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Annabeth was having a movie marathon with Piper back at their house, which left Percy with a free afternoon. He decided that he might as well head to his dad’s domain to visit his brother.
He didn’t get to see Tyson as much as he wanted to, but the visits had certainly increased since they’d moved beside the sea.
The ocean closed over his head, and he propelled himself towards Tyson’s favourite forge. Like Percy and Annabeth, Tyson and Ella had moved back to New York. They both hated cities, though, so they lived on a boat.
It was a pretty sweet deal. Tyson was near his work, and Ella could perch on top of the mast and read to her heart’s content. Surprisingly, she’d become a tattoo artist. Turns out she was great at it, and it gave her something to do. Percy just wished she’d been qualified for that before he got his own, or maybe he’d get another and ask her to do it.
Anyway, he missed his little brother. (Technically Tyson was older but in Cyclops years he was younger. The whole thing gave him a headache, but so did every immortal age system.)
He made it to the forge, where Tyson was tinkering away at a shield.
‘Hey, big guy.’
‘Brother!’
Tyson gave him a bone-crushing hug. When he stepped back, Percy’s ribs were a little bruised but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
‘So, I have a favour to ask.’ Percy said.
‘Anything.’
‘You don’t even know what it is yet.’
‘That doesn’t matter. I’d do it anyway.’
Gods, Tyson needed to do a paternity test. He was way too nice to be a Poseidon kid.
‘Luckily, it’s nothing dangerous. I was just wondering if… you’d be Caitlyn’s godfather?’
Tyson smiled impossibly wider. ‘Yes! I would love to!’
‘Thanks, dude, I appreciate it.’
‘But why not ask your goat friend again?’
‘It’s a little awkward. He was godfather last time and- well, that was last time.’ He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. It still wasn’t exactly easy to talk about Grace.
‘Then I’m very happy to do it!’
‘Knew I could count on you. Godparents are there to protect the kid if something happens to the parents, and you’re the most capable cyclops I know.’
These days, he made an effort to be nice. He still felt guilty for icing him out before their pesky oceanic quest. He thought he’d lost his brother , it had made him damn near suicidal.
Life was short. He didn’t want his last conversation with anyone to be him being an asshole.
‘Of course I will! Would she like a dagger? Or a shield? Maybe a spear?’ Tyson was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, which was only propelling him upwards in the water.
‘Ha, she’s a little young for that yet. But I’m sure once she can actually hold something, she wouldn’t mind a little something from her Uncle Tyson.’
‘Wahoo!’ Tyson pulled him into a hug that nearly made him topple off his chair.
‘Oof!’
‘Sorry! How are you feeling?’
‘Like I wish I had the Curse Of Achilles again-‘
‘No, not about hug injuries. About Caitlyn.’
‘If I’m honest? Nervous as hell. Dude, I’m gonna be a dad .’
Tyson tilted his head. ‘But you already are?’
‘Huh?’
‘You’re already a dad. You have Grace.’
‘… Does that count?’
‘Yes!’ Tyson said, nodding for emphasis. ‘You had a baby , so that makes you a dad! I don’t think you stopped being a dad, you’re just a- dad times two? A double dad?’
Percy couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Then I’m nervous and excited to be a double dad.’
-
Percy wasn’t exactly sure how normal adoption processes worked, considering the one they were doing was specifically meant for half-bloods.
Their social worker, Lorna, told them they could pick up Caitlyn and bring her to Sally’s for a little family visit. Nothing too stressful, minimum chaos, but they could do it. Minimum chaos was a tall order in whatever flat housed Estelle Blofis, but they were willing to try.
He knocked on the familiar door, Annabeth behind him with the baby carrier. They’d left a care bag with the foster mom a while before, and now Caitlyn was spotting a whale-print onesie.
There was a scuffling sound inside the apartment.
‘HOLY FUCK THEY’RE HERE!’
Ah. They might have to remind Stelly that Grown Up Words were for grownups.
Estelle gleefully turned the handle, beating her parents to the door.
‘Is that her?’ She whispered excitedly. That was a good start.
‘It sure is. You can sit down on the sofa and I’ll let you hold her.’
After walking Estelle through the correct baby-holding procedure, (which mostly involved not dropping and supporting the head,) Annabeth carefully handed her over.
His girlfriend whispered in his ear, ‘this is adorable ,’ as she snapped a picture.
‘I think my heart’s actually melting, call the ambulance.’
Later, Percy asked Estelle a very important question. She said yes to being godmother, and took her job very seriously. She hardly let Caitlyn out of her sight, standing guard with whatever she had in her hand.
Gods help anyone that got between Estelle and Caitlyn when she had a plastic spoon.
It relieved him to know he had two decent godparents on the team. Godparents all one word, because finding decent God Parents was like trying to find a way out of the Labyrinth.
He could speak from experience.
-
Caitlyn Chase Jackson
Father: Perseus Jackson
Mother: Anna Elizabeth Chase
-
In the end, taking Caitlyn home wasn’t a huge deal.
They made it through the bureaucracy and home checks and early anxiety- and then one day they just… brought her home. And it was her home. It had her crib and her chest of drawers and her name on her bedroom door. She didn’t actually sleep in it yet, but Tyson made the sign anyway. She’d grow into it.
It was already baffling to Percy that in such a short period of time they’d gone from ‘we want kids’ to ‘this is my daughter, Caitlyn.’ She was theirs . They’d wake up every morning for the rest of their lives and their first thoughts would be about her. Or, if things went well, thinking about them, plural.
It was a learning curve. They jumped every time she sneezed, quadruple-checked the temperature of everything and anything, and texted Sally with questions like, ‘is it normal for them to blink so much??’
If he was honest, he’d been anxious about Annabeth. He had experience babysitting Estelle, and she’d been like a marine boot camp for childcare. How would Annabeth cope?
Turns out, he shouldn’t have worried so much. They were sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, and completely smitten with the thing in their house that shrieked if dinner was thirty seconds late.
Of course, Annabeth made a schedule for everything. Her and Percy bickered more than a little about it.
Percy thought that since Annabeth had a full-time job, she shouldn’t have to be up during the night to feed Caitlyn.
Annabeth thought that was all the more reason to get her Caitlyn time in.
In the end, they just decided to play it by ear while Annabeth was on maternity leave and burn that bridge when they got to it.
They had time to figure it out.