Chapter Text
Athena Pines had a rough childhood. Don’t get her wrong, her first nine years were amazing, if a bit weird. She was born in Gravity Falls, Oregon, to Dr. Stanford and Catherine Pines. Her Daddy never really talked about her mother, only mentioning she was his assistant, and that she loved the both of them very much. Dr. Stanford was the one to name her, naming her after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. When asked why, he would smile, softly ruffle little Athena’s hair, and answer, “scientists name their greatest achievements after the Greeks all the time. Why shouldn’t I name mine after them as well?”
Dr. Stanford was an…interesting fellow. There was no question how much he loved Athena, with how much he spoiled the girl. When he wasn’t busy in his lab, researching the oddities of the town, he was throwing himself into fatherhood. He opted to homeschool the girl, figuring his twelve PHDs would be enough to teach her. He still made sure she socialized, taking her to the local park every weekend so she could make some friends. She was teased by the other children, sure, for her sixth finger, which she inherited from Dr. Standford, however, she did manage to gain a couple friends, much to his relief.
There was nothing the man wouldn’t do for his sweet little girl, who smiled at him like he held all the answers in the world. If there was a toy she liked, he would get it. If there was a hobby she wanted to learn, he would join her (his favorites were Legos and rollerblading). If she needed Daddy-daughter time, he would drop everything and play a game of pretend with her, or watch their small TV in the living room with her on his lap, or, on special days, take her down to the newest Arcade in town. Nightmare? No big deal, Daddy was there to give the biggest twelve-fingered bear hug ever, humming a soft lullaby under his breath.
That being said, eight year old Athena could feel the shift in her father one day, after he had come back from a solo adventure in the forest. He paid the babysitter he had hired that day, kissed Athena on the forehead, and got back to work.The shift came gradually. He would slowly stop spending time with her, spending more and more time in his lab in the basement, the one he had told her never to enter. He’d snap at her some days, when she’d dare ask for one of their hang out sessions during one of his moods. He’d never snapped at her before. She could’ve sworn her Daddy’s eyes were yellow, sometimes.
Dr. Stanford had taken on a new assistant, during those two years. An old college friend of his, he’d tell her during breakfast when she’d softly ask. Here to help him with his breakthrough. Athena didn’t mind the new addition to their team of two. Not really. She just wished she could have even a fraction of the time her Daddy spent with him in his lab, like they used to. Her wish was granted, two years later when the man she had started calling Uncle Fidds walked out on them.
Things were…better after that, at least marginally, her Daddy had given her the biggest, tightest hug he could and apologize a thousand times for the way he had been acting towards her the past couple of years, but she noticed he had started getting more and more tired, and more and more protective of her, never quite leaving her side, except to go lock himself in his room for hours, giving her the key and telling her to never, under any circumstances, unlock the door, except when he gave a special knock. Athena was fine with that. At least she could have her Daddy back, even if only a little bit. Even when she’d have to hear loud banging noises from his room, and the occasional pleas through the door, sounding so much like her Daddy, except for the strange, echoing lilt to it. It would never call her his Greatest Achievement, the way her Daddy would. She would sit with her back to the wall of his room, cross-legged with her head hung low, key clutched in hands crossed tightly over her head, elbows pressed tightly to her ears to drown out the impostor in her Daddy’s room. Scared tears would fall from her eyes, she’d hold her breath, and her only comfort would be the ghostly, cold sensation of the six fingers pressed over her back and heart. Even that came to a halt, though, one day late December.
Athena knew she was forbidden by her Daddy to go down to the basement, something Daddy had pressed on her, time and time again. This was different though. Daddy had told her that morning that everything was going to change, that he was done in the basement, done with Gravity Falls, and they would move far, far away. Probably to Gotham. No…no, not Gotham, Metropolis is safer.
She had gotten excited then. A new start, just her and her favorite person in the world. No more science, he had promised. She should have known promises like that only mean bad things. She can still remember how it all started the moment her Uncle Stanley had arrived the night before her tenth birthday. Daddy had just finished tucking her into bed, making sure she had her favorite teddy in hand (a brown bear dressed in a sweater vest, corduroys, and glasses which Athena had sworn up and down reminded her of her Daddy in the store when he bought it for her), reading her a passage of a Nancy Drew book, and turning on her nightlight, when the door had been knocked on.
Curious, she had snuck out of her room, keeping a tight hold on the then dubbed ‘Sir Fords-a-lot’, and followed her father and his look-alike. She had hesitated at the open doorway of the basement, free hand nervously grasping the bottom of her lavender lamby nightgown. In the end, she hugged Sir Fords tighter to herself, and carefully tiptoed down the steps, sitting on the third to last one.
She could hear her Daddy ask the man if he had still wanted to sail. She could hear the man agree hopefully, before her father pushed one of his coveted journals into his chest and told him to go far away from them, and things went to hell from there. She was nine years old when she watched the stranger fight Daddy. She was nine years old when she watched her Daddy shove the stranger into the creepy machine. She can still hear the sizzle of melting flesh on metal as his shoulder makes contact. She was nine years old when the stranger shoved Daddy in retaliation into a lever behind a black and yellow line, activating the machine and releasing a swirly, ice blue vortex that would haunt her nightmares from that moment on. She had just turned ten years old, when her Daddy was sucked into the vortex, calling out for the man, Stanley, to do something!
She was ten years old when she let out the loudest scream of her life, tears stinging her eyes and hands clutching the bear so tightly to her she couldn’t breath, alerting the man to her presence.