Chapter Text
Aphrodite dreaded coming home sometimes, and specifically on Tuesdays. Dina had an awkward shift which she hated on Tuesday, and she came home about half an hour before Aphrodite, usually in a pretty rotten mood.
Not wanting to deal with her roommate making her feel very acutely that she despised everything she thought Aphrodite stood for, Aphrodite usually opted for a late library afternoon and came home later when Dina would at least be civil with her.
She would have done so today as well, but she had forgotten her laptop at home, and she really needed to finish the art deco themed product poster they needed to hand in on Thursday – she had underestimated how hard vector-drawing a woman standing in a massive shell would be, but it had seemed like a good idea to promote a shampoo at the time.
She unlocked the door, sighing internally.
Dina had her music on and was cooking. Aphrodite quickly waved into the kitchen.
“Hi.”
The other girl looked up, forced a smile.
“Hi. You need the kitchen?”
Aphrodite shook her head, waving a bag from the bakery.
“I have a project yelling for me,” she said in a lighthearted tone and disappeared into her room.
She kept her own style out of the community spaces, since Dina had not-so-subtly dropped she hated pink in all shades and the whole "instagram aesthetic" was "shallow and fake". Never directly directed at Aphrodite and her style, but not trying to hide it either.
Inside her own room, though, Aphrodite had created a space she liked. Light wood, flowy light pink curtains, a big bed with a floral metal frame, big pillows and a plush comforter. It might look like Instagram, but Aphrodite had dreamed of a place like this room before she had known what that app even was.
Maybe a little more tidy than this one.
She haphazardly dropped her bag on the ground, her bakery sandwich on the desk beside her laptop, and herself onto the bed with a sigh.
Gods, I wish I had been there when Dina had her apartment tour, so she could have seen me and dipped.
She managed not to lie on the bed for a terribly long time, mostly because her phone buzzed and she was hoping for a message from Ares.
She had hoped correctly.
Hey babe ❤️. Wanna come over to my place after my training is over tmrw?
She stared at the screen for a moment.
She did want that. She wanted to get out of here where her very presence felt like a nuisance, and she wanted to spend time with him.
Unfortunately, the place he was inviting her to was not usually one to make her extremely welcome either. Not because of Ares, he acted like everything that belonged to him was also hers, and he didn't even get anxious here where she felt like even having him here would provoke Dina.
No, not Ares.
It didn't feel fair to call it Athena's fault. Aphrodite knew that.
Ares' sister was polite, always, no hidden jabs like Dina, no attempts to subtly push her out of her space, on the contrary, she was usually the one to ask whether Aphrodite was staying for dinner, or if she and Ares had plans for the weekend.
It wasn't even that it felt like Athena didn't want Aphrodite there, more like she didn't want herself there when Aphrodite was. Making space on the couch without being asked to, or sitting on the very edge, waiting till Aphrodite had taken seconds at dinner, showering late after they were already done in the bathroom so she "wouldn't be in the way".
She meant to make space for Aphrodite to be nice, the girl knew that. She just didn't know how to explain that she didn't want to have a space carved out for her like a concession and feel like she was pushing someone else out of it, she wanted to snugly curl into a space and just belong there, for once.
The worst part was that she liked Athena. Even just from what Ares told her, she knew that there was a genuinely fun and gentle person there that she just didn't get to meet because Athena had too much of a shell.
When Ares had mentioned that Athena had raged about an Anne of Green Gables adaptation for having a completely off tone and some silly changes that made no sense, Aphrodite had taken the opportunity to strike up conversation about the book series, which she had also read.
"Have you read the entire series? What's your favorite book?" she had asked, cutting up an apple into slices.
Athena bit her lip.
"I like the first one best." she said. "Not that I think the other's are bad, but it's my favorite."
"The first one is really good," Aphrodite agreed. "My favorite is probably Book Three, all that mutual pining was very guilty pleasure for me. In real life it would be an absolute mess, of course, but I was so rooting for them."
She put the plate of apple slices on the table, pushing it within Athena's reach.
It looked like Athena wanted to comment, and Aphrodite could guess what, since Ares had mentioned she had said something along the lines of "how did they add MORE misunderstandings, it's not like these two already can't talk to save their lives..." so she could imagine Athena hadn't liked the third book very much.
She didn't, though, just smiled that half-smile that barely lifted the corners of her mouth, and said:
"They definitely ended up being very cute. I liked the letters in the fourth book that they wrote each other."
And that had been that. Cautious, placid, and unengaged.
Athena was never rude, or even acting uninterested, but she was acting like she was traversing an obstacle course and any slip-up would cost her the conversation, and that included giving Aphrodite anything real.
Aphrodite wondered whether she had done something to warrant this, but she genuinely couldn't think of anything.
And being tolerated like this, clinically, by the book, felt as if she had nothing to grab hold of to maybe make Athena actually like her, no qualm to fix or misunderstanding to overcome. She felt like Athena did get her, and had decided not to engage.
And she hated the thought that it would always be like this.
She swallowed hard, eyes stinging, then typed back:
Sure, looking forward to it :)
She put the phone down on her desk, sighed, and opened her laptop to finally get somewhere with her poster.
The next day was a little warmer, and Aphrodite appreciated not seeing her breath as she got out of her car in front of the apartment building. Ares, having "met" her on the street here, parked and got out of his car.
He reached out and she stepped into his arms and kissed him.
"Hey," she murmured. "I missed you."
"I missed you, too. How are you?"
"Can't complain. You?"
"Same here. I got salmon and yogurt from the store, we can make Stuffed Salmon for dinner, I tried that out a few weeks ago, it's really good."
"Oh, it sounds like it." She offered to take the bag, but he carried it himself.
They entered the cool foyer of the house and climbed the stairs.
"I actually need an afternoon snack before dinner," Ares said.
"Well." Aphrodite grinned mischievously.
"Luckily I brought chocolate chip cookies."
He leaned over to kiss her again.
"My savior."
He unlocked the door to the apartment.
"Hey, Ath."
Athena waved from the couch where she was sitting in front of her laptop, but for once, it was not work.
"Ares just came home," she said to the screen. "He'll say hi in a minute, he'll have to change first. Can you run the numbers by me again?"
Aphrodite saw that she had headphones in, and she guessed she was on a videocall. Ares was getting out of his shoes and jacket, and she lingered back just a little, watching Athena write something down.
"Hm," she said. "Okay, Heph, I think the friction is the problem, if you try to reconstruct it with some barrier pieces-" She paused to listen. "-yeah, I know. That's the only idea I have, though."
She leaned back, and a smile, a real, honest smile, lit up her face.
"Alright, alright, you try the weight thing first, and if it works the way you said, I'll buy you a brownie with ice cream from Delphos', deal?"
Aphrodite didn't have to hear the response to know it was enthusiastic.
Athena's voice was so different, she thought, slightly more rough and definitely more expressive, as if she was literally polishing it usually.
"Do I get one, too?" Ares asked, before throwing a dart at the board and pumping his first in triumph
"Hell yeah, eat this, Ath! How about Heph and me get a brownie for me beating your dart?"
Athena raised her eyebrows.
"Well, I'd rather buy you treats than have bathroom duties, so deal. Heph, you can pick something else as a reward if your weights work, your brother won you a brownie." She grinned at Ares. "Heph says thank you, you're the coolest brother ever. Also yes, bug, you can have peanut butter m&ms."
Her eyes found Aphrodite, widening ever so slightly in surprise.
"Hi, I didn't even see you," she said easily, and Aphrodite felt it sounded more natural than Athena had ever spoken to her.
She waved with a smile.
"Hi, nice to see you, too."
Athena smiled, a little more restrained again, and turned back to the screen.
"Yeah, that's Ares' girlfriend," she said, and Aphrodite was a little ashamed to admit that she was listening very carefully for Athena's tone, as if there would be a code in the word 'girlfriend' that revealed what the other girl really thought.
She didn't hear anything of the sort.
"Do you still have homework today?" Athena asked. A pause as the boy answered. "... and did Mom say you had to finish it before calling me?"
She raised her eyebrows in exaggerated exasperation.
"Now you made me your co-conspirator."
Aphrodite hung up her jacket and went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water so it wouldn't be suspicious she was lingering.
Ares had gone to his room to change into something more comfortable after work.
Athena laughed softly.
"My bad. It means when you have a plan and you pull someone else into it so now they're also guilty because they know about the plan."
Ares came out of his room in sweats and smiled at Aphrodite before sliding onto the couch next to his sister.
Athena bowed forward to change the sound to speaker.
"Hi Ares!" came a boyish voice from the monitor.
Aphrodite watched her boyfriend's face soften.
"Hey, Heph-o, what's up?"
"I'm Thena's 'spiritor!" Hephaestus replied happily and Aphrodite huffed out a soft laugh, pressing her hand to her mouth. Athena - stoic, no-nonsense Athena - actually snorted.
"Yeah, that's right," she said warmly. "You're there for the good spirit."
"Did you save people today, 'Res?" the boy asked.
"At least two dozen," Ares replied, grinning. "And what's cooking over there?"
"Thena's helping me with the robot I'm making, and I'm gonna prove I'm the best engineer cos my method's gonna work!"
Ares grinned.
"Sure it will. I'm betting on you for sure."
Athena gave a mock betrayed gasp.
"How dare you."
Aphrodite smiled wistfully as the siblings laughed. The ache was familiar, the sadness of always having been alone at home, of not having anyone who knew you like this and who shared the same homelife and history with you. She sipped from her water.
"'Kay, Heph," Athena said. "Now go do your homework before Mom finds out about our anti-homework-conspiring. And so you can go back to your robot soon, I'm really excited to see if the weights work or not."
She was good at this, Aphrodite thought. She could guess that Hephaestus would be more willing to do his homework if that meant he could impress his sister with his project sooner.
"Okay... But I'll call you again when I'm done, yeah?"
Athena smiled with a tenderness that made Aphrodite's chest feel tight.
This is what it's like if you're someone she cares about. This is what she's really like.
"Yes, of course, bug. You call me right away. We love you."
"I love you, too!" Hephaestus said. "See you later."
"See you later," Ares and Athena replied in unison, and Athena leaned forward to end the call and shut her laptop.
Aphrodite stepped over and sat down on the mismatched armchair, legs pulled up.
"Hey," she said quietly toward Athena again.
The mask slipped into place, a little more subtly, but there. She hated that.
Why don't you feel safe around me? What is wrong with how I am that you can't-
She cut off the thought. Athena didn't owe her this. They hadn't known each other for long and it wasn't her fault that Aphrodite's only way of loving was jumping all in immediately as soon as she decided she liked someone.
Few people were like that.
Aphrodite wished she wasn't like that either sometimes.
Athena smiled placidly at her greeting.
"Hi. How are you?"
"Fine," Aphrodite said easily. "Finished the poster I had to make yesterday, so I won't even have to pull a panicked late night today."
"That's great," Athena said. "What kind of poster?"
"A product advertisement in Art Deco style."
A flash of real in Athena's eyes. Genuine interest.
"Oh, Art Deco is a pretty unique style, I like it a lot. A lot of work with small details, though, I imagine."
Aphrodite nodded.
"It was, but it was worth it. I'm pretty happy with it." Her fingers tapped against her phone. "I have a picture here if you want to see."
Athena nodded.
"Of course," she said, reaching out her hand.
Aphrodite handed her the phone. She already had had the picture open to show Ares.
He was the one who whistled first, impressed.
"Dite, that's gorgeous. Should be in an art gallery."
She felt her cheeks flush with heat at the compliment.
Athena zoomed into the picture, grey eyes shrewd and focused.
"It's beautiful," she said then. "The little bit of shadow next to the lines has a cool effect, almost like stained glass, and I like the texture you added as well. Not that I have much of an idea about art," she added, almost embarrassed. "but it looks very nice."
Aphrodite beamed, not pointing out that Athena obviously did know a little about art with what aspects she had pointed out.
"Thank you," she said earnestly. "I'm happy you like it."
Athena smiled thinly and gave back the phone.
Aphrodite took it and pulled out the cookies she had brought.
"I guess I'm all about letting you judge my skills today," she said with slightly awkward smile. "I made cookies."
Ares was already digging in as she finished her sentence. Athena looked up as if gauging whether she was supposed to, and gingerly took a cookie when Aphrodite nudged the box toward her a little.
"That was your little brother on the call, right?"
She was addressing Athena, and the other girl nodded, nibbling at the cookie.
"How old is he again, seven?" Aphrodite asked. "That sounded... well, not like seven-year-old stuff."
"Well, he takes after his sister as far as being a genius is concerned," Ares commented with a laugh. Athena flushed, eyes fixed on her pants; jeans today, like every time after the first time Aphrodite had seen her. She guessed that the other girl was dressing up specifically for her.
"He is interested in engineering," Athena said softly. "And he is pretty good at it, far beyond his age, I saw worse-constructed stuff win middle-school science fairs." Quiet pride snuck into her voice at the words.
"And you're the resident lab partner?" Aphrodite asked, lightly teasing.
Athena shrugged, but she smiled.
"Yeah. I do the math. I'm not that great at physics myself, not like he is, but I can pull a quick equation and that helps sometimes."
Aphrodite smiled brightly.
"That's sweet. It has to be nice for him to have someone helping him out and who encourages his hobbies."
Ares lightly boxed his sister's shoulder.
"If Thea could lift him and spin him around like me, he'd definitely have a favorite sibling."
Athena huffed.
"Don't be ridiculous, you're his favorite guinea pig to test the robots."
"Hey!"
She grinned, a proper, real smirk, and Aphrodite thought that maybe things would be okay with them after all.