All at Sea

08: When it Rains it Pours

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The chilled air of the early October morning seeped into the coarse fabric of Percy's loose jeans, she was wrapped snugly in a large grey sweater as she sat on a cold park bench waiting for the Greyhound bus to arrive. The day was particularly moody--nothing strange considering Gotham's typical gloom--though the sun was already fully up and peaking through dense grey clouds telling of rain.

The bus arrived loudly and with a thick cloud of smoke surrounding it; the doors opened with a creaking sound and passengers began to file out. The sullen passengers of the bus didn't look up when they stepped out, ignoring whatever may be happening around them.  Disrupting the flow of elderly, darkly dressed, sad individuals, came a young, neon-clad, fierce blonde making Percy's face break out in a grin.

Unfurowing herself from the hunched position she'd sat in, Percy ran to greet Annabeth with a desperate hug, burrowing her face into the locks of blonde curls that fell over Annabeth's shoulder.

"I missed you," Percy told her, wrapping her arms tighter yet around her girlfriend. Annabeth smiled a gentle sort of smile, comforting and warm despite the storms brewing in her eyes.

"I missed you too," she whispered while she gingerly cupped her girlfriend's head as though Percy were made of porcelain and would shatter at any time.

The two had arranged the meeting a couple of days prior, Percy longed to go back to camp, but Annabeth urged her to stay in Gotham. Eventually, Percy conceded and gave Cassandra a vague message that she would be out of the house for a couple of hours. Once they ended their embrace, their hands found each other's and they walked aimlessly around the park with mostly dead grass littered with browning leaves and the occasional broken bottle. Tense silence clouded the two, the elephant in the room becoming suffocating until Percy dragged Annabeth onto a wooden bench (donated to the park by the Martha Wayne Foundation, as per the plaque on the back) and finally decided to speak.

The "thank you" that came from her lips wasn't what she'd meant to say, but the words had gotten stuck, her tongue tied into knots.

"I'll always be here for you, Percy. Just say the word," Annabeth said, clasping the taller's hand between her own alabaster hands. Grey eyes met green, both raging with deep emotion. Between them, some unspoken truth came to pass; they pressed their foreheads together and let their breathing fall in sync. The cold wind encompassed them tenderly sending chills down their spines in a collective shiver. Thick droplets of icy rain started to fall on the mousy wood of the bench, turning it into a muddied ash color.

Percy pulled away first, looking to the sky and letting the quickly-coming storm drops fall onto her face, leaving a frigid memory in their wake. She smiled at the scene of the blackening clouds above, the raindrops tracing the smile lines on her cheeks.

Annabeth looked at her lover from a short distance away, nearly shivering despite her, now wet, flannel. Her doting gaze lies on Percy, watching the girl who'd gone through hell for the people she loves being stripped to her barest and somehow managing to let the cutting rain roll off of her. She extended her hand to touch Percy's bicep, a gentle reminder of the world around her.

"Oh, shit," Percy mumbled as she took into account what was happening, "You must be freezing."

"It's not too bad if you try not to think of the wind."

"Here, uh-" she took off her still dry sweater to wrap around Annabeth. "Follow me." She left little room for debate, as she took the older of the two by the wrist and dragged her through a series of side streets. The surroundings worsened significantly before they started improving, eventually leading into a residential area and finally a plot of land in the center of which stood the Palace that was Wayne Manor.