Pandemonium

"How many of you are married?" Clint had asked once they were in the air.

Tony understood where he was coming from. He hadn't been able to process all of the information either. Once this whole conflict was done with, he'd probably wake up the next morning with a thousand unanswered questions and he didn't want that.

He was a curious man.

And the gods were weird, to say the least. The most normal ones were definitely Percy and Apollo, or maybe he had just gotten a little used to them.

Triton, Kym and Rhode had all changed appearances now. Maybe they were more comfortable this way now that the Avengers knew their identities?

Triton was wearing a royal blue suit made of soft silk. It even had a tail. Kymopoleia was wearing a gown. It had bright contrasting shades and a chaotic array of frills. Rhode though, seemed to be the opposite with a soft blue gown and pearls woven into it, just like in her hair.

The biggest change the three of them had were the fangs. They had terrified the lights out of him when they first entered the building at Apollo's invitation.

Clint had asked quite bluntly whether Percy had them too.

Apparently, Percy could have fangs, but he chooses not to. Tony had been relieved.

Apollo's siblings were another sight altogether. His twin looked absurdly young for someone of her supposed age and authority. Otherwise she looked very similar to the time when she had visited them briefly.

Hermes looked like a delivery guy with a phone that was apparently his staff and had two snakes twisting around it. The snakes had names. And they talked. George kept asking everyone for rats. Martha seemed more sensible somehow.

Tony tried to not stare as Hermes goes about doing his 'messenger duties'.

Hephaestus was a more simple guy. He had a crutch (couldn't gods heal themselves?). Was clearly more interested by machines than by people. He also had a beard that was constantly on fire.

Tony just hoped his plane would be safe from the guy.

Aphrodite was quite a sight. He had mistaken her for Pepper when she had first arrived. It was only the teleportation, the petals and the doves that made him pause and consider that maybe she wasn't his girlfriend. As he kept looking at her, he also caught sight of quite a few gorgeous women he had known, but she kept reverting back to Pepper and it started to get creepy. Especially because Aphrodite was now draped over her seat, seductively plucking at the seat cover.

Tony wondered how anyone could do that seductively.

If he thought the first ones were weird, the ones that came in later were even weirder.

The guy in the ugly leopard print shirt, with a can of Diet Coke, absurd amounts of chest hair and a pot belly was apparently the god of wine, Dionysus. The other gods had at the least tried to look their best. This guy seemed to be trying to look his absolute worst.

Then there were the women who had appeared with him.

The one with all the flowers had been introduced as Persephone, Queen of the Underworld (How!?). Tony didn't know mythology well enough but he didn't see how a goddess who dealt with flowers could rule the Underworld. Didn't flowers need water and sunlight to grow!?

But she looked pretty. Very pretty. She had flowers woven into her hair and lots and lots of flowers in her gown.

The other lady, Demeter looked like she had cereal stuck to her gown. Not to mention the leaves in her hair. It looked pretty, but cereal does not belong in clothes.

Tony just hoped she never walked among pigeons.

He also hoped that maybe once they boarded the flight and tried to get to know each other better, they would get used to the gods weirdness, but that didn't happen either.

Apollo sat in the pilot's seat the whole time. Tony figured that he could've just flown the plane from wherever but wanted to avoid whatever happened in the back.

Wise move.

His twin ignored all the men and kept talking to Natasha about something. Nat seemed very interested. Hearing her threats of castration, Tony already knew that the two women joining hands would only end in catastrophe for all the men in the world.

Rhode and Persephone chatted away in some weird language.

Demeter walked up to Steve first. "Eat more cereal. You need to eat well if you want to maintain that body of yours." She eyed him up and down. "Say, do you have a girlfriend?"

"Mom, no!" Persephone had groaned.

"Mom!?" Had been the collective reaction of the Avengers.

Tony decided to ignore that. He looked at someone else.

Hermes was very busy. His phone kept ringing and he seemed to be complaining to Triton about how unfair it was for him to have to work so much. Their conversation was too intense for him to care to focus on.

Hephaestus was busy doing his own thing. Tony only feared for his plane. But otherwise thought that maybe he could befriend the god. It seemed that they had common interests after all.

So Tony had approached the fire god and asked him how he knew Percy. You know, just to be friendly.

"I haven't spoken to him much. He's a good boy. He blew up Mount St Helens for me."

Right.

Tony did not know what to do with that information.

Thankfully, the guy continued speaking.

"I had been hearing about him years before that though. My wife wouldn't stop talking about him."

That gave something for Tony to ask about. "Your wife?"

"Aphrodite."

Ok. Wow.

"So, she and Percy are close?"

"Oh no. No. Perseus cannot stand her or her boyfriend."

This was getting complicated.

"Her ....boyfriend?"

"Ares."

"The guy who kidnapped Percy?"

Hephaestus nodded.

Alright. Tony was half sure the gods were messing with him. This was way too much madness.

Tony was just about to call bullshit when Clint had asked his question.

Aphrodite had volunteered to answer. "That's an easy question. Out of all of us gods present, all except Artemis, Demeter and Hermes are married."

Holy shit. Tony just hoped they weren't all married to each other.

But Aphrodite wasn't done.

"Out of you lot though, only Clint is married."

Tony looked at Clint.

"Bullshit." He said.

Clint though, looked angry. "How the fuck do you know that!?"

"I'm the goddess of love, darling. I know everything."

Clint didn't seem to know what to say to that. Neither did Tony. Because, Clint was married!?

Aphrodite seemed to be about to speak again.

"Mother, please. Not another word." This was said by Rhode.

"Mother!?"

"Aphrodite's my mother, yes." Percy's sister confirmed. Percy's sister. Holy shit.

"So, you and uh-"

Aphrodite nodded. "Yes, Poseidon and I had sex."

"Mom!"

"Ugh."

"Dite please."

"I can't take this anymore." Tony said and walked up to where Apollo was.

"How much longer?"

"A couple of minutes." Apollo replied. His voice sounding a little choked up.

Huh?

Tony tried to take a good look at Apollo's face, but he couldn't do it without looking super awkward and creepy, so he asked Apollo instead. "You ok there?"

"I'm fine."

Tony didn't believe him for a second. Didn't he claim to be the god of truth or something?

"Is the god of truth supposed to be lying?"

"I'm not lying."

"Well then maybe you're not the god of truth." Tony said.

Apollo turned to look at him, seemingly offended by the remark. He looked so remarkably human, Tony found it very hard to believe any of what they were saying.

There was silence for a couple of moments.

"Tell Barton that I'm sorry Dite outed him. It wasn't fair, what she did."

Tony didn't really know what to say to that.

At first he had thought it was ridiculous. Clint couldn't have been married without them knowing. But then he had seen Clint's reaction and had felt betrayed. But giving a bit more thought to it, he couldn't help but feel that maybe he just wanted to keep them away from all this craziness. Whoever he was married to, definitely didn't deserve to be dragged into this just because they loved Clint.

He understood the feeling. He would never forgive anyone who tried to hurt Pepper because they wanted to hurt him.

He nodded to Apollo. "I'll let him know."

Tony watched as Apollo prepared to land the plane.

"You guys get down first." Apollo told him. "It should appear to the mortals that you were the only ones on the plane. I'll meet you all with the others at the first intersection from where we land."

Tony understood the logic.

He went to inform the others.

-

Wade was praying for his soul.

The moment the guy in the golden gear had entered, Wade had known that he was toast.

Nico's eyes had widened and his expression clearly showed Wade that Nico was already writing his obituary.

He just hoped it was something good. Like perhaps, "Announcing the death of the sexiest man to have ever lived. He was extremely good in bed."

Was that how obituaries were written? He didn't know. But then again, Nico didn't know how sexy he was. Nor did he know how good Wade was in bed.

It was a far fetched dream.

Alas, he might not have a sexy obituary at all.

He mourned for the lost potential of an obituary.

And that's when it struck him. He couldn't die, could he? Could the golden guy actually kill him? Maybe. It didn't seem entirely possible.

But did Wade wanna die?

Yes. No. Maybe.

He wouldn't need to make that decision though.

He had an idea.

The golden guy came up to him and put his golden blade against Wade's throat. Wade swallowed.

The guy was scary, and the blade was sharp.

This was good right?

The golden guy was completely covered in armor.

Wade snickered. He knew what to do.

"Are you like Darth Vader or like Kylo Ren inside of that mask?" He asked.

Nico groaned. He heard a silent, "Wade no, please."

But the blonde guy tied opposite Nico snorted out loud at that.

The golden guy didn't seem to understand what Wade was talking about. What civilised person doesn't understand a Star Wars reference? Wade thought.

But then again, What civilised person walked around in golden armor from head to toe?

Wade decided that a more direct approach was necessary.

"I meant, are you ugly on the inside or handsome?"

The golden guy growled.

Dramatic much?

Wade didn't let him swing the sword at his throat, and spoke in a hurry, "I'm disfigured too, you know."

The sword paused.

He extended a hand instead and roughly yanked off Wade's mask.

He then stood rooted to the spot, as if stunned.

And then the golden guy had the gall to laugh.

Wade was super offended.

He was only trying to show a little solidarity, but he was being laughed at.

Oh! The indignity.

Then the guy pulled off HIS helmet.

Golden guy was ugly. Very ugly, infact. Wade had no idea why he had laughed at Wade. He looked way better than the golden guy.

It was Wade's turn to laugh.

"Huh, you look worse than Vader. Honestly, the only reason I haven't puked yet is because for some reason you look a little like Percy."

Wrong thing to say, apparently, because the very next second, his head was rolling on the ground.

At least he wasn't dead.

-

Apollo watched as the Avengers got down from the plane.

He made sure to check that none of the gods had gone with them. They were already in a lot of trouble with the mortal media. They did not want anything to happen that they couldn't explain.

There seemed to be a tentative peace amongst the two groups as they separated, with the only exception being Clint who seemed to be glaring continuously at Aphrodite.

Apollo needed to speak to her about that.

He was so distracted with trying to get everything to go according to plan, that he didn't notice the anomaly until it was too late.

A strange but familiar force had taken over the plane. Apollo hadn't touched the controls, but the plane started hovering in the air again.

"Phoebus. What's with the flying again?" Dio grumbled.

"I don't know." Apollo retorted.

"What do you mean you don't know!?" Kym was getting angry.

"Someone else is doing this." Everyone looked at Triton.

"No shit." Apollo was trying desperately to figure out where he had sensed this particular power signature before, but it kept evading him. Like something that was very obvious but was determined to stay out of his grasp.

With a sudden jolt, the aircraft was pulled upwards. It hurtled towards the clouds at rising speeds, sending the occupants tumbling onto the roof.

Apollo tried to flash out. To split his conscience. But he couldn't. The same protective spells that were binding the time pockets was now covering their plane.

When the aircraft came to a sudden stop just above the clouds, the gods and goddesses, looking only slightly dishevelled, got back onto their feet and dusted off imaginary dirt.

The doors slammed open and Zeus strutted in.

Apollo groaned.

"Why!?"

"I won't let this happen." Zeus stated. He looked like a mad man. Eyes glowing, Lightening bolt ready in one hand, advancing on them as if expecting a fight.

"Let what happen?" Artemis asked.

"Artemis." He rounded on Apollo's twin. Took two steps towards her, and sneered at her, contempt covering his face. "I did not expect you to side with them too. But I should've known. You always had a soft spot for Poseidon's bastard."

Artemis just looked confused. She tried to step forward, hands where he could see them, but he stepped back immediately and addressed everyone together.

"I know my insolent brothers are behind this mutiny." Zeus growled.

Mutiny?

His fucking brothers are not even here.

This guy's gone crazy!

"Lord Zeus," Triton began. "You are mista-"

"I'M NOT MISTAKEN!" His father roared. Apollo was getting irritated again. Percy was in danger, and here they were, having to deal with his father's childish tantrum. "You used to call me uncle. Now I've turned into Lord Zeus!? You think I wouldn't notice? I know that all of you are conspiring against me."

"YOU." Zeus turned to Apollo, an accusatory finger extended towards the sun god. "This is your filthy husband's doing."

He did not just go there. Apollo was very close to snapping at his father.

"YOU are the reason he's my husband. Don't you dare try to blame him. He didn't even want immortality. And nor does he want your throne. Get your head out of your ass and try to see what is clearly in front of you." Apollo's voice was calm and measured. He couldn't feign respect or loyalty to his father, but he could try not to escalate the situation further.

"See what? That my father is back?" Zeus sneered. "Don't you see? If that is true, then Jackson is a liar anyways. If he had defeated my father when he was 16, he wouldn't rise now. And if he did defeat him then, there's no way my father is back already. It's all just an elaborate plot to usurp my throne."

Apollo realised that there was no way he could reason with his father now. Zeus was adamant and headstrong and extremely proud. Even if he did realise that he was wrong, he wouldn't admit it.

So, Apollo let out a long sigh and steeled himself to fight the king of the gods.

But he didn't have to. Because suddenly, the plane lurched and started pulling them away from Washington DC.

One look at his father's face, and it was clear to Apollo that whatever was happening, Zeus had no hand in it.