The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

60. Birthday Gift

Y/N hadn't expected much. Yet the world still managed to disappoint him on this 3rd of June, 2008.

Okay, right. He had hoped that for his birthday, no monster would show up. But was it too much to ask for? No, and he dared anyone to say otherwise. Especially since everything had begun so well.

He woke up at Camp Half-Blood, inside cabin two—it was the cabin of the Queen of the Gods, Hera, who was also his divine mother. Outside, a clear blue sky greeted him, and the light breeze blowing made the sunshine feel nice against his skin. The scene only missed birds singing. Oh, no, never mind; they were there, too.

But that wasn't what occupied his mind. Annabeth was on her way back to camp from San Francisco, and she arrived in Manhattan today. He'd managed to convince Chiron he should be the one going to take her at the bus stop. And if they were to stop at the movie theater while on the way back, he certainly didn't complain.

"So, ready for your date?" Ethan's face was that of a little devil giggling under the shadow of his banana sunhat.

"Shut up," Y/N muttered. "You're talking nonsense."

"You're going to the movies."

"Yeah."

"Just the two of you."

"Shut—UP!"

Ethan held up his hands in surrender, but Y/N could tell he was trying hard not to smile "You'd better go. You'll tell me later."

Y/N would've jumped at Ethan if he weren't already at the top of Half-Blood Hill, ready to go, and Ethan hadn't been trotting back toward the Big House.

And he dares to make fun of me. . . . Y/N thought. He knew that whenever he had his back turned—training, doing the chores—Ethan went into the woods or to the beach. Whether Ethan was seeing a wood or a water nymph, or both at the same time, that was the question.

Argus, the security chief, drove Y/N to Manhattan, dropping him off at the Empire State Building.

He wandered around for a while before going to the bus stating where, two years earlier, he'd taken the bus with Annabeth, Ethan, Percy, and Grover, heading west on a quest to retrieve a lightning bolt. On the way, they'd been attacked by the Furies—three very ugly grandmas—and it'd been the beginning of their problems, but that was a detail. Anyway, something kept Y/N away from his thoughts right now.

A bus stopped just before him. People started coming out of it.

Annabeth was wearing jeans and an orange camp T-shirt and her clay bead necklace. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her gray eyes sparkled. She looked like she was ready to catch a movie, have a cool afternoon hanging out together.

"Hey, you're out early!" She laughed and hugged him. She was in a good mood and everything was fine. What could've gone wrong? "So, where are we going?"

He began guiding her toward the movie theater he'd spotted a week earlier, while at Percy's home.

In the shadows of the buildings, he asked her what she'd been up to this past year. She told him about her classes, the buildings she had visited—architecture had always been her passion. In return, she asked him how the year at camp had been, and he told her about the training sessions with Chiron and some stuff that had happened, like how he'd almost blown up the Big House with Greek fire that Beckendorf had given him—long story.

They were walking up East 81st when problems decided to give them their regards.

Y/N heard a loud noise coming from an alley on his left. He didn't pay attention to it—New York was a big city and firecrackers going off here or there could do no harm.