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Percy knew how to drive well enough before he left for Camp on his mission with Beckendorf. He didn’t have his license yet, but he could probably pass if he had the attention span to sit through the classes that were required with it.
Annabeth did not know this. He’d kept most of his early summer adventures private from her--really all of his adventures from the year after the Labyrinth, because he knew she would only get mad and storm off.
He hated not talking to her during that time, because usually when they couldn’t fall asleep on quests they would just talk about how terrible their school year was. He loved complaining about his teachers and hearing Annabeth cuss them out even though she never met them.
But once they started dating, her lack of knowledge on how he spent most of his sophomore year came in handy quite a bit.
Annabeth asking if Percy wanted her to teach him how to drive was one of the many times.
“Sure,” he’d agreed with an easy smile, and her face lit up. They’d spent most of their remaining summer laying around the camp, and they totally needed that break, but two kids with ADHD needed some excitement once in a while no matter how many monsters they fought that year.
So Chiron agreed for them to use one of the Camp Half-Blood strawberry vans, and on a Thursday afternoon Percy hopped into the driver’s seat while Annabeth adjusted the mirrors for him.
He usually forgot to do that, anyway. Pretending he didn’t know how to drive might actually work out better than trying to practice by himself around Long Island.
“Okay, you turn the key to start the car,” Annabeth said as she climbed in, gesturing toward the wheel with the slot next to it. Percy pushed the key on, and the car spurted alive.
He almost pushed it into drive, but then he remembered he was supposed to be adorably dumb about everything related to driving. He hoped Annabeth thought his leg was bouncing up and down from anxiety, not impatience.
“Okay, you pull this to put it into drive,” Annabeth said, leaning over so her hair fell into Percy’s face. He immediately smiled, kissing the top of her head quickly. Her eyes met his, glinting in the summer sunlight, but she still moved back into her seat as the car began to inch forward.
“The smaller pedal is the gas, which makes it go faster. The larger one is the brake. You only use your right foot to drive, and if your foot isn’t on the gas you should keep it hovering above the brake.”
Percy remembered when his mom had first allowed him int eh drvier’s seat (and the horrified screaming that insued) and smirked. He pressed his foot hard onto the gas so the car lurched forward, then slammed on the brake.
Annabeth’s head bounced against the top of the seat, and her face scrunched the way it did when she was holding in a curse. “Okay,” she said, smoothing the top of her hair with one hand. “Slower. Like, really slow. And really light. Pretend you’re tiptoing.”
Percy pressed the tip of his shoe against the gas so it inched forward. He watched Annabeth face from the corner of his eye, waiting for the annoyance to come up or for her to explode at him.
Her face stayed straight, staring out the windshield. Ever since they started dating, she stopped being as aggravated with him, or at least as easily annoyed. He was starting to think most of her annoyance with him was him taking four years to kiss her, but the more he kissed her now, the less mad she was about it.
He was a bit tempted to kiss her now. She looked so comfortable in the car. It felt like they were normal high schoolers going to get ice cream, except for their bright orange camp shirts with a pegasus on it and the matching gray streaks in the hair.
Percy smiled as her expression got a bit tense, waiting for her to just press the gas full throttle herself, but then she said, “Stop.”
“What?” Percy turned forward and say he was about the crash into a pole. “Shit!”
“Brake! Brake!” Annabeth screamed, and his foot smashed against the pedal. The car surged back, along with their bodies, and Annabeth’s chest rose up and down quickly as she regained her breath.
They sat in silence for a second, but then Annabeth let out a shaky laugh. Percy turned to her and watched as her head fell into her lap and took one of her curls into his finger and twirling it.
“What’s so funny? Argus would have killed us if we crashed this.”
“I was just thinking about how many times we’ve fought something with fangs or claws, or five hundred pounds of muscle, and how dumb it would be if we died because you crashed a Camp van.”
Percy smiled as Annabeth shook her head and then leaned it against his shoulder. “Gods, Percy. I dunno what I’m going to do with you.”
“You’re going to teach me how to drive a lot better than this,” he said.
“Hmm, maybe. I think we can both agree you’re better at Pegasus flying.”
The mention of driving and Pegasi made the memory of the implant of Blackjack’s hoof on Paul’s Prius surface, and he looked down. “Yeah. But I like driving a lot already. It must be because of my teacher.”
Annabeth picked her head from his shoulder and pushed him lightly. “You’re such a dork.”
“Yeah, but you looooove me for it.”
“Not true.” Her face became bright red, and he laughed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Shut up! You’re so annoying.”
“You always said that, but it turns out you had a crush on me this whole time, so…”
“Let’s just go,” Annabeth muttered. She had turned her head away, but Percy could see through her side mirror the small smile she was struggling to keep from reaching her flushed cheeks.
He smirked, set the car into drive, and did a perfect U-turn. He didn’t even realize his mistake until Annabeth head spun right back towards him, her face still red but the humor gone from her expression.
“What the hell?”
Percy’s eyes went wide and he tried to steady his hands against the wheel. “Uh…”
Annabeth’s eyes were burning into his skin, but he wouldn’t look at them. He was pretty sure they could turn him into stone as fast as Medusa’s.
“Um, yeah,” he said. “My mom kind of started teaching me in the spring.”
“So then why’d you play dumb?”
He shrugged, still not looking her in the eyes. He signaled a left turn back into the parking lot, and he felt Annabeth’s gaze flicker in the direction of his hands and then back to his face.
“It just sounded fun. I know you’re favorite thing in the world is thinking you’re smarter than me, thought it’d be funny not being totally in the dark for once.”
Annabeth sighed. “Well, for one, I am smarter than you, I don’t just think it.”
“Oh yeah?” He finally looked at her, and they were both smiling. Annabeth’s eyes were crinkling, about to explode into laughter.
“Yeah. You revealed yourself after ten minutes. I could have lasted at least a month faking it.”
“No way. I would have annoyed you so much you sped the car onto the highway until I almost broke through the windshield.”
Annabeth laughed as he parked the car with ease and unclicked his seatbelt. “I would want to see Grover in that car. He’d end up eating all the seats from the stress.”
Percy agreed and they climbed out of the car together. Chiron was waiting, checking the van quickly for scratches.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “Very well done for your first time. It’s rather hard to drive with hooves, it took me a year to be fully comfortable in traffic.”
“Yeah, Percy’s just a natural,” Annabeth said, walking away while rolling her eyes. “A real god of driving.”
Percy waved to Chiron and jogged after Annabeth, grabbing her hand. She squeezed it automatically, a habit they’d picked up. Every time his heart did a bit of a flip.
“You’re not mad right?” he asked, squeezing back.
“No. But I’ll think of some payback,” Annabeth replied, kissing him on the cheek and running toward the Athena cabin, no doubt to plot just that.
He almost ran after her, but then Chiron yelled, “Percy, can you help load some strawberries?” and he turned back around, knowing he would have to check every inch of his cabin for traps that night.
He definitely didn’t mind.