Witness Protection for Demigods

While May had preferred to spend Ben’s death anniversary with someone else that did not hold up the next day. That morning as he got ready for school he found a small note taped to the front door with a twenty suggesting that he spend the day out exploring the city. He knew what she was really asking for though, space. So that was what he gave her.

The problem was that today was supposed to be a study day, Ned and MJ were supposed to come over at five and stay for dinner but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. But how to tell them?

Percy wasn’t supposed to talk to them at school so he couldn’t approach them. Passing a note had too much risk with the paper trail. So, In his genius brain of his he decided on what, in hindsight, might have been the worst option. He ambushed them.

Ned screeched and threw a book into the air as Percy stepped out from around the corner, hand frozen mid-greeting. MJ just raised an eyebrow.

“Dude!” Ned let out a shaky breath, “You can’t do that to me, I’ll have a heart attack”.

“You’re seventeen idiot” MJ so kindly supplied. Percy was surprised though, it appeared that he might be the youngest of the group.

Instead of voicing this though he let out an apology and explained the situation.

MJ nodded, “That makes sense, I think she and Peter might have had a tradition of sorts, visiting his grave and all that but now…” She didn’t need to finish the thought, now she would go to visit his grave and instead of being able to visit her nephew's grave too she would be staring at an unmarked plot, knowing that under all that dirt Peter’s body lay.

“We can go to my house?” It would be nice to have a distraction, Percy thought but MJ shook her head though.

“Your family knows Peter, remember they don’t think you are friends anymore”.

Neds face lit up, “Yeah but they are out of town, I have the whole place to myself until Monday”. That was how Percy found himself in a bedroom that looked a lot like Peter’s had before he cleaned it out. There were posters on the wall showing various Star Wars characters and shelves that were decorated with lego models. On the dresser there were even miniature statues of other characters that Percy did not recognise. Overall it was like a nerd's wet dream.

It didn’t take long for them to get into the swing of studying but for some reason Percy was struggling today. Not that he didn’t struggle other days, learning was never his strong suit, today was just worse.

MJ ran a tired hand down her face as Percy got the question wrong, again, for the fourth time, “We literally just went over this” she groaned and threw the cards at Ned. “You’re up, I need a drink”. Ned caught them as she stood and exited the room for what Percy guessed was the kitchen to get a (hopefully non-alcoholic) drink.

“I think we should take a break” Ned so helpfully supplied and Percy groaned. “Hey man,” Ned tried to comfort him, “everyone has off days”. Percy just raised an eyebrow and looked at him. Ned flushed, “okay, so I doubt many people wouldn’t be able to remember something they wrote down literally ten seconds prior but what else can I say? Your mind is a medical mystery”. In the past this might have upset Percy, gods know how many fights he got in before he found out he was a demigod after being called stupid. Now though? He knew where his strengths lay. This? Was not one of those places.

MJ returned then, holding one of those plastic kids cups covered in various princess looking characters, “Ned you need to run the dishwasher” she said as explanation and grabbed the cards from his hand. “We are doing something else”

“We’re taking a break” Percy said, she nodded.

“Good idea, then it’s our turn to ask questions”. 

“What?” Percy asked. Ned was looking frantically between the two of them, his hands were waving around in the air as if MJ just revealed a secret and he was trying to scoop it all back up”.

“We know nothing about you” she explained, putting the cup down with a little too much force, “It’s our turn to ask questions”.

“MJ….” Ned warned but Percy waved him off.

“No, that’s fair. Just know there are some things I can’t answer”. They nodded their heads in agreement.

“Ok” Mj said, “I got a few” Percy motioned for her to continue. “What’s your full name?”

“Perseus Achilles Jackson”. Both Ned and MJ’s eyebrows rose in shock. Percy smirked, “My moms a Greek mythology buff”.

“Your mother, is that who you grew up with?”

“Yes, she raised me since I was born”. Percy felt a small pang in his chest, it always hurt to talk about her when he couldn’t see her in person. He really missed her hugs.

“Wait,” Ned interrupted his thoughts, “what about Gabe? Is that your father?” 

Percy recoiled in disgust. “What? No? He was my stepfather.”

“Was?” MJ asked, always the perceptive one.

Percy nodded, “He wasn’t great so when he disappeared, my mom remarried”.

“Disappeared!” Ned looked startled but Percy simply smirked again.

“Big city,” He said slowly, “People go missing all the time…” Ned looked at MJ panicked but MJ was just watching Percy carefully. 

“You said he wasn’t great?”

“Yeah, he was an abusive dick…”

“So he got what was coming for him” MJ finished. She nodded as if that was explanation enough but Ned still looked a little frantic so Percy thought it best to change the subject. Something that had been bothering him since the previous day.

“What was Ben like?” He asked and both teens froze. “I mean, yesterday, with May she talked about him but I was just wondering… What was he to Peter?”

Ned looked down at his hands, “everything” he said. “He was everything to Peter”.

Percy looked at MJ, curious if she had anything else to add but she just shrugged, “I never met him but Peter talked about him a lot”.

Ned nodded along, “All the time, Ben was his hero. I know we told you already, that Peter was there when Ben died”. Percy nodded, it had been a hard thing to hear and he had found so many familiarities between Ben and Annabeth’s deaths. “Peter always blamed himself” Ned continued, “No matter what we said, no matter what May said or the doctors or police…”

“He had a bad habit of holding the weight of the world on his shoulders” MJ agreed. 

Ned nodded. “Yeah and he always tried to live by what Ben told him…”

Percy saw Ned’s look dash towards MJ before quickly looking away and her face softened, “with great power comes great responsibility…” she said, voice soft, careful like the words themselves were breakable. “Those were Ben’s last words,” she explained.

With great power comes great responsibility… he had seen those words before…

“He sounds like he was a great guy” Percy concluded.

“He really was,” Ned agreed. From there the room fell into an awkward silence where Percy didn’t know whether he should continue asking questions or give it a rest, it just didn’t feel like he was the one that should be breaking the silence. Thankfully MJ did it for him.

“Alright” she declared with a clap that made Ned squeal, she shot him a teasing look, “breaktime is over, what do you know about Dr. Banner’s work on gamma radiation Mr. Parker?”.

“Uuuuhhhhh…” She smiled, and it looked eerily similar to Hazel’s smile the day she decided to get revenge on Nico for eating the last of her pudding. The poor kid had woken up with a neon pink stripe in his hair.

“Ned,” MJ called, “grab me one of the wooden spoons from your kitc… wait” here her smile dropped and she turned back to Percy, “you call the wrong-be-gones spoon Gabe…”

Percy smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, “yeah… about that…”

“Oh” MJ said, understanding spreading across her face, “I think I like you.”

That night MJ’s words echoed in his head as he lay in bed.

“With great power comes great responsibility…”

It ran laps in his head, shoving its competitors out of the way and making it impossible for him to sleep.

“With great power comes great responsibility…”

It could be argued that Percy had great power. But did that also mean he had a great responsibility? He was hiding out in the mortal world, he could return to camp at any time, move back into his cabin and Iris message his mom every day. He could be helping repair the damages from the war, going on quests to find new demigods and bring them to safety. His stomach twisted with guilt. But he had done all that. He had fought in two separate wars, gone on more quests than anybody else in either camp. He had given that world his heart, soul, blood, and tears and what did he get for it? Nightmares and a dead girlfriend.

No…

That was wrong. That was just the anger speaking. Percy would never regret the things he did ever since finding out he was a demigod, what use was there to that. It was like what Annabeth always said, “why be mad at the past, it’s gone and you can’t get revenge on something that is gone. Focus on the future, now there’s something you can stab your knife into”. Percy felt pride in all of his accomplishments and he knew his friends and family felt pride too. He also knew that if he wanted to continue on with life, finish school, go to college, move into New Rome and live with the remainder of his friends, he needed this. This time to recuperate and just feel normal for a little while.

But that wasn’t a total excuse…

Percy rolled his way out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Making his way out of his room he could hear voices coming from down the hall, the echoes of one of those reality television shows May liked so much. May must be home now. She had been out earlier when he had returned, a note on the door said she was at the cemetery. He couldn’t imagine the kind of day she had had.

He made his way into the bathroom and stopped before the sink, he refused to meet his gaze in the mirror. He looked at it intently. It was a simple sink, the kind you could find in any old New York bathroom. Porcelain bowl with a slightly rusted silver faucet. It was plain, simple.

But he was not.

Percy’s stomach had been twisted into knots since the moment he left the throne room all those months ago. He had gotten used to it, been able to push the painful sensation to the back of his mind and go about that day. But he shouldn’t ignore anatomy, or whatever this is. Something Percy had realized as he got older was that that special sensation in his gut had always been there, ever since he was born but what had changed was his mind. Once he realised he could reach into that sensation, use it to his will it had grown like a new muscle, the kind that never shrunk, like learning to ride a bike. And so, when he turned the faucet on and watched the water flow out, he reached once more into that sensation, into that muscle memory with a shaky breath and even shakier hands. Annabeth’s horrified face when he had first used bloodbending back in Tartarus flashed across his mind and he jerked. The water froze.

The throne room was loud. The floor shook with the volume of the gods voices but Percy didn’t care. No, that would be incorrect to say, Percy just wasn’t full there. 

Annabeth’s blood still coated his hands, his chest, his legs, it had soaked through his armor into his torn clothes and was starting to dry in a way that scratched at his skin, at his very brain.

Annabeth was dead…

It echoed in his mind over and over again.

Annabeth was dead

Annabeth was dead

Annabeth was DEAD

ANNABETH WAS DEAD

The screaming in his head overwhelmed the screaming match from the gods. He knew they were discussing him, probably his life, just like the last time he had helped them. Whatever, he didn’t care, Annabeth was dead.

She was dead.

And Percy would be right about the conversation's topic. The gods had won. Their children had fought well and Zeus’s mother had been defeated. A large part of that was owed to the teenager in front of them. The teenager, Zeus now wanted to put to death.

“Year after year this child grows stronger, he shows no respect for the gods, no respect to his lineage, he does everything out of self-preservation. He gains strength by defeating our enemies, he is climbing the hill and at the top, sits us”.

“My son would never!” Poseidon roars at Zeus. He stands besides Percy, not that his son notices. “My son is a true hero, yes he is strong, he is my son, but he is loyal”

“Loyalty only goes so far…” Ares muses from his seat, a condescending smile on his face. 

“You would know, wouldn’t you Ares” 

“I would watch your tongue, uncle” Ares growled at Poseidon, “A war has just occured on these grounds…”

“ARES!” Aphrodite shouted, aghast at what he was insinuating.

Poseidon just chuckled though, “If you think one war gives you enough power to overthrow me dear nephew… well, I would like to see you try”. The air crackled between the two gods, each who had summoned their weapons. And for Ares’s worth, he looked ready to take up Poseidon's bet right there but Hera raised a hand.

“We have strayed from the topic at hand” she stated, and for the first time Percy himself was addressed, “Persceus, what do you have to say?” The throne room went silent but Percy didn’t so much as look up. Hera sighed.

Zeus scoffed, “The boy has nothing in defense, he knows what I say is fact”

Aphrodite shook her head though, a sad look on her face, “It is not guilt that keeps him quiet father, but love”. 

“Oh cut the cra-” 

Hera raised her hand again, cutting Ares off. “Human minds are fragile, he has lost much”. 

Hermes pursed his lips, “Perhaps he has lost too much…” Hera motioned for him to keep talking, “with Luke, my son, I sometimes wonder if I did too much. Hera here is right, Percy has lost much, and so has Luke. Loss can change a person”.

“And so you believe my son corrupted!” Poseidon roared, summoning his trident in hand and pointing it at his nephew.

“I simply believe that humans are capable of change, Perseus has been tried and we have seen greater heroes than him fall to mortal weaknesses. Love, possession, greed, anger. I failed with Luke, and I lost more in this passing war, no matter how much we attempt to be above it all our offspring hold meaning,” Here he looked around the room, “I do not wish to see my children fighting in another war so soon”.

“Then perhaps i could solve that for you,” Poseidon started to grow, water whipping around him in a crazy frenzy, “that problem is simple enough to solve, I can reduce that number to zero for you dear nephew!”

“ENOUGH” Zeus roared and lightning filled the air. Poseidon reluctantly released his hold on the storm. As Hera stood up, interrupting the meeting and taking over whatever it was her husband was going to say. “Wife…” He warned but Hera simply shot him a withering look.

“Do not think you are above this mess, husband, remember it is I who took the first steps while you hid in your palace. However, I cannot dismiss your worries”. Poseidon attempted to interrupt but a wave of power knocked him back a step. “Do not think I won’t act nephew, I am aware of your attachment to this… spawn, however, you must remember your position”. Poseidon pursed his lips in contained rage. “We will act as a council, as we were always intended to do. We are the gods that rule over this world, we will not squabble like children. Everyone will say their peace, will we hold a vote, and then we will move onto matters of more importance”.

Of more importance…

For some reason those words cut through the storm that was Percy’s mind and sent a punch throughout his body. It was a reminder. This war, this battle, Annabeth, they were all of little significance in the world of the gods. The gods cared in their own way, but they were ancient, it was different. His life was simply a blink in the large expanse of their own. Annabeth’s life probably seemed insignificant…

By now Hera had organized the Olympians into something functionable and had begun to go around the room. Zeus was first of course, echoing similar arguments to what he had said earlier. He spoke for long but Hera refused to cut him off. That was not the same for the rest of the Olympians. Percy’s father was next, and part of his speech made its way into Percy’s mind. His loyalty, all the work he had done for the gods, his devotion to his family and yes he was powerful but did the Olympians really think a demigod would take on all the gods with no help and win? Hades was next and surprisingly he spoke in favor of Percy. He talked about all the times he had personally worked towards Percy’s demise, all the times he had made life difficult for the demigod and then how Percy hadn’t shown an ounce of displeasure towards his son. Hera skipped her turn, instead choosing to remain impartial. Artemis, Demeter, and Hermes did the same. Apollo didn’t have much to say but it was all in Percy’s favor, he personally just didn't want to see him die. Ares was different. Like Hades he held a grudge against Percy but unlike him he did not see all the good Percy had done for his children. In Percy’s mind it was clear that Ares only saw his children as more weapons. Ares even offered to end the demigod himself. As Percy’s mind started to return to him more and more he felt a little surprised to hear Dionysis come to his defense. He didn’t give any reason for why, just that he was against killing Percy Jackson. It was probably the first time he got his name right. 

And then it was Athena’s turn. Annabeth’s mom… Percy knew that out of all her children, Annabeth had been special to Athena, quite possibly had even been her favorite. And Percy hadn’t been able to save her. He knew how this would go.

He was wrong.

“I never approved of my daughter's relationship with Persceus Jackson. The boy knows why and it is irrelevant to this discussion. However, I sent my daughter to her death, so out of my mind I couldn’t even understand the task I had given her. Perseus never left her side, not once. Someone who falls into Tartarus for the one they love is not someone who would willingly start another war. This is a demigod who has done much to prove his loyalty and you wish to repay him with his death? We are supposed to be just and fair, to keep balance. We do not smite the things we fear, why should we fear a mortal with a mind so weak that one death has pushed him over the edge?

The verdict was clear, he was in the clear. Still, he wasn’t surprised when Zeus went for his lightning bolt.

From the direction of the kitchen Percy heard the familiar sound of the sink being turned on. It was a rusty thing, you frequently had to give the pipes a good bang to get the pressure flowing and that’s exactly what he heard. It was clear May was trying to be quiet as she thought Percy was still asleep but as the smacks were clearly not enough he heard as she cursed quietly and opened the small doors under the kitchen sink to take a look at the pipes.

A moment of silence and then, “The hell?” Percy realised his mistake and reached into that sensation in his stomach once more. The water in front of him unfroze in an instant and he heard as the kitchen sink started flowing.

He had probably frozen all the pipes in the building. It was hard now, while his powers were like hoping back on a bike, exact control apparently evaded him. Besides, he never did get much practice after the final battle.

Percy remembers the way his fathers body had moved to protect his own as Zeus threw his bolt. He remembered the way Hades, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, and Apollo had gathered by his side in his defense. And he remembered screaming in pain as it took all of his energy and willpower to take hold of the golden ichor in Zeus’s hand and freeze it for just a second. Long enough for Hera to step in and punish her husband for his actions. He hadn’t realised what he was doing at the moment, it was just like a voice had been shouting in his head, telling him that he needed to keep living. The voice had strangely sounded like Annabeth and so he listened.

In the moments that followed Hera had taken him under her wing. She warned her husband right then and there that if he were to act against the ruling of the Olympians he would be putting his position in jeopardy.

And so, Percy lived on.

But Zeus had been right. Percy was stronger, and he was angrier. He just wasn’t selfless enough to follow through on that anger, to get into the gods face and scream at them until they finally realised all the mistakes they had made. Mostly he was just sad.

But he was stronger. He could feel it again, now that he had had some rest and his mind had returned back to the present, at least partially. It had been Annabeth’s idea to try and expand his arsenal. Who knew he would only figure it out too late, only to stab her attacker in the chest after she had fallen.

Ice hadn’t been what they practiced but in that moment, when she fell, all he could feel was icy cold fear. And so when he reached out, it responded. It was like he grew a new muscle, deep within the home of an old one. It didn’t feel like a new limb but it didn’t feel quite normal either. More like when you buy the exact same pair of shoes after getting a hole in the soles of the last pair.

Percy still remembered what Annabeth had told him back on the Argo II all those months ago. “You can control water, Seaweed Brain, but do you even understand it? The gods are not separate from science. Water is made up of molecules that we cannot see but maybe you don’t need to be able to see them to reach out? Imagine if you could control water on the microscopic level Percy, imagine how much stronger you would be?”

He had laughed then and asked her if this was her way of telling him he needed to become a human humidifier. It had been dry then and Jason had been complaining about his flaky skin for days. But Annabeth had been serious. She never had powers like the other demigods, all she had was her brain and her fighting skills and yet she had been as strong as the rest of them. He couldn’t even imagine what she could have done with abilities like his. Probably found the solution to world peace.

Percy lay back in bed and closed his eyes, imagining her face, her smile, the way her hair would whip in the air when she practiced moves with her knife. She was his strength, and his weakness. Now, she was just a memory.

He took a deep sigh and reached out one last time, just like Annabeth had guided him. To feel the water not in a cup of a lake but in the very air. Where it joined other water, where it clumped together in the familiar pattern of condensation, and where it was pulled into fabrics like his clothes and sheets. The way the air pushed and pulled and…

Percy’s eyebrows creased. There was something disturbing the airflow in Peter’s room. He had never noticed it before but from the shape of the water in the air it seemed to be some sort of physical object in the vents. Curiosity got the better of him and within seconds he was pulling the desk chair over to the wall in order to reach the vent. It took a few minutes to find something to screw the nails off with and even longer to actually unscrew them. They were ridiculously long but with the vent off he was able to look in and see… nothing? It looked just like a vent should, dirty metal walls that dissolved into black. But water didn’t lie, with his eyes closed Percy reached his hand in and felt around until… HAH! It landed on something cloth. As he opened his eyes and pulled it was like the red and blue fabric appeared out of thin air. Almost like he was pulling it through the mist. It brought him back to a conversation he had had with Ned. Peter had been an inventor, from the looks of it, not your run of the mill president of the robotics club type nerd but something almost professional. And this proved it. If he looked closely enough he could see the small line of somethings that lined the walls of the vents, they almost looked like scratches. 

Stepping off the chair and away from the vent Percy let the piece of fabric fall out of its rumpled shape but seeing it fully only made him more confused. It appeared to be a pair of fancy pajamas? But no, there was also a mask that had fallen to the floor. A familiar mask… The same mask that had been drawn on Peter’s diary. It was Red and navy blue just like the suit and had two large black pieces of netting over the eyes almost like blinders. Across both pieces of the costume of whatever it was were lines of black that almost looked like a web. Which made sense because directly in the center of the chest was a large black spider design.