Annabeth and the Nine Step Career Plan

Step 1

Integration

Heroes Park is not as crowded as she had expected for a Saturday morning, although coming just before the crack of dawn probably has a hand in that. Annabeth's target finally glimmers into view, and she sprints the last few hundred meters to finish off strong.

Her momentum takes her past the statue, but she tapers it off quickly, slowing to a walk. She circles back around, muscles burning pleasantly and sweat beginning to bead at her forehead. When she leans down to take a long swig from the water fountain, she hears a fellow runner approach her.

"You run professionally, or something?" he asks, wiping his upper lip with the back of his hand.

He's halfway out of breath from his jog but still shuffles his feet in place when he stops to speak with her.

"Only for my life," Annabeth replies, dryly.

That earns her a snort and a pair of disbelieving eyebrows, but she removes her hand from the metal sink and lets him have his turn.

Settling down on the slightly dewy grass with her arms splayed out behind her, Annabeth watches the sun appear between the buildings. Just quick flashes of yellow before it's high enough to see clearly. The air around her turns hazy, and Annabeth uses her hand as a visor when the light starts bouncing off all the metal and glass of Metropolis' skyscrapers.

LexCorp has it the worst, she notes, the tallest building in all the city, windows tinted to Hades. The glare is so bright she almost has to look away, but instead, she narrows her eyes at the top floor. The penthouse. She must look like an ant, she muses.

She waves her hand in a vaguely taunting hello, as if Luthor can see her from all the way up in his glass and concrete throne.

"I see you, too," she tells him, from all the way down in hers.

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Annabeth doesn't write any of it down.

The plan remains tucked away in the safety of her brain and when she needs visual aid, she draws her diagrams in the condensation on her shower door before angling the spout and letting the water wash it away. She doesn't speak of it aloud either, just lets her mind hash out the finer details until everything is in place.

Paranoid, maybe, but a necessary precaution.

The weekend is over as soon as it began, but Annabeth is looking forward to the next work week and doesn't mind. She's had more than enough time.

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"I'm having a little trouble reporting to management with my current classification," Annabeth tells one of the more willing-to-help project leaders bright and early Monday morning, "It's getting hard to keep track of my progress and assigned tasks."

She's been flitting from team to team, doing bits of work at a time with no overarching structure to her internship so it's an absolutely valid concern to have. Her first forty hours had been split up amongst six different teams, making it challenging to coordinate time without having someone to report back to, and she tells the project manager as much.

"Hmm," he replies, scratching his beard, "That is something to rectify. I'll look into the issue when I can."

Annabeth knows this will take forever if she doesn't give him a push.

"Isn't there someone that oversees all the tech teams, or the day-to-day stuff, that I can shadow?"

It takes a little bit of effort to pretend she doesn't understand corporate hierarchies, but the employees here, and Luthor—if he's even given her that much thought—think that she is whip-smart yet naïve when it comes to business, and she needs to keep up that reputation.