Twenty minutes later, the Avengers, as well as their new demigod teammates, sat in the wrecked kitchen of Avengers tower.
"Ok, let's brainstorm, what's so special about Frank?" Bruce asked, sitting on top of the island in the wreckage of the kitchen.
"Um, I can shape-shift?" Frank said, making the eyes of all the Avengers snap towards him.
"I'm sorry, you can what now?" Tony sounded disbelieving as Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"You think you're up for a demonstration? I would understand if you're not," Steve said,
This made Piper laugh, much to the confusion of everyone else in the room,
"I'm sorry," Piper said between laughs, "do you honestly believe that this," Piper gestured to the room, "is something we haven't done countless times before?"
This made all of the other demigods join Piper in her laughter (including Percy who had used the water from the river to carry himself back up after the fight was done).
Steve raised an eyebrow, "I know that you might be in shock, but this isn't something civilians go through a lot-"
"We're not regular civilians, Spangles, and this isn't our first rodeo," Percy said, making Jason give him a fist-bump.
"Ok, I was just checking," Steve mumbled, blushing slightly in embarrassment.
"Hey, Frank, want to give them the Chinese handcuffs demonstration?" Nico asked, making Frak laugh and blush.
The Avengers looked in shock as where Frank once stood, there was now an iguana.
"Holy shit," Clint mumbled, looking at the iguana then to Annabeth then back to the iguana.
"Can he just turn into iguanas, or can he, like, turn into everything?" Bruce asked, sounding fascinated.
The iguana turned back into Frank who was smiling slightly.
"I can turn into basically any animal, including mythical ones, like dragons,"
"Not very mythical," Will muttered, making Nico snort.
"Well, I've got to ask, you are going to help us, right? You're not working with that guy?"
Tony regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, seeing the pure anger on the faces of all the demigods except Frank, who just looked sad.
"I know that you have no reason to trust me, but that guy-, he knows what happened to Hazel and Reyna, two of the most important people in my life," Frank took a deep breath, "I'd do anything to get them back, or to at least get some closure,"
"Stark, if you don't trust one of us, you don't trust all of us," Nico said. The other demigods in the room nod in agreement.
"Ok, my bad, just checking," Tony raised his hands in a placating gesture.
"Annabeth, what do you know about that guy?" Bruce asked, scribbling unintelligible notes in a notebook.
Annabeth thought for a moment, "That was Perses, Titan of destruction-"
"So that's why we have similar names," Percy muttered, making Nico snort,
Annabeth rolled her eyes and continued, "He's the father of Hecate, as he mentioned, and his name is connected with the word persô, which means to 'to lay waste' or 'sack in war',"
"Seems like a nice guy," Steve said. Tony rolled his eyes,
"Yeah, super nice guy, Capsicle, Titans of destruction tend to make great friends," Tony said.
"Anyway, we need to figure out what he meant by 'зимний солдат', does anyone speak that language?" Bruce asked,
"It means Winter Soldier in Russian," Annabeth said, making everyone stare at her, "I went undercover un Russia once, I had to learn the language-"
"Hi, I'm Annabeth Chase and I learn whole new languages just because I have to go undercover," Piper muttered.
Annabeth blushed and everyone else laughed.
"So, what does 'Winter Soldier' mean, exactly?" Will asked,
Frank, who had remained quiet since his little speech, spoke up, "The Winter Soldier is a HYDRA asset-"
"Hold up, Hydra? Is in a monster with multiple heads, Hydra? I didn't think they could have assets," Percy said,
"No, HYDRA is a Nazi science division, I thought I took them down when I killed Red Skull, but I guess not," Steve sounded hopeless,
'Wouldn't you sound hopeless too if the thing that you died to take down still existed after all of your efforts?' said a little voice in Annabeth's head, making her wince and give Steve a sympathetic look.
"Wait, how do you know this, beast boy?" Tony asked (Percy had it stifle his laughter at the nickname)
"I-I'm not sure, I remember a cell, and a chair? Yeah, there was definitely a chair, and a guy with a metal arm- they called him 'The Asset' or 'The Winter Soldier', but I can't remember much," Frank looked paler with each word, making Annabeth more and more concerned over her friend.
"So… you weren't just a cat for three years? You were kidnapped?" Nico asked, making Frank wince.
"I-I don't know, but that guy looked familiar, and I remember his name, Perses, being said a few times,"
"And why did you fail to mention this before?" Steve asked, putting on his 'Captain America' voice that Annabeth knew too well.
"Lay off him Steve-"
"No, Annabeth. I fought to take down HYDRA and I died for it, I want to know why your friend here simply 'forgot' to mention this detail to us," Steve sounded mad, making Annabeth wince.
A pissed off Steve wasn't a good thing.
"The chair wasn't a regular chair," Frank mumbled, causing the room to quiet down and look at him, "It was- it had this helmet attached to it, they would put it on you and it hurt like Hades," Frank tried to laugh but it sounded more like a sob.
"I- I think they used it to brainwash us, cause The Asset never remembered me after he was in the chair, or it took a long time to get his memories back," Frank ran his hand through his hair, which was longer than Annabeth had ever seen it.
His hair brushed his ears slightly and Annabeth noticed for the first time how wrong Frank looked.
"You were friends with this guy, right?" Annabeth asked, forcing Frank to look at her, Frank shrugged.
"If he remembers you, he won't fight us. It seems like HYDRA didn't treat him well, so maybe he'll be a little more hesitant to fight for them once he sees a friendly face,"
Frank shook his head, "I'm not sure, Annabeth, their memory wiping thing worked really well, It took me at least a month to remember you guys after it happened, and he got wiped almost every week. That's hard to recover from," Frank's voice shook as he spoke.
"Did he have a name other than 'The Asset' or 'The Winter Soldier'? If he has a human name, we can use that to 'awaken his mind'," Tony suggested, but Frank just shook his head.
"I think he had a life before he became 'The Asset', but he only remembered it for short periods of time, like once he told me about a guy he loved, not sure if it was romantic or platonic, but whenever he got a memory back, it was always about some guy,"
"That's useful, if we can find the guy then we can use his to awaken the Winter Soldier's memories," Steve said.
Percy decided to put Luke to bed (the toddler had been asleep for the whole thing) so that they could continue the conversation.
As they all left the talked into the night, a single thought remained at the forefront of Annabeth's mind, like a mantra she kept repeating.
HYDRA, here we come.