Chapter 4
Natasha
Percy's display of his strength and his strange comments left the Avengers in a confused haze, settling an awkward atmosphere as they ate lunch later that day. It was understandable, of course, since there was a stranger with them, and that stranger was a kid who was presumably a terrorist. It was suspicious how Fury, their strict and inflexible boss, suddenly decided he would be a good addition to their elite team. I mean, sure, he was super strong, but he was still a terrorist and, worst of all, a kid.
Natasha understood perfectly well how powerful a well-trained teenager could be, she had seen it first-hand after all, but it didn’t mean she liked it. In her eyes, children shouldn’t be subjected to that kind of training, ever. There was also the fact that she didn’t know who had trained Percy, and that was also dangerous because it meant there was an unknown and powerful (possible) enemy.
As they ate in silence, Natasha eyed the teen warily and analyzed what he had told them. Percy had asked them not to call him Perseus, because only his enemies called him that. It was just a comment in between a million so everyone brushed it off, but not Natasha. It was an important piece of information, revealing, as it meant that the boy had foes. Thor had also mentioned that his life as an Avenger would be relaxing. Relaxing. Oh, and then there was the fact that the god knew him, and they were constantly talking in codes about stuff nobody else understood. They said something about visits, about a thing last month, about a thing needed to call some camp. The spy trusted her godly teammate, she did, but she still couldn’t help but wonder, what was all that?
Percy
The Avengers, including Percy, were sitting in the dining room eating pizza. The place was nice but very different to what Percy was used to. He was used to the Greek architecture of camp and to the little kitchen his mother's apartment had. This place was way too fancy for him, full of technology. The walls were red, changing to grey where the dining room ended and the kitchen started, separated by a counter. Every piece of furniture seemed expensive, the kind of things he would never be able to afford. They table was made of dark wood, probably red oak, the same as the chairs, and the floor was made of wood, brighter than the table. Somehow, they made that look good. Behind the counter, the kitchen was a little less fancy. Just joking, everything in it was made of the latest technology, even the fridge. Seriously, who has a fridge with a television? It was pathetic. Pathetic and dangerous for a demigod.
"Is everything alright? You seem nervous," said Clint. Percy looked at him and made sure to make direct, seemingly casual, eye-contact as he replied. He could see from miles away that Clint knew how to interpret body language.
"I'm fine, thanks. It's just a little strange for me to be surrounded with so much technology. My family doesn't like it that much."
"What do you mean by 'my family doesn't like technology'? What kind of family do you have?" Tony asked, scandalized.
'Oh, nothing much. It's just that my father is a Greek god and technology attracts monsters who want to kill me. Oh, and my uncles, aunts and cousins sometimes try to kill me, too. Oh, and my grandfather... and great grandmother. Never mind' He thought, but he obviously couldn't say that so he simply dismissed the question shaking his head.
"Anyway, when can I go home to look for my things? You gave me a room so I guess I'm gonna stay here for some time," Percy said instead, changing the topic.
"We already arranged that, don't worry. We sent an agent to your house and he said that your mother packed everything for you. Your things are currently in your bedroom," Flags told him. How was his name, again? Steve Range... No, Rogers. Captain America. His super-hero name sounded a bit familiar but he couldn't place it.
"Thanks. Will I be able to leave whenever I want or will I have to escape if I want to go somewhere?"
"For now, you're kind of locked here. We still have to train you to face the weirdest enemies you could imagine," Natasha answered him. Percy and Thor chuckled silently at that. Sure, the weirdest. It’s not like Percy has faced demigods, gods, monsters and primordials before. Oh, wait, he had.
"I think I don't need your training, taking into account the fact that I beat you the other day... And I don't believe I'm locked, I'm good escaping," he said. 'As long as I still have my memories and you're not my godly relatives, I'm not locked'.
"Don't underestimate us, kid-" Steve said with warning in his eyes. Percy didn't even feel the slightest fear. After everything he had gone through, that glare was like looking at a puppy's eyes,
"Don't. Call. Me. Kid." Percy’s voice was dangerously low.
"Whatever," Tony said, taken aback and a bit scared. Yay, his wolf stare still worked.
An awkward silence fell between them again.
"So, Percy, tell us a little about you. We only saw your file and it didn't exactly provide a lot of information," Bruce said, trying his best to sound friendly.
"Well…” Percy was honestly a little lost; he had no idea what he could say without giving away much. “I'm 17 years old, my birthday is the 18th of August. I'm underage but not a kid." He glanced at Stark and Rogers briefly. "My mother is Sally Jackson. She first married this horrible guy, Gabe Ugliano, but he disappeared when I was 12. Now she's married to Paul Blofis."
"And what about your father?" Bruce asked.
"Lost at sea." Thor chuckled. As if the god of the sea could get lost in his own domain.
"Okay..." Bruce accepted, confused. "What about your school? Or schools, I heard you went to lots of them."
"Right now, I don't go to school because of some family problems-" understatement of the millennium- "And about all the schools I went to... Well, let's just say that nobody wants a boy with dyslexia and ADHD who seems to be followed by explosions and bad luck in general."
"Alright, I guess. I didn't know about the dyslexia and ADHD, though. I'll have to check your file again for more information." Bruce said.
"Who are your friends?" Steve asked, not sounding intrusive but rather kind.
"Well, I have many. There's Leo, Piper, Reyna, Will, Travis, Connor, Clarisse and Frank. Then there’s Nico, Hazel, Jason and Thalia, my cousins. Then there's my fiancée, Annabeth."
"Is it true that..." Thor was about to ask something, but he then remembered there were other people with them and changed the language in which he spoke to Ancient Greek "Is it true that you both went through Tartarus together? I'm sorry if you did and didn't want to be reminded of it, I can't really control my curiosity." Percy's eyebrows shot up.
"Yes, we did. How do you know, though? And how do you know Greek?"
"We gods are demanded to know all the other existing gods’ languages as a matter of respect. If we don't then we could start a war."
"Oh, that sucks. Well, yes, Annabeth and I did go through what you said. May I ask again how do you know it?"
"You are a legend in Asgard, we heard all your tales. There are books about it: The Lighting Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian, The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades and Blood of Olympus."
"Well, that pretty much sums it up. How is it that I didn't know that, though? And who wrote them?"
"I do not know why you were not told about it, I thought you knew. And they were written by your uncle Hades under the fake name Rick Riordan. They are only found in Asgard so you do not have to worry about Midgardians reading it."
"Thanks for the information." Percy continued eating his pizza. He was quite mad for things so personal to be out there without his consent, but he knew there was nothing that could be done about it now. Seeing that Thor still supported him even after hearing about all the bad parts of his life was actually motivating.
As Percy thought of this, the rest of the team looked at them, astonished and very bewildered.
"Are you going to tell us what did you just say?" Tony asked in confusion.
"No," Percy replied, shrugging.
.ψψψ.
Percy was in his room; lunch had just finished. He stared at the plain white walls and decided to make that place his own because he would be living there for a while at least.
He took out the backpack his mom had sent him from under the bed, there were some things in it that could help him decorate the place. He looked fondly at the photos Sally left for him, she knew him well.
The first picture showed him with his mom eating blue cookies in the beach in Montauk. He could now notice the way the sea seemed to be calm around them but fierce anywhere else. Now he knew that was just his father protecting them without them noticing.
In another photo he was with Luke, Annabeth and Grover, who luckily had his pants on so his goat half was hidden. The girl held her Yankees cap, smiling at the camera with a glint in her eyes. Percy was next to her, Riptide in hand but still in pen form, and he looked happily at the man- more like centaur- taking the picture. The satyr was smiling at them, not paying any attention to the camera. Luke grinned brightly at his friends, there was no proof of what happened later. Percy remembered how they had just been assigned the quest to retrieve the Master Bolt, he was completely unaware of how his life as a demigod would turn out to be.
The next photo showed Zoë, Thalia, Bianca, Nico and him. They took that picture before the quest to save Artemis and Annabeth. They all looked worried this time; the photo had been taken reluctantly. The Hunters were worried for their leader, Nico for his sister and Percy for the daughter of Athena. The photo wasn't very nice because of this, but it was the only one he had with Bianca and Zoë, and every memory he could keep about them would be welcomed.
The next photo featured Rachel, Charles, Silena, Clarisse, Annabeth and Percy. It was taken the same day Charles died; a few days before Silena’s death, too. Somehow, he knew Chiron took the photo so there would always be ways to remember them if something happened. No, when something happened. Just as the last photo, he kept it as a precious treasure, not caring if some looked grumpy.
There were two pictures more. He took the next one, courtesy of his father. It was the underwater kiss Annabeth and him shared after the Battle of Manhattan. It had a blue frame, the words 'you drool when you sleep' carved in the wood. Percy actually smiled.
Then he saw the last photo, memories racing through his head as he realized this one was in the Argo II. It was after... that place. Reyna, Nico, coach Hedge, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Jason, Piper, Annabeth and Percy were eating some sandwiches in front of the Athena Parthenos. They all looked tired, concerned and wounded, but relieved. Relieved because the couple was finally out of there. Relieved because the Doors of Death were finally shut. Relieved because the battle was finally close. Relieved because it was ending.
Percy felt his eyes water as he stared at all the memories, nostalgia filling him. He stood up and took the meaningless paintings that hung in the walls, replacing them with his photos. Then he proceeded to look for more things inside his bag, finding a sea-blue blanket he had had his whole life. He placed it in the foot of his bed, marking it with his signature color.
After that, he took some books Annabeth got him a while ago (in Ancient Greek of course). He took out of the wooden shelves the books that were already there and put his instead. He wouldn't even be able to read the others; the words floated in the page for him and his dyslexia.
Finally, he put his clothes in the wardrobe, being unusually careful and neat.
The books and the paintings provided by Tony now sat in the corner of his big- enormous- room, forgotten. They meant nothing to him, unlike the things he replaced them with. The photos made the place finally look like his own bedroom and not just any random room, the blanket and clothes made it feel like home, and the books made him feel comfortable. He had to admit that books could be quite interesting now that he could actually read them, though he would never admit it out loud.
He sat down in his bed, admiring his work. Only now could he start believing this would be his new home. A new family... Well, that was still uncertain. Those guys in spandex were weird. Not saying that he wasn't but still. There had to be trust between them, as that was what Percy valued the most, and he noticed they hadn’t been showing much of that, so Percy didn’t either. He understood why they were that way, he would be suspicious in their place too, but he hoped things would change now that they were a part of the same team.
With thoughts still swarming his mind, Percy fell asleep.
Tony
That kid was strange. Really strange.
"I know how this will sound but let's go see what he's doing," Tony proposed.
"I don't know... What if he finds out? He doesn't need any more reasons to dislike us. He's part of our team now, after all," Bruce said, hesitance clear in his features.
"Yes, but aren't you curious or suspicious? He’s been brought in because he’s a terrorist and there’s not much information on him, and then suddenly he’s a part of the Avengers. Yeah, I don’t believe for a second there isn’t something weird going on with him; I want to know more," Tony countered his science bro’s thought process.
"Whatever." Bruce sighed but stayed with them as the live video of Percy’s room was pulled up by Jarvis nonetheless.
"I will not stay, he does not deserve to have his privacy disrupted in this way. You should keep that in mind," Thor said with a dark look in his eyes as he glanced over his teammates, then left silently when no one else joined him. He seemed disappointed and also concerned.
"You have cameras in all our rooms?” Steve asked. “I'm not even surprised."
Tony smiled at the captain as he enabled the audio.
"Here. He is... decorating?" Tony said, but his last word came out as a question due to his confusion. He expected to find Percy placing bombs, training or, at least, using his phone to share that he was now part of the Avengers, as most teens would.
Silently, and a bit guiltily now that they knew there was no threat, they watched him unpack some pictures, always staring at them for a while before going on with the next one. He seemed melancholic, and so the team wanted to know what they were about. It wasn’t like them to be this way, they didn’t like to break Percy’s privacy, but there was a presumed terrorist all alone in a room in their building; not only were they in possible danger but also everyone in the building and around it.
"He’s taking the paintings off the walls! Each of them costed over one thousand dollars, you ungrateful kid!" Tony shouted at the screen as he saw Percy carelessly put the paintings away and hang his own photos. He wasn’t actually angry, though.
"Shut up, I wanna see what else he does," Clint told him.
"A blanket, seriously? Wasn't he some kind of dangerous terrorist?" Steve asked when he saw Percy place a blue blanket in his bed. It made no sense; it didn’t match the description of the teen they had been told about.
"He's still a teenager, after all," Natasha commented, though she was clearly suspicious about the boy.
Then they saw Percy take out some weird books from his bag.
"What language are those books in? Maybe I can recognize it but only if I take a closer look to it," Bruce told the group.
"We wait until he's asleep, then we go," Tony said. Everyone nodded in agreement.
They didn't have to wait long until they saw him snoring and drooling in his bed. The group then headed to the room, opening the door carefully so he didn't wake up.
Bruce and Natasha approached the book shelf, taking some books out of it and analyzing them with caution and confusion while the rest of the team went to see the pictures. In all of them Percy was present, though there were some where he looked really young, only his eyes and hair revealing that the person was, in fact, him. They could see a lot of people in all the photos and some of them seemed angry or sad. Tony wondered who they were and why would Percy replace those fancy paintings with such pictures. But what shocked him was that there wasn't anything to be suspicious about; he looked like a normal teenager.
"You know, if you wanted to see the books and the photos you could have just asked me," a voice sounded behind them, startling them out of their thoughts. It was Percy. How did he know they were there? They had been silent and careful, so it didn’t make sense. And they didn't know how he would react, either, which worried even the most careless of the group. If he was angry... Tony could only remember the way he had beaten them all up in the park and it was scary to think about what could happen if he was actually pissed off. Were the Avengers in trouble?