Chapter X:

"You're trying to tell us what?"

"I don't know how else to explain it to you guys." Exasperated Percy to Jane, the two of them along with Thor crammed comically into a coffee shop corner. "This big bad dude Chaos, who's a pretty big deal from where I come from, bet my soul on a card game and lost."

"A card game?" Jane repeated, not for the first time.

"A card game." Percy confirmed.

"Chaos?" Thor mumbled, rubbing his beard in a way that Jane always found irking.

"Chaos." Percy also confirmed.

Jane stared at Percy intently, as if willing him to say something else that would make everything snap into place.

As if that was even possible.

All she could think about right now was how she could not believe that it had happened again. This now made two dashing men she had tangled with who had divinely insane grandparents. And there was only so much divinity one Jane Foster could take.

Jane wrung her fists underneath the table. What was it with these gods and their children always fucking with her?

"Alright so," Percy tried yet again. "Chaos bet my soul on a card game and lost, so the primordials he was playing with figured why not try and mess with me by sending me here." He gestured with his hands. "To this universe."

Once more there was hesitance from Jane. However, the same could not be said for her clearly (and laughably) jealous ex-boyfriend.

"This Chaos, this Greek Chaos…" Thor started. "You must be of great importance to have your soul personally dealt with by such a character."

Oh great. Here came the egos.

"I am knowledgeable of your Greek Pantheon. Demigods, they are quite common. Ordinary, almost."

"Yeah, Son of the Big Three. Pretty ordinary."

"Big Three? Whatever that means." Thor stifled the world's worst fake yawn. "This Chaos, if he is as powerful as you say he is, is he of any threat to this realm?"

Jane nearly broke her silence out of laughter. It had taken Thor well over an hour to finally ask a decent question.

Percy shook his head. "Chaos can't harm us here. I'm sure of it."

"Must not be so powerful then?" Thor mused.

"Alright, that's enough." Jane spoke up. "Thor, can I have a moment with Percy, alone?"

Thor gave her the most insufferable look.

"Oh, so now you want to talk to me? After all this time?" Jane rolled her eyes. "You showing up to help does not make up for all the time you spent ignoring me."

An almost victorious look appeared on Percy.

"Don't you even dare think you're even remotely out of the woods." Jane gave Percy her most withering stare. "I'd much rather eat whatever's at the bottom of Erik's fridge than look at you right now."

A wise person once told Jane that there were only two things that could control men. And it just so happened that women were directly involved in both. The first had something to do with being angry, and the second, well…

"Okay then." Thor grumbled.

The god's chair creaked painfully as he stood up to leave, his puppy dog eyes begging Jane for forgiveness. However, her face remained unchanged as she watched him obediently turn for the exit. He could manage to wait. Hell, she was probably doing him a favor, teaching him patience.

A bell rang as Thor opened the door, and rang again once it closed.

After that came a silence. A silence as awkward and silent as they came. A silence that Jane felt was fitting after the past day's events.

Gods, why did her love life have to be so damn complicated.

Percy cleared his throat with a grimace. "Why were you so hard on him?"

"Doesn't matter." Jane sighed, adjusting her seat to face him directly.

Percy opened his mouth to speak, only for it to be cut short by the shaking of her head.

"Percy, I just…I just..."

The corner of the coffee shop suddenly seemed to close in on her.

Percy nodded silently, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on the wooden table. Jane watched with her chin in her hands, her eyes heavy and brow furrowed.

"Look," he said. "I know everything I said sounds crazy. Camp Half-Blood, quests, the gods, but it's all true. It really happened. And I'm here, for a stupid reason, but I'm here."

That really was not the reason why Jane was in a twist. To be honest, his story was not even the most far-fetched she had ever heard.

"So, when you say you're a demigod…"

"Me, yeah." Percy pointed at himself. "Unfortunately. Half-god, Half-human."

"And you're not from this world."

"No."

"Yet you told me when we first met that you were from New York."

"I am from New York." Percy ran a hand through his hair. "Just my version of New York."

Jane crossed her arms. "So you're telling me that throughout all our conversations, you never lied to me once about who you were, or why you wanted to work for my lab?"

The realization of why she was so upset finally dawned on Percy through the widening of his pupils.

"Jane, I've been here for over five years. Five years. Five years separated from my world. My reality. My life. And I've spent all this time trying to survive on an Earth that up until I arrived, didn't even know I existed. And I've got no way home."

Percy was different as he spoke, more emotional than she ever knew he could be. The pauses between his words. His breaths. Him.

"You've been stuck here," Jane said after a few moments. "With..."

That was when it clicked for Jane.

"You came to me, trying to find a way home." Jane blinked. "The Einstein-Rosen Bridge. The wormhole, that's why you were so obsessed with it!"

"Yeah, you're not wrong." Percy paused, inhaling sharply. "Jane, the moment I found myself here, I knew I had to find a way to get back. I tried for years, Jane. Anything I could think of. You have no idea the lengths I went to. But none of them worked. None. So when I discovered you and your science, I saw it as an opportunity. But I promise you Jane, everything that happened between us was real. That wasn't me trying to use you, or to betray you or anything. I swear on the River Styx." Percy's exhale was determined. "If there's anything you should choose to believe, it's that last part."

Jane's brain was nearing overload. Was she willing to give in to her crackpot-ass beliefs? Give more than the benefit of the doubt to the man across from her? She could taste the truth of what he was saying. More than a taste. And he did after all just save her life. Was that enough? Gods. What was she even thinking at this point. She might add that the last time she had trusted someone like him, everything had gone way overbaked potato. But Percy was not like Thor. She could tell that was true. Right?

Jane looked away toward the window, thoughts washing over her. Outside, there was Thor across the street, his unbearable smile beaming back at her.

"I don't appreciate being used." Jane pursed her lips, turning back to Percy.

It was almost like she had slapped him. He opened his mouth to make what was obviously going to be an explanation, but she headed him off at the pass, "If you had told me before about your situation, and explained it all to me, I could've helped you from the get-go. You wouldn't have been the first time I've tangled with gods, or inter-dimensional travel or whatnot."

"I'm sorry." Percy's eyes scrunched. "But to be fair, you didn't trust me enough to share any of that information either."

He was stepping on thin ice, but goddamnit, that was a good point.

"With what happened with the wormhole that night, when it worked. You used your powers, didn't you?"

Percy nodded.

"The parts of the machine? The exotic matter?"

"Some of it was part Celestial Bronze. The same material as my sword."

"So that's why I found you in the water?"

Percy scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, I had just come back from the Mediterranean looking for some. But I wasn't lying to you about my sandwich falling into the water. That did indeed happen."

Despite herself, Jane laughed.

"Fair enough." She conceded.

Percy coughed, presumably combing through his mind for a way to explain his motives better. Instead, he started upon something else entirely.

"I remember something you said about the universe's ability to surprise us. Well, to me, you felt like a sign. And I figured if I couldn't put my faith in the gods anymore, I might as well put it in you."

"So I was your second option?"

"Wait? What? No that's not what I—"

Jane smiled. "Relax, Jackson. Just giving you a hard time."

The two of them then shared a moment of silence, a moment in which a newly formed understanding could be welcomed.

They were both silent still, Jane's thoughts running wild. She knew he was looking at her, an expectant look in his eyes as he waited for her to say something.

"Are you still trying to get back? To your world? Your home? Your family?"

"I… I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know."

"I used to know," Percy had a crazed look in his eyes. "But gods, is it so cliché of me to say that meeting you has made me not so sure anymore?"

The inner romantic side of Jane was screaming, her other, more sober side was rolling its eyes.

"Jane, would you like to get dinner with me later? Like, a date dinner. At a proper sit down instead of the takeout Chinese we demolish in the lab? I'd like to make things up to you. I feel like there's a lot more we should talk about."

"We just blew up half of London, an act that will definitely have S.H.I.E.L.D. on my ass, we haven't even begun to get to the bottom of why that monster attacked in the first place, I just found out that you're not even from this universe and have magical water powers with a sword that doubles as a pen, not to mention I have a Norse god for an ex-boyfriend staring directly at us as we speak, and you're asking me out on a date?"

Percy's smile had never been more lopsided, his presence never more penetrating. There was just something about his personal magnetism, his measuring gaze. When you looked at him, your eyes could not let go. He was like a perfectly shaped cloud at the edge of a perfect blue sky.

"…Was that the Dr. Jane Foster version of a yes?"

Jane's laugh was a combination of shock, amusement, and something else. Something undefined.

"Yes, lab intern Percy Jackson. That was a yes."

Her smile was uncontainable, the swelling feeling in her chest more than enough assurance of the decision she had made. The universe had surprised her again.

Gods, Darcy was right. She really was hopeless.

Author's Note:

Hey guys! Sorry about the long wait.

Yeah, the story's silly, but I hope you're enjoying it! Just some lighthearted fun, nothing too serious.

Feedback is appreciated :) Join the discord in my bio!