CHAPTER 5

The metro hospital emergency room admitted him into the trauma room without even making him sit down in the lobby to fill out the paperwork. He was actually a little offended how fast they admitted him, sat his ass down in a wheelchair, and whisked him into an operating room. He must have just looked that bad.

But turns out, Stymphalian birds—those cocky-ass man-eating birds with bronze beaks and sharp feathers and poisonous shit—trapped in a small Italian restaurant in the city was a great way to guarantee every kind of laceration possible, at every depth, in every place he could have imagined and then some. To the point where, after falling two stories out of the restaurant window and absolutely destroying his left leg, he thought maybe he would just lay down and bleed out on the street.

"Young man, how you got here is a small miracle," the doctor hovering over him said, clipboard in one hand while the other ran through his thinning gray hair. He had Percy lying on an operating table in a small, blue-green room, naked except for his shredded pair of boxers.

Percy was shaking. Just this slow chill creeping over him as nurses ran alcohol pads over the cuts—cleaning his face, shoulders, chest, back, assessing the worst of his wounds—all the while trying to keep his left leg immobile to minimize the nauseating, white-hot pain that shot up his left side when he moved it.

"Can you tell us a little bit of what happened?" the doctor asked—no, not doctor. It was another man, about his age, with a shock of black hair and a face that reminded him of Frank. He loved that guy.

"Freaking birds," Percy managed. The nurse on his left warned him about applying a nerve block, and he couldn't figure out what that meant in time to brace himself for the sharp needle inserting itself at his hip. Then the pain was fiery and deep and Percy howled at that guy that looked like Frank, who took his hand, despite it still being covered in dirt and spaghetti sauce and his own blood.

"You got attacked by birds?" Frank's twin asked. Percy nodded, clutching Frank's twin's hand in a vice, feeling every time the medical needle plunged into and out of his skin. Over. And over. And over. "Looks more like a combine harvester accident to me. Sorry, can you give me any more information about the incident?"

"Heard something snap," Percy croaked. "Left leg."

"Yeah, we got that much buddy. You squeamish?"

Percy scoffed. "Nah."

"Great. Your bones sticking out about an inch and a half."

Percy let out a long groan. Gods, why wasn't that blocker setting in yet.

"Hey, hey—focus on me," Frank's twin said. "We're gonna get that x-rayed, but we've gotta sew you up first before you bleed out on our table. And it's my first week of residency, so I really don't want that to happen."

So Percy crunched the guy's hand until they'd stitched the worst of his wounds on his face and stomach, then x-rayed his leg. And then cried a bit with him when they took him to pre-op. The guy said his name, Percy forgot it, and he said his name again.

"It's Duri," he said. "Mr. Jackson, can you tell me if you've got anyone we should contact? Anyone you want us to call to keep you company after the op, or that should know you're in the hospital?"

"Annabeth Chase, my girlfriend," he croaked, closing his eyes to stop the nauseating swirl of the ceiling above him. "But she's in Reading—in-in England."

Duri blew out a loud breath. "We'll try and get a hold of her. Anyone else?"

"Nobody." Though maybe Benson from the museum would want to know.

Duri squeezed his shoulder. "You're going to be fine, okay? I'll go call your—"

"Wait." Percy thought of Annabeth in class, pacing the room, trying to get an expensive plane ticket last minute and flying all the way here, missing her lectures, not passing, staying away for even longer—"Don't call Annabeth. She can't get here. I don't want to worry her."

Duri was quiet. "Okay. You really want to do this on your own? Recovery isn't going to be easy. I'd rather know you've got someone you can call."

"Just operate on this freaking leg already," Percy begged.

So Duri stepped back, and a new doctor placed the breathing tube onto Percy's upper lip. The world went soft at the edges, then blurry.

Then black.

Percy woke to find himself lying in a hospital bed, every muscle screaming and his skin feeling too tight for his body.

There was a mask on his face—thick and uncomfortable, itching against the stubble starting to grow along his jaw.

He rolled his eyes one quick glance around the room only to find that doctor-in-residence Duri sitting next to him. His broad-shouldered frame was hunched over his phone, texting. Their eyes met for a moment, and Duri's eyes narrowed.

Percy raised one sluggish arm up, grabbed the mask, and tossed it off.

"Easy," Duri said, grabbing for the mask and missing. "Look, you shouldn't even be awake yet. Don't move so much."

Duri. Not Annabeth. Gods, he hadn't even told her.

He could have died, and he hadn't even told her.

He felt cold, clammy. He was shivering despite the warm blanket draped over his legs and torso. He huffed harshly through his nose, swiped a trembling hand over his eyes. He had to breathe. Just breathe. Get the thoughts under control.

Gods, he hated doctors. And hospitals. And healing the mortal way.

Sweat was seeping into his hairline, and moisture threatened to spill past his eyelids.

"Try and get some more rest," Duri urged. "Everything went as expected. We were able to fixate and set the bone, close that initial wound in your calf. Cast'll come when the swelling goes down. Everything looks great, and we'll try and get you home tomorrow. But you've got to rest, let yourself recover."

He could hear the exhaustion in the almost-doctor's voice.

Percy let his eyelids fluttered shut, tasting disinfectant and sweat on his chapped lips as he tried to wet them. Duri was still talking, but losing the battle to the buzzing in his ears.

Then he was gone again.

It was so much worse the second time he woke.

"Shit, shit, shit," Percy ground out, nostrils flared, eyelids clenching together. He gripped the sides of the bed, balled the sheets in his fists.

There was a relentless stream of flames concentrating their fury on his calf, digging and scraping and searing. It was permeating through his veins, grating and raucous.

"Oh, gods." Percy's teeth chattered together as Duri cleaned the wound site. He felt the metal rod through his shinbone shift just slightly inside him, enough that his stomach flipped and he was dry heaving into the basin the nurse had set in his lap. He panted hot air past his chapped lips, trying to divert his attention from the burning.

The nerve block had run out about an hour ago, the pain meds making him nauseous and the nausea pills he had taken to combat that not doing their job in the slightest.

Duri cursed his name as Percy wriggled under his antibacterial ointment.

"I don't want to see you in here again, okay?" Duri said through gritted teeth. "So I'm giving you my number against my better judgement. If anything starts to look red and angry? Text me. If anything starts to bleed and you can't seem to stop it? Text me. If you see that bone again? Text me, because I'm dragging your sorry ass back to the ER."

Against Percy's better judgement, he let him stuff his number and the paperwork into a little drawstring backpack they had put the pain meds in.

"You're non-weight bearing for at least three weeks. You've got our PT recommendation package in the backpack. Try and avoid stairs if you can, even on the crutches." Duri layered gauze and wrapped the wound with expertise, if not a little spite. "Look, we'd like to keep you another night."

Duri sat back on his haunches and looking up at Percy, the ace bandage wrap paused in his hand.

"I can't," Percy grimaced. He literally couldn't afford another night in this Tartarus.

"Then change your bandages, take your medications on time, and don't get that cast or immobilizer wet." His tone changed, eyes softening. "And find someone who can help you while your girlfriend is overseas. You're going to need it."

Percy took hold of the crutches offered to him, and Duri walked him down the hallway and to the hospital exit. From across the block, Percy could already see his apartment. The sidewalks bustled around them already, the wind plucking at Duri's green scrubs and lab coat.

"I'm on lunch break, so I'm headed to the café." Duri threw a thumb over his shoulder at the building next door.

"My apartment's this way," Percy nodded in the opposite direction. "Thanks for patching me up, doc."

Percy turned, but then Duri's hand was on his shoulder.

"I'm going to sound insane if I say this, aren't I?" he said, shaking his head. "I've read too many comic books."

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked, laughing even as it pulled at his stitched stomach wound.

"You think I believe you got attacked by birds? You're one of those vigilantes New York seems to breed." Percy opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out, so Duri kept going. "I mean, it's not a coincidence that you stumbling into our ER timed perfectly with the headlines of 'Stranger Defends Beloved Italian Restaurant from Armed Burglar.' You're…some wannabe Batman with a golden sword or something."

Percy cleared his throat, just being upright for this long causing his nausea to pick up speed, and his leg's heartbeat to double. "It's not what it looks like," was all he managed.

Duri was raking his hands through his hair. "That's exactly what a vigilante would say."

"I'm not—look, I just want to go home and then sleep for three years. Duri, it was great meeting you, man. Sorry for keeping you on your lunch break."

Then Duri had him by the shirt collar. "Vigilante shit is dangerous, Jackson."

"I know," Percy hissed. "I'm the one with a rod rammed down my shin."

"You could have lost that leg or lost your life. Sometimes those guys get lucky and we can save them. Sometimes they die in alleys and nobody even knows it. Gamhi insaeng-eul nangbihaji masibsio," he said under his breath. "I don't want to see you in a morgue. Especially… especially since you really did save some lives yesterday."

Percy eased the doctor's hand off his collar. "You won't. I promise."

"Good."

"Yeah."

Then Duri turned around, pulled his coat around his shoulders, and stalked off.