I'm on time! :D I can honestly say this chapter was a blast to write, even if it was a pain to edit. I'm trying to get characterization for the most part IC, so any suggestions are appreciated. I was also wondering if anyone had an idea or link to a picture for this story. I might end up drawing or editing one, but - again - suggestions are always welcome!

IMPORTANT:
Let me know in your reviews whether or not you guys want:
a) A complex more serious plot where the chapters are usually fragments of different perspectives (what I'm currently doing)
or
b) A simple and more comedic plot with more cliche instances and chapters that do directly follow eachother (what I'm not currently doing)

Reviews:
Person: Due to the plot I'm trying to make work, a lot of the chapters won't directly relate to eachother. That being said, the focus of this story is primarily Percy Jackson's encounter with the Marvel Universe even if it does have side plots.
Guest: Thanks, your review helped me believe the previous chapter was not a total trainwreck in my opinion. ;)
Winterlover6: Ever so kind, here's your update.
Starkiller99: Here's your "More". :P

Chapter Four: Awkward Situations

November 19th, 2012
8:56am
Earth

Percy woke up that morning with a headache that was definitely not from a hangover.

Although surprisingly, since he woke up to the delicious smell of breakfast, whatever was bugging his mind was immediately forgotten. Groaning as he hauled himself from his rather comforter-tangled position on his bed, he allowed a smile to adorn his face with the thought of seeing his mom.

He loved when she showed up out of the blue some Saturday mornings and made him breakfast. It reminded him of when he was a kid, obsessed over proving to his gods-awful stepdad Gabe that blue food exists and henceforth ate hordes of it whenever it was present.

Plus, his mom's blue pancakes were the best.

Therefore, when he shuffled out of his room and into the living space of his small apartment, you can say he was a bit more than shocked to see a woman that wasn't his mother preparing breakfast. Furthermore, said woman was the weird girl from last night and why was she here?

The events of the previous night rushed back to him, and he could safely say all that happened is Darcy drove him home after the mix-up that consisted of their awkward encounter. Speaking of awkward, the noise Percy made from shutting his bedroom door had caught her attention.

Turning around with a plate of bacon in her hands, Percy guessed Darcy was not expecting to see him with only sweat pants. However, he didn't expect her to drop the glass plate and waste the perfectly good breakfast food just because he was shirtless.

The knife-like shards scattered throughout the general vicinity, and immediately they both dropped to the floor to clean up the mess. Darcy's cheeks were tinted pink, and she was stammering uncontrollably.

"Uh, so sorry about that, I mean, I didn't–" She rambled in her own defense.

Percy laughed softly, "It's just a plate and some still-edible bacon," he said while he quickly plucked a piece off the ground and into his mouth. After he finished chewing it, (it was more like one chew followed by a swallow) Percy asked the question that seemed most obvious for this occasion.

"What are you still doing here?"

She looked at him blankly for a second, before her smug grin returned and what he guessed was going to be another wild explanation of who she thought he was. He supposed he should really clear that up, but Percy honestly didn't expect to see the girl again since they parted ways the night before.

"I figured that if you're the person who is assigned to "watch over me" for whatever reasons you guys have, I thought would make your job easier by just staying here the night. After all," her eyes wandered away from his own in a sheepish way, "It was four in the morning and I was really tired and I hope you don't mind – I, I slept on the couch," Her smug grinned had disappeared only to be replaced with a look of uncertainty.

Percy grinned, just because he thought the look on her face was priceless. He was still sure of hell confused about everything she might have been talking about – don't get him wrong – although, for the moment he thought he could play this charade a little longer….

"Yeah right, don't worry about it. You should have told me you wanted to stay over, I would have given you my bed," Percy winked just for the fun of it, and almost burst out laughing when Darcy's cheeks became an even darker shade of pink. To be honest, Percy didn't know why he was in such a good mood, in fact, for the past four-ish years all he's done is mope around without a purpose in life anymore. He had forgotten how nice it was to actually talk to someone besides his mom, (as lame as that sounded), and just for the moment he wanted to enjoy it.

Darcy seemed at a loss for words for once and just keep silently picking up the last of the glass. Once it was all done, she stood up and threw out the shards and bacon alike, much to Percy's dismay. As far as he was concerned that bacon was perfectly fine, and he should have been allowed to indulge himself in some home-cooking for once. After a chunk of very awkward silence, Darcy finally seemed to find her voice.

"Look, I'm sorry about breakfast and everything, I guess I'll just leave, I mean, I might see you later considering… anyway… yeah bye," She stammered without meeting Percy's eyes, probably due to the fact that he was still shirtless, and proceeded to gather her keys and her stray fuchsia beanie.

Percy was now very aware that everything should be sorted out right now, because with his luck it would all come back to bite him later. Just when he decided he was going to figure out a way to explain everything without revealing he was a demi-god, his front door slammed and he was left standing alone in what was now a very empty apartment.

It was now that Percy also realized he had to walk over to the not-so-close bar if he wanted to see his motorcycle again.

•ψ•Ω•ψ•

Darcy was one of those people who learned to cope with everything as it was happening. She supposed it was a trait she got from studying political science. When they had first found the forsaken Thor, she coped, and that just happened to end up with her tasering him. All in all, Darcy reacted to things in ways she saw fit and if someone had a problem with that, she wouldn't back down.

However, meeting Percy had been something odd – that was for sure – but she hadn't thought it was something she couldn't cope with. She'd met plenty of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents before, and she honestly wasn't surprised they had one tailing her. It probably had to do with her affiliation to Jane Foster, and how said scientist just ended up being the God of Thunder's "fling". (Yes, she called it a fling because the guy hasn't visited in years.)

So, all in all, Darcy thought she was prepared for anything, even when she, Jane and Eric all moved to Manhattan after the crisis that was the "Avengers". She wasn't even going to get started on how pissed Jane had been to find out Thor had been in New York, but left before she could get here.

That's how Darcy ended up with the crappy night-shift part-time job at one of the less popular bars in the area. Of course, Jane and Eric got to stay in the Stark Tower and work on science things for S.H.I.E.L.D. but they hadn't room for good old Darcy. That's also how she ended up in a dingy little apartment in the same district as her crappy bar job.

Life sucked sometimes. But, just when things had been so absolutely boring, she'd met the very definition of interesting.

Of course, in the short month that she'd been working at the bar she'd seen the guy drown himself in glasses of vodka (glasses!) while she discreetly watched him out of the corner of her eye. He didn't show up too often, but when he did, he stayed for hours and usually on Friday nights. She didn't know why he seemed to draw her attention every time he showed up and offhandedly Darcy assumed it was his eyes. She had never seen eyes that bright and that green. In fact, she would bet one week's pay that they would reflect light in the dark. Furthermore, she always wondered why such an attractive guy would be doing drinking alone on a Friday night, so she had started conversations with him when he should have been off-the-rocker drunk. Those times hadn't gone too well, as he always seemed way too coherent, and in the end all she ended up with was tight-lipped few word answers. That was all fine, until last night, when he had the extra two glasses of vodka and she really didn't know how he was awake, she decided that she just couldn't let him drive his way to his deathbed.

That's right – she could be a good person.

That was also when shit hit the fan.

Darcy thought she would have been prepared for anything since Thor popped out of nowhere and hit their truck, or since the giant robot thing attacked their little town in New Mexico, or since the catastrophe she'd heard about in New York involving aliens and Thor's brother Loki.

Obviously, she wasn't prepared to see the only other person in the bar turn into some scaled monster and see the drunk-as-hell good-looking guy pull a sword out of nowhere. Not only that, the guy managed to dispatch the thing in a couple well-timed movements and within a minute whatever-it-was disappeared into a cloud of gold, leaving her very, very confused with a potentially-threatening sword-wielding stranger.

She'd just wished she'd brought her taser.

Turns out, the guy's name was Percy and he was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. (He never actually said so but she could tell.) That's how she ended up trusting him, and still argued to drive him home because even S.H.I.E.L.D. agents got drunk – right? (It didn't matter that he just totally annihilated something, she wasn't going to let him drive anywhere.)

It was also four in the morning, so when she dropped him off at an apartment complex that was nicer than hers, and made sure he got to his apartment okay – even if he insisted he was fine – she decided what the hell and plopped down on the couch. It was a very spur of the moment thing, but she was a very spur of the moment girl.

She had woken up only a few hours later to the ungodly hour of eight in the morning to a very peculiar situation.

She was not in her own apartment and she really had to pee. Long story short, she had found the washroom, not before stumbling into an oddly placed end-table (in actuality it wasn't all that odd) which Darcy would have insisted hadn't been there moments before, when the clunk of something falling caught her attention. Upon hurriedly inspecting the floor to ensure she hadn't broken anything – that would have not gone well – she noticed a picture frame on the table had only fallen over. Slightly scared to upright it for the chance it might have shattered, Darcy closed her eyes as she restored its original position. Peeking through one of her closed eyes, she noticed that in fact it wasn't broken – thank God – but instead, was actually a very heart-warming photograph. It must have been taken years ago, due to the fact that the boy whom she assumed was Percy couldn't be older than sixteen or seventeen. It made her heart clench to see such a happy face on a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, even more so to notice he was holding hands with a very pretty girl. The girl who was most likely around the same age of Percy in the picture had curly blond hair and striking grey eyes. Darcy assumed the girl was not accustomed to photos, due to the fact that her smile seemed somewhat awkward. She chuckled at the thought and with a start – scared she would have been caught prying – proceeded to search the nearest door for said washroom.

Within a few minutes later, (after finding the washroom) Darcy decided she would make breakfast because she was hungry, and she supposed that "her" S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wouldn't mind her lingering presence considering he was supposed to watch over her anyway. When she had first scavenged for pots and pans and any other cooking necessities, she had noted the lack of well – everything – in his apartment. Apart from a stray bottle or two of vodka (surprise, surprise) and a fruit situated here and there she hadn't found anything worth making breakfast of.

When she had finally looked in the freezer she found a frozen pack of bacon, and her cooking commenced. Darcy wasn't going to lie, she didn't cook often and she didn't think she cooked too well. At least it was bacon which basically involved plopping it in a pan, flipping it over a few times and take it off before it burned. By ten to nine she had a nice plate of delicious bacon if she did say so herself (which she did) when it just so happened to take a dive to the floor.

In reality, she hadn't possibly considered she would be startled by Percy, seeing as she had seen him pull a sword out of nowhere, but once again she couldn't have been more wrong. When the click of a door signified she had company, she was ready to plow into her story for still being there and making breakfast – she hadn't expected him to be shirtless.

Don't get Darcy wrong, she has seen plenty of guys shirtless before. One of the more memorable instances involved the time with Thor, whom had possibly been the most cut guy she'd ever seen. So, it wasn't a fact of naivety or even surprise, as she had known Percy was there before she turned around.

That wasn't to say Percy wasn't ripped, because he was, but Darcy was certain that single factor alone wouldn't have been enough of a shock to make her drop the delicious plate of bacon. Especially when it involved a delicious plate of bacon.

It was the scars.

Even Thor didn't have scars like that, especially the gash that seemed to run from Percy's left shoulder to his right hip, standing out like a gash on a painting. There were smaller ones as well, ones that blended into the contours of his skin, but nothing compared to the terror Darcy felt towards experiencing something that left that particular scar.

With a quiver of her hands, the plate was let loose and the resounding shattering of glass is what finally brought her eyes away from what she assumed was a battle scar. There was no other way that could have happened, unless he'd been tortured – oh God, Darcy was panicking now, she couldn't imagine going through anything like that.

As she dropped herself to the floor to avert her gaze to the shards of glass, she realized with a start that this was the first time she couldn't cope with something. For some reason that scar had horrified her, petrified her into feeling such a sense of fear that she wanted to curl up into a ball and hide herself from the world. Taking a deep breath, she steadied her hands and was able to start properly cleaning up the mess she made.

She hadn't realized she'd been stuttering an incomprehensible explanation until Percy's voice suddenly rang out like honey to her ears, almost incomprehensible with the sense of calm it brought.

"It's just a plate and some still-edible bacon," he had said, and Darcy managed to look up in time to catch him eating a piece of the floor-sullied bacon like nothing was wrong with it. Oddly, she wasn't disgusted, but grateful at what seemed like a simple act of reassurance. It hadn't lasted long, and soon enough he asked the obvious question.

Darcy had proceeded to ramble about S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the time and before she knew it she mentioned how she slept on the couch. That wouldn't have bothered her, until she suddenly remembered the picture she had saw and was enticingly aware she might have intruded on something private. Her expression must have been somewhat akin to unsureness, considering he grinned and mentioned something about allowing her to sleep in his bed. She blushed at the thought, wondering if Percy was flirting when all of a sudden he started laughing, and if Darcy wasn't so distraught at the moment she might thought it the most joyful laugh she'd ever heard.

When she had finished picking up the remaining bacon and glass, she threw it out as fast as she could before mumbling some incoherent sort of goodbye and proceeded to leave the apartment. She didn't start breathing properly again until she was back in the safety of her car.

That's when the absurdness of the past few hours hit Darcy like a ton of bricks.

She had seen some sort of monster slayed by an undercover drunk S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, proceeded to drive said agent home, slept at said agent's apartment, made said agent breakfast before having a nervous breakdown because she saw said agent's scars. Plus there was the fact that even if she didn't want to admit it, she might be mildly infatuated with said agent but that might just be the political science talking. (Because obviously political science had to do with the colour of his eyes and the totally badass sword-skills.)

If that wasn't an eventful morning Darcy didn't know what was.