They hung out a few more times. Then they decided to make it official and those hang-out sessions turned into dates. Artemis found her first ever boyfriend one of the best people she'd ever met. They would be sitting in a Wendy's eating shitty square burgers and they'd discuss their animal encounters doing volunteer work and taking apprenticeships for their studies.

One of Percy's stories involved a penguin knocking him out and nearly breaking his leg by sliding directly into him at the aquarium he worked part-time at for experience and to help pay for college. Then there was the seal who tried to rip his face off in a tank at that same aquarium while a crowd of tourists watched and took videos. Or the time he got stung by a stingray at a beach and almost died. Considering she worked with spiders, snakes, gorillas, chimps, lions, tigers, bears, oh my- she was astonished to find that Percy's job was so much more deadlier than hers. She thought the most dangerous thing a marine biologist could face was a shark but apparently Percy had never had any bad run-ins. Yet.

He even still had scars for a few incidents. She hadn't noticed some faint lighter lines on his face until he pointed them out. They were definitely faint, but hella noticeable once you knew about the seal incident. He also reportedly still had the mark from the stingray assault in his side, but obviously he hadn't shown her because taking off your shirt in a fast food restaurant is not generally allowed.

Artemis had a few bad stories of her own. Early in her training a boa had begun the process of choking her but her trainer quickly unlocked it so she wasn't at harm at any point. While playing with one of the tiger cubs it had scratched her on the cheek, but since it was a baby it was no worse than a cat scratch. That scar was even more faded than Percy's despite being only a few months old. She'd also had to go into animal enclosures quite a few times to retrieve guests phones or whatever the fuck they threw in there, despite the zoos policy of whatever falls in is the animal's property.

The only one she felt really in danger was the polar bear enclosure. They were hella mean. Literally only a select few keepers were even permitted in there, but they were all away that day on a trip to something. The manager on duty that day was the one who did not care about the rule and only about appeasing the customers, so he told her to make it quick and get the phone.

Well one, its a bad idea to run in front of a predator or even make any sudden movements, and two, it's incredibly hard to rush on fucking ice. As such, Artemis had to speed walk across to the phone, and the longer she took, the less time until the bears decided homicide was a valid option. They never actually attacked, but all three were growling by the time Artemis could start rushing back to the door, and for once Artemis was glad she couldn't hear a thing. When she made it back, she saw that two of the bears were mobilised by that point, and if she stayed just a few seconds longer they could have rushed her. Fuck polar bears. She preferred the tigers.

Obviously after she told her trainer, the guy had a stern talking to the acting manager, and she'd never had to go in with the polar bears again. Thank God.

Percy loved that story. He always thought polar bears were so cool. Same with most exotic animals. If he didn't wholeheartedly prefer water and the creatures within it to normal animals, he could've gone into zoology himself.

While they were dating Percy was forced to meet Artemis' loved ones, and all of them made Percy nervous as hell. If Artemis' nature wasn't to be cold and distant, then her nurture definitely was.

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