Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or the characters.
AN: Set after The Last Olympian.
Family
He was a family man, no matter what people thought of him. As the God of War he was a family man naturally. People didn't realize that because they only saw war breaking families apart. They didn't realize that war brought families together, and it helped you form new families.
War split families apart, yes, you couldn't deny that. That every family broke a little when a soldier shipped out on deployment, or even when they joined the military. That every person who got deployed left someone behind: a brother, sister, mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, or any combination thereof.
They just didn't realize that war also brought families together. That people formed new families with people who went through the same things as them, a family member deploying. The Blue Star Mothers, for example. They made a new family based on the fact that they all knew what it was like to have a child serving in the military.
Soldiers also formed new families with each other. They trusted each other like a family did because out there, trust was everything. They slept, ate, and trained together every day, so it was no wonder that they didn't form new families with each other. And when they came back home from deployment, they kept in contact with each other because that is what a family did.
He didn't like war; in fact sometimes he couldn't stand it. Yes, it made him powerful. Yes, he liked some fighting, some competition. But he couldn't stand it; the death of the soldiers, walking along the shrouds that fill up one of Demeter's gardens, all he feels is sadness. His children's shrouds are a crisp white, his children, both mortal and immortal, who aren't getting healed by Apollo and his children, are sitting in a circle. His sons are holding theirs sisters, while his daughters make beautifully embroidered shrouds for their fallen siblings.
He has to find out which of his children died in the war. Every time he leaves one of his mortal lovers, always when his children are between the ages of three to five, he makes a promise. A promise that says that the next time he sees his mortal lovers, he will bring bad news. Now he has to go back to them. He has to tell his lovers that their children are dead. For a war that wouldn't have included them if they weren't demigods.
Yes, he is the god of war, and he's a family man because of it.