Change of Policy: A DC/PJO One-Shot (Patreon)

Diana ate a bowl of cereal, sitting at the watchtower, exhausted. The past few weeks had not been remotely enjoyable: an aspect of Kronos making a bid for freedom had ensured that for the past several months, the Themysciran had had little time to rest. Much of her time had been spent traveling the mediterranean, subduing the titans forces that had been rampaging throughout Greece and, occasionally, Egypt.

Now that it was all over, she was enjoying a few days to herself: she had arranged for Supergirl and Batgirl to assist Donna in taking over her duties for the time being so she could relax and recuperate, which, at the moment, consisted of doing absolutely nothing around the base beyond eating and enjoying the recreational facilities. At the moment, she was in one of the various break-rooms scattered around the space station, a small chamber featuring a fridge that currently had a variety of foods the Amazon had ordered or prepared for the week, a waynetech brand coffeemaker (thank god for Bruce), a small microwave and toaster oven, a water cooler, and a handful of other appliances and luxuries, as well as a small table surrounded by metal chairs. On the wall, a screen hung: a television, currently playing one of the many programmes produced by Mans World, which consisted of some comedy mystery show where the lead used their prodigious observational skills to pretend to be possessed of psychic abilities.

It was alright, she supposed, not really watching it as she chewed the spoonful of choco-crumble cornflakes, swallowing it. “What do you want, Bruce?” She asked, not even turning to face the door.

“Hrrrm,” He said, slowly approaching from behind, pulling out a chair and sitting. For a moment he was quiet: a sure sign he was trying to figure out how to phrase something. “What do you know about something called ‘mist’?” He asked.

Diana raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised at his choice of question. “I’m surprised that’s what you’re asking about,” She observed. She hadn’t hidden what had been occurring from her fellow heroes, but she had never really explained in full: just that Kronos had been causing problems.

“Diana, I have an internet connection,” Batman said flatly. “I’m capable of researching who Kronos is. You told me part of a dead titan managed to escape Tartarus and possessed a greek demigod: from there it’s not particularly hard to gather a war happening involving all Olympian affiliated heroes, villains, and assorted other metahumans, monsters, and mystical entities that exist in that sphere. But I have…” The white eyes underneath his cowl narrowed, a feature that Diana was fairly certain he added merely to help emote more when off the clock. “...Other questions.”

The superheroine gave a nod of respect. “Alright. Mist. It’s…” she hummed. “A force of sorts created by the Goddess Hecate- among others-” She clarified, not wanting him to think it merely an Olympian phenomenon: the Egyptians called it the Duat, apparently, and while she had little contact with the Norse they likely had their own name as well, “Though I only know how the gods of Greece have affected it. It clouds the sights of mortals in order to ensure they cannot see the creatures and events of myth and legend, blinding them to magic. Once, it would even alter memories, though such an effect grows rarer and rarer and takes longer and longer to achieve.”

No one was entirely sure why, but year by year the mist got weaker: some believed it was the result of technology, the tools and spirits of modernity sapping away power from the gods and magic of yester-year. Others believed it the result of so many strange, fantastical occurrences unrelated to the magic of earth helping open the world of mans eyes to the fantastic: if a super-man could fly and Atlantis was real, why couldn’t the Minotaur also exist, why couldn’t the existence of divinity be true?

In the end, no one was entirely sure, but the end result was the same: more and more humans were gaining clear sight, and it was taking longer and longer for things that had once been hidden by the mist to fade in the publics consciousness. “Hmmm. Why haven’t I heard about this before?”

“Most likely it never affected you during your time as Batman,” Diana said, truthfully. “The mist is…not absolute. It doesn’t affect those with divinity in their blood, is weaker on those who utilize magic, and most heroes are able to view past it.” Or aliens, something that had proven a boon when Typhon had passed through Kansas.

“Alright,” Bruce said, as generally inscrutable as ever. “I have one more question- What do you know about a place called Camp Half-Blood?”

_______________

Superman was helping sort through rubble. The last few days had been…hectic. Ever since whatever happened in New York had occurred, he had been pulling double duty helping sort through the wreckage caused by Superstorm Typhon, as more skeptical news-networks were putting it.

Others, like the Daily Planet, were covering it for what it was: a giant monster that had been rampaging its way across the planet. Clark was currently on paper investigating the trail of the titanic thing as a way to explain his absence.

And, Clark mused as he lifted a chunk of concrete, tossing it away, that wasn’t technically wrong: he had gained a lot of information in the past few days that would be making it into his expose on this. The reality though was he was also doing a lot of disaster relief: it didn’t matter if it was a storm of the century or a giant monster, it had demolished multiple states, which had hurt a lot of people. Right now, he was in Maynerd, Kentucky: there were people still trapped under rubble, no running water or electricity, and not a single building was still standing.

“Superman,” Came a voice over his communicator. “This is Martian Manhunter: heads-up, Batman is arriving soon. He said he needs to debrief you about the creature you fought in Kansas.”

“Right, got it J’onn,” Clark responded, putting a hand to the communicator in his ear. “When’s he getting here?”

“Now,” Came a voice from over Superman’s shoulder, and the Kansas native closed his eyes and gave a huff of annoyance.

“REALLY hate when you do that, Bruce,” He griped, turning to look at the man, who remained stoic, the only sign of his amusement being an infinitesimal quirk of his mouth upward, too subtle for any human to notice.

“I know you do,” Bruce growled. “A few weeks ago, a monster passed through your state. What can you tell me about it?”

Clark frowned. Yeah, that hadn’t been fun. Crud, did he not file the report on that? Looking around, he noted no one was in ear-shot: the other aid-workers helping were currently all busy. That was good, it meant they didn’t have to have this conversation elsewhere.

“Well, basically, when it passed through Kansas, it passed pretty close to Smallville,” He explained. “I was visiting ma and pa at the time: it was around harvest time, and I try to arrange to come help them when I can,” He continued, frowning. “It had been on a path to pass over the farm. I couldn’t let that happen, so I went out to fight it.”

“You won, I take it?” Bruce asked, only for Clark to scratch the back of his head sheepishly.

“Well, kind of. That thing…” He shook his head. “It was one of the most powerful things I fought. It wasn’t as strong as Darkseid, but it definitely hit harder than anything else I’ve fought on earth except for maybe Doomsday,” He grimaced, still feeling a dull ache in his bones from the fight with the alien berserker: he had grown stronger since then, but he wasn’t entirely sure that if that battle repeated it would end differently. “I think it probably thought the same about me, honestly: it started freaking out when it realized we were fighting on equal level. It didn’t know what a kryptonian was, kept demanding to know why another pantheon was interfering.”

Batmans cowl narrowed its eyes. “Alright,” He said gruffly. “So it was a close battle, then.”

“There were several times I was genuinely worried about losing,” Superman admitted: after the end of it he had had to spend a week in bed resting. “But a few hours in, reinforcements arrived-”

“The Olympians. I’m aware of their identities.”

Superman deflated. “Yeah. I was out of juice by then, fighting on just fumes, when a pair of chariots ride in. Turns out I had been distracting it, helping slow that thing down while the Olympians recuperated from their last attack and prepared for the next assault. When it realized they’d returned, it changed trajectory, heading away from Kansas. Guess it didn’t think it could take us all.”

“Hmm.” Batman responded.

___________________________________________

I stared at the paper, attempting to will the answers into appearing on it. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, it appeared that I did not in fact possess the ability to divine from the aether the solution to todays algebra homework.

Currently, it was blank except for my name: Percy Jackson, scribbled at the top. 50 questions total. Taking a deep breath, I put my pencil to the paper next to the sheet. Okay, how did it go? I attempted to recall the memn- mnem- m-

The sentence meant to help me remember the order of operations. It had been a few months since school had started again after the battle for New York, and I was currently doing my best to be a normal guy. Let me tell you though, it wasn’t easy going back to math class after fighting a war: I was constantly looking over my shoulder even when I knew there weren’t any monsters around. Even if I ignored my overactive not-paranoia (it isn’t paranoia when monsters really were out to get you), it still kind of sucked, mostly for the same reason school always did. The teachers were nicer than usual and Paul was cool, but it didn’t change the fact that 90% of school consisted of sitting still, paying attention, and reading carefully, all things I wasn’t particularly good at.

Looking up at the clock, I noted that I still had 15 minutes until class ended. Just needed to get through this and I could finish this at home with a calculator.

“Percy Jackson, please report to the teachers lounge.” Came a voice over the intercom, which caused me to raise my eyebrow, before rising, grabbing my book and stuffing my homework into it before rising, exiting the room.

The teachers lounge wasn’t far. Opening the door, I noted no one was inside yet. Well, good news was, whatever this was, at least I was more punctual than the other one. Walking inside, I began to tap my foot, impatiently, the door closing behind me. “Hello, Percy. Why don’t you have a seat.” I’m not gonna lie, I JUMPED at that, unsheathing and slashing Riptide instinctively at the location the voice that had just spoke came from, the blade passing harmlessly through the dark shape that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere right next to me.

A moment later, my brain caught up with my body and I realized who I was looking at. I blinked dumbly. A black cowl. Yellow chest insignia. He…he even had the white eyes.

“Holy CRAP, you’re Batman,” I said, stupidly, causing the man in front of me to give a nod.

“I am,” He said, voice baritone. “Nice reflexes: if that hadn’t been celestial bronze, I would have had trouble dodging it. I’d advise adding a non-lethal weapon to your repertoire now that you’re no longer at war, however: your reflexes are good, but not all of the enemies warrant lethal force. Consider signing up for martial arts class. I believe Pankration would be what you’re most suited for. That or a stun gun.”

“...You’re Batman,” I repeated, blinking. “I just got advice from Batman. I just got COMPLIMENTED by Batman.” Good advice, too, I had to admit: if he had been a half-blood or satyr or something, that…probably would have ended poorly. “Uh, thanks, sir,” I said, walking to the table and sitting down, torn between sweating bullets and excitement. On the one hand, Batman: it wasn’t quite as cool as meeting, say, the Flash, but he had still been one of my heroes when I was a kid. On the other, oh god Batman needed to talk to me.

“S-so, uh, sir, what did you need to see me for,” I asked, watching as Batman sat across from me, pulling out a file and setting it down on the table, opening it up to show…

Central Park. Pictures of…

My eyes widened. These were from the war. “Diana has briefed us over what happened with Kronos,” He confirmed as I looked at the photos taken of what looked like some of the Dionysus Cabin fighting some kind of giant frog, firing weapons from afar. Something I wasn’t present for, but knew the details of: one of the rogue demigods working for Kronos, a child of Hekate, had tried their hand at creating new monsters for the war effort. “An army of monsters and metahumans marched on New York, the entirety of Manhattan was sedated by an unknown psychic while another used a time dilation field. Multiple statues have seemingly walked off their pedestals. As you can guess, I have questions.”

“I, uh. You seem to know most of what happened then,” I hedged. “Not really sure what you want from me here,” I admitted, not bothering to lie or question where he got these photos. Clearly Batman had a way to get past the mist: he didn’t seem like a demigod, but I knew some mortals weren’t affected.

(Plus, who knows, maybe he has mist-o-vision bat-goggles.)

“What I want to know is your participation in it,” He asked, before holding up a hand. “To be clear, you aren’t in trouble, nor do you have to answer any of my questions. This isn’t an interrogation, just a fact finding mission.”

Oh. Okay. Just a fact finding mission. That wasn’t so bad. “Okay, uh. Where to start…” I muttered, thinking. “Um, how much do you…” Wow, that’s a hard question to ask: how much do you know about who I am is one of those questions that even validly asked makes the asker sound full of themself.

“Sixteen years old. History of getting expelled, likely due to monster attacks and being unsuited to a school system designed to accommodate neurotypical students with more generally stable lives. Father is one of the Big Three- Colloquial term for the three most major gods in the Hellenistic Religion, most likely Poseidon. You were involved in the battle of Manhattan in an unknown role on the Olympian side, likely as a high level leader or commander. For the past several summers, you have attended Camp Half-Blood, a military installation designed to help train children of semi-Olympian parentage as child soldiers.”

Okay wow it was really weird to have my life story summed up like that. “I wouldn’t call myself a child soldier…” I trailed off, causing the corner of Batmans mouth to curl downward in the barest hint of a frown.

“It isn’t an inaccurate descriptor, however,” He noted, and I had to concede that yeah, calling Camp a military installation and demigods child soldiers wasn’t wholly inaccurate: it was by necessity instead of malice, and using those words gave the wrong impression of what it was like, but…

“...Okay,” I admitted. “It was a little child soldier-y, but that was when Kronos was attempting to return. Now that he’s gone, it should get better, especially since…” Wait, should I be talking about this to him? I glanced upward: as far as I was aware, there wasn’t any penalty for informing mortals, but I wasn’t sure if that was because usually the mist could be relied on.

Eventually, I decided it was probably fine: this was Batman. If any mortal was on the proverbial white list for learning about what went down at Manhattan, it was him. Plus, he was friends with Wonder Woman: he already knew all that greek stuff was real.

“...Okay, so first, we need to talk about the Prophecy…”

_________________________________________

Batman sat in a diner, waiting for his guest. Most of the other patrons stared at the superhero: only four people sitting at a booth ignored him, the table conversing animatedly over a burger and fries. The rest of the restaurant was stuck wondering if that was really the semi-famous terror-cryptid turned respectable superhero, and more importantly, if it was, why on earth Batman was eating at Khaled And Sons, a completely random restaurant located in what could charitably be called ‘Memphis’ Ass-Crack’.

Bruce took a bite of burger, chewing. American cheese: real american, not cheese substitute, velveeta, or cheese product. Patties were hand-made: he tasted a mix of garlic, onion, worcester, and a small amount of what he was fairly certain was mashed potato mix, likely adulterated into the patty-meat to stretch it further. Onions were grilled. Vegetables weren’t fresh: that he could tell because the lettuce wasn’t particularly crisp. They hadn’t expired, but they were likely getting close. Sauce: hellmans mixed with some form of generic mustard brand.

Overall, Bruce gave it a 7.0/10. Not particularly worth remembering, but not terrible either. He could get better at Batburger.

The doors of the Diner slammed open as a black suited man with long, necklength black hair and a short, if thick, salt and pepper beard, electrical blue eyes wide with fury as the figure scanned the Diner before spotting Batman and beginning to march to him: Zeus was here, and he wasn’t happy.

Good.

“I presume you’re the insolent mortal who sent this,” He growled, tossing an envelope at Bruce, who without missing a beat caught the letter, setting it back onto the table as he stared down the angry Olympian. “You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn’t smite you.”

Batman stared, setting the envelope down.

The diners clock ticked.

The television in the corner continued playing baseball.

Batman took another bite of his burger, continuing to eat.

Thirty seconds passed.

Batman picked up a napkin, wiping his mouth, before setting it down, his meal finished. “You’re correct. I’m the one who sent you that letter,” He said to Zeus, whose mouth was now hanging open. “You can try to smite me if you want, but you should probably keep in mind I have a lot of very, very powerful friends who would be very, very upset at you, including Wonder Woman.”

The Olympians face settled into a harsh frown. “Fine,” He said, pulling out the chair across from Batman and sitting down. “I’ll humor you since you’re friends with Diana, but rest assured there will be consequences for this.”

“I intend for there to be.” Batman said flatly, taking a small amount of satisfaction from the twinge of annoyance that passed on the gods face.

“Now, what exactly do you want, Ratman or whatever your name is?” Zeus growled, in a juvenile attempt to re-assert control over the conversation by deliberately mis-naming Batman. The man knew his name: both of them, probably.

“In the aftermath of the Battle of Manhattan, you made certain promises to Percy Jackson.”

“Is that what this is about?” The god said incredulously. “Look, I swore on the River Styx-”

“We have decided these demands weren’t sufficient or satisfactory.” Batman said. “As such, we’re adding our own.”

Zeus blinked, affronted. “You’d dare dictate terms to Zeus?! You get ahead of yourself, Batman!” He boomed. “I am still a god, and you are merely a mortal!”

“Yes,” Batman agreed. “But you don’t seem to realize something: I’m not here as Batman, lone vigilante,” He growled. “I’m not dictating terms as Batman, lone vigilante. I am not threatening you with the resources of Batman, lone vigilante. I’m here as Batman, representative and official voice of the Justice League. I’m dictating terms as Batman, representative and official voice of the Justice League. And if you disagree with those terms…”

For a moment, the god was silent, before leaning forward, a wrathful scowl on his face. “Is the Justice League really so foolish to threaten war with the gods themselves?”

“A better question is, is Olympus so foolish to threaten war with the Justice League?” Batman countered. “Let’s explore that calculus: firstly, not only would you be going to battle still weakened, you’d be starting a war while having trouble merely maintaining a clean division of aspects, Jupiter.”

The God flinched. “How did you know-” He said, before cutting himself off.

“You just told me,” Batman said, noting that his theory had been correct. “Beyond that, you’re already staring down the barrel of a second war: whatever force was allowing monsters to come back so quickly didn’t stop when Kronos died like you thought. If anything it’s getting WORSE, which implies that it’s coming sooner rather than later.” He quietly noted the hint of surprise on the gods face. Zeus hadn’t known that. Interesting.

“...We have the half-bloods…”

“Who do you think they’ll side with? Olympus or Superman?” Batman said, almost conversationally. “Especially when you start wracking up broken promises again. The distant parental figure who they barely know or their childhood idols?” This at least proved a major crack in Zeus’s countenance: the open shock on his face indicated that the Olympian was genuinely considering the possibility of a Heromachy where Camp Half-Blood as a whole revolted. “Next, there’s the fact that such a war would be very, very public, since the mist is currently failing. I don’t think you would particularly like your entrance to the public eye to consist of a war.”

A twitch of the eye. Batman wasn’t sure if it was surprise at the mist failing, surprise that Batman knew that, or surprise at the thought that he may no longer be able to hide beyond the anonymity and lack of accountability the mist provided him. “And lastly…Frankly, you aren’t the scariest thing the League has fought. Not by a long shot. Doomsday. Neron. And one I’m fairly certain whose name you know: Darkseid.”

The lights above them flickered, along with all electronics in the building, even as the gods face in front of him went ashen at the name of the Tyrant God, Zeus giving a dry swallow. “I will thank you…not to use their name.” The Olympian said, before clearing his throat. “Nonetheless, I see your point. I will…consider…hearing your demands.” They ground out. “In the interest of peace between two…peer powers,” He continued, lip curling in distaste when saying the last two words. 

Batman smirked. Checkmate. Lifting his spoon, he tapped it against his glass, giving the signal, and four figures rose from one of the booths, shedding their disguises, and soon Zeus found himself sitting at a table with five superheroes total. A man in a red suit with a silver helmet, wearing a sort of harness. A caped figure in a gold helmet. A woman with ginger hair holding a mace, wings on her back. And lastly, a man in a green and black suit, a prominent ring on his finger, face covered by a domino mask.

“What- What the-?”

“Meet my contingencies in case you decided to push the issue. Orion, Dr. Fate, Hawk-girl, and Green Lantern,” Batman said, not mentioning John Constantine and Zatanna in the kitchen and Clark who was a block away pretending to be a homeless man. “What,” He asked, tilting his head. “Did you think I’d really make threats without having backup on hand? Now, we have a lot to go over, but first, let’s go over the sort of person you consider qualified to run a Camp for children…”

_____________________________________

Grover stared in awe. He had been visiting the Camp in-between missions over the weekend to check on everyone, especially since Percy and Annabeth were also there (for largely the same reason): mostly, things were going alright. The trio of them had been checking on the progress of some of the still-in-construction minor cabins when they had heard there was going to be an announcement and that all campers needed to head to the ampitheater.

When they got there, they found Mr. D and Chiron standing next to one of earths mightiest heroes: none other than Wonder Woman herself, probably one of the most famous modern greek heroes and envoy of Themyscira. “Eh hem,” Mr. D said into his mic, glancing nervously at the amazonian. “Greetings, beloved campers. It pleases me to announce that for, er, some unknown reason I’m not privy to, Lord Zeus has decided to accept the- They call themselves the Justice League apparently? For the foreseeable future, the League will aiding Camp Half-Blood with training and security. As such, I would like to formally announce the new Co-Director, Diana Prince.”

___________________

Commissioned by Tomesofchange for 15 dollarydoos, who wanted a story of Batman investigating the Typhon incident from PJO. I couldn't cover quite as much as I wanted without it bloating past 4,000 words, so I basically covered the highlights of the investigation: "What was Wonder Woman doing, what was Superman doing, Batman interrogating Percy". Obviously there are a ton of gaps I couldn't really cover: if I ever expanded this to a full series I'd probably include scenes detailing how Batman got some of the information he did, like the pictures, as well as breaking down how the Battle of Manhattan was viewed by mortal authorities (even if they don't know what happened exactly it'd probably wind up on someones radar considering how much weird events surrounded it, especially with how I'm handling Mist in this crossover), as well as a longer Percy scene as well as an Annabeth scene and more Demigod/Greek PoV's in general.

(I'd also go into more detail about the various things Batman isn't very happy about, but eh, it's a one shot and we're all possessed of enough critical thinking skills to recognize the various things about Camp Halfblood and Jupiter are ran and ways the Olympians act that the Justice League wouldn't like.)

Beyond that I generally tried to keep every character reasonably IC and, when I could, attempted to figure out how to organically merge the two settings: note its been awhile since I've read PJO and while I brushed up via the Last Olympian I still might have gotten things wrong. Anyways, as always commentary and feedback are appreciated.