Chapter 19
Percy
"Now, Nico, I need to speak to you in private. Please wait for me in my room, you know where it is," Percy said and Nico nodded, leaving.
Percy approached the Avengers and told them, in a quiet voice since Will was still there, that Nico didn't know anything about the Egyptian world other than the fact that it existed and that they would take part in the war. He almost begged them to procure it stayed that way.
Natasha then seemed to realize how that would affect Nico's knowledge and understanding of Percy's possible plan and widened her eyes slightly as she realized what it was. However, she also understood it was necessary and stayed silent.
"Alright, Nico. I need to ask you something," Percy said while entering his room and frowning accusingly.
"And that is...?" Nico asked and raised a brow.
"Poseidon told me something quite disturbing..." The frown deepened. "Why is it that when you jumped there you had no will no live and you didn't say anything?"
"Oh, that..." The demigod scratched his neck nervously. "I don't know. I just felt like shit because of Bianca's passing, I felt responsible, and I also felt like an outcast at camp. Then I thought you hated me because I unconsciously led you to my father's trap... And you know how I felt about you, I couldn't stand it. Then everything worsened when I thought my father hated me too, and then you disappeared and I knew where you were, but I couldn't tell Annabeth. And then I couldn't reveal who you were to you. It overwhelmed me. As soon as I saw a possibility of both helping and dying, I took it." Percy relaxed slightly his facial expression. He wasn't angry, he was worried for his friend.
"Promise me to reach out for help if you ever feel like this again, ok?" Percy said and rested his hand in his cousin's shoulder comfortingly.
"Fine, I promise. But I have Will now, I don't think I'll need to," Nico assured him faking tiredness, but Percy saw the corners of his mouth twitching and knew he was fighting a smile.
"Oh, come here, Death Boy. You know you want a hug," Percy said mockingly and pulled Nico in for a hug. "We appreciate you at camp, you did extraordinary things and, even if you hadn't, nobody has the right to marginalize you. If this ever happens again then please reach out for help, alright?"
Nico
Nico couldn't help noticing how he didn't say 'talk to me' but 'reach out for help'. He would have felt touched if the situation had been other, since it would have meant 'if you're more comfortable opening up with someone else other than me, do' and 'you have many people that care for you'.
But that wasn't the situation, and Nico noticed it. He realized the hug wasn't something that happened often. Hell, he wasn't sure if they had hugged more than three times since they knew each other.
He took a closer look at Percy and realized he seemed tired and had dark bags under his eyes. They weren't very noticeable, but Nico had experience with those. He didn't know what caused them, but it sure wasn't good.
An unusual hug, the particularly deep and caring words, the bags under his eyes and tiredness... Something was off.
Nico pulled away. "You're not planning on doing anything stupid, are you?" He narrowed his eyes in suspicious but also concern.
"Nah, I just wanted you to know that we care." And Nico dismissed the thought. Little did he know that, by doing so, he was incentivizing Percy to follow through with his plan.
Percy
After Nico and his boyfriend left, the Avengers decided to relax for a little while and chat. They had been too busy reading for the last three days to train, but training without focus wasn't worth it. They all agreed to take a couple of hours off.
"You know, Percy, when you told me that you had done a lot for your fiancée and gone through a lot together I thought you meant like arguments and money, as normal couples, not that you had gone through two wars and hell and that you fell there for her and that the reason why you survived in the first place is that you had each other," Steve commented.
"Yeah, we were both demigods back then, and those actions aren't as big for us as they can be for mortals."
"What do you mean 'back then'?" Tony asked.
"Umm, about that..." Percy started. "I may or may not have unified with my dad by accident..." he said, but it sounded more like a question. Well, that was surely something new for the team. And they thought that what they had read was bad and too much already...
"So, you're a god?" Bruce asked him.
"Yes, but I'm not a new god, I'm Poseidon." Silence. "Yeah, I know." And that made the trick; Steve started laughing quietly, quickly being followed by Tony, then Clint, then Natasha, then Bruce and then Thor. Half a minute later, they were all laughing so hard their lungs burnt and their stomachs hurt. It was a little strange because there wasn't anything actually funny to laugh at, but they were still laughing, and they wouldn't complain. Every tiny spark of joy before and during war was relished, and Word's Mightiest Heroes weren't the exception.
The laugh eventually died down and the group sat in silence, until Natasha broke it. "Does the enemy know about this?"
"No, he doesn't, and it must stay that way. It's the only advantage we have over him and we must take profit of it." They all nodded in understanding and concurrence.
They stayed quiet for a bit, each thinking. "After reading all the books, I thought that maybe I could understand what happened to you that night while we watched Finding Dory. I thought that maybe that was common and that there was a way to prevent it... But there's nothing," Tony said. He sounded disturbed and stared off at the wall while he spoke. Percy smiled softly at the way the billionaire paid special heed to that detail in order to help him.
Steve
"That doesn't usually happen to demigods... It was the Pit giving a little warning and trying to debilitate me for the final battle," Percy clarified
"It didn't happen again, did it?" Thor asked in concern.
"No, now he's trying to deprive me of sleep but, after the unification, I don't need sleep as much as I did as a demigod. Don't get me wrong, not sleeping for three days makes me tired, but not as drastically as it could possibly be," Percy assured them all and they nodded.
"Did it-" Steve started but stopped, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. "Did it happen before?" Percy sighed and looked away, giving the soldier all the answer he needed.
"But don't worry please, I could still heal with water when it started and now that I know about my new powers it's a lot easier," he tried to tranquilize his teammates, and it worked for a second until...
"You mean that this has been going on for how long?" Clint asked in disbelief.
"Styx."
And Steve all of a sudden remembered the way Percy used to block the camaras in his room every night. It wasn't difficult to join the dots and realize what was happening. And Steve felt guilty because, instead of trusting and caring for their teammate, they tried to spy on him.
In that moment, Steve realized how much respect-worthy Percy was: he had been suffering, literally being tortured every night, and he still said nothing in order to not expose his world and potentially cause a war, he had had to put up with their shit because they just couldn't trust Thor's and Fury's judgement. Percy was a true warrior and as brave as no one he knew. Steve made a silent promise then and there to never again disrespect him and try to help him with anything he needed, because he deserved it.
The silent prolonged for a while as everyone got engrossed in their thoughts.
"I noticed that Zeus is almost always hearing us, even if we don't say his name. Doesn't that happen too with the Pit?" Natasha asked cautiously.
"Zeus is always listening because he pays close attention to my actions and preparation for the war. As gods, they can't intervene in the war, but I'm not exactly a god, I'm a mortal with the power of one, so I'm not tied to the ancient laws that prevent them to help. For that, my uncle-" he stopped as if remembering something and corrected himself- "my brother tries to help indirectly. I don't know if you noticed how he makes thunder sound only to show he agrees with something I said we should do or not do." As a confirmation, thunder sounded outside. "On the other hand, the Pit can't hear us without us calling his attention as easily as my brother up there in Olympus because, as powerful as he is being a primordial and all, he is too dependent on the embodiment of his domain, which is far too deep down for him to hear us all the time. Think it this way: Zeus is the king of the gods, his physical close proximity and his great power make hearing us a piece of cake, however, the Pit is an abyss in the deepest parts of the world, much deeper than even the Underworld, to hear us constantly would require more power than he'll be willing to expend just before the war."
After the explanation, everything made much more sense. It made Captain America's heart ache, however, the fact that a seventeen-year-old was explaining them something about war.
"And can't monsters spy for him?" Bruce asked.
"They can, but I made sure it didn't happen," Percy assured him.
"How?" Tony asked and lifted an eyebrow.
"I'll explain later, when Annabeth comes." No one questioned his answer.
Percy
Half an hour later, Annabeth arrived.
"Hi, Seaweed Brain, how are you doing?" she asked and greeted him with a light peck on his lips and a hug.
"Fine, Wise Girl," Percy answered and smiled softly at her.
"Have you been sleeping?"
"Not much, but I don't need it. What about you?" he asked her. He then saw the confused faces of the Avengers behind her and silently warned them not to say anything about Tartarus.
"Only a couple of hours a day..." Annabeth answered sadly. She had notorious dark bags under her eyes and seemed tired, but her presence still soothed Percy as nothing else could. "Anyway, we should go back to training," she told him in Greek, and it worried Percy how she still thought about training when she was so tired, it made him wonder how much past her limit was she pushing herself at camp, but he didn't say anything about it.
"We can train here, they already know," he told her and pointed towards his team, who waved awkwardly. "And I've been training my powers constantly. I don't know if you noticed the massive mist barrier that's surrounding the tower. Otherwise, I would have had to deal with a bazillion monsters and spies so instead I killed two birds with one stone and enhanced my powers to keep them all out," he said and looked at Bruce when he spoke about keeping spies away.
"Oh, ok. But all of us still have to train together or else it won't work," Percy's fiancée said and he agreed.
"But first, I want the five drachmas I won with the bet of dear Captain over there." Annabeth rolled her eyes and handed him the money. He grinned, pocketed the coins and kissed her cheek. "Now let's go to the gym," he told everyone in the room, and they were heading to the training area when Percy noticed the blonde god didn't have his hammer. "Thor, you're forgetting something," he said. The alluded was extending his arm, presumably to call his weapon, but Percy beat him to it by reaching for said hammer and passing it to him. Percy didn't know only the worthy could lift it, and no one blinked an eye to give him a clue. Nobody was surprised.