Chapter Text
Robb was already off the ground when the rock came flying at him. He shot to the left, heading higher as he did. The rock slapped harmlessly against his cape.
“Almost got you!” the Kraken who threw it taunted.
Robb glared from behind his mask. He wasn’t entirely sure which Kraken it was — the entire supervillain family was called ‘Kraken’ — but he thought it might have been the oldest son. Sansa had named the leader King Kraken, the other adults as Krakens A/B/C, and the younger generation 1/2/3/4.
“Eight supervillains with super-intelligence and you resort to throwing rocks.” Robb hovered above the Kraken, knowing it added to the Heroic ScoldingTM. “I think there’s a metaphor in that somewhere.”
“Grey Wind, move!”
Robb darted to the right without looking, trusting Jon. A bolt of light struck the air he had been moments ago. Robb twirled mid-air, his cape flaring out.
Kraken #3, the only girl and probably the only one who might be a real threat if she wanted, waved her blaster. “Don’t stop your lecture. It makes it much easier to hit you.”
Robb raised an eyebrow behind his mask, and then gestured at the five-metre pedestal behind him. “I am not the one making monologues.”
King Kraken stood on top of the pillar, shouting out a speech about how he would take the respect he was owed. The phrase ‘iron price’ was repeated too many times considering no-one knew what it meant.
“Point taken.” Kraken #3 raised her gun again.
A white blur shot in front of her, causing her short hair to ruffle in the wind.
The blur stopped several metres away, solidifying into Jon. He held up the gun he’d snatched, waved it tauntingly.
Kraken #3 looked more impressed than annoyed.
Her older brother, whichever one he was, threw another rock at Jon. It was even less effective against a hero with superspeed than flight; Jon looked utterly contemptuous as he sidestepped it.
He didn’t look down, not noticing the laser until the concrete shattered beneath his feet. He yelped, twisted desperately to keep his balance but crashed on the sidewalk.
“Ghost!”
Jon was already sitting up. His nose was bloody and one hand rubbed his eye, massaging through the white cowl. “I’m okay,” he said, even as Robb dragged him to his feet.
Kraken #4 stood against the nearest building, smiling. He was always smiling, at least in costume; it was as much a part of his mask as the black fabric over his eyes. When he saw Robb looked at him, he waved one hand lazily.
“Asshole,” Jon muttered, wiping his bloody nose on the back of his white glove.
Kraken #4’s smile grew wider. “Bastard,” he called back cheerfully.
Another rock flew towards them. Jon caught it mid-air, irritated.
“Really, Kraken? Rocks?” Kraken #4 asked his brother. The Kraken-who-was-either-#1-or-#2 glared at him.
Somewhere on the other side of the tower, Winter whistled.
Immediately, Jon darted forward, flashed past the three young supervillains in a blur of white. Robb soared into the air, arching over them to where his father stood, Direwolf symbol gleaming on his chest.
Another rock flew up to meet him. Robb didn’t even have to swerve to avoid it.
He landed neatly beside his father, just after Jon had slowed to a halt. Ned nodded at them both, the grey mask making him seem more severe than usual.
“The tower’s too well armoured to break down bare-handed,” Ned said. Robb glanced at the pedestal; hairline fractures had barely cracked under his father’s fists. The Krakens must have prioritised defence this time. “But Kraken won’t surrender while he still has the high ground. I think we should take the direct route. Grey Wind?”
“On it.” Robb jumped into the air, hurtling towards the top of the tower.
Jon glanced up at him, nodded, and then darted off to distract another Kraken — Kraken C, Robb thought, maybe — while their father grabbed what might have been Kraken B and literally threw him down the road, perfectly aimed to crash into a nephew.
Robb took advantage of the distraction.
It wasn’t that the Krakens were dumb.
Objectively speaking, they were the smartest in Westeros. One of the rare families that had a common superpower thread, with each of them having some form of intelligence, be it building a robot out of paperclips or able to hack the Red Keep with a Nintendo DS.
That didn’t make them necessarily difficult to outsmart. A lot of the time they’d completely miss the simple option. It was the kind of intelligence that let them build a go-to-sleep-ray to threaten the city, and still think a giant go-to-sleep-ray was the best way to threaten the city. King Kraken was prepared for a lot of things, but apparently it never occurred to him that the Direwolf with flight would just float to the top of the tower and push him off.
His startled shriek was priceless.
Robb made sure to catch him before he hit the ground, dragged him through the air and flung him in front of Ned.
“Winter,” King Kraken spat. He stumbled to his feet, utter fury gleaming behind his ridiculous mask with tentacles that wrapped into his hair. “You have not won today—”
Ned slapped him almost casually. The blow knocked him out immediately.
Robb grinned at his father. Then his feet left the ground again and he soared off to help Jon battle Kraken Number Something.
X
The Direwolves had barely been home for an hour when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Robb shouted.
Jon’s room was on the second floor, just above the door. Since he’d left his window open, he could clearly hear the conversation on the threshold, a long moment after Robb stepped outside. “…Really?”
“Is there something wrong with my shirt?” Theon’s voice replied innocently.
“… Of course not; why would there be? Hey, everyone,” Robb called to the house, louder than strictly necessary. “Theon’s here!”
He might as well have shouted ‘act normal’ — and frankly, Theon would have understood that just as well as everyone else. Robb was subtle in battle and nowhere else; it was a wonder he kept a secret identity.
Jon turned back to the white costume dumped on his bed. He’d managed to stop his nose bleeding, but it was harder to figure out what to do about the stain. The shoulder was soaked red, made it look like it had been a worse wound than it was.
Honestly, Jon kind of hated his Direwolf costume. He’d never say it aloud, because Aunt Cat handstitched the uniforms, but white was not a practical colour. He’d asked for it to be black, or maybe dark grey, and Catelyn had overruled him. She’d said speedsters had too negative a reputation to wear villain-coded clothing, and Jon needed something reassuring. She wasn’t exactly wrong — Jon had spent a lot of time as Ghost trying to prove he wasn’t anything like the Bolt — but it was frustrating.
Still, every time he brought up the concept of more camouflage and maybe a colour that wouldn’t show blood, Catelyn raised an eyebrow and said she knew he thought black was cooler.
Honestly, she was entirely correct.
Jon sighed, folded the costume and rested it on his bed. He closed the door as he left, making a conscious effort not to speed through the house.
The TV in the living room blared a report about the Kraken/Direwolf fight. Arya looked up when Jon walked in. “Ouch. Does that hurt?”
Jon rubbed his eye. It was already beginning to swell. “A little. Is it too much to hope the police caught King Kraken this time?”
“Which one’s the king?”
“The one with the dumbest mask. Dad knocked him out with a slap.”
“All their masks are stupid. But, no, they all got away. You should probably arrest them yourselves and hand them over.”
“Easier said than done.”
The Krakens always had a grand finale. This time King Kraken’s ridiculous tower had threatened to explode, which would have taken out the entire city block. By the time the Direwolves had gotten the explosives out and Father had thrown them hard enough to explode well above the city, the Krakens had disappeared.
It was frustrating, but almost routine by now. Jon had made it his personal goal to arrest Kraken #4 at least once. He doubted it would actually wipe that smile off, but it would be so satisfying.
“I could do it,” Arya said. She stood up on the couch; it made her slightly taller than him. She made sure Jon was looking, and then vanished. “I could catch them.”
“’Course you could.” He wasn’t lying. Jon reached out a hand carefully, probing the air he had last seen her to muss her invisible hair. “But you have to be at least twelve to fight supervillains.”
“Only another four months,” said Arya’s disembodied voice.
“I didn’t make the rules.”
Arya turned visible just so he could see her frustrated eyeroll.
Jon grinned. “I’d better go. I’ve got to go try and get some bloodstains out of my shirt before they dry, and I’m pretty sure we’re out of bleach.” Which was the one advantage of a white costume.
“Soak it in vinegar for ten minutes, give it a scrub, then throw it in the wash.”
“Have you been getting into fights?”
Arya stiffened, a slight red tinge colouring her cheeks. “I practise being a Direwolf by fighting injustices at school.”
“A true hero. Let me know if you ever need any backup.”
“I will.”
Jon left her to study the fight and headed to the kitchen. He had to fight the habit to run there in a blur of motion — normal walk felt so slow, but Theon was in the house. No-one made more than a token effort regarding identities around Greyjoy, but superspeed indoors was probably pushing it.
Speaking of which, Theon was in the kitchen, talking to Robb. Theon had sat himself on the countertop rather than any of the chairs.
Robb winced the moment Jon stepped into the kitchen. Without asking, he opened the freezer door and pulled out an icepack.
Jon took the offered pack and pressed it against his face. “Robb, do you know where we keep the vinegar?”
“I think it’s on the top shelf.”
Theon let out a low whistle as Jon moved to the cupboard. “Ouch, Snow. What happened to your eye?”
Jon turned around to retort, but the words died in his throat to be replaced with incredulity.
He’d noticed that Theon was wearing a black shirt, but he hadn’t registered the golden tentacles that reached up from the edges, criss-crossing over a very familiar symbol on his chest.
Theon not only owned a Kraken t-shirt, he’d walked into the Stark house wearing it.
“What is that?”
“What’s what?” Theon asked.
“On your shirt.”
Theon looked down at his shirt, too slowly for it to be anything but deliberate. “Oh, is there a stain or something?” he asked, smiling.
“Since when do the Krakens have merchandise? They’re C-listers at best.”
Theon’s smile never disappeared, but it grew a little sharper. “They’re A-listers, actually, by last count.”
“Not many villains have fans.”
“Everything has a fan. I’m constantly shocked every band you listen to manages to stay in business.”
Robb opened the fridge and stared at it without looking, more as a way to avoid the argument than anything else.
“Where did you even get that from?”
“Around.”
“From a Kraken fan store?”
“Something like that. There’s a lot of things on the internet.”
“Pretty sure only a Kraken would wear that shirt.”
Theon’s smile grew wider. “Are you accusing me of being a supervillain, Snow?”
Jon grimaced, readjusting his cold pack. He turned his attention back to the cupboard and his hunt for vinegar. “I am not in the mood for this, Greyjoy.”
“It’s a pretty serious allegation,” Theon pressed, grinning. “You agree, Robb?”
“Deeply serious.” Robb agreed, still staring at the vegetables. The fridge alarm began to beep, so he closed it just to open it again. “Completely unfounded.”
“Robb, he is wearing a Kraken t-shirt. They don’t sell supervillain merchandise in stores; that is custom made.”
Robb and Theon exchanged a look, and both glanced at Theon’s shirt. Theon bit down on his lip, trying not to laugh.
“Circumstantial,” Robb said finally, and closed the fridge.
Jon rolled his eyes.
The vinegar was indeed on the top shelf, pushed inconveniently far back when one hand was occupied. He had to stand on his tiptoes to grab it, but managed to pull it out without spilling everywhere. When he turned around again, Catelyn was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her eyebrow raised.
Her eyes flicked to Theon and his ridiculously unsubtle t-shirt, before deliberately moving away. She focused her gaze on Jon instead, and gave him that smile that wasn’t quite the one she gave her own children, but was far warmer than the one she gave her other nephew, Robin.
Catelyn had never gotten over the day her husband came home without warning her that he’d adopted his sister’s son. But she’d adjusted to her new nephew with the same honour and duty she always had to family matters. She never let Jon call her ‘mum’, but she’d still been the one to take him to the empty park at midnight as a child so he could work out how to run at speed, the one who’d bandaged scraped knees when he tripped walking faster than a car.
She’d always been more of an aunt than a mother, but she was a good aunt.
“Baking something?”
“Cleaning supplies,” Jon admitted.
“Of course.”
“Afternoon, Mrs Stark,” Theon said, smiling as always.
“Afternoon, Theon. Had a good day?”
“Busy,” Theon said, and smiled wider.
Catelyn didn’t follow up. She just made a gesture with her hand. Theon obediently slid off the counter.
“If you’re going to stay in the kitchen, you’re helping with dinner.”
“Sure.” Robb immediately grabbed the chopping board from its rack. “What are we cooking?”
“Creamy pasta. You can start by dicing the mushrooms.”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Jon promised. Catelyn nodded without looking at him, and he slipped off.
He found a bucket and left his shirt to soak in it, then grabbed a towel he could wrap around his icepack. By the time he returned, Sansa had been conscripted into the cooking, too.
The Starks had a nice kitchen. It didn’t, however, comfortably fit five people inside, at least not while trying to cook, or even four. Jon paused in the threshold. Theon had stepped out of the kitchen to lean on the outside of the counter, tapping idly on the edge of the cutting board as Robb cut mushroom.
“I’m making you do the onions, you know,” Robb said. Theon hummed agreement, stealing one of the pieces of mushroom to play with.
“Anything I can do?” Jon asked.
“Onions,” Theon said.
“Not really.” Sansa turned the heat up on the stove, shifting the pot to be out of the way. “You staying for dinner, Theon?”
“Am I invited?”
“No,” Jon said.
“If you’d like to be,” Catelyn said, her tone very neutral as she worked on the sauce.
“I would appreciate that very much, Mrs Stark.” Theon smiled. He flicked the piece of mushroom he’d been fiddling with back onto the chopping board, and Robb moved it away from the rest with the knife. “How has your day been? I forgot to ask earlier.”
“The same as ever.” Catelyn pulled a spice from the spice rack. “Rickon’s going through a growth spurt at the moment, so that’s been somewhat distracting.”
“Fun,” Theon sympathised. His eyes flickered over to Jon in the doorway, still pushing a cold press to his face. “You never did answer what happened to your eye, Snow.”
Greyjoy had happened to his eye. He not only did it, he knew it, too.
“I tripped,” Jon said shortly.
Theon smiled. “You should be more careful,” he advised. “Rough pavement?”
Sansa turned her attention away from the pasta to meet Jon’s eyes. She had her mother’s stare, sometimes. She shook her head.
Sansa Stark, the Direwolf previously known as Lady before she’d retired from fights, could read emotions and intentions. She might have known Jon was considering punching Theon before Jon did.
She did, though, incline her head towards Theon and roll her eyes. Jon could only guess what Theon’s insistence that he was a civilian felt like to her. It might actually be more annoying. Sansa’s powers were not much help in battle but it made her a living lie detector. Theon had to be aware that she could sense any lie, but he was still willing to look her straight in the eye and claim he had no idea about the giant robots, gosh, who’d be willing to try to build one of those?
Jon would have liked nothing better than to blatantly disregard the game Robb and Theon played, to outright call Theon out on being a supervillain. But the problem was that Theon could reciprocate. It was obvious that the other Krakens had no idea who the Direwolves were, and everyone agreed that was for the best.
Robb didn’t think Theon would ever say a word. Jon wasn’t as optimistic that, if it came to an outright choice between the Krakens and the Direwolves, Theon would have any loyalty to the superheroes.
Theon met Jon’s eyes and smiled.
He wanted to. He so badly wanted to call out the supervillain. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
“I think I might go for a run before dinner, actually.”
Theon’s grin widened.
X
Jon pulled his usual shirt out of the vinegar and tossed it into the washing machine. His spare unform was a little ragged, and lacked even the vague protection of his normal uniform’s padding, but it did the important part of drawing attention away from his face. It also prevented him from holding the icepack to his face, but Winterfell was cold enough and he needed to run.
Then he zipped out, not bothering to hide his speed as he flashed out the backdoor. Not like Theon didn’t know exactly who he was.
It was nice to just run, to let the grass and road blur together as his sneakers pounded against the road. He detoured onto the motorway for a few minutes, racing the cars, before branching back to town before he got too far from Winterfell.
By now it was second nature to scan the area for crimes. He stopped midway on an empty bridge before he even registered why, his shoes skidded in the way that was probably responsible for why he went through so many pairs. Jon darted over to the edge of the bridge, leant over to look below.
A group of seventeen-year-olds, most of whom he shared classes with, were graffitiing the base of the bridge.
He could continue; most superheroes left things of this level for the police. But Ned Stark had raised his children to believe all crimes should be addressed, even slap-on-the-wrist offenses that was barely worth giving the lecture.
Besides, a part of him was still seething about Greyjoy. It would be nice to do something productive.
It took Jon less than a second to zip into the valley. The graffitists didn’t notice as he arrived behind them.
There were four of them, but only three were painting. The other sat on the wall behind them, fingers nervously tapping her leg. “Are you done yet?”
“Relax. No-one is going to come,” one of her friends said without turning from the wall.
That was far too good of a cue to pass up.
Jon coughed into his hand. “Ahem.”
As if practised, all four of them stiffened and turned to face him in unison. Eyes widened as they recognised the white uniform.
There was a long moment of silence, before one of the girls swore.
Jon blurred past them, stopped beside the mess of paint on the wall. He raised one eyebrow, exaggerated the expression so it was obvious behind the mask. “I’ll guess you don’t have a permit.”
The outside girl screamed.
Everyone startled, and all eyes snapped to her.
She tried to scramble to her feet, but her knees wouldn’t support her. Her arms gripped the top of the wall as her dress muddied on the ground. Tremors ran down her skin, making her shiver to the point her teeth chattered. “We’re sorry, we’re sorry, we’re sorry we’re sorry-we’re-sorry-we’resorryweresorryweresorr—”
Jon looked at her friends for help, but they seemed just as stunned.
One of them, the only boy, began to take step away.
“You think I can’t catch you?” Jon asked, his voice sharper than he meant it to be. “Stay.”
That only made the panicking girl shriek louder. She bundled herself against her wall desperately.
Jon felt entirely out of his depth as he turned back to her. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I’m sorry—”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jon said. “It’s just a little paint, you’re not in that much trouble. It’s okay.”
At least that made the girl stop babbling, but he wasn’t sure the wide eyes were an improvement. All the blood had drained from her face, and it seemed like a very real risk she was going to faint.
“I don’t… I… um, sir—”
“You don’t have to call me that.”
She looked more terrified, as if she’d done something wrong. She nodded frantically. “Of course… Mr Bolt?”
Oh.
Right.
Slowly, careful to keep his palms up unthreateningly, Jon approached. He gave the girl a wide margin, kneeling at least a metre away from her. “I’m not the Bolt,” he said, his voice deliberately calm. “What’s your name?”
“K — K—”
“Kyra,” one of her friends supplied.
She gave the friend a horrified look, but her eyes snapped back to Jon as he shifted.
“Kyra,” Jon repeated gently. He tried to smile at her, but he’d never been great at faking smiles. “Are you from the Dreadfort?”
Kyra swallowed, her eyes wider than before. She nodded once.
“Right. Do you know where you are now?”
It took a moment before realisation came into Kyra’s eyes. Her shoulders relaxed a millimetre. “Winterfell,” she whispered, looking at the wolf head stitched onto Jon’s shirt.
“Exactly.”
“You’re… you’re one of the Direwolves.”
“I am.”
“The speedster one. The Ghost.”
“Just ‘Ghost’, no ‘the’,” Jon said. He kept his smile plastered on, although there was no way it looked believable. “I’m not the Bolt.”
She nodded slowly. Her breathing was starting to even out, just a little.
“Now, I know what that psychopath vigilante does, but I promise you, the Direwolves are certified by the House of Heroes. Do you know what we do to graffiti artists?” As soon as the words came out of his mouth he knew it was a mistake to ask it as question; Kyra went on edge again and shook her head fearfully. “We confiscate your spray cans, and then we make you scrub off the paint. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” she asked, a child’s whisper.
“Sometimes we might tell your parents. But whatever you’re afraid of, you don’t have to be. Okay?”
Kyra nodded. Her eyes filled with tears and she let go of the wall, bawling into her knees. “Thank you.”
He didn’t need to be thanked for essentially not being the Bolt, but it seemed like a bad idea to mention that. “It’s okay.” He stood up and pointed at one of the three. “You. What’s your name?”
“Palla.”
“Right. Palla. Can you take Kyra home?”
The other girl nodded, stepping forwards. She wrapped Kyra’s arm around her shoulders, helping her to her feet. The two walked off, Kyra still crying into her friend’s shoulder. Jon was tempted to make sure they got home alright, but a speedster following them was unlikely to help Kyra’s mental health.
He turned back to the two remaining graffitists. “You two should probably go too. Just… clean off the graffiti soon, okay?” It was a token suggestion. He wasn’t going to chase them down if they didn’t.
Both nodded frantically. They left their cans behind and darted off after Palla and Kyra. He watched them go, more unsettled than Theon Greyjoy could ever leave him.
He’d asked the House of Heroes no less than four times for permission to go after the Bolt, reasoning that as a speedster he might be able to catch the vigilante. But Flayedman was a stickler for superhero jurisdiction laws, and never allowed anyone else into the Dreadfort. Jon hadn’t been allowed to try.
He was already planning out the wording for his next petition as he turned and ran back home.
X
The doorhandle to the Greyjoy house looked ordinary, but anyone who touched it was automatically scanned. Anyone who wasn’t on the list of approved persons would get an electric shock.
Theon had built it when he was nine, hoping his father would approve of getting rid of the door-to-door salesmen. All Balon said was that the shock was too mild; Krakens didn’t scare intruders, they fried them.
He allowed his fingerprint to be checked, felt the door click open under his grip.
The above ground part of the house was a mess, with barely any furniture except for a lumpy couch and an unreliable television. Maron and Rodrik had claimed the upstairs as their own, and had set it up as they liked. Theon didn’t blame them for wanting a sanctuary, but he thought it defied the point to have beer cans littering the carpet.
He navigated his way to the miniscule kitchenette that had come with the broken house, moved one of the tiles from the counter, and watched as the stairs to the underground lair swung open.
Asha was sitting in the Krakens’ actual kitchen, digging into a bowl of ice-cream. A thick textbook lay open next to her. She flipped pages so fast they barely had time to settle.
“What are you learning about?” Theon asked, already at the fridge. It shouldn’t have surprised him that no-one had bothered to go shopping since he did last week.
“Vikings.” Asha turned another page without looking at him. “Subtle, by the way.”
Theon tugged at his Kraken shirt self-consciously. “It’s called a double buff. Not everyone has super-observation powers.”
“It’s still not subtle.”
“That’s the point of a double bluff.” Theon shut the fridge empty-handed. “Did I miss anything while I was gone?” He hoped the subject change sounded casual, but he hated talking about how the Starks saw him.
It wasn’t normally a problem. None of his family cared what he did, but at least Asha had the caveat of ‘as long as it made him happy’. As far as she knew, he had a civilian friend named Robb, and he was determined that was all she’d ever know.
“No. Father’s ranting about how he intends to repay Winter ‘for the newest slight on the list of transgressions’. He keeps repeating how the Direwolves are not undefeatable.”
“Might be. No-one’s ever beaten them.”
Asha glanced up just long enough to give him an irritated look. “Someone managed to kill that girl two years ago.”
“Oh. Right. That happened,” Theon said awkwardly. They were drifting close to a dangerous topic again; he didn’t want to explain how he knew that Sansa Stark was alive and well long after Lady stopped going to fights. “Well, I’ll let you read in peace.”
“Thank you.”
He left, headed through the maze that was the Kraken’s home. The walls were solid stone and brought a medieval look that jarred against the scientific calculations scribbled on the walls, from Euron’s biological equations to Maron’s unfinished hacker programs to Theon’s invention blueprints. Stolen contraband, reaved from supervillain exploits, decorated all available space.
It was slightly overkill, but Theon was proud that he effectively lived in a castle. It was just a shame he couldn’t bring anyone over, but honestly this was probably the supervillain lair that Robb imagined.
Theon’s room was in the back, technically just under the generator but he had worked out soundproofing young. The room was combined living space and engineer’s lab, with a curtain blocking off the bed from the rest of the floor. Half-finished inventions lined the table, neatly arranged and every tool in their place.
His current project was a quiver of trick arrows, each of which would do something different when fired. Not that Theon knew anything about archery, but he thought he’d be able to rig up a bow with an automatic aiming system.
Asha had worked out that he’d been inspired by Disney’s Merida, but hopefully she’d keep her promise to stay quiet.
Theon picked up the electric arrow, twirled it over. He opened the head and checked calibrations for the internal taser.
It was almost a relief to be able to start tinkering. He hadn’t had a chance to use his powers in several days, too busy training for yet another showdown with the Direwolves, and the unused power had begun to itch beneath his skin.
The door opened without knocking. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“Father!” Theon jumped to his feet, the arrow clattering onto the desk. “Did you want to see what I’m working on? I think it could—”
“No,” Balon said icily.
Theon’s oh-so-familiar smile stayed firm. He’d had too much practise for it to waver.
“I was expecting you to have finished the death-ray by yesterday.”
“You mean this?” Theon stepped over to the cannon-like object that stood at shoulder-height beside the door, tapped on the barrel. “Father, I can’t—”
“I expected we would be able to have the Direwolves killed this morning.” Balon looked at him like it was his fault, and okay, maybe Theon occasionally had built less-than-effective lasers intentionally, but he couldn’t exactly take all the credit for their constant losses. Superheroes like the Direwolves somehow managed to survive everything without anything worse than a black eye.
Sometimes he wondered who he would choose if it came down to loyalty between Robb and his family, but he always pushed that thought aside.
“I’ve read through all your specifications five times, and I don’t think it’s possible,” he admitted. “There is no power source that would fit.”
Balon tutted. “I told you that the Crystal of Qarth would work.”
“I — what?” It felt like the time Theon tried to build a freeze-ray and it had backfired, frosting over his chest. “Do you expect me to rob a bank in the Dreadfort?”
“Yes,” Balon said bluntly. He walked over to tap the side of the deathray. “You’re my son. I have no doubt in your ability to do so.”
It had been a while since Theon had genuinely smiled when not around Robb, but he could feel his usual grin brightening.
He straightened, tried to keep a lid on his growing elation so his father wasn’t disgusted with obvious emotions. “I won’t let you down.”