Redentity

noun.

A fresh start. A new life. A new identity.

Percy was back in the pit, that was the only explanation.

There was no other reason he had this amount of stress and anxiety.

Yes, he was back in Tartarus.

"Yo!" A hand snapped in his vision, snapping him out of his reverie. "Did you hear what I said?"

Percy blinked.

"Jason?" The man in front of him said, waving his hand in front of him. He was in his early 30s, with brown hair and even darker eyes. A rounded face and pale complexion made way for an employee's uniform. "Venti caramel macchiato."

Oh right, that was his name. Jason. The man was talking to him

"I got it." Percy said, more reassuring himself than he was Kyle (the man in front of him). "I got it."

"Alright, get it out quick. It's early, so the pace is gonna pick up in a bit." Kyle kindly said. Percy nodded wordlessly and gulped.

Who knew being a barista was so nerve racking?

Turning away from Kyle and towards the machinery to his right, Percy paused. Why did making a coffee seem more daunting a task than slaying a hellhound?

"Fuck me." Percy mumbled. What was the order again? Venti caramel macchiato? He knew how to make that, right? He had received grueling training over the course of three days in preparation (granted, not as grueling as combat training), but for the life of him he couldn't remember any of it in the moment.

"Alright," Percy took a deep breath, and with almost shaking hands began the meticulous process of creating the chosen coffee order.

To be honest, he didn't even know what he was doing. His hands were just doing whatever they wanted and he was praying to any of the deities out there that what he was doing was correct. Was there a god of coffee? A god of beverages? He knew Dionysus was the god of wine and all that. Not the same thing, but still.

Thankfully, his prayer was answered, and in a couple minutes he was somehow holding the correct drink. His hands might've had slight tremors and his forehead was matted with hair, but he had done it. Despite himself, he smiled.

He'd never had a job before. There simply wasn't the time, what with constant monster attacks, his occupation at camp, the fact that he was kidnapped for a couple months, and his move to college. He'd helped his mom a few times out at her various jobs, but never was he actually employed. Honestly, it felt… rewarding.

To do something so menial, so meaningless in the larger scale of something, but something that would be appreciated and used nonetheless (well, maybe not appreciated).

La Café con Flores. An interesting first place of employment, to say the least.

His first job at the ripe old age of 22.

Oh yeah, about that. He finally knew how long he'd missed. In fact, he knew a lot of things now.

Too much.

But at least now he knew that the memories he previously lost only spanned a week. He probably could've asked Diana what time of the year it was whenever he was at Themyscira but it'd either never come to him or he just didn't want to bother. Now that he was in the real world, he knew it was closing in on the holidays. Early December, to be exact.

As soon as his memories came back to him, he woke up and ran. Diana and J'onn had still been asleep or in his head or whatever the correct terminology was and Donna was nowhere to be seen, probably exploring the Watchtower's many nooks and crannies.

He'd been able to book it to the teleporter without being interfered with and went to the first location he saw.

Why the Hades was the first place on the list in the middle of fucking nowhere?

Colorado?

Eh, The coffee place he now worked at wasn't complaining. They hadn't asked for any authentication or ID or anything else. He just walked up to the counter saying that he'd seen the HELP WANTED sign and was instantly given the job of a barista.

He had no clue what he was doing.

And somehow, they hadn't found him. He'd heard some customers talking about Wonder Woman being in the state for some "unknown reason", but he'd hadn't been found. Apparently she never visited Colorado.

Luckily for him, he had snuck onto a shuttle out of the city immediately after landing. Call him paranoid, but it'd worked, and he was hopefully in the clear.

He didn't want to be found. Not for a while, at least. He just couldn't be so heavily involved in a world filled with that when he knew what he had done. What he could do. He couldn't be there with the experiences he had.

He just…

He needed a break.

And don't get him wrong, he'd miss the people he'd briefly had the honor of meeting and interacting with. From the small amount of time he spent with him, J'onn was kind and mindful. Antiope was a great teacher, an honest-to-goodness figure not dissimilar to Chiron. Hippolyta was a hard-ass and formal but caring all the same.

He'd miss Diana and Donna the most, and he hoped he'd see them again in the future. But he just needed time to get his shit together. Time to be normal.

He'd see them again. Some day.

But in the meantime, he had coffees to make and a life to create.

He'd gotten an extremely cheap apartment that had a sketchy landlord who made him promise his first rent payment in two weeks' time, so he badly needed to work as many hours as he could and for gods' sakes not fuck up on the first day.

Somehow, someway, he got through the day with minimal mistakes. When the wave of people coming in for a dosage of caffeine before work first came in, he was slightly overwhelmed, but as the day went on he settled into a sort of routine. He only spilled various liquids on himself a handful of times, so Percy counted that as a win.

Granted, once his shift ended and he got a friendly clap on the back from Kyle, he was sweating bullets and wondering why in Zeus' pants he had taken this job.

Still, it was satisfying. More satisfying than slaying a Gigante. More satisfying than surviving a fucking war.

That was the key word. Survival. Perhaps that was why what he just did felt so rewarding. There was less weight during a work shift. Too many stakes were involved in all the various demigod activities. Once he was finished, it was more relief than satisfaction.

And so when he trudged back to his ruddy apartment caked with sticky clothes and jelly legs, he couldn't help the light smile that graced his lips. He actually felt normal for a day. Forget the looming and very possible threat of monsters coming after him, forget that he was practically running from the Justice League. Forget all that, and he had experienced the first normal day in a long, long time.

The next couple of weeks were spent in bliss, albeit a slightly paranoid bliss. It couldn't be this easy, right? He quite literally just hijacked technology not available in any capacity to the public and was home scot-free?

It was too good to be true, at least in Percy's mind. He was a couple towns over from where he'd initially popped out, but it still didn't feel real. His whole life he'd been on the run, whether from law enforcement or monsters or, now, the Justice League. Sure, maybe on the surface level it looked like he was in the clear, but it just felt too good to be true.

And it wasn't even that.

It wasn't just a feeling that it was too easy. It wasn't simply that he had been groomed to be generally paranoid.

He felt like someone was watching him

Constantly.

He felt eyes glued to his back everywhere he went. When he went to the park. When he was on his shift. The sushi place he frequented down the street. The grocery store a couple blocks away. When he was outside of his damn apartment. Everywhere. He. Went.

But he never found these eyes, and yet he didn't think they were a conjuration of his imaginative paranoia. He always leaned towards trusting his gut, and his gut was telling him he was being followed.

It went on for about a week, maybe more. This feeling of being watched was a constant in his everyday life, but there was nothing he could do except look over his shoulder every once in a while and always be on his guard. Thankfully, he still had Riptide. Sure, it wouldn't be any good against mortals, but it was still something. If he was attacked by something not involved in the immortal world, then yeah, he was kinda fucked.

Well, he could always wield the sword in an attempt to scare his stalker off.

Not the most viable option, but it was better than nothing.

For some reason, after that week, the feeling of having an unknown stalker suddenly disappeared. There was no ominous feeling, no warning of the disappearance. It was as if his stalker decided they had seen enough. If it was because the person/god/monster didn't see him as worthy of being surveyed, he wasn't sure whether or not he should be offended.

If anything, this just made his paranoia increase.

Still, there was nothing he could do. He had to simply put his head down and attempt to go about the semi-normal lifestyle he strived for. He knew it wouldn't last, it would end someday. But whether that be a couple weeks or a couple years from now, he wanted to get a taste of normalcy for the first time in his life.

The gods gave him this chance, why not take it?

Oh yeah, that.

He should probably explain that.

He'd slowly digested his memories over the few days after he recovered them, but he finally knew why he wasn't being hunted. Why the gods weren't answering or even acknowledging him.

At a combination of Percy's own volition and the gods' own fear, they had separated him from the divine world almost entirely. No memories, no scent, no connection to anyone involved with the gods. Truly, they'd sent him off with the chance to lead a different life.

They allowed for him to have a second chance with no connection to the godly world because that's the desire he'd expressed. He no longer had major connections to the gods, at least not enough to justify him staying. Well, that's what he'd told himself in his volatile emotional state.

Maybe he wasn't in his right mind when he made the decision that he didn't want to be connected anymore, but that's what he'd decided. He simply hadn't trusted himself to live with the knowledge that he was capable of such manipulative, invasive, destructive capabilities. Sure, he still had some friends, even if the number had been almost completely decimated, and he might feel bad that he'd dismissed them in his state of unrest, but living with the knowledge of his actions didn't seem like an option.

It disgusted him, and the self-hatred he currently felt for himself was exactly what he and the gods had strived for him to avoid.

Obviously, they failed. Apparently the knowledge of missing memories was too much of a curiosity to overcome.

Oh well. He'd get through this, like he seemingly always did.

He wouldn't let this second chance slip through his fingers. Although his memories had failed to be suppressed, he still wouldn't be bothered by gods and monsters alike, not unless he sought them out first or just coincidentally happened upon a roaming hellhound.

Knowing his luck, he'd eventually happen to come across the gods' forsaken Minotaur on a random Thursday in the middle of nowhere.

But jokes aside, Percy had to thank the gods for their willingness to help him. Perhaps the decision was mutually beneficial since they were slightly fearful of his volatility, but he nonetheless had the Olympians to thank for the fact that he could even decide what he wanted to do in the near and far future.

He had a second chance.

He had a second chance.

He wouldn't throw it away.

"See ya tomorrow Jason!"

"Bye!" Percy waved back at his retreating coworker, a genuine smile gracing his face as the bubbly girl jogged through the rain and rushed into her car. Percy shook his head, his grin refusing to leave his face.

It'd been awhile since he'd had normal friendships. It was… nice. He'd never fit in at school and while his demigod and mythical (Grover and Chiron probably wouldn't be happy if they knew they were being described as "mythical") friends were nice, there was something different about being connected to true mortals who were ignorant to the more dangerous aspects of the world.

Thankfully, it'd been rather easy to make friends with the coworkers who regularly shared shifts with him. Jane was the excitable girl who had just left their place of employment. She was only slightly younger than Percy himself, but he couldn't help but feel connected to the girl.

Kyle was a little older, but Percy was friendly with him as well. And then there were others, but most had staggered schedules and so he didn't always see the same people every week.

The ding of the cafe's clock rang Percy out of his own head and back into reality.

He'd told Jane to leave early because apparently she had a date and Percy was feeling generous, so he was left to close the cafe in the dark by himself. He didn't mind. It was rather peaceful, cleaning up the quaint little coffee shop by himself. In fact, he regularly told his coworkers to leave early. It was a combination of selflessness and selfishness. Sue him.

The shop was on the smaller side, but not so tiny that it was cramped. A corner cafe, the place was laden with wooden flooring, tables, and countertops. Small stools lined the inside and there was even a corner with cushy armchairs and a small electric fireplace.

Said fireplace was currently burning, effectively heating up the cafe that would otherwise be almost freezing cold. With the help of the ceiling chandelier that hung from the center of the room, Percy had sufficient lighting to see where everything was but not enough to be blinding in contrast to the darkness that lurked outside the windows. Normally, there would be other lamps and lights ensuring no corner of the room was dark, but since they were closed and nobody else was around, Percy preferred the softer lighting.

Deciding that it was finally time to clean up the place for the next morning, he went to work wiping every tabletop in sight. Cleaning was one of the few chores he'd done growing up that he didn't see as an annoyance, and rather something relaxing and organizing he could do to calm his otherwise chaotic mind.

Once every table was thoroughly clear of any crumbs or liquid, Percy set about the real task of cleaning the cafe. Naturally, in a place that mainly sold drinks, there were random spots of liquid everywhere. Circles from overly-condensated drinks, spilled coffee, excess milk behind the counter.

This was another reason he had his coworkers leave early whenever he closed.

Remember? Before? When he could barely form a sphere of water?

Yeah.

He was afraid of his power, but…

He would never be that weak again.

From the center of the room, Percy closed his eyes and slowly raised his arms.

At once, every speck of liquid in the cafe rose into the air. Drops of white, circles of brown, lines of black. His arms didn't tremble, but they held a sort of tension while they slowly rose to a position parallel to his shoulders and kept that tension as he stayed there.

He opened his eyes.

It was always truly a sight to bear witness to whenever he used his hydrokinetic powers for reasons other than battle. The way the drops and clusters of liquid didn't quite stay completely still but instead morphed and swayed in their forms was fascinating and the complete outlook of all the liquid surrounding him was something that Percy would argue everyone would find elegant and beautiful.

Percy found that he felt he could hold this position forever, but he was here to clean, and clean he would do. Pushing his hands in the direction of the rather large sink the cafe held, he forced the liquid to form a large ball of brown liquid before dropping into the sink and swirling down the drain.

He didn't even break a sweat.

It was wonderful and relieving and terrifying at the same time.

Despite himself, he smiled.

Finishing the process of locking up the cafe in a sort of daze, Percy finally cleaned up everything before he decided to nurse a small espresso cup filled with hot chamomile tea.

He'd experimented a bit and found coffee to be, simply put, too much. Combined with his aggressive ADHD, that amount of caffeine gave him the energy of a 10 year old Nico. Percy shivered. He still had nightmares about the overwhelming barrage of questions the boy had asked. How it was possible that he was more excitable than Leo, Percy would never know.

Percy took a sip of the mug and relished the warm, amber liquid sliding down his throat. He set the mug back onto the counter that separated the employee's workspace from public space and leaned on his forearms. It was moments like this he now cherished, where unlike in his teenage years, he had time to absorb the tranquil beats between the chaos and not worry about what was to come as well as what had happened before.

Absentmindedly, he began to trace the rim of the cup and willed the liquid to defy gravity. He formed a wall of individual droplets without a second thought before beginning to form more complex shapes.

A spear. A helmet. A palm tree. A trident. A strawberry. A pegasus with flapping wings. A girl making snow angels in the air. A book with flipping pages.

A woman covered in form-fitting armor with a lasso at her hip and a sword in her hand.

Percy stared at the liquid form for a moment, a small, sad smile gracing his face. He wondered what she was doing at the moment. Hopefully not worrying too much. Probably saving the world.

He'd miss her.

He'd see her again.

Percy allowed the cup to fall gracefully back into the cup, careful to not create any splashes over the edge. He downed the liquid in one gulp.

After cleaning the mug and returning it to its shelf, Percy grabbed his bag and headed for the door, making sure to flick the last switch that held the only remaining source of light, the chandelier. Making sure his hoodie was in place (for the cold, not the rain. Zeus knows the rain was his ally), Percy locked the entrance behind him and gave it a firm tug just to make sure it was truly closed. Before he could turn around away from the doors, he felt it.

That feeling. The feeling of eyes on the back of his skull. It was back.

After weeks of nothing, someone or something was watching him again. Percy closed his eyes and steeled himself. There was no point in turning around and searching for who or what was watching him, he'd learned that whatever it was thorough enough to never be seen.

There was nothing he could do except put a hand in his pocket in case he needed Anaklusmos and begin the long walk to his apartment a couple blocks over.

So that's what he did.