Work Text:
Percy found her in the morning sitting on the edge of the lake, knees pulled up to her chin.
When she hadn’t been at breakfast, he hadn’t thought much of it- Annabeth could easily become engrossed in whatever project she was working on and usually had to be coaxed out of her cabin or reminded that it was time to eat. But then she hadn’t been in her cabin either. Or in the stables. Or the strawberry fields. Or the sword fighting arena. Percy could’ve easily asked around camp if anyone had seen her, but he really didn’t feel like dealing with all their knowing looks and not-so-subtle comments. There had been plenty of that last night, after the two of them had eventually resurfaced from the lake.
It’s not that Percy was embarrassed or anything. It’s just that they didn’t really get to talk before half of camp was up in their business, insinuating things. Truthfully, although he was on cloud nine after finally getting to kiss Annabeth properly last night, he didn’t totally know where they stood. It felt like the year they spent more or less skirting around each other and barely talking had evaporated completely as soon as he had come back to camp. They still fought brilliantly beside one another, and fell into their easy banter like no time had passed. But he knew that there were things that had to be said, and if he knew Annabeth (which he did, pretty well in fact), he’s almost positive she’s having similar thoughts to him. Suddenly, Percy knew exactly where she had gone, and starts jogging towards the lake. He figured, since everyone else was likely busy with more pressing things today, it would be nice and quiet at the lake for once. He stopped when he saw her figure come into view, and his hearts started jackhammering in his chest. No matter how many times he saw her lately, he still seemed to have the same reaction every time. He steeled his nerves and tried to look confident when he made his way over to her, stopping when he was close enough to cast a shadow on her where she sits.
She looked up startled until she saw it’s just him, offering him a small smile.
“Hey”
“Hi. Mind if I sit?”
She shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips.
Percy sat down next to her, turning his body slightly to face hers. She looked beautiful today, though Percy was hardly surprised since, in his completely objective opinion, she looked beautiful every day. Still, there was something about her today that made it difficult to concentrate. She wore her same old faded camp t-shirt and denim shorts, but her hair was out of its usual ponytail, golden curls cascading down her shoulders, the flyaways looking like spun gold in the sunlight. Her eyes looked a little more blue than usual, reflecting the sky and water around them. Up close, he could see a tiny smattering of freckles around her cheeks and nose, which usually appeared towards the end of their summers at camp after long afternoons spent outside training. Her hands were twisting around her dad’s college ring that hung from her camp necklace, a habit Percy noticed she’d developed whenever she was thinking extra hard about something or other. He noticed a sketchpad and pencil sat next to her, though it appeared to be untouched this morning.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
She smiled brightly at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and Percy felt warmth course through him.
“I was just thinking about how this time next week, there are going to be so many more kids at camp, thanks to you. Probably a bunch of kids of minor gods too. We’re gonna have to build so many more cabins to accomodate them all. Plus, the common spaces are probably gonna have to be expanded as well. There’s so much to figure out”.
“Well, if anyone can handle it, I’m sure you can, Miss ‘official-architect-of-Olympus’.” He bumped her shoulder and she laughed.
“Thanks, that means a lot coming from you, Mr ‘I-almost-became-a-god’.”
He rolled his eyes affectionately, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. If someone had told him even a week ago that he and Annabeth would be able to sit next to each other for longer than five minutes without bickering, he would have never been able to believe it. He hated thinking about how much time they wasted, how much they left unsaid between them this past year. And he knew that, while things felt good between them for the first time in a long time, there was still a lot for them to talk about. He knew the first topic that had to be broached would be the hardest, so he decided to just rip off the proverbial bandaid.
“Annabeth I wanted to… I mean I just wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened with Luke”.
The content smirk on her face immediately vanished and she turned her face towards the water, blinking rapidly. “You don’t have to say that, Percy. I know you didn’t…” she trailed off, like she wasn’t even sure how to finish her sentence.
“No I - I mean, yeah I wasn’t the guy’s biggest fan” Percy started, wincing internally at the severe understatement, “but I wanted you to know it’s okay. To miss who he was before. To feel sad because that version of him is gone, too”.
She let out a humourless chuckle. “If I’m being completely honest with myself, that version of him was gone a long time ago. I just didn’t want to admit it”.
Percy hesitated before he spoke again, but decided she deserved to know what Hestia showed him. It was her memory after all. Plus, he was never any good at keeping things from Annabeth. She always saw right through him. “You know, when we saw Hestia up on Olympus, and I blacked out for a second?” She nodded. “She was showing me a vision. Of you and Luke and Thalia. I saw when you first met them, and how you guys came to camp. I didn’t really get it until then but… you were so small Annabeth. And he promised to protect you. To be your family”.
Annabeth looked stunned. “I had no idea you saw that” she murmured.
“Hestia said in order to understand Luke I had to understand his family. At the time I thought it was about his mom, but now I know she meant you and Thalia. I couldn’t understand why you kept giving him so many chances, why you insisted that he could be saved. But I get it now. I’m sorry I didn’t before”.
She let out a shaky exhale, dropping her hands into her lap. “Percy, you don’t have to apologise. Really. I knew what he had become. He did so many bad things, hurt so many people, people I care about. He hurt you. I should’ve seen it sooner. I think part of me was just clinging to the way he used to be because I was scared. For so long he was the only person I had who cared about me, and I thought if I lost him too-“
“Annabeth” Percy cut her off softly, “you have so many people around you who care about you. I know things were rocky with your parents before, but they’re getting better right?” She nodded slowly. “Your dad loves you, he’d be absolutely crazy not to. Everyone at camp sees you as a leader. The younger campers all look up to you. You’ve got Thalia and Grover and all our other friends here. And right at the top of that list is me. I promise, I’m not going anywhere Wise Girl”, he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly.
She smiled softly and squeezed his hand back. “I know that now, dummy. But you and I haven’t exactly been on the best of terms this past year, have we? I thought I was losing you too, in more ways than one”.
It dawned on him then that Annabeth had known the Great Prophecy for a lot longer than he had. He pictured younger Annabeth being given that level of responsibility, how she must have felt like she was carrying a burden too heavy to bear all by herself. He thought about the past year, how she reacted when he got sent to Calypso’s island for those few weeks and was presumed dead, her devastation at his ‘funeral’, and they way she kept him at arms length after that. The lines from her prophecy ‘lose a love to worse than death’ may have been about Luke in the end, but he knew for a moment she thought that maybe it could've been about him. And then he'd gone and brought Rachel on their quest, and although it ended up being the right thing to do, he could still remember the hurt and betrayal on her face when he first suggested it. He knew that Rachel was something they usually avoided talking about if they wanted to stay in a good mood when they hung out, but Percy didn’t want her to become a sore spot for him and Annabeth, especially when the were starting to become... whatever this was.
“Rachel and I kissed” he blurted out without really thinking, then immediately regretted. She dropped his hand and he watched as her previously open and vulnerable expression closed off completely. “I mean”, he hurriedly added, “she kissed me. Before that last mission with Beckendorf. It happened so fast and with everything that happened afterwards I kinda just forgot about it”.
Annabeth stared at him, an unimpressed look on her face. “Okay”.
Percy exhaled, scrubbing his face with his hands. Why was this so hard to get out? “Annabeth, I’m trying to tell you that it didn’t matter. That, even though Rachel’s my friend, we were never like that”.
“Like what exactly?” She asked, head tilted to the side. She really hadn’t been lying last night when she said she would never make things easy for him. Too bad for Percy, considering he was already so far gone for her. He had never been very good at expressing himself articulately, especially when it came to feelings, but for Annabeth he’d try anything.
“Like you and me. Annabeth the way I feel about you… yes, you’re still my best friend but its also different now, right?” He thought about the difference in the kiss Rachel gave him before the Princess Andromeda blew up in comparison to a very similar experience a year earlier on Mount St Helens with Annabeth. He remembered how he was struggling to even remember his own name after that first kiss, how even looking at Annabeth now was conjuring a swarm of butterflies in the pit of his stomach. How, even though she was one of the people he felt most comfortable around, she still kept him on his toes and made him nervous after all these years.
Her eyes softened at his words and she tentatively reached for his hand again, smoothing it with her thumb in repetitive strokes. “Yeah. It’s different”. When her eyes locked onto his face and strayed down to his mouth, he leaned forward to capture her lips onto his. The kiss was slow and sweet, but with an intensity that their kisses from the night before didn’t have. Percy reached forward to cup her jaw as he deepened the kiss, thinking contentedly that he could do this forever and never get sick of it. Her mouth tastes sweetly of that strawberry chapstick she always used and it was so inherently Annabeth that he felt his chest squeeze. Annabeth let out a sigh and finally broke away, resting her forehead onto his, eyes closed.
“I’m sorry”, he said again, voice close to a whisper. He didn’t say for what, specifically, but he was certain she could read it off his face.
“I’m sorry too”, she replied quietly, leaning forward to close the tiny gap between them and kiss him again quickly. “Y’know, more than anything this summer I just really missed my best friend”, she smiled sadly, meeting his eyes. “Every time the Stolls did something stupid or when Clarisse accidentally injured a new camper while teaching them to sword fight, I wanted to send you an iris message so badly. I was trying to respect that fact that you wanted to keep some distance between camp and have a normal summer, but I was going out of my mind wishing you were here. Still I- I never should have called you a coward for it. You were dealing with everything the best you could and I was just scared that something terrible was going to happen to you”.
He shook his head. “You were right though, I was kind of a coward.” She adorably scrunched her nose in confusion, and Percy’s butterflies nearly doubled in speed. “For not telling you how I felt about you” he clarified, and a knowing look passed on her face.
“Yeah, well, at least you managed to find the words eventually, Seaweed Brain” she said, pecking his cheek. He turned his face so that he could kiss her properly again, and he felt her smile against his lips.
They stayed that way for what could have been several hours, though Percy doubted it given that they were still alone at the lake. When they pulled apart again, his eyes flitted to the tiny white scar on Annabeth’s arm, a reminder of where she intercepted the poisonous dagger meant for him. He brushed his fingertips reverently over the raised skin. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. Will did a good job healing it”.
“I still can’t believe you did that. You scared the hell out of me, Annabeth”. He didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if the knife had managed to hit one of her organs, or if he was too late getting her to Will and the poison made its way through her body. A white hot ball of rage rose up in him before he clamped it down, focusing on the fact that she was here right in front of him, alive and well.
She rolled her eyes. “Percy I’m fine, I promise. Trust me, I’ve had a lot worse. Getting injuries like this comes with the territory. Besides, it was worth it if it saved you from getting hit”.
“Yeah, well don’t make a habit out of it, okay? You’re too important to be throwing yourself in front of every stray dagger that comes my way. Especially now that I’m mostly invulnerable”.
She stared at him for a moment, contemplating. “What does it feel like? Your Achilles spot?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t really feel like anything, except for when- when you put your hand on it. I can’t really explain it, but it felt like a surge of power running through me, like there was a live wire underneath my skin”.
She looked interested in that piece of information, grey eyes lighting up the way they often did when she was learning something new. “Is it just when I touch it, because of, well you know? Or is it the same for any touch?”
He barked out a laugh at that. “I can’t say I’ve had anyone else touch the small of my back since then, but Im pretty sure its just you. When I touch it myself I don’t feel anything like that”.
She hesitated for a moment before reaching out her arm a little. “Can I?” He nods, closing his eyes and then feels the slow brush of her fingertips stroking the sensitive skin. Just like last time, he felt his body tingle with electricity, his head spinning with a thousand thoughts that he couldn’t begin to voice even if he tried. He opened his eyes to see Annabeth looking right at him, a disbelieving smile ghosting her lips.
“Woah”.
“Yeah, its uh- its pretty intense”.
She removed her hand from the small of his back. “I was so mad at you when you told me you went to the Styx. I thought you were seriously out of your mind. That was either the dumbest or the smartest decision you’ve ever made”.
“Well it worked did it? So I guess it couldn’t be that dumb”.
She laughed at that. “Yeah, okay fine. You were right.” When she saw the victorious expression on his face she scowled. “Don’t get used to me saying that, by the way. That was the first and only time that will ever happen.”
“Hm. You might need to say it again, in that case. So I can savour it”.
She rolled her eyes and leaned her head to rest on his shoulder, exhaling. After a moment of silence, she said in a small voice “I feel kinda guilty being here right now. I mean, there’s so much to be done around camp. Chiron probably needs all the help he can get”.
“I know, me too” he said. “But there’s plenty of time to worry about all that stuff later. Let’s just stay here for a bit. Plus, I think that If anyone deserves to take a break after everything that’s happened, it’s us, don’t you think?”
She doesn’t reply, just kissed his shoulder from where her head rested. He tucks his arm around her waist are securely and lets himself relax for the first time in a long time. Since Percy was twelve years old, he’d felt like a weapon, crafted to be a pawn in the gods’ games. He could hardly remember a time he hadn’t been thinking about what would happen when he reached sixteen. But right now, sitting with Annabeth by the edge of the lake, it was hard for him to believe that he had any other purpose bedside just this. For once in his life, he didn’t feel like he was out of place, or running out of time. He was exactly where he was supposed to be.