Hi everyone! Thank you for waiting; school's been stressful recently

For the next few days, I spent most of my life horizontal, which I will admit made a pretty nice change. Any time that I was vaguely upright, I was saying hello to Estelle, hobbling around (and getting reprimanded for not using my crutches), or generally getting underfoot as I tried to be helpful.

Apparently I did Not know where precisely the plates go in the cupboard. Sue me.

I might also add that the volume on my phone was always turned right the way up, and the offending item was on my person at all times. You know, just in case there was any update on the progress of the mission (there wasn't).

Life got exciting four days after my arrival, when there was a knock on the door in the middle of the afternoon (you know, the quiet sort of lull between the lunchtime rush and evening rush hour).

Mom was very quick to jump up from her desk (so quick that I wonder if she was seeking an excuse to do so; I had not been allowed to ask how her latest book was going, so perhaps Not Well) and answer the door.

Mom gave a little sound of surprise. "Clint! What are you doing here?"

He mumbled something that I couldn't quite make out from my position on the sofa underneath the front window.

"Well, I don't have enough beds for all of you, but you're welcome to stay if some of you are willing to sleep on sofas and floors. You know that I'd never turn you away. Now, come on in, and bring the rest of your motley crew as well. I needed bread anyway, so I'll get a few bits while I'm gone."

"Maybe quite a lot?" Clint asked, voice a little more clear now that he'd stepped into the hallway. "I think that might be a plan."

"I can make that happen. Now, come on in, all of you. Just try and be a little bit quiet; I wouldn't want to wake the baby."

"With all due respect, I think Percy could deal with being woken up at three in the afternoon on a Tuesday."

Oh, this was brilliant. I heaved myself off the sofa and grabbed the crutch leaning up against it (don't ask where the other one was, because I had no idea), using it to hobble the four or five metres to the doorway.

"Now, I hate to break it to you, but even when I'm on leave I tend to be up by three pm on most Tuesdays," I remarked, leaning against the doorframe because actually standing up seemed rather too much like hard work.

Clint spun quite comically around from where he was leaning against the stair gate to untie the mess that he called a 'secure bow' on his muddy combat boots. He turned back to the stair gate, and I watched a truly beautiful moment as the cogs in his brain finally turned, putting two and two together. "Baby?" he asked, voice suddenly quite reverent and soft. His eyes brightened instantly, even if he did still look exhausted and seconds away from keeling over.

The rest of the Avengers, because that's obviously who it was, were crammed awkwardly into the hallway behind Clint, the door wedged shut behind them. They were all still dressed in their combat gear (with the notable exception of Tony Stark, who I am glad to say was not wearing a full suit of red and gold armour in my mom's hallway), and, to be perfectly honest, looked pretty terrible. Upon seeing that Clint was, they began to take their shoes off, which, when in such confined quarters, resulted in a few people getting elbowed in the face. They all perked up slightly at 'baby', but also looked reasonably confused, which I suppose is a fair reaction to turning up at a complete stranger's house and being told there's a baby.

I jerked my head towards the living room. "If you guys head in there, I'll go grab her."

Mom glanced up very suddenly. "No you will not; I am not having you try and bring her down the stairs. You would both fall and die, and that would be unfortunate. I'll go and get her; you can show our guests into the living room."

After a few minutes of jostling and muffled curses, everybody had got their shoes off and were ushered into the living room, where they just sort of stood, even more awkward than before and obviously trying not to touch any of the furniture.

The most awkward silence of all time descended.

"So… I take it that your mission didn't go entirely to plan?" I asked, taking a seat and stretching out my dodgy leg in front of me.

"Now what makes you think that?" Nat drawled, although the usually terrifying aspect of hearing her voice was limited by the fact that her hair was in complete disarray (think angry hedgehog), and she was covered almost head to toe in pale brick dust.

"Well, the fact that you're standing in my mom's living room, for one."

Steve coughed. "Your mom's living room?"

I assumed my best disparaging expression. "Yeah, maybe we missed that part." I clasped my hands together in my best tour guide impression (not particularly easy when you're slouched on a sofa, but we go with it). "Hello everyone, my name is Percy, but I'm pretty sure all of you have met me before and we've at least spoken. My mom's name is Sally. She is the most wonderful human being on this planet. This is her house. Clint Barton should have been able to tell you most of this information before you arrived. Also, she's married to Paul; he's pretty cool as well. If you do anything that damages or destroys this house, I won't murder you, but they might. You know, just a little bit. And in a nice way."

An incredulous silence fell.

Tony Stark went to open his mouth, but I cut off whatever inane questions he was about to ask. "Also, as you might be able to tell, I am no longer hiding under a rock and have re-signed my SHIELD paperwork, so you guys are probably stuck with me for a while. I would have loved to have been helping you on this particular mission, but some of the guys in white coats back at base thought it would be a good idea to reconstruct my knee with a scalpel, so I'm benched. Doesn't look like I missed too much, though, if I'm perfectly honest."

I surveyed the group in its entirety now that they were all standing still. Tony Stark looked about as manic and tired as ever; he managed to do it simultaneously somehow. Steve looked just about as awkward as he'd ever been, and a bit like a giant trying not to break anything in a doll's house. Nat and Clint had slunk off to the kitchen, probably to get some food and plates (it was kind of unfair that my best friends knew where the plates are in this house better than I did). Bruce Banner seemed to be terrified, standing vey hunched and small in an ugly jumper that didn't fit him, while Thor seemed to have made himself right at home, no matter how incongruous he was in full plate armour and a cape.

Mom came very gently down the stairs, saving me from further agonisingly awkward conversation as the whole group fell over themselves to say hi to Estelle, who wasn't very awake, but seemed to like the attention of all of these new people nonetheless. She bounced her gently in her arms, before passing her over to Clint first, who put his plateful of cookies down in order to hold her. "This is Estelle. She's six months old next week, and she loves meeting new people."

Clint's face was absolutely hilarious, caught somewhere between reverent awe and abject terror (presumably fear of dropping her).

But Estelle seemed to like him, so I can't have done too bad a job in my choice of friends.

Clint grinned down at her as she grasped at his hands. "Look at you!" he whispered.

Mom even let him pass her on to Nat, who then passed her to Bruce who passed her to- you get the idea. For five minutes, they seemed to forget their tiredness and pain, and joined in quite happily with baby pass-the-parcel. Eventually though, Estelle started to get tired again, so Mom took her back, and headed upstairs to put her to sleep again.

"So, how did you fuck up badly enough to end up here?"

Clint wrinkled his nose. "Can we have showers before we answer that question?"

About an hour and a half later (and a few cold showers by the end, I would imagine), everybody had at least washed off the worst of the brick dust. I thanked any gods out there that they had the foresight to pack some civvies in the back of the car, because we could have had fun if we'd had to raid my wardrobe to find some spare clothes that would fit Captain America.

Mom took one look at the inside of the fridge and grabbed her coat to go shopping, so I was left with the slightly awkward situation of having the Avengers team in its entirety sitting on the sofas in my mom's living room, whilst rocking a baby's portable crib with one hand (Mom brought her downstairs so I could keep an eye on her while she was out).

"So," I started. Promising. "Why exactly are you hiding from the rest of the world in my mom's living room?"

Everybody shifted uncomfortably, but Steve was the first to speak. "We needed a safe house to lay low for a day or so, and Clint said he knew a place that was completely off the books."

"And you trusted Barton on that one?"

Steve glanced over at Clint, who was half-sitting, half-lying against the leg of the sofa that I was sitting on, and shrugged with the polite but mildly pained expression that says 'sorry about him, I guess'. "We didn't have a lot of choice. This safe house couldn't be on any online databases."

"It is on some online databases," I countered evenly. "You can't buy a house without somebody registering your ownership of it."

Clint raised a hand.

"What?" I asked.

"Respectfully, as far as SHIELD's online records go, you're dead. There isn't any link to you." At my slightly incredulous expression, he ploughed on. "SHIELD have been understandably a little bit wary since the whole incident in DC, and they're worried about leaks, so, at least for now, any new developments are old-school. You know, on paper and in filing cabinets, that sort of thing. As far as the Avengers are concerned, this is off the books." Clint folded his arms across his chest. "Also, I sat there with Fury and literally watched him wipe it from the SHIELD databases."

I nodded. "Okay, so why exactly are you hiding from SHIELD?"

"We're not." Tony Stark had taken over now, which would hopefully not mean that I would be sitting here listening to him yabber about things I didn't understand for the next three hours. "We're hiding from the Internet."

Wait, what?

"There's a security camera on the street," I pointed out.

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, but it's closed-circuit. It's not on the Internet. You can't hack into that sort of thing unless you're in the police headquarters, which we're obviously not." I'll admit that I'm not a leading expert in the field of video espionage, so I decided to take his word for it. "We're hiding from the Internet because I created a piece of Artificial Intelligence that decided that it wanted to kill us."

Right.

"I was also involved in the process," Bruce piped up. "I'm not sure what we did, but one minute we were nowhere near having a functional system, and the next minute, we were being attacked by this new thing that can upload itself into various physical bodies, and then uplink to the Internet and vanish. It's bizarre."

"So, you didn't create a murderbot?"

"Oh no, this is definitely my fault," Tony clarified, sounding like he was trying to be more upbeat about the situation than he felt. "Even if I can't take credit for creating Ultron, I certainly facilitated it."

"Well, you've come to the right place," I said. "I've been off-grid for years; no reason I can't do it for a little bit longer. I'm afraid that there isn't enough in to feed you guys yet, but would you like anything? I can probably make some tea or coffee, and I see that Clint has found the cookies, so I'll get some of those, assuming there are any left." I glared at the friend in question, who gave me his best and most innocent 'who, me?' face.

There was muttered consensus for coffees, with only Bruce requesting tea instead. I heaved myself upright, and limped into the kitchen, using the wall for support since my crutch had fallen over and picking it up constituted effort.

I tried not to eavesdrop as I crashed around, managing to find seven mugs (honestly an achievement) and the ancient french press that had once sat on the side in our old apartment. The coffee machine sitting on the worktop had too many buttons, and I didn't have the patience to work it out while six Avengers just chilled out in the living room.

There was also a box of tea labelled 'rooibos' in the cabinet that smelt vaguely like normal tea, so I made some of that for Bruce.

It was only after I'd poured out six mugs of coffee (splash of milk in all of them, no sugar) and piled cookies onto a large plate that I realised that there was literally no way that I was going to get it all out of the kitchen without falling on my face and generally making a mess.

Fortunately, Clint had also realised this, so appeared over my shoulder. "Need a hand?"

I bent down (not that easy on one leg) to open a low cabinet and wiggle a tray out from under the mountain of other crap in there (with quite a lot of clattering and crashing, but we go with it), before standing up and slapping the damn thing down on the worktop. "Thanks."

He nodded, grabbing the mugs and arranging them all on the tray. "You got the plate?" he asked, carefully standing up and almost sloshing all of the contents into the sink in the process.

"Maybe." I picked up the plate and followed him out, still leaning on the wall and very grateful that the sofa was not very far away. Clint doled out the drinks, going 'coffee, coffee, coffee, not coffee, so Bruce, coffee, coffee, coffee'.

I took a cookie, then put the plate down onto the floor, nudging it with my good foot so that the others could reach it.

As soon as one of them had tried a cookie, they dived on the plate like a flock of gannets. I raised an eyebrow. "Hungry, huh?"

Tony frowned at me. "You try going off the grid when your last meal was three days ago."

"Three days." I whistled. "Wow, you can tell you live the life of luxury. What part of four years on the run screams 'I ate three meals a day every day' to you?"

He scowled. "What's the longest period you went without eating anything, then?"

Clint laughed. "There were snacks on the jet yesterday," he pointed out. "You're not going to win this."

I scrunched up my nose as I thought about it. "Probably five or six days? HYDRA were pretty close on my tail, and I was on the run in rural Timor-Leste. Not too many corner shops to raid."

Tony's eyes bugged slightly. "I bet you were hungry by the end of that."

I laughed. "I broke into a village bakery and ate myself into a food coma. Best meal of my life."

"Nutritionally complete, as well," Clint commented sarcastically.

"Yeah, says the guy sitting on my carpet and eating nothing but chocolate-chip cookies."

"That's all there is!" he exclaimed, picking up his coffee mug and draining whatever was left (hopefully not too much, but you never know with Clint).

"I could say the same about that bakery." I finished my own coffee and sat back into the cushions a bit more. "Anyway, you guys have done a very good job of giving me lots of entirely irrelevant details about the last few days. What actually happened?"

Deafening silence fell over the entire room. I raised an eyebrow. Still nothing. "Look, guys, trust me when I say that literally nothing could surprise me anymore."

"Not even being trapped by a witch in your worst nightmare?" Tony asked, voice suddenly harsher and more pained.

Well done, Jackson. Put your foot in it there just a little bit. "No, I suppose not," I replied, trying to keep my voice a little bit gentler and less aggressive in my enquiry.

"You know that our mission was to retrieve Loki's sceptre," Nat chipped in. I nodded; it wasn't really a question. "Well, as you might expect, HYDRA had messed around with it, and in particular with the gem it contained. They found that it had the power to change people, bestow strange and deadly gifts on them. The first phase of our mission was successful. We had the sceptre. We knew that HYDRA had been running experiments on humans, but we didn't know who these people were or what exactly they could do. Anyway, we played around with the gem a little ourselves; it's how we ended up creating Ultron.

"Then Ultron decided that he wanted to kill us, and naturally the first thing we did once he'd made an attempt on our lives was to try and find it. Him. Whatever. Anyway, we tracked him down, back in Sokovia, close to where we found the sceptre,so we figured that he'd met up with any of the surviving HYDRA experiments. He had; two of them. Siblings, twins, I think. The boy can move faster than the eye can see, and the girl, well, I think that she can influence reality. She can certainly mess with your head.

"We needed somewhere to regroup; somewhere off the grid where we could recover our brains and get ready for the big showdown. Because there will be one."

I nodded. "Okay, then. Well, I can't say that I'm a qualified therapist, and there definitely aren't enough beds for all of you, but I'm sure that we can manage a hot meal and a spot on the floor, if that helps. I mean, you're very welcome to unload on me, but I can't say that you'll get an overly sympathetic response. I do my best."

The doorbell rang. I sighed, prying myself off the sofa again and gesturing at Clint to chuck a crutch in my direction (fortunately, I can catch). "You guys sit tight; I'll go get that."

I hobbled over to the door to see that my other crutch was leaning against the coat rack, which was handy, so I grabbed that one as well (before I forgot where it was), and opened the door.

It was Annabeth, which made my day even more complicated.

"Hi," I said, trying to angle myself so that it wasn't obvious that the living room was full of fugitives.

She squinted at me, clearly taking note of my extremely suspicious body language and then the fact that I was even there in the first place. "I take it that you're back on the grid now?"

I shuffled slightly. "Something like that. Shall we go for a walk? I'll be right out."

I shut the door on her, waved at Clint and told him to keep an eye on the baby (I was only going to be a few minutes), then rummaged around for shoes (surprisingly difficult when you have a houseful) before opening the door again, stepping awkwardly out, and locking it behind me.

"So," I said, hobbling down the steps like a baby got whilst Annabeth just watched unhelpfully from the road, "how have you been?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Better than you, apparently."

I smiled, beginning to settle into a rhythm on my crutches. "Point taken."

"So I take it that you're no longer an international fugitive," she commented dryly, "considering that you're out on the streets of a city in broad daylight and are not wearing sunglasses and a hat."

"You would be correct."

"I know." She glanced at the (reasonably large) car that the Avengers had arrived in, which was helpfully parked a couple of doors down. "So, bring me up to speed. I take it that you've had some adventures in the last few months."

I laughed slightly. "You would be correct. I did a bit of globetrotting; basically just running around, not staying anywhere long enough for them to be really sure that I was there and generally tying HYDRA up in knots for a while."

"How'd that work for you?"

I shrugged, which is surprisingly difficult when you're on crutches and have a limited desire to faceplant the asphalt. "Passable, for the most part. A few close shaves here and there."

"But something happened for you to end up back here."

"Yes." I glanced back down the street towards the house, even though I couldn't see it. "I met Clint in South Peru."

Annabeth tilted her head slightly, intrigued. "On a mission?"

"I think so. Anyway, whatever was supposed to happen just hit the fan completely, and, next thing you know, I've been medevaced to Chile and Hill's holding my SHIELD paperwork and a pen for me to sign it with."

There was a slightly dry taste in my mouth.

"SHIELD have taken you back?" she asked. "Also, Hill? Isn't she the one that threatened you with bodily harm when we were in Alaska?"

"The one and only," I joked, still terrified that the other shoe was about to drop somehow.

"That's great," she declared.

I stopped dead. "You think so?"

She stopped and turned back to look at me, and rolled her eyes. "You didn't really think I'd be cross that you've finally got what your stupid ass has been wishing for ever since the day we met, did you?"

"I thought you might think I was leaving you behind," I said softly, glancing down at the pavement. It had fewer cracks in it than in our old neighbourhood.

Annabeth stopped and pulled me close to her, hands holding mine steady. "Assassins still get leave, don't they?"

"Not much." I avoided her gaze. "And I won't be able to tell you much about what I'm doing even when I can get away. Plus, it's dangerous."

She scoffed. "You can't tell me that you're in more danger when your assassin-friends have got your back than when you're on the run with the demigods, can you?"

She had a point. "Well, definitely not when you're driving," I joked, slightly feebly.

She reached up and kissed me on the cheek. "That's more like it. Now, are you going to introduce me to the superheroes hiding out in your living room, or not?"

I froze. "How did you even-?"

Annabeth laughed openly, and a lump formed in my throat. It had been well over a year since I'd heard her laugh like that, like she didn't have a care in the world. "Hmm, let's see. There's a ridiculously big car parked outside of your house. There were people there that you didn't want me to see, but trusted enough to leave with Estelle. You've been looking over your shoulder every five seconds, checking if anyone's following us, heading for the house, or burning it down." She finished counting the reasons off on her fingers and shook her hands out in a flourish. "Therefore, it's Clint and probably the rest of the Avengers. You know, you're out of practice when it comes to being subtle and good at spying."

"No, you just know me too well." I tugged on our interlaced hands as a reminder.

She shrugged. "Keep telling yourself that, Seaweed Brain."

We turned around and headed slowly back, meandering along the pavement like any other hopelessly-in-love young couple (except for the crutches, obviously), arm in arm (in my defence, I didn't have a free hand for her to hold).

"So, what's up with your knee?"

I glared without much heat. "Something to do with my ACL. Hopefully, the operation fixed it."

She shook her head, tutting dramatically. "You need to look after your knees, young man. Maybe next time you mess it up, you should actually rest a while before running off around the world to lead your enemies on a wild goose chase."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"No, you won't. Not if anyone says 'family' within twenty feet of you."

I laughed. "No, I won't."

We stopped outside the house. There was no smoke, so I made an assumption that the building wasn't on fire (yet).

"You ready to visit the mad house?" I asked.

She grinned. "Hell yes."

I sighed, as deep and long-suffering as I could before she elbowed me in the ribs for dramatics, then limped up the stairs and unlocked the door, before pushing it open and gesturing for her to step inside. "Shoes off."

"I'm not an animal," she retorted, kicking off her trainers and stacking them neatly onto the increasingly-huge mountain of stray shoes.

Of course not. I rolled my eyes to myself and followed her in, removing my own shoes with a little more difficulty. "We're back," I announced.

"Long walk," Nat commented, doing the creepy thing where she just materialises in doorways.

"Well, if he'd listened to me a year ago then he wouldn't be on crutches," Annabeth replied, with a slight smile playing at her lips. She proffered a hand. "Annabeth Chase. I've been trying to keep him alive for a while now."

Nat shook it warmly (oh gods, what had I done in bringing the pair of them together?). "Natasha Romanoff, but you seem cool, so I won't eviscerate you if you call me Nat. You must be quite something, because by some miracle he's still breathing."

"Well, it is seemingly an uphill battle at times," Annabeth reasoned. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that he was trying to get himself killed.

Nat laughed. "No, he's just an idiot, even when Barton's not around to compound that part of him."

"Hey," I protested weakly. "You're in my house; be nice."

Nat completely ignored me. "You want coffee? I think Tony's put another pot on to brew."

"Yes, please," Annabeth said, and obediently followed Nat into the living room.

I cast a vaguely exasperated, yet fond glance in their direction before following them through. Those two were as thick as thieves, and they'd known each other for less than five minutes. I was quite suddenly in fear for my life.

Nat left Annabeth in the middle of the living room to go and sort coffee, which left her at the mercy of the other five members of the Avengers in all of their slightly-manic glory. I was a little bit apprehensive, but they seemed to get on well. In my absence, Tony had picked up a (presumably fussy) Estelle, and was casually bouncing her in his arms, pointing out things on the mantelpiece to her. I hadn't expected him to be good with kids, but those two seemed to get along really well.

Bruce was sitting on the comfy chair in the back corner, clearly trying to either relax or disappear into the background entirely, which just left Clint, Steve and Thor milling around to cross-question my girlfriend.

I hobbled over and sat down on the sofa, tired after my brief excursion. Annabeth flopped down next to me, and the other three gathered around with curious faces (Steve the most polite of them, I'll admit).

"You been keeping him from getting killed?" Clint asked. "I think I recognise you from the Empire State."

She nodded. "You've got a good memory; I don't think we spoke. I've been doing my best."

He smiled and shrugged, spilling a bit of coffee on his shirt in the process like the human disaster that he is. "Aww, coffee no." He frowned a bit, before seemingly remembering that he was in the middle of a conversation. "Yeah, you've done alright, I think."

"You are Annabeth Chase?" Thor asked, with a slightly pensive expression. "The warrior versed in the workings of war and the buildings of peace?"

Annabeth blinked. "Yes?"

Thor offered his hand to her, which she took with a confused expression that morphed swiftly to regret as he shook it rather eagerly. "It is a pleasure to meet such a mighty warrior!" She gave me a sidewards glance that said help, but I'll admit that I found the whole situation hilarious (if bizarre), and didn't really want to intervene.

"There are tales of your deeds in saving your gods told across the stars," Thor declared, rather too grandly for the small and crowded living room that we were sitting in.

"I think Percy did most of the 'great deeds' during the Battle of Manhattan," she pointed out, which, while flattering, was quite obviously an attempt to move the fangirling in my direction.

Tony Stark paused. Estelle blinked. "What the fuck is the Battle of Manhattan?"

"Hey!" I called. "Delicate ears!"

Tony glanced down at Estelle. "She's not old enough to remember it."

Thor's face lit up as if he'd been waiting all day for the opportunity to start telling an epic tale. He brandished his coffee cup in the air as if he imagined it to be a chalice of mead. "Four years ago, Kronos, King of the Titans, rose from the dead, seeking vengeance against his offspring for the wrongs they committed against him millenia ago. And so, he waged battle after battle, trying to capture the attention of the gods and lure them away from Mount Olympus."

He paused for dramatic effect, taking in Steve and Bruce's enraptured faces, whilst the rest of us all looked pretty bored (most of all Annabeth and myself, who had actually lived through the damn thing). "He came close to succeeding as he besieged Manhattan, getting closer to the entrance to Mount Olympus."

Stark held up a hand, carefully juggling Estelle into the crook of his elbow. "Sorry? I'm pretty sure you've got something wrong here, because Mount Olympus is in Greece, not Manhattan. At least it was the last time I checked."

I winced. "Uhh, I'd recommend not questioning it too much, because honestly I do not understand it myself and I've got pretty far by just not thinking about it. Anyway, the entrance to Mount Olympus is on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building." I held up a hand. "No, the Empire State doesn't have 600 floors, but they're the fucking Greek Gods, so the laws of reality don't apply to them."

"Language," Steve chastised, smiling and looking pointedly at Estelle (damn him for remembering my earlier comment).

"I'm not holding her while I'm swearing," I justified (poorly, sure, but we go with it).

Nat appeared from the kitchen, with a couple of mugs of coffee. She leaned over the back of the sofa to offer one to Annabeth. I made grabby hands at the other mug, but she pulled it out of reach. "You're still taking pain meds; you've had enough caffeine. This is mine."

She pulled up a chair and sat down, waiting for Thor to resume his storytelling.

"However, the Greek Gods are bound by the laws of the universe to not interfere with the mortal realm." I snorted; what do you call all of the shit that they do at any other time? "And so, they sent their children to fight in their stead and protect their territory."

Tony raised a hand again. "Child soldiers?"

I nodded. "Some of them were fourteen, fifteen."

He lowered his hand. "I'm not warming to these guys."

I shrugged. "Yeah, me neither, but we've got to be polite or they smite us for insubordination."

Thor gave me a patiently exasperated Look™, so I shut up. "These children fought long and hard, but without fortune and immortal endurance on their side, the demigods gradually weakened until Kronos succeeded in reaching Mount Olympus. He was mere seconds away from claiming the throne of Zeus as his own, when three mighty warriors thwarted him."

I coughed. "Four warriors. Well, three and a satyr on the panpipes, who, while very brave, probably wouldn't like it if you called him a warrior. Let's go for three and 'peacemaker', shall we?"

Thor nodded. "He was mere seconds away from claiming the throne of Zeus as his own, when three mighty warriors and a peacemaker thwarted him." He paused. "I did not hear of this fourth warrior."

Annabeth gave a tiny, sad smile. "He was there. Carry on."

Thor's look of confusion didn't go unnoticed, but he cleared his throat and carried on. "However, these noble heroes refused selfish rewards for their deeds, instead seeking only ways to build for the future. But their success would have been impossible if for the swift mind of Annabeth Chase, who, in the last crucial moments of the battle, solved the riddle that allowed them to defeat Kronos and banish him from the Olympian throne."

Annabeth's brow furrowed. "Is that it?"

Thor nodded gravely. "That is the tale I have heard."

She frowned, and took a sip of coffee before continuing. "You're saying that my name is the only one to feature?" Thor nodded. "Huh."

"Well, I hasten to add that my solving the riddle would have been meaningless without the other three in the room with me, because I was lying on the floor at the time."

"Sitting on the floor," I corrected. "Don't give the impression that you were having a nice rest."

She scoffed. "Yeah, alright then. I was sitting on the floor at the time, but only upright because of the throne behind me. And you're the authority on what happened in there, are you? You literally spent the entire final confrontation unconscious."

"That's stretching a point. I can remember that part. I just wasn't very with it by the time that our parents joined the party."

"You were unconscious for at least two minutes before the gods arrived."

"Well, that is news to me."

"Yeah, of course it is, because you were unconscious at the time. Shall I continue?"

I nodded and rolled my eyes.

"Without Percy there to understand what I was going on about, he wouldn't have known what to do even though I had solved the riddle. And even Percy wasn't enough to end the fight. That part was down to Luke Castellan, the fourth hero in that room, who gave his life to banish Kronos from the throne room."

"And the peacekeeper?" Steve asked gently.

Annabeth smiled. "He kept Percy's sorry ass alive until the cavalry arrived."

"He had the hardest job, then," Nat joked.

Annabeth laughed, even as her breath caught slightly in the back of her throat. I reached for her hand. "Yeah, he did alright."

Tony raised his hand again. "Now, I hate to be behind the curve, but when exactly did a child militia stage a huge battle in Manhattan without my knowledge?"

"You know that gas leak four years ago?" He nodded. "That. There's this handy thing called the Mist; it stops mortals, you guys, no offense or anything, from seeing what's really going on, unless you're clear-sighted like my mom or Clint." I jabbed a thumb in his direction, where he jumped slightly, spilling a bit more coffee in his lap. (He really did not need any more jitter juice, or he was going to jump so hard at his own shadow that he'd astral-project into another dimension (or, you know, break the furniture)). "Anyway, the Mist makes it look like there's a garbage truck instead of a hellhound. A seemingly normal math teacher might be a Fury."

Tony nodded in that way that people do when they have absolutely no idea what something means. "I'll just pretend that makes sense."

"Yeah, it's best not to think too deeply about these things."

He nodded thoughtfully, bouncing Estelle, brow slightly furrowed, but quiet for now.

Thor piped up, as if something had been bothering him. "You were injured in this battle?" (of all the questions to ask?).

"Yes? I thought that was a given," I replied. "Not all of us are gods. Some of us get stabbed at least three times a year."

He nodded. "No, it is simply that the tales usually mention it."

"Well, the tale in question doesn't mention everybody there, so I think you might be a little thin on the details. I must say that's unsurprising, since the Greek gods tend to keep to themselves, and most people on this planet don't know that story, let alone wherever you heard it."

"It seems that you were instrumental in the vanquishing of your foe, and yet your name does not feature in the story. I will rectify that."

Annabeth smiled, and gave me a nudge. "Recognition at last."

I rolled my eyes. "Indeed; recognition of my VIP status in this story. If, of course, by 'VIP' you mean 'Very Important Pincushion'."

She laughed, and everybody else in the room looked very concerned that I was a) joking about my near death, and b) my girlfriend was laughing about it with me. Oh well, I guess some form of fatalistic humour must be essential if your average life expectancy is 20, give or take a couple of years.

Clint stood up. "I'm getting more coffee. Anybody want any?" I swear that his entire frame was shaking slightly.

The entire room chorused, "Clint, no!" It was a bit of a joint effort, but eventually he was subdued in his efforts to reach the coffee pot (mostly due to threat of evisceration from Nat, I think). Good to see that they looked after him when I wasn't around to confiscate the coffee beans.

At that moment, there was a click in the lock, and (after giving it a shove as it was a little sticky), Mom shoved open the front door, laden down with several bulging shopping bags. She kicked off her shoes and wandered through the sitting room to reach the kitchen, noting where Estelle was and the fact that she seemed pretty chill. "Good to see you guys are getting on alright. I guess you lot are pretty hungry, so I'll get going with dinner. I assume nobody is going to be against spaghetti bolognese with," she opened one of the bags and rifled around, "I believe twelve loaves of garlic bread?"

There was a general positive consensus (everybody loves garlic bread), so Mom staggered through, before beginning to unpack the absolute mountains of pasta, tinned tomatoes and mince that she'd bought. I was honestly surprised that the corner store stocked twelve loaves of garlic bread, but we take what we can get, I guess.

The house dissolved into general chaos as Mom found a truly giant saucepan out of the cupboard (as in 'so big I have no idea how it fitted in there, but it was definitely from the days when she did event catering') and began to chop onions with furious efficiency. Apparently a roomful of hungry Avengers get a little hyper when food is promised soon, rather than as an abstract concept.

Annabeth and I watched from the sofa as the six of them milled around, all tired but smiling, exchanging brief conversations with different people. I watched with slight incredulity as Tony Stark took part in three totally separate conversations simultaneously, all whilst juggling a baby. Not sure if that one's a learned skill or something that comes naturally if you happen to possess the IQ points of at least two people, but either way, it was impressive.

Bruce materialised silently at my shoulder, which was a tiny bit terrifying. "Do you have a balcony or something?" he asked quietly. "I could do with a little fresh air."

I nodded, and pried myself off the sofa with some difficulty. "I can do better than a balcony; there's a little garden out the back." I found one crutch, decided that was good enough (despite the lecture I'd undoubtedly get from Annabeth about 'jeopardising my recovery, etc.'), and limped off, guiding him to the back door and unlocking it with the key that was conveniently on a little hook right next to it.

I pushed the door open for him, revealing my mom's pride and joy in all its glory. Sure, it was small, but Mom had really gone all out with the planting, with brightly coloured ceramic pots of various shapes and sizes packed together on the hard standing, bursting with flowers of all different shapes and colours. "There's even a bench that you can sit on. Just be aware that it's metal, so it'll probably be cold."

Bruce smiled slightly. "Thanks." It occurred to me that he had, like, five PhD's and would probably already be aware that metal benches are cold. He could probably tell me exactly how it was made, as well. He wandered out into the garden and sat down, gaze tilted slightly skywards towards the fluffy clouds scudding over the horizon, fingers tapping on the arm of the bench.

I decided to let him be, and headed back to the sitting room, where, as I had expected, I was reprimanded for not taking enough care during my recovery, blah, blah, blah.

"You love me anyway, though," I reminded Annabeth.

She pinched the bridge of her nose in a very long-suffering way. "Apparently so."

We sat there and just sort of existed for about twenty minutes. About four different Avengers went into the kitchen to offer help, and were (politely, I'm sure) kicked back out again. Paul came home, blinked at the occupants of the living room (who all cheerfully said hi), and went to go and help with the cooking (he was allowed). To his credit, he didn't do the whole freaking-out thing that most normal humans would have.

It occurred to me that Bruce was still outside, and I wondered vaguely if he was okay out there on his own. I tottered back out into the garden, leaving my crutches inside, and plonked myself down onto the bench next to him. I nudged Bruce's shoulder and said, "Hey, what're you thinking about dude?"

Bruce started slightly, and glanced in my direction. "You're very lucky to have something like this to come back to," he said softly.

I nodded. "Yeah, and I'm even more lucky that they're talking to me after all I put them through. It was pretty shitty of me to just disappear on them, multiple times. If I could go back and change everything so that I never had to leave any of them again, I wouldn't hesitate."

Bruce's fingers pause in their drumming. "You wouldn't?" he asked quietly. "What would you have to change?"

I shrugged. "If I'd known that SHIELD knew about demigods, then I probably wouldn't have felt the need to run away quite so badly. I might have been able to work through everything else. The one thing that I've finally learnt after all these years is that running is never actually a solution; it just kicks the problem further down the road."

Bruce gave a quiet sigh. "What made you come home?"

"I met Clint on an op and got myself hurt. I didn't have a choice, and SHIELD suddenly asked me to come back on board."

"And you just said yes?"

"I was tired of running."

Bruce sighed again, more deeply and sadly this time. "I think the 'normal' ship sailed for me the very second I decided to try and play God." He clenched his fists.

"I don't think that's true," I replied evenly. "I thought for a long time that I would never be able to go home, but I'm here. If I can do it, then I think you can as well."

Bruce's fingers started to drum again, quiet but incessant. Something shifted a couple of inches to the left in my brain, and understanding came to me like a little cartoon lightbulb.

"I was scared as well," I said softly. "I thought, no, I knew that my lack of control would hurt the people that I loved. But that changes, given time." I bent my concentration towards the watering can next to Mom's flower pots, and a neat little silver-shimmering globe of water rose out of the top like a demonic floating tennis ball. After a couple of seconds, I let it go, and the water flopped back into the can with a gentle slosh. "Just about the first time I did that I caused an earthquake, but now, it's just a small thing that I can do as easily and with as little consequence as breathing. Well, almost. I won't stretch the point too far."

Bruce laughed, quietly and harshly. "When I lose control, I can't get it back. It unlocks a monster that levels entire city blocks, and I'm powerless to stop him once he's out. Can you imagine knowing all the time that such a danger is inside your mind, just waiting to be released?"

I smiled and shook my head slightly. "When I'm really, truly angry, I've summoned lethal hurricanes and brought down bridges. I've drowned monsters in their droves and I've enjoyed it. I know what it means to lose control, and I know how frightening it is. Do you know what helped me in the end?"

He glanced over at me, fingers pausing in their relentless rhythm. "No," he replied, in a small voice.

I nodded. "I tried to reconcile the fact that these deadly powers were intended to protect me," I replied, trying not to sound like a total lunatic. "The whole point of having powers is to make me a better tool for the gods to use in their fight against what they perceive to be the forces of darkness; they make me a better weapon. But good weapons tend to last, so above all, these powers keep me alive. Have you considered that the same might be true for you?"

Bruce shook his head, incredulous. "There is no kindness or understanding in the Hulk; no mercy or compassion. I don't think he'd know what 'protect' meant if you read him the Oxford definition. All that's in him is anger, and hate. That's all."

"He saved Tony," I reminded him. "Nobody else could have caught him in time, and his suit was dead. He would have been killed on impact with the New York asphalt if the Hulk hadn't jumped to his rescue. He understood enough for that." I paused. "Maybe he's not angry at you," I suggested. "Maybe he hates to see you angry and scared. Has he ever been in a situation that isn't a conflict?"

Bruce leaned back, brow furrowed. "You think I need to show him a peaceful wilderness and some pretty flowers?"

"Would it hurt if you were somewhere uninhabited?"

"I don't know," he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing at a spot with the corner of his hoodie before putting them back on again. "I don't know."

"You must be hungry," I said, stretching my leg out awkwardly. "Mom's cooking, and it probably won't be all that much longer. Come back inside when you're ready, yeah?" I stood up very slowly, balancing stiffly on my crutch.

He shuffled slightly, and eventually blurted out what must have been playing on his mind the entire time. "Your sister." He tilted his gaze down slightly when I turned back to face him. "I don't want to hurt her. I'd never live with myself if-"

I cut him off. "Don't you worry about Estelle. You'd have to get through me and my mom to get anywhere close to hurting her, and that's harder than it sounds. Also, possibly Tony as well. She seems to have got him wrapped around her little finger."

"You haven't seen what he can do. You don't understand, I'd-"

"All due respect, Bruce, but I'm tougher than I look, crutches or no crutches. If I could hold back a Titan's legions almost single-handedly with nothing but a few grazes and bruises to show for it, then I could face you down."

"He levelled three blocks when Tony was trying to subdue him, using a specialised armour and everything. I-"

I shook my head. "Tony probably wasn't prepared to die for those city blocks. The occupants, maybe, but not the buildings. Hulk wouldn't touch her. That house is full of some of the most powerful people on this planet. If it came to it, we could protect her from you. But I don't think it would ever come to it. Come inside and have some spaghetti. You'll feel better afterwards, I'm sure."

We waved the Avengers off at dawn the next morning (after what must have been a rather uncomfortable night's sleep with all of them piled onto the limited floor space in the living room) as they headed out to Sokovia to stop the demon-robot-AI that Tony had accidentally created. Clint left me with a hug and a comm unit that he slipped into my hand just as he was leaving. Judging by the sleight of hand trick, this wasn't something that he was supposed to be doing.

I sat down on the sofa and turned the TV on quietly, leaving it tuned to the news channel while I munched on breakfast, pottered around and generally became an anxious wreck. I wished Annabeth hadn't insisted on driving back to Camp after dinner (probably because of the sleeping arrangements issue that we had going on), because I really needed somebody sensible with me.

The comms were silent until about midday (more like 6pm or something local time) when they crackled to life, the Avengers landing not far outside the Sokovian capital of Novi Grad. How they knew this was where the showdown was going to be, I wasn't sure, but it seemed that they were right, because Stark was quick to run a super-complicated subterranean scan that told him (and therefore told me as well) that there was some sort of system buried beneath the city that was incredibly rich in stolen vibranium.

Now, I'm no scientist, but even I knew that Captain America's famous shield was made of vibranium, and that it was a metal with some pretty awesome (and rather worrying, given the context) properties. The motley crew got going pretty quickly, Stark pinpointing the ground-level course of the bizarre network, and the others fanning out across the city to prepare for whatever was going to happen next.

There was an exclamation of surprise from Stark, followed by the characteristic whine of repulsor fire and a colourful stream of curses, which pretty much told everybody present that he'd encountered Ultron.

They all made a beeline for the church where Tony had last been heading to, racing to his aid, until, over the whistle of the wind and relentless blasts of weaponry firing, he spouted a string of what was mostly (scientific? maybe) gibberish, but ended with a clear instruction to evacuate the city.

The news was still churning over the stories of the day. There was a waterskiing husky.

The comms spat forth more cursing as Stark's entire Iron Legion seemed to crawl out of a hole in some Sokovian sewer, and, now decidedly not on Tony's side anymore, began to fire on both the Avengers and the innocent civilians who were beginning to freak out and run around in the streets, screaming (which, strangely enough, was not terribly helpful).

The only advantage of the panic was that people were starting to listen, and they were getting out of the city. A 'breaking' banner unfurled across the newsfeed (finally). Someone snarled about 'vultures', which was probably referring to the news helicopter with an aerial feed of the chaos. There was a shout about a runaway train, and the news cut to footage of a train fucking flipping 180°, which was terrifying, especially when I knew Clint was on it (although, somehow it didn't surprise me. Not sure anything could anymore).

There was a muted 'ow' from the comms, which I assumed was Clint catching up with being slung around like a god playing with a rag doll. However, a Clint who is able to speak on the comms is a Clint who isn't dead (yet), so as of now this was a good sign. I tapped my comm unit and frantically checked in. "Is everyone still alive down there?"

"Yep." Nat's voice crackled through the radio and I breathed a sigh of relief. "We're all good."

"Define 'good'," Clint grumbled, which was an even better sign.

"Wait," Stark's voice cut through the comms unit, clearer than the others, "is that Jackson?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, you're stuck with me even though I can't be there with you guys." I frowned. "Or even walk that well, for that matter. But yeah, I'll be watching the news and screaming if there's anything obvious you haven't spotted."

"What, like the train deciding it was a rollercoaster?" Clint asked, groaning as he (presumably) pried himself up from whatever 'floor' he'd found himself on (the train had flipped over, so he was probably lying on a wall or ceiling). "I think we got that."

"I can see the bigger picture," I replied smoothly, then groaned as the TV cut away to some harried-looking news anchor who was frantically going on about the train. "Well, sometimes."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, they'll cut to ads in a minute." There was a crackle and a piercing screech of feedback as he flew too close to a power line and all of the comms fritzed. He winced as soon as they came back online. "Sorry guys."

"Well, I'm babysitting my little sister as well as you guys, so that's something I can do during the ad break rather than try to work out what the fuck is going on through a relatively unstable communications line."

There was the unmistakable crackle of somebody fitting an earpiece which was already turned on. "This is Rogers." No shit, Steve. "The Maximoff Twins are helping to evacuate the train; they've agreed to cease fighting us."

"Why? Last time we met, they were quite keen to beat the crap out of us."

"HYDRA didn't tell them that they were fucking Nazis when they were recruited." Steve heaved a sigh. "And they're Jewish."

Yeah, I can see why they might be switching sides after that revelation.

"Well, we don't have any spare comms," Tony replied, "since Barton gave the spare to our back-seat news-watching assistant." Thanks, man. "They'll have to keep eyes open and listen to verbal instructions. Okay?"

Steve relayed the message. "That's good," he called back. "Let's get this place clear before Ultron does whatever he's planning on doing. Tony, keep distracting him if you can."

Stark groaned. "Human punching bag, reporting for duty." There was a dull whine as he charged up his repulsors again, followed by some unpleasant metal-on-metal crunching that suggested that he was now attempting hand-to-hand battle with the automaton. Surely enough, the news cut back to a tumbling aerial battle; flashes of red, gold and silver. The helicopter unhelpfully swooped in nice and low to get a perfect shot as the pair crashed into the ground (accompanied by some cursing from the comms), before jumping up and quite literally wrestling each other, as you do.

"Stark," I called. "You probably don't want to listen to me, but it might be helpful. I'd try and avoid the wrestling match; you'll lose. No offense or anything, but he's got no pain receptors and last I checked there was a person in the suit you fly, so try and use that to your advantage."

"How?" he spluttered between blows. I watched and winced as Ultron landed a reasonably powerful punch to the midsection of the Iron Man suit.

"Humans are unpredictable, you especially," I replied. "Machines think logically, so do something illogical."

Tony fired up his repulsors and flew straight into Ultron, crashing head-on, which I assumed meant that he was heeding my advice and generally being stupid. He went into a tailspin, but converted it to height and swooped up above Ultron, who quickly raced airborne to give chase.

"Okay, so now what?" he asked, ducking and diving, occasionally firing off a shoulder-mounted flashbang to piss off his assailant.

"I'm no expert on man-powered flying suits," I answered truthfully. I'd kind of hoped that he'd make it up as he went along. "But if my limited knowledge of jet-flying is anything to go by, then you usually want a height advantage."

Tony hummed, sounding rather casual and thoughtful for somebody embroiled in the kind of aerial battle which is won or lost in a split-second. "That would work if I wasn't trying to keep him away from a site on the ground."

True.

He retro-fired, bringing himself to a complete stop mid-air, before arcing back towards the ground, strafing Ultron's general vicinity with tiny missiles. "Also, I think said target is a bomb."

The comms went quiet for a moment. "What?" Clint asked. The news had cut back to the train, and I could just make out his bow on his back as he stood on its side (roof, sort of, now it was flipped on its side), scanning for people running in the wrong direction.

"Yeah, a bomb," Tony replied, furiously zigzagging between columns and buildings. "JARVIS detected a detonating mechanism right at its centre. Not sure what the rest of it does, though."

I stared at the circular shape of the city on the screen, grateful for the news agency's helicopter shot, and slowly realised what was going on. "Tony, can you scan to see if that device is an electromagnet, like a super powerful one?"

"Sure? Any reason why?" Tony paused as his thoughts caught up with me. "Oh?"

Ultron seized his momentary distraction and shot straight past him, into the church with the activation mechanism.

Stark spun on a dime to follow, but it was too late. A powerful blast sent him flying backwards the way he came, plowing through a row of parked cars and coming to a screeching halt buried halfway into a set of concrete steps leading to a huge apartment block, as perfectly captured by the news helicopter.

Mechanical laughter like nails on a blackboard filled the comms, and, with the terrible deep-seated groan of the very Earth being torn asunder, the best part of Novi Grad began to rise into the sky, powered by enormous repulsor engines; a personal meteor to wipe humanity from the face of the Earth.

The live feed on the news bucked and dipped as the helicopter furiously lurched to the side to avoid the city as it rose, sloughing off a rain of dirt and soil, before it too began to climb to try and keep an eye on the action.

"Stark?" I asked, since the blow he'd taken had looked to be a reasonably serious one, and it would be unfortunate if it had killed him.

There was a muffled groan, which I took as a sign of life. "Yeah, I doubt those repulsors aren't going to be flying you places anytime soon," I replied, hoping to get a bit more out of him.

"You underestimate their resilience," he ground out, still managing to sound affronted despite being (very obviously) incredibly winded.

Thor, chipper as ever, informed Tony that he'd dig him out if he needed to, and went over to play 'distract Ultron' for a while.

I stared in horror as I watched the city continue to climb higher into the sky. "Oh, fuck."

Estelle giggled from where she was sitting on the ground in front of me. "Fuck!" she exclaimed, clapping her little hands together.

My horrified gaze narrowed onto her rather than the TV screen.

"Fuck."

Thank you for reading! Here's a gentle reminder that we also post this fic on AO3, as FFN appears to be becoming more and more unstable over time, so we'd prefer to respond to comments etc there!