Author's note: Guys, this is my first attempt at fanfiction, please do tell me about any issues or mistake you find, in the content, the language, everything. I would love critical feedback. Thanks, hope you enjoy!
As far as Percy Jackson was concerned, everything changed the moment he walked into Annabeth Chase's class at Yancy Academy. He hated her at first, always serious, rude, a huge know-it-all, with absolutely no discernible sense of humour. He wondered how on earth she was so popular. Everybody in the whole school seemed to adore her, boys would fall head over heels for her, but she was aloof, cold, restrained. She rarely spoke more for than a few minutes to anyone, and when she did, it was more out of necessity than anything. To top it all, she was ruthless to anyone who professed their feelings for her. She would shut them down immediately, cease all contact with them and pretend that they didn't exist for as long as she could. Yep, there was no way he would ever be able to tolerate her, let alone be her friend.
The first two months they spent in each other's class were tense and cold. It was plain to everyone that they could not stand each other; so much so that the teachers would go out of their way to ensure that they wouldn't end up in a group project together, because there were sure to be fireworks. To add to this obvious enmity, Annabeth judged him for belonging to the school he had been to before coming to Yancy which really annoyed Percy. It wasn't his fault that he had not always attended Yancy, but, that was what her outlook was and nothing he did changed it.
The situation started to better itself when they both ended up in a group of about 30 students for a school play, which forced them to spend at least 3 hours together every day. The only difference from a regular school day was, neither of them had people they could hang out with. Percy's best friend, Grover Underwood was in a different item (a dance, if you really want to know), and since he was still relatively new to Yancy, he didn't have many other friends, Annabeth of course, didn't have friends per se, more acquaintances.
The first conversation they had, in which they managed to not yell at each other, was about Batman. Yep. Batman. It turned out, Annabeth was a closet geek, and Percy's favourite superhero, as he loudly announced during free time once, was the famous Dark Knight. This led to them, the next day, talking for a few minutes about various superheroes. Slowly and slowly, they became civil towards each other, learned of each other's liked and dislikes, tolerated each other and became sort of pseudo friends, as they still wouldn't talk for over 15 minutes a day.
That was why Percy was shocked when one day; Annabeth brought some water for him, when he couldn't walk. Perhaps some context is in order, he had lightly twisted his ankle, and couldn't walk easily, he didn't mind the pain though and carried on chatting away to Annabeth about The Joker. He casually mentioned that he was slightly thirsty, but didn't have any water in his bottle. Annabeth immediately slid off the desk she was sitting on and walked out of the room, leaving Percy shaking his head and wondering why that girl functioned like that. She entered a few minutes later, holding a water filled bottle, and wordlessly handed it to him. He knew that she had run out of water too, and was shocked that she would fill it up for him without being asked. Such an action by most people would be no big deal, but by Annabeth Chase, it meant something. It meant that she was beginning to care about him, even if in the tiniest of ways.
All Percy knew was, Annabeth wasn't as emotionless as she always acted. She could be made to care about someone, could be made to open up. And he made it his mission to get her to do precisely that.
That small action was the first stone laid in a path that would stretch on for miles, leading to ups and downs, twists and turns, laughs, fluff and angst. But for sure, it was a story worth telling.
Okay, again, I would request readers to leave feedback. I'll upload the next chapter as soon as I can write it. Cheers.
