Sy

Sy walked down the hallway unsteadily, her wings trailing behind her, a lyre held loosely in one hand. Luckily, Tony in his usual over the top way, had filled her room at the tower with her belongings from her old apartment and then some. She now had upgrades to most of her instruments and a variety of other things she had a feelings was Tony's way of trying to buy his way out of his guilt. Pepper may have broken him of some of his worst habits, but there were still a few persistent unhealthy mechanisms he clung too.

She rolled her shoulder uncomfortably, working out some of the tension in her muscles. She'd slept poorly again, and she was waking up stiff from tossing and turning all night.

Apollo and his kids really had fixed everything, from the anemia she'd developed in captivity to her clipped and weakened wings. But what Apollo cannot fix is the mind. And Mr. D won't straight up fix that unless she'd been struck with true madness like Chris Rodriguez had been all those years ago. He had told her the only way it was meaningful was if she worked through the pain. He would only help ease the process. The grouchy camp director appeared in her sleep, before, after or even during her nightmares and dreams and they held intense therapy sessions. Thus the tossing and turning.

Sy knew in the back of her mind they would help her.

In the meantime, however, she was waking up sore and exhausted.

Last night had been especially brutal. After their usual session, she'd talked to the god about the Ultron threat and what she had learned about what HYDRA had been doing with her blood. As a member of the Avengers she was already tasked with handling the Ultron crisis, but now Olympus was watching too. The threat to the Mind Stone could not go ignored, and the fact that godly blood had been spilled and exploited by mortals? Unforgivable. Mr. D had warned her that Olympus was likely to lay the guilt at her feet, even though she'd been the one captured and tortured. But that was how godly justice was often met out; harsh and uncompromising. Sy had woken up anxious and afraid. She'd prayed to her mother for protection and to Dice, the goddess of justice, as well as Athena. She would need all the help she could get.

Sy pushed open the door to find the room filled with boxes.

"Nobody waited for me?" She asked playfully, covering her exhaustion with a small smile as she navigated the stacks of boxes, files and random sheets of paper piled about the room in no obvious order.

"Saving the world doesn't operate on your recovery schedule." James teased quietly as he wandered past her carrying another armload of files, dark hair hanging in his eyes. Sy makes her way into the room and plops down next to an overwhelmed looking Tony. She runs her fingers along the strings of the lyre she'd brought with her. Ever since the helicarrier, any kind of research had included the soft melodies of her mother's sacred instrument.

"Since when have you advocated for going back to the stone ages?" She bumped Tony's shoulder jokingly, even as she tried to repress the uneasy feeling Tony was currently triggering inside her. She still wasn't sure how she was going to deal with the way he had so flippantly violated her trust. But he was her friend and he was manipulated and they were in the middle of a crisis so she knew she was going to have to shelve all those nasty emotions for later. Not that her nightly sessions with Mr. D would actually allow her to do that for very long.

"Since Ultron erased all our digital copies on Strucker, we don't really have much choice." Sy paused her playing and reached over to pick up a stack of files, curious.

"How many forests did you guys kill?" She asked mildly, as she shuffled through them, unsure of what she was looking for. Her heart stopped for a moment, when she caught a glimpse of Strucker in a picture. Sy quickly set the files down and resumed playing, letting the music sooth her battered nerves. She couldn't bring herself to look at his face. He visited her nightmares often enough.

"And why do we care about Strucker? Besides the human rights violations and the experimentation and the torturing me parts." She asked as flippantly as she could, trying to cover the tremor in her voice. Tony glared at her out the corner of his eye. Not that he could talk; it was through their rather morbid senses of humor that any of them coped with the traumas of protecting the world from the threats it can't handle. Tony's was probably the most well developed out of all of them.

"Don't joke about that kid. And we care because Ultron murdered him. Oh and on a slightly related note, the twins, the Maximoffs? They've joined up with Ultron."

"Oh." Sy said faintly, the new information throwing her for a loop. Her music took on a more anxious note and she had to focus harder to twist the song away from her own volatile emotions, and back to the more serious business of inspiration. Music was both prayer and motivation, cool logic and burning passion. It needed to be focused to its purpose, or else it would serve as a distraction rather than a boost. Sy focused on the music, even though she was still aware of what the others were doing.

"Wait!" Sy flinched at Tony's shout. She glanced down at the photo that had spilled out of the file she'd dropped back down on the table. The photo was labeled Ulysses Klaue.

"I know that guy. From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." Steve glared at Tony. Sy just examined the picture closer, her fingers still drifting along the strings even though the music had grown softer. Something about him seemed familiar to her too. Something in the eyes, maybe? A little crazed, a lot violent. She wasn't sure though.

"There are conventions, alright? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very 'Ahab.'" Tony defended irritably. Sy sat up suddenly as she took back the file. She looked closer at the image and everything snapped into place in her mind.

"Get me a rainbow." It was a credit to how well they knew her that the only person who looked confused was James. Less than a minute later they had a rainbow going. Sy fished around her pockets, expression growing increasingly frantic.

"I don't have any drachmas anymore. Anyone have something annoyingly healthy? Like macrobiotic jerky or something?" When everyone shook their heads Sy groaned.

"Clarisse is so going to kill me." She muttered as she made the call.

"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow. Please accept my prayer. I'd like to make a collect IM to Clarisse La Rue at the University of Arizona." The rainbow shimmered for a moment, as though in irritation, but a moment later it connected; a familiar scowl appearing in the rainbow.

"Collect? Really?" The daughter of Ares groused. Sy shrugged.

"What? Did you really expect the terrorists who captured me to not take any godly currency I had on me at the time? 'Sorry, here's your drachma back. You can keep the shiny gold while we drug, torture and experiment on you.'" Sy said as nonchalantly as she could. A wordless snarl erupted from the other demigod's mouth.

"Prisoner?" Sy nodded once, her lips tightening. Clarisse ignored the look on her face, even though Sy knew the daughter of Ares was likely dying of curiosity. She just kept talking, a small kindness.

"So what did you want? Not like you to check in on people ever since you joined up with those mortal heroes." Sy glared playfully at her semi-friend.

"No, just wanted to check something." She held up the picture, flashing the image at Clarisse.

"Am I wrong?" She asked, even though the look on the other demigod's face was answer enough. Clarisse sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face.

"No. Definitely one of my dad's. Met him once or twice. Definitely inherited from dad's bad side, but what can you do? Didn't pick sides in either of the wars, but was a sympathizer for the other side the first time around. Don't think he cared much either way the second time. Watch out for him ok?" Sy nodded before swiping her hand through the rainbow, cutting the connection. She turned back to the bewildered room.

"Ulysses Klaue? Son of Ares. We're going to have to be careful with him." James still looked confused, and Sy made a note to talk with him later. She hadn't had much of a chance to explain the demigod part of her life before she'd been captured. Thor frowned as he peered closer at the picture.

"Look at this." He muttered. Tony barely even glanced down.

"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it..." Thor interrupted him.

"No, those are tattoos. This is a brand." Bruce typed in a few commands to the computer and began searching for the symbol. A moment later he got a hit.

"Oh yeah, it's a symbol in an african dialect meaning thief. In a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?" Steve asked, leaning against the back of her chair.

"Wakanada? Wa... wa... Wakanda." Bruce said, glancing down and squinting at the screen in front of him. Sy frowned. Wakanda had their own powerful deities, it was another realm of influence; not unlike the Egyptians or the Norse. It could complicate matters for them, especially because the Avengers have such public ties to the Greek and the Norse in the mythological world. Loki and Thor aren't subtle, and neither was Zeus. It could make things difficult for them down the line.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..." Tony started talking then trailed off, his eyes widening at the information he was reading over. Steve stepped away to read over Tony's shoulder. His eyes grew wide too.

"I thought your father said he got the last of it?" He muttered. Sy sat up, the wonder and shock in Steve's tone surprising her.

"I don't follow, what comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked, confused as he walked over to join the team crowded around the conference table. Steve glanced over at his shield, propped innocently against the wall.

"The strongest metal on Earth." Sy glanced up at Tony, understanding dawning on her.

"Where is this guy now?"