𝑳𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑬 || 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

excuse me, my uber x is here

Jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground is not usually Percy's idea of fun, but it was right up Maisie's alley.

Maybe she had inherited some flying skills from Hypnos after all. Minus the real wings of course. She was having a blast. Until her stomach flipped as she watched Percy still plummeting to the ground, frantically flapping his bronze wings like a deranged duck.

"Percy! What are you doing!? Fly!"

"What does it look like I'm trying to do!?" Percy was pretty sure he was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods. Maisie yelled again from somewhere above him, "Just spread your arms out! Keep them extended!"

The small part of his brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard her, and his arms responded. As soon as he spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and his descent slowed. He soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive. Experimentally, he flapped his arms once. He arced into the sky, the wind whistling in his ears.

"Yeah!" Percy yelled. The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, it felt like the wings were part of his body. He could soar and swoop and dive anywhere he wanted to. He turned and saw Maisie flying above him, doing a flip mid-air, her smile wide. He let a smile slip, but had to hold back an eye-roll. She would be good at this for no discernible reason. Icarus's wings were entrancing to look at though. The large black and gold wings glinted and glowed in the dying sunlight.

"Land!" Annabeth yelled.

Maisie pouted. "Why?" Nico seemed pretty disappointed too, though he wouldn't admit to it.

"Because these wings won't last forever!"

"How long?" Rachel asked.

"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth said.

They swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Percy did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers. Then the six of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty.

Everyone took off their wings and put them in the trash. Annabeth had been right. The self-adhesive seals that bound the wings to their backs were already melting, and they were shedding feathers. Percy noticed that Maisie's wings were in the worst shape. That was too be expected, as Daedelus explained how he had barely repaired them. It seemed a shame to throw them away. Especially Icarus's, as the story of him and his wings were older than some of the gods themselves. That he met his end when he flew too close to the sun.

Percy glanced at Maisie, and decided then, that he never wanted to be Icarus.

"Make sure to conceal them," Annabeth said. "We don't want any mortals to try them out."

"Maybe mortals would like them," James countered. "I did."

"You were screaming in my ear the whole way down," Nico grumbled, dusting off his oversized coat.