Chapter Text
Percy went back to school. Rumors and stuff had died down after winter break so everything was going pretty normally, which Percy enjoyed. He was at lunch with Tim when two people he recognized, Lexi and Tommy, sat down to sit with him.
“Heeeey, Percy,” Lexi said.
"What’s up?” Percy asked suspiciously.
“We were wondering if you would be interested in joining the swim team? We currently only have 3 guys on the team and we need at least 4 in order to compete relays, and Lexi mentioned you’d said once that you enjoy swimming,” Tommy said.
“Oh, you should definitely join the swim team, you’re always swimming, I bet you’d be good at it,” Tim said.
“I suppose I could join, just for the relays that is,” Percy said.
“Great! Come to practice tomorrow after school, bring your own swimsuit and goggles,” Lexi said.
The next day after school, Percy went to the locker room to change into his swimsuit. He’d brought his full body swimsuit that covered his back and his legs to his knees. He wore a speedo underneath it. He changed in the shower stall. He put his flip flops on and grabbed his swim goggles. He stored his regular clothes in his gym locker then went out to the pool deck.
They went to a fancy rich person school so they had their own pool, though it was only 25m instead of the full 50m. Percy saw that Tim was sitting on the sidelines, he’d mentioned something about wanting to see what Percy’s times were, but Percy things he was just being protective of him starting a new school activity. Percy saw several people dressed for swimming, presumably the swim team, around who appeared to be the coach. He went over to join them.
The coach greeted him, “Hello there, Percy is it? I’m glad you agreed to join us, I’m Coach Rivers, the Swim Team Coach. These are our senior captains, Billy and Mel,” she indicated a boy and girl respectively. Percy noticed Tommy and Lexi in the crowd of swim team members and he also recognized Molly, apparently she was on the swim team.
“Well, let’s start with the guys, Billy in lane 4, Tommy in lane 5, Sammy in lane 3, and Percy in lane 6. We’ll do a 200m, so 8 laps in our pool. Mel, Adrianna, Molly, and Lexi, you’re on timing duty, see how the boys do,” Rivers coached them.
Percy got up on the indicated starting block, feeling a bit nervous since he wasn’t particularly used to using a starting block. When the coach told them to go, he jumped off, doing his best to dive smoothly, and then he started swimming. Once he was in the water, he tuned everything else out and just focused on swimming, settling into his rhythm. He turned smoothly on the turns, kicking off from the wall, and then kept swimming. He lost track of how many laps it had been, he just kept swimming. Eventually he realized no one else was in the pool and he came to a stop.
“Uh I lost track of how many laps to do, didn’t I?” Percy asked.
“Yes, you did about 300m before you realized. Though, you did your 200m in slightly under 2 minutes, which is a phenomenal time! I can’t wait to see what you do once we clean up your start a bit!” Coach Rivers exclaimed.
“I…didn’t realize I was that fast, that’s the pace I use for longer distances,” Percy said awkwardly.
“For what distance can you maintain that pace?” Coach Rivers asked.
“Uh, I guess 30 minutes to an hour? I have a slightly slower pace I use when swimming many hours,” Percy answered awkwardly.
“Impressive, we’ll have to get you swimming the longer distance races, the 800m and 1500m, probably the 400m too,” Coach Rivers said.
“Uh, I was just planning to do the relays since that’s what they said I was needed for? I wouldn’t want to bump anyone else from competing in a race,” Percy replied.
“Well, we don’t have anyone who swims the 800m or 1500m currently, so those are all you. Billy swims the 400m sometimes though we can have at least two people competing in each event so it won’t be a conflict,” Coach Rivers informed him, “Also, if you wanted to do the shorter distances you could. Tommy favors the breaststroke and Sammy prefers backstroke, they only fill in on the 100 and 200 free to fill out competition spots for the team, but you could swim for those as well along with Billy.”
“Uh, I guess that’s okay then? Maybe not all of them at once though,” Percy said.
“We’ll talk about it before the specific competitions once we know the schedule,” Coach Rivers reassured him, “Now Percy, get out of the pool, it’s time for some of the girls to swim.”
Percy got out and Tommy handed him a towel to dry off with. 4 of the girls went to swim while the other 3 girls and one of the guys timed for them. “You were the fastest in our heat, by the way, you’ll probably end up anchoring the relays,” Tommy told him.
“That sounds good, that way I can make sure we win, yeah?” Percy said with a smile.
“By the way, why are you wearing that style of swim suit?” Tommy asked curiously.
“I feel uncomfortable being in public without a shirt on, so a full body suit like the women wear is more comfortable to me,” Percy explained simply.
After the girls swam, the Coach had Percy and some of the younger girls up on the blocks to practice their starts. She corrected their positioning and explained all the rules regarding how to start cleanly to avoid disqualification. She then had them practice their starts a few times to make sure they were good.
“Percy, do you swim any stroke other than freestyle?” Coach Rivers asked.
“Uh nope, just freestyle, and don’t the others have really specific rules to them and stuff? I’d probably mess them up,” Percy said.
“Well, I’d be happy to teach you the others if you did want to learn, but it sounds like your schedule will be plenty busy with just the freestyle. Go to lane line 8 and swim your slower pace until you get tired, do that while I have the rest of them practicing various strokes in the middle of the pool,” Coach Rivers instructed.
Percy happily went to do that, liking to swim more than standing around anyways. He made a point of swimming as slowly as he could, slower than his normal “cruising” pace, it took a bit to figure out the right speed to get his stroke rate even for being able to time his turns properly but he got it. He then swam and swam, just kept swimming until practice ended and he was told to get out of the pool.
“Well, I was vaguely counting your laps and it looks like you swam close to 3000m there, I have full confidence in your ability to swim a 1500 now. Good work, Jackson, I’m happy to have you on the team,” Coach Rivers said, patting him on the back.
“Well everyone, our next meet is Saturday, January 14th, it’s away in Princeton. Then January 21st we’ll be one of the hosts for a swim meet at Gotham University, they have the full 50m length pool there. We need to get good scores by that meet if we want to make the state championships; now that we have a full team filled out, I’m optimistic! Practices are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursdays. I’ll see you again tomorrow!” Coach Rivers said.
That night at dinner, Tim was quick to brag on how well Percy did at swim practice.
“Nice to know all that swimming you’ve been doing has paid off, chum,” Bruce said warmly.
“I’m not that good, am I? I mean, I want to be good but like normal good not super good, it feels weird if I’m too good at it,” Percy said.
“There’s nothing wrong with being good at something, especially something you enjoy like that,” Bruce said.
Percy just shrugged, feeling sheepish. He resolved to pay more attention during races, not only to make sure he swam the right number of laps, but also to ensure he was only winning the race and not going super far ahead of everyone.