Chapter Text
Annabeth didn’t want to hear about the ostrich in the brownstone.
Walking around a bustling Brooklyn neighborhood was supposed to be an enriching experience, an immersion in the area’s vast history and culture. Annabeth may have come to New York on a mission, but she couldn’t deny that she’d long dreamed of getting more acquainted with the city. Although she lacked the time and money to go on a guided tour, the premise of dinner with a local gave her a spark of hope.
But her marine biologist tour guide apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, barely managing to fill the tense silence with his own idea of noteworthy landmarks, like a rat-infested Polish restaurant, a fire hydrant with googly eyes, and now a quaint building that had once housed a large flightless bird. “Some dude thought it would be a good gift for his daughter,” he was saying. “But my buddy Grover has a sixth sense about that kind of stuff, when animals are in crappy situations. Called animal control and got it shipped back to the savannah.”
“Wow,” Annabeth said, less out of fascination and more out of genuine surprise with the stories this man considered culturally significant.
As the cetus guy pointed at a flier for a Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest, Annabeth attempted to tune him out and appreciate her surroundings. The sun had begun to set, painting the sky a rosy pink. The neighborhood’s age was apparent in the deteriorating wooden siding and the short, narrow doors on many of the homes. Three-story buildings lined the roads, with window units dotting the top two stories and businesses on the ground level sporting brightly colored awnings. Some structures were strictly utilitarian, while others boasted elaborate brickwork and ornate wooden cornices protruding from the rooftops.
“Watch out.” The man wrapped a hand around her elbow, pulling her off course and away from a smattering of shattered glass. “I don’t know how things are upstate, but here, you gotta look down once in a while.”
Annabeth tugged her arm free from his grasp. “Thanks.”
Annabeth fought to keep her eyes at ground level as they continued walking. Across the street, a group of preteen girls in school uniforms walked arm in arm, squealing with laughter. A guy in a Brooklyn College hoodie rode his bike down the tree-lined street with his phone blaring rap music in another language. An elderly lady sat on a stoop of brick and cement, maybe waiting for her grandchildren to come home from school, maybe just soaking up the remaining sunlight of the day.
The back wall of a business had been painted with a vibrant mural: the head and shoulders of a pig painted in grayscale and, where the back half of the pig should’ve been, hundreds of multicolored butterflies that seemed to flutter off the building’s surface. On Mount Olympus, the gods would instantly smite anyone who dared to similarly deface a building they’d commissioned. Still, Annabeth felt drawn to its eccentricity. It was absurd and compelling and beautiful and human.
“I would do just about anything to build something like this,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else.
The man slowed his pace and wrinkled his brow. “Something like a crappy old laundromat?”
Frustration swelled within her. How did he not see it? The countless lives that had passed through these buildings, the businesses that had opened and closed, the plants people hung on their balconies to add the tiniest touch of green to the block…he brushed it off like it was nothing.
“Not the laundromat.” Annabeth managed a steady tone, then pointed to a nearby rowhouse. “Just…look at this one. See how the bricks up there are arranged in a herringbone pattern?”
His shoulder pressed against hers as he followed her gaze. “Yeah.”
“Why do you think they did it like that?”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe they messed up the first one and decided to roll with it?”
Annabeth groaned. “Because someone cared, you dolt. It’s an unassuming building next to a laundromat, but the designers took pride in what they did, and they wanted someone to feel proud to live there.” They’d started walking again, which somehow made it easier to say, “I want to build something that makes people feel proud and…I dunno, cared for.”
“Then do it,” he said. “If you’re this hotshot architect like you say, nothing’s stopping you, right?”
His brazen ignorance grated on whatever remained of her composure. “It’s not that easy,” Annabeth said. “People always think architecture is about building these impressive, unconventional structures. But in the real world, you have to deal with client demands.”
“And your clients don’t like…bricks?”
Gods, was he physically incapable of taking anything seriously? Annabeth sighed. “My supervisors are very, very traditional. Strictly Greco-Roman. Not a lot of room to innovate.”
“Sounds very Olympian.” The man smirked.
Dammit, how did he keep doing that? He’d already gotten her to mention Mount Olympus and New Rome on the drive over, and here she was dropping even more hints. Annabeth knew better than this, but this guy constantly put her on the defensive. He had a seemingly innate ability to get under her skin, aggravate her until she couldn’t think straight. If she wanted to get information out of him, she’d have to keep a level head for the next hour.
“Here we are!” the stranger said, pointing proudly to a storefront that was little more than a set of glass double doors. Luigi’s Pizza, the sign said in a grating neon cursive.
A bell dinged as he held a door open. Annabeth hesitated, and his free hand did an annoying little “ladies first” gesture. She bottled up her irritation and marched through the door. Between the sunset and the twinkling streetlights, she hoped he wasn’t getting the wrong idea about this dinner.
The long, narrow restaurant was saturated with the smell of basil and cured meats. A small group of highschoolers crowded around a table at the back of the restaurant, and a middle-aged couple sat near the counter. Otherwise, the place was empty, still a bit early for dinner rush.
The marine biologist strode up to the counter, where a small selection of pizzas waited behind a glass display: pepperoni, sausage, margherita, and a square one, which was topped with cheese and a bit of basil. He turned to Annabeth with a glint in his green eyes. “Do you trust me?”
Not the fuck at all. “Sure, why not?”
“Two grandma slices,” he said to the cashier. “And two drinks.”
The cashier took two slices of the square pizza and placed them in the oven behind him. Annabeth and the guy each retrieved a soda from the fridge near the register and sat at a small, vinyl-topped table along the wall. As they waited for their food, Italian folk music filled the silence, accordion and guitar punctuated by the occasional clang or scrape from behind the counter.
Annabeth held her baseball cap in her lap, fiddling with the Velcro strap on the back. How long had it been losing its grip like that? She wondered if replacing the Velcro would take away the hat’s power.
Annabeth blinked and returned her attention to the man across the table. “So, Perseus…”
“Uh,” he chuckled. “Just Percy is fine.”
“Oh, your name tag said Perseus.”
“Yeah, they automatically put our full names on those things. No one ever calls me Perseus.” He scoffed. “Well…except my mom when I go visit and leave my socks in the living room.”
Something in that comment made Annabeth’s heart twist inside her chest. It was a simultaneous emptiness—a longing for a life where her mother full-named her when she didn’t pick up her clothes—combined with an unexpected elation, a fluttery feeling the likes of which she hadn’t experienced since…
Annabeth grounded herself, pressing down on the spiky strip of Velcro. She reminded herself that Percy was nothing more than a means to an end. An irritating, flippant stepping stone to help her gain access to the ceti. The last thing she needed was to start seeing him as a sensitive family man.
Still, maybe she could use the dim lighting and intimate seating to her advantage. She decided to lean into that split-second fuzziness that had invaded her chest, letting her chin fall into the palm of her hand and cocking her head sideways. It felt like going into battle unarmed. “Aw, you’re close with your mom?” she asked. “That’s sweet.”
He nodded. “She’s kind of all I’ve got. Her and my best friend.”
“Oh.” The mention of a single-parent home set off alarm bells in her mind. She needed to be careful, open up just enough to make him feel comfortable, but avoid revealing too much about herself. “I…don’t really know either of my parents, so I kind of get it. Like, I know them, but I never talk to them. Mom’s strictly business, and Dad’s…I haven’t seen him in years.” The hollow, sinking feeling returned. Annabeth studied the stained glass light fixtures—red, green, and white glass that had probably been hanging from the drop-tile ceiling since the 1970s. Old, but well maintained.
“That really sucks.” Percy’s expression was atypically solemn as he scratched at a crusted stain on the table. “I don’t know my dad at all.”
“Oh,” she said again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a big deal.” He shrugged, but his slumped posture betrayed his attempt at apathy. “He’s a huge asshole anyway. He blew off my mom and me pretty much the moment I was born. Mom insists he was a good guy and that he had his reasons, but I don’t know. Any guy who just ditches someone like that seems like a pretty big dick to me.”
The story about his absent father raised even more suspicions. Annabeth recalled how the Mist hadn’t fully worked its magic on Percy earlier, how he seemed to have consistent problems with cell phones.
“Two grandma slices!” the cashier called out.
Annabeth moved to retrieve the pizza, but Percy held out his hand in a stop motion. “Allow me,” he said.
Annabeth rolled her eyes and stood up anyway. “I can get my own damn pizza,” she spat, then immediately felt a pang of regret. If he kept treating her like she couldn’t do anything herself, she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it together.
Percy only shrugged in defeat. “If you insist,” he chuckled. “We’ll go together.”
Why was this guy so hell-bent on being charming? He must have been just as curious about her as she was about him, and he obviously intended to flatter her into revealing more about the quest. He probably thought he could use that lopsided smile and those magnetic eyes to get whatever he wanted. But Annabeth had learned the hard way not to fall for those tricks.
They returned to the table with their pizza, grease soaking through the first of multiple stacked paper plates. The cheese had bubbled up into perfectly toasted brown spots, the basil had shrunken in on itself, and the whole rectangular slice was absolutely smothered with bright red tomato sauce. Percy was staring at her expectantly. “Well?” he said, indicating her pizza.
“Right.” She took a bite. It was admittedly good, with sweet cherry tomato sauce and a crust that was thin but not too crispy. The carry-out Pizza Hut that camp counselors had occasionally retrieved when she was a kid paled in comparison. Annabeth gave Percy a greasy thumbs up while she chewed. “It’s good.”
“See?” He leaned back, looking rather smug. “I’m not all bad.”
“I never said you were.”
“Well, you keep looking at me like I’m gonna kill you or something.” He took a bite of his pizza.
“I’m…no, I don’t,” Annabeth protested.
“It’s cool,” he said. “When you’re not from around here, everyone can seem like a threat.”
“I know who is and isn’t a threat,” Annabeth insisted, but now she wasn’t so sure. On a typical quest, she could do her research in advance, gather information on any Greek heroes, gods, or monsters she might face. Random New Yorkers were unfortunately out of her laptop’s wheelhouse.
“Right, of course. You don’t need anyone’s help,” Percy said. “I forgot you’re, like, the world’s smartest architect or whatever.”
“I am,” Annabeth replied. For some reason, this made Percy grin, and this time it looked genuine. Annabeth smiled in return, if only because he was letting his guard down.
“So, how’d you get into marine biology?” she asked before taking another big bite, hoping to get more information under the ruse of casual small talk.
“Well, I’ve sort of always been interested in it.” He fiddled with the tab of his Coke can as he spoke. “When I was a little kid, my mom and I would take these trips to Montauk. We’d rent this crappy little beach cabin and swim for hours, and maybe it’s ’cause I was young and idealistic, but I just felt…” He scoffed. “I know it sounds stupid, but I felt this connection to the sea. I mean, how many kids have had dolphins just swim right up to them?”
“Not many.” Annabeth tried her best to sound attentive as she analyzed his story.
“Yeah. Happened to me three times when I was a toddler. That kind of thing leaves an impression on you. So yeah, I always knew what I wanted to do, but man…elementary through high school were hell ’cause I’m ADHD and dyslexic. I wasn’t exactly teacher’s pet. But once I got to college and could really focus on the stuff I cared about…”
Annabeth stopped listening. This was not good. The learning disabilities, an absent parent, seeing through the Mist…this guy was ticking every box on the demigod checklist. The fact that he shared a name with Perseus, a Greek hero known for slaying a cetus, wasn’t lost on her either. Worst of all, the way he talked about being drawn to the sea and his supposed ability to sense the feelings of the creatures at the aquarium…
“Hey. Wise girl.” Percy was snapping his fingers in front of her eyes. “If you’re so smart, why can’t you answer a simple question?”
“What?” Annabeth came back to Earth.
“I said, ‘What about you?’ Were you always into architecture?”
Annabeth sat up straighter and treaded a fine line as she talked about her passion for the field. Some things required no filter: the Lego sets and pillow forts that she’d spent endless hours constructing as a child, her early fascination with her father’s skyline-themed coffee table book. She decided not to reveal that her overwhelming hyperfixation on tactile play had been an early indicator of ADHD or that she’d preferred books with pictures because the 3D images made sense in a way that the warping words never could.
She talked about how, as she grew, architecture had become more than a thing of beauty for her, how she’d come to recognize it as something that could instill a shared sense of awe or worthiness or belonging. Once again, Annabeth bit her tongue as she bitterly remembered the gods’ tendency to commission work that only served their own self-interest.
As she spoke, Percy leaned forward, intent even as he absentmindedly thumbed the divots on his paper plate. His eyes were so similar to the stained glass on the lamp above them, a brilliant, luminous green.
Annabeth shifted her gaze to the ceiling again and cleared her throat. “So yeah, now I’m basically doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Designing and maintaining the city of my dreams.”
“That’s really cool,” he said. “To have this thing that you’re super passionate about, and work your whole life to end up exactly where you always planned to be. Must be nice.”
Annabeth couldn’t piece together what he meant by that. “You could say the same thing about yourself,” she said. “You obviously care a lot about the animals at the aquarium. What you were saying in the car about the whales…if this stuff is that important to you, I think you are exactly where you need to be.”
“For now,” Percy sighed. Before Annabeth could question him further, he’d already moved on: “But yeah, the whales. That’s why we’re here. Just what is your plan with all this?”
“You first,” Annabeth insisted. “After all, you’re the one who picked up Frank and me and offered us dinner. You want to make sure we have our facts straight, right? So straighten things out.”
Percy thought while he chewed, looking down at the table and running his fingers along the edge of his plate. After nearly a minute, he finally spoke up. “I was there the day George and Gracie were rescued. I wasn’t on-site the moment they were discovered or anything, but I was basically the first person they called ’cause I’m the closest thing the aquarium has to a cetacean expert. They rushed me out there with a few other guys. George had several broken bones, and Gracie was bleeding internally. But Grover, our on-site vet, is a freaking miracle worker and managed to get them in decent shape within a few hours.”
His eyes traced the fake wood grain on the table. “We were supposed to leave them. That’s what the Wildlife Conservation Society told us to do, no more interference than necessary. But you could just tell by looking at them that they wouldn’t make it in the wild in their condition. Any other animal, anything smaller, we would’ve taken back to the aquarium in a heartbeat. But two whale calves…I guess it didn’t seem very practical. But George was singing this tragic song, and Gracie was nuzzling up against him, and I just couldn’t leave them there to…” He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice had a rasp to it. “I couldn’t leave them.”
Annabeth was overcome by a strange and powerful urge to reach out and squeeze his hand. Instead, she crossed her arms and leaned against the wood-paneled wall. “Well, it looks like things wound up going your way,” she offered softly.
“For a while, yeah,” he said. “I convinced my higher-ups to use this huge conservation tank. It was just supposed to be a temporary solution, but George needed more time, and I already had my foot in the door. I crunched some numbers and pointed out how marketable it was to be the only aquarium in the US with North Atlantic right whales. Not to mention the resources we’d already spent getting the conservation tank back in working condition—I told my boss we might as well get the most bang for our buck. I’m not normally a finance guy, but…I don’t know, the whole thing kind of took over my life for a couple weeks.”
Annabeth tried not to be too impressed. Despite his occasional dim-witted remarks, the idea of him as an academic professional was beginning to seem a bit less fantastical.
Percy shrugged. “So we worked out a year-long rehabilitation plan, but…”
“The new exhibit,” Annabeth finished.
Percy nodded. “Apparently, the budget’s not looking so hot, and now WCS is planning to replace the whole conservation tank area with this stupid VR exhibit. Which has basically no maintenance costs compared to caring for two whales, so there’s no fighting it. George and Gracie are getting shipped out to a sanctuary in New Jersey next month.”
It was hard not to see the irony. If the ceti had been scheduled to transfer just a bit earlier, this quest would’ve been a cinch. Hijacking a transportation tank would be much easier than breaking the ceti out of an in-ground tank. Annabeth struggled to hold back a sardonic laugh.
Then she saw the slouch in Percy’s posture, the almost boyish pout of his lips. Without warning, his sorrow overthrew her own worries, a lump settling in her throat. Seeing his dejected state, she nearly missed that insufferably disarming smile.
Annabeth considered how much detail she could reveal. Percy clearly wasn’t your average mortal, but even his heartfelt story left her feeling wary. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“What?” Percy looked up at her without raising his head.
Annabeth studied his face. Everything from his open palms to his clear, steady gaze seemed so genuine. And that scared her more than anything. “You were so opposed to this earlier,” she continued. “Why the change of heart?”
“It’s not a change of heart. I’m just weighing my options.”
“Options? For what?”
“Well, I was telling you about how they’re going to that sanctuary.” The tab of his soda can had come off, and Percy tapped it against the table, not meeting her eyes.
“Yeah,” Annabeth urged him to continue.
“The sea isn’t a good place to be right now,” he said. Annabeth almost wanted to laugh. He didn’t know the half of it. Percy explained, “Whales that were raised in captivity don’t always transition well. Since the aquarium rescued George and Gracie when they were calves, they’ve never had to fend for themselves. They’re still healing, and they need a lot of extra care. Even sanctuaries are impacted by pollution, overfishing…idiot freighters that ignore sanctuary boundaries.” He set his jaw with a steely resolve that made Annabeth realize she didn’t want to get on his bad side.
“That’s really awful,” she said.
“It’s…whatever.” In the blink of an eye, his expression shifted from determination to defeat. “Whales can’t live forever in captivity either—they need the mental and physical stimulation of the open sea. At the aquarium, we could keep them alive, but they wouldn’t really be living, you know? It’s a no-win scenario.”
Annabeth straightened up. “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios. We can take George and Gracie to a place where I promise they’ll be safe.”
“Who’s we?” he asked.
“Me. A few of my friends. Frank, who you met earlier–”
“Oh, fish boy?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Percy’s eyes skimmed the pictures that decorated the walls.
“No, you’re seriously freaking me out.” Annabeth pressed. “How did you know Frank was a fish?”
“So he was a fish!” Percy shouted triumphantly. Then he furrowed his brow as he realized that Frank’s shapeshifting, which he’d probably assumed was a trick of the light, had been reality.
Annabeth closed her eyes and took a calming breath. This guy was impossible to talk to. “How…” she repeated, trying to hide her exasperation, “…did you know he was a fish?”
Percy shrugged and nibbled at the crust of his pizza. “I dunno. He just…sounded like a fish.”
“That doesn’t make any–”
“More importantly.” Percy’s head snapped up. “How did he turn into a fish?!”
Annabeth’s lips tightened—she’d shown her cards too soon. Maybe she could’ve backpedaled. Maybe she could’ve come up with an explanation and prayed to Hecate that the Mist would smooth things over in his mind. But a child of Athena had to know when to accept defeat and how to do so with dignity.
“Fine,” she said. “You want to know who we really are?”
“No, I want to live in infinite curiosity about invisible ladies and guys who turn into fish.”
Her nostrils flared at the sarcasm, but she reminded herself of every kooky thing he’d revealed about himself over the past two hours. Percy may have been aggravatingly unserious, but there was no denying that he was a half-blood, and he deserved the truth. She continued, “We’re demigods. You said you saw me turn invisible?”
He nodded slowly.
“My mom, Athena, gave me this magical baseball cap that can make its wearer invisible. And Frank, he’s a son of Mars, the Roman god of war. But he’s also a legacy of Poseidon, which is why he can shapesh– …okay, Frank’s a little complicated, so he’s probably not the best example to start out with. Anyway, we’re on a quest to rescue your ceti and bring them to Mount Olympus, where they’ll be able to swim freely and safely for the rest of their lives.”
For a moment, Percy looked like he wanted to believe her. Like every weird thing he’d experienced in his life was building up to this moment, and he could finally start exploring who he truly was. Then, his expression hardened. “Okay, I don’t know why you’re really here, but you are a huge asshole.”
“What?” Annabeth protested. What could she possibly have done wrong? After hours of side-stepping and playing defense, she’d finally told him the truth, and he had the audacity to be upset with her?
“Yeah, this is some next-level shit,” Percy snapped. “I’ve had teachers scold me for being ‘too much’ in class. I’ve lost jobs over my ‘hyperactive imagination.’ But stringing me along and convincing me that this shapeshifting and invisibility stuff was real, just to pull the rug out from under me with some absolute bullshit about Greek fucking gods?” His chair scraped across the floor as he stood up. “This is a new low.”
“Wait!”
“What?” His sea-green eyes raged.
Annabeth paused. There was no convincing him at this point, so she decided to focus on a more immediate problem: the bill. “I don’t have mortal money.” She tried for a smile.
“Of course you fucking don’t.” He slammed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and exited the restaurant, the door’s bell tinkling as he stormed into the night.