A gift from Fate
Deep breath in. Hold for 7 secs. Deep breath out. In. Out. I sat on the bed and tried to control my breathing, but a hiccup forced its way up my throat, and I felt hot tears flow down my face. I let my head fall into my hands. It had been about 24 hours since the funeral. Two weeks since my mom and Paul’s death. It had been only a week after the GW when I’d gotten the call that my parents had been in a fatal car crash. I had already been in a bad place, considering Annabeth’s condition. She had taken a severe blow to the head and had broken multiple major bones in her body. She was in a coma, and nobody knew when she would wake up. If she would wake up. So yeah. It was another major bomb the fates decided that needed to be dropped on me right in this perfect time of my life. Oh, not to mention the incredible news my mom had.
She was pregnant. I had not only lost my parents, and the one person who was always there for me, I had lost my unborn sibling. I was a wreck.
I was, for lack of better terms, b r o k e n.
I barely slept. I hardly ate. I couldn’t even stay at camp because of the state I was in. I didn’t want the campers to see their steadfast leader beaten down. So I stayed in the cabin at mauntak. It still hurt because of all the memories there but it was better than camp. I needed a break anyways.
~~sad little line break~~
I would frequently visit their graves. My mom had been like a mom to all my friends, frequently filling a hole that had never been filled. Most demigods had a hole like that. I was one of the few lucky ones in that department; having your mortal parent care for you like my mom cared for me, was rare.
And for every demigod I brought home and all the ones she met, she tried her hardest to help them by being a shoulder to cry on when they had none. Her death was hard on every one.
•three weeks later•
It was the weekend, Sunday to be exact. I had woken up and felt numb. The numbness had started about a week after their deaths, and ever since, I haven’t felt. But even if I have now run dry of tears, and my agony slowly turned into a heavy numbness, I still had a routine. It was Sunday so, I started the morning by going on a walk, to retain some semblance of normality. But, every time I go on a this walk no matter how far I go, or even if I go in the opposite direction, I always end up in the one place I actually don’t fear breaking down. The one and only place I can really break down without fear of looking weak; my moms grave. So I stood in front of her headstone, and................. nothing. The pervading numbness wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t cry; having no more tears left to sob. My sadness was no less, my agony in every second that reminded my my mom was gone, wasn’t any smaller. I just couldn’t express it in tears. My eyesight went blurry, but no salty wetness did I feel on my cheeks. I sat down heavily, as if the pain was physical. My limbs were weak, and my head was so heavy. So I let it fall into my hands, as I remembered all of the happy moments with my mom. I don’t know how long I knelt there, long enough for my legs to go numb, but it was just after I noticed the pins and needles, did I finally acknowledged the fact that a group of mortals had been watching me for Gods know how long.
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Tonys POV
I had been working on the ‘Bucky Case’, as the team had taking to calling it. I had actually found something of importance; the scientist that we had been trying to track down, who had apparently been one of the meaner scientists on Buckys conversion into the Winter Soldier, actually had a brother. Surprising, I know. Why is it always the terrible ones with siblings? Like, hitler had a sister and it still makes me question life.
Anyways, the brother seemed to be clean, and had no recent interaction with him, but they did talk about about 18 months ago, over the phone and it was very short. You could feel the tension in their words. It seemed the brother didn’t want anything to do with our guy, but one thing he said caught my attention. The calls main focus was the scientist, Dr Blofis, trying to get his brother to let him stay with him for a couple weeks. But the brother said, ‘No Timothy, I already told you, I don’t need something else to worry about. My stepson is missing for the Gods sakes! I- I just can’t. I’m sorry Tim, but you burned that bridge a long time ago. Bye.’
Normally I wouldn’t thinks anything of it, since the brother had made it adamantly clear ‘Timothy’ was not welcomed. But the thing was, was how he had said ‘my stepson is missing’. Out of curiosity, I searched it up, but there was no missing persons file for the brothers stepson Percy Jackson. In fact, there was absolutely nothing on him for a good 8 months. I decided it was the best lead yet so I looked into the brother, but what I found was disappointing. There on his record, plain as day, was the word DECEASED, in all caps and red. How I missed it I’m not sure, but maybe to many coffees and not enough sleep could be a factor.
But, with this discovery, I remembered the son. So I went back and looked deeper into the kid, and it was surprisingly little that I found. The kid had no social media, zero online presence, not to mention all the schools he’s been kicked out of for property damage. But the worst part was that it wasn’t just the stepdad, Paul Blofis, it was also the kids mother, Sally Jackson-Blofis, that had died along with blowfish dude, only a couple months ago. It was sad, what the kid had been through. But he was our best lead yet. The kid might know something about our guy, and it would be easy to impress him with the avengers charade and just ask him a couple questions. And, maybe get him a therapist. So I grabbed my phone and dialed good ole’ Stevie.
“Steve, I think I may have just gotten us a lead.”