A/N: Okay, so I know it's late, but apparently it's conditioning month in basketball. Which means that I don't have time to even touch my computer because I'm so tired. I wrote basically this whole chapter tonight, so if there's mistakes or it seems choppy, sorry. Enjoy the chapter, anyway! **Oh, and I've decided that the 425th reviewer gets a one-shot of their choice since I've been itching to write one. I'll send you instructions if you get it, and that will be that!**

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or the Avengers. If I didn't the sequels would come out a lot sooner.

Chapter Twenty One

I woke up from a typical nightmare and decided to get up and stop being lazy. Which was kind of new because I wasn't usually lazy.

I hauled myself up anyway and got dressed in some simple jeans and a Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. I loped over to the kitchen to grab something to eat. I walked in and saw Clint munching on some toast at the table. He nodded a greeting at me as I plucked a banana off its stem.

"Where's the rest of the team?" I asked as I slid into a chair across from Clint. I bit into the banana, rubbing at my eyes.

"I think Tony and Bruce are down in the labs." Clint wiped some stray crumbs off his lips. "Thor and Natasha are in the gym. And I think Steve is calling Fury about everything right now. He'll tell us what Director Eyepatch said when he's done, and we'll probably have a little team meeting."

"Sounds good to me." I got up and threw away my banana peel. "How much longer you think the call's going to be?"

"At least another thirty minutes knowing Fury."

I grimaced. "Poor Steve."

Clint sighed. "Tell me about it."

"Well, if you're looking for me, I'll be up on the roof. I need to talk to my dad," I said. Clint nodded and said he was going to go join Natasha and Thor in the gym.

I walked up to the roof and went right to the edge, leaning on the concrete wall. I didn't even have to glance sideways to know my dad was already there.

"You know, I could almost say that the gods were stalking me," I said, looking out over the city.

"What can I say? We don't really have a life," Dad joked, smiling. I grinned with him. I slowly let it fade when I thought of what I needed to talk to him about in the first place.

"So Coeus, huh?" I looked over at him, and he faced me after a second. "The titan of intelligence?"

"Looks like it," he said, wincing.

"Dad," I said. I paused, realizing I didn't have anything else to say after that. How do you explain to your dad that you're worried you won't be able to help save the world again for the third time?

Luckily, he knew where I was probably headed with this. "I know what you're thinking," he said, holding up a hand as if to stop me from collapsing on the ground with the news or something. "I'm telling you right here that you're going to do fine."

"What?" I asked. Either gods were mind readers or my dad just knew me. There was no way he could've known what I was thinking. "There's no way for you to know that. I could completely screw all of this up and send the whole world to Hades."

"You could," my dad agreed. "But you aren't going to do that." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Besides, I'm a god. I know things. But more importantly, I'm your father. You won't blow this."

"Maybe not completely. But someone's going to get hurt by all this. There's no way they won't," I continued morbidly.

"You can't save everyone, Percy," he told me seriously. "Not even the greatest of heroes can do that."

"I feel like I should've done more though," I said frustrated, scratching at a piece of the concrete wall. "I could've done more."

Poseidon sighed, like he didn't understand why I was saying any of these things. "Percy, I don't think you understand how much you've already done." He shook his head slightly. "It's probably too early in the morning to be talking about all of this, but you need to hear it," he muttered to himself.

"You've done far more than you probably, in all fairness, should have had to do," Dad said louder, so I could hear him better. "You've been asked to do too many things, make too many sacrifices, than a kid should have been asked. And yet somehow, you always come through." His eyes twinkled with a teasing glint for a moment. "Now, I think that might be a little bit of Sally's stubbornness mixed in with mine," he said fondly.

"It could have been worse though," I pointed out, neatly dodging what my dad had said about me. It didn't really matter if I had barely scraped by in the past if I blew it this time. "I mean, look at some of the heroes back then. They had it worse than me."

"But not as many of them were as young as you were," he countered. "How many heroes have the privilege of saying that they personally saved the world twice?" He raised an eyebrow, almost challenging me to come up with something to contradict what he said.

"I think you're asking the wrong person about ancient Greek history," I said. My dad chuckled.

"You don't give yourself far enough credit, Percy," he said quietly, smiling. He stood up a little straighter after a few moments. "So what are you going to do about all of this? Got a plan?"

"Working on it. Except, you know, I kind of need more than just who the guy is. I need to know what his plans are, too," I reminded him.

"Oh, I'm sure those will come pretty quickly," Dad told me.

I glanced at him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

"I'm a god," he said, grinning. "I do have feelings and premonitions sometimes, you know."

"I barely even know what premonition means."

"Please tell me that's a joke."

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Sure, sure." I picked at a loose thread on my shirt. "You think the kids at camp are going to be ready?" I asked him after a while.

"Yes," he answered. "I think they'll be fine once they see their leader is getting there, too."

"Technically, I'm not the only leader," I commented. "There's Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, and that's not even counting on the other senior campers—"

"I'm nearly positive if we took a vote at your camp that it would be unanimous that you are the leader," Poseidon deadpanned.

I turned my back to the city so that my back was leaning on the wall. "I'm sure the Ares cabin would be completely fine voting for me, too." I smirked. "Yeah, no."

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"It seems like that is my cue," Dad frowned. "Your team must want you."

"I can only imagine what Fury said," I told him. "Do I really have to go down there and talk about that right now?" Skipping out sounded like a pretty great idea to me, at the moment. Except, you know, I'm pretty sure it's frowned upon to play hooky during a world crisis.

That didn't necessarily mean that I didn't think about it.

"Yes, you really have to," my dad said slowly, like he was talking to a two year old who didn't want to take a bath.

"Ugh," I groaned, pushing myself off the concrete edge of the roof. I faced my dad. "So, I guess I'll see you later?"

Dad nodded. "Yes. Call if you need anything." He stepped closer and stared at me contemplatively for a moment. I squirmed. It seemed like I would never get used to a god staring at me like that, no matter who it was. "And in the meantime, Percy," he hesitated for a moment. "Don't do anything foolish." He faded into sea mist before I could say anything.

I grumbled out something not very nice about life in general and walked over the roof door. I had a team meeting to go to.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I walked in when an argument was going. An admittedly one-sided argument.

"That plan makes no sense," Tony said hotly, his elbows resting on the table. He pointed a finger at Steve. "Just because Fury thinks he runs the show doesn't mean he actually does."

Steve rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. "Honestly, Tony, if you can come up with a better idea, I'm all for it. But for now, we're stuck with this one."

"What plan?" I asked, sitting myself in a seat between Thor and Bruce.

"Fury's idiot plan," Tony said grouchily.

"What is it?"

"That's the thing," Clint said. "We don't know."

"Fury won't tell us what our course of action is," Steve explained. "It might be because he doesn't trust us, or he's trying to take into stock that things might change quickly or what."

I rubbed at my messy hair. "He won't even give us an idea?"

"No," Natasha said. "The only thing he said to Steve after Steve had told him everything was that he would talk to Agent Smart and get back to us."

"And that's it?" I asked in disbelief.

"Apparently," Bruce said, clearly not pleased.

"Does he know that we might get attacked before then? Or do I need to go tell him that myself?" I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. Was Fury kidding me? The fact that we could get attacked any time soon must not have crossed his mind whatsoever. Either that, or he was just hiding something from us.

"Listen, Fury's always got ulterior motives," Natasha said reasonably. "We just need to find out what it is."

"I agree with Natasha," Thor said, nodding his head. "Fury always seems to have a double plan. This would be a good thing if he actually spoke to us of this plan." Thor huffed, crossing his arms.

"So what should we do?" I asked. "Just wait and try and figure it out?" I asked unenthusiastically.

"It's looking like that's the best option," Tony said reluctantly. He frowned for a moment and then brightened. "But that doesn't necessarily stop us from doing a little investigating of our own," he said with a gleam in his eye.

"What are we going to investigate?" Bruce asked. "The attack sites? Motives? Or what the titan actually is?"

"The answer is D, all of the above," Tony said, pointing a finger at Bruce. "You can't beat something you don't know."

"I can IM Annabeth and ask her to help," I offered.

"Yeah, go ask her now, if that's all right?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, she's up and probably not too busy right now," I told him.

Clint grinned at me. "Now, don't stay on the IM too long." He winked conspiratorially at me. "We do have work to do."

I blushed. " Yeah, yeah." I got up and quickly left the room before they could tell me anything else. I didn't leave quick enough not to hear their chuckles and snickers, though.

I walked into my room, going to the bathroom to start the call since it was the closest to the water. A few moments later, Annabeth popped up on the image. She was sitting on the beach.

"Got a minute, Wise Girl?" I asked, smiling when she jumped a little.

She rolled her eyes, but smiled back. "What do you want this time, Seaweed Brain? I was actually peaceful for a sec there." She sighed. "I knew it wouldn't last," she said playfully.

I placed a hand over my heart. "Harsh, Annabeth. Harsh." I shook my head so I wouldn't get too off-topic. "I called to ask to see if you and a couple others could maybe piece together some stuff that has anything to do with Coeus or Thanos? It would be a huge help."

"I'll see what I can do. You probably need all the help you can get."

"Thanks, Annabeth," I said. "I owe you one. Or two." I thought some more. "Or a lot."

She laughed. The sound filled me with warmth like a beautiful, sunny summer's day. "You bet, Seaweed Brain. How are things going over there?"

"Besides the attacks, we're doing fine. Except, you know, I managed to tick off the Council," I said sheepishly.

"Really, Percy?" She asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Okay, they were being total jerks!" I exclaimed defensively. "They said we probably didn't even really save the world. Twice. They implied I was making that up."

"I know they're jerks, but you just have to ignore them. They aren't even important in your life, so why let it bother you?" she said. Honestly, she should have been on the Avengers. She probably would have given more to the team. And she wouldn't have threatened the Council's wellbeing, either.

"I know," I sighed. "But I had just gotten done fighting that hellhound, so I was a little irritated."

She shook her head, rolling her eyes. "They're just ignorant. Other than that, things are good? It looks like you like the team."

"Yeah, the team's great. They're really cool, actually," I said. "It's funny, I think Tony and Leo would get along great. They both have the same personality of wanting to make stuff that could potentially go haywire and blow things up."

Annabeth shook her head in dismay, a few golden curls flopping in her face in the process. She brushed them out of the way. "Great. Now there're two of them." She frowned suddenly. "Oh, hey, I needed to tell you about some trees dying in New York."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Like getting cut down or just dying?"

"Like, wilting and falling apart dying," Annabeth said. "A whole acre or two of trees about ten minutes away from camp got taken out. You should've seen Grover." She winced. "You know, it almost looks like they had all the energy drained out of them or something."

I shrugged, not really knowing what else to do. "It's definitely worth looking into, for sure."

"That's exactly what I was going to say."

"Any ideas on what it could be?" I asked hopefully.

Whatever Annabeth was about to say was suddenly cut off by a shrill beeping sound. She paused in confusion, and I looked up at the ceiling. Was Jarvis making that sound as an alarm? "Jarvis?" I asked cautiously, "what was that for?"

"There seems to be a power spike in downtown New York," Jarvis answered. "It perfectly matches the signature of the power flares that occurred in the area of the Mathnasium and the serpent attack."

I cursed under my breath. I looked back at Annabeth. "That can't be anything good," I said grimly.

"Call if you need help," she said, worriedly biting her lip.

"Hey," I said softly. "I'm good. I'll be fine."

"I know."

"So don't worry."

"That's like saying even though you're starving, don't eat anything for another day or two."

"I'll call you after," I promised. "It's probably just another regular group of monsters, anyway."

"You hope," she muttered. "See you soon, Percy."

I gave her an attempt at a smile and waved a hand through the connection. I jogged into the kitchen and saw the team already gathered there. "What's up with the power flux?" I panted.

"It looks like there's another attack happening about seven minutes away from us," Tony said, tapping on a hand-held device, his eyes scanning the readings rapidly. "I don't know what it is. The cameras are very conveniently not working right now in that area."

"Are we all going to go check it out?" I asked. "Or just half of us?"

"Well, you're going to go for sure, of course," Steve said. "Then maybe Natasha and me? And we can call in Tony and the others if we need to."

"That sounds fine to me," I agreed. "We probably need to go quick, though."

"So go get on your armor, and we'll go on foot so no one sees us," Natasha said. "I know some back roads. And those news cameras are everywhere. Literally."

"We'll meet back here in five minutes," Steve said.

I jogged back to my room and began strapping on my armor, expertly tightening and loosening straps and then buckling them. After everything was strapped on and fitted just right, I grabbed my helmet from off the bed and speed-walked back to the kitchen. Steve was slipping on his gloves, and Natasha was there with the dagger I had given her, strapping it to her thigh along with her dozen other weapons.

"Not too shabby," Tony said appreciatively, glancing at my armor. "That's a nice design and fit. Was it made out of Celestial bronze? Who made it? It doesn't even look bulky."

"Yes, and Hephaestus, probably," I said, fixing a strap near my shoulder.

"I could probably learn a thing or two from those guys," Tony said dreamily. He shook his head. "Anyway, I've got the coords for this little mission. I put it in on your phone, Steve, so it'll guide you right to the attack area." Tony took three earpieces off the table and handed it to us. "Here you go. Don't break them. They're monster-tracking proof, Ariel."

"Are they water proof?" I asked, shoving the thing into my ear.

Tony sighed. "Water resistant. It's a prototype on the whole heavy duty water thing."

"I'll be fine," I assured him. "That should be good enough."

"Okay, ready?" Steve asked, slipping his shield into a briefcase so a passerby wouldn't see the bright red, white, and blue colors of it.

"Ready," I replied.

A/N: Yeah, so not a lot of action, but still some important stuff. Again, sorry for the lateness. I've decided to do a cover, and I'm going to try and send some stuff to the wonderful Annabeth Brady so she can work some magic. I'll do my best to see you guys this Sunday! As always, reviews are greatly appreciated and hoarded!