"He is my son, and he has nothing to do with your family!"
The woman's voice rose sharply, then deflated almost immediately under Thea's steady gaze.
"I think you've misunderstood me. The child stays with you—I only believe he deserves to know the truth. If he wants to live an ordinary life, he's absolutely free to. If he wants to become extraordinary, that's also within my power to provide."
She wasn't bluffing. Between a First Lantern ring and the Imp, changing an ordinary person's reality was achievable—though not without limits. Destiny sat firmly on his throne, very much alive, and without his consent, any spontaneous changes to someone's life would simply be corrected by the flow of fate. Small changes, properly anchored, were a different matter. Giving her nephew a natural talent wouldn't be difficult.
Even a total hopeless case, she could build up through sheer effort.
For Thea, this was only a task. Whatever they chose, she had no objection.
What mattered right now was their choice.
"Call him out, or go talk to him—he's been eavesdropping at the door the whole time."
The young woman rushed to the bedroom and negotiated in hushed tones. It didn't take long. She returned with the boy in hand.
He looked about Damian's age, but his eyes were full of confusion and helpless uncertainty—like a flower grown entirely in a greenhouse.
"William. I'm your aunt." Thea reached out and rested a hand lightly on his head. Some of the tension left the boy's small frame.
"All right. Tell me what you've decided."
The young woman held her son close. "I never loved Oliver. That was a moment of poor judgment long ago. We won't be going anywhere with you."
Thea nodded. Honestly, this was the answer she preferred. Shado was a close friend—and currently very much pregnant. Turning up with another woman and her child in tow would have been nothing but trouble.
"That's perfectly fine."
"But William..." The woman hesitated. "He's bright. He deserves a good education."
They negotiated. The final arrangement: the child would keep his mother's surname. Thea would ensure access to quality secondary and university education—a matter of a few phone calls on her end. Mother and son would continue living as they always had. Thea would ask nothing more of them.
On the drive back, she found herself thinking.
Still choosing to be ordinary, in the end.
Even after she'd hinted—carefully, without pressure—that the boy had genuine gifts, mother and son had declined. Not everyone wanted superpowers. Not everyone wanted to be a hero. These two wanted a quiet life, and Thea had respected that without another word.
She had done what she came to do. Honor their wishes, keep them safe, let them live their lives in peace. That was enough.
One more thing remained. She needed the right moment—and then everything would come together naturally.
On reflection, it felt somewhat high-handed to make decisions privately when the boy's living father didn't even know his son existed. Oliver had the right to know. The young woman—Thea had never once thought to ask what her name or surname was, and who clearly wanted nothing to do with the Queen household—had handled herself with quiet dignity from beginning to end. That said something about her character.
Thea decided she should tell Oliver. It was his son. He deserved to know.
The delivery, though, required some tact.
She clearly remembered, not long ago, when the Justice League had learned that Barry Allen's grandson had come looking for him. The entire room had dissolved into laughter. Of all of them, it had been Oliver—Green Arrow himself—who had laughed loudest and longest.
For her brother's dignity, some strategic thinking was in order.
Two heads are better than one. She stepped through to Diana's office.
As a special consultant at the Louvre, Diana had her own private office and a dedicated assistant. Thea walked in with the easy familiarity of someone who knew where everything was—and immediately sensed something was wrong. The warrior woman was sitting there radiating quiet annoyance.
"Who upset you? Tell me and I'll go handle it." She said this with complete confidence. On this planet, her leverage was essentially boundless.
"That man is unspeakably rude. I cannot believe he's supposed to be a prince." Diana had been suppressing it all afternoon. In Thea's presence, a little escaped.
It wasn't a complicated story. A few days earlier, Diana had—out of genuine goodwill—arranged positions for the rather weak pair now going by Carter and Kendra at the Louvre. An ancient Egyptian prince and a high priestess working as ancient civilization specialists? It had seemed a perfect fit.
The result had been a disaster. Items the modern world treated as sacred relics, Kendra described as ordinary household decorations. Elaborately crafted ritual weapons, Carter dismissed as ceremonial props—guard regalia, essentially useless. Everything the curators considered priceless, the two ancients casually wrote off as junk.
They delivered every assessment with the artless directness of people who simply did not understand why anyone might disagree, leaving the Louvre's scholars and professors feeling thoroughly scorched. It had not ended well.
Pouring out the story helped. Diana looked visibly lighter afterward.
Today she had her hair in a simple ponytail and wore a cream blouse with a pencil skirt and heels—a complete contrast to the figure she cut in battle.
Without ceremony, she slipped off her shoes and laid her feet across Thea's lap. "Give me a massage."
Thea obliged without hesitation, working her fingers into the muscles of Diana's calf. With their constitutions, standing for a decade straight wouldn't tire them—but Diana was relentlessly exacting with herself, forever burdened by her sense of duty, projecting a serenity far older than her emotional years. Only in private, only with Thea, did she allow herself to look like the young woman she actually was.
Thea worked from knee to ankle, then lightly tickled the sole of her foot twice.
"Ha—!" Diana gave her an eye-roll of spectacular quality. Thea decided it deserved ninety-nine out of a hundred.
"Your aura seems somehow... deeper. More resonant?" Diana had started to say darker, then reconsidered.
"You're right. The battle with the Black Lantern entity gave me a much deeper understanding of death. But that's not why I came." Thea edited the details out of her account and laid out the situation with Oliver's illegitimate son.
Diana lit up with shameless curiosity. "He has a son? And the boy is already ten years old?"
How sharp was he—how tall—how heavy—could he shoot a bow...
Thea had done thorough background research and answered every question without difficulty. Half an hour later, when the conversation had somehow migrated to whether a bullied child should call the police or learn to fight back himself, both goddesses looked at each other and realized they had completely lost the thread.
"Tell Oliver the truth," Diana concluded at last, no more inspired approach having presented itself. They agreed to deliver the news together.
They found Oliver at the archery club. The place was unexpectedly crowded—a whole collection of familiar faces.
"Boss." "Miss Thea." "Thea." "Diana." Greetings came from every direction.
Thea surveyed the room—Damian, Tim, Raven, Cass. She and Diana exchanged a puzzled look. These kids normally had no reason to be in the same place. They lived scattered across the country. What had brought all of them here today?