Chapter Text
AFTER YEARS OF LIVING A WHIRLWIND LIFE full of monsters and prophecies and vicious gods, you start to learn how to appreciate boring nights on the rare occasions they come your way.
Walking home from work while thinking of nothing but the date you’ll have tomorrow—that’s the kind of monster-, prophecy-, and god-free situation Percy had never had the chance to enjoy from the day he set foot on Camp Half-Blood.
Don’t get him wrong—if he could choose between a life as a demigod or a mortal, he’d definitely choose the former. After all, had he not been born as Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, he never would have met people like Annabeth or Grover or Tyson. Worst of all, his mom probably would have never had the opportunity and time to be the full-time writer that she was now.
But being in constant danger and living life in a perpetual mode of survival got to you eventually, and it definitely got to Percy, who had spent the last six or seven years of his teenage life trying to save the world without dying in the process.
Luckily for Percy, the Fates must have taken pity on him; these days, his biggest worries revolved around finishing high school without a fuss so he can go to college with Annabeth in New Rome. This period of peace felt odd and suspicious to him at first, as he had learned time and time again not to trust the world when it was not actively out to get him killed.
Eventually, though, he came to the reluctant acceptance that, for once, he’s finally able to enjoy his days without worrying which monsters plan to make him their next meal.
Now he was slowly reintegrating himself back into mortal society—at least, for the rest of his high school education—and if there was anything his demigod life had taught him, it was that the privilege of having this relative peace was not something that came by to him easily, and so he had to take the chance while it’s dangling in front of him.
Read: relative peace. Oh, it was better than fighting monsters, alright, but to say that his current job gave him much peace and not a lot of headaches was generous—being a swimming instructor for a bunch of chaotic eight-year-olds was not for the faint of heart.
Those kids… ah, they were really something, and he’d say that with all the love he had for them in his chest. It had taken him time to find his footing upon being thrust so suddenly into the throes of third-grade pandemonium, but eventually he found that training these wild, unruly kids was actually no different from taming mischievous hippocampi. And, in fact, he swimmingly managed to get them on his side within hours of their first session together. They ended up adoring him so much Zach went out of his way to invite him to his birthday party after practice—which was the entire reason why he was out and about as late as now.
He sighed, hands in his pockets as he watched the way his breath materialized as tendrils of smoke before him. Winters in Manhattan are much like the sea—seldom predictable, often strange. At times you get biting winds, arctic cold, and raging snowstorms, and in the next hour, you get nothing more than a moderate chill and balmy drafts. Tonight, it was something in between: cold enough that he had to wear gloves and a scarf, but not nearly cold enough to cancel practice.
With the prophecy-less direction his life was headed right now, Percy couldn’t be more satisfied. He could not remember a time when he wasn’t fighting monsters or trying not to die and all of that typical demigod stuff—but he knew for sure he didn’t miss that part of being a half-blood. Plus, now that he was older and had less of the world’s weight on his severely fatigued shoulders, his appreciation for the mundane had heightened, and even his default restlessness had taken the backseat.
Now, finally, he smiled; he and Annabeth could be just like any normal college couple who go on dates and build a life together. Normalcy might seem boring for the average mortal, but to a demigod who’s been subject to two consecutive Great Prophecies, normalcy’s just about the best your life could get. Mortals had no idea what a blessing it was for their biggest problem to be about getting their driver’s license instead of worrying which god wants to pluck you out of your life this time, brainwash you into forgetting all your past memories, and manipulate the course of your future to play out however they want it.
Ah, speaking of his license… He shook his head, clicking his tongue as he remembered his stupidity once more. He’d placed his wallet in Annabeth’s purse the last time they went out—this happened just the other day, actually—and it slipped his mind entirely until he was well on his way back home and realized that his pockets felt a little too empty.
So, at this moment, Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, the hero of two Great Prophecies, was left essentially fully broke and without all his relevant identification. He didn’t want to ask Sally or Paul for some pocket change—the whole reason he got a job was so he didn’t have to do that anymore, after all—and besides, what’s a little walking to and from his job for a day or two? He could definitely use this chance to get some steps in.
He’ll be seeing Annabeth again tomorrow, anyway, and he couldn’t wait! Practically skipping in his steps, Percy looked around twice for any approaching vehicles. As he thought, there was none, but it didn’t hurt to be careful still. It was quite late already, and this neighborhood was not the busy kind at this hour. The party had ended early some two hours ago, as the kids still had to meet their bedtimes, but because he had to walk all the way home, Artemis would have to patiently bear witness to this hero dragging himself through the slim, darkened streets of Manhattan, back to the solace of the Jackson apartment.
He crossed the road, humming. Let it be known that Percy Jackson might be a beast at combat and heroism, but even the greatest human beings had flaws, and his was that he could not carry a tune, even when humming. Still, it was a deserted backstreet, and who else would he be terrorizing with his attempt at music in such a place?
One more block till he’d reach the main street. He couldn’t wait to get home and take a nice, warm shower. His mom would probably be still awake, typing away at her laptop, and she would give him a stern once-over as soon as he stepped inside, but would enthusiastically ask him about the party later on.
Percy grinned. He couldn’t wait to tell her and Annabeth all about it. He’d succeeded in teaching the kids to be relatively well-behaved in the pool, but outside it, they were absolute brutes—thankfully, at that point, it was none of his business anymore, and the duty of having to keep them in one piece was left to their parents. Honestly, it had been quite difficult to keep a straight face the whole night because of the kids’ antics.
He’d taken mental notes on which hilarious instances to share with Annabeth. He didn’t really do or say funny things with the intention of being funny, but he particularly liked watching Annabeth’s cheeks turn red as she clutched her stomach from laughter. Laughter that he caused. And her smile was so infectious that even having the most horrible of days wouldn’t stop him from cracking a knowing grin.
Percy paused at the intersection, looking at every which way—still empty, except for a steadily approaching pair of lights from the other direction. He wasn’t in a rush, and the street’s only source of illumination was the moonlit sky, so he decided to let the truck pass first before crossing the street, lest he be an unfortunate roadkill.
But…
He could see a moving silhouette on the other side of the street, and this silhouette… Percy could be wrong, but they didn’t seem to have noticed the moving vehicle.
He glanced at it again, and Percy was no math wizard, but he didn’t need to calculate the truck’s speed to know that a collision was likely to occur. The way neither the truck nor the silhouette showed any sign of stopping was enough indication for him.
The truck was still far enough that he could just make it if he hurried, but even then it would be cutting it too narrowly. Still—what else was there to do? Loyal to a fault, both to his principles and to the people around him, he could not, in good faith, simply stand there and watch this disaster waiting to happen.
Any other normal person would have hesitated, frozen in terror with their feet rooted firmly into the ground, not by the unwillingness to save a life but by the nagging fear of sacrificing one’s own. But Percy Jackson had never really been good at staying still.
He was sprinting before he knew it, and everything happened so quickly. One moment, he had just pushed the person out of the way, and the next, he was flying—and there was a sickening sound of breaking bones, the awful thud of a body hitting the ground, and the screeching of tires as the truck driver slammed on the brakes.
And then—nothing.