Short A/N before I start: It's been so long since I've posted anything! I've been editing and agonizing over what I've written so far on this story before I finally decided that it was good enough to post the first chapter, so sorry for the long wait!

– Percy –

Six months later

When I answered that we would fight, something came alight in me that I'd never felt before. It flew through my body like a fire, never running out of fuel to keep burning. Soon, I would come to find out what the feeling was. For a while, I would be kept questioning and waiting.

Inside, the war scared me. There were never dreams before these that resonated with me as deeply. I had them and they weren't normal demigod nightmares; that was when I knew that something was wrong.

I had walked into the living room, the knowledge weighing on my shoulders like the weight of the sky. My steps felt glacial, so slow that I wasn't certain whether I was moving or not. The couches and chairs to my left and right full of the most important people suddenly felt like something I should stay far, far away from. Even the dormant neutral hues of their fabric seemed to be much more of a warning than normal.

I looked over to my brother, my brother who had kept me grounded to the earth for so many years, and he gave me a single nod of encouragement.

He was a man of few words then, and I understood. He was comfortable with a small group of people, and I felt privileged to be in that small group. Even though he didn't talk much, there was a certain level of forbearance in our relationship that was left unspoken. We cared for each other, we would've died for each other, and nothing could go between us. We were inseparable, therefore unstoppable.

He shared a metaphor with me once that I never forgot, a metaphor that kept me up at night. He told me that once, during one of his first nights with the Avengers, he couldn't bring himself to fall asleep. He told me that he liked to look out his window at all the lit buildings and the street below him. As he looked, he saw skyscrapers that only had a few lights on here and there. He compared the lit windows to stars that had fallen from the sky. Occasionally, he would see a light turn on or off in a room. He explained that he felt like one of the dark windows, a star that had fallen from the sky that had stopped burning.

"Someday," he had whispered, ever so quietly, "I want to burn again."

I will never forget that. It stays in my mind, where it will be forever. His words had such an effect on me, and through our unspoken understandings, he knows.

He knows, and he acknowledges it.

Six months earlier

I was afraid of explaining myself, explaining that I'd been having nightmares that were "speaking" to me. They were messages from the gods; I could feel it.

But was I going crazy?

As I sat on the roof of the Avengers tower, letting my feet dangle over the edge, I wasn't too sure. It was a cool New York night, around midnight, as I watched cars and even a few people pass by below. I looked out on the buildings, watching lights turn on and off as I began to think about what I had just seen in my sleep. It wasn't like me to get so rattled, so disturbed by a dream. Dreams and nightmares frequented my sleep, so it wasn't anything new for my sleep to be interrupted.

But this time was different.

I wasn't sure what made it different from any other nightmare I'd had before, but this one left me with an empty feeling in my stomach.

The cold was a welcome distraction from my thoughts, my thoughts that had turned darker than ink spilled across a paper. The cool breeze blew through the ankles of my jeans, seeming to go right through me and bringing a thorough chill into my body. My feet, dangling over the edge, taller than nearly every building in the area, were beginning to feel numb. Part of it could have been the actual air temperature, but part of it was probably the fact that I had tied my shoes tight so they wouldn't go spiraling toward the concrete. Because if I let them fall, I would think of the following things: the fact that the shoes could be me at any moment, the fact that I'm doing something very reckless and irresponsible, and the fact that they'll probably get creased upon impact.

The last possibility makes me shudder.

Since becoming a demigod, how indifferent I'd become to the prospect of dying scared me. It didn't scare me to my core like it did the first time I broke away from camp and went on my first completely unauthorized quest.

Then, even though the possibility of death was still real to me, it seemed like I'd served a purpose in the world. I'd made friends, found my brother, kept a girlfriend, and graduated high school against all odds.

"Can't sleep?"

I turned around to see Bucky standing on the roof, at the door in the adjacent corner to where I was sitting on the ledge. The reason that I was out there was actually quite different, although I couldn't have admitted anything of the sort to him.

"Well, you could say that. It's also because I like the cold."

I thought cold weather improved thinking conditions. It was a true statement, not a lie. My voice stayed unwavering.

"There's plenty of that in New York."

He offered a smile and I looked down at the void below me, watching the cars drive along the sparsely populated streets. I had become a different person not long before graduation and had a lot to hide, but now that I've graduated I'm nearly home free.

"Sometimes the cold and the fresh air make all the difference."

I nodded and he jumped up beside me to dangle his feet over the ledge just as I did. There was short tranquility as we took in the sounds of the New York City "calm hour"; as calm as the city ever got. Our relationship allowed for an appreciation of congenial silence; neither of us felt that speaking was a constant necessity.

"You know," Bucky began, breaking the silence, "I almost died up here once."

I remember my heart beginning to do double time in my chest. Even the mention of his death was enough to make my heart race.

"How?"

I never could forget the smile that graced his face that night.

The way the corners of his lips turned up, forming the slightest of smiles. I watched the conglomerate of emotions cross his face, sadness, contentment, anxiety, and fear all in one. He, at that point, was a man that didn't show emotions at their extremes. He was mellow, steady, and level-headed.

Different from me. I was a pot waiting to boil over with all the secrets I was keeping from everyone around me. I had to keep them, even from Bucky, my own brother.

Most people could never give a shred of credence to it, or even dare to think it, but I knew it to be true:

Bucky Barnes was an intelligent man.

As soon as you mentioned Bucky Barnes, no one had any interpretation of who you could be referencing. If you then took that opportunity to follow up with "Winter Soldier" or "James Buchanan Barnes", the reaction was instantaneous. People had two main opinions: he was a monster that deserved to be locked away forever, or he was deserving of sympathy and deserved another chance at life. You can probably assume who I sided with.

If you can't infer, it's been aforementioned.

Numerous times.

Now, though, that mindset had to change. I couldn't see him as the hero all the time; he had to become the exact opposite if I was to follow through with what I had promised.

He had come a long way from his Winter Soldier self, and I probably should have been telling him that more at that point in his life. He was brand new to civilian life, living without a war, and he invariably questioned whether he was doing it correctly or doing it well enough. I knew for a fact that he was doing it well because every day he was getting more and more comfortable around other people. His social anxiety slowly became less of an issue as he finally began to realize that he had a place in the world.

"Well, most people would call me an idiot, or a psychopath, or whatever insult you want to insert there. But… I would get really low, at a point where I didn't care if I lived or died, and I'd come out here and sit for a while, praying and trying to figure out what I was doing. One night, I thought, 'If someone with any kind of power wants me dead, they'll let me fall from this building and hit the ground.' So I hung from this ledge, this very one we sit on, and I held myself there. I half expected the wind to pick up so I'd fall, or some rogue bird to give me the Prometheus treatment. But someone wanted me to live for something, so I hung there for half an hour before I realized that I had a purpose."

Upon hearing that, I had almost cried and revoked my promise. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to stay in the safety of Bucky's inner circle for the rest of my life. The thought that he could've so easily died and not been petrified of death staring him in the face perturbed me. His bravery had struck me as both unsettling and incredible. Since I had met Bucky, I had always known that he was brave and stopped at nothing to stand up for or do what he knew was right, but I had never realized until that moment that he was willing to give everything for it.

"Um… please don't ever do that again," I responded, making him laugh. He rarely laughed, but I noticed that as time went on, he began to show his emotions more. He was still radically introverted and I respected that because I was too, and that was alright. He was better, and that's all that mattered.

Don't get me wrong, he still had his choppy days. Days where all he could bring himself to do was get out of bed. He rarely spoke on those days, going nearly silent. Our silent cognizances of each other were important during those short times because when he didn't feel like speaking we just understood.

Steve helped with this, too. He and Bucky have been friends for as long as even the textbooks can recall. Normally, when you find Steve, you find Bucky.

Friendships like that are sparse.

The two of them stayed together even when the world hated them both, so their paradigm became that they would be hated by the world as a team.

Apart, the two are ridiculously intelligent. Put them together and you've made a recipe for engaging conversation.

Some perceived Steve Rogers as slightly ignorant like he's on a spectacular pedestal that separates him from the "common people" of the universe. Once you knew him, your thinking underwent a serious transformation and you discerned the rumors spoken by outsiders. The soldier possessed a nearly endless optimism that gave him a "ray of sunshine" quality.

The short time I'd spent with the Avengers showed me this: Steve Rogers had to grind to be as renowned as he was. The list of the things that came to him with ease was concise. The public paradigm stayed steadfast in assuming that Steve Rogers is instantaneously better than everyone because the entire country adores him. Behind his mask of feigned nonchalance and confidence, he wanted to fix the false perception of himself.

His problem?

He didn't have the faintest clue how to do it.

Why?

Because according to Eternally Cordial People Who Should Be President Of The Entire Universe Because They Know Everything Better Than Everyone Else (sarcasm intended), they are doing the "most good to better the world" and aren't as well received.

Karen, my utmost sincere apologies that you can't be a functioning member of society without needing appreciation for working your minimum wage job.

Rant over.

In the cold New York air, it was extremely easy to forget all of the largest weights on your shoulders.

Just as I tried to, and failed miserably.

Which is how, somehow, some way, I nearly forgot to talk to Bucky about the dreams I'd been having. The one about the impending war, how much trouble we were in, et cetera.

I could have gotten us all killed that chilly evening, but I remembered.

You're eternally welcome, universe.

Not that you would've survived anyway.

"Bucky, I've got a question. To be honest, it's less of a question and more word vomit and then asking what in Tartarus I'm supposed to do about it."

He gives me a slight grin, nodding.

"I'm accustomed to that. Kind of like school. You read a ridiculous amount of tiny text on a crunched deadline and then you're supposed to come up with an intelligent and well-written response on what in Hades you just read. Continue," he replies with a smirk.

I spill all the dreams, all the nightmares to him. The worry lines on his face become more etched as I continue, as I check myself for continuity errors as I try to analyze what anything could mean. Before I made good on my promise, I spilled what I knew to him because so far I'd been extremely on the fence about the entire thing.

"We've got a problem, and I don't particularly appreciate it."

I rolled my eyes sarcastically at him, and he shook his head with an entertained grin.

"Demigods have a thing for joking about their issues, don't we?"

Others similar to us knew what we meant.

Instead of trying to deal with what puts us in pain, we made jokes. We covered it up, shoving it under a mask of feigned confidence and happiness. The longer you worked at being a demigod, the more easily it came to you. It got shoved into the back corners of your mind, therefore creating your biggest stress; causing everyone else's happiness. Some demigods struggled with this more than others, the truly kindhearted ones the most.

Like Bucky.

"You have no idea, man. Things like this, they hit home, and they hit hard. Society says that you're too young to understand, too young to be able to help and make a difference, but as a demigod, you have no choice. Some expect you to carry the world's problems, some think you're doing too much. You're trying to find the balance that the world accepts while having an internal war with yourself about what you accept."

I pondered that for a good while post-conversation. I recognized that he was indubitable, that he was giving me exactly what I needed to hear. And, on the same token, was giving me advice on how to handle the new knowledge about the war looming over our heads.

But before he had given me the advice, I had deliberately ignored it.

"You broke thinking," I replied with a chuckle. He looked over and grinned at me, shrugging.

"Well, now that I broke thinking, you do know that we have a trip to make."

I sighed, kicking my legs over the edge of the tower.

"Yes, I know. Who are we entrusting with this… top-secret-can-break-the-world-as-we-know-it information?" I joked, and Bucky laughed.

"Good inquiry, Sir High Degree In Language."

I gave him a sarcastic eye roll. "Our best bet is Chiron because the whole world knows that Dionysus is fully prepared to leave our issues alone until they come back to bite him. Then he makes it his life's mission to fix it and take credit for sounding the alarm."

Bucky and I continued to sit on the tower's ledge, enjoying what would turn out to be our last night of freedom from our problems.

We ended up falling asleep on the roof that night, not sitting on the ledge of course. In the morning, we sat up in the sun and looked around, seeing no one but each other.

Demigods can fall asleep nearly anywhere; it's because we're far from our homes, even a bed quite often. Most of us are light sleepers, except for the Hypnos kids of course. It's a survival instinct to keep us alive, just like ADHD. If we don't sleep heavily, there's a better chance that we'll wake up to any danger.

"Oh, man. I slept in," Bucky says, glancing down at his watch. "It's already seven."

I turned to him with an astonished look. "Slept in? What time do you usually wake up?"

He thought for a moment, staring out on the horizon. "Four-thirty. Five. Sometimes earlier, if I even sleep at all. Last night was the first time I've slept in ninety-six hours."

I remember being able to relate to that because there had been times on quests that I had never been able to sleep.

I could tell that something was weighing on him; there was something that he wanted to tell me but couldn't. He'd tell me soon because he wasn't one to circumvent the truth.

He kept getting nervous, fidgeting, and constantly looking around.

"Bucky, is there something wrong?"

He paused, looking down at the concrete.

"No."

"Please don't lie to me. What did you dream about?"

He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut and resting his head on his knees.

"It wasn't good, Percy. It scares me, and…" he trailed off, his voice breaking on his last word. "I can't talk about it right now, not when I don't know if it's true or even what it means."

His voice became cold and hard, his tone was sharp as a knife. The expression on his face told me that he was angry about something, albeit he didn't look at me. The way he got up and walked back into the tower made me feel like I'd done something wrong. He had never been like this before with me, so cold and unreadable.

That was the first time I'd ever been afraid of Bucky, and it was a feeling I never wanted to have again. The fear I felt wasn't one that told me he'd hurt me, or that I was in danger of any sort. The fear I felt was the fear of knowing that his anger had gone from a low simmer to a raging boil, and whether or not that was caused by me I wasn't sure. I wanted to figure out what was wrong, but I was afraid of making what I may have already done worse. The fact that I didn't know what had set him off made it even worse for me.

I sat on the roof for a long time after that, pondering what I could've done to him. Bucky wouldn't talk to me, and the way he had just stood up confirmed my intuition that something was off. For all I know, he could've been going to kill someone after he left that roof. I was afraid of what a fit of anger like that from him could do, and I didn't want to be around to find out.

My phone rang, and when I glanced at the name I was both relieved and anxious. My head was on a swivel as I searched my surroundings for other people.

"Hello?"

"You're alone, correct?"

My search ended, so I responded. "Yes."

"We're making our hit tonight, got it? You're going to get to the place we discussed at three o'clock this afternoon. No later," the firm voice on the other end of the line explained. The prospect of having to be unconscious while people could possibly die wasn't something that I was exactly thrilled about.

"Three o'clock. Got it. How much do I get for this?"

"Ten grand. More than I've ever paid for an induction before," the voice reminded me. "It better not be a waste. Get there."

The line went dead, leaving me alone on the roof.