Annabeth was EXHAUSTED, to say the least.

All of her projects had been under intense scrutiny from all of her coworkers, she had found herself repeating the same things over and over to prove to these old white dudes that she knew what she was doing.

"Long day?" Annabeth looked up after taking off her shoes in the doorway and saw Percy leaning on the kitchen counter, smiling easily.

Annabeth could have melted right there.

Immediately, she ran up and hugged him, throwing her arms around his neck and breathing in his familiar (and distinctly ocean-ish) scent.

Pulling away, Annabeth found herself grinning like a madwoman.

"I thought you weren't getting back until tomorrow morning," she grabbed a mug from the cabinet closest to her (It was her favorite, a drawing of the leaning tower of Pisa that said 'lean on me')

Percy leaned down and gave her a small kiss, "I wasn't supposed to get back until tomorrow morning, but I managed to catch an early flight. Besides, when have I ever been able to stay away from you?"

Percy wrapped his arms around Annabeth as she turned on the kettle, planning to make some hot chocolate.

"I love you, but I need to be able to move my arms if you don't want me to spill on you," Annabeth giggled as she tried to pour the boiling water into her mug, Percy just wrapping his arms tighter around her.

"Water can't hurt me, I'm the son of Poseidon!" Percy gave Annabeth his signature troublemaker grin and Annabeth just rolled her eyes.

Annabeth made her way to the couch, Percy's arms still wrapped around her waist.

"I need to sit down, my feet hurt," Annabeth whined as Percy refused to let go of her.

"Nope, you can just sit on my lap, I need cuddles," Percy was using his signature baby seal eyes and Annabeth felt herself melting.

"Fine, but you're making breakfast tomorrow, I've missed your pancakes," Percy grinned and pulled her onto his lap, careful to spill the hot chocolate in her hands.

Annabeth and Percy spent the rest of their night cuddling on the couch, Percy talking about all the different people he'd met while he was away for business.

(He had started a non-profit organization for marine conservation and spent most of his time abroad or underwater)

"Did you actually leave the meeting because everyone else was eating fish?" Annabeth sounded exasperated at her boyfriend's antics, he just shrugged.

"It's their fault, they wanted to talk about ways for the company to stop dumping their trash in the ocean to 'conserve marine life' but then they served up an endangered species of fish as the main course!"

Percy was honestly adorable when he got passionate about a subject, his eyebrows came together and his mouth scrunched up into an expression that looked like a kicked puppy.

"Well, that's their problem, at least you didn't have to deal with people constantly telling you that your work was obviously wrong for the whole day only to prove that you were, in fact, completely correct," Annabeth took a long sip from her hot chocolate, snuggling closer to Percy's chest.

"They actually said that?" Percy's tone hadn't changed, but Annabeth felt him tense underneath her.

She just sighed and kissed his cheek.

"It's ok, I'm tough,"

"Just because you can deal with it doesn't mean you should," Percy's face had changed into a more concerned expression.

"Percy, there really isn't anything I can do, I'll just have to deal with it and build a name for myself, I can't exactly say that I redesigned Olympus," Percy sighed and pressed his face into the crook of her neck.

"Ok, but if you ever need me to talk to someone-"

"I know, thank you," Annabeth gave Percy a quick kiss before reaching towards the remote.

"Which show should we watch?" She asked, taking another sip of her hot chocolate.

"Whatever you want is fine," Percy said, wrapping his arms more firmly around her waist.

"Ok," Annabeth smiled, at least she got to come home to this.