Sorry that it took me so long to update. Life has been busy. Here's some percabeth fluff set before the lost hero.

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“You’re evil.” 

“You were asking for it when you skipped my turn two rounds ago.” 

Percy and Annabeth are sitting on his bed atop the comforter, their knees touching, and a stack of uno cards placed between them. She’d come over for the weekend a little over an hour ago like she’d promised, and after eating a wonderful dinner his mom had prepared before she went out with his stepdad for the night, they settled on his bed and turned on a show for background noise before whipping out a deck of uno cards. 

The game had started lighthearted and full of fun, but the moment Annabeth set her last card down on the messy stack, claiming victory, Percy called for a rematch. A simple game of uno became a warzone. Cards were thrown, competitive shouts filled the room, they were shoved off the edge of the bed by one another, and a pillow fight had ensued after Percy skipped her turn during the second round. 

Now she’d just set down a draw four card. 

“That wasn’t nearly as evil as this,” Percy mutters as he draws another four cards. 

“You still have less cards than me and you’re complaining!” Annabeth laughs heartily, throwing her head back for extra measure, and Percy smiles at the sound. She looks back at him when she stops laughing, keeping her eyes glued to his as she slaps down a nine card, changing the color from red to green. “Ha!"

“Hey- can you even do that?” he asks, drawing more cards until he finds one that’s green. All these cards he’s holding in his right hand and there isn’t a single green one, or a nine.

Annabeth stares at him, blinking once. “Have you ever played uno?” 

Percy rolls his eyes. “If I haven’t, why didn’t I ask for instructions before we started?”

“Because you’re you.” 

“You wound me, Chase.” 

“Do you follow instructions when you’re given them?” She arches an eyebrow. 

“Well, no, but neither do you.” 

“When I’m in school I do.” 

“You snuck me into your dorm two weeks ago. There’s no boys allowed.” 

“I was having a bad day,” she defends, setting down another card. “And I wanted cuddles.” 

Percy grins. “I can give you some right now.” 

Annabeth hums. “That is a tough offer, but I’m going to have to decline for now.” 

“What- why?” 

“I have a game of uno to win.” 

“So, I’m guessing we’re not making a truce any time soon?” 

“Nope.” 

“Not even a temporary one?” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“Then what’s the winner’s prize?” Percy asks, sighing when she sets down another draw four card. 

Annabeth looks up in thought. “A kiss and they get to pick the movie we watch tonight.” 

“Two kisses,” he tries to compromise while color sorting his cards.

“Two kisses,” she agrees, eyes dancing between his cards. “Ha! I have less than you now.” 

“I won’t be upset if you win anymore,” he admits, setting down a reverse card. “I get kisses either way.” 

“Dam, you’re right. I didn’t think that through.” 

“This is a rare occurrence!” Percy gasps and hops to his feet. The sudden movement sends the stack of cards toppling over onto the blue bedding. He spreads his arms out wide and declares, “Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, didn’t think something through!”

“Thank you so much for that. Also, you showed me your cards.”

“What- no!” Percy whines and falls onto his back. “What’s the point anymore?”

Annabeth laughs. “Well, guess you have no choice but to forfeit.” 

Percy sits back up, glaring at her. “Never.” 

“How about I give you those kisses, then we can go steal cookies from the kitchen?”

“That is a tough offer, but I’m going to have to decline for now,” he mocks. 

“Now I quit.” 

“Why?” 

“If you don’t surrender now, I’ll have to eat all the cookies by myself,” she sing-songs sadly and slides off the bed, socked feet landing on the hardwood floor with a soft thud. Percy rolls his eyes in feigned annoyance as she starts walking slowly towards the door, waiting for him to follow.

“What is it with you and threats regarding food?” 

“What do you mean?” Annabeth asks, turning the doorknob, moving as fast as a sloth. 

Percy sighs and joins her in the doorway. He wraps his arms around her waist from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder, moving the blonde curls away from her neck so he can nuzzle her. “You threatened me with olive pizza on Thursday. And now you’re threatening to eat all my mom’s cookies without me if I don’t let you win uno.”

Annabeth leans back into him, lolling her head onto his shoulder. “You threatened to smack me with a pillow.”

“But I didn’t.” 

“Oh, did I force you to eat olive pizza? No, I don’t think I did.”

“You got me there. But! You also threatened to smack me with a pillow that same day!” 

“Only because you make fun of my favorite pizza.” 

“Would you like me to make fun of something else?” 

“Go for it,” she says, grabbing his hands and unwrapping them from around her waist so she can pull him into the kitchen where she hops onto the counter. She swings her legs idly and waits for him to throw some kind of insult at her. She raises an eyebrow when he remains silent. 

Okay, but seriously, can you blame him? It isn’t his fault, nor is it fair, that his girlfriend is so painstakingly beautiful beneath the white lights of his kitchen. Not that she isn’t beautiful all the time- she most certainly is (especially in battle) but right now is just- whew. Her blonde hair falls loosely around her shoulders and her grey eyes sparkle with amusement, her lips tilted in a shit eating smirk. 

“I’m waiting,” she says, trying not to laugh. 

“Oh, right. Yeah, insults. On it.” He blinks his way completely back to reality and tries to come up with an insult. There aren’t many he can think of at the moment, and if she keeps looking at him like that, he isn’t sure he’ll be able to at all. The way she laughs at him, the small dimple appearing on her right cheek, really makes it hard to insult her. All he wants to do is kiss her. “Can’t I just kiss you instead? It’s so much easier.”

Annabeth smiles. “Give me an insult, and then I promise we can kiss.” 

Percy rolls his eyes but says the first thing that comes to his mind, “Your mom- total bitch.” 

She blinks. “Perce… that’s just the truth.” 

He stares back at her, shocked she didn’t get mad. Only then does he realize no thunder rumbled when he’d insulted the goddess of wisdom. Either Athena didn’t care, didn’t hear, or is about to blast him off the face of the earth. He really hopes it’s not the latter. Or maybe she’s only tolerating it for Annabeth’s sake. 

“I’m surprised she didn’t kill me,” he admits. 

“I am too a little bit,” she says, looking out the fire escape window. “But it’s true. Mostly.”

“Hm,” he hums and moves to stand between her legs, rewrapping his arms around her waist and locking his fingers behind her back. A smile tugs at her lips as she sets her hands on his shoulders when he says, “I believe I was promised kisses?”

She laughs quietly before leaning in close and kissing him softly. The grip she has on his shoulders tighten as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss, and she moves closer to hook a leg around him. He hums happily against her lips, but they break away a moment later to breathe, and her leg falls back down against the cabinets. 

“Let’s make popcorn,” he says suddenly, pulling away from her completely to rummage through the cabinets for the box of unpopped kernels. 

“Do you even know how to make popcorn that isn’t microwaveable?” she questions him. 

“The faith you have in me tonight is really astounding,” he deadpans. 

“I’m just asking.”

“Well, we already know I am a fantastic baker, so I think I’ll be okay.”

“First of all, yeah, I know. You’re going to make me fat with the cookies.” Annabeth rolls her eyes fondly and hops off the counter. She stands next to him at the stove, her arm coming to wrap around his waist. “And second, making popcorn is not baking. It is cooking.” 

“You’re a smartass.” Percy hipchucks her.

“You’re a dumbass.” She does it back. “What’s the difference?” 

“What’s the difference, she says,” he scoffs. “You’re the dumbass now.” 

“We can be dumbasses together.” 

Percy looks at her in his peripheral vision, quite clearly holding in a laugh. “Sure, Wise Girl.” 

“What movie should we watch?” she asks, letting him go to lean against the counter. She hands him a large bowl from the cabinet below her to put the now popped popcorn in. “After all, I don’t believe either one of us won our game of bingo.”

“Are we watching a movie, or watching a movie?”

Annabeth laughs and smacks his arm. “Percy!”

“Kidding!” He holds his hands up in surrender. 

“Seriously, what should we watch?” She follows her boyfriend to the living room. He sets the bowl down on the coffee table before plopping down on the couch. She sits on the cushion next to him and grabs a fuzzy blanket off the arm of the couch, throwing it over the two of them. As she curls into him, he looks through the new releases on Netflix. 

“Anything but a documentary,” Percy says, a teasing edge to his voice.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “I don’t get why you and Grover think every time I turn on a TV, I’m always going to pick a documentary?”

He laughs. “Because every time you turn on a TV, you always choose a documentary!”

“I do not!”

“Do too!”

“I watch romcoms.”

“Rarely.”

“Well I want to watch one now.”

He hands her the remote and goes for the popcorn instead. “Then you pick something.” 

“Fine, I will.” She goes to the romcom section and searches through. There’s not much that she’s seen, and she doesn’t really feel like watching anything new. She finds one she watched a couple years ago and clicks on it. 

“13 Going on 30?” Percy asks with a mouthful of popcorn. “I haven’t seen it.” 

“It’s pretty good.” Annabeth shrugs and reaches for a handful of popcorn. She stuffs it into her mouth (not a good idea) and ends up choking. Her lovely boyfriend laughs at her the entire time she’s hacking up a kernel. “Good to know you care about me,” she says dryly. 

Percy rubs her back. “I care about you very much, but you should know shoving popcorn down your throat wouldn’t end well.”

She throws another handful at Percy’s face. He splutters indignantly. There’s a few kernels stuck in his dark hair and Annabeth has trouble holding in her laughter. It’s a second of them staring at each other before he tackles her to the ground, popcorn spilled over the cushions. They’ll have to clean that up before Paul and Sally get home. She manages to pin him to the ground, claiming herself winner, but he tugs her back down, encasing her in his arms. 

“Are we just going to lay on the floor?” she whispers, afraid if she speaks too loud she’ll break the quietness of the moment. 

Percy’s running his fingers through her hair as he asks, “Do you want to get up?”

“No,” she says, “not yet.” 

“Okay.” 

Annabeth buries her face in the crook of his neck, smiling into his skin. They stay that way for a few more minutes until Percy gets restless. He moves back to the couch. She stays on the floor, leaning back against his legs and eating the popcorn off the floor (he eats off the couch). They watch the movie in a comfortable silence. That is, until:

“I will never be able to listen to Ice Ice Baby the same way again.” 

Annabeth throws her head back in laughter. “It’s funny!”

“It’s disturbing!” 

“Maybe a little.” 

She’s not laughing minutes later, much less paying attention to the movie. How can she possibly pay attention to anything when Percy’s trailing his fingers down her arm and back up to her neck? Annabeth lays her head on his knees and reaches up to hold his hand, smiling when he squeezes her fingers. 

“Hey,” he taps her head with his other hand. “I only got one of those kisses.” 

It takes her a minute to get what he’s talking about. “You didn’t win though.”

“Neither did you.” 

“Touche,” she sighs with a smile and turns around, now resting her elbows on his knees. “Well?”

He chuckles but doesn’t respond. Not with words at least. He cups her face in his hands, calloused thumbs caressing her cheekbones, and leans down to press their lips together in a soft kiss. At some point she moves from the floor to the couch next to him, wrapping an arm around his neck. She tugs the hair at the nape of his neck as he deepens the kiss. 

They pull apart, the movie entirely forgotten. 

“Is it too early to say I love you?” Percy whispers, his voice shy, as she’s grabbing the blanket off the floor. 

Annabeth’s back straightens. “What?”

“Is it too early to say I love you?” Percy repeats, much more confident. 

Silently, Annabeth adjusts against his side, laying the blanket over their legs. She glances up at him and almost laughs at how squeamish he looks. His cheeks are flushed a dark red and there’s an unsure smile on his face. He’s adorable. She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m surprised you didn’t say it sooner, actually.”

Percy lets out a breathy laugh and lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I’ve felt this way for a while now, but yet. I do- love you, I mean.”

“I love you too, Percy,” she says and leans in for another kiss. 

“Well that’s a relief,” he jokes and she laughs. 

She kisses him again but ends up clacking teeth with him instead. They jump apart and Annabeth falls back into the couch in a heap of laughter. Percy’s laughing too, but he stays upright, watching her with a fond look in his eyes. When she finally gets ahold of herself, she sits back up and wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. 

“Looks like we still got some practice to do,” she says through her laughter. 

“I wouldn’t mind a little extra practice,” Percy says hotly, puckering his lips.

Annabeth snorts. “You wish, Jackson.” 

“You literally just said-”

“I didn’t mean right now.” 

At her words, Percy rolls his eyes and Annabeth bites her lip. 

“Okay fine,” she relents and kisses him. Thankfully no teeth clash this time. 

Only a few seconds later the door to the apartment opens and Sally calls out, “Kids! We’re home!”

Percy’s eyes widen. “Shit! The popcorn!” He hops off the couch and starts picking up the kernels strewn across the carpet. 

Annabeth bursts into another round of laughter.  

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Hope you enjoyed!