Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson knew that nobody could protect him anymore. Not after his parents were murdered. 

He had to protect himself. 

At least, that was what he thought before Bruce Wayne took him in.

“You won’t be safe with me,” Dick warned. “Monsters chase me, and they might hurt you. Like they hurt daj and očuh.”

“We’ll fight those monsters together,” Bruce promised. He did not know yet that the monsters were not as human as he expected. 

They were attacked on Dick’s first day outside of the manor, when Bruce tried to get him enrolled in Gotham Academy. 

The second they stepped into the school, a large man’s face shot to them from where he was mid-conversation, his one eye glinting with hunger. The man hurried to meet them, almost bowling over the woman he was talking to in his rush.

“Hello, I’m the physical education teacher here at Gotham Academy.” His nostrils flared. “And who might you be?” 

“Bruce Wayne,” Bruce introduced himself with a firm handshake. The man’s hands were larger than they seemed. As he maintained eye contact, he noticed the man was taller than he looked, too, and he only had one eye. In the center of his forehead.

“I’ll show you the way to the office, then,” the one-eyed man said. “This little one can wait with me while you get him enrolled.”

Bruce frowned. “No, I don’t think I will. We can find our way ourselves.” He took Dick’s hand and led him away.

After they’d gotten Dick enrolled and they were safely in the car, Bruce spoke up, “That man had one eye.”

“He was a jekjak. A one-eyed man. Usually, they try to get me alone so they can eat me.”

“The ones who don’t?”

“They’re sentient, so they usually just don’t talk to me. One time one gave me a gift!” Dick proudly displayed the knife that was gifted to him when a cyclops was impressed by their show. 

“A knife.” Bruce eyed the blade warily.

“It’s celestial bronze. A bizodekibe wouldn’t be able to identify it.” The twelve-year-old eyed Bruce with a wariness that young eyes should never have. “So do you have dekibe? Or are you not human?” 

“I have no idea wha— did you just try to stab me? ” his voice went uncharacteristically shrill in surprise that the knife a child tried to stab him with went right through him.

“Huh,” Dick concluded his experiment. “You're human. Cool.”

The car arrived at the ice cream store. “We will talk about this later.”

They did not talk about it later.

Bruce brought it up again after almost a month, right before the beginning of the school semester. 

The cyclops had been fired from Gotham Academy. The two barely left the manor afterward, so they had no other monster encounters. Dick also found out he could use technology in the manor. It was as if the whole property was protected from the outside world via godly interference, but that would be ridiculous. What god would care about some rich guy’s manor?

“You implied you’re not human,” Bruce implicitly inquired over breakfast.

“I’m half human,” Dick answered, mouth half-filled with pancakes and syrup. Mostly syrup.

“Chew before you speak, please.” Bruce’s beleaguered dad voice began its path to perfection. It still had conviction at this point. 

“Okay,” came the still-muffled reply. He finished chewing. “I’m half human. Half-god.”

Understanding filled Bruce’s eyes. “A demigod.”

“Ekvašdel,” Dick rolled the word on his tongue. “ Half -god. That’s what daj called me. She said my dad was del. Divine. And so was my ancestor.”

“Your očuh was a god.”

“No, he’s my, uh, step-dad? My daj married him, but he wasn’t my dad.”

“So your birth father was a god. And now his enemies want to eat you.”

“I guess?” Dick shrugged, taking a sip of milk.

“Your mom didn’t tell you why the cyclopes want to eat you?”

“Well, I can’t just ask, ‘Hey, Mr. Jekjak, why do you want to eat me?’ I think demigod just tastes nice. Besides, it’s not just jekjak that try to eat me. It’s also džučel kotar dženeti and, like, one time it was a chimera, I think.”

“And you always fought them off alone?”

“No, daj always saved me! And očuh did great trying to help!” The table shook as Dick repetitively kicked the underside.

“I see." Bruce's eyes turned serious. "I've found an organization, a summer camp, in New York. It helps demigods protect themselves."

"There are others? Like me?" Dick asked with wide eyes.

"So I've been told."

"YES!" The plates on the table shook with an especially strong kick. "I want to go! Please, Bruce, can I go?" 

At the next kick, Bruce caught the child's leg in mid-air. "Don't break the table. Think about camp over the next school year, but yes. That's the plan."

"Yay! This is so exciting! Do you think I have brothers? Or a sister? I want a sister!"

"Maybe." Bruce smiled at his son's enthusiasm.

Chapter Text

Dick was vibrating in the helicopter seat, chatting Alfred's ear off about what he wanted to do at camp. 

"Is there gymnastics? I hope there's gymnastics. I hope there's a trapeze. Oh! Do you think there's an elephant? I miss Zitka. I hope there are elephants."

"We're landing, Master Dick," Alfred announced from the pilot's seat.

"That was so fast! It's so cool that you can fly a helicopter, Alfred!" Dick's voice was carried through the headset he wore. "Oh, I can see it! It's right there! Can you see it, Alfred?"

"No, I cannot, Master Dick." The helicopter settled on the grass in front of Half-Blood Hill. "You are safe to exit the vehicle now."

Bruce helped him with his seatbelt, and they both hopped out of the plane. Alfred stayed on, waiting. They made the short trek up the hill, protected by a winged woman with the body of a cat. 

“Hello, little demigod,” said the creature, smiling gently. 

“Hello! I’m Dick, and this is Bruce, my guardian!” He held Bruce’s hand to bring him closer to the creature but then stopped. “C’mon, Bruce, why’d you stop?”

“There’s a barrier,” the creature explained, looking at Bruce. “Mortal. If you wish to enter the Camp, you must answer three riddles.”

“Like a troll?” Dick asked, eyes wide in childish curiosity.

“No,” she sneered. “Like the Sphinx. That is who I am.”

Bruce spoke, “In Egyptian mythology, the Sphinx protected tombs.”

The sphinx’ form flickered. “I protect this camp.” Her tail flicked in annoyance. “Now, would you like to hear my riddle?”

Bruce nodded.

“What creature has one voice, yet begins walking on four legs, then two, and dies with three?”

“Man.” Of course, Bruce had heard this riddle before and was capable of producing the answer immediately.

“Yes. You’ve earned the right to stay alive.” Dick’s grip on Bruce’s hand tightened, but the two daren’t interrupt. “Next riddle. There are two sisters. The first gives birth to the other, and the other gives birth to the first. Who are they?”

Bruce searched his memory, not even attempting to solve the riddle on his own. He’d read Sophocles, after all, and the sphinx had apparently not changed since. “Day and night.”

“Yes. Hemera and Nyx, mother and daughter, sister and sister. You’ve earned the right to leave whenever you please. Now, the last question. The one that earns you the right to enter.”

The wind rustled the blades of overgrown grass.

“This one is a new one.” The sphinx smirked. “No cheating now. What can be opened and closed, has a lip but no tongue, is wet on the inside but not the outside, yet still must touch a mouth to fulfill its purpose?”

Pushing aside the newness of the riddle, Bruce thought. It wasn’t water itself, water had more purposes that had nothing to do with mouths.

Balloons need to be inflated with mouths, but they can’t be opened nor closed.

Maybe it’s a shoe on a hot day? A bathtub?

Dick gasped from beside him, having figured out a possible answer. “A cup!” The sphinx did not react. She stared at Bruce, not blinking.

“It’s not a cup.” Bruce answered, “It’s a bottle.”

The sphinx stood with a grin. 

Dick gripped Bruce tightly.

“Correct.” Her fangs shone in the afternoon light. “You may pass.” She stepped aside. “Bruce Wayne, guardian of Richard, I grant thee entrance to Camp Half-Blood.”

“Thank you.” Bruce inclined his head and stepped over the camp’s boundary line.

Chapter Text

They turned left from the tree with jade leaves, past an impressive theatre and a less impressive volleyball court beside a large strawberry field. Both were empty, which made sense if some of the accounts of the place being a summer camp were correct, but up ahead, a couple of children were working in what looked to be a forge. Past the strawberries, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt over a beer belly looked to be sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a large blue building. 

When the man looked at them, his eyes glowed an unsettling autumnal purple akin to overripe grapes.

Bruce shivered and walked towards the children at the forge, hoping to avoid another near-death experience. They passed the dark wall of igneous rock that, when asked about, was described as the “lava wall” twice since the children said they had to talk to the camp director at the Big House first. 

With a sigh, they went up to the house, but the unsettling man looked different. His maddeningly purple eyes were the same, but his face was younger. He looked more like a frat boy with over-gelled hair and stood with a lanky gym-bod. “Hello,” he greeted with a smug-looking smile. “You’re not a new camper, are you?” It sounded like he was trying to throw a pick-up line over the sound of a wild party, even though there was no one else around.

“I am!” Dick raised the hand that Bruce hadn’t grabbed on the way there. “My dad is del!”

The man’s nose scrunched in irritation. “Ah. You’re taken?”

“I-” Bruce blinked. “What?”

“And here I thought I’d get some fun out of Father’s little punishment.” He sat back down and grabbed a jade bottle of Stella Artois out of thin air. 

“Now, now, Mr. D, indiscretions like this are what sent you here in the first place,” came a voice from inside the house. The clopping of hooves steadily got louder until the door opened to a man in a wheelchair.

“Right.” Dismissively, Mr. D went to take a drink, but the Stella turned into a Sprite as it reached his lips. “Ugh,” he sputtered as he spit out the drink. “Why a Sprite of all blasted drinks…”

“I see you’ve already met the camp director. I am Chiron, activities director of Camp Half-Blood.”

Bruce held out a hand to shake. “Bruce Wayne,” he introduced. “I would like to enrol my ward in your camp.”

“Your ward?” Mr. D squinted at Dick over his new sunglasses. “Hm, he looks like one of ours. Does he know who his father is? Any hints?”

Bruce looked at Dick for an answer. 

“Well,” Dick pondered while rocking in one spot. “Daj says that when I’m her little Robin in the air, I look just like dad with wings for feet.”

“Sounds like my brother,” Mr. D said and went back to his drink, which he’d changed to a Coke Zero.

“Your brother?” Bruce asked.

Chiron cut in. “He means the god of travellers. Claimed or unclaimed, you’d be joining Cabin 11, but of course, let me take you to watch the orientation video first. What is your name, young man?”

Dick puffed his chest out at being addressed as a man instead of a boy, as he was officially a teenager this year and felt he was all grown up. “Dick!”

Chiron startled, his wheelchair shimmering. “Excuse me?”

“My name is Dick Grayson! Nice to meet you,” he said, remembering his manners.

“Ah.” Chiron looked dismayed about something, but Dick just smiled brightly at the man. “Nice to meet you, too. Mr. D, can I trust you to accommodate Mr. Wayne while I show his ward the orientation video? Perhaps describe what the Camp can offer.”

“Hm…” Mr. D looked at Bruce contemplatively as Chiron led Dick away, leaving him to his fate. “Fancy a game of Gin Rummy?”