Chapter Text
‘Find Percy,’ Piper guessed. All the energy drained out of Annabeth, like she’d been holding it together for as long as she could.
Annabeth looks like a ghost against the blue light from the Batcomputer. Like a shadow, left behind by its caster, like she was about to burn all of Gotham down in pursuit of her goal.
Cass could see determination-hope-worry, all necessary emotions, but the RAGE-RAGE-RAGE in the set of her jaw and the sharpness of her eyes made Cass worry.
Annabeth might act cold and bitter, but she had her heart on her sleeve. Cass had seen her weep over dead roses in the garden, and croon over injured bats. Annabeth had compassion in spades, although for reasons Cass couldn’t quite understand, but respected, she did not show them to anyone who wasn’t Damian.
Perhaps it was because he was her blood? The Mycaneans put a lot of stock into blood or so Barbara said. The promise of fidelity ran in bloodlines, how could she trust an outsider? But no, Cass wasn’t convinced. Something had happened, long ago to them, but for Annabeth, it must’ve been like a fresh wound as she confronted it every fall and winter, before fleeing in the spring and summer, like Persephone, returning to her mother’s arms. Or in this case, from stately Wayne Manor to comforting Camp Half-Blood and Percy Jackson’s arms.
ARE. YOU. ALRIGHT? Cass signs.
Annabeth looks up tiredly, the angry set of her jaw does not falter, but it does soften into something less likely to rip out Cass’s throat. “No, and until I find him, I won’t be, Cassandra. But where in the world is he? I don’t know if it’s the gods who mock me or the Morai’s design. My enemy is everywhere, yet nowhere, and only my dreams, my mother who has fallen silent, can guide me. It’s been two days, two days. Yet not a sign. The gods have fallen silent, the world shakes, and Percy Jackson is missing.”
STILL. LOOKING. MORE. IMPORTANT. THAN. FINDING. FOR NOW. Cass says, her hands forming the sign for owl as she brings them up to her eyes, then letting the flutter down into an A.
Annabeth smiled thinly. “I admire your positivity, Cass. But if it was me, I have no doubt, Percy would’ve found me by now.”
Annabeth gets a call during dinner. The table, Cass, Bruce, Damian and Alfred fall silent as the antiquated, yet untraceable phone rings violently. No capes at the table could not extend to godly power and the Divine. They were too far apart to impose such restrictions upon Annabeth, whose blood was made out of it.
“Chase,” Annabeth says as she answers the phone. Bruce flinches a little, but settles. This, he cannot change. “Yeah, I hear you, Butch. Ah, Will signed off on it then? Remind me to get him something nice. I’ll be ready for pick up in three hours, it should give you enough time to prepare the Pegasi and the chariot.” She drums her fingers on the table as Damian winds himself up tighter and tighter. “Any sign of Rachel?...Hm, strange, I thought she’d be the first to ditch her parents to come investigate. Yeah, tell them that if anything happens, Malcolm and Viktor are both in charge. They did what? Di immortales, I’ll fix that if we come back alive. Right, bye, Butch, thanks.”
Annabeth cuts the call, and sets the phone back on the table. Bruce stares fixedly forward as Damian bounces his leg, clearly biting back a number of comments that Cass can feel bubbling in her own throat. Alfred says nothing. Alfred never says anything when it comes to Annabeth and her world of certain death and divine quests.
“I leave in three hours. With enough luck, I’ll find Percy and we’ll spend the rest of winter break here.” Annabeth calmly says. “If not, I’ll be staying at Camp Half-Blood until I find him, seeing as this is godly interference if the Batcomputer can’t find a trace of him. I’d like to take Damian with me, during the spring equinox and thereforth. I’ve talked to Talia and—”
Bruce sets down his fork with a slam that makes Cass twitch back. Damian has no reaction.
“And how do you get in contact with Talia, Anna?” he asks sharply. “How do you speak to her, despite her being constantly under Ra’s paranoid eyes, and constantly moving around when Damian hasn’t spoken to her in two years? Why is it that every time you want something from me that involves Damian you go over my head through her?”
Annabeth’s knuckles turn white as she grips the sides of her chairs, but she keeps her composure far better than Jason or Stephanie would’ve in this situation. “I don’t trust you.” she spits out. “I don’t trust you to keep Damian here, I don’t trust you with any of my brothers, or with Cass, or with Steph, I don’t trust you. Yes, you’ve changed, I can acknowledged that, I’ve fucking noticed it. But that doesn’t change the fact we’re both hiding what happened that night, and as much as I have some faith in you, Dad, it does not mean I will leave him alone in this house with you. You showed me I can’t because if something goes wrong, I know exactly who you’ll blame.”
The one who watched. Powerless to stop it.
Annabeth takes a deep breath, Bruce mimics it, he looks stunned, his body says bitter-regret-ashamed. “Damian will come with me during the spring equinox, he’ll stay with me until I’m either on a quest or the project on Olympus gets too heavy for me to make time for him. He’ll meet my cabin, he’ll meet my friends, he will tell you everything you want to know. In turn, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, I won’t ever call Talia again to go over your head like this, and I won’t take Damian away like this again if you don’t consent. In the fall, I’ll enroll in Gotham Academy, my return will be made in public, and you will have me.”
Bruce stares at her, a defeated slump that Cass hates to see in his shoulders. “I agree to your terms, Miss Chase. So long as we both agree that night is done and buried. Neither of us can change it, can we?”
“No,” she agrees. “We can’t.”
Damian shivers, catching Cass’s eye and looking well and truly frightened behind the blank face he’s trying to put up. He is loved, but what’s the cost? His eyes seem to ask.
Cass wishes she knew.
“You did not call me sister.” Cass says, the words gentle from her mouth. “But you call Tim, Jason and Dick brothers.”
Annabeth looks startled, then guilty. A hand creeping up to tug on a braid, before realizing she no longer wore braids. She looks away. “We don’t know each other.”
Cass does not take offense. They do not know each other, that is a factual statement. “Am I invited to your home in the summer? We could know each other better then.”
Surprise-hope-caution— “I’d think I’d like that.” Annabeth says with a tentative smile. “I think the twins will go crazy over you if the Ares Cabin doesn’t get to you first.”
The flutter of wings, a foggy sensation that held Cass tight, and no matter how much she tried to push past it, it did not fade, and before she knew it, Annabeth was gone.
Cass wonders if she looked back.
[End of Part 2]