Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One year of dreams about the battle of Gotham, eleven months dreaming about what happened to her missing brother, two months of dreaming about the battle against Gaea, and six whole years since the dreams—no, nightmares—about my encounter with the Minotaur began. She’s. so. Fucking. Tired.

“Pandora, Pandora! Come on, you can sleep in the library. I need to study.”

Groaning, she rubbed her blue eyes and sent the nastiest glare she could muster with so little sleep Percy’s way.

“I’m up, fish breath, don’t worry,” a very not-awake girl grumbled, grabbing her bag and slipping it over her shoulder and getting out of Paul’s car.

One perk of your stepdad being a teacher at Gotham Academy was the rides to school instead of walking or the bus. The downside was having to get there ridiculously early, and all the rich kids with their perfect polished accents, while Pandora was over here with a clear Crime Alley accent.
The building was huge, the grey brick a staple of Gotham's fancy architecture. When it wasn’t ridiculously early to be at school, the car park was full of fancy cars that she didn’t even know the names of and would cost as much as three months’ rent. Luckily, she’d spent her whole life feeling out of place, so Gotham Academy was nothing new.

Dragging her feet, she stuck close to her brother's side. Since everyone here was wealthy and dramatic, she had to make sure to really keep her temper in check. Not to mention, she didn’t particularly want her stepdad to lose his job with her mom pregnant.

“Are you sure you even know how to read these books, seaweed brain?” she huffed as she held the pile of ridiculously heavy textbooks Percy was piling into her arms. Just because she had muscle didn’t mean she wanted to use it so early in the morning without stretching.

“Shut up, kelp face, and just put them on the desk and leave before deciding to distract me,” her brother responded with a playful nudge as he sat down, only holding one textbook.

“Of course, wouldn’t want to distract you from studying one page then spending the rest of your time dreaming about a certain Annabeth,” the blonde responded with a laugh as she put the textbooks down and turned away into the maze of shelves.

Stretching her arms, she browsed the shelves like her dyslexic ass would actually read. Being such a well-funded school, the library was huge with towering bookshelves and hundreds, if not thousands, of books scattered about. Shame she couldn’t read them. Scoffing at the thought of reading something that wasn’t in Greek, she grabbed a book and flipped through it just for the smell, and with it the fantasy of being a normal fifteen-year-old girl and not a descendant of Poseidon.

“Damian, stop being a creep,” Pandora said, not even having to look up to know the Wayne boy was behind the shelf to the side of her. Being friends with a certain son of death helped her sense someone creeping up. Ever since last year when Percy went missing, she and Damian struck up a weird sort of, as he called it, a ‘mutually beneficial acquaintance.’ Dork.

“Tt. I was not ‘hiding,’ Jackson, I was merely observing.” His polished, yet not entirely obnoxious, voice rang out as he stepped forward.

As usual, he looked like nothing less than perfection. His black hair was neatly slicked back, his uniform perfectly straight, and his tan skin looked so smooth. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was an Aphrodite kid, but all Waynes had ridiculously good genes. To be adopted by Bruce Wayne you had to be supermodel-worthy, so it made sense his biological son was so enamoring.

“Observing what? I wasn’t doing anything,” Pandora inquired as she slipped the book back into place and followed Damian as he moved to sit at one of the tables and slid into the chair across from him.

“Well, you were holding a book and I thought you were illiterate,” he replied dryly as he opened up a big book and didn’t look up.

“Hey—! Wait, what’s that?” the girl asked, peering over at the sight of the big book, ever nosy. “Since when do you need to study biology? I thought you were a prodigy in everything?”

“I get excellent grades in all subjects, yes,” he replied smoothly, not taking his eyes off his book. “But I’m looking into biology because over the summer I volunteered at Gotham Hospital and have decided to pursue a future career in medicine.”

Letting out an impressed blow of air, Pandora leaned back in her seat, casually studying the boy in front of her. Of course, the billionaire genius boy just had to want to do something as noble as volunteer at the hospital and become a doctor. Before she could push further, he asked his own question.

“How was your summer camp?” Damian said, his deep green eyes finally sweeping her once over and settling on her face. He had that kind of gaze that made people uneasy and could make the teachers shut up. Not Pandora, though. It was hard to find any human gaze scary after every monster she fought.

“Oh, you know, good. I almost killed people with my archery skills and we met up with another summer camp and went on a field trip. The usual,” she said flippantly as she met his eyes and gave him a small smile. No one other than Damian asked her about Camp Half-Blood, so she wasn’t great at lying about it. She just twisted the truth.

Only responding with a small hum, his eyes left hers and went back to studying the book he undoubtedly knew everything in. Sighing, she slumped down on the table, her head against the cold wood as she watched Damian study instead of studying herself, because it never held her attention long enough for her to actually learn anything. However, she could sit almost still and watch Mr. Perfect studying for hours.

Chapter Text

Having double chemistry on a Monday morning should be a crime. Hades, having double chemistry any day should be illegal. Luckily for Pandora, it was finally over. She’d much rather let Zeus strike her down than struggle to spell another element again. The good news was that she now had her classics class.

Walking in, she was relieved to see that Damian was sitting at the back with a free seat next to him. They barely shared any classes together since she was in the bottom classes, and he could probably be in university right now if his dad finally let him skip grades. Quickly slipping into the seat next to him, she peeked over his shoulder as she saw him already scribbling something on the page.

“Watch ya doodling now?” she asked curiously, seeing him sketching a small yet detailed cat. While she hated school, she didn’t mind it all too much when she could sit next to Damian. He was easy to copy from, and it was fun to annoy him. It made her feel sort of normal for once.

“Have they not taught you basic animals in your classes yet?” he grumbled, giving her a side-long glance when he heard her snort.

That quickly died down when a group of the most annoying kids at the school sat in the row in front. Of course, they had to be in this class. If this was any of her other schools, she wouldn’t have hesitated to put them in their place. However, she went to Gotham Academy now and couldn’t mess this up, so she kept her mouth closed. Kind of…

“My daddy took me on a cruise this summer—” April said in a loud snooty tone, like anyone cared. She gave Pandora a snide look before full-on turning to her with the fakest smile possible. “Have you found out who your daddy is yet, Jackson? I mean, you’ve obviously found your brother over the summer, so anything’s possible.”

Her little minion next to her let out the most annoying high-pitched laugh ever. Taking a deep breath, Pandora smiled. If she could deal with Drew, she could deal with April. This was nothing, really.

“I know who my dad is,” she said evenly, opening her notebook to keep her hands from punching something, preferably April's stupid face. “I have for years.”

“Oh, and I suppose you don’t see him because he’s drunk in an alley somewhere?” April’s friend snickered. If she wasn’t close friends with Piper and Annabeth, she’d probably just stereotype every child of rich, famous people as awful as these girls.

Unfortunately, she felt her patience running thinner and thinner. How could she not, when these girls were saying this? Setting her jaw, Pandora took another deep breath. She needed to focus on the paper underneath her fingers and not the rage underneath her skin.

“No, he’s actually—” No. She couldn’t tell them the truth. They’d just think she was insane. Then Pandora saw a great way to mess with them and smiled before looking at the girls and calmly saying, “Part of the Greek mafia.”

Damian looked up from his cat drawing and gave her a look of obvious judgment for the outrageous lie that even April wouldn’t—

April had totally fallen for it. It was safe to say the look on her face was priceless. Glossed lips dropped in shock and eyes wide.

“What?! No! The Greek mafia isn’t real.” April sputtered like she didn’t believe it, but she obviously did.

It surprised both Pandora and Damian how someone could be so stupid. Everything Pandora was told, she double- and triple-guessed, looking for signs something was wrong. Yet someone believed her terrible lie just like that.

“It is real,” Damian interjected, and Pandora had to refrain from busting out into giggles at the fact he was technically helping her lie. Looking over at him, she could tell he thought this—and her—were so stupid for this, yet he went along with it anyway. Biting her lip to keep the emotions off her face, she turned back to April triumphantly.

Before anything else could be said, the bell finally went off and Mr. Woodman walked in. Mr. Woodman was a satyr from camp that Pandora didn’t know all too well. It was important to have satyrs in Gotham since the smell of the city was strong, which covered not only the scent of demigods but also monsters. It was a nice security net.

The lesson was slow and boring as most classics lessons were. They were studying The Odyssey, which was good because, unfortunately for the Jackson girl, she’d lived it, and thanks to her brother’s girlfriend, could recite it in Greek by heart. The bad side, however, was that she lived it and knew just how terrifying these monsters could be.

It was stupid. She was Pandora Jackson, daughter of Poseidon, savior of Olympus twice, and had killed countless monsters and gone on a handful of quests. Yet since the battle against Kronos a year ago, it made her see how deadly it could be. There had been countless times this summer when she’d been off her game. It wouldn’t be long until someone called her out on it, but for now they were just words on the page.

“Miss Jackson,” Mr. Woodman’s voice stopped her thought. “I need you to go to the printer, please.”

From any other teacher, this would be a harmless request—probably not one directed towards her—but this was Mr. Woodman. It could only mean one thing: there was a monster here. It wasn’t even lunch, and the illusion of a normal school day was gone just like that. Nodding wordlessly, she got up and made her way to the front, feeling the eyes of the other students on her.
Looking back, she caught Damian's curious look. His stares were always so intense. Giving him a small shrug, she smiled at Mr. Woodman and slipped out the door, already reaching for the small wave charm on her necklace.

Tugging on it, it morphed into a full-size sword, much like her brother’s, and she looked around to keep her breaths even. If she didn’t want to panic, she had to be able to breathe. She’d killed countless monsters. Whatever managed to break into the school would be manageable. This time she didn't have the Seven to save her if she messed up, but she was fine. She’d be fine.

Realistically, she should probably grab Percy to have backup, but that’d take up too much time and be way too responsible. Not only that, but it’d cause suspicion, and she didn’t want him to worry about her and get distracted from his studies. He needed to go to New Rome University. Plus, it wasn’t like she hadn’t done this alone before.

Catching sight of a feather disappearing around the hallway that led to the stairs, she followed it, keeping her steps light and steady. Whatever it was didn’t seem to be too big or too violent, so that was good. Taking a quick look behind her to make sure no one was following, she started going up the stairs.

Bursting out onto the roof, she squinted, getting used to the actual sun instead of the bright lights in the corridor. Expecting to be ambushed right away, her posture was strong, both feet firmly against the ground and her sword raised, ready to strike. Nothing happened. Swallowing, she turned her head, searching for whatever feathers she’d seen earlier to reappear. Still nothing. Then she did a full 360 spin, and yet again nothing.

It couldn’t be possible that both she and Mr. Woodman were going crazy, right? Maybe he just smelled a demigod and she just saw a person but was so caught up in her head that she thought she saw a monster. Letting her shoulders drop, she sighed and relaxed—until a massive weight crashed into her, sending her into the ground.

It wasn’t a soft landing at all, and her head was smashed against the ground, causing it to pound violently and her eyes to shut tightly. Struggling for a breath, panic rose in her, causing her to give a sloppy swing of her sword but all she hit was air. Her hands were shaking, making it hard to even keep grip on the hilt.

“Come on, spawn of Poseidon, I thought you were supposed to be a great hero.” The monster hissed, the horrid breath causing her hands to shake. Gods, that smell was foul. Gasping in pain when she felt claws dig into her side, her blue eyes flew open, and she was surprised to be faced with a harpy. The pain burned like fire, and she could feel her blood starting to spill.

“Don’t just lay there, it’s no fun like this, no reward.”

Swinging blindly again, she felt another stab of pain, this time in her arm, causing her to drop her only weapon. Shit. Fuck. Shit. She was screwed. This was not a heroic way to die. At least over the summer it could’ve been to save her friends, but now she was just a child of the Big Three who couldn’t even defeat a harpy alone.

The pounding in her head was causing her vision to blur. Over the years she’d been injured more times than she could count, but none of them ever felt this hopeless. She felt like crying out for her mom, her brother, her friends. Anyone. She couldn't just die now without anyone by her side.

“You really aren’t as impressive as the legends. Say goodbye to the living, Pandora.” The creature spat before her claws scratched her cheek, drawing more blood, causing her to scream, and then the claws were gone, and it wasn’t her scream she was hearing but the harpy’s.

“Percy, thank Hades you’re here I—” Finally looking up, she saw it wasn’t her brother that came to her aid but Damian Wayne. Blinking in confusion, she saw the boy holding her sword in a fighting stance. The dust from the monster covered his blazer, and he looked around before looking down at her.

“Jackson?” he asked, dropping the sword and kneeling down beside her, assessing the damage on her side. Lifting her head a little, she too tried to look at it, but even that small movement felt like getting burned by fire from the underworld. Groaning, she closed her eyes as she felt him pressing on her side.

“Keep your eyes open.” Damian demanded, so she did, her vision blacking out a little now and just being able to see the green of his eyes. They were so vibrant and pretty. Maybe this wouldn’t be the worst last thing to see.

“Water, pour water on it.” Pandora gasped, her non-injured arm flying to her cheek, feeling her own sticky blood coat her fingers. For a second she wondered if he even had any water on him, but she had to take the chance. Right now all she could focus on was the overwhelming pain and keeping air coming in.

Staring up at the sky, she felt his hands leave her side and then felt something wet that wasn’t blood on her hand. Moving it instantly, she let it flow straight into her gash. Pure seawater would’ve made her feel stronger and cleared it up quicker, but her head stopped pounding as she heard and her side stopped throbbing, leaving just her face and arm feeling like Hades was about to welcome her.

“Pandora, explain.” His voice was slightly softer now as he pulled her torn shirt down and rolled her sleeve up to pour water on her arm. Smiling slightly at the fact he used her first name and the fact she wouldn’t die, she looked down, seeing the water work its ‘magic.’

“My dad isn’t part of the mafia,” she whispered like a secret. “He’s Poseidon."

Chapter Text

He should’ve seen this coming. Pandora Jackson had been the one and only person he didn’t do his research on, which, in hindsight, was stupid. She was the only person he actually tolerated at school, but his family had advised him not to research his only “friend,” since he’d find a reason to abandon her. Well, if her being a demigod who got attacked by monsters and couldn’t even survive them wasn’t reason enough to drop her, he didn’t know what was.

Continuing to pour water on her wounds, he watched in hidden awe at the fact it managed to heal her skin like a stitch would. However, they left scars that looked red and raw. It was better than her bleeding out, he supposed. Sighing, he gently brushed the hair away from the semi-deep gash on her cheek before pouring the last of the water on.

“Are you so incompetent each time you get attacked?” It wasn’t the nicest thing he could’ve said, yet he didn’t know what else to say. After all, he understood the dangers of fighting (even the supernatural or monsters) as well as she did, yet he couldn’t tell her that. He was curious how this was her skill if she was a daughter of Poseidon. Surely one of the most powerful gods would have powerful children.

Seemingly not taking kindly to his question, she glared at him, yet couldn’t move away because of the fact he was the one with the water. “No. I’m one of the most feared demigods alive!” Pandora snapped, her soft smile and dizziness gone now.

The raven-haired boy scoffed, and if looks could kill, Pandora Jackson would be locked up in Arkham.

“I had a rough summer, and I was caught off guard, that’s all,” she said, furious with his criticism after such a near-death experience. “How’d you know how to use a sword, anyway?”

Now all the open wounds were closed, Damian leaned back quickly, regaining the usual space between them. Just because he’d nursed her when she was in need of aid did not mean he’d linger.

It was probably for the best that he moved so quickly, because Pandora sat up way faster than anyone who’d just taken a bang to the head like she had. Yet she seemed mostly unfazed apart from a small wince, and she turned to him with curiosity, waiting for him to answer her question. Well, it was clear she certainly had trained with the way she reacted to injury.

“TT,” Damian huffed, running a hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “It’s a sword, not rocket science. Plus, I’ve dabbled in swordplay before—some light fencing.”

“Of course you fence,” was the only response he got, along with some mumbling about stuck-up rich-people activities.

Light fencing was definitely an understatement. He’d killed people with those blades. Held a katana since he’d developed upper arm strength. It mixed him up with unpleasant… feelings, so he made sure to bury most of it deep down. However, the instincts ran strong, and the fury burned at times.

While he was lost in thought, Pandora had obviously thought it was a grand idea to stand up. Hearing her grunt, he looked over to see her school shirt ripped and stained with her own blood.

“I always forget the burn of movement,” she groaned to herself before shaking her arm and sighing.

He could see some of the pale skin of her stomach. Much like her face, it was covered in freckles, and he could see one long gash that seemed to run toward the middle of her torso. It looked old and mostly faded. Curiosity tugged at him. How did she get it? What gave it to her? Which scar was her first? How would it feel to trace it?

“Shit,” the girl cursed, looking irritated to no end and snapping him out of his straying mind. “Of course, the one day I don’t bring my blazer, this happens. Mom’s gonna kill me if I go home like this—”

“Stop ranting.” Damian’s voice cut through her thinking out loud as he held out his blazer with an unreadable expression. “Here.”

At the invitation of his blazer, which was nothing but a practical decision, obviously, her freckled face heated up with a pink flush. With his amazing detective skills, he could only conclude that it was from the usually friendly, solely practical gesture that she didn’t expect.

“Thanks,” Pandora muttered, looking away from him as she slipped it on and buttoned it up so no one saw the mess that hid underneath it. Luckily, it wasn’t too baggy on her since Damian and Pandora both had similar muscle masses—and then the whole chest thing for her. The only thing that’d really hint it wasn’t hers was the length, but he doubted anyone would suspect much.

“Well, we better get back to class!” she said awkwardly as she quickly turned and practically sprinted down the stairs, leaving Damian to walk after her in no rush at all.

“Wait up,” he deadpanned with a sigh. It was a good thing her godly parentage gave her healing abilities, because if she had stitches, they’d be pulled by now, and it’d only been mere minutes.

 ཐི❤︎ཋྀ Pandora

Pushing through the crowded hallways, Pandora tried not to wince at every step. Even though the cut was closed, it still hurt like Hades. Internal bleeding, probably. She had no clue. Will would know. The thought hit her like a truck.

While camp was where some of her worst memories were formed, it was also one of the only safe spaces for demigods. It held people who were like family (and technically were family if gods had DNA), and she missed them—especially since she spent most of the summer across the ocean.

Sighing, she trudged along to her locker, tugging on the bottom of Damian’s blazer, conscious of the fact it was the only thing covering her ripped, bloody shirt. The fact that her only friend—no matter how much he denied it—had been exposed to the demigod side of her was something she hadn’t even thought about.

“What happened to your face, kelp head?” The familiar voice of her brother said as he poked the fresh scar.

Hissing in pain, Pandora swatted her brother's hand away. “A harpy attacked like ten minutes ago, so don’t go touching me,” she grumbled, throwing open her locker and unceremoniously tossing her books inside.

“A harpy? Seriously?” Percy said, looking his little sister up and down and running a hand through his hair, messing up the already frizzy curls. It wasn’t as if Pandora was incapable of handling such things—well, as far as anyone else knew, she was a great fighter who never got nervous.

“Yeah, but I’m mostly okay… I—” The girl hesitated, not sure just how much she should share. For one, it was embarrassing to admit she’d been struggling. Two, it’d make Percy worry, meaning he'd lose focus on his studies. And three, she wasn’t too sure what to tell him about Damian.

It wasn’t a secret to anyone that she and the Wayne boy were friends, but it’d happened last year when Percy was busy being kidnapped by Hera, and over the summer she hadn’t thought about the raven-haired boy enough to tell Percy about him, so he was fairly out of the know.

“Whose blazer is that?” he chimed in, giving her no choice really but to tell him the truth. After all, Percy could be obvious when it came to most things, but he had a weird sixth sense when it came to detecting his little sister’s lies.

“Damian Wayne’s,” she admitted with a shrug, closing her locker and turning to face her brother completely. At his confused explain-now face, she started to confess. “The creature caught me off guard, and he happened to be close by and can see through the Mist. He had a water bottle and gave me his blazer to cover this.” She pulled up the blazer, showing what used to be a nice white shirt.

“Damian Wayne? The broody, stuck-up one?” Percy said in shock, and Pandora was really wishing she’d explained the whole friend thing before. “Sounds like bad news, Dor—especially if he can see through the Mist.”

Not being able to add to the conversation without Percy asking more questions, she just hummed in agreement. The both of them fell in sync as they started down the old, grey-stoned corridors towards the lunch hall. All the time they’d spent at her locker meant the crowd had thinned out, leaving them with cold walls littered with terrible inspirational posters. Kittens in trees sort of thing.

“Do you think there’ll be any pizza left?” Pandora mused, knowing that food always distracted seaweed brain.

 ཐི❤︎ཋྀ Damian

It was a good thing the cave was empty. After all, Damian liked to work alone—especially since, if any of his family members caught him doing a background check on the only person at school he tolerated, who just so happened to be a girl, they’d jump to stupid conclusions about crushes and love.

This wasn’t the case at all. No, this was research—and a little bit of torture in seeing how blind he’d been about everything that happened today. Grayson was always going on about how making mistakes was natural and how he shouldn’t “beat himself up over it,” but Damian saw it differently. If it was human nature to fail, then he’d refine every little mistake he’d made until there couldn’t possibly be one left. Fix every oversight.

Which brought him back to why he was in the cave: to make up for the mistake of not researching Pandora Jackson. Well, that, and also a part of him was now curious to see her past now that he knew the little she’d shared could be fake.

It was easy to find anything about anyone on the Batcomputer’s database—even easier when it came to Jackson. One search of her name, and the wide screen was filled with information. It lit up the dim space, and he leaned closer, taking it all in.

School reports from a multitude of schools—so many that it was almost impressive—police reports, news clippings, and school records from Gotham Academy. It was a gold mine of information that he’d been blind to overlook. Pulling up his sleeves, he went back to the first thing he could find: her birth certificate.

It was brain-numbing, looking through everything that had been documented, piecing together what was real and what seemed to be covering up the Greek god side of her life. And even then, with just old mortal sources, there wasn’t much to say what was really happening. The endless pages from schools about her seeing strange monsters gave an interesting insight into what her life must’ve been like when she was young.

It seemed so different from his childhood, yet so similar. Based on the police reports, he concluded she was around nine when she got really thrown into the demigod life—a missing child incident, then being suspected for the disappearance of her own mother, and so much more.

After an hour of meticulously working through everything he could find, he was up to her being eleven, with yet another missing child report out for her, and was watching grainy CCTV footage of her and a brown-haired kid trying to steal a car outside a McDonald’s.

His detective mind was already racing at all the possibilities of what she was doing. Who could the kid with her possibly be? Damian was pretty certain he’d seen him in previous CCTV before. And then there was the matter of how they could travel around the country so fast. He had so many inquiries about what being the daughter of Poseidon actually entailed.

“Master Damian, I’m here to inform you that your father just arrived home.”

Of course, no matter what plan or scheme anyone in Wayne Manor was up to, Alfred Pennyworth would always find out.

“Thank you, Pennyworth. I’ll be up shortly,” he said, not looking away from the screen as he took one last look at young Pandora and the mystery boy’s face before shutting her files down.

He’d get the answers to all his questions eventually. He always did.