Pandemonium

Apollo felt an arm wrapping around his shoulders.

He looked up to find his sister seated beside him. Her eyes a mixture of sadness and anger.

"Why do you cry, brother?" She wiped his tears with her fingers.

There was silence for a long moment.

"They took Percy." He told her, voice choked.

He felt her hand tighten around his shoulder. Apollo knew that his sister liked Percy a lot. He was an honourable man, the only one who had earned the approval of her late lieutenant. The one Apollo had been crushing on for years. The only one of Apollo's admirations that she found reasonable. The man who had saved her when she had faced a similar situation.

"Who?" She asked, her voice significantly harsher than before.

Apollo let out a sigh. "Ares." He said, and turned to look his sister in the eye. As expected, he saw disappointment reign in. She had tried a lot to bring Ares to the right track. To make him see reason, but he had defected again.

"Quit moping, brother." She said to him, "What would Percy do if you were the one to be taken? Let him guide you to where he is. You'll find him. I'm deploying the hunters right now. First priority is finding Percy. But if we find Ares, Thalia has ordered a castration on sight."

"If I'm the one who finds Ares first, I'll kill him." Apollo stated, his words ringing true.

"Very well." Artemis said, and stood up, dusting her palms. "It'd be highly appreciated if you would care to stop the heatwave engulfing half of America right now."

Apollo wanted them to burn. Wanted to wreak havoc. To cause plagues. To make them suffer for their ignorance.

But then he remembered Artemis's advice. What would Percy want him to do? He thought, and calmed himself down.

"Good. Now, you might want to tell the rest of the council what happened." Artemis tells him. "They want you to address the media and sort everything out. Father doesn't seem to be able to see the bigger picture. Honestly, I'm not surprised."

Apollo just sighed.

"I'll get going now, brother. Take care, and call me if you need help."

Apollo didn't care to watch her disappear.

He needed to get his head in the game and find Percy and the missing demigods.

-

Tony was very confused and very concerned.

The only thing he was sure of was that Percy had just been kidnapped, Apollo is screaming outside, and they both definitely had a lot more secrets than they had let on.

"Am I wrong or did Percy just get kidnapped by teleportation?" Clint asked the room at large.

They were all vehemently ignoring the decapitated man on the wall. He's beyond help, but Percy and his friends aren't and that's what they had decided to concentrate on by silent agreement.

"That was Ares, the god of War."

Apollo had walked back into the room. He looked significantly more composed now. He was sure he'd only just seen the guy run out in a hysterical manner.

"You mean, he's an alien from Asgard?" Bruce asked the musician.

Apollo sighed and lifted his right hand. He made a show of snapping his fingers and suddenly they were all back in Avengers Tower and the decapitated man was lying on a stretcher in the far corner of their meeting room.

Tony's head was spinning slightly, and his stomach felt weird. He noticed that the others seemed to feeling similar discomfort.

It only lasted a few seconds.

And within those few seconds, all of them had weapons trained on Apollo.

Except Thor.

"You're enhanced." Natasha stated. She had a knife pointed at his neck.

"Thor." Apollo called him, his voice resonating in an otherworldly manner all over the room. "Ask your friends to stand down."

It was an order.

Thor scrambled up to his feet and cleared his throat, nodding at Apollo.

"Friends, Prince Apollo will explain everything. I request you to please put away your weapons and hear him out. We have a common goal. It will not do to fight amongst ourselves."

Tony and the others reluctantly lowered their weapons. They were all beyond confused.

"Prince?" Steve asked.

"My father is a king." Apollo said. "You've studied about him at school. He's called Zeus."

"Yeah, right." Clint said. "And I'm Homer."

Apollo turned to glare at Clint. His eyes glowed like the sun. Everyone looked away.

"Listen to what I have to say. We do not have time for your doubts. Accept the facts or be ready to have your memories wiped. Finding Percy and our friends is the topmost priority here. I will not have you wasting my time when I can be searching for my husband instead."

That shut everyone up. It brought up more questions, but nobody voiced it.

Tony understood why. Apollo's presence had overtaken the entire room. Tony's primal instincts told him to run, to hide from the predator amongst them. He knew that he had to listen to the other man.

"Thor is not an alien." Apollo began. "He is the god of thunder and the crown prince of the Norse pantheon of gods. I, Phoebus Apollon, am the crown prince of Olympus and the god of the sun, music and archery to name a few of my domains."

It sounded very far fetched to Tony.

He was more inclined to believe that Apollo had hit his head somewhere and had gone loony. But some of the things he had seen in the past few days, made him sceptical of what he had believed all these years.

"Where does Percy come in? I just don't get it." Bruce asked.

"Percy is a son of Poseidon, second in line to the throne of Atlantis, and the god of storms, heroes, and poisons, etc."

"I thought Perseus was a son of Zeus?" Steve asked.

"That was a different Perseus who died millenia ago. Percy is the youngest god alive, being 31 years old."

Everyone blinked.

Percy is a god?

Tony was sure he'd be waking up from a dream very soon, because there was no way that was true.

Percy was the most ordinary man he had ever known. The most normal friend. He might've secretly been part of the mafia, but that was still acceptable. Percy being a god!? Unimaginable.

"It might be hard to understand, my friends." Thor began, "But it is of utmost importance that you believe us and also keep this a secret. If you happen to tell anybody about this without our explicit permission, you will be killed on the spot."

"Is that a threat?" Natasha asked. Even she seemed a little less composed.

"It is a fact." Apollo told her. "And one that you will all keep in mind at all times at whatever the cost."

He then seemed to take a deep breath and waved his hand at a wall. A target appeared on it.

"If it will make it easier to believe me, I would like Mr. Barton to please come forward with his weapons."

Clint stepped up to the target. Without Apollo prompting him, he knocked an arrow and shot at the target.

The arrow landed a metre away from the target. Tony was flabbergasted. Someone waving objects into existence was more believable than Clint missing such an easy target.

Clint shot at it again and again and again. The arrow flew way off course at all times. When at last it hit the target, Apollo turned to Clint and asked, "Did you do anything different this time than you did the last five times?"

"No." Clint said, his voice trembling a little.

"Like I said earlier, I'm the god of archery. Mr. Barton is one of the few mortals who have managed to earn my favor and blessing for their continued dedication to the art and science of archery. I can take away my blessing at any time and also make sure that the arrow does or does not hit the intended target-"

The ringing of a phone interrupted him.

It was Apollo's phone. He looked at the screen in confusion, then suspicioun.

He picked the call and asked, "Hello?"

Tony had no idea one could say hello and sound threatening.

They could only hear one end of the conversation.

"Yes. Drew Tanaka informed us about your sister." Apollo kept a neutral face as he said it.

As he listened, Apollo's mood seemed to grow more grim.

"Percy isn't here."

The sadness lingered on his face.

"We're working on it."

He looked determined now.

"We traced the video, yes. But it was a trap." Tony felt it when Apollo winced, they shouldn't have gone in blind.

"They took Percy, Mr. Kane." The light in the entire room turned to dim at the statement. Percy's absence stood out like a sore thumb.

"Ofcourse. That would be great." Apollo looked more hopeful now.

"All of the Middle East?"

"Thank you."

"My intentions are completely pure. I assure you." Apollo smiled fondly as he said this.

"I'm just glad that he is loved by so many." The guy(god!?) was definitely talking about Percy now. The lovesick look was a familiar one. Tony still couldn't imagine how he hadn't connected the dots earlier. Those two had been married all along! But there were still so many questions. Unhappy marriage? Political gains? It was an extremely complicated thing to understand.

"Indeed. I will."

As Apollo hung up, he looked calmer and more hopeful than before.

"That was Carter Kane, the brother of Sadie Kane who is one among the kidnapped individuals. Mr. Kane is an old friend of Percy's. He's a famous Egyptologist, and has a lot of connections all around the Middle East. He'll be heading the search there."

"Why are we searching in the Middle East!?" Steve asked.

"Because we can teleport." Apollo deadpanned.

Tony and the rest of the team were brimming with questions to ask and Apollo could probably sense it, so he said immediately. "What about we start working on finding Percy and the others? I'll answer your questions while we are doing it. That way we'll get everything done faster. Don't you agree?"

-

Apollo watched as the Avengers worked tirelessly to find any clues regarding where Percy and the others were being held.

They had started out by trying to identify the decapitated man.

Andrew Loris.

The guy had been a final year mechanical engineering student. He had a part time job at a McDonald's and had a running blog where he posted continuously about secret societies and underworld operations. He had a craze for mysteries, so obviously he couldn't resist an offer to out the Illuminati.

Once it was evident that they wouldn't be able to glean anything from the guy's past or his files, the team got distracted and started asking questions.

Apollo strated out with the most basic stories of Greek Mythology to help them place the people they had met and were important to the situation they were dealing with.

He purposefully decided not to mention the demigods. He knew Percy would've done the same had he been in Apollo's shoes.

They dealt with enough shit already. They did not need to be monitored by mortals. And worst case scenario would be if SHIELD found out and decided they needed lab rats with only half their DNA.

So whenever they skirted the borders of a topic that might've led to a question of demigods, Apollo deflected. He made sure that he was providing them enough content to create new questions in their minds every moment. That prevented them from reviewing a lot of content together and asking important questions.

He felt a little guilty about doing it, but their world had been kept hidden away for a reason.

With the videos of Piper and Rachel being released to the world, the possibility of a secret society had caused massive unrest. Lots of factions had sprung up overnight. Some supporters, some neutral, some haters, some trying to take advantage of the situation to further their agenda.

Utter chaos reigned over the mortal world. It had not helped that the they had been spotted at Avengers Tower. The possibility of a secret society having ties to the Avengers had jeopardized international relations and caused various security issues which Pepper had been dealing with single handedly.

None of them had addressed the public. Not one statement had been sent to the press by any of the mentioned parties. Not yet anyways.

Apollo and the Avengers planned to change that.

Apollo had split his consciousness after his talk with Artemis to visit Olympus and inform the council regarding Percy's kidnapping.

Zeus had declared that it was all a convoluted conspiracy to overthrow him and flashed out of the meeting. With how irresponsible his father was being, Apollo figured that maybe it was indeed time to replace him for good.

Poseidon had been outraged. He had begun to threaten Apollo in various ways when Artemis and Hermes had intervened and told him in no uncertain terms that had he been a good father, Percy would probably have come to him first for help. And also told him that he was being a terrible father by blaming Apollo and not immediately looking for Percy.

That had shut him up. Long overdue, Apollo had thought.

The rest of them had all been cooperative and had offered to search for Percy in any ways they could.

Only Ares had been absent for the meeting.

His betrayal was met with resignation. Honestly, Apollo thought, maybe the whole council needed to be revamped. They shouldn't be so used to having members turn on each other.

That part of his conscience was still stuck on Olympus helping organise search parties using his influence among the people.

He was brought back to the search efforts in the Tower when Clint casually said, "If only memories were stored in hard drives, we could've just popped it into Tony's computer and checked whether he knew their secret lair."

"They took his head, Clint."

"Wait, who's secret lair are we looking for again?"

Apollo didn't know who had said all that because Clint's statement had just made him realise what an idiot he had been.

He immediately sent a part of his consciousness to pay a visit to his Uncle.