CW: referenced grooming/SA of a minor

The first thing Percy notices when he peels his face from the wet grass is the Eiffel Tower, and his first thought is, Hey! I've been here before! I know this place!

And then he realizes that he might have been better off in the Alps. He's no geographer, but he's pretty sure this is significantly further from Rome than where he was before.

"Jesus," Will swears as he stands up on wobbly legs. Then, he too notices where Raphael the hellhound took them. "Oh no. I will not let some quest ruin the City of Love for me!"

Percy's never really been close to Will Solace. Sure, he owes the guy everything for saving Annabeth's life during the battle at Manhattan against Kronos and the Titan army, but besides putting the traumatized son of Apollo onto a stolen motorcycle and whisking him away to the makeshift med bay, he never had the time to get to know Will.

Sally Jackson always raised Percy to never give anyone a reason to be a dick to him. Well, those weren't her words exactly, and he definitely has given people some reasons to be a dick to him, but never Will. At least, he thinks so. He'd know if he'd done something to piss Will off.

Maybe this is all in Percy's head. Maybe Will isn't being a dick to him.

Raphael sniffs Annabeth's still form on the ground, wagging his tail.

"All good, Annabeth?" Percy asks.

She sits up at last. "Wow," she says in awe. "Sorry, it's just... the architecture of this city never ceases to amaze me. I mean, have you ever really thought about how fucking ugly the Eiffel Tower is? And we just wore those on our clothes twenty-four-seven in middle school like it's some kind of romantic icon!"

Percy can't believe it, but he agrees with Annabeth. He used to romanticize this place because of the time they earned an all-expense paid one-month anniversary date courtesy of Hermes, but really, what difference did being in Paris make?

Well, the food was amazing. He'll give Parisians credit where it's due.

"Yeah," Percy agrees. "The Eiffel Tower is just a bunch of steel beams in a funky shape."

Annabeth scoffs. "Actually, it's puddle iron."

"Oh."

"Common mistake. Don't get down on yourself," she teases. "Does anybody have money for a- Fucking shit!"

"Boo," Nico deadpans and emerges into the light before tripping on his loose shoelaces and falling into Will, who catches him like it's second nature. It probably is second nature at this point.

"I sure missed Italia," Nico says, looking up from the grass and then at his surroundings. "Oh. This is..."

Will then addresses Annabeth and Percy. "It's best we take the night to get our strength up. Nico and I can find a hotel and a place to hide Raphael. You guys go find food; I'm sure Nico's starving."

"Bold of you to assume Percy and I aren't also starving and tired," Annabeth says.

Percy chuckles. "You should have seen the breakfast we ate this morning!"

"Dammit," she swears. "I left the takeout containers in the hotel fridge."

"All good," he replies.

"Not all good. I wanted the rest of that avocado toast."

There's a moment of silence for the avocado toast, even though Percy had no intentions of eating the soggy leftover breakfast. Come to think of it, they should have just eaten that at the restaurant and saved the pancakes.

Will narrows his eyes at Percy for some reason. "Cool," he says. "I'm sure you guys wouldn't mind getting dinner then."

Percy shrugs. "If it's okay with Annabeth."

"Yep," she says, clapping Will on the back, causing him to almost drop Nico. "I'm just teasing ya, my guy."

"It's not a phase, Mom," Nico mumbles in his sleep.

Percy supposes that now would not be an appropriate time for everyone to put their hands in for a team cheer, so he pulls out his phone and starts looking up some places to eat.

***

"Percy, for the last time," Annabeth says, "money is not a problem. New Rome is paying for everything. We can eat whatever we want."

"Yeah, but just because we can doesn't mean we should."

"Uh, it means we absolutely should. We're hungry and we need sustenance because we're on a quest against a minor deity. We'll be fine."

Percy can't find it in himself to feel fine about using more of New Rome's money than he has to, but he chooses to shut up. Realistically, he should feel okay about it. Annabeth isn't a fan of handouts and she has no qualms against using the credit card for tattoo money.

"Hey, wait," he says. "Are you still doing the tattoo thing? Did you even get one when we were in Prague?"

Her face turns red, but she quickly recovers. "Uh, hell yeah, I'm going through with it! I'm thinking maybe an owl sitting on my laurel. That would be cool, wouldn't it?"

Did she say hell yeah, as in hell yeah, she got a tattoo in Prague, or just hell yeah, she wants another tattoo? If she got a tattoo in Prague, she should probably have Will take a look at it because there's no way she was sober when it happened. She and Percy barely spent any time in Prague sober. Maybe he should check himself for stowaway tattoos.

"Percy?" Annabeth asks. "Believe it or not, I do value your opinion. It is permanent."

"I... you do?"

"I mean, the laurel looks pretty badass, so yeah, I do," she says.

She values his opinion. There is a person in Percy's life who values what he has to say.

He's not sure what to do with that information, other than try to give Annabeth the advice she's asking for.

"I mean, you could do the owl. Like, one of those owls with the horn-looking things on its head, you know?" he asks. "And like, big yellow eyes."

"Yellow on my skin?" she asks. "That might not hold up over time."

"What if you got a starfish?"

"No. No more nautical tattoos."

Percy used to be offended by that. After all, it was the trident tattoo she got for him that she covered up with a snake and a dagger. He has every right to be a little hurt, but he isn't. He's not her boyfriend anymore, and if he's being honest, he's not sure he would give her a chance if by some fluke she asked him out.

"Is there a quote you like?" he asks.

She purses her lips. "I'm kind of afraid of getting words. What if the artist spells something wrong?"

"Valid," Percy says. "Are you into flowers at all? I remember you used to like begonias." It's true. All the other boyfriends bought roses for their girlfriends before the Fourth of July fireworks—the most romantic dating event at Camp Half-Blood—but Percy knew better. Annabeth liked begonias. He never told her that he went to the grocery store for the BOGO sale on flowers, but she seemed to appreciate a bouquet of scarlet begonias.

"You remember that?" Annabeth asks.

"Well, yeah," he says. "'Scarlet Begonias.' It was on the Grateful Dead CD in Paul's car." Percy and Annabeth never had a song, like the kind couples pick out and call our song, but for the longest time, Percy couldn't go through the CDs from his stepdad's car because they reminded him too much of her. They'd cruise down the freeway blasting all of that old rock music. The Grateful Dead, Guns n' Roses, and Led Zepplin were their bands.

Plus, as the lyrics suggest, Annabeth looked beautiful with scarlet begonias tucked in her curls, her face red and flustered from Percy singing the song to her.

She smiles at the ground. "Everyone thought you were hot shit for that. Katie Gardner used to complain to me that Travis would get her roses even though daisies were her favorite."

"To be fair," Percy says, "I'm pretty sure most of the guys just thought they were supposed to get roses for girls."

"Scarlet begonias," Annabeth says, lost in her thoughts. "Like, should I go big and put them by the laurel or put them around my wrist? Or my ankle?"

"I'm no expert, but I wouldn't do your ankle if you're so insistent on breaking it every chance you get," Percy says.

"Okay," Annabeth says. "I've got it."

"You're making your planning face." Percy hasn't seen Annabeth's planning face since they were kids and she worked on strategies for quests they went on or for games of capture the flag. Part of Percy wishes she could have put this much thought into anything they've done since leaving New Rome, but mostly, he feels awestruck by the reappearance of the planning face.

"Shut up and find somewhere we can order takeout," she says, once again denying the very idea of a planning face.

Percy starts typing away on his phone too and for a minute, the two of them stand there, heads in their phones, but nevertheless, on a mission. They weren't this in sync when they were in the Alps fighting centaurs.

"Bingo," says Annabeth. "I beat you."

"Hear me out," Percy says.

"I'm nervous."

"What if we got a ton of food from a bakery and ate that for dinner?" French people eat snails. Percy does not want to accidentally eat snails. There's an Italian restaurant nearby, but he'd kind of like to hold out for the good pasta back in Italy, so there's that.

Annabeth chuckles. "Are you asking me if I want to carb load for this quest?"

"Uh..."

"Because if so, I am so down for that," she says. "Do you want to call ahead and order? That way, everything will be ready after I get my tattoo."

Percy wasn't ready for Annabeth to agree to that so easily, but he's thankful she does. He's got a bit of a craving for something sweet right now. This whole quest has been... not sweet, for lack of better words.

"How long do you think it'll take?" he asks her.

She shrugs. "I dunno. How many ovens do they have?"

"I mean the tattoo."

Annabeth looks up from her phone. "It's going to take at least an hour."

It can't take an hour! They're on a time-sensitive mission! They have to get to the Vatican City before Pothos unleashes more of his monsters! The Erymanthian Boar left acres of fields in the Netherlands barren of their tulips. What's next? A drakon that could straighten the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

And then he remembers they're spending the night here in Paris, and no matter how hard he tries, he isn't going to be able to coop Annabeth up in a hotel room for quest-planning. Her ideas are spontaneous, and he can get behind that, especially if going along with her questionable life choices means she'll do more than just tolerate his presence. Percy might even go so far as to say he's friends with Annabeth! They might keep in touch after this, and send each other memes over Instagram. They may even FaceTime while Annabeth has a beer after work and Percy makes dinner for his mom.

That could be enough. That could be more than enough for him.

It could be great.

"Well, we better get started then," he says. "We don't Will and Nico wondering where we went."

***

For someone who showed an ounce of vulnerability just to tell Percy his opinion means something to her, Annabeth sure doesn't like to listen to it.

She's the expert on all things tattoo. Percy would be stepping a boundary if he tried to speak up, so he didn't. He gave his opinion earlier, so he'll still be able to say I told you so when Annabeth realizes putting an intricate tattoo on a newly healed injury is a bad idea.

Besides, the look on her face is enough for him to submit to her madness. After all, something that makes her so happy can't be total madness, can it? If anyone deserves some happiness, it's Annabeth.

Percy didn't pay much attention when she got the laurel leaf tattoo the other day. He kind of just played along with her fixation because he was freaked out about her breakdown in Munich. Also, the needle freaked him out a little. Yes, he has a Legion tattoo from New Rome. That tradition should be reevaluated; branding children has to be a violation of some child abuse law.

This time, he does pay attention as the artist wraps the stencil around Annabeth's ankle. It sort of reminds Percy of his fifth birthday party. He had enough temporary tattoos to give to his whole class, but none of them showed up. At the time, he was sad, but now he can imagine why someone might be hesitant to make an appearance at the birthday party of the kid who got expelled for making the preschool sink explode.

It was fine. He rocked that temporary tattoo sleeve.

Oh, Annabeth is trying to talk to him.

"Sorry. What?" he asks.

"I asked if you like it," Annabeth says, rotating her ankle so Percy can see. The flowers are placed along a vine rather than a stem in a bouquet like the kind he used to find at the grocery store, but he likes it better that way. The stencil starts at the bottom of her ankle, just above her foot, and spirals subtly around her calf.

He nods. "Yeah, I like it. Are you coloring it?"

She smirks. "Scarlet." She gives the artist the go-ahead to start.

The needle hits a particularly bony spot on her foot, and she grips Percy's hand like a convenient stress ball. It's instinctual, he's sure of that. She's always looked for physical reassurance. She probably does this with Will.

Still, Percy's struck with deja vu. They were just kids when Annabeth got her first tattoo. Come to think of it, she might have used a fake ID for that. They were both seventeen. A lot of the campers who got tattoos that day were under eighteen. Will Solace was fifteen or sixteen years old, for crying out loud!

Then Percy remembers that Travis Stoll planned the whole excursion, and everything makes sense.

He should have never let Annabeth go through with that trident tattoo. Percy remembers Annabeth staring into his eyes, clouded by the love he thought she had for him. As it turns out, it was only infatuation, and infatuation comes with an expiration date.

Today, she's watching the artist's every move, curiosity in her eyes as if this is the coolest thing she's ever seen. She never looked at Percy with that kind of admiration.

Like she just touched a hot stove, Annabeth drops his hand. "Whoops," she says through a wince.

"All good," Percy says, and that should be that, but then the needle traces over that bone in her leg—her tibia?—and she bites down on her lip. Hard.

He shouldn't say it, not when they've gotten this far, but it would be a shame if she drew blood, so he does. "You can grab my hand if you need to," he says. "I really don't mind."

Wordlessly, she takes him up on that offer, and she doesn't let go. She just squeezes tight every so often when the needle hits a particularly painful spot.

"Sorry," Annabeth says again.

Percy squeezes back. "It's fine, really." Do tattoo artists usually make small talk, or does this person not speak English? He doesn't care either way, but if he says something, it might distract Annabeth from the pain. "It looks cool."

"I know, right?" she beams. At last, she takes her eyes off the tattoo and addresses Percy directly. "Have you ever thought about getting one?"

"A tattoo?" he asks. What else would she be referring to? Of course, she's asking him if he's ever considered getting a tattoo. "I mean, I have my legion tattoo." For emphasis, he shows her the trident on his forearm.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "That doesn't count. It isn't unique."

"I'm the only son of Neptune, so..."

"You know what I mean."

He didn't pick his legion tattoo out himself, so he supposes he does know what she means. In all honesty? He hasn't thought about tattoos since he was dating Annabeth. He seriously considered getting an owl after she got her trident as a surprise, but then he remembered that Annabeth wasn't exactly in touch with her godly mother, and that was the end of that.

"No, I guess not," he says finally.

"I guess I should thank you," she says.

"For?"

"If I hadn't gotten that goddamn trident when we were... when we were dating, I probably wouldn't have gotten more tattoos," she says, her eyes once again focused on the flowers decorating her ankle. The artist finished the line art a few minutes ago and is now coloring the flowers a rich scarlet—just like the kind Percy used to weave into her hair.

"And the piercings too, probably," Annabeth adds, absently reaching for the hoops in her lip. "I feel... I don't know... In control?"

Percy's not sure what to think of that, except that it makes sense. He knows the feeling. Sometimes, he doesn't even feel like he's in control of himself.

Luckily, he doesn't have to think of an answer.

"Like, I know that thing people with a lot of ink say about their bodies being canvases sounds like total bullshit, but I mean... Yeah. The gods treated me like a pawn all my life, and this whole time, I can just fill my body with things that are special to me." She pulls the chopsticks out of her hair and puts them in her backpack, taking a moment to ruffle her unruly curls. "So yeah. My body is a fucking canvas, and it's mine. I guess that's why I like getting tattoos."

Her eyes widen. "Shit, I just info-dumped on you. That wasn't cool."

"I liked it," Percy says. I like hearing about what you're passionate about, he thinks. He can't say that out loud though. He worked so hard to get to this point with her. He's not about to ruin it with something that could be taken the wrong way.

"Thanks," she says. She squeezes his hand again, and Percy can't help but notice the needle is on the flesh of her calf.

"Totally," Percy says. "I'm here if you ever want to talk about... things." That's kind of a dumb word to use, but he stands by it. It's vague enough that it could mean what went down in her childhood that's still bothering her or something less serious like What kind of pastries do you want for dinner?

"Okay then," Annabeth says with a big sigh. "Listen up, Seaweed Brain, 'cause I'm only going to say this once."

"Alright?"

"I'm sorry I dumped you out of nowhere," she says. "Well, to clarify, I needed to dump you. I was not in a good place to be in a committed relationship."

Percy can feel his cheeks heating up. "You don't have to get into this. What's in the past is-"

"I told you to listen," she scolds. "I mean, I had just started thinking about girls, which was super scary because I felt like I was a terrible girlfriend for that, and a couple of nights before we met on the docks, there was this party."

There was always a party at Camp Half-Blood. Percy just made a point not to go because there was usually stolen alcohol involved. Sure, he's happy to take care of a drunk friend now, but at the time, he didn't even want to be around the stuff. Out of sight, out of mind. That never stopped Annabeth from going. He just pretended that she wasn't drinking.

Gods, he knew better but he pretended anyway.

"Yeah, so I went to the party; you were away that weekend helping your mom repaint your old bedroom I think."

Percy remembers that. They tore down the gods-awful wallpaper in his childhood bedroom and repainted it this light grey color so it could double as a presentable guest room if they ever needed the extra space. That was the same weekend they packed his things for New Rome University.

Annabeth continues. "It was all kind of a blur, but they finally cleaned out the Hermes Cabin's bunks that day—you remember how they were keeping a few like shrines? And I guess Connor found some stuff. He's a good guy. I'm sort of sad we fell out of touch. Anyway, Connor found some things and he figured it out."

Percy isn't sure he likes where this is going. He has enough pieces to jump to conclusions, but you never want to jump to those kinds of conclusions.

"I'd heard of people who went through similar stuff shutting those memories out, practically erasing them from their brains. I never thought that could happen to me, and you know how I've got that hubris thing, so it kind of... Yeah, so I went to the party later that night, and I sort of had a lot to drink," Annabeth says.

What's Percy supposed to say to that? This guy that she idolized for years turned out to be a complete creep instead of just a mild creep and she had to find out from Connor Stoll.

"I don't remember the rest, but that was a rough night. Will found me by Zeus's fist and I think I spent the night in the infirmary. I broke my ankle again." Her voice cracks. "Sorry, I've never told anyone about that before. I mean, Will knows, but he was there. We don't even talk about it."

So that's why she didn't tell Percy why she was using crutches when she broke up with him.

"I'm sorry you felt like you couldn't tell me," he says.

"I think deep down I knew it was time to be alone," she says, "and besides, what would I have even said to you? I was... Percy, I was so ashamed."

He knows she means she wasn't in a good place to be in a relationship, and he totally respects her for knowing, but he hates the thought that she just dumped him and never worked through the Luke thing. She won't even say his name.

But Annabeth doesn't work through things the way Percy does. Therapy's been great for him, but Annabeth's shown him that maybe it's not a one-size-fits-all cure. Maybe he should help her cope the way that works for her.

"So," he says, changing tones completely. "If I were to get a tattoo of a wave, would that look better on my forearm or my bicep?"