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When Percy had suggested that they travel out to San Francisco with Annabeth to visit her dad, her stepmom, and her half-brothers, he had expected for Annabeth to be the nervous one and he would be the cool, and collected one. Jump to a month later, just past mid-December, when they’d been about a day and a half into the nearly three days worth of bus rides from New York City to San Francisco, since Zeus still wouldn’t let Percy go on plane rides, then Percy was feeling absolutely terrified. Well, maybe not terrified, but he was far from calm, cool, and collected.
“Percy,” And of course, as soon as those nerves hit him, Annabeth noticed, “are you okay?”
Annabeth’s fingers had drifted onto his hand, easily interlocking with his own, concern coating her features as her steely eyes looked into his. “Oh, uh, yeah, totally, perfectly fine.” Percy tried at first, but as soon as she shot him a look of disbelief he caved, “Okay well, I’m kind of, the tiniest bit, um, nervous about this.”
“What are you nervous about?” Annabeth asked him, her thumb rubbing against the back of his hand as she gazed at him, “This whole thing was your idea, Seaweed Brain.”
He knew that, even if their lives were far from what ‘normal’ mortals dealt with on a typical basis, Percy had known that spending every other holiday with the in-laws, or currently future in-laws, was a typical mortal thing that they could do. Which was why he had suggested that they go visit her family for a few days for Christmas, even if they weren’t going to actually be in San Francisco for the holiday itself. But now he was hating that he’d ever suggested the idea in the first place.
“I know this whole thing was my idea, Wise Girl.” Percy instead replied back, “And normally you don’t just agree to my ideas like that.” Was he trying to distract her from the question she’d asked him, and to some extent somewhat pretend that he wasn’t feeling nervous at all about formally meeting her dad, stepmother, and half-brothers? Perhaps.
Did it work in the slightest? Not at all. “You’re not answering my question, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth first said, giving him a soft smile as she continued, “And, I don’t disagree with all of your plans, just the bad ones.” Before Percy was able to voice his reply that she seemed to disagree with ‘nearly all’ of his plans, Annabeth repeated her question, “Now, are you going to tell me what’s making you so nervous, or am I going to have to lure that answer out of you?”
Before Percy started to actually answer Annabeth’s question, he couldn’t help but ask, “Did you just make a pun?” Which did earn him another grin from Annabeth, but it was only short lived before she was nudging him to actually answer her. “Okay, I just, I guess I just really want this to go over well, and for them to like me, and uh, and approve of our relationship.”
“And that’s why you’re nervous?” Annabeth clarified, to which Percy gave her a short nod, half expecting her to simply laugh at him and call his worries ridiculous, to begin with. But, she was Annabeth, and she wouldn’t do that now when it wasn’t going to help either of them. “Okay, first of all, you have already met them, years ago, so it’s not like this is the very first time you’ll be talking with them.” That was true, Percy had briefly met her stepmother and her half-brothers very briefly several Decembers ago, and had a bit more interaction with her dad beyond that before going back to Olympus with Artemis. “Second of all, if they don’t like you, that’s on them and they’re all idiots whose opinions don’t matter, especially not to me.” Even if Percy knew that just because Annabeth liked him, a lot might he add, that it didn’t necessarily mean that most other people would tolerate him being around. Hades, her mother, Athena, hated him for a long time just because he was friends with her and harbored feelings for her. But it still did wonders for his confidence whenever Annabeth was so straight forward about how she felt and thought about him. “Third and finally, Seaweed Brain, I have not needed or wanted any of their approval for a while and if either of them feels like they get to dictate whether or not we’re meant to be together, or whatever else they want to believe that are entitled to, then they can take it up with Aphrodite herself.”
The last fragment of her sentence alone was a pleasant reminder to Percy as to just how far they both had come over the past eight years.
Back when they had been stupid, emotionally-blinded twelve years olds that could barely stand being around each other back during his first summer at Camp Half-Blood, while he said every God and Goddess’s names he knew without a second thought, Annabeth was still a bit fearful to accidentally upset any of the deities that may have disliked her because of her mother, or because of him, or Thalia, or Luke, for any reason. But now, about seven or eight quests and so wars later, honestly Percy had lost track ages ago, while she tended to only curse Hera’s name, it was still pleasantly surprising when Annabeth would specifically name the other Goddesses and Gods without negative connotations attached to them.
It wasn’t until Annabeth all too quickly kissed his lips that Percy was drawn out of his thoughts, feeling a million times better about meeting her dad, half-brothers, and stepmother again already. But all he did once he was a bit more present back with Annabeth in their seat towards the back of the bus, this one with several emergency exits in case they got another visit from certain aids of Hades’ on this bus ride, as soon as Percy was out of his thoughts, already missing the feeling of Annabeth’s lips on his, he quickly decided to rectify that. Over, and over, and over again.