Coming of Age Ch. 55 (Percy Jackson)

A/N: Percy and the Goddess of Wisdom have a chat.

-x-X-x-

Standing there before him a few yards away is none other than Athena. The Goddess of Wisdom, Battle, and Strategy, she certainly looks the part clad in her Hippolyte Armor and wielding a spear that seems almost as divine as she does.

Before Percy can answer her question, Athena suddenly hefts the spear up, giving him less than a second to go wide eyed and dive to the side as she throws it. Shit, was she trying to kill him?!

Except, even as he’s pushing himself off the ground in a panic, Percy hears a shriek of agony and looks over to see a monster had been sneaking up on his blind spot. Skewered through by the Goddess of Battle and Strategy’s spear, the monster turns to gold dust a moment later, and Athena’s weapon flashes back to her hand, even as she looks at him imperiously.

“You missed one.”

Percy swallows thickly, not sure what to say to that for a moment. In the end, he decides to go with cautious respect and an answer to her previous question.

“Well met, Lady Athena. And I prefer to go by Percy, thank you for asking.”

Athena raises a sculpted eyebrow at that, but otherwise doesn’t comment. She also only half-takes his words into consideration.

“You’ve been the talk of Olympus for over a year now, Perseus Jackson. First as the oath-defying Son of Poseidon, and then as the impetus for rebellion against the King of the Gods, and finally as the reincarnation of Adonis. You’ve caused quite a mess with your very existence, haven’t you? You can stop trying to gauge how far away you are from my Aunt’s Domain by the way. I’m not here to kill you.”

Percy freezes at that last bit. Of course the Goddess of Strategy would see through his surreptitious attempts to figure out just how far outside of the borders of Camp Half-Blood he was. See, in order to cull the monsters, Percy had to step outside of Hestia’s protection. Just the way of things. But he always tended to stay close to the border.

In fact, he was closer to the border than Athena was to him right now. And that… actually was a point in her favor, wasn’t it? Sure, she could probably catch him before he reached Hestia’s Domain, being divine and all that. But she hadn’t put herself between him and the border. That was a choice, wasn’t it? A very deliberate choice.

Swallowing hard, Percy forces himself to relax and stop fidgeting as he straightens up, squares his shoulders, and looks Athena right in the eye.

“What can I do for you, Goddess? You’re not wrong about any of the things you said. However, all of those are things out of my control, even now. As you yourself said, all of these things are either inescapable facts of my existence or were caused by my existence… not my actions.”

Athena tilts her head to the side as she eyes Percy silently for a long moment. The intensity of her gaze makes him want to squirm, but he manages to keep himself in check.

“… I suppose I wished to get the measure of the one who’s causing such a commotion. As well as commend you for finally realizing that you’re not right for my daughter.”

It’s like a record scratch goes off in Percy’s head. Excuse him?!

“What?”

Now, Athena affixes Percy with a slightly baleful glare.

“I was irritated when you first drew my daughter into your orbit, Perseus Jackson. Annabeth was never so lewd a creature before you came along.”

He’d literally woken up to her stroking his dick the first time they met! Percy knows better than to say that out loud of course, but his incredulity must leak through regardless because Athena’s face darkens a bit more.

“As I said, she was never so lewd a creature before your influence. You, Perseus Jackson, are a dangerous man. You were dangerous as a mortal. You’re even more dangerous as a demigod. I can’t imagine you’ll be any less dangerous as a god.”

Dangerous?! To women? To Annabeth? Percy is trying to keep his cool. He’s trying not to do what is rapidly becoming his ‘thing’ where he shit talks every divine being who could swat him like a fly and smite him where he stands. But Athena’s words are incredibly inflammatory and altogether provocative in a way that’s really getting under his skin and fast.

“But fortunately for your sake, you’ve set Annabeth aside for that Daughter of Hades. I am here for two reasons. One, to make sure you keep it that way, and two, to offer you my boon of battle in the defense of Camp Half-Blood if you swear an Oath in the River Styx that you WILL keep it that way.”

Okay. Wow. That was a lot to unpack. For one, there was the fact that a literal Goddess seemed to have come to some pretty wrong conclusions. Though to be fair, Hestia’s Domain, and the fact that certain carnal events had happened in the Poseidon Cabin, might have obscured her divine vision.

… Yeah, okay, Percy was starting to get how Athena had come to the conclusions she’d come to. Certainly, if all one had was the fact that Annabeth and Clarisse had left on their Quest without him, while Percy and Bianca were constantly working together to protect Camp Half-Blood… well, it would certainly seem like they’d had a falling out or something, wouldn’t it?

Which meant it fell to Percy to correct the Goddess of Wisdom for jumping to conclusions. Great.

“Lady Athena… I haven’t set aside Annabeth or Clarisse for Bianca.”

Athena frowns at that, her eyes flashing dangerously.

“Oh? But you stayed behind with the Daughter of Hades while mine and Ares’ daughters went off to the Sea of Monsters. What sort of man would let his women go off into such treacherous waters without him? Are you craven, Perseus Jackson?”

Percy’s jaw clenches and he takes a moment to breathe in and out before responding.

“The sort of man who was asked by the Goddess of the Hearth to stay in Camp Half-Blood for the duration of this crisis. As well, the sort of man who trusts those he loves to be able to take care of themselves, Goddess. That sort of man.”

The armed and armored Goddess of Battle mulls that over for a moment before finally shrugging.

“No matter. My offer still stands. Camp Half-Blood rests on the precipice of oblivion. Regardless of your actions with my daughter, your efforts to rally your fellow demigods and hold the line against the monsters assaulting my Aunt’s Domain are laudable. I am willing to offer you my blessing, to grant you and those you deem worthy a boon of battle that will make the destruction of those monsters all the easier.”

That sounded great. Amazing, really. But…

“All you must do is renounce any claim to my daughter. Swear on the River Styx that you will never again lay with my daughter, never again be with her carnally, and do your level best to avoid her for the rest of your days and I will happily grant you the strength you need to protect Camp Half-Blood from those that prowl at its border.”

Silence reigns in the clearing for a long moment. Percy can hardly believe his ears. On the one hand, the offer sounds genuine. It also sounds genuinely amazing. A blessing from the Goddess of Battle and Strategy could be exactly what they need to hold out indefinitely. What would a border completely without monsters do for Hestia? She might be able to keep Thalia’s Tree alive for a lot longer if her Domain was no longer under constant attack. Long enough for Clarisse and Annabeth to make it back with the Golden Fleece.

But on the other hand… did Athena truly think so lowly of him that he would fall for such a thing?

“That doesn’t seem very fair, Goddess.”

Athena’s eyebrow raises up again, her lips thinning out. But Percy is just getting started.

“You said it yourself already… one day, I will be a god. Apparently, I’m going to live forever. I don’t think it was a coincidence that you specified I must avoid Annabeth for the rest of MY days. That’s a long time for help in a comparatively short crisis.”

Scoffing, Athena’s grip on her spear tightens a bit.

“The length of the crisis does not correlate to the severity. You would risk the total destruction of Camp Half-Blood, just so you can keep sleeping with my daughter?”

Percy straightens his spine, staring Athena down.

“I would risk a lot for Annabeth’s happiness, yes. But more than that… I wonder at your opportunism Lady Athena.”

That causes the Goddess to stiffen, and her glare to intensify all over again.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve just admitted twice over that we stand at the precipice of disaster, Goddess. Camp Half-Blood risks total destruction. And yet, you would bargain with me, rather than offer your assistance willingly.”

“… What of it?”

Percy smirks now, going for the jugular.

“I wonder what your children back in Athena Cabin will think of that sort of behavior from their mother. I wonder what Annabeth will think when I tell her that you cared more about who she slept with than you cared about helping to protect the one place that she could call home to stay safe from destruction. How will Hestia feel when I tell her that you made your help contingent on such a thing?”

Athena’s eyes widened before immediately narrowing in anger. Percy tenses up, ready to dive for Hestia’s Domain if Athena looks like she’s going to attack. Perhaps seeing that is what calms her down. Or perhaps she just calms herself down. Either way, after a long and altogether tense moment, the Goddess seems to get herself back under control.

That said, her tone is clipped and icy cold as she responds all the same.

“It is not that simple. There are rules in place that I am forced to follow. Rules for divinity that you will only truly come to understand when you are one of us. I cannot offer something for nothing, even for the sake of my children. Do you not wonder why we are not all here, fighting on behalf of my Aunt? Hestia is beloved among us Greek Gods, even after what she did to Father last year. But our hands are tied.”

Percy looks for the lie… and doesn’t find it. In fact, he senses frustration in Athena’s voice that has nothing to do with him. She’d readily killed that monster for him earlier, but perhaps that was within the bounds of initiating conversation or something. She needed a reason. She needed an excuse.

Of course, she also wanted Percy away from Annabeth for some reason, that much was obvious. It was still incredibly opportunistic of her, but Percy now realized that the Goddess of Wisdom was trying to kill two birds with one stone.

An intrusive thought suddenly hits Percy, and before he can second guess himself, he goes with it.

“Then I challenge you to a competition.”

Athena goes unnaturally still for a long moment before slowly tilting her head to the side, almost like an owl.

“Oh?”

There’s the faintest hint of excitement in her tone. The excitement of a huntress closing in on her quarry. Percy does his best to repress the shiver that runs down his spine but knows he doesn’t fully succeed. Still, he stands his ground. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Yes. I challenge you to a contest, Lady Athena. Limit yourself to my strength and speed and race me for the next three hours to see who can kill the most monsters that currently plague Camp Half-Blood’s border. If you win, I will swear to stay away from Annabeth Chase to the best of my abilities for a year and a day. If I win, you grant me and the others your blessing in battle for the duration of this current crisis."

A year and a day is still a long time, and Percy doesn’t expect Annabeth to be happy when she finds out about this. And she’ll be even less happy if he loses. But he has to try something. This might be exactly what they need to secure the Camp long enough for her and Clarisse to return.

For a long moment, Athena is silent. And then, to Percy’s surprise, she throws her head back and laughs. It… doesn’t sound like mocking laughter at least? It sounds more surprised than anything, and even rather joyful. Percy flushes all the same, alternating from foot to foot for a moment as he waits for Athena to finally calm down.

At last, the laughing ceases and Athena fixes her gaze upon him once more.

“… As I said, Perseus Jackson… you are very, very dangerous.”

Percy frowns, but before he can do more than open his mouth to ask her to elaborate, Athena cuts him off.

“I accept your challenge. But for this amusement, I will tell you this… win or lose, you have earned my blessing in battle when all is said and done. So long as you don’t go and get yourself killed in the next three hours, anyways.”

Wait, what? If he’s getting the blessing either way, what does he get if he wins? Percy tries to ask as much, but again, he finds himself cut off by the Goddess of Wisdom.

“Keep track of your kills, Perseus. I will know if you lie at the end. Let us begin.”

And then she just… takes off. Not with divine speed, as per the terms of the challenge, but the grace with which the Goddess of Battle and Strategy moves still means she’s gone in mere seconds, leaving Percy to stare after her feeling rather poleaxed for a brief moment. Then, he realizes they’ve already started and gets a move on as well, in the opposite direction.

Three hours to kill as many monsters as he can possibly find. Three hours to beat a Goddess of Battle in slaughter. No pressure, really. He just has to explain to Annabeth why he can’t be seen around her for a year and a day if he fails…