Chapter Text
It was destiny that brought two young children into Chiron’s gym, that and a cancelled field trip.
The day that changed Chiron’s life had been an ugly one. Deep into October, dark grey clouds hid the sun, plunging New York into a cold and depressing darkness. The temperature wasn’t low enough yet to snow, so the weather had been switching back and forth between icy cold rains and sleeting. Chiron was grateful he spent the money to get the heater at his gym, Olympia, fixed before winter truly began in full force.
During his gymnastics days there was no such thing as a heater or air conditioning, it was sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter, with hardly any in between. Once he started his own gym, (Thank the gods for the money he received from sponsorships after his Olympic games) Chiron knew he couldn’t let his gymnasts suffer the way he had. Gymnastics was hard enough without having to battle the elements too.
His phone rang, loud and shrill, snapping Chiron out of the morning paperwork.
When he picked up, the voice on the other side was overtly perky and already speaking before he could manage “hello.”
“Hi! My name is Jessica and I’m with Ms. Bunny’s pre-school, we had a field trip scheduled for today, but the weather isn’t cooperating with us, is it possible for us to come to Olympia this afternoon instead? I already have the money and parental waivers.”
This predicament was nothing new to Chiron and he gladly accepted. Chiron would never deny a field trip of young children. Plus, the business part of him couldn’t pass up the extra cash and an opportunity for free advertising. And if one or two kids, decided they liked the sport and stuck with it for a few years, than all the better.
“Of course,” he replied, “I am always happy to help, I just have a few questions…”
They discussed how long the visit would be, how many kids would be coming (25) and how old they were (4 and 5), whether she wanted obstacle courses or a free-for-all open gym (She opted for both) and whatever concerns she had.
The conversation went quick, Jessica talked rapidly, her words all blending into each other. Chiron did have to admit, it was nice dealing with someone who got straight to the point and knew what she wanted. Lots of times these conversations lasted much longer than necessary.
“Thank you so much for your help! We’ll see you in a couple of hours!”
After he hung up, Chiron made a few calls to his part-time coaches to see who could help him corral the young children who would soon be unleashed upon his gym. Tuesday mornings were never the busiest at the gym, so Chiron figured he only needed one additional set of hands.
Luckily Luke Castellan volunteered. He and Chiron spent the rest of the morning setting up obstacle courses and making a rotation schedule for the open gym, and before they knew it white vans were pulling into the parking lot and two dozen kids were running into the Big House.
With the assistance of the teachers, Luke and Chiron helped the kids get out of their winter clothes and go over the basic rules of the gym.
Chiron could still remember the blonde girl and a dark haired boy leading the pack as they lined up to enter the gym.
At the time, he didn’t think anything of it.
To warm up, Chiron told them, as soon as he opened the door, he wanted them all to run around the blue floor 3 times.
The door was barely cracked when the girl and boy exploded into the gym, completing the first two laps before the others finished one.
During stretching, Chiron couldn’t help but have his attention brought back to those two, he had never seen such energy, flexibility and coordination in children so young.
At one point, while Luke was demonstrating a dive forward roll, he jumped onto a trampoline, straightened himself out parallel to the ground and rolled out, he stood up with a flourish. The kids stared wide eyed.
“Would anyone like to try?” Luke joked, knowing full well none of the kids in the group would be able to manage the skill, even if it was a simple one at that.
But, the girls hand shot straight up, the boys was only a fraction of a second slower.
What really caught Chiron’s attention was how fearless they were, While the other kids shrunk away, the girl wasted no time in running up to the trampoline, but instead of a dive roll, she jumped with too much power and did a front flip, landing perfectly on her feet.
Before Chiron had time to think, the boy was saying, “I can do that too, Annabeth!”
The boy replicated the same skill.
Like it was nothing.
With absolutely no formal training (that Chiron knew of).
Luke just stared at him, blinking slowly. His unspoken words conveyed perfectly clear, did that really just happen?
That was the first, but not last time that day Chiron thought he might have something special on his hands.
At the end of their trip, Chiron couldn’t resist going up to Jessica to ask the names of those two kids.
Jessica had been as cheerful in person as she was on the phone. Her blonde hair was pulled up and her face was bright red from exertion. Even though she spent her days chasing after preschoolers, it was clear she wasn’t use to this type of a workout.
Her brows drew together, a bit confused, but she answered anyways with a sigh.
“Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson.”
Chiron smiled, “They seem like a handful.”
“You have no idea, they’re non-stop. All. The. Time.”
He laughed, and handed the teacher a packet of forms and brochures. “In gymnastics, that’s a good thing. Would you mind if I gave you paperwork to give to their parents? They may benefit from a release of all that energy.”
“Of course, I’d be happy to.”
Then they were throwing kids into the white vans and driving away.
Luke walked up to him, “Do you think we’ll see those two again?”
The Fates must have smiled down upon Chiron in that moment as he said, “I hope so, I have a feeling they’ll be something great one day.”