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Ares met the Fates on a stormy Tuesday evening. Or at least, one of the Fates. And the storm had just abided, leaving his office window heavy with trails of condensation, but the lights of the city remained blurry and out of focus. Their arrival was heralded with the last low, distant rumbles of thunder.
"Fate, is it." Ares, Quentin Dallas, was unimpressed with the showing. The person standing in his office was a teen, no older than 20, he'd guess, covered head to toe in the kind of gaudy, protective gear of a street level hero. No one he recognised. Normally, he wouldn't care one way or another, but they came in swinging with such gravitas and a name like that, so he was inclined to treat that with disdain unless they proved they can live up to it.
The matter of how they snuck into his office without him realising until it was too late was neither here nor there.
"Yes," said Fate, trying to give their voice a deeper and grittier affect. Ares clucked his tongue. Leave the grit to Erebus, he reckoned. "I am here to bring your fate, and your demise."
"Alright, cool it," said Ares breezily, pressing his wrist until it cracked satisfactorily. "If you're threatening my life, I deal with that every day, kid. The mysterious act won't work on me, either. Tell me what it is you want and I'll listen."
Fate looked around, but their face was impossible to read under the mask. The way they moved was somewhat familiar, but Ares couldn't place it. Perhaps they were trained by a villain he'd met before? Possible. But he'd met a lot of villains, and a lot of heroes, and not all of them worth remembering.
"I'm from the future," said Fate, starting out strong, "a future where you are undone by a couple of children. I thought you'd like to know."
Ares sat forward in his chair, unable to help his interest, as nonchalant as he tried to appear. "From the future? Bold claim, kid. You got proof?"
"I..." Fate's demeanour faltered under his hard gaze, looking to the bookshelf as if to find answers there. Another phoney, so it would seem. "I can't give you that much proof. Just a warning. I can give you names, and faces. Or... you could decline my offer, live with that burning question in the back of your mind, potentially less the wiser for it."
Damn. As much as Ares didn't believe this delinquent was any good for the truth, they had a point. Not hearing them out would be a detriment to his future plans, now that he'd tracked down where that scientist woman went. And if it turned out to be bogus, then he'd only wasted time. Time which he had plenty of.
Ares stood, so that he towered over the youth, and leaned forward against his knuckles. "... ok. Give me names. And faces. I'll... see to it that the Olympians are suitably prepared."
"Oh, you won't want to do that," said Fate, "not right yet. Not everyone in the Olympians is on your side just yet. You know that. Or, I guess you can. I'm not the boss of you."
At that, Ares froze. There's no proof Fate meant that, by their words, but still... under that domino mask, Ares could feel them staring. He scanned their jacket for a pin, anywhere a pin could be hiding, but even his x-ray vision came up empty. Suspiciously empty. Like they knew not to hide anything on their person. Ares felt his lip twist into a sneer but he quickly schooled his expression before he could be caught. Took a sip of scotch to disguise it.
"And you? Are you on my side, Fate?"
"If I can be candid, Mr Dallas? No. I don't think fate is on your side at all. But we will see."
"... show me the names, and I'll decide that."
Fate pulled out sheets of paper (smart, hiding them in lead-lined pockets, no digital trace) and handed them to Ares. He fanned them out like a deck of cards. Five pictures. Five children, in and out of costume. Three of them were complete nobodies to him. Two of them, he recognised immediately, if not by face, then by name. A Wilde. And a Hunter. Outside, the rain continued to fall, just as it did on that day.
"If this is supposed to scare me," Ares said, recovering from his shock, "it is a poor attempt. Everyone knows the Wildes and Hunters don't get along, and the Wildes don't have a powered kid yet. And besides, I'm not going to be outdone by some two-bit villain. Many have tried. All have failed."
Fate smiled, and Ares could tell just by the change in their voice. "Not yet. Perhaps. And these kids aren't villains - they're heroes." They laughed, at a joke Ares is not privy to, and he patiently waited them out. He was nothing if not patient. "Now, if my calculations are correct, only two of them have powers right now-" they pulled at two sheets, the one with 'Sierra Hunter' emblazoned on it (a fact which Ares knew) and one with 'Colombina / Michelle Harper' on it (a face he was unfamiliar with completely, though it struck a chord)- "but in six years to this very day, mark my words, you will come undone. They will unravel everything you've been working to build. Just like they unravelled my father."
Now, to such a threat, Ares could not care less. But to the part of him which still raged like an open flame, it stung. The sting was paranoia. And he knew better than to listen to it, even if the voice was incessant and ringing like thunder.
"Now listen here, kid, I'm quite happy with my-"
"Within the next year, Zeus will retire amidst a massive scandal," said Fate, "In almost two years, you will be called off world to deal with the Hamidon threat alongside your fellow Olympians."
"Those aren't difficult predictions to hedge a bet on-"
"You'll lose Hades," Fate went on, "and Erys. In four years time, a cataclysmic event will prevent the HeroLand tournament from running for at least two years, where death itself will be reversed, reality warped, and time mangled."
Ares took a short breath. "And that's where you come from, I presume?"
"No," said Fate, exasperated, "it's two years after that where this team of do-gooders will mess everything up spectacularly and ruin our well-made plan. A repeat of the time warping, because fate tends to work in patterns."
Ares was not amused.
"I've heard enough," he said sternly, pocketing the photos but waving Fate out. "You should leave, before I prosecute you for trespassing."
And they were gone.
Thus, Ares met with Fate. But it didn't end there. Paranoia had him waking and staring at the ceiling more hours than not. He kept tabs on Magnus, that Promethean's son, worried for a repeat of his father's deception. He kept Aphrodite in his orbit, to check his emotions.
Zeus left after a scandal the likes of which Ares could no longer ignore. Hades and Erys died off-world.
At the heroes' funeral, all Ares could think was, they were right.
And so, Ares began to thread his needles. PLASMA. The Prometheans. The Hunter-Wildes. He couldn't track down the other three children but it was only a matter of time before he found them. And Fate returned, no longer a child, but an adult, now, soft-spoken and shadowy like death.
"One of those children is of your blood, you know," said Fate, gesturing vaguely to where they both knew Ares kept the pictures hidden. Ares' face darkened.
"That's impossible, and if you knew as much about me as you said you did, you'd know why."
"Of your blood, Quentin, I used very specific language. Oh, maybe that hasn't happened yet. Ah, sorry for spoiling the future, then."
Despite Fate laughing at that, Ares was not amused.
"How does it happen," he asked them once again, demanded of them, cornered them in his den with his suit on and his eyes hot with rage.
"If I told you the details," they spoke, in what Ares would later learn to be a complete lie, "that would be inviting the doom more certainly. But I can tell you they do it publicly. Three times. The auspicious number, isn't it? Three times the cock crowed, three times betrayed, three times unravelled. Three times you try to conquer. Isn't that right? Mr Dallas?"
Ares resisted the urge to fry them then and there, if only because it would be proving their point, and if there was something he hated more than predetermination, it was proving someone else's point for them. "I have no idea what you're talking about. You sound insane right now."
But Fate had already slipped away, out of his grasp and to the window, propped up on the sill and ready to jump out. He heard them as they leapt out and disappeared into the skyline, muttering to themselves. "And three times they changed their name, isn't it? Wasn't it New Measures, and Burnouts, or something? Then what was it, the Supernovas? Rule of threes, rule of threes... fate does adore a pattern..."
Ares slammed his hands on the window and peered out with his x-ray vision, but they'd already gone, somehow. A teleporter, perhaps, or smart cloaking. He cursed quietly, thoughts racing. Fate didn't mean anything by it. Still, the small, hungry voice of fire in his mind grew louder and to quell it, he stomped to his phone and called a number he hadn't called in years. When it rang out, he got to work searching, searching, pulling up an old address. Of his blood. Of his blood, his Promethean blood... but of course, the house where Helen once lived was vacant, and had been for years.
That was alright. He was a patient man. He had years more to think and plan and act.
(And then, when he finally got his way, the serpent of the future whispering in his ear all the while, he looked his daughter in the eye, his real, flesh and blood daughter, and gave her a token to put under her pillow while she sleeps - a token of Aphrodite's love. And he'd have felt a little guilt but for the hungry flames in his head, roaring, roaring, roaring.)