Pandemonium

All was silent for a moment as Chrysaor and Ares looked at the now free demigods, the child with an adult head, and the two mysterious blondes.

And then, all hell broke loose.

By the time the former kidnappees were done with their kidnappers, the ornate dining room looked even more beautiful. All the golden blood seemed to only add to the beauty of the place and Nico looked on at his fellow fighters with pride as he eyed their handiwork.

The fight increased his respect for Percy though, because if he had managed to subdue Ares when he was twelve and basically untrained, that was one hell of an achievement. Especially seeing as he was a formidable enemy for being as dumb as he was.

Once the immortal beings had been deemed sufficiently incapacitated (read: almost certainly dead), Will ran at Nico and kissed him like his life depended on it.

Nico felt like he was in heaven right then. Just like every time he kissed Will, he was transported to a world where only the two of them existed. It was pure bliss.

Nico didn't mind the public display of affection, but he definitely minded the exaggerated kissing noises that Wade was making, seated on his shoulder. He reluctantly let go of Will and turned his neck to look at the man-child seated on his shoulders.

Wade's body looked to be about 5 years old, and he was still very naked. Not to mention, the gigantic head he sported and the scar tissue covering him in its entirety. But for some reason, none of that was the weirdest thing that Nico noticed, because Wade was holding in his tiny hands a freakin bazooka.

Nico opened his mouth to ask him about the weapon when Wade gave him a mischievous grin and asked, "Would you mind having a threesome tonight? You two are super duper hot."

Nico blinked. He hadn't even begun to fathom the words that had been spoken by a guy who looked five years old, when said man was pulled to the ground, face first, as a result of the huge bazooka that he was somehow holding.

Thankfully, Wade was knocked out.

Nico picked an unconscious Wade from the floor and tossed him over his shoulder unceremoniously. Rachel walked up to them and promptly picked up the now free bazooka and expertly slung it over her shoulder.

All of them just looked at each other in awkward silence.

Meg was the first to break it.

"So.....who are you two? And why do YOU look like Annabeth and why do YOU have a British accent?"

The two blonde strangers opened their mouths to reply only for Leo to interrupt them.

"Holy shit, guys. He could be Annabeth and Percy's kid. He looks about the right age, don't you think? And maybe the blonde chick's his nanny who is secretly raising him with Percy's assistance."

Leo's theory was definitely wrong. Nico had seen first hand how the blonde girl had used what looked like a wand to cast spells at the two immortals they had fought. And the guy definitely had runic symbols on his necklace from which he took out a talking sword.

But Leo had looked hopeful with his theory. Nico understood where he was coming from. They had all seen how much Annabeth's death had rattled Percy. Not to mention the effect it had on the rest of them too. Even the camps had mourned her for months.

Percy and Annabeth had been the symbols for hope for all demigods, Greek and Roman. They had showcased what could be achieved. They had shown to the rest of them that they could have happy endings too. That not everything about being a demigod was bad. That they had chance at happiness.

All those hopes had been shattered.

The only respite had been Percy's ascension. Even though Percy had refused to accept his newfound immortality for a long time, the camps had capitalised on the opportunity to renew their hopes. Percy's domains had helped them believe that now that the wars were over and they had a god to watch over them, that all would be well after all.

It was only the people who had been closest to Annabeth who still missed her presence.

They had all moved on in many ways, but she still held an irreplaceable position in their hearts and Leo, even though he hadn't been the closest to her had just tried to think of a possibility where perhaps she hadn't completely left them.

A sad silence had followed Leo's theory.

"Ok guys." Rachel interrupted the silence with two loud claps, drawing all attention to her. "The blonde dude is Magnus Chase. He's Annabeth's cousin. He died when he was sixteen and is a Norse demigod son of Frey. The blonde lady here his Sadie Kane, who is an Egyptian magician who channels the power of Isis. Any other questions will be answered in due course, but for now we need to go and save Percy's ass."

-

Nobody questioned how Rachel knew who the blondes were. The Oracle of Delphi knew a lot of crazy shit that they would rather not know.

Nico now remembered rather faintly when Annabeth and Percy had gone to Boston for her cousin's funeral many years ago. They had been rather secretive of the entire affair and nobody had questioned them about it.

And Sadie Kane, he recognised from when Anubis had given him a sad tirade of his unsuccessful love life.

He wasn't surprised to know that Percy and Annabeth had had connections outside of their own Pantheons.

The two blondes had filled them in on how they knew Percy and Annabeth. This had happened in a rather eventful way where the kidnappees had been fighting their way through the security detail in the building while casually getting to know the two new individuals. Just another Tuesday.

The only mood dampener were the screams that echoed down the spiral staircases.

As they reached the last few soldiers, Piper wrestled down one of them and started to use her charmspeak.

"Why were we kidnapped?"

Kinda dumb question, Nico thought, but he wasn't going to interrupt a powerful daughter of Aphrodite.

The human in the combat gear whimpered in fear as he stuttered out his reply.

"The King wanted to trap Jackson and ruin your public reputations."

"Why?"

"He wanted the world to see that you were controlling everything from within and make them support him when he eventually offered to rid the world of your influence."

Nico and the rest of the team looked at each other incredulously.

"Do you know who his associates are?"

"No."

"Why are you lot helping him?"

"We just wanted to unearth the Illuminati. I'm so sorry."

The mortal started bawling his eyes out.

Nico groaned.

But then another scream tore through the walls and he sprinted up to the topmost level of the building they were in, wrenching the door open to reveal a dark room with a giant metal contraption in the middle.

It glowed with magic and the surroundings rippled with energy. Years of experience had taught Nico that nothing good came off of reckless decisions on a battlefield, and so, he waited for the rest of them to arrive.

As much as he hated to wait while Percy was clearly in a lot of pain, he knew that Percy would want him to follow his teachings and not do anything he himself would do.

"Good. You didn't try to go in." Rachel said, as she and the others walked up to him. "Apollo and the rescue team are gonna be here any minute now. Let's have Percy be rescued by his husband shall we?" She smirked and started going down the stairs again.

Meg groaned, "Why can't we just wait for them here?"

-

Apollo watched as the door swung open, not caring that Frank and Hazel had now joined their little team.

There was a hallway. A freakin hallway inside the Washington Monument.

So dramatic.

He definitely inherited some of those genes.

He walked in to find unconscious soldiers lying about. They seemed to leave a trail leading up to a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.

Apollo walked up to the doors and pushed them open. His breath hitched at the sight of the ichor staining the walls and the carpets. Apollo frantically tried to find the source of the blood, and soon spotted the two near-dead immortals.

He breathed a sigh of relief and gave petty kicks to both Ares and Chrysaor, binding them in chains and transferring them to cells on Olympus with a flick of his wrist.

He would deal with them later.

He needed to find Percy and the others.

"The hostages were kept here." Triton said.

It was only then that Apollo noticed the rest of the room.

The dining table had chairs with remnants of rope on them. There were ropes hanging from the ceiling too.

Strangely, there was also a decapitated body of a familiar looking vigilante tied to a chair.

Was it Daredevil or Deadpool?

Apollo didn't care.

He turned around and watched Tony scan the building using his suit as Clint and Natasha examined the chairs and tables.

"They've been freshly cut." Natasha said.

"And Friday's scans tell me that they are all now at the very top of the building and are all weilding swords. There's also a woman with a bazooka walking down the stairs right now."

Apollo was about to roll his eyes at the man when a gut wrenching scream echoed through the monument.

He didn't need the pain in his chest to know that it was Percy's scream of despair. Within seconds, Apollo found himself at the very top of the monument, near the entrance to a room with a giant container covered in magical spells and runes.

His heart told him that Percy was inside.

He knew he'd have to seek help in order teach Percy, and looked around at the demigods standing at the entrance to the room. Spotting Will, Meg, and Nico(who for some reason had a naked man-baby on his shoulder), Apollo enveloped them in bone crushing hugs and gave them all kisses on their foreheads.

Even Nico had come to accept Apollo's shows of affection.

Leo and Piper got hugs too, but Apollo was too concentrated on getting Percy out to process Sadie and Magnus's presence. They would have to deal with it, he thought.

By then, a giant eagle had deposited Hazel beside him. As the eagle turned into Frank, Hazel started to hug each of the kidnappees and tell them how glad she was that they were safe.

Apollo knew that Percy would want him to have their moment.

So he waited. Very impatiently.

He was only interrupted once when Rachel walked back up with her bazooka and scolded him for not noticing her on the stairs.

He gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

And resumed his impatient waiting.

It must have been obvious because Hazel soon turned to him with an apologetic smile and started working on the enchantments around the container.

The sight reminded him of a conversation he had had with Percy once, back when they were close friends.

They had been sitting in a café in New Rome, nursing hot coffees and talking about their weekends. Percy was telling him about how the children at camp were all growing up and he was starting to feel old.

Apollo had laughed, because there was no way Percy would ever look old, not in a bad way anyway.

He didn't tell that to the black haired man though, and decided to just listen to him instead.

"Lyla used to be a toddler. I used to play doctor with her using a plastic telescope." A fond smile rested on his lips. "Now she's an actual doctor. She told me about one of her patients when I visited camp yesterday. He was so scared of needles, he ran out of the hospital."

"I know, Percy. She's my daughter, remember? And yes, they grow up so fast."

"I know right. You remember how Hazel used to be? She used to blush at the mention of anything even mildly romantic. She's pregnant, Pollo! She's expecting her first baby. And Frank is becoming a dad. Can you believe that?"

Percy had been so excited for them. He had become a god by then and was only still processing what it would entail. The thing that hit him hardest was the fact that he would one day watch all his dear ones grow old and die. It was a topic that came up a lot.

Apollo knew that Percy's thoughts would've wandered to that very lane if he'd been here, watching Hazel Levesque as she expertly cut through the spells that Hecate, her mentor, had cast.

But his thoughts were again interrupted by a scream.

His heart constricted within his chest as he felt the pain his husband was in.

This time, it spurred Hazel to work faster and he watched as Sadie Kane helped from the sidelines.

Apollo felt helpless, but he knew that it would only be a few more minutes until Percy would be back in his arms.

-

Percy didn't know if it had been seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or even years since the agony began.

He hated that he was a god now.

Or was he?

He wasn't sure about anything anymore.

But if he really was a god then there would be no telling for how long he had been stuck in this limbo.

If he wasn't a god, at least he would die after some time. Then he'd be able to see all the people he had lost again.

But his thoughts kept coming back to Apollo.

His close friend and confidante, who he'd been forced to marry.

The one person who had stuck by him but Percy had been the most ungrateful to.

Apollo, a constant source of light and warmth. The one who would always tell him the truth. The one whose loyalty had never wavered, even when Percy had all but shunned him.

He needed Apollo.

Apollo was everything that Percy wanted and more. But Percy had been a coward. He hadn't had the courage to own up to his feelings and face them

Annabeth would've laughed at him and shook her head fondly. "Seaweed Brain, you are so oblivious."

He hadn't been oblivious the whole time though.

No.

He remembers quite clearly the incidents when he knew that he had feelings for Apollo.

Percy had developed a habit of watching the sunrise when he had started University. The early morning, he found, was the best time for him to study.

This habit, he had sustained.

A few days had passed since his marriage.

The previous night had been the first Friday after his wedding. Friday evenings had been the hangout days of the week for Percy and Apollo. They used to meet up and have fun to welcome the weekend. Some of his best memories had been made those days.

Probably because he dearly missed those Fridays, that night, Percy he had slept in his residence that was attached to Apollo's. He had not realised that the blonde haired god was home, in his bedroom, which was a wall apart from Percy's own.

After preparing his morning coffee, Percy had walked out to his balcony to watch the sun rise.

The sky was streaked with a mellow blue, interspersed with a dull purple, overcast by giant grey clouds that werebarely willing to make way for the yellow light to come through.

It was a somber sight.

Percy had felt his throat tighten.

The sky reflected Percy's mood accurately.

He had wondered whether it looked that way because Apollo was feeling the same.

That was until he heard the singing.

He would've recognised that voice anywhere.

The soulful and melodious voice of the sun god flowed into his ears from the adjacent room.

Percy swallowed thickly as he listened to the words being sung.

"The one who I yearn for,
Knows not that I do.

And I cannot complain,
For he is not mine.

And only now do I realise,
That he never said the words I heard."

The words softened, and there was a brief pause before the last lines.

"Oh heart of mine,
Please think before you fall in love."

Percy had wanted nothing but to run to the other god, gather him in his arms and tell him that Percy was his.

But he had been a coward.

A coward who had then cried himself to sleep that morning.

And just like that, with one last scream, loathing himself for having been a coward, Percy gave in and shut his eyes in the cold dark cell.

Little did he know that the light he sought was but one wall apart.