Chapter Text
“Did you hear that Luke was dating a freshie?”
Percy’s ears rung. He had been hearing that damn rumor over and over again. He hadn’t seen much of Annabeth since the time in the elevator.
He barely managed to stop himself from kissing her, even though he still desperately wanted to. And that was still a mystery to him.
Yeah, Annabeth was pretty, but he didn’t have a crush on her. He had a crush on Rachel, who was nice to him. It made no sense as to why he still wanted to kiss her, why he laid awake last night imagining how it would’ve felt to kiss her again.
Her lips looked soft that day.
“Ugh!” He grumbled, slamming his head onto his desk, probably startling some other students. Last year was rough without any attention from Annabeth, but after her birthday was torture.
And to make it even worse, he hadn’t had a class with her yet. It was only the second period, though.
“Hey, Percy!”
Said boy looked up from his desk to see the redhead approaching him. He gave her a smile because he was friends with her. He didn’t want to be rude
“Hey Rachel, you already had art?” he tapped his cheek, giving her a goofy smile.
The girl touched her cheek with a smile, “oh no, I was working on a piece before school, also wanted to make a statement coming into high school.”
Percy nodded, sitting up as she sat down in the seat beside him. Science, his best subject, but this was physical science and he had heard some upperclassmen say it was a lot of math.
“Do you know if Annabeth is dating that upperclassmen?” she asked, leaning against the table as if she were bored.
Percy grumbled, setting his head down on the table again. Rachel wasn’t one to gossip, in fact, she hated gossiping. He didn’t know why she was asking about Annabeth. “No,” he responded coldly, “she was talking to a guy this summer though.”
“Well, Piper was saying something about double dates… I was kinda scared that you and her started dating,” Rachel squirmed beside him.
Right now, he wasn’t so opposed.
“Why is that?”
Rachel kept quiet, making him look at her.
“Oh.”
It took him a moment to realize what she was getting at. But he got there eventually. He felt a gentle blush place itself upon his cheeks. She turned her hand over on the table, opening for him to take. Percy stared at it, before moving his hand to grasp it.
He looked at her with a smile before catching a glimpse of blonde curls scurrying to the back. He turned, seeing Annabeth sit in the back corner, away from everyone and with her head down.
A wave of concern washed over him before he disregarded her, in favor of Rachel, his new girlfriend. Maybe that will get Annabeth out of his head.
Annabeth did not like all the attention. In fact, she hated it. She had no classes with Luke and no classes with Piper. And someone spread around the rumor that she and Luke were dating, even though she wanted to keep it a secret.
She immediately wanted to blame Percy, because why wouldn’t it be Percy. But they had a good summer… an awkward one, but it wasn’t a bad one. So that counted as a good summer. But there wasn’t anyone else that she could think of.
Annabeth had intended to confront Percy, maybe get him to help her find out who it was, but when she found him- Percy was preoccupied. And she didn’t know why seeing the two so happy made her feel sick.
She was at lunch now, waiting on Piper to find her. The library was full of the geeky kids, the lunchroom too busy… the only place she could think of was the toilet on the west wing.
She felt pathetic. She was in a relationship, but seeing Percy in one fucked with her so badly?
Hypocritical and pathetic.
“Annabeth?”
It was Calypso, who had almost every class with her so far.
“Is this about Percy? I know he's a prick sometimes… but he shouldn’t have been showing off his relationship like that when you're clearly still interested.”
Annabeth frowned, head popping up at her friend. “What? No. I’m not interested in Percy. That's gross.” It was an instinct to deny it, though she didn’t truly believe it.
“Oh.. so is the other rumor true? Is that why you're so down?”
It was the only plausible excuse she could think of. So she nodded. “We were supposed to be a secret until a little later in school, but someone spread the rumor.”
“Could it have been Percy?”
Annabeth shook her head, nearly immediately. Though she had her suspensions, she doesn’t think Percy would do that to her, especially after her birthday.
Calypso sat down beside her, humming. “Maybe it was one of Luke’s friends,” she offered, “not anyone that’s against you..”
“But someone still spread that rumor last year, that was about me,” she sighed, looking over to the girl. She was beautiful, no wonder why boys fawned over her. She was one of Percy’s friends- supposedly having a crush on him also.
They stayed silent for a moment, Annabeth leaning against the cold wall of the bathroom.
“How are you doing? Don’t you have a crush on him?” Annabeth asked after a moment, looking over to the girl that was curled up on herself.
“Heh, yeah. I’m fine though. I was never going to be his first choice,” Calypso smiled at her, though Annabeth could tell she didn’t mean it. “The question was if it was going to be Rachel… or you.”
Annabeth blushed, blinking at her. No, that couldn’t be right. Percy had told her before that he just cared for her, not… no.
I think I fucked it up.
She shook her head. She can’t think of what could’ve been with Percy when she's with Luke. Luke makes her happy.
“Yes,” Calypso assured, “he may have never said it, but he cares about you a lot. Grover said he asked Jason to keep you company at the Sadie Hawkins- and I heard he saved your life at the beach last summer.”
Annabeth had thought Piper or even Leo sent Jason to her so they could have some fun… but it was Percy?
“Point is Annabeth. Percy liked you, he was looking for you the entire year last year. He looked like a kicked puppy dog when you would ignore him,” Calypso wasn’t talking out of her ass here. It was like she was affected by Percy’s actions too. “I know you probably hate him, given how much you argue with him… but I don’t think he hates you. In fact, I think it's the opposite. I think he loves you but is probably trying to conceal those feelings by dating Rachel.”
Annabeth sort of felt guilty. She was doing the same thing, wasn’t she?
No! She didn’t love Percy, just her hormones are in wack from puberty and all. Even though she went through puberty three years ago. She enjoyed being with Luke, he made her smile, not fume with anger.
“To be honest, I was pulling for you.”
Percy held the door open for the people pouring into his complex building for shelter from the Manhattan thunderstorm.
He had been coming back to school with Annabeth when the rain hit. They both huddled underneath her blue umbrella before getting caught up in the rush of people getting to shelter. If there was one thing about Manhattan, the people stayed out of the rain.
Things have been more awkward between them since Percy started seeing Rachel. It was like both of them were avoiding each other, which sort of annoyed him.
He glanced over to the girl who had been holding the other door open for people. She was wet, her curls sticking to her forehead and her eyes closed as rain pelted her face.
It looked painful, and he grimaced.
Leo and Grover had teased him for being ‘jealous’ of Luke, but truthfully… he believed that he was. Even though he will deny it for eternity and likely never act on these feelings -especially since he’s dating Rachel. And in hindsight, he did feel bad for obsessing over another girl while he was with Rachel.
But that feeling of being outdone by Annabeth fueled his ruse.
Because Annabeth was beautiful, even in someone else’s jacket as she was being pummeled by the harsh weather.
They finally got inside, eventually, and made their way up to his apartment, where she went every day after school until her brother got home. Even though they were constantly around each other, he only recalls maybe one or two words from her.
Percy shook out his hair, making Annabeth slap him on his arm and call him a dog. It made him smile because she wasn’t being awkward. Then again, it was never awkward when they were alone.
“Go on and take a shower, I’ll lay out some clothes for you,” Percy said after laughing. He put his wet bookbag down at the foyer (next to hers) and started towards his room to go change. He only assumed that she went to the bathroom
He heard a quiet humph of Annabeth fiddled with the shower knob as he changed. He chuckled, hearing the soft complaints as Annabeth tried to turn on his shower. To say the least, his apartment needed some TLC.
He knocked once before entering, not processing that she was going to take a shower, so she might be naked.
Thank god she wasn’t, because he probably would’ve died.
She said her thanks before he left the room. Back against the door, he put a hand to his heart, willing it to calm down. He needed to suck it up. They were both dating other people.
But fuck was she so pretty. He wanted to die.
Annabeth sat in her bathing suit at the community pool on the first day of summer of their sophomore year while the boys played around in the water. It was hot in New York, so she understood why her friend group wanted to go to the pool. But why did they have to go with Percy and his friends?
She didn’t mind Leo or even Jason, and of course, she loved Grover. And even though she could handle Percy, she didn’t want to. She had barely been able to control herself around him throughout the year. Albeit, she controlled herself by avoiding him. But he still pushed her buttons when they were in class. And ooh did she want to strangle him.
Suddenly, her chair bowed and slurping decided to disturb her peace.
She resisted for a moment, clenching her teeth.
“How’s Luke?”
She resisted the groan she knew was about to tumble out of her mouth. Grover.
Grover, ever since they were kids, had always known how to break the resolve of Annabeth’s gates. He got her to open up, he got her to forgive Percy…. It was always him.
“He’s fine, why are you asking?” she responded simply, not even looking at the boy.
Grover hummed before slurping on something that wasn’t there. For a moment, Annabeth was wishing he’d choke on the air just so that they would have something else to talk about.
“Percy told me about your birthday last year.”
“Wow, almost a full year- what wonders that does to my heart, Grover,” she rolled her eyes, looking at her bikini to adjust it. Tan lines were the worst.
Grover sighed and finally looked at her. “No, he actually told me about it right after… but I didn’t want to bring it up to you, seeing as you were in a relationship.”
Annabeth looked at him, “I’m still in a relationship, thank you very much- but I wasn’t at the time. I didn’t cheat on Luke..”
“Is that what Luke calls it?”
Annabeth blinked. She… she was astonished that Grover’s people reading skills had evolved so much. “h-How?”
“I overheard him talking about it to Ethan at the skate park. In fact, all of us boys did- we’ve all agreed that we don’t like him and Percy is an idiot for his gut feeling,” Grover sighed, leaning back against her legs, “I, for one, thought he was jealous, but I suppose his idiocy had some reason to it this time.”
“What… what was Luke saying?”
Grover looked over at her with a sad smile, confirming her worst thoughts.
Was he really upset with her because she wouldn’t sleep with him? What the fuck was that about. Why did she always get smacked in the face? Why was it only her?
“Annabeth- you know I play peacemaker… but he's a dick and you deserve so much better than him.”