Find Yourself
A few months have gone by since Percy left Camp Half-Blood. Some monsters have attacked the tower but they were prepared. Thor left for a while and came back with a story of a woman named Jane getting something stuck in her and something about Dark Elves. Percy doesn’t remember the rest. What’s been upsetting was that Leo hasn’t been calling or answering the Iris messages Percy has been sending. That’s how Natasha found him, sitting in the living room with a cup of water and a small pile of drachmas. He kept on forming mist and making a rainbow.
“What are you doing, Perce?”
“Trying to call Leo. He hasn’t answered me for the past few weeks. I might have to try calling someone else to see how he’s doing.”
She sat next to him. “So how does this work?”
He demonstrated how to Iris message to the woman.
“Oh Iris of the rainbow, accept my offering.” He tossed the coin in. “Leo Valdez.”
The rainbow just disappeared after a few seconds. Percy sighed and started the process over.
“Oh Iris of the rainbow, accept my offering please.” Before he tossed the drachma, he stopped, wondering who to call. He decided on calling Nyssa. “Nyssa of the Hephaestus Cabin.”
A few seconds later, the girl’s face appeared on the rainbow.
“Oh Percy! What’s up? You don’t really call me.”
“It’s about Leo.”
When her smile fell, Percy knew something was wrong.
“What about him?”
“I’ve been calling him, at least attempted to. I’ve called him at least twice a day for the past two weeks. I’ve been worried.”
“Something has been going on here at camp. Leo’s been locking himself in Bunker 9 for the past few days. Usually someone has to bring him food and maybe find the food they left the previous night still there and uneaten.”
“Do you know why?”
“I think Calypso is the cause of it. Ever since she got with David, the new Aphrodite kid, she has gotten more… I don’t know how to say it. She turned into one of those two faced children you see at school, respectful to the adults, rude to others. I think she blamed Leo for the breakup. She has been insulting him and even using charmspeak to turn some people against him. He’s been upset and either working his butt off or staring off into space.”
Natasha looked at Percy. Said boy was looking down at his hands. The woman decided to jump in for his sake.
“Tony offered him a place at the tower. He can stay here.”
“My gods, thank you. Camp is all turning against him, even though he’s one of the Heroes of Olympus. The only allies he has is Perce, his siblings, Nico, Will, the Hunters, Camp Jupiter, and Chiron. Should I tell him? As well as force him here?”
“Do what you need to do.”
Nyssa nodded and swiped her hand across the rainbow, ending their call. Natasha looked back at Percy. She could see that a lot of emotions were wanting to emerge but he didn’t want to let it show.
“Percy? You could let it out.”
Those words seemed to break the dam and next thing Natasha knew, she had an armful of Percy hugging her. She hesitantly wrapped her arms around him. He relaxed into her touch and after a minute of sitting in each other’s arms, his breathing started to even out.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m not sure. It does hurt me to hear that this is the reason as to why he hasn’t been answering me, but it’s like… I can feel his pain. His heartache.”
She rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m sure that he’ll be okay. We’ll help him. Especially you.”
:::::
About an hour passed before JARVIS spoke.
“Miss Romanoff, Mr. Jackson, two people are here requesting for you.”
Percy bolted out of his seat and ran to the elevator, Natasha close on his heels. The elevator ride felt painstakingly long before it reached the bottom. Percy ran out before the doors fully opened, the people near looking at him oddly. He scanned the crowd before finding Nyssa and Leo. He sprinted over to them and wrapped around the teen. Once Leo’s mind caught up with what was going on, he hugged back. Percy could hear sniffles coming from the shorter teen and feel his shoulder getting wetter. They pulled away, Leo still sniffling and eyes red.
“Why does it hurt so much?”
“Because we feel. I guess she doesn’t know much about feelings, after being stuck on an island for so long.”
Thanks to one of his blessings, he could feel the heartbreak radiating from Leo like a tsunami wave. Leo ran forward again to cling onto Percy. As he wrapped his arms around him again, Percy looked at Nyssa, who had tears of her own falling. She reached and put a hand on Leo’s shoulder. He turned to look at her.
“You’re going to live better here. I’m sure of it. Be well, my brother.”
She turned around and walked away, through the doors and disappearing in the crowd. Natasha came up behind them and grabbed some of Leo’s belongings, looking at the metal suitcase with a weird glance.
“Let’s head up shall we?”
:::::
Leo couldn’t believe it. Even though it was for his own good that he was staying at the tower, he was lost bursting from the excitement of living in the Avengers tower. He knew that he had to try and build something in the Tony Stark’s lab. Now he and Percy were sitting on the couch together, talking about Percy’s fire summoning power, while the scary red head lady went to get the other Avengers.
“So how do I summon fire?”
“You kind of don’t, I guess? It comes as a natural instinct to me. I just do it.”
Percy slumped down in defeat.
“I’ve been trying to do this for awhile now! The other blessings are already there or I did some practice and got it down! Well except for the fire travel. I think I need to get this down before tackling that.”
“Wait, you can shadow travel like Nico? That’s so cool!”
They continued for a little while until they got interrupted by the adults walking in. Leo went quiet, but Percy couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or from fear of meeting them. He could see one of Leo’s legs bouncing. Tony cleared his throat before speaking.
“Well we already know each other so no need for introductions.”
He got some chuckles from the others.
“You will have a room next to Percy and you can go to every floor freely, unless I tell you otherwise. You’re even welcome to use my lab.”
Leo had to restrain himself from shouting “Yes!” Instead he just nodded and said, “Thank you.”
Percy got up and held a hand out for Leo to grab, which he took. He dragged the other teen to their rooms and give a tour to show Leo his new life.