Chasing Legends (Male Reader x Annabeth Chase)

Chapter Eighteen

18| Father and Son bonding

Ironically, one of the oddest things to Y/N was how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told him that long ago, but it really took the entire of the quest for it to hit him.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted Percy and three other adolescents in New York and brought them across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy Jackson wasn't an international criminal after all. He'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, one of the other kidnapped children, Y/N L/N (Personally, Y/N liked this guy the most.) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed, and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his three friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed them this whole story. They just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted, and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy said, choking back my tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew ... somehow ... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

Fully aware there only real option was to fly, Y/N just hoped Zeus would cut Percy a bit of slack, y'know, under these circumstances.

The ride back was absolutely miserable for Percy because of two reasons; the first being every spot of turbulence had scared him more than a Greek monster and the second reason was Y/N spent the whole flight back teasing him because of it.

The local press was waiting for them outside security, but they managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined us at baggage claim.

"You're kidding me." Y/N frowned; he nearly couldn't believe what Percy was telling them.

"You want us to just, go back...?" Annabeth with an expression that would've made you think Percy was talking to her in French.

"Now?" Grover looked just as confused.

See, Percy wanted them to split up at the taxi stand. He wanted Y/N, Annabeth, and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened. Though they couldn't understand why, they finally relented (after a fair share of arguing.) after seeing how adamant Percy was.

Little did they, know; Percy's heart was certainly in the right place.

The remaining three's travel back to Camp Half Blood felt shorter than it really was. It was a rather nice day outside, so they spent the walk just chatting and laughing, finally being able to relax for the first time in what felt like a long, long time.