Work Text:
Percy was confused. His mind was a jumbled mess (and not from his adhd this time). He had recently taken the gorgons healing potion, but the memory’s still weren’t all back. This was very inconvenient and led to many unfortunate situations. For example, he would be in the middle of a battle, then just suddenly collapse and have a traumatic flashback of the time he thought his brother Tyson had died.
Really not the best thing to have happened to you when you're on a time sensitive quest to try and free death. -He’s pretty sure he’s done weirder-
But that was the problem, Percy didn't know if he had done weirder things or not. He just kept getting the feeling that he’d done something, but had no memory to back it up.
Right now the Son of Neptune -still not completely sure that’s correct- was riding on the back of Arion with his companions Hazel, and Frank -their so obviously into each other it was painful to watch. Was this how Grover felt? Wait, WHOS GROVER?????- It was thoughts like these that kept his mind spiraling as they rode across America at what had to be 2 million mph.
Then, they came to a sudden stop.
“What’s wrong, why’d we stop?” Frank asks while slowly getting off the speed demon that Hazel liked to call a horse.
“Arion’s tired, and I wanted to cross something off my bucket list.”
“Wouldn’t it be like a kicked bucket list, cause you know.” Percy said while miming a finger going across his neck.
Hazel glared at him.
Frank looks over at her, “Hazel, why was Hoover Dam on your bucket list?”
“Wait, we're at Hoover dam.” Percy looks around, and a sense of familiarity washes over him. He knew he had been here before. Flashes of faces that he can’t quite name flood through his head. He remembers a girl with short choppy black hair and a somewhat rude attitude, a faun -no- a satyr with curly brown hair and some kind of connection to him. And there was someone else who he could seem to think of as clearly, all he can think of is a silver coat and a hatred for Hercules.
Unaware of Percy’s inner turmoil, Frank and Hazel were in the middle of a conversation “I’m kinda hungry, want me to get you to anything from the Dam Snackbar?”
That simple sentence seemed to trigger something in Percy, all at once his memory’s came crashing back into his brain, and he doubled over laughing. What Frank had said made him remember the name of his best friend, Grover, and remembering Grover made him think of all the time they had spent together and what they had done.
His laughing continued eventually to the point of making the other two Demigods uncomfortable. “Oh yah dam, that’s kinda funny- I guess??” Frank says in an attempt to lighten the mood -at this point his laughter had turned into tears.
The mortals around him had started to stare, so Hazel and Frank had dragged him behind a tree near the adhd of the dam with less people around. “Percy please, calm down your safe- just take a deep breath” He heard a worried Hazel say. He did what she said and took a big deep breath.
“Was it something from your past- did you remember something?” Frank said having grown accustomed to his random flashbacks.
“I was on a quest here a couple years ago, and it didn’t end well.” Percy half heartedly responded after around 30 seconds of trying to calm down.
“Like you failed the mission, or someone died?”
He looks away, and after a long pause he finally answers.
“Someone died,” Percy finally says out loud. All the events from the quest start rushing back to him. He was on because he had to find Annabeth- but wait, that wasn’t actually the point of the quest. He had to rescue some goddess… Artemis yah it was her. Hang on, wasn't she Greek? Does that mean- ohh yeah that makes a lot of sense.
While all of this is going through Percy’s head Hazel and Frank are staring at him with a mixture of confusion and concern on their faces.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Hazel asked, “We still got like an hour left till we have to get going again.”
“And to be completely honest with you man we both are kind of excited to know who you actually are.” Frank adds.
Percy sits in silence for a little while trying to think of we’re to start and how to explain it. Sometime during all the laugh/crying most of his important memories had come back. “I- I’m the child of the prophecy.” He says. For him it was a big revelation, figuring out what he had been spending most of his teen years on, but Hazel and Frank just sat there with growing confusion. They shared a look that seemed to be questioning Percy’s sanity.
“I can explain!” He quickly adds, taking yet another big deep breath. “Starting from the beginning, I’m not the son of Neptune-“ He’s quickly cut off by Frank. “How! We literally saw you blow up water cannons and lift gorgons off the ground with a lake!”
“You didn’t let me finish. I’m not the son of Neptune- I’m the son of Poseidon.”
_______________________________________
Hazel blinked a couple times. She had not been expecting that. “So all the Lars that were whispering about you being Greek were right?”
Percy looks back at her with a slightly guilty look on his face “Yeah pretty much”
The daughter of Pluto takes a moment to process this. Weren’t Greeks supposed to be their enemies? But Percy really didn’t seem all that bad, he had been nice to her and Frank from the start. He was even nice to Nico, the person who everyone else seemed to treat like the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. Speaking of Nico, “Percy, how exactly did you know Nico?”
He hesitates, clearly thinking over how best to fraze the next words coming out of his mouth. “I found him,” He pauses for a moment to let the information sink in “I was the first demigod Nico ever met.”
Hazel immediately had around ten thousand questions blasted into her mind all at once. If Percy found Nico then did that mean her brother was Greek as well? How old was Nico when Percy found him, and last of all why the hell did Nico ignore Percy. But instead of asking any of these, she just blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Isn’t that the wolf's job?”
Percy looked back at her, slightly confused and slightly offended, “Uh no, It’s the satyrs jobs.”
The daughter of Pluto stared back at him in shock “You entrust the responsibility of finding the next generation of demigods, to a faun.”
“No, a satyr!” Percy shoots back, “and don’t you dare say another bad word about them or I will personally escort you back down to the underworld!”
This ticked a nerve in Hazel, the underworld was obviously a sensitive spot for her, and Percy bringing it up so casually left a sour taste in her mouth. “You don’t know what it was like down there, you’ve never even been!”
The son of Posidens face blanked for a moment, and it looked like he was recovering another memory. “I have, actually.” He finally said
“Wha-“
“I wasn’t dead like you,” he continued “It was for a quest, my first one actually.”
Frank decided that this would be the perfect time to cut into the conversation and remind everyone that he was still here (Including the author) “Percy, how many quests have you been on?”
The son of Poseidon takes a moment to consider this, “Around four technically but that’s not counting all the quests during the war.”
Four quests that’s a lot for any one person to go on. Hazel wasn’t even sure Reyna had been on that many. And what was that about ‘The war’. The only demigod war she could think of was the titan war, but the Romans dealt with that one.
The son of mars decides to save her from her spiraling thoughts by actually answering the question.”Ok I’m a little new to all of this, but I thought that the Romans took down the one titan guy on the throne and all the other army’s just crumpled.”
“Nope that’s just what they told you so you wouldn’t question the possibility of Greek Demigods being out there. You guys just got the backup forces.”
“I’m sorry, I know I wasn’t there but from what I heard we had to fight around 50 monsters, and a titan, how the fuck are those the backups.” The nuns could wash her mouth with soap for she cared there was no way the Greeks could have felt with more.
Percy stared dead in the eyes making Hazel want to shrink back into her skin, “The Greek demigod forces had to defend Olympus from somewhere around 300 monsters, as well as 3 titans. One of those being Kronos himself.”
The daughter of Pluto jumped back, taken by surprise. Percy waits for a moment for the information to sink in then continues “I was the one to defeat Kronos, on my birthday and completely the first great prophecy.”
“Is it at all related to the prophecy of seven?” She asked.
“Kinda yah.” He replied “I’m pretty sure that’s the second prophecy, since the Greeks got it right after we completed the first one.”
Clearly there were a lot of things that the Romans were left in the dark on. Hazel took a bug deep breath, there were only so many things one demigod brain could handle at one time, and taking a quick look over at Frank she could tell that he was in a similar situation as her.
“You know what Frank, maybe a snack would be a good idea. The boys nod in agreement. The group sits up and go over to the snack bar in silence.