Word count: 4739

Part II

Unsurprisingly, when he gets back to the States, his superiors aren't happy.

"Your mission was to bring back the briefcase," Mr. D rants. "I see no briefcase with you."

"There was some unexpected trouble," Percy starts, but he knows it's no use.

"Unexpected trouble? Unexpected trouble is what we pay you for, boy. If you can't handle some 'unexpected trouble' then you'd probably be better off finding another job."

When he's mad, Mr. D likes to call his agents 'boys' and 'girls'. It's something Percy learned back in his training days, and Grover and he had quickly made the decision to ignore the man when he got into those moods.

'Let the storm passes,' Grover would say, elbowing Percy. 'He's just jealous we'll get to go into the field while he's stuck training us.'

It is indeed no small secret that back in his day, Mr. D had been a good field agent who had made a very big mistake – no one knows exactly what the mistake had been, only that it had to have been terrible – and had been demoted to training new recruits, where he had stayed until a few years ago, when he had been promoted to supervising missions.

"Come on now," Mr. Brunner, Percy's personal supervisor, interjects, "Percy could hardly expect a thief to get an interest in our package when we only found out about it at the last minute."

While that is indeed true, Percy can't help but agree at least a little with Mr. D's reproach. He should have been prepared for everything, and he hadn't been, and that was the reason why his mission had failed so badly.

It had been fine this time because no lives – that he knows of – had been hanging in the balance, but what about next time? Or the time after that? They can't exactly afford this type of mistake in his line of work.

While Percy mused, the two older men have clearly come to a verdict, one they waste no time in delivering.

"We know that these last few months have been hard for you, Percy," Mr. Brunner starts, looking apologetic. "What happened with Thalia was terrible, and no one would blame you if you were to take some time off."

Beside him, Mr. D nods, looking almost bored. "What he means is that we're taking you off the list of our active assets for the next month, and we'll re-evaluate your position then."

Mr. Brunner shots him an annoyed look, before turning back to Percy. "It's nothing definitive, but you understand that we have to assess your abilities now. If the problem was really just you meeting an unexpected obstacle then that's fine, but if there's a deeper problem, we have to know."

Percy bites his cheek until he tastes blood. He hates thinking about what happened to Thalia – it was his fault, no matter what everyone else insists on telling him – and so he focuses on the rest of the informations he's just been told.

"You can't just take me off active duty when I'm perfectly capable of doing my job," he protests, outraged.

"I think you'll find that we can actually, and that's what we're doing," Mr. D answers tersely, already losing interest in the conversation.

Percy looks almost desperately at his supervisor, searching for any kind of hint that this might be a mistake. Instead he thinks he might read disappointment in his mentor's eyes, and that's what makes him swallow back any other protest he might have had.

If there's one thing Percy hates, it's disappointing the people he looks up to, and Mr. Brunner, the man who first recruited him and supported him since then, is definitely among those.

"It's for the best," the older man tries to reassure his resigned subordinate as he escorts Percy out of Mr. D's office.

The worst thing is perhaps that Percy agrees with him. He can honestly admit to himself, if not to anyone else, that he hasn't quite felt up to his old standards since… Well, since he came back and Thalia didn't.

He knows that he was diagnosed with ADHD when he was barely a teenager – he remembers how good it had felt to finally have a name to put on the ceaseless itch beneath his skin, how relieved he had been to learn that he wasn't wrong, that he was just different – and that it was one of the reason the CIA had been recruited.

"I think you'll find that in our line of work, better reflexes are an asset and not a curse," Mr. Brunner had told him when Percy had asked him why they would even be interested in someone like him, someone who was unable to ever sit still, and the man had seemed so sure that Percy would fit right in that Percy had barely hesitated before signing the contract offered to him.

It was one of the few decisions Percy made in his life that he can't bring himself to regret, and he honestly doesn't think he could have found a better job.

But that he's known about his hyperactivity for so long means that he's also able to make the difference between that and what he feels these days.

This need to hurt and to fight – because the moments when he's focused on making his enemy bleed seem to be the only moments when he doesn't see Thalia's face as she was dragged away – isn't normal. It's not him, and he knows it. And well, from the looks of it, he hasn't been hiding it as well as he thought he had been.

He hadn't thought about Thalia in Paris though, Percy realizes, and try as he might to attribute it to him being focused on the mission, that doesn't quite fit. This isn't the time to examine those thoughts however, and so Percy pushes them to the back of his mind.

They've nearly reached the elevator when Mr. Brunner speaks again, and his voice drags Percy out of his musings.

"If it makes you feel any better, know that we've been considering this for a while now. Honestly, I think Mr. D's been looking for an excuse to suspend you for some time now, and your last mission just provided him one. If it hadn't been that one, it'd have been another."

This is one thing Percy never learned to appreciate in his advisor – he absolutely sucks at reassuring people.

"I'm fine," Percy shots back automatically, going for a scowl. From the look on Mr. Brunner's face, he's less than successful at it. But then again, he never was.

The man hums noncommittally, and reaches forward to call for the elevator. For a moment, his face is hidden in the shadows, but when he turns back around to address Percy, Percy is struck by how tired and – dare he say it? – old his mentor looks.

"I know you are," Mr. Brunner sighs fondly, "but well, I worry sometimes." His eyes take a far off look as he says this, and that's when Percy remembers that Mr. Brunner helped trained Thalia too. He's probably lost more agents – more partners – than Percy will ever know.

It's hard not to sympathize with the man after that, and Percy feels the urge to reassure him.

"You don't have to. I swear, I'm fine," he repeats, and he's only mostly lying this time: it does feel nice to know that people care. Something must show on his face because Mr. Brunner relents, accepting that this would be as good as he would get.

Just in time too, because the elevator has arrived, the soft 'ping' as its doors open interrupting the conversation.

Percy gets in. Mr. Brunner doesn't.

"I want you to know, Percy, that while I don't agree with the way Mr. D handled things concerning, well, your situation, I fully agree with the decision he took," the older man says with determination, leading Percy to realize that he will have to accept Mr. D's decision.

Mr. Brunner would have been the only ally whose opinion accounted for anything – without his support any attempt Percy makes at changing Mr. D's mind is doomed before it starts, and they both know it.

Percy's shoulders sag.

"I'm sorry, Percy, but this is for your own good," Mr. Brunner continues, and the worse thing is perhaps that he does look sorry. Knowing the man, making this decision while also knowing that Percy will hate it must already be eating him alive – not that the man isn't capable of handling it of course.

It does make Percy feel slightly guilty though, and so he tries his best to erase all traces of his previous disappointment. It must work at least a little because Mr. Brunner visibly lightens up, and the man even almost smiles.

The doors are just starting to close when the man startles like he just remembered something important.

"Oh, I almost forgot! You should go see Rachel. I think she's supposed to give you your next assignment."

"Wait, I thought I was suspended?" Percy asks confusedly, something that feels an awful lot like hope blooming in his chest.

"Only from acting duty," Mr. Brunner replies, and then he winks.

The door closes before Percy can do anything about it, and he hits the button for the R&D floor – better see what Rachel has in store for him before she comes looking for him.

.x.

Percy first meets Rachel when they're both twenty-four.

He's on a mission then – one of the few solo ones he had taken during the years he spent partnered with Thalia – and somehow, she ended up helping him stop a massive underground terrorist organization named the Titans that had been using the underground tunnels to smuggle drugs and homemade bombs out of the city.

Percy had been looking for a way in for days when Rachel had approached him, and despite his initial distrust, the redheaded woman had proved to be a veritable mine of information, as well as able to point him toward the entrance of the tunnels used by the terrorists he had been looking for.

Of course, Percy had been supposed to head in alone – something he hadn't been really all that eager to do – but Rachel had followed him inside, staying hidden in his shadow up to the point he had been caught and brought in front of the cell's leader.

The last part had been in Percy's plan right from the beginning. He just hadn't expected the leader to be a complete madman and step into some kind of weird device that was 'supposed to make him as powerful as the gods of old', whatever that meant (seriously, how did those guys even come up with these ideas?), only for the device to start powering up for a charge that, from what Percy had been able to read on the monitors, would have enough power to level Manhattan.

To this day, Percy still doesn't fully understand what happened: all that he knows is that Rachel appeared out of seemingly nowhere, hit his guard in the face with a blue hairbrush, which allowed Percy to escape his grasp and render him unconscious, and somehow disarmed the bomb with nail polish she kept in her purse.

They barely escaped the place alive as Rachel's last actions had created some kind of shockwave that destabilized the tunnels' structure, and had been met on the surface by Mr. Brunner who supposedly 'had been in the neighborhood' but had more probably tracked the GPS in Percy's phone when he had missed his last check-in.

He had taken one look at the both of them, and instead of making Rachel sign the confidentiality papers like Percy had expected him to, he had offered her a job.

Of course, Rachel still ended up signing the confidentiality agreement later on, but she had agreed to the job pretty much on the spot.

"This is so much better than shadowing my father all day," she had said, and that's how Percy had found out that his new friend's father was the CEO of a land developing company, and that she was supposed to take over after him.

Anyway, that's how, three years later, Rachel ends up working with both human resources and research and development at the CIA, with Percy often dropping by for various reasons, such as testing any new tech designs she might be involved with or bringing lunch.

.x.

The floor Rachel works on is underground, and so the elevator trip from Mr. D's office to her place of work takes a few minutes. It's just long enough for Percy to come to curse whoever decided that the CIA elevators needed music, and short enough that he doesn't have enough time to do more than repeat his advisor's last words in his head a couple of times.

He had been so sure that he would have to find something else to do of his days since Mr. D had uttered the words 'taken of active duty' that the words themselves hadn't really registered. He hadn't considered the fact that this could also mean that just wouldn't go out on missions for a while, however long that may turn out to be.

He's not surprised Mr. Brunner directed him to Rachel though. While giving him the description of this new version of his job probably isn't exactly in her job's description, Rachel likes handling matters concerning Percy personally as a way to thank him for 'getting' her this job – and well, Percy just thinks she's much nicer than the last person to have that job.

(Let's just say that the less Percy thinks about Luke Castellan, the better his day will be.)

Rachel is actually waiting for him outside the elevator. She's wearing a forest green dress, and a pen tucked in her hair somehow keeps it out of her face – it's a perfect illustration of the way she constantly refuses to conform to the dress code she's supposed to obey, even if no one dares to make these kinds of remarks around her anymore, not after she even managed to convince Mr. D that there was no problem with the way she dressed.

"Percy!" She exclaims enthusiastically as soon as the doors open. "It's so good to see you come back in one piece for once," hinting at the way he tends to come back injured from most of his missions these days.

She grabs his arm with an unassumingly strong grip, and drags him through the familiar corridors to her office, chattering cheerfully along the way about her day and the last inventions she's helped design.

It's not until she closes the door to her office that she sobers up.

"I heard about your suspension – I'm really sorry," she sighs, her hand reaching mechanically for a strand of her hair, only for it to remember about halfway that it's tied up. "I wish I could have helped you, but there was nothing I could do."

She doesn't need to tell him that she tried everything she could think of. Percy already knows that. He knew from the moment he realized that Rachel had heard about his situation, and that's just one of the reasons why he likes Rachel so much.

She gets him. She understands why he needs to keep moving all the time, why it's so important to him that he keep busy, and best of all, she doesn't mention it. She's one of his best friends just for that alone.

He casts a quick look around as he muses for an answer. The room doesn't seem to have changed at all since Rachel made it her own two years ago. The towering piles of paper never seem to move, though Percy knows for a fact that they change every other day, and there's a mess of pencils on Rachel's desk that Percy could swear has been there since day one.

Even the paintings Rachel painted herself and hung to 'give a little life to the place' have remained unchanged, no matter how many times she says she'll bring in new ones to replace them.

"It's fine," he finally says. "I guess this'll give me time to catch up on my paperwork if nothing else, at least," he finishes with a wince, only to see it echoed by Rachel.

That almost makes him smile. They both share the same hate for paperwork every employee in the building seems to have, and they often wondered why no one had found an alternative for it yet when everyone felt the same way about filling endless pages of paper.

Percy's wince lingers on his face as he thinks of all that must have accumulated while he was on missions though: during these last few months, he had made a point of taking as many as he could after all, and now it seemed like it was coming back to bite him.

Rachel's wince is very brief, and it turns into a truly devilish smirk so quickly Percy almost wonders if it had ever been there in the first place.

"Don't worry about that, it's been taken care of. Chiron came to see me, and well, we all know how much you hate sitting still so we found you something else to do while you're stuck here," she explains, calling Mr. Brunner by his codename the way she always did since she first found out that he had such 'a cool nickname'.

A mixture of dread and excitement bubbles up in Percy's stomach. "What do you mean?"

"Well, as I told you earlier, I heard about your current 'situation'," she replies, mouthing the last word as if it tasted foully. "I wanted to help, I still do, but again, that's way above my paygrade, and anyway, I kind of agree with the principle of the thing." She shrugs apologetically. "You need a vacation man, but we all know you're not going to just take one so…

"Anyway, I'd been planning to give you lighter missions for a while – like the Paris one, it was supposed to be easy you know, but of course you still managed to find trouble there. I don't know why anyone was surprised by that, honestly, it's not like it doesn't happen to you every time," Rachel sighs, throwing a playful wink at Percy that reminds him that he indeed does have a knack for finding trouble where there shouldn't be any.

"I still don't see where you're going with this," Percy admits, blinking confusedly.

Rachel shots him an annoyed look. "Patience, young Padawan, I was getting there. Anyway, I was just reading your report for the Paris mission when Chiron came into my office, and told me that our delightful head of operations wanted to suspend you for a while.

"Of course I disagreed, and Chiron did too, but he did have a point when he said that your performances haven't been their best these last few months, and that you'd probably benefit from a break. So I found you things to do around this place, and your boss went to convince his boss that it'd be a good idea to let you do them. Seeing as you're there, it seems like the man agreed," she finishes with a slightly proud tone, handing Percy one of the many manila folders lying on her desk.

Inside the folder are a bunch of pictures of people Percy's never met, each one clipped to a page detailing their aptitudes and interests.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out where Rachel is going with this.

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse," he protests, glaring at his friend.

"Really? I guess you'll have to go home and do nothing then," she says, and wow, he knows Rachel can be manipulative, but her 'I'm-innocent-no-really' still takes him by surprise every time she uses it on him. "Or I'm sure Mr. D could be persuaded to find some other job for you, if you really don't like this one."

She says 'other job' with such disdain that Percy starts picturing himself cleaning toilets with a toothbrush, the way some of his teachers used to threaten as a punition, when he knows full well that a) they're paying people to do that kind of thing and b) no one actually cleans toilets that way.

Anyway, he has no doubt that Mr. D could make the next few months highly unpleasant for him if he refused to do what he asked. Not that he had much of a choice, really, seeing as the man was still his employer after all.

"I guess I could try it out," Percy finally sighs, admitting defeat.

"Perfect. I'll tell him that you agreed right away." She takes a good look at him, and her expression softens. "Hey, cheer up Percy, it's just for a couple of months. Even Mr. D's not mad enough to keep you out of the field for longer than that, no matter how useful you'd be here or how tired you look, at least not unless you request it," she adds reassuringly.

That does actually make Percy feel a little better. He can hold out for a couple of months.

"I thought they had to do a proper enquiry in my last mission," he can't help but point out, seeing as that's what he's been told.

The redhead rolls her eyes. "Of course they have to, it's the procedure. But it's really just a fancy way of telling you to stay put for a while. I told you that we'd been trying to find a way to make you do just that. I guess Chiron and I weren't the only one to notice how bad you look."

She sends Percy a scorching look when he opens his mouth to protest – he can't be that bad, can he?

"Yes, Percy, you are. Honestly, when is the last time you slept?"

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" Percy evades her question, but really that just answered it. He would never have slipped in such a way if he wasn't truly tired in some way.

Besides, Percy honestly can't remember the last time he actually slept well – because contrary to what his friend seems to believe, he does sleep. He just can't seem to stay that way for long.

He'd never admit it, though.

Rachel must take pity on him, because she gracefully allows his misdirection with a noncommittal hum.

Her fingers drum on the table for a few instants, and just as Percy begins to consider that it might be a good time for him to leave her office, Rachel speaks again.

"We wanted it to be a surprise, but I think you'll like it more this way."

"Like what more?"

Rachel rolls her eyes again. She does that a lot around Percy. "Your new job, idiot," she replies fondly.

"Ah. I see…" He really doesn't.

Rachel smirks, but doesn't answer. Silence settles over them, and it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes for Percy to start fidgeting.

Finally, he can't stand it anymore. "So, what's the surprise?" He asks eagerly.

For all answer, Rachel points at the folder she handed him a few moments earlier. He's about to tell her that he already has skimmed its pages, when he notices a page at the back that he hadn't seen before.

He'd suspect Rachel of adding it to the folder only now, but to be perfectly honest he hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the thing, and he might have just missed it before.

The paper is barely a page too, more like a memo, and it'd make sense for Percy to have missed it – it is the definition of unremarkable.

Its contents are all but that however, at least to Percy.

"Really?" He asks disbelievingly, and if his words echoes his earlier ones, his tone is completely different. "How did you ever get Grover to agree to this?"

Rachel looks incredibly smug. "Oh, he didn't tell you? He was reassigned there, after you know, his recent injuries," she explains sympathetically. "I think he likes it there though, or at least that's what he told me. He's actually the one who suggested this. He said you'd like it, and well, he does know you better than I do."

Grover is Percy's best friend. They met on the very first day of training and had been inseparable for the entire duration of it, bonding over all kind of things, such as their dislikes for early wake-up calls.

"Grover's training the new recruits?"

"Yep," Rachel answers, popping the 'p'. "He is. And I'm sure he wouldn't mind some company."

Percy can't quite believe it. He honestly doesn't know what surprises him more: that Grover would willingly train the new recruits when Percy could still remember him swear to never go back on those training grounds, or that he hadn't told Percy about it.

"I know, it surprised me too. But as I said, he apparently likes it there." She shrugs. "Perhaps you will too."

Percy would like to say that he doubts it, but considering Grover does… Well, anything can happen, it seems. Instead he nods, and feels relieved when Rachel looks satisfied with that answer.

"One more thing before I agree," Percy says as he voices his thoughts. "You know the woman I met in Paris?"

"Annabeth Chase, the thief? Yes, I know of her – honestly, I doubt there's a person in this building who hasn't heard some version of your story," Rachel answers, amused. "Why?"

"Just…" Percy bites his lips, suddenly anxious. "Could you please send me everything you can find on her?"

Something rather frightening flashes in Rachel's eyes at those words, and Percy has the feeling he won't like what'll come next.

And indeed, he doesn't.

"So that's how it is, then?" Rachel asks teasingly. "You're leaving me for the competition? And here I thought we had something special…"

Rolling his eyes, Percy replies. "Yes, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I'd rather appreciate being able to avoid another incident such as Paris if I can… Nothing at all. So, can you?"

"You're really no fun these days, Percy," Rachel tells him with a playful scowl, "but sure, I can. I will too – I don't know what I'll be able to find though. From what I've seen so far, our file on her is pretty thin."

Smiling appreciatively, Percy thanks her. "Honestly, anything has to be better than what I know so far, which is nothing."

"You might just be right. Well, I'll see what I can do, but again, I'm really not promising anything – and don't expect it to be done immediately either, these things take time and I have a lot to do already."

"I know, I know," Percy answers, fighting back a laugh. "Take your time."

A comfortable silence settles over them, until finally, Percy sighs. "Anyway, when do I start?"

He regrets asking almost immediately when Rachel smiles a shark-like grin, and hands him a pile of files several inches thick.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I remember being told that I wouldn't have to do any more paperwork if I agreed to this," Percy points out as he accepts them.

"Whoever told you this must have been lying then," Rachel answers, a twinkle in her eyes.

"It figures," Percy mutters underneath his breath.

"Did you say something?"

"No. Nothing. I said nothing at all," he says sheepishly.

Rachel scoffs back a laugh, and shoos him out of the room. "Now go, I have other things to do. You start tomorrow, so have fun with your reading."

Cursing her in his mind – he knows better than to do it out loud around these parts – Percy exits the room.

Working with Grover again better be worth it. He can't believe he just got assigned homework again, and by a friend too! He thought he had left that behind with high school, but apparently not.

Fighting back the urge to stick out his tongue toward Rachel's office – he knows she can't see him, but it would probably make him feel better – Percy starts the trip back to his small apartment.

Apparently, he has an early start tomorrow, and a lot of reading to do before then.

AN/ Thanks to everyone who read or reviewed the last chapter, I was really happy to hear that you enjoyed this story. I know there wasn't much Annabeth in this chapter, but she should be back in the next one or the one after that...
Cheers!