A/N: The thought of these guys growing up fills me with joy and pride, but it also hurts a little bit. I will love anything Rick writes, but these guys will always be my heroes.

To Be A Hero

It had never seriously occurred to him that he was getting older. He'd mention it in passing jokes, laugh at Annabeth when she'd frown at a supposedly white hair, proclaim his old age when his back hurt the tiniest bit. But it'd never hit him so hard as it had that day.

He'd been leaning against the side of his car, shivering inside his warm nylon coat, waiting for Annabeth to leave work. It was a cold foggy afternoon, damp and bleak, a typical December misery, tailor made to crawl under his skin and make him itch. He was bored and cold, longing for the warmth of the car's heating, but unwilling to admit defeat to the weather. Also, he didn't want to look like a creep just sitting inside the car with the engine on, like he was waiting to kidnap someone off the streets and speed away.

To his great relief, Annabeth was on time. She marched down the steps of the building with two co-workers, sensible black heels clacking on the pavement in time with her stride. His lips curled up in a smile. For someone who walked around the apartment in his sweatshirts, she could pull off the executive look with ease. She was buttoning down her fancy trench coat and wrapping a deep red scarf around her neck when she saw him. He waved at her, that dopey smile that sort of just broke out whenever she was around already firmly attached to his face. She smiled and waved back, exchanging quick words with her colleagues and laughing at something they said. She threw a remark over her shoulder and waved them goodbye, power walking to him.

And that was when it hit him. Right then, in the middle of a boring Wednesday, doing something as mundane as picking Annabeth up from work.

He had grown up.

He had a car – a car that he'd paid for with his money. Money he had acquired by having a job, an honest to goodness job, nine to five, with his own office and a lab named after some big star he'd once watched lecture. He had students, he had interns, he was somebody's boss. He paid taxes.

He had a wife.

For a moment he was so overwhelmed his old demigod instincts to fight or flee kicked in. For that one second, he had the urge to get behind the wheel and drive away. To where? Nowhere. Everywhere. He just needed to escape. He didn't even know what he was supposed to escape, he just needed to.

Holy Hades, how had he been calmly doing this all that time?

It seemed like just a couple weeks ago they'd been teenagers, running wild all over the country, fighting monsters and defying gods, Percy and Annabeth against the world and winning. And the thing was, when he'd been sixteen and stuck fighting someone else's wars, he'd been so mad and sick of it, but now, years later, he can't help but think there was a certain something to it. Had he wanted to be a big shot hero with all those impossible feats attached to his name? No, not really, most of the time he'd just been trying to stay alive, and honestly, he was glad the mythological world left them mostly alone nowadays. He'd had enough monster fighting for three lifetimes, thank you very much. And at the same time he couldn't help the weird tingling of nostalgia that thinking about those years brought.

Sure they'd been constantly under the threat of imminent death, but he remembered Capture the flag, and chariot races, and laughing about the dam burgers, and kisses under exploding volcanoes, and his father's hug. He remembered a ridiculously cheesy date in Paris and the most heartbreaking one in Rome, a flying war ship that felt like home, making so many new friends he couldn't keep track of all of them. He'd forgotten how it felt to beat the odds and come back home to a hero's welcome.

And yet…

"Did you wait too long?" His wife – gods, his wife – asked him, giving him a quick hello kiss, resting freezing hands around his neck.

He gulped down the lump in his throat and tried to be casual. "Nah. Five minutes or so."

Her eyes were shining, not the cold steel glimmer of battle, more like the silvery glow he'd come to associate with her being happy. "Want to know something cool?"

"What?"

She nuzzled him, equally freezing nose rubbing against his warm neck. He was about to grumble about how cold it was, but she cut him off, "I think I felt the baby move."

And just like that, his whole world snapped back into focus.

Yes, those times of quests and constant danger and heroic deeds were over. The way things worked, their names might not be remembered for much longer than their lifespan. In fact, next week some poor kid might get picked to run an errand that will turn into a battle, that will turn into a war, save the world and end up being the next Hercules. Some new kid might come along and completely wipe out the name Percy Jackson from everybody's memory.

His big shot hero days might be over, but he figured, if he could be just this little guy's hero, then he didn't give a damn about the rest of the world.