Disclaimer: Whoever gets paid for this, it sure ain't me.
The next few days are interesting logistically speaking. Cassie spends at least three of them learning exactly how many travel arrangements you can make using a demigod safe phone while sitting in bed. Because bed is most definitely where she's stuck.
That little story about doctors being bad patients? Yeah. Apparently that is one category in which Cassie is not the exception.
She putters around the apartment a little, but whenever Steve is home while she does, he watches her out of the corner of his eye and in reflective surfaces like he's worried she'll pass out. It seems to take a lot of his mental restraint not to hover next to her when she paces while she talks on the phone. The fact that she stood up too fast the first time she tried on the morning of day one for planning and had a head rush probably doesn't help.
It can now be officially confirmed that Steve Rogers can travel thirty feet in .7 seconds. Approximately. Cassie doesn't actually know how to count tenths of a second. That would be a skill. Maybe a mundane one, but a skill none the less.
The gods bless Steve for trying not to hover in person. He makes a really genuine effort in that area. Instead, being who he is, he makes a plan. This plan involves the recruitment of allies, and probably some kind of color coded schedule.
Given the fact that Cassie is literally the only person on the planet with both the magical and medical training apart from her little brother to know exactly what's wrong with her and the necessary treatments and concessions, she kind of thinks the level of babying she's being subjected to is unnecessary. Unnecessary, but also evidently inescapable. She knows, she's tried.
And been summarily thwarted.
By everyone.
Seriously the entire building seems to be conspiring (or less dramatically, in on the plan) to keep her at home and away from work.
Reyna and Meg show up one day with homemade churros and vanilla ice cream along with full license from Tony to use FRIDAY for TV binging. They also bring Wanda along with them. The girl initially feels a little guilty over the fact that Cassie had gotten hurt at the museum, but Cassie and Reyna together banish that with a few other epic monster induced injury stories.
Meg threatens to sit on her when she volunteers to take their used dishes in to the kitchen. Wanda hovers full water glasses to them from two rooms away without being able to see them rather than letting Cassie get up to fill them like a normal person, and Reyna expresses her concern by persistently adjusting the thermostat and alternately handing her more blankets and pulling them away again.
She puts up with it as well as can be expected and only throws one minor tantrum when Meg unsubtly tries to follow her out of the room when she gets up after the third episode of television she had never watched when she was the target audience and could have lived without watching ever.
"I know I have been poisoned but I have been capable of walking twelve feet to the bathroom by myself for more than twenty years! I am not going to pull a fast one and dive out the window to escape all of your well meaning intensive care!"
After that her friends back off a little and when it's time for them to leave, no one protests or makes a face at her walking them to the door.
The next day begins with Natasha walking in with a large bowl of borscht that can be heated up to eat later. She also carries a volume of cold case crime television on disc, the watching of which is altogether a lot more entertaining than the teeny bopper show they'd suffered through yesterday in the name of familiarizing themselves with popular culture. What makes the experience even better is that occasionally Natasha will scoff at something and say that whatever the people on screen have said is completely wrong.
If she had to guess she'd say that this extra knowledge probably comes from a source marked 'Top Secret'. She's also got the feeling that between Nat, Bucky, and Barton, most of the international unattributed assassinations and murders over the last twenty years can probably be explained. However, these are questions she is definitely never going to ask.
When it comes to her close personal friends and sketchy murder, unless they feel like giving her the details, she's going with the philosophy of ignorance being bliss.
What's not so much bliss is Cassie getting an alert about the team going out to handle some kind of crisis in Pennsylvania and having Natasha kidnap her phone. "It's being handled," Nat informs her dryly, tucking Cassie's phone in to her back pocket. "It's flyover recon and containment. No one on the team is even actually leaving the ship unless they have to. Tony's deploying the drones."
"What if something explodes and everyone catches fire and dies?" Cassie asks, eyebrows raised.
Natasha dissmisses her (she feels perfectly valid) concerns with a wave of her hand. "Then we'll know it's a normal day with Tony Stark."
By that Thursday, Cassie's convinced that there's some kind of conspiracy in the works.
This conclusion is one that's hard to avoid with Pietro Maximoff bouncing around her apartment like a pingpong ball on crack offering to get her things and deliver paperwork for her. At least he doesn't take her phone like Natasha had, so she has a way to call for help. Given her suspicions and the fact that Rhodey and Sam are both busy, she skips around texting either of them or Steve and instead dispatches an S.O.S to a different rescuer.
Bucky doesn't reply, but does show up in a timely manor to save her from attempting lunch with the human Energizer Bunny hybrid that is Pietro. He invites himself in and reaches out one metal hand to catch the silver-blue blur of Pietro's shirt. "There was a line of ridiculous, and we've passed it," he informs Pietro. "You're spelled."
Pietro takes a deep breath and glances between Bucky and Cassie. "Excellent," he says. "Not that you were not excellent company Doctor. But if I leave now I will be able to find the lovely Meg before she leaves for her meeting. I think it was something to do with vegetables." With that he blurs over to Cassie, kisses her forehead, and then blurs out the door.
Once he's gone Bucky shuts the door and turns back around to face Cassie. His gaze takes in the too-clean apartment, the vats of food people have brought her and left for her on their visits, the stack of movies and DVDs, the books and files scattered around the couch she's been parked on for the last three hours, and the nest of blankets Steve had left her with before leaving that morning. Then he looks at her and cracks a small smile.
"Go get your coat," he tells her. "You need actual air in it's natural form and human contact."
Cassie grins and hops up from her seat. "Do I get french fries too?"
Bucky rolls his eyes. "Duh. Bring a sweater or something. If I'm jailbreaking you from the proxy hovering of Steve Rogers we are not risking you getting a cold. He's the only guy on the planet who can punch me and make it hurt."
In five minutes flat, Cassie is dressed, clean enough for public interaction, and wearing actual shoes for the first time in days. She never thought it would be so wonderful to tie her own shoes. "Thank you so much," she says as they make their way out the door. "Day one was nice in that he thought to ask people to come over and keep me company. Day two was pushing it but he ducked out too early for me to bring it up and came home late."
"He knows you've figured out he's hovering through other people," Bucky says casually. "Knowing him, he's trying to avoid you so you can't yell at him."
She frowns and fiddles with the zipper of the sweater she had grabbed off of the back of Steve's favorite chair. It'll be huge on her, but it'll be comfortable and warm and honestly that's how Cassie prioritizes her clothing choices when she doesn't have to look professional or put together. "I wouldn't yell at him," she says. "We've never done the yelling thing before. We talk. I don't wanna change that, but I can't promise that something like this won't happen again and this can't happen every time I get hurt."
The elevator stops on the ground floor and opens on to the parking garage so that they can leave the building without dealing with the press or general public. Bucky gestures for her to exit before he follows after her. "You're not hurt."
"I know," Cassie says, resisting the urge to stomp with more force than necessary as she walks in her frustration. "That's why this is so freaking frustrating! I'm fine. I was slightly less fine yesterday and will be more fine tomorrow. All of the bruises and cuts are completely gone. There is no blood loss. The poison is almost completely out of my system. I have the demigod equivalent of a bad cold or mediocre flu strain."
Bucky stops walking and turns to her. "Both of which could have and very nearly did kill Steve when we were kids. Plus his mom caught Tuberculosis and died. Intellectually, Steve knows that this isn't the same. But he sees someone he cares about sick and somewhere in his brain a scrawny kid from Brooklyn starts ringing a giant plague bell of panic and death."
Cassie processes this information has to admit that it makes a lot of sense. Well, it's not like she had a lot of other things to do or people to talk with for the rest of the day. Bucky isn't exactly chatty, and seems to have no problem leaving people to stew in their own thoughts. She'll take some time and figure out how to change her approach when she brings this up with Steve later.
She and Bucky have a nice lunch together at the diner Steve used to go to a lot when he had lived here right after Loki. It also happens to be the diner where Cassie had worked as a waitress while attending Columbia. She's pleased to see that they've rebuilt the ceiling and walls previously destroyed by the Chitauri.
The fries are still amazing, hot, and crunchy. The coffee still tends towards the slightly burnt side of things, and they still provide a menu that encompasses a wide variety of breakfast and lunch foods available at all hours of the day. Bucky, having a metabolism that matches Steve's, orders full breakfast and full lunch and plows through it in slightly over half the time it takes Cassie to eat her single hamburger with fries.
It's a nice lunch and Cassie realizes that Bucky and her haven't ever spent much time just hanging around each other without Steve and Reyna around too. The fact that they're friends with each other on their own terms and for their own reasons as well as for the sake of the people they have in common is a great thing in her mind.
Towards the end of their meal Bucky's phone beeps. He wipes his fingers on a napkin and then extracts the device co read the message. "We should wrap up here," he says. "Steve's now asking me how you are from a conference room."
Cassie clucks her tongue and waves to get the attention of their waitress. "My boyfriend, the perfect soldier, reduced to under the table texting. What's the world coming too?"
The check arrives and she pays, leaving a generous tip. She doesn't know their waitress personally, but having been part of the restaurant service industry, she feels a certain sympathy level towards other people in that profession. Besides, dealing with rude, impatient, and indecisive people seriously deserves monetary compensation.
"Well I haven't gotten an emergency message so we know the world can't be ending. Between our two jobs, someone would have mentioned it."
Just to be on the safe side, Cassie checks her own phone and is relieved to find no messages. She shrugs at Bucky's sideways look. "It's an average Thursday," she says with a sheepish expression. "I thought I should check."
They arrive back at the Tower and Bucky drops her off at the apartment before heading off to find Reyna. He leaves her with a waring that Steve is probably pacing around the living room by now and a surprisingly nice hug for being a former soviet brainwashed assassin.
People have all kinds of diverse skills.
Another one of Bucky's seems to be the guessing of Steve Roger's location at any given time. This is probably a natural skill developed over a long childhood spent together. Either that or he's got a bent for divination.
Both options are sadly viable in her life.
Sure enough, Steve is standing in front of the living room window tossing his phone from hand to hand. It's a nervous tick, and one that means he's wondering how many calls he can make to ask how she is before it gets annoying or creepy. The answer to that question is exactly one.
"Okay," she sighs. "Are you ready for me to tell you for the bajillionth and finale time that I'm fine now? Because I'm planning on going to my office tomorrow and doing the rest of the planning we need to do to go up to Camp, and if you're going to be texting me every five minutes or sending people around to check up on me I am never going to get anything done."
Steve inhales deeply and catches the breath before exhaling. It's a calming technique Cassie hopes will work because she'd really prefer to have this conversation with her boyfriend Steve rather than Captain America. Captain America can not be argued with when he's concerned for the health of one of his team members. Her boyfriend Steve can hopefully be talked back around to his customary sanity levels.
The question of who will be showing up to this conversation is resolved when Steve exhales and his shoulders slump as he meets her eyes. "I'm going crazy, aren't I?"
Cassie slides in to a seat at the kitchen island. "Just a little," she tells him, holding up one hand with her finger and thumb a few inches apart. "Just like this much. What I'm worried about is an expansion to like, this far." She holds up both hands a complete arms length apart. "I can handle this much," inch again. "This much crazy? Not really."
Steve approaches and takes a seat across the island from her. "You got hurt and I got protective," he says.
"Honey," Cassie interrupts. "You didn't just get protective. You got panicked. You sent over friends to try to distract me and hover for you while you were busy. Then you actively avoided having the conversation we're having right now." She leans forwards and braces her chin on her hands. "You knew something you were doing and reacting to was something we should talk about but you avoided it instead."
She waits while Steve takes in her words, dropping his chin. "You're not wrong," he admits. "I'm sorry. It's just..." he searches for the words he wants and Cassie waits patiently for him to find them. "I'm not used to you being hurt," he says finally.
Cassie reaches forwards and takes one of his hands with both of hers across the counter top. "I've been hurt since we've started dating," she reminds him as gently as she can. "I've broken bones, bled a lot, and gotten concussed. And not to make this situation worse, but I've also been kidnapped by a killer robot. We've fought monsters and battles actually together. So, why is this time different?"
"Nothing was ever permanent before," Steve mutters, fingers twitching and twisting a little between hers as they tangle more tightly together. "You heal. Every time somethings happened to you I've been worried, but it never lasted."
"This won't either," she says firmly. Then she lifts her free hand and cups his cheek so that he'll look at her and not the floor. "It's only lasting a little bit longer." Then she leans over and kisses his forehead. "Bucky thought-" she hesitates and then goes forehead. "Bucky thought that part of the reason you've been so freaked out is because this has been more like me being sick than being hurt. He thought maybe it was bringing up... bad memories."
Steve lets out a puff of breath and then returns her kiss. The next time he speaks, his mouth is still pressed against her skin. "I got shot at. I got shot more than once. I faced flame throwers and bombs, but none of those things ever got as close to killing me as Whooping Cough did. I broke two ribs. Bucky kept me alive."
Cassie turns her head a little and adjusts so that it's more tucked under his chin. "Bucky's a good friend," she agrees. "We had a nice lunch today. He's pretty smart too. Knows you really well. He also mentioned your mom."
Before he answers, Steve reaches out across the counter and lifts, pulling her across the surface and in to his lap. She learned early on in this relationship that Steve finds it easier to talk about subjects he doesn't enjoy when he has personal contact between them. Knowing that, she nuzzles in to his chest and enjoys the feeling of his heart beating under her ear.
"She was a nurse," Steve says. "Eventually she ended up working on a TB ward. We didn't have a lot of money or food and she wasn't much luckier or stronger than me when it came to illness. It didn't take long for her to catch it. She spiked a fever and died over night with me three feet away."
A few things click in tot place. "So the fact that burning off the poison in my system involved having a fever for an extended period of time while I was unconscious was-"
"A nightmare I didn't know I could still have," he finishes. "Yeah. Pretty much."
Thy lapse back in to silence for a few moments before Cassie sits up straight to face Steve fully. "Would it help you at all to know that I don't get sick?" she asks. "Godly blood equals godly immune system. I can't catch a normal cold any easier than you can. The only time I've had a remotely human illness was when my own father accidentally gave an entire camp Hay Fever."
Steve tilts his head as though examining the state of his own thoughts now that that new piece of information has been assimilated. His fingers, as they so often do when they sit like this, have made their way to the ends of her hair as he thinks. "Okay," he says finally. "Okay. I think that helps."
Cassie nods once in acknowledgement. "Good. Then it will also help you to know that the only reason I spiked a fever at all was from the Nectar I had to drink to treat it, and my own healing magic. Godly healing takes energy and energy means heat. The fever was not illness or a reaction to the poison itself. Also, the creatures with venom potent enough to cause that much damage can be counted on one hand. The only thing worse than Chimera is Pit Scorpion venom, and I managed to heal that for Percy when I was thirteen."
She reaches up to curl the fingers of one of her hands around the edge of his jaw. "I know that you trust me. You know I can take care of myself in fights and that I'm capable of protecting myself. So, trust that I know what I'm doing when it comes to my own recovery. I won't push myself when I shouldn't, but you can't hover all the time or make our friends do it. It's impractical, and will inevitably drive me nuts."
Steve releases a deep breath and then leans down a little to be able to kiss her. It's a gentle thing. The lightest touch of warm lips against hers, and the softness of it is at odds with the way his arms are wrapped so firmly around her back and sides. Cassie doesn't mind. This combination of sensations and gestures is a more honest representation of their relationship than forced lightness.
The kiss extends for several long moments and Cassie leans in to it, trusting Steve to keep them balanced on the island stool. "I do trust you," he murmurs against her mouth. "And I know you can handle anything. You're... amazing. And I know you've lived a lot of your life fighting all the time and dealing with attacks. It's just hard knowing that when they do happen, I can't help you."
"You do help," Cassie tells him. "You help because I know that whenever I have to fight, I'm fighting for something besides me." She leans up to kiss him again. "Trust me. I'm way to invested in finding out what our future's going to be like to die on you."
For a moment, Steve's eyes flicker as a shadow seems to pass behind them. Cassie thinks she knows what the flicker is about. Steve's already lived through losing everyone he loves once. The idea of losing anyone else must be horrifying.
She has lost enough herself to know that.
The arm wrapped around her tightens a little and Cassie allows the tug. Though in all honesty, she doesn't actually know what space between them Steve had thought existed between them before. Regardless, Steve's arm is more comfortable and probably less yielding than the marble of the kitchen island.
"You know I fight to come home to you to," he tells her. "I have been for a while. I think since that first mission I had at Thanksgiving. I didn't even really know you at that point, but I knew I wanted to. I wanted to get the chance to talk to you more."
"I am a great conversationalist," she agrees. Cassie smiles up at him. "Wanna tell me about it and explore the more from the couch? I know we both have good balance, but this seating arrangement seems needlessly precarious."
He manages to smile back as he glances at how they're seated like he's failed to notice their situation until just now. "That could be arranged. Hold on."
Instead of letting Cassie do something simple and normal like, oh you know, walk, Steve keeps her scooped up against his chest as he stands and goes over to the couch.
"You know what no one likes?" she says casually as she resettles against the arm of the sofa. "No one likes a show off Rogers."
Steve shrugs. "If scoring super strength can't be used to impress my girlfriend, then what's the point in having it?"
Cassie hums like he's thinking it over. "Hmmm... I think there was something on the super soldier box about like, defending the weak, holding the forces of darkness at bay, beating back the ungodly evil threatening to swallow the world, spreading democracy, protecting freedoms for the oppressed, stuff like that."
All credit to Steve, he's managed to master the art of the poker face in recent times. "Right..." he drags the word out, letting it trail. "I could have sworn there was something in there about impressing girls though."
"Maybe it was in the fine print?" Cassie suggests, holding back a smile.
"That must have been it," he agrees, knitting their fingers together again. "I like to read contracts thoroughly."
At that Cassie nods. "Reyna does tell me that's important. It took her like four hours to read her employment contract when Pepper hired her."
"How long did it take you to read yours?" he asks.
Cassie laughs. "My initial contract to work here was a single text conversation with Tony. The only thing I read before signing was my budget, paycheck, housing benefits, and insurance. Pepper's name was on a lot of the documents. I figured nothing in it could be that bad if she'd okayed it. How long did it take you to read yours?"
Steve hesitates. "Do you mean the initial contract with the army, the one I signed with SHIELD, or the new one with Stark?"
"Any and all," Cassie says.
He blushes a pale and lovely shade of pink that Cassie wishes she could immortalize on film to show the general public who still seem convinced that Steve is more unshakable icon than flesh and blood human being. "I didn't actually read the first one with the SSR," he admits. "I just signed it. I wanted to fight and that was the only way I could do it. Besides, I didn't expect to be around to deal with legal consequences if there were any. I took eight hours to read through and understand the SHIELD contract."
The full weight of what that must mean sinks in and Cassie has to giggle a bit before she manages to smooth out her expression. "And um, what exactly did that contract have to say about crashing a helicarrier in to the building and dumping the entire data network on to the internet?"
"Nothing good," he admits. "But I normally consider a contract with my employer voided after said employer tries to assassinate me and decimate the population of the planet."
"That's good," she agrees, reaching for the throw blanket hanging over the back of the couch and draping it over them. "You should make sure that that provision gets added to all future contracts. Just to have it in writing." Steve doesn't answer verbally, but he won't quite meet her eyes and the pink flush that had started in his cheeks has now spread down his neck and over the tops of his ears. "Oh my gods," Cassie says, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. "You totally did that didn't you? Somewhere in your Stark contract there is a paragraph saying you get to do whatever you want if he tries to kill you."
Finally, finally, finally, that gets him to all out grin. "It seemed like a good idea."
It is at this point that Cassie dissolves in to a puddle of laughter.
The following days are a blur of sorting out all of her backlogged work and coordinating the trip to Camp. It's harder than it might be because calling Camp has to be done very carefully due to high concentrations of magic and demigod power. Staying on the phone for any extended period of time is dangerous so the conversations have to happen in increments lasting no longer than ten minutes.
She, Meg, and Reyna also have to coordinate together with different members of the Hecate cabin to get rudimentary warding in place. For an extra kick, Cassie puts in phone calls to the Kane siblings. They're a bit more in touch with gods on a day to day basis given that one is their pet cat, so they're pretty up to date on working out godly magical protection.
Normally it would be a pretty big risk to criss cross between Greek and Egyptian godly magic, but Cassie's always had a bit of an in when it comes to Egyptian gods. They happen to have a thing for sun magic which is one thing that Cassie has always had in spades. She earned a particular friendship with the goddess Bast by forming a bubble of sunshine around her while she napped in cat form.
That friendship pays off in spades when it gets a thin layer of cloaking magic laid over the Tower to make it harder for monsters to find.
Meg and Cassie even grit their teeth and get themselves together to make a very risky Iris Message call to Cassie's own father. Iris Messages to gods are always a bit of a crap shoot. For one thing, it's always possible that a god caught unaware will be in their true form when called and blind or vaporize you through the magical connection. For another thing, their are all kinds of awkward possibility for what the gods could be doing when you called them.
Apollo is a particular risk in this area.
Outside of those potential complications, they have to deal with the inherent risk of asking a god to do or provide anything as a favor. Hardly anything ever comes free of charge when it comes to dealing with the godly half of their family. In fact, any human asking a god for anything was likely to come out of the encounter thoroughly screwed.
Thankfully, this request can be eased by the fact that Apollo is still partially obligated to help Meg if she asks owing to the indentured service bond. It also helps that apart from a few notable exceptions during special circumstances, Cassie has very rarely asked her father for anything. She's also completed several quests already in her fathers name and in general has scored some good will.
At any rate, they've got a light net of basic protection thrown over the building by the time they leave it to make their visit to Camp Half-Blood with Steve, Bucky, Pepper, Tony, and most importantly Katya. The Tower will be a safer home for all of them with the new enchantments in place, and these are words that they will be able to reestablish once the Avengers & Co move upstate.
The drive down to Long Island is one of the stranger road trips Cassie's ever been on, and considering the fact that she once traversed a large portion of the country being flown by a gigantic metal angel that talked, that's saying something.
She wonders what happened to those statues. They had pretty muted ditched them in San Francisco with a large flock of unperturbed pigeons and highly confused homeless people. She hopes they lived happy and fulfilling lives.
Could sentient metal angels with overly shiny toes have happy and fulfilling lives? Could your life ever be unfulfilled? Did the metal angels even have emotions?
These are the questions that spin themselves around Cassie's mind when she reflects too hard on the events that her life is actually comprised of.
Part of the ridiculousness comes from the fact that their is no godly way to get four demigods, two super soldiers, one CEO, one billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist, and one speedster (Pietro decides to come along on the trip at the last second which Cassie suspects has a lot to do with Meg informing him that he'll be coming with them weather he likes it or not) in to one car. None of them are actually clowns, contortionists, or magicians. The magicians are in Brooklyn.
It's also imperative that each car they take has at least one demigod in it to get through the magical borders around the camp. It would be really annoying to drive all the way to Long Island only to have half their group magically transported fifty miles out of their way. Plus it's hard to give directions to what looks like a random strawberry farm in the middle of Long Island.
Eventually they end up having Bucky and Reyna in one of Stark's stretch vehicles with Tony, Pepper, and Katya. Cassie, Steve, and Meg take a perfectly normal car from the motor pool. Pietro simply runs laps along the highway next to the car and occasionally stops next to them during traffic slow downs for Meg to pass him snacks out the window from a cooler in the back seat.
Steve drives and Cassie sits in the passenger seat playing D.J with a mix of music freshly downloaded to her phone. The phone is a good source to use to help Steve catch up with things because the selection of music is so completely randomized. Meg provides snacks to the entire car and handles giving Reyna prompting directions over the phone after they get separated by a line of traffic.
It takes them nearly three hours to get to the bottom of Half-Blood Hill and Pietro is bouncing around like he's been waiting for hours already despite the fact that he's been zipping back and forth to the car for directions every five minutes. Cassie can only imagine that his and Wanda's mother must have had the patience of a saint to deal with him even before the enhancements. Hyperactivity, thy name is no longer Leo Valdez. Thy name is now Pietro Maximoff.
"Uh, why are we stopped in the middle of farm territory Sacagawea?" Tony asks with customary tact the moment his car door is shut behind him.
Cassie jut smiles at him benignly. "Well housing, feeding, and caring for nearly a hundred kids at a time doesn't happen cheaply. You can't exactly charge poor displaced orphan demigods for needing a place to live in safety, so we fund the camp with strawberry exports to the city. Mr. D being around makes them grow like crazy and the dryads don't mind doing the picking."
That's when Meg pipes in. "Not to mention the highly valuable contributions from my sibs over in Cabin Four." She fist pumps. "Agriculture for the win!"
Tony narrows his eyes at her. "Meg, you have now reached the point where your sarcasm is so finely tuned I can no longer tell when you're being serious." He holds out a hand for her to shake. "Well played."
Meg shakes and Cassie fits off making an audible noise of distress.
Reyna on the other hand, doesn't bother holding back. Instead she groans and begins walking up the hill. "Let's go," she urges. "Any hike it better than witnessing this ungodly alliance."
It's pointless to argue with anything you agree with so Cassie nods and begins to follow, gesturing for everyone else to come along. Pietro zips to the top of the hill and back four times before they reach the crest. However, they soon reach the pine tree that marks the Camp boundary.
Katya makes a frightened squeaking sound and grabs on to Cassie's hand, squeezing tightly. "There's a dragon," she whispers in a terrified voice.
Cassie almost swears under her breath for not remembering to warn the smaller girl but checks herself just in time. "Hey, it's okay," she assures. "Pelios is a friendly dragon. Do you see that gold thing up in the branches? That bit that looks like a shiny blanket?" Katya nods. "Well that's the Golden Fleece. It helps keep the valley down there safe. Pelios guards it for us. We got him when I was fourteen."
The daughter of Hephaestus doesn't look completely convinced, but she nods and lets go of Cassie's hand to go back over to Pepper who is squinting at the pine tree. "I think I see a pile of electric cables," she says. "That'll be the Mist thing right?"
Reyna nods. "Yeah what's actually there is-" she breaks off after taking another look at the now huge golden dragon looped lazily around the base of the tree trunk. As she watches, Pelios snores out a puff of smoke. "Never mind," Reyna says hurriedly. "Just go with the idea that whatever is there is a security measure and is completely harmless to us."
Apparently Tony isn't quite ready to let the subject go, but he's latched on to a different subcategory of the story. "Uh, excuse me, Golden Fleece? As in Argonauts? Symbol of authority and kingship, that golden fleece?"
"That's the one," Cassie confirms. "Annabeth, Percy, and I went and got it when I was fourteen. Now it's healing magic helps keep the magical borders around the camp strong. Plus it keeps all the plant life in the valley healthy."
Katya raises her hand like she's in school which Cassie appreciates, but doesn't actually find necessary. However, this whole experience must be a little overwhelming for her. If pretending she's on a school field trip helps her keep a handle on things, Cassie's more than willing to play along. "Yeah Katya?"
She puts her hand back down and asks, "Why's it in a tree if it's magic?"
To answer the question, Cassie crouches down in the warm grass so that she can talk to Katya from the same level. "Before I first came to Camp when I was your age, they used different magic to protect the borders. I was with some friends and we were being chased by monsters. My friend Thalia was hurt and she decided that rather than running, she'd stay behind to protect us so that Annabeth, Luke, Grover, and I could get to safety. Right before she died, her father Zeus turned her in to a pine tree, this pine tree actually," she points to the pine next to them.
"For a long time after that, her spirit protected the boundary. But years later someone tried to poison the tree which damaged the borders. Obviously we couldn't let the tree die so a few of us went on a quest to get the Fleece to heal the poison. It worked really well and brought Thalia back, and now the magic protects the border instead of her."
It's the most kid friendly way she can think of to tell that story. Somewhere down the line at Camp someone is sure to tell Katya the unedited version, but hopefully that'll wait a few years. It had been a traumatic enough set of events to actually live through, no one needs to share the nightmares with her who didn't gain them through unhappy experience.
Thankfully, Katya doesn't seem to have any other questions. Pepper and Tony are probably a different story. Maybe she'll be able to pawn those off on Chiron and the nice and helpful orientation film instead of retellings the entirety of her life story before the age of twenty-two. She's told Steve and that's enough.
Reyna and Meg have their own stories.
It's at that moment that Pietro bounces back in to view. "Why are we still waiting at the top of this hill?" he asks. "There is something down below it right?"
That's Reyna's cue to spin to Meg. "Ms. McCaffrey, do the honors. Dr. Morgenstern, theme music!"
Cassie rolls her eyes, but knows her father in particular would enjoy the theatrics so she pulls out her phone and plays a drum roll. When it ends Meg cups her hands around her mouth and shouts upwards at the cloudless blue sky. "I, Meg McCaffrey give all none-demigods present permission to enter Camp!"
As it always does, thunder rumbles and Cassie, Reyna, and Meg shuffle the rest of their group hurriedly across the boundary line. The sound rolls across the valley again as the magical borders seal themselves behind them. She might be imagining it, but Cassie thinks she can almost feel the wave of power as it falls across the valley.
It takes her a moment to realize that the entire group has gone silent as they stare down at Camp Half-Blood.
The silence breaks when Bucky lets out a long, low, whistle. "Well I'll be damned."
Cassie pauses and looks down at the Camp. As she does so, she's trying to imagine that she's seeing it for the first time. She has to admit, it's pretty impressive.
From this height, it's possible to see campers paddling serenely along the canoe lake and the glow of the lava pouring down the maximum difficulty course on the climbing wall. A rhythmic banging noise echoes, signaling that the forge is currently in use. One of the cabins must be in the middle of an early morning arts and crafts period. The colors of the chariots going around the track indicate that the Iris, Athena, and Aries kids are having a race.
The cabins sit in their familiar omega with the ceremonial fire glowing in the middle. The white marble of the dining hall pavilion gleams in the morning light and the smell of strawberries wafts through the air as dryads, a few kids from the Demeter cabin, and two new daughters of Dionysus Cassie's heard about but not met yet wander through the fields. Pan pipe music played by the satyr drifts to them on the wind.
And there in the heart of the valley sits the Big House. The building hasn't at any point changed in Cassie's memory. It's still a resplendent three story farmhouse with sky blue walls and snowy white trim.
"Everyone," Cassie says softly, leaning her head sideways on to Steve's chest. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood."
Steve wraps an arm around her and rubs a small circle in to the skin of her shoulder with his thumb. Cassie lets herself lean in to him a bit more. She hasn't visited in a while and she's not necessarily sure that she can put a name to everything she's feeling right now. Hopefully she'll be able to sort it all out over the course of the day. Regardless, she appreciates that Steve gives her the headspace and quiet she needs to work it out as they all make their way down the hill to the Big House where Chiron sits in his wheelchair waiting for them.
It's a bit odd to see him this way since while at Camp Chiron generally goes around in full centaur form unless he's injured. However, it makes it much easier to step forward in to the hug fold her in to in greeting. "Hello My Dear," he says, just as she has since she was eight years old, and Cassie takes an extra moment to soak in the familiar smells of coffee, parchment, and fresh hay that always cling to him.
Cassie's never hugged her grandfather in her entire life. She's hugged her father once ever in twenty-five years and that was right after she'd helped defeat an entire Titan army. Chiron is the closest thing she's got.
She backs up pretty quickly so that Reyna and Meg can have their turns for a hug and when Chiron's created them all he wheels his chair backwards and regards them all. "I believe there are some introductions to be made."
Meg jumps in to speak first and grabs Pietro by the hand. This is a pretty brave move seeing as Pietro is nearly vibrating with excitement and a longing to zip around the Camp to take in all the new sights. Given that Pietro is completely capable of super speed, grabbing on to him has the potential to really freaking hurt.
"This is Pietro Maximoff," she introduces. "He made a really shitty life choice and let Nazi scientists experiment on him so now he's got super speed. I brought him because everyone else was brining someone and I thought he'd keep me form getting bored on the drive up."
Chiron's mouth twitches at the corners as he fights a smile. He extends his hand to Pietro and the two of them shake. "Lovely to meet you I'm sure," he says.
Pietro nods, bouncing a little on his toes. "Meg's mentioned you. You have some excellent space here. Good for running."
"Indeed," Chiron replies neutrally. "And on that note," he turns to Meg. "Why don't you show Mr. Maximoff the Hermes Cabin's new running trail? They've added nearly twelve miles to the track going through the woods. Just do please remember to mind the giant scorpions. We never did manage to recover all of them form the last training exercise three years ago."
At the mention of the running trail Pietro perks up. "Giant scorpions?" he checks. "Well this I must see." He steps back and scoops Meg clear of the ground before taking off at a run that just barely stays in the visually trackable speed range.
Chiron leans up in his chair a bit to watch them go. "Those powers are remarkable," he says out loud. "Though I must say the vibration level is somewhat concerning. I worried he might wear a hole in the ground if left in one place for too long." Then he turns to Tony and Pepper. "And I don't believe either of you needs much introduction. You are rather remarkable individuals yourselves. I understand our new camper is your adoptive daughter?" Katya steps forwards shyly and Chiron gives her a kindly smile. "Well hello."
"Yes this is Katya," Pepper says, placing a hand on Katya's shoulder.
"Hello," Katya says, waving a little. "Meg said you were a centaur."
Chiron smiles. "Ms. McCaffrey was telling the truth. I am in fact, a centaur. However, when meeting parents I normally find it best to stay in my more mundane form. It makes for a less startling first impression, and allows me to more easily fit inside the house for the information session and the showing of the orientation film."
"I've still never seen that," Reyna comments.
"Me neither," Cassie agrees. "And I lived here year round for ten years."
This is where Tony interrupts. "Wow wow wow. You're half horse."
You couldn't train hyperactive teenaged demigods for thousands of years without developing inhumanly high levels of patients. Those thousands of years of practice must be coming in to play now. "Indeed I am my boy. However, given your humanity, I believe the Mist might interfere with you seeing my true form were I do reveal it. Therefore, I'm afraid you will need to take the word of the demigods among you."
Steve is frowning. "Hold on," he says. "Hold on. I recognize you. I met you once back in 1944! You were at one of those stupid USO shows they made me do to sell bonds. You bought a poster and had me sign it."
At that Chiron smiles. "Indeed. I followed your career with great interest for quite some time. I went to the show you are referring to in order to investigate a report from one of my satyrs. He believed it might be possible you were a child of Mars. It is not so unusual for them to experience drastic physical growth overnight. And they occasionally have quite exceptional strength close to the kind that you exhibited. I had my doubts, but thought it was worth investigating and had an excellent impression of you upon our meting. I kept the poster in the hopes that someday, your potential would be put to good use. Today it hangs in my office above my desk. I must say, I am gratified that you remembered me."
Steve turns pink and looks vaguely uncomfortable in the way he does whenever someone gives him thanks or compliments that are truly heartfelt. "I'm glad I made a good impression," he says sheepishly. "I wasn't exactly at my best during those shows."
Chiron waves the comment aside and shakes Steve's hand. "Think nothing of it Dear Boy. You were politeness itself and all things grow with time." Next he turns to Bucky and holds out his hand again. "And you must be James Barnes."
"Bucky," Bucky offers. "I prefer Bucky."
"Noted," Chiron says. "Cassandra, Reyna, why don't the two of you show Steve and Bucky around the camp while I give our guests some information and answer any extra questions they may have. We can all catch up again at lunch time."
The suggestion is a good one so the four of them leave the porch of the Big House and split off in groups of two. Reyna takes Bucky off to view the weapons range to inspect the target shooting. Cassie leads Steve away towards the Omega of cabins.
"Originally we just had the central 'U' around the brazier and it was just the twelve gods and goddesses on the Olympian Council," she tells him. "Gods were the odd numbers on that side and goddesses were over there with the even numbers. We added on after the Titan War and Percy made the gods swear to acknowledge all of their children. The wings were Annabeth's idea."
Steve stops just in front of the fire and revolves slowly on the spot, taking everything in. "I can guess what some of the main ones are," he says, and then goes on to correctly identify the cabins belonging to Demeter, Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite, Ares, Poseidon, and Hades. "I'm not so sure about that one."
Cassie checks where he's pointing. "That's Hermes," she says. "Cabin Eleven. It's less crowded than it used to be. Before we built the extra cabins, all the undetermined kids were put in there. You could tell which kids were actually Hermes' children because they were the ones who always won at footraces and poker. Dionysus' Cabin Twelve, and the Athena kids are over there in Cabin Six. The one with the owl over the door. Hephaestus is Nine, that one there that looks like a bunker. Artemis' is that log one. You can't tell now, but it glows silver at night."
Steve doesn't speak, but his eyes flick around the buildings as she points, taking in each one. If Cassie knows how his mind works as well as she thinks she does, he's building a mental map of the Camp layout and beginning background contingency plans. "So that means Cabin Seven there is..."
"Yeah," Cassie finishes for him with a smile. "That's home." She takes his hand and pulls lightly. "Come on. I'll show you."
The solid gold glow of the outside of the cabin seems to intensify the closer they get and Cassie catches Steve blinking rapidly in the brightening shine. At the door Cassie releases Steve's hand to press her palm against the wooden door. The yew swings gently at her touch and Cassie steps inside, leading Steve along behind her.
The inside of the cabin hasn't changed since Cassie left it. Her old bunk is still made and tidy, exactly as she left it. Will's selection of texts on Apollo for new campers to reference is still on it's shelves. It probably helps that Apollo has shockingly not had any new camp aged children recently so no one new has moved in. Now the only campers left in the cabin full time are Kayla and Austin.
Each bunk is made with clean white sheets and fluffy duvets including the cot in the middle kept available for injured campers. Delos flowers grow in happy yellow blooms along each window along with red and purple hyacinths. Rough wood beams break up the white plaster and host hooks for coats, weapons, and medical supplies. Felix's spare trombone is propped up in one corner and their's a trunk at the end of each bed for clothes and personal possessions.
The whole room smells like fresh laundry and sage.
Cassie twirls dramatically around the room and then hops backwards on to her own bunk. "Home sweet home," she says. "This was my bunk. I was the only girl when I first got here so I didn't have an overhead bunk. The track up there on the ceiling was for the curtain. The boys put it up so I could have privacy. That's why Kayla's bunk is the only one nearby."
Steve examines the entire cabin with careful eyes. "Why- I mean- With all the stories about Apollo..."
She lets him try to maneuver around to a polite and tasteful way for him to ask the question he's clearly thinking of for a count of thirty seconds. If he can figure out a way to do it she'll be really impressed and she kind of wants to see if it's possible. At thirty five Steve shrugs once looking sheepish and blushes bright red so Cassie takes pity on him.
"You mean, if my dad is such a slut how come he doesn't have more kids?" she asks with one eyebrow raised.
He turns a bit redder but organizes his features in to a blank-ish mask and nods. "Well I wasn't going to put it like that."
Cassie smiles and shifts further towards the head of the bed, patting the foot of it for Steve to sit down which he does. It's surreal seeing him there, sitting on the end of her bed in the cabin she had grown up in. She takes a moment to absorb it and smiles, shaking her head a little as the image processes.
"Well, the simplest answer to your question is that my dad isn't picky," she says. "He likes goddesses, nature spirits other gods, human women, human men. There are lots of different possible romantic combinations for him, and only one of those combos results in demigod children. And Will and I grew up and moved away and Lee and Michael died in the war. Which was fairly energy consuming for all the gods, and then my dad was in hiding for a year, and then human for another one which didn't leave a lot of time for having affairs. I think the humanity stint also kind of proved to my dad how much being his kid sucks, so he's been careful for the last couple years."
Steve manages to crack a smile. "Like godly Freaky Friday."
Cassie groans. "Whoever introduced you to the acting career of Lindsey Lohan has so much to answer for. You had literally seventy years of pop culture to catch up on and that's what someone picked to show you."
"It's probably mostly my own fault," Steve muses. "When I first came out of the ice after New York I didn't really have a system for catching up. I just read tabloids and newspapers and worked with the internet. A few months after the battle Lohan's name popped up a lot and I made the mistake of asking Tony who she was. He showed me The Parent Trap first, which I didn't have a problem with. Then he put in Freaky Friday. I think mostly just to watch what would happen."
This story has the effect of making Cassie bang her head in to one of the wooden beams in the wall. Steve laughs and reaches out, pressing his palm in to the wall behind him so that it's between her head and the wall. Her eyes are shut so she can't see his grin, but she feels it against her mouth when he kisses her.
She opens her mouth below his and lets the kiss slide in to something deeper, getting a good grip on Steve's shirt and using it to pull him closer. In a truly impressive display of core strength, Steve straightens out fluidly, bracing most of his weight on his hands, spreading it between the headboard and the wall. She plants her feet and hooks one knee around his hip, folding their bodies together as a tiny gasp escapes her mouth and the groan Steve makes is something she can feel under her fingers where they're pressed against his chest.
The thought that she's making out with her boyfriend on her childhood bed suddenly makes it's way through her minds and she laughs once against his mouth.
"What?" Steve asks, smiling. Smiling because she's happy, and that makes him happy too.
"Uh-uh," Cassie murmurs, slipping one hand up and in to the soft hair at the base of his neck, scraping her fingernails lightly against the skin there and loving the way Steve's eyes close as he shivers. "Nothing," she says, leaning up and brushing two more kisses against his mouth, feather light and feverish. "Just thinking-" She breaks down as Steve catches her mouth with his again.
When they break apart to breath Steve moves sideways, his lips burning a warm path towards the corner of her jaw. "What?" He's gasping, and Cassie is bizarrely proud that she's capable of rendering the world's best soldier breathless. "What were you thinking?"
It takes Cassie a moment to track down exactly what it was she had been thinking. When she finds the thought again it makes her giggle once and Steve dips down, starting at her shoulder and inching along her collar bone. Concentrating at all right now is very nearly impossible.
"There used to be this rule against any campers being left in a cabin alone together if they were dating," she manages to say. "It wasn't a rule I ever thought I was going to break."
Steve gives a short laugh, the breath puffing out against the skin above her clavicle. Cassie laughs too and he rolls to the side to lay next to her, covering his face with his hands. "Oh god," he mumbles, voice muffled by his arms.
"Gods," Cassie corrects. "There's a lot of them here."
They're both still laughing when Austin opens the cabin door. He does ask what they're laughing about, but neither of them can really explain. This is because they don't actually know. It's very possible they need some more sleep and a day of trivial activities.
To his immense credit, Austin simply shrugs and goes over to grab his trombone. "Whatever, I'm gonna go practice. Cass, Chiron said if I saw you to tell you to meet him and Mr. D at the Big House to talk about wards."
Cassie pulls herself together and gets up, wrapping her little brother in a hug and ruffling up his hair despite the fact that she has to reach up to do so. "Thanks Austin. Hey, make sure you tell me when you're moving in to your dorm at Juliard. I'll help you move in and we'll get some lunch."
"Sounds great," he says, returning her hug. Gods is it strange to think that Austin, little Austin is eighteen. "We should go to that place in the base of that hotel with the awesome steak fries."
She nods and steps back. "Sounds great. Love you little brother."
He flashes her the same easy grin that so many of her brothers have inherited from their father and steps back to go back out the door. "I'll see you in a month." He waves at Steve on the way out. "Hiya Captain. Nice to meet the guy who loves my sister. Will says your nice, so just keep that up I guess, and remember that music stands make great weapons to beat people over the head with." He sends Cassie a wink. "Love you too sis."
Then he's gone, leaving Cassie staring after him, shaking her head. "Gotta love little brothers," she mutters. "You know I used to sing that kid to sleep? Yeah he was this adorable little eight year old with huge brown eyes and messy curls. I was taller than him until he turned twelve." She gestures to Steve. "C'mon. We'll go get the wards for the Tower sorted."
A/N: So that's part one of the visit to Camp. I've got most of what part 2 will be outlined but haven't got to writing it yet. I'm moving to England for school in a week and the amount of packing I'm doing right now is absolutely insane so I've been pretty busy. I'll get the next chapter up in the next week or so and after that there might be a bit of a gap while I get settled. Anyway I hope you all enjoyed! Tell me what you think! Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox