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In fact, he does. Leo’s current project clatters to the floor, shattering on impact.
“You—” a chair scraping, someone standing up.
“Leo, hold on—” Hazel. Fabric rustling.
“—We can work with this!” Jason attempts in a calm voice.
“I don’t think this is that crazy—” Frank says.
“Leo—” Piper begins, voice laced with charmspeak.
“Twice!” Leo all but screams. “You left her there twice!”
Percy keeps his eyes shut. His mind feels fractured, separated. He is so, so far away from the dining room.
“I can’t fucking believe this!” Leo shouts. Annabeth shifts next to him, moving closer, but the next thing Percy knows, he’s being shoved back into a wall. His eyes fly open to find himself face to face with Leo. The younger boy’s eyes are alight, nearly on fire, his teeth clenched. “Two thousand years, and nothing!”
Percy can’t breathe, can’t speak. He tries to shove Odysseus to tap in for once, but the other half of him refuses. Neither wants to confront this.
It’s not fair, he thinks.
I didn’t mean to, he reasons.
She imprisoned me first, he argues.
But no words come out. Instead, he stares, open-mouthed, at his friend.
“Are you going to say anything?!” The hand that doesn’t hold Percy to the wall lights on fire. “Or are you going to be a coward?”
That activates something. Odysseus grabs hold of their fractured mind and says, “You want me to say something, Leo? Alright, I’ll say something. Yes, I left her. You know why I did that? I did that because she’s a rapist.”
Leo blinks.
Odysseus shoves the boy off him. Leo stumbles back, shocked and somewhat defensive, and opens his mouths to respond.
Odysseus cuts him off. “You want to know why I ran away from her the first chance I got? I ran away because she imprisoned me for seven years. Athena had to appeal to Zeus to force her to let me go.” In the passenger seat, Percy flinches. He doesn’t want to be lashing out at his friend like this, no, but he's overtaken by something of a growing horror as he realizes what, exactly those seven years of fuzzy memory are.
“So don’t you dare tell me that I didn’t do enough when despite it all, despite the imprisoning and the- the assault and the fact that she took my wedding ring and I nearly jumped off a bloody cliff because of her- I still made that gods-damned astrolabe.” He’s actively shaking now, fists clenched in an effort to stop it showing. “And don’t- don’t tell me that she’s changed, not when she’s older than Zeus and still trying to date a sixteen year old.”
Leo stands there, and a strange mixture of denial and pity washes over his face. The others, he registers faintly, stare in various states of what the fuck.
Jason recovers first. He takes a careful step towards Odysseus. “Odysse-”
“Don’t.” He says, voice just sharp enough to be brittle. He turns around and speedwalks to his room, slamming the door and collapsing against it. He wraps him arms across his midriff and digs in hard enough to hurt. Something in him feels unclean. Tainted.
His knees give way and he slides to the floor. His hands find their way into his hair, and he can feel little pieces pulling off of his scalp from the force of his trembling.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there, but sometime later there’s a tentative knock at the door. He jumps away so fast he goes lightheaded and opens it.
Annabeth stands behind it, fist still raised. She lowers it slowly.
“Hi,” she says, softly. “You okay?”
Odysseus stares at her.
“Okay, stupid question.” She hesitates. “Can I come in?”
He steps back.
She closes the door behind her, and he sits on the bed. Annabeth leans against the closet, arms down at her sides. “Percy?”
“No.” says Percy. “Well- yes, but- no?- I don’t know.” A headache pulls at the edges of his consciousness.
“Okay,” she says, slowly, “Would you like me to help?”
Odysseus nods, which is a terrible idea that makes his head feel much heavier than it normally is. Annabeth sits next to him, a foot of careful distance between them. “Odysseus or Percy?”
“...Odysseus”, they decide.
Odysseus sighs in relief, the headache dissipating. He sits up straighter and arranges himself on the bed, facing her. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why exactly are you here?”
“Just to check on you, really,” she murmurs, “Talk you down, if I had to.”
“Oh.”
Annabeth starts to lean forward. She stops midway. “Odysseus. Talk to me?”
“I’m- I’m fine, really.” He sighs. “It’s just that- I- what happened to my story, Annabeth? How did I come out the villain?” And he hates it, hates how fragile his voice sounds, hates the thick burr of unshed tears, hates how it wavers.
Annabeth leans back. “You... you don’t, not really. It’s made pretty clear in the Odyssey that what Calypso did was rape.”
Odysseus frowns. “But then- Leo?”
Thankfully Annabeth, genius that she is, understands his question, despite the... everything of that sentence.
“According to Leo, Calypso lied and told him that the myth was inaccurate, that you slept with her and stayed on the island willingly for seven years until you decided you didn’t love her anymore and left.”
He flinches. “I- no!”
“I know. Leo doesn’t think that anymore. None of us do.”
They sit together in silence for a while. It’s not uncomfortable, not exactly, but it isn’t comfortable, either.
“The others, they...” begins Annabeth, “they didn’t say anything about it, but we’re holding a strategic meeting and having you there would be really helpful, if you’re up to it.”
“...Sure.”
She gives him a hand and they stand, open the door, and rejoin the others.