Again, this story takes place 4 years after TLO but the HoO never happened. There will be no Romans.

2 Weeks later

Just as Bruce foretold, no sooner had SHIELD discovered everything there was to know about Nico di Angelo's history, or at least his history since his removal from the Lotus Casino, he was placed with the Avengers.

Nico wasn't that happy with the arrangement, as he had been hoping that they would assign him somewhere where he wouldn't be in the public eye, but he was dealing with it.

Against Fury's wishes, Tony had announced to the reporters that had taken to surrounding Stark Tower, in the hope of spotting the Avengers, that they had gotten a new member. Nico was furious after discovering this. He didn't want the attention. How was he supposed to do his job if reporters were following him around?

He had yet to be seen though, as Fury hadn't given the team any assignments. They were an emergency task force, and there hadn't been any need for the Avengers involvement since the day of the battle.

Nico had taken to shadow travelling to camp when Stark got too annoying, or the constant glares he received from Thor got to be too much for him to take calmly. The Avengers had all decided to live in the tower, as it had become their headquarters. The Captain, Bruce, and Thor, who had returned to Midgard after delivering the Tesseract and Loki to his father, didn't actually have anywhere else to live. Nico didn't have a home, if you didn't count Camp, and he usually spent his time wandering the world, staying wherever he found somewhere to sleep. When Tony had asked him if he had wanted to stay, he had reluctantly agreed. Sure, he would be forced to spend more time with them, but the free food WAS tempting...

All the demigods, excluding Nico, were under house arrest until the problems with the Mist were resolved. The monsters were taking it easy, too. They weren't too fond of the idea of discovery either, so it had been a calm couple of weeks.

Nico returned to the Tower, which was almost fully repaired, except for the name, which Tony had decided to leave as just the A, just in time to see Fury walk in, his leather coat flapping behind him.

"People," Fury announced, "Staff meeting, we got a problem."

Tony jumped to his feet, from where he had been lounging on a sofa, "No! Last time you gave us bad news, I ended up adopting an Emo Ninja, who's afraid of dandelions!"

Nico growled, his dark eyes flashing, and stalked forwards to loom over Tony. "I thought we discussed what would happen if you called me that name again, Tin Man..."

Tony scoffed, and waved a hand dismissively, "I'm sorry, you don't scare me anymore. Now that I know your secret weakness, I own you."

Nico summoned his Stygian Iron sword from the shadows, before Fury interrupted. "Meeting. Now." He paused for a moment, "Dandelions?" Nico's eyebrow twitched, and his face morphed into a glare.

"My step-mother," he grumbled."I will send you to the pits of Tartarus, you bastard," he hissed at Tony. Tony pulled a dandelion out of his pocket, and brandished it dramatically at Nico.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" he cried, waving the flower in Nico's face. Nico's eyes widened and he took a small step back, before he summoned Hellfire to his right hand, preparing to blow the cursed flower to oblivion.

"If you two don't stop this idiocy right now, I will MAKE you stop. The meeting. Now." Fury's single uncovered eye narrowed menacingly.

Tony hastily shoved the flower back into his pocket, which Nico eyed warily, before extinguishing the flames that wreathed his hand. He had gotten the hang of his new power over the last couple of days, and his aimed had improved greatly. It had only taken the destruction of several more walls.

"Jarvis," Tony called out, "Inform the others that Fury's come to visit. We're about to have a tea party, and their presence is required."

"Yes sir," Jarvis said, "But I'm afraid you used the last of the tea to turn Agent Barton's shower water brown, and it has yet to be replaced." Tony smiled fondly at the memory of his last prank. The agents needed to loosen up a little, and Tony was only too happy to help.

"Just tell them to get their asses up here," Fury ordered irritably. He was not in the mood to deal with Stark, but when was he ever?

"Yes, Di-rectum Furby," Jarvis crisp voice replied, before falling silent. Tony paled when he saw the look Fury was giving him.

The others filed into the room, and Clint chuckled silently at the sight of Tony Stark awkwardly edging away from a murderous looking Fury. Sabotaging Jarvis had been difficult, but revenge was sweet...

When they were all seated in the many chairs that littered the penthouse living space, Fury walked to the centre of the room, and clasped his hands behind his back.

He gazed at them all before he began to speak, "At 1900 hours, we picked up an anomaly in Central Park. We sent out agents to investigate, but almost immediately after they confirmed that something was going on, they were captured. From what we saw in the satellite photographs, areas of earth seem to have been displaced. While odd, this isn't the problem. It seems that the piles of soil have to come to life, and from the loss of our agents, we have deduced that they are hostile."

"Earthborn," Nico muttered. "You're going to need celestial bronze bullets."

He had heard about the 'Earthborn' from Percy, who had encountered a group during one of his more recent quests. Percy had told him that they were extremely powerful monsters, and that he doubted any demigod, save a child of the Big Three, would be capable of defeating more than one of them without back-up.

"Whatever they are, I want you to find them, kill them, and if you can, rescue the missing agents." Fury said, "Suit up."

Nico jumped to his feet, and shadow-travelled to his room, which he had painted black. He opened a cupboard and pulled out his new armour, given to him by the Hephaestus Cabin. He would rather have used his old armour, but Fury had bluntly informed him that if he was going to be a 'superhero', he couldn't wear armour that caused the people he was supposed to be rescuing to piss themselves in terror.

The new armour was black. He had demanded that. If he had to wear it, it had to be black. The armour was also made of Stygian Iron from the Underworld, but unfortunately, in Nico's opinion, it had been augmented, so it no longer emitted an aura of fear and death. It consisted of a Greek style chest plate, gauntlets, greaves and boots, with a number of holsters for his Stygian Iron weaponry. Instead of a helmet, though, they had made him a sort of mask that covered his nose and mouth, but left his eyes and above visible, in order to keep his identity secret, but so that he still looked, as they put it, 'badass'. There was also a sheath along his spine for his sword, so he didn't have to constantly summon it back and forth from the shadows. He had decided not to ask for a shield, as he could simply use his shadows to block blows from his enemies.

He quickly donned his armour, shoving various daggers and throwing knives into their various sheaths, before shadow-travelling back to the main room. The others had just arrived as well, and as soon as they were all assembled, Nico transported them to the coordinates Fury gave him.

They appeared in Central Park just in time to witness a huge boulder fly through the air, and almost crush a group of people attempting to flee the area. It was only almost, because Nico quickly shadow-travelled over to them, and erected a huge dome shaped mass of shadows which surrounded them, causing the boulder to rebound off.

Nico staggered under the force of the blow, but managed to stay on his feet, something he wouldn't have been able to manage before the 'upgrade', much less stay conscious. As soon as it hit the ground, he dropped the barrier, nodding to the people he had protected, who were staring at him in awe. Nico travelled back over to the Avengers, and asked the Steve, "So, how should we go about doing this, oh Wise Leader?"

Steve grimaced at the title, but said, "Stark and Thor, you get in the air, try take down as many as those things as you can, Natasha and Clint, you be our snipers, and see if you can find the missing agents. If anything manages to sneak up on us, shoot 'em down with those shiny new bullets you got. Nico, Banner and I will be the ground assault. We'll try to beat these guys down long enough for air and sniper to finish them off. Understood?"

They all nodded in agreement, and Tony and Thor took off, while Natasha and Clint sprinted in the direction of tree cover.

Even though it was night, there were still a lot of people in the park, but luckily, most of them were out of the battlefield.

"Banner," Steve said to Bruce, "Now would be a good time for you to get angry." Bruce nodded and after removing his shirt, closed his eyes.

Nico and Steve decided to get moving, and ran in the direction of the sounds of destruction that were coming from up ahead. What they saw caused them to halt in shock. Over 50 Earthborn were spread out below them.

Each of them was about 8 ft tall, and they had six arms apiece. They were dressed only in leather loincloths, and they were heading towards Nico and Steve.

"I think I would be more shocked if we hadn't just fought aliens the other week," Steve said. He swallowed, before continuing in a confident voice. "We can take 'em." He looked to his side to check if Nico was alright, only to find him gone, and halfway down the slope, pulling his sword of his back. Steve cursed and ran after him.

Nico sprinted to the Earthborn closest to him, and flipped into the air. He landed on the Earthborn's shoulders, and proceeded to separate its head from its body. He didn't have time to admire his handiwork before another two attacked. He sliced open ones stomach, causing soil to spill out before it collapsed, a pile of dirt once more. He summoned Hellfire to his free hand, and blasted the second, before swivelling 360 degrees, setting alight the Earthborn unfortunate enough to be within range.

He stopped the flames after he had reduced about seven to dirt. The flames took a lot of energy, which made them unsuitable for long use. He moved through the Earthborn, slashing and parrying the many arms that tried to grab him, before creating shadows which he then used to destroy any of his enemies his strikes had failed to kill.

The others weren't doing to badly, either. Tony was blowing up the Earthborn with his numerous weapons, as well as dropping from the sky onto the unsuspecting, crushing them with his armour.

Thor was using similar technique, dropping down from the sky, but with his hammer hitting the Earthborn first. The power of these attacks caused the ground to shake with the force, and after he had killed a few of them using this attack, he dropped to the ground, summoning lightning and bludgeoning the Earthborn to a pulp with his hammer.

Clint and Natasha were taking down one Earthborn after the other. Arrows and bullets slammed into them, causing them to disintegrate almost instantly.

Steve was using his shield to decapitate them, also beating them down until they collapsed from the assault.

The Hulk, who had just arrived, was doing what he did best. Smashing. The Earthborn didn't stand a chance.

All too soon, the Earthborn had reverted to piles of dirt, and the heroes gathered in the centre of the destruction, except for the Hulk, who had run back the way they had arrived, presumably to relocate his clothing.

"Well," Nico said, a little short for breath, "That was easy."

The others laughed, and Tony asked, "Anyone find the missing agents?"

Natasha nodded. "We found them in the trees back there," she pointed where she and Clint had been shooting from, "They're conscious, but they were tied up. We released them before we started shooting."

Steve nodded, and raised his hand to his ear to inform SHIELD that they had successfully completed their mission. Bruce returned, wearing his shirt once again.

Tony was trying to convince the others to come eat at the repaired Shawarma restaurant again, when Nico held up his hand.

"Is it me," he said slowly, "Or did it suddenly get really cold?"

They had just enough time to look up, before a blue giant dropped from the sky with a flash of light. The Avengers rolled out of the way, and prepared for battle.

The blue giant looked terrifying. Huge, with glowing red eyes, and hands that had morphed themselves into ice spears, it was a fearsome sight.

"Jotun," Thor growled, "Why, and how, are you here?"

The Frost Giant smiled mirthlessly, "You should have allowed the treasonous Prince to destroy us. Now we shall have our revenge, for our world, and for our King. As to how, let us just say, you didn't really think the Bifröst was unique, did you?"

Thor yelled angrily and attacked. The others watched as the hammer crushed the giant's chest, causing blood to leak from its shattered body. It fell to the ground, laughing croakily. "I am but the messenger," it gurgled weakly, "More will come, and with Her as our ally, this planet will fall, Asgard will fall, and you will all regret the day you ever dared slander the name 'Jotunheim'..." The giant died, its threat still hanging in the air.

Steve put a hand of Thor's shoulder, pulling him away from the body. "Come on," he said, "We need to make sure no bystanders were injured in the battle. Leave this for SHIELD to clean up."

As they gathered once again so Nico could bring them home, the reporters arrived. All of a sudden, they were surrounded, cameras flashing, microphones shoved in their faces, and questions were screamed at them from every direction.

"Mr. Stark," one woman said, "Are you going to pay for the damage you caused Central Park?" Tony grinned at her.

"Nope," he said, "Anyone got any good questions? We're in a bit of a hurry, so if you don't mind..."

The shouting started again, nothing discernible, until one man managed to make himself heard above the rest. "Who's the newest Avenger? You mentioned him at the press conference last week, is that masked man him?"

Suddenly, all the reporters converged on Nico, bombarding him with questions. What was his name, was he a mutant, was he an alien, did he eat people, the list went on and on. It was too much for him.

He caused a wave of terror to travel through the crowd, making shadows coil around his body, and they fell silent.

"My real name isn't important," he said calmly. "All you need to know is this: I'm a member of the Avengers, and I'm here to protect you. That's it. Now, unless any of you have important information or whatever, I really couldn't care less."

A brave reporter decided to ask a question; even though she was feeling the worst fear she had ever felt in her life. "Wha-what sh-should w-we call y-you?" she stammered.

Nico paused for a moment. He already had enough titles; he didn't really want to add another to the list.

"You can call me... Ghost King."

Thanks for reading, review if you want.