Chapter Text
Annabeth
Annabeth hated wearing these wretched hats. They were heavy and awkward from the uneven weight of the fake floral arrangement on top, and she had to waste so much of her focus on standing up straight and not moving too suddenly so that the damn thing wouldn’t fall off her head. As much as she loathed them, though, she was thankful for the wide brim when she stepped out of the carriage and into the harsh midday sun. The sky was unusually clear that afternoon– the perfect weather for the Titanic’s maiden voyage.
On the surface, she and her family were setting sail to America on the RMS Titanic to honor and celebrate her father, the ship’s grand engineer. If there was one thing that Frederick Chase loved in this world, it was boats. After a lifetime of studying and building smaller vessels, he landed a deal to build the greatest ship the world had ever seen, one so vast and so powerful that it would be unsinkable.
In reality, though, they were running back to America with their tails between their legs after Frederick incurred one too many bad debts. If the maiden voyage went well– and it would, it had to– the resulting press would be the first step back toward the light. Then, it was Annabeth’s duty– it was her honor to marry a wealthy investor’s son and deliver the rest of her family back into the comforting clutches of high society.
So when she looked up at the ship, Annabeth Chase tried to hide her awe. It really was a beautiful ship. And after months of stealing glances at the blueprints when her father was out of his office, she knew its engineering was just as marvelous.
She felt a gentle hand on her back as Luke Castellan stepped out of the carriage behind her. He was coming along as a large investor in the project, as a life-long family friend– and as Annabeth’s fiance. He was a good few years older than she was, but he had always been kind to her. Out of all the options available to her as marriage prospects, she supposed Luke was the least objectionable, no matter how much he had changed since their childhood.
“What do you think, Darling?” he asked her (though he was paying more attention to the valet he was bribing to take their luggage through the proper checkpoint, like they were supposed to).
“Hmm,” she replied. She kept her expression as neutral as possible despite the emotions tumbling through her like a storm at sea. “I’m not sure what all the fuss is, honestly. The Norse built plenty of bigger ships than this one.”
Just then, her step-mother, the good and patient Misses Chase, stepped out of the carriage to give her a seething glare. “Be kind, Annabeth. We are all very proud of what your father’s accomplished.”
As she watched her younger step-siblings, Matthew and Bobby, follow Misses Chase out of the carriage, Annabeth was once again harshly reminded how much of an outsider she was to these people– to this family. She wasn’t even really fully human. Her father only ever spoke of it once, and he would never dare acknowledge it to his wife, Annabeth was half-god. Her mother was Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy. Reportedly, Athena had fallen in love with Frederick Chase for his intelligence and his passion for his craft, and had given him Annabeth as a parting gift that he never asked for.
She had only heard from her real mother once– and that one message was the only reason she agreed to board this ship instead of running away months ago. Just after her engagement to Luke, Athena appeared to her in a dream, telling her that the gods were in a period of transition. She was to travel to the New World to serve as Athena’s chosen mortal architect as they rebuilt their seats of power. It was a grave responsibility, one she would never admit that she had dreamed of her whole life, but it had given her life purpose when she thought she had none left.
Luke’s grip on her tightened (likely he was just trying to be reassuring, but his touch felt about as warm as the River Styx), and he said, “Yes, Annabeth, you have a wonderful memory. However, the Norse didn’t invent steam engines, now, did they?”
Another unintentional benefit of wearing these horrid hats: the wide range of the brim did well for hiding eye rolls that would surely earn her a punishing whack of her mother’s fan against her shoulder.
Misses Chase hmmph-ed, electing to ignore the both of them. She was too busy ushering her real children toward the boardwalk. “Come along now,” she said, “we must go get settled into our rooms. Hold on to my hands, boys, so we don’t get separated.”
Luke took Annabeth’s hand. “Are you ready?” he asked.
And even though she felt more ready to throw herself into the waves crashing against the pier, she nodded. At least a few hours alone in her room would be a few hours of rest from this gods-forsaken corset.
***
Percy
Percy opened the closet door and peered out into the hallway. He looked left and right, then once more in each direction, just to be sure. Better he got caught sneaking around the ship than Mr. First Class, who was working hard to re-button his shirt behind him.
He shut the door again and turned back around, leaning against it. For a moment, he admired Mr. First Class’ mussed-up hair and the small, bruising mark just beneath his collarbone.
With the last button once again done up properly, the mark disappeared. Mr. First Class looked up at him with an interesting look: part in fear and part in question. His raised eyebrows suggested that he was waiting for Percy to tell him that there was no one in the hallway waiting to catch him and turn him into his snooty upper-class family for having a forbidden tryst in a closet somewhere below deck. They probably wouldn’t even care that it was with another boy– the real issue would be that the boy was from the third-class cabins. Percy tried not to hold that against him. The journey to America would only be a few days, anyway. It’s not like this was long-term.
“Well?” Mr. First Class asked impatiently. His cheeks were still flushed red.
“Well what?” Percy replied.
“Is it safe to leave?”
Percy looked him up and down one more time. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t. Just curious.”
“Well don’t be.” Mr. First Class replied curtly. “I’m not saying this wasn’t, er, enjoyable, but it isn’t happening again, do you understand?”
Percy nodded. “Perfectly. The coast is clear.”
Mr. First Class nodded back once. “Right. Goodbye, then.”
As he pushed past and walked out the door, Percy said, “See you around,” but the other boy didn’t respond.
***
“Where have you been?” Leo asked him once he had returned to his cabin. He was lounging on his bunk, tinkering with some spare parts he had likely swiped from a supply closet while on the job. He liked to call it “professional development,” so really it was only helping the ship, and argued that he wasn’t getting paid enough anyway. Percy couldn’t disagree.
“Oh, you know,” Percy replied with a grin, “just out and about. Exploring the ship. Meeting the locals.”
Leo barked out a laugh. “You’ve got some game with the upper classes, Percy!” he said. “Who was it this time? B Deck?”
“He was first class, actually,” he answered, smirking to himself.
“Damn, Jackson! You’ve gotta show me how you do it sometime. I want a hot rich girl for myself.”
Percy threw a pillow at him.
Leo Valdez was the reason he had been able to sneak onto the Titanic at all. He was aboard as a technician with his friend Charles Beckendorf, and he left a service hatch open for Percy last night. They had known each other for a few months– just about as long as Percy had been in Southampton– and had become good friends. Charlie, too, though he was much quieter.
Percy hadn’t originally planned on tagging along. He had always been a wanderer of sorts, spending a few months here, a few there, and moving on when the time felt right (or when the time came to run from local law enforcement). When Leo and Beckendorf broke the news that their company got the contract to run the engine rooms on the World’s Greatest Ship, he had been happy for them, sure, but he also figured it would be time to move on again. Maybe he’d visit Greece– something about the Mediterranean had always fascinated him.
But then a few nights later, he woke up from the strangest dream. It was like his life was flashing before his eyes, but it was flashes of things he had never seen before: barnacles growing underwater along the hull of a massive ship, a dark sea full of ice and stars, a great green monument to weary travelers, and a pair of gray eyes framed with golden curly hair– the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. He woke up in a cold sweat. He couldn’t explain it if he tried, but he knew that the next place he needed to move on to was America. He asked his friends if he could tag along, and they made the plan together.
But Percy, one might ask, how could you possibly make it to a cracked service hatch on the side of the ship opposite from the harbor? That’s an excellent question.
Ever since he was little, Percy had a strange talent with water. It listened to him, responded to his touch and his voice in a way that nothing else had. He was connected to it somehow. So a few hours after Leo left him the opening, Percy stood on the pier about a mile down from where the ship was docked. Concealed by the darkness of the starry, moonless night, he dove into the water and swam, propelled by a current of his own making. In seconds, he was in position under the hatch, and shot out of the water and grabbed hold of the door handle to pull himself aboard. His clothes weren’t even wet.
He quickly learned that this was not a common talent, and that it sometimes attracted unwanted attention. It was part of the reason he never spent too long in one place: other people– or other things– would come at him out of nowhere with hate in their eyes and violence in their hearts.
Periodically, though, and almost always among the poorest of his peers, Percy would run into someone else with similar talents, like Leo. They actually met when Percy put out a fire that Leo lost control of, and decided that they made a pretty good team. A few years back, there had been a girl named Thalia with an exciting– and dangerous– affinity for lightning. She didn’t make it. Percy owed her his life.
There were others, too, with other superhuman talents for music or art or gardening or any number of other things, but no matter how many like him he found, no one could explain why they could do what they could do. After that dream, Percy started to think that the answer he was looking for was somewhere on this boat. Without any rhyme or a reason to back it up, he knew his life was about to change forever.
