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It had been a long few days for Hector. Two days ago, he had learned that apparently the Greek gods were real, he was the son of one of them, and there was a camp for other kids like him that he'd never been told about. Yesterday, he had learned that he was the son of Zeus, he could zap people because apparently that's a totally normal thing for sons of Zeus to do, and his dad wanted him to go on some quest to get some thing. Today, he'd set on that quest with two of the only people who didn't think it was a suicide mission and then immediately been ambushed by the freaking minotaur.
That was how Hector found himself running through New York with one hand rudely pushing people out of the way and the other clinging onto Isaac's while desperately praying for help from any god who would listen. He wasn't picky- and honestly, given that he was pretty sure he was still mispronouncing Mary's dad's name, it wasn't like he really knew who he was supposed to pray to in this situation, anyway. Asking his dad for help would probably make him seem weak, so maybe Ares? He was the war guy, right? Did this count as a war, or-
Hector's thoughts came to an abrupt halt as he turned the corner and directly into someone, who thankfully reached out a hand to steady him and Isaac instead of letting them fall flat on their butts. “Heard you need some help?” The guy asked casually. It took Hector's brain a moment to make the connection that apparently this tall skater-looking guy had not only heard his prayer but decided to answer it.
“Minotaur!” Isaac gasped out as he caught his breath, the more experienced son of Athena's brain unsurprisingly making the connection faster than his. Maybe Isaac had been praying too.
Skater-god's face flipped from a lazy smile to a determined frown in an instant. “Not in my city. Keep following the river that way, there's an Olive Garden in a block and a half, you'll be safe there. I'll go take care of-” a bovine roar tore through the streets, and whatever the mortals saw was enough to have them scattering. “-that.” Skater-god pulled out a pen, uncapped it, and Hector stared as it turned into a sword.
Isaac whispered something while staring at it with recognition, but Hector really liked the sound of getting to safety right now- even if safety was apparently an Olive Garden. Or maybe it was literally a garden of olives? Some sort of sacred grove? Either way, Hector decided that running was still a good option.
—--
Skater-god was already sitting at a corner booth when Hector and Isaac arrived, which seemed to confirm that yes, he was a god, and yes, he had meant to direct them to an Italian restaurant. He waved them over and Hector decided to just go with it. Apparently so did Isaac, because he flopped into the seat next to him with a groan. “You kids hurt?” Skater-god asked. Hector shook his head. “Good, good. In that case, take a breadstick! Seriously, it's not ambrosia, but the breadsticks are really good.”
“I appreciate it, sir, but we got separated from our other friend while we were running, and we need to find her and then get back to our quest, ‘cause the car we were in-”
“Whoah, whoah, slow down there little prince. Is that your friend right there?”
Hector turned and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Mary being escorted in the door by a woman that Hector was pretty sure was a goddess? He didn't really have many examples of divinity to compare her to, only Mr. D and the guy sitting across from him, but she was very regal and wearing some sort of ancient Greek dress. Not a toga- Isaac had been very firm that togas were not Greek- but definitely not modern human clothes.
Hector didn't really care about the mystery of their rescuers at the moment though, as he stood up to give Mary a hug, before realizing that maybe it would be awkward to hug a girl who A: isn't his mom and B: he only met yesterday. But she hugged him back, and then Isaac joined, and everything felt alright again.
“Thank you, uh…” Hector said as they sat back down, because his mom didn't raise an ingrate.
“Ah, a newbie!” Skater-god said eagerly.
“Just because he doesn't know who you are doesn't mean he's a newbie.” Mystery-Goddess said with a roll of her familiar gray eyes from where she sat next to him.
“No, he's right, I only found out about all this a few days ago.” Hector said. “But you have the same eyes as Isaac… are you Athena?” He asked, eyes widening.
Skater-god burst out laughing, while apparently-not-Athena punched him in the shoulder and hissed for him to shut up. “No, sorry ‘cuz, good guess though! This is Annabeth, daughter of Athena, Goddess of Olives and the City of Athens.” He said, smiling as he threw an arm around the goddess’ shoulders. She huffed but didn't remove it.
“And politics and rhetoric! Stop trying to make me sound lame!” The goddess added.
Skater-god gave her a pitying look. “Leaving out politics was me trying to keep you from sounding lame. And I'm Perseus, God of Athens and Lord of the Interior Waters. Much cooler than olives, if you hadn't noticed, she isn't the lord of anything.”
“Still not trying to make me sound lame?”
“Well now I am, but you have to admit-”
Mary cleared her throat, and the two quieted. Hector decided to ask the questions everyone was thinking: “Why does Athens need two gods? And if your city is Athens, why are you in New York?”
Isaac looked at him like he was an idiot, and Hector reconsidered whether those were the questions everyone had been thinking. “Well you see! In the days of yore!” Perseus said, leaning into Annabeth while gesturing grandly. She shoved him off of her and he continued uninterrupted. “My esteemed father, Poseidon, the Earth Shaker, the Storm Bringer, had a competition with her mother, Athena, whom my legal counsel has encouraged me not to comment on.” Isaac gave a snort of amusement from beside him, and based on the half-smirk on her face, Hector suspected that Annabeth might have been that legal counsel.
“It was for the favor of the city of Athens. My father produced a beautiful spring, which was of course saltwater because Poseidon is the king of the seas. Athena created the olive tree, which for some reason was better received by the silly mortals than a source of undrinkable water. But my father, in his infinite generosity-”
“He was a sore loser who wanted to change their minds.” Annabeth cut in.
“Infinite, boundless generosity! And to show there were no hard feelings!” Perseus insisted. “Anyway, he made me from the spring water as a guardian deity for the city, and eventually put me in charge of all the springs and lakes and stuff ‘cause I did such a good job!”
“Because he was tired of having so much of his time being taken up by naiads and naiad-related problems.” Annabeth clarified.
“Who was it again that said that a wise leader knows when to delegate? Oh right, it was you, Wise Girl!”
“Nothing wise about delegating to you, Seaweed Brain. But anyways, my mother wouldn't let that go unanswered, so she created me, and so Athens has two gods. And New York is the Athens of America, as a center of politics and culture, so here we are.”
“And shipping! It's a big maritime hub too!” Perseus added. Annabeth glared at him, and Perseus met her gaze with something a lot less angry and a lot more teasing, before the goddess rolled her eyes again and leaned into his side.
“Cool, thanks. So, um, can you help us with our quest?” Hector asked.
“Was killing the minotaur not enough?” Perseus asked.
“You killed the minotaur?” Annabeth and Mary asked, though Mary was significantly more surprised.
“Not my first rodeo.” The god said with a wink. “Get it? Rodeo? ‘Cause it has the head of a- you get it.” Annabeth groaned.
“I hate your puns.” She dropped her head onto his shoulder.
Perseus grinned down at her. “You love my puns.”
“I really, really don't.” She said, although her tone didn't seem to match her words. Mary cleared her throat again.
“Anyway! Help! Look, there's rules about gods helping our kids out, especially on a quest. I can make the minotaur a freebie, as long as you tell anyone who asks that I killed it because I don't like minotaurs in my city, rather than as a favor to you. We can give aid, but it's not really supposed to be free. But that said, we do wanna help, so what do you need?”
Hector looked to Isaac, but he didn't seem to be distrusting of the gods of Athens, so he explained “We were supposed to get on a plane to Denver, which I guess is allowed ‘cause the sky is my dad's thing. But we've probably missed it already, since the minotaur made our car crash, and Isaac and I had to leave our swords behind when we were fleeing.”
“So you need weapons, and you need to go West.” Annabeth summarized.
“I can arrange transport if you have any ideas for weapons?” Perseus suggested. He and his companion looked at each other like they were communicating telepathically for a moment- and with them being gods, maybe they were- before Annabeth nodded.
“There's a group of rogue cyclops running a smithy in Staten Island, supplying weapons to other monsters. You can sneak in, steal some weapons, and if you happen to fight them and shut down the forge, so much the better. You get weapons, we get rid of, or at least hurt the profits of, the cyclops, it's a win-win.”
“A win-win except for the cyclops.” Perseus smirked. “When you're done with that, head over to the Hudson and I'll have him take you up to Albany. If you can arrange your own transport to Buffalo from there, then I can get you on a boat to Chicago, and you'll basically be halfway to Denver. And there should definitely be help in the Windy City for a son of Zeus.” Perseus said with a wink. Hector was pretty sure that was a hint, but he'd figure it out later.
“What do you want in return?” Isaac asked suspiciously.
Perseus grinned. “Well, here's a fun fact about Chicago: every year for St. Patrick's Day, they dye the Chicago River green. And every year, the naiad of the Chicago River gets mad about it. So if you could just find some way to get rid of the dye, then I'd call us even. And plus, if you know you're on your way to do a favor for me, dad won't even be able to complain about a son of Zeus traveling by water.”
“Percy! You can't just tell them to mess with the mortals!” Annabeth hissed.
“I can if the local naiad has been filing complaints to me for years. Especially since she's been filing her complaints instead of randomly popping up to yell at me; I want to encourage them to actually engage with all that bureaucracy you helped me set up. And it's dye, not gold, the mortals won't be guarding it that heavily. I could've asked them to destroy the infrastructure that makes her flow the wrong direction; this is just a bit of mischief, not terrorism!” Annabeth huffed but didn't argue the point. Hector felt grateful that they didn't run into the type of god who would ask them to do terrorism, but also concerned at the implication that there were gods who might ask him to do that.
Hector looked at Isaac, who was already looking at him. “I guess you've got yourselves a deal.”
—--
“So are all siblings like that?” Hector whispered to Isaac as they waited for Mary, as the only one of them with a weapon, to make a distraction.
“What?”
“I'm an only child; do all siblings bicker like the Athens twins did or do you think that's just a twins thing?”
Hector wasn't sure what the look that passed over Isaac's face was. If he had to describe it, it looked like a combination of amusement, despair, and incredulity. “Hector, they're not siblings. They are definitely not siblings. Perseus is the son of Poseidon and nobody, Annabeth is the daughter of Athena and nobody.”
“But they were arguing like siblings, saying that they hated each other but they obviously didn't. And they were really comfortable with each other.”
“Aphrodite give me strength. Hector, those two are the worst kept secret in Olympus. There are exactly three people who don't know they're in love with each other: his father, her mother, and apparently you. They say Lady Hera herself actually wed them in secret. They don't bicker like siblings, they bicker like an old married couple.”
“Oh.” Said Hector. He wasn't quite sure what else to say. “Thanks for uh, cluing me in. Wouldn't wanna get blasted if I called them twins to their faces.”
“I don't think they're usually the blasting type, but-” across the warehouse where the cyclops had set up their forge, there was a clatter of something large and metallic falling over. The cyclops guarding the finished weapons moved to investigate with a confused grunt. “Okay, forget the star-crossed lover gods, let's go!”
Hector silently offered up his thanks and apologies to the gods of Athens before following Isaac into the warehouse.