Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Percy wakes up, he’s drowning.

Only metaphorically, though. 

Percy blinks up at the foggy green water, then down at his stubby-fingered baby hands. There goes all of puberty’s hard work. 

He pats his pockets. No Riptide. 

That’s definitely not a good sign.

As he watches a beat up old lighter swim past him with the catfish, Percy tries to direct his thoughts away from What the fuck what the fuck I can’t believe this is actually happening and towards figuring out why he’s lying at the bottom of trash river right now. Seriously. Percy looks down at his new (old?) body. He’s thigh deep in mud, surrounded by garbage, and looks like he just took a blast from Festus. So he could really be at any point in the last six years of his short, miserable life.

Great.

Then he hears a voice that sounds almost like his mom. 

Percy, what do you say?

“Ah, shit,” Percy says. “I mean,” he adds, “thank you, Father. And thank you,” he says to the ghostly figure in the current.

The Nereid smiles.

Percy actually remembers this now. Kind of. But if this really is after the Chimera thing, then that means—

The muck swirls around, revealing the glow of Riptide not five feet in front of him.

Take the sword, Percy , says the Nereid.

Yes! Percy surges forward, caps Riptide, then returns it to his pocket. He lets out a breath, immediately feeling a thousand times better.

“Thanks,” he says, trying not to cringe at his puny twelve-year-old voice. He doesn’t even want to imagine what it sounds like above water.

The Nereid’s form flickers. Before you descend into the Underworld, go to the beach in Santa Monica , she says. It is your father’s will.

“I’ll be there,” Percy nods. If everything goes according to plan, he’ll need a much bigger favor than the one she granted him the first time around.

The Nereid reaches towards him, and cool water caresses his cheek. 

Your father believes in you, brave one, the Nereid says. Her faint glow is almost drowned out by a passing swirl of debris. Good luck, she finishes, and do not trust the gifts given by those who have reason to betray you! 

As the Nereid’s image melts away, Percy wonders if he would’ve been able to understand her warning if he’d heard the whole thing last time. 

Probably not. Then again, it doesn’t matter now.

Percy surveys the bloated brown river and wishes he had a sand dollar. He’ll have to remember to bring one next time he comes around.

Before willing the current to propel him to the surface, Percy turns to the dark water and repeats, “Thank you, Father.” 

“I won’t let you down,” he adds.

Not yet, at least.

——

“We can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”

There’s nothing like being yelled at by a twelve-year-old version of your girlfriend. Who’s probably your ex-girlfriend now, Percy reflects, considering that it might be a little weird to push a ton of love and affection on a person who hasn’t experienced the events that the love and affection stem from. It definitely wouldn’t be fair to expect the same deep emotional connection and understanding from an Annabeth whom he hasn’t fought through two wars and one Tartarus with. 

But, at least she’s not afraid of him.

She‘s also several inches taller than he is, which Percy isn’t bitter about at all.

“What happened?” Grover bleats into Percy’s neck. He’s much squishier than the Grover Percy’s used to, but his bear-hug (goat hug?) is still the same amount of comforting. 

Percy pats him on the back before prying him off and shuffling both of his mini-friends away from the paramedics and into the crowd.

“An Australian anteater set her chihuahua son on me,” Percy tells them, “and then he set me on fire.”

“What?” Annabeth says.

“He also tried to poison me to death before pushing me off the Arch,” Percy nods thoughtfully. It’s all coming back to him now. “Sorry, Annabeth,” he adds, “but this one isn’t going on my list of favorite architectural icons.”

“Me neither,” Grover agrees, eyes wide.

“All things considered, I’m okay with that,” Annabeth says. She looks a bit sick.

Percy relays the whole your-father-calls-you-to-Santa-Monica thing to them as well, sans the gifts part. They don’t have to worry about that. He’ll take care of it.

“Whoa,” Grover says. “We have to get you to Santa Monica. You can’t ignore a summons from your dad!”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Percy shrugs. 

Since Percy has spent years travelling around the world, doing stupid favors for the gods and trying not to get maimed or killed, he doesn’t really remember the specifics of this particular trip. It’s pretty bad. Percy should probably feel ashamed of this, but then again, there isn’t anyone left to shame him. 

Anyway, he’s about to subtly ask about how they’re planning to get to California when—

“That’s right, Dan. Percy Jackson. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident—”

Right. Almost forgot about that.

“Come on,” Annabeth hisses, tugging on Percy’s sleeve, and all three of them duck into an alley.

After a moment of consideration, Percy sticks his head back out into the street.

“What is it?” Grover asks, “What’s with that weird look on your face?”

“Just trying to figure out if turning me in will get us enough bounty money to buy our way to LA.” Percy says, craning his neck towards the news van.

“We are not turning you in to the police.” Grover presses his head back into the alleyway.

“Why not?” Percy says. They could use a bit of cash. “You guys can just break me out afterwards, right?”

Annabeth looks like she’s considering it.

“No, guys,” Grover says. “No.” 

And then he quickly trots them back to the Amtrak station.

——

Percy spends the rest of his evening lounging on a lumpy train cushion, soaking up the remaining sunlight while Grover dozes on his shoulder. It’s nice. While he and Annabeth had been taking their unplanned tour of Tartarus, sometimes he had wondered if he’d ever feel warm again. 

Sometimes he still wonders that.

Annabeth sits opposite him, staring out the window. If Percy gets done what he wants to get done, then she’ll be able to spend the rest of her life taking this golden sunset for granted. That’s worth the loss of a friend who can understand the chill of the pit.

“Why are you staring at me?” Annabeth says, without turning her gaze from the window.

“Thinking.”

“Really? I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Hey,” Percy protests half-heartedly, and Annabeth cracks a grin. She looks so young.

She is so young.

Twelve-year-old Annabeth doesn’t boast the easy confidence of her future (past?) self. She obviously still has her pride, but it’s fragile, stretched thin. The tough skin of a leafy plant starving for rain. 

Percy can see the way she’s curling in on herself more clearly than when he was here the first time around, when he was just another kid doing his best to keep himself from hurting.

She’ll grow out of it, in the future. After all, if even Percy could do it, so can she. But, it took time. It took years. And the moments in between weren’t exactly comfortable. Percy knows how awful it is to be stuck in your own head with only yourself for company.

“You know,” he says, trying to summon the words Annabeth herself once told him. “You know you have intrinsic value as a person—no matter what you do or don’t do—and regardless of how much recognition others give you, right?”

Annabeth turns from the unending fields of hay barrels to scrunch up her face at Percy, confused.

“Did you hit your head at the Arch, too?”

“No,” Percy says, somewhat offended. “I’m just—really glad you came on this crazy quest with me. You’re really smart and really brave, and you shouldn’t have to prove that. Anyone with eyes can see it. You’re a good friend, Annabeth, and I wouldn’t want to walk into the Underworld with anyone else.”

A pause. They pass a row of pine trees, and sunlight scatters across the inside of the train.

Annabeth blinks. She looks surprised.

Then—“You’re acting weird,” she snorts, turning back to the fields. “We better get some food in you soon. The hunger is obviously making you delirious.”

Percy shrugs. After watching Annabeth deliberately not look at him for a couple of seconds, he leans to the side and presses his forehead against the cool glass of the window. 

It’s okay if she doesn’t get it yet. She will. Percy just wanted to say it to her at least once, since he doesn’t know if he’ll get the chance to say it again and have her listen.

Not even the Fates can predict the future now.

A trip through Tartarus can teach anyone the risks of sleeping while exposed, but it’s not every day that Percy gets thrown six hundred feet down and six years back into a dirty river. The warmth and rumble of the train have just about rocked Percy into a doze when he hears, very faintly, something that sounds like—

“Thanks.”

Bathed in the sunset’s orange light, Annabeth almost looks like she’s blushing.

——

Percy uses the twenty seconds Grover and Annabeth spend setting up an Iris-message in the car wash telling himself not to cry or punch anything. Annabeth gives him a weird look when he hands over the requested drachma, so he thinks that he’s doing a pretty bad job at hiding his nerves, but then he remembers that he forgot to ask what I-Ming was. 

Yeah. Percy’s really great at this time travel thing.

“Half-Blood Hill,” Annabeth calls.

The carwash mist swirls into the sight of strawberry fields and the Long Island Sound in the distance. There’s the porch of the Big House, and standing there, staring down at the meadow, is—

“Luke!” Grover bleats excitedly.

Luke turns.

Percy has to clench his hands to keep them from shaking. He’d forgotten what Luke had looked like before becoming Kronos’s host, before getting pushed off a cliff, before leaving camp, before everything. Not being possessed by a Titan lord is a good look for him..

“Percy! Annabeth!” Luke calls. “And Grover, you there, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine!” Annabeth says in a high pitched voice. She’s trying to comb back her hair with her fingers. It’s been a while since they’ve been able to take a shower. 

Percy feels self conscious, too, though it’s for a different reason. He is suddenly very aware that he looks like a twelve-year-old kid who recently got set on fire and dragged through a river of garbage, and he’s standing in front of his former (future?) archenemy. 

“We’re—” Annabeth starts, unable to meet Luke’s gaze. “I mean—I thought Chiron—”

“He’s down at the cabins. We’ve been having issues with some of the campers,” Luke frowns. “But, never mind all that. Is everything cool with you guys?”

“Wait, what sort of issues?” Grover interjects.

Luke opens his mouth, but before he can speak, a huge Lincoln Continental pulls into the stall next door. Annabeth immediately takes this for the escape opportunity it is, shoving the hose into Percy’s hands and ducking out of the call. She drags Grover with her, so they can go terrify a couple of asshole grownups together. Fun.

Percy is left staring at a guy who he spent four years alternately trying not to get killed by and trying to kill. A guy who’s smiling at him as if he isn’t actively plotting to send him into Tartarus right now.

Percy wonders if his powers over water allow him to transfer a punch over I-M..

“Chiron had to break up a fight,” Luke shouts over the music. He looks worried, still pretending he isn’t the one responsible for everyone fighting in the first place. “Things are pretty tense over here. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff, and we’re—”

“How’ve you been sleeping, Luke?” Percy says.

Luke goes still. 

For a moment, the only noise is the sound of the bass shuddering through the concrete.

Then Luke smiles wryly, running his hand through his hair. “Not so well, to be honest. I’ve been worried about—”

“Still having bad dreams?” Percy isn’t sure if this is how Luke always looks after he’s spent a night being tormented by Kronos. He still looks so much better than the hard-faced man in Percy’s memories, the scar always fresh on his cheek. 

“Dreams?” Luke laughs. He sounds nervous. “Sorry, Percy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Percy tilts his head to one side, studying Luke’s face. 

Then he says, “They’ll stop soon.”

“What?”

“The dreams. You don’t have to worry about them. They’ll stop.”

“Percy,” Luke says slowly. His eyes are narrowed, and it makes him look more like the Luke that Percy remembers. “Percy, have you—”

“See you later, Luke,” Percy interrupts. Then he disperses the spray of water. 

The hail of frozen mist shatters on the ground, the hose empty thirteen seconds before the timer runs out.

——

Annabeth is visibly disappointed when she doesn’t chase away the Lincoln Continental in time to catch one last glimpse of Luke. It’s okay, though. Percy isn’t planning on making it easy for Luke to break his promise this time around.

But, truthfully, Percy’s not very optimistic about this. His plans don’t usually go according to plan.

Case in point:

“You are not going into the creepy defunct theme park pool alone.” 

Annabeth folds her arms, suddenly looking so similar to her future self that Percy feels like he’s being gutted with a fish knife.

“Really?” he says. “You want to do the Thrill Ride O’ Love. With me.”

Annabeth glances at the sign, her face going red, and then whips her head to the side. “You’re just making it weird by saying it like that.”

Percy glances at Grover, who raises his hands in the universal gesture for Don’t look at me, dude .

“It’s gonna be gross,” Percy says. “And wet. And there’ll probably be spiders.”

Annabeth turns pale, but quickly retorts, “Spiders? In a pool?” She shakes her head. “Besides, this looks too easy. What if it’s a trap?”

Percy shrugs. “Then I’ll deal with it.”

“Um,” Grover interjects, “No offense, but the last time we left you somewhere alone, you fell six hundred feet into the Mississippi. While on fire.”

Percy can’t deny that.

“Face it, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth says, walking towards the edge of the empty pool. “You need someone to watch your back.”

“Fine.” Percy cuts ahead of her. “But I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

——

“I told you so!”

Annabeth glares at Percy like she’s about to unleash a really smart comeback, but it just comes out as “Aaaah!” since one of Hephaestus’s spider robots has gotten close enough to snag her shirt.

Percy bashes it on the head with Riptide and sends it flying against the wall of the pool. Then he kicks two of its friends away and drags Annabeth, who’s still shrieking, towards Ares and Aphrodite’s little love boat, while Grover swoops above them on Luke’s flying shoes, shouting and tugging at the golden net that’s trapping them.

Good times.

Except not really, because Percy isn’t used to fighting in his puny preteen body yet, and it shows. Last time he was twelve, he got through a lot of his fights by relying on Riptide to guide him. He grew out of that as time went on, and now it’s working against him. 

As Percy works on decapitating the last couple of spiders standing between them and the water park ride from Hades, he under-extends on a swipe and one of the spiders gets a slash in.

It’s embarrassing, really. He’s fighting worse than he did when he was actually twelve.

“Hold on,” Percy says, buckling Annabeth into the boat. Then, with a twitch of his hand, he summons the ocean to Waterland.

Over the sound of spider robots sparking and smashing into the bottom of the pool, Percy shouts, “Meet you on the other side!” to Grover, who’s gaping at the water shooting out of the pipes and washing them into the Tunnel of Love.

Is it just Percy, or is this ride even rockier this time around? He’s pretty sure they didn’t take out the Romeo and Juliet cutouts last time. Or smash into the walls. 

Annabeth is still screaming when Percy straps on Ares’s shield, unbuckles her seatbelt, and grabs her hand. Then he uses the water to throw them over the locked gate, boat and all.

Percy might be laughing when they reach the top of their arc. Or maybe that’s just the adrenaline. 

Or maybe it’s because it’s him and Annabeth, falling together. Again.

The collar of his shirt jerks him up and back out of his memories.

“I’ve got you!” Grover yelps.

And then all three of them are tumbling towards the concrete.

Oh.

It looks like a very hard fall.

Percy! Water!

Right. Percy shakes himself back together.

Two seconds before they kiss the ground, the water from the Tunnel of Love swirls up and around them like a geyser, swallowing them whole.

The impact doesn’t hurt. Percy lowers his friends to the ground before letting all the water splash away. 

Annabeth is coughing, and Grover is snorting up chlorinated pool water, but they don’t look like they’re hurt. They’re just soaked.

Percy reaches out and dries them both off before turning back to the creeper Cupid statues, who are still pointing their spotlights in their direction. 

He waves and calls, “Show’s over! Thank you! Good night!”

The lights power down. 

Percy sighs. 

That’s one annoyance dealt with. Twenty billion more to go.

“Percy,” Annabeth cries, “your arm!”

Percy looks down. There’s an ugly cut decorating the inside of his sword arm, tracing his vein from elbow to palm. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s just a scratch.”

Annabeth screws her face up. “I can see inside your wrist,” she says.

“And it’s way more of me than you ever wanted to see?” Percy offers. 

She glares. “Don’t make this into a joke.”

“Blame the blood loss.” The convenient, convenient blood loss.

“Water,” Grover says frantically, “you’ll be okay once we dip you in some water.”

“Uh.” Percy looks at the empty pool, then at the wet concrete surrounding them. “That might be a problem.”

“Grover,” Annabeth says. Her voice is the kind of calm that means she’s actually freaking out on the inside. “Go grab a bottle of water from the gift shop.”

Grover immediately lifts off, but then Percy grabs his ankle. “No, it’s good,” he insists. “Just give me a second—”

“—To bleed out?” Grover yelps. Luke’s shoes flutter like hummingbirds, straining at Percy’s grip. “Wait, do gift shops even have water? Wha— Di immortales , Percy, I can feel your blood dripping into my socks—”

“Grover, gift shop,” Annabeth orders. She pries Percy’s fingers off of Grover’s now bloody ankle, then guides his hand up until he looks like a kid who’s trying to ask his teacher a very urgent question about whether or not he can go to the nurse’s office. “I’ll go check the food court. Percy, elevate your arm, put pressure on the wound, and whatever you do, don’t die.”

“Got it,” Percy says, giving her a thumbs up with his non-elevated hand. 

Annabeth shoots him a stern look, and then she and Grover are racing off to help him. As they always do.

Once they’re out of sight, Percy slumps to the ground, sitting on the wet concrete that’s slowly becoming even more wet from his blood.

Time to get down to business.

Opposite Percy, there are a couple of sad yellow bushes sitting in a trench of dry mulch by the Tunnel of Love’s exit. 

They’ll do.

Percy closes his eyes and thinks about streams and waterfalls and the flow of water over his skin and down his fingers. When he feels a tugging at his gut, he opens his eyes to see blood pouring from his arm, rolling under the gate, and splashing into the dirt under the bushes like a little red river meeting the sea. 

It’s like he’s donating blood to the drying corpse of Waterland. 

Okay, that’s a wonderful image. Good one, Percy. 

Percy stares straight ahead and grinds his teeth. The part of himself that he shattered in Tartarus shifts like a dislocated joint, strange and loose and constantly tiptoeing on the edge of incredible pain.

This better be worth it. 

“Remember our deal,” Percy tells the dampening mulch.

He doesn’t stop until he hears his friends coming back for him.

Chapter Text

The first thing Percy does once Ares literally hands him the thing they accepted a cross-country quest to look for is almost rip the stupid backpack apart. 

He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. A secret pocket? A big red button? A tab that says “Pull to summon Zeus’s Master Bolt”? 

“What is it?” Annabeth asks.

Percy stops upending the backpack and shows her what’s inside. “Nothing but Oreos,” he says. “Can demigods get scurvy?”

While Annabeth gives her lecture on the effects of ambrosia and nectar on counteracting mortal nutrient deficiencies, Percy sulks as quietly as he can. Looks like Ares’s magic trick is smarter than he is. 

That sucks. Percy had been hoping that Annabeth and Grover could take the Master Bolt right now and ride the zebra back to Olympus. 

So that’s one plan nixed already.

Percy’s bad mood lasts through their sneaking onto the Kindness International truck, feeding and watering the other wild animals, de-ballooning the antelope thing, and Grover angrily falling asleep in a pile of hay. Hopefully he and Annabeth think Percy’s just angry about the animals.

Grover makes a snorting noise that’s audible over the rumble of the truck. It should be loud enough to wake him up, but it doesn’t.

“How does he do that?” Percy marvels.

“Natural talent, probably.” Annabeth twists an Oreo in half and hands the icing side to him.

“Thanks.”

“So,” Annabeth shoves her cookie half into her mouth. “What did Luke say in his I-M?”

Lies and manipulation. “He’s pretty worried about you,” Percy says. “You guys close?”

“Yeah.” Annabeth stares down at the ravaged Oreo package. Though the glow from Riptide keeps the truck from being completely dark, it’s impossible to read her expression. “He and Thalia found me when I was seven. He was fourteen, she was twelve. But, they were—” She hesitates. “It sounds stupid, but they were almost like parents to me then. They did everything I thought real parents would do.”

“They protected you,” Percy offers. “Cared for you unconditionally.”

“Yeah,” Annabeth says quietly. The Oreo packaging crinkles in her hands. After a moment, she turns to Percy and asks, “Your mom, is she…?”

Percy holds back the wave of agony and says, as steadily as he can, “She’s the nicest person you’ll ever meet.” 

“You sure you’re her kid then?” Annabeth teases.

“Hey, she has a rebellious streak, too. One time, she got into a big argument with my stepdad because he said that blue food doesn’t exist, and the next day she came back from work with five pounds of blue candy. She’s baked me blue birthday cake every year since. You’ve gotta try it.”

“I was wondering about the blue food,” Annabeth smiles. Her teeth glint with Riptide’s light, and Percy can see that she’s fiddling with her dad’s ring on her bead necklace.

“You never think about living with your dad again?” he asks.

A long silence.

Then—“I tried once,” she says stiffly. “Didn’t work out so well. I was back at camp before Christmas.”

A long silence.

Percy lets those words lie, unsure of how well twelve-year-old Annabeth will take comfort from a kid she doesn’t really know and still has reason to hate right now. 

But, he can’t not try.

Slowly, Percy moves his hand until his pinky finger is hugging hers. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly.

“I know that.” Annabeth’s response is immediate and cold, but she hasn’t ripped her hand away or suplexed him yet, which seems like a good sign.

“It really wasn’t,” Percy insists. When he spots her shoulders hunching, he decides to change tack, adding, “Anyway, you still have Luke and the Athena cabin. And everyone at camp. And Grover and me. We’re kind of family, right?”

Annabeth wrinkles her nose. “Technically, yeah. But, the gods don’t really have DNA, so we’re not genetically related, and frankly, it’d be bad if we were, considering the amount of intercabin dating—”

“Okay, so not my point here,” Percy interrupts. It’s really best not to chase that line of thought. “I just wanted to say that you can choose your family, you know? It’s not all about who gave birth to you. Or whose brain you magically bounced out of in a golden cradle.”

Annabeth gives him a weighty look. 

Then she punches him in the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“You watched too much PBS as a kid,” she says, as if she’s not a kid herself. “But, you’re right, I guess. Even if Thalia is...gone, I still have Luke. And everyone at camp.”

“And me,” says the caveman part of Percy’s brain that’s still clinging to his memories of future Annabeth.

“I’ve known you for like a month,” Annabeth points out.

Percy shrugs, trying not to look too hurt. She’s not wrong, obviously. Annabeth still doesn’t really know Percy. She hasn’t gone through the things they went through together in his future-past. She doesn’t remember the things he does.

And she never will.

“But, yeah,” Annabeth says quietly, not meeting his eyes. “And you.”

Her pinky curls around his.

——

Percy leans back, his eyes closed, and lets his head knock against the wall of the truck until Annabeth’s breathing has slowed into that familiar rhythm which says she’s sleeping deep. Then he opens his eyes and carefully untangles his hand from hers.

Because Percy doesn’t want to greet his mom with a new piercing, he should really use this time to practice his swordplay, but the uneven jerking of the truck quickly convinces him that waving Riptide around in here would be a really bad idea. So, instead, he summons a couple droplets of water from the lion’s bowl and approaches the zebra’s cage.

Lord?

“Hey, buddy,” Percy says, the water spinning above his fingertips like three tiny razor blades. “Why don’t we get that gum out of your mane?”

Percy has just sheared the last string of Hubba Babba from the zebra’s neck when he hears—

“It’s my fault.”

“Huh?” Percy startles. One droplet nicks a bar of the cage before Percy remembers to let go, sending the water splattering harmlessly to the floor.

Grover clears his throat, but his voice is still hoarse when he repeats, “It’s my fault that Thalia is gone.”

Someone’s been eavesdropping. 

“No,” Percy sighs, “it isn’t.”

“But it is,” Grover says sadly. “You don’t know, Percy. It was. I—”

And Percy knows that he should let Grover talk. It’s like draining an infected wound, talking about stuff like this. But, he suddenly feels so angry. Not with Grover. Not with Annabeth or Thalia or even Luke. He’s just so mad that each one of them, deep down, believes that everything bad that’s happened in their life is their fault. He’s mad because they think it’s their duty to fix the whole entire world, when they should be able to spend their time worrying about stupid things like failing tests and asking out their crushes, not fighting monsters and gods and their parents. They shouldn’t believe that their friends died because of them. They shouldn’t feel like they have to prove themselves to be worth something. They are lovable, and have always deserved to be loved, and their being shown the opposite has not been their fault. 

Percy wants to tell them this, repeatedly, constantly, in the hopes that if he says it enough times, they will finally believe him. Believe in themselves.

But they won’t. 

No matter how much Percy tries, he won’t be able to wash clean the old wounds left by other people. Water can heal, but the sea tears things down.

That’s the only thing Percy’s good at.

So, his voice is harsher than he wants it to be when he lunges towards Grover and says, “Did you set the Furies on Thalia? Did you try to hurt her? Stab her, slash her, make her bleed? Did you try to kill her? Did you turn her into a pine tree?”

Grover’s eyes are wide, and it’s only when he leans back and away that Percy notices he’s looming over him like a bully.

Cheeks burning, Percy scoots backwards, plopping down into the hay.

A tense silence falls.

Finally, Grover whispers, “I didn’t.”

Percy has just about forgotten what question Grover’s answering at this point, but he rallies. “Then how’s it your fault? You did your best. That’s all anyone can ask of you.”

“But, my best wasn’t enough,” Grover mutters. “I’m a failure. A coward.”

“Stop it, Grover,” Percy says, frustrated. He places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “You’re my best friend, you know that? You protected me for an entire year, and you’re still protecting me now, even though I’m dragging you straight into the Underworld—”

“Well, not straight into the Underworld. We’ve taken a lot of detours at this point—”

“—Hey, no, I’m trying to comfort you here, dude. What was I saying?” Percy pauses, thinking. Then he says, slow and deliberate, “Grover, you’re the bravest satyr I’ve ever met. And even better, you’re the kindest, too. You’ve got a big heart. That’s why you’re going to be the one who finds Pan.”

“Thanks, Percy,” Grover smiles weakly. He pulls Percy forward and hugs him. Then he says, right in Percy’s ear, “But, I’m pretty sure I’m the only satyr you’ve ever met.”

“Shh,” Percy whispers. “We’re having a moment.”

Grover hugs him tighter.

Aw , says the zebra. 

——

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover make an entrance into Las Vegas with just as much fanfare as last time: by setting an albino lion, an antelope thing, and a much-too-talkative zebra on the general populace, Grover’s blessing letting them safely weave through the groups of screaming people.

Too bad it doesn’t work on demigods.

Percy doesn’t really know where they should be going. But, the good thing about demigod traps is that Percy doesn’t need to know where they are. They’ll find him.

Annabeth leads them in ducking around tourists while Grover does his best not to look at the women with feather headdresses. Percy makes sure they leave a wide berth around every drunk person he spots. And, eventually, they do find themselves standing below a giant neon lotus, the Lotus Hotel and Casino sign glowing down at them.

Target acquired.

“Pillows,” Grover sighs dreamily.

“And showers,” Annabeth adds.

Percy grabs them both before they can leave the sidewalk.

“Stay sharp,” he says. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

Annabeth raises her eyebrows.

“Come on, Percy,” Grover bleats. He looks like he’s two seconds away from stamping his hoof. “I haven’t slept on a bed in, like, a week! I’m gonna have back issues before I hit forty!”

“I get it, dude. But we leave when I say we leave, okay?”

Somehow, the Lotus Hotel doesn’t really hold the same appeal as it did before. Maybe it’s because Percy’s not actually twelve. Or maybe it’s because he knows that the hotel is holding all these kids hostage in an unending time stasis and is slowly sucking their memories away.

The water slide around the elevator is still very tempting. Probably not in the way the Lotus Hotel wants it to be, though.

Percy is very tempted. But, maybe later.

He has some things to get done first.

After he, Annabeth, and Grover get washed up, Percy lets his friends go have their fun. He watches Annabeth beeline for the architectural design platform while Grover starts wandering towards the human-shooting game they found him at last time. 

Percy heads to the shadows.

Now. If he were a ten-year-old Mythomagic-obsessed son of Hades, where would he want to hang out?

Percy finds Nico in a corner, sitting at what looks like a school lunch table and smirking at the nerd across from him, who’s staring down at his cards, his head in his hands.

As Percy sneaks towards them, he sees the nerd finally slap his hands down and slide one of his cards forward. Nico scowls.

Wow. He looks a lot better with a tan. And without the trauma of having gone through Tartarus alone. Even with that familiar scowl on his face, he just looks like a normal little kid.

No. Right now he is just a normal little kid.

“Ares?” Percy says, leaning over Nico’s bent head. His hand is hovering over a card featuring the image of a guy who looks nothing like that asshole on the motorcycle. “No offense, but he’s a huge jerk. Why don’t you play, um, Dionysus instead?”

“Can’t,” Nico mutters. “Dionysus is the weakest god card, even if his powers are totally sweet. I’ll need Ares’s blood rage, so he can tank for the next three rounds.” Then he pauses, before twisting his head around like a baby owl. “Oh!” he cries, voice suddenly an octave higher. “Hello!” 

Nico blinks up at Percy and grins. “Do you wanna play too?”

“Uh—” Percy blanks for a minute, trying to remember the last time he saw Nico smile at him like that. It’s been so long that he actually can’t recall. “Nah. I’m still just learning about Mythomagic.”

Nico gasps. “Then you should definitely play! Here,” he scoots over, patting the six inches of bench next to him enthusiastically. “Sit with me. We can be a team!”

Percy hesitates. Sitting still and playing cards isn’t exactly his thing. But it’s Nico, so he nods and says, “Alright.”

Squished up against Nico at the lunch table, Percy does his best to pay attention as Nico babbles about the rules, and he’s so cheerful that he’s pretty much unrecognizable. While Nico thrashes the other nerd to the tune of his own running commentary, Percy alternates between holding back snorts at the wildly inaccurate pictures of the gods and glancing at Nico’s happy little face. Occasionally, he also hums in agreement with whatever Nico’s saying. At that, Nico always brightens up even more.

Holy Hades. Was Nico always like this before Percy and the Fates fucked his life up?

“Nico!” Someone scolds from behind them, and Percy flinches, reaching for his sword.

Fortunately, he reignites his brain in time to not make a truly horrible impression on Bianca, who continues, “What are you still doing here? It’s way past your bedtime.”

She reaches for Nico’s Mythomagic deck, and he slaps her hands away.

“Hey!” he yelps. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friend!” He gives Percy a quick glance, then looks away just as fast. “Geez, Bianca, you’re such a killjoy.”

“Nico—” Bianca puffs up, her face tight with anger, before deflating. She turns to Percy and says, “I’m sorry about my brother. He wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

“Not at all,” Percy says. He thinks he sounds pretty calm for a guy talking to the first person he got killed. He’s still shaky on the inside though, which is why he immediately goes, “Uh, hey, quick question. When’s your birthday?”

Bianca’s eyes narrow. “Why are you asking?” she says, as she tries to tug Nico away from the lunch table.

“Um. I’m doing a survey. For—a school project.”

Bianca doesn’t seem less suspicious of Percy, but she probably also doesn’t see the harm in giving a random kid her birthday, so she says, slowly, “October 27th.”

Percy lets out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

Thank all the gods. 

Uh. 

On second thought, just thank Hades.

“Great!” Percy says, standing with Nico, who Bianca then covertly shuffles behind her. “Good. That’s good.” 

A pause, as Percy tries to figure out what to say to the di Angelos, ignorant and innocent, their fates quivering like two birds huddled together on an icy wire.

Then he gives up. 

“I’m Percy. I—Uh, I know your dad.” 

Bianca freezes. Nico gapes.

Percy says, “He sent me here to take you home.”

Chapter Text

Too bad convincing the di Angelos to leave with him isn’t that easy.

Well, convincing Bianca isn’t that easy.

“Our dad is dead.”

“He’s not, actually,” Percy says. He’s walking backwards towards the elevator, Nico trailing him like a duckling and Bianca following Nico. “He’s just really good at playing dead. You guys were in a lot of danger, so your dad had to—uh, lay low for a while. He faked his own death,” he adds, getting a sudden spark of inspiration.

“Really?” Nico says. He considers that statement for a moment, then concludes, “That’s epic .” 

He’s practically bouncing. Percy suddenly understands a lot better why it took so long for them to figure out he was a child of Hades.

“And it’s safe now?” Bianca asks. Even she’s softening in the face of Nico’s enthusiasm.

Percy hesitates. “Um. Basically.”

Bianca does not look convinced. But Nico’s pretty much vibrating at this point. Percy’s afraid that if he gets any more excited, he’ll pop a baby skeleton out of the middle of the lobby.

“I can’t believe it. This is so cool! Can we go see Dad now? Is—” Nico glances at Bianca, then down at the floor, then back at Percy. “Will our mom be there too?” he asks, slightly more quietly.

Ah, shit. Why is Percy always telling this kid that his family’s dead?

Panicking just a little, Percy looks at Bianca, and his eyes must seem crazy enough because she takes the cue to hold Nico closer.

“Nico,” Percy starts, “your mom…”

He trails off. What can he say? Sorry, kids, your uncle killed your mom because she was your mom, and he didn’t like that. Also, your dad is literally Hades, the god of the Underworld, and by the way, you’ve been stuck in a hotel playing games for seventy years.

Nico’s already wilting. Percy feels like he’s kicked a three-headed puppy.

Luckily, Bianca’s supernatural power of interfering just when Percy’s about to screw Nico up for life kicks in, and she bends down, telling Nico, “It’s okay. We still have Dad, right?”

“Yeah!” Nico says, bouncing back immediately. Then he pauses, eyebrows furrowed.

“But if our dad is alive,” he pieces together slowly, “why didn’t he come get us himself?” 

Percy’s back hits the elevator frame.

“Yeah, Percy,” Bianca adds, eyeing him like he just drove up in a white van and asked her brother if he’d like some candy. “Why send you?”

Good question. 

Why did the di Angelos have to be so sharp?

Percy sighs. “You know,” he says, jabbing at the elevator button, “sometimes parents make really bad decisions, and the rest of us just have to roll with it.”

Bianca looks unmoved, but Nico just nods like Percy’s just dropped the wisest advice he’s ever heard.

“So,” Percy glances at Nico, then redirects his gaze to Bianca. “Do you wanna go or not?”

——

Percy does not blow up the Lotus Hotel via their waterslide. He feels like that would leave a bad impression on Bianca, who barely trusts him already.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he really, really wants to.

After Percy collects Annabeth and Grover and Ares’s stupid cursed backpack, he drags all four of his friends out into the dubiously fresh air of Las Vegas, resolutely not looking at the water slide the entire time. 

“Wow,” Nico says, staring wide-eyed at the speeding cars and neon lights.

“This seems...different,” Bianca agrees.

“Oh, you know Vegas,” Percy says. “It’s like a different city every day.”

Annabeth finally shakes off her design daze and notices that they’ve managed to exit the Lotus hotel with more people than they started with. 

“Percy,” she says slowly. “Why do you have two random kids with you?”

“They’re not random kids.” Percy gestures at Nico and Bianca, who are too distracted by a passing limo to pay attention. “This is Bianca and Nico di Angelo.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” Grover calls over. Then he hooks one arm over Percy’s shoulders and hisses, “Percy, why do you have two random kids with you?”

“They’re my emotional support random kids.”

“Percy.” Annabeth does not sound amused.

“Look,” Percy says, “their dad lives in LA. So I thought—”

Grover throws his hands up in the air. “ Di immortales , Percy. We can’t help out every lost kid we bump into.”

“But we helped the zebra! And the lion and the antelope thing!”

“That was different!” Grover insists. “We couldn’t just leave them in that truck!”

“And I can’t just leave Nico and Bianca here!” Percy realizes that he’s raising his voice. He doesn’t want to yell at his friends. “Please, guys,” he says more quietly. “Just think of this as another side quest.”

Annabeth folds her arms. Grover looks nervous.

“Come on,” Percy begs. “Just look at them. Look at Nico’s face.” Percy walks over to the di Angelos and frames Nico’s cheeks with his hands. Nico probably doesn’t know what’s happening, but he plays along, widening his eyes and sticking out his lower lip. 

“Can you really say no to this face?” Percy asks.

A moment of silence.

Then Grover visibly crumples. He elbows Annabeth, who sighs heavily.

“Fine,” she says. “But you’re in charge of babysitting.”

“Thanks, guys,” Percy says, while Nico protests, “Hey! I’m not a baby.”

“At least I won’t be the only girl on this trip anymore,” Annabeth adds, eyeing Bianca appreciatively. Bianca gives her a small smile. Annabeth slowly smiles back. 

For a second, they just look at each other. 

Then Annabeth sweeps forward, and they start walking out of the alleyway together, Annabeth introducing Bianca to Las Vegas’s architectural styles as they go.

Percy blinks.

Uh.

What just happened?

Bianca is pulling Nico along with her, ignoring how he turns around to glance at Percy after every three steps they take, so it’s just him and Grover left in front of the glowing lotus symbol.

Before Percy can follow the girls out, Grover catches him by the arm. “Percy,” he whispers, “I don’t know if you know what you’re doing, but those two kids—They’re kind of—And they smell—“

“Cut ’em some slack.” Percy reverses his grip so that he can tug Grover forward. “They haven’t been outside in seventy years.” Then he turns his head, noticing Grover’s worried look. 

“Dude,” Percy says. “It’ll be okay. Just trust me,” he adds.

“I do,” Grover mutters under his breath. “I think that’s the problem.”

——

“Wow,” Nico repeats. He hasn’t said anything else since they left the taxi that delivered them to LA while packed like a can of sardines. Grover had called shotgun. Annabeth and Bianca seemed happy enough chatting about Las Vegas’s interpretation of iconic Venecian architecture. Percy has gotten to know Nico’s Mythomagic deck really well, possibly through osmosis, since Nico had been practically in his lap the entire car ride.

Bianca seems less excited and more overwhelmed. “It’s very...advanced,” she says. Then she turns to look at Percy, like she knows there’s something he’s not telling them.

“You should see New York,” Percy quickly replies. “It’s a thousand times better organized. Right, Annabeth?” he adds, slipping to the side so that she’s blocking Bianca’s eyes from his.

As Annabeth draws Bianca into a discussion of city planning, Percy leads everyone to a Payless Shoesource by telling Grover that he can’t go around LA in blood-splattered shoes.

“But it’s your blood,” Grover points out.

“How does that make it better?” Percy asks. “People are still going to think we’re, like, little gangbangers. They might even try to pick a fight.”

Grover glances around nervously.

“We’ve got a bottomless LotusCash card,” Percy cajoles. “We might as well use it.”

“Exactly,” Annabeth agrees. She’s looking down at Bianca’s shoes, which are some sort of strappy leather contraption with a small heel. “I’d like a pair of fresh sneakers if we’re going to be walking around the city all day.”

“Fine,” Grover sighs, “but I’m not explaining to Luke why there’s blood all over his shoes.”

“Don’t worry. Percy will scrub the blood off with his toothbrush. Right, Percy?”

“Why does it have to be my toothbrush —”

Annabeth, Bianca, and Nico, who’s staring at a pair of light-up shoes like they’re newly released Mythomagic figurines, quickly disappear into the stacks of shoe shelves. Percy lingers on the welcoming mat, getting dirty looks from the cashier as he tries to remember how they got into the Underworld last time around. 

They gave Cerberus a red ball, and they had to bribe Charon, but where did they get the drachmas to bribe Charon with…?

Huh. Didn’t they run into that dinosaur yoga enthusiast guy here? What was his name, something something with an “ee” sound—

An orange shoebox is shoved under Percy’s nose. “Hey, what do you think about—What is it?” Grover asks.

“Nothing,” Percy says. “Actually, I think I saw a Burger King around that corner. I’m gonna go buy us some food.”

Grover hesitates, eyes flickering across Percy’s face. Then he nods. “Ask them if they serve their coke in a can,” he says.

“Will do!” Percy waves and leaves to the toll of the bell on the door.

Los Angeles may be a big, loud, smelly cesspool of bums and street hawkers, but Percy’s worse than all of them and has the glare to prove it. No one dares to approach him as he jogs down the street, so he gets to Crusty’s Water Bed Palace pretty quickly. The only time he has to stop is when he passes an appliance store and spots Smelly Gabe talking to Barbara Walters on one of the TVs. 

Percy would like to say that he’d forgotten Smelly Gabe had even existed, but that’s a lie. He just can’t think about him for too long without wanting to turn the nearest water pipe into a geyser.

Crusty’s store is just as neon and dyslexia-unfriendly as Percy barely remembers. As he enters, he pulls Riptide from his pocket.

“Hello!” says Crusty, slowly ambling over with a cold, reptilian smile. He extends a hand for Percy to shake. “I’m Crusty—”

“Yes, you are,” Percy says.

Crusty makes a choking noise, hand halfway raised. His eyes bug out of his raptor-like head. But it’s probably not because he’s outraged over the quip.

After all, there is currently a sword sticking out of his gut.

“Now that’s just rude,” Crusty says, right before Percy rips Riptide up and out, not-so-neatly splitting him from belly to throat.

As Crusty plunges forward, giant hands extended towards Percy’s throat, Percy ducks in close, close enough that his instincts are screaming at him in protest, and angles his blade towards Crusty’s jugular. 

Golden sand sprays across the floor, nicely accenting a tropical-themed display bed.

Percy breathes out. 

Then he curses and slaps his thigh with the flat of his sword.

That was way messier than it should have been. Crusty had been surprised and off guard, and that’s the only reason why Percy was able to take him on his own. Even then, he screwed up the first blow. He’s still overestimating his reach. He either needs to spend a week training before they go to the Underworld, or he needs to grow at least eight inches right now.

Wait a minute.

Percy looks at the nearest water bed.

Then he hears a gasp.

Whirling around, Percy points Riptide at the source of the noise.

Nico is holding the door half open, his eyes like little moons in his pale face.

Percy’s hand shakes. 

He immediately backs away, capping Riptide and returning it to his pocket. Holding his hands up, Percy approaches Nico like he’s a wild hellhound.

“Nico,” Percy says. “I can explain.”

Nico doesn’t move. He blinks once, twice.

Then he steps into Crusty’s store, letting the door slam shut behind himself. 

It doesn’t look like Nico’s about to run away screaming. Percy slowly puts his hands down.

Nico stares up into Percy’s eyes, his expression unreadable. For a moment, Percy sees the Nico from three years and never into the future, a ghost looking at him from his sunlit balcony, and he has to blink away the visions of another person who he will never let exist.

Then Nico starts smiling, his face open and full of wonder. 

“Are you a god?” he asks softly.

Percy freezes.

Crap.

——

“Poseidon? He has 3000 attack points and infinite health in a water arena! And he’s your dad?” 

Nico is sitting on Crusty’s office desk and kicking an excited drumbeat into the side with his heels while Percy frisks the drawers for cash and drachmas and anything that looks useful but not cursed, which is nothing.

“Pretty much,” Percy answers. Crusty’s business cards are worse than his store sign. Percy can feel the headache coming on.

“So—” Nico lets his legs dangle. “Are Bianca and I...?”

Percy weighs the pros and cons of lying versus not lying, before deciding that maybe he should tell Hades’s kid that he’s Hades’s kid before dragging him and his sister into the Underworld. 

“Yup, demigods, the both of you,” Percy nods.

Nico looks at Percy like he just handed him seventy years worth of birthday presents all at once.

“That is so cool,” he says, voice giddy. “Does that mean I can have a sword like yours? Do I get to kill monsters too? Will you teach me how to kill monsters?”

“Uh, ask your sister.” Come to think of it, Bianca’s probably freaking out about her missing brother right now. Percy better get Nico back before she accidentally summons a skeleton army in the middle of a Payless Shoesource.

“So,” Nico says. After Percy spotted a couple of kids eyeing him like they were trying to figure out how much his jacket sells for, he told Nico to walk a bit closer, so Nico’s basically trotting under his arm right now. “If you’re the son of Poseidon, does that mean—I mean, you’re not our brother, are you?”

He doesn’t seem very excited about the possibility.

Just when Percy’s about to ask if he’s too lame to be a di Angelo, he sees that Nico’s staring intensely at the dirty, gum-scarred street. And his cheeks are a little red.

Percy is suddenly very aware that Nico is the second person he managed to get dumped by without ever dating.

The thing is that Percy doesn’t know when Nico started crushing on him originally. He’s pretty sure that after he first met Nico, he just ignored him for a week. And then he got Bianca killed. 

After that, Nico was pretty set on hating him for the rest of his life, and Percy honestly couldn’t blame him. Still can’t, actually.

But even if Percy doesn’t understand how it happened last time, he still has to try his best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s better if Nico doesn’t get too attached to him. Loving Percy has never been an easy job, and it’s only going to get worse. 

He doesn’t want to screw up a perfectly good ten-year-old Mythomagic nerd. Again.

So, Percy says, “No.” And before Nico’s face can completely light up, he continues, “Technically, I’m your cousin. Kind of, I guess.” Percy can see Nico’s hopes and dreams dying in real time, so he quickly adds, “Your dad is Hades, lord of the—”

“Hades?” Nico immediately perks back up. “God of the Underworld Hades?”

Okay, that’s too much enthusiasm for a hellish mom-napper who once (will?) put Percy in a tiny cell while he was trying to save all of Olympus. “Yeah,” Percy starts, “but Nico—”

“Are you kidding me?” Nico shrieks. He’s clutching at Percy’s shirt with his little baby claws. “Hades is my dad?” he breathes. “Hades is my dad! He has 5000 attack points if the opponent attacks first! This is the best day of my entire life!”

——

Now that Nico knows who his godly parent is, Percy knows he has to tell Bianca, too. Hopefully he can introduce her to the world of demigods in a way that’s less traumatizing than having her watch him kill someone with a sword or see someone she loves be choked out by the Minotaur or something.

But, it turns out that Percy didn’t really need to have anything planned, because as soon as they get within ten feet of where Bianca, Annabeth, and Grover are waiting outside the Payless, Nico runs ahead, calling, “Bianca! Bianca! Guess what? Hades is our dad! We’re both demigods!”

Percy doesn’t smack himself in the forehead, but it’s a near thing.

“What?” says Bianca.

“What,” says Annabeth.

Annabeth whips her head around to look at Grover for confirmation, but Grover is too busy glancing between Nico’s grin and Bianca’s confused expression. Horror slowly dawns on his face.

“Percy…” he whispers. “What have you done?”

“I can explain,” Percy says, before realizing that he actually can’t explain. “Uh,” he says intelligently. “I had a gut feeling?”

Grover groans, burying his face in his hands.

“I can’t believe this,” Annabeth mutters. “I can’t believe—” She catches Bianca’s eye, but quickly flinches away. “I can’t—” 

Annabeth stares down at the sidewalk, her hands clenching and unclenching. For a moment, she’s as stony as Medusa’s statues.

And then she turns around and storms off.

Fuck.

Bianca’s gaze follows Annabeth until she disappears around the corner of the block. Then she looks at Percy.

Percy wonders if he looked that confused and hollowed out when he learned who his dad was.

But every second that passes is a second that Annabeth spends getting further from them and closer to getting mugged, so Percy can’t stay to explain—Also, frankly, he doesn’t want to—so he just says, “Grover, could you tell them—um, everything? Please? I’ll be right back.”

“Dude—”

Percy’s already running.

“Annabeth,” he calls. “Annabeth. Please, Annabeth, it’s not what you think—”

He reaches for her hand, but she wrenches it away before he can even touch her.

Instead, she shoves him into the nearest alley and uses her forearm to pin his neck to the grimy brick wall.

“And what am I supposed to think, Percy?” she hisses. “We’re travelling to the Underworld, trying to find the Master Bolt, which Hades stole, and you just happen to show up with two of his kids? How do I know that you aren’t trying to—”

“I’m not doing this for Hades,” Percy says. “I’m doing this for Nico and Bianca. They don’t deserve to be stuck in the Lotus Hotel forever—”

“Deserve?” Annabeth snorts. “They don’t deserve anything. They shouldn’t even be here—They shouldn’t be alive! I just can’t believe—After everything—After everything Hades did, it turns out that he broke the oath, too! Then why—Why was Thalia the one who…?”

Annabeth backs away, pressing her eyes into the crook of her elbow. 

Percy doesn’t move.

He wants to defend Nico and Bianca. He wants to tell Annabeth that Hades didn’t break the oath, that Nico and Bianca have been hidden away for decades like pieces of a broken china set that Hades can no longer bear to look at. 

But that wouldn’t be helpful right now.

So Percy just says, “They didn’t ask to be born.”

Annabeth shifts her arm to glare at him, but she also doesn’t lunge at him again, so Percy quietly continues, “Hades was cruel and unfair, sending monsters after Thalia. And Zeus should have protected her, but he didn’t. And none of the Big Three should have broken the oath, so I shouldn’t have lived at all. But, I did, and they did. They did.” Percy takes a breath, digging his fingernails into the brick. 

“That’s not Nico and Bianca’s fault,” he points out. “They’re just kids. Like Thalia was. They don’t know anything. They haven’t done anything.”

“So you’re just gonna hand them over to Hades, so he can train them to— do something,” Annabeth sneers.

Percy takes another breath. Then another.

He lets that sit there for a minute while Annabeth stews.

Then he says, as calmly as he can, “Hades has my mom, Annabeth.”

Her eyes snap back to his.

“My mom—” Percy shakes his head, trying to put his thoughts together. “Hades took her. He’s holding her hostage, and—I’m the reason he’s doing this. She shouldn’t be in the Underworld! I want—I need her to be okay. That’s why I’m bringing him the di Angelos. I’m going to take her back using everything I can.”

Percy looks up at Annabeth’s cold face. “Wouldn’t you do the same,” he says slowly, ”if Thalia was stuck down there and not in a stupid pine tree?”

A long silence, disturbed only by the beeping of cars and the mutters of passersby.

Annabeth’s gaze is drilling into Percy the entire time.

Finally, she turns her head away, towards the mouth of the alley. In the slanting sunlight, Percy can see her lips trembling.

“Okay,” Annabeth mutters. “But you better keep them away from me.”

Chapter Text

Annabeth refuses to sit with them on the bus to Santa Monica Bay. She leans on a pole near the front door, quietly interrogating the confused bus driver about the DOA Recording Studios flyer Percy scavenged from Crusty’s office.

Bianca stares at her from the back of the bus until she notices Percy noticing. Then she turns her gaze to the window. 

Sitting in the row in front of them, Nico asks Grover rapid-fire questions about all the monsters he’s encountered, Grover looking more and more terrified as time goes on. Whether it’s because of the memories or because of the hyperactive son of Hades bouncing in the seat next to him, Percy doesn’t know.

So, now’s as good a time as any to talk to Bianca. To be honest, he’s surprised she’s stuck around this long already. 

Okay, if it wasn’t for Annabeth, she probably would’ve decked him and ran off before they made it on the bus.

Percy shifts uncomfortably. It was stupid of him not to think about how Annabeth would react to a child of Hades before Thalia got un-tree-ed. And now Bianca is suffering for it.

Stupid.

Percy slips into the one seat gap between him and Bianca. She doesn’t move her head, but she’s watching him from the corner of her eye.

“Look,” Percy says, “I didn’t tell you everything about why I took you and Nico out of the Lotus Hotel.”

Bianca gives him a small smile that quickly fades away. “I kind of figured. The whole demigod thing was a bit of a giveaway.”

“Not just that.”

Bianca finally turns her head away from the window. Percy can’t meet her eyes, so he stares down at his hands instead. He still gets a shock when he sees them. 

So small. So weak.

Percy starts, “I needed you guys…” 

Then he goes silent.

Will the bus driver still take them to Santa Monica if Bianca gets his blood on the seats? No, wait, that should be the least of his worries. 

“I needed you because your dad kidnapped my mom, and I don’t think he’s gonna give her back without a fight,” Percy says, as quickly as he can. “Or a trade,” he adds more quietly.

Bianca doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she whispers, “So we’re your hostages.”

“No!” Percy yelps. He pauses to think about it. “Maybe a little,” he amends. 

Percy looks up. Bianca has turned back to the window. Her chin is wobbling. Or maybe that’s just the bus.

Last time, Percy didn’t know Bianca for long. Didn’t know her at all, really. To him, she has always been a ghost and a martyr and the first person who took a death that should have been his own.

It’s strange, now, to be talking to the girl who wanted to be free so badly that she threw away her brother.

It hurts to be the one who’s not even giving her a choice this time.

“I’m sorry, Bianca.”

Percy goes to give her some room, but her hand lashes out and grabs him by the wrist before he can move.

“It’s—” Bianca takes a deep breath. “It’s not okay. But I get it, I guess.” After a second, she adds, “You must really love your mother, huh?”

“She’s the best,” Percy says, digging his fingernails into his leg. “And Hades took her because of me, so I have to get her back.”

Bianca sits quietly for a moment. Then she glances at Percy and says, “I don’t remember my mom at all.”

Percy wants to drain the Lethe and use the water to strangle Hades. “She loved you,” he says fiercely. “So much. She would’ve given up everything to make you and Nico happy. She refused to hide in the Underworld because she wanted to raise you close to her family.”

Bianca stares. “How do you know that?”

Crap.

Should he lie? 

Percy pinches himself in the thigh. He’s already done too much lying to the di Angelos. Worst comes to worst, one of them will just hold a grudge against him forever. And he’s used to that.

“I dreamed about it,” Percy tells Bianca. “It’s a demigod thing,” he adds quickly. “Prophetic dreams, visions of the past—You’ll probably get them, too, at some point.”

Bianca nods, looking dazed. She lets go of his wrist, but Percy doesn’t try moving away again.

He can tell that she’s thinking. She’ll have more questions she wants answered. And Percy wants to try to answer them, because he knows how frustrating it is to be shoved into a strange new world where no one will give you a straight answer about anything, especially the things that will kill the people you love.

Percy does regret it, though, when Bianca looks at him through her hair and says, “...Does our dad even want us?”

It would be the easiest thing in the world to just grin and say, “Of course he does!” Percy would say that, if he was sure that it was true. But he doesn’t, so he can’t, and he won’t.

Honestly, taking the di Angelos to Hades is a gamble. By washing their memories clean and putting them in the Lotus Hotel, Hades was protecting them, but he also did it to protect himself from the pain of seeing their mother in their faces. Percy had noticed a long time ago that Nico has Maria di Angelo’s smile, but now he can also see that Bianca has her eyes. 

There’s a chance that Hades won’t even let them into his palace. That he won’t even look at them.

But, Percy thinks there’s also a good chance that Hades won’t do that. He remembers the glimpses he got of Nico growing up, Nico growing into the empty spaces at his father’s side. Of all the Greek gods, Hades might be the one who understands the happiness and sorrow of making a family best.

Percy isn’t going to make excuses for the jerk who kidnapped his mom, though, so he just tells Bianca, “He loves you two. A lot.”

“Then why did he abandon us?” Bianca says.

“Being a child of the Big Three—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—It’s dangerous,” Percy explains. “We’re dangerous. And...most people don’t really like Hades, so it’s even more dangerous to be his kid. He probably thought he was protecting you.”

“I don’t know anything about him. Except that he’s an abductor of moms, apparently.” Bianca’s lip curls.

Dang. Is Percy going to have to make excuses for the jerk who kidnapped his mom? Is this what his life has come to?

“Look,” Percy says, “Hades is—He’s bitter. And he hates a lot of people. Like me. But underneath all the frowning and death threats and creepy robes with people’s souls sewn into them, he’s just a guy who cares about his family so much that he’ll curse the Oracle of Delphi to forever be an undead zombie mummy.” 

Bianca looks horrified. 

“Uh,” Percy stumbles. “Actually, forget that. Sorry, I don’t know where I’m going with this.” 

Seaweed Brain. You are such an idiot sometimes.

Percy breathes in.

He says, “I think you’ll learn to love your dad, if you stick with him. And if it really doesn’t work out, you can leave. You can come to New York and find me, and I’ll help you. I mean, you could even run away and join the Hunters of Artemis if you wanted to. Just—You’re in charge of your own life, Bianca.” 

Percy hesitates. Then he takes Crusty’s wallet out of his backpack and hands it to her. 

As she reaches out, he says, “If you really don’t want to see Hades, then take a train and go. I’ll work something out. You go do whatever you want to do.”

Bianca takes the wallet, worrying the hopefully-not human leather under her thumb.

“What if I want to rob a bank?” she asks. “Or kick puppies?”

“You don’t,” Percy says confidently. “You won’t. You’re a good person.”

Bianca doesn’t respond.

“Don’t believe me?” Percy says.

Bianca sighs. “I already believe that my dad isn’t dead because he’s actually the Ancient Greek god of the Underworld. I might as well believe you about this, too.”

“That’s the spirit.”

——

Percy walks into the Santa Monica Bay to the tune of Nico’s excited chatter. A mako shark presses its snout into his palm, and he pets its back a couple times before grabbing onto its dorsal fin.

While Percy waits for the Nereid to show up, he looks down into the impenetrable black of the ocean proper. It’s not tempting in the same way it was when he was twelve the first time and wanted to see his dad’s court. It’s not even tempting in the way that the call of the ocean outside Camp Jupiter was tempting, back when Percy had nothing but Annabeth’s name. 

Still. There’s one part of Percy that just wants to sink into the darkness, into the sands below his father’s palace, so far down that even the gods are out of reach.

A glowing hand tilts his chin back up.

“You’ve come very far, Percy,” says the Nereid. “Well done.”

“Uh, thanks,” Percy says. She really does look like his mom. It makes it hard to stare at her for too long. To cut the exchange short, Percy just goes ahead and asks, “Do you have something for me? From my father?”

The Nereid pauses. Then she says, “Yes. It’s an unhappy thing, that the gods can work only through indirect influence. But your father would not have you die before your time. That is why I’ve come to give you a gift and a warning.”

She opens her right hand. There are three pearls sitting in her palm.

“I know you journey to Hades’s realm. Once you are there, he will never willingly let you leave. Therefore, when you are in need, smash one pearl at your feet.”

“Thank you,” Percy says. He fidgets with the hem of his shirt, steels himself, and then looks up into her eyes. “But, do you happen to have any more pearls with you? I know a couple of kids who might also be ‘in need’ of a way out of the Underworld.”

The Nereid raises an eyebrow. “Oh?” she says.

And so Percy lets the whole sad story of the di Angelos pour out. Maria, Hades, Zeus. The Underworld, the Lethe, the Lotus Hotel. Nico and Bianca, trapped between worlds. 

Once Percy finishes, he’s staring into the ocean again, and there’s nothing but silence. When he peeks up at the Nereid’s face, her expression is smooth and unreadable, like the surface of a stillwater pond.

Percy can suddenly hear the blood rushing through his head, rolling faster and faster.

Did he just put Nico and Bianca in even more danger?

“Sorry,” Percy says quickly, “just forget it. And—and I don’t want to get you in trouble with Lord Poseidon or anything, but if you could forget everything I just said about the di Angelos, that would be great—“

The Nereid holds up one hand.

“Peace, Percy,” she says. “I will not withhold my assistance from a child in need.”

She closes her first. When she unfolds her fingers again, there are five pearls sitting in her palm.

The Nereid gently takes Percy’s wrist, and then she pours the pearls into his hand.

“Thank you,” Percy says, holding the pearls to his chest. “Thank you so, so much.” 

The Nereid smiles and starts floating back to her seahorse.

“Wait!” Percy calls.

She turns.

“Uh,” Percy says. “What do you want in return?”

The Nereid gives him a weird look. “Nothing,” she says.

“But,” Percy’s brain stutters. “But, there’s always a price. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Isn’t that an Ancient Greek saying?”

For a moment, the Nereid just looks at him. 

Then her lips curl upwards, even as the rest of her expression crumples.

“Oh, Percy,” she says. “A little bit of compassion will not cost me a thing. And it won’t cost you either. You must go with what your heart tells you. I hope you remember that.”

——

When Percy makes it back on land, Bianca is still there. And even though Annabeth still won’t talk or even look at her, she continues not running for the nearest train station during the whole time they spend travelling to DOA Recording Studios.

Which is good, because descending into the Underworld is laughably easy with her and Nico there. It’s kind of freaking Percy out. He’s pretty sure nothing in his life has ever gone this swimmingly.

As soon as Charon spots Nico at Percy’s side and Bianca over his shoulder, he immediately escorts them back to the elevator. Despite Bianca’s protests, he then proceeds to boot out all of the waiting souls, so a bunch of demigods and a satyr are suddenly getting a private ride across the River Styx.

“Don’t touch that,” Bianca hisses.

Nico withdraws his hand from a plastic toy floating on top of the dark, oily river. He shoots Bianca a guilty look.

Charon starts poling faster.

Cerberus is nothing but an overgrown puppy in front of the di Angelos. His three heads push against one another, each one trying to spend more time under Nico’s frantically patting hands. Though Cerberus is way too tall for Nico to give him a proper head rub, Nico still pets the front of his snouts with the serious face that Percy has only seen him show his Mythomagic deck so far.

Bianca looks on, shifting from foot to foot, like she wants to join in but isn’t sure how. 

Percy’s about to give her a push forward when Annabeth unzips her backpack, takes out a bright red Waterland dodgeball, and shoves it in front of Bianca’s face.

Bianca blinks, surprised. Then she smiles and says, “Thank you.”

Annabeth still won’t look at her.

Unfortunately, the di Angelos don’t even make it through their third round of fetch before the sound of swooping wings sends the surrounding spirits screaming and scattering out of line.

As Mrs. Dodds and her sisters land, Percy pushes in front of Grover and Annabeth, who draws her knife. Bianca tugs Nico closer. 

But the Furies don’t attack.

“Children,” says Mrs. Dodds. Even though Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are standing at the front, she’s clearly addressing Bianca and Nico, half hidden behind them. “Your father requests your presence at the palace. Please,” she gestures with one nasty claw, “follow me.”

The Furies take them through the un-scenic route to Hades’s throne room, so Percy doesn’t even have to “accidently” let Luke’s shoes escape from his backpack and take a dive into the pit. They get marched down a stone walkway with high walls covered by brown tendrils of ivy. If it weren’t for the high stalactite sky overhead, Percy would think that they were going through part of the labyrinth.

Percy thinks it’s smart of the Furies to not let Nico and Bianca see the pale melancholy of the Fields of Asphodel or hear the souls screaming in the Fields of Punishment. But he still understands Maria di Angelo a lot better now. He doesn’t like to picture Nico and Bianca growing up here, the only two bright spots in someplace so dead. At best, they’ll have Hades to care for them. At worst, they’ll only have each other. Or themselves.

Maybe Percy should assign them pen pals. Is Will Solace at Camp Half-Blood yet? 

The skeleton soldiers salute as Nico and Bianca enter the hall, and Hades is no longer an arrogant god waiting to taunt Percy from his throne.

Instead, he’s a man in a black suit, hair tied back and face pale, looking at his children for the first time in seventy years.

Nico takes two steps forward, but then Bianca puts her hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

Which is good, because Percy suddenly can’t do it. He sways on his feet, and for some reason, he doesn’t have the energy to respond to Annabeth elbowing him in the ribs or Grover whispering his name. He wants to lie down forever, curl up at Hades’s feet and sleep.

Just sleep.

Then there are a dozen bayonets pointing at him, Annabeth, and Grover. 

Bianca whirls around, shoulders tense. Nico cries out.

There’s no time to feel tired. Percy grabs the handful of pearls in his pocket, swiftly shoving away all thoughts of sleep and the quiet whisper of Why is Hades affecting me more this time?  

He lifts his head just in time to catch Hades’s glare.

“What,” Hades says, “is the meaning of this, Percy Jackson?”

Percy cocks his head to one side and replies, “You’re not so tough when the turns have tabled, huh.”

“Percy,” Grover hisses. Annabeth sends a look his way, too, but Percy can see that she still has her dagger out, tucked up against the inside of her forearm.

Percy is about to continue by saying something diplomatic, like “Give me my mom back, you complete jackass,” when Nico ducks out of Bianca’s grip and steps forward, drawing Hades’s attention away.

Nico asks, “Are you our dad?”

His words echo strangely in the palace of the dead.

Hades’s shoulders rise and fall under the smooth fabric of his suit.

“Nico,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “Bianca.” Hades nods at her, but she doesn’t respond, caught between Nico and the rest of them, surrounded by swords and soldiers. 

Hades glances between his two children, drinking in their features like he’s the one who has been eternally starving in the Fields of Punishment. 

Finally, he clears his throat and tells them, “Yes.”

Just one small word. It resounds like the strike of metal upon metal, the last heavy mechanism of an ancient lock sliding into place.

Percy lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

Bianca steps closer to her father, slowly, like iron drawn to a magnet. 

“Why did you make your lawyer tell us you died?”

“It wasn’t safe,” Hades says, after a moment. His eyes are fixed on hers. “I was protecting you. Both of you.”

That’s not a good answer. Percy can see Bianca clench her fists, her shoulders rising.

He doesn’t even get a chance to dodge past the skeleton soldiers before she explodes.

“How is leaving us at a random hotel safe?” Bianca yells. She’s storming past Nico now, pointing her index finger at her father’s nose. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed—You’re a god! I don’t get it! I don’t get you at all! If you wanted to protect us, then all you had to do was not leave us! If you wanted to keep us safe, then you should have kept us by your side, like any normal parent! And then, instead of taking care of Nico all the time, I could have—I could—”

Bianca’s words get choked off, her shoulders heaving. 

When Hades raises a hand, Percy presses forward, one bayonet digging into his throat, but the hand doesn’t come down in a blow. Instead, it just hovers over Bianca’s bent head, wavering and unsure.

Percy stops struggling.

“Bianca?” Nico says. He walks to her side and pulls at her hand until her fingers are no longer curled into her palm.

Bianca stares down at her brother. She takes his hand.

She starts, “I just wanted—”

A heavy silence.

Bianca shakes her head. 

She looks up at Hades and says, “You were wrong to leave us. Family sticks together. Even when it’s hard.” 

“Especially when it’s hard,” Nico adds.

Standing tall before the god of the dead, the di Angelos have never looked more powerful.

Hades—slowly, carefully, gently—places his hand on Bianca’s head. It becomes a stroke of her hair, a caress of her cheek.

“I...apologize,” he whispers.

Bianca takes a step back, pulling Nico with her.

Hades looks like he’s been slapped.

“I don’t accept,” Bianca says. “Don’t tell us you’re sorry. Show us.”

She glances back at Percy. He can see that she’s smiling.

Percy calls out, “Yeah, Uncle Hades. You can start by giving my mom back.”

Hades’s gaze snaps to Percy. 

“Oh,” he says, sounding bored, “are you still here? Will you not be satisfied until you can start Daddy Poseidon’s little war, godling?”

Oh, right. 

Percy knew that he was forgetting something.

Bianca frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“So he has lied to you, too,” Hades smiles coldly. “Listen well, children. Percy Jackson stole the master bolt, then he stole my own helm of darkness, and then he stole you, all to pull me into his father’s conflict. Another cruel war between brothers. This is what your cousins are like,” Hades says, spreading his arms. His suit melts away into black silk robes, and he looms over his children. “This boy would spill your blood for a simple glance from his father. Remember this, Nico, Bianca: Olympus is not our family. They would sooner kill you than treat you with compassion.”

Nico goes pale. Bianca tugs him close, her back hunched.

Percy can feel his anger boiling under his skin.

“That’s not true!” he shouts. Bristling, he turns to Bianca, ignoring the soldier jabbing him in the collarbone with his bayonet, and says, “Sorry, Bianca, I forgot to warn you that your dad is a crazy delusional conspiracy theorist.”

Grover whimpers. Annabeth shifts, subtly bumping Percy back until he can no longer feel the pressure of the blade against his skin.

“Then what is that in your backpack?” Hades sneers.

Percy knows better than to check right now. “A trap” he says, “from someone who’s playing you like a fool.”

Hades rolls his eyes. Percy wonders how quickly Nico will pick that up. “A likely story.”

“Check your basement for rats, if you don’t believe me. I think you’ll find that you’re beginning to have an infestation, Uncle Hades,” Percy taunts. “You better hope that no social workers find their way into the Underworld. I don’t think they’d call this a suitable place to raise two kids in.”

If Hades’s glare was a physical force, Percy would be so dead right now. But then he’d be free to cause trouble for Hades forever, so that would actually be a win.

“Take them to the cells,” Hades says. “And deal with them.”

A soldier grabs Percy by the arm, so he punches him in the spine. He can hear the thunk of Annabeth’s dagger on bone from behind him, and Grover isn’t screaming too loudly, so he must be holding his own, too. 

Percy kicks one skeleton hard enough that it trips into another that Annabeth just de-legged. This buys him enough time to split up the pearls.

“Don’t!,” Nico yells, running into the fray, Bianca following. The skeleton soldiers immediately freeze. “Please, Dad.”

“Stand aside, Nico. Bianca—”

“No,” Bianca says. She’s standing in front of them, arms outspread. Even though she’s mirroring the position Hades held just moments ago, she’s never looked less like her father. 

Or more like her mom.

Nico pulls at Percy’s sleeve. “You’re bleeding,” he says, eyes big and worried.

“I’ll be fine. Here,” Percy whispers. He presses one pearl into Nico’s hands, then turns Bianca around and gives her the other. “Don’t let your dad take these. If you ever want to leave, smash one at your feet. The sea will help you.”

“Percy—” Bianca starts.

“It’s fine.” Percy tries to smile.

He backs away from the di Angelos, pushing Annabeth and Grover towards the exit behind them. 

“I’ll return your helm, Uncle,” he says. “And once I do, my mom better be back in New York, healthy and safe. Or else you won’t like what I do to you.”

“Arrogant child!” Hades bellows. “You will not—”

“By the way,” Percy yells over him, “my birthday’s in August, not that I’m expecting a present from you. But that means anyone who wants Nico and Bianca will have to go through me first!”

And before he can see Hades’s reaction to that, Percy whirls around, his hand open, three pearls sitting in the palm of his hand.

“Take one and smash it on the floor,” Percy tells Annabeth and Grover. 

“Well, what are you waiting for! Destroy them!” Hades shouts.

“Father!” Bianca says, just as Nico cries, “Percy!”

“Now!”

The crack of shotguns fills the room.

While Annabeth and Grover duck, Percy braces himself. 

Luckily, the bubbles form just in time to keep them from each taking a dozen bullets to the head.

“How do you control these things?!” Annabeth asks.

“We’re gonna crash!’ Grover yelps.

Percy would explain, but he’s too busy yelling at Hades. “And one more thing! Next time you get tired of playing with your kids, don’t leave them at the Lotus. Just build them a game room! It’d help with the decor!”

He isn’t sure if Hades can hear him over all of Grover and Annabeth’s screaming, but his expression says that he wants to murder Percy in an extremely painful way. 

So he probably got the general idea.

And with one last wave to Nico and Bianca, Percy’s crashing through the stalactite ceiling of the Underworld and straight into the sea. 

Where he belongs.

Chapter Text

When Percy breaks the surface, Annabeth is treading water at a marching tempo, her eyes wide, and Grover is splashing away from him, yelling, “Percy! Shark!”

Percy looks down.

The mako shark bumps its snout against Percy’s chest, avoiding the cut on his collarbone that’s quickly knitting together. Percy pats it twice on the head, and then he goes to collect his friends, who are pale and tired and soaked.

Because they just had to escape from the Underworld while under heavy gunfire. Again.

Percy is bad at this, isn’t he?

The mako shark swims them to the shallows, Percy clinging to its dorsal fin, Annabeth clinging to Percy, and Grover clinging to Annabeth, so they look like some sort of weird aquatic conga line. They drag themselves the rest of the way to shore and half-collapse onto the brown sand.

“The—” Grover coughs, spitting salt water. “The master bolt isn’t really in your backpack, is it?”

Percy shrugs it off and tosses it to him. His hands are shaking.

Hades didn’t even show him his mom this time.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

“Holy—Look!” Grover says. “I-I can’t believe this. How did this happen?”

Percy has the answers. He can explain. But if he opens his mouth right now, he’s afraid that the only thing that will come out is a scream. Or a sob. Or something worse. 

Right now, all he can do is stay like this, on his hands and knees in the sand.

Annabeth stands, her sneakers pacing back and forth across the sand above Percy’s head.

“That means…” she trails off. “Shit, it must have been—”

He’d been so stupid. Why did he think taking Nico and Bianca to Hades was a good idea? Did he think Hades would be grateful or reasonable or kind? Now the di Angelos are trapped underground with a guy who’ll probably manipulate and bully them instead of trying to be an actual good parent and Hades didn’t even offer him a deal before trying to kill him so Luke and Kronos’s war might actually happen this time and Annabeth and Grover were almost killed again just for being there, and Percy still didn’t save his mom.

He didn’t even get to see her. It’s been so long.

“What do we do now?”

What if he—

What if she’s—

Fuck.

Stupid. Percy’s so stupid.

Why is he so stupid?

Annabeth lets out a strangled sound.

“Then what was the point of all this! This is just like—Goddamnit! And Percy, how did you—” 

The words break off. 

“Percy?”

Annabeth’s sneakers take a break from their angry stomping. Percy stares blankly at her wet shoelaces, sprinkled with sand.

Slowly, Annabeth crouches down. 

She places a hand on his shoulder.

Percy tries to focus on the weight of her palm. Despite the fabric of his shirt between them and the cool ocean breeze, her hand feels warm.

“I’m sorry about your mom, Percy,” Annabeth whispers. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

“Would you look at that!” Ares calls, and Percy jolts like he’s just been electrocuted by Thalia again. “How sweet.”

There’s no time to feel sorry for himself. Percy shrugs off Annabeth’s hand and gets to his feet.

“Hey, kid,” Ares grins. “You were supposed to die down there.”

Percy opens his mouth, chokes, clears his throat, tries again.

“I’m good at not dying when I’m supposed to,” he croaks. “It’s just natural talent.”

Ares tilts his head back and laughs. Percy’s pretty sure it’s not because he finds him funny.

“Well,” Ares says, brushing some sand off the shoulder of his black leather duster, “every talent has its limits. Yours are here.”

“Yeah.” Percy uncaps his sword. “With the grave of your shattered dignity after you get nerfed by a twelve year old.”

Even behind the sunglasses, Ares’s eyes visibly flare up.

Annabeth is pulling at the hem of Percy’s shirt. “Shut up,” she hisses, “shut up, shut up, shut up right now!”

Grover hugs the backpack to his chest and whimpers, “Holy Hades, we’re all gonna die.”

“You got a big mouth, cousin,” Ares says. “But, the gods have rules too: no direct involvement. And even if I could, why would I bother? You’re not on my level.”

Percy holds back the urge to roll his eyes. It’s the second toughest thing he’s had to do in the last hour, right behind abandoning his mom in the Underworld again.

No time. Ares snaps his fingers.

The sand at his feet explodes, and out of the storm charges the butt-ugly wild boar Ares likes to throw around. It paws at the shore, kicking up seashell shards.

Percy doesn’t even bother with Riptide. He reaches back and summons the sea water soaking Grover’s and Annabeth’s clothes, their hair. Droplets upon droplets spin around his arm, a sleeve sewn out of a whitewater rapid. Sharp , Percy thinks, remembering the zebra’s cage. Blade . 

If put under enough pressure, water can even cut through steel. 

Percy thinks he’s feeling pressured enough.

The boar rushes forward.

Percy pushes the water away from him.

A shriek. The boar slows, wrenching its head from side to side in agony, but it’s still moving towards them, blind.

More. Percy needs more.

A wave crashes at his heels, the spray falling about him like a shawl of diamond dust. Percy twists his hand. 

The ocean obeys.

Ugh. The noise is terrible. Out of the corner of his eye, Percy sees Annabeth clamp her hands over her ears.

When Percy finally drops his arm, there’s an invisible hand twisting in his guts and nothing but a pile of minced meat on the sand.

Annabeth inhales sharply.

Grover gags.

“Now that,” Ares says, “was interesting.” He glances at Percy over the top of his melting sunglasses and grins with all his teeth. “Any chance you’d like to start a war with me, little cousin? After that performance, I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”

Annabeth starts, her hand going towards her dagger, but Percy steps forward before she can draw.

“Percy?”

Percy walks towards Ares, Riptide dangling at his side. 

He stops when he reaches the mess on the beach. His sneakers brush the pile of ground pork on the sand. 

Then Percy spits a mouthful of bile at Ares’s feet. 

Ares lurches backward, his face twisted in disgust.

“Well,” Percy says, wiping his mouth, “are you just going to stand there? Or do you have another pet pig to hide behind?”

Ares stares, incredulous. 

For a second, there’s no sound save for the slush of the sea.

Finally—“Fine,” Ares says. “I’ll give you the slow, painful death of your dreams, boy. You won’t stop screaming until they have to dunk your soul in the Lethe.” He taps his baseball bat against his leg, transforming it into his huge, two-handed sword. 

Percy’s about to ask Ares if he’s compensating for something when two pairs of hands grab him and drag him back towards the shoreline.

“When did you learn how to do that?” Grover asks. His face is pale.

“Just now.”

“What in—”

“Grover, focus,” Annabeth snaps. She grabs Percy by the shoulders and shakes him. “Percy,” she says. “He is a god. I would tell you not to do this, but you already spat in his face, so—”

“Actually, I spat at his feet.”

Annabeth shakes Percy again. “Don’t,” she says. And then she leans down and looks him straight in the eye. 

Percy meets her gaze. If he doesn’t look at the rest of her face, he can almost pretend she’s already the person who knows him down to the soul.

Annabeth takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and quietly asks, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Percy thinks about it.

“Not really,” he answers honestly, “but that hasn’t killed us so far.”

For a moment, Annabeth doesn’t do anything but continue searching his eyes. Then she nods. “Good enough.”

“Um, I wouldn’t say—” Grover starts, but Annabeth raises her hand.

With it, she takes off her necklace and loops it around Percy’s head.

“For luck,” Annabeth says. “Be careful. He looks serious.”

Grover extracts a crushed coke can from his pocket and presses it into Percy’s hand. “Take this, too. The satyrs are with you,” he says. His lips twitch in a shadow of a smile, and his brow is tightly knit.

“Thanks, guys.” Percy wraps his friends into a hug. Then he lets them go, pushing them towards the dock. “Keep a safe distance,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

Ares is still standing by the remains of his boar, tapping his sword against his boot like a metronome. When he sees Percy turn to him, he grins humorlessly and drops into a fighting stance.

“Now that the goodbyes are all done…” he says. And then he’s charging.

Ares is the first person Percy’s really fought since coming back, and the learning curve is steep. His jabs don’t go as far as he expects them to. His slashes aren’t wide enough. He can’t jump that high without the push of the sea water he’s continuously summoning from the tide. He’s still aching from the waterjet trick, which isn’t helping. 

And it’s possible that Ares is taking this more seriously than last time, too. When his blade crashes against Riptide, Percy can feel the vibration of the force in his bones. He bats Percy away from the ocean without ever turning his back on the waves. He isn’t even smiling.

Ares won’t wade into the sea to kill Percy if he pretends to be defeated. As soon as Percy stops fighting, Ares will mutilate him until he begs to die.

Actually, Ares is already mutilating him. Each time one of Percy’s attacks gets knocked back, Ares uses the recovered distance to land a blow. He takes chunks out of Percy’s arms, his thighs. The only reason why Percy doesn’t have a hole in his abdomen is because he’s using the sea water to heal all the damage to his organs. He needs to hold his body together. 

Unfortunately this means that Percy’s focus is split between fighting Ares and performing water-based field medicine, and it’s not doing him any favors. Percy dodges a swipe at his shoulder, and Ares knocks his sword away, kicking him in the chest.

Percy flies thirty feet back, the impact knocking something loose in his body.

“Percy!” Annabeth yells, just as Grover yelps, “Cops!”

Oh, right. Percy pushes himself up despite how his body screams at him. The sirens start blaring.

Ares is approaching him like he has all the time in the world. But, his sword is still raised. His face is sharp and emotionless. For the first time, Percy can see him as a god.

That’s probably the blood loss talking, though.

Percy blinks, his vision blurring red. Red from the blood dripping out of his hair, red from the cop cars pulling up around him. The voices pick up, the sirens wailing. It’s like the whole world is screaming at him.

It’s like the whole world is screaming at him. Suddenly, he’s aware of everything. Annabeth and Grover clinging to each other on the docks, the crowds of spectators and reporters swarming, the police calling more officers in to deal with an active shooter, the flap of leathery wings circling somewhere above.

And below him, something different. Something stirring.

Wait.

Below?

Does that mean…?

No time. Percy hears Annabeth and Grover scream as Ares charges towards him, his eyes burning. The sirens blare, and the policemen yell, and far away, there are voices that sound like Nico and Bianca, calling his name. And Percy needs the ocean, needs to call more water to him, but Ares is closer than the tide and Percy’s too tired to be fast and his blood drains into the sand and to the thing down there—Percy needs more time he needs more time Ares’s blade is four feet away he needs more time three feet away his friends are screaming he needs to stop Ares two feet he needs Ares to stop one stop stop stop stop stop —

Percy opens his eyes. 

He hadn’t even realized that he’d closed them.

The point of Ares’s sword is trembling against Percy’s jugular. Then it tumbles to the sand, slicing a curved wound across his throat. 

The palm of Percy’s outstretched hand is tilted up towards Ares’s head. Once Percy puts his arm down, he can see that the right half of Ares’s face is drooping. He’s staring blankly at the space above Percy.

Ares’s right hand twitches, but he can’t seem to move his arm from where it’s sagging at his side. 

He stumbles forward, falling to the sand.

Ares vomits on Percy’s sneakers.

Okay, he’s actually just heaving and gagging—No godly stomach acid or anything—but still. It’s the thought that counts.

Percy scrambles backwards, doing his best not to hurl for real. It feels like the Nemean Lion just clawed out all his guts and replaced them with Jello.

“You…” Ares coughs. His eyes are unfocused. “What…?”

Percy pats his pockets and finds Riptide there.

He quickly uncaps his sword, pressing it to the side of Ares’s neck.

A droplet of ichor buds at the edge of the blade.

Ares freezes.

“Drop the helm,” Percy says. “And fuck off.”

His voice cracks. His hand is shaking.

What did he just do?

“Per—” Ares says, but his mouth can’t seem to find the rest of the word. He tries again, his lips trying to wrap themselves around a sound that has escaped from him. 

Finally, Ares just shakes his head. He stares up at Percy.

Syllable by syllable, he bites out, “You’ll regret this.”

Percy looks away as he starts glowing.

Ares disappears in a flash of light. Hades’s helm is left in his place.

Percy caps Riptide. He would pick up the helm, but it feels like if he moves, his internal organs might spill out of his ribs, so he doesn’t.

Soft footsteps in the sand.

“Percy,” Annabeth says. Her voice sounds as weak as he feels. “What…?”

The sound of wings cutting through the air.

The Furies land in front of Percy, on the other side of the helm. They’re carrying Nico and Bianca with them.

“You’re hurt!” Bianca says.

At the same time, Nico points and says, “Is that Dad’s?”

Right. More business to get done. No time to dwell on—this.

Percy pulls himself together. “Yeah,” he tells Nico. He takes a deep breath and wishes he could summon some sea water to wash the blood off his arms and face without blacking out. “You wanna try it on?”

“Yes!” Nico cries, scooping the helm out of the sand.

While Bianca tries to keep Nico from sticking his head into their father’s symbol of power, Percy turns to the Fury who was once Mrs. Dodds. 

“So,” he says. “My mom?”

Mrs. Dodds gives him a look like she doesn’t know what to think of him. “Lord Hades is honorable. You will find her back in your dwelling.”

Percy nods.

Then he closes his eyes and tries not to cry.

“Good,” he says. And then he must have swayed or something, because suddenly Grover’s gripping his forearms, holding him steady.

“Percy!”

Percy hisses as Grover presses down on one of his cuts.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says.

Bianca turns from where she’s holding the helm out of the reach of Nico’s waving arms. She looks like she wants to move towards them, but then Mrs. Dodds grabs her shoulder with one clawed hand.

“Time to return home, children,” she says.

Nico’s face falls. He glances at Percy. “But—”

“Go home, Nico,” Percy says. He straightens up, or at least tries not to look like he’s leaning his entire weight on Grover. “Go spend some time with your dad. I’m surprised he let you two out at all,” he adds.

“Bianca was really convincing,” Nico grins.

Annabeth steps forward, wrapping her arm around Percy’s waist and taking some weight off Grover. She nods at Bianca. “Never back down from your dad. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Bianca starts a little, as if surprised to be spoken to.

Then she grins, too. 

One of Mrs. Dodds’s sisters has just scooped Nico up when Percy remembers—

“Hold on a sec!”

Percy waves Bianca over as the Furies watch, a suspicious glint in their eyes.

“Grover?” Percy says quietly. “Do you have an extra business card?”

“Oh! Um…” Grover searches his pockets with the hand he’s not using to keep Percy upright and finds a crumpled, salt-stained card. He hands it to Bianca.

Percy tells her, “Contact Camp Half-Blood if anything comes up. Anything.” Percy looks at the Furies, then back at Bianca. “We’re here to protect you.”

Bianca nods slowly, folding the card into her closed fist. 

“Thank you,” she says.

As the Furies fly the di Angelos away, Nico waves with his entire arm, calling “Bye!” so loudly that Percy can feel the sound echoing in his head.

“Well,” Annabeth says. When Percy turns to look at her, she glances away. “That’s one symbol of power returned.”

Grover nods. “One down, one to go.” He doesn’t sound very excited. 

Percy can relate.

“Right,” Percy says. “Time to go home.”

None of them move.

“Uh, guys?” Grover asks. “Quick question. How are we getting back to New York? Wait, don’t tell me—another cross-country roadtrip?” He doesn’t sound very excited.

Percy turns his head so that he can see the police cars over Grover’s shoulder and the crowd pointing at them and the news van parked at the mouth of the dock.

He smiles.

“I think I have a plan.”

——

After Annabeth and Grover dunk Percy into the ocean, they go do his plan.

Ripping off Smelly Gabe is just as satisfying the second time around, and Percy even decides to enjoy the airplane ride this time. He won’t ever get to try it again, after all, and riding around in a flying warship isn’t exactly the same.

Percy still feels sick and nervous the whole flight, but that has less to do with being afraid of Zeus blasting him out of the sky and more to do with how Annabeth stares at him when she doesn’t think he’s paying attention. She hasn’t said anything to him since asking if he was still bleeding anywhere.

That seems like a bad sign.

Percy doesn’t know if she’s thinking about the di Angelos or the wild boar or whatever he did to Ares or all of the above. All he knows is that he’ll worry about it later. If he gets to camp and Chiron is there to lead everyone in chasing him off Half-Blood Hill while waving pitchforks, then he’ll figure out what to do.

Right now, he has a lightning bolt to return.

If six years of future experience has taught Percy anything, it’s that he should never kneel to Zeus, because fuck that guy. As far as Percy can tell, the only good things that ever came from Zeus are Thalia and Jason, sort of. And Zeus wasn’t even really involved in that.

So, yeah, once Percy makes his way to Olympus’s throne room, he kneels to his father. Zeus can suck his prepubescent dick. 

Percy gives his report on his quest while staring at the space next to Zeus’s giant head, because he’s afraid that if he looks Zeus in the face, he’ll instinctively call him a huge jerkass. When he finishes, there’s a long silence, possibly because he doesn’t remember a ton of the first half of his quest and had to cut the di Angelos out of the second half. Which means that his report was pretty much just, “Ares stole both the bolt and the helm because he wanted to start a war. Hades thought I stole them to force him to fight in the war he thought Poseidon wanted to start. I beat Ares’s ass and got the bolt and the helm back. You are all very stupid, and I want to take a nap.”

Except Percy didn’t actually call the gods stupid.

He really wanted to, though.

And Percy would like to say that he feels bad about making Ares take all the blame this time around, but he really doesn’t. Honestly, he doesn’t care what Zeus does to Ares, as long as it’s not turning him into a human and having him sacrifice the demigods he’s treated horribly to earn his godhood back.

Zeus wouldn’t do that, right?

Right?

Percy hopes he hasn’t made another terrible mistake.

And it’s with that happy thought that Percy watches Zeus make his dramatic exit in order to scrub the human off his bolt. 

Now it’s just Percy and his dad. Talking for the first time. For the second time.

Percy stares down at his bloody, beat-up sneakers. He actually remembers how this interaction went, and frankly, he doesn’t want to do it again.

“Perseus.” A weathered hand gently tilts Percy’s chin up. “Look at me,” Poseidon says.

Percy fixes his gaze on Poseidon’s left shoulder.

“There is something you did not tell us.”

“No, there isn’t.”

Poseidon crosses his arms and waits.

Percy lasts about nine seconds. Then he sighs and actually looks his father in the face.

“He wouldn’t have believed me,” Percy says. “And you won’t either.”

Poseidon raises an eyebrow. Percy can now confirm that his inability to do a good eyebrow raise is not genetic. “You seem very confident about that,” Poseidon says.

Percy shrugs. “No one likes bad news.” He would know. He’s been bad news for basically his entire life.

Poseidon looks at him, expression unreadable. Percy gets the feeling that he doesn’t know what to think of him.

It’s an uncomfortable look to get from the guy who once called Percy his favorite son. Then again, that only happened once, in a future that no longer exists.

Percy shifts his gaze back to Poseidon’s shoulder.

After another tense moment, he hears a sigh.

“You should go, Perseus,” Poseidon says. “Your mother is waiting for you.”

“My mom’s safe?” Percy asks. She should be, he knows, but still. He wants to be sure.

Poseidon smiles. “Even the Lord of Death pays his debts.”

That doesn’t seem like a very brotherly compliment. But, it’s not Percy’s problem.

Percy looks down at his sneakers again, before refocusing on his dad’s face. “Will you ever go see her again?” he asks.

Poseidon hesitates. “Your mother is a queen among women. But, I’m afraid…” He trails off, eyes focused on something Percy can’t see. Then he shakes his head once and smiles. “I would only bring her trouble,” Poseidon finishes. Then his tone hardens. “When you return home, Percy, you must make an important choice. You will find a package waiting in your room.”

Yes, the package! 

“It’ll be done,” Percy nods. He hopes that his mom’s new art piece will sell just as well this time around.

Percy’s so busy thinking about garden statues and new advances in super-ugly neorealism that he doesn’t notice Poseidon studying his face until he meets his eyes.

He looks so sad. Was his dad this sad last time?

Poseidon opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. 

He says, “I am sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero’s fate, and a hero’s fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic.”

His gaze is tracing the rips and stains in Percy’s shirt.

Percy looks at his dad. 

Here is a god who, in another life, will build Percy a fountain full of gold so he can keep in touch with his family. He’ll do his best to keep Zeus from frying Percy without breaking the so-called rules of the gods. He’ll come celebrate Percy’s fifteenth birthday and make awkward conversation with his stepfather. He’ll come fight with the rest of Olympus at Percy’s call. He’ll do his best to keep Percy safe. He’ll do his best to love him.

It won’t be enough.

“Can I hug you?” Percy blurts out.

Poseidon stares.

Percy can feel his face go totally red.

Is it too late to call Zeus back? Percy would really like to have his life un-spared right now.

Then, Poseidon slowly opens his arms.

Percy’s dad smells like salt and brine and the cool sea breeze. His arms are heavy and warm around his back. The ocean roils under his skin, and his heartbeat follows the undulation of a wave. When he hugs Percy, he surrounds him entirely. 

Percy presses his face into his dad’s shirt. Is this what it feels like to be safe? he wonders.

Poseidon’s rubbing small circles in between his shoulder blades. It’s nice. Comforting

Is this what it feels like—

Percy cuts himself off. 

He can’t think about that at all.

He can’t associate safety with something he’ll only have once in his life.

Percy clutches at the back of his dad’s Hawaiian shirt.

“I make my own choices,” he says, voice muffled in the fabric. “You’re not responsible for the things I do.”

Poseidon’s hand stills. “What?”

Percy reluctantly extracts himself from the hug, pulling his dad’s hands off of his back. He squeezes them once, before letting go.

“Remember,” Percy says, backing away. He keeps his eyes on his father the entire time. “Whatever happens to me isn’t your fault.”

“Perseus?” Poseidon calls.

But Percy’s already gone.

——

Percy would think that after years of killing and almost getting killed by monsters, after years of war with titans and primordials, after years of watching the people he loves get hurt and die and die and die, a dirty little apartment and the dirty men inside wouldn’t be scary at all. In fact, they shouldn’t even be a blip on the trauma radar.

But one step into Gabeland, and suddenly Percy’s nothing more than that coward who stupidly paid his dog-walking money to the man who hit his mom. He’s furious with Smelly Gabe and his stupid friends. He wants to make the pipes burst above their head and freeze them in the falling water. He wants to make them scream in terror and beg for their lives. He wants—

“Percy!” And there are arms wrapping around him. “Oh, thank goodness. Oh, my baby.”

Percy can’t say anything. He hugs his mom as tight as he can and does his best not to cry.

His best is not very good. Percy’s pretty sure he’s getting snot on his mom’s shirt.

“Are you okay?” he says into her shoulder.

“I’m alright. I...don’t remember much after we crashed.” His mom steps back, so she can take a good look at him. As she assesses his clothes, her eyes widen, and she starts pulling back the rips, checking the skin underneath for wounds.

“Mom!” Percy squawks, brushing off her hands and crossing his arms over his chest.

His mom gives him a look.

“Percy,” she says, “tell me what happened.”

“It’s a long story.” Percy nudges an empty beer can with his toe. “I kind of—”

“Hey, Sally!” yells Gabe. “That meatloaf done yet or what?”

Right. They should deal with that first.

Percy takes his mom’s hand and starts leading her over to his room.

“Percy, your stepfather—

“Just ignore him, Mom.”

Of course, just like all the other bullies in Percy’s life, Smelly Gabe has never been happy to be ignored. As they cross the apartment, Gabe stands up with some difficulty, looking even bigger and uglier than the shadow in Percy’s memory.

“You got some nerve coming here, you little—”

“Percy—” his mom whispers.

“It’s okay.” Percy places a hand on his mom’s elbow, moving her so that he’s always between her and Gabe. 

He’s not tall enough to shield her from Smelly Gabe’s line of sight, but if Gabe tries to touch her, he’ll have to go through Percy first.

“—call the cops! You hear me, punk?”

They’re almost there. They’re almost there.

“Hey.” A meaty hand grabs onto Percy’s shoulder and wrenches him around. 

Gabe looks down at Percy with his dull, beady eyes and says, “You think you can ignore me, after all the shit you’ve pulled?”

“I don’t talk to worthless pigs,” Percy spits.

Gabe leans over him, getting in his face.

“If I’m worthless,” Gabe says, the stench of his beer breath suffocating, “then what does that make you?”

And that. Well, that’s the stupidest comeback Percy’s ever heard. Smelly Gabe could’ve just said, “I know you are, but what am I,” and it would’ve been the same.

So, Percy shouldn’t be angry. And he’s not.

But he spotted the way Gabe’s eyes had flickered to his mom on the word “worthless.” And that’s just not acceptable.

Percy’s not angry. 

He’s furious.

He stares into Gabe’s stupid, mean face and thinks, I could kill you with your own beer. I could use your spit to cut your throat.

The ideas grow like a garden out of control. Percy can mince Gabe up like the other pig on the beach. He’ll chop him up until he cries, and then he’ll choke him to death with his own tears. Or maybe he’ll make him kneel like Ares did, make him kneel before his mom and apologize, make him beg for his life, her mercy. And when she’s satisfied, Percy will boil his blood. He can make the meatloaf for once.

Percy’s fingers are twitching.

But.

But his mom wouldn’t want that. Doesn’t want that.

And she’s standing right behind him, her hand a warm weight on the back of his neck.

Gabe smirks down at Percy. 

Blood rushes through Percy’s head. His fury sounds like an ocean.

He could—

Percy clenches his fists. He digs his fingernails into his palms.

His mom is standing right behind him. 

She can’t see him like this.

Percy squeezes his eyes shut, trying his hardest to wrestle the waves of rage back down inside of him.

That’s why he doesn’t see the fist until it slams him to the ground.

“Gabriel!”

Percy blinks, dazed. His cheek stings, and his mouth tastes like copper. He swipes his tongue against his teeth, checking for loose molars.

Then he sees that his mom is pointing her finger in Gabe’s face. 

No time.

Percy shoves himself off the carpet, crushing a stray chip under his palm.

“If you ever touch my son again,” his mom is saying, “you will regret it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gabe replies. He tries to loom over her, but Percy pushes himself between them. Still, he’s big enough to talk over Percy’s head. 

“What could you do to me?” Gabe asks.

Silence.

Percy nudges his mom back.

Gabe smiles nastily. “Go finish the meatloaf, Sally,” he says. 

And then he goes back to the TV.

Percy doesn’t move until he sees that Smelly Gabe isn’t coming back for more. 

He grabs his mom’s hand again. 

“Come on, Mom,” he mutters. They finally make it to his room.

As they walk in, Gabe shouts, “You better be packing your stuff in there, you piece of shit! If you don’t clear out in two minutes, I’m calling the police!”

Percy slams the door shut.

Good riddance.

Immediately, his mom is fluttering around him, checking his cheek and his lip. Gabe hit him hard enough that his teeth cut into his flesh.

As her hand hovers over his face, she says, “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault, Mom,” Percy says. “I’ll be fine after a little bit of water, anyway.”

His mom shakes her head, and then she wraps him in her arms again.

“You got hurt,” she whispers. “That won’t change.”

Better me than you , Percy thinks. But he can’t say that without breaking his mom’s heart, so he doesn’t say anything. He just enjoys the warmth of being held.

Eventually, when both he and his mom are feeling calm enough, he asks, “Mom. Do you want to get rid of Gabe?”

She stiffens, then pulls back so that she and Percy can look at each other.

“Of course I do, Percy,” she says. “But it isn’t that simple. I—”

“No buts, Mom,” Percy interrupts. “You deserve so much better than this. Did you know that Dad calls you a queen among women?”

His mom flushes, looking surprised.

Percy goes to pick up the package on his bed. He comes back and hands it to her.

“One look inside this box, and Gabe will never bother you again. You’ll go to college, get your degree. You’ll finally be able to write your novel, meet a nice guy, live in a nice house with your kid. You’ll be happy. And you’ll be safe.”

“Percy—”

“You don’t need to protect me anymore,” Percy says. “I can protect myself. And so can you. That’s why I’m leaving you the box. If he threatens you...”

Percy trails off meaningfully. 

For a moment, his mom just stares at the box. Then she looks back at him, her jaw set.

“I’ll take care of it,” she says. “I will.”

Percy nods. He knows.

His mom leans down and kisses him on the forehead. “Thank you, baby. And I’m sorry.”

“Why are you so sorry?” Percy laughs. “You’re the best person in the world. No goddess could ever compare. I just wish...”

Percy’s gaze wanders over his mom’s face. She still looks sort of thin and drawn now, but once she starts taking her writing seminar and hanging out with Paul, she’ll brighten up. When Estelle gets here, she’ll be able to outshine Apollo’s chariot. Every street in New York will be like Montauk to her.

“Percy?”

He just wishes he could be a part of it.

“It’s nothing. I have to go back to camp now, Mom. I’ll I-M you every Saturday, though, so keep an eye out for rainbows.”

His mom’s hands tighten around the package. “Are you going...forever?”

Percy looks down. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know. There’s something I need to do, before I can come back.”

A long silence.

Finally, Percy’s mom hugs him one last time.

“You’ll be a hero, Percy,” she says. “The best hero of them all. Just don’t forget that heroes come home at the end of the day, too, okay?”

Percy clutches the back of her shirt. 

He closes his eyes.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

When Percy gets back to Camp Half-Blood, he’s greeted by cheers, not pitchforks. Which is a relief, because there’s a lot he needs to get done, and he doesn’t want to be distracted by his friends trying to kill him.

Sometimes Annabeth still looks at him like he’s a monster she wants to dissect, though.

That’s fine. Percy knows what he is.

Even so, he can’t help wanting to spend time with her. After a couple days of tense silence, he finds her reading by the climbing wall and asks if she’ll help him reverse engineer the cabin designs to see if there’s an underlying structural style or if each one is a custom job.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m interested.”

“...”

“What?”

It’s a lot of standing around and watching Annabeth sketch, for the most part. Sometimes she hands him a measuring tape and a compass and asks him to go get her the exact dimensions of a cornice molding or a quoin or something. Percy loses an hour to Katie Gardner when she yells at him for crushing a tomato vine. 

But, it’s not so bad. The silences between them aren’t that awkward anymore. And on days that Annabeth won’t do anything but draw, she shows up with a bag of blue jelly beans for Percy to munch on as she works. And if Percy just never thinks about how she always has an excuse not to hang out by the canoe lake, he can almost pretend that he’s at Camp Half-Blood after Kronos’s defeat, back when the war was over and felt like it could never touch them again.

I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain.

Percy convinces himself that Annabeth is still his friend. That’s enough for him.

Each Saturday, Percy uses one of the drachmas he liberated from Crusty’s office to I-M his mom from the lake. While he’s in the lake. It takes him a day to figure out where and when he can catch enough sun to actually make a rainbow, but he has an unlimited supply of water to create his mist with. It’s practical, and definitely not something he’s doing to keep Clarisse from making fun of him.

His mom seems sort of worried by the regular calls—Percy never did this when he was at boarding school. But, eventually she seems to chalk it up to him dealing with her almost getting murdered by a Minotaur and then being kidnapped into the Underworld. Percy doesn’t correct her.

Every week, she looks a bit happier. Her statue sold well. She’s taking a short introductory writing seminar right now, and she’s enrolled in a more intense class that starts in the fall. She just befriended this boy Tyson while completing an investigative journalism assignment on Meriwether College Prep’s progressive instructional philosophy. Tyson’s very sweet. She thinks Percy would like him.

Percy agrees.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games at the summer camp for demigod child soldiers. For example, Luke keeps looking at Percy, and Percy does not like that at all. 

Firstly, it sets off all the danger alarms that Percy has spent four years specifically attuning to Luke. Secondly, it makes it much harder for Percy to sneak into the woods unnoticed.

Every day, Percy tries to spend a couple of hours making friends with the nymphs and the naiads. He clears branches out of the creek. He clips wayward twigs from tree trunks while making conversation with the dryads; they tell him he’d make a good manicurist in his next life. He diverts water to the plants that are thirsty. He cleans the bank where the naiads like to sunbathe; when they invite him back to Long Island Sound, he helps them flush wastewater and runoff out of the coast there, too. He glares off satyrs who are chasing nymphs who don’t want to be chased. They’re a disgrace to Grover, and Percy will not stand for it.

In return, the dryads donate branches, and the naiads help him gather driftwood and stone. He shows them Annabeth’s diagrams and repeats what she’s told him, as close to word for word as he can. 

The woods are big, and Long Island Sound is bigger. There are a lot of places where secrets can be hidden.

Eventually, Luke actually starts trying to talk to Percy, which is the worst. Percy refuses to count the number of times he’s hidden in a bathroom stall to escape Luke—He’s pretty sure the whole camp now believes Zeus cursed him with an incurable stomach bug. The rare times that Luke waves Percy down in public, Percy tells him that he’s busy training. That’s not all a lie. Percy does bump into monsters in the woods, and he is trying to get used to his little arms and legs so that he doesn’t get his ass totally whooped again. He’s aiming for half-whooped next time.

And if Percy never hops into the creek to immediately heal his wounds—if he always spends a couple minutes bleeding into the dirt while reciting Good Housekeeping home ideas he begged off his mom— then that’s no one’s business but his own.

With his last bit of free time, Percy hangs around Grover and tries to keep him from heading off to find Pan. It’s not going great.

“Searching for Pan is, like, the entire purpose of my life, dude.”

“The purpose of your life should be staying healthy, finding happiness, and living to age 203.”

“Percy…”

“Look, I just think that—Well, maybe the reason no searcher has ever come back in two thousand years is because something is luring them...somewhere...by faking Pan’s presence. Somehow.”

“That’s a lot of ‘some’s.”

“Please, Grover. Just wait until next year, okay? It’ll all be taken care of by next year. I promise.”

“Dude. You know you’ve been acting weird lately, right? It’s like...Sometimes it feels like you know more than what you’ve been telling us. Almost too much, really.”

“...”

“If you’re in any sort of trouble…”

“I’m not. I’m really not. It’s okay, Grover. I know what I’m doing.”

Percy does not know what he’s doing.

That could not be more obvious when he shows up at the rock he usually meets the naiads at, and Luke is there, waiting for him. He’s staring. Probably because Percy’s covered in his own blood.

The giant badgers are really mean, okay?

“Hey,” Percy mumbles. He shoulders past Luke so that he can stand in the creek.

Luke looks him up and down, his eyebrows raised.

“That’s some intense training you’re doing,” he says.

Percy sighs, shaking out his shoulders as his wounds heal. He wishes there was some way he could subtly retrieve Riptide from his pocket.

Luke continues, “You miss being on a quest?”

“Is that what it looks like?” Percy asks. He isn’t really sure what Luke wants from him right now. He knows Kronos isn’t visiting Luke in his dreams anymore. If he was, Luke would’ve been avoiding Percy the whole summer instead of annoying him, and Percy would probably be down one hand and up one pit scorpion sting already. 

“It’s different, isn’t it? Out there.” Luke says. He’s lounging just out of Percy’s striking distance. “The real world is where the monsters are.”

Percy had thought that Luke might calm down a little without Kronos ruining his sleep. But, maybe the real crazy was inside Luke all along.

Suddenly, so fast that Percy doesn’t have time to react, Luke grabs his wrist and drags him out of the creek.

Shit!

Luke squeezes hard, his face close to Percy’s own. Percy goes for Riptide, and he lashes out again, seizing Percy’s other arm before his hand can even brush his pocket.

This is bad! Why is Luke so strong?! Or is it Percy who’s still too weak?

Percy struggles wildly, panicking, before he remembers and lets himself go limp.

The creek is behind him. If Luke tries to kill Percy, Percy will kill him first.

But Luke doesn’t try. Instead, he smiles and says, “Did you feel it, Percy? The darkness gathering, the monsters growing stronger. The uselessness of all the heroics—being our parents’ pawns.”

He searches Percy’s face. Whatever he’s looking for, he must find it, because he smiles.

“You’ve been dreaming of him,” Luke says, triumphant. “Lord Kronos.”

Oh. So that’s how it is. Percy can...Percy can work with this.

“And you haven’t been,” he taunts.

Luke’s grip tightens. “So it was you.”

“Why are you angry?” Percy says. If he knees Luke in the crotch, will he be able to get away? Or will Luke actually murder him then? He can see Backbiter’s hilt over his shoulder. “I didn’t think you were a masochist.”

“I like being able to keep in touch with my allies.” Luke frowns. Then he lets go of Percy. Maybe he sensed the imminent threat to his soft spot. 

Percy immediately scrambles back into the water. He doesn’t want to be seen with weirdly shaped bruises on his wrists. Rubbing the red handprints, he grumbles, “You mean you like to spend your nights kneeling to your master.”

“Better to serve him than our parents,” Luke retorts.

“But still a servant.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Percy.”

“I don’t serve Kronos,” Percy says. “I’m just doing stuff for him.” Sort of. 

Luke smiles meanly, crossing his arms. “Like failing to deliver the symbols of power to Tartarus.”

Percy crosses his arms back. “I didn’t fail. The plans just changed.”

“Oh?” Luke sounds casual, but Percy spotted how his gaze just sharpened.

“Stop fishing,” Percy says. “You’re bad at it.”

“You would know, I suppose,” Luke replies. “But, don’t you think getting your ‘stuff’ done would be easier with two swords instead of one?”

No. Especially if that other sword is Backbiter.

Luke laughs. “What’s with that face?” he says. “Hey, didn’t I teach you how to fight? Come on, Percy. Do you really think you can oppose the gods alone?”

“So far, I’ve been doing pretty good at learning from your mistakes,” Percy says.

Luke’s smile stiffens. 

He sighs and then takes a step towards the creek, only stopping when Percy tenses, his hand in his pocket.

“Fine,” Luke says, raising both his hands. “I’ll be honest with you. I can’t stand the idea of staying here for another year. Watching campers run around and beg for the chance to kill themselves over a second of their parents’s attention, wasting my life working for the people who let Thalia die, training kids to serve their parents like fools and then get slaughtered by their own monsters—I won't do this anymore. I can't. The gods are wrong, Percy, and they deserve to be taken down a peg. Or six hundred floors.”

Luke’s not smiling anymore. He’s gazing right into Percy’s eyes.

“You get it. You know why I have to leave.”

Oh, Percy knows. Even without Kronos giving him orders in his sleep, Luke’s still going to cause trouble if left alone at camp. Maybe he’ll try to send another new kid to the Underworld as a delivery scapegoat for the Titans. Maybe he’ll convince more campers that the only way to get back at their parents is to crown a meaner one. Maybe he’ll find the entrance to the labyrinth and get himself possessed again before Percy’s ready. Then Percy will have to drop everything to go personally kick him into Tartarus.

Not that he wasn’t planning to do that already.

It’s too early. Even though Percy really, really wants to go and—He shouldn’t think about that. He can’t think about that without wanting to do it, and it isn’t safe yet. He’s been trying not to rush into things for once. 

Percy was hoping to stay at Camp Half-Blood for a little while. It’s been nice. His friends are here. And he has plans. There’s so much to do, and so little time.

He’s already borrowed years, and it’s still not enough.

Luke presses his lips together. He looks frustrated, angry, full of potential that won’t go anywhere but the grave. 

But, as the clouds above them shift, scattering sunlight into Luke’s hair and across his cheekbones, Percy is suddenly reminded of that cool older guy who stole him a bunch of toiletries on his first day at camp. Percy’s first swordfighting teacher. The guy who, for a second, made him feel like he belonged somewhere.

The hero of the prophecy. Another person who wanted so little and fell so far.

Don’t let it...Don’t let it happen again.

Damn.

This is really happening, isn’t it?

Percy takes a deep breath.

He wasn’t totally comfortable with leaving a budding military commander whose future crimes include trying to murder a bunch of teenagers at a summer camp for teenagers anyway.

Percy sighs heavily. Then he takes his hand out of his pocket.

Luke is still staring down at him. His eyes are clear and blue and burning.

Percy says, “Do you get seasick?”

—————

————

———

——

—

“Hello, is this Mrs. Jackson?”

“Yes, this is Chiron, from Camp Halfblood. One of our counselors, Luke, escorted Percy back home this afternoon, but he has yet to return to camp. This is rather troubling, seeing as—well. So I‘m calling to ask—Is he perhaps staying with you and Percy for the night?”

“I’m sorry?”

“No, there must be a mistake. I have the sign-up sheet right here. Percy clearly told us that he was—“

“Oh. Oh, dear.”