Chapter 3: Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

Natasha P.O.V.

Chapter 2: Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

"Okay what does that mean? Killer socks that would be super cool." Tony said, shocking us all with his intellect, not.

"How would killer socks be cool?" Steve asked, ever the voice of reason in this ragtag group of people.

"Because killer socks would like attack your feet and totally destroy lives I can see it now, Killer Socks Kills Thousands of Feet. Wouldn't that be so cool?" Tony asks

"Anyways," Agent Hill states looking back at me.

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty four seven hallucination was more than I could handle, For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if Mrs. Kerr— a perky blond woman whom id never seem in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip— had been our pre algebra teacher since Christmas.

"That's weird; twenty four hour hallucinations are very rare, in fact…"

"Dr. Banner we don't have time for a science lesson right now." Fury barked at Bruce. I smirked.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

"Maybe he was psycho. I mean maybe Mrs. Dodds was a figment of his imagination." Clint said.

"She wasn't," Thor said. "I've met her, not very nice if I do say so myself. Perseus is very lucky he got away with no injuries, very lucky indeed." Thor stated looking back to me. What the heck? Why isn't he telling us anything? I shook my head and kept reading.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed. Almost. But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate then claim she didn't exist, But I knew he was lying. Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

"See something did happen, this Grover guy obviously can't lie. Maybe Little Miss. Muffet here could teach him something." Tony said looking at us all.

"What did I tell you about calling me names Tony?" I asked him a quiet voice.

"Tu not to." Tony said with a smile. "But I couldn't resist that one, what are you smirking at Robin Hood?" Tony asked Clint. I turned and glared at my partner who held up his hands in surrender. I huffed and turned back to the book.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

We all shuttered, knowing what nightmares were like. We'd all woken up on more than one occasion with them.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.

"I remember that, the weather people didn't know what was going on. No one had any clue why the weather was doing that, I wonder if Percy had anything to do with it?" Coulson states.

"He's a kid, I highly doubt it." Hill replies.

One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

"See what modern education has turned to!" Tony shouts with a smirk. We all rolled our eyes.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from D's to F's. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. Finally, when out English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests I snapped, I called him an old sot, I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

"Oh man that's good, if only I could have said that." Tony howled. Thor looked confused so I elaborated.

"Old sot means old drunkard." I tell him. He gets this big grin on his face.

"If only Perseus called Mr. D that. He'd be a dolphin now." Thor said with a smile.

"Okay, what?" Bruce asked. Thor said nothing. That man was infuriating.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. Fine, I told myself. Just fine. I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. And yet…there were things I'd miss about Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.

"That's not a nice thing to say about your friend." Steve muttered.

"Chill Steve, you can tell that their good friends and don't mind being weird." Clint told him softly.

"They are very good friends, like brothers." Thor said quietly.

I worried how he'd survive next year without me. I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only class I studied for. I hadn't forgotten when Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

"That's a good and bad thing." Thor muttered. I didn't even wait for him to elaborate, I knew he wasn't.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces.

"Ha, I bet he remembers them now. How could he not? People would get very mad if he didn't remember, especially his mentor." Thor laughed.

"Why would they be upset?" Bruce asked. Thor replied without even thinking.

"Would you be mad if your pupil called you the guardian of the gates to the Underworld vs. your name as the centaur?"Thor asked us.

"What? Centaur and the Underworld? What the heck Thor?" Fury asked in his quiet menacing voice.

"I've said too much already." Thor said quietly.

And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious express, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

"That's so sweet. That poor kid, can you imagine having ADHD and dyslexia? That would be awful." I said feeling for the boy.

"Yeah, that would be no fun, now keep reading." Fury barked. I glared at him with my I will make you pay for that sentence look. He glared right back with his, I am boss and I can and will fire you, look. I relented.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "…worried about Percy, sir." I froze. I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

"Well obviously he's not much of an eavesdropper. First rule never admit you don't know." Tony states.

"If my friend went to a teacher about me I would be very upset, I get what Percy means." Agent Coulson tells us in a quiet voice. We all look at him like what? All but Fury and Hill that is.

I inched closer. "…alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"

"What's a Kindly One?" Hill asked. Everyone looked at Thor who sat there with tight lips.

"I can not say, names have power." Thor said in a quiet voice, especially for Mr. Loudmouth himself.

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—"

"What's the summer solstice deadline?" Bruce and Steve asked. No one knew, or they just didn't say anything, judging by Thor's face he knew exactly what it was.

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can." "Sir, he saw her…"

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I…I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover." Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

"No never give your position away. You stupid boy." Tony muttered looking at the book with a mix between anger and sadness.

"Tony, drop it." Fury yelled at him.

Mr. Brunner went silent. My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

"Robin Hood, I didn't know you knew Percy." Tony said.

"I don't." Clint replied.

"Sure you do, didn't you hear theirs an archers bow and the only one we know that can shoot is Mr. Hood here." Tony said logically.

"Yes, but what about the people we don't know?" I asked Tony.

"Well, I haven't gotten that far yet." He replied.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. A few seconds later I heard a slow clip-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow." "Don't remind me." The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Ring, ring, ring. Fury's phone went off.

"Fury." He barked walking towards the elevator. A few minutes later he walked back in.
"Hill, Coulson, we need to go. You keep reading and keep me updated, we will be back." Fury says leaving via elevator.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. "Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?" I didn't answer. "You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just…tired." I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

That's never a good thing when they think someone's in danger. I thought.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes were swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

"Three hours?! That borders on child abuse." Tony called out.

"No it doesn't." Steve told him.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best." His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

"That's gross. Something is wrong in the head with that child. Making kissing faces at a teacher and student."Bruce says. Thor and Tony nod their heads in agreement. I better not meet this chick or there would be bad things happening.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean…" Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time." My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the whole class telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling I was destined to get kicked out. "Right," I said, trembling.

"Oh just stop there Brunner, your making things worse." I said.

"He won't stop, will he?" Thor said.

"No, he won't."

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say…you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"There you go Brunner, you just made thing worse, so much worse. That poor kid." Tony said.

"Poor Percy, to have a teacher tell you that at all let alone if front of the class would be traumatizing in the least." Bruce said quietly. We all sat and reflected on something different for a few minutes.

"Percy—" But I was already gone. On the last day of term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities.

"Kind of like me." Tony said with a smile.

"No Tony not like you," Bruce said to him and Tony glared.

I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

"I hope you don't believe that now, Perseus." Thor said to himself, but we heard.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. "Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool." They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

"That's not nice either." Steve muttered. We ignored him, we all knew he hated bullies.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

"Coincidence, I think not." I mumble.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

"Again with the Kindly Ones. What are they?" Clint asked waiting for an answer.

"You will find out if you can find your patience, Bird Boy." Thor told him, making Tony laugh.

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?" I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh…not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?" He winced. "Look, Percy…I was worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"

"Grover—" "And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were over stressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

"See! You need to teach him Miss. Romanoff." Tony pointed out. I smiled and nodded thinking that if I ever met Grover, I'd help him.

His ears turned pink. From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half—"

"See names have power." Thor told us thoughtfully.

"Well what is Half—"

"Didn't I just say Names. Have. Power." Thor said deathly loud.

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um…summer address." My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be rich as the others at Yancy. "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion." He nodded. "Or…or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

"Okay that's rude." I said

"I don't think he meant it like that." Bruce said.

It came out harsher than I meant it too.

"See," Bruce said.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you." I stared at him. All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. "Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?" There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from under the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there.

"Something bad is going to happen." I said suddenly.

"How do you know 'Tasha?" Clint asked me looking intense.

"I can feel it." I said

"Isn't that lovely, our resident spider can feel that it's going to get bad quick right? Wonderful." Tony said sarcastically. I hissed and kept reading.

On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks.

"Why would someone knit socks that big?" Steve asked looking confused. For once I was a confused as he was. By the looks of it so was everyone else. I looked at Thor and I happened to see a rush of clarity hit him full on and all color drained from his face and he looked at the book with horror.

"Oh no, that can not be what I think it is. He actually saw them, poor Perseus." Thor babbled, I mean Thor babbled, this must be huge.

The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me. I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. "Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Perseus. Not funny at all." Thor mumbled looking at the book with horror still.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

We laughed and Thor glared.

"This is no laughing matter." Thor boomed.

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.

Thor sucked in a breath his eyes huge.

I heard Grover catch his breath. "We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic.

"Oh crap, I get it, I get it!" Tony yelled standing up.

"There just a myth right Thor, this is not possible." Tony muttered,

"They are very real and very scary Tony." Thor said looking deflated.

Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla. At the rear the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuttered, and the engine roared to back to life. The passengers cheered. "Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" Once we got going, I started to feel feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

Thor and Tony didn't look any better at the moment. I looked at them nervous, they looked like they'd seen a ghost.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?" He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What about them, man? They're not like…Mrs. Dodds, are they?" His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.

"Worse than Mrs. Dodds, is that possible?" Steve asked.

"Oh, it's very possible, very possible." Thor muttered still white as a sheet.

He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else something almost—older.

"Older, what the heck, Thor?" Bruce asked. Thor shook his head.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. "This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth,"

"What's with the sixth grade thing?" Tony asked.

"It's when they are found, if not earlier, never later. Oh this is not good; I didn't think it had gotten this bad when Asgard decided to not help them." Thor said rubbing his head sadly.

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me." This seemed a strange request to me, but I promised he could. "Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked. No answer. "Grover—that snipping of the yarn, Does that mean somebody is going to die?" He looked at me mournfully, like he was picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

I looked at Thor and Tony and they looked the same.

"That's the end of the chapter." I replied quietly. You could feel the elephant in the room, but only two people knew what the elephant was.

"What is going on?" Bruce asked, with Steve and Clint nodding as well.

"What do you all know of Greek Mythology?" Tony asked us suddenly and it clicked.

"No way." I muttered looking at Thor and Tony. Thor nodded and I sat back with a huff. This was crazy, not only was their one godly power, but two what the heck were we going to do. I noticed when Steve, Clint, and Bruce got it because they gasped, looking petrified.

"Well, I wanna know what happens next someone read." Tony barks.

"I will." Steve said reaching for the book.

"Chapter 3…"

Authors Note

Ok what do you think? This is taking a lot longer to type than I thought so my updates will be farther apart, sorry. Well thanks for reading so far. Read and Review

~Ranger'sBabe16