because you've never been to Camp Half-Blood, but you you're still bloodthirsty." Ares hands him a scroll. "You've got to handle one of Hecate's kids. Moloch or some shit – I can't remember what he calls himself. He's been using his demigod powers to rob lots of temples and banks the gods own."
Eddie takes the scroll and reads it. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with the guy? Bring him to Olympus? And what the fuck is 'Camp Half-Blood'?"
Ares gives another shrug. "Beat the shit out of him, kill him, whatever. Zeus doesn't care – just stop what he's doing. Oh, and don't worry about what the camp is – you don't need to go there anyways." Ares grabs Eddie on the shoulder, squeezes it. "Make me proud, kid."
Eddie just nods.
"I'm going now. Close your eyes."
Eddie does, and from the backs of his eyelids he can see a flash of impossibly bright light. When he opens them again, he sees that Ares is gone. He looks down at the scroll.
"Fuck this shit," he says, tossing the scroll to the side. "HJ really fucked my head up."
With that, he turns out of the alley and makes his way back home.
"What a long fucking night."
A/N: Read and review! :D