Percy still remembered what the Styx had looked like on his very first quest. It reminded him of the news reels he'd seen of oil spills, water so dark and greasy that it looked evil, with the tendrils of it swirling and writhing under the surface. And the objects bobbing down the river – baby shoes, torn clothes, canvas paintings that had been snapped in half and never finished. Broken and forgotten dreams, Charon had said, thrown in by the dead as they passed on.

The image was more vivid now than it had been in years, and for the first time in his life, he dreamed of drowning. He dreamed of crawling over the side of Charon's boat, falling in, and then sinking like a stone, the dark water closing over his head and blocking out the light.

Oil coated his nose and throat, so he couldn't breathe; neither water or air could get through, and he was drowning the way a fish drowned, millimeters from oxygen. He choked and struggled, grasping at his face, and begged his father for help. He heard Kronos' dark and ominous laugh, loud and powerful enough to make the water shake around him.

Do you see the futility, little hero? Kronos asked him, not the least bit muffled by the polluted river. Do you see the hopelessness of your task? Forsake the gods, as they have forsaken you and all those like you. Come. Come.

Percy woke up with a cry too thin and hoarse to be a scream, and immediately fell out of bed, tangled up in the covers. For a moment, he scratched frantically at his throat, and then he rolled to his feet, and the next thing he knew he was sitting on the floor of the running shower, still wearing his fleece pufferfish-patterned pajamas, trying to scrub the Styx river off his face with a soapy washcloth.

A few minutes later, Sally knocked tentatively on the door. "Percy? Are you alright?"

Percy tried to take a breath, but it didn't make it all the way in, so his voice was thin and wavering when he replied. "I'm fine! I'm not scared!"

"...Percy, sweetheart, can I come in?"

"...Yeah."

Sally opened the door, slow and gentle, and stepped inside. Her eyes found him immediately, shadowed with worry, and softened. "Oh, Percy." Percy clenched his fists without looking at her, and she came to sit beside him, leaning over into the spray without seeming to notice. "Percy, what's wrong?"

Percy tried again to take a deep breath. Didn't work. "I turned fifteen last week," he blurted out. Sally inhaled sharply, and Percy continued, staring at the soap bubbles in the cloth, "It's less than a year now. I'll be sixteen in less than a year. I-"

His breath hitched violently. Without hesitation, Sally pushed herself into the small shower stall with him, sat behind him, and hugged him from there, arms pressed in around his stomach. He shuddered and leaned into it, silently willing his mom dry, and tried to say something that wasn't pure nonsense and stuff his mom already knew.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do," he said into her collarbone. His voice cracked. "I know I can't do anything right but this is too important and everyone is counting on me. Everyone at camp, and, and Dad and Tyson, and Nico and Calypso and Zoë and I'm gonna let them all down because I couldn't fucking suck it up and admit I'm a useless piece of shit and I'm probably not gonna turn sixteen anyway so none of it matters, but I'm stuck with it anyway and now they think I can stand up to Kronos- and, and I can't even make my friends get along and I can't get along with anyone I'm supposed to and I can't help them-"

It was like a wound had broken open, and everything inside him was spilling out in a rush. He wasn't crying, but he felt like he should be; instead he was trembling, numb to the water that cascaded over both of them, and he tried to hike himself even closer to Sally but he was too big.

"And I don't know how I'm gonna get through this year when the monsters are only getting worse and we're constantly trying to keep up with Kronos and new campers keep asking me why the gods aren't helping us, and, and I keep having dreams and I can't tell which ones are prophetic and which ones are nightmares, and I still have fucking school and I don't know what I'm gonna tell the teachers when I fail all my classes even though I don't have to read so much anymore except it won't matter because soon everyone in the fucking world will know I'm gonna be the one to fuck everything up-"

Sally reached up, twisted the handle, and turned the cold water to warm. Percy stopped talking, staring at her blankly with his breath still hitching and catching every few seconds. She cupped the back of his head and pulled him against her shoulder again, rocking gently so they moved together. Percy closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said softly after a while, when his breath had evened out a little. "I should have realized that you had far too much on your shoulders this year. We're going to take care of everything, okay, honey? Everything is going to be okay." Percy let out a soft whine that he never would've made around anyone else. Sally sighed. "Oh guppy, my guppy..."

That unlocked a memory he didn't know he had, splashing in a bathtub a very, very long time ago. He let out something that was kind of supposed to be a laugh. Sally stroked his hair for a while, slow and soothing, both of them under the cascading shower spray.

"Percy," Sally said at last, still soft. He mumbled inquisitively. "We're going to make this year as easy as possible, okay? You're dealing with enough." Percy groaned into her shoulder. "We can send you to a public school this year. I know you'll like the atmosphere better; you can make friends. Don't worry about your grades, you're more important. You can even skip class if you need to. I don't care if you need to repeat a grade later if it helps you now. I want you safe and I want you happy."

Percy peeked up to look at her, blinking blearily, and then nodded against her shoulder. Sally stroked his hair again, tugging gently as she went.

"There is nothing you could do to disappoint me this year, sweetheart," she said quietly. "You're being so brave and you're going to do so well, better than you ever could have imagined. I know it, and Chiron knows it, and your father knows it. But it's so much and it's okay for you to let it show. I'm not going to be upset if you act up sometimes, or if you're jumpy, or if you need extra support. It's going to be a hard year and I'm so proud of you already."

Percy's breath hitched again, and he shuddered, and for a while he didn't move or respond to her, just listened to her breathe.

"Can we stay up for a while?" he asked at last. "I wanna watch The Princess Bride. And have popcorn and blue M&Ms."

Sally laughed quietly. "Of course we can."

Neither of them went to sleep that night; they put on The Princess Bride, then Pirates of the Caribbean. When it was well into morning, and Percy still couldn't bring himself to detach from Sally, she called in sick, and then put on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

"Hey," he said, after a few minutes. Sally hummed back, reclined so they could both stretch out along the couch. "Foggy can come over if he wants."

Sally ran her fingers through his hair, and when he looked up, she was smiling at him. "Thank you, sweetheart. Starting today or tomorrow?"

Do you want me to call him? she really meant, but Percy was grateful she didn't make him say that. "Today."

She pressed a kiss to his hair, and then shifted to get her phone from her pocket.

"Good morning to you too, Foggy," Sally said softly, still carding her fingers through Percy's hair. "I wanted to let you know that Percy said he was okay with you coming over." Pause. "As soon as you can. I won't ask you to leave work if you're busy, but Percy had a rough night. We've been watching movies since one in the morning." Pause. "Thank you, Foggy. I'll see you in a bit."

Percy exhaled, relaxing a little as she put her phone away. "Thanks," he mumbled, tucking his face against her arm. He hesitated, and then said, "We could start the movie over and make waffles? I bet they'd be done by the time he's here."

"That sounds wonderful, sweetheart." She nudged him into squirming upright, and he got up with a slight stumble – they'd been sitting there for quite a while. Sally stretched out and followed, and then went right for the bottle of blue food dye in the cupboard. Percy smiled a little.

He fell quiet again, prepping the waffle maker while Sally mixed up the batter. Sally didn't speak until the first waffle was in the iron.

"Talk to me, Percy," she said softly. Nothing more than that.

"...What if I can't do it?" he whispered. A heartbeat of dead silence passed, and his heart hammered in his chest. "I make awful choices, Mom. I'm impulsive, I get confused, I- what if I can't do it?" He couldn't look at her. He could feel his heartbeat so strongly that it almost hurt. "Kronos tried to turn Thalia with her fatal flaw, her, her need for power. Athena thinks… she thinks he's going to use my loyalty. Make me choose between the gods and someone I love. I- I don't know if I can do that. If I could choose right."

He'd told Athena that he could. He'd told Poseidon he could. But the thought filled his chest with ice until it ached.

Percy started when gentle hands spun him around, and Sally hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, struggling not to break down all over again, and didn't let go until the waffle maker dinged.

"You can, Percy," Sally said, even as she turned away to work with the iron. "I've known it since you were little, and everything that's happened since you went to camp has made me more sure." Finished, she turned back and kissed his hair again. "When it comes down to the wire, you always do the right thing. Always."

Percy hugged her again, unable to vocalize his uncertainty, but let go quickly this time. Neither of them spoke again until the doorbell rang, and Sally went to let Foggy in.

"Ah, Sally's wonderful apartment, how I've missed thee," Foggy said cheerfully, and then, quieter, "How's he doing?"

"He's anxious," Sally answered, audibly fretful. "The pressure hit him hard last night. The only time he's let go of me was when we got up to make breakfast."

"And how are you doing?"

Sally's voice turned tender with gratitude. "I'm worried about him, I'm worried about this year. But I'm okay. Really. I've known this was coming for a long time."

Her voice trembled slightly toward the end. Percy glanced toward the door just in time to see Foggy hug her, and turned away again to give them their moment. It even made him smile.

A few minutes later, both of them joined him in the kitchen. Foggy laughed.

"I should've known it would be something blue," he said, sounding genuinely fond. "What're we watching? The Little Mermaid?"

Percy snorted at the gentle jab and shook his head, going to pull the syrup out. "Chronicles of Narnia," he said. "We're only a couple minutes in, I figured we could start over when you got here."

"Oh, thanks," Foggy said, sounding surprised but pleased.

Before long, they settled back on the couch, each with a plate full of a waffle. Sally was in the middle, with Percy leaning on her and her leaning on Foggy. Percy mentally compared it to trying to watch a movie with Gabe, and hid a smile against Sally's arm.

They got about halfway through, all three of them watching quietly, before Percy broke the silence again.

"We're going to drop the Mist soon," he said, without looking at either of them. The split second of silence was stifling and startled, and he bit his cheek. "Tony and Annabeth are designing a website to explain everything."

"...That mean I'll be able to see your sword now?" Foggy teased after a moment, still a little breathless with shock. Percy smiled for a moment.

"Yeah," he said. "And monsters and stuff." He tucked his face against Sally's shoulder again. "It… it probably won't happen until after my birthday. Hecate does most of the work for the Mist, and she's working under Kronos right now." He exhaled. "But Tony and Steve and everyone's working on telling some people before then. Military generals and PR people and the president and stuff."

"I bet that's stressing you out," Foggy said, with false nonchalance.

Percy nodded, not bothering to deny it. He felt oddly exhausted. "It's… that's a lot of people to have know when I'll turn sixteen."

Foggy hissed through his teeth. "And everything that comes with it, huh?"

Percy exhaled, his throat tightening to the point of pain. "Y-yeah."

Foggy's expression scrunched with sympathy, and he reached over. Percy flinched, but before either of them could consciously react to that, Foggy's hand landed on Percy's back. He pushed once before he registered Percy's reaction and pulled his hand back like he'd been burned.

"Sorry," he said, wincing. "Wasn't thinking."

"…It's okay," Percy said. "I didn't mind."

Percy wasn't sure whether Sally or Foggy's smile was more pleased. Foggy reached over to give Percy a comforting rub like he was scratching a dog, a motion so natural it was immediately clear he'd reacted on reflex.

Percy relaxed.

One of the best parts of having a really smart dyslexic best friend was that Annabeth knew a lot of workarounds – real ones, not that stupid shit that counselors were always trying to feed Percy. Workaround number one: symbols, because sometimes you needed to refer back to a list a lot and didn't have time to keep decoding it. Even better: stickers.

So Percy spent the ten minutes before the bell rang marking up his schedule. World History got a globe sticker. Physics got that cool little atom symbol. First Aid got a red cross. So on, so forth. Bim, bam, boom. He had too many electives this year, missing out on some of the requirements he'd have to fill in later, but he figured his mom would forgive him.

"Huh. Hey, can I borrow those when you're done?"

Percy blinked, distracted, and looked up. The girl beside him was looking at him expectantly, pointing at the sticker sheet. "Um."

He hesitated, and after a moment, the girl shrugged. "Or not. I can just draw them. What, do you use them for something else too?" Percy stared at her. She seemed unfazed. "They're a study aid, aren't they? You seem pretty focused."

"Yeah," Percy said at last, startled and bemused, and sat up. "Um, you can borrow them when I'm done, but at this rate that might not be 'til after class." He shrugged. "I don't really have a system yet. The stickers are something my friend suggested."

"Good friend," the girl said lightly, and then turned to face the front, apparently satisfied. Percy was vividly reminded of Rachel.

The bell rang only a few minutes later, and Percy cursed under his breath, trying to read faster. The teacher strode briskly to the front, cleared her throat, waited, and then cleared her throat again, louder. The awkward silence stretched on, and Percy twitched uncomfortably without even looking up.

"You may decorate your schedule after class," the teacher said at last, loud and pointed. Percy's face flooded with color, and he quickly closed the sticker sheet into his binder and pushed it aside. "Thank you, Mr...?"

"Jackson," Percy muttered.

The teacher examined a sheet of her own. "Jackson, Jackson... Ah, Perseus. I see you're our special needs student."

Percy's chest tightened with humiliation as everyone, literally everyone in the class turned to stare at him. At least one teacher pulled this shit every damn year, and he never had the patience for it, but right now? He was way too fucking stressed for this shit.

"Percy," he corrected tersely. He gave the teacher a sarcastic thumbs up. "Super glad your reading comprehension is as bad as mine is. Do you need some help figuring out why the dyslexic kid is putting stickers on his schedule? Like, do I need to explain what dyslexia is?"

The teacher's expression tightened noticeably as snickers rippled across the classroom, and she turned away, taking attendance as if nothing had happened. The girl beside Percy gave him a real thumbs up, smirking.

After that they went over the syllabus, and Percy risked taking his stickers back out to mark the big assignments on the course calendar. (Another suggestion from Annabeth.) It didn't look too unusual, and Percy tuned most of it out, focusing on figuring out what he'd actually have to do to scrape a C.

His mom might have said that she didn't care how he did this year, but he was sure she'd still be really happy if he tried.

"And someone needs to volunteer to help Perseus," the teacher said toward the end of class, sounding bored. Percy immediately turned bright red.

"That's not-" he started, embarrassed and angry, but two of the boys nearby had raised their hands before he could finish, and he dropped his head into his hands and growled at the table.

All in all: so far, public school really wasn't that different from private.

The bell rang about two minutes too late, and Percy grumpily packed up his stuff, then tossed his backpack over his shoulder. He sidestepped something before he could consciously register what it was, then glanced up to raise an eyebrow at one of the boys who had raised their hands. The boy smiled at him sheepishly, withdrawing his hand from where he'd been about to tap Percy's shoulder.

"Sorry, I was wondering if you had, um, if you had a cell phone we could, I mean a number we could trade, or maybe you could tell me what lunch you have today, 'cause Ned and I have second lunch and maybe we could sit together or something-"

Despite himself, Percy was instantly reminded of Nico, and it smoothed his ruffled feathers enough for him to answer. "I've got second lunch today," he conceded grudgingly. "But I'm not an idiot, I've been going to school as long as you have. I don't need someone to explain the lesson in small words and short sentences. It just takes me a long time to read stuff."

"Oh." The boy deflated, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, and it only took Percy a moment to give in.

"We can sit together anyway," he conceded. "It's not like I know anyone here. Just don't treat me like I'm stupid. I'm not."

The boy beamed; it was kind of cute. "Okay! Course not. My name's Peter, you're Percy, right?" Percy nodded. "Great! I'll tell Ned!"

He scurried off, looking pleased, and Percy managed a smile before he checked his schedule and went to find his way to his next class. At least he had someone to sit with at lunch. If he was really unlucky, that could take him a couple of weeks, and it was awkward.

It turned out that Percy shared a couple classes with Peter and Ned – not a lot, because he wasn't exactly on a normal freshman schedule, and they were on the freshman schedule for smart kids anyway. But they shared physics, Home Economics, and PE, which was a decent place to start. And right after PE was lunch, so Percy took a quick shower just to scrub the sweat off and then headed to the cafeteria.

The two other boys had parked themselves just off the central aisle. Ned spotted Percy first and nudged Peter, and Peter looked up and waved at him enthusiastically. Percy bit down a smile and waved back before he turned away to get his food.

"Holy shit, I didn't think you'd actually do it," Ned blurted out the moment he sat down. Percy shrugged his backpack off his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do what?" he asked, bemused. "Make it through the first day? Jury's still out on that one."

"Sit with us," Ned said in a stage whisper, looking wide-eyed. "Dude, you're like... cool. And Peter and I are like, so not."

Percy didn't even know what to say to that, but his cheeks instantly felt hot. "You reached out first. I didn't see anyone else offering to help me." He dug into his mashed potatoes. "I don't have a cell phone, by the way. Sorry. But I've got a tablet for school if email's alright." He'd had to come early today to pick it up, but it had been worth it last year, so he had high hopes for this year.

Both of them exchanged grins, oddly delighted. "We can do email!" Peter said quickly, like he thought Percy would take it back. "Do you really not want help, 'cause Ned and I are like, mega nerds, we can totally help."

"Peter, you're sabotaging us-" Ned protested.

Percy tapped his fork against the edge of his tray, and then asked reluctantly, "Can you share your notes with me? I can't write fast enough to take any while the teacher's talking, and then I can't hear them either 'cause I'm trying to write."

"Course we can!" Peter said brightly, oddly enthusiastic, and Percy managed a tense smile.

Thankfully, they moved on from school once Peter and Ned had put their email addresses into Percy's contact list. Both of them liked Star Wars, which Percy had seen a couple times with his mom, and they were eager to tell him the plotline of every extended universe novel that went with the movies. That trailed off into Legos, which Percy definitely didn't have the patience for but Annabeth would probably like, and then took a turn into superheroes.

"Iron Man's got the best Lego sets, but Thor is definitely the coolest," Ned told Percy seriously. "You just can't beat an actual god."

Percy tried not to smile; little did they know. He wondered how the Battle of New York would have gone if Zeus had bothered to lend a hand like Thor had. "I dunno, his powers seem pretty restricted compared to what you'd expect of a god. He's pretty dependent on his hammer too. If I remember the footage right, he was mostly just hitting things."

"But he's a god," Ned said insistently. Percy rolled his eyes.

"That doesn't mean much on its own," he said dryly. "I've always liked Hawkeye. It takes a lot to shoot that accurately in a fight that chaotic. Hell, I don't know how he shoots that accurately at all – I swear to the gods that when I try to fire a bow it just curves right around and hits the guy next to me."

Peter perked up. "You can shoot?" he asked excitedly.

"Uh, no, I just said I can't hit the broad side of a barn," Percy said. "But some of the other kids at my camp can. I go to, uh, kind of a historical reenactment camp, we train with weapons and stuff. I'm better with a sword." He'd been relieved to find out that cover story; it meant he could talk about most of the stuff he did at camp, as long as he didn't bring anything actually godly into it.

"That's so cool," Peter hissed, vibrating in place. "Do you think our school has a fencing team?"

Percy started, and then after a moment, smirked. "I bet if it does, I can kick their asses," he said. "Wonder if Mom would let me join."

On the one hand, it would be kind of unfair, but on the other, it sounded like fun, and that was a rare enough thing for him when it came to school. He'd let his mom make the call. It wasn't like with swimming, either, where his talent was part of his power; the sword stuff was all Percy. Probably.

"What else do you do there?" Peter asked, like he was actually interested. "A historical reenactment camp sounds so cool, what time period?"

"Ancient Greece," Percy said, playing self-consciously with Riptide. "Swordplay is the big draw for me, but we do capture-the-flag too, and footracing and wrestling and stuff. Rock climbing. Anything you'd expect to see at the original Olympics. Plus, you know, campfire stuff, and, uh. Annabeth's been teaching me to read Greek."

"Holy shit, dude," Peter whispered, because apparently to him this didn't sound stupid as all hell. "You can read Greek?"

Percy shrugged. "Some. It's easier than English, technically, 'cause my dyslexia doesn't get in the way so much, but I've also only been able to learn it over the last couple summers, so I'm still basically reading kids' chapter books. Except when Annabeth makes me read Homer."

"I'd say I want to go, but I'm pretty sure I would die," Ned said. "I'm so jealous."

Percy smiled a little. Yeah, Camp Half-Blood was head-and-shoulders the best part of being a demigod. "It's private anyway. You have to apply and pass a physical test, kinda like with the marines."

"That's gonna look so good on your resume," Peter said, looking wistful. Percy hid his snort behind his fist.

"It's the only thing that's gonna look good," he said dryly – Chiron had said the cover was designed that way, but Percy was pretty sure even that couldn't save him. Ugh. "The rest of it is an on-fire trash can."

Ned's eyes went wide. "I knew I recognized you!" he exclaimed. Percy winced, but Ned whipped around to Peter and said, just as excitedly, "Peter, Peter, do you remember that kid, like, three years ago in the news- with the arch and the kidnapper and gunfight and stuff-"

Percy covered his face. Gods, that media storm had been a nightmare, even if it had ended well.

"Holy shit," Peter said. "Are you the kid that got into a gunfight with the guy that kidnapped you and your friends?"

"Close enough," Percy mumbled, red-faced.

"Holy shit," Peter said again. "That's badass."

"It also sucked and I don't recommend it," Percy said, with more honesty than he'd meant to. Stabbing Ares in the ankle? Fantastic. But the sheer high-stakes terror made it a fight he wasn't eager to repeat unless he had to. "Getting into fights with grown men just isn't fun."

"Wow," Ned said, and then, "Are you sure you don't wanna come play Legos?"

Percy gave in and laughed. "Well, I won't promise I'll sit still, but sure. Why not?"