Hey there...

So school's started, which is not so great. Great thing is that I'm actually very ahead with this fic, so this won't be a problem. I've not only got the next couple of chapters written out, I've actually gotten the whole story planned out and it's going steady in that direction. Which is great.

What isn't great, is that school has indeed started...

Well anyways, enjoy:

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X-X-Paciscor-X-X

(The Deal)

-.-.-

30th January

-.-.-

The next day he woke up before she did. He grabbed his clothes from the floor, put them back on, and then he left without waking her up.

He had to think about what they'd shared before looking her in the eye again.

-.-

A spur of the moment…that's what he was going to call it.

A spur of the moment.

That's all it had been. He had wanted to talk to her, and then his masculine needs had gotten the better of him. That's what he was going to say to explain it to Tony, to which he hoped the older man would simply laugh at and wave it off. He wasn't, under no circumstance going to tell him that he had needed it since the day she infiltrated the compound. That she had gotten that much under his skin.

The nightmares following…Yeah he had needed her, sure. He wasn't going to deny that.

But he also wasn't going to forget the disgust he had felt when he had woken up that morning. How his head ached. He'd been happy too, gods above had he been happy…But there had been a part of him that had been disgusted, and he had quickly figured out why when he turned and saw her.

There she was, peaceful in her sleep, and smiling. One arm had been draped around his middle, almost like she didn't want him to leave. He couldn't find the strength to smile, or to frown. He just looked at her, his brows furrowing with sadness at the confused thoughts and feelings he had clashing.

This wasn't right, he told himself even though he had spent the entirety of the night telling himself that it was. He had needed it, that was for sure. He now felt like the weight of the sky had been lifted from his shoulders. That need had in fact told him it was right. It wasn't.

He had spent years, after that unfaithful day four years ago, trying to build himself back up after she had betrayed him so utterly and fully. After she had fucked him up in the head so badly that he couldn't allow himself to look at another woman and think in any way beyond a friendship. That he could look at Natasha and not find anything about her appealing.

That all that had remained in that scarred head of his was to survive, not live, survive.

She had been cause of that. They all had, but she had been it more.

Poseidon had been right there in that classification, right next to her. He understood his motive, he didn't forgive him for it, he was surely never going to forget it, but he understood. Her…

A child.

God the time it would take for him to wrap his mind around that. He had a child. A child. Whom he had no idea existed until the day before. Of course he might have known sooner, had he let her explain back on that day at the tower, or perhaps would have been able to raise him, had none of this happened.

He would have been accepting then, like he is right now…but it was going to take time for him to understand it. To come to terms with it, to act like a father, and care for the child as his blood. Although he had a suspicion that would the child be in peril, he was ready to put his life right on the line for him. Children had that effect on him.

When he caught the taxi —having already walked some of the way— he came to terms that he had screwed up this time, and he had done so big time. He had started something he wasn't sure he could make himself follow through.

Being with Annabeth made him feel alive like he hadn't been for decades. Without her it made him feel like life wasn't worth living. But waking up next to her, made him disgusted with his own actions, it made him question his own sanity because what kind of man slept with the person that had ruined him so badly in so many damn ways. But waking up alone made him feel alone and weak.

There was no way in between.

He hated it.

But there were no other thoughts in his mind on the ride back to the compound.

-.-

When he got back to the compound, he went to his rooms, and crashes on the bed, after all he hadn't slept all that much the night before. In all honesty, he was spent, and he knew that if he had the time, he would sleep for days to no end before his energies all returned to him.

He didn't sleep well.

-.-

It was dark around him, a tint of red clouded his eyes. It was almost like he was wearing night vision goggles, and the image, instead of being green, it was red. The air was toxic, enough so that his throat hurt, his lungs felt constricted and his eyes stung. His skin felt like it was heating up, almost like a flame was being held close to it on every single inch of it.

He knew where he was, Tartarus.

A tremor ran through him, just at the thought. Last time his dreams had been impactful and it had brought him to Tartarus, he had seen Annabeth's decaying corpse, which had resulted in him feeling weaker than he had in years. If this was anything of the same caliber, he sure as hell wasn't ready for it. He was never ready for anything that came with Tartarus.

He would never be.

Then the red dissipated, and —his heart beat stopped for a second there— he was sure this was fake yet—

There was a tube. He forgot all about Tartarus, instead focused on the tube, this singular tube in the middle of this darkness. It was white on the outside, almost like ice had frosted over it. He took a couple of steps towards it, then…then he thought whether looking into that tube was worth the mental scarring it was going to give him.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, he told himself. Said it out loud, yelled it out into the darkness around him. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. The crystal white tube remained in the middle of the darkness, mere steps away from him. Standing there upright, and it was almost like it was compelling him to come closer and take a damn look.

He opted into saying to hell with his own mind. Whatever this was, he was getting the idea it wasn't going to end until whatever this was, ended.

So he stepped up, and walked over to the tube. Until he was there, and if he focused enough he could see what was beneath the crystal like ice that coated the glass of the tube. He squinted his eyes, so he could see through the ice. He saw them then, the rugged dark hair that fell around his face, tucked behind his ears. The handsome features, closed and relaxed, yet pained and in stress. The white shirt that didn't fit what the man was. What he had done. What his hands had carried out for the purpose of others.

James Barnes slept peacefully in his cryo-tank.

'They'll come for him', he then heard in a voice he remembered.

Steve. He turned around, searching for a body to attach to the voice in the red darkness. He found none, so he turned back, to look at Barnes. What met his eyes made him jump, gasp, emit a sound of surprise.

The peaceful expression was replaced by that of pure confusion, and then shock. One someone might wear on the verge of death. There was blood, all over him, but there was no clear wound. His hair was longer than what it had looked like mere seconds before, a beard had grown fully around his face. The straps that had held him into place were gone, and where there hadn't been a left arm, was a black cybernetic limb.

'Steve?'

He had never heard the voice of the man in real life, only on recording, and that had always been a distorted version of it. But when he heard the name being spoke out loud, in such shock and confusion, he had no doubt that it appertained to the one and only Barnes.

An image of two men hugging flashed in his mind —before his eyes, since he was already in his mind— and when that was over, the tube was gone, along with Barnes. Leaving Percy alone in the darkness, until he turned around and saw the scarecrow.

His heart beat was erratic.

What had that been about? What was this about?

He was scared, cautious to walk towards the scarecrow. But he did nonetheless because he wasn't waking up, and he knew that he needed to follow through with it if he wanted to. He needed to get it over with. So he walked over to the scarecrow, and had another jump scare when the face contorted and there was Sam, he too, covered in blood from head to toe.

Another scarecrow appeared next to Sam, this one was a man he had only heard about, dark skin and wearing a tight black vibranium costume. T'Challa hung there covered in blood. Then another one popped up, and there was a girl, a woman he had never seen before, antlers sticking out of her head. Then a grey man with red tattoos, followed by…Wanda, she too hung there, blood covering her. Another man, and then…a kid was there too. A kid he remembered seeing somewhere on Tony's screens. Wasn't he the spider-ling, the one he had recruited…the suit he wore certainly pointed him in that direction.

Then Maria Hill was hanging there as well, Nick Fury. Annabeth, Piper, Hazel, Calypso, his sister, his son. Other people kept popping up, they made a circle around him, and then rows behind the front lines. Rows and rows and rows. It was unending. The blood pooled at the base of their trunk, and it reached for him. It reached for him and he tried getting away but he was surrounded.

There was Tony then, kneeling in that pool of blood, right in front of him. He was holding himself tight, almost like he was consoling himself. He seemed all alone, he tried taking a step towards him, but it was like he hadn't moved. Tony was half covered by blood, there was a gaping hole in his stomach.

'It was the only way', an unfamiliar voice said that.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, he started yelling in his head as the blood on Tony's rose and rose—

"Sir, you told me to wake you after fours hours," the voice of the AI, FRIDAY, rung through his brain, rattling it. "Four hours have passed."

He could hear himself breathing…that wasn't a good sign. He could feel the trickles of sweat sliding down the sides of his face. It was all over him, yet he was wearing a thin cloth t-shirt, but long sweatpants. He opened his eyes, felt around him. He was on the floor, and the blanket was wrapped in a knot around his sweating body.

He had fallen off his bead, and yet not waken up, even though he could now feel the ache in his head.

God this was not a good day was it.

First Annabeth and his realization that he couldn't be with her without feeling the way he had felt the whole morning, now this dream which…the more he thought about it, the more it terrorized him to think that it could one day happen. That it might happen, if Tartarus was as strong as he had once claimed to be. If he had that much raw and military power.

He stood up from the floor, blood rushed to his head and he felt dizzy, swayed a little on his feet. Stretched out his arms at his sides to balance himself out. Then took a step forward, to stabilize himself, and then another. He walked over to his bathroom. He really needed to wash his face. Cool up from this terrible nightmare he'd just had.

He walked in and turned the lights on, somehow it was blinding, and he groggily walked over to the sink. Opened the faucet. Let the water run. He tried feeling it, the running liquid. Found he couldn't. He frowned, but thought nothing much of it. He was probably too tired and worn out to feel the water running. It'll come back to him, he was sure of it.

He bent over the sink, placed his cupped hands beneath the running water and waited for it to fill. Then brought them to his face and splashed it with the cool liquid. He felt much more refreshed already. He did it once more, then another.

When he opened his eyes, his breath was knocked out of him as his eyes set on the mirror, and at who was standing behind him. His throat went dry, and the water faucet exploded…he did have control over it. His eyes were wide, his hear beat frantic.

Because there he stood, in his smaller form, but yet he was taller than the Hulk. His flesh glistening purple, rippled with muscle. His fingers tipped with razor-sharp black talons. His boots were of stygian iron, his breastplate had faces of gorgons, monsters, cyclopes and dragons which were all pressing against the armor, almost like they were trying to escape. Everything in the room seemed to be drawn to him.

He wasn't like the Titans, or the Giants, no he was much more worse. His presence alone made Percy want to crawl away and hide. His voice sounded like it was being drawn back inward rather than projecting outwards. His face…there was a helmet on, there always had been, and beneath that…where he could see behind the slit holes of the helmet, a swirling whirlpool and inward spiral of darkness.

God he was about ready to pee in his pants.

He had no voice. He wanted to tell himself, this wasn't happening, but he couldn't. He wanted to yell at FRIDAY to tell her to tell anyone on the facility to leave, to run away as far away as possible, but he couldn't. He didn't have the goddamned strength to be in his presence and stand up for himself. He couldn't even manage to look away from the horrible face that was Tartarus.

His swallows stung his dry throat, but he had to. It was the only thing making him aware that he was still alive, that he was still living. Otherwise he might believe that he was dead, and this was a contorted version of hell, where he was facing one of his greatest fears.

For five years, it had haunted him. For five years he had been expecting the moment this abomination came back into his life. That he came back, and claimed his life, since he should have five years before. And if not five years before, then twenty, the first time he had been in hell and escaped. He should have died then. But no, he hadn't, and since then he had been waiting for the day he would be back and killed him

Tartarus saw his panic, how completely terrified he was. He wasn't going to hide, knowing that Tartarus knew him, after all he had spent fourteen years in hell. However absent the primordial had been in the meantime, he was sure that he had learned how to read him. How to know exactly what he was feeling.

He laughed, and it sounded like a mountain was breaking. Not a soothing sound, quite the contrary, it was terrifying. It felt like these huge boulders were booming down on him, falling around him and were close to hitting him straight on. The hit never came. He remained fixed, his hand holding the broken sink, he knew if he let go he'd fall to the floor.

Tartarus took a step forward, and Percy closed his eyes, flinching as the whole entire building seemed to be shaking with the movement of this extravagant being. As the immense power he possessed moved with him. He opened his eyes again to see the slits of his helmet glinting, almost like his own eyes were glinting with pleasure at seeing his discomfort. How utterly perplexed and stuck he was.

He couldn't move a muscle.

"I'm extending an olive branch," Tartarus said, and gods above his knees were trembling. He remembered the first time he had been face to face with the primordial. That he had dropped his sword out of sheer terror. This was worse. He couldn't comprehend what he was saying even though it sounded important. "An offer of peace before any blood is shed," he continued. "Hand yourself in, help me gain world domination, and your friends won't die, as long as they swear allegiance to me. Otherwise I incarcerate them."

He opened his mouth, for a split second actually believing that he was going to say something. That his voice was going to come out of his mouth and his lips would form words. For a split second he believed that, then he didn't, and he closed it down.

Tartarus chuckled, and again, the sound was horrible to his ears, almost deafening. "I don't want to kill any of them," he said, and in truth, Percy found that hard to believe. Then, "You don't have to answer me now. I know it isn't your choice. But the deal is on, will be for however long it takes for you to make up your mind. Mark me, once your friends die there is no resurrection."

Again he couldn't say anything. Although the terror was fading. His heart beat was returning to normal and steady beats. His breathing was smoother, calmer. His shaking had stopped, but he was still terrified to open his mouth and speak. He didn't want that, and he didn't do that. His throat was still dry.

Then it all turned black, and he awoke.

-.-

There was a scream that escaped his lips when he awoke, and he was sitting up in his bed. He hadn't felt the fall to the floor because he had never fallen to the floor in the first place. His bed was wet, with his sweat, and so was every inch of him, the clothes he wore were drenched in it. His hair looked like he had just taken a shower by how wet they were.

His eyes were wide open, because the moment he closed them he saw blood and he saw Tartarus and either way he heard the cackling laughter, like a mountain was breaking, every single time. It was deafening. It was hurting him and it was giving him a headache worse than ever. He placed the palms of his hands against his ears, trying to block off the sound.

It only made his head hurt worse.

He literally jumped out of his bed, and punched a hole through the wall. A yell escaped his lips and for the first time since coming back, he was glad that Steve and Sam were gone. Hell knew he would have to explain his agitation, which he had no idea how he was going to. Perhaps one day, but had they been here, they would have rushed in within the end of the minute, and questioned his well being.

He was glad they weren't here.

He punched another hole through the wall, and then another. They were all close to one another, and only made the original hole bigger. Nothing that couldn't be covered by a painting he was sure to buy the very day. He wouldn't tell Tony about it, the genius already had enough on his mind, he shouldn't worry about his problems as well. He had enough of a baggage already.

When he had vented enough, he let out a solid and deep breath. In through his mouth, then out through his nose. He stood still for a moment, a good five minutes, in which he clenched and unclenched his flesh hand, the one he had used to punch the wall, where fingers felt out of place, and bones fractured. Where blood was sliding down fingers where skin had broken.

He reigned back the control he had lost.

Luckily enough he hadn't broken anything like a sink, or the shower.

He went into the bathroom, walked over to the sink. Opened the faucet which definitely wasn't broken, and refreshened his face. He looked at the mirror, there was no one behind him. He washed his face again, and then looked back at the mirror once more. There was no one behind him. He couldn't make himself believe it though.

He kept on seeing the silhouette even though he couldn't see it. Even though Tartarus wasn't there because that had all been in his head. He had been dreaming about everyone dying, and then the primordial had entered his head —wasn't that a terrifying thought— and had talked to him, extended an olive branch, as he had stated it.

Like he was going to fucking take it.

It had all been in his head, that's what he kept on repeating to himself as the water from the sink kept on running, and he kept on staring at the mirror in front of him, looking behind waiting for the primordial to appear again. He didn't, and goddam it he lost it then.

He punched the cabinet above the sink —the one with the mirror— with his right cybernetic hand. He didn't calculate the strength he was putting in, and he didn't care in all honesty. The hand went through glass and wood, leaving a gaping hole in in. Actually, his punch went all through the cabinet and through the wall.

Then the faucet exploded.

Shit, he swore out loud. There was no way now, that he was going to be able to cover up the holes and the damage he had caused. No way he was going to do that without Tony not realizing, or Pepper, or Rhodey. Or anyone that came into his room, and it wasn't like he was going to go on from now on without a sink—actually, scratch that…that was exactly what he was going to do.

He grabbed the nearby lying towel and wrapped it around the faucet, stopping the spray of water that was coming out of it. His metal hand worked efficiently, but his left hand was broken, he was sure of it, and there was blood still sliding down the fingers. It was numb, and the short period of time it had spent underneath the water hadn't done anything to help him.

He hadn't wanted it to help, he had wanted to feel the pain to know it was real.

That this wasn't another dream.

That he was awake.

He closed his eyes, keeping his hands at the sides of the sink, placing his weight on them. Then opened his eyes and looked at himself through the cracks of the mirror. He was a mess. There were dark bags under his eyes, and his eyes were red, his hair stuck to his sweaty face.

In a moment of frustration he pulled his clothes off briskly, and then stepped into he shower, where he turned the water on, and stepped under it. He didn't care that it was freezing cold, it was much better than the feeling of the toxic air of Tartarus on his skin. He didn't care that he started shaking by how cold it was, only stared at the blood dripping off his fingers and onto the floor of the shower, as it dissolved into the water and went down the drain.

It was refreshing.

He then thought about fixing his hand, otherwise he was sure he was never going to avoid letting Stark know about what had happened, and so he commanded the water to fix it, and slowly, it mended the bones, and sealed the open skin. When he tried moving it, it was stiff, and it still hurt him, but it was fixed. It was as good as he could hope it to be.

His day had gone from bad, to worse.

He didn't think it could get much worse.

Yet he had every reason to believe it could.

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I'm not going to apologize.

But hey, easter eggs in this chapter.

Love everyone of you that's read this far and still follows this story, that has been since the beginning.

And everyone that takes time to write a review.

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Let's just say that from here on out, the story will mostly be Percy centric...like, from his POV. Maybe some change to Tony or Steve, but that's about it. I mean it's as it's always been...idek.

Great, lots of love,

Hunter