Chapter Text
If there was one thing that Annabeth would never be able to fully wrap her head around, it was the confusing shitstorm that was a high school’s social hierarchy.
For as long as she remembered, there had been no such thing at camp. Sure, everybody was segregated into different cabins based on who their godly parents were, but that was more for simplicity and organization than anything else. Just because you were the child of a minor god didn’t automatically move you lower on the totem pole.
Even her old boarding schools weren’t nearly as complicated. Rich people with all the popularity and power at the top, everybody else beneath them.
So imagine Annabeth’s surprise on her first day at Goode High School when she learned that Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, Savior of Olympus, bearer of two ancient prophecies, one of the most powerful demigods in living memory, and her lovable goof of a boyfriend was one of the most popular kids in school. Granted, Annabeth had transferred to Goode a couple of weeks after classes had already started, but Annabeth had been caught off guard at how quickly Percy had charmed his way to the top of the school’s social ladder. It wasn’t hard to see why, though.
Percy was nice, incredibly easy-going, and had a sort of air to him that made everyone around him want to be his friend. He was the best swimmer on the swim team, had a sense of humor that never failed to make everyone laugh regardless of how dumb his jokes were, and on top of all that, he was incredibly attractive. Sure, he had some scars he usually tried to avoid talking about and had a weird habit of cursing in ancient Greek, not to mention being a total Seaweed Brain, but who could resist those sea-green eyes of his that twinkled like stars every time he thought he said something funny or that damned smiled of his that always seemed to reassure people that everything was alright?
Alright, maybe those last few points could be attributed to Annabeth’s personal biases, but she had the right to find her boyfriend attractive, right?
On the other hand, there was Annabeth: the new girl in town with curly blond hair who would’ve looked like a typical Californian surfer girl if it weren’t for her piercing grey eyes. She would’ve been one of the school’s brightest students, but this was high school. In high school, nobody cared about her GPA, nobody cared about her dyslexia and ADHD, and absolutely nobody cared about who she was. Well, at least one person did, but that was more than enough for her.
In a weird sort of way, Annabeth preferred her new-found anonymity. Between the two of them, Percy had always been the people person with his easy-going nature and tendency to either charm or annoy the absolute Hades out of whoever wanted to kill them. Annabeth, on the other hand, was the one who always had a plan. Always thinking, always quick on her feet, she had the focus and willpower needed to turn her plans into reality.
Of course, her plans usually worked better whenever Percy was involved. He was the method to her madness, the latchkey that made her most daring ideas possible. Together, they were one of the most infamous and premier demigod couples.
Of course, nobody at Goode knew about that and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t have cared. The mortal world and the realm of gods mixed about as well as oil and water. To everybody, Percy was the nice, athletic, popular kid constantly surrounded by friends and Annabeth was simply the reclusive bookworm that spent more time in the library than not and rarely talked to more than a few people. Nobody had seen the two of them interact with each other and everyone thought neither one of them knew of the other’s existence.
Oh, if only they knew the truth.
Everything started when Annabeth transferred to Goode to finish up her senior year. Thanks to the lengthy amount of time the school took to authorize her transfer, everybody was already in their second week of school by the time Annabeth started. Of course, that meant she was already behind on all of her classes, much to her dismay.
A few of her teachers had been kind enough to waive the first couple of assignments for her but Annabeth had refused. It was nice of them to offer, but she was a child of Athena. If she was going to do well in her studies, she was going to do it fair and square. What that meant was huddling in the library during lunch to catch up on all her work.
It only took her a few days to finish but those few days had been agony. Annabeth yearned to spend time with Percy. She had rarely spent more than a few months in school at a time before being pulled away to deal with some supernatural shenanigans. With two ancient prophecies over with and everything seemingly back to normal, she had been relishing being able to enjoy high school as a normal student—well, as normal as it was for a demigod.
The day she walked out of her classroom to get lunch instead of hurrying toward the library had been one hell of a reality check. She had forgotten just how many people went to public schools. It seemed like every table was taken by at least one group of students and many more made do with sitting on the ground or on the grass.
Annabeth had spotted Percy almost immediately. It wasn’t that hard, considering he was in the middle of the loudest group of students. She was about to walk over to him when a plump black girl took her by the arm and pulled her away.
“Oh no, don’t even think about it!” she said, waggling a finger in her face. “Trust me, those are the kind of people you should be hanging out with.
Annabeth almost judo-flipped the girl onto the floor but she settled for simply wrenching her arm free.
“Okay, first of all, don’t touch me. Secondly, who are you? Third, shouldn't I be the one who decides who to hang out with?"
The girl, whose name was Stacy, gently patted her arm as she tried to pull Annabeth away. Annabeth instinctively leaned away from her touch.
“Hey, I’m just warning you,” Stacy said, drooping her lip. I’ve heard some weird stuff about those kids. Especially that Jackson kid.”
Annabeth froze. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on! You’re kidding right?”
Annabeth looked at her blankly.
Stacy sighed dramatically as if she was tired of explaining something that should’ve been obvious. “Okay, well, first of all, he was expelled. I know Goode isn’t the worst school out there, but you have to have done something pretty messed up to be expelled from here.”
Annabeth knew what that something was, but there wasn’t an easy way to say Hera/Juno kidnapped Percy and put him to sleep for a couple of months before waking him in time for an ancient prophecy that pitted him and his friends against Gaea, the primordial goddess of the Earth.
“Anyways,” Stacy continued, “after he was expelled, the school just overturns their decision and now he’s suddenly a student again? Not to mention the most popular kid in school?” She made a confused gesture with her hand. “Like, good for him, I guess, but there’s something weird about him and I’m not stopping until I find out what it is.”
Annabeth almost laughed. Weird didn’t even begin to describe Percy Jackson. She was about to tell Stacy the truth when she suddenly got an idea. It was incredibly convoluted, even by her standards, but she couldn’t help but feel a bit excited at its premises.
She had always wanted to have a normal high school experience, even for just a single year. Percy was practically the king of the school already, but Annabeth, on the other hand, had never got to experience climbing up the social chain. Back at camp, it was practically an unspoken rule that she was the head of the Athena cabin and one of the camp's de facto leaders in times of crisis. Now she had a chance to start fresh. She had a blank slate, and Hades be damned if she wasn’t going to try and enjoy her newfound anonymity as long as she could.
“Yeah, he sounds like a pretty weird guy,” Annabeth agreed guiltily, pulling at one of her curls. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Stacy flashed her a toothy smile, revealing a small between her two front teeth. “Of course. Just looking out for one another, y’know? Anyways, did you get lunch yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Great! You should come sit with us! Sound good?”
“Sure?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
Annabeth shook her head. “Sorry, just a lot on my mind. I transferred here about a week ago and I’ve been catching up on homework since. This is my first time eating lunch at a public school. Still feeling a bit frazzled, you know?” She tried for a nervous laugh.
Stacy’s expression grew sympathetic. “Aw, you poor thing,” she said, patting her on the arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you settled in! Won’t even have to lift a finger!”
Eating lunch with Stacy had been…an interesting experience. There were two other girls in Stacy’s friend group, both of whom were Asian: Carol, a friendly, short girl with brown highlights in her hair, and Faye, a tall girl with glasses that spoke even less than Annabeth and had a wolf stare to rival hers. Now that was impressive.
Apparently, Carol was planning on majoring in mechanical engineering in college. Despite her somewhat friendly and talkative nature, Annabeth could tell from the sharp look in her eyes around and how restless her fingers always seemed to be that there was a lot more to her than she let on. In fact, between her hyperactivity and her penchant for learning all things mechanical, Annabeth had a sneaking suspicion that Carol might’ve been a Hephaestus kid.
Faye, on the other hand, was a computer coding whiz. She had lived abroad for most of her life before her parents moved to the United States last year. This meant that this was also her first year here at Goode. According to Carol, she didn’t talk much since she was still a bit insecure about her English, but Annabeth had a feeling that behind that piercing stare of hers, Faye had a good heart. That much was obvious by how Faye had given her a questioning look that seemed to say go on when Stacy accidentally cut Annabeth off in the middle of a sentence.
Stacy, on the other hand, wanted to be a lawyer. Annabeth couldn’t help but quirk her eyebrows as Stacy started to talk about how she got an internship at a law firm for next summer. Her energy was infectious.
“How come?” she asked. “Why do you want to be a lawyer?”
Stacy blinked, looking as if that was the first time anyone had asked her that question before shrugging. “Guess I just like getting the dirt on people,” she said simply.
“Fair enough.”
“And also because there’s no way in hell I’m gonna take whatever classes Faye has to take in college.” She elbowed Faye pointedly in the side.
Fate shot her an annoyed look for a split second before going back to typing on her laptop. Annabeth had peeked at her screen once to see what she was working on but after seeing just how many lines of computer code there were, she decided it would be better for her sanity if she didn’t. She had tried to take a computer coding class before and that was one of the few subjects she absolutely could not wrap her head around.
“Ooh, what about you, Annie?” Carol asked, propping her elbows on the table and looking at her. “What do you wanna do in college?”
Annabeth wrung her hands. “Oh, uh, it’s Annabeth. I don’t really like to be called Annie…and I want to be an architect in the future.”
Carol’s eyes brightened. “Whoa…” she breathed. “That’s so cool! I guess that’s why you moved to New York, huh? Lots of buildings for you to take inspiration from?”
Annabeth instinctively thought of Percy and blushed. “Uh, yeah. That’s one reason, I guess.”
“Aw, look at you getting all flustered!” Stacy cooed, pinching Annabeth’s cheeks. “Don’t worry, there’s no need to feel embarrassed! We’re all rejects here!”
Annabeth gave her a confused look. “That’s…a weird label.”
Stacy shrugged nonchalantly. “It is what it is. We don’t exactly fit in here at Goode.”
“Why not?”
Carol sighed dramatically and put her head on the table. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious if you think about it,” she said. “Most of the kids here will probably go to a community college or something similar out of high school. Even more probably won’t even go to college with how expensive it is. We’re different. We actually have a chance at getting out of here. We have a shot at being successful.” She laughed drily.
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Annabeth asked.
Carol lifted her head and pointed at a group of boys playing on their Nintendo DS’s. “Those guys do nothing all lunch except play Smash Bros and Mario Kart on their DS’s.”
She then pointed at a group of girls coated in enough makeup to make even Drew Tanaka cringe. At least Drew knew how to blend edges. Those girls looked like they were wearing porcelain masks.
“Those girls have probably slept with more guys than they have passing grades.” Finally, Carol pointed at a group of football players. “And most of those sports guys won’t even get a scholarship with how trash our teams are.”
Annabeth blinked. And she thought she could be unreasonably harsh at times.
“What about the swimmers?” she found herself asking.
Stacy gave her a weird look as Carol blew her bangs away from her eyes.
“Honestly, they’re pretty good this year,” she said, “but it’s only because of that new Percy guy. He might actually have a shot. Don’t know how he’s gonna manage with that expulsion but it’ll be interesting to see him try.”
“It would,” Annabeth greeted absentmindedly.
Carol sat up, suddenly energized. “Anyways, I’ve always wanted to have a friend with curly hair! Tell me, is it natural? How much of a pain is it to brush? I heard they can be a hassle to deal with but they look so pretty! How do you do it? Can you show me?”
Annabeth struggled to keep up. Even with her ADHD, it was hard to keep track of Carol’s sudden burst of questions. “Uh, yes? Very? I don’t know.”
“Ooh, hey! Do you think you can give me tips on how to curl my hair? My hair’s super straight but there’s a boy I’ve been trying to ask out but he’s into girls with curly hair. Do you mind if you help me out with that?”
“Uh…”
Stacy laughed and covered her mouth. She patted Annabeth on the arm. “See, I told you you’d fit right in!” she said.
This time, Annabeth was more inclined to believe her.
So this is what it’s like to be normal, huh?