In which Annabeth gets to start at a new school for the first time since she was like seven years old, Percy calls people peasants and also Piper is a golddigger lol.
Replies:
Undeath9087: I mean, they're not always cute- just sometimes, especially this one. But don't you worry I have some very painful stuff planned for the future. And Setne will have a part to play.
Jubby1905: and I mean, she's come super close to it in this one lol.
Guest: They all do it a lot- which Percy very firmly does not approve of and since she has like, zero fear of the gods she will not be afraid to call them out on their bullshit. Some may listen- like Hades, some may not.
Stop propaganda: I mean- on one hand I have a giant husky cross malamute who is a complete softy idiot who looks like he's close to a wolf, and then I have two dogs with some jack russel and some Collie and god only knows what else, one of which we often call the goat so I mean, I wouldn't call those guys wolves.
Guest: It won't be exactly the same- Circe's going to be very, very interested and I think it's a very interesting interaction. But it will not be all friendly I will say- this is a goddess who turns innocent men into Guinea pigs and who it is canon accepts kidnapped girls and makes them slaves basically. She has apprentices yes but if she wants you to stay she won't let you go easy and she won't want Percy leaving given how much she could learn.
Guest: You must wait and see, I'm currently on SOM in terms of writing.
Guest: Because A, they didn't have much time to prepare, all things considered and they were very much figuring it out as they went along, and B, given the possibilities of fighting and running a wig could easily be yanked off during a quest like theirs so Percy figured it was easier just to go as she was- since no one would be that likely to realise what she was up to even with people recognising her.

The rest of the summer seemed to fly by. Sally didn't take long to sort out the paperwork- it wasn't difficult when they had the connections they did.

And Percy had to admit, it was kind of adorable seeing Annabeth swing wildly from excited to nervous back to excited again. The other girl had no real experience of school- not since she was seven anyway, and that was long enough ago that she was basically going in blind. She had no understanding of what it was going to be like and she was insanely excited about getting the chance to be semi normal.

And when the school year officially started Sally sent Percy and Piper on ahead with Felix, and Percy had laughed her butt off when Annabeth had met the boy. Mostly because the boy had been trying to hide a penguin from Carter at the time.

The look on Annabeth's face had been comical. She'd just stood there frozen staring at him as if she couldn't believe her eyes. Which honestly made sense. Even knowing everything they all knew no one just expected a random penguin to be there.

Well, they did if they lived in Brooklyn House for long enough but that was different.

And Felix had then went on to spend half an hour discussing them with Annabeth- who knew a surprising amount about the animals.

When Percy and Piper had asked later she'd blushed and admitted that when she was six she'd been obsessed with the animals. Before she'd discovered architecture. Which at least had helped her form a firm friendship with Felix.

And while Percy, Piper and Felix headed to their home room- they got their early, which was pretty normal for them, and they quickly took their seats, Percy leaning back in her chair, putting her feet up on her desk. "Think Annabeth will be in the same home room as us?"

"Your mom will make sure of it." Felix shrugged, "That woman is a juggernaut."

"Sally Kane is indeed the most terrifying woman in the history of women." Piper agreed with a laugh, "Remember that rogue magician who managed to sneak into Brooklyn House-"

"I have never seen anyone run away so fast in my life." Percy grinned at the memories, "And you telling him he needed the toilet when he ran past you was a nice touch Pipes-"

"Not exactly a surprise though." Felix grinned, "Her daughter did attempt to solo Apophis- and nearly succeeded."

"Oh come on." Percy flushed, "I did not."

"You so did." Piper laughed, "It happened in the movie which means it must have happened in real life right-"

"I will kick your butt McLean- I did not nearly solo-"

"If you'd put him to sleep-"

"Yeah but I didn't." Percy pointed out, "Because he was a sly son of a bitch who distracted me by attacking Shelby-"

"Honestly he's probably lucky you didn't do worse." Felix looked thoughtful. "Piper, remember the time that guy from the eighteenth nome called her a brat and tried to kick her over?"

"Ah yes." Piper gave a sage nod, "I remember very well. I found it very entertaining to see how Percy dealt with him. It was... inventive."

"It was." Felix snickered, "But he was an asshole. Leonid dragged him off by his ear and spent an hour yelling about him about respect. I remember listening outside of the door while Shelby and Percy had cookies."

"I was rewarding her."

"You shouldn't have." Piper let out a laugh as she shook her head, "If I hadn't pried her away from that guy he'd have probably been stabbed with a dozen crayons- she made him bleed Percy-"

"And I did a lot worse by the time I was through with that creep." Percy smiled lightly. "That really was a good day."

And as the rest of their class started to file into the room Percy put down her feet- and when, a few minutes before the teacher was due to arrive Annabeth slipped through the door, Percy resisted the urge to whoop- and Annabeth beamed when she spotted Percy, Piper and Felix.

She made it half way across the room before a familiar girl stood up quickly, blocking her path, and Percy's eyes narrowed at that.

Ugh. Haley. Percy hated to listen to stereotypes- really she did. She knew she personally defied several- she was an actress, and at times she was very much a girly girl. But she was also a fierce fighter and she had no issues with getting her hands dirty.

But Haley? She was very much the stereotype of the classic mean girl. Percy was willing to bet that when she got to high school she'd probably be a cheerleader too. That was the type of girl she was- and she was pretty Percy could acknowledge that, with long brown waves and bright blue eyes.

And she stood in Annabeth's way, eyes raking up and down her, clearly sizing her up.

And then- "Don't bother with them." she shot a dirty look towards Percy.

She'd never gotten past the time when Carter and Sadie had shown up ready to beat the crap into her for teasing Percy over her hair. And of course that had been before Percy had made it big.

She'd tried a couple of times to suck up to Percy but it never worked- and so she resented her. After all Percy was Haley's big failure. She was almost the most popular girl in their year. But Percy was famous, and people knew that Percy and Haley didn't get along.

"Uh-" Annabeth blinked, looking surprised. "Excuse me-"

"Don't bother with them." Haley huffed the words, "Percy Kane, I get it, who doesn't want to talk to a big timer like her but she won't bother with peasants like us-"

"Peasants like you Hales." Percy called over, her lips twitching.

"Ugh, see. She's got those weird friends of hers and she won't bother with anyone else. We're not worth her time-"

"You certainly aren't." Felix waved, "Annabeth, come sit with us, I wanted to tell you more penguin fact-"

"Stop it with the penguins." Piper laughed, shoving him gently as Annabeth laughed and gently pushed the stunned looking Haley to the side and moved past her, dropping down into a desk next to Percy's.

"Mind if I sit here movie star?"

"I don't know, should I give the peasant permission?" Percy asked with a cheeky smile- which earned a laugh from Annabeth and a yank to the ear from Piper as Annabeth pulled out her schedule to compare it with the others.

And it seemed that they were pretty lucky- their lessons didn't all line up perfectly, but from what Percy could tell, she'd always be in a class with at least one of them.

That was comforting to say the least- and soon enough they were whisked away to their classes.

And word got around quickly that Annabeth was one of Percy's friends- thankfully that meant that only a few people would dare to make any comments- after all they all knew that Percy was protective of her friends.

There had only been one time when someone tried to make a cruel comment to Piper- it had especially pissed Percy off because it had been a racist comment- Percy was hyper aware of that sort of thing because she'd grown up with Julius and Carter- she'd seen how half the time people didn't even realise that they were being racists.

But the girl who'd tried to tell Piper to 'go back to the res' had definitely known what she was saying. And Percy had lost her shit with the girl, if Piper hadn't yelled at her to stop it would have probably ended a lot worse than it had. As it was the girl had gotten a broken nose. And Percy had gotten a slap on the wrist because Sally Kane did not allow her children to get punished unjustly, and whilst she'd agreed that Percy shouldn't have resorted to physical violence, after all she was capable of taking down most people with words alone, but she'd never punish them too hard for dealing with people like that.

All of that meant that before the day was out people were very aware that Annabeth Chase was off limits.

And Percy was happy with that. She wanted to make sure her friend didn't have any issues.

And no one even commented about Annabeth's hand. Apparently all of the teachers had gotten the memo that Annabeth was to be allowed to use her laptop- a brand new one that Sally had brought her specifically for school.

She was getting better at writing with her left hand but it was still messy.

And Percy really did hope that her work with Walt would help with that- but it was taking a while- lots of intricate spell work. If they got something wrong it could backfire badly and end up hurting Annabeth's hand more- and since Annabeth didn't have any pain any more they didn't want to cause her pain.

By the time the school day was done and they got back to Brooklyn House Annabeth was still incredibly happy- somehow. Percy didn't get it if she was honest.

She liked school enough. She'd openly asked to attend it after all. It helped her feel like she was still a semi-normal person, even if she was a semi-normal person who was also and actress and the living embodiment of chaos.

But she'd never come home from school quite so bright and happy as Annabeth was- oh she looked exhausted as she flopped back onto her bed, but she had that wide smile stretched across her lips.

"You don't need to look so happy." Piper laughed.

"Are you kidding me?" Annabeth's voice was giddy, "Do you know how long I've imagined actually going to a normal school?"

"I think I can imagine." Percy laughed, "Don't forget I was homeschooled for ages too. I was really happy to get to pretend to be normal."

And Annabeth shifted, pushing herself up so that she was on her elbows. "It felt so surreal- just sat surrounded by a bunch of people who didn't know anything. Learning stuff normal kids learn instead of having lessons on our history. On heroes and on fighting and archery and all that sort of stuff."

"That stuff is important." Percy declared, "But the other stuff is too. Kind of."

"You'll never actually need it." Piper pointed out sounding amused, "And neither will I-" her voice was playful, "Annabeth, you can join me in living off of our best friend forever and ever."

"Hey, speak for yourself. I will need this stuff." Annabeth pointed out, "If I want to be an architect I'll need a lot of the stuff I'll learn in school. I mean Chiron would have made sure I could take exams and things but... it's not the same."

"Shame, so what you're saying-" Piper grinned, "Is that I'll get to live off both of you- when you're a big time architect and Percy's still the hottest star around."

"You and I both know that you'd rather jump off a cliff than actually live off us."

"Eh, you know me too well." Piper acknowledged, "Not that I know what I plan on doing with my life yet. I can't believe Percy is actually more prepared for the future than me."

"What can I say-" Percy giggled, "I started my career young."

"Yeah, and you and your mom started a craze you know that?"

"I do know that books and movies revolving around mythology are the in thing- you know they're planning on doing a movie about Atlanta. I've been considering trying to get the part of young Atlanta. Think I could pull it off?"

"Of course you could." Annabeth spoke up, "You could pull off anything."

"Ah, but your judgement is a bit wonky." Percy giggled "Since you're a fan-"

"Do not mock me Percy Kane. I might be one of your biggest fans but I will beat you up with pillows-"

"Oh you're on!"