The reason I'm replacing this chapter is simple, I wasn't satisfied. Not only did I introduce a possible ship prematurely, but it was outrageously short. I've been stumped on how to continue for some time and I think I may have come with a solution.

Also, I still can NOT believe the feedback I'm getting with this! Over a hundred and fifty reviews, and hundreds of follows and favorites. I love you guys 3

…

Steve Rogers did not like the helicarrier. It wasn't that it was a massive ship made for the sky. That he could handle. It was the nagging knowledge, the realization that there is a difference between a spy and a soldier. Steve was a soldier, and he would never be a spy.

He hated it, the secrets. He didn't pass soldiers in the halls who had their back beaten by war, who would offer him a nod of acknowledgement and respect. He passed killers, assassins, master espionage ops. Steve considered himself just like any other soldier, a man fighting to end the chaos. Honest, strong, and resolute. The captain thought himself soldier, only just… bigger than the average troop.

"People call him the Winter Soldier," Natasha Romanov settled down into a seat across the table from Steve Rogers. For once she seemed serious, even shaken, if possible.

"That was no soldier," Steve leaned forward in his own seat and examined the picture lying flat on the table, "he was masked and shot down an unaware opponent. In the back. Twice."

"What-, you expect him to toss down the iron gauntlet?" Clint Barton snorted. He sat in his chair backwards, arm slung over the backrest as he tended to the fletching of a black arrow. "Sorry cap, but things don't work like that nowadays."

Steve refrained from yet again reminding the smirking agent that they never tossed gauntlets in World War II. That would only make the smirk wider.

Natasha Romanov kicked back and rested her legs upon the table top. "A master assassin with bullets that have no label. He never leaves a mess. He never fails, he's never seen. He might as well be a ghost."

The picture Steve was examining was taken on the field by one of the ops. It was slightly blurry, so he could barely make out the wild hair, masked face, and smoking gun of this shadowy figure.

"Until now," Clint sounded satisfied. "Now that leaves just another question to add to the stockpile."

"Who else would want Jackson dead?" Steve clarified.

…

Percy Jackson had not a dream such as this since the battle with Gaea.

Percy Jackson lay in a meadow. The glade was peaceful. Butterflies flitted about, a rabbit chewed on the roots of some sweet plant. This was a familiar setting, like the painful innocence before a stealthy storm. And so Percy braced himself.

Lightning struck him with all of Zeus' fury.

A bolt so bright, so brilliant, and so terrible slammed into his chest and as the lightning met body, blue turned to red, and sky became blood. And the sky became the sea. And Percy was drowning. Gasping and writhing, Percy flailed in the endless see of spilled blood, his lungs screaming and begging for air. Above all else, above the crashing of bloody waves and roaring of the winds came a thundering voice.

"You dare return after what you have done?!"

Something wrapped about his legs and forced him under the surface of the blood-sea.

"I will see you suffer, Perseus Jackson."

The coils of shadows that bound Percy's legs grew searing hot, and he screamed. Blood gushed into the young man's lungs as a voice rumbled and shook the world.

I bathe in the blood of innocents.

"Ah, the child banished from death," the voice rumbled, beyond the deepest baritone.

Down and down Percy was hauled, further down into the dark, bloody abyss. And as the Exiled Prince was being swallowed by the earth at the bottom of the sea, and mighty churning force of darkness formed above him.

Tartarus in all his dreadful glory, the primordial god of torture, misery, and suffering stared down at him.

And smiled.

"Welcome home."

Percy's sea-green eyes shot open and gasped, his expanding as his lungs inhaled deeply, as if he really had been holding his breath. Perspiration wetted his forehead, causing dark strands of hair to cling to his brow.

The exiled prince stared up.

A shocked looking doctor stared back.

Then man blinked several times, staring in utter disbelief at Percy. He muttered something that sounded along the lines of "impossible" and rushed to a computer resting at a lab desk. Percy Jackson tried to move. Pain flared through his body and he immediately abandoned his efforts.

"Where am I?" Percy managed to rasp out in a hoarse voice.

A nurse's face promptly filled his vision. She removed her surgeon's mask and spread a practiced smile. "Don't worry about that right now, just focus on me, honey, can you do that?"

She dabbed a cool cloth to his brow as she spoke, and Percy dare mused that it felt wonderful. The back of his mind scolded him for listening to the nurse. He was a prisoner. But he was also wounded, and therefore he couldn't knock around any skulls if he were a mangled mess.

"Still looks bad," the other doctor said, "God knows how he can remain conscious…"

Percy would've laughed if it didn't hurt to so much as twitch. Ever been to Tartarus, pal?

"He doesn't appear to have any form of exhilarated healing like Roger's," the doctor mused, "still, it baffles me to see how he's still alive…"

"Does he always talk aloud?" Percy croaked.

The nurse broke her act enough to stifle a giggle. The doctor opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. "Emily, stop batting your lashes at the prisoner and notify bridge that Jackson is conscious."

The nurse, Emily, withdrew whilst fake-pouting to do as she was told.

Bridge? "Are we on a ship?" Percy found his strength gaining. It was getting easier to move by the minute.

The doctor cast a smirk, "Of a fashion."

Percy Jackson did not like that answer.

…

Agent Maria Hill stood at the bridge. All around her, in lowered platforms, the helicarrier's piloting and management crew relayed information aloud through mics and comms, fingers flying over keyboards as they navigated the air ship.

The agent stared out the main windshield, eyeing the clouds with a rising suspicion. She was no major in atmospherics, but Maria was completely certain that clouds weren't supposed to move on their own accord, especially when the wind-meter was down to an almost inactive digit.

"You see it, too," Clint Barton remarked as he stepped up beside Maria Hill, eyes forward. "Thought I was going nuts."

Maria stepped up to the railing bordering the bridge walkway. "Peerson," she addressed a cleanly cut young man in the SHIELD uniform, "lower the ship. Out of the clouds."

James Peerson blinked up at the agent with slight bafflement. "Erm…"

"Now."

He immediately set to work. The drop in altitude was noticeable, clouds whipped by the viewing panels.

"Could be nothing," Clint leaned back against the railing. He didn't look convinced.

"It's never nothing," Maria snapped.

A notification light on her commlink signaled that an update was coming via frequency waves. Maria touched her finger to her communications device. "Talk to me."

"Jackson is fully conscious and clear of any nausea," a female voice reported from the other end.

"And?" Maria could tell the voice was strained, shaken.

"Well-, he says that we're all fools. And-And..."

Maria held her breath.

"And that we're all going to die."

Whether that was a threat or simple fact would never be known, for the remark was nearly forgotten upon the entire helicarrier lurching. Alarms sounded, Maria Hill clenched to the railing to keep from tumbling.

"What's happening?!" She shouted. Clint drew his bow, an expression of intense calm claiming his features.

"It's… it's a storm, Agent Hill." The female operator seemed speechless. Several times she opened and closed her mouth, trying to form words. Finally, another agent spoke, eyes glued to the screen.

"It's a storm, and we are in the very center of it."

The nurse's voice echoed through Maria Hill's mind.

He says that we're fools.

And that we're all going to die.

…

I dearly wish that I had more time to lengthen this chapter further still, but every tie I ask life for a break it gives me this flat stare.

Hopefully, I'll be able to update for you all soon. I hope you have a very fine day-night-morning-evening moon festival BANANA.