Chapter Text
Looking back, Percy Jackson really should have known better.
A quiet life was never on the table—not for him. The Fates seemed to have decided long ago that peace was a luxury reserved for other people. There would always be another quest waiting just past the horizon, another prophecy curling like smoke around the next bend in the road, another war rising out of the dark because some ancient grudge refused to stay buried. He could probably list a hundred reasons without pausing for breath.
And he had been mostly right.
Mostly.
Because at this particular moment he was crouched at the bottom of a fountain, lungs full of clean water, listening to unmistakably Ancient Greek drifting down from somewhere above the surface—old Greek, the kind that sounded like marble being carved.
Annabeth was going to murder him. Slowly. With her favourite dagger.
***
The morning had begun so ordinarily it almost hurt.
He had woken alone in the small apartment on the Upper East Side, the same four walls that had become both sanctuary and cage these past eight months. The breakup with Annabeth had not been loud. There had been no shattering glass, no slammed doors echoing down the stairwell. They had ended things on... neutral terms. Bittersweet, sad, and honestly pretty miserable terms. But neutral. They were still friends—how could you just stop talking after everything they'd been through together?
Now they were just two people who loved each other very much and wanted entirely incompatible futures.
The problem was, they wanted completely different things out of life. She wanted to build. permanence. Cities and bridges and libraries that would stand a thousand years after she was gone. She wanted lecture halls and late-night drafting tables and a life measured in careful lines and calculated loads. She wanted to study, to learn, to have a stable life.
He wanted motion. The salt sting of a fight, the clean burn of adrenaline, the chaotic certainty that came with knowing exactly what needed to be hit next. He wanted a wife and kids just as badly as he wanted battles. Guess Ares's curse had left a permanent mark on him. At least, that's what he told himself. Percy wanted children someday, small loud reckless things who would call him Dad and bite his arm when he messe their hair. He wanted someone to come home to who already knew how his shoulders carried every old wound. He wasn't looking for anything huge—no more wars, no rising titans. Just that familiar, intoxicating rush of an affray, and a family of his own.
It was complicated, but he could've made it work. What he couldn't do was fit himself into Annabeth's life. College in New Rome was way out of his league, and in Beth's small, carefully structured world, there never seemed to be room for him anymore. She was buried in blueprints, calculations and books — a million things. At first, it hadn't been so bad. But it kept building and building until it finally reached its breaking point.
He'd just wanted to talk to her about it. Find some kind of compromise. That conversation got pushed back a whole week — they fought, they yelled, they tried to find common ground. One last conversation that stretched across these seven painful days had ended with Annabeth’s voice very quiet and very final: “We’re not going to make it work, Percy. Not like this.”
They broke up.
No drama. Just tears, and tired laughter, and the ache of too many good memories pressing against the ribs. He packed a single duffel and moved back to the New York apartment near his mom, Paul, and Estelle.
After that, everything just... stopped. Life slid into a strange, suspended stillness. Days repeated. Nights were long.
He told himself he was fine. He told himself he was moving forward.
He was lying.
But what was he supposed to do? He had to keep going. For the people he loved. For himself. For his future. And, you know, to make sure the gods were actually doing their jobs.
That afternoon he had finally forced himself outside. Estelle had turned eight three weeks earlier; felt like yesterday she was this tiny bundle wrapped in about fifty blankets, and now she's going to third grade! He'd promised her that strawberry cake from Glaser’s she loved so much ages ago, but never found the time to actually go to this little shop. He was halfway to the bakery, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, when the world tilted. He gets attacked when he finally dragged himself outside in weeks. The universe really had it out for him, didn't it?
He didn’t remember how the fight started clearly. A flash of bronze, a snarl that wasn’t human, pain that arrived too fast to catalog. Then darkness. Then water.
He didn't really remember how it ended either. Probably not well, considering he wasn't in his apartment anymore.
Now he was here.
Wherever here was.
And wherever he was, it mustve done something weird to him, because his body didnt feel quite right. Something was wrong. And that was already freaking him out. A lot. But the water was too murky to see much. Percy reached down, feeling his legs. His calves and thighs were definitely smaller. Thinner, even. His arms weren't right either—not a single trace of the training he'd been doing since he was twelve. Like his whole camp experience had just vanished. Now he had skinny wrists—like Rachel's, except his were wrapped in this silky, faintly blue ribbon for some reason—and his biceps were soft, completely unmarked. None of his scars. Something was definitely not right.
And then he realized that instead of his usual, kind of fit torso, he had a soft stomach. A waist way too narrow for a guy. He slid his hands higher.
For a split second, he stopped breathing. This couldn't be real. And if it was—it was a very, very weird and wrong kind of real. Why was he naked? Why was he in a girls body? Not that there was anything wrong with being a girl, but last time Percy checked, he wasn't one. He was a guy. Just your average, ordinary guy.
Something here was fundamentally broken, and Percy hated this even more than when Hera had kidnapped him. Oh gods, what if it was her again? Was this a third war? Who'd risen up this time? And did they really have to turn him into a girl for it? Then again, if it was Hera, honestly? He wouldn't even be surprised. Her plans were always weird at best and straight-up insane at worst. But he hadn't agreed to any plan—worse, he didn't even know anything had happened. Was he being sent into another wolf den? Was there a third camp? What was going on?
He could swim to the surface to know better, but here was the problem: he was naked, a girl, and completely thrown off by the Ancient Greek the people by the fountain were speaking. Then again, Percy could be wrong — he was underwater, everything was muffled and hard to make out, maybe it was just regular Greek and he was overthinking it. But even if it was regular Greek, how did he even get here? He'd been in New York. Not Greece. Not even Rome.
His thoughts were racing a thousand miles an hour when he tasted something bitter on his tongue. Poison. Oh, come on. The water here was poisoned? He hadn't felt any contamination or poison in it. But he could taste it in his mouth. Looked like he had to get out of the fountain whether he wanted to or not. Gods, this was so humiliating. At least he could cover his chest with his hair, which, by the way, was long now. What was with that stereotype?
The poison on his tongue got stronger, and Percy, living through the most intense existential crisis of his life, swam to the surface.
He gasped, breathing in clean air, and gripped the white marble edge of the fountain. The voices around him died instantly, sucked in their breath, freezing. A collective intake of breath.
He blinked against bright sunlight. When his eyes finally focused, he saw two tall figures in front of him, staring at him with disbelief, surprise, and some strange kind of awe.
The man was enormous — taller than any mortal had any right to be, his tanned skin covered in patches of shimmering, dark blue scales that caught the light like oil on water. The amount of gold he was wearing was staggering — the guy was absolutely covered in it. Armbands, necklaces, bracelets. All of it. pure gold, decorated with pearls and other gemstones Percy didn't recognize. A trident rested casually in his right hand. His left hand appeared to be made entirely of living water, rippling and reforming with every breath he took. Percy had never seen anything like that before. There were gills on his neck, and behind his ears, bluish fins fanned out, shimmering with shades of cyan. His dark hair was also threaded with pearls. A piece of fabric covered his right eye, and his left eye was sea-green, lined with red eyeliner.
It was his eye color. He saw it every morning in the mirror.
Something was definitely wrong here. He knew those features way too well. He only knew two people with that bone structure. Himself. And his father.
— Okay, Percy, don't panic. Yeah, you're in deep trouble, Percy, but you need to think rationally. What would Annabeth do if she were me? — he thought frantically, then started scanning his surroundings. Everything looked so archaic that a quiet laugh escaped him. That got the attention of the two figures in front of him. They slowly moved closer, like they were afraid of scaring him off. His gaze landed on the goddess standing next to his—apparently—father.
The woman also seemed vaguely familiar—he couldn't see her face, a Corinthian helmet with a blue crest completely hiding her features. Only her eyes were visible—sharp, storm-gray, unreadable. He could definitely see feathers peeking out. They seemed to be everywhere—on her neck, her arms, her face. And a larger cluster of feathers—wings, his brain supplied—was folded behind her back. They were all brown, some lighter, some darker, but all of them had white speckles—sometimes subtle, sometimes bold. Something about it clicked in Percy's mind. He couldn't really see her clothes because of the bulky armor she was wearing, which seemed too big for her and way too heavy.
And then Percy's brain put two and two together: he was looking at Athena and Poseidon. And judging by the fact that he was in a fountain with a freshly sprouted olive tree next to him, this was probably the contest for Athens.
He had landed—somehow—in the middle of myth’s opening act.
To land in the past, and not just any past, but smack in the middle of a historical event.
Suddenly, the idea of a new war didn't seem so bad. That would be better than messing up the timeline and accidentally erasing everyone he knew just because he kicked the wrong rock, causing, like, Rome not to get built, which meant his friends' parents were never born. He could ruin so many things—progress could get set back centuries... or maybe speed up in some totally unpredictable way.
While he was panicking internally, the man—his father—stepped right up to the fountain, dropping to one knee, studying Percy with a strange hope and wonder.
"θυγάτηρ ἐμὴ, ζῶσα καὶ ὑγιής. οὐκ ἀποθανῶσα μετὰ τὴν πρώτην ἀναπνοήν." The Greek sounded strange. He could pick out individual words but couldn't quite piece them together into a sentence. Daughter. Alive. Miracle. This Greek was definitely older than the one he knew. "θαῦμα, ὄντως."
Athena moved closer too, studying him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Was Wisdom's hatred for him just eternal? If so, he wouldn't be surprised. She tore a leaf from the olive tree, and in an instant, she was holding a piece of silk fabric. Athena stepped right up to the fountain and gently draped it over him. Poseidon, standing beside her, pulled a few pearls from his hair and similarly transformed them into small silver pins and an ornate, heavily decorated belt.
Percy was grateful for the help, really, but the whole thing felt surreal. He carefully took the pins from his father's hand and fastened the chiton with them. He wasn't sure about the belt, but he didn't have time to think because Poseidon, apparently noticing his hesitation, carefully wrapped it around his waist and secured it.
"Οὐ δύναμαι εὑρεῖν τὰ ῥήματα ὅπως περιγράψω τὸ θαῦμα τοῦτο. Ἐοικέν μοι ὡς Πάλλας, ἀληθῶς; Ὅμοια καὶ ἄλλα ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ χρόνω. Καὶ ζῶσα ἐστίν." Athena's voice broke mid-sentence; it seemed to hurt her just to think or talk about it. The only words Percy caught were miracle, Pallas, and domain. "ὦ ἀδελφέ, νομίζεις ὅτι τὸ αὐτὸ κακὸν ἡμῖν καὶ σοί ποιήσει ὅταν ἀναλάβῃ τὰς ἐξουσίας αὐτῆς;"
"Οὐκ οἶδα, ἀνεψιά. Ἀλλ' οὐκ νομίζω ὅτι ἐστὶν ἡ Πάλλας. Ἐλάχιστον, καὶ ἐὰν ᾖ αὐτή, οὐκ ἀναμιμνῄσκει οὐδέν"...and they were talking about Pallas again. His father's voice sounded sad. Then Poseidon turned his head and looked directly at him. "Τέκνον, ἔχεις ὄνομα, ἢ ἐᾷς ἡμᾶς ἐκλέξασθαι?"
He caught the word "name," and assuming they were asking what he was called, Percy straightened up, shifting his gaze from Athena to his father.
"Percy." He really hoped that sounded Greek enough, and they wouldn't confuse it with anything else.
"Οὐκ ἔστιν ὄνομα πλήρες, ὀρθῶς; Ἀφήσει ἡμᾶς ἐκλέξασθαι τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς ἐκ τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ "Περσέ"?"
"οἶμαι οὕτως. Περσέα, ἴσως?"
"Περσεφόνη ἂν ἦν ἄμεινον ἔργον, ὡς ἐγὼ νομίζω."
"Περσεφόνη...συμφωνία. Ὥστε αὐτὴ ἔσται Περσεφόνη."
Percy had completely lost the thread of the conversation. Totally lost. "Persea." "Persephone." They had just renamed him. Or rather—they had renamed her. They'd just asked him his name, so what was the point?
"Ἀνάγκη ἡμῖν ἐστὶν ἄγειν αὐτὴν εἰς Ὀλύμπου, ὦ ἀδελφέ. Δείξον αὐτὴν πᾶσιν" Athena's voice cut through the silence, and Poseidon rose from his knee, straightening up and offering Percy his hand.
"Ὀλύμπιος ἔστω. ἔρχου, θυγάτηρ, δεῖ σε τὴν οἰκίαν σου ἀντιλαμβάνειν."
He stared at his father in confusion. Was he seriously taking him to Olympus? Right, because what this situation really needed was an audience of twelve extremely powerful immortals who already had strong opinions about him. On one hand, that was good—he could find Hermes, who might kindly translate this ancient Greek for him. On the other hand, did he really want to face the other gods?
Percy stared at the offered hand for a long heartbeat.He thought about it for a minute. Then, with a sigh, because he had no better ideas, he took his father's hand and vanished with him in a flash of blue light, accompanied by the crash of ocean waves.