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Percy had a mortal enemy, and its name was the stupid automatic door of the stupid grocery store.
“Try not to get into a fight with the entrance this time,” Annabeth said, tugging his sleeve as the glass doors slid open with a smug whirr.
“In my defense,” Percy replied, “last time they closed on me. That’s an act of war.”
“You stepped backward into the sensor like a confused pigeon.”
“Wow,” he said. “Love how supportive my girlfriend is. Truly feel cherished.”
Annabeth just smirked, dark eyes glinting. Her braids were tied back in a loose ponytail today, a few curls spiraling free near her temples. She wore one of his hoodies under her coat (navy, way too big on her) and Percy was trying very hard not to stare at that fact like a weirdo.
They were here on another mission. This time from Percy's mom, Sally. The text had been very clear:
can you two pick up a few things on your way over?❤️
Annabeth had immediately replied with sure!! while Percy stared at the heart for a full thirty seconds like it was Morse code for “I’m planning your wedding.”
“So,” Annabeth said now, stepping into the produce section and grabbing a cart, “game plan.”
“I thought you liked it when I improvise.”
“I like when you improvise in battle,” she said. “Not when dairy products are involved.”
He clutched his chest. “You think I would disrespect milk like that?”
“Yes.”
“…okay, that’s fair.”
He moved to take the cart from her, because Sally had raised him with manners and also Annabeth had, like, eight knives on her at all times and didn’t need to be pushing metal on wheels. She let him, watching him with that fond, quiet amusement that still made his stomach flip even after months of calling her his girlfriend out loud.
The word still felt new in his head sometimes. Girlfriend. Annabeth.
Annabeth, who rolled her eyes and stole his hoodies and kissed him breathless in the stairwell when she thought no one was looking.
“Stop smiling at the broccoli,” she said. “It’s creepy.”
“I’m not smiling at the broccoli,” he protested. “I’m smiling at my beautiful girlfriend who bullies me in public spaces.”
She huffed out a laugh and pulled Sally’s list from her coat pocket. “Okay, we need: milk, eggs, pasta, tomatoes, ground turkey, and… oh.” She raised an eyebrow. “Special request: ‘if they have those blue cookies again, please grab them for Percy :)’ She used a smiley.”
“Of course she did,” he said, but his chest went warm. “We are a family of traditions and food coloring.”
Annabeth bumped his hip with hers, casual and practiced. “You’re a menace.”
“And yet,” he said, “you’re here.”
“Somebody has to keep you from buying only sugar and vibes.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he muttered.
They started with produce, because Annabeth was incapable of grocery chaos.
Percy watched her scan the tomatoes like they were enemy blueprints, fingers quick and sure, her mouth pursed in concentration.
“You know,” he said, “I still can’t pick out a tomato without hearing your voice in my head telling me it has ‘structural integrity issues.’”
“That’s because you grab the soft ones,” she said automatically. “No one wants sad tomatoes, Percy.”
“Sad tomatoes are valid citizens.”
“Sad tomatoes fall apart in sauce,” she said. “We do not reward failure in this household.”
He grinned. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”
She tossed a tomato lightly, caught it, nodded to herself, and put it in one of the plastic bags. “This one has potential. See? Firm, good color, no weird spots.”
“Well,” Percy said, “you have good taste.”
She paused just long enough to give him a look that clearly said I heard that and I am choosing not to respond. A faint smile tugged at her lips anyway.
Their cart clattered forward. Percy steered. Annabeth occasionally corrected with a hand on the side, like he was an unreliable shopping Roomba.
“Milk next,” she said.
“Wait I know this, two percent,” he said immediately.
“Look at you,” Annabeth teased. “Learning.”
“Please,” he said. “I’ve got this whole domesticity thing down. I’m a professional boy who carries bags and opens jars.”
“You can’t open jars.”
“I can too,” he said. “Sometimes. If they’re cooperative.”
“Last week you gave a jar of pickles to your mom and called her ‘milady’ when she opened it.”
“That was respect,” Percy said.
Annabeth tilted her head, curls brushing her cheek. “You know she adores you, right?”
He shrugged, grabbing the carton he knew by heart now. “Yeah, well. She adores you too.”
Annabeth’s expression flickered. She had that look again: the slightly startled, slightly soft one she’d had the first time Sally hugged her just because.
“I’m still not used to that,” she admitted quietly.
“What, my mom loving you?”
“Parents,” she said. “Liking me.”
Percy’s chest squeezed.
He bumped her shoulder lightly with his. “Get used to it,” he said. “You’re stuck with us.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
“Yes,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, but the tension in her shoulders eased.
He almost dropped the milk carton while trying to put it in the cart one handed. Annabeth caught it before it could commit dairy suicide.
“At least some of us have coordination,” she said.
“That’s why this works,” Percy said. “I bring the chaos, you bring the brain cells, together we create a functioning human being.”
Her mouth quirked. “Debatable.”
They moved on. The store speakers were playing some late 90s song that Sally would probably sing along to in the car. The air smelled like freezer burn and citrus.
“Eggs,” Annabeth said. “You’re banned from juggling.”
“I’m not going to juggle,” he said. “I am a changed man. I’m mature now. I pay taxes.”
“You do not,” she said. “Your mom does.”
“Semantics.”
He opened one carton, checked it quickly the way she’d taught him (- no cracks, no suspicious goo, all good) and put it in the cart. Annabeth didn’t even double check, just watched his hands with a small, proud smile that she tried, and failed, to hide.
“What,” he said.
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me like I recited the Trojan War in perfect Greek or something.”
“You checked the eggs properly,” she said. “Look at you.”
He puffed his chest out. “I contain multitudes. Hero of Olympus, grocery store menace, egg inspector.”
“That last one is your greatest feat,” she said solemnly.
“Obviously.”
They zig zagged through aisles, picking up pasta (penne, because Sally had loved it last time), canned tomatoes, spices. Percy grabbed the ground turkey while Annabeth picked out sauce ingredients, their movements weaving naturally around each other.
It was freaky how easy it was now. How they could reach around the other for something on the shelf without thinking, how his arm automatically raised to let her duck under it, how she automatically stepped to his left side on crowded aisles because that was where he preferred to keep people when he was on alert.
Once, that kind of constant awareness had only existed on battlefields. Now it lived in small errands and shared kitchens and the way she knew exactly when he’d need a hand without him saying anything.
“Stop thinking so loud,” she said, sliding the last can into the cart.
He blinked. “Huh?”
“You have your ‘I’m spiraling in feelings but pretending to be fine’ face on,” Annabeth said. “You get that little line between your eyebrows.”
He touched his face automatically. “I do not.”
“You do.”
He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly too warm under his coat. “Just, you know. Thinking.”
“Dangerous,” she said lightly, but her gaze was careful now. “Good thoughts or bad?”
He exhaled. “Good. Weird. Good-weird.”
She tilted her head. “Weird how?”
He shoved the cart forward, needing the movement. “Just... a couple years ago, grocery shopping meant me and my mom sprinting through the aisles trying to get everything before Smelly Gabe finished yelling at the TV. Everything was… rushed. We never had time to think. It was all survival mode.”
Annabeth’s eyes darkened at the mention of Gabe, but she didn’t interrupt.
“And now it’s just- us,” he said. “Arguing about eggs and pasta shapes and… holding hands by the freezer section.”
Annabeth’s mouth twitched. “We’re not holding hands.”
“Not right now,” Percy said. “But we have. You kissed me by the frozen peas last month.”
She flushed. “You remember that?”
He looked at her like she’d suggested the sky was optional. “Annabeth. You kissed me. In front of neon green, radioactive peas. That’s burned into my soul.”
She snorted, but her fingers drifted toward his on the cart handle, brushing his knuckles. He turned his hand, lacing their fingers together easily, right there in the middle of the aisle.
No monsters. No gods. No one to tell them they weren’t allowed.
Just them, and the hum of refrigerators, and the weirdly romantic glow of the freezer lights reflecting in her eyes.
“You know what else is burned into my soul?” he said quietly.
“Hmm?”
“You in my hoodie,” he said. “Ten out of ten, no notes.”
She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her. “It was cold.”
“You have your own hoodies.”
“Yours are softer.”
“My mom uses the same laundry detergent for all of them.”
Annabeth shrugged one shoulder, and the hoodie slid slightly, “Yours smell like you,” she said simply.
Percy forgot how to operate his legs for a second.
“You can’t just say stuff like that in public,” he complained weakly. “I’ll walk into the canned soup display.”
“Please don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to explain to your mom that you died under a mountain of tomato bisque.”
“Honestly, that would be on brand.”
They made their way toward the cookie aisle. Percy didn’t even have to lead; Annabeth veered that way on instinct now.
“That’s growth,” he said. “Last year you would have dragged me away from the sugar.”
“Last year,” she said, “I didn’t fully understand that you and blue food are a package deal.”
“Would that have changed anything?” he asked lightly, but the question had a hook under it.
She must’ve heard it too.
Annabeth slowed, turning her head to look at him. “About us?”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she stepped closer, reaching up with her free hand to fix the slightly crooked beanie on his head. Her fingers brushed his temple, warm against his winter-flushed skin.
“No,” she said. “Nothing about us changes because of blue food.”
“Even if I demand a blue wedding cake someday?” he asked.
She huffed, but there was color rising under her cheeks. “We are in a grocery store, Percy.”
“Not an answer,” he sing-songed.
She flicked the brim of his beanie. “You’re insufferable.”
“But you love me,” he said.
Her eyes softened. Just like that, the banter quieted, like someone turned down the volume.
“Yeah,” Annabeth said. “I do.”
He felt that all the way to his toes. No matter how many times she said it, it still hit like the first time.
“I love you too,” he said, and it came out easy, because it was true, and because she was right there, and because they’d already fought so hard for the right to say it.
She smiled, small and blinding at the same time. “Good.”
They reached the blue cookies. Same violently iced, sugar-coma-inducing kind as last time.
Percy grabbed two packs.
“Overkill,” Annabeth said.
“Contingency planning,” Percy corrected. “What if we get ambushed by demigods at my mom’s place and they eat the first tray? We need backups.”
She considered this like it was a battle strategy. “Fair point.”
He added a box of her fancy chocolate biscuits without asking. She raised an eyebrow.
“What?” he said. “We’re still doing the ‘something for me, something for you’ thing.”
Her gaze softened again. “You remembered.”
“Of course,” he said. “Traditions. I told you. I’m attached.”
“To cookies,” she said.
“To you,” he said.
She shook her head, but she was definitely blushing now.
They hit the self-checkout. Percy played Tetris with the items on the belt while Annabeth scanned with ruthless efficiency.
“You know,” she said, waving the blue cookies over the scanner, “this is starting to feel like our thing.”
“Grocery runs?” he asked.
“Grocery runs, movie nights at your mom’s, you sneaking extra cheese into the cart like it’s contraband,” she said. “All of it.”
He grinned, guilty. “In my defense, cheese is essential.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I just… like it.”
“Cheese?”
She elbowed him lightly. “Us, Seaweed Brain.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning like a complete idiot. It didn’t work.
“Well,” he said. “Lucky for you, I’ve got no plans to stop being an inconvenience in your life.”
Annabeth paused mid-scan, looking up at him. “You’re not an inconvenience.”
He blinked. “I’m… joking?”
“I know,” she said. “I also know you still kind of believe it sometimes.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
The scanner beeped as it timed out, but neither of them moved.
Annabeth glanced at the machine, then back at him, her expression gentler than anyone ever gave her credit for.
She sighed, a short, fondly exasperated sound. "Gods, you're dense sometimes."
She reached out and flicked the brim of his beanie. "I'm not here to fix you. I'm here because I like you. All of it. Even the inconvenient parts." She shrugged, as if admitting to something obvious. "Especially those, actually."
He felt something in his chest unclasp.
“Wow,” he croaked. “Way to make the grocery store emotional.”
She smiled, eyes crinkling. “You started it.”
He stepped closer, crowding her a little against the checkout counter. “I’m pretty sure you did, actually. You said the L-word first.”
“In a collapsing tunnel,” she reminded him. “Your timing was worse than mine.”
“Hey, we’re alive,” he said. “Apparently we get to keep saying it. That’s a win.”
Her gaze flicked to his mouth, then back up. “We should probably finish bagging before someone yells at us.”
“Coward,” he murmured, but he picked up the pace.
They bagged automatically, years of monster-fighting coordination channeled into putting eggs on top and keeping the bread from getting squished.
Percy took the heavier bags without comment. Annabeth let him without arguing, which he recognized as a love language all on its own.
Outside, the air bit at his cheeks. Gray winter light made the city look washed out, but Annabeth was all color and warmth beside him - bright eyes, navy hoodie too big on her frame, braids swaying with each step.
“You cold?” he asked.
“A little,” she admitted.
He shifted the bags to one hand and slung his free arm around her shoulders, pulling her in. She fit there like she belonged.
“Better?” he asked.
She tucked herself against his side. “A little.”
“You can say ‘yes,’ you know,” he said. “It won’t hurt you.”
She pretended to think.
“Fine,” she said. “Yes.”
“That sounded physically painful for you.”
“Don’t push it.”
They walked like that down the block, the city buzzing around them. Somewhere, a car honked. Someone shouted. A dog barked at nothing.
“You realize my mom is going to make that face,” Percy said suddenly.
“What face?”
“The one where she tries not to smile too big because she doesn’t want to embarrass me,” he said. “And then she’ll probably say something like ‘oh, you two are so cute’ and I’ll have to pass away.”
Annabeth’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter under his arm. “Percy, she does that every time already.”
“I know,” he groaned. “I can hear her voice in my head right now. ‘Oh, look at you two with your groceries, like a little married couple.’”
Annabeth went very still for half a step.
Percy’s stomach dropped. “Too much?”
She cleared her throat. “No,” she said quickly. “Just… surprising.”
He tried to backpedal, words scrambling over each other. “I mean, not that we— I’m not— I didn’t mean married, married, I just— my mom— words—”
“Percy.”
He shut up.
Annabeth was looking at him in that way she did when she was building something in her head... a bridge, a strategy, a future.
“You think about that?” she asked quietly.
“About what?” he said, because his brain had officially left the building.
“Future us,” she clarified. “More than grocery runs and monster crises.”
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah,” he said. “All the time.”
Her eyes searched his face, as if she could see how honest that was. “Oh.”
“Do you… not?” he asked, trying not to let his voice crack on the last word.
“I do,” she blurted, then flushed. “Obviously I do. I have contingency plans for our lives, Percy.”
That made him snort despite the way his heart was racing. “Of course you do.”
“I don’t mean like...detailed architectural drawings, or— okay, maybe some sketches,” she muttered. “But I think about… you. With me. In ten years. Twenty. More.”
He couldn’t breathe for a second.
“Is this the part where I faint in the street?” he asked finally. “Because I think my legs forgot their job.”
“Don’t you dare drop the groceries,” she said automatically.
Even now. God, he loved her.
He stopped walking, just for a moment, bags swinging at his sides. Annabeth stopped too, facing him fully now.
Cars moved around them. The city didn’t care that his entire universe had shrunk down to this patch of sidewalk and the girl in front of him.
“Annabeth,” he said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“I know we’re still kids, and everything is insane, and gods are annoying, and we literally almost died, like, a lot,” he said, words coming out faster now, like they’d been waiting in line. “But when I think about future anything, it’s just… you. Always kind of there. Doesn’t matter if it’s grocery runs or big stuff or whatever. You’re in all of it.”
Her pupils blew wide.
“I’m not saying we have to plan our retirement fund or something,” he hurried. “Just— I want you to know that. That I’m not… here by accident. I’m here because I want… all of it. With you.”
Annabeth blinked hard, like she was pushing back tears and calculations at the same time.
“You’re such an idiot,” she said, voice thick.
“Rude??”
She stepped into his space, careful of the bags, and pressed her forehead against his. “I love you so much it makes my brain hurt.”
“Oh,” he said weakly. “Cool. Same.”
She laughed, the sound close and warm between them. Then, still balancing on the edge of the sidewalk, with cold air nipping at their cheeks and grocery bags hanging off their arms, she tilted her face up and kissed him.
It wasn’t their first kiss. It wasn’t their longest, or their most desperate.
But it was… steady. Sure.
He tasted the faint sweetness of whatever chap stick she’d decided to wear. He smelled her shampoo, the one that made his entire nervous system short-circuit. He felt the pressure of her gloved hand bunching in his coat.
When they broke apart, she didn’t move far. Her nose brushed his. Her eyes were dark and bright at the same time.
“Married cake can be blue,” she said.
His brain took a solid three seconds to reboot. “Wait what?”
“In the future,” she said, like this was a normal conversation topic to have in public while clutching a bag of ground turkey. “If you still want that. We can negotiate frosting, but… yeah. Blue cake. Or at least a tier.”
He made a strangled noise. “You can’t just— you can’t lead with ‘I love you’ and then offer me blue wedding cake, Annabeth, I have a weak heart.”
She smiled, wicked and tender all at once. “Good thing I’m here to protect it, then.”
He let out a shaky laugh, resting his forehead against hers again briefly. “You’re… unreal.”
“Very real,” she said. “Unfortunately for you.”
“Best unfortunate thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t pull away. “Come on, Seaweed Brain. Your mom’s waiting. And I want to see her face when we show up with double the blue cookies.”
He straightened, adjusting the bags, feeling about three inches taller and a lot more ridiculous in love.
“Yes, dear,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t push it.”
He grinned. “No promises.”
They started walking again, shoulders brushing, hands occasionally bumping until Annabeth just sighed and reached over to lace their fingers together, grocery bags and all.
Percy squeezed back.
Yeah, he thought, as the apartment building came into view and the smell of home and tomato sauce floated up in his memory. He had battled monsters and faced gods and fallen into hell.
But this... this messy, ordinary, blue cookie future with her, this was the quest he was most determined not to screw up.