Percy Jackson and the Child of Victory (Annabeth Chase x Reader)

We Set Ourselves On Fire

~~~~~Y/N's PΩV~~~~~

I thought we'd lost the spider until Tyson heard a faint pinging sound. We made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door. The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should've been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Δ inscribed in the middle. We all looked at each other.

"Ready to meet Hephaestus?" Grover said nervously. "No," Percy admitted, I don't know why, We meet him back in our first summer, and from what Annabeth told me. He didn't like how the other gods acted 'Some of us don't like being that way either' I remember him saying when I was released from the gold throne. maybe he wont be as bad as other gods.

"Yes!" Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel. As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of us followed, not quite as anxious. The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic's garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames.

Smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. Tools hung along the walls. Each had its own outline on a Peg-Board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.

Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a '98 Toyota Corolla, a pair of legs stuck out—the lower half of a huge man in grubby gray pants and shoes even bigger than Tyson's. one leg was in a metal brace. The spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped. "Well, well," a deep voice boomed from under the Corolla. "What have we here?"

The mechanic pushed out on a back trolley and sat up. he's not the most handsome man in the world, but still, the legends were clearly wrong, he wasn't ugly, he was just bent and dented to some places. His surprisingly neat, gray hair and his oil smeared baggy overalls with tools filling the pocket and Δ was sewed onto the pocket. His black beard smoked and hissed. Every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt in his whiskers then die out. His hands were the size of catcher's mitts, but he handled the spider with amazing skill. He disassembled it in two seconds, then put it back together.

(A/N: think of a mixture between the Disney+ series actor and the official art of Hephaestus)  

"There," he muttered to himself. "Much better." The spider did a happy flip in his palm, shot a metallic web at the ceiling, and went swinging away. Hephaestus glowered up at us. "I didn't make you, did I?" "Uh," Annabeth said, "no, sir."

"Good," the god grumbled. "Shoddy workmanship." He studied Annabeth, Percy and me. "Half-bloods," he grunted. "Could be automatons, of course, but probably not."

"We've met, sir," Percy told him. "Have we?" the god asked absently. I got the feeling he didn't care one way or the other. he was just trying to figure out how my jaw worked, whether it was a hinge or a lever or what. "Well then, if I didn't smash you to a pulp the first time we met, I suppose I won't have to do it now." He looked at Grover and frowned. "Satyr." Then he looked at Tyson, and his eyes twinkled. "Well, a Cyclops. Good, good. What are you doing traveling with this lot?" "Uh..." said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god.

"Yes, well said," Hephaestus agreed. "So, there'd better be a good reason you're disturbing me. The suspension on this Corolla is no small matter, you know." he's acting a little different then how I thought he would "Sir," Annabeth said hesitantly, "we're looking for Daedalus. We thought—"