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one.
It takes her five minutes of staring at the fountain, fives minutes of spinning the drachma between her fingers. Five minutes of hoping Iris isn’t preemptively watching this. Five minutes of trying to tell herself it’s fine, it’s stupid, the potential isn’t even really a date - it’s just Percy.
Percy, her best friend who she’s starting to realize her feelings for might not quite be so platonic.
Annabeth slams the drachma down with the incantation through the rainbow and steels herself while she waits for his face on the other side.
He smiles at her, as soon as he sees her. “Hey, Annabeth! What’s up?”
Her stomach flutters, but she blames her motives here; at least his smile makes it easier to talk. They chat, go back and forth for a while. And then she brings it up. The movie.
“Yeah, I was thinking about going. It’s playing right down the street, so I don’t even need my mom to drive me.”
It begins. She stares at him expectantly. “I was thinking about it, too.”
“Are there even any theatres near Camp?”
She shakes her head. “I might have to come into the city.”
“Jeez, Annabeth, just for a movie? You should wait till it’s playing closer.”
Her lips draw into a line. She tries to amp it up – stupidly twists one of her fingers through a curl. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? “What if never does? I’m sure there’s a weekend I might be free.”
Percy scratches his head. “Wait for it on DVD, I guess?”
Her mood turns sour immediately after, and their conversation doesn’t last much longer.
She waves her hand through the rainbow grumpily and flops over backwards. Part of that’s probably on her – maybe she could have been a little more obvious. This is Percy she’s dealing with. Next time she wants to go to the movies with him, she’ll just have to flat out ask.
two.
It’s watching the news, covering some event at Rockefeller Center that gives her the idea. She glances at Percy on the other end of the couch, chowing down on a bag of Doritos. Easy enough. Normal enough. Casual enough. She can do this.
“Have you ever gone ice skating?”
He chokes for a second on a chip. “What? Uh. Maybe when I was little, I don’t really remember. As you like to remind me, I have terrible coordination, so it’s never been a priority.”
“It’s like water but not, you can’t be that bad at it.”
He pauses mid-chew, as if seriously mulling over what she’s said. “Huh. That’s a good point.”
“I tend to make those.”
He sticks his tongue out at her.
Annabeth folds her hands together and leans back into the couch cushions. She’s giving him a flirty look – well, it’s probably not flirty, because she hasn’t quite figured out how to do that yet. She just doesn’t want it to look awkward, though he doesn’t seem fazed by any of it at all, which is both good and bad. “I’ve never gone before. At least, not to the rink here.”
He shoves another dorito in his mouth, dropping crumbs on his shirt. “It’s usually ridiculously crowded around Christmas, but February’s a little better.”
She’s trying really hard not to get her hopes up. But so far, he’s not being obtuse. She puts on a smile, looking him right in the eyes, even leans a little closer towards him. “It might be fun to go.”
“Yeah? You think?”
Her heart skips a beat. “Yeah. I do.”
He grins at her. “Cool. I bet my mom’ll be good to go after we eat. I wonder if Paul’s ever gone? It’d be new for all of us.”
Her shoulders slump over, and her smile disappears. To his credit, Percy actually looks startled by the shift. “What? What’d I do?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“But it’ll be fun! I wanna go!”
The worst part is he totally does want to go. Part of her plan worked – except it went from date to family outing and she has no idea how. Though, she supposes, it is a little nice to be included in his notion of family.
And even if it’s not a date, Annabeth does have fun scratching up the ice with Sally. She takes special pleasure in watching Percy fall over.
three.
Maybe aiming for a nice restaurant is too much. She should start with… burgers. Burgers and fries. The idea has Annabeth grumpy, not because she hates these things, but it hardly seems like date night appetite. And does she really want a first date with Percy to be at a burger joint?
The answer is no, not at all – but the truth is it’s still probably her best bet.
She slides into the seat across from him at the Poseidon table – not for the first time, and the mess hall is empty enough that very few people look at her over it. Percy, however, pauses mid-bite to stare at her awkwardly.
“Uh. If you tell me there’s another labyrinth –”
“Have you heard about that new place? Clarisse was talking about it, but so were the Stolls. They say it’s great.”
“The burger one? Right up the road?”
Annabeth nods. “Even Silena said they had really good – milkshakes.” Do they even serve milkshakes?? She hopes so, just like she hopes throwing around Silena’s name will make her intentions clearer. She sets her elbows on the table, sets her chin on her hands. For half a second, she considers playing footsie with him.
He’s jumpy though, probably because she’s sitting at his table. “Were you thinking about going?”
Her ears go red. She stomps on any excited feelings before they run away with her. “Silena said Beckendorf took her.”
Percy blinks. He doesn’t get how that’s relevant at all, she can see it in his face. “Since when do you talk to Silena so much?”
Any excitement is dwindling as she resists the urge to reach over and strangle him. They’ve already been bickering a lot more than they used to lately. She also knows she’s running out of time sitting here. “It just came up. Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean, I feel like you guys argue more than anything else.”
“Percy, we’re not talking about Silena.”
“You brought her up! What do you want then?”
She groans. “I want burgers!”
“Okay?? So go get some from your table.”
Annabeth lets out another sound of frustration, this one louder as she slams her hands on his table and clamors to her feet. She doesn’t even say goodbye, just storms off for the Athena table, listening to him complain under his breath and wondering why the hell she’s so determined to get this stupid boy to ask her on a date.
four.
An aquarium. It’s perfect. It has to be perfect. And it’s right near Coney Island, so maybe she can snag a walk on the beach that can’t be interrupted by obnoxious, teasing campers.
She drops the fliers in front of him, and they flutter down into his lap. Then she flops over, sitting down cross-legged beside him in the grass.
“The New York Aquarium?”
“I’m guessing you’ve been before?”
He grins at her. It’s a stupid grin, because it looks adorably stupid on his face. “My mom used to take me all the time. Or I wouldn’t shut up till she took me. Either way.”
She breaks a smile at the mental image. “When’s the last time you were there?”
He opens up one of the brochures, squinting at the letters and grinning at the images of sea life. “Huh. A couple years, I guess. Before Yancy. Things just got… busier.”
There’s something a little heavy in his voice that makes her heart sink. She knows exactly what he’s talking about, several times over. And it’s all the more reason she wants him to take her there. “Would you wanna go again?”
He pauses, for way too long. “One day.” He says it like he’s resigned to the fact that he won’t.
So she punches him in the shoulder. He scowls as she crosses arms. “It’s not like you need your mom to go with you. It’s not like either of us need our parents to tag along.”
“Are you planning on going?” He sounds mildly curious now, which she’ll take – because it’s better than defeated.
“Dunno. It might be interesting.” She tries to say it airily, runs a hand through her curls – which she’d purposely pulled out of the usual ponytail before coming over. His eyes do flicker to her hair when she does it, but it’s not as flirty as she intended, apparently.
“You should,” he says with a nod. “They have really cool sting rays – and penguins!”
She draws in a deep breath and stares at him.
He blinks. “Do you not like penguins?”
She punches him again, in the side this time. “Everyone likes penguins,” she huffs.
“I really don’t see how that warrants beating me up?”
“Shut up, Percy.”
Normally this is the point where she’d run off in another failed attempt, but she just keeps sitting by him anyway. Even if she can’t get a dumb date out of him, she can at least spend a little time with him, shooting the breeze and taking it easy, for once.
She doesn’t ever want to lose him as a friend.
five.
She wonders if you can call it ‘dating’ when you’ve never been on an actual date. She’s also spent far more time debating that than she cares to admit.
Because, well, they’ve definitely kissed. Several times. And they’ve gotten comfortable holding hands and hugging in non-life threatening situations in the last two weeks. They spent a lot of time together without biting each other’s heads off (though it still happens, and she’d miss the arguing if they got along all the time). But they still haven’t gone on a real date, and she doesn’t think teaming up in canoe races or sitting next to each other at the campfire counts.
He’s walking her back to her cabin after the sing-along, swinging her hand gleefully. There’s a smile on her face, and her fingers are warm in his. It’s such a picturesque moment, and her stomach flutters happily with butterflies.
She can think of only one thing to make it more perfect.
Annabeth nudges his hip with hers, and he blushes a little before doing it back. “I bet we could get a day out of camp.”
Percy blinks at her. “For what?”
She nudges him again. “You know.”
His face tells her he doesn’t, but he looks afraid of admitting it. She bites the side of her cheek and squeezes his hand, staring at him like if she keeps staring it’ll get through telepathically. “You know,” she continues, “Just – like a break. Or something.”
“We could always ask if it’s okay to swing by my mom’s. Or maybe check out your school?”
Annabeth sighs. He looks almost panic-stricken; she knows he’s constantly terrified of doing something wrong with her now, and she likes to keep him on his toes, but she wants him to relax around her too. Maybe she just needs to stop expecting him to make the first move. She kisses him on the cheek. “Never mind,” she says. He grins goofily at her, relieved.
Besides, she’s not afraid to do that herself anymore – she’s not afraid of him turning her down. She’ll just have to plan out the perfect date ahead of time.
six.
She hasn’t stopped thinking about it since the moment she heard about it – an exhibit on Frank Lloyd Wright. She’s going. She is one hundred percent going, it doesn’t matter what the camp is up to that day.
And she’s going to turn this into a date, whether Percy likes it or not.
She slams down the leaflet for it on his table, standing behind him. He blinks at it, and it takes him a few seconds to solidify the name. “That guy you like?”
“He has a name, thank you very much. Look, it’s on a Saturday.” She’ll give him one shot. One chance, then she’s straight up asking him herself. She sits down next to him, making him jump – she’s still not technically supposed to do it, but she likes the reaction it gets from him when she sits at his table.
“You wanna go?”
“Of course I want to go,” she says, rolling her eyes. She slides her hand over, taking his and weaving their fingers together. “I thought we could…”
“Go together?”
For a moment, she’s surprised. And then she smiles at him. “Yeah.”
“Like…a date?”
Her smile deepens, even if she can feel her ears going a little red. “Yeah.” She really needs to say more than that, but she’s still getting over the fact that he used the word ‘date.’ That he actually picked up on it.
His cheeks are colored too, but he’s looking at her warmly. Something in him gets focused, determined, and he holds her gaze evenly. “Can we do, like, dinner after too?”
The delivery could use a little work, but Annabeth laughs. Not for very long, but he freezes up anyway, worried that he said the wrong thing. She squeezes his hand and lets out a long-waited exhale. He looks at her hopefully, and she leans in to brush her lips shyly against his. “Honestly, Percy, I thought you’d never ask.”