A/N: Okay, I'm not really sure what happened with this chapter. It was pretty light in the beginning, and then, well, have a look for yourself. Ah, I'm sorry in advance. Real author's note at the bottom. Oh, and thanks for the reviews saying you like long chapters. All of you said you prefer them over the short ones, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
Disclaimer: There will come a day when I'll own Percy Jackson and the Avengers. Today is not that day.
Chapter Nine
"You," Fury jabbed his finger at me. "Start talking. Now."
"Uh," was my intelligent response.
"Hang on a sec, Fury," Clint said as he held his hands out in a placating manner.
"Yeah, don't get your eye patch in a knot," Tony told him unhelpfully. "What's your problem?"
"My problem," Fury practically growled, "is that the Council is ticked off. And you know who they're angry at? Me. You wanna know why? Because of him," Fury ploughed on without giving anyone the chance to answer. "They want to know why I let a minor on the team. They want to know who he is, what he is, and why he's here. They also want to talk to you," he said, pointing a finger at me again. "They want to know if they can rely on you not to do something stupid."
Fury's eye grew darker. "They want to know what has the energy reading high enough to blow the whole building and then some."
"Alright," I cut in, "I can actually answer that one. That was an extremely powerful empousa."
"And what is that?" Fury asked suspiciously.
"Think vampire with a twist. They suck the blood of males." I gestured vaguely at my leg. "Got a donkey leg and a bronze prosthetic leg. Very cunning." I shook my head. "Especially ones who are over a thousand years old."
"Did you kill her?" Fury said.
"No," Steve answered. "She exploded into flames and escaped that way, somehow. Apparently the really powerful ones can do that."
"Listen, Fury," Bruce said calmly. "Why don't you just sit down and ask Percy questions instead of just demanding him to talk? It'd be a heck of a lot easier."
Fury continued to stand stiffly for a moment, then grudgingly walked over to the free chair at the head of the table.
"Alright," I said, looking at him. "Now what do you want to know?"
"What is it?" he asked immediately. "There's some kind of boss. What or who is it?"
I leaned forward on the elbow that was resting on the table and ran a hand through my hair. I sighed, frustrated. "Believe me, I want to know as much as you do."
Fury raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You don't have any idea what it could be?"
"It's something big. Something powerful. I don't know anything beyond that, though," I admitted. "It knows who I am though. And it's mad at me, obviously. I'm not actually sure that's going to narrow anything down, though."
"It has to," Natasha said. "Who or what powerful thing did you make mad?"
Thor chuckled before I could answer. "What?" Tony asked.
Thor smiled. "Percy was right. His information of this boss being mad at him will not help in our search."
"Why's that?" Steve asked, frowning.
I grinned sheepishly. "I tick off pretty much every single being more powerful than me."
"On purpose or what?" Tony asked with his eyes glinting.
"Well, sometimes for a plan to work, I have to tick them off to distract them or try and beat them, but usually they just don't like me. At all. I usually hear the words 'annoying upstart' and 'Percy' together in the same sentence, if that explains anything."
"I could believe that," Fury muttered under his breath.
"The Olympians actually just started tolerating me," I said proudly. "They don't want to smite me on sight anymore. Unless it's a bad day."
"So that doesn't narrow anything down," Bruce concluded.
I sighed, becoming serious once more. "Listen," I said, putting on my I-know- what-I'm-doing voice on. "I have no idea what I could have made mad this time. We demigods took care of a titan and an evil Mother Earth. There's literally nothing else I can think of that can still be up and running that didn't support those two."
"What are you saying?" Fury stared at me.
"We need to wait it out."
Silence met my proposal. After a few moments, Fury spoke up first, unsurprisingly. "Excuse me?"
I felt my confidence sliding away quickly even though I knew this was the right choice. "And exactly why should we do that?" Fury challenged.
I hardened my eyes slightly. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because we have no clue in Hades of what it actually is?" I said sarcastically. "Do you really want to act against it and end up only strengthening it? Because if that's what you want to do, then I'm going to have to very strongly disagree with you." I held my ground on my decision stubbornly when he opened his mouth to say something. "No, stop. The Avengers are supposed to help people, right? We can't let people get hurt just because we rushed into it without even thinking. So give it a little while so I can try to get some info on this, okay?"
Fury stared at me until I thought that I had pushed my luck with this and was going to be forcibly ejected from the building. "Fine," he said finally. "We'll wait. I don't know what you want me to say to the Council."
"Shut up?" I suggested.
Fury smirked. "I wish."
Fury's phone started ringing, and he answered it almost immediately. "Agent Smart. What do you have?" He excused himself from the meeting.
Tony leaned in to grin at me. "How are you holding up after your first Fury assault? You actually didn't do too bad."
"I don't know, he looked pretty scared to me when Fury first came in," Clint teased.
"He must have manned up after though when he realized that he's ticked off gods before. He can deal with Fury." Tony smirked.
"And titans. And Mother Earth," I added.
"Mother Earth?" Steve asked.
I blew out a gust of air slowly. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever done. I think. Well, that and blowing up Mount St. Helens," I added as an afterthought.
"Wait a minute, let's back up a little. Mount St. Helens? As in the volcano Mount St. Helens?" Tony asked incredulously.
"Is there another Mount St. Helens?" I asked, feeling a little awkward at the attention.
"That was you a couple years back?" Clint gawked.
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Uh, yeah."
"Why did you blow up a volcano?" Natasha said. "You do realize you caused about half a million people to evacuate, right?"
I felt my face turning red. "Yeah, trust me, I know. I didn't mean to blow up Mount St. Helens."
"Did I just hear that you blew up Mount St. Helens?" Fury had just come back from his phone call apparently. Great, I thought. I was probably going to be arrested for being a terrorist by blowing up a volcano.
"I didn't mean to blow up the volcano!" I repeated loudly.
"So why did you?" Thor asked, curious. "I don't believe I have heard this battle."
I rubbed a hand over my face. "It wasn't a battle," I said, my voice muffled by my speech.
Thor frowned. "Then what was it?"
"Oh my gods," I said. "I was on fire."
"You blew up a volcano because you were on fire?" Tony asked. "What happened to stop, drop, and roll?"
I groaned and put my face down on the table. "Come on," I told the table. I picked my head off the table. "The god of the forges, Hephaestus, said he would help us with our quest if we check out one of his forges that he thought had been overrun with something. It turns out that was where they were making Kronos' all powerful scythe there. It could sever your soul from your body if it touched your skin. So of course I had to try and stop the telekhines that were making it. Not that I had a choice because I'd already been discovered by a class of small telekhines. So I distracted them so Annabeth could get out with her invisible hat."
"Then what happened?" Bruce asked.
"Well, these old telekhines with the scythe next to them had me cornered off in a lava room. Then they started throwing lava at me." I winced and rubbed my stomach, remembering the fire. "It didn't sting me at first because I have the 'sea in my veins' or whatever. After a few seconds it started burning. So I realized that I was going to be burned alive and kind of . . . You know," I waved my hand in the air.
They stared at me blankly. "I do not know what that means," Thor said, confused.
"Well, uh, this is gonna sound weird. I just remembered the ocean and gathered all my power within me and just. . .let it all out." I shrugged, not knowing what else to do.
"And you blew up the volcano?" Tony asked.
I sighed. "Yes, I blew up the volcano. And myself out of it at the same time."
Bruce winced. "Didn't that hurt?"
"Very badly," I confirmed. "I could barely get up for a week. It completely drained me."
"I bet," Clint said.
"He blew up a volcano," Tony said, looking like he still couldn't believe it. "Not everyone gets to say that." He started smiling. "What did I do when I was a teenager? Oh yeah, I blew up a volcano."
I rubbed my face again. I was pretty sure my face was beet red. "I think we established the fact that I blew up the volcano. Which I did not mean to do, by the way," I threw in, knowing it would be ignored.
"I want to blow up a volcano," Tony said.
"No one is blowing up anything!" I said loudly. "Oh my gods. I need a filter for my mouth. I didn't even mean to say that I blew up the volcano."
"Well, I'm glad you did," Tony said, smiling like he'd just won the lottery.
Bruce stared at Tony for a long while, then cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said, "we'll get back to you when we know more." He told to Fury.
"That's fine." Fury had a strange look on his face. He turned back to me. "The Council wants to meet with you on Thursday."
"What's today?"
"Monday."
I forced a smile on my face. "That should fine. I can't wait," I tried to put some semblance of cheerfulness into my tone, but ended up falling flat. By a lot. The others looked at me weirdly for a moment, then told Fury goodbye.
"What's up, Percy?" Clint asked.
"The Council is going to kill me," I moaned. "They're going cut me up, season me, and put me in the frying pan." I groaned. "You might as well kick me out now. There's no way they're going to let me stay with my rep."
"Kid," Tony said, smiling slightly, "if you think we're letting you out that easy, you're wrong. Anyone who blows up a volcano is welcome any day in my tower."
"Thanks, Tony." I smiled. "I wonder if I should tell the Council I blew up the volcano. Just to see their faces."
"Well, I'm hacking into the video feed, so we'll definitely see what happens during the meeting." A thought looked like it just occurred to Tony. "That is, if you don't mind?"
I smirked. "Go right ahead. I don't care."
Thor frowned. "I do not like the Council very much."
"Thor, I'm pretty sure the Council doesn't even like themselves all that much," Clint said.
"You'll do fine, Percy," Natasha reassured me.
"Just don't talk back to them at all," Steve said with a twinkle in his eye. "Let's see if you can go the whole meeting without making them mad."
"I can't think of one person who wouldn't love this glowing personality of mine," I deadpanned. Tony and Clint snickered.
Tony sighed. "As much as I would love to continue this little powwow of ours, I've got work to do. I almost done with this thing I started, so just a few more tweaks."
Natasha stood up and stretched. "Supper in an hour," she said. A chorus of sures and yeahs followed her out of the room. We all dispersed to do our own thing.
I got in the elevator, not knowing where to go. "Do you need help, sir?" Jarvis asked. I finally made up my mind. "Yeah. Could you take me to the rooftop?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
I looked at the sunset and smiled. It was beautiful out here. I felt at peace with my thoughts. They weren't pushing me to think anything right now, and it was relaxing.
I must have dozed off with my thoughts and had a nightmare because when I woke, I was gasping for air, my chest heaving. I lay back down and tried to catch my breath, which soon proved to be a very bad idea.
—needed to get out, needed to help—
—all my fault—
—I couldn't save them—
I coughed and sputtered, trying desperately to escape from the flashback.
—darkness, evil voices, no, no, no!—
A deep voice came out of the darkness. "You think you aren't to blame?" It laughed cruelly. "It's all your fault. Some hero you are. Can't even save your own friends," it said disgustedly. Its words felt like punches to my stomach. "You don't deserve anything. You should be back in the Pit."
I felt myself being dragged down deeper into the darkness. "NO!" I screamed.
I finally gathered the strength to pull myself out, and I just lay there, struggling to breathe. I took a shuddering breath. I tried to push myself up, but I didn't have the strength to do that. So I just kept lying there. Eventually I felt a single tear roll down my cheek. I didn't move my hand to stop it from falling. I just breathed. In, out. In, out. When did breathing get so hard?
After a long while, I finally got up. The sunset was long gone, and there was only darkness. I walked to the elevator and got in silently.
"To the Avengers' Floor, sir?" Jarvis asked softly.
"I won't be joining the others for supper tonight," I told him hollowly, ignoring the question for a minute. "Tell them I'm sorry, but I'm just not hungry." My stomach clenched painfully, but it was the truth. If I were to eat something right now, I had the feeling that would just be spilling it back into the toilet a few minutes later. "Please take me to the Avengers' Floor."
I leaned against the side and closed my eyes as we went down. I sighed shakily. "Sir, are you sure you're alright?" I heard Jarvis's voice float down to me as if in a dream.
"I just need some rest," I said honestly.
"Tell me if you need something at any time, sir," he said, managing to sound worried somehow.
"Sure thing," I said tiredly, leaning against the wall more and more. The elevator dinged quietly, and I trudged back to my room. Once I got there, I sagged against a wall and slowly slid down. I put my face in my hands. Now what was I going to do? I couldn't sleep. That was out of the question after that little episode I had on the rooftop. I stood up, deciding I could at least go swim or something to get my mind off things.
I took the stairs, not wanting to take the chance of having someone see me on the elevator. When I arrived, I didn't even bother stripping off my shirt. I just raised my hands and felt the water answer my command. I didn't really concentrate on what I was doing, only that it was big and power-consuming.
I created magnificent ice sculptures and smashed them down, not caring if the shards scratched my skin, I knew it would be healed within seconds. I made hurricanes bigger than the one I demonstrated for the team, tsunami waves twenty feet high, and finally I just picked up all the water from the enormous pool and guided it through the air in a symphony of movement until I could barely stand.
I sat down heavily by the pool, legs sprawled out and arms limp. I was bone tired. I rubbed at my eyes, then dropped them. I arranged my hands to where they were palm up. They were shaking when I looked at them. "What is wrong with me?" I whispered to myself, hoping for someone, anyone to tell me. Even a clue would work just fine.
I wondered if I was cracking. Did I have cracks on the inside of me? If something hit me hard enough, was I going to break? I had the feeling that I had so many cracks and fractures in me, all the super glue in the world wouldn't be able to fix me. Would I ever be fixed? Could I ever be fixed.
I bowed my head and just sat there, staring ahead, back hunched. I heard the door open behind me. I didn't bother turning, hoping that the person would just take a hint and leave me alone. I heard footsteps walking up slowly behind me. They stopped probably about five feet from me.
"Hi," a voice said. It was Tony. I heard a few other footsteps start toward me.
I sighed. "Hi."
The other footsteps stopped near Tony's.
I heard someone sigh. "What are you doing here, Percy?" Bruce asked gently.
I shrugged, not really knowing what to say.
I heard another sigh. I saw Tony sit down on my right, and Steve on my left, and the other Avengers dropped down beside them. They didn't even complain about their butts getting wet. I would've done something about that, except I could barely keep myself from toppling over.
We just sat there for a while, keeping our silence. They didn't say anything, or ask me if I wanted to talk about it. They were just there, a comforting presence in the background. And I realized, they got it. They knew that you couldn't force these things. You just had to wait and let them happen before you could help. It was nice to know they were there for me. Could this team become my second family? If that was going to happen, I couldn't say I would be disappointed. I had to admit they were pretty awesome.
After what was probably two hours of sitting beside the pool and doing nothing, saying nothing, I finally cleared my throat. Their eyes turned on me. I forced a weak smile on my face. "It was a rough at the office today, honey," I said.
They smiled sadly. I ducked my head again.
Tony brushed off his hands. "Why don't we go hang out on the couch and watch TV, buddy?" he asked me.
"That sounds great." I needed to get off this floor anyway. It'd be good for me.
They all got up and started brushing themselves off, stretching out the kinks. When they noticed I was still sitting, they frowned.
"What?" I asked them. "You think I can get up by myself after all that?"
A/N: See what I mean? I don't know, I'm sorry if you don't like this chapter. I chalk it up to listening to depressing music when I was writing. Remind me not to do that anymore. My only defense for this chapter is that Percy is getting desperate because it's getting worse. He's getting more cracks in him, and he's wondering if he'll shatter soon. So, sorry if you don't like it, but this chapter is important, so yeah. (I hope they weren't too out of character.) Thanks for the reviews/favorites/follows! I LOVE THEM! Plus I have over 10,000 views! WOOT WOOT! Until Chapter Ten, lads.
