Once they returned to the palace, Hercules set Megara back down on the couch they'd occupied. All around them, their friends were uneasy, whispering to one another. He could hear what they were saying, but his focus was honed in on the hunt, so there was no time for particulars. "Watch over her for me. She's going through a lot," he told Theseus. "If anyone you don't know tries to get up close… avenge that."
He didn't wait to see his meaning register on Theseus's face. He knew it would.
Instead, he nodded to Megarion and strode up to the players, still taking down the remains of their play.
Now that he'd seen that proud face and the sickening look he shot at Megara, Hercules knew who to target. He'd find this Theron person and figure out the rest based on divine intuition.
At first sight of him, the actors were eager to approach him, but he knew his face didn't register the big fun idiot they probably expected him to be.
"One of you knows where Theron is," he said. "Bring him to me, or I'll go through all of you to find him."
The acting troupe stared at him, but it was a tall blonde woman he recognized as the one who'd played the lead female role who approached him. She had an easy smile, one that he instantly distrusted. "Did the Mighty Hercules enjoy the show?" The actress set both hands on his chest. "I don't see your wife with you. We have all been awestruck by your presence; I hope you forgive us for not inviting you to the afterparty sooner."
"I'm not interested," Hercules said, registering a second later how rude he'd been. He pressed on rather than apologize. "Tell me where to find Theron."
The woman's serpentine eyes hooded over. "What are you really after, Hero? We've all heard tales of your prowess. The chorus girls and I have been talking about how lucky we are to finally see you in person. We always thought the statues were exaggerations, but now we see they couldn't do you justice. Can you really flex your arms so much that they're as big as your head?"
"Ah… not the point, and I'm not here to talk about me. I'm actually looking for–"
The woman put a finger over his lips and gently hushed him. "It's all right, you don't have to pretend with us. We do all the pretending for you! Come on, we'll show you what we learned on the road… there are so many experiences a person who's been stuck in just one city couldn't possibly imagine."
A few months ago, Hercules might've needed a minute to piece together what she was saying. Now, it only took him a few seconds. "No." His voice didn't have the apologetic tone he'd usually adopt when refusing a woman. He took her gently by the wrists and set her hands aside. "Once I'm done here, I'm taking my wife to bed so I can show her some of the things I've learned. The more time I waste on you, the less I'll have for her tonight. So once again, I ask you: Where is Theron? And this time, I hope you know better than to keep exhausting my patience."
The woman took a step back from him, a sign she was at least somewhat intelligent. "You must be quite the fan of the theater to know his name!"
"This isn't a joke. Theron has evaded justice for too long, and I suspect you know that. So where's he headed to?"
The woman bowed low to him, which Hercules suspected was a way she used to present herself to him to see if he'd become more interested in her. "Theron is my husband, mighty one. He has been for two years. I'm sorry if you've confused him with someone else. I saw how your little bird fainted away at the sight of him. That must be disconcerting for someone like you."
Something about the way this woman spoke about Megara made Hercules queasy, but he wasn't sure if it was worth burning the time it would take to address. "Anyone who loves his wife would be alarmed when she faints right in front of him. Especially since while she's pregnant, I have to worry about her and my child at the same time. Theron should've known better than to show his face here, and now that he's failed to do the smart thing, it's my turn."
"Are you sure she didn't mistake him for someone else?"
"Would you forget the face of someone who wrecked your life?"
Other theater troupe members looked askance at this conversation, but Hercules didn't bother to examine them. None of them were the man he was searching for.
"I don't know what you could possibly mean," the woman said. "Princess Megara used to go to our school, but he would never intentionally cause her harm. You know how difficult it can be, though. You've dealt with royalty. For a commoner, we can be made to believe we have greater importance than we do until the noble has to make choices for themselves."
Hercules frowned, and not just because the woman was obnoxious and had apparently been a schoolmate of Meg's, so she would've probably known who she was dating. She was distracting him from his search, and he was almost certain it was on purpose.
Then it struck him: Why should he wait around hearing her prattle and obfuscate? He was a god now. Zeus would appear in the clouds over wherever someone who needed a good smite, but Hercules was a more street level god. He didn't have to wait around.
While the actress was still speaking, Hercules closed his eyes, and in a blink, he stood in a dark Theban alley. There he was, with a sack slung over his shoulder. The man who had haunted his nightmares and forced Megara to grow thorns.
"I should've known this was how I'd find a rat like you."
The actor spun, his face illuminated by Hercules's golden aura. "Hercules!" he gasped.
"Good, the introductions are out of the way. I know what you did. You hurt the person most important to me in the entire cosmos. You'd better have an impressive excuse ready."
Theron backed away and set down the bag. It clanked.
"Let me guess: theater props?" Hercules asked, arms folded. Why not do a little policework on the side? This was about justice, right?
"Eh… you can have it back…" Theron said, smiling anxiously. "It's payment from King Creon… or former King Creon. He's the one who hired us. He thought you'd like the play."
"Funny thing about plays. A good actor can convince people he's an honest hero who cares about people, but once the mask is off, we get to judge him by what he does without a script. Did you pick this play just to hurt her? Because you knew she'd be here?"
"We dedicated it to you! Are you offended by the comparison to Cadmus?"
"I'm pretty sure Cadmus would be offended by the comparison to you. I'm Meg's husband now. She's told me everything. Ever since I learned of your existence, I've wanted to punish you for what you've done. And now, here you are."
"You actually married her? I didn't expect to pity the Mighty Hercules. Plot twist. Did you manage to get her attitude under control? How do you make her behave?"
With astounding speed, Hercules found his hand hovering close to Theron's face. The momentum would have sent him through the nearest wall if it had moved an inch or two.
He wasn't a centaur or a minotaur. He was just a man.
A hero had to keep that in mind, no matter what came out of the guy's mouth. It was only words. For now.
Rather than give in to the impulse toward violence, Hercules took a deep breath and smoothed the rage out of his features. "I happen to like her attitude, and I don't make her do anything. Besides, she's not the one who abandoned you."
Theron scoffed. "Here we go with the guilt trip." He leaned to one side and folded his arms. "You hero types always think you know what's best because things are so easy for you. Well, it's not like that. Call it a win-win scenario. I got to live, and she finally got to pursue her acting career."
Hercules's vision of snapping the man's neck was so vivid he could hear the crack of bones and feel them shift out of alignment between his fingers. It would be so easy... if he were another type of guy. "Lemme get a clearer picture of this," he said in a nigh-on conversational tone. "You... were supposedly about to die unless Meg traded in her life for you."
"That part was true. When Polynikes brought his seven armies worth of friends to conquer us, it was all us normal people standing up for King Eteocles. I've never been a fighter myself, but I got conscripted into the first army Thebes has ever had, just like everybody else my age! They wouldn't share the kingdom, and they didn't care who had to die just so one of them could rule!"
"Yeah, that sucks, and what does it have to do with Meg?"
"We were all in a panic because Ares would never let us win a war. We weren't trained because what would be the point? We were just there to catch some arrows for the king. All of us knew we'd lose. But I knew I'd get out alive if I could get another god on my team. Hades wanted someone else to take my place, but I didn't even have family who'd do it for me."
"Probably because you're a rotten coward with no integrity," Hercules snarled. "So what? You put your girlfriend up to it? That's low. That's so low I can't even comprehend it."
"She went willingly! She thought I had some kinda disease, and she didn't even know what it was, but man, did I sell it. Meg will tell you all day how smart she is, but lemme tell ya, she's something else. When she's in love with a guy, she stops thinking completely and acts like a maniac."
"I can't believe you gave that up. I never will." He was starting to see it now: doting teenage Meg desperate for an unavailable man's attention while he took advantage of her affection and dedication. He wished it'd been him back then. He would've been so grateful for that loyalty, just as he was now. She could have been safe with him.
"It gets old, you'll see," Theron huffed. "Man to man? She tends to exaggerate a bit. I'm sure she's told you some melodramatic sob story about how she had all these big plans with me and how I was supposed to reciprocate somehow. But what was I supposed to do in that situation? Stick by her and work out some kind of time-share situation with Hades? Our relationship ended when she pledged herself to another man."
Hercules had never known what to expect, but somehow, this remained somewhere firmly between exactly what someone like Theron would say and an unbelievable screed with no relation to human speech. He stood perfectly still while the words swirled around in his mind, but no matter how many times he thought it through, he had no idea how to manage the conclusions that were forming. "You… are you suggesting that Hades…?"
"Yeah, of course! We're not the only men in her life, and he's your uncle! That's gotta be kinda rough for you."
"If he'd done that, she would've had a child with him," Hercules said, shaking with each word as he said it.
"He's older than either of us. He didn't have to get one if he didn't want a child with her. You should probably go ask her–"
Thank the gods he'd stopped talking.
A few creaky little noises escaped Theron, but Hercules was fine with that. The relative silence gave him time to think, and it was a relief to hold the lying, sneering rat by the throat. He could finally feel the pulse under his hand and know that if he shifted his fingers, it would be over. He'd never utter another word of slander against her name or breathe another of the breaths she'd purchased for him.
"If I release you," Hercules said at such a slow pace that he could make the strangulation last, "you're going to apologize. In fact, if I take you back to the palace, you'll drop to your knees and beg for Meg's forgiveness. But it's up to you if you live long enough to try. Look me in the eye like a man, and stop lying to me."
To his credit, Theron knew better than to fight the god of heroes. His eyes were wide with fear, but he was cogent enough to give Hercules the indication that he would be obedient.
Hercules threw the actor to the ground and towered over him. He didn't often use his bulk to intimidate anyone, but he was grateful for the option. "You promised Meg you'd help her get out of Thebes. Did you promise the same to that blonde chick in the play with you?"
It took a minute or so of wheezing before Theron could answer. He clutched at his throat and said, "Princess thought she could use me to get out of her family drama. We're going to litigate this until I die, but she knew the war was coming for us all, and for her, it was just her cousins… another petty disagreement, and the rest of us were forced to contend with it."
"You said before she'd do anything for the man she loved. That was you. Are you telling me you blame her for wanting to run away from the war to be with you? Or are you changing your story because you think I'm too stupid to remember the one you told me the first time?"
People kept underestimating him. They'd probably continue doing so for the rest of eternity. It was so infuriating he couldn't hear Theron over the ringing in his ears. He could rip this man to pieces, and it would be just like what Meg had done to Omphale.
He could reassure her that the man who'd effectively abandoned her into servitude was gone and that she never had to worry about seeing him again. But that wouldn't be heroic.
Theron wasn't stupid enough to swing on him, armed or unarmed. Besides, as a god, Hercules couldn't argue self-defense. The power imbalance was so ridiculous that he wasn't sure what to do. Even a smiting might be too extreme. But he kept wanting this pissant dead.
"You're pathetic," Hercules spat. "I can't believe you'd turn this around and make it about yourself!"
"I was her first victim. Megara played her role so well. Now that she's with you, you've got to know what she's like. She teases you, and convinces you she's in love with you, then she takes everything you have. She's always going after men she sees as powerful and trying to drain them for everything!"
"If what you say is true, why was she with you?" Hercules snarled. "She was broken when I met her. Afraid of everyone, but covering up that with a tough exterior. That's not the type of thing someone does if they genuinely don't care. It was all because she knew she had a soft heart, so she couldn't let anyone near it. Until me." Now, she even had songs about it.
"She was always like that," Theron said, but for the first time in their conversation, he seemed invested in what Hercules had to say. "What changed? Was she paranoid? Irrational?" He leaned in closer to absorb that information sooner. "Was she prone to crying? What gave her away?"
Intuition smeared an unwelcome realization through his mind: Theron did what Megara had failed to do for Hades. He was fishing for weaknesses. What, after all this time, could possibly motivate him to continue hurting someone he'd almost destroyed?
Hercules was too queasy to answer.
Getting none of his answers, Theron changed tactics. "But how did you meet her? What scam was she trying to pull on you?"
"It didn't have anything to do with me," Hercules said. "But I don't know if she'd want me to tell that story, so I won't. That story belongs to us. I'm glad it took you so long to show up, though. If she'd seen you too soon, she might have had a harder time dealing with it. But now that you're here, I can tell you to your face: Thank you. If you'd been any less of a worthless snake, she might still be with you, and she's so loyal she'd never have given me a chance if she was with you."
Theron shifted in his uncertainty. He shouldered his bag. "Just never forget she's unstable. She's always planning something. You may not see it coming, but she'll try something, and you'll have to decide how you'll play her."
"You never deserved her, y'know?" Hercules was done with this conversation. What had he even planned to do? Did he think Theron would grovel and beg forgiveness? Not really. Did he think he'd arrive with righteous fury and zap Theron with his godly powers? A little bit. But did any of that seem appropriate in the moment? This was just a loathsome craven that had done nothing but run away. He ought to do something, but what?
"Maybe I didn't," Theron said. "But I've got the life I always wanted to. You should thank her for that. Deianeira has big plans for us. She's the woman I always dreamed of. Meg will understand. She never had direction, no vision. Dany's got it all figured out."
"And what is 'it?'" Hercules asked with a too-wide smile.
"That's a story for us to know," Theron said in mocking tones. "We'll meet again, Hero. Maybe one day we'll be friends."
"I'd rather befriend a snake. Get out of my city and never return. I'm going to speak with my brother-in-law and get you banished. If I ever see you again, I'll have every right to curse your worthless carcass."
"Fair enough," Theron responded, smiling. "Who needs this place? It's already given me everything I could need."
"And you're leaving everything you stole," Hercules said. He held out his hand, waiting.
Theron made a small dismissive noise, but he handed over the bag. "I'm blaming you when Dany asks."
"I'll go tell her for you. She was trying to get me out of my armor. Maybe you're the one who needs to worry about your girl."
"She's a woman who can do whatever she wants," Theron said. "Meg gets it. When she needs something from anyone, she'll get it. Meg has always had her secrets, and that won't change now."
"Get out of my sight. And be careful: the streets of Thebes are dangerous at night. You never know who's watching you."
"I've already gotten robbed tonight," Theron said. "What else should I have to worry about?" he started off with his life and not a single indication that he worried for his safety.
Hercules watched the man wander down the alley, feeling as if he hadn't done enough, but it would've been too much if he'd done much more. He sighed deeply.
Next time, he told himself, he'd know what to do. But for now, he felt as if he'd learned what he needed to know.