Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’re going to skip most of your school year, Perseus.” The Fates intoned as everyone situated themselves once more.

“I figured as much.” Percy sighed, leaning back against all the little kids that had dragged him to the ground into a sort of dog pile. “Not much happened, so it would be pretty boring.”

“On the contrary, dear,” one said.

“It’s the year you gained more family.”

“That’s true.” Percy hummed, playing with one of the Hebe girls, Dora’s, hair. “You ready for this Ty?”

“No.” Tyson said petulantly. “Was just a baby back then.”

“Yeah, but you were a lot of help, bud.” Percy argued.

“Just wanted to protect my brother.” Tyson shrugged, blushing when Amphitrite patted his cheek.

“I’m sure you did wonderful.” She assured him.

“You can come sit with us.” Freddy offered, scooting over so Tyson could sit next to Percy.

“Are you sure?” Tyson asked, but he looked hopeful.

“Get over here, big guy.” Percy waved, pulling him down beside him when he came over. A few of the kids leaned against him or crawled in his lap. Tyson’s hair was pretty long, longer than Percy’s, so a few of them started brushing it and braiding it like the hunters had done to Percy’s.

“I do believe you are ready.” The Fates said, the amusement clear in their voices. Then the images began. 

Young Percy was tossing and turning in his sleep in his new bedroom. His walls had a few posters up; Tony Hawk, Shaun White, The Killers and Green Day were prominent. Thalia cheered at the bands, earning a few agreeing cheers and whistles from the Hermes cabin. His desk was scattered with a few books from school and a framed picture of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover from the Fourth of July picnic. There was another picture of Percy and his mother in the candy shop she worked at part time, still, while she went to school. Beside it was a half eaten bag of blue candy.

His younger self gasped and flipped over, sweat coating his face lightly. The images shifted to show a beach town, Florida , the thoughts provided. A storm was brewing and Grover was running frantically down the middle of the street, shoes in his hand while his hooves echoed slightly. Everyone was leaning forward as they watched the young satyr running for his life through the rain. He ducked into a store in a dead end and Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse were struggling not to laugh at where he’d ended up. 

“Jackasses.” Grover complained. “It was the only place I could get into.”

“Sure it was.” Annabeth drawled. Grover stood up and flipped all three of them off, making them laugh harder. 

Percy yelped when the monster’s shadow showed up and he growled, snatching at Grover, and causing his younger self to sit up in bed in a panic. This time the satyr laughed at him sarcastically.

“Ha! Ha ha ha. Not so funny when you’re part of it too, is it?” Grover grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah.” Percy rolled his eyes.

At the shadow by the window, Percy flushed and glared at Annabeth who was also blushing.

“Something invisible spying on you, Perce? Hm. I wonder who it could be?” Thalia teased, shoving Annabeth’s shoulder. 

“Nobody.” She retorted, and Clarisse and Percy snorted. 

“Technically true.” Clarissa agreed once she composed herself.

When Sally mentioned it was young Percy’s last day of school, there was a smattering of applause. Percy scowled at them all. Even Tyson was grinning. When young Percy pulled his pen out from under his pillow a few people rolled their eyes. He fiddled with the cap as if he were going to take it off but stopped. A memory of Percy opening a package from camp that turned out to be a javelin that extended out, breaking the china cabinet, flickered through his mind. He ended up breaking a coffee table and a lamp while he struggled to retract it.

“Probably should have made sure that wouldn’t happen before we sent it.” Connor said thoughtfully. 

“I’m sure I’d have done that anyway even if it hadn’t just popped out like it did.” Percy said, waving the apology away. “Mom thought it was pretty funny once she helped me clean it up.”

“Wait, you guys weren’t in school together or anything?” Piper asked curiously.

“Nah, we went to a public school.” Travis said.

“It was one that was closer to camp and he lived closer to Brooklyn so the buses didn’t go that far aside from sports.” Conner added.

“It wasn’t so bad.” Clarisse commented. “Not as many stuck up rich kids, at any rate.”

“Lucky.” Percy grumbled. “I got super tired of snobby rich kids after a while. High school was alright at first because it was a mix of rich and middle class kids, at least.”

“Private schools weren’t all bad.” Annabeth argued. “It was nice going to an all girls school for a little while.”

“Speak for yourself.” Thalia muttered.

“Well, yeah,” Annabeth agreed, grinning at her, “but I also wasn’t the one the head cheerleader decided to make their personal project.”

“She just wouldn’t stop!” Thalia complained. “It was so … confusing!”

“Amen to that.” Percy agreed, punching a fist in the air. “Cheerleaders were the worst because they were all confident in themselves. Made it kinda hard to turn them down.”

“Oh my gods, yes!” Thalia exclaimed. “I wasn’t that confident when I was used to interacting with people, let alone after being a tree for a few years. I’m better now, but, man, they were relentless. It’s like they could smell someone gay or bicurious or questioning from a mile away and just honed in on them.”

“I really wish I could have seen y’all in school.” Hazel muttered, flushing when everyone looked at her. “What? We didn’t have all this in my time.”

“That’s true.” Nico agreed. “Of course I was only 10 when I went into the hotel, so it wasn’t an issue for me until a little later, but you were already a teenager. Even if you are straight, I know it was weird for you, being able to openly be in a biracial relationship.”

“It took me a while, you’re right. But I’m glad to be in this era. It’s nice that there are so many kinds of love that are accepted.” Hazel stated.

“Alright, let’s get back to the story and not focus on the different sexual orientations and relationships that exist or we’ll be here forever.” Grover cut in, before anyone else could say anything. Percy saw Aphrodite leaning forward as if hoping for the conversation to continue, only to deflate and pout at Grover’s interjection.

“True.” Percy agreed, leaning back again and getting comfortable once more.

Young Percy’s thoughts were all over the place as he sat down to an all blue-food breakfast; waffles, eggs, and even blue juice. When his thoughts mentioned that it was now a victory meal thing, even Percy had to laugh with his fellow campers. It was a little thing, and it was ridiculous how much it still meant to him. His mom actually froze when she mentioned camp, which his younger self picked up on right away. 

A few people muttered about super powers, but Percy ignored them. When she mentioned the skateboard shop, Thalia coughed in her arm and it sounded a lot like ‘nerd’. Percy stuck his tongue out and flipped her off. When his mother continued saying camp might not be safe for him, there were several looks of confusion but even more glowers towards the images. Dionysus sank down in his seat a little, but Percy raised an eyebrow at him. 

“We know it wasn’t your choice, Mr. D, so stop pouting.” Percy stated, earning a few snorts from Connor and Travis.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Peter.” He grumbled, but sat up a little more.

“That’s really not a great way to find out there were problems here.” Clarisse added, frowning.

“What do you expect? The only people I really had much contact with were Annabeth and Grover. Connor and Travis kept in touch, mostly about pranks they pulled at school, but otherwise, no one told me anything. I have a feeling I was being intentionally kept in the dark, which, whatever. I’m not gonna touch that yet. It turned out alright. Mostly. Sort of.” Percy said, head tilted thoughtfully. 

Young Percy frowned as he left the apartment and headed for the train. He spotted a shadow across the street but kept walking, hurrying to catch the train. He couldn’t be late meeting Tyson. As soon as the school was shown, Piper started coughing, trying to catch her breath while Leo patted her back. 

“Holy shit, dude.” Piper finally said, once she got her breath back. “I went there. Dad transferred me out when the school gym blew up, so I was only there for a year.”

“Uh, yeah, makes sense.” Percy agreed, scratching his neck.

“How could we go to the same school for a year and never run into each other?” She asked a little hysterically.

“Easy.” Percy shrugged. “It was a big school, and I only had one friend.”

“Oh gods, you were the weird kid who made friends with-” Piper cut off and looked at Tyson as if seeing him for the first time, “oh. Oh, that makes sense. Gods, I can’t believe I was in school with you for an entire year.”

“Eh, don’t think about it too much.” Percy waved his hand absently. “That school was ridiculous and you got lucky enough that nothing happened until the last day. Besides, you were a year younger than me so we weren’t in any of the same classes.”

“Noted!” Rachel chimed in, scribbling on her paper.

“Cool.” Nico nodded, before looking at Percy who was frowning at him. “What? We’re keeping track of something. Don’t worry about it, you’ll get frown lines.”

“I swear I’m gonna get gray hair early because of you.” Percy muttered. 

“You already have gray hair, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth said, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, and it was after we found this weirdo.” Percy agreed, thumbing at Nico.

“I hated that kid.” Piper said, as the images continued, showing the fiasco that was his English final on the playground. 

“Sloan was an asshole.” Tyson said, blushing as he said the swear. 

“He sure was, big guy.” Percy said proudly, patting his arm.

Young Tyson was at least seven inches taller than young Percy. Tyson mostly hid behind Percy, unsuccessfully, but he tried. Young Percy glared at anyone who tried anything on him, scaring them off. When Sloan got punched across the playground, the campers cheered for him. Percy saw that Tyson had been worried that he’d be made fun of, but smiled happily at the support he got. But when Sloan turned around and started picking on young Percy, Tyson clenched his hands together while several other people growled. He heard Will the loudest, though. 

Young Percy stuttered out a response, until his eyes caught on to the other kids around him. Tyson gave Percy a strong side hug when his younger self reassured him. Percy rolled his eyes and punched his arm affectionately, making him laugh. When they made an explosion in science, Leo cheered along with most of the Hephaestus cabin. A few people whistled when young Percy opened his notebook to a picture of Annabeth. 

Malcolm threw an orange through the images as Sloan tore up Annabeth’s picture. As the class dispersed, and young Percy looked around in confusion about a girl calling his name, a few people looked at him in surprise.

“What?” He asked.

“Why wouldn’t a girl be caught dead trying to talk to you?” Lacey asked.

“Because I was the weird kid, as Piper pointed out. I wasn’t rich, I didn’t care about what the other kids thought of me, let alone the teachers, and I spent most of my time protecting Ty.” He admitted.

“But you were adorable back then!” Drew argued.

“Look, if any of the girls thought I was cute or adorable or anything, they never said anything to me.”

“Middle school girls are the worst at hiding things.” Mitchell said, frowning. “You sure you didn’t have like a small huddle of girls that followed you around or watched you from the end of the hall?”

“He did.” Piper cut in. “But they always ran off if that other jackass was around, so I never saw who they were talking about. It was easier for them to gossip about him that way, too. I never knew his name. They always just called him ‘the troublemaking hottie’.”

“Of course they did.” Nico said, rolling his eyes.

“I’m more interested in who those other kids are around him.” Frank said, cutting in. “They’re the same size as Tyson. They’ve got to be monsters.”

“Of course they are.” Thalia scoffed. “It’s Percy’s last day of school, and things have been quiet for him all year. Now comes the chaos.”

“Not my fault.” Percy grumbled.

Young Tyson hesitantly asked if his only friend could watch his back while he changed, and Percy made sure that Tyson knew he didn’t mind by patting his arm comfortingly. He didn’t really mind, even if his internal voice sounded confused about the scars. At least he hadn’t said it out loud. When young Percy thought the coach reminded him of the Oracle, Tyson lost it and fell over laughing, leaning heavily on Percy’s shoulder. Percy blushed and shoved his brother but it only made Tyson fall completely on top of him while he laughed. Hearing Tyson laugh so hard, made him laugh as well. 

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Tyson admitted.

“Well, if you’d seen her before, and then seen Coach, I know you’d draw the same conclusion.” Percy smiled.

“Probably.” Tyson agreed.

When Sloan became one of the captains for the game, and all the other kids moved to his side, Will started cursing under his breath. Percy gave him a thumbs up for his word choice. When young Tyson said the visiting ‘kids’ smelled funny, nearly everyone groaned. Hermes sat up when Percy guessed at what his teammate said in Urdu.

“He did say that. How did you guess that?” Hermes asked, staring at Percy intently.

“It was just a guess.” Percy shrugged. “I didn’t actually know what he said.”

“But it was right. You seem to have an ability to pick up languages, or their meaning, pretty easily.” Hermes continued, still staring at him. 

“You already said you were going to dig and see who my ancestors were, so it doesn’t matter. Maybe you’re in there, maybe you aren’t. Maybe it’s one of these other dicks or even a different pantheon. Wouldn’t surprise me, honestly.” Percy commented.

“Of course.” Hermes groaned, sitting back and smacking his head with his palm. “It’s probably a mix of Indian and maybe Hawaiian gods.”

“Oh.” Poseidon said interestedly. “Oh, that would make sense. Sally’s parents died in a plane crash, I could almost bet they were descendents from an Indian sea deity or demigod.”

“Indian and Roman.” Artemis stated, drawing their attention. “It makes the most sense. Indian sea god, Roman god of travelers. It would explain his complexion and ease of use in languages.”

“I’d wager you’re correct.” Hestia agreed. “Perhaps we can finish for the day and you can check when we are done and the children are off to bed?”

“Ah, yes, I’ll do that.” Hermes agreed, blushing slightly.

Percy frowned down at his abdomen that was glowing where the insanely fast dodgeball hit him. He knew it had hurt, and had probably caused some damage, but he hadn’t had time to think about it. As soon as the second dodgeball whistled past his head, Percy thought Will was going to come unglued. Luckily Nico kept a firm hold on him to keep him in his seat. As soon as he called Percy by his full name, everyone groaned.

Athena looked at him for a long minute, but she looked rather constipated. As if she couldn’t believe that Percy had been able to figure out anything on his own. As soon as they said what they were, Frank threw his hands in the air.

“They even told you what they were!” He complained.

“Dude, I said sorry.” Percy said, trying not to laugh. “I won’t keep apologizing. I’ll get it right eventually, but it pisses them off as much as you when I call them that.”

“Still not cool.” Frank pouted.

The coach called out to them to play nice, not even looking up from his magazine. Young Tyson and young Percy did their best to keep the other kids safe and out of range of the fiery balls. Percy’s chest glowed in a few places he had been burned in from the explosion he’d barely avoided. Tyson got a lot of cheers and pats on the back for protecting Percy. 

Young Percy grumbled and thought about how the monsters were taking the dodgeball game too seriously, causing the entire camp, aside from a few sticks in the mud, to cackle with gleeful laughter. Connor ran over and high fived him. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t say that out loud!” Thalia gasped, holding her stomach. “That was gold.”

He bowed from his lounged position, smiling at how happy everyone was. When his younger self thought of a crazy idea, everyone sobered up. After the locker room exploded, earning several whistles. Tyson had a few glowing spots appear on him as one of the fiery balls caught him unaware, knocking him through a wall. 

“That didn’t feel very good.” Tyson frowned, touching the gold light with his fingers. 

Young Percy distracted the last monster from aiming a final shot at his brother by yelling at him. Before anyone could blink, young Percy took off running full speed toward the monster, having spotted his jeans with his pen, sliding to a stop in front of him. Before either of them could act, the monster froze with the point of a bronze dagger sticking out of his stomach. As he dissolved into smoke, young Annabeth appeared, holding the dagger that had just killed the monster. 

She looked rough, as if she’d been in several fights to get to this one. There were scratches on her arms and face, and her clothes were ripped in a few places. Sloan approached and was pointing at young Annabeth in shock before she pulled her arm back and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. When she told him to lay off her friend, everyone cheered her on.

“Thanks for that.” Percy said, smiling at her gratefully.

“No problem. He was a dick, he just needed someone who wasn’t afraid of the consequences to lay him out.” She said simply.

“Too bad you didn’t stick around a bit longer.” Percy sighed. “Maybe you could have convinced the assholes in charge that none of what happened was my doing.”

“Doubtful.” She snorted. “You came in having been suspended by six schools already, Seaweed Brain. They were probably just waiting for something to happen that they could blame on you.”

“You’re probably right.” Percy groaned.

As soon as Sloan got up and was holding his bleeding nose, he pointed accusingly at young Percy and blamed the whole thing on him. Young Percy sighed, grabbed his pen, and jumped through the hole that Tyson had made, dragging him along with him down the street.

“So you’ve run away from a school on fire before.” Rachel said, grinning crookedly. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“That wasn’t my fault either, Red.” Percy whined.

“I know, but it goes with that saying-” She continued until Nico cut her off.

“If I had a nickel for every time I ran away from a school on fire, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.” He quoted, grinning when the other campers cheered.

“It is weird that it happened twice.” Percy said petulantly.

“I never thought I’d see that meme brought to life. I love it!” Piper exclaimed, bumping fists with Leo who was nodding along enthusiastically.

Annabeth sighed heavily and groaned when her younger self was disgusted with young Tyson. She looked over to apologize but he smiled at her and waved it off. Everyone knew she adored Tyson now, and some of them knew they’d had a rocky start, but only Percy, Thalia, and Grover knew the ‘why’ behind it. 

While young Annabeth was freaking out over Tyson, young Percy was checking his hands for any sign of injuries, along with his head and chest. Young Percy frowned at her as she continued to make disgusted faces at Tyson. Then she started explaining what the monsters in the gym were. Young Percy struggled to say them for a little while before giving up and asking what else he could call them.

“They are NOT Canadians!” Frank exclaimed. “I’M Canadian! Those things are Laistrygonians. It’s not that hard to say.”

“Laistra-” Percy attempted, clicking his tongue when he couldn’t finish it, “laster-, laceta-, laser-, gah! I don’t understand why I can’t say it!”

“That might be my fault.” Poseidon admitted, raising a finger and looking at his son apologetically. “I can’t say it either. They were creatures that were never a problem in the sea, and I never interacted with them, so I never learned their names. Once I was apprised of them, I could never pronounce it right. I called them frostbite, if I ever had to refer to them.”

“It took us a while to figure out what he was referring to.” Demeter grumbled.

“So you could name the Ophiotaurus, but not them? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Percy sighed. “Still annoying.”

“Agreed.” Poseidon and Triton said at the same time, both looking unhappy about it.

“I suppose I can forgive you for that.” Frank reluctantly agreed. “Just please stop calling them Canadians.”

“Fine. From now on I’ll call them lasertags.” Percy agreed, grinning when everyone chuckled.

The odd trio shared their dreams they’d been having before young Percy started to try explaining who his dad was. 

“You could have told me you already knew, jerk.” Percy complained, shoving Tyson lightly. 

“I was just surprised.” Tyson said, blushing. “It meant we were brothers but you didn’t see me yet. Not really.”

“I suppose that’s fair.” Percy said slowly.

All three of them blanched when young Annabeth called the taxi. It was not a pleasant experience, and Percy wasn’t looking forward to adding more to the confusion he already had playing through his head from back then. Percy held his stomach gingerly as the cab took off. He had really hated that thing. 

The arguing old ladies made his head ache. He groaned as he felt his stomach swoop again at the sudden changes in direction they kept making. Tyson had leaned his head down on his knees so he wasn’t watching. He may not be feeling what happened back then, but it didn’t mean watching it wouldn’t make him carsick again. As soon as one of the women mentioned the location they sought, Clarisse leaned around her brothers and shoved Percy into Tyson.

“That’s cheating dickhead.” She grunted.

“No it’s not.” Percy argued, staying on the ground where he’d been pushed. “It’s using my available resources to make informed decisions.”

“He’s not wrong.” Annabeth said in his defense.

“Besides,” Percy added, “you all had a lot of other things going on when we showed up and the information didn’t make sense until we knew what was needed.”

Percy’s head glowed as he hit the roof of the cab when the eye had bounced into his lap. It was complete chaos and it was a ride that lasted maybe 10 minutes. Hermes started scribbling some notes when young Percy started making counter demands, getting the information he wanted, before giving them the eye back. Once they’d given up the numbers, he’d tried getting more information, but the hill at camp was under attack and they had no time to argue. 

Clarisse flipped him off when he thought about how aiding her wasn’t a very high priority. He just grinned back unrepentantly. He sighed and crossed his arms at how he’d thought he was protecting Ty from the giant bulls. He felt like an idiot that he hadn’t been able to see what should have been obvious. Between the irritation and confusion he felt from the memory, and the annoyance at himself, the ground shuddering below him shouldn’t have been a surprise. He clenched his jaw and let himself just feel the ground he was laying on. He reached out and felt where the tiny shakes were coming from and soothed them with a thought causing it to cease. 

Until this past summer, he’d always loved being close to the ground. Digging his toes in the sand, or walking barefoot in the grass in the park. He vaguely remembered his mom having trouble getting him to keep shoes on when he was younger. Maybe this was why. The earth was as much his heritage as the sea, since his dad was also named Earthshaker. It made a twisted sort of sense.

Those who hadn’t been around during this summer, were stunned speechless as the bulls ran across the boundary, barely pausing. Young Percy was starting to look a little sunburned; not much, but it definitely seemed to add to his tanned skin. Percy’s ankle lit up brightly, showing where it had been broken after getting out of the way of the heat blast.

“I told you it was broken!” Will said angrily, throwing a canteen at him.

“I know, Will.” Percy whined. “But I knew taking a shower or bath would help more than just eating ambrosia. The other kids who were injured needed it more.”

“I didn’t have a designated salt water bath for you by this point, since it was my first summer, asshole. Next time you’ll listen when I tell you what to do, or I’ll tell your mom.”

“Jeez, goin’ straight to the big guns, huh?” Percy whistled. “Alright, fine. I’ll listen to my doctor.”

“Good.” Will seemed to relax when he agreed without a fight. Nico smirked at him, giving him a smug look, so Percy, being the mature, older cousin that he was, flipped him off.

When young Annabeth gave young Tyson permission to enter camp, he ran straight for his brother to protect him. Poseidon let out a breath in relief that Percy hadn’t been charbroiled. Once the bulls were dealt with, young Clarisse came over and screamed at him and young Annabeth about trying to save her.

“And yet you keep doing it.” Clarisse complained.

“Not my fault you keep showing up where I am.” Percy argued.

“I’m still blaming you.” She grunted. “My life was semi-normal before you showed up.”

“But where would you get your entertainment if I wasn’t around?” Percy asked innocently. He caught the dagger she threw at him easily. Instead of tossing it back he twirled it in his fingers like he often did his pen. He’d give it back. Eventually.

When young Annabeth started explaining what Tyson was, young Percy could finally see him. When she called him a baby, Tyson pouted at her. She rolled her eyes and threw him a bag of skittles that she pulled out of her pocket. He brightened up and shared the blue ones with Percy while keeping the red and yellow ones for himself. He handed the younger kids the green, orange, and purple ones. Neither one of them liked those flavors much. Poseidon frowned when young Annabeth called his cyclops son a mistake. 

“I’m not going to apologize,” Annabeth said, with a placating look at the sea god, “as you may guess, I’ll end up telling Percy why I dislike them so much later on. I will admit that I was wrong about Tyson. He’s amazing, and a really good brother. I like Ty. But cyclopes in general,” she shuddered, “I’ve not had good experiences with them.”

“I’ll consider it.” Poseidon reluctantly agreed after Amphitrite nudged him. 

Of course, as soon as young Percy was trying to process that his friend was a cyclops, young Clarisse dropped the bomb about Tantalus. Percy glared at a few gods who looked unrepentant about the choice of new activities director. When the tree was pointed out, the amphitheater became deadly quiet. The pine tree, the one that anchored the protective barrier for camp, was dying. 

“If it makes anyone feel better,” Thalia stated, “I didn’t actually feel any of this.”

“A little.” Annabeth admitted, scooting closer to her friend and leaning on her. “You aren’t allowed to die any time soon, Thals.”

“Noted, blondie.” Thalia chuckled, kissing the side of Annabeth’s head.

As the young campers walked further into camp, it was obvious that the magical protections failing were affecting the vegetation all around, not just the things near the tree itself. 

“I’m curious,” Reyna said, cutting in, “why there were no other protections for the camp? It is the only place safe for Greek demigods, yet it is primarily only available during the summer months? And even then, there were no other protections in place until Thalia died getting her friends to safety. It begs the question; how can your Roman counterparts care so much about their children and legacies, enough to provide them multiple magical protections, but not their Greek side? Perhaps the Greek gods did not care if they died out compared to their Roman aspects.”

“You have no right to question us.” Hera sneered.

“On the contrary,” Reyna said calmly, “as Praeter I have every right. If the Greek forms care so little about the protection of their children, then who’s to say that your Roman aspects won’t one day feel the same? That the protection we value won’t one day be taken away on your whim? We have made our peace with the Greek camp. Praeter Jackson is proof enough of that, as was your plan, my lady. But if you are so unwilling to keep your own family safe, then we will be forced to do so on our own. And I don’t believe that you are prepared for what it would mean for your camp and city to turn away from you.”

“Well said, Praeter.” Frank agreed. “We fight and die for you, never asking for anything in return nor expecting it. But perhaps the best protections we can afford from monsters are our own. At least that way the only ones who can let us down are ourselves.”

“Does that mean Terminus has a brother or something?” Percy asked quizzically. “Cause I don’t think I’m ready to deal with another version of him.”

“No,” Reyna said, a smirk playing at her lips, “Terminus is one of a kind. However, I’m sure we can ask around and get you someone similar.”

“Oh!” Percy said, sitting up a bit straighter and snapping his fingers, “the via ducts. We can set up a similar system and set blessings on the water so no monster can cross. Maybe borrow a few drops of the Lethe or Phlegethon from the Underworld. I’m sure the Ambassador would help us out.”

“For sure.” Nico agreed easily.

“I bet between me and Leo, we can come up with a working system that can contain those, er, temperamental waters.” Annabeth added.

“No doubt.” Leo said enthusiastically. 

“Those are wonderful ideas.” Chiron said proudly. “Perhaps, when this is over, we can work up some plans that involve all the cabins? I’m sure that there are more ideas for booby traps and tricks that we can add to make our haven more secure?”

“Yes!” Several of the campers said excitedly. Percy was still watching Reyna and Frank, though.

“Your intelligence continues to impress and inspire, Praetor.” Percy gave her a small bow of his head. “I look forward to building the new bonds of friendship between our legacies.”

“We look forward to it as well, Praeter Jackson.” Reyna acknowledged, bobbing her head to him as a sign of respect for his leadership positions held from both camps.

The images continued before any more gods could protest. Tyson blushed as he remembered how excited he’d been at seeing camp for the first time. Percy patted his back and gave him a proud smile. They both chuckled at young Percy’s thoughts about him not supposed to exist. It was something they could laugh about now, after everything. Percy laughed harder at Thalia’s indignant expression when his younger self thought that he was doing his best not to end up like her.

Even Poseidon and Triton were trying not to laugh when young Percy thought about being turned into a patch of kelp. 

Chiron rolled his eyes at young Tyson’s excitement and calling him a ‘pony’. When Chiron explained to his young campers what was going on, the younger kids in the amphitheater looked positively murderous. Clarisse groaned when Chiron mentioned there was only one way to heal the tree. 

As young Percy thought that getting chopped into pieces should have been a subtle clue no one wanted him around, there was a smattering of surprised laughter. Annabeth and Thalia were leaning against each other as they fought to stay upright. Nico pursed his lips trying not to laugh, but Will was chuckling and covering his mouth with his hand. Tyson fist bumped him.

“Gods, Percy.” Grover groaned. “You are ridiculous.”

“I didn’t say it out loud.” Percy argued, grinning crookedly at his best friend.

“I’m sure your face said it though.” Nico commented.

“It did.” Tyson agreed, laughing harder at Percy’s annoyed expression.

“I can’t always control my facial expressions.” He complained. “I get better at it … eventually.”

“No you don’t.” Frank, Hazel, Jason, Reyna, Leo, Connor, Travis, and Will all said together. 

“Rude.” Percy sniffed. “Some friends you all are.”

“Stop pouting, little sea star.” Triton teased, making Poseidon and Amphitrite cough and laugh.

“What?” Percy practically shrieked. He couldn’t believe that Triton had warmed up enough to give him a ridiculous nickname already, and he absolutely did NOT like it. “I’m not little anymore.”

“You’ll always be little, brother.” Tyson agreed, leaning against him. Percy tried to shove him off, but Tyson only fell on him more.

The little kids scattered as the brothers started wrestling each other, neither one getting the upper hand. A loud, piercing whistle forced them to cover their ears and abandon their maneuvers. 

“You can play later, kids.” Will stated in an unimpressed, but fond, tone. “We need to get through this as much as we can so we can finish it tomorrow like the first one.”

“Rain check, Ty.” Percy grumbled, digging his finger in his ear to try and clear it.

“Rain check.” Tyson agreed, doing the same thing.

When Chiron asked young Annabeth to swear to keep Percy from danger, by swearing on the Styx, Athena stood up looking like she was ready to rip him a new one. Before she could utter a word, Annabeth was standing as well and glaring at her mother with such disappointment and anger that the goddess blanched.

“You don’t get a say.” Annabeth said sternly. “Not you who willingly sent so many of your children on a pointless quest to retrieve what Rome stole, knowing they would die. KNOWING it wasn’t time for that prophecy. You use your children probably as much or more than anyone else, and that is NOT a compliment. Should Chiron have made me swear? Probably not. But it doesn’t matter. I would have gone anyway and done exactly what I had done regardless. He was my friend, my best friend, and I don’t regret it. So sit down. No one here wants to listen to whatever bullshit you were about to spew at my family.”

“You could have died!” Athena said shrilly.

“I nearly did, many times, over my years at camp and especially before I got here. Before Percy came, and after he was here. Some of that was because of you, some of it was because I was determined to save my family. As I already said; I don’t regret it, and I’d do it again. I wouldn’t change a thing I did. I had to sit here and watch as all of you belittled him and debated on killing, not only him, but my sister as well. I don’t hate you, mother. But it’s a near thing at the moment. You’d be best served sitting down and watching quietly.”  Annabeth gave her a small half-bow and sat back down, her irritation hanging around her like a cloud.

“As you wish.” Athena said quietly, retaking her seat and watching her daughter. As if trying to figure out what she needed to do to fix their relationship.

Annabeth met Percy’s eyes briefly and gave him a short nod, which he returned. It had taken a lot of courage for her to stand up to her mother and he was very proud of her for it. He wanted to let her know somehow so he focused on the water in his hands and made a seashell out of ice and sent it over to her. It landed lightly in her palm. 

“Gods, you're such a dork.” She chuckled wetly.

“Just didn’t want you to forget it.” He grinned crookedly at her. The more they went into his memories, the more he started to see the old her. The one he’d fallen hopelessly in love with. He didn’t want to change her, never that. But he wanted her to remember where they started; to remember what disasters they were in the beginning. Maybe she would see that they hadn’t really changed that much after all. Like he already knew. 

The images continued as young Percy attempted to console not just a young Annabeth, but also a young Tyson. Both of them were equally distraught and he was not sure how to do it. Nico patted his shoulder in commiseration. He was making a truly epic face that showed how uncomfortable he would be in young Percy’s place. 

Clarisse was scowling at the sign that had been taped to her back. She felt better seeing how angry it made young Percy, but it still upset her. Sherman leaned forward and whispered something to her that she nodded at. 

When the images resumed, Percy bit his lip so he wouldn’t whimper at the sight of Beckendorf. Tyson didn’t bother and leaned against Percy for support. They had been really good friends right from the start, so Percy knew it would hit his brother hard seeing him again. 

“I miss him.” Tyson said softly, sniffling. 

“Me too.” Percy croaked.

“Who’s that?” Leo asked, pointing at him.

“Beckendorf.” Connor replied, watching Percy and Tyson carefully.

“THAT’S Beckendorf?” Leo exclaimed. “He’s huge! And gorgeous.”

“He was great.” Percy said in a raspy voice, before clearing his throat. “You’ll get to see some of it.”

“I hope so.” Leo stated with bright eyes.

Young Percy described each of the cabins coming into dinner, and everyone looked at him out of the corner of their eyes. He rolled his eyes at them, because, honestly, they should be used to how much he picked up but didn’t say out loud by now. Travis and Connor flipped him off when his thoughts about them were narrated. He chuckled and winked at them, knowing it would piss them off more. He didn’t used to be able to tell them apart, but now it was easy. When it was mentioned that he had heard the Apollo cabin ask who had brought Tyson, in a mean way, the cabin looked ashamed. Not just one of them, but all of them.

“That was Michael.” Will sighed. “He was pretty strung out already, and had zero filter by that point.”

“I know now that seeing him must have been a huge shock.” Percy admitted. “But I had hoped that people would see that he was there because he had helped us. Helped defend camp.”

“We did, but Michael had been in the infirmary with me and was stressed about the number of people needing healing. He shouldn’t have said it so … mean.” Will added.

“I was just as worried about being here too.” Tyson admitted. “Was scary being somewhere so new. Having Percy with me helped.” 

Percy had to take a few deep breaths at the agitation he’d felt when Mr. D addressed him. Everyone else, monsters included, seemed to get his name right all the time. But Mr. D seemed to refuse to acknowledge anyone’s. He understood why, after everything he’d been through, but it still irritated him. When Tantalus was described, Percy had to look at the sky. He remembered how unhinged he had looked and really didn’t want to see it again. Or worse; see it and recognize himself. He knew he was damaged from his time in Tartarus, knew that it had altered him irrevocably. 

When the newspaper was shown, Percy ducked his head and linked his fingers behind his neck. It was worse than the article he’d found after his mom had disappeared. It was another authority figure deciding he was the problem without ever having spent any time around him. He let out a growl of frustration and stood up, hoping stretching his legs a bit would calm him down, but he only felt more angry. 

“Perce, you need to try and stay calm.” Nico said, appearing at his side. 

“I’m as calm as I’m going to be right now.” He gritted out. “That right there, is just another piece of proof that people will constantly judge me before knowing me. I’m just so tired of it, it makes me want to scream!”

“He’s just another asshole adult.” Nico said gently. “He’s a dick, and Dionysus was a dick for baiting the whole conversation.”

“He was.” Percy agreed.

“You can’t change it, though. It already happened.” 

“Doesn’t make me less angry about it.”

“I know. I do, really. But I don’t think you want to cause a hurricane at the moment.” Nico pointed to the clouds gathering overhead and the wind whipping around camp.

“Fuck.” Percy growled, wiping a hand over his face. “Just … I need a minute.” 

Percy walked away from the amphitheater and toward the water. As soon as he walked in, any living creature rushed away. He screamed his frustration where it wouldn’t cause any damage to camp or frighten the younger kids. He punched one of the boulders that had sunk to the bottom a few times, only stopping when it cracked down the middle. He took a few deep breaths and let them out before walking out of the lake and heading back to his seat. He plopped down beside Tyson again and nodded when he noticed the bad weather had disappeared. 

Chapter Text

“I’m good.” Percy said with a sigh.

“Bullshit.” Thalia coughed, “sorry, I’m fine. Must be allergies.”

“Very funny.” Percy commented, his eyebrows raised a bit.

“It’s ok to show us you’re angry, Percy.” Frank said cautiously. “It would be weird if you weren’t.”

“I’m just really tired of people deciding I’m bad news when they don’t even know me.” Percy said slowly. “It’s one thing to get it from school. It’s another to get it the one place I’m supposed to feel free to be myself. It’s bullshit. I was a 13 year old kid here. And that asshole decided he wanted to keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t cause trouble. I thought I’d gotten free from my first step father, but then that thing was here at camp and I felt like he was coming back to haunt me. Like he hadn’t messed me up enough the first time and now he was coming back to prove I was as worthless as he always said I was. We shouldn’t have to feel like we need to hide ourselves in the place we’re meant to feel safe.”

“Tantalus was all that was available.” Zeus countered, and Percy could not stop the growl, nor the glare, he directed at the god if he’d wanted to.

“Then you should be grateful that he didn’t send the entire camp off to the enemy.” He snarled. “If he stayed any longer, there wouldn’t be a Camp Half-Blood anymore. Everyone would have left either to go back home, trying to survive on their own, or they’d have joined Luke knowing he was right and you didn’t give a shit about the kids here. If he was the best you could come up with, then fuck you. All of you. He was a murderous, psychotic, bastard that enjoyed the pain he caused. You, Lord Zeus, nearly handed Kronos his victory on that decision alone. I hope you’re proud of it.”

“He has a point.” Hades agreed, scowling at his youngest brother. “Not that you’ll see anything but his disrespectful tone, but we are lucky that creature didn’t kill or turn all of the children that summer. So if you aren’t going to say something … conducive to the argument, like an apology, then I’d stay quiet if I were you.”

“Seconded.” Poseidon said, raising a hand.

“Let’s keep going so we can at least get to the sea before dinner.” Percy agreed.

No one laughed when the memory showed Tantalus attempting to eat. No one laughed when young Percy called him out about who he was. 

“It’s a good thing Mr. D was there.” Grover said with a heavy exhale.

“Why’s that?” Freddy asked, leaning around Tyson to see the satyr.

“Because Percy has this ability to piss off immortals by verbally baiting them. Mr. D cutting into their, um, argument, probably saved Percy’s life. Granted he did it in a shitty way by pointing out he was alone.” Grover glared at Dionysus.

“I think,” Annabeth said, looking between Poseidon and Mr. D critically, a look Percy loved witnessing, “I think he was doing that to force Poseidon into claiming Tyson. To ensure Percy was protected at camp.”

“It was.” Poseidon agreed. “When we discovered who had been chosen to replace Chiron, we knew our children weren’t going to be safe. Percy had a strong scent, so if he felt alone and afraid at camp, he would most likely leave. I couldn’t risk him going home and getting attacked or being taken by the opposition, most likely forcefully. Besides, the Gray Sisters were promised more drachma for making it to camp with you three and they never received it. Knowing the boys were mine, they came to me to collect. Which was fine,” he added, seeing Percy and Tyson looking ready to apologize, “parents are meant to pay for things for their children. I did not always do so, and I have much time to make up for, so I paid them, knowing you boys would be safe at camp. Especially together.”

“I’ve already apologized to Tyson, but just so you all know, my thoughts weren’t the best when he was claimed. I was a little resentful, and a lot concerned. I wasn’t treated great when I was claimed and I was a demigod. I knew, once I knew he was a monster, that people would treat him awfully.” Percy said quietly. Tyson gave him a smile and shoved him to the side playfully, making him laugh.

“I did too.” Drew added, raising her hand.

“Me too.” Annabeth nodded. 

“I knew why everyone was upset.” Tyson said. “Lots of demigods not getting claimed, then daddy claims a monster child. It made sense for them to be angry.”

“We probably lost a dozen campers because of it, but it wasn’t Tyson’s fault.” Clarisse grunted. 

“Good thing he’s a softy like his big brother.” Nico commented, smirking at Percy. “Doesn’t hold grudges.”

Percy flipped him off, but Tyson beamed proudly at being compared to him. As Tantalus gave the welcome speech, several of the older campers scowled. 

“Lee was pissed about the chariot races.” Will stated, when young Percy noted an Apollo camper objecting. “He ranted about them for like an hour when we got to our cabin for the night.”

“Question.” Percy interjected and turned to look at Will.

“Shoot.”

“Were you claimed as soon as you got to camp, or did something happen first?”

“Oh, uh, I was claimed the same day I got here, but it was after I’d healed one of the injured. Mom knew who dad was, but said I’d figure it out pretty quick when she dropped me off.”

“You were under 13, right?”

“Yeah. Just turned 11 before I got here.”

“Cool.” Percy nodded, looking back to the images. “So far, it seems only Apollo and Hephaestus are good about claiming their children quickly. Maybe Aphrodite.”

“I was 16 already, though.” Leo said, putting his hand up.

“You were kept hidden from me.” Hephaestus grunted. “Couldn’t find you for a few years for some reason. Otherwise I’d have claimed you sooner. Didn’t have the manpower to look for you with the war heating up, as it was.”

“That … makes sense.” Leo nodded.

“Besides,” Piper cut in, throwing her arm around Leo’s shoulders, “you being claimed same day as me meant we got to hang out and be friends before we got here. And I know you aren’t saying you’d have rather been claimed earlier, voiding our time together.”

“Nah, you’re stuck with me, beauty queen.” Leo chuckled, wiping a streak of grease on Piper’s cheek with his finger.

Clarisse fought not to shudder when Tantalus zeroed in on her when she objected. She went pale as Tantalus praised her. A lot of people were growling as Tantalus talked about Tyson like he was an animal. Tyson only rolled his eye. As soon as Tyson was claimed in the memory, much like he did with Percy, Poseidon claimed Tyson again, grinning at him. Percy and Tyson high-fived, ignoring the memory where people had started laughing and making fun of them. 

Young Percy had snuck between young Clarisse and her cabin mates and discreetly tore off the sign and tossed it in the brazier as everyone left after dinner. It had been a good way to distract himself from the chaos that was unfolding. Clarisse looked at him in surprise, and he couldn’t stop the flush in his face. He hadn’t expected anyone to know that was him.

“Damn, we thought it just fell off in the jostle to get away from dinner. We didn’t know who had done it. Put it on or take it off.” Sherman admitted. “Thanks, man.”

“Please don’t mention it.” Percy groaned, hiding his face.

“It was nice of you.” Tyson said quietly. “I didn’t see it. There was too much going on and I was too scared.”

“I know, big guy.” Percy nodded.

“Fuck you, Jackson!” Travis shouted, standing up and trying not to smile as his face lit up with understanding. “You’re the asshole who ruined our pranks all these years! I told Connor it had to be you and he didn’t believe me!”

“I didn’t know he was that sneaky, dick.” Connor muttered, shoving his brother lightly. “We didn’t put that sign there, but we know who did. Regardless, you have been the one to screw with our carefully planned escapades. This means war, I hope you know.”

“Ha!” Percy burst out. “You couldn’t handle a prank war, Stoll.”

“Oh, I think we can. Bring it on, water boy!” Travis replied energetically.

“You boys better strap in.” Percy antagonized. “I don’t hold back. You’re going to be lucky not to wake up in a tree, wearing a tutu and eyeliner with your hair dyed blue.”

“That was you?!” Malcolm shrieked. “It took us HOURS to get Aaron to come back down. He kept repeating ‘never again’.”

“He started it.” Percy argued. 

“He thought it would be funny to leave Percy Aquaman comics in his cabin.” Annabeth clarified, still holding the ice seashell. “Circling things Percy had done, and writing Percy’s name in it. I tried to warn him, but he didn’t listen. It was his own fault.”

“Hermes versus Poseidon.” Travis stated.

“May the best prankster win.”

“Don’t worry, we will.” Percy grinned sharklike, rubbing his hands together. THIS was going to be so much fun. “You ready, Ty?”

“One hundred percent, brother.” Tyson agreed with a chuckle that rumbled deep in his chest. 

“Fine.” Chiron said, looking both exasperated and excited. “Poseidon versus Hermes. Both cabins have a week to pull their pranks. At the end, Athena cabin will tally up the numbers for the winner. You still have the score sheet, Annabeth?”

“Obviously.” Annabeth scoffed. “Malcolm is my second, should I find myself unable to judge.”

“Accepted.” Chiron agreed. “Other cabins are not permitted to assist in performing the prank, though they can assist in planning. If they assist in performing they are then subject to pranks themselves. And although I would prefer you keep it to daylight hours, you will not be docked for initiating a prank overnight.”

“Accepted.” Travis, Connor, Percy, and Tyson agreed.

“Results to be read before we get to the end of Percy’s first Great prophecy.” Reyna added.

“Done.” Chiron nodded. “We’ll announce the winners when Percy turns 16 in the memories.”

“Aye.” The camp responded eagerly.

“Could I participate?” Triton asked uncertainly.

“Of course. You’re our brother too. It’d be nice to have three on 15 instead of two. Tyson can explain what all we’ve done over the years so we can plan this out right.” Percy agreed.

“Excellent. I haven’t pulled pranks in a good century.” Triton said excitedly, rubbing his hands together similar to how Percy had.

“The rules still remain the same.” Chiron added. “No cabins destroyed, no damage to the camp overall, and no nudity. Points are docked for failing to follow the rules. I expect you and Tyson to apprise Lord Triton of all of them.”

“Will do, Chiron!” Percy agreed.

“This won’t cut into your time with me.” Will added, pointing at Percy.

“We’ll make sure of it.” Triton agreed, nodding at him.

“Lame.” Percy groaned, smirking when Will snorted.

There was a lot of groaning and snickering when young Percy and young Annabeth fought instead of designing a chariot together. Percy smiled softly at the images of Silena teaching him about the pegasi. He pursed his lips when his brother pouted about not being able to ride them too. Then Beckendorf was back and showed Tyson all about the forges, and helped him start crafting. Percy followed along sometimes, just sitting and watching unless they needed an extra set of hands. 

“Ok, how did you not know how hot that was?” Leo asked, looking at him in shock.

“Not sure.” Percy shrugged. “Just didn’t feel it. I mean, it felt warm, but not hot. Kind of like the whips.”

Will grumbled under his breath at having to train with young Percy since he was so much better than they all were with swords. He threw a pear at him, not looking surprised when he caught it and started eating it. Young Percy dreamed practically every night of Grover and what he was going through, along with being caught in depressing thoughts of how Luke had pretended to befriend him before trying to kill him. He rubbed the scar on his palm, sighing heavily. He just felt so … alone that summer. Kind of like before he turned 16. He was fighting with Annabeth, everyone was busy, and he was left alone unless he took himself into the forges with his brother and Beckendorf.

“You look lonely.” Freddy said quietly, watching the images.

“I was.” Percy conceded. “No one seemed to want me around outside of Tyson, Beckendorf, and Silena. If they weren’t outright ignoring me, they were teasing me about my brother. It was just … lonely, I guess.”

“It got better.” Tyson assured him, laying his head in Percy’s lap.

“Yeah, it did.” He chuckled, punching his arm as he made himself comfortable. “As bad as it sounds, I got used to being lonely. You’ll get to see and hear why, with all this. Since for some stupid reason you get to hear some of my thoughts instead of just what I say and do out loud.”

“Your thoughts are fantastic, though.” Greg said, looking pretty pleased about it. “I’d have loved to have heard even a portion of this.”

“We’d never have gotten anything done because we would be laughing too much.” Casey corrected her brother.

“It’s what I do.” Percy sighed. “Lighten tense times with dry humor and sarcasm.”

“It’s a fucking defense tactic you learned so no one would ask intrusive questions, jackass.” Will muttered, throwing a few blue twizzlers at him. 

“Nice.” Percy grinned, shoving one in his mouth. He leaned back comfortably as he felt the tiredness from his memory relax him. He snickered as everyone got their first good look at Grover in his epic costume. 

“How the fuck are you seeing so much?!” Clovis exclaimed, startling him enough to open his eyes again.

“It’s an empathy link.” Percy shrugged, eating another licorice. 

“That’s not exactly how they work, Perce.” Grover said hesitantly. “But we’d talked about your dreams so much before I knew you’d be able to interact with me. Normally we’re just supposed to be able to feel what the other is feeling, or like, be able to tell where the other is; if we’re near each other or not.”

“You never told me that.” Percy frowned at his friend. 

“Alright,” Grover took a deep breath and steeled himself, facing Percy and looking deadly serious, his palms pressed together and his fingers pointing towards him,  “Percy, best friend, terror of demigods, bane of Olympians and immortals alike; you’re weird as shit and nothing works like it’s supposed to around you.”

“Love you too.” Percy grumbled, feeling his face heat up as everyone laughed and snickered.

“But he’s the best kind of weird.” Hazel stated, trying to fight a smile.

“He certainly doesn’t lack for entertainment value.” Reyna agreed, smirking at him.

“I don’t understand how you’re able to see this much.” Hypnos said, agreeing with his son as he appeared next to him. “Demigod dreams are usually more telling, but they aren’t usually this … interactive.”

“Sorry, not sorry.” Percy shrugged. “It gets weirder when I start dreaming of specific people accurately. Like, people I’d never met before, but know who they are.”

“Who’d you dream about?” Jason asked curiously, and Percy couldn’t keep his eyes from glancing at Thalia, who groaned in annoyance.

“Of course you dreamed about me.” She complained, reaching over and stealing some of his licorice.

“You didn’t know who she was?” Jason asked, still curious.

“I mean, I knew her name, and who her dad was, but I’d never seen a picture or anything at this point.” Percy pointed at the memory. “Just a forewarning that apparently my weird-ass dreams get weirder.”

When everyone refocused on his dream again, he leaned back some more and just waited for the race. It was one of his favorite things. Even if the first one ended in a disaster. His younger self kept scowling at the birds that were around, rubbing his ears as if the sound bothered him. The campers all perked up as the chariots came out, some led by people who had died in the wars, others who were watching their past selves in annoyance. 

Percy tried to swallow his own annoyance at young Annabeth practically blowing him off. It had always bothered him how easily his friends had written his worries off as nothing more than bad dreams. They were dreams, but they were also right. Grover HAD been in trouble, and he HAD needed their help. 

“They weren’t making that much noise.” Will said, frowning at the birds that were making a lot of noise in the memory, young Percy wincing as if it were too high pitched for his ears, young Tyson making similar faces.

“They were crazy loud.” Percy argued, “I could barely hear what Tantalus was saying.”

“Hurt my ears.” Tyson agreed.

“They just sounded like regular birds to everyone else.” Clarisse said, reaching over and stealing her dagger back that was sitting beside him. “They didn’t sound this screech-y to anyone other than you two.”

Percy just sighed and shrugged. It wasn’t something he could explain anyway, so no use really trying. Triton did something with his fingers, like he was going to whistle, which he did, and Percy and Tyson covered their ears quickly at the loud noise. Percy threw a licorice at him.

“Dick.” Percy grumbled rubbing his ears. “Gods, that was loud.”

“No one else heard anything, weirdo.” Nico said, flicking his arm. 

“Well, can we not test what noises me and Ty can hear compared to everyone else for the moment? It’s gonna take forever to get the ringing to stop now as it is.” Percy complained.

Tyson snickered at him as his younger self bribed the horses to carry them both. He gave Percy a high-five when they got lined up, happy that his brother wanted to prove how good Tyson was. It was obvious when the birds were finally drawing attention from the rest of camp, which was funny to Percy, that they hadn’t really noticed before everyone was lined up. Will swore at Connor and Travis who were laughing at how they’d ruined the Apollo cabin chariot right off the bat. Even if they ruined their own as well. 

The whole memory was chaos after that. The race, the birds attacking, and then young Percy, Tyson, and Annabeth heading for the big house, all three trying not to laugh at Chiron’s indignant expression. They lost their fight with their laughter as young Percy’s thoughts described it as a ‘bunch of guys moaning in Italian’. 

“Children.” Chiron sighed in exasperation, fighting a grin as the other campers were snickering as well. When young Percy told Tantalus to chase a donut, even the gods had started laughing. Some of them, anyway. Athena was biting her lips so as to try and stay impartial, Ares was frowning at how much attention Tantalus was paying to Clarisse, and Hera and Zeus were being their usual ‘holier than thou’ selves. 

“Someone say donuts?” Blackjack asked, cantering over to Percy and flopping on the ground beside him, sticking his snout in his hair and undoing some of the braids as he picked at the twine.

“Thought you were off chasing some poor lady pegasi, dude.” Percy chuckled, shoving his face back a little.

“We was just leaving, but thought we’d drop by and see what the party was about.” He nickered, nodding toward Guido who was standing back, looking annoyed at having to wait.

“Leave ‘im alone, Blackjack.” Guido complained. “We got places to be!”

“Tell you what,” Percy chuckled, “I’ll get you some donuts for when you get back, alright?”

“I’ll hold you to it, boss. Try and be good while we’re out. Whistle if you need a handsome horse.” Blackjack said, huffing in his hair again before leaving him alone, the two pegasi jostling each other before they took off.

“That never gets less weird.” Annabeth complained, and Percy looked at her in confusion.

“What?”

“You, talking to something that no one, or almost no one, else can understand.” She replied, raising an eyebrow at him. His face felt warm as he realized only his dad, brothers, and Grover had understood the conversation.

“Why did he call you ‘boss’?” Triton asked, his face scrunched up in confusion.

“Always has.” Percy shrugged, his face still warm. “Can’t seem to get him to stop, actually.”

“Arion is still better.” Hazel argued.

“Arion is faster on the ground for sure, but he’s got a mouth on him.” Percy retorted.

“Triton.” Amphitrite scolded.

“What? I didn’t teach him any of that.” Triton argued. “Not my fault if he picked it up anyway.”

“Triton used to come up to the surface and play with him, and they went through a phase where they used a lot of colorful language. Arion never grew out of it.” Amphitrite explained, looking at her son in exasperation.

“It’s his fault.” “It’s her fault.” Poseidon and Demeter both said, pointing at each other and frowning when they said it at the same time.

“It’s all three of your faults.” Amphitrite said, raising an eyebrow, winking at Percy when they backed down without further argument. Percy grinned, feeling better.

“I think an hour more and then we’ll break for dinner.” Chiron interjected, trying not to smile.

Percy ducked his head when his friends started snickering at his younger self calling shearing a sheep ‘messy’, before devolving into full blown giggles when he mentioned the old movie about Jason and the Argonauts. His younger self listened attentively while young Annabeth explained the story, but made a face when she brushed over the fact about Europa. 

Even the Romans were laughing by that point. Thalia had her face buried in Annabeth’s shoulder as she shook with laughter while Nico at least looked unsurprised by what Percy focused on and only rolled his eyes at him. The younger kids groaned at how no one actually explained the Sea of Monsters to young Percy and how they just waited to see if he would guess. 

“This is so stupid!” Freddy exclaimed, tugging on his hair. 

When they heard his sarcastic response, they relaxed again. He actually put it all together pretty quickly, if he said so himself. When he mentioned bringing up the quest and Oracle at the campfire, Hermes sat up expectantly again. Apparently he was ready to see Percy manipulate someone. Again. A few people hummed along to the campfire songs, but Percy made up his own words a long time ago, knowing no one would correct him and not really caring that he was wrong when it made his friends laugh. Hestia was holding a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud, which made him feel pretty proud of himself.

Percy caught Clarisse’s dagger that she’d thrown at him, again, without looking. She grumbled in annoyance at him being right. She rolled her eyes as her cabinmates from the memory accused him of wanting glory for another completed quest.

“Don’t say it.” She warned him, holding another dagger ready. “We already know, you only wanted to save your friend. We got it.”

“Someone’s testy today.” Percy teased, grinning crookedly at her. “Sounds like you need to work out some aggression, La Rue.”

“Why?” She teased back. “You wanna lose again?”

“You only beat me in hand-to-hand. I can totally take you with a sword.” Percy argued.

“Ahem.” Chiron cleared his throat loudly, raising an eyebrow at them. Percy shrugged unrepentantly and Clarisse crossed her arms unbothered. They’d spar later and probably scare some of the younger kids if they watched, but it’d be fun.

When Tantalus lost his cool and started his ghost story, Percy shuddered. He tried not to, but the dude was hella creepy, and he had it out for the sons of Poseidon all summer even though it had only been most of a week that they’d been there that summer with him. Luckily he hadn’t dreamt that night, but that was more because he was afraid to go to sleep than because he didn’t want to dream. As his younger self choked on his soda because of a surprise intruder to his beach moment, there were actually a few startled yelps from other campers who hadn’t noticed the stranger appearing, either. 

Travis and Connor had wide eyes as they realized who was visiting him. They hadn’t even met their dad at that point. Chris didn’t look as upset, but he was also sitting by Clarisse since he’d shown up late, not his brothers. He whispered something to her before going to sit by them, seeing how upset they looked. Hermes didn’t seem to notice, he was too busy scratching out something on a notepad. Percy frowned at him, glaring until he looked up, having finally felt someone looking at him. Percy nodded to his kids and raised an eyebrow. Hermes suddenly realized what was happening and paled, before he got up and went to see if his kids wanted him to sit with them.

“We hadn’t even met you yet,” Travis said in a slightly strangled voice, “and here you are, making a trip to camp, but not to see your own kids.”

“You were trying to save him still, weren’t you?” Connor asked accusingly.

“I should have come to see you sooner, I know that now. I learned a lot from what happened, but I can’t change how this turned out. I’m trying to be better.” Hermes admitted, kneeling before his kids. “Have I not done better?”

“You have.” Chris admitted reluctantly. “Doesn’t make it easier to accept that you decided to visit Percy instead of any of us, though.”

“I know.” Hermes sighed defeatedly. “I didn’t realize he hadn’t told you about this.”

“Percy doesn’t like causing problems.” Travis said more firmly, his voice back under control. “He knew it would drive a wedge between more of the demigods and gods, so he wouldn’t have said anything.”

“We’re glad you’re doing better, we are. But it doesn’t change how much this hurts.” Connor added, his teeth gritted. 

“Not that it makes a lot of difference right now,” Percy stated, drawing their attention, “but I find out a lot about what happened with Luke and his family towards the war.”

“What about his family?” Chris asked in confusion. “He never talked about anyone.”

“He wouldn’t have.” Thalia stated. “He ran away at nine years old. We met up a few years later. He was 14, I think. I was 12, Annabeth was seven when we found her. We met his mom once, but he left for a reason. I don’t know what happened to her, but something tells me this dickhead found out.” She pointed a thumb at Percy, ignoring his frown. “Probably from his ridiculous dreams. All we can really do is watch and wait to see what caused what. Hermes isn’t to blame. I think he blames himself enough for what your brother turned into.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me for this,” Hermes said, waving a hand at the memory, “but I can try to make it up to you.”

“We just need some time to think about it.” Travis said after a long pause. “Give us until tomorrow and we’ll let you know how we’re feeling.”

“Ok.” Hermes agreed, getting up and sitting back down by some of his younger kids. 

“You might want to go ahead and silence George and Martha, though.” Percy added. “Otherwise they’ll keep trying to interrupt.”

“Ah. Yes. Probably should do that.” Hermes dug out his phone and apologized quietly before switching it off. 

When the memories started up again, Percy held up a finger forestalling any of the hunters who were frowning at his favorite constellation. When his younger self explained, Thalia couldn’t help how her chuckle turned into full blown laughter as she held her stomach.

“I- I ne- never tho- thought of it li- like that!” She wheezed, the hunters all in similar states of amusement or understanding. 

“He’s a tool.” Piper agreed, grinning when Percy sent her an air high-five. He’d been mostly ignoring the newer demigods that were part of the seven since this whole thing started, but he didn’t really want to do that anymore. Annabeth and Piper had become good friends, so Percy needed to get on good terms with her to show his support of their friendship.

All of the older Hermes kids laughed delightedly when young Percy called Hermes, Luke’s dad instead of just saying his name. Ares even smirked at Hermes, glad he hadn’t been singled out as ‘Clarisse’s dad’. He mumbled something to Aphrodite about it, and she giggled at him as if he said something worthy of giggling at, though she rolled her eyes when he looked away. The Hermes campers seemed pretty interested in George and Martha; which, they were pretty cool, so Percy understood. 

Percy blushed when the vitamins made their appearance, hoping no one was looking at him. He really wasn’t looking forward to being an animal again or feeling like he had when he was himself again. How he’d felt like a coward. Annabeth was barely containing her snickering as he was handed the vitamins. Grover looked at him funnily, sensing his deep seated embarrassment. He wasn’t going to talk about it though, even if it was bound to be talked about for a long time once it happened. When the ship appeared in the memory, Percy flinched, wiping a hand over his face to try and stay calm. He really hated that thing. 

“You grew fond of him quickly.” Triton teased, looking at Hermes with a raised brow. “You rarely call the demigods cousin.”

“Did we or did we not need him thinking of us positively?” Hermes countered, his ears tinged pink. 

“Oh gods, were you hitting on him?” Triton asked gleefully. “He was 13!”

“No, I was not hitting on him.” Hermes argued, but his face was getting pinker. Percy raised his eyebrows incredulously.

“Is that why you keep showing up when I get out of the shower?” He asked, hoping he was wrong.

“Honey,” Aphrodite said gently, looking at him with a weird look, almost like pity, in her eyes, “surely you know how attractive you are?”

“What?” Percy’s voice cracked, his face burning. “I’m perfectly average, thank you very much. Nothing that a freaking god should be showing up for.”

“Called it.” Nico said, holding up a hand and catching a few coins that were tossed his way happily. 

“Hermes.” Poseidon growled, making the other god gulp.

“I’ve already promised to stop!” He said placatingly.

“Don’t worry about it, Percy.” Hazel said, chuckling. “Just wait until the rest of us are in here and you’ll get to hear how impressive we thought of you the first time we met.”

“Gods, just keep going.” Percy groaned covering his face. “This is fucking embarrassing.”

“Awe,” Triton said teasingly, “he’s adorable when he gets all flustered. Worse than father ever was.”

“Excuse me?” Poseidon complained, looking at his son in annoyance.

“No, he’s right.” Amphitrite agreed, pursing her lips as Poseidon glowered at both of them.

Thankfully, they were able to move on, with only a few kids still snickering about the whole thing. His younger self quickly explained to a confused young Annabeth and Tyson about what had happened. He hummed when he reminded his friends that he was an expert at being expelled.

“I’m an expert at rejection.” He quoted, waving a hand around just how Justin Long did in the movie. It was one of the first times he was able to see someone on a screen who was written off as much as he had been his whole life by anyone outside his mom.

“Yeah, ok, ‘Accepted’.” Thalia snorted. He shot her a crooked grin and a thumbs up.

Annabeth blushed as her younger self attempted to spell Cyclops, but no one made fun of her. They all had the same issue. A few people snickered at Percy calling for his dad, but his dad looked pretty happy about it, so he couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed. Percy smiled as he remembered how much fun riding the hippocampus had been, Tyson grinning with him. He ducked his head as he internally connected the story of the original Perseus to his own name and why his mother had chosen it. 

“She’s far too intelligent for father.” Triton scoffed. “No wonder it only lasted a summer.”

“Mom’s great.” Percy agreed, forcing himself not to laugh at his dad’s disbelieving look at his immortal son.

“She really is.” Amphitrite added. “Oh, we should have dinner again when this is over!”

“I’ll let her know.” Percy chuckled. “Long as you don’t mind me cooking. She shouldn’t be on her feet as much as she tries to be right now.”

“Oh! Could you do the-” Amphitrite started, but Percy didn’t want her listing off anything, because then he would be bugged by Thalia until he cooked for her again too. She was already glaring at him.

“Sure.” Percy agreed quickly. “Whatever you want, but I pick the dessert.”

“Sounds perfect.” Amphitrite said thankfully.

Percy clenched his fists as they all climbed aboard the ship. He had to close his eyes because looking at the memory gave him a headache as his head fought to superimpose the memory of what it became over it. He jolted when he felt a hand on his shoulder, letting out a shaky breath. 

“Sorry.” Will apologized, handing him a small pill. “You’re fighting what you saw last time, versus what is appearing. Your brain is under too much stress. You need to calm down or you’ll give yourself a stroke or something.”

“Right. Sorry.” Percy said automatically, taking the pill and washing it back with the water that had been tossed at him earlier.

Percy shivered as he remembered the whispers from being on the ship. That hadn’t changed, the whispers had been there the second time as well, just a little less defined, if anything.

“I didn’t hear anything.” Annabeth said, looking pale.

“Me neither.” Tyson said, frowning.

“It was directed at me, I’m pretty sure.” Percy said hesitantly. “He sensed me nearby, I think. Decided to give it another go at getting me on his side before … well, before what happened.”

When his dream played out, there were a few gasps of surprise. He gave Grover a nod of thanks for somehow managing to pull him out of the nightmare before anything worse could happen. When young Annabeth appeared the next morning, her hair totally tangled, there were a few snickers from her brothers and sisters. She flipped them off, rolling her eyes. When young Percy’s response to needing to get out of there was to complain about being in the girls’ bathroom, they had to wait for everyone to stop laughing before they could continue.

“Should we stop now or wait until we’re off the ship?” Percy asked, leaning toward Annabeth, who tilted her head.

“After we’re off the ship should be a good time to stop for dinner, as long as there aren’t a lot of interruptions.” She admitted.

As soon as the young trio retrieved their bags and hid in a supply closet, Chris sighed heavily, hearing his own younger self talking through the door. The younger kids looked at Chris in confusion for a minute, but figured pretty quickly something must have changed for him to be with everyone, Clarisse and Percy in particular, without anyone being upset. 

“You fought against Camp?” Piper asked in surprise.

“I did.” Chris nodded. “Before I’d left I’d been here three years and was still ‘undetermined’. No one had claimed me. Guess I wasn’t important enough. Luke made me feel needed, I suppose. Doesn’t really matter, though. He pretty much left me for dead and Clarisse saved me.”

“Mr. D saved you.” She argued, her face going a little pink.

“In the end he did. But you saved me first.” Chris said, smirking at her, proud of making her blush. 

Percy shivered as he felt the cold from Kronos’ presence on the ship. He linked his hands behind his neck again to keep them from shaking. 

“I didn’t feel that.” Annabeth and Tyson said at the same time, looking at him with wide eyes.

“I’m getting sort of used to that response by now.” Percy hummed.

When young Tyson changed his voice to repeat what was being said, Annabeth, Thalia, Leo, and Piper all shuddered as if remembering something bad. After they had been caught, the gods made various exclamations of disbelief about the sarcophagus. Percy pursed his lips and looked at his lap as his inner monologue talked about Luke looking like a model, but a few of the kids snickered and Nico nudged him playfully. 

“Stupid- fucking- argh!” Percy grumbled, shaking his hands out as he remembered how scared he’d been to actually come face-to-face with Luke again after the scorpion. 

“Oh my gods.” Will chuckled, slapping a hand to his face. “He’s making small talk with you!”

“He tried.” Percy agreed, feeling his face heat up.

“Something about this weirdo had most of the Hermes cabin a mess of hormones.” Chris said, laughing lightly as both Connor and Travis blushed and shoved him. 

“Like father, like sons, I guess.” Triton chuckled. 

“He wasn’t hitting on me.” Percy argued.

“No,” Chris sighed, “no, he’d already made his choice by then. But he did talk about how nice your eyes were on occasion.”

When young Annabeth and Luke started arguing, Thalia just rolled her eyes. They were both sort of right. She’d have been on Luke’s side, but not if it meant hurting her family, and Percy at least knew that much when they hadn’t even met yet. Thalia tossed a stress ball at his head when he smirked. Percy froze much like his younger self had when Luke mentioned his 16th birthday. His younger self’s face steeled before he responded calmly, earning him cheers from his friends who had fought by his side in Manhattan. 

When Luke offered young Percy riches and fame, they had to wait while everyone who knew him laughed incredulously.

“What’s so funny?” Piper asked in confusion. “It’s a good offer.”

“Percy would never accept anything like that.” Travis said, laughing a little more before he sobered. “He never wanted any of that shit, like, ever. He just wanted to live his life and more or less be left alone.”

“Just wait until the battle when he’s 16, what he gets offered then,” Nico said airily, “you’ll see what he really wants.”

“It was the right thing to do.” Percy grumbled, his face feeling like it was on fire.

“Well, yeah, but others have been in a similar position and just accepted the offer you got.” Thalia shrugged.

“It meant a lot to all of us.” Will agreed, tossing Percy a few more licorice.

When Luke called security on them and only sent one of the bear twins to watch them, a few people sat up interestedly. 

“Here we go.” Clarisse grunted, grinning at Tyson and Percy excitedly. “Time for Poseidon cabin chaos.” Percy stuck his tongue out at her.

Everyone watched, gasping and shrieking as the alarms on the boat sounded and they ran for the lifeboats as every monster descended on them. Percy wasn’t really paying attention, he’d gotten a song stuck in his head and was trying to remember the chorus, because for some reason he was only remembering the verses. He frowned when an arrow sprouted from the toe of his shoe, Thalia glaring at him in annoyance.

“What?”

“You cut arrows out of the air?” She said, waving her hand while he pulled the arrow from his shoe, frowning at the hole.

“What, like it’s hard?” He asked, honing his best Elle Woods, grinning when a few people fell over laughing. 

“Do you have a movie quote for everything?” Leo cackled, looking pretty excited; his hair was smoking a bit.

“I mean, I’m no Tom Holland Peter Parker, but I have my moments.” Percy said thoughtfully. The comment only seemed to make Leo more excited as his hair actually caught fire, his hands starting to smoke until Calypso calmed him down amidst her own giggles. 

Percy stood up once he’d gotten the thermos out in the memory and they were practically soaring across the waves of the ocean and away from the cruise ship. 

“Dinner? I’m starving. Back in two hours, I think, this time. We’ve been watching all day and we need to burn off some energy before we watch a bit more before bed.” Percy stated, pulling Tyson to his feet. He was a little surprised when Triton tagged along behind them to their table in the pavilion but figured they needed to make plans for their prank anyway.

Chapter Text

Annabeth frowned after Percy. He knew she hated it when he started quoting movies, particularly ‘Legally Blonde’. She hated that there was a movie that focused so much on a ditsy, blonde, California girl who went to law school to pursue a guy. It always made her more angry when he was over and Percy and her dad would quote the movie together while they made dinner or something. 

“Why do you look so pissy?” Thalia asked, leaning her head on her shoulder.

“No reason.” Annabeth lied, before rolling her eyes. She could never lie to her sister figure. “Fine. It’s just … he knows how much I hate that movie.”

“Have you ever actually watched it?” Thalia asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could never get past where she gets kicked out of class the first day.” She admitted. “It just drives me nuts that she’s so … ugh.”

“Stereotypical blonde California girl?” Thalia offered, grinning when Annabeth huffed at her. “It’s a good movie. She ends up becoming a really good lawyer and gets a much better guy who appreciates her for her brains as well as a whole lot of new girl friends, including Vivian, who dumps what’s-his-face. If you’re into that sort of thing. Romance and all that stupid stuff. But that’s not the point. Why does him quoting that particular movie bother you so much? You’re practically radiating irritation.”

“My dad.” Annabeth groaned, walking with Thalia toward the dining pavilion. “The two of them will cook in the kitchen and quote the movie together for hours. He was supposed to be there to spend time with me, but he always ended up hanging out with my dad or my little brothers.”

“And what were you doing? No, don’t tell me, let me guess,” Thalia gave her an unimpressed look, “you were studying. Meaning you invited him over to watch you study or so you could force him to study with you. Annie, you know that he has ADHD like a hundred times worse than any other demigod. He can’t sit still. Physically, literally, however you look at it. When he studies at Aunt Sally’s he’s often pacing in his room while he holds his book or notebook. He has flashcards that Uncle Paul helped make him so he could still study while he baked, or even while he worked out.”

“How do you know?” Annabeth asked, feeling more irritated that she hadn’t known that.

“Easy.” Thalia shrugged. “He’s my cousin and I stop in every time I’m in town. The hunters like visiting with him and fussing over Aunt Sally. They’re really excited to meet the little shit’s sister and she isn’t even here yet.”

“I didn’t know you did that.” Annabeth said, feeling stunned.

“Why would you? When I first came back to life, so to speak,” Thalia said, sitting at the end of the Artemis table, making Annabeth sit with her, “you and I went to school together. You told me a lot of shit about him, remember? How great he was, how you’d gone on quests together and you had to save his ass a lot. Which … is only kinda true. He saved your asses as much, if not more. I got a couple weeks to see what he was like at camp before it was over, then it was just us. And you never acted like you wanted to talk to him. He called and you always cut him off, or you ignored him completely. I figured there must have been something really bad about him to make you do all that. Plus, I could see that you somehow blamed him for what Luke was doing. I didn’t even know the kid, not really, but I took what you said to heart. I said a lot of mean, hurtful things to him when you were missing, Annie. And he has never once thrown any of it back in my face.”

“What I said about him was true.” Annabeth said, frowning at her food. “But it was also teenage me venting to my best friend who I had lost and miraculously got back.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Thalia said, stuffing her face, “but you were not even close to the same kid I left behind all those years ago. You spent five years at camp, Annie. Not at home with your family, which is fine. Lots of us leave, for lots of different reasons. But you were a pretty big bitch to him when he first showed up. I hope you didn’t treat every camper that was new that way after Luke left.”

“Wasn’t really around much.” Annabeth shrugged. “Went on quests pretty much every summer. The summer after you came back, with the labyrinth, the quest actually took almost all summer. After that we were preparing for war while Percy was off in the city doing whatever the hell he wanted. Hanging out with Rachel, not helping out with raids.”

“Let me stop you right there,” Rachel interrupted, sitting down beside them, “and explain a little bit. He spent time with me because he felt he couldn’t talk to anyone here at camp without getting pitying looks or scathing remarks about how he wasn’t doing enough. From the day he got here, he has had a shit ton of pressure put on him. And he didn’t have anyone to talk to about it who wouldn’t jump on his case. So, yes, he came into the city a lot to talk with me. We went to the beach or he helped me with some of my art fundraisers.”

“He could have talked to me about things.” Annabeth argued. “He could have explained what was going on, but he chose not to. He chose to go to you about it all. I’m not angry about it anymore, not like I was then, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still feel hurt that he didn’t confide in me.”

“He told me he tried talking to you about his dreams. Today even showed us how you reacted to him trying to tell you about one of them; about how worried he was that Grover was in trouble.” Thalia pointed out. “You blew him off because what he was worried about had nothing to do with the task you were working on. You’ve always been driven when you have a specific task or goal you’re working on.”

“Do you know why you feel so irritated at him now?” Rachel asked curiously.

“So many reasons.” Annabeth groaned. “I just wanted him to get caught up in school so we could go to college together, so I spent time with him, helping him study and try to get caught up so we were in the same grade again. He lost a lot of time when he was missing, and he has a lot to catch up on if he wants to graduate this year. But after a while he just flipped out on me. Said I was pushing him too hard when his grades were fine. We were supposed to start college together, that was his big plan; that we go to New Rome together and have a life there. All I was doing was trying to keep him on task for that goal. Everything I did, setting up a study schedule, helping him by checking his homework, it was all to meet that goal.”

“And how many breaks did you allow him?” Thalia asked.

“A few.” Annabeth said weakly. 

“Probably not enough since he can’t sit still.” Rachel said. 

“He still really cares about you, you see that, don’t you?” Thalia asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “He’s still hoping you guys can fix things. But you need to be open with him. Tell him how you feel, not just when you’re irritated or mad about something stupid he may say. He takes rejection hard. Internalizes it. Sees that he must have been the one to do something wrong. I mean, you heard Will; he uses sarcasm and humor to put everyone around him at ease as a defense tactic. These first couple years seem like they’re all going to be from his perspective, but what do we actually know about what was happening to him when my brother showed up? Where was he? Was he already at the Roman camp? Did he have as long with them as Jason, Leo, and Piper had here? Because we never found a single sign of him until you all picked him up on that weird ass ship.”

“Where else could he have been?” Annabeth asked incredulously. “Jason was missing memories, showed up here in December for a quest, came back, and got a lot of them back while we were on our quest. It was an exchange. They would have been given the same chances.”

“No they wouldn’t.” Rachel and Thalia both said at the same time. Annabeth huffed in annoyance at their answer.

“Why, pray tell, not?”

“Because Percy had pissed off all the gods when he rejected their offer.” Thalia said certainly. “He made a counter demand, essentially proving they were all idiots, and walked away. They’re gods, Annie. They are more prideful than us. Where do you think you got your fatal flaw from? Solely from life experiences? Or did Athena never let her pride cause her to do something detrimental? Has Hera never claimed to be all about family and then turned around and either forced someone to murder theirs, or, I don’t know, throw her own son off Olympus because he wasn’t what she wanted him to be?”

“He’s been threatened with death every year since he was claimed.” Rachel added. “He’s been pushed aside and ignored, when what he thought didn’t measure up to someone else’s plan. Even though he was right. The simple truth is that he got tired of being treated like he was worth less than everyone around him.” 

“So I should, what? Praise him for every little thing he happens to do well? Tell him that a ‘C’ is fine in his classes when he could be getting better grades? Thank him for being a hero, like every other demigod?” She asked incredulously.

“Treat him how you want to be treated.” Thalia said, frowning at her. “You like when he praises your ideas for new architecture, right? You like how he’ll listen to you talk about buildings for hours, and never interrupt you. The difference between you two is that pride is your fatal flaw while loyalty is his. You need people to be proud of you. He’s only ever had his mom be proud of him. You saw the weird light things from just the memory of what his first step-father did to him. He went through so much shit, he has no idea how he’s supposed to respond when someone compliments him or finds him attractive. The hunters like being around him because he doesn’t understand that almost every other guy would be hitting on them at some point. He doesn’t see us that way. He sees us as sisters. And if you have trouble being nice to him, don’t say anything. There are a lot of people here who are more loyal to him than you or the gods who are their parents.” 

Annabeth frowned deeper as Thalia got up and left the table, leaving her alone with Rachel.

“She has a point.” Rachel agreed. “He doesn’t understand relationships. Doesn’t understand attraction like most people because he was constantly told how worthless he was as a child. You were here for five years before you met him. He was in a house with a man for a decade who told him how useless and stupid he was. Just think about it, alright? Watch what happens, listen to his thoughts about the shit that happens, and make your mind up after. How little he cares about himself might just surprise you.”

Annabeth was left alone with her dinner, not having eaten any of it. A loud bark of laughter broke her out of staring at the food. When she turned to find it, she saw Percy with his head thrown back as Triton smiled brightly at having caused the reaction and Tyson was holding his stomach as he laughed more quietly. She couldn’t help but smile at how happy he looked with his brothers. He actually had tears leaking out of his eyes because he was laughing so hard. His eyes crinkled at the side and his gray hair that had been fading fell over his face. She watched him for a little bit, just looking at how happy he seemed. 

She didn’t like what Thalia and Rachel told her about her attitude towards Percy. She felt like she had been perfectly civil after everything that happened. Piper had agreed that he needed someone to control him, so she had taken that role seriously. But … that’s what the gods were always trying to do, her mother included. They were always trying to control the demigods. Percy especially. She turned away from him and took her dishes where they needed to go. She needed to think. She did better with facts and figures so she went to get one of her notepads from her cabin and decided to make lists. Things she knew about Percy and things she learned through watching his memories from his perspective. 

And another list; things that Percy thought about himself detrimentally. By the end of their two hour break, it was the longest list she had.

Chapter Text

Percy grumbled as Clarisse gave him a hand up from the ground where she’d pinned him. She wasn’t as out of breath as he was, but he figured it had to do with still recovering full use of his lungs in clean air. His moves were fine, and he was still pretty fast, but his lungs just couldn’t quite keep up like they used to. He coughed into his elbow once he was on his feet.

“Where’s your inhaler dipshit?” Clarisse sighed.

“My cabin.” Percy coughed, pulling his shirt over his face as he kept coughing. “Fuck, I nearly had you.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Prissy.” She teased, dragging him to his cabin and watching as he used his inhaler. 

“I don’t need a babysitter.” Percy complained, coughing one last time as his lungs relaxed and he could breathe easier.

“Sure you don’t.” Clarisse rolled her eyes at him. “Which is why that thing is hidden in here instead of being in your pocket. Be glad Solace didn’t notice, or you’d be getting an hour long lecture.”

“Eugh. Yeah. Don’t sign me up for that.” Percy complained, making a face. 

He stuck his inhaler in his pocket anyway, just in case. He shouldn’t need it the rest of the evening, he was pretty sure of that, but he really didn’t want to need it and not have it. A panic attack was one thing, he could usually get out of those with Grover’s help; but an asthma attack? No one at camp aside from Clarisse even knew he had an inhaler. When they got back to the amphitheater, everyone seemed to be waiting on them. Clarisse punched him in the arm and went and sat with Chris. 

“Another hour or two and then bed for the night?” Percy asked hopefully, not wanting to really drag out the events, but also knowing he would need another break by then.

“Let’s get into the actual Sea of Monsters and decide from there.” Annabeth said, chewing on a pencil. Percy looked at her curiously as he noticed the notebook with a lot of scribbles and lists. He wondered what she was doing but didn’t think he wanted her to announce to camp what it was. 

“Sounds good.” He agreed. Before he could sit down, Phoebe was there, dragging him to the hunters so they could fix what Blackjack and Clarisse had both ruined. He rolled his eyes but sat down dutifully, letting them pull the now tangled twine out and comb through his hair with their fingers. He sighed and relaxed into it. He’d always loved when his mom played with his hair or scratched his scalp gently. 

Percy snorted when the first thing they saw was their attempt to contact Chiron. Some of the kids snickered at how annoyed the centaur was, but Chiron just grumbled under his breath. He felt everyone look at him when his younger self knew the exact distance they’d traveled, which only intensified when he could give the coordinates as well. His face felt hot at all the attention, but the hunters had a firm grip on his hair so he couldn’t sink down in his seat.

“How the frak did you know that?” Leo asked loudly.

“I always know where I am at sea.” Percy replied slowly.

“So what you’re saying is I spent an insane amount of time rigging up equipment to work in the sea when all I needed to do was ask you?” He complained.

“Yes?” Percy said hesitantly, knowing it sounded more like a question before he cleared his throat. “Um, we sort of already covered it, though, because we were only ever in the water when the flying mechanisms were damaged. Or when we were entering the Mare Nostra. Everyone was uncomfortable in the water, Hazel even got seasick constantly. I was the only one who was ok being there, so there wasn’t really a reason to bring it up.”

“He can also control ships.” Annabeth added distractedly, making another note about something. “You’ll see it when we’re in the Sea of Monsters. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you any of this while we were under construction.”

“I mean, I’m sure you guys were stressed enough getting it built by the summer solstice anyway, so-” Percy started, but jumped when Leo practically leapt to his feet.

“We could have saved weeks if we didn’t actually need to work on sonar and all the shit needed for normal boats on the water!” Leo exclaimed. “When you weren’t there, we were nearly entirely in the air. We were only in the water when the-” Leo coughed, unable to go into detail. “Mother fuc-”

“Leo!” Calypso chastised, making him stop and growl at himself. 

“Sorry. Sorry. Not your fault, Katara. Just frustrating that I spent so much time on something we didn’t even need.” Leo apologized, taking a few deep breaths and sitting back down. “Might have to build a new ship just to see what you can do with it. Research purposes, of course.”

“Of course.” Percy chuckled, letting his shoulders drop. He had been worried Leo would be pissed at him for something, but he hadn’t expected it to be about his ability to control ships.

Percy blew a raspberry as he felt as frazzled as he had when they entered the fresh water from the ocean. 

“That’s a big come down.” Triton said, looking at him in slight concern. 

“Was the first time I experienced it that way.” Percy agreed. “I’d say it’s not normally so bad, but I don’t often jump between salt and freshwater. I can do one or the other at a time, but going from one into the other leaves me all … frazzled and feeling weird.”

“Still?” Triton asked curiously.

“Maybe not as bad anymore.” Percy said hesitantly. “Not really sure. Haven’t tried it since then.”

“You were probably using your powers along with the winds on the boat.” Annabeth pointed out. “You are the son of the SEA god, so you’d be more connected with the ocean than rivers. Like, intrinsically.”

“Makes sense.” Tyson hummed, sitting on the ground while the little kids who had been sitting with both Percy and Tyson were hanging off of him and playing with his hair some more like they saw the hunters doing to Percy. A few of the girls even gave them tips on different types of braids.

When his younger self thought about how the muggy area wasn’t Manhattan, everyone started snickering again. He grinned sheepishly. He knew he was a city boy, through and through, but wasn’t sure he was fond of everyone else knowing how much. Thalia laughed happily, clapping her hands. He shoved her lightly, which only made her laugh harder.

At the appearance of the hideout, several of the campers perked up. Thalia just sighed and sent Annabeth a small smile. 

“That’s actually a good idea.” Will said, perking up. “Maybe it’s something we can look at doing more of.”

“Though maybe a little better quality.” Annabeth suggested, tilting her head thoughtfully. “It was good work for seven year old me, but now … I’d definitely make some changes.”

“Maybe we could collaborate with the hunters on a few of these?” Percy suggested, giving his best innocent look to Thalia, who gave him an unimpressed look for as long as she could before it started to fade into mild annoyance, finally resting on confused thoughtfulness. “It was two maidens who made most of it anyway.” He added, seeing he was potentially winning her over.

“We … might be able to come up with something to help.” She said reluctantly. “But we aren’t giving you any of our secrets.”

“Not asking for them.” Percy agreed. “Those are for you all, not us mere mortals. But having sleeping bags that don’t get wet, or even better weather proofing would be beneficial to a lot of demigods caught out in the open on quests.”

“We’ll discuss something when this is all over.” Thalia said, frowning at him thoughtfully. “Having something like our tents hidden inside a structure that is unobtrusive from the outside like that was, could work. Maybe. Possibly.”

“I’m sure Annabeth would have appreciated it when she made her mad dash from Virginia to New York to get me from school.” Percy pressed, knowing that Thalia had never really been able to say ‘no’ to Annabeth.

“Later.” Thalia said, nodding at him, before turning her frown to the memories. Percy grinned happily, before he realized everyone was staring at him again.

“What?” He asked, feeling his face heat up.

“I really want to know how you do that.” Leo grumbled.

“Do what?” 

“Get people to agree to shit so easily.” Travis complained.

“It’s not for me.” Percy argued. “It’s for demigods who are caught in crap situations on quests. If something like this had been around on my first quest, we could have avoided running into Medusa, potentially. Or even avoided the hotel altogether when we got to Vegas. Maybe even had food when we were stranded in Denver instead of only getting to eat because Ares showed up. I mean, how many times have any of us been out on a mission and shit goes sideways and we don’t have something we need, something like a dry place to sleep so we don’t get sick? Or-”

“We get it,” Nico said, cutting him off, trying not to smile. “We do. It’s just interesting to watch you pull things from people in real time, not just your memories. Some of us haven’t seen it happen in a while, since you did it to us, and some haven’t ever seen the effect you have on people like that.”

“I wasn’t-” Percy started, but the whole camp cut him off, shouting “we know!” before he could finish, making his face feel like it was burning. “Ok, then.”

Thankfully, they dropped it and the memories continued. Unfortunately, it was when young Percy was admitting in his head that he was jealous of Luke. He felt Annabeth looking at him, but didn’t want to see what expression was there, so he stayed looking ahead. It was annoying feeling jealousy for someone who wasn’t even around anymore.When young Annabeth compared Thalia and Percy they both looked at each other making a face. That only made everyone start laughing again. 

“Cousins is fine. And very seldomly, brother.” Thalia said, Percy nodding his agreement.

“Works for me.” 

When young Tyson showed up with an actual box of donuts, there were several groans from a lot of the campers. Percy grinned when his younger self noted that donut shops weren’t particularly sinister, earning him a few more snickers from the younger campers. While young Annabeth explained what they were, several of the kids looked at Hermes incredulously.

“I wasn’t involved.” He defended, holding his hands up.

“No, but the magic is already done, and no one’s been able to figure out how to undo it.” Travis sighed. 

Percy didn’t really care to watch this fight. He knew how it went, and flipped Clarisse off preemptively, making her snort. Percy chuckled when young Annabeth scolded him about causing another donut shop to open. As they were backed up to the river in the memories, young Clarisse’s voice was heard giving a command about cannonballs. 

“You’re welcome.” Clarisse called, smirking at them. Percy just rolled his eyes.

“Thank you!” Tyson said gratefully. “Though those dead guys were really creepy.”

Percy was starting to doze as Phoebe expertly rebraided his hair, occasionally scratching his scalp, too, until the Ares cabin all started talking at once. Ares was on his feet, glowering at his kids, but that wasn’t ok with Percy. Nor Clarisse. They stood up together and faced him.

“It isn’t their fault.” Clarisse said firmly.

“Tantalus was using Clarisse. Just like you did.” Percy added.

“The Oracle gave me my prophecy and I was basically sent off first thing, without getting a chance to talk to my cabinmates about any of it.” 

“It was a shitty deal. But she succeeded. Practically on her own. We barely helped.” Percy shrugged.

“They helped me get back.” Clarisse said, rolling her eyes. “Which you’ll see. Besides,” Clarisse grinned a little wickedly at her dad, who paled, “you don’t have room to talk about this quest. So far you essentially caused Percy’s first quest, and you showed up on this one. Both times being detrimental.”

“Probably best that you stay quiet.” Percy agreed, bumping fists with Clarisse as they both sat back down. Phoebe sighed, but started back on where she’d had to pause so Percy could stand up and talk.

“It’s super weird seeing them get along.” Will muttered.

“We don’t.” Percy and Clarisse said at the same time, looking back at the memory that was frozen, not each other. 

“Right.” Will said, drawing the word out.

Percy hummed as he remembered the feel of the island through his dream. He didn’t care how much cursing Hypnos and his children were doing. They really needed to get over the fact that his dreams were odd. Sooner would be better than later, or they’d probably be the ones to have heart attacks. Not that he wanted to cause them that sort of stress, but, well … they really shouldn’t be worrying about it so much.

Clarisse just let out an annoyed sigh when young Percy had the thought that he wouldn’t be returning to the ship, let alone when he stopped to eavesdrop on her and her dad. Annabeth let out a surprised gasp, though. Tyson was frowning. Percy nearly fell out of his seat when the sound of a loud slap reached him. Aphrodite was glaring at Ares so hard, her eyes were starting to sort of glow an eerie pink. If anyone had forgotten that she was more primordial than god, they were getting a really good reminder. 

“Threatening to hit your own daughter.” Aphrodite growled at him. Her nails looked a whole lot sharper and longer than Percy remembered them being a few minutes before and he was glad that he was on the opposite side of the amphitheater from her. “What happened to the god who was ready to raze a country to the ground when his daughter was assaulted? Hm? What happened to change you so much that you would make threats to your own children? You are lucky that she doesn’t appear to hold a grudge against you for your rash behavior. At least now we know why your children were so reluctant to join the fight against Kronos. Why would they want to fight for a parent who would prefer to show anger and aggression toward them for listening to a prophecy that could save their lives in a quest. Pull anything, ANYTHING, like that again, Ares, and you’ll be sorry.” 

She didn’t stomp away, but she did walk away from him pretty quickly, her heels clicking as she did, sitting down between Clarisse and Drew. Ares and Aphrodite kids usually stuck pretty close together. Something about both of them being pretty passionate about their domains, was all Percy could guess. Clarisse looked a little stunned but gave Aphrodite a thankful grin.

“Not that it makes you feel any better,” Annabeth said slowly, “but we never knew about this.”

“I know.” Clarisse grunted. “He told me he never mentioned it to anyone after I kicked his ass for spying on me.”

“Pretty sure you broke my hand.” Percy complained.

“You healed.” Clarisse rolled her eyes.

“True. I kinda deserved it, for spying on you like that.” Percy tilted his head a bit, but stopped when Phoebe tugged on his hair. “Your dad just has this way of pissing me off when he’s nearby. Can’t really control it.”

“Well,” Aphrodite said, letting out a long breath, “anytime you wish to put him in his place again, Perseus, you just let me know.”

“Oh.” Percy said intelligently. He felt a little out of his depth that the goddess of love was actually supporting a demigod kicking her boyfriend’s, the god of war’s, ass. “Uh, sure thing.”

“Oh man, I think we’re gonna need more popcorn for this.” Will snickered, leaning against Nico, who was trying very hard not to laugh with him. 

“Now who wants to live out the meme?” Nico teased.

“All of us.” Leo interrupted, making them jump, as they hadn’t noticed him sneaking over to them and handing out popcorn. 

Once he was done passing out popcorn, with some smores mixed in, he sat back down by Piper and Calypso, pulling out parts from his tool belt to occupy his hands. Seeing him doing that, Hephaestus grunted and passed out some pieces for the rest of his kids to tinker with, even Tyson, who clapped happily. Young Percy and young Tyson shared an uneasy look as the ship groaned and shuddered. A few people gave Percy some appraising looks as he told Clarisse his suggestion. He frowned at his shoes which seemed to be letting off steam, as if he were really standing on the deck. 

“What the Hades …?” Percy said quietly, pulling his foot into his lap and touching the sole. It wasn’t actually hot or near melting, like it had been, but it still steamed. Which was weird even for him. 

“You were timing it?” Annabeth and Clarisse asked at the same time. 

“Well, yeah?” Percy answered uncertainly. “I was trying to determine if we could actually pull off the stunt you were wanting to. If we timed it right, and had a better engine or ship, we could have done it. But that thing wasn’t meant for deep water, like Ty said.”

“He wouldn’t have been able to control the seas there.” Triton said, frowning at young Annabeth’s disappointment. “He would have been wrestling her domain away from her, essentially.”

“It was the only thing I could think of at the time.” Annabeth said hesitantly, looking at him curiously. “I wonder …”

“What?” Triton pressed.

“Nothing.” Percy said, frowning at Annabeth’s train of thought. He knew she was thinking he could probably do it now, after everything. After Akhlys. “It’s not important, or, if it is, it would be a spoiler. I’m not interested in going back to the Sea of Monsters to test it, though. So it doesn’t matter.”

“Have you taken control of an immortal’s element from them before, Perseus?” Poseidon asked anxiously, and Percy wouldn’t meet his eyes, nor anyone else’s. He didn’t want to talk about it. “Son?”

“It’ll come up.” Nico interrupted, apparently having felt the small tremor that went through the ground starting where Percy sat. “If the Fates have determined there can’t be spoilers, then he can’t talk about it, whether he did or didn’t. Let’s move on.”

Percy wanted to thank Nico for standing up for him, but he also didn’t want to look at anyone and see the fear he’d seen in Annabeth after what he’d done in Tartarus. He didn’t want his friends to fear him. Thankfully, the memory kept playing, letting everyone see what Charybdis looked like. He heard a few people gagging, but wasn’t bothered. 

He was too busy focusing on Phoebe’s fingers in his hair and Thalia and Nico’s hands on his wrists trying to help the anxiety he was feeling. He’d hated watching Tyson go down into the engine room, but knew that it was something he needed to do. As young Percy clung to the ship railing, focusing on keeping them from capsizing, Percy felt people staring at him in shock again. 

“Good work, Kelp-head.” Thalia whistled quietly. 

“Fuck me!” Percy groaned as his stomach swooped when he’d been picked up by Scylla. 

Thalia and Nico’s grips had tightened on his wrists, but he was glad they were there to ground him. When he’d stabbed her eye, and she dropped him, he gritted his teeth. It was so much worse than any rollercoaster he’d ever been on. His head briefly throbbed in remembrance of the pain of hitting the broken part of the ship as he’d been sent soaring across the water. He nearly passed out from the weight of the emotions that crashed into him, falling heavily against Thalia. 

“Percy …” Annabeth said in a choked voice, but his head was too wild to give anyone any reassurance.

“Keep going.” Percy said quietly, trying to control his breathing as he kept his eyes closed. 

“Sure thing, asshole.” Thalia grumbled, leaning her head against his. Nico’s hands were burning green, the little flames licking along Percy’s arm gently. He could hear Will murmuring something to him, probably trying to comfort him, but he didn’t figure it would work until they found Tyson again and young Percy’s mood lifted.

As the memory kept playing with young Annabeth hauling young Percy into the lifeboat, Percy felt some of his turbulent emotions decrease. He was still pretty morose, but not as bad. The camp was pretty silent as young Percy talked to young Annabeth, staring at her intently, urging her to tell him something about the prophecy. 

“Superpowers.” Thalia coughed, making a few kids snicker and lightening the somber mood. 

“Question.” Percy said, turning his head so he could see his father and Zeus. “Why a pine tree?”

“What?” Thalia asked, sitting up and looking at him in confusion.

“Why a pine tree?” Percy asked, sitting up a little more. “That’s my dad’s sacred plant, not yours. Why not an oak tree? There are oak trees all over New York, along with the various coniferous variety often associated with dad, but … I don’t know. I never understood that. If your dad turned you into a tree, why did he pick my dad’s sacred one?”

“Was there ever anyone who actually confirmed one way or another that Zeus was the one who saved your life?” Nico asked quietly, his eyes darting over the ground as he thought. Percy had seen him do that a lot when he was thinking hard about something. “I mean, how did we end up with the story that it was him who saved you? Was it just an assumption or did someone come by and tell Chiron that’s the story he needed to pass on?”

“Does it matter?” Thalia asked, sparks starting to crawl up her arms. “Think about it; even if it wasn’t dad who saved me, which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise me, then someone else stepped in. Maybe it was Poseidon, or maybe it was the Fates; maybe they were symbolizing that the prophecy was meant for Poseidon’s son the whole time? I don’t particularly care to know the answer. I’m here. I’m alive. I’ve gotten to have a life I never expected and I get you two dipshits as family. That’s all I care about.”

“Ok, first off,” Nico said, sitting up, “I’m not a dipshit, only he is.” Nico thumbed at Percy, snorting when he attempted to bite him. “Second, you have a point. I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“If neither of you two care, I guess I don’t either.” Percy shrugged. “I was just curious and didn’t think about it earlier when I first got to camp. If it was the Fates, I guess that makes more sense than anything, without forcing an actual answer from them.” Percy nodded towards their father’s who were looking at them curiously along with the other gods. 

“Who cares?” Thalia agreed, leaning her head back on Percy’s, forcing him back against her shoulder. “You saved me, so you’re stuck with me.”

“Well, shit.” Percy sighed, before the three of them were snickering at each other like little kids. 

“I love you three.” Hestia said, appearing in front of them and squeezing them in a hug together before reappearing at her hearth. 

“Thanks, Aunt Hestia.” They said bashfully. Percy knew his face was red, and could only imagine that Nico and Thalia’s were too.

Percy looked up at Reyna briefly as her sister appeared on the island they landed on. She had her face perfectly masked, but Frank and Hazel both had wide eyes as they tried not to look at her. 

“She looks so … different.” Hazel muttered, Frank nodding along.

“Who is she?” One of the other Senators asked curiously. 

“My sister.” Reyna sighed heavily. “Hylla.”

“Wait, like, the Queen of the Amazons, Hylla Twice-kill?” Someone else asked, and Reyna stared at them until the Senate quieted down. 

“We all made our way to our camps from various places. Now you will see why I had to flee my previous home. As will I. I do not know what happened, as I wasn’t involved much. The only thing I knew was that Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were the reason for what happened to me and my sister. But not the why. So be quiet so I may finally have my answers.”

“Yes, Praeter.” Several people murmured. 

It wasn’t hard to tell that everyone seemed to really enjoy what the island had to offer. But when young Percy pointed out there were only girls everywhere, there was some confusion before there were a lot of hushed arguments. Percy frowned and looked around a little. He could almost hear the song again. Clearly. As if it was calling to him again. He felt a little zoned out, as if he needed to be better than he was. A small zap to his wrist startled him out of the trance. 

“Ancient magic.” Thalia said, when he looked at her. “You’re pretty good at figuring out old languages, Perce. Minoan isn’t something a lot of people would think of.”

“I … can’t explain that.” Percy said hesitantly, shaking his head a bit to clear it some more. “It just … seemed the right fit? I guess? Don’t really know.”

Percy sank back in his seat again, feeling completely self conscious all over again. He felt a little better when his friends growled about C.C. saying he needed a lot of work. He absently reached up and touched his hair as his younger self had done looking in the mirror, but Phoebe swatted his hand away. Nico snorted and leaned heavily against Will as he started outright laughing, unable to catch his breath. Percy flicked a few splashes of water at him, but he didn’t stop laughing. 

“Tha- that’s you now, dumbass!” Nico gasped, still laughing. 

“I was 13, ok?” Percy defended feeling his face heat up. “I’ve never really thought much about my appearance until some bitch using ancient magic brought it all up. She was fucking with my head. Not my fault I fell for it.”

“Her magic was very potent, so it would have taken a lot for you to resist it.” Reyna agreed, looking as though she was trying not to laugh like Nico was. 

“It’s a good thing you grabbed those vitamins.” Annabeth said weakly, scribbling some more on her notepad. Malcolm was frowning at it as he looked over her shoulder. 

“Just being prepared.” Percy defended. 

“Still.” Annabeth sighed. “You seem to almost always know when you aren’t coming back to somewhere, and you seem to have exactly what you need when you need it. It’s … interesting.”

“Ok.” Percy said, dragging the word out in his confusion. He quickly buried his face in Thalia’s shoulder so he wouldn’t have to watch himself being tormented as a guinea pig. The worst part of the whole thing was how messed up his emotions were. He felt strung out, as if he were feeling at least a dozen different emotions at once. 

Most of the hunters were growling at what C.C. had done and said to him, so that was nice. One of the girls even shot a few arrows at the images, which Artemis vanished before they could hit anyone on the other side. Percy gasped as he remembered how she had squeezed him, his head going a little fuzzy. 

“Oh, shit.” Percy gasped again. “Fuck.” He’d somehow managed to trigger an asthma attack instead of the expected panic attack by just thinking about being held so tightly. He scrambled for his pocket, but couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking. When he felt his inhaler at his lips, he nodded and took a breath as the medicine hit him. Opening his eyes, he found Clarisse watching him carefully. She gave him a nod and let out a breath before putting the inhaler back in his pocket for him. 

“Dumbass, I swear.” She muttered, going back to her seat.

“You have a fucking inhaler?” Will practically shrieked.

“Yeah.” Percy sighed. “Lungs haven’t quite recovered from … from everything.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me about this? Why does Clarisse know?” Will demanded, shoving a canteen of nectar in his hands.

“We spar a lot.” Clarisse answered for him. “Everyone deals with grief and stress differently. We hit each other. He had an attack after a spar one day, and I promised I’d keep it between us. It was his choice to tell or not.”

“I don’t have one.” Annabeth said, frowning as she looked at Percy concernedly.

“Different domains.” Percy replied in a raspy voice, taking a drink. “Water, wisdom, not really affected the same in the environment we were in.”

“Oh.” Annabeth said quietly. “I … I hadn’t thought about that.”

“It’s safe to say that Percy is an expert at hiding things.” Grover said, glaring at his friend. Percy ducked his head down, not wanting to feel ashamed anymore than he already did. “Which is not your fault, dude, I’m not blaming you. Not even close. I’m saying we should have learned our lessons a long time ago, that you don’t tell anyone anything. We should have seen it, or should have asked. We should have done more to show you that you’re stuck with us. It’s our fault for not seeing that you went through literal hell, as a child of the sea, and came out a little off. I mean,” Grover bleated a little self-deprecatingly, “I made an empathy link, for the gods’ sake, and I never knew about this. I’m glad you had someone, we all are, that at least knew about it. But it still feels pretty crappy to learn how terrible of friends we are if we never noticed that you got fucking asthma from walking through fucking Tartarus.”

“I didn’t want to burden anyone with it.” Percy admitted quietly. “I’m handling it. Maybe it’ll go away, maybe I’m stuck with it the rest of my life, I don’t really know. I can still fight, I just don’t recover like I used to. You help with my panic attacks, G-man. Clarisse helps with my asthma attacks. Before this no one had seen any of it. But all my shit is getting revealed anyway.”

“You aren’t a burden, Perce.” Nico said firmly but quietly.

“I think,” Reyna said, looking away from them, “I think we need a few minutes before we can continue.”

“Is everything alright?” Percy asked in confusion.

“Pontifax Grace just needs a moment.” She answered diplomatically as Hazel left as well. 

“Jay.” Thalia sighed, looking at the Romans like she wished she could be in two places at once. 

“He’s grown oddly protective of you, Praeter Jackson.” Reyna said, still watching the door. “And he doesn’t like not being able to help.”

Percy just nodded, unable to say anything. What could he say? Jason had witnessed him after he’d gotten out and had admitted to wanting to die. And now he’d seen Percy wanting the same thing at 12 and 13. He should probably call him at some point, talk to him a bit. Maybe offer some reassurance. Will was looking through the medical evaluation he’d been handed, scanning it apparently for any sign of his asthma. Percy snatched it away from him and rolled it up until only the part showing his diagnosis of asthma was visible and handing it back. 

“Ugh.” Will groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. “I haven’t gotten that far. There’s just too much to go through. You’re going to make my hair fall out, Percy Jackson, I swear.”

“Eh, you could pull it off.” Percy shrugged, grinning when Will snorted. 

“Maybe, but I’d rather not.” He was blushing as his eyes shot to Nico for a second. 

“Sorry about that.” Jason apologized, sitting back down, Hazel keeping her arm looped with his and offering her support.

“If you want,” Percy offered, biting his lip, “I mean, it’s up to you, but if you want to IM later or something, we could talk.”

“I don’t want to interfere with your Healer time.” Jason said, but he looked hopeful. “Maybe if you get done and don’t pass out this time, we can talk after?”

“Sounds good.” Percy nodded, giving him a small smile. It widened when Jason seemed to sag in relief and Thalia rested her chin on Percy’s shoulder again.

“Thanks for doing this for him.” Thalia whispered. “I know he was upset that I had gained you as a brother when he was still out there, but I’m glad you two can get along. It would be a pain in the ass to not have my brothers get along.”

“Well, if we didn’t have such a nosy, meddling, overprotective older sister, we wouldn’t have a reason to.” Percy teased, snorting when she shocked him lightly.

As the memories resumed, a few people breathed sighs of relief when young Annabeth’s voice was heard, interrupting C.C.’s time with young Percy. Piper wolf whistled at her, but Annabeth only rolled her eyes. She frowned when Percy’s younger self commented that the look wasn’t really her. Percy didn’t feel like looking at anyone yet so he kept his face turned into Thalia’s hair. Thalia snickered when young Annabeth started listing off female demigod heroes she knew, which, it was kind of funny that C.C. wouldn’t have known that a daughter of Athena would have known other famous heroine’s off the tip of their tongue. 

“I don’t like being in the same category as her.” Calypso mumbled, frowning at the image, throwing a piece of popcorn at it. 

“You’re so much better than her.” Leo promised, grinning crookedly at her. Percy found it endearing, even if he only glanced at them from the corner of his eye that wasn’t hidden by Thalia’s wild hair. 

Thalia and Nico kept a firm grip on Percy, and Phoebe kept scratching his shorter hair that she hadn’t been able to braid, attempting to help him remain calm. When Reyna made an appearance with her sister at C.C.’s side, the Romans all let out small gasps. Percy let out a shaky breath at the idea of losing Annabeth as he’d thought he lost his brother. When he felt a weight settle against the front of his legs, he looked up and saw Tyson leaning back against him gently. It sort of helped him keep from spiraling. 

“You met Blackbeard?!” Nico burst out, slapping a hand over his mouth in embarrassment. 

“Very briefly, yes.” Percy chuckled.

“He was a nightmare.” Reyna said seriously. “But perhaps if I’d known that she had imprisoned him for several centuries we could have been better prepared to deal with him and his crew.”

“I’m sorry.” Annabeth said sincerely. “We didn’t mean to cause you any harm, but I couldn’t leave Percy like that, and we couldn’t stay if we wanted to save Grover in time.”

“I understand.” Reyna said, not sounding disappointed or anything. Just tired. “It matters not. I made my way to Camp Jupiter and Hylla made her way to the Amazons. I believe we finally found where we were meant to be.” Percy frowned and looked up at Reyna. She sounded a little off. When she met Percy’s eyes, hers narrowed as if daring him to say something. He wisely chose not to, pursing his lips so she saw. Thankfully no one else noticed the interaction.

He felt everyone staring at him again as he dragged young Annabeth toward and up onto the deck of the old sailing ship. Nico was practically vibrating beside him in excitement, though he still had his hand over his mouth to keep from shouting out anything again. Percy kept his eyes closed as he remembered how amazing it had felt to flex a little and control the ship by just reaching his hands out. 

“Fuck yeah!” Nico finally shouted, giving up on keeping quiet when young Percy successfully stole Blackbeard’s ship.

“So cool.” Will agreed, smiling fondly at Nico.

“That’s amazing.” Leo whined, tossing his tiny contraption in the air. It sprouted sails, much like the ship that Percy had stolen and sailed around the amphitheater, landing in Percy’s lap, making him chuckle again.

“Thanks.” He said shyly, handing the toy to his brother. 

“I think we should stop here for the night, children.” Chiron stated, giving unimpressed looks to the younger kids who were not happy. “We’ll start again in the morning and should be done or nearly by lunch.”

“I can’t believe you stole Blackbeard’s ship!” Nico chortled, still excited. Percy couldn’t help smiling at him. It had been a while since he’d seen Nico acting like the little kid he still was. 

“Gods, you’re such a nerd!” Percy said, giving Nico a small shove, laughing when Nico swatted him away.

“Shut up. You don’t get a say. You stole a fucking pirate ship! From the most famous pirate ever! You should know how epic that is!” Nico stated, jumping to his feet.

“It was pretty incredible.” Annabeth admitted, laughing lightly at how excited Nico was. 

“If he pirated a pirate ship from the most well known pirate in history,” Leo said thoughtfully, “what kind of pirate does that make him?”

“Captain Kelp-head!” Thalia shouted, shaking him roughly, but he only rolled his eyes at her. 

“You’re all ridiculous.” Percy laughed, getting up so that Thalia would stop shaking him, but she only jumped on his back while Nico bounced around them mimicking Percy’s movements on the ship and shouting about random ropes and sails until they all tripped in a pile again, all three of them laughing. 

“To bed, children.” Chiron restated, and they rolled their eyes once they caught their breath. 

“Lame.” Percy said, ruffling Nico’s hair before untangling himself and getting up. He was a little surprised they were the only ones still in the amphitheater, but not surprised to find Will waiting for him by his cabin. He groaned as he went inside, ignoring Will rolling his eyes and calling him dramatic under his breath.

Chapter Text

“We can keep this short, ‘cause I know Jason really needs to talk to you.” Will said, plopping down on one of the empty bunks.

“I’m confused about that, not gonna lie.” Percy admitted, dropping onto his bunk and kicking off his shoes, picking up the one Thalia had shot earlier and poking at the hole. “I mean, I didn’t think we really got along or anything. I barely interacted with any of them on the whole quest, and when we did it was usually a work together or die scenario.”

“Like what?” Will asked curiously, tossing a stress ball to him while he tossed one up and down to himself.

“Like, well, the first time we really worked together was when the Romans caught up to us in Charleston and tried stopping us. We used our powers combined to cause a pretty instant hurricane that allowed us to get away. Other than that, me, Piper, and Jason freed a bunch of dying nymphs from a Nymphaeum in Rome. That was crazy. Jason and I fought Otis and Ephialtes together before … well, before the fall. After we got out, none of the others acted the same around me, not even Annabeth. Probably especially her. She saw all the shit I did, and it scared her, I guess. I scared her. There was this storm, though. Caused by my sister, Kymopaleia, who was helping Polybotes. I could have deflected the poison wave he sent after me, but I didn’t. I was tired of everyone being afraid of me, tired of trying not to have a panic attack when I was alone for more than five minutes, just … just tired. And Jason saw it. Saw I was pretty much ready to die. I don’t know, man. I just don’t really know anything anymore.”

“That’s a lot of shit, dude.” Will grumbled, but it made Percy snort a laugh. 

“Suppose it is.”

“What do you mean you didn’t interact with anyone, though?”

“I mean, I made pretty good friends with Hazel and Frank before we left, so I had them, sort of. We went on a quest together, and learned on the fly how well we work together. Got comfortable together. But when they all picked us up … you know, the first thing Annabeth did, when she saw me, was to judo flip me? In front of the entire Roman legion.”

“That … could have gone horribly wrong. Attacking a Praeter.”

“Could have, yeah. But I laughed it off so they would know I didn’t take it as a serious threat against me. Reyna backed me up and I didn’t even have to ask her to. I didn’t know Leo, Piper, or Jason when we got on the ship. They knew my name, but nothing about me aside from Annabeth and I were dating when I went missing. Leo was terrified of me the whole time, would barely look me in the eyes, if he looked at me at all. Piper just kept looking at me like I was an annoying mosquito she couldn’t get rid of. Annabeth was lost in her computer, trying to decipher what the quest from her mother was, so even though we’d been apart for so long, she didn’t really talk to me. I just … I was sort of a spare part that no one knew what to do with.”

“Nico told me that Hazel told him Leo said he felt like that.” Will frowned.

“I get that. Jason and Piper were always off doing coupley things if Piper and Annabeth weren’t training together. Hazel and Frank pretty much kept to themselves, but they included Leo a few times since Hazel knew Leo’s great-great grandfather. When we rescued Nico, not gonna lie, I was actually looking forward to having someone around for a little while that would actually talk to me like I wasn’t some disease, but that didn’t play out either. Little shit was pissed at me for a lot and didn’t tell me anything until the whole ordeal was over.”

“It’s hard for some people to come to terms with their sexuality, Perce.” Will chastised lightly.

“Yeah, I know, but he could have yelled at me earlier or something. Got it off his chest instead of letting it eat him up inside. I’m glad we’re good now, I am. I just wish I’d known how much no one on that entire quest really wanted me there.” Percy sighed heavily. “I heard Piper and Annabeth talking, once. They were talking about how much she needed to be there to control me.”

“What?” Will asked, his voice nearly a growl as he sat up.

“Seems it isn’t only the gods who think I need to be controlled.” Percy said throwing the stress ball high enough it hit the ceiling. “I mean, do I make that bad of decisions? Have I done something so horrible that everyone just sees me as another one of dad’s monstrous children? I don’t get it, Will. What the fuck did I do to make people dislike or distrust me so much?”

“You listen to me, Percy Jackson,” Will said sternly, leaning his elbows on his legs, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks, and neither should you. You were the one who turned down immortality to make sure we all have a better life. You were the one who told the gods to basically eat shit and be better parents. You were the one who gave up everything to make sure we were protected. You are the only one who needs to control you. No one else. If they don’t see it that way, then they don’t know you and their opinions are invalid. No one, and I mean no one, has the right to make you feel like crap without your permission.”

Percy stared at Will for a little while, letting the words sink in. Feeling them sink in.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?” He asked in a voice that he knew was small, but couldn’t be bothered to mask for once.

“Gods, no, Percy. You’ve done everything right.” Will let out a rough exhale. “I’m gonna go get Nico, and we are all crashing here tonight. You should call Jason while I’m getting him out of his cave.”

“You don’t have to.” Percy said weakly.

“I know I don’t. But I want to. You don’t deserve to be alone.” Will said firmly, walking away while Percy could only stare after him blankly for a little bit. He pulled a drachma from his nightstand and made a rainbow above his bed, tossing it in. When he saw Jason, he was pacing in what looked like a living room. 

“‘Sup Airbender.” 

“I don’t understand that reference.” Jason said, frowning, his head tilted adorably; like a golden retriever puppy.

“Don’t worry about it.” Percy chuckled, rubbing his neck self consciously. “I suppose you want to ask, so go ahead.”

“How are you doing? With all this?” Jason asked, sitting back on a cushy armchair. 

“Not great.” Percy shrugged, relaxing when he didn’t jump right into his second death wish in as many quests. “But I’ve been worse, so it is what it is. Glad mom isn’t here, she’d definitely go into labor and as much as I want to meet my baby sister, I want to do it when she’s ready, and not a day sooner.”

“Makes sense.” Jason chuckled. “How’s Thalia?”

“Eh, same as always. Overprotective, slightly overbearing, forgetting she’s not actually my older sister. Worried how this shit will affect all of us. She comes back at the end of this summer, so you’ll get to see her dramatic reentrance to the world.”

“Well, we are children of the Lord of the Sky.” Jason teased. “We’re meant to have dramatic entrances.”

“That’s true, I guess.” Percy snickered. “How are the Senators coping? Dakota taking it easy on the koolaid?”

“Gwen is actually getting him switched over to sugar free so she’s cutting down his sugar intake.” Jason shrugged.

“About time.” Percy said, blowing a raspberry. “Apparently I’m getting an involuntary sleepover tonight with Will and Nico. Should be interesting.”

“Ugh, I’m so glad Nico’s done making moon eyes at him all the time.” Jason groaned, grinning when Percy started laughing. “I was only there a few weeks and it was getting ridiculous!”

“It’s not much better, really.” Percy nodded. “You should come out, for the whole nonsense about our big quest, man. We can prank Thals together or lock Nico and Will in the weapons shed or push all of them in the lake. Oh! Or you, me, Thalia, Nico, and Hazel can take everyone out in an epic Capture the Flag game! All the kids of the Big Three, Roman and Greek, kicking ass and taking names.”

“Haven’t really decided if I’m gonna come out for that or not.” Jason admitted sheepishly.

“Why?” Percy asked curiously.

“I just …” Jason groaned and readjusted his glasses, “I just don’t know that I’m ready to be around Piper and Leo yet. She dumped me so she could try and figure some things out, and I get that, but I thought we could at least still be friends. She hasn’t talked to me in weeks, though. And Leo … Leo was a good friend, but I had no idea he was alive or on his way back or anything. It’s like … the quest was over and practically everyone dropped me. I’m not Praeter anymore, I’m not on a quest, I still don’t quite have all my memories back, and I lost the people I thought were my best friends, fake memories included or not. It sucks, dude.”

“All the more reason for you to come.” Percy shrugged. “You aren’t coming for them, you’re coming for me. If we’re both stuck with someone as insane as Thalia Grace as our older sister, then we need to band together to survive it. She has this annoying mothering thing she does, and I know I’d appreciate having her mother someone other than me for a bit. You won’t even need to stay in that lame cabin of your dad’s. You can stay here. Ty won’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” Tyson said, coming in and waving at Jason. “You should come.”

“How about I think about it and let you know before it’s time for all that?” Jason countered. 

“That’s fine. We got a few more years and, like, between three and seven quests before that all happens.” Percy said, tilting his head a bit.

“Between three and seven? Those are very different numbers, dude.” Jason chuckled.

“It depends what the Fates want to show.” Percy admitted hesitantly. “I mean, I helped Clarisse with something once, then there was a thing with Thalia and Nico; can’t forget when I met Carter and Sadie Kane, Egyptian Magicians, let alone when Hermes and Apollo both showed up asking for help with a few things. Guess that makes it more between three and ten, though?”

“Have I mentioned your life is insane?” Jason laughed. “Because it really is.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Percy hummed. “How’s your project coming? Haven’t seen a ‘Kym’ action figure yet, so I know you haven’t finished.”

“Nah, still getting the designs all set for the additional temples at New Rome. Have most of them sorted, but still waiting on approval from the Senate for the dimensions and everything. Once we have the offering spaces set up we’ll move on to things like action figures. Maybe Tyson could help with that, actually.”

“What do you think, big guy? Want to help make some action figures?” Percy asked, grinning at his brother who smiled brightly, his eye shining.

“I can help?”

“Of course. I need someone good with building small things, and I’ve seen Percy’s shield, so I know you’re perfect for the job.” Jason agreed.

“I’d love to!” Tyson said excitedly.

“I’ll send you a list of what I’m thinking and you can take a look.” Jason said, ducking his head as if he were embarrassed about something. “And if I do come out, we can look at colors and stuff. Man. I might have just been talked into coming out. You really do have superpowers.”

“Do not.” Percy argued.

“Yes, you do.” Nico argued, flopping beside him on his bunk. 

“Nico di Angelo,” Jason said faux sternly, his eyes shining with amusement, “is your shirt on inside out?” Percy looked at his cousin and burst out laughing when he saw it was, plus it was backwards.

“I hate you both.” Nico grumbled, crossing his arms, his face bright red.

“William Solace!” Jason yelled, laughing when he heard Will tripping over the door frame. 

“What?” Will complained looking around, seeing Nico’s bright red face. Percy couldn’t stop laughing though and fell off the bed when Nico shoved him. 

“Do we need to have a talk?” Jason asked, smiling brightly and trying not to laugh as much as Percy was. 

“About what?” He asked in confusion.

“Nico’s shirt is inside out and backwards.” Tyson answered helpfully, grinning when Will’s face turned just as red. He quickly looked down and made sure his own shirt was on right before clearing his throat and crossing his arms. 

“Honey, what we do in private is our business.” He said, his accent dragging the sounds out more. 

“Uh huh. Sure. Right. Well, you kids behave yourselves. I’m gonna try and get some sleep for my sister’s rebirth from a tree tomorrow. See ya, Perce. Tyson.” Jason waved and cut off the message because Percy was still laughing on the floor. 

“You still up, Perseus?” Triton asked as he knocked and opened the door.

“I’m awake.” Percy said, still chuckling and holding his side which ached from laughing so much. “But not really up.”

“Dare I ask?” Triton looked between Will, Nico, and Tyson. 

“No.” Will and Nico replied instantly, both going red again. Triton grinned sharklike at their quick responses. 

“I was just coming to see if you wanted to initiate phase one,” He said quickly, “but it looks like you’re all having too much fun for that.”

“Nope, I’m good. Let’s kick it off so tomorrow morning they get hit first thing.” Percy sighed, accepting the hand offered to pull him back to his feet.

“We don’t want to know.” Will said quickly, setting a bunch of books and notes on the spare bunk he always took. “Go do what you gotta do, but be back soon. I’m not interested in patching you up if the harpies catch you.”

“That’s fair.” Percy nodded. “We’ll do our part, then Ty will do his at first break tomorrow.”

“Yay!” Tyson cheered, making Percy snicker some more. 

“I’m using your shower, Percy.” Nico grumbled. “And stealing your sweatpants for being an asshole.”

“Whatever you say, Neeks.” Percy chuckled, following Triton outside.

“You’re letting him steal your clothes?” Triton asked, still grinning.

“He does it all the time at home.” Percy shrugged. “Mom thinks it’s funny how big everything is on him, but he refuses to wear things if mom gets them in his size. Just hides them in my drawers until I find them later and wonder why my pants are so short.”

“Well, at least it’s him instead of Tyson. He’d rip your clothes.” Triton agreed.

“True.” Percy sighed, looking up at the sky and smiling at the constellations. “Let’s get this done so I can try and get an hour or two of sleep.”

“An hour or two?” Triton frowned. “Don’t mortals need, like, at least six hours of sleep? Or more?”

“Yeah, but I can usually only get around two before I wake up from nightmares. It’s better than it used to be, and I can usually go back to sleep for a couple more. Just can’t get ‘em all in a row yet. I’ll get there. Probably. Who knows? Maybe all this shit we’re doing will help?”

“I’m sure your mother would appreciate that since she’s about to have an actual baby in the house.” Triton teased. Percy snorted and quickly covered his mouth so he wouldn’t make any more noise and give them away.

“Very funny.” Percy replied in a low voice. “Come on. Phase one is go!”

They crept around in the dark, sticking to the shadows and not making any noise as they set their traps. When they were done, Triton headed for the sea while Percy snuck back to his cabin to find Tyson, Will, and Nico all talking really loudly about the pirate ship Percy and Annabeth stole. He rolled his eyes and took a quick shower, falling into his bed after, while he watched everyone, laughing at how excited they seemed to be about everything. 

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he remembered waking up in a panic and backing himself into the nearest corner as he struggled to breathe. Once he came back to himself, he ran to the bathroom, getting sick until his stomach was empty. He brushed his teeth a little shakily, nearly falling as he walked back to his bed, but someone caught him and helped him get the rest of the way. He sat down and pulled his knees to his chest, trying to wind down.

“Wanna talk about it?” Nico asked quietly.

“No.” Percy exhaled, shaking his head, wincing when it sent a sharp pain through his temples. 

“Might help.”

“It won’t. How long was I asleep?” 

“Not quite two hours.” 

“Sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t be. Wasn’t asleep yet.”

“Why not?” Percy asked curiously. He couldn’t really see Nico’s face in the dark cabin.

“Same reason you woke up. Nightmares. Instead of waking up every couple hours, my brain fights going to sleep at all most nights. Like, it’s almost like my body still thinks I’m trying to survive a death trance. I usually get to sleep around this time and wake up before breakfast.” Nico commented slowly.

“Fuckin’ sucks, man.” Percy sighed. “I’m so tired of it.”

“Me too.” Nico hummed. Eventually Percy stretched his legs back out, pressing them against Nico. Nico was laying the opposite way on the bed, but he’d fallen asleep while Percy was still trying to come down. 

---

“They’re so cute!” Percy heard someone exclaim, making him frown. Why was someone talking so happily so early in the morning?

“Shh.” He shushed, covering his face with his hand. “‘M sleepin’ still.”

“Get up Kelp-head!” Thalia shouted, making him groan in annoyance.

“Fuck you.” He grumbled, sticking his finger in the air, not knowing where she was exactly.

“You’re funny.” She chuckled. “You don’t have a choice. Breakfast is in 10 minutes, so get your asses up.” 

Percy groaned when the door to his cabin slammed shut. He kicked his leg, hitting Nico until he pinched his foot in retaliation. Nico cursed him out in Italian, and Percy cursed at him right back until they both finally sat up. 

They stumbled to breakfast together, ignoring Tyson and Will chatting animatedly already. They sat at the Hades table, hoping they’d be left alone, but as soon as they sat down they were surrounded by excited kids and way too many morning people. Percy put his face down on the table, and Nico put his on Percy’s back. Both of them planning to sleep a little bit longer. 

Nico had stolen Percy’s swim team hoodie, along with his sweatpants, but Percy really didn’t care at the moment. He was wearing a New Rome hoodie that he’d gotten from Frank and Hazel in the mail for a late birthday present. Percy startled up in his seat, swinging an arm out and punching someone, knocking both him and Nico over, when someone touched his arm. They groaned from the ground. 

“What the fuck, dude?” Nico complained, groaning when Will pulled him to his feet. 

“Sorry.” Percy apologized, wiping a hand over his face. “Sorry, fuck, I don’t know what happened.”

“Someone who doesn’t know you react violently when you wake up, woke you up.” Nico yawned, reaching down and pulling him up.

“I didn’t know you’d have that bad of a reaction.” Leo said cautiously, twisting his hands from nearby. A bruise was blooming on his jaw from where Percy had caught him.

“He’s always woken up like that.” Nico said, yawning again. “Nearly took my head off once, so I learned the hard way. At least he didn’t attack you with a sword.”

“Noted.” Leo croaked. “Um, was just letting you know that they want to get started. No one else wanted to tell you, but I guess I know why, now.”

“Mm.” Percy hummed, yawning widely as they made their way to the amphitheater. He blinked several times when he arrived and had a bucket of water thrown in his face, Nico shrieking at getting hit as well. Percy shook out his head and dissipated the water from him and Nico quickly so they wouldn’t have to sit in wet clothes. “Thanks.”

“Wasn’t meant to be helpful.” Connor grumbled, looking annoyed with bright, bubble-gum pink hair. All of their shirts were also bedazzled, which Percy somehow forgot about. Percy pursed his lips and walked over to sit down, purposefully not looking at the Hermes kids. The younger ones seemed to enjoy their new look, while the older kids looked peeved at having been beaten to a prank.

“Ready to move on, then?” Percy asked, biting his lip as his voice cracked and he caught Travis and Connor both scowling at him.

Hecate started the memories back up once New Rome was present, all looking at the Hermes campers with attempts at not laughing outright. Percy sighed in contentment as he remembered how great it had been to maneuver the ship. He didn’t really care that people were hearing his young self’s thoughts about being scared at the moment. He wasn’t awake enough for that. This part was pretty dull, which was fine by him. He was perfectly ok starting the day slow. 

After young Annabeth had slept for a little while and came above deck, she and young Percy started talking about what happened to Thalia. Grover threw something at him, which he caught and cheered. It was a bag of blue waffles that he’d somehow managed to get. Percy dug in, sharing one, and only one, with Nico who also slept through breakfast. 

Percy shuddered as he felt the echoes of the dream he had. The whispering voices of ghosts trying to warn him of danger. As soon as the girl in his dream spoke, he was shoved to the ground, narrowly saving his last waffle. 

“What the fuck, dude?” Percy whined, looking up at an angry Thalia. 

“What the fuck, me? What the fuck, you?! How the hell did you manage to see everything about me correctly aside from my eye color? It’s closer than when you dreamed of me in the back of that fucking truck.”

“I don’t know.” Percy shrugged, shoving the waffle in his mouth as Thalia lunged at him. He rolled back, stopping in a crouch, unsure if she was going to keep attacking him or not. “I already told you I dreamed about you before you came back, asshole.”

“Yeah, but I thought you meant in more of an abstract sense! Not that you saw exactly what I looked like. This is creepy as shit!” Thalia exclaimed, lengthening her spear before swinging it at him. He had his sword up, blocking her easily.

“I was dreaming things connected to Luke and Kronos.” Percy grunted as he shoved her back. “I didn’t have control of this, of any of this!” He ducked as she swung at him again, her movements not as smooth as they usually were. Meaning something else was going on. He tried to keep himself calm so his lungs wouldn’t seize up.

“Between your creepy-ass dreams, and Annabeth and Grover’s stories, you knew basically everything about me when I came back!” She shouted, her voice a little shaky. “You knew what I was like and you just kept your mouth shut and let me be cruel every time we talked! You let me blame you!” Her eyes were a little shiny, and Percy finally understood what was going on.

“Thalia,” he said gently, “hey, it isn’t your fault. We were both being used. Kronos and Luke, and everyone, all they ever tried to do was drive a wedge between us. Do you know why?” She clenched her jaw and shook her head minutely. “Because together we were too powerful. Together we were too strong. Together, you, me, Nico, we didn’t need them. We fucked up every single one of their plans because we chose to be family.”

“It’s bullshit.” She snarled, swinging at him again, but he grabbed her spear and flipped it so he had pulled her against him and trapped her in a hug. She fought him for a few seconds before giving in and hugging him, crying into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. For all the shit I said.”

“Not your fault.” He said softly. “None of this was your fault. For fuck’s sake, none of it was even my fault. Or Nico’s. We were blamed for existing , Thals. Not because we’d done anything wrong, but because we existed. I don’t blame you for the shit you said when you got back. I don’t blame you for hating me even just a little. Yes, I dreamed about you. They wanted to use you against me. But we showed them, in the end.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we did.” Thalia sniffled. 

“Fuck their plans.” Nico said, wrapping an arm over Thalia’s shoulders and leaning against her, turning it into a three way hug. “We choose.”

“We choose.” Percy agreed.

“We choose.” Thalia whispered. 

“I didn’t say anything when you were being mean because I understood. You came back to a world that you didn’t recognize, with people you remembered being younger than they were, and someone new in the picture that had more or less taken your place and Luke’s. But you’re one of a kind, Thalia. You’re irreplaceable. Don’t you forget that.”

“Just stop.” She groaned, leaning back and wiping her face clean. “I can’t talk to you anymore right now. You’re being too understanding.” Percy chuckled and handed her spear back. 

“We can talk later or not. Friendly fight might be more fun.” Percy shrugged.

“Maybe.” She reluctantly agreed, punching him on the arm before going and sitting with the hunters. Percy went and sat with Triton and Tyson, knowing that she needed some time to recover from her episode. Nico sat with the Apollo kids, right in the middle of the two of them. Probably so he could keep an eye on each of them. 

“It’s definitely prophetic.” Lester said quietly to Rachel who was writing something down. 

“Obviously.” Rachel scoffed. “I mean, I always saw strange things, things I couldn’t explain, even in dreams, but nothing like this. Not until the battle was closer. Do you think it has anything to do with …” 

“No, no I don’t think so.” Lester shook his head. “My tasks are mine. Prophecy is still one of my domains. Or. It will be, once I get done with my quests. But prophecy, at this time, was still working correctly. I’ve only had one child who was prophetic that wasn’t supposed to be, and Poseidon only ever had one that was prophetic at all. Anyway he’s somehow descended from someone in my line?”

“Maybe.” Rachel tilted her head. “We’ll really have to dig, though. Maybe his prophetic senses are more tied to one of the other pantheons that his family came from?”

“That makes more sense.” Lester nodded. 

“Can we continue?” Zeus asked, looking irritated, glaring at Lester and Rachel. Rachel was unbothered, but Lester shrank in on himself. Percy shifted, ready to get to his feet, when Triton and Amphitrite held him in place.

“Can you be polite for one fucking second?” Thalia retorted, still looking stressed. “Yes, we can continue, but we’re allowed a few seconds of a break to try and figure out what all this shit meant. You hate prophecy so much, I’m actually surprised you aren’t more irritated about his dreams. Hypnos has already said they are abnormal, even by demigod standards. Try and relax for a minute, fuck. We’re all stuck here for however long it takes. Then you won’t have to be stuck in an amphitheater full of people that you hate.”

“I don’t hate you, daughter.” Zeus said, looking a little startled finally. 

“Maybe not, but you don’t care for me.” Thalia said, glaring at him. “And that’s fine with me. If what you did to Apollo, let alone Mr. D, is showing how you care for your children, I’ll pass. Lady Hecate, please continue.”

Hecate looked a little nervously between Zeus and Thalia before resuming the memories. Percy unclenched his hands finally, wincing as his nails came out of his palms. Triton caught the movement and tutted at him as he hovered water over them to heal them. Percy rolled his eyes at his brother and focused back on the memories. He jumped when his younger self screamed himself awake. 

“Daughter-” Athena hissed, when young Annabeth said she wanted to hear them, but Annabeth ignored her mother, still writing something in her notebook, Malcolm adding quiet comments occasionally. 

Percy shook his head a little, suddenly feeling like he couldn’t actually hear anything, just as he had on the ship. He stuck his fingers in his ears and worked his jaw, but he still couldn’t hear anything. This wasn’t the same as what was happening before; well, aside from the magic in C.C.’s song. He tried to steady his breathing, focus on the sound of his heartbeat, not the things he couldn’t hear, but then all he could hear was everyone’s heartbeats. He could feel their blood pumping through their bodies, and started to panic a little. If he could feel that, then he could feel other things, so he sought out the water in the creek and let the gentle flow of it soothe him. 

He didn’t look up again until he could hear, and was shocked by the mixture of crying, shouting, and cheering. What had he missed? He looked over at Triton who was looking at him funnily. 

“What?” He asked, not sure he wanted the answer. 

“You weren’t affected.” Triton said quietly, and the amphitheater noise died down.

“No.” Percy said slowly.

“When you touched her, you saw what she saw, not your own visions.” Triton continued, looking at his father. “You should have seen what you wanted and desired, not someone else.”

“I … I didn’t really desire anything, I guess.” Percy shrugged. “I mean, not aside from the faces I saw on the Sirens themselves.”

“That’s-” Triton wiped a hand over his face as if trying to compose himself, “that’s not how they work, Perseus.”

“Full name. Wow. I must have done something wrong.” He attempted to joke, but it fell flat as everyone just stared at him curiously.

“You did nothing wrong.” Triton reassured. “It’s just … even immortals who are aware of the Siren’s powers, who are able to stay away from them, will see something they desire, even if it is a desire they are unaware of. You saw only what Annabeth desired. The world rebuilt as she designed it, her friend back on her side, her parents reunited and caring for her. What this showed, essentially, is that the only thing you desire, is for those around you to have what they desire.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Percy asked, feeling confused.

“It’s unheard of.” Triton said softly. “In all our histories and records, no one has ever encountered the Siren’s so directly and seen nothing for themselves. It’s … it’s remarkable.”

“You’re still saying that as if it’s a bad thing. It’s your tone.” Percy stated.

“That’s because none of us know how to process it.” Poseidon said gently. “It’s never happened before, son. Not once, in millenia.”

“I can’t tell you anything else.” Percy said, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “Honestly, I missed that entire thing. I couldn’t hear anything when my memory self stopped up his ears, so I sort of stopped paying attention. I can’t tell you if I encountered them now if it would be any different, though. I don’t think I’ve changed that much. Same if I saw certain other entities. Like Melinoe. I didn’t see anything the first time I met her, but I’ve seen a lot more death since then. I’m not sure if I’d still just see her or not. But on those notes, I’d still rather not find out. I went through it once, I don’t want to do it again.”

“Strange.” Poseidon said, looking out toward the sea, eyes looking miles away. The same time, he heard a few other people mutter, “who’s Melinoe?” and “when in our names did he encounter her ?”.  

“Right.” Percy nodded uncertainly. “So, if we’re done with pointing out how unusual I am again, can we move on to when we actually find Grover?”

“Of-” Hecate cleared her throat, still looking completely stunned, “of course.”

Chapter Text

Percy tried to sit still, but the whole thing had unnerved him. He started jogging his leg and twirling his pen in his fingers for something to do. When he was tired of twirling his pen, he tucked it away and pulled out the fidget toy Paul had gotten him to help him focus, pushing the buttons and levers and twisting it around. He vaguely listened to young Annabeth talking to him a little about what she had seen. He pursed his lips and ducked his head when she said ‘hubris’. He wasn’t surprised when most of the amphitheater laughed at his comment about hummus. 

“I still stand by that.” He said, grinning when his friends snorted and started laughing again.

A few people looked at Annabeth thoughtfully as her younger self explained how she felt and why. But a lot more people were watching Percy curiously. 

“Still stand by that, too.” Percy said, raising his hand up when he said he didn’t want anything to do with running the world.

“That would be a nightmare.” Clarisse grunted, winking at him when he flipped her off.

“Like you would be any better.” Percy scoffed, and she snorted a laugh.

“Touche.” She agreed.

“That was a lot more detours than I even ended up with.” Grover bleated when the island came into view. 

“We still got there in time. Mostly. Kind of.” Percy said, tilting his head.

“Sheep of doom.” Leo whispered, a spring flying out of his hands when the sheep had eaten the deer to the bone.

“Yup.” Percy agreed, popping the ‘p’. Annabeth started chuckling as his younger self’s thoughts devolved into the climbing wall at camp and the potential for carnivorous mountain goats, before she was hunched over, leaning on Malcolm, who was laughing just as hard. 

“Man, I love your thoughts.” Malcolm said, wiping his face off.

“You’re welcome.” Percy said cheerfully, grinning proudly when more campers devolved into giggles. 

He went a little cross-eyed, seeing his nose and his face light up with gold lights from where he’d caught Annabeth’s foot. His fingers were gold too, which he only noticed because he’d reached up and rubbed his nose, as if he could rub the light away. Clarisse groaned when she realized where they were, and how much they had actually seen. Several campers groaned, too, when she called out Grover’s disguise. Grover frowned at young Percy’s description and reached up to touch his horns, but Juniper stopped him and kissed his cheek, smiling happily at him. 

“Yeah, we didn’t hear any of that.” Grover said, watching young Percy and Annabeth screaming at the rock.

“Didn’t figure you had.” Percy sighed. “Had to try, though.” When his younger self mentioned becoming a vegetarian, he held up a hand. “Not happening. Gotta have at least one burger a day, dude.”

“They make vegetarian burgers.” Grover argued.

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna order one on purpose when we go out.” Percy said firmly. “That was left over guinea pig talking, not me.”

“That’s fair.” Grover sighed disappointedly, making Percy snicker.

Percy quickly caught the dagger Clarisse had thrown at him for the comment about marrying her being as equally gross as eating his best friend. He laughed when she jumped up to chase him, but stopped pretty quickly, stabbing her dagger into her seat and going back to his. He was not about to over exert himself into another asthma attack. 

When he was attached to the sheep like a baby koala, several people couldn’t keep in their laughter. Percy tilted his head as he got his first look at an outside perspective. 

“Well. At least it looks as uncomfortable as it felt.” He said thoughtfully, pulling a face. “From what you can see of me, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Thalia said, gasping through her laughter as she looked at Annabeth, “how you didn’t laugh at that!”

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life!” Annabeth agreed, laughing at the images. “Easily in the top five.”

“I can see that.” Reyna pitched in for the Romans, pursing her lips as she fought not to laugh, but she lost her hold when Frank lost his, sending the rest of the Senate into giggle fits.

At young Annabeth’s trick, everyone cheered for her, making her blush. She also looked pretty proud of herself. Which; she should be. It was a smart trick to use. As young Percy’s thoughts about the whole male/female thing were narrated, he got an incredulous look from Grover. Now it was Percy’s turn to blush.

“More like a children of Poseidon thing.” He said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Shut up.” Percy grumbled, tossing an apple at him. 

“He thought I was a girl, first time he saw me, right boss?” Blackjack said, cantering in with Guido right behind him, sitting down by Percy and tugging him to the ground by the pocket of his hoodie so he either went down willingly or risked the pocket being ripped off.

“Dude! It was an accident, alright? There was a lot of shit going on at the time.” Percy complained, his face still feeling hot as Blackjack laughed at him. 

“Eh, I’ll give ya that, I suppose.” He reluctantly agreed.

“What’d he say?” Annabeth asked curiously, because Triton was holding a hand over his mouth to stop from outright laughing.

“He said,” Triton gasped, pulling himself back together before snickering again, “he- he said Percy thought he was a girl at first too.”

“He also thought the Ophiotaurus was a girl.” Grover added. 

“How the fuck was I supposed to know it wasn’t?” Percy complained, pushing Guido out of his hair. “I didn’t even know what he was, at the time. And then he just followed me across the country.”

“He still asks where you’re at.” Triton complained, finally getting himself under control. “Apparently he misses you and the rest of us aren’t good enough for his company.”

“Awe.” Percy said, pouting at his brother. “I’ll have to come see him again sometime.”

“That would be lovely, Perseus.” Hestia agreed. “I’d love for you to visit me at my hearth again.”

“Of course.” Percy smiled brightly at her. “I mean, I can’t exactly talk to him on my own, so I’ll need some help translating. Maybe you can come to dinner when Amphitrite and Triton do, and I can go see him after?”

“That’s a wonderful idea.” Amphitrite smiled at him, though she looked like she was trying not to laugh about the pegasi who were stealing the apples he’d stuffed in his pockets and had caused his hair to stand up weird again.

He stole one of the apples before they got all of them and ate it quickly, but Blackjack ate the core before he could toss it to Grover. He rolled his eyes and handed them a few sugar cubes too, ignoring the annoyed sigh he heard from Reyna. 

As soon as Polyphemus cursed them, both Percy and Annabeth flinched back where they were sitting. Percy grabbed his head, the words repeating over and over again. All he could do was hold onto his hair and try to breathe as he remembered Annabeth taking the curse, her eyes coated and unseeing as he tried to reach her and protect her. He couldn’t reach her, though. She was kept away from him, and there were so many curses … 

“No!” Percy screamed, when he felt something grab him, struggling to get away. “No! Annabeth! Annabeth!”

“Percy, stop!” Annabeth cried. “Please, we’re safe. We’re not there anymore.” She choked out.

“Not-” Percy looked around, realizing he was being held onto by his dad from behind while Annabeth knelt in front of him, holding his hand, “not there. We’re … we’re not there.”

“No. You saved us.”

“I couldn’t-” Percy gasped, his chest tight, “couldn’t reach you. Always out of reach. That’s what her curse was. After Polyphemus. Couldn’t reach you. I took them. Took all the rest. A thousand curses on ‘nobody’.” Percy rocked a little bit as his chest tightened even more. 

“You took on so many, Percy.” Annabeth said, her voice broken as she sobbed, but he couldn’t really hear it. He couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. He let go of his hair and grabbed at his throat trying to get air. 

“Can’t-” He gasped, struggling against his father again, before his inhaler was forced in his mouth and pressed; a hand was over his mouth and nose to make sure the medicine stayed in so it would reach his lungs. He took a shallow breath, nodding at whoever was holding his inhaler to hit him again, holding it in on his own this time and practically collapsing in exhaustion against his dad, Blackjack’s head settling in his lap as a reassuring weight. “Forgot.” Percy whispered, his breath still not quite under control. “Forgot he said that.”

“Shh.” His father hushed him, stroking a hand through his hair gently, easing the headache that had punched its way into his head during the attack. “Just rest for a moment, son.”

“‘M fine.” Percy replied a little slurred. “Fine.” 

“Ok.” His father said gently, rocking them back and forth slightly. He must have dozed off, because he jolted awake and only managed not to fall over trying to stand up because his father was still holding onto him, and Blackjack and Guido were resting their heads on his legs.

“Sorry.” Percy apologized, wiping a hand over his face before tangling his fingers in the pegasi hair. “Sorry, we can keep going.”

“We can wait a little longer, son.” Poseidon said softly.

“No, I’m good now.” Percy said, clearing his throat and shifting a little in his father’s grip to sit up a bit more. “I’m good.”

“Here.” Will said, handing him a cup. 

“Thanks.” Percy accepted, clearing his throat again before taking a drink. It was the unicorn draught that the Romans preferred. He couldn’t help but groan as the cool liquid soothed his aching throat and helped his body unclench a little more. 

“Don’t fucking do that to me again.” Thalia growled at him, kicking his foot that she was sitting next to, glaring at him.

“Wasn’t on purpose, promise.” Percy stated, still feeling a little out of it. “Just caught me off guard. Couldn’t remember when he’d said it.”

“You’re only a few years after this happened, Perce, but a lot of crazy happens in your life. I’d be surprised if you managed to remember all this so easily, let alone in order.” Nico commented.

“Fair.” Percy sighed, giving them a half-hearted grin. He wasn’t feeling it just yet, and needed a little more time to come back up.

“Can-” Thalia said hesitantly, looking back at Annabeth who was sitting with her siblings, staring blankly at her notebook, “can I ask you something about it?”

“Sure. Don’t know what I’ll be able to tell you or not, but go ahead.” Percy said, waving his hand absently.

“You said ‘that’s what her curse was’.” Thalia said slowly. “You know where some of the curses you took on in Tartarus came from, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Percy nodded weakly.

“Percy, I’ve seen you in a lot of bizarre scenarios. I know monsters and gods have cursed you, and I know that you know that. But you said ‘she’. There aren’t any girls that you’ve encountered so far who would have cursed you. So the person involved hasn’t been in the memories yet. I won’t go after them, not yet, anyway. But who cursed you that Annabeth would always be out of reach?” Thalia asked, resting her hand on his ankle.

“She said the one you love will always be just out of reach from you.” Percy sighed. “I promised I’d help her, set her free. And I did, with my wish. But she was never freed. They left her there, even after they swore she would be freed. I mean, if someone made me a promise they would rescue me, and then I never saw or heard what happened, I’d be pissed too, I guess. But I never had the chance to check and make sure, never followed up. I got kidnapped and my memories stolen and sent across the world. She found someone else, though. He did what I couldn’t. He got her off the island.”

“Calypso did that to you?” Nico growled, holding onto Percy’s other ankle. 

“Still not her fault.” Percy said quietly. “Not saying I deserved it, just saying it was a shitty deal. I shouldn’t have needed to follow up and make sure she was taken care of.”

“She should have known better!” Thalia shouted, silencing the rest of the crowd. “She should have been smart enough to understand that you were a demigod and could not force the gods to do your bidding.”

“It’s already done, Thals.” Percy said tiredly. “The curse is gone now. It was shitty when it happened and we both nearly died.”

“YOU nearly died.” Annabeth corrected, standing by them again, having calmed down while he was out of it. Her eyes were still red rimmed, though. “She may have kept me away from you, but by doing that you were forced to endure all the other curses alone. Gods, Percy,” she sucked in a ragged breath, “she may have been hurt, by how things went down, but she nearly killed you! If Da-,” Annabeth stomped when she couldn’t say the names, “if we hadn’t had immortal help, neither one of us would have made it back.”

“What’s going on?” Piper asked, coming over hesitantly, putting a hand on Annabeth’s shoulder.

“It’s not important.” Percy said, glaring at his friends as best he could. “It’ll come up later. Just … please, all of you, remember what we said earlier, alright? Don’t throw curses around at people who hurt your feelings. They can’t be undone, they’re dangerous, and instead of relieving yourself of your anger, you’re going to be the cause of someone’s death, or near death, if they can’t get immortal level healing.”

“I don’t think I understand.” Calypso said cautiously, looking at them, but Percy couldn’t look at her, so he kept his head down and spoke quietly.

“No, I don’t expect you would.” Percy agreed. “When I promised you I would set you free, what did you think happened?”

“I remained on my island, what should I have thought happened?” She replied back, her brows furrowed.

“Did Leo tell you anything?” He pressed.

“Not … not about what might have happened to you.” She answered, looking at Leo in confusion. But he hadn’t known, either.

“Then you’ll just have to wait for your answer.” Percy said through gritted teeth. “I made my request for you to be freed, and I even had them swear on the Styx to do it. But I was taken out of the equation. Forcibly. My memories fucked with. From what you’ve been witness to so far, with all this, am I the sort of person who would not follow through when I make a promise?”

“I believe you would follow through, based on this.” She said quietly.

“Then believe me when I say that I speak from experience that cursing someone so that the one they love is always out of reach, especially when they’re walking through Tartarus, is a sure way to get them killed.” He met her eyes briefly, letting her see the pain and terror he’d experienced when he couldn’t reach Annabeth to protect her; how truly broken he felt most of the time, still. “If we hadn’t had help from a Titan and a Giant, Annabeth would have had to reach the Doors of Death on her own, because I would be dead and lost in that place. Maybe I’d become enough of a monster that I’d come back, but there’s no way to tell. So. If you are going to curse someone, you better make damn sure you mean it. You make damn sure that you don’t give a fuck whether they truly live or die.”

“I-” Calypso started to say, but her eyes were welling up with tears and she couldn’t finish her sentence. Percy didn’t care.

“We’re not talking about this anymore.” He said firmly. “Not right now. Let’s get this over with, because I need to be out of here for a little while.”

“Ok, Perce.” Nico said gently, keeping a grip on his ankle.

Thalia and Nico leaned back against Guido and Blackjack, keeping a hold of Percy in some way, and his dad still hadn’t let him out of the hug he’d engulfed him in. It was comforting and stifling all at the same time, but he tried his best to focus on the screen, wiping sweat off his face that was still clinging to him after his attack. He’d never had a panic attack and an asthma attack at the same time, so that was new. 

He watched as his younger self yelled at his friends to get across the bridge, Polyphemus hot on their heels. A lot of people were gasping as young Clarisse and Percy raced across the bridge that was swaying dangerously due to the crazy cyclops chasing them. Percy felt his anger at Polyphemus catching up to them swell inside, blanking out any other feelings he might have had. A few kids let out nervous chuckles at young Percy’s internal monologue before everyone was gasping and letting out shocked cries once the cyclops was pinned to the ground.

“Gods, that was epic.” Clarisse chuckled.

“It was insane!” Grover corrected, looking at her with wide eyes. “He was tiny back then and he just laid out that size of a cyclops? It was crazy!”

“Still epic.” Clarisse shrugged. “But he’s Prissy, and he has too much empathy to do anything else.”

“That’s true.” Tyson grumbled, pouting at Grover when he snickered at him.

“You’re both just big softies.” Grover said, winking at Tyson. “It’s fine. We wouldn’t want you any other way.”

Tyson kept grumbling as he tinkered with the parts Hephaestus had given him the previous day. Blushing when the kids all cheered for him when he saved his brother from being eaten. When they got to the beach, and the ship rounded the corner, Leo cussed in Spanish, pointing at the ship in agitation. Even the other Hephaestus kids and Athena kids were grumbling under their breath about it. Apparently they were all irritated they hadn’t known that Percy could do all of that with any sort of sailing vessel. 

Percy blushed a little when his younger self talked about Polyphemus running out of rocks. It was a silly comment, he could admit that, but he really wasn’t interested in filtering his thoughts after dealing with the asshole. Percy and Tyson high-fived as their younger selves took on Polyphemus as a team. Triton was looking at him in surprise again. Which was a little annoying. He turned to his brother and raised an eyebrow.

“How could you possibly know that father wouldn’t play favorites? You’d met him once at this point and he put his feet, both, firmly in his mouth.” Triton asked, scowling at Poseidon.

“Just a feeling.” Percy shrugged. “I mean, in all the myths, dad had a lot of monstrous children, and he cared for them the same as any of his demigod or godly children. He ruined coastlines and armadas for disrespecting his request to leave them alone, even Polyphemus. He claimed Tyson, same as he claimed me. Showing he cared about us equally.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say,” Amphitrite said, chuckling, “that you are incorrect about your father having a favorite.”

“At least it’s warranted.” Triton pouted. “I understand it, even if I don’t appreciate it.”

“What are you talking about?” Percy asked, feeling confused.

“You, Perseus.” Poseidon sighed. “You are my favorite.”

“No I’m not.” Percy scoffed, not seeing his dad’s expression. “I’m a fairly short-lived mortal, who somehow made it to 17. Theseus was, what? Fifteen? Sixteen? I can understand favorite demigod child, because so far, from what I can tell, I’m one of the longer lived ones. But Tyson is great, and Triton isn’t so bad when you get past the disapproving glares and disappointment in you that you had another mortal child.”

“You don’t have to understand it, Percy.” Triton sighed. “You don’t even have to like it. But it’s safe to say that you are father’s favorite.”

“Whatever.” Percy grumbled, petting Blackjack again, who was snickering at him. “Not you, too.”

“Sorry, boss.” Blackjack mumbled, still snickering. “You already know you’re our favorite. Just accept it.”

Percy rolled his eyes and focused back on the images as his friends made it to the ship finally. He was roughly pushed forward away from his father’s chest and his shirt was pulled up in the back after Polyphemus got him with the tree. He still had a few scars from the scratches, but they were pretty small and barely noticeable. 

“I’m fine, dad.” Percy grumbled, pulling his shirt back down. 

“Those were more than just mere scratches, son.” his dad grumbled pulling him back against his chest.

“Didn’t feel like it.” Percy shrugged.

“Adrenaline, dumbass.” Will frowned. “It’s always how you never understand the severity of your injuries.”

“That’s … fair.” Percy reluctantly agreed. 

When young Clarisse yelled at Polyphemus from the ship, everyone groaned, including Clarisse, who put her face in her hands, shaking her head. Chris patted her back comfortingly, but he was also struggling not to laugh. As soon as Rainbow and the other Hippocampi showed up, the campers cheered. When young Percy whispered that young Annabeth was a genius while she slept, Annabeth blushed furiously while her cabin mates cheered their agreement.

Chapter Text

Amphitrite handed Percy a sucker, which he accepted gratefully, not even questioning it as he stuck it in his mouth happily. Triton rolled his eyes about it, but he was fighting a grin. As soon as they were back on land and walking around the beach, there was a shriek before it was muffled. 

“That’s me!” Piper exclaimed, pointing at the images of herself on the beach with her dad. “We went to Miami before heading back to California. It was our summer trip before he got me into a different school.”

“Nice.” Percy nodded. “Miami isn’t so bad, but the ocean around it definitely could use some attention. Lots of people, lots of pollution and trash. Might have to go back sometime and do some clean-up there.”

“We barely have time to do Montauk as it is.” Grover bleated, but he looked pretty happy at the idea of them going to do a beach clean-up together again.

“We’ll make time, G-man. We can do it on one of my breaks. Spring break or something. We’ll figure it out.” Percy waved his concern aside.

“You clean up beaches?” Thalia asked curiously.

“Well, yeah? Why wouldn’t I? After meeting the Hudson and the East River gods, we try to help them out every few weeks with major things they can’t seem to get rid of on their own. We do Montauk in the summer. Only had about a week there this year, though. Because of all the other shit going on. I think we could add Miami pretty easily.” Percy said, tossing his sucker stick in the fire before Blackjack could eat it.

“Stop making the rest of us look bad.” Triton complained, giving Percy’s shoulder a small shove.

“Nah, don’t fancy it.” Percy shrugged, grinning when Leo started snickering at him.

“Fuck, dude,” Leo said, catching his breath, “you’ve got tv and movie quotes for everything.”

“Not everything, just most things.” Percy hummed thoughtfully. 

“Spoilers, man!” Malcolm complained. “I know that’s from ‘Merlin’, so don’t deny it. I haven’t made it that far yet.”

“Then catch up already.” Percy argued, sniffing as haughtily as he could. 

Percy mimicked the argument that young Clarisse was having with young Annabeth in the images until both demigods threw candy at him. Well. Annabeth threw a bag of jelly beans at him, Clarisse threw a dagger that stabbed the jelly beans, so … same, same. 

“You do?” Lester asked, when young Percy said he had the prophecy.

“Wasn’t that hard.” Percy shrugged, feeling his face start to heat up. “Just watch, dude.”

When young Percy took the jacket the Fleece had turned into from young Annabeth, and pushed young Clarisse into a cab with it and the cash his brother had, everyone turned to stare at him incredulously. He felt like his face had to be on fire.

“What? It made sense.” Percy said, sinking down a little, until his dad’s arms stopped him and pulled him back up.

“It was genius and annoying, all rolled into one.” Clarisse grunted.

“It was your quest, La Rue, not mine; nor Annabeth’s or Tyson’s. We went to save Grover and just happened to end up helping you a tiny bit. Background stuff. We weren’t even supposed to be there.” Percy argued, his face still feeling hot.

“Noted.” Rachel said, chuckling as she wrote some more notes in her own notebook with Lester still watching him curiously.

“Well, shit.” Clarisse sighed, as young Percy turned around to a sword at his throat by Luke.

“Pretty much.” Percy agreed, chewing his jelly beans.

Percy blushed again as people stared at him in excitement when his younger self thought of a plan. The campers cheered when they saw the Iris Message shimmer behind Luke’s back. Percy finally was able to sink down against his dad, but everyone was too excited that his plan had worked and that Luke had confessed to everything with an audience. Percy stuck out his tongue, blowing as Luke said he’d never leave the ship alive.

“A for effort, I suppose.” Percy sighed. 

“You’re such an idiot.” Nico laughed, flicking his shoe.

Blackjack fell against him laughing as he made his appearance. Percy blushed and shoved at him trying to get him off, but they just ended up tangled together on the ground while Thalia rolled her eyes and moved to sit by Nico and Guido instead. His dad went back to sitting on the seat beside Amphitrite.

“Will you leave that poor pegasus alone?” Reyna teased, smirking at him as he was pinned by Blackjack who was still laughing at him.

“He started it.” Percy grumbled, resting his arms on Blackjack’s neck.

Young Percy baited Luke into a fight, causing some of the older campers to groan. A few of them tossed coins to Clarisse, which he was curious about, but she just collected the coins and winked at him. 

“I said you’d cause a distraction that let me get away.” She shrugged. “Usually that means a fight of some sort. Plus you were injured when you got back.”

“Not badly.” Percy pouted, but she only rolled her eyes at him.

“Seriously!” Lester exclaimed, when young Percy made observations about Luke’s blade. “How could you possibly guess that?”

“I could feel it.” Percy shrugged, frowning at everyone who was looking at him strangely. “What? I could feel the malice in it, the tragedy, the opposing forces, I guess. I don’t know what you want me to say. I could just tell that someone had probably died making it.”

“How grand it must be to be the chosen one.” Leo teased, making Percy laugh. “You just … know.”

“Oh gods.” Percy gasped, trying to breathe through his laughter. “That’s perfect. Thank you, Zuko.”

“Anytime, Katara.” Leo clicked his tongue and shot him finger guns.

Percy sobered when he saw how much he was actually bleeding from the cut on his ribs. He tapped Blackjack to let him up and pulled his shirt up again. The cut looked a lot bigger than it felt. It had only really felt like a graze. When he was stabbed in the leg, he couldn’t stop the frown from how much even that was bleeding. At least that one had felt like it should be bleeding that much. 

“I don’t get it.” He said slowly, prodding at the slight glow coming through the fabric of his sweatpants. “I mean, it hurt like a bitch, but … I don’t remember it bleeding that badly.”

“Perseus,” Chiron said carefully, “you practically passed out when we got to you. You lost a lot of blood and it took a lot of healing for us to take care of those cuts. You already pointed out it wasn’t a normal weapon. It may not have been the scythe yet, but it still held some of the properties. Much like Excalibur, it is rumored to always cause its target death.”

“Weird.” Percy mumbled, feeling light headed from how afraid he’d been that he was truly about to die. 

As the Party Ponies arrived, the campers went crazy cheering for them. One of them lifted young Percy easily onto his back, before calling for his brother to jump on and leave the fight. His younger self threw up, along with Tyson, when they finally stopped. Young Percy’s was because of his injuries and blood loss, but Tyson never really handled moving that fast very easily. Percy bit his lip to keep from laughing when Chiron mentioned the Party Ponies not liking Dean Martin. Several of the older campers didn’t have the same restraint and laughed delightedly. 

Lester and Rachel were both whispering furiously and writing as fast as they could, each had taken a page and were writing at the same time. Percy just sighed. He should have known that no one would let go that he seemed to have a knack for prophecies. His dad cursed under his breath in something older than Ancient Greek, but he only caught a few words.

“Not my fault.” Percy said quickly, holding up a finger.

“No, no it is not your fault, Perseus.” Poseidon said after he let out a long breath. “The thing you need to know … is I hadn’t had a demigod child in nearly a hundred years when you were born. Apparently that gave you more gifts than I anticipated.”

“I’m not sure I understand all of that,” Percy said cautiously, “but I suppose it’s probably better if I don’t.”

“I’m a little surprised you weren’t born a minor sea god.” Triton said with a thoughtful frown. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’ll do some more insane things before long that will have us wondering how in Hades you did them.”

“He does spend rather too much time in my domain.” Hades said, apparently not liking how his name was being thrown around.

“Not-” Percy started, but jumped when Thalia and Nico both cut him off.

“We know!”

“Jeez, no need to get so grumpy.” Percy grumbled.

Percy involuntarily tuned out the part where he and Chiron chatted. Blackjack was humming the song that had been stuck in his head the previous day, so they silently started arguing over the lyrics. He snickered when the pegasus made up his own lyrics about how much he loved donuts. Percy laughing was apparently what he was going for, because he kept going, even Guido joined in, making it very hard to not laugh out loud. When Tyson started snickering, though, he lost it and laughed, his face pressed against Blackjack’s mane. 

“Sorry.” He apologized, wiping his face. “Sorry, they’re just being ridiculous.”

“Only for you, boss.” Blackjack agreed, hugging him around the neck. 

“That’s alright.” Thalia said, biting back a smile. “We were just wondering where the hell you come up with some of your thoughts, anyway. I mean,” She chuckled, “we don’t disagree; Kronos is definitely not the type of parent you want to bring to school for career day.”

“Could you imagine it, though?” Percy asked, unable to stop laughing. “This is my dad, he ate me and most of my siblings as babies, but don’t worry, he puked us up and we chopped him up and buried him in a hole.”

“I love your summaries.” Will cackled, leaning his head against Nico’s back, who wasn’t faring much better.

“Please tell me that is not what you're actually teaching our children?” Demeter asked, but she was fighting her own smile.

“Percy doesn’t teach the histories.” Clarisse said, clearing her throat, smiling, but not laughing anymore. “His versions tend to be extremely short and don’t really cover some important things, so that’s usually done by Athena or Hermes cabins. He’s only done it once, because he was here, and they weren’t, when a few new kids came in.”

“I thought his summaries were excellent.” Lou Ellen said with a proud smile. “Told me the important parts and I was able to look into things more if I wanted to.”

“It was easier to accept hearing how ridiculous it all was when we first got here.” Freddy agreed.

There was more laughing when young Percy mentioned the arts and crafts cabin burning down. Even the Romans laughed pretty loudly at his silly translation. His younger self not caring about a prize, just about winning, had several people rolling their eyes fondly. When Hermes showed up again, his kids just sighed in annoyance. They were mostly over his appearance when Percy was leaving, but it still had them feeling a little bitter. Triton nodded along with young Percy’s thoughts on how their father had handled things, not just with Tyson, but the whole interacting gambit. 

“Yes, a little warning that you have a new brother would be nice.” Triton said sarcastically, glaring at Poseidon. Percy snickered, while Tyson high-fived Triton happily. 

“I’ve already apologized, son.” Poseidon said in exasperation, but he didn’t notice Triton winking at Percy, who tried to keep his shoulders from shaking too much as he laughed silently. 

“Ah,” Percy said, barely able to keep his voice even, “I guess you have to be one of the immortal children to get an apology.”

“We have to have something you don’t.” Triton sniffed, but it sent the three of them, Triton, Tyson, and Percy, into a giggle fit momentarily. 

“Are the three of you ganging up on me?” Poseidon asked incredulously, and that made them lose it even more. Even Amphitrite had started laughing though she was still patting Poseidon’s arm comfortingly. 

“Oh the joys of teenage boys.” Chiron sighed, but he winked at Percy and Tyson approvingly.

“Not a teenager.” Triton argued weakly, still unable to stop smiling.

“With brothers like Percy and Tyson, you’re bound to fall into their similar mindsets.” Chiron said, grinning when Triton snorted and nodded his reluctant agreement.

“By all the stars, Poseidon.” Amphitrite huffed, rubbing her temples as she closed her eyes. “You should be supervised anytime you wish to speak with Perseus.” Percy snickered at her reaction to the letter he’d received.

“What?” his father asked in confusion, but even Hades was having trouble keeping a straight face. 

“That was atrocious.” Athena said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’ve only caused the boy more stress by sending that ridiculous letter.”

“I just wanted him to be prepared for what was coming.” Poseidon argued, frowning at the other gods who had all started snickering at him. Hades had given up on not laughing and was now leaning against Persephone who was smiling fondly at his amusement.

“Yes, and you did terribly. Look,” Hestia pointed at the images, “now he’s missing an entire night of sleep because of your words of wisdom.”

“I couldn’t tell him anything else.” his dad defended.

“You should have just left him alone.” Triton snickered. “He’s already proven he’s more perceptive and understands fate and prophecy better than anyone around him. He could have figured out what was going to happen on his own. Especially after having dreamt of Thalia so vividly.”

“I had no idea it was this bad, Perseus.” Amphitrite said apologetically. “I will make sure someone is around him when he thinks he needs to talk to you again.”

“It’s fine, my lady.” Percy laughed, his dad’s face glowing with embarrassment. “He gets a little better by the time I turn 16. Anymore we don’t actually talk, so it really isn’t an issue.”

“What do you mean?” Triton asked curiously. “He’s always saying he needs to check on you.”

“Well if he is, he’s doing it by being creepy and stalking me instead of talking to me.” Percy stated, grinning when his dad sank down a little under his wife and son’s looks. “Why don’t you yell at him about it later, ok? We’re nearly through with the summer.”

“Fine. Later.” Amphitrite agreed, glaring at her husband, Triton nodding his agreement. 

When everyone lined up for one last chariot race, the campers who hadn’t been there leaned forward in anticipation. There was a betting pool for them, that the older campers were forbidden from participating in since they had been there. When young Percy said he couldn’t say no to Tyson, his brother blushed and smiled at him proudly. Percy rolled his eyes. Tyson knew that Percy was a sucker for whatever he wanted. 

Will laughed when his brother got knocked out, earning him a punch in the arm from Austin, who was blushing pretty badly. Kayla at least thought it was pretty funny, too, and just messed up Austin’s hair. The kids cheered for Tyson when the watch expanded out into a shield. Percy shouted with everyone else when he called Tyson his baby brother, making him blush even more as he smiled. 

Grover shoved at him when his younger self talked about his reed playing skills, but Percy couldn’t help laughing out loud at his pouting. When he calmed down, he heard Chiron offering to teach him about the Mist, and he couldn’t stop it, he started laughing again. Thalia even snickered while Nico at least tried to purse his lips so he wouldn’t smile so much.

“I never did show you how to do that, did I?” Chiron asked thoughtfully, frowning at himself.

“It’s fine.” Percy said, once he’d stopped laughing. “Probably better I don’t try, considering the crazy shit that happens when magic is around me or used on me. I’d somehow manage to break all the barriers to a few pantheons or something. I’ll let the Hecate cabin and Hazel do all that. Besides, Alex kind of proved that mortals always perceive magic weirdly. When they walk around randomly shape-shifting, it just gets them a lot of weird looks.”

“Alex was great.” Annabeth sighed. “Hope we get to see them again.”

“Though preferably when they aren’t getting ready for any sort of weird missions.” Percy agreed.

“Agreed.” Annabeth chuckled. 

“Who’s Alex?” Thalia asked curiously.

“Child of Loki.” Percy said absently, but pursed his lips and looked up with wide eyes before rushing on, “um. Not that I interfere in other pantheons. Nope. Not me. That would be, like, super bad. And breaking a lot of rules. I don’t break rules. That’s Annabeth.”

“Perseus,” Hades said in exasperation, “never change, nephew,” he chuckled, as he looked at Poseidon.

“That … actually was my fault.” Annabeth admitted sheepishly. “My cousin was a Norse demigod.”

“The only rules this dipshit ever breaks,” Nico said, ducking under Percy’s hand swiping toward his head, “are when he’s using his powers. Mostly because he doesn’t know the rules. But like, laws and mortal rules? He has a really hard time breaking those.”

“He gets super anxious about it.” Grover agreed.

“I don’t like getting in trouble.” Percy mumbled, crossing his arms.

“We know.” Annabeth chuckled. “It’s just one of those funny things about you, Seaweed Brain. Don’t worry about it.”

Percy blushed as the memory continued and he had to call his mother. 

“She’s not the only one who can’t stay angry.” Thalia teased, bumping his shoulder.

“I don’t like being angry.” Percy muttered. “Takes too much energy.”

“Speak for yourself.” Nico muttered, snickering when Percy reached over to try and pinch him.

When his younger self expanded the shield, Percy did the same thing. It was newer, with new designs, that the little kids were swarming over to look at. They were all careful not to step on Blackjack who was still laying on the ground mostly on top of Percy. 

Percy jolted as his memory self startled up from his dreams. He grumbled under his breath as he shoved Thalia as much as he could from where he was laying. When Chiron said the Fleece did its work too well, Thalia put on her best offended expression, making him roll his eyes fondly at her. Thalia reached back and zapped Percy lightly as he thought about how she’d caused his hand to tingle when he touched her head.

“Why was everyone just standing around?” Freddy asked, his head tilted curiously.

“Because this weirdo popped out of a tree.” Percy said, thumbing at Thalia. “Most of us didn’t know who she was. Only really Annabeth, Chiron, and Grover knew her and they were too stunned to do anything.”

“Good thing there was one Percy Jackson nearby. The whole thing freaked me out.” Thalia nodded. 

“You’re welcome.” Percy said cheerily, grinning when she rolled her eyes at him. 

She leaned back and wrapped an arm over his shoulders, though, when his younger self told her she was safe. 

“Mm. Safe.” She hummed, leaning her head on his. 

“Safe.” Percy agreed, leaning against her. 

“For now.” Nico said, attempting to sound menacing, making them snort.

“Right. Because next thing we know, there are two goths in the family, leaving out the poor golden child; letter jacket, star athlete, who has all the girls and gays fawning over him.” Thalia said dramatically.

“Oh shit.” Percy laughed delightedly. “We’re totally that family!”

“Every family needs a golden retriever type.” Nico snickered. 

“Eh, he’s more of a lab.” Thalia tilted her head a little, grinning at him.

“I can see that.” Nico nodded. “Shedding problem, everyone falls in love with him, always making weird friends.”

“Like you can talk.” Percy argued, trying to shove them away.

“Ahem.” Reyna interrupted, smirking at their sheepish expressions. “Sorry to intrude on a family bonding moment, but we are going to break for lunch if this line of events is over.”

“It is.” Chiron agreed, fighting a smile. “Lunch and we can start on the next set.”

“That means you gotta get off of me, dude.” Percy said, poking Blackjack’s forehead lightly.

“Yeah, alright.” Blackjack made a sound like a yawn as he got back up, shaking out his mane before taking off with Guido, heading straight for the Poseidon cabin, not the stables. 

“Hey!” Percy shouted after them, jumping to his feet. “What the fuck, guys! Stay out of my cookies!” He chased after them, the rest of the campers laughing behind him as the pegasi sped up.