Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson! And I don't make any pennies from this so it's okay.

AN: Sorry for the long wait! I'm splitting this into two chapters because it was twice as long as all the others as well. Hopefully well worth the wait! :)

Tempting the Fates

Chapter Twenty

The Face of Love Pt 1

Jason

Light faded and footsteps echoed as the trio corkscrewed down the staircase. They left the summer behind, trading it instead for the dank and dark of below. Gladius drawn, Jason passed under limestone archways casting his glance back and forth ready for danger from any direction and, realistically, expecting that if it came it would be from more than one direction.

Annabeth and Hazel were hugged to either side, but only one had her weapon drawn and at the read— apparently Hazel didn't feel quite so awkward with the whole underground thing. If anything, her face was calm and complacent, studying the tunnels that they traveled.

"It's beautiful," the daughter of wisdom whispered, running her fingers over the dewy wall. Fingertips rubbed back together and she brought them to her nose to give a tentative sniff before tilting her head as if she knew what had happened all along. "Limestones. They used to be separate but building on top of everything, shutting it all away… it's too moist down here. See, they've fused together? It only looks like a cave because of what time has done to it but this is magnificent."

The son of Jupiter and his friends might be walking into all kinds of bad ideas but Jason couldn't remember the last time someone took a second to just be plauditory or even moved by something. The look in Annabeth's eyes was electric and her blonde hair, frizzed from the damp was curling in wisps around her face like clouds.

"It is." He and Hazel agreed.

The further they travelled the smaller the archways became and the walls pressed in around them. It wasn't claustrophobic but it ground Jason's comfort zone down, boxing it up and storing it away.

Rather than struggle with an inner monologue— which Piper would have insisted he was good at what with all the natural 'brooding' he'd inherited from his father— he just blurted out, "Angels belong up in the sky. What is this thing doing?"

Jason's frustration surprised himself, but neither of the girls perked up with alarm; that was the thing about racing against the clock to stop the earthen goddess from razing the world— it tended to drain you. He loosened his grip on his gladius letting the blood flow return to normal.

"I have no idea. But he's not an actual angel… not like the Judaeo-Christian Sunday school kind anyway. Be a bit strange for him to be showing up here if he was," Hazel waved her hand around in an exaggerated motion and it reminded him that while she was younger than him she was born decades prior. "I mean all of these things have been repurposed when Christianity rose and that gives this place a clumsy aura. You know like it doesn't quite fit in and of itself so an angel here…" She shook her head, dark curls bouncing around her face. "At least he's not like a ghost. I know that's Nico's realm," her voice clenched at the name, "but I'd be able to tell, too." Hazel chewed at her full bottom lip but relaxed a little when Jason gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

"So the giant rooster man isn't an angel. That leaves minor deity or monster and given the lack of teeth attempting to sink into our necks, I'm inclined to think it's the first." Annabeth continued to trail her fingertips along the wall as if looking for something unseen.

If there was something there to be found, the son of Jupiter felt confident that she would be the one to discover it.

"Come on. This way."

"You have no idea where you're going, do you," Annabeth piped up all kinds of helpful.

"Like any of us ever do?"

"That's a fairly good point, actually. Carry on."

Winding through passageways, Jason attempted to shake off the feeling seeping into his bones, the dank chill permeating the room. Ahead of them, something caught the light of the flashlight he was carrying— provided by Leo before they left, just in case. Brows furrowing, he inched forward until he was face to face with a life size bust of Diocletian.

Life size and very life like.

And just like the rest of the passage, it hadn't been spared the test of time or its chilly confines. The eyes seemed to follow him no matter what was he turned the flashlight and it had to just be a trick of his mind or of the lighting but it was seriously creepy. Creepy like the kind where the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and disquiet drifted her fingers up his spine.

"How very… handsome," Annabeth added belatedly, choosing her words cautiously. Better safe than sorry in case someone else was listening.

Running his fingers over it, he nodded only half paying attention.

Here, his mind told him. Here is as good a spot as any. She'll think to find it here.

The note in his pocket burned with imagined weight. It was a note he hadn't been able to mention to anyone as of yet for fear of upsetting his girlfriend. The daughter of Aphrodite had been frantic enough about being swapped out on the mission and Jason just couldn't add insult to her injury by rubbing salt in wounds past.

Sliding it from his pocket, it disappeared just to the side of the bust.

"Who's that for?" Steel eyes ever watching, Annabeth sidled up next to him blocking his motions from Hazel. Whatever he was doing and why it may need to be hidden, she understood without asking protecting his actions from being discovered by Hazel. Intuition was certainly part of wisdom but the son of the sky hadn't expected it to be so obviously manifested.

"Reyna. She'll stop here, I know that she will. She's had the dreams same as me… I just know it from how it feels— like before. Like at Camp Jupiter. And there have been some… some that we're both in and we've… spoken. I haven't told anyone because it's slippery ground but we need her." Desperation pierced his voice, the words falling like rain breaking free from the sky and Annabeth didn't reach for any kind of umbrella.

Closing her hand over his, she pushed the note a little further behind the limestone bust and nodded just the once, fast and curt. "I know. The Athena Parthenos needs to be brought to camp by a Roman— and we can't afford to lose you, too. She'll find it here, now come on before Hazel sees. Just because I get it doesn't mean that Piper will and, well, Hazel is her friend. Part of the girl code is full disclosure— I never really understood that in the face of death and quests but I certainly didn't create it."

A weight lifted from his chest, one he didn't realise had been sitting there pressing harder and harder each step they'd taken below ground. Annabeth smiled at him and he felt an unfurling in his stomach— some of the tension that had been growing there left.

"I'm sure it would've been more logical if you had."

The laugh that left her was nearly a bark, completely unexpected as her shoulders shook. Slapping her hand over her mouth, she nodded and continued forward putting distance between their secret location. "You could count on that."

The daughter of Pluto, who had been busy investigating another one of the busts let out a shriek. Dashing to her side, Jason had his gladius at the ready, crouching into a defensive move. The limestone bust fell to the floor and shattered, another relic of Diocletian's reign ruined but considering there was a seven foot chicken man standing before the young demigod, it was understandable how she could have been caught off guard.

"Well that's rather rude, don't you think? Do you always enter someone else's home and deface everything?"

Red wings spread out behind him and Jason felt pretty accurate in his thought of a Rhode Island Red but that's more or less where the similarities stopped. On his feet he wore sandals, his skin was tanned and his hair curled every which way, even in the silent tunnels it looked to be parted by the wind. As he stood, he flicked his wrist sending a bronze hoop up into the air— he caught it a moment later snatching it with nimble fingers. At his feet lay a basket of fruit that would give even Piper's cornucopia a run for its money.

"I-i don't! But normally no one sneaks up and startles me either!"

Scratching at his chin, he leaned on the empty pedestal where the bust had rested only moments before. "Startling… hmmm, I don't know about that. Startling? Maybe startlingly handsome, yes, I could work with that. Frequently used adjectives gravitate toward personable, stylish, bewitching, suave, tantalising, oh, yes, stately! That's quite a good one." Clapping his hands together, the words prattled out. "Or even virile… but wait, are you over eighteen? That's not really appropriate if you're not, ages of consent changing as they are and all, you understand…"

Annabeth held up both her hands and shook her head looking just slightly queasy. "Uh, all under age. Definitely under age." Jason noted the part where she very definitely left out how she would be eighteen shortly and for once he was happy for such a glaring omission.

"Oh, well then, I suppose it's more suitable for you to call me by any of the other aforementioned descriptions. But startling, I leave that crass behaviour to my distance relatives."

The three demigods, now huddled together, stood and blinked.

A handful of seconds passed and the minor deity blanched before them.

"Really, Jason Grace, really? Not even… how about now?" The god turned with the bronze hoop in his hand and flexed his muscles, showing off a different pose. When there was no recognition apparent on his face he attempted another position and another from various angles until the wind seemed to go right out of his sails. "I don't understand what all this hullabaloo about you, is. Think you'd recognise me of all people!"

He scratched at the back of his neck and did his best to summon something other than confusion— he hoped that going for remorseful would buy some a little forgiveness.

Sighing, the chicken man tossed the bronze ring up into the air again and snatched it a moment later. "Favonius, the West Wind. Nice to meet you, all. Or Zephyros, depending if you're feeling particularly Greek."

Hazel, sword at the ready just as the legion had taught her, dropped her arm slightly opening up her stance. "Wait— are you not having issues with both?"

The bronze ring flew up into the air once more and one wing comically fluttered as he rose and dropped a shoulder in a shrug. "Not particularly. Benefit of not differing greatly between the two. But, anyway, as much as I'd love to stand around and chat about myself, I know that's not why you've come."

"You lead us to Dicoletian's sarcophagus."

"Why, yes, I did. Kind of me, wouldn't you say? Not at all like those blustering buffoons from the north," the word rolled off his tongue laced with venom.

"It's not here," Hazel piped up. "That's what you wanted to show us, isn't it?"

As unwise as it was, Jason turned to face the daughter of Pluto.

"What do you mean it's not here?"

"Diocletian's ghost. His sceptre. None of it's here, Jason. I-I… I can't feel any of it. There's a shadow, like a memory. It was here but it's been gone for a long time." Sucking on her bottom lip, eyes wide and brimming with moisture, she reached out for his hand and took it in her own though it wasn't clear if it was for her own comfort or to reassure him.

"She's right you know," he cawed, laughing lightly.

"What once rested here slumbers here no longer. The sarcophagus was moved by the Christian's and destroyed by others; and you won't commune with the great Roman leader. The sceptre is with my master and should you wish to earn its possession, you'll have to face him."

"Your master?" Annabeth was trembling but not from fear. Her eyes were steely and resolute, and her pale face soiled with dirt was dauntless.

"Eros— cupid. The god of love will look forward to your facing him, each of you. Especially you, Jason Grace."

How bad could it be? He wondered. If it will get us the sceptre and help save Nico and Percy… it has to be done.

Besides, facing the god of love seemed a hell of a lot less scary than about half the things they'd faced so far.

"Take us to cupid," Annabeth said.

The children of Pluto, Jupiter and Athena took hands and dissolved into air but not before noting the devilment on Favonius' face.