Will was pissed. More specifically, Will was pissed at me. Making Nico shadow travel once was one thing, but twice in the same week? I thought the dude was going to shoot me in the face. Will already didn't like me because I ended up in the infirmary at least once a week and he always had to fix me. So yeah, Will was pretty annoyed with me. He loved Annabeth though, of course.

But when it came to Nico, Will was more protective than I am. He hated it when Nico used his "underworldy stuff" because it totally drained him, so this time he refused to let Nico shadow travel. Now it was going to take them even longer to get to the Avengers tower (we've already been waiting for half an hour). Will didn't let me tell Nico what was going on because if he had known, nothing would have stopped him from shadow traveling back to New York. He never quite recovered from the war against Gaia. Don't get me wrong, he still can shadow travel, just not as much and not as far as he used to. Ok, actually I guess that's a lie. He still can, but he isn't allowed to. Will won't let him. Like I said; protective.

"Jackson," Nicholas Fury greeted me with a cold stare. He was actually a nice guy but wanted to keep his "scary, mysterious" demeanor up for Steve.

"Collins," I returned, mocking his glare. Fury began to turn red and quickly turned away as I snorted into my coffee. Ha. Ginny Collins is a girl at Camp Jupiter that good ol' Nick had a little crush on a couple of years ago. Don't ask me how I know this. It was totally not Piper. Totally.
Steve and I sat at the counter in the kitchen with our coffee. I knew I shouldn't drink caffeine with my ADHD but too late now! Steve didn't even drink his, which was good because he was fidgety enough as it was.

When the door burst open I didn't even bother to look. The sound of Nico's punk rock boots and Will's orthopedic sneakers were easy enough to recognize. Nico's glare bore into my soul and he growled, "Jackson I am so going to kick your a-"

"Language!" Will interrupted him. Nico rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.
"Whatever. What do you want?" Nico crossed his arms and stuck his foot out in a sarcastic position. Oh, no you don't honey. I'm the supreme king of sass. Hades, I sound like Leo.

"Bucky is dead, Percy says you say he isn't," Steve got straight to the point. Nico froze. Well there goes any chance of friendly conversation.

"Wait, Bucky Barnes?" Will asked. Steve nodded quickly in clarification.

"He's not in the underworld," Nico said. His eyes went wild and he grasped Will's arm. Steve looked desperate for something to hold onto and his knuckles turned white against the counter.

"He's not here!" Steve insisted. Simultaneously, all three of them turned to Fury while I glanced awkwardly between them.

"We need to get everybody involved and find him. Immediately." Steve's voice had deepened into a tone of power and leadership. He wasn't asking, he was giving an order.

Nick Fury stared at me as if I could fix the situation, then sighed and said, "No."

Nico's eyebrows shot up in a mixture of confusion and anger. "No?!" he shouted. Will set a hand on his shoulder to calm him but it barely made a difference.

"We can't devastate our limited resources on a man who may or may not have been presumed dead for the past 70 years," Fury said. Nico lunged towards him but was held back by Nico. They stared at each other for a moment as if having a silent conversation, then Will nodded and let him go. Nico turned angrily and stomped towards Fury, grabbed him roughly by the arm, and dragged him into another room. Steve went to follow, but Will raised an arm to stop him.

"No, don't follow. He'll take care of it, the mission is definitely going to happen. I can promise you that."

Fury's in for it now. You do not want to get on Nico's bad side, especially when Will is backing him up. Seriously.

Thor was off in Asgard, Clint was wherever he spent his free time, Natasha was probably killing somebody, and Tony was at some kind of fundraiser showing off his money, so the living room was empty and I got the whole couch to myself score. Score! Steve suggested we played video games (I thought he was a little old for that).

"I can't really play video games, or use electronics at all," I explained. Realization dawned across his face.

"Oh, I forgot about that,"

It went silent. I got bored. I wish Annabeth was here and not back at home, but she had to get some work done so now I was all by my lonesome self. The ten minutes I spent waiting for Nico and Fury to finish talking was a very long ten minutes. So of course I did the normal thing, I took a nap.

"So, Nico briefed me on your first couple years at that camp you guys go to." Steve said out of the blue. Dam you Nico. I shrugged, not sure what to say or how to respond to that. "Did you really hold the actual world on your shoulders?"

I wanted to be mad at Nico, but I had it coming. "Well, yeah but I mean, Atlas and Annabeth did it first," I excused.

This caused Steve to raise his eyebrows. He scoffed and sat up in his chair to face me. "So basically, your logic is that if they do it then it must be ok for you to do," he said.

I shrugged. "Well," I sighed. "No. I mean yes, but well, yeah?"

"If your friends jumped off, then would you too?" He joked. I flinched and smiled awkwardly.

"Well, that's kind of a funny story. Well not funny, but it's a story all right."

(Hi peeps! Comment what you'd like to see next and I'll try to include it in future chapters :) thank you!)