Chapter Text
Annabeth Chase was not a baby. She had survived on the streets alone, and then with Thalia and Luke, at the tender age of seven. Just because she was one of the youngest at camp didn’t mean that they had a right to treat her like she couldn’t keep up with the rest of them.
It was always, ‘Annabeth why don’t you go play’ when everyone else went to sword-training. Or, when her siblings would shove her in the safest and most out of the way spot during capture the flag so that she never saw any action whatsoever. She had faced more monsters than half the kids at camp, they should give her a little more credit.
Luke didn’t even stand up for her, every time she complained to him he just told her, maybe it’s good for you to just be a normal kid for once. But she wasn’t a normal kid, she was doomed to be stuck in this camp for the rest of her life, and she was tired of everyone pretending like she was too young to be aware of that fact. The least they could do was let her train instead of pretending she was a normal seven year old girl who didn’t have to worry about imminent death if she stepped foot outside the camp boundaries.
Usually she grit her teeth and dealt with the babying, especially since most of it came from her siblings and she didn’t want to fight with them. It was nice to have a family around her for once, she didn’t want to ruin it and make them hate her because she was a brat.
But for some reason, one cloudy day a month after she’d arrived at camp, she snapped back. Her siblings had sword-training in the afternoon three days a week. Ever since her arrival at camp, she had not been included in the training a single time. They always told Annabeth to either watch from the sidelines, or go play with the other little kids because sword training was too advanced for a seven year old. She didn’t expect any different this time, but it still made her mad. She was willing to bet she was better with her knife than many of her siblings were with their swords, yet they still insisted on treating her as if she couldn't handle herself!
Predictably, the refusal came. But this time, Annabeth refused to sit back and accept their babying. She had dug her heels in and demanded they listen to her for once and let her attend training as well. One of her newly discovered brothers, Owen, had looked a little bewildered at first, and Annabeth thought she might have gotten through to him. But, only a moment later, he had doubled down on his decision against her joining them. He was head counselor, and currently the oldest resident of the cabin, so none of her other siblings went against his word and sided with her.
Annabeth felt tears at the corner of her eyes, feeling like a child throwing a tantrum even though this was a very legitimate concern, that she had a right to be upset over!
One of her sisters, Ally, tried to soothe her. She stepped forward with a pitying look on her face, and reached out to pat her gently on the shoulder, “Look, Annabeth, you're still so little. I know that can be frustrating, but there will be plenty of time in the future for you to train with the rest of us. I mean, you're so young there’s probably not even any swords that are small enough for you to safely use," She had an accommodating smile on her face, clearly she was trying to make a joke to lighten Annabeth's bad mood. It only made her feel worse, "Maybe next year we can start-”
She’d heard enough, Annabeth pushed past her older siblings and ran off towards the forest. She heard them shout behind her, but ignored them. Annabeth hated being treated like a child, she hated feeling so useless when only a month ago Thalia had died fighting to give them enough time to make it to the safety of camp. Why couldn't her new siblings see that she was in the same shoes they were. Monsters wouldn't spare her just because she was too little. They were only holding her back.
For a moment she missed the days that she spent traveling with Luke and Thalia. She knew that camp was better for them in the long run, and things certainly hadn't been easy always on the run from one monster or another. But at least she had a role to play. Thalia wasn't stupid, she knew that age didn't matter when it came to monsters, she had expected Annabeth to pull her weight in their group from the moment they found her. Thinking about Thalia only made her heart ache painfully though, and Annabeth tried to push the thoughts out of her mind before they consumed her.
After fleeing from her siblings into the woods, she only slowed once she was deep enough in the forest so that she couldn’t see the cabins anymore. She didn’t dare go any further, not even she was foolish enough to go to the deeper parts full of monsters by herself.
Maybe ten minutes passed of her trying to stifle her sniffles and banish her tears before there was a faint rustling from up ahead, “Go away Owen! I thought you wanted me out of the way, I’m just doing what you asked!”
To her surprise, it wasn’t her brother that walked out of the brush. It was one of the curly haired boys that had arrived at camp a week after her and Luke. Connor? No that was the younger one's name. She remembered because he was only six years old, which made him the only kid at camp younger than her right now. So, she inferred, this must be the older kid, Travis. He was only a year older than her, if she was remembering correctly.
“Uh, not Owen,” he stated the obvious with a nervous grin as he fidgeted awkwardly with his hands, “You’re Annabeth, right?”
She quickly wiped her tears away, not wanting him to see her like this, before nodding to answer his question, “And you’re one of Luke’s new brothers? Travis, right?”
He nodded as well. Luke had already known his dad was Hermes when they got to camp, just as Annabeth had known her mother was Athena. But Travis and his brother had been unaware of their parentage until a day after their arrival when they’d been claimed by Hermes in the dining pavilion.
“I saw you run into the forest by yourself and wanted to make sure you were ok,” he explained after the silence grew between them
Annabeth felt a flush rise to her cheeks, “Well, as you can see, I’m fine,” she said, a little more harshly than she meant to.
The boy didn’t back down though, he sat down a couple yards away from her showing he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon, “Well, I think you’re lying.”
“I’m not!” Annabeth denied petulantly, shocked at this boy's audacity, “And even if I was, it’s none of your business!”
Travis crossed his arms over his chest with a huff, “Yes it is! Carlie says that everyone at camp is family, and we have to look out for each other,” From her tour around camp, Annabeth remembered Carlie was the name of the Hermes head counselor, “And you’re the only other person at camp right now close to my age. So I think we should look out for each other," Travis added.
“I don’t need someone looking out for me, I need to train,” Annabeth grumbled in annoyance.
Travis scoffed, “Good luck with that. Apparently we’re too young to start weapons training yet," he rolled his eyes as he spoke, "Carlie says it’s cause we’re too small for the wooden training swords,” he told her as if she didn’t already know all of that, “She says I can start training when I'm a little older, but I think that’s stupid. Why can’t they just make smaller training swords so we can practice now?”
“Yes! Exactly!,” Annabeth exclaimed, happy that someone else shared her plight, “They act like we’re babies, but we face the same amount of danger they do!”
Travis nodded along with her, “Yeah! We’re just as tough as they are, but they won't let us prove it! And to get rid of us, they always tell us to go play, but what could we even do to play around here anyway, there's nothing to do!”
Ok, Annabeth acknowledged to herself, maybe she had been a little hasty in discounting Travis's company. It seemed they were stuck in the same boat, he wasn’t so awful after all.
“Connor is usually who I play with - he’s my little brother," Travis clarified for her, "But he’s even littler then us, and he still has a nap time. He's asleep in our cabin right now, and I have nothing to do,” he told her with a bored expression on his face.
“I guess we can hang out if you want,” Annabeth offered hesitantly, “The two of us can come up with more things to do together than either of us could on our own.”
Travis brightened immediately, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, “Yeah! In fact I already have an idea that I've been wanting to put into place," he gave her a conspiratorial smile, "Wanna get a little revenge on our older siblings for underestimating us?”
Annabeth blinked at him in confusion, “Revenge? What do you mean?”
“Let me enlighten you, my new friend,” Travis trilled, “Have you never considered pulling a few pranks whenever one of your siblings annoyed you? I mean, they push us to the side because they believe we're too young to handle things. So why not show them just what we're capable of when left to our own devices?”
"What do you have in mind?” Annabeth asked, her curiosity peaked.
Travis practically beamed, jumping to his feet and offering her a hand, “Oh, there is a world of possibilities! Come on, we gotta plan while they’re all out of the cabins for training!”
She only hesitated for a moment before accepting the offered hand, and letting Travis pull her back towards the cabins. A small smile crossed her face, and the two of them were dissolving into giggles of giddy anticipation by the time they made their way to the Hermes cabin to plan their scheme. Maybe it wasn’t so awful here after all. Being babied sucked, but now she knew there were people like Travis who had to deal with the same thing. And if he was right, and the two of them pulled tricks on their older siblings while they were gone, maybe it would show them just how component she was after all.