Chapter Text
Annabeth found normal school, and movies, and even roller-coaster rides boring. Or so she said. She left her dad's house with his new wife and her mortal half-siblings, even if her father worried for her. She couldn't stay, she never could stay any place but Camp.
Until she's with him in their shared apartment. It's tiny, fifteen hundred square feet, in midtown Manhattan over the top of and a little way down from a fire station. She thought it was a holding place, before they go to New Rome together.
Now, she wonders if the Roman camp will be anything other than a holding place for Percy, if he chooses to go with her. She has never felt like anything other than a demigod, but he didn't fit the mold as a mortal, and yet...
Yet Percy- enjoyed that. Or at least, he was okay with it. The mortal things, having a mortal life with his mom. His family.
He told her some things about the schools he went to, his bad grades, apathetic teachers and his stepdad Smelly Gabe - someone he only spoke of once, maybe twice, and with so much distaste that she only saw otherwise from him in regards to Zeus. Or Hera.
But he laughed about it, shrugged the rest off, the fact he was kicked out so many times, expelled for blowing up a bus with a civil war era cannon. At least he didn't destroy the cannon, and so obliterate any history, but. He didn't care about all that, or at least it wasn't super important to him. Learning in school wasn't. Or he was used to not being interested. And she supposes in some ways going through school wasn't for her, either. She was so bored so often.
She had told him that she didn't know how to be anything other than a demigod, but. To her, going to college in New Rome feels like a sort of middle ground.
She will be able to learn about architecture, and she can work without the constant fear- although it isn't fear anymore, not really; it's more of a resignation, an automatic sense of exasperation to put on her Yankees cap or grab her knife when she hears Percy say "Gee I wonder where the fuck this very angry non-human being just came from? Annabeth, duck!"
She's noticed a change in him. The way his jokes are more... sardonic, now. He gets looks in his eyes that are much more angry than they used to be. She understands, when he tells her about his dreams being nightmares of HIMSELF and what he could or even what he wanted to do, she understands so well. Because he has been pushed past his limits of acceptance for years now. And she may have been pushed for longer in her life, but she wasn't the direct target as often as him.
"...Is that why you don't think you're smart enough to go to school?" She asks now. Percy wipes his mouth on a blue napkin, looking up from the plate of food they'd cooked, or thrown together.
Percy rolls his eyes. "You're asking me this, Wise Girl? Like I'm smart enough to know?"
"I'm serious," she says to him. She reaches out, knocking her knuckles on the table next to his hand for emphasis. "Percy, you aren't dumb."
"Maybe not, but I'm not smart, either."
It's her turn to sigh and roll her eyes. "If this is because of the dyslexia -"
"It actually isn't, Annabeth. I mean not all of it is, but c'mon, the ADHD doesn't help with anything. Besides, I don't think like... knowing physics is what makes someone good with a sword."
"No, it isn't," she looks at him "not by itself, at least. That takes practice. And not only are you good with a sword -"
"Thank you," he says. "You're probably the most qualified to talk about my sword."
Annabeth narrows her eyes. "Percy. Focus," she says.
"I AM focused." He's started to grin a little, which relieves her. She hadn't liked how he sort of fell into himself when they first got back to their apartment. She had to hold his hand and lean into him until he stopped crying. That was hard, and scary too, because Percy isn't a crier. Not that he shouldn't be, or couldn't - but he's someone who always tries to keep heR spirits up. He keeps himself together apart from what she's heard about and seen of his anger. But it's hard to push him that far, or at least it used to be.
Now, though...
They're a lot closer to the ages demigods don't survive past, for one thing. They've lost so many friends, and the wounds are fresh - when she saw Piper at Camp, it hit Annabeth all over again. She thinks sometimes of losing Percy, and she has, more than once already. She prepared to burn his shroud after Mount St Helens erupted. She didn't know where he was for close to a year because of the goddess who was a cow herself. She wonders about that, how much Hera hated her, and Percy by extension. She doesn't care why, it just makes her wonder if the Roman camp is really a place they can be truly safe in.
Is anyone ever, any demigod safe from the gods' machinations, though? Annabeth wonders. And is that why Percy keeps saying that he still wants to go? He wants to be with her, he says that too, and even after almost three years together, Annabeth still feels the automatic shrinking back from it, because love was always conditional before, or situational. For Luke and Thalia she was a little sister they found to protect along their way. For her father, she was a reminder, and a confusing one, because he didn't always want to be reminded of the bringing a baby to his door by the west wind. She doesn't expect to be seen as a miracle anymore; she sometimes isn't even sure she is worthy of crafting the buildings upon Olympus, but Annabeth is sure of Percy. Because he chose to be her friend, in spite of their parents' dislike and near-hatred of one another. He was quickest to rag on her, sure, but it was never mean. Even though she said he was insufferable back when they were twelve, he wasn't mean-spirited. He wasn't like Clarisse, throwing her weight and spear and insults around. No; Percy Jackson has always been a good person at his heart. Loyal. Caring to the point of his fatal flaw, but also strategic in battle; quick on his feet and sharp is the other word. He can analyze situations and talk or fight his way into a win. He has a gift for situational awareness and sizing up said situation.
And yet he wouldn't believe these things if she tells him. But she should tell him. "Percy," Annabeth moves her hand to grip his wrist. His ocean eyes look up at her. She swallows something like fear. It's a stupid fear, she tells herself; but still she feels it gnaw at her. What if she tells him these things and he leaves, because he truly doesn't want to go to college? What if that outweighs him wanting being with her?
"Annabeth," he replies, with the slightest curve upwards of his mouth, and that gets her to sigh and roll her eyes before she tells him
"Seriously, I've told you before that you're brave, right?"
"I well, I seem to remember you saying something like that-right before I showed up to my own funeral and you told me I was, ah, 'the single most annoying person you'd ever met', did I get that right?"
"Okay, okay," she clears her throat and lifts the open palm of her other hand. "Both those things can be true," and his eyes get so wide it's almost comical as he gasps at her.
"Hey!"
She laughs, and adds "-but seriously. Have I ever told you that your tactical skills and ability to think on your feet are both pretty amazing? You can win and have won battles with gods, Percy - and that isn't because of your power. I mean, it partially is,"
"It totally is," his forehead crinkles, hair shifting as he moves to pick up her plate as well as his own. "Are you done, because-"
"No," she shakes her head at him. "No, Seaweed Brain, I'm not done." She stands up too, staring him down. "And I need you to listen!"
His eyebrows go up even as his hands rise as well. "Okay, geez, Wise Girl - I just meant, are you done with dinner because I was gonna wash both of our plates?"
"...Oh." she wants to hug him and shake him, suddenly, at the same time. She also wants to snatch the plates away, and so she does. "Don't worry about that right now, Percy - listen. I need you to listen to me."
"I hear you," he rubs at the back of his head now, over his hair. "You're saying nice things about me, and I'm wondering why -"
"Percy Jackson, are you actually asking me why I'm telling you good things about yourself?"
"Yeah I am, okay - you told me you were never ever gonna make things easy for me, on my sixteenth birthday you said that." She sees him swallow and add "I just - I appreciate it, but that stuff isn't...it doesn't change the fact I'm not college-bound. All right? Do you get that?"
"I get it," the urge to shout as much as shake him has now gone, and now she...she kind of wants to cry. She steps closer to him. "But Percy, I can't - I can't just sit here and listen to you basically tell me that you're stupid when I know it isn't true."