Sorry for not posting in a bit; 'rona is interfering with our writing time.

- 2019

I stood there open-mouthed in front of Chiron. "There's a Roman Camp? And you neglected to tell us this during the war? They could have helped!"

Chiron waved away my protests. "They had their own battles to fight."

I did a good impression of a fish, jaw dropped. "What kind of excuse is that? The world was ending!"

"As was theirs." Sometimes I forgot that Chiron had taught generations of snot-nosed heroes, but his never ending patience was definitely only obtained through years of putting up with assholes like me.

"Okay, okay, but why me and why now? Why not send someone nice like Will, or someone who hasn't been in physical rehab for the last five months? And why January?"

Chiron smiled. "I trust you, Percy. As for your fitness, I think that you are too hard on yourself. You have always had much more strength and stamina than most of the other campers. Besides, you are older than many of them, and prepared to both negotiate and fight your way out of a situation. Between you and Annabeth, I think that you will make an excellent pair of diplomats. You have sensible heads on your shoulders."

I mean, thanks, but he still hadn't said why I had to trek across the whole of the goddamn country in what is hands-down the worst month of the year. "Can Nico at least shadow travel us there?"

"Nico does not have the strength to take you all of the way there, no matter how stubborn he is. He also has his own battles to fight now. He never expected to survive beyond the battle, and he now must come to terms with the fact that he has. You'll manage in the car."

The car in question was a tiny, decrepit and thoroughly battered Mazda with a concerning rattle that I was almost certain was older than me. How he expected us to fit our gear and ourselves in it, and not kill each other before we got there, was a mystery. It was also a stick shift, and I hate stick shift with a burning passion.

But apart from all of that, the car was fine.

"Will that be all?" Chiron asked. Passive-aggressive bastard.

I gave my best sarcastic smile. "Yes, thank you."

It was basically dark when I stepped out of the Big House. It was also ten in the morning.

Man, I hate January.

I thought about going for a swim, but a brisk breeze was rippling the greyish surface of the lake, and it didn't look appealing, even to me.

So I wandered over to the car, to find Annabeth sitting staring at the boot with the most done expression I had seen in my entire life (tough when you've lived with Natasha Romanoff).

She was surrounded by our bags of shit, and it was rather apparent that it was not all going to fit in the microscopic boot of the car.

"Need a hand?" I asked on approach, slightly wary. Annabeth can be scary when her pride is injured.

She just sighed. "I'm the Architect of Olympus, and I can't fit these in. What use is the title if I can't even pack the car?"

"Well, maybe it just doesn't fit in the boot. We'll just chuck stuff on the back seat and hope we don't have to stop too fast and get decapitated."

Annabeth shrugged, slightly dejected, so I decided to take some immediate action, picking up a couple of large-ish looking bags and shoving them into the boot, squishing them as much as they allowed to try and fit them together. There's nothing quite like a bit of real-life Tetris to kick the old tactical brain into action.

Between the two of us, we managed to fill the boot with armour, rifles, knives and plenty of other dodgy stuff (we decided to put non-lethal items like clothes and snacks on the back seat in case of aforementioned decapitation risk).

I went to check my cabin out of habit, but there wasn't much left to check. Most of the things that made my cabin unique to me were packed away in the pathetic little boot of the car (we'd prepared for all eventualities). Even my SHIELD Kevlar was packed, even though the Hephaestus cabin had long since patched the twin slits in the chestplate of my bronze armour which now matched the newest scars on my torso.

o0O0o

It was after midday when we finally set off (we decided to stay for lunch). I volunteered to take the first shift, and it was only after we'd been driving for almost half an hour when Annabeth admitted that Luke had taught her to drive in the very car which we were in at that moment.

I didn't really know how to react, except giving her a small smile and generally being a bit awkward about it. She then broke the thick silence by asking how I learnt to drive.

I said that my mom had taught me (true: in her tiny little automatic). I left out the part where my manual driving licence was given to me because SHIELD protocol said that you had to have it, and that I'd had multiple lessons (assessments) with Phil Coulson in the passenger seat in all of his emotionless suit-and-tie glory. It's a bit hard to divulge being a former assassin to a girl you'd met at a summer camp, even if you had killed together.

The car was silent after that.

We decided to stop off in Virginia that night, deciding to split up the journey into manageable chunks rather than three eighteen hour marathon driving sessions. I shrugged as Annabeth suggested it. "Sure, just let me know when you think we're in a good place to stop and pitch up our camp." We'd brought a tiny two man tent to sleep in because gods knew we didn't have enough money to pay for motels the whole way to California.

Annabeth leaned forward in her seat, craning her neck to look out the windshield, as if she was searching for something specific. Eventually she seemed to settle down again as I pulled up in a side road, pulling on the handbrake and jumping out to do our (probably illegal) camping.

"Hold on." Annabeth put a hand on my shoulder before I could pull out the tent. "I think I know somewhere better."

She grabbed a sleeping bag and her rucksack, and I followed suit.

"This 'somewhere better' better not be far, otherwise I think we might get murdered."

Annabeth grinned, the moonlight shining off her teeth. "If I remember correctly, it's just-" she veered off the footpath we were walking along- "here."

In front of us was a small glade, clear enough for us to camp in. "Okay, this is nice, but why didn't we bring the tent?"

Annabeth pulled me to the edge of the clearing. "Because of this." She moved a plank of wood, and behind it was a small circular building of sorts, constructed of branches and stones.

"What is this?"

"A hideout. Thalia and Luke built it when they were on the run together." She dumped her bags on the floor.

I frowned. "First of all, this is very advanced for two teenagers to have built it. Second of all, Luke and Thalia, what?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "When they were younger, Thalia and Luke both ran away to escape their homes. And en route, they found me. We did some hiding. The end."

"I feel like there's a lot more to unpack than simply 'They ran away. The end,' but whatever, it's fine. May I, however, get back to the point of how the fuck did two teenagers build this?"

"Hermes is the god of travellers. Luke had this weird power? Affinity? Whatever it was, it meant that he could always build a sturdy shelter. It wasn't a great thing to use in battle, but it sure would come in handy on quests or when running away."

"So Luke is like the traveller side of Hermes, whilst the Stolls are like the thief side of Hermes?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Essentially, if you want to simplify it like that. I think the Stolls definitely got Hermes' troublemaking side." She grinned slightly. "Anyway, don't look a gift horse in the mouth; we need to rest so that we can keep going tomorrow. You don't seriously want this trip to last longer than it's meant to, do you?"

I almost said something stupid like 'as long as I'm with you, I don't care.' Almost.

But I'm a trained assassin who doesn't do sappy, so I kept the old trap shut.

o0O0o

The rest of the trip continued in a similar fashion, with Annabeth and I alternating the driving and navigating during the day, whilst we either camped or stayed in one of those weirdly convenient safehouses at night.

It was mostly uneventful, bar the hellhound attack in Arkansas and the telkhine nest in New Mexico. Small things. Kept us on our toes (and depleted our stores of ambrosia somewhat).

On our sixth and final day, we finally pulled up on a side road, close to one of the tunnels where the entrance to New Rome supposedly was. I hoped that they were expecting us.

I kind of doubted it though, because the Gods never made anything easy for me.

I turned off the main road and drove into the tunnel, keeping speed nice and low and headlights on so that they could clearly see that we were in a tiny Mazda and were not some sort of huge beast hellbent on killing them all.

I must've only gone a couple of hundred metres when a child in full Imperial armour (eagles on the chestplate and all) stepped out in front of us, waving for us to stop.

I decided to obey Fancy Dress Child, as they were holding a lance which did look rather pointy, and my only weapon probably couldn't build up the speed required in the distance we had to be effective.

Almost as soon as the car stopped and I'd pulled the handbrake on, an armoured head loomed out of the darkness. I put my window down, slightly apprehensive, but they didn't stick their pointy stick in my direction.

"What brings you to New Rome?" they demanded, hands on hips and all cocky, like any good gate-guardian.

Well, we had the right place.

I was just wondering how best to phrase my answer when Annabeth cut over me. "We are representatives from Camp Half Blood, sent by Chiron, trainer of heroes, himself. I believe that we have an audience with your leader, Reyna."

Okay, so Chiron had told Annabeth stuff that he hadn't told me. Rude.

The Roman's eyebrows furrowed apprehensively, emerging fully from the shadows. "Follow me, but if you make one mistake and harm any of our own, it will be taken as an act of war against our entire city."

City? These guys had a fucking city?

"Thanks," I gave him my best, most polished elite-circle smile. "We'll bear that in mind."

He strode off, golden armour clanking.

I followed, car at a crawl, as the light at the end of the tunnel grew and grew, until we emerged onto a tiny asphalt road at the edge of a gushing river.

And beyond the river, was a thriving city that glimmered in the wan January sunlight. Well, that certainly looked better than Camp Half-Blood ever looked from a distance (although I had only seen it from a distance with the sun shining once, and the Hermes cabin had been on fire at the time).

The Roman pointed us into a small gravel... car park? Okay, so clearly these guys were far more organised than we could ever hope to be. "If you could bring your things, that would be great. I believe that the praetor would like for you to stay for some time."

Annbeth and I groaned as we pulled ourselves out of the car seats after a long day, or rather week, of driving. We followed our guide down to the river bank, where he simply stopped.

"We hear that one of you can part the tide. We would love to see that demonstrated with the waters of the Little Tiber, if you will."

He gestured patronisingly towards the water, as if we couldn't understand him as stupid, uneducated Greeks.

Annabeth crossed her arms and jerked her head towards the greyish torrent, smirk on her face.

I sighed and flicked my fingers, feeling the familiar tug in my gut as I yanked the river out of its banks and kept it flowing in a perfect arc above the empty riverbed. I smiled at our Roman guide. "You first."

It seemed to shut him up, and he continued onwards, looking a little meeker than he had before.

Annabeth gave me a sharp prod in the side, which I wasn't expecting, and nodded as I didn't let a single drop fall. "I'm impressed, Jackson."

"Thanks," I grumbled, delighted as always to be showed off as the prize cow (look, he even does a trick!). "It's not like I was offered godhood or anything because of how powerful I am, but no, you're impressed when I part a river, whatever."

My complaint was half-joking, half-intended to intimidate the Roman next to us, and by the looks of it, it worked. The soldier's eyes bugged out slightly as he took another glance at me, clearly doubting the claims I had just made.

He hurried up a bit. "This way." He led us around a set of bland-looking army barracks, and towards the city itself.

Annabeth grinned as classical buildings sharpened as we got closer. "What is in the city? We don't have anything like this on the East Coast."

The Roman looked slightly taken aback. "Do you not have anywhere for your citizens to live? What about the families? The small children not yet old enough to fight?"

"I hate to break it to you, mate, but we don't exactly have the best survival rate. I don't think we've really had families come out of Camp Half-Blood, or at least not enough to necessitate a city. If they survive to adulthood, generally they try to carve out a living in the normal world."

He was flabbergasted to the point of silence, not saying anything before we reached a very broken statue.

"Hello!"

I jumped, and my hand went for my sword on reflex, as I looked for the source of the noise. I unsheathed my sword and swung it towards the apparent danger.

The statue tutted. "Hmm, no more of that." And without warning Riptide was plucked from my hands by an invisible force. I did my best to not look too shocked. "I am Terminus, god of boundaries. Please hand over your weapons, graeci."

A smallish child appeared with a silver tray that I didn't think was going to be big enough. I sighed and began to unhook various knives from my belt, as Annabeth opened her bag to reveal her own rather impressive collection of Celestial Bronze weaponry. Between us, we filled the tray. It took about a minute.

I smiled slightly at Terminus, and we made as if to continue, but I walked into some sort of invisible wall.

"All of your weapons, please," Terminus chided.

I opened my duffle bag and pulled out my entire disassembled rifle, two handguns and a trio of knives that I'd tied together with some twine.

I closed my bag and stood up, but hadn't even taken a step forwards before a marble eyebrow went up on the statue's face.

I groaned and took the stiletto blade out of my shoe. And the other three handguns hidden in my luggage. And another set of throwing knives that I'd picked up because they reminded me of Nat. And two Hephaestus-cabin hand grenades.

The damned border god still didn't let me through, so I handed over the entire duffle containing the rest of my weapons and the variety of SHIELD gadgets that I'd had on me when I ran. At one final glare, I also took off my watch and the garrotting wire that I'd hidden underneath it, and chucked it onto the pile of pointy things under which there was (somewhere) a smallish child with a tray.

Terminus sniffed disapprovingly as I walked past, the Roman legionnarie's face slightly waxy and Annabeth looking somewhere torn between furiously exasperated and extremely amused.

I supposed that a no-weapons policy in the city centre was a pretty good idea, given the number of people trained in their use in the vicinity, but I wasn't sure if Terminus knew that I didn't actually need any of the items I'd left at the border if I actually wanted to kill someone.

I stopped about four metres down the road as I waited for Annabeth and the Roman guardsman, who had still not told me his fucking name, to catch up.

So maybe I'd possibly done a speed-walking murder strut. It's not a relevant detail; I just wanted to stick it to that stupid talking statue.

They caught up, and I fell into step beside Annabeth, walking behind our guide. Somehow, it just felt natural. Unstoppable.

The dude stopped outside what I would have guessed to be the town hall, and knocked smartly on the ornate door, standing ramrod straight as it swung open. He then nodded curtly to whoever was inside, and gestured inside.

"Please follow my colleague for a reception with our praetor."

We went. I didn't know what a praetor was, but if they hung out in a suitably important-looking building then I didn't really care, to be perfectly honest.

The inside of the hall was in stark contrast to the simplicity of the wooden-beamed Big House back on Long Island. While the Big House was soft, warm and welcoming, this enormous lobby has floors of fine black-veined marble that was polished to a high shine, and a vaulted ceiling so tall I could barely see the roof. My battered combat boots rang out on the floor in the enormous space, and I found myself consciously quieting my tread to almost assassin-silence as we followed the next Roman, who was also clad in ornate golden armour, even in the weapons-free centre of town.

He knocked on a pair of intricately carved oak doors, which he pushed open once he'd heard an imperious female voice tell him 'come in'.

He then stepped out of our way, and we walked into the centre of another huge room, with the same white marble floor and glorious high ceiling, and a girl sitting behind a mahogany desk in the middle of it. She held herself like an empress, dressed to the nines in a purple toga and gold armour: a stark contrast to her shining black hair and eyes. The look in her eyes felt like they were piercing my soul, trying to evaluate how much of a threat I was, and ready to fight anyone. Twin statues of elegant greyhounds, one silver and one gold, flanked her mahogany desk.

I decided to let Annabeth start the conversation off, and idly wished that I'd worn something a bit smarter than combat trousers and a t-shirt. All of the Romans' pomp, circumstance, and twiddly doorknobs were making me feel a bit underdressed. Reyna raised one eyebrow almost infinitesimally, and Annabeth took that as her cue.

"We are representatives, sent on behalf of Chiron, trainer of heroes, to extend the metaphorical olive branch of peace in your direction. We wish to improve communication between the camps, so that in future years, we can work together to face serious threats."

Reyna folded her arms and tilted her head slightly, as if contemplating her words before she replied. "We have the help and support that we need all here; we have an entire legion, and reserves to spare. What use is a group of teenagers and twenty-somethings on the other side of the country to us?"

"The fact that we are across the country is a benefit, and not a hindrance," I replied smoothly. "If communication links are strong, we can keep each other updated on any unusual monster behaviour, and gain valuable insight into potential gathering threats before they happen." I had my slightly slippery business-person persona on. It was strangely nice to play the spy's old pretending game again, to put the pieces on the board and draw the cards, before sitting back to see how Reyna would respond.

She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Do you really think that we need your help?"

"Even if you don't need it now, there will come a time when you will, and then you will wish that you took us up on our offer," Annabeth replied, rising to the bait.

"Who do you think killed and toppled Kronos - Saturn?" I hastily corrected myself as I remembered that we were dealing with the Romans. "Or did you think that he just disappeared without a fight?"

Reyna sat up a little straighter, and both of the statues at her feet suddenly leapt to life, metallic bodies gleaming as they crouched slightly, their deadly nature clear. I made sure to only glance down once at them, keeping my focus on Reyna despite my (hopefully well-hidden, but I was out of practice) surprise. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "I hear that they are a truly mighty warrior indeed."

"So you didn't think to even question who had killed the King of the Titans? You just accepted the word of the gods?" You could tell that they were Roman if they were willing to trust the gods' judgements; they'd fucked me over too many times for me to care.

"I am not in the habit of questioning the beings who gave us everything that we have, and possess the power to take it all away in an instant."

I laughed at that, the harsh sound reverberating from the walls of the enormous chamber. "If you had known enough to question them, then you would know that Kronos was not defeated by the efforts of one demigod alone. We may not have your legions and endless reserves, but even a small number of us successfully defended the gods' stronghold without any help from them at all." So maybe that was stretching the truth a tiny bit: we'd had a little help from Hades.

Her dogs snarled, eyes flashing dangerously.

"Do not lie to me," Reyna snapped. "Aurum and Argentum here will punish you for it, and I am not in the habit of making any sort of deal with liars."

Annabeth stepped in again to try and defuse the situation somewhat. "What I believe Percy means to say, is that just a small number of Greek demigods were successful in defeating Kronos with minimal assistance, and indeed no help once the battle moved into Olympus itself. In fact, the gods arrived just moments after Kronos was killed, to find the ruins of their throne room and only four people."

So she was giving details that even I didn't know away to strangers, now?

"One of our fighters was even offered godhood as a result of his actions in the battle, whereas what did you do as the Titans tried to topple the entire Olympian regime?"

Okay, Annabeth, there's no need to use me to flex on the Romans like that.

Reyna's expression hardened even more. "This is slander. We fought at Mount Othrys; we destroyed his throne and the Titan Krios. Without us, you would never have been able to defeat him, and by trivialising our efforts, you are making light of the loss of our brave legionnaires who gave their lives so that you could win."

"And by trivialising our value, you are doing much the same." Annabeth sighed. "It is pointless to argue about our contributions to war when we are here to make peace."

Reyna pursed her lips. "I suppose. So you are here to make peace?"

As their discussion continued, my eyes darted around the room, trying to absorb as much detail as I could. There were a couple of couches in the corners of the room. A second desk covered in neat piles of dusty paperwork, clearly used by another praetor, but not recently. A few paintings and photos were scattered across the marble walls, one of them displaying a picture of Reyna and a blond man, both wearing identical purple togas.

Was that?

It couldn't be.

But it did make sense; I ran through everything I knew about his life pre-SHIELD. Yeah, it did make sense.

"Is this Jason Grace?" I pointed at his familiar face, with stapler scar on his lip and all.

Reyna frowned at me, very clearly confused. "Yes, he's our other praetor at the moment, but he is currently working, so unfortunately he couldn't be here today. I think the question I should be asking, however, is how do you know him? He was raised in the Camp and went straight into-" Her eyes widened. "You can't actually be a-"

"Yes." My lips stretched into a wolfish grin. "Jason's a good guy; I worked closely with him on a couple of occasions. Little bit of a stick in the mud, though." I shrugged. "It doesn't matter though; that part of my life is behind me now. I've been a bit too busy fighting Titans to be able to actually keep up with work."

Annabeth's eyebrows furrowed. "You've never actually told me what you did for work before Nico found you. Now that I think about it the only reason I know anything about your life pre-Camp is because you and Malcolm shared a dorm."

"I don't really want to discuss that part of my-"

"He's an assassin." Reyna cut off my protests at Annabeth's interrogation.

"What?"

Reyna flashed me the same wolfish grin that I had shown her. "He worked for SHIELD as a 'special agent', or rather an assassin, if you prefer the crass term."

"I hate the connotations of 'assassin'," I grumbled. "All sneaky and shooty and generally evil."

Reyna raised one elegant eyebrow. "You're saying that you weren't sneaking and shooting and evil?"

"Okay, so there was a little bit of that, but there was much more of-"

Annabeth cut me off with a wave of her hand, eyes flashing dangerously.

So she was mad that she'd just spent four days in a car with a trained assassin. Go figure.

"We are having a conversation about this later. Anyway, back to the peace treaty, are the terms all agreed?"

Reyna smiled, more polite now that she'd dropped that bombshell into Annabeth's lap. "Yes, I'm perfectly happy to agree to the terms of the peace treaty. However, I would ask that you two stay with us until after Jason has arrived back. He starts his annual leave in three days time, and honestly, I just want to see how this goes down."

o0O0o

A random Roman kid showed us to a couple of guest rooms, and told us that dinner would be in two hours (1900 military time prompt).

He then left, and Annabeth shut the door to the larger of the two rooms with what was probably a little bit too much force.

I sat down on the bed quietly and just sort of waited for her to start yelling.

She didn't yell; not to begin with. She sat down on the chair on the opposite side of the room, looking a little unsteady, and asked me very calmly, "Were you ever going to tell me?"

I sighed. "Probably. But not soon. I wanted to be sure that I had an out, in case you guys all ran screaming. I know I would."

Annabeth nodded, looking nervous for the first time ever in my presence. "I'm not running yet." She managed a weak grin. "I guess that explains the jokes that Hades made about your confirmed kill count."

I gave her the warmest smile I could muster, aware that my customary toothy grin might actually look a bit threatening now that she had context. "Yes, it does. It also explains why Nico never wanted anything to do with the contents of the duffle bag I had with me when I arrived, and why I was wearing tactical body armour during the fight for Olympus."

"The rifle," she said.

"Yes, the rifle."

"I can't believe I didn't put the pieces together." She exhaled heavily, and still refused to look me in the eye.

"Trust me, if you're not looking, which you weren't, the pieces don't fit. I was trained to hide my identity, after all."

Annabeth shook her head. "No? You're really not being very discreet?"

I smiled again. "Perhaps I just let my walls down a bit once I started to trust you guys a bit more. I didn't want to screw up: it's not like I have anywhere else to go."

"Why not?"

Now this was a story that I desperately didn't want to tell, but I was painfully aware that hiding things now could mean that Annabeth got up and walked out of the door, and never gave me the second chance that I so desperately needed.

"My powers began to manifest," I stated simply. "My team twigged it; thought I was a mutant, which I suppose isn't so far from the truth. I thought that I would either hurt them by mistake, or that someone above me in the pecking order would find out and run experiments or whatever twisted crap they do to the things that they don't truly understand. I ran."

"The truth is that I was scared," I admitted finally, after a small pause. "And when people are scared they do stupid things, and trust me; I've seen lots of scared people. So it's not glamorous or anything."

A realisation struck me in that moment like a bucket of cold water over my head. "Jason had better be good at keeping his trap shut, though. If SHIELD get wind that I'm still alive I'll probably be given a traitor's retirement."

She frowned. "They think you're dead? And why would they give you a 'traitor's retirement'?"

I pursed my lips, but continued anyway. For better or worse, she was in it with me now, and if she'd wanted out, she'd have already gone. "I disappeared during a classified operation. Either I'm dead or I defected to the enemy. Either way, I'm formally disavowed and, as far as SHIELD is concerned, dead or soon to be. By which I mean that if they see me alive, they will send a STRIKE team after me, and they will probably have machine guns. When it comes to ex-agents, they are ruthless and they don't leave anything to chance."

Annabeth, surprisingly, didn't balk at this at all (she clearly had her sensible logic-oriented head on), instead leaning forwards onto her elbows, brows coming together slightly. "Did you say that you worked with Jason? Surely, in your line of work, you need to know somebody quite well in order to work with them?"

I thought briefly back to the multiple missions that had gone to shit on purely because my team had been utterly useless, and wondered why in Hades SHIELD didn't have somebody as sensible as Annabeth running any of their ops.

"Yeah, no. But I did do quite a lot of Basic Training 1.0 with him, so I do actually know him rather better than I knew lots of other agents that I also worked with."

"So, is he trustworthy?"

That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it. "Depends. He's very reliable and a real stickler for the rules. I don't think he'll volunteer the information, but if a superior were to ask him outright if he had seen me alive, then he would say yes."

Annabeth frowned and hummed simultaneously. "I guess we'll see then."

I nodded, feeling raw and exposed before Annabeth's intimidating and searching gaze. There was more that she'd want to find out, undoubtedly, but, at least for now, we were in it together.

And strangely, that felt nice.

Thanks for reading!