Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Generally, Percy Jackson didn’t expect to go to Camp Half-Blood until summer. And generally, he preferred that. That meant there weren’t any crazy monsters, titans, giants, or gods trying to kill him just yet.

But if he was being honest, he would have preferred that to be the reason he was returning to Camp in the middle of March. The reason he, along with all the other demigods, were returning to Camp was because some nosoi had gotten loose and unleashed a virus on the entire world.

“Heroes,” Chiron said from the front of the dining pavilion where Percy and the other demigods were gathered. “Now you must take on a great task. Not infecting the rest of the world.”

Chiron explained how something to do with their godly parents made them immune to this new coronavirus that was currently plaguing the mortals. But that same whatever that made them immune also made them about ten times more likely to be able to pass it on to the mortals that weren’t immune. Not to mention the small detail that now classes were being moved to online and demigods using the internet tended to draw unnecessary monster attention. Percy did not want to find out what the mortals might see attacking a demigod on a Zoom call. Worst case, the mortals might assume their classmate decided to take a Zoom class during their Mafia meeting. Which couldn’t end well for anyone.

“In the spirit of being together though, while you are here, you will be resuming your classes alongside the rest of your classmates virtually,” Chiron beamed.

Virtually? Nico di Angelo mouthed to Percy in confusion.

“The Hephaestus cabin will be taking this week to handcraft special laptops for your use,” Chiron continued. “And the Hecate cabin will be updating the borders to filter out our… extreme increase in internet usage. Classes resume next week, so you should all prepare for that!”

Nico raised a hand. “For those of us who come from a completely different century… What does it mean virtually?”

“For those of us who don’t know how to use technology out of our own self preservation,” Connor Stoll said. “How do you use a laptop?”

Chiron quickly looked at the Athena table. “The Athena cabin will be receiving their laptops first and will be conducting a series of lessons for those of you who need it.”

Annabeth Chase looked startled. She, Percy knew, at least knew how to use a flip phone since she owned one, but he was pretty sure Annabeth and the rest of the Athena kids had no other experience with technology since it would send up a pretty strong monster beacon.

“We’re on it, Chiron,” Malcolm Pace agreed.

Percy could have sworn he saw Malcolm start to pass out Internet for Dummies to the rest of the Athena cabin which left him with many questions. One, where did those books come from? Two, how desperate were they if they were willing to read a for Dummies book? And three, how horribly would his go?

He had no idea what he was in for.

Chapter Text

The first monday of online learning rolled around. Surprisingly, all the demigods were up on time and at the dining pavilion eating breakfast.

“Nico and I are coming to your cabin,” Jason informed Percy while they ate.

Nico nodded seriously. “I have no idea how to use a computer.”

“And you think I do?” Percy asked incredulously.

“First of all, you were actually alive when these fancy laptops came out,” Nico said. “Second, you weren’t raised by wolves like this one.” He jerked his head at Jason. “So out of the three of us, you’re the most qualified.”

“There were computers when you were born,” Percy frowned.

Nico’s eyes widened. “Yeah, if you mean a computer the size of my cabin.” He poked at the slim black laptop he brought with him. “I don’t understand how you fit all that into this tiny thing. Plus the knives,” he added.

Jason jerked back. “What?”

“Leo asked if I wanted knives installed in mine,” Nico said. “I told him yes.”

Percy and Jason blinked at him.

“Kayla got arrows in hers,” Nico said defensively. “I’m not the only one. Meg’s shoots high velocity seeds at unsuspecting victims.”

Jason frowned at his laptop. “Mine can fly.”

“Mine has water,” Percy announced proudly.

“But laptops run on electricity,” Jason pointed out. “Water and electricity don’t mix.”

“Oh,” Percy frowned. “I guess that’s why it wouldn’t turn on yesterday.”

“Oh my gods, we’re doomed,” Nico sighed.

Luckily, Percy and Jason were in the same classes, so Percy decided he would just sit with Jason. They spent twenty minutes trying to set everything up for Nico, then another ten trying to set up their own class.

Faces appeared on the screen.

“Someone isn’t socially distancing,” a girl, Lucy, teased.

“We’re cousins,” Percy said lamely. “We… live together.”

“PERCY! JASON!” Nico yelled.

Jason jumped so much he flipped the laptop. It hit the floor with a loud THUD which concerned Percy a lot more than he was willing to admit. He was pretty sure the laptop should have cracked a little, but it didn’t. He didn’t think he wanted to know what the Hephaestus kids did to make it bulletproof. Or how they knew.

“I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING ON THIS DAMN DEVIL MACHINE!” Nico screamed.

Percy carefully picked up Jason’s laptop to see their classmates blinking at him through the screen. “That’s Nico,” he said by way of explanation. “Our… other cousin.”

“Computer troubles?” a boy, Justin, asked.

Percy looked up to see Jason trying to stop Nico from poking the laptop with his Stygian ice sword. “You could say that.”

On par with Percy’s usual luck, Nico let out a string of violent curses just as Percy and Jason’s teacher joined the meeting. She didn’t look very impressed.

“Who was that?” she demanded.

Percy gave her his best sheepish look which he had pretty much perfected over the course of his life. “My cousin. He’s having trouble with his laptop. Jason’s trying to help him.”

“Mr. Jackson, please mute yourself,” she sighed.

Percy nodded. “Yep, sure thing.” He squinted at the laptop. There was a button with a speaker and a minus sign, so Percy pressed that until it showed the volume at zero. Apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to do because his teacher and classmates started mouthing and waving at him. He frowned. “Why aren’t you talking?” he wondered.

Nico was still cursing.

“Nico, shut up!” Percy yelled. “You’re going to get me expelled and I haven’t even blown up the school this time.”

Jason managed to sort out whatever problem Nico had, and he returned to Percy’s side. He pressed the button with the speaker and the plus sign and gave Percy a look. “You turned down our volume. Everyone else could still hear us, but you couldn’t hear them.”

“Oh.” Percy was suddenly aware that despite the volume being fixed, his classmates and teacher were silent. He winced, thinking over what he said. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance you didn’t hear the part about getting expelled?”

“Mr. Jackson,” his teacher began.

“You can just Google my name,” Percy said, defeated. “I have a record of attracting the attention of people who liked doing property damage. It’s never my fault, I swear.”

Jason cleared his throat. “So. Molecules. I love learning about molecules.”

Annabeth was proud of her cabin. So far, they’d managed to get through one hour of school without a single incident. Although she’d loathed doing it, the books Malcolm passed out to read, Internet for Dummies, was actually very helpful.

Of course, now that she’d thought all this, she was preparing for disaster to strike.

And strike it did.

It was almost near the end of the second hour of school when Sophia let out a particularly loud screech. Normally, Annabeth wouldn’t have reacted. She’d trained for years not to freak out at a sudden loud noise—screeches included. But this was Sophia, a usually calm, level headed Athena kid. Something had to be seriously wrong for her to screech like that.

“SPIDER!” Sophia yelled, halfway to the door.

Annabeth froze. As did the rest of her siblings. They turned in slow motion to see the tiny black dot crawling across Sophia’s screen.

I fought Arachne, Annabeth chanted. I fought the mother of spiders. I battled my way through Tartarus. I fought Titans and Giants. I am not afraid of a spider.

Unfortunately, the rest of her cabin didn’t have the same mindset. They let out a chorus of shrieks and screeches that left Annabeth’s ears ringing as they fled the cabin. And then she was alone. Alone with the tiny, tiny spider on Sophia’s laptop.

“Ms. Chase?” her teacher asked. “Is everything okay?”

Annabeth’s eyes were locked on the spider. She slowly stood up from her chair and drew her drakon bone sword.

“Ms. Chase?” Her teacher sounded more uncertain. Annabeth didn’t know what he was seeing, but it clearly had him worried.

Annabeth let out a battle cry and swung her sword at Sophia’s computer. She kept screaming and swinging for a minute before stopping to check if the spider was dead.

A small black speck moved.

“SPIDER!” Annabeth screamed, turning and fleeing the cabin.

During the break between the first and second hour, the Apollo cabin was interrupted by a quiet knock. Austin opened the door to reveal a sullen looking Nico.

“Percy and Jason kicked me out,” Nico informed them. “Apparently I’m disruptive and a bad influence.” He frowned. “Their teacher yelled at me. She doesn’t even know me.”

Kayla gave him an apprehensive look. “And you came here because?”

Nico’s face turned red. “I still don’t understand laptops,” he muttered. “And I don’t want to listen to Annabeth or Malcolm try to lecture me.”

“I forgot Will was dating Edward Cullen,” Austin said.

Nico blinked. “Edward who?”

“Edward Cullen,” Austin said. At Nico’s blank look he continued, “He’s a character from a book that got turned into a vampire in the early 1900s.”

“1918,” Kayla supplied.

“I’m not a vampire,” Nico scowled. “No matter how much the coffin beds suggest so.”

“You should really redecorate,” Will told him. He pulled out a chair next to him. “Come on, Death Boy.”

“I would redecorate,” Nico muttered, making his way to the chair. “But all the stores are closed now and we have to quarantine so we don’t get other people sick.”

Will, it turned out, was much better than Jason or Percy with technology. This was due to his college level doctor classes he took from Camp. Classes he was currently attending, Nico found out. Will managed to help Nico set up his Zoom class and even managed to explain it so Nico understood a little better.

Once Will was satisfied that he had set Nico’s class up right, he opened his laptop and entered the Zoom meeting. As a general rule, Will did not use the camera feature in order to avoid awkward explanations about why a fifteen year old boy was learning about medicine and surgery and other doctor things. Especially since he’d started when he was thirteen. The excuse that his laptop didn’t have a camera worked like a charm every time.

Will settled into the monotony of his class. Most of this he knew instinctively due to his father being Apollo, but there was the rare occasion where they went over something his father’s gifts couldn’t tell him. Today was not one of those days. Will didn’t need to know how to determine if someone’s leg was broken. He just knew. Sometimes by looking, but a brush against the person would confirm it.

So zoned out Will was, that he didn’t notice Nico poking him. This seemed to annoy the son of Hades because the next thing Will knew, he was being clonked in the head with a bone. A femur if his medical classes were to be trusted.

“OW!” Will yelped. He stared at Nico. “Did you just throw a femur at me?”

Nico gave him an innocent look. “I have a question,” he announced. “How do I turn on my speaking thing?”

Will crossed his arms. “Microphone.”

“Whatever. How do I turn it on? They keep asking me to respond, but they can’t hear me.”

Will sighed. “Fine.” He trudged over and dragged the mouse to unmute Nico. “There. Stop throwing—” he cut off with a look at Nico’s now unmuted laptop. “Stop throwing things at me.”

Nico gave him a rare smile that was reserved only for Will or when Percy and Jason did something that got them both in trouble or minorly injured. “Thank you.”

Naturally, Nico didn’t stop. And naturally, Kayla and Austin were enjoying it. So was the rest of the Apollo cabin for that matter. Nico would summon a random bone and toss it at someone who would catch it and try to hit someone else with it. Suffice to say, Will—with his camera off and everybody knowing it—was pelted the most.

Finally, Will was hit with a rather solid radius bone. He slammed his hands down on the keyboard. “That’s it! Stop throwing BONES AT ME!”

The cabin was silent except for Nico’s explanation to his class because apparently his microphone was still on. “Sorry. That’s my boyfriend. His siblings were throwing bones at him. Like those fake ones. Leftover Halloween decorations.”

“Don’t act like you weren’t the ones who gave them the ammunition, Nico!” Will shouted.

Nico turned to Will with a straight face and said, “Unless you’re implying that I have some supernatural power over bones, William, explain how none of my tiny square classmates saw me tossing bones around. Did you see me tossing bones around?” he asked his classmates. A chorus of no’s echoed.

Will inhaled deeply. “Whatever. Just go back to school. And no more bones! From anyone.” He looked back at his laptop and—

“Who are you?” one of the girls in his class, Sarah, asked.

Will plastered a smile to his face. “Will Solace.” The fact that he was about five years younger than everyone was not lost on him.

“Aren’t you a little young to be taking Human Physiology?” someone else asked. “You’re, like, fifteen.”

“I… moisturize,” Will said. “And the lighting and… aesthetic. It takes… five years off your appearance.” His face burned.

A handful of finger bones bounced off his head.

“Are those bones?” the professor asked.

Will’s eyes widened. “No. Gotta go. Bye.” He shut off his audio and video before anyone could question him further.

Annabeth burst into the Apollo cabin. Her eyes landed on Nico. “Oh thank the gods!” she yelled. “Nico, we need you to kill a spider. It’s an emergency.”

Nico jumped up and followed Annabeth out of the cabin. Will forwent his class who was now trying to get him to turn his camera back on and sat in front of Nico’s laptop.

“Where’s Mr. di Angelo?” the teacher asked.

“He had to go kill a spider,” Will explained. “The Ath— Our— My… my cousins are all deathly afraid.”

The teacher frowned. “Just how many people are you living with?”

Will did the math and blurted out an answer before he could think better of it. “Like 300 or so?”

“300?” the teacher yelped.

“We live in this really big manor,” Will said quickly. “All our parents are friends and so they each have wings for their kids…”

The teacher didn’t look like she wanted to know more, but Nico’s classmates definitely did.

“How many parents are there?” one girl asked.

The technical answer would be 318 since there were eighteen gods that had kids with 300 random mortals, but Will had a feeling that was not an acceptable answer.

“Like… 20,” he said. “20 couples.”

Luckily, by the time Nico got back, the teacher had managed to get the class under control.

Will sighed. The demigods might not have to worry about getting coronavirus, but he feared that they might not survive this online learning. So many problems and it was only the first day. The first hours of the first day. He really hoped this didn’t last longer than a few months.

Chapter Text

For the most part, the year round campers were all enrolled at Goode. Paul Blofis had graciously taken up arguing reasons that an extra thirty some students be enrolled in the school because he was arguably one of the best mortal parents. However, both Percy and Rachel (who had returned to Goode due to her finishing school not having online classes) were already enrolled there, and Annabeth and Jason had been planning on enrolling anyway. And if there were any technical problems, it would fall on Leo to fix them. All. And that meant that there was a very high chance there would be teachers seeing a random tiny Latino fixing things.

And of course demigods were not gifted with technology.

Because they never used it.

On fear of death.

The first problem was Malcolm’s screen froze.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown it when you saw a spider,” Leo suggested. He poked at Sophia’s utterly destroyed laptop sadly. “What happened to this one?”

“Annabeth,” Nico informed him. He looked oddly pleased with himself for some reason. Leo figured it had something to do with the sealed chasms that now littered the Athena cabin floor.

“Just fix Malcolm’s screen,” Annabeth said. “Nyssa’s bringing Sophia a new laptop and I’m trying to work on a new cabin design because someone decided to open a pit to hell in the middle of the cabin.”

“You said to send that eight legged bastard to hell!” Nico protested. “What did you want me to do? Capture it and set it free only for it to wander back in here?”

“I will not have anyone saying… using the b word in my class!” an astonished voice said. Leo looked down at Malcolm’s screen. It had unfrozen, revealing that his laptop was not muted and it was streaming live footage of Leo.

“Bitch?” Nico asked curiously.

The teacher’s face turned red. He glared at Leo. “Just what is going on, Mr. Pace?”

“Uh, tech support,” Leo said. “Malcolm’s over here.” He handed the laptop over to a frowning Malcolm.

“My apologies, Professor Goodwell,” Malcolm said, giving Leo and Nico pointed glares.

“Wait, wait, who’s the tech hottie?” one of his classmate’s voice called.

Leo grinned and popped back on screen over Malcolm’s shoulder. “I’m the Bad Boy Supreme. The McShizzle. Leo Valdez.”

Nico pushed him off screen. “You’ve got a girlfriend, dumbass.”

The professor let out a squawk in protest.

“Out,” Annabeth ordered Nico and Leo, pointing at the door.

“Spider!” Leo screamed.

“KILL IT!” Malcolm shouted.

Nico made choking laughter noises that were kind of concerning to Leo. He made a mental note to ask Will Solace if that was normal.

“Kidding! See you later,” Leo said. “Call me if you need a tech hottie!” he hollered as he followed the still choking Nico out of the cabin.

Rachel of course had trouble getting a signal in her cave. Leo dragged Calypso out there to see if she could work her singing magic and boost the signal or something.

Yeah, he was super technical like that.

“It’s not going to work,” Calypso said.

Leo waved her off. “No, I think it could.”

“Leo Valdez—”

“Calypso something,” Leo interrupted.

Calypso crossed her arms. “It will not work if I cannot enchant something to receive the signal.”

“So I probably should have started with a router outside her cave.”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, there happened to be a router sitting in Bunker Nine, so once Leo got that rigged up, Calypso sang her enchantment. Calypso had a really nice voice, Leo thought.

“Ah, Miss Dare?” a puzzled voice said.

Rachel snatched her laptop away from Leo. “Yeah, I’m here!” she said.

“Oooo, was that your boyfriend?” a teasing voice asked.

“What are you talking about?” a very familiar voice said. Percy Jackson’s face was among the class on the screen. “Rachel can’t have a boyfriend.”

“I’m single if you want a girlfriend, Rachel!” someone said.

“But, she’s like a nun or something,” Percy’s voice said in confusion.

Rachel facepalmed hard. “Yeah. Or something.”

“Oh my gods, can you imagine Rachel as a nun?” Leo laughed.

“Leo?” Percy said.

“Hey, Percy!” Leo waved.

Rachel pushed him away. “Can you both not? And, ugh, I’m not a nun. They do more dating with their lord and savior than I ever hope to do with mine.” She shuddered. “Ugh, gods, that’s literally Will’s dad. Lester. Gross.”

“I have so many questions about your career path, Rachel,” someone said.

“Me too,” Rachel said.

“Well, goodbye from your friendly neighborhood tech hottie,” Leo said.

“Bye, Leo!” Percy said cheerfully.

As Leo fixed more and more tech issues, the Goode students came to recognize Leo and say hi when he was done fixing someone’s laptop. However, he had fixed a good number of laptops that day. Some, he had even fixed multiple times.

“Have you seen this?” Nico asked Will gleefully at dinner.

Will, still in a sour mood from the earlier escapades with bones, just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“So dramatic,” Nico said.

“Dramatic?” Will protested. “You’re calling me dramatic?”

“Being confined is not a good strain to put on a budding relationship,” Kayla said solemnly.

Nico and Will glared at her. “We aren’t having problems,” they shouted.

“Leo’s a local legend now,” Nico said quickly. He had his laptop open to r/goodetechhottie.

“Oh my gods, Leo’s on reddit,” Will said.

There were posts about “Tech Hottie Sightings” and posts about outrageous claims of the tech hottie fixing their laptop. It totalled about two hundred posts and it was only the first day of online learning.

Wait a minute.

Will narrowed his eyes and peered at Nico’s screen closer. “Nico, are you signed in to Reddit? Did you make a post about the Goode Tech Hottie?”

Nico shrugged. “I was bored.”

“What about the doctor hottie that let you do your zoom classes in his cabin because the air and water not-hotties were annoying?” Will protested.

“I know for a fact you had a crush on Percy Jackson,” Nico said.

Will sputtered. “I did not!”

“No one remembers the time they sat behind a guy on a motorcycle and rode through the silent streets of Manhattan and clung tight to said guy if they don’t have a crush on that guy,” Nico said.

“You definitely had a thing for Percy,” Kayla said.

“I think you might have a type,” Austin said. “Dark hair. Powerful. Badass.”

Will flushed bright red. “Can we talk about Leo becoming a local legend instead of this?”

“I can’t wait to see how this goes,” Nico said. “I’m going to make more sightings tomorrow.”

“I AM IMMORTAL!” Leo yelled, standing on the Hephaestus table triumphantly. Evidently he had heard of his legend status.

“The thing is,” Kayla said, “that might actually be true.”

“The Triumvirate had, like, millions of people believing in them,” Will said. “Leo has a couple hundred.”

They stared at Leo.

“Perhaps I made a mistake,” Nico allowed.