200 followers? Gee thank you guys, that's wonderful! And to think I haven't written even that much for this story, not yet anyways ;)

So I thank you for the reviews and kind *cough cough* comments... no just kidding, I loved the reviews and thank you for taking the time to leave one. XO

So yeah, I'll update every two weeks, every Sunday or Monday morning, depends from my school schedule, although I'll try my best to update on Sunday. And what sucks is that I can't copy and paste from the iPad that I wrote on, so I have to send it to my PC and then do it from there, which I kinda hate but whatever, ya know, as long as I get it done on time and I don't forget.

So yeah, Enjoy... (Rewritten 16th August 2018)

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X-X-Infernum Sit Fabula De-X-X

(One Hell Of A Tale)

There was silence after that. Each and everyone one of them looked at him like he wasn't in his right mind, or like he'd grown another head. They looked like they were all there just waiting for him to say 'Ah, I'm kidding. Got you, didn't I?' But those words didn't come and everyone, apart from Natasha —who had already known this— seemed to be sorely disappointed and confused.

He wasn't sorry to have said it, it didn't get any better, when Tony stood up and walked around the couch he'd been sitting on. "So you're serious," he asked him. He crossed one arm over his chest and the other pointed him from head to toe. "A god."

He set the mug of coffee down on the counter, but didn't let go. "Look, just half," he corrected him solemnly. His eyes drooped, god was he tired and sad and lonely. He just wanted to get this conversation quickly out of the way, although he knew that this was going to be anything but quick.

"Okay," Sam said, he too crossing his arms in front of him. He seemed like he was willing to listen to him, like this was crazy but he was willing to believe it. "Please explain, then," he said with his usual -I don't take anything seriously any more than Tony- tone.

He sighed, deeply, then took a sip from the still very hot coffee he had in the mug. Set it back down, looked at Tony, Steve. "I know this sounds crazy—"

Sam was quick to agree to him. "It does," he was saying, still that tone of -I think this is bullshit but I'm willing to believe you. Percy was grateful as much as he wasn't, it was helpful that he wasn't mad or completely against the idea, but it did not help that he wasn't serious. That he was all cheerful when he felt like complete shit.

"Thor's a demigod," Steve said, and Tony gestured to him in agreement as he walked over to the minibar. To the counter that contained the alcoholic beverages. Percy looked at Steve, slightly perplexed, there he was —God's righteous man— believing in other divine beings apart from God. "So it's not impossible. But it does come with a shock."

Tony had a glass in one of his hands, a scotch bottle in the other. "Not really," he said, waving the glass around. "Guy's always had something hiding behind the whole gods are after me, tale."

Percy could hear the hurt behind Tony's voice. He could understand why he needed the scotch, perhaps this wasn't something he specifically wanted to be completely sober for. Perhaps he was hurt that after everything, he hadn't trusted him with this. He understood, so he explained himself. "They were after me. They wanted —they want me dead," he told them and his voice broke at the end. He recomposed himself quickly enough.

Tony made his way back to the couch he had been sitting on, sat down, crossed his legs. Mocked him in his movements because he was definitely mad. It was Steve, however, that said, "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

She told them.

He told them everything, leaving nothing out of the way. If they were going to help him fight this, they might as well know everything he knew. As much as he could manage to tell them about himself. He thought they all —at this point— deserved to know who he was, and how exactly he had ended up in that warehouse those four years ago, after living on the streets.

Why his skin seemed to heal when in contact with water, even though he so clearly had been disowned. Why he could still feel, and get a reaction from water.

He told them about finding out about this absurd world of mythology, where there existed princesses with blonde curls that managed to captivate his heart. He told them about her, about Grover, Jason, Frank, Leo, Piper, Hazel. He told them about Luke and Thalia, and Nico. Beckendorf's sacrifice. About the gods themselves, about his multiple visits to Olympus. He told them about Kronos, the war that he'd been in for five long years, but how they came on top. About denying godhood for her. His relationship with his father…

About getting kidnapped soon after, by one of the gods, the journey of amnesia he went through in those first few months (he noticed it then, Steve's expression hardened, he tried to ignore it, he couldn't). He told them about the Roman camp, and they listened. About Gaea and the Giants. About his second world stomping quest. About her quest under Rome (—Kid you've been to Rome?—) and then finally about falling into Tartarus that first time. Then the journey out and the defeat of Gaea. He left out the fight he'd had at the bottom of the ocean, where he'd given up fighting. Where he had thought he wasn't worth it and just…let the poison take him.

About Leo and that golden explosion in the sky. Then he told them what happened afterwards. What Natasha and Clint knew little detail of, what no one knew much more than that because it was hard to talk about. Or it had been, when he'd had someone to tell it to before his life went to complete hell.

He took a break, breathing evenly and going to rinse his mug. He'd sat down on one of the couches, getting a better ability to talk to them and, convey the story in a better manner. Everyone had gotten comfortable, they hadn't interrupted him, or called him a liar this far. They'd asked questions for sure, and Tony had gotten to the end of his bottle of liquor, but apart from that everything was still respectably calm.

"Is everything okay?" Natasha asked him, she was sitting on the other hand than from where he was sitting.

He looked at her, then at the others, some who looked half asleep, the other looking expectedly. His eyebrows scrunched up, could be called a sad expression, but it was more. It was pained and sad and distraught and scared. It was all of those put together. It was deeper than just one emotion. "This next part," he said, slowly. "It's nasty."

"How nasty you talkin' about?" Sam asked him, he seemed to be one of the more understanding ones. Tony was on the far opposite end of understanding. He looked pissed and hurt at the same time. Something he was going to need to fix at one point or another.

He raised his cybernetic arm, curled and uncurled his fingers, flexing them, pointedly meaning, 'This nasty'. Sam made an approving gesture, and noise. He sat back in his couch, his hands clasping in front of him. "Whenever you're ready, man."

Man, about the only one that upon meeting hadn't called him 'kid' or 'the young one'. Always treated him as the age he claimed to be, and was now going to explain.

So he started…

-.-

It wasn't a week after the war had ended. Everything was…okay, if you didn't count the fact that Leo got killed. They were healing, everyone was building each other back up just fine. But then one night—…He reached his cabin…and that's when it happened.

The lights didn't turn on, which he found to be the first clue that something was…definitely not right. He grabbed his pen —Riptide— and tried to get ready. So then he heard the door lock behind him and he knew that whatever it was. He knew it was dangerous. So he extended his blade and just tried to be ready for it.

Soon enough, though, he started having difficulty breathing. He felt that there was something in the room, some sort of knockout gas. How they managed to get their hands on that type of stuff, he had no idea. He had no idea, or how they weren't getting affected. He just knew that they weren't.

He soon found himself to be drowsy and just felt so dizzy.

Something broke, it sounded so much like one of the bunks, but it was pitch black. He couldn't see it whether it was that or not, and before he fully comprehend it, he felt this huge thing hit him in the back, right at the top of his back. It put his ability to breathe well down the drain, the knockout gas in the air and now the blow to his back.

It was efficient to send him on all fours in time.

It wasn't going down without a fight.

He used his powers to sense the water particles around him, giving him eyes even in the dark. So when he felt something getting awfully close to his face, he was able to parry it to the side. It had been a foot. He turned around so briskly his sword accidentally hit one of them, if the groan he heard was anything to go by.

He knew I couldn't keep his fronts up for much longer. Sooner rather than later, the gas was going to get better of me. He kept fighting until he got knocked out, but eventually they got the better of him.

-.-

"What happened after?" Tony asked, sounding interested, although the tone wasn't one of particular kind.

Percy looked at him, gave him a sad smile. "I woke up in hell."

Tony was also the first one to react to what he was saying. "Say what?" But there wasn't disbelief ni his voice, indeed he seemed to be believed. Rightly so, since he bared visible scars to show that indeed, he had gone through hell.

"Yeah," he nodded along to the shock that had been int the voice. "I got kidnapped and then was brought straight back to hell." His eyes darkened, something like anger flashed in them, and sadness. "But I wasn't alone."

There was a moment quiet. Then, "She was there with you," Wanda guessed.

He nodded to her, turning to look at her, then turning back to Tony. His eyes had been on him most of the time, sometimes Steve, then Sam's…but primarily on Tony. "If anything, we should have expected it," he told them. "Actually…He had us right under his nose, and we made a fool of him by getting out of his domain. We just celebrated the prospect that we had managed to get out. We didn't even think about the possibility of him trying to get pa back. Then Gaea was defeated…We should have seen it coming."

Tony seemed to get over the shock, leaning back in his chair. Sinking further into it. "How was it?" he asked sarcastically, earning a warning and disappointed look from Steve, a sad one from him.

"It was pure hell," he said, resting his head on the backrest of the couch. His eyes closed for a moment, images had started coming up in his head, he tried to block them all out. "Fourteen years, locked. in. a. cell."

Tony was respectful not to respond with a snarky comment, but he watched annoyed and nauseous amongst different emotions.

"He got impatient at one point," he said, no one really knowing what he was talking about. "He…damaged the uh…real one so badly that it didn't heal with anything he tried. Not even his own power. He spent days trying to heal it, but nothing worked. So then one day, a yell of rage, swing of the sword and its gone." He kept his eyes on the bronze hand.

The rest of them caught on. Disgust etched on their faces.

"His goal," he said like a rhetorical question. "Revenge. Vengeance. Someone to throw back at the gods and show them that no one got to go in his domain and get out with no consequences. Send back crippled and broken demigods. Show that there were always consequences for defying him. And they're not over yet."

"And he let you go?" Tony asked him, incredulously and confused. "Keeps you captive for fourteen years and then lets you go?"

He nodded his head, recalling the conversation he'd just had the day before with a certain grey eyed demigoddess. "She explained it to me," he told them. "And once I'm done telling you everything, you'll understand it as well…You see, wars aren't planned in a day or in a month. They take years if its going to be of any impact whatsoever."

-.-

When they got back, things had changed.

Fourteen years after their capture, he let them go for no apparent reason. The last thing he remembered of that wretched place was his cold hearted laughter ringing through his brain. Obsidian black orbs glinting with evil in ming, and a malicious grin as he cackled with laughter. His finger snapping and all of it distorting like in a vortex.

Then they were laying in the middle of a street. People were scrambling away and towards them. Then he saw his own green eyes reflected into a man. Preoccupied yet relieved as they locked with his own. A small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He put one hand around his neck, and the other under his legs and then everything turned black.

When he woke up everything was different.

He was in an actual bed, for the first time in over fourteen years. He felt okay. Not good, but okay. He let his breathing steady, closed his eyes to smell the fresh and un-toxic air. Let a small smile tug at his lips, but then his thoughts tunneled down from there.

What if it was all just a dream?

Certainly not the worst that Tartarus had done.

Quickly he realized that Annabeth was nowhere near him. Hell, he was alone in this huge and dimly lighted room. Laying on a bed. He panicked. And rightfully so.

He didn't think as he threw the covers off his body —how he even had the strength to that, he didn't know— but he did, and in no time he was on his feet. On shaky feet, but he was standing. For about a moment, because his legs gave out as soon as all of his weight was on them.

The huge doors bursted open, a stimuli which made him catch his breath and then scramble backwards as he acknowledged his father running towards him. He muttered one word then, one name, so sad and lonely on a frail voice, "Annabeth?"

The sea god approached him slowly at that, his hands displayed in front of him, palms facing up, showing he meant no harm. "She's okay—"

"Where—" his voice cracked as he interrupted his father. "Where is she?" he said in one shaky breath.

"The room next door," he assured him.

He involuntarily let out a deep sigh of relief at seeing his father's face bare of worry. It meant she was safe. That she was okay. But he needed to see her, so asked tentatively, "Can I—Can I see her?"

His father didn't look so sure about it. "Maybe it's better—"

Who was he to know what was better for him? "Please, dad, I need to—"

But his words were lost when the sea did hugged him, and he found himself hugging back. The physical contact making him understand just how real it was. That he was actually home and the tears couldn't be held back anymore. They came all out, along with all the emotions he was feeling. All of those he had been keeping to himself for the past decade…fear and utter terror.

His father held him, telling him that everything was going to be okay.

He'd been lying of course.

It was anything but okay after that.

For the first few days, it was almost like he couldn't function without her. Days became weeks, and eventually a month. But luckily enough, by the time they decided to go back to camp, see their old friends, they had both gained their independence back. He had gained his independence back, after all, he knew he was affected worse than she was.

Things had been worse for him, and he had the metal arm to prove when she didn't.

It was around February, that they decided to go back. A time by which they had both already visited their respective families and spent some time with them. He got to learn that he had a younger sister, by the name of Estelle, one with whom he found mutual liking immediately. She on the other hand got to find out that her step mother had died of cancer.

Things had changed.

As they overlooked the valley for the first time in over fourteen years, they held hands, but a smile couldn't manage to reach up to their eyes, not even to their lips. She glanced at him, and her eyes tried to reassure him that it was going to be fine. That they were going to be fine. Everything was going to be okay.

He pulled the neck of his jacket up, so that it was closer to his neck, his neck covered by a black hoodie. She too was well covered, after all, it was the middle of February and it was cold as hell.

They took the step across the boundary into camp together and it that moment so many different emotions cursed through his body that he lost count after he acknowledged ten.

They kept on walking, step after step, deeper into the place they both used to call home. They got weird stares coming from bypassing campers, something that used to never happened before. He remembered then, that when he had once walked through, the others would smile at him, even wave. Having them look over him with confused and threatening stares…that was something new.

That wasn't the only difference he noticed of that day. Another was that there were so many campers. When he had gone there, there were a maximum of a hundred, quickly growing to two, but it now seemed like four, even five. New buildings littered the sides of the path and as he glanced at the cabins —which had once only been twelve— he found he had difficulty localizing his own.

They didn't stop. Their eyes locked on their destination, they kept on walking towards the Big House, eventually barely noticing the campers that started following them. Until they were steps away from the front porch of the Big House and a sword was held threateningly in front of them, making them stop.

The campers were quick to encircle them, no good intention written on their faces.

Percy managed to get a look at the person holding the sword. He was smaller than he was, with caramel honey blond hair tied in a man bun behind his head, the excess falling to his shoulders. A firm jaw line, and he looked to be around fourteen years old. But what caught his attention were his eyes, bright sea green eyes. Like his own had once been, before they dulled over with time.

"Who are you and what do you want? I swear I will skin you alive," he threatened with a much too deep voice that what he had expected from such a young demigod.

Percy wanted to answer, even simply move to show who he was in the hope of being recognized. However, someone was moving through the crowd around them before he had the chance. Someone important by the way everyone was moving to let them pass. He squeezed Annabeth's hand, feeling grateful when she squeezed right back.

They were together, that was all that mattered.

"What's going on, Jake?" the demigod coming through said and when he recognized the voice, his knees almost buckled from beneath him. He almost fell to the ground because after all this time?

Annabeth cocked her head towards him, and Percy did too. Absently he used his cybernetic celestial bronze arm to push away at the sword that kept on hovering in front of them as he turned towards the incoming demigod. A small yet endearing smile took over his face, his eyes softening up at seeing him again.

"These two look like trouble," Jake —that's what his name was— told the incoming demigod as he moved his sword slightly, angling it towards them still but not in front of them like he had before. Still at the ready.

Then he came out of the crowd. His eyes sparkling electric blue, his blonde hair shaggy and messy, nothing like what he remembered of him. The scar over his lip nearly invisible, except he knew it was there, and he was wearing an orange t-shirt, instead of a purple one.

"Trouble?" Jason asked as his eyes set on Jake and then shifted to them. Widening as he recognized the two people standing in front of him. Taking a step back as he gasped as he looked at two demigods that might as well have just come back from the dead. "You are so right," he whispered.

Then Jason's eyes met with Percy's and there was clear recognition. Percy pulled his hoodie down gently and slowly, so to not alert the demigod still holding his sword on them. The demigod crowd started whispering, and let's be honest, he had expected it.

There was no need for introductions, everyone seemed to know who he was, and who she was and he didn't want to stand there any longer, so he walked towards the son of Jupiter and wrapped his arms around him. Glad when he hugged right back at him.

"Fourteen years…" he whispered in his ear, and by the sound of it, it was clear he was close to losing his cool and perhaps even shed a few tears. Percy nodded absently, and just kept on hugging. "Gods, I missed you," he said as he then pulled away from him and simply got a good look at him, which caused for Percy to avert his eyes.

There was a lot he needed to explain before those eyes stopped looking at him with questions.

"Jason?" a feminine voice said as she too made her way through the crowd that only seemed to be getting bigger by the second.

Her hair hadn't changed, that was the first thing that occurred him as he saw her again, and she still looked as beautiful as she had before.

Piper didn't hesitate to run to the one persona that had been the first to welcome her to her new home. The one person that had helped her through as much as she had helped her. The one person she had weeped for months and years…

-.-

His jaw clenched as he thought about that day, his nose crinkled up as he snarled softly. The calm before the storm, like this was just them same. Simply a calm moment of peace where things could be figured out before the bad things happened. Before they lose more than they thought they could.

"That doesn't too bad," Tony said. "I mean except that Jake guy, it was all fun and fluff."

Percy looked at him with an expression that told him to cut it. "Worst has yet to come," he assured him. "This part, is where you can understand why you found me in an abandoned warehouse all those years ago."

-.-

Twenty seven of March.

A date that will forever be imprinted in his brain for what had occurred.

In between those weeks, he had figured out a few things about what had changed in the course of his missing years. Like the fact that a city had been build on the northern side of the camp, that there were over a thousand people living in whole establishment put together. Every go and deity had been dedicated a cabin, and Jake was indeed his half-brother.

It had seemed that Poseidon had gotten into an affair weeks after his disappearance…that's gods.

And against contrary beliefs, he loved his brother. After getting over their first eye to eye meet in front of half of camp, they had grown closer. And yes, they had the occasional disagreement and public fight, but wasn't that between all siblings. In the end they always managed to reconcile once they were alone in their cabin.

It happen in the morning.

He woke up, after Jake bumped on his bed for what must have been the tenth time. When he did wake up, he stood abruptly, which ended with him hitting his head on the top bunk. It was still dark outside and he was thoroughly confused as to why he was being woken up in the middle of the night at two am —if the clock on his nightstand was anything to go by.

"Follow me," Jake had told him and it was immediately from then that he realized that his voice didn't sound right. But he had just woken up and he wasn't really concerned about the sound of his voice, but rather, where were they going so early?

He should have questioned the voice immediately, but he hadn't, and it ended up costing him everything.

He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and although he was scared, and confused to the core, he followed his brother out of the cabin."Where are we going?" he asked of him.

"Just you wait," Jake replied, and again, his voice was off but he didn't think twice on it. As he looked ahead of them, he saw he was heading for the forest, which was not good for them.

He followed silently, until they reached the border line of the forest. "It's dangerous in there, especially at night," he warned Jake, but he didn't listen and continued walking and then he was in it. Being the responsible older brother than he was, he followed him to make sure he didn't get hurt.

They walked deeper and deeper in until all he couldn't manage to see a building of the camp, not the roof of the Big House or of the temple. It was dangerous. He turned to look at his brother, perhaps tell him it was better if they went back, but the words died in his throat when he found his sword resting on his collar bone. A slight movement and it would graze.

He looked at his brother in utter confusion not for the first time tonight. Had he been brought all the way out here just for this? So he could be killed or at least so he could try to kill him. He had known his relationship with him was shaky, but he hadn't realized it was bad, at least not this bad.

"What are you doing?" he asked carefully, fully aware that he could be killed with a flick of the wrist. And although it wouldn't his first time having his jaguar vein cut, this time there wasn't a primordial deity making sure he lived through it, and after surviving that, he was not going to waste his life like this.

"I'm sorry," his voice sounded normal then, and it was at this moment that he realized that the different tone was something he should have been more cautious about. Jake's eyes seemed to clear, even though he hadn't even realized they had been foggy in the first place.

Jake took a step towards him, and Percy was quick to step back, barely avoiding being sliced through. Something caught the light of the moon as they moved. Something resting at Jake's wrist. A silver bracelet, with two hammers crossed embedded onto it. At the time, he hadn't realized what it had meant, but he did later on.

"Jake, what are you doing—?" he tried asking again, but there was no time.

Jake brought back the sword, and he saw the last attempt to overpower whatever was inside him, as he hesitated before swiping at his head. Had he not ducked in time, he would have been decapitated. But the first failure at attempted murder didn't stop him, the opposite actually, it encouraged him. His sword came down in an arch, and Percy rolled away from it. As he did, he grabbed Riptide and uncapped it, holding it in front of him in a defensive manner.

They fought, but Jake was no match for him, no one at camp was anymore. Yeah, sure, he'd been held prisoner for a decade and a half, but part of that time was spent being of personal entertainment to the very deity that held him. Meaning he'd be forced to against monsters or against him —as had Annabeth— for his entertainment. Small thing he imagined Tartarus didn't take into account was that he was always improving. Every time he fell and managed to get up again meant he was getting stronger, but still no match for the primordial being.

Even with his skill, there was something in him, possessing him, fighting his battle and being able to hold his own against him. So he switched it up, since disarming wasn't working, then he thought the hurting him enough would make him stop at least. Perhaps due to pain or exhaustion, either would have been fine, which was better than the alternative which was killing him.

After what might have been hours and it might have been since he could see a thing of light breaking through the tree line, he managed to disarm him, his sword ending at the base of his neck after, keeping him in place unless he wanted to kill himself.

And he should have known better, because that's what he did.

He grinned at him, and he could see the hollowness in his as he did so. The desperation and the panic in them and in that one moment of his distraction, Jake finished himself off quickly. His hand shot up, grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it towards himself.

It pierced his neck before Percy could even understand what was going on.

It was followed by a blood curling scream and a small mutter of a, "No," coming from Percy as his brother dropped dead on the ground. He fell next to him and he stared at his brother's lifeless sea green eyes. Then there were breaking twigs, and branches being snapped as someone walked over to them from being. His eyes closed, and tears escaped, as he used two fingers to close Jake's dead eyes.

Then the sound of a weapon being unsheathed. "Percy, stand and leave your sword on the floor," Jason said from behind him.

He turned around and saw him standing there. Jason looked barely awake, and he wondered what it was he was doing, in the middle of the night, dressed in his pjs, standing there, with a sword in his hands pointed towards him.

Then he looked back at his brother, at the sword in his hand, at his hands…And saw what it was Jason was seeing.

"Jason, this isn't what it looks—" he tried in vain.

Jason cut him off immediately. "Just drop your sword," he said more sternly as he took a step toward him.

He let his sword fall from his grip, whatever he needed to do to prove that this was all a great misunderstanding. "Jason, please, you have to believe me—"

"Please just stand up and show me your hands," he said, and the sternest was gone from his tone, instead replaced by sadness. His face contorted as if he was hurt. He stood up, showed he had no weapon on himself. Jason kept his sword level as he crouched down and felt for a heart beat through all the blood gushing out of Jake's neck. "What did you—?" his sentence was cut short by a bright flash of gold and then they weren't in the forest anymore.

They were on Olympus.

In the throne room.

He saw his father standing in front of him, his face emotionless, hard as stone. Confusion all around him but all he could focus was his father's face. He felt someone, probably Ares, grab his arms and shackle them with celestial bronze chains.

"Dad—" he tried, his voice breaking because so much was happening around him and he wasn't understating how it had all went so wrong so quickly.

"You just murdered your own brother," Poseidon cut him off. "You're no son of mine."

There was something in his eyes, Percy caught it, but he wasn't sure what it was, but at least he had known it was there. A betrayal of emotions.

His mouth opened, he wanted to argue that it hadn't been him, that he didn't mean it. It had been an accident, but then there was something leaving him. From deep within. He felt his senses weaken and his powers draining. Ares pushed him behind his knees and they buckled, forcing him to fall down.

He looked up to see all of the Olympians assembled in front of him, all sitting in their respective thrones, but what scared him more, were the immortal demigods standing at the feet of their thrones. All looked confused, and some even mad. Except Jason, he looked down sideways, not managing to once make eye contact with him.

"It wasn't me—" he said, but Zeus didn't let him finish his sentence.

"Silence," he commanded, his voice booming throughout the throne room. Everyone stopped talking at once."Right now you have no right to speak, and you won't have one until we ask for your opinion. Is that understood?"

He was shook, down to his very core. He didn't reply, and if Zeus was going to say something, he didn't get the chance because Annabeth did first as she took a step forward. "What's going on?" she asked of the King of the gods.

Zeus stopped trying to talk to Percy, instead raised an eyebrow to his brother, urging him to say the words. "Trial of execution," he said, and Percy heard the faintest strain in his tone, and damn it he might have been the only one.

-.-

"It was chaotic, and there wasn't really much order," he told them as he came back from it. "Annabeth left after they concluded my sentence."

Apparently they got confused by what he had been saying, because Wanda then asked, "Sentenced you to what?" He was glad for her Sokovian accent, for some reason, it kept him rooted to the now rather than the past he was reliving.

"Death," Percy replied to her, but it was for everyone to hear. "But it wasn't so simple. They let me go —dropped me from Olympus…I don't known how I survived that fall, but I did. After that I ran, I ran as fast as I could."

"But there's but," Sam quipped in, and dam right there was.

"But they caught up to me," he said as an answer to his question. "The Hunters of Artemis are the best at their job, and I had them hot on my trail. Some are as old as centuries others, just decades, but they were simply more experiences at picking up my trail than I was at covering it. I lasted six months out there in the wild, just trying to stay alive."

-.-

He was tired beyond anything and he screwed up.

He'd found this abandoned house in the middle of the forest, and he was so damn tired, that he didn't care whether they were a mile away or an hour away or whatever. If he didn't sleep he was going to knock himself out of exhaustion and then that would be it. For good.

He curdled into himself as he tried to get some sleep, but as soon as he had closed his eyes, the feeling in gut warned him that there was something that was about to go horribly wrong. And he knew better than to ignore it. He checked outside the window for any sign of the hunters, and he saw one, he wasn't meant to but he saw her, sitting on a tree, her bow sticking out of the leaves.

Quickly he stepped away from the window and took cover as something was sent through the broken glass. Too late, he realized it was an explosive arrow. The blast sent him crashing into the opposite direction against a frail wooden wall, which he tore down with his heavy weight.

As he stood back up, he saw a couple of hunters file into the room and he got ready for combat. An arrow was quick to pierce his right thigh, but it didn't hurt him nearly as much as it should have, and without much thought he yanked it out, his eyes deadly as he spotted the hunter who had shot him.

His hand shot forward and he grabbed her bow, yanked it out of her hands and then gave her a solid blow to the head, knocking her unconscious in one blow. He then heard footsteps, which meant that more hunters were approaching, and he didn't want to miss his chance, so he searched hunter for any spare weapon he could find that wasn't arrows.

Throwing knifes and a bowie knife in her left boot.

He waited for the footsteps to get closer, but when they didn't a horrible feeling settled into his gut. He went back to check out the window, to find a sign that didn't surprise him as much as it should have. The hunters had formed a perimeter around the house, blocking him inside with no way out except for fighting them directly which would no doubt end in a painful death.

His heart started racing at one hundred.

This was the end of the line.

The hunters all knocked arrows into their bows and aimed at the house.

"Fire," he herd a familiar voice say.

There was the whistling sound of arrows in the air, before they struck. Then the whole house rocked with explosion on all sides. A fire started. A fire which could eventually kill him, if something else didn't before. He'd been knocked down, and wood upon wood was sitting on top of him, and it was getting hard for him to breathe because of all the smoke.

He heard the thunder in the sky, and when he looked at it, he saw his doom as the clouds darkened and then rain started pouring. More thunder, but no sign of lightning yet. But he knew it would be coming any second now.

"Move out," he heard his cousin, Thalia, yell over the rain at the same time that Artemis had said, "Retreat."

It stung to hear her voice. If there had been one person he would have never thought would turn against him, it was her. But after Annabeth had betrayed him he should have started to expect it from everyone. It didn't mean it hurt any less when he heard her.

He tried following her order, even though it hadn't been for him. Move out or retreat. The fires around him, as well as the rubble on top of him, made it so he couldn't. Then the first lightning bolt hit the ground, next to the house. And there had been nothing more scary and terrifying for him yet. Not Tartarus not nothing.

He was sure his heart might fail before the lightning hit him properly. Perhaps that would be nicer. But it didn't. The lightning kept on coming, like the god responsible was taking his time into showing him and preparing him for what was to come.

He was soaked to the bone, but he quickly realized that the wetness on his cheeks wasn't only due to that, but that he was indeed, crying. He hadn't cried in a long time, and last he had, it had been down in hell. Perhaps it was fitting that this was how he would go.

Perhaps it wasn't.

But he accepted it and suddenly he wasn't so afraid anymore.

He accepted that death was close.

"You are right." He turned around in one frantic motion to see it standing there, black as night with scythe in hand. Just like he remembered it from that quest all those years ago. He had freed it, now it was here to take his soul, and he was okay with it.

"Will it be quick?" he asked of it. The lightning kept on circling the house, he was sure that if he simply waited for it then it was worse. So he distracted himself as he remained stuck under all the rubble. As he waited for his death to come.

"I cannot tell," Thanatos told him slowly. "You'll just have to wait, and I with you."

He nodded, and that was that. He looked up at the sky, only to see the King of the gods staring back down at him. A grin on his face as he aimed his master lightning bolt down at him. He let go of the knifes he held in his hands, closed his eyes and held hid head high.

And then it hit him.

He woke up days later.

There was on weight on him, and when he looked around himself, there were only ashes and cinders. Nothing else. The house had been blow to nothing, and all around him, there was a huge landmark, a circle of ash symbolizing where the bolt had hit. His clothes were singed, burned to a crips, but somehow, he knew he was still alive.

The sun was shining bright into his eyes.

"I guess that wasn't the right time." He sat up, finding it didn't hurt, and turned to see Thanatos standing there again.

There was only one question that plagued his mind at the moment. "How am I—?"

"Alive?" Death guessed when Percy codlin finish the sentence. He nodded. "It wasn't your time."

He squinted, frowned down at himself and then around him. "But the gods are going to try to kill me again," he said to Death. He knew they were going to try as soon as they knew he wasn't dead.

"The gods think you dead," Thanatos told him. "And so do the camps you come from. You must make sure it remains that way," he advised him. He sure as hell was going to do just that.

But… "You're not going to tell them?" he questioned Death yet again. Not that he wasn't grateful but…wasn't his job to make sure no soul escaped his embrace.

Death shrugged, and it was creepy. "I don't see why I should," he admitted to Percy. "Think of this as a payed debt for freeing me. Although…it won't be long before my master notices you are not in his domain."

A debt payed… "Hades?" he asked, confused as to who Death was talking about.

The god in front of him nodded. "That's him," he said. "Now, I must go. As entertaining as this was, I've got souls to reap." In a flash of light he was gone.

-.-

"I tried getting back on my feet after that," Percy said. "But it was hard. I had the bowie knife, but that was about all the weapon I had. Riptide had been taken during the meeting on Olympus, after my fath— him, severed the connections I had with it."

"Your father's a dick," Tony commented, and he wanted to agree. Actually, he did agree with that. He wasn't going to say that to them all though. "I'm thinking he could give mine a run for his money." He knew what he meant.

He sighed. "He wasn't always," he said bitterly. "There was a time I actually considered him a father…Anyway, then I heard about the briefcase and…" he gestured to them all.

"That was depressing," Sam said as he leaned back in his chair. Percy simply just looked at them, he was waiting for the lashing out. He knew it would come, he was just waiting for it patiently.

"Wow," Tony said, and he grabbed the glass of bourbon he had given himself a long time before. "Why now?" he asked after having taken a sip. He sounded on edge, like he was questioning a kid and he was angry, but he didn't want to seem angry. Not yet anyway.

"What do you mean?" he asked him, even though he knew exactly what he meant.

"Why tell us now? Why not before?" Tony elaborated, his tone getting harder by each word he spoke. He downed the glass. He was definitely way past drunk by this point.

Percy swallowed, his finger traced the rim of his own glass. "Tartarus is rising," he said solemnly. "You said you'd help, and I want you to know all the facts."

It didn't seem like the right thing to say. Tony wasn't smiling, heck he looked more depressed than he usually did, and that took effort. "So you wouldn't have told us if he weren't?" he asked angrily, and truth was, he wouldn't have. Heck he might have gone to his grave without ever sharing it.

"I don't see—"

He was interrupted before he could say much more. "We've been a team for three years, and now you tell us that your father is an immortal god?" the billionaire questioned. He was drunk, Percy was going to give him that, he was too, so it could be forgiven. "After three years! A team is built on trust—"

"Like you trusted everyone while you built Ultron?" Percy asked defensively, which was, again, the wrong thing to say.

Tony's eyes flashed dangerously, and he stood. "Don't you dare swing this on me. This is about you keeping this big of a secret from all of us! It could have compromised us a thousand times overs and you know it."

Percy stood too, he stood so he could get into Tony's face since he was inches taller than him. "I had my reasons, some which you will never understand."

"Of course," Tony said annoyed. "You were running, right. Looks like that girl —Annabeth— was right. You are a coward—" That hit closer to home than he would have expected. He sat back down on the chair, he knew a lost battle when he saw one.

He wasn't expecting Clint to step him by cutting him off, "Tony!" It was a warning.

"Go ahead, Barton," Tony said bitterly. "Defend him. Because I'm betting you already knew all of it. And why wouldn't you, you're best buds, aren't you?" It was not just anger, that was clear, like it was not just he liquor talking. It was both of those ingredients that were making Tony a little bit…aggressive, and Percy could understand.

"He did know," Percy said, his voice quiet as compared to Tony's increasing tone. "And so did Natasha for the matter." He saw Tony open his mouth, possibly to yell at them further but he stopped when he said. "I asked them to keep it themselves." This again, didn't seem like the right thing to say. Nothing, he realized, was the right thing to say at the moment.

Tony only looked angrier. "So you trust two assassins with this, but no one else?" It was rhetorical, and long gone were the days where he would have answered back just for spite. He knew his place now, he was grown up, and…it wasn't right to talk back at the moment. "So what? You three know everything about the other, dark secrets, red ledgers…everything?"

"Tony," Steve broke him before he could say something he was actually going to regret. His voice sent off a warning. Percy looked at the Captain, and wondered not for the first time how it was that he could maintain such a facade of calm in situations like these.

Tony didn't yield for anyone, let alone for Steve Rogers. "You're taking his side? Cap, this kid has kept something this big from us for three fuming years, he told them…but not the rest of us. I'm not saying I want to know every single secret, but the basics would have been nice. Don't tell me you don't feel the least bit betrayed."

Percy envied how Steve kept his cool. "Even if I do, there are other ways of coming to this conclusion," Steve said.

"No, Tony's right," Percy said instead. "I should have told you. All of you, form he beginning. But I was scared because, yeah…I guess I am a coward in this—"

Steve shook his head no. "You're not a coward, Percy—"

He held his hands up, in a surrendering kind of way. "I am," he said and then he turned to look at Tony. "There, I've said it. I'm a coward. They wanted to kill me, and I ran. I found you guys and I was selfish because I put you in harm's way. I tried forgetting my past, I ran from it, and I'm still running from it because I can't even bear the thought of making terms with it. I'm weak that way—"

"You're not weak," Clint said, interrupting him. "Stop lowering your self esteem."

"No Clint," he told him. "I ran from it all and by not telling any of you the full story, I kept running. I buried it before I could come to terms with it because I was afraid. And I've kept it buried for four years. Now this primordial is rising and Annabeth popped back into my life and everything is going down hill. I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys, I really am. And I apologize that I put my own needs before letting you know. I thought if I just forgot about it, it would eventually go away. I got proved wrong and I hope that you'll forgive me for keeping this from you. But I was afraid, afraid of reliving it and afraid of your reactions."

That was all he was going to say, and when no one offered to say anything in return he picked up his glass and walked away. Clint made to go after him, but Steve grabbed his arm and kept him back, signaling to let him have some time alone. He was going to need it.

Once he was sure he was out of earshot, Steve turned to Tony. "That was out of line," he told him as Tony was taking a seat back down on his chair. He was cooling off.

"Oh come off it, Cap," Tony told him as he poured himself the last of the bourbon.

They left, slowly, first Steve, then Sam and Clint. Wanda too along with Vision.

Natasha leaned on the table as Tony took a sip, his eyes were set in the direction Percy had gone off to. "Steve's right," she said, but Tony couldn't find it in him anymore to glare at her, she elaborated for anyone else who might have been on his same page. "He just told you something big. The least you could have done was keep this conversation for another time. And if you really must know, he told us —or at least me— about this, in the moments bomb's timer was set off. Saying if he was gonna go, he wanted it to be known. And the only thing we knew, was that he was half god."

"Whatever," he said, and she must have been pleased with his answer, because she bid him good night and then left as well.

Rhodey walked over to him, put his hands on his shoulders and squeezed a little. "You'll have to apologize…?" Ir remained like a question almost.

Tony gulped down the last of the liquor, then set the glass down. He stood up, put on his suit's jacket, straightened it out. "I will," he said as he too left the room, Rhodey in tow.

.

*sweats nervously* that was long and honestly, I don't even know. That is what happened and the scenes that were 'fast forward-ed' are going to be explained in more details in upcoming chapters. I know this might have been boring, I mean, 8,600+ words of story time, not the best, but I can promise some action in the next chapter, trust me, things are going to juice up.

And I'll be happy to let y'all know, this isn't a typical- guy-is-rising-and-we-have-to-fight-to-kill-him story, it'll have a twist to it and this might have as well been a spoiler, I don't know. But yeah, get ready for it.

So yeah,

Like it? Tell me.

Didn't like it? Tell me.

Good? Tell me.

Not good? TEEELLLL MEEEEE.

I need to know.

Criticism is welcome any time any day at this door. Trust me.

.

Stay tuned people, and you'll see why XD

Hunter