Whew, it's been a while hasn't it? I'm not exactly coming back to fanfiction, but I've had this as a draft on my computer for a while. It isn't much, and I'm still not sure if I'm pleased with how it turned out, but you guys can have it anyway. Not going to lie though, there are tears involved. Whether they're yours or Percy's, we'll have to see. ;)

Sleepless in Avengers Tower

It had been four days since Percy had slept. And in seven more minutes, it would be five.

The numbers on the clock blurred together before separating again. Percy shook his head. Time to move around again. He sat up from his position of watching the clock on his side and stood up slowly. He had learned his lesson from last night, when he had gotten so dizzy from standing up too quickly that he had to lie down for another half hour before he felt more like himself.

He shuffled out of his room, past the doors of the slumbering Avengers, and entered the elevator. He pressed floor number 41 and leaned against the refreshingly cool metal of the sides of the elevator.

The first night of sleeplessness, Percy had explored the first ten floors of the tower. This he had done with a certain amount of curiosity. He genuinely wanted to know what this tower of wonders had in it. The answer: offices. Or meeting rooms. And lots of them. When he was done, he had gone back to his room to lay in his bed for another three hours until it was a more acceptable time for him to be seen awake.

The next night, he had started on eleven and went to twenty. These floors were a little more interesting. In some rooms, there were conceptual designs of new inventions that the company was working on. Sometimes, Percy couldn't even tell what the inventions were, which made them even more impressive to him.

The third night, he went to thirty. He doesn't remember much of those floors. They all blurred together. He remembered seeing a clean energy machine design on floor twenty-five, but that was it. Last night, the fourth night, he explored to floor forty. He didn't remember anything from that night.

And tonight, he would go to fifty. He had lost most of his curiosity for the tower by the third night, and instead his exploration became more and more like a ghost haunting the floors. Still, he stuck with it. He didn't want to think about what would happen when he ran out of floors.

Percy was very tired.

The elevator dinged open and he stepped out, the darkness of the floor enveloping him in a comforting blanket until the automatic lights came on. Percy would have preferred the darkness.

"Mr. Jackson," said a voice in the ceiling, sounding vaguely concerned. "Are you quite sure you don't want me to get one of the Avengers?"

"No, Jarvis," Percy answered faintly, beginning the shuffle-walk he had adopted the last two nights while exploring. "I think that I'll be just fine here. Please don't tell."

"As you wish, sir." Jarvis didn't sound pleased, but Percy knew, just like the four nights before, he would be left in peace, for now.

Percy drifted through all of the rooms, slowly shifting through interesting looking boxes or closets. Percy saw a small shoe in one box, red and bright, just like the color of the little girl's shoe who was on the bus, just like the color of blo—

Percy shuddered, placing the shoe back down gently, and turned away carefully. There were other rooms to be seen.

When he was done, he went back upstairs to his room and lay down in his bed, counting the seconds to himself.

Day five, and Percy thought he just might be losing his mind.

At eight o'clock, just like the four mornings before this one, Percy got dressed and went into the kitchen for breakfast. He sloshed his cereal around with his spoon, unable to choke down more than a few mouthfuls of it. Of course, it was food, and he should be hungry, so he should be eating, not wasting this food. It was unfair to waste it when other people didn't have something to eat or weren't even alive to eat cereal. Percy was being selfish, he knew, but he thought if he ate one more bite he would be sick, and then the team would really know—

"Percy," Clint said.

Percy looked up from his cereal. The team was looking at him weird and had stopped eating. He guessed it wasn't the first time they had tried to catch his attention. This isn't good, Percy thought.

"Yeah?" he rasped. That wouldn't do; he sounded dead. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Yeah?"

"Are you feeling okay?" Tony asked, his eyebrows wrinkled in concern. "You seem off."

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. Just a little tired. Might be coming down with something." The lies rolled off Percy's tongue without thinking, and Percy hated himself a little more for each one. Why didn't he just tell the truth? The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, so he shoved another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, forcing himself to chew and swallow it.

"I'd believe it," Bruce said, observing Percy much more closely than he would like. "You really don't look so good, buddy. Maybe you should go back to bed."

"No!" Percy said loudly. The team started a little, shocked at his volume. "No, I'm okay," Percy said at a more reasonable tone. "I'll just chill in the living room for the day." He sounded desperate even to his own ears.

Natasha leaned forward. Percy silently cursed in his mind. If Natasha saw through his quickly crumbling mask, he'd be a goner. "Percy, are you sure you're all right? You haven't been yourself since… a few days ago. You know you can talk to us about anything." Percy hated the gentleness in her voice, hated how much it made him want to break and tell them everything.

"I'm just tired, guys. Really. I think a lazy day watching movies will make me feel better." Yeah, he wished it was that easy.

"Okay," Steve said slowly. "That sounds good. We should be here all day, so just have Jarvis get us if you need something. Anything." Percy could read between the lines. What Steve actually meant was that they'd all be hovering around the tower, around him, worrying.

"Sure." He worked to make his voice sound normal but probably failed going by the team's unconvinced faces.

Percy's day consisted of this: staring with dead eyes at the TV, forcing down half of a PB&J whenever Thor brought it to him at lunch, and steadfastly avoiding any dangerous trains of thought. But every now and again, Percy's head would begin to dip in exhaustion, and he would lose focus. He would think of them again, of the way he had let them all down, of the way he had let them die. When he went to the kitchen to get some water, he overheard Natasha and Steve talking about him.

"I'm worried," Natasha said, her voice low. "Something's wrong. Have you seen the circles under his eyes? They're darker than when we first met him and he didn't sleep through the night."

"I don't know what to do," Steve admitted. "It's been five days since it happened, and we've tried to give him space. I don't want to spook him, but we have to talk to him."

"Tonight," she said.

"Tonight," he agreed.

Percy walked back to the couch and cradled his head in his hands. What would he have given for a simple fifteen-minute nap? Percy didn't want to know.

Percy knew he reached his breaking point right before he broke. He had let himself slip and he was thinking back to those few days ago, the horror, their screams, his screams, when he felt something in himself fracture open. Percy slid off the couch onto his knees and cradled his head in his hands.

The walls he had thrown up crumbled down like the flimsy, pathetic structures they were, the darkness he had so long pushed back overcame him, and the monsters that had prowled around their prey finally struck.

"Percy! Percy!"

Percy felt himself being gathered up from the floor and closed his eyes. He wished sleep would take him. He'd even go willingly, even if it meant having to see the children again.

"I killed them," he heard himself saying. He wished he would shut up. Why couldn't he stop talking? "Oh my gods, I killed them." He sounded insane even to himself.

"Go get the others, now."

"My fault, my fault," he moaned. The tears began to come, collecting on his eyelashes and trickling gently down his cheek, like a shy rainfall.

"Percy, you need to calm down and breathe with me."

Yes, Percy supposed he did need to breathe now that they said it. He gave a great heaving gasp of air before letting out a sob. Suddenly, he couldn't stop.

"I'm s-so tired," he said between sobs. "But I—I can't sleep without thinking about them. I can't sleep and I'm gonna—I'm gonna go crazy." He felt himself being cradled against a shoulder and sobbed harder. Those kids had needed comfort when they were scared, and Percy had failed them.

"Oh, Percy, why didn't you tell us?" A hand stroked his hair. Percy clutched at the fabric of the shirt he had his face buried in and tried to breathe a little more.

"Gods, gods." Percy thought he sounded less like a human and more like a wounded animal. He curled his body into itself. "I couldn't save them." What little was left of Percy shattered, and he felt the pieces of himself skitter away in all directions. He wondered if he would be able to get all the pieces back.

"It's not your fault, okay? There was nothing you could have done. You hear me, Percy? Nothing." Percy thought that sounded like Tony. "Nothing, buddy, okay?"

"You're—you're not l-lying to me are you?" Percy asked, his sobs subsiding to hiccups. Suddenly, it was desperately important to him that he know what they truly thought.

"Buddy, if it was your fault that those three kids died, you'd be getting a very different speech from me, right now," Tony said, his voice tired. "I'm a lot of things, but a liar is not usually one of them."

"They trusted me. They trusted me and I—"

"Tried the best I possibly could to save them," Clint cut him off. "You won't always be able to save everyone, kid. And it sucks, and it's sad, but it happens, okay? You've got to talk to us about this kind of stuff, buddy. It'll eat at you from the inside till there's nothing left."

"It wouldn't come out," Percy said miserably. Their eyes had haunted him, big hazel eyes that he saw every time he tried to talk to the team or close his eyes for more than a moment.

There was silence for a few minutes. "I'm so tired," Percy finally slurred. His eyelids had never weighed so much.

"Go to sleep."

"You'll stay?" Percy's voice was the barest whisper. He was nearly asleep when he heard an answering "of course."

And so, for the first time in five days, Percy slept. And though he saw the children, they no longer haunted him. They each kissed him on the cheek and left him.

Percy was at peace.

You might be wondering, Anna, why do you always write such sad stuff where your characters are always hurting? Good question. I'll let you know when I find an answer. And yes, this title was totally inspired by the movie title Sleepless in Seattle. Very different from the movie though. I hope you guys enjoyed! Let me know what you thought. :)