Chapter 17
Percy
The silence was awkward. Like, extremely awkward.
"Before you tell us anything, are you sure you're fine?" Natasha asked him with concern.
"Yeah..." And the awkward silence reappeared. After a long pause, Percy sighed. "Better get this over with. Let's go somewhere comfier, this is gonna be long."
They all went to the living room and accommodated in the couches, waiting expectantly. Percy looked at his hands for a couple of minutes and sighed again, finally looking up.
"Thor, you already know most of it, please tell me how to start with this."
"Maybe tell them the truth of your world without involving yourself...?"
"Ok, just promise you won't interrupt me." Everyone agreed, though some begrudgingly. "I'll make it easy: Greek, Roman and Egyptian myths are real too." Shocked silence. "Now, note that I said 'myths' and not 'gods', because there are also monsters, demigods, magicians and so on." Percy turned to the Norse god. "What else?"
"Reintroduce yourself." Thor ordered.
"Titles and all?" Percy asked and groaned when he got a firm nod. "Fine, but know that this is gonna take a while. I'm Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, meaning I'm a Greek demigod. I'm the two times savior of Olympus; slayer of Alecto, the Minotaur, Medusa, the Nemean Lion, Kampe, Geryon, Antaeus, Procrustes, the Crommyonian Sow, Stheno, Euryale, Arachne, and the giants Polybotes, Otos and Ephialtes; leader of the Second Titan War and Second Giant War; retriever of Zeus' master bolt, Hades' helmet of darkness and the golden fleece; defeater of the gods Ares, Hades and Akhlys, and the titans Iapetus and Hyperion; Camp Half-blood's leader; survivor of the Sea of Monsters, Daedalus' labyrinth and the Pit; savior of the gods Artemis and Thanatos, the satyr Grover Underwood, and the demigods Clarisse La Rue, Thalia Grace, and Nico and Bianca Di Angelo; and more things than I care to remember right now," Percy enumerated tiredly. It all would've sounded a lot more glorious if the person talking actually wanted attention, recognition and praise, but that wasn't the case. It still seemed insane for everyone the many things he had done, but before they could open their mouths, Thor intervened.
"He also held the weight of the sky; survived a bath on the river Styx and the Cocytus; drank fire from the Phlegathon; went to Chaos and survived the Mansion of Night; he saw a god fade; he inherited a Hellhound pet; he drank gorgon blood; he helped defeat a hydra, the titans Kronos and Atlas, and the primordial goddess Gaea (literally the Earth itself); he survived Echidna and the Chimera, Circe, Phorcys and Cero, Scylla and Charybdis, Polyphemus, sirens, the manticore, empousai, skeleton armies, telekhines, karpoi, a pit scorpion and multiple arai; he rejected godhood; he visited the underworld multiple times; met Cerberus, Charon, the three Fates, the grey sisters, Tartarus and Calypso; he tricked the wise Phineas; he's also the best swordman in centuries; he is the only man respected by the Hunters of Artemis (literally a man-hating group of partially immortal women); he managed an alliance with Bob, the good titan, and Damasen, the peaceful giant; and he helped to close the doors of death by going to hell," the god added, and all the while Percy had covered his face with his hands, until he heard the last statement.
"I already told them about hell, what's the point in repeating?" he narrowed his eyes a little, not angry but ashamed. Yes, he had done those things, but he didn't say them because he didn't believe he deserved the merit.
"Do you think they know what 'the Pit' is?"
"Well, I did those things, but I also woke up Typhon while causing the eruption of Mount Saint Helens; I could have killed my friends by sparing Poliphemus instead of killing him; I couldn't stop Bianca Di Angelo from voluntarily being crushed to death for me at age twelve; I couldn't save Charles Beckendorf from dying at an explosion we caused at age eighteen; I couldn't save Silena Beauregard because I was just too dumb to recognize it wasn't Clarisse, so she died in hands of a fucking drakon at age seventeen; I couldn't save the thousand-year-old Zoe, who could have kept on living happily if I hadn't been cursed by Ares; I couldn't save Ethan Nakamura from Kronos when he tried to save me, he ended up stabbed in the stomach and falling thousands of feet to the ground, and he couldn't have been more than fifteen; Michael Yew, smashed under a bridge that I destroyed, I'm not sure if he was even eighteen when he died; Castor, died stabbed in the arm and hit in the head by another fellow demigod, he couldn't be older than seventeen, and I wasn't fast enough;" he stopped and took a deep yet shaky breath. "Luke, who I couldn't convince to change sides and ended stabbing himself with a knife that I handed him to save us; and Leo Valdez, because even if he came back to life, he sacrificed himself in an explosion so that we could win the war, and I was too blind to see his intentions before it happened. And those are only some of the demigods..." By this point he had tears making his eyes shine sadly.
The first to react was Natasha, who stood up slowly and hugged him. This seemed to start chain reaction, and everyone approached him to comfort him. Percy realized he was right in his decision to tell them already, and he was so grateful he had them.
Natasha
When Percy finished saying his titles, before Thor interrupted, Natasha was surprised and felt a surge of respect towards him and the way he said it, as if he wanted to finish the attention gaining speech. It made her realize that he did those things to survive and help, and not for his own benefit and fame. And there was also the fact that all the things he did were extraordinary on themselves.
Then Thor spoke and made her realize how deep Percy's altruism really was.
And finally, Percy told them about his 'bad deeds', as he probably perceived them, and Natasha remembered that the one speaking was a fucking kid and that the world was a piece of trash, she remembered how it was impossible that he had come out of all those adventures unscratched and sane, and she felt so damn angry and sorry for him. She understood, however, that Percy didn't need someone to pity him but someone to comfort him with understanding and maybe even respect, so she did exactly that through a hug.
Sadie Kane
Carter and Sadie had investigated for hours on end, and they had some pretty important new information. The problem was that the so called IM never arrived.
"Do you think he forgot? Or is he in danger?" Carter said in worry while pacing in his room.
"Relax. Knowing him, some demigod thing came up and he couldn't call, that's it. We can tell him about what we discovered later and meanwhile you can go and play some basketball with Keops. I need something funny before the war," Sadie said and lost her smile when she said the last words.
"Or we could be responsible and look for ways we could survive," Carter countered.
Sadie groaned loudly and stood up from her bed. "We already know how to do it. As much as I hate to say this, you're no fool, you know exactly the way we can do them down, you just don't want to accept it." She stated with the fire of determination burning in her eyes. Her brother sighed in defeat; it was true.
"You can't blame me. How are we going to tell Bast that her son plans to deprive the world of the sun and therefore light to help a primordial Greek god rise and take over the world?"
Clint
World mightiest heroes liked pizza, so they decided to- again- order some.
"I still don't understand why Hell is called the Pit," Bruce commented after chewing a piece of that pepperoni food of the gods (not literally, though, or else he would burn up).
"Ok, so here's the thing: the Pit is a primordial god, meaning that he is the personification of a place. This god happens to be the god of the abyss, and his domain is a pit in the darkest and deepest part of the Underworld. To go there, you must survive not only the seemingly infinite fall but also the monsters that reside it, the lack of food, the inevitable wounds, the venomous air and the almost impossible way out," Percy stated with a dark expression.
"Not even gods dare go to the Pit, and being thrown there is a punishment a bazillion times worse than death," Thor added.
"And you said he went there... Why? How did he survive?" Tony asked out of innocent curiosity. Little did he know the traumatic experience he was bringing back to the former demigod.
"My fiancée, Annabeth, was about to fall because Arachne was pulling her with one of her spiderwebs. I couldn't pull her out and all our friends were busy taking the statue she had recovered, the reason she was hanging off the ledge of that abyss. They didn't see her nor hear her over the noise, so I tried to pull her out on my own but I wasn't strong enough. So I jumped in with her," Tony choked on his pizza.
"You voluntarily jumped into Hell for your fiancée even if it was a more than likely suicide?" he asked incredulous.
"Yes, I couldn't let her die," Percy said as if it was an obvious action for everyone.
"His fatal flaw is personal loyalty," Thor clarified while looking at the black-haired teen with something in between fondness and respect.
"Fatal flaw?" Clint asked dubiously. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
"It's basically a demigod's bigger and most mortal flaw. Personal loyalty means that I would give up anything for the sake of the people I love. I would sacrifice myself without thinking twice, and I would even sacrifice the whole world if it meant that the people I love are safe. I almost did so a couple of times..." Tony choked again.
Clint was glad he asked at the end, as he now could see that Percy, even as powerful as he was, considered his loved ones a priority. There was no doubt now that the teen had gained his respect. Not pity- never pity- but respect.
"I have a question," Tony said suddenly, taking everyone out of their thoughts. "You said the way out was almost impossible, how did you do it?"
"To get out, the Doors of Death have to be open. These Doors are actually an elevator-" the team suddenly understood Percy's reluctance to get inside one- "and someone has to hold a button for twelve minutes. Annabeth and I managed an alliance with the giant Damasen and the titan Bob, who both helped by fighting off the monsters that were trying to kill us or restrain us from leaving. Bob held the button, sacrificing himself for us. If he had let go, we would have ended in a point between the Pit and the Earth, teleported to a place in which we probably would have been stuck forever. The elevator led to the mortal side of the Doors of Death: the House of Hades."
"I can't believe it," Tony said unfalteringly.
"What can't you believe? You have a god sitting right beside you so it's not that, and I know it seems so unlikely that we survived but-"
"No, no, no. I don't mean that. I mean that you had the pun right there and you didn't say it," Tony scolded. "Hellevator, boy! Get it right!"
Despite the memories that had just been spilled, Percy smiled genuinely. It was more than obvious for Hawkeye, an expert reading people, that it relieved him to know they were taking it fine and without an overdose of pity or admiration. They were the Avengers after all, they all had a rough past and knew how to deal with someone who also had one.
Clint saw Percy frowning and looking intently at his slice of pizza as if it had the answer to every mystery humanity had ever faced. When he finally looked up again, he seemed defeated but ready to make a big sacrifice. Clint feared he would unexpectedly jump out the window to end the war, but fortunately it wasn't that.
Percy turned to Thor. "How fast can you get five copies of all the books about me?"