Jason Grace. Son and heir apparent to Jupiter Industries, currently being slammed under tabloids under accusations of extreme corruption and possibily domestic terrorism. Not Jason, just his father – but it doesn't mean he's completely igorant to the goings on. He's a possibility.
Annabeth tiptoes into his bedroom alone for the first time, out of many times over his apartment. She's scoped it out before, gotten to know the layout. It's neat and organized, a room after her own heart, save for the occasional sock or pair of pants. His laptop sits on the desk, closed up, and she stills, listening.
Silence.
Percy's still sleeping. He got back a few hours ago, from a forty-eight hour shift at the station, so he'll be out like a light for a solid amount of time.
Percy, Jason's roommate, his friend from high school, and technically, her boyfriend. Her fingers curl into a fist, but she wouldn't be standing here right now if she hadn't starting talking to him over an emperor penguin at the aquarium. He volunteers, twice a week. That's where she was told to find him.
Annabeth sits down at the desk and carefully opens Jason's laptop. It whirs to life and she types in the password to boot it up – it honestly wasn't that hard to figure out, with how often she's over here and how often he talks about his girlfriend Piper. He's with her now, fortunately.
Piper's nice, she thinks, pulling a flash drive from her pocket and plugging it in. She clicks away at the keyboard with practiced quiet, ears open carefully as she digs around through files and folders. Spotting a PDF with Jupiter Industries in the title, she drags it into the flash drive, making herself a copy.
They went on a double date once, and she'd be hard-pressed to deny it hadn't been fun doubleteaming the boys over – well, just about everything. It hadn't been difficult to pretend she was having a good time. Because she was.
The laptop pulls up a lot of nothing thus far, but there are a lot of places to keep digging. Even something as simple as an email, from father to son – there's no telling what she might find inside. She figured out his email password already, too, so she pulls it up, skimming over subject lines and other addresses. What she really needs is to get her hands on his phone sometime – she can play the whole 'oops, took your phone by mistake!'
They have the same phone. A move that wasn't an accident at all – as soon as they discovered what type of phone Jason had, Annabeth was issued the exact model. Probably for exactly those reasons.
She spots his father's name, his email – the email's already been opened, and she drags the cursor to click it.
Footsteps. Coming down the hall.
Annabeth signs out of the email, exits, pulls up another tab – some menu to a terrible restaurant Percy mentioned the other day. She yanks out the flash drive and curls it in her palm just as someone stops outside the door.
"Annabeth?" Percy's voice, groggy, followed by a yawn.
She looks over her shoulder, a bright smile on her face. "What are you doing up?"
He makes an incomprehensible noise, then sweeps into the room. "Why are – why are you in Jason's room?"
She recognizes all the signs of Percy Jackson in a stage that's not quite awake but not quite sleeping; he's fairly observant, despite how he appears, so she's not surprised he has the capacity to question why she's in here. She stands up, shoving the flash drive in her pocket in the same movement. "Just wanted to look something up, but I didn't wanna disturb you."
He grins at her goofily. "As if you could ever disturb me."
Her heart jumps. It startles her, though the only sign of it is internal. Her heart doesn't do that. It's not allowed to. Percy holds out his hand, and as the girlfriend, she takes it. As Annabeth Chase, infiltrator of lives, she's struggling. "I hate my shifts sometimes," he sighs, pulling her in and wrapping his arms around her.
She complies. He's warm. It's not the first time he's held her by a longshot, but there's a comfort in there she's never felt before. "You're the one who chose that line of work." And really, she could be talking to herself there.
He snorts, kissing the top of her head. "Just coo and tell me I'm a hero."
She snorts, and it surprises her how genuine the sound is. "Not happening."
"Worth a shot." He pulls back and steals a kiss. Her heart jumps again, even as she returns it. "I'm going back to bed," he starts, and he sounds a little nervous. "Come with me?"
She shouldn't. She should duck back home, coordinate with Frank. Look over that file while he sleeps – meet up with him later. "Not all of us need to sleep a million hours to catch up after work." Naturally, she remembers passing out for twelve hours straight after a particular rough week in San Diego. Slept through three different alarms.
He can tell she's hesitant, but he doesn't try to make her feel bad about it. He just smiles at her. "Will you at least be here when I wake up?"
"That's a creepy question." The phrases rolling off her tongue today, seriously. As if she hadn't done just that in the past with less innocuous intent. As if she hadn't been the creeper more ways than she can count.
He sputters. It's stupid – how she can say one tiny thing, and he just reacts, so lively and open. He's so moronically earnest. He smiles easily, and she's starting to realize that she does things now and then with every intention of making him smile.
It's not hard. Sometimes all she does is walk in the room and his face lights up like she's a goddess come to life.
Maybe she's done her job a little too well.
Percy sighs dramatically. "Two days of only quick texts and phone calls, and she doesn't even want to stick around when I'm finally home."
She shoves his arm. "Don't be an idiot. I'm staying."
And she does.
And when she's curled up with him, his arms wrapped around her, she finds it far too comfortable a position. She never sleeps easily when she sleeps over, but today is the first time she feels safe. Annabeth looks up at his face, his mouth wide open with the occasional snore breaking the silence, his hair a complete disaster after the long shift and immediate transit into bed –
Get close to Percy Jackson, get into Jason Grace's life. That was all she had to do.
Watching him sleep, there's a smile slipping on her face, and she actually reaches out to brush the hair from his eyes. He's so stupid. He's an idiot who makes too many bad puns, and maybe he's a good cook, but he still has a pillow pet on his bed, his organization is nonexisent and his space a disaster, and he plunders through life far too impulsively. Far too trustingly.
He trusted her without batting an eye.
She could kill him in his sleep. Right now.
Except for the part where she couldn't at all – because something has gone terribly, awfully wrong, and he's grown on her. Like a fungus. She likes the guy.
Maybe a little too much.
This is, most definitely, not part of the job.
so this is an au that was started on tumblr, probably about a year ago by this point! i'll slowly be archiving what's been written up onto ao3/ffnet now too, as a sort of collection set in this universe c:
it'll jump around a bit - it wasn't originally written with any set structure/set chapter plan, but i just kept writing more parts to it, so here we are!