House of Balloons || Percabeth AU

2-2 (P)

Music blared from Percy's airpods.

He mouthed the lyrics of the song he was listening to as he scribbled down notes on a piece of scratch paper. So immersed in his work, he didn't notice Grover had sat down across his desk until the older man tapped his shoulder.

Percy looked up, a bit startled, and then gave him a nod. "Hey, man," he greeted, taking out one airpod. "What's up?"

"Nothing, just droppin' by." Grover crossed his legs and made himself comfortable. "What're you working on?"

"What am I not working on?" Percy muttered, looking back and forth between his dual monitors as he oversaw two different projects. "You remember Harvey?"

"Big shot lawyer from Specter Ross?"

"Mhm. He called in a favor and asked me to change up his whole office after a window washer accidentally broke a window."

"Sounds like him," Grover scoffed in amusement. He tugged at his scruffy brown goatee and peered over at the second monitor. "Is this the London project? Going for a neo-futurist mixed with vernacular, huh? That's bold, but very London-esque. Not bad."

"Yeah." Percy sighed, tossing his pencil down and staring at the design woefully. He dragged a hand through his hair, stressed. "I feel so fuckin' stupid lookin' at it. I barely even have an outline and there's only like three weeks left till it's due. Chiron literally dropped this at the worst time, bro. I can't focus fully on it with all this other shit I need to do."

Grover laughed a bit. "Relax, man. I wouldn't have nominated you if I didn't think you could handle it. And your best ideas come to you after your first two drafts."

"You remember that?"

"'Course I remember that. I was your mentor, dumbass."

At that moment, a flash of blonde sparked in Percy's peripherals. His gaze flicked to somewhere behind Grover and his vision filled with gray. Annabeth was walking by his office, and for an instant, they exchanged a terse moment of eye contact, grim mouthed and serious, as she marched down the hall.

The glass walls didn't exactly leave much room for privacy.

Grover had apparently noticed this. "What the fuck was that?"

"Huh?" Percy played dumb. "Nothing."

"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Perce. I wasn't just your mentor, I was hers too. So tell me what's going on between you and Annabeth."

"What do you mean? You know what's going on."

"No, not the competition. There's more to it than that." Grover sat back in his chair and splayed his hands. What was this, a therapy session, or something? "Come on, talk to daddy."

Nevermind.

Percy grimaced and tossed his eraser at him. "Don't call yourself daddy," he berated as Grover chuckled. "There's nothing more to it than that. What are you tryna get at?"

"I'm saying," he implored with a pointed look. "That I've barely seen either of you smile since this thing started. That's not a good thing, man. Y'all might be competing, but remember you two are still friends."

"We're not really friends anymore, bro," Percy sighed resignedly, swiveling around in his chair to look out at the skyline. "She's just my colleague."

"You really think that?"

"I know that. And she does too."

Grover groaned in exasperation. "Jesus, you both are stupider than you look."

Percy didn't put much thought into what Grover said then. But hours later, long after the sun had gone down and he had finally decided to call it a night, Grover's words came back to the forefront of his mind.

Annabeth really was just his colleague. And that's all she'd ever be.

No matter how much he cared about her.

He walked down the lobby, waving goodbye to the receptionist, and out into the chilly Manhattan streets. Breath visible, he shoved his hands in his coat pockets and began the trek to the subway station when the very person niggling in his mind was right there in front of him, draped in a beige long coat.

Annabeth was moving around to get into her car, the silver Tesla she liked to flaunt. Percy blew a short puff of air. Whatever, his black one (of the same model) was better anyway. Probably less mileage too. He just didn't feel like finding some tiny ass crack to park in every morning.

She had finally caught sight of him, raising a hand to placate her curls flowing widely in the wind. She looked like she walked straight out of a movie. They looked at each other for a moment, but without so much as a greeting or even a shift in expression, Annabeth got into her car and merged into traffic.

Percy sighed and continued his walk. Yeah, a colleague was all she'd ever be.

She'd made that pretty clear a long time ago.