Tower of Secrets

Annabeth Chase

A/N So, I won the contest last chapter. Shoutout to FictionFanTeen
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Jk here's the real shoutout:

Last chapter's winner is Amberose1062 and her comment was "epic"

I was getting tired of having my face smushed into the mats, really fast.

Like, I get it Percy, you're one of the best swordsmen Chiron's ever trained, now let your girlfriend win already. I jad only been using a sword for a little over a year, after all. Everytime he managed to disarm me, I just remembered that I'd be demolishing him at Scrabble later and the universe would be balenced again.

But, dang, I hadn't realized how much switching from sword to dagger was screwing up my fighting style. I finally got him when Clint came in to talk to Natasha, speaking ridiculously loud, like he wanted Percy to get distracted by the fact that we were out of groceries on the upper floors and the nearest pack of Nutty Buddies was with the interns and there was no way in Hades he was dealing with the college kid fangirls/fanboys that would inevitably screech about the Hawkeye being on their floor because the only way he could get into the floors of SI that he didn't live on was in full costume seeing as there was a perfectly good reason for Hawkeye to be there since Tony Stark was a known sponsor of the Avengers, but Clint Barton had no access anywhere. And, it certainly wouldn't be much better if he walked all the way to the store to get some.

All in all, he distracted my Seaweed Brain big time and I got my first win of the day when I used that fact to my advantage by sweeping the flat of my sword against his thigh and throwing him off balance with a great thud on his part.

I laughed, easily slipping his larger hand in my own smaller one. "Need a hand, Seaweed Brain?"

"You sure you can lift me, Wise Girl? You're not really a brute strength type of woman," Percy taunted in return, capping Riptide with his free limb.

"Don't forget you're not the only one who's held the sky before, Kelp Head. I could heft you, piece of cake," I countered, helping him to his feet with just as much ease as my words let on. My grey orbs met his sea-green ones, albeit having to look up and a great angle seeing as we were only inches apart.

He let out a hurt gasp, but the twinkle in his irises betrayed him. "Blue cake, Owl Head. I thought you knew me," came the correction.

"Would you two stop flirting, we already know you're in love!" Clint huffed from the sidelines. "I'm having a crisis over here!"

"There aren't anymore Nutty Buddies in the living quarters," Natasha sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Like I said, a crisis!"

"Why in the world would you think that we would know what to do? I've been here for less than a month and Annie has been here for, like, a day," Percy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Use some logic, dude: ask Tony."

Clint narrowed his eyes, as if mulling over the idea before nodding, a sly smile playing on his features. "'Ask Tony,' you say. Yes. I believe I will."

Percy leaned down to me. "On one hand, he sounds like he's plotting murder," he whispered. "On the other hand, if anyone's plotting murder, it's Nat, but there's no way in Hades that we would know about it." I giggled lightly and agreed adamently with his observation.

"Hey, I told Chiron I'd stay in touch over the school year. Wanna come with me to IM him?" I offered. Percy nodded gleefully as I tactfully quit while I was ahead and he didn't even notice. "See you later, Natasha and Clint!"

"See you, Blondie!" Clint hollered. "Let me know if you find any Nuttie Buddies!"

Natasha playfully punched his shoulder. "You don't actually have to do that!"

I noticed my own laugh mix with the tall boy's chuckle beside me. "I'll keep that in mind!"

With that, we left the two spies to do whatever floated their boats while we communicated with people we hadn't seen in what felt like ages. We decided to head up to Percy's room and I immediately took notice of the exposed pipes feom the recent maintenance they had to undergo.

Percy's gaze trailed after my own as he stood in front of off me and pushed my jaw in the other direction. "Psh! Don't look! Nothing to see here!"

I giggled and rolled my eyes, maming a beeline for the bathroom with my dorky boyfriend in tow. "Seaweed Brain," I murmered fondly as I fished out a drachma from my pocket. He got the shower water going and I quickly threw it into the mist.

"Oh Fleecy! Do me a solid and show me Chiron at Camp Halfblood!" Percy chanted dramatically. I gave him a light elbow to the gut to signal that he should cut it out and behave during the chat with the camp director. He wisely complied, but failed to hide his snicker - not that I was doing a.uch better job. Hey, his antics were pretty funny.

"Annabeth! Percy! How are you?" Chiron greeted through his end of the connected.

"Hey, Chiron! I'm doing great!" Percy beamed.

"Got a good night of sleep, too!" I added, perking up at the thought.

"That's good to hear. Rachel has been in close contact with us as well. She fears thaf Delphi may be preparing a prophecy in the near future," Chiron sighed, suddenly looking his age with the stress of the potential of another Great Prophecy.

"Styx," I muttered.

"Well," Percy frowned, "I doubt it'll be coming to pass soon, we've had too many fulfilled recently for it to be likely."

"I hope you're right, Percy," Chiron nodded before abruptly changing the subject. "In other news, the cleaning harpies attacked a camper who snuck out last night."

"Sounds like fun," I commented.

A/N I wrote this all in one car ride... Also, I didn't use the word "deadpan" even once, which was mentioned to me by InkytheGhost in Inky's review/rant book. Yay!

I didn't even realize how successful this fanfic was until I read the review because Inky looked up the stats and stuff. Guess ir shows you how much more I care about having fun writing than fussing over reads 😅

Have a good one!