It's Percy's birthday! I swear, I've literally been drafting odes about that in my mind…but none are fit to publish . (Sorry for the length of this A/N, there's slightly more important stuff afterward the next paragraph.)
In true tradition, this has been my checklist for today: 1. Wear my CHB t-shirt and blue everywhere else. 2. Spend the better half of my day reading Percabeth fanfiction. 3. Spend the second (and not that much worse) half of my day discovering Pinterest pictures about Percy Jackson. 4. (Have a mini mid-life crisis because I forgot Percy has a trident and SPQR tattoo because I READ/WRITE TOO MANY MORTAL AUs.) 5. Finally get myself to write this oneshot over the length of, like, a week.
I picked Tratie to replace Percy and Annabeth because they're the only big ship to exist since PJO, meaning that wouldn't mess up the canon too much. So this is pretty much the same world, and only the star couple will have most of the differences.
Enjoy!
Annabeth was rather surprised when she learned who her roommate was. She studied the bored-looking Lars in his toga and repeated, "My room number is 605, and Piper McLean is staying there?"
"That's what I just said," the Lars moaned. "You freshmen get the top floors, and rooming arrangements are random, and can only be changed after extreme situations. What else do you need to know?"
There were a lot of things, like what exactly those situations could be (she didn't remember the Code of Conduct mentioning anything), but she grabbed her key from the table and answered, "No, I'm good."
The Lars' gaze slipped past her to the few other early students behind Annabeth, and she headed for the staircase. She still had no idea what to make of all these Lars floating around New Rome, which she knew all about, but spotting them hovering everywhere, even on the campus, was a bit of shock. She accidentally walked through one on her way to the public library and got a thorough scolding.
She readjusted her binder with New Rome University's Code of Conduct. Malcolm even had the nerve to make fun of her for keeping the booklet, but there were the most obscure rules that could get her kicked out of class, and she wasn't about to throw away her acceptance because she forgot something about this Roman world. This was unlikely, and she hardly needed it anymore, but then again it would look bad if someone caught her throwing it out.
She absentmindedly wondered how Piper would react to that as she hiked up the floors. There was another room behind the lobby on the first floor, but Annabeth didn't get to go inside before the receptionist Lars called out in her direction. The rest of the floors were lined with numbered wooden doors, decorative tissue paper and Polaroids glued onto some, a sad pile of balloons on the one floor's carpet, and Annabeth was pretty sure she was hearing several boy bands' music reverberate through the walls. She yanked her suitcase up the last flight of stairs and decided maybe Piper would be okay with it since she didn't even bring much for her quests, but she was also one of few Greek demigods that visited New Rome. Her boyfriend used to be praetor of the Camp, though, maybe she was a big fan of the place.
She wasn't able to accurately guess, because Annabeth wasn't included in the prophecy, and no one else got much interaction with Piper Mclean or her friends. She'd seen Piper's t-shirt morph into a chiton across the campfire, shared some sniggers with the other campers when Jason gasped that she was hot, and then admired the freakishly organized Roman army that descended upon them not too long after, but she had no idea what the girl was like. The sixth-floor hallway contained a few milling, nerve-wracked freshmen biting their lips that waved and fixed their hair, waiting for friends or roommates. Annabeth took her things to door 605, which already appeared occupied.
There was laughter inside, and shadows cut across the strip of sunlight underneath the door. Normally she would've been first, but Piper had probably remained in the area since the war. Annabeth took a deep breath and knocked.
"It must be her," someone gasped, and she pushed the door open herself as footsteps padded over. Heading towards her must've been Piper, with feathers in her swaying braid, barely sewn-together shorts, and the smell of pine trees. Someone else with a small explosion of light hair and dimples was getting to her feet by Annabeth's bed, swiping at the college-distributed comforter, and tucking her hands together.
"Hey," Piper said with a nervous half-smile.
Annabeth tried not to immediately psychoanalyze them. The Athena cabin had been doing studies on the monsters the Seven had to or would face, and Annabeth found herself wondering what kind of motivations they would have to be a part of this war. "Hello, I'm Annabeth." She held her hand out to shake, which Piper automatically took up before firmly gripping.
"Piper," she said, putting her hand on her chest. "And this is Hazel."
Hazel stuck out her own hand with a somehow polite air and then tiptoed around them. "Hi Annabeth, sorry for sitting on your bed, I'll leave you two alone now."
She took a moment to stare at Hazel's irises and her almost Southern accent. "It's fine," Annabeth answered, but Hazel pulled the door behind her anyway.
"So, Annabeth," Piper curled one mud-splattered combat boot around the other. Annabeth wondered which adventure the mud came from. "You're an Athena child, right? Or legacy?"
"Um, child." She pocketed the key and placed her binder on the unoccupied table. She briefly glanced over Piper's table, which was already a tornado of candy wrappers and stray pencils and dirty socks. "Camp Half-Blood doesn't have legacies."
"Right, but it's possible." Piper nodded, clearly nonchalant about the mess. She didn't mention she was an Aphrodite kid, either because she didn't want to broadcast that kind of thing or guessed everyone knew.
"I've lived there for a long time, and I haven't met any legacies." Annabeth was talking to a literal celebrity in the demigod world, and this might've been becoming an argument.
"I mean, are there seriously no Greek adult demigods? I've been wondering that for a while. Roman mythology isn't terribly worse."
Annabeth thought of the herd of monsters chasing Thalia, Luke, and her up Half-Blood Hill. "I think some are in hiding, or live here."
Piper flopped back onto her bed. "Fair enough. Besides, we're adults now."
Annabeth nodded. She was finally old enough to be accepted into college, and it'd been something she dreamed about since she was little. "What's your major?" she decided to ask.
She shrugged. "I really have no idea. And no, I am not majoring in fashion."
Annabeth hoped she didn't give Piper's outfit an obvious look-over or appear like she definitely agreed.
Piper snorted, catching her. "I'm sure you know your major already. Is it something crazy like quantum physics?"
"No, though it is interesting to read about." She smirked. "I'll be majoring in classical architecture. Since I'm in New Rome and all."
"Ah. I bet you're amazing with math."
She sighed at the reminder of all the courses she would have to take, but there was a small commotion in the hallway.
Katie called into the room, "Pipes? Are you coming to dinner?" Annabeth spent most summers with her, and she somehow sounded the same. Like nothing had changed since they roasted marshmallows and sang bad songs.
"I'm coming!" Piper jumped up and then glanced over at Annabeth. "Don't tell me you're missing our first dinner. I need to prove to Leo someone was a match for my roommate."
Annabeth believed in the theory that the Seven were pretty much normal people, but she could not be included in their "chosen" popstar circle.
Outside the door, Katie, the uppercase "h" Hero of Olympus, was wearing a purple Camp Jupiter t-shirt and hugged Piper. A gardening spade stuck out of her back pocket. "Hey. Annabeth, you're her roommate?"
She nodded and shook her head at Piper. "I'm fine. Thanks." She gestured to Lou Ellen exiting another room.
"I'll see you, Annabeth," Katie called after her, and Piper waved.
"Annabeth." Lou Ellen immediately raised her eyebrows when she got close. "You're living with Piper?"
"It's weird. Katie or Hazel would make more sense."
Miranda, Katie's sister, and Lou Ellen's roommate left their room with smudges of dirt on her arm. "Maybe. How is it?"
"I've only met her for a few minutes. There's nothing to say."
Lou Ellen shrugged. "Fine, let's go to dinner. You know a Lars was scolding me for summoning pigs in the lobby?"
"Why were you summoning them?"
"Why not? Besides, they seemed to get rid of the faun that was bothering me for cash." Lou Ellen grinned.
"That's a great way to make an impression here," Annabeth told her.
"I think you're the most concerned about that," Miranda answered lightly. "Except the professors will all love you."
Either that or they were irritated because she challenged them too much.
Or, though she didn't know it yet because she kept to herself to school, arguing too much with other students.
-line break-
Her first course was honors calculus. Except when she skimmed the textbook, it didn't seem to be much different from the self-study she did in AP Calc.
Still, she wanted her degree, and she showed up ready to learn or at least review. She had a notebook and five sharpened pencils if the professor preferred that and her fully-charged laptop if not, and a folder for her materials. Annabeth joined the giggling, excited flock of girls out of their dorm building and into the campus.
The main building was a beautiful structure, hewn from marble and lined with elaborate frescos, tall windows showering light into the front hall. Fauns, demigods, Lars, and more mingled around her as she passed by the unending row of lockers to get to the mathematics wing. Fountains sprinkled at corners, masterfully crafted swords hung on the wall, and occasionally colonnades leading out to grassy courtyards would replace a corridor. She passed a roomful of teenager demigods straight from camp, some still in their armor, probably taking the entrance exam. Finally, around the corner from a bathroom with signifying mosaic togas and stolas, a feminine tunic, Annabeth arrived at her classroom.
It didn't look much different from the pictures she saw on other universities' websites: wheeled tables with smooth faux wood tops, a long whiteboard, and the lights on in the morning. She was the fifth person to be there—some upperclassmen advised Piper to get up early for the best pancakes. Because she was the one who automatically made friends, a hero of Olympus or not.
Annabeth sat down on the second row and made some polite conversation with their teacher, Ms. Twain (no relation to the author) a Mercury legacy with a stutter, and the other students streaming in until a gong was rung.
"Alright, tha-that's mostly everyone, we can just begin-in now." She held a sheaf of papers and stacked them against the desk. "I'm Ms. Twain, welcome to honors calculus."
"I'll see you later man!" Leo Valdez's voice called from the hallway, and a guy slipped through the door.
"Sorry, I'm late," Percy muttered, keeping his head low, and sank down the row behind Annabeth. She remembered he was also from Camp Half-Blood, the sole inhibitor of Cabin Three who spent a lot of time around water and talking with Chiron. He was fairly mysterious, crazy with Capture the Flag, and Annabeth was a little surprised he got into New Rome University, much less this class.
Ms. Twain seemed to be stern, but she just cleared her throat. "It-It's okay, don't let it hap-happen again."
Annabeth turned back to the podium after exchanging a brief nod of recognition. She stuck the syllabus in her folder as Ms. Twain told them the basics of the course. "I'll be introducing new con-concepts every class. What I teach w-will need practice, and you'll have plenty of-of it. This course also includes learning the history be-behind these methods, and a lot co-comes from our ancestors, so I hope you've gotten familiar with Latin by now." She finally cracked a smile.
Annabeth heard a rushing sound, almost like rumbling, and a chunk of plaster separated from the wall as water ran into their classroom. Her slightly jumping leg stilled.
"Is that from the bathroom?" A Venus kid howled as she yanked her sparkly backpack from a chair and tried to keep her leather boots from touching the water.
"Wha-wh-what's going on?" Ms. Twain yelled, her podium dislodged from the stream.
Annabeth clutched her folder to her chest as she dodged from the flow and wildly looked around. A few students had run out, others were standing in shock, and maybe two demigods were trying to stop the flow. Percy had his dark eyebrows furrowed together, and a moment he appeared slightly nervous as water sloshed over his shoes and onto his jeans. Except he didn't seem concerned about the toilet water. He treaded the few inches of water like it was air to Ms. Twain and muttered, his eyes trained on the hole in the wall, "I'm so sorry I promise I didn't mean to do it; I'll try to fix it."
Annabeth did not mean to speak aloud or sound so incredulous. "You caused this?"
Ripples ricocheted around the water as a few students spun around. He looked caught in headlights, his deep green eyes flickering around. "Um. Yeah," he said softly.
She knew his powers were a little wild, which was probably the reason he had so many talks with Chiron, and maybe campers got splashed if they were visiting the beach at the same time as him, but Annabeth never imagined he could summon enough water to burst through pipes and infrastructure. The Romans had invented a ton of those. Now people were staring at the lack of dampness on his pants' cuffs, the sudden cutoff in the stream, and the way the water seemed to be gravitating to him almost.
"Is an earthquake going to happen?" A Roman demigod muttered nervously.
"What?"
"Aren't you a son of Neptune?" he stared at him, and suddenly Percy was also attracting wary looks.
"No, Poseidon. I'm a Greek transfer." Percy's eyes flickered to Annabeth again, like she was evidence of that, or he wanted her to confirm it. But it caused the Roman demigods to relax slightly.
"Wel-well, I guess we're not having class. You can ret-return to your d-dorms to cle-lean up." Ms. Twain sounded flustered, and Percy with the clean clothes only received some more curious and irritated glances as everyone began sloshing out. Annabeth stuffed her things back into her bag and followed them into the large puddle that was gathering in the hallway.
"I think New Rome's going to be even more excited that we have so many Greek transfers," Percy muttered, and Annabeth realized after a moment he was talking to her. They did spend five summers together, and climbing the rock wall as chunks of molten lava pelted them or manically shrieking as they held aloft the winning flag were undeniably bonding experiences.
"Speak for yourself," she couldn't help grumbling.
He raised his eyebrows in mild amusement and mostly shock. "Wait, did you want to have class?"
"Not really." Maybe just a little. "But I need math courses for my major."
"It's just one day. Are you majoring it…," he actually shuddered, "math?"
"No." She knew she was going to get teased by him; she could feel it. "Classical architecture."
"Seriously?" He raised his eyebrows again and then realized she wasn't joking. "Athena kid," he muttered.
Annabeth couldn't help retorting. "And why are you in college?"
"Is there any reason I shouldn't?"
She simply smirked and lifted a soggy shoe up from the puddle. "With the obvious ones aside."
"Are you saying I should live as a hermit or that college students don't make messes?"
Annabeth tried to hold back a snort as she thought of Piper's desk. "You're disrupting a serious learning environment." She immediately wanted to swallow her words.
Percy did not make any effort to prevent himself from exploding into laughter. "You…you," he was exaggeratedly hunching over, "call this a serious learning environment? I saw a unicorn in the theater wing!"
She decided to ignore that entirely. "Our class was rather professional until you interrupted it."
"I didn't mean to interrupt it," he grumbled, in that low tone he used whenever someone asked questions about his powers. "I just realized I got scheduled into a class I definitely don't belong in and the creepy secretary told me my courses could not change."
"I'm sure everyone will realize their grave mistake soon."
Percy leaned against the wall. "But you're still mad, because you won't be able to get your degree without a single advanced calculus lesson?"
Well. Camp Jupiter was sort of her pit stop. CHB was not trained to handle adults, she could hardly get anywhere in New York nowadays without a phone, and her stepmom was definitely not letting her adult illegitimate step-daughter lounge around the house. "No, of course I'll still be able to get it." She just preferred a complete set of lessons, like she was supposed to have.
"Fine." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to make it up to you." He shifted his eyes away and clearly did not use the right amount of bluster when he mumbled, "I'll buy you gelato."
His sea-green eyes found hers for a split second before darting away, and a pink flush was creeping up his neck.
Annabeth's automatic instinct was to say, "And how does that make up for anything?" but she couldn't refuse gelato. There was probably a law against that. And now that he was looking back at her…
"Sure," she answered, trying to not revel in how his shoulders dropped in relief. "How many flavors do I get?" she asked lightly.
Percy gawked. "Um, one? I'm not trying to buy you, because I have no money."
She suddenly found herself agreeing, "I did the math, there's definitely a drop in the value of drachmas to denarii. Obviously, drachmas went out of use, but they should still be worth something."
Percy stared at her. "Are you saying that because I had no money before, I have…negative money now?"
She tried not to laugh. "You promised me gelato, and I'm getting at least one flavor."
"I didn't swear it on the River Styx or anything. I'm serious, who would I even be in debt to?"
Annabeth sighed and decided to cave. "Ask a Roman demigod for a reputable place to exchange coins."
"Well, believe it or not, I'm rooming with Jason Grace," he announced.
Annabeth saw Jason sitting alone and pawing through a picture book of Greek/Roman mythology earlier at breakfast. Clearly, he did not bother with sleeping in or waiting for Percy. She couldn't imagine a single similarity between him, the mystifying slack-off, and the glorified hero of Olympus. "And I got Piper," Annabeth replied. "So when am I getting my gelato?"
Percy's groan was cut off from the ringing bell. Annabeth looked at her soaked Converse in horror. "I don't have time to find out, tell me tomorrow!" She yelled behind her as she ran to grab her locker's spare pair of shoes.
-line break-
The shop was pretty much everything Annabeth imagined. A glass storefront with curlicue front, wrought-iron bistro chairs bronzed in the hazy afternoon light, and a small display of gelato in gorgeous color.
"Ciao, what would you two like to have?" A sophomore- or junior-year Euterpe (muse of music or lyrical poetry, Annabeth's brain helpfully supplied) demigod with a singsong tilt to his voice asked politely behind the marble-topped counter.
"Blueberry," Percy said with certainty. He didn't even glance at the other options, which were also labeled in Latin for the Roman dyslexics. ("That's discrimination," Percy said earlier about the street signs.)
Annabeth was wondering if that flavor was authentic. A few moments passed as she tried to remember the few blogs she'd read about New Rome's food, and then Percy hissed, "Annabeth?"
She shook herself irritably; she did not want to be that Athena cliché that was always spacing out. Even if that was probably only known in their cabin. "I'd like the vanilla, please."
"Really?" Percy complained as the Euterpe demigod lifted the scoop from the warm-water tub.
"It's made with Madagascar vanilla, and actual beans taste different." And yes, vanilla was generic and defaulted, but there was nothing wrong with it.
Percy glanced at the signs dubiously, and the server cleared his throat. "Cone or cup?"
"Is that a chocolate cone?" Percy asked.
Annabeth finally decided not to point to the sign, or mention all that pretty much any SAT prep book recommended learning Greek and Latin roots for vocabs. He would definitely respond with, 'Those exist?' when they would clearly be a big help for their special entrance test. "The cup for me, thanks."
Their gelato was held out. "How would you like to pay?"
Percy sighed. Annabeth looked at him expectantly as fished out five denarii after squinting at the propped-up menu. He took a huge bite out of his and mumbled, "Garh! That's cold!" Annabeth turned away from the mess of blueish ice cream behind his perfect white teeth and caught a small smile over the counter.
She wisely licked the wrinkled-creased scoop and felt the thrill of being right and pure deliciousness melt down her throat. The vanilla beans were sharp against the luscious, wonderfully spiced creaminess. This was worth enduring Percy's company.
Once the glob of ice cream began warming up in Percy's mouth, he sank against the countertop with a dopey grin, being terribly theatric as usual. The other customers' cups of espresso and the tub for the scoop startled pleasantly bubbling.
"Percy," she managed out, trying to not stare in amazement.
He blinked and straightened. "Oh," he said, noticing people forcing the lids back onto their coffee cups or edging away. "Sorry." Fizz lined up inside the ice cream scoop cup and disappeared into the air.
This guy has been alive for eighteen years without flooding a city, Annabeth realized. "Why are your powers beyond your control?" That was usually the first telltale sign of the unclaimed.
He ran a hand through his hair and headed for the door. "They're usually okay. Nothing really happened unless I was around big bodies of water. I guess I'm a little jumpy here," he said, glancing over at her to make sure she kept up.
The Athena in her immediately drew up theories that he never truly felt "claimed" without siblings and a mission as a Poseidon child, that he was simply the first Big Three kid in a new era (there was a whole war Travis had to fight about that) and was left with the mantle, or that new environments drew up foreign feelings which would point his abilities in different directions.
She felt a hand on her arm. Percy was peering at her and then withdrew his hand once her expression cleared. They were easily strolling back to campus, and it was the kind of afternoon Piper might remove herself from Jason to run outside with her camera for. Annabeth's riding jacket (because New Rome had unicorns) was getting a little warm, and she still had a ton of British poet biographies to read up on, but this moment was nice. She tried not to stare at him licking at the melting streaks of ice cream and felt a little mortified that she was mentally dissecting him like a lifeless lab specimen.
"Dude," Percy cut in. "What?"
She blinked like he just called her Leo. "I'm just seeing, uh," she scrambled to come up with something without taking too long, "the lack of a brain in your head." She smirked at how smooth she sounded.
He raised his eyebrows. "That's nice, Annabeth."
"No problem." She quickly moved onto her half-melted scoop.
"Well, I'm sure calculus class is enough torture for you, and we made up for the first class with our study halls, and I actually paid for these, so I don't believe I owe you anything."
She looked up. "My shoes still smell weird."
"Why'd you stand in the water so long, then?"
She didn't want to admit defeat and just glare, so she grumbled about a certain person being in her way. "I guess you don't."
He threw out his arms, almost hitting someone who shot him a dirty glare. "I feel free now."
"Congrats." She noticed some ice cream dripping out from the bottom of his cone onto an SPQR sewer cover in the sidewalk and tried not to gloat with her cup. "You better eat faster."
Percy gasped and stuck the end of the cone into his mouth, sucking vigorously and then munching it up. A Lars noticed the bright-blue splotches and frowned deeply at him.
"Yes, ma'am." He grinned when he finished.
Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"I was going to make a point," Percy mused about that for a moment. "Though it doesn't seem so impressive now. Can we spend time together again?"
She blurted out in mild embarrassment, "Are you transferring to my blueprint design class?"
"No!" He pulled back and paused before giving her an unimpressed stare. "You know what I mean."
She traced one finger over the rim of her cup, deciding to skirt the obvious question. It didn't actually sound too absurd. "When?"
"Well, if I ever get to drop calculus, I'll have just two morning classes, and I go for a swim after lunch. I'm also usually napping for the remainder of the morning."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow afternoon?"
He grinned. "Your ice cream is completely melted." She scraped back the few tiny frozen chunks as he brought himself back to the topic at hand and nodded. "Definitely."
"And what are we doing?"
"Um. I don't know. I'll figure it out."
"Sounds fun."
-line break-
They never ended up doing much. He suggested they sit by the fountain, head to the baths (obviously, a hard pass with the nude pools, but the steam room was great), drive out to the Bay Area—anything in that trend. She tried to find time in her schedule: the afternoon after acing a test, the third study hall she had in a day. And then they sat around and talked, teasing each other, and or him whining about all his courses.
Which he continued doing now, in the first-floor atrium where students and maybe the occasional lost unicorn gathered to study (but minus the unicorns, and sometimes the students). Light hung across the round wooden tables in large swatches, there was loudest murmur that could be tolerated by the Lars, and a Demeter or Ceres child had gotten plants to grow out of the walls and decorative side tables for globes or diagrams. Most of the Greek students—or at least the batch of nostalgic, awkward freshmen—tried to make a habit of gathering at the corner table every week to hang out. Lou Ellen and Miranda joined her, but they knew better to interrupt her studying. If Percy was aware of that, or simply how annoying he naturally was, he didn't show any sign of it.
Annabeth had her textbooks stacked up and switched pens every few lines as she jotted down notes or annotated her earlier notes from any lectures. She naturally tuned out all other noises (getting all As in a house with two hyperactive five-year-olds was not easy) unless she was stretching for her ADHD, except she still managed to get interrupted. An elbow slid onto her notebook paper.
Percy grinned and then inclined his head towards the textbook. He said something Annabeth was tuning out, and she lifted his arm from her notebook and unceremoniously dropped it next to his Medicinal History worksheet. He sometimes shared snickers with Leo if some suspicious-sounding plants or chemicals outlawed as drugs today appeared in all the long primary documents he had to go through, but otherwise, Annabeth was starting to believe he was purposely inflicted with all the worst courses. Though he deserved it, because he simply picked up her textbook, held it up inches from his eyes, and then waved around a crookedly drawn diagram the previous owner had left.
"My textbook," Annabeth snapped, cutting into her tune-out for a second.
"Oh, sorry." Percy placed it back where it was and then held up his hands. He glanced at his homework for a moment and scowled. "I think my professor forgot how to spell. It's palm, not balm."
Malcolm interjected, "Percy, I think balm is a word…" and Annabeth began tuning them out again. She crossed out something she wrote in class and used green to note, "Correct formula for speed (mph) by hydrogen (in tons) results in two extra days of the mission." And then she felt a finger tapping her shoulder.
She slowly turned to Percy and glared. "Yes?" she asked, dragging out the "s" like she was the villain in some cheesy movie.
Percy blinked. "Woah, I was just going to ask a question. Is balm a word?"
"Yes."
Piper leaned in, taking in Annabeth's expression. "She's working."
"So I am!" Percy flung up his paper.
There was a mad dash for it to see whose reflexes were the fastest, and Clarisse, on the way to the sparring field, reached over and plucked it from the air. She looked at the sloppy name amidst the crumples and dropped it immediately.
Travis snorted. Percy gave him an indignant stare. Travis simply shrugged. "Isn't it obvious? He's doing it on purpose."
Annabeth couldn't help it; she was invested in this conversation.
Percy straightened, forgetting his worksheet. "What?" he asked in a startled voice.
"Percy wants her attention," he said in a "duh" tone.
"Huh? No!" Percy spluttered, pushing back from the table like he could run away from the laughing and this conversation.
Annabeth glanced around wildly and noticed even Piper was covering a grin with her hand. Traitor.
"Is that supposed to explain your personality?" Katie asked dryly, looking up from her doodles. Leo whistled ear-piercingly.
Travis leaned across the table, smirking. "It worked, didn't it?"
She raised her neat eyebrows. "A mistake on my part."
"No. That's not true," Annabeth all but commanded, using the same tone Ms. Twain did to give homework. She quickly eyed Percy, who finally came alive and nodded along.
"I'm not trying to annoy her. It's just that can you believe the courses I got? This is literally an economics and robotics class!" Percy complained, waving a textbook. The majority of the table quickly lost interest. "I don't want to design robots based on tax rates or something and then calculate the effect of the robot!"
"You need to go to the main office," Travis sighed.
"I have, three times, and I can't change anything."
"You could flunk college and work at that burrito store. I've always wanted a friend discount," Leo suggested helpfully.
"I can't cook," he responded flatly. "You can have a wiped table discount."
Leo frowned and went back to fiddling with the elaborate contraption before him, and Annabeth took that as a sign to go back to her studies. She distantly felt a gaze dance over her but didn't see anyone looking in her direction, so she finished her notes and pulled out her Indigenous Architecture homework. The table jiggled slightly under her from someone's leg or being pushed around, and Annabeth had to stretch out her arms every few pages, but she easily got back into the rhythm.
Her notes were getting highlighted and boxed when she felt a prod on her arm. She revolved her head to see Percy pointing out the blunt end of a pencil and waited for the moment, but he only guiltily held out their calculus homework. There was already a giant chili/ketchup stain and tiny doodles of Lars, and an erased answer in the first few lines. Annabeth gestured for him to repeat what he just said.
"Can you help me with this? I bet you finished it during a break."
Actually, in the first few moments of lunch. She looked at his earnest face and spread the worksheet between them. She could think of nothing other than to say, "Do you know how to do the first question?"
"Um, not really?"
Her eyebrows furrowed. "Then why didn't you pay attention in class?" she asked sharply. She clearly was not made out to be a teacher.
Percy smiled stiffly. "I did, I just mostly forgot how."
She repeated the basics of Ms. Twain's lecture. "Good enough?"
"Um. Sure."
Annabeth went back to her notebook and waited for the scratch of his pen on her paper.
Percy gave her a bizarre look, but got to work on the problem. She felt rather appreciative of that and kept an eye on him, hunched over the work in the few brief seconds he wasn't asking her some absurd question. His attention span ran far shorter than hers, and he was stealing Grover's hat or telling Jake someone signed the cast on his butt, so she got the opportunity to thwack him with a binder a few times.
"Annabeth," he finally gasped, when a couple of people had left and the light was dimming by a few shades. His chin rested on the table. "I'm done."
She'd stopped tuning him out some time ago, but she wrote out the last couple of measurements on her blueprint before holding out her hand. "Let me see."
Percy frowned before scooting over and managed to mess up the delicate arrangement of her pens and sticky notes just by leaning over. Annabeth held the paper up to the light.
"Not bad. I can't read some of the answers, but the rest are correct."
Percy, who had folded his hands and was clearly bracing himself for something, blinked. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," she responded, fruitlessly trying to smooth it out before she picked up her pencil again. "I'm sure Ms. Twain will be impressed."
"Stop smiling so much, Annabeth," Travis commented noisily, "or people will think you're the one who's impressed."
She looked up with her patented glare. "Yeah, except I had to do most of it," she deadpanned as Percy hmphed.
The flap of Piper's messenger satchel clicked as she pulled it down. She went over to Annabeth and held out her watch. "Come on, you can study in the dorm. I've been in this place for too long."
Leo slid his elbow over the table and taunted, "Why, Beauty Queen, can't stand being the millionth wheel?"
Jason really deserved the title of an honorary Greek, with all the visits he was making back and forth and his knowledge of all the minor gods, but he didn't get a seat. He was adored by everyone and the left-out newbie Greek demigods needed something to be stingy about. Piper clearly was not a big fan of this fact, but she rolled her eyes and said, "No, it's mostly just them." She waved in Percy and Annabeth's direction.
"Excuse me?" Percy squared his shoulders indignantly. "What did we do? She has been non-stop studying."
Piper raised her eyebrows and then gave them one of those Aphrodite "I'm mysteriously thinking about something you don't know" looks. "Uh-huh. Annabeth, are we going?"
She ran a hand through her hair and stared at all the textbooks she hadn't bookmarked yet. "Yeah, I still have a speech to write. I should be able to practice someplace without getting flooded." She crammed everything into her bag.
"You're welcome!" Percy yelled.
-line break-
The room to the dorm unlocked and Annabeth pressed pause in alarm.
But it was just Piper, wearing her nice plaid tunic with a leather jacket slung over her shoulder, appearing pissed. "Annabeth? You were here the whole time?"
"Since classes ended." She turned the documentary on the television off and gestured to the five pages of her notebook that lifted up slightly from the etchings of her handwriting.
Piper kicked off her combat boots. "You were supposed to go out with us."
"Did you have a nice time?"
She groaned. "We couldn't wait that long. I knew you were studying, but why can't you just tell me you're busy?"
"I'm sorry. Didn't I say so?" Annabeth fiddled with her remote control.
Piper bit her lip. "Hey, if you don't want to spend time with my friends, you can tell me."
She got up to reorganize her bed, she was getting restless again. "No, I don't mind, Piper. I just keep forgetting to show up."
Piper relaxed slightly. She sank back into her rumpled comforter and toyed with a feather. "I think you're too busy. It's your freshman year!"
"I have lots of free time. I can hardly get into any clubs without a ranking in the Camp Jupiter army." Annabeth picked up her pen again.
She scowled. "That's not my point. We'd just appreciate it if we could see you more often."
"Sure. Just remind me next time." Now that Piper was content, she slid her headphones back on and continued the black-and-white documentary.
Piper messed around with her braids a bit longer and then dragged her feet to her desk, pulling out her sketchbook and an apple.
They did their work in the quiet peace Annabeth came to associate with the Athena cabin, excepting sudden shouts of "Eureka!" or any weapon work. Piper was at the window and eyeballing all the dorms with snuffed-out windows, a couple of textbooks left open on her desk when Annabeth's watch began ticking aloud.
Piper swung around, immediately alert. "What was that?"
She stopped organizing her highlighters and grabbed a cardigan. "My alarm. Percy wants to show me these bioluminescent fish at a store that only opens at night."
Piper hiked up an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes and grinned with mild frustration. "Yeah, don't miss that."
"He's been bugging me about it all class. We had to do partner work." Annabeth turned and smirked. "Besides, I'm done with my homework. I might as well try some glow-in-the-dark jelly."
"Why is your time management so good?" Piper moaned as she picked up another textbook.
"I spent my afternoon on homework," Annabeth teased. "Bye!"
-line break-
It was Saturday morning. The day Percy announced they would do that stupid demigod dare to act like mortals at a nearby fair he found.
"You better not be doing any homework on Saturday when it'll be freaking crowded but that's a reasonable time, right?" he argued at lunch. She always finished her homework on Saturday and had Sunday free (though more studying wouldn't hurt), but because he was bending for her, and he had swim team practice on Sunday, she agreed to go.
"We need to go on a shopping spree and wear baggy jeans and eat a heap of cotton candy but no, I am not touching the Ferris wheel," he had carried on.
So Annabeth finished all her projects and pre-assigned assignments beforehand and found a scummy-looking pair of baggy pants. She knew Percy's fatal flaw was loyalty and he would never miss a gathering with friends or family for the world, and he would go all-out, so she figured she at least owned a horrible outfit to him.
He wasn't at breakfast—surprise, surprise, and Annabeth didn't bump into him during her morning run, but it was fine because they were supposed to meet up at lunch. She caught up on her studying, almost successfully coerced Piper into watching an optional architecture documentary for her course (Jason was on one of those diplomatic trips to CHB) before Piper stole the remote and picked The Office instead, so Annabeth stalked the ancient artifacts corridor of New Rome U and wished Katie would donate Daedalus' laptop there for the public to try out. And then she was almost running late to lunch, at a grimy little sandwich shop perfectly within their price range, except Percy was either late by an hour or he didn't pass by.
Annabeth finally stopped sipping on her iced water, picking at her crusts, and aiming a poisonous glare at the doorway to find the nearest fountain. But her Iris message did not go through.
It wasn't hard to guess where he'd most likely be. In the slogging pace of her baggy jeans, she cut down the path to all the athletic fields. A domed building with squiggly white lines dancing over the windows stood behind the tennis field.
Percy always found it weird that the observatory was located over the pool. "What if that giant telescope falls and breaks through the floor someday? We could get crushed!"
She passed the reception, with the small trophy case (there was really no one to compete with other than themselves) and the Lars there demanded her to use a locker.
"I don't want a key. I'm not swimming."
He narrowed his eyes. "Then what exactly do you plan on doing? Locker rooms are not for peeping, missy."
Annabeth forced herself to breathe out and not call him something offensive in return. "I just need to drag someone from the pool. I swear on the Styx it'll be ten minutes."
"You know, that kind of promise doesn't really hold here—"
Annabeth strode into the girls' changing room before he could finish the sentence. She quickly averted her eyes—everyone seemed to be lined up before the full-length mirror in their panties or bikinis and modeling them—and speed-walked until her sneakers squelched slightly on the tiled floor of the pool room.
Annabeth swept her gaze across the pool, and a few swimmers flinched. There was no familiar mop of dark hair or that idiotic shark-finned bright blue cap of his bobbing down a lane, or his broad shoulders sunk underwater. She seriously hoped he could not turn invisible underwater.
"Hey, you're not supposed to be here!"
Annabeth turned around and spotted the lifeguard. He was a son of Volturnus, a river god, from her Psychics class, and though he was perspiring slightly in the humid room, he smelled like running water.
"I'm looking for Percy, captain of the swim team? He's tall, probably 5'9, green eyes, black hair—"
"I'm aware. He hasn't been here today," he responded curtly. "Now I need to ask you to leave."
"Fine. If he shows up, tell him he should expect to be buried under cotton candy." Annabeth turned around as his jaw dropped.
"I don't sense him in any freshwater, either," the lifeguard called softly after her.
She gave him a nod and didn't spare any of the dressing room girls or the Lars receptionist a glance as she left.
Annabeth had cleared up her Saturday and gotten everything ready, and she couldn't have her plans messed up. She was also partially concerned about his well-being, of course.
She didn't bother checking the academic buildings. The food hall was empty of him, and so were the unicorn stables, though she expected that since they always cursed at him in Latin, apparently. Annabeth asked around with his friends, even the Roman ones he got along with exceptionally well, and Leo was on a teasing frenzy. But no one had any idea.
She finally resorted to using one of her precious underrated drachmas again at the same fountain to contact Jason. Her best bet was that Percy ignored the message. Jason was in the middle of sword-fighting with an extremely bloodthirsty Ares kid as he yelled at a satyr to leave the dryads alone and Connor danced alone in the background, strumming blues on a banjo. When she had gritted out Percy's name, Jason disarmed the Ares kid and bent over laughing.
"Only…you…would get so…worked up," he had panted through his breaths. His eyes grew huge and he spun around. "Seriously, don't mess with Poison Ivy—ahh!"
Jason hurriedly muttered, "Good luck finding him, I know Percy's fine" before running off to save the satyr. Annabeth swiped away the mist before the Ares kid could come closer and leer at her. Clearly spending too much time around both camps was not good for his health.
A rotation of guards from Camp Jupiter walked across the New Rome border in full armor, and Annabeth remembered the time. It was only 3 pm, and it was highly plausible Percy was sleeping in.
She spun on her heel to get to the dorms, and then sharply curved to get to the guys' building. The Lars was sleeping, and some boys were playing a card game or sparring on the couches, but everyone looked her way when she entered.
She simply glared and marched on towards the stairway, which was easy to find since this place reflected the girls' dorms, except it was littered with energy drink cans and a pair of dirty mismatched socks.
"Whoa, whoa, where are you going?" Dakota slurred, flopping up after her, with the ever-present glass of Kool-Aid in his hand.
"Room 612, I believe."
He chuckled in a distorted sugar-high pitch. "You can't be here. It's the boys' dorm, okay?"
Too late, Annabeth remembered the rule. The Lars was advancing on her, and she cared more about her perfect record more than Percy's stupid oversleeping self, so she dashed outside. And then she sighed at herself.
"Tell Percy to wake up and get his butt out here!" she yelled back inside, but none of the card-players or sword-fighters stirred.
The next and probably most obvious choice was the ocean, once she exhausted everything inside the campus. Annabeth headed to the main office to sign out and hopped on a bus to get to the beach. The beach's mortal lifeguard had not seen Percy or anything that could've been the Mist stirring.
She ran down the shoreline and yelled over the sea, "Percy Jackson, get here right now! I don't care what you're doing!" The same waves continued breaking over the shore, and from the weird looks the other beachgoers and the lifeguard gave her, she didn't run far enough from them.
The wisest Athena kids knew to quit when it was over, so she fed the bus ticket machine another one of her denarii and headed back to her dorm to change and grab some textbooks for the library. But she couldn't fully let it go.
Annabeth flipped the page of her physics textbook and picked up a few new colors to copy the full-page diagram into her notebook when the librarian, pushing a trolley past, murmured, "Hey, we're closing now."
She blinked. Time always flew when she got to study, undisturbed. The still-pale sky, the only residue of the summer, illuminated her path back to her dorm. A few of the lights were already on, and she distantly looked over the windows of the guys' building.
Annabeth turned and hurried inside her own building, speeding up the stairs as her legs burned. She stopped at the top floor, her chest rising impossibly fast, and turned to the end of the hallway. If the rest of the guys' dorms was arranged like theirs, then from the hallway's window she could pick out Dorm 612, which she learned from Piper and Percy.
There was a set of light blue curtains drawn together to almost make the Superman symbol. Percy couldn't see at all through the dark, but he also couldn't stand too much sunlight (the Big Three rivalry was seriously cursing him), so he mentioned usually leaving the curtains at half-tilt. Which meant he most likely was sleeping at this moment.
Annabeth glanced back at the dipping sun. If she went there at night to beat the crap out of Percy…no one would be awake to stop her. Though any yelling and sound would be problematic.
Annabeth calmly went back to her dorm, where Piper sat up from the couch, rubbing her eyes. "I'm so bored. Everyone's doing something without me. Can we go to the beach?"
"No, thanks." She grabbed her darkest clothes from her closet. "I'm going to head to the kitchenette to make some coffee, do you want to rummage around in the fridge?"
Piper threw one long leg over the couch and then the other. "Sure, why not. Hopefully someone thought to leave a half-eaten bag of marshmallows again."
The kitchenette on their floor was pretty dusty since no one really used it except for that one Ceres kid who stress-baked bread. Annabeth fished out a large sleeve of instant coffee packets from the cupboards while Piper hunched into the fridge, poking around at everything.
"Wow, there's a leftover slice of peppermint birthday cake, a moldy banana—gross, and…a candy bar. Yay." She unwrapped a corner and sank her teeth into it. She quickly hid it beneath her back when someone walked past.
Annabeth filled a mug with warm tap water, and then her water bottle. "Don't you have your own snacks?"
Piper shrugged and said through a mouthful of chocolate, "Leo ate them all."
"We can go to the store."
"To get ripped off and then have my food get stolen again? Nope."
Annabeth stirred the powder in. "Fine. Are you done with your homework?"
Piper glared at her. "Friends don't do that to each other, Annabeth."
She shrugged and tossed the empty packets into the trash can, tucking a few extra into her pocket. "Then what do you propose?"
Piper was busy lifting out a mostly whole loaf of bread from the fridge and grinning. "It's banana bread!" She spread a thick layer of Nutella on three slices. She chewed one thoughtfully and then said, "We could always check out a weapons shop, or drop in on one of Camp Jupiter's training practices."
Annabeth tried not to grimace at all the sugar Piper was consuming. "I don't think the guards will let us in."
"Nah, Terminus loves me." She held up a new slice. "We'll fit right in with SPQR t-shirts."
Annabeth frowned. She did not spend eight years at CHB and lack a rightful sense of pride about being recognizable as Greek. "Let's go shopping for weapons."
It was a good use of time, especially when she found many things fitting to hit Percy with. But beyond the life-sized polar bear toy that muffled all sound as it suffocated the victim ("with cuteness," Piper commented derisively), which Annabeth could not fit through a single doorway in their building, there was nothing to keep her conspicuous. Piper tried out a slew of new blades because the visions her original dagger kept showing her generally limited the occasions she would use it, but none of them fit. They left the disgruntled store owner with a couple dozen knives sticking out from the wall and decided to check out the archery shops.
There was a range for them to test out the bows and arrows, and since Piper and Annabeth were equally bad with archery, a fierce competition began. A Hunter of Artemis (or Diana, Annabeth supposed) with half of her body in a cast raised an eyebrow at their aim and continued hitting bull's-eyes irritably. Annabeth thought Thalia and the rest of them should've waited for her to heal instead of running onto their next mission as she seemed to be a valuable asset.
Piper goggled at the bow propped between her casted arm and the speed she was pulling arrows from her quiver and cocking them, which finally got Annabeth ahead. Not too long later, the store owner politely told them they shouldn't need any archery equipment so they left the Hunter behind with annoyed looks at the owner.
They were already late for dinner, so they ran to the campus hall. She ate her food with slow deliberate bites as Piper interrogated Leo on his date with Calypso, and watched a movie with Piper until her roommate fell asleep.
Annabeth finally got to wrap on her leather jacket over her black t-shirt, fished a bobby pin from her accessories bag in case she had to do some lock-picking, and methodically sipped her coffee as she paged through her calculus textbook. When most of the partygoers had disappeared, and the moon was hanging like a haze in the sky, she darted out of the building.
Annabeth kept her footsteps light on the stairs and avoided any litter with the guidance of those rowdy still-awake people with their lights left on. The Lars' toga was rumpled from sleeping in the chair, and he snored softly. She shouldn't have been wary of noise, someone was singing, another sobbing, and there were maybe fifty drunken fights going on at the same time.
She finally tiptoed onto the sixth floor. The lights of the floor were on the dimmest option. There was an exploded taco inside the microwave of the kitchenette, and someone had fallen asleep over a drum in the hallway. A record player was sprouting some classical music. Annabeth went up to Room 612 and triumphantly knocked.
To her surprise, the door of Room 613 opened, and a guy with a thick five o'clock shadow squinted at her. "Where's the pizza?" His deeply rimmed eyes darkened. "Hey, you're a girl!"
The man on the drum straightened. With great difficulty, he strained his eyes to see Annabeth, and his jaw hung loose. "How did you get here?"
"You're not supposed to be here. You know the government can see you, right?"
Annabeth did not bother to worry about that, but these guys could tell on her. Her mind raced. "I'm a Hunter of Artemis. I hate each and every one of you, so I have every right to be here."
The Room 613 guy frowned. "Um. I guess that makes sense."
"Right," said the guy in the hallway fell back to sleep.
Annabeth decided not to knock again and simply yanked at the door handle. It opened into darkness, and Annabeth realized at the last moment there could be two naked dudes in there (the Zeus cabin was probably not first on Jason's favorite places to sleep), but she could only make out one figure under rumpled sheets. Since there were a cutesy blue squid nightlamp and empty blue Coke bottles on the nightstand and the Camp Half-Blood beaded necklace draped outside of the blanket, she figured it was Percy.
He had completely covered himself with the comforter, except his chin that was propped up on his pillow so he could breathe, and his long limbs were tangled across the twin bed. The rise and fall of his back made her stop in her steps, and she had given up shaking him awake and hitting him with a lecture when she met the possible witness next door.
She tugged his blanket back from his head slightly so it wouldn't slip over his nose or mouth, and smirked at the patch of drool on his pillow. She felt her status as his friend tremor as she watched him sleep, so before it could be upgraded to stalker she turned and softly closed the door behind her.
-line break-
Percy had been gone the whole day. Her Iris message didn't go through because he was somewhere on Mount Olympus, gathering magical Styx water from a spring. For the one and only Aphrodite. And quests did not permit any communication.
Annabeth did not know which question to ask first; why this water was important or why Percy was the chosen hero (especially since that sounded awfully like the story of Psyche), but Percy had no idea. He woke up in an idyllic wild-flowered field on Mount Olympus, and Aphrodite had delicately lobbed a jug at him and gave him no choice. She probably had realized he was nothing like Travis when he dropped the jug and ran, but he never found the elevator as she marked out the path to the spring with thorny rosebush walls.
It wasn't that difficult for him, Aphrodite even invited him to tea afterward (there were blueberry chocolate chip muffins) and mentioned a ton of ominous things about his love life that Percy promptly forgot, and everyone back at Camp Half-Blood pretended to he came back from the dead when he asked for Blackjack. But Annabeth still felt guilty that she was storming across the campus as he tried to will some Styx water into the jug without filling his mind with all the pain and despair inside, so she planned a nice picnic for him by the Little Tiber. It was only right.
He had an absurd obsession with blue food, so she coaxed the dining hall chefs to make sandwiches with blue cheese and blueberry pie and refused to use dye in the brownies so she tried to whip up her own buttercream frosting in the kitchenette. It ended up very grainy and watery, and the blue was dark enough to be mistaken for black, so she decided to bring it in a separate jar.
It was getting a little chilly, and had Annabeth slightly rushed her presentation on Corinthian columns in the last few minutes before they had to meet up, and the bag of Saran-wrapped and Tupperware-boxed food was heavy, but it was fun. She didn't bother with a blanket—there wasn't room, so they sat back on the grass, watched little ripples chase each other across the Little Tiber, and stomached the slightly irregular seasoning of the chefs.
Percy smelled heavily like chlorine because he spent the week making up for a missed practice he slept in for, and his shoulder was next to hers. Annabeth waited until he pulled up his legs to stretch hers out because the usual contrast annoyed her. He moaned about the fair they didn't get to go to and then happily poured the frosting over the brownies. To his credit, he crunched softly.
"I think you're being too nice. Did you think I was dead?" he teased.
She frowned. "No. But I was worried." She was supposed to be mature enough to be the longest-reigning counselor of the Athena Cabin, and there she was trying to guilt-trip Percy after a quest he had nothing to do with so she wouldn't sound bad.
Percy looked away for a moment. "Sorry about that." He took a big bite of his sandwich like he was avoiding saying anything else.
"It's fine. I really just wanted to show off my baking skills."
Percy snorted too loudly. "Well, thanks for the privilege of being your one and only taste-tester."
"You're welcome," she pretended to snap back. "I'll just eat the rest of the brownies, then."
"Hey, I'm the taste-tester!"
They giggled and teased each other like schoolgirls for long enough before flopping back into the grass. Now Percy's head was next to hers. He lifted a big slice of blueberry pie and caught the flopping tail in his mouth.
Annabeth rolled her eyes at all the exaggerated sounds of pleasure he made as he ate it. She scooched away, but Percy was clearly conscious enough to scoot after her while chewing.
"You know, from my angle my legs look longer," Annabeth muttered victoriously.
Percy rolled his eyes and poked her calf with his toe. She lifted her leg for a game of footsies, which Annabeth won because she kept the perfect posture and pressure while he tried to finish his slice of pie.
And then Percy brought up all his classes again, so Annabeth simply listened to him rant and indulgently smiled. They were all they should be, and so was this time. She loved it when her plans came together so well since the sun was melting into the lake and everything looked rosy.
"And you're an idiot?" Percy asked in a cheerful, curious tone.
Annabeth checked herself before she could nod along. She raised an eyebrow.
"You weren't listening to me, so I thought I might as well create a memory I'll bring with me to Elysium."
"Like you'd get into Elysium." Annabeth felt something cold against her side. Percy put his palm face-up, and little white flecks fell into his hand. He winced at the cold and let them slide off into the grass. They got up and hurriedly collected their things, while the sky thickened in flurries.
"Hail?" the other demigods around them were sputtering in shock.
The specks of ice were nesting in Annabeth's hair, slipping against her cheek. She stopped in the middle of running ahead to the closest school building. Hail could be slippery if it melted against the warmth of her body, but it didn't leave a damp trail on her face.
Percy spun around, blinking. "Annabeth!" he called. "Let's go inside."
She shivered and inclined her chin, but he didn't move. Annabeth held out her hand and when a few frosty chunks burned into her palm, she willed herself to not dust it away. She blew on her other fingers and picked up a silver. There was a thin shiny ray of light that revolved as she turned it, and more importantly, it wasn't melting and dripping down her hand.
"It's not hail!" she called out to the few people still outside. Percy was at her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to push her indoors.
"It's not?" he asked in confusion.
Annabeth cupped her hands towards the sky, hissing at the cold. She pushed inside and dumped the mound of…something on the table. Percy paused as if waiting for it to shrink and defrost, but it simply left a thin circle of condensation around it.
Lacy, an Aphrodite demigod, who was wrapping a soft pink shawl around herself, opened her mouth slightly. "Is that…" she murmured softly, coming closer to the table, and then looked downtrodden. "Oh no."
"What is it?" Percy demanded. Annabeth stared at the pile hard.
Lacy ran her hands through her hair. "They're sequins," she said.
That could only come from one person, who coincidentally was just meddling with Percy's life.
Annabeth imagined Aphrodite cackling in Mount Olympus. A ton of ominous things about his love life.
Annabeth stood up and cut around the table, brushing against Percy's outreached hand, and ran out into the frozen sequin rain. "Annabeth!" Percy called, but she yelled back that she would be fine and ran in the direction of Camp Jupiter.
The camp was excluded from the unnatural disaster, but most of the demigods had stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to gawk. A few questions went through to Annabeth, but she ignored them all and climbed up Temple Hill.
"Oh no." she heard Percy's voice behind her.
She ran around before stopping at the temple bedecked with flowers and made with pink quartz. The altar smelled like perfume.
"Venus," Annabeth said lowly. She heard Percy's footsteps stop in the doorway. "What are you doing?"
The air fluttered and thickened with the smell of roses, and then Venus sat down on her gold-filigreed altar in a swan-feather dress. "Yes, Annabeth?" she asked innocently.
She only then realized this was not the best idea. Annabeth looked back, but Percy looked literally frozen. "What do you want with Percy?"
Venus chuckled, like glass scraping over more glass. "Doesn't everyone want something from him? Don't worry, for now he's fine. Getting an education on the history of this temple. Annabeth, there's so much potential in him to be a hero. He could've won both wars. If Neptune and Juno ignore it, it is only right I get the chance to help sharpen his abilities." She gestured to a gaudy golden bowl filled with water and rose petals, which were crashing into the sides of the bowl. "But there's more to that, just like there's more to you storming my temple."
Annabeth hated having conversations with gods, not excluding her mother. You could never be the one to know everything that was going on. "Is there a reason why you're trying to ruin my plans?"
"Because you want them to happen so badly, Annabeth." Venus threw back her head in laughter, and her almost whitish platinum curls raced down her back.
She shook her head. There had to be something about love.
"You Minerva kids, you care so much about knowing. Sorry, Athena." She bared her shiny teeth in a smile. "Because Minerva children aren't supposed to exist in New Rome, are they?"
"I do," she shrugged, "and I'm Greek."
"Oh yes, in Camp Happyland you were the poor little runaway and best friends with Chiron. Here, you're no one. There are many ways to establish a reputation, Annabeth."
She breathed in and out slowly. "Do not 'help' me," she said through clenched teeth.
"No, I simply don't have the time to work through all that!" Venus twittered. "I just need you to help hone Percy, and your careful planning and working to become the golden girl just gets in the way of that."
"How?"
"I can't just tell you that!" Venus exclaimed like she asked for a dirty secret. Though Venus would probably hand those out without hesitation to any good-looking man. "I'll leave you the rest to figure out for yourself."
Swan feathers swamped Annabeth's face as Venus disappeared. Percy stumbled and charged over to Annabeth. "What happened? I was forced to learn all about—"
"The history of this temple," Annabeth finished dryly. She strode out to the hill, where they could see the storm was gone. "Nothing more interesting than that happened."
"Let me guess," Percy raised his eyebrows. "Ominous warnings about your love life."
"Yup," Annabeth responded lightly.
"Right," Percy answered. "Did she curse you for running into her temple?"
Annabeth flicked her eyes away. There was no explaining that away, and she knew Percy was aware of that too. "No, I think she wanted my attention," she sighed.
Percy wasn't prying, but his eyes were giant, neon-lit signs reading, "Go on!"
She was not mentioning the explicit details of her deepest darkest secret. She probably heard Katie saying once or twice that whatever went through in a godly visit stayed there. "Venus just called me a prude for wanting things to go a certain way."
Percy gave the Neptune temple a strange glance as they passed it, and then looked at her sideways.
She glared back at him with the force of the burning sun.
"I'm not saying anything, Annabeth." They arrived at the campgrounds, and the demigods had already recovered enough to be suiting Hannibal in armor for the battle practice, but they still gawked a little. Back at the University, Reyna was pacing around the courtyard in her cloak, armor, and ballet flats out of all things, creating flurries of sequins. Though she had given up the title of praetor to the new generation of Camp Jupiter newbies, she deserved the cloak more than anyone else. Reyna was gesticulating tensely at all the witnesses while Argentum and Aurum growled, and then her head snapped up at their approach.
Her gaze slid over Percy briefly, like she was uncomfortable. "Daughter of Athena," she demanded without falter. "We saw you entering Venus' sacred temple. Has she given you any sign for explanation?"
"Should we make a sacrifice of repentance?" A worried-looking Apollo (probably Roman, from his gaudy toga) kid questioned.
Annabeth cleared her throat. It was a little late for that. "Yes, she didn't mean anything by it, and no, I don't think so."
Reyna arched her eyebrow. "The goddess of love just decided to gift us some sequins?"
"Dude," Percy hissed into her ear. "I can use these for my vintage fashion design class!"
Annabeth tried not to roll her eyes and nodded seriously at Reyna. But they needed a more plausible explanation, so she clarified with the truth, "She wanted our attention."
Reyna didn't relax, but a normal person might've. "Of course. We shall clean and garnish her temple with these." She scowled slightly at the many sparkly bits clinging to the hem of her cloak and turned to direct people into doing it.
Percy immediately scooped a handful. "She's not getting this back," he explained defiantly. "I'm flunking that class."
"Which class are you not?" She muttered, but she was mostly trying to hide her shock at his pleased grin.
"Hey, I'm doing pretty well in biology when I'm awake!"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You want to use her sequins?" she asked, a little curious.
"Well, I definitely did not enjoy the interruption, but why not? We got a ton anyway."
"Right."
"You know what, Annabeth, since you're asking, why don't you help me with my project? I need to make pants from the 'roaring twenties' and a shirt from somewhere else and I don't know what."
"I did not offer, Percy."
"I just heard you say so!" He poured more sequins into her hands and pushed her in the direction of the art room.
-line break-
"Feta cheese or hummus-y noodles? No comparison," Percy stated factually as they examined the menus of Old Rome, an expanding restaurant with a mix of Italianized Roman and historical Latin recipe books-based dishes. Jason recommended they try it out before it got too popular, and since Annabeth had just received her first paycheck from her internship at New Rome's best (and only) architecture firm, they decided to skip the campus store Cup of Noodles for once.
But really. It was also a chance to make up for all the things they've missed out on, and for freaking out about that.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "It's pasta with chickpeas. The literal translation of 'pasta e ceci.'"
"Sì," their sleepy-looking waiter, son of Somnus (Roman god of sleep), slurred in a terrible Italian accent. His cheek was about to drop onto Annabeth's tall menu.
"Yeah, chickpeas, which make hummus." He leaned in to smirk. Percy smelled like scented candles, a sure since of godly intervention, and she was pretty sure she saw a shard of sequin in a hole in his jeans. Nothing bizarre had happened recently, and he was in a pretty good mood, so Annabeth hoped he turned Venus down as her pet hero.
"What about this globuli? It's fried curd cheese with honey." Annabeth tested the old term on her tongue, hoping she did not sound like the rest of the waiters and hostesses at Old Rome, but Percy snorted.
He shook his head. "Greek food is clearly superior. Is there any pizza here?"
The waiter rubbed his eyes hard. Annabeth personally thought him as a waiter would be as rational as getting Percy to sit in a tiny office cubicle for eight hours. "Uh," he mumbled and pointed at their menus. "Maybe it's there?"
"You're partially right, olives are really good."
Percy pretended to gag. "I meant everything except those."
"You know that the traditional diet and today's Mediterranean food are supposed to be well-balanced and full of nutrition, right? The lower class, like us, would often have figs, bread, and whatever vegetables we've grown. And a lot of wine too," she gestured to their glasses of water. A passing waiter shot them a suspicious look that clearly said they were underage.
Percy looked lost in thought for a moment. "Chiron was my history teacher," he retaliated smugly, "and he said the Greeks did eat a lot of cheese. So there."
"Yeah, with their vegetables!" Annabeth threw up her hands. Either she was getting too influenced by Piper, or she was on her way to becoming another Athena cabin cliché: fantasizing about living in another era.
Percy suddenly gasped. "Isn't this a hamburger?" He flipped the menu around and showed it to Annabeth and the waiter.
The waiter yawned hugely as he responded dreamily, "Yeah, the Lispus Prophecy thing."
"I think it's called Iscicia Omentata," Annabeth whispered to Percy.
"Same thing. I'm having that and a blue Coke, please."
Annabeth raised her eyebrows at his manners. She'd already ordered some bucatini, garum fish sauce with some barley bread (the process for the sauce involved sun-drying and fermenting of many parts but all the bloggers raved about it), and stuffed dates for dessert.
Percy started fiddling with his napkin once the waiter left. "So. We've gotten through a quarter already."
"Looking forward to exams?" Annabeth teased.
He shuddered. "My robotics professor told me not to come. I can't wait for my new schedule."
Annabeth had been skimming the Rules and Guidelines handbook once (when she was seriously bored) and found it someone in small type that those who missed the deadline to actually apply for their courses or assumed their scholarship would "cover it" could declare their major and make special arrangements to get all their core subjects. Annabeth suspected he would've given up a long time ago or missed the starting date without her attention, but he was now on the slow track to changing some classes.
"What about your fashion design professor? Didn't he love your work?"
"Yeah, but he gave me a very long speech on plagiarism."
Annabeth tried not to cackle, as she and, later on, Lacy, only gave a small contribution to his final product.
Percy's Coke arrived, not blue, and he scowled before pulling a bottle of food coloring from his pocket. "I knew this would come in handy."
"Seriously?" Annabeth asked.
He carefully fixed the lid on again. "Yeah, Riptide likes having some company."
They'd attracted some looks while Percy was swirling his fork around in his glass to mix in the dye, and he suddenly leaned in to whisper, "We're twinning, Annabeth."
They were both wearing flaming CHB shirts and jeans. The rest of the restaurant was dressed formally, coming straight from work or work or the evening. The only exception was a huddled couple in a corner booth wearing armor, most likely Camp Jupiter escapees. "Yeah."
"Jason says it makes me look like a walking target for monsters."
She could recount being swamped by many miscellaneous creatures during the Capture the Flag games. "If we were ever running against the sunset, we would blend in," she decided to play along. But her shirt and necklace were the only things that reminded her of home.
Percy's eyes widened as a platter bearing his hamburgers and Annabeth's pasta arrived. And then he blinked. "Are those pieces of bread and orange…pulp?"
"Since you two are underage," a different waiter with a trim bun enunciated carefully, "we've switched out the wine with orange juice, or grape juice for the topping. Both the meat and the bread has been soaked in OJ."
Percy stared furiously at Annabeth, like, I told you so. She winded strands of wonderfully seasoned, ricotta-smeared hollow bucatini and smirked.
The waiter left with a huff at their loaded silence and Percy carefully picked up a chunk with his fork. "I don't think this should be called a hamburger."
She gestured to her mouth full of pasta, grinning with her lips sealed.
He chewed and looked vaguely pleased with it. "Hm. It's peppery," he mused after he'd properly swallowed.
Annabeth tried not to look too relieved, she didn't think she could afford a pizza or his utter disappointment. She offered him a forkful of her pasta, which she immediately regretted because he studiously stole her food while finishing his own for the rest of the meal.
They didn't get a window seat, because apparently, that was more expensive. From a purely architectural point of view, New Rome wasn't too hard on the eyes. Percy resorted to gazing out from the doorway, even though it looked like he was mooning over every newcomer.
"I never thought I'd get into a university," he commented absently. They could see the pointed roof from here, the low gleam of the marble. It was a lot fancier than the Big House.
Annabeth laughed to herself, and admitted, "Me too."
"I still can't believe I got a swimming scholarship." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Their team really needed a leader. Have you heard about Camp Jupiter's navy?"
"A million times coming from you. I'm not exaggerating."
"Seriously. That's not the right kind of upbringing."
"Right, they should engage in more maritime battles."
"Hey!" He drummed his fingers on the table, fidgeting a lot already. He lifted his plate. "A toast to your internship."
Annabeth tried not to snort too hard.
"Unfortunately, I'm ahead of you."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I plan on joining a pod of dolphins. I just have to find one."
She laid the sarcasm on extra thick. "Wow, Percy, you're so prepared, I have no more security in my life in comparison."
He grinned, but he suddenly looked away and palmed the back of his neck. "Actually, that was an excuse." He turned back, looking serious. "Just like owing you one."
Annabeth held her breath for a revelation, maybe something Aphrodite made him do.
He muttered, "That was me asking you out. And my dolphin pod plan; I was trying to cover up…wanting a future with you here."
Annabeth's mind flashed for a moment. She felt surprise overwhelm all her thoughts for a moment before they came pouring through. Did I hear him correctly?
Percy stared back, his eyebrows raised slightly. His fingers twisted at his shirt.
She gave him an awed smile. "I'd need to think about that, Percy," she recovered slower than she wished. "Since you missed the part about the gelato being a date."
Percy flushed a little. "I couldn't bring myself to ask."
"Fine." She let herself look back at the time they've had together. "I would like that, too."
He returned her with a small grin. "We'll still be friends, right?"
"Why?"
"Because there's something I want to do." He leaned over and hovered his hand inches from her cheek.
Annabeth understood this suddenly a lot faster than before. She let her face touch the pads of his fingers and tilted over her still-steaming pasta until they were forehead-to-forehead.
Percy's lips caught hers and she breathed in his salty breeze taste and it was over quickly. His fingers remained curled in her hair.
"Yo, what was that?" Leo's voice suddenly echoed around the restaurant.
They spun to see the whole gang of their friends filing inside, hilariously outfitted in matching riding jackets and skintight pants, and gaping at them.
Travis brought his hands slowly in a clap, grinning like a clown. Miranda looked like she might faint.
The hostess, a daughter of Victoria, snapped to attention at the new surge of orange t-shirts, and the realization that the Heroes of Olympus were visiting Old Rome. (The restaurant, though they've been to the actual historical grounds on their quest.) She shoved the menu in Frank's hands and boomed that they could have anything for free.
Leo's eyebrows hiked up eagerly while Frank automatically tried to hand it back. Jason curiously sidled over and commented, "You know, if you want to make it authentic, there should be couches for people to lie on and eat."
The hostess nodded eagerly and snapped her fingers at a waitress, who scribbled that down on his notepad. "Well," she said in that tone which made everything into a command, "we have this great cheesecake special from Ancient Rome named Libum. It's made from ricotta and Vesta herself confirmed it was sacrificed to her."
Frank checked himself from nodding at her ordering, while Lou Ellen blurted, "Who?"
"The counterpart of Hestia," Hazel replied, eyeing the menu with wide eyes.
Piper was on the way to their table. "Guys. Whatever happened, I hope my mom did not get up in it. It wasn't a spell, right?"
Annabeth shook her head, and Percy flashed her a small grin.
"Oh no. Don't do that. It's like clickbait to her." Piper rubbed her forehead. "Go riding with us! Hazel got special permission from the medics."
A waiter who clearly had not been alerted of the commotion came over, whistling something and carrying Annabeth's fish sauce. The other customers held napkins up to their noses while Percy ducked behind the table. "What is that?" he wailed.
She couldn't speak because she was busy holding her breath. Piper rolled her eyes and muttered something about meat-eaters.
Leo yelled at the restaurant to forget the cheesecake and stampeded outside.
"You're finishing that, you shouldn't have ordered it, Annabeth!" Piper said in a brilliant impression of a mom.
Annabeth wasn't going to argue with that, so she sighed and picked a big piece of bread. Piper's jaw dropped like she wasn't expecting that. Percy, who had been distracted by the stuffed dates, widened his eyes.
"It was…not horrible," Annabeth managed out, though her face felt it like was stuck in a grimace.
Hazel winded her way over. "Come on, let's go unicorn-riding!"
She decided she appreciated the interruption. As Piper helped carry the bag of dates and she pawned over her precious internship money, and they headed outside to the rest of their friends, she hoped the interruptions only got better.
Yes, because I'm cheesy. There are a lot of things to be grateful for, and I'm glad I'm able to say that to whoever's reading this .
And because I also ramble too much, some food for thought. Even in my Riordanverse AU (okay, that's a contradiction), there's still the no-technology thing. Like, online school anyone? You can hardly make friends without technology, much less gain jobs these days. Anyway, that and keeping accuracy was definitely a fun challenge, I totally encourage anyone who wants to try.
Stay safe, and yeah…I'll update my normal story soon.
Au revoir,
Pride-and-loyalty