A/N: Just another story that was flitting around my head, and I wanted to bear it out… I never thought I'd write anything for Hades and Persephone, and this is probably as close as I'm going to get. It's still mostly Zeus/Hera. I was just interested in looking at the connections between them and Zeus/Hera. It's very head-canonish, I think. Or as head-canon as you can get with myths being as vague as they are… so I probably don't really need to put that disclaimer lol.

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With the gods, fate is fixed.

It would be easy to believe then, that no challenge or peril is ever too surprising or climactic. If Kronos was destined to overthrow Ouranos, then Zeus to overthrow Kronos, and all the destinies and personifications and domains were set within that universal structure, where is there a question? What cannot, in some way, be anticipated?

He catches her as she tumbles into the world for the first time. He is the first thing that she sees, when she knows nothing of the world beyond the first darkness of her father's gut. She is newly reborn, and he does not see what she will be—the power that will draw all, including him. And she does not know that the gods, the skies, the heavens will soon be under her heel at his embrace…

It is long after that a brother is on his way to visit his sister and lays eyes upon a maiden he has never seen. A young woman, kept and clung to—a young woman with a darker destiny. She never sees him watching her, but she does not need to see him then. Her father will understand.

And the King of the Dead does not visit his sister. For all his kindness, he is destined to visit pain upon her.

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"I've answered your summons, so this had better be important."

Zeus looked so out-of-place in the Underworld, that it was farcical. His eyes shined a blue that wouldn't be seen in anywhere within the Land of the Dead. His golden glow was overwhelming in a land where Helios traced no path.

Despite that, his posture was less-than-godly, arms crossed and grudging as he eyed his brother at the throne. "I hope this isn't a social invitation," he added, when Hades didn't yet move or speak. The chances of this request being social were actually rather low. It didn't appear that Poseidon had been summoned.

Hades had always been the most deliberate and calm of them, so Zeus didn't expect any excitements or absurdities of his own making. But his eldest brother never requested his presence in his domain, and Zeus had always been perfectly content to stay out of his way.

The three brothers spent time together, but not nearly as much as their three sisters. And between those brothers, Poseidon often served as the bridge: he enjoyed bothering both elder and younger in their respective kingdoms and was more apt to seek out fraternal bonds. Hades, on the other hand, enjoyed his solitude. Zeus enjoyed ruling, and he enjoyed sex. If not for Poseidon and Council Meetings, Zeus wagered that he would go centuries without catching sight of Hades.

This could only be about business.

Hades stood when Zeus entered, but he stayed positioned right in front of his throne, as if afraid to descend.

Zeus rolled his eyes and sighed. "If you're going to be in this frozen state for a while, may I have a drink?"

Hades could have called a servant. He should have. Instead, and to Zeus' amazement, he finally brought himself down the steps that separated the brothers and went to pour Zeus a goblet by his own hand. The throne room was quite empty, save for them.

This was …bizarre.

"Hades…" Zeus started, but he paused when he saw that Hades' hand was shaking, a fine tremor that made the liquid ripple on the surface of the goblet. "What's wrong?"

There must have been an alertness in his tone, because Hades looked up at him with cold, bloodshot eyes as he handed the drink over. "What's wrong?" he echoed vacantly.

"You're not yourself," Zeus declared, trying to put it nicely in a sudden gesture of goodwill. Hades actually appeared disheveled. The circles under his eyes were more pronounced than ever and he had that hooded look about him. Hades took a sharp breath at the fairly charitable description and he didn't look at Zeus, focusing on the table before them.

"Perhaps I'm not…" he said. He was edging toward the subject matter of necessity, Zeus could tell. But the King hoped that he would out with it soon, or his patience would run thin.

Then, Hades swallowed. "Do you remember a time when we spoke of madness? When you said that you were on the cusp of it, if you couldn't have what you desired? How I did not understand you?"

It took Zeus a moment, before the same words returned, on a day when his drink flowed free and the face of one goddess—one willfull girl, refused to abandon his mind to peace.

"You have to stop. You're scaring her."

His oldest brother had skulked in, unannounced, when Zeus left the door slightly ajar after Council. He stood just past the brink of the entrance, looking as unpleasant and somber as ever.

Zeus choked a laugh and didn't pause in his deep draught of ambrosia. When he had finished, he only spared Hades an incredulous look. "Frightened? HERA?" Zeus howled with drunken laughter. "Why not try again, with the truth this time?"

"That is the truth!" Hades growled. "And it's not just her, you're frightening us all. She's just your particular focus."

"And who sent you?" Zeus pretended to think. "One of our other sisters …well, it could only be Demeter."

"Yes, and she said that you didn't take it well coming from her. That you wouldn't believe we felt this way unless it came from someone who you couldn't 'pluck and swallow like a grape'."

"Her words, I'm sure."

"Poseidon's. But they're true all the same."

Zeus laughed bitterly, he was going to reach again for his drink, but his hands were shaking and he would be exposed if he did. He clenched them. So it appeared that all of his siblings were against him. It often felt like that to him—the five of them had grown together, while he had been separated.

He slammed his palm against the marble table, cracking it. Hera's face wouldn't leave his mind—shining eyes, innocent and out of his possession. "Don't you dare ever say to me again that I've frightened her," he ordered him darkly. "I only want her. I cherish her."

"Want someone else, Brother." Hades' tone was hard. "She's already made clear that she doesn't wish to accept your suit. Moving on has never been hard for you…"

If Hades had stuck a burning dagger in his belly, the words couldn't have hurt more, because they were true words, and they were absolutely RUINING him!

"You…" he fixed blazing eyes on Hades. "You, you couldn't possibly understand! I won't move on, I never will! Have I made mistakes? Yes! But I—" he choked on the words. "I will go mad if I cannot have her. And I don't mean 'HAVE' her, Hades. I mean as my wife! She must be—I must have her, body and soul, and in all the ways in between. I don't know what will happen if I am denied her, but I don't wish for any of us to find out!"

He stared at the table, wanting to tear it apart with his bare hands just to ease this strangling need he felt. Hades shifted slightly, and Zeus could sense his disappointment, because he was utterly unable to sway him, like he was meant to.

"Do you see? How you speak like this, Zeus? And you wonder why that might frighten her?"

Zeus opened his mouth with an out-of-control snarl, but Hades held up his hand to buy him a moment. "Hera is brave, I know. She's far fiercer than she should be, she always walks headlong into her tempers without heed. I know. But you're wrong about her. You're scaring her away, Zeus. She will flee to Oceanus and Tethys again if you don't stop this—this insane talk!"

"Then I'll get her and I'll bring her back. And I'll make her see—"

"Enough!" Hades sounded truly disturbed now. "She said she didn't want you! And if you persist, she won't be the only Olympian you stand against, I assure you, Brother."

"Fighting for our little sister's honor against me, who only wants to preserve it?" Zeus didn't laugh, but he sounded insidiously amused. Slowly, he turned his back on his brother.

"You don't understand …none of you ever did."

"Understand what?" Hades' tone heavily suggesting that he was merely humoring the King, but Zeus was so sure of his point that he didn't care.

"She's made for me, and she knows that, Brother. That is what matters…"

"That's nonsense, Zeus."

"You say it's nonsense, because you know nothing of it!"

"I remember," Zeus answered. He remembered those days all too well, because they carried the greatest emptiness he had ever felt in his life: to know that he should be with her, and to be without her.

Hades' eyes connected with his own and Zeus could see that look as deeply as he once felt it. The King felt a shiver, and wildness in the memory.

"I am in that place."

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It happened during the Titanomachy that something burst forth from little Hera, his youngest sister. All of the female Titans, female goddesses, all female mortals—for the merest moment their visage changed from the horror of war to awe and desire.

Everything continued, but Zeus saw as they all angled themselves toward her, though they didn't even conceive of what had happened. And she fought on, the power unlocked and thick in the bloodstained air until it withdrew and curled up to hibernate again.

They were her birthright—all women—to her protection, brought underneath her wing without any realization of what had been done. Zeus, with his power and station, could sense the change. It was the beginning of everything for him. He couldn't stop looking at her.

He married others, but his eyes remain fixed, knowing by something inborn that all things would end and begin with Hera as his bride.

But Hera was a willful young woman; and Hera's beauty and irascible nature and her mysterious power had drawn many to her side. Zeus was not unique in that way. He was just a better fit, the only fit for her. He was more powerful than any other being. He could give her everything, and the throne. He could put a name to her power: Queen.

After Metis, he dallied with many others, including Demeter. But Demeter especially, had already known who Zeus truly wanted, so she left him after getting what she wanted: a child to love and to keep for herself.

"Hera will never have you," Demeter warned him once they parted. "And I support her fully in that opposition. She would not be able to stand your nature, Zeus. It is only because you are our King that she has tolerated your behavior, thus far."

Zeus was not one to mark or check his own behavior, so he didn't know what Demeter meant. He didn't care much for the advice, either. Hera was hard to catch and hard to keep.

The extent of her power may not have been apparent (Zeus had begun to believe that she was taking pains to hide it), but it was already well-known that she embodied young womanhood. Constantly in full-bloom and glorying in that time of life to remain free and untouched, she often tired of possessive eyes and left Olympus altogether. She had nothing to fear from any of them …except the one she would marry.

He fended off all the others, for his own sake as well as hers. Yet, she didn't appreciate his efforts. And when she stole away, she often forgot to tell him where.

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"I have not asked you for anything," Hades said passionately. "I have not interfered, I have not quarreled, and I have done all that you have asked of me. More than Poseidon has."

Zeus was silent, it was too objective of a truth to deny.

"And even when it was against my better judgment, that was the last time I ever intercepted your efforts with Hera."

Zeus harrumphed in annoyance. "Of all the goddesses to want for a Queen—"

"If this was about wanting, do you think that you would be here?!" Hades screamed, his hands going to his hair. "Do YOU believe that it's as simple as that?"

It wasn't that Zeus had never seen such displays, but that he had never, in all of his existence, seen Hades this uncontrolled. Still, the outburst had his defenses springing up.

"There's a difference," Zeus snapped. "Hera's mother wasn't keeping her a naïve recluse. Hera knew of my intentions."

"And still," Hades said, his gaze piercing and angry, "with those advantages, look what you did. How can you judge me?"

"I can't." Zeus closed his eyes briefly. Unlike Zeus, his older brother would be singularly devoted to anyone he married. Hades wasn't afraid of devotion, and he didn't have so far to fall. Still, Zeus felt slightly sick as he said the words: "Capture your queen."