Percy is fairly convinced that Flora never blinks.

They're sat opposite each other, Flora on the couch and Percy on a chair he dragged in front of the TV, his elbows on his knees as he stares her down. He's tried everything he knows that can get a teenager to talk, but it only takes a few refusals on her part before he realizes he has no idea what teenagers want anymore.

You're losing your touch, little fish, he can almost hear Jason whisper.

Percy doesn't have the patience that Flora clearly does, dressed in paint-smeared sweats and a painter's smock that Rachel leant her as she placidly watches Percy become more and more fed up.

"You don't interrogate people often, do you?" Flora cocks her head to the side, taunting him.

He tries not to bite the very obvious bait she just laid in front of him. "Tell me about the killer, Flora."

She rolls her eyes and flops back onto the couch, playing with the strange, textilian Rubix Cube that Rachel had abandoned the previous night. Her brow furrows in deep focus as the colours meld and merge. "There's only so many times you can ask that before I start getting bored."

Percy leans back in his chair. "Then tell me why you won't help us out."

She thinks it over for a second. "I can't decide if you're with him."

"I'm investigating him. I wouldn't be with him."

"I dunno. The timing of you finding me was pretty suspicious."

"If you didn't trust me, you wouldn't be so relaxed. You'd have left a long time ago."

Flora pauses, looks at him, then looks away quickly. He can tell she doesn't want to give him an inch. "How do you know?"

"Because that's what I would've done."

Flora stops playing with the cube, pressing it to her chest as she stares up at the ceiling. She's wrestling with something, that much Percy can tell, but her walls were impenetrable. Eventually, she turns her head to look at him and he tries his best to look patient (a thing he could never master) and trustworthy (something that not even he believed).

"I—"

Before she can speak, she's cut off by a hard rap on the door to the flat. Rachel peeks her head out from her studio and takes off her headphones. She shares a glance with Percy.

"I'll get it." Rachel sets her headphones down and strides towards the door, paint splattering her arms. She calls through the door, "Who is it?"

The shout from the other side is very, very familiar.

"It's Clint! Let me in so I can wring Percy's neck!"

Rachel looks back at Percy in confusion. "Uh, I'm not sure I can do that. He's pretty occupied right now."

He can hear Clint sigh on the other side. He's probably massaging the bridge of his nose, the tips of his ears are probably pink and his hair in disarray. God, he looks so cute like that—

Percy shakes his head free of those thoughts.

Focus, Jackson.

"It's Rachel, right?" He says in a much more level tone.

"I'm not sure I should answer that to a government agent."

Another sigh. "Rachel… please just let me in. I promise not to touch Percy's neck in any way except the way he likes."

Percy feels heat rise to his face. Flora waggles her eyebrows at him, relishing in his embarrassment. He gestures for Rachel to go ahead despite his misgivings.

"Okay," Rachel says reluctantly. "But only if you stick to that promise."

The door swings open to let Clint in.

"I promise," he says to Rachel, a head taller and several breadths wider than her.

Rachel looks up at Clint, whom she had only ever seen in Percy's bed (and by accident at that), and blinks. After a moment, she gestures for him to enter the apartment and his demeanor changes instantly.

"Percy Jackson, you thieving asshole!" Clint's face is set in anger. "Where the fuck is my badge?"

He pauses when he gets to the living room and sees Percy and Flora engaged in another staring match.

"Hey," Percy gives him a beleaguered wave. "Your badge is in the car. Sorry to take it, but I had to for… legitimacy purposes."

Clint looks away in frustration, jaw clenched. "How does the kid factor in? Are we picking up strays now?"

Percy raises an eyebrow. "We? Is there a we now?"

Clint swears. "You know what I meant. Who is she? Long lost sister or something?"

Percy and Flora look at each other and immediately say in tandem, "What? No!"

This didn't help Clint's assumption.

Percy stands, approaching Clint. "Can I talk to you in the hall?"

Clint takes a moment to look between the two of them and suppress whatever quip he was going to say that was clearly not appropriate in the presence of a child.

"Fine. But explain for real this time."

Percy pats his shoulder with a grim set to his mouth. "Of course, babe. I'll give you the whole rundown."

He just knows he's going to not hear the end of it from Flora when he gets back.

Clint Barton has a headache.

Typically he has one, but this is another beast altogether. Percy has a preternatural knack for starting a throbbing pain directly behind Clint's eyelids that really should be bottled and used in creative ways to violate the Geneva Convention. Strike any nickname that Stark has made for the man, his official call sign should be War Crimes.

He massages the acupressure points behind his eyebrows; Bruce had told him about them once, along with ten million other points he could press to get himself to calm down, but these were the only ones he managed to remember.

"So you stole a child." Clint closes his eyes to regain composure.

Deep breaths, birdbrain.

"Well," Percy looks to the side as if an acceptable excuse would be found there. "She did attack me, and she'd been living in the woods for what looks like weeks. I rescued her, in fact."

Clint Barton was, in fact, going to develop an ulcer one day.

"Legally, you kidnapped her and you're holding her here against her will."

"Legality doesn't extend to demigods. We play by our own rules."

Clint throws his hands up. "Not when you're in public, Percy! Someone could have seen you. Not to mention it's an actual felony to steal my damn badge."

Percy takes in his own deep breath and talks with his hands in an attempt to untangle this very haphazard web he's woven. "Her name is Flora. She's the last one alive from her quest group, the other two of which are the victims we're currently investigating. It's important that we keep her safe, Clint. She's met the killer. She could help us identify him."

Clint crosses his arms. "And did you bother to check if she has parents that would notice if their kid is gone?"

Percy snorts. "Her dad is a god; he doesn't give a single shit about her. As for her mom… I get the feeling she's not in the picture. Camp told me she's a year-round camper, which usually means she's either too powerful to be in the outside world or… she's an orphan."

The air shifts when he says this. Clint felt like he recognized something in her eyes, and that's what breaks him. He clenches his jaw and looks away from Percy.

"Fuck." He breathes in to collect his thoughts. "Here's what we do: we stop stealing from our boyfriend because he's a government agent and he doesn't want you in jail."

Percy grins, that stupid shit-eating grin that always gets him. He leans an arm up against the wall near Clint's face. "Boyfriend, huh?"

"Shut up." Clint looks him dead in the eye. "We keep Flora out of the public eye: no taking her to the Tower or where she can potentially be spotted by someone who would send her location down the grapevine. Then, we get her to talk."

Percy scoffs. "If I could get her to talk, I would have already. The little shit doesn't want to give us anything because we "might be in on it." I told her we're trying to stop it, but that didn't do much to reassure her."

"What to kids like these days?" Of that subject, Clint was woefully unaware.

"Dunno. She doesn't seem interested in anything."

Clint nods, fishing out his phone from his back pocket. "I'll ask Katie; she's a kid, sort of. She'll know something."

Percy puts his hands over Clint's phone, pressing it to Clint's chest as he shifts his stance to box Clint in against the wall. He tilts his head down to nudge against his forehead.

"Hey," Percy says. His voice is honey and darkness. He wants it to surround him.

Clint moves his nose against Percy's. "Hey."

Percy's eyes shut and he stands like that for a moment, hips pressed against Clint's, hands inches from pulling him even closer.

"You missed me, didn't you?" Percy's hands creep up Clint's neck, tracing patterns aimlessly. It's enough to make him swallow.

"Yes." His voice betrays his want with a needy roughness. At least he's honest.

Percy hums. He dips his head down to kiss him. It's soft and slow, a languid kiss that could last for hours. Clint's arms wrap around Percy's waist and pull him closer. If they didn't watch themselves, they were at a very real risk of staying in that hallway for the rest of the day.

But that's what they always want, isn't it? The chance to just be and nothing else.

It's Percy who pulls away first, ever so reluctantly and only moves his mouth an inch away from Clint's face. His breath fans over his neck, making him want him even more.

"We need to get back." Percy's voice is rough.

"Yeah," Clint swallows. "We do."

Neither of them move.

The spell is broken a few moments later when they hear a crash from Rachel's studio. Percy clumsily extricates himself from Clint and runs a hand through his hair. He clears his throat.

"See if Kate has any ideas for how to deal with… this."

Clint nods. His breath slowly returns to normal. "What are you going to do?"

Percy rights his somewhat rumpled clothing. "I'm going to bring in the big guns."

Natasha arrives with a bottle of vodka and her face falls immediately when she sees the teenager standing in the kitchen, absentmindedly picking at some tortillas.

"Wow, I really misjudged the mayday text." She lowers the bottle and blinks. "Who's the kid?"

Percy turns in his chair, arm slung across the back of another, and smiles wearily. "This is Flora. Flora, Natasha. Natasha, meet the only surviving victim of the godkiller."

Flora and Natasha lock eyes. Percy can immediately see them launch into an invisible and intangible battle of wits and observation that must take place on another plane of existence that he simply will never have access to. Flora is the first to blink.

"You a fed?" Flora asks.

Natasha shrugs. "Depends on what you mean by fed."

"Like Percy's boyfriend."

That earns a small chuckle. "Yeah, I work with Clint."

Natasha sits down at the table, a few seats away from Flora but close enough to have a conversation. She hands the bottle of vodka to Percy and clasps her hands on top of her lap.

"Hm, this is the good stuff." Percy says as he turns the bottle over in his hands.

"Well, when you send a mayday text, I assumed it was either a life threatening injury or Clint dumped you," Natasha leans her head to the side to look at him. "Boyfriend, huh?"

A smile twitches at the corner of Percy's mouth. "That's what I said."

Natasha hums. Percy can't tell if it's a happy hum or a "this is doomed to crash and burn" hum. They sound extremely similar.

Percy looks between the two and grabs his phone. "I have to make a call. Can I trust you two to remain civil?"

Flora very carefully laid her hands on the table in front of her. "No promises."

Natasha smiles. "Tell me, Flora. Do you play cards?"

He shakes his head and walks away. Percy ducks out of the apartment and climbs the stairs to the roof, mentally psyching himself up for what he has to do. He's been doing a lot of that these days, and he has a feeling it won't end anytime soon. It was only in Jason's absence that he realized how much he relied on him for strength. Percy could fight monsters in spades, but unlocking his phone and scrolling to find a certain phone number felt impossible now.

He taps his screen and his phone calls Annabeth Chase.

"Hello?"

Her voice sounds tinny, farther away than it should be. He hesitates a bit too long and she speaks up again.

"Hello? Who's calling?"

Percy clears his throat and manages a weak smile. "Hey Annabeth."

The line sounds like it might have gone dead, but her voice comes through. "Percy. Are you alright?"

He chuckles. It all feels so nostalgic now to him, even her uncanny ability to read him like a book no matter the situation. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"I heard from Nico you went back to camp." There's a question there, but she doesn't ask it fully, like she's giving him an out if he doesn't want to talk about it.

"They were pissed at me," he says. "Granted, I was pissed at them too. It was pissy all around."

Her laugh comes through the scratching speakers of his rundown phone. "Yeah, letting them think you're dead will do that."

Percy smiles— he can't help himself. His years of trepidation aside, Annabeth has always been a person he felt safe with. She calms him down like no other and he can already feel himself relaxing for the first time in days.

"Is— is this a social call, or…?" A tinge of concern colours her voice.

"Oh, right." He blinks, forcing himself to get back on track. "I'm hoping you might have some information we can use for the case I'm working on."

He can almost hear her brow furrowing. He knows her too well to not. "Okay, shoot."

Percy leans back against the brick doorway up to the roof and searches for the words that wouldn't put him in breach of sharing classified information. "Who do we know that works at Stark Industries?"

She pauses. "Why?"

"There's a link between Stark tech and the case," he says. "Our current theory has us looking for a demigod. Since you've kept in touch with everyone, I thought you might—"

"Travis," she says. "Travis Stoll got a sales job there a while back."

He nods. "Okay, that could work. He might know of other demigods in the Tower or in other Stark buildings. Anyone else?"

"No," she replies. "Some of us got jobs outside of camp, but not a lot. Me at the firm, you with SHIELD, and then Travis with Stark. Most everyone else is still working for camp or made a life for themselves in New Rome after graduating from the university."

"Right, right." He thinks to himself how to best approach this. "Let's hope Travis still likes me enough to not kill me the moment he sees me."

Annabeth laughs. "I think you'll do just fine, Percy. I'll send you his number. Not sure if it's still any good, but it's a start."

Percy's mouth twitches. He wants to say something, anything, to keep her on the line, but it dies on his tongue. "Give— give my love to…"

She chuckles— always that goddamn chuckle. It twists his heart. "The family? I'll tell Andy and the kids."

He swallows, his voice rough. "Y-yeah. Them."

She pauses a beat. "Clint seems nice."

He doesn't know what to say to that. The love he has for Clint is so different to Annabeth that it threatens to rob him of his voice. "Yeah. He's pretty nice."

"Are you…?" Her voice lingers in a question.

Another swallow, just enough to get the words out. "Yeah. Took a few years and too many fights, but yeah. We are."

He can hear that smile again— he can't even bring himself to hate it now. What does he get from being jealous of her husband and kids? He has a man who loves him just one floor down. But a petty part of him wants to hold onto that first love they had. He thinks he always will.

"That's good." Annabeth waits, giving him the space to say something else. "Be careful, Seaweed Brain."

Percy cracks a smile of his own, bittersweet and threatening tears. "You too, Wise Girl."

They sit for a moment in mutual silence, the comfortable kind that they used to have all those years ago. He could sit like this for ages, he thinks, and he didn't realize how much he missed it until now.

"See you around," Annabeth says. "Don't be a stranger."

A chuckle catches itself in his lungs and rattles about. "I—" He swallows. "I won't. I promise. Bye, Annabeth."

The line goes dead. Percy stares at his phone for far too long. His limbs feel numb, his head buzzing with the conflicting thoughts flying by— he can't grasp any of them. Then, Annabeth text comes through, Travis's number there plain as day. He nods to himself and pushes off from the brick.

Time to get to work.

He hadn't seen Travis in years, not since he and Jason still considered camp to be home and they felt like the summers they had as children would never end. The demigods from his generation were a breed unto their own; their bond similar to soldiers who'd been through war.

It had been even longer since the death of his brother. Connor Stoll was always a source of bright light amongst the darkness. At one point, Travis was too, but he grew sullen and silent on the heels of his brother's death. In some ways, Percy and Travis were birds of a feather, but in seeing him as he is now, it couldn't be further from the truth.

He looks happy .

Sat at the cafe that Rachel suggested they go to, he's whistling to himself, sunglasses perched on his head and sipping something fizzy and brightly coloured. He hadn't aged a day, it seems, the angst that he was draped in replaced with the joyous nature he had when they were young. Percy almost expected Connor to sit down in the seat opposite him. It stops his heart for a moment.

He remembers Connor, just a little bit. He remembers what a hole he left after his death, the same way Jason left a hole for him.

Maybe they were too similar for their own good.

Travis cracks a smile when he sees Percy. "Well if it isn't Percy Jackson, here in the flesh. Long time, no see, huh?"

Percy can't help it, he smiles and sits down opposite him. The anxious knot in his stomach unties itself a little bit. He reaches out to clap Travis's hand. "Too long, man. I had no idea you were out here in the city."

Travis shrugs, chewing the straw from his drink. "It is what it is. I'd have liked to stay back at camp, but a guy has to make money somehow."

"Stark Industries, I heard." Percy raises his eyebrows. Settling into the friendly tone they used to share was easier than he thought it'd be. "Pretty damn cool."

"It pays the bills." He gets a sly look on his face. "What have you been up to since dropping off the face of the Earth? Everyone thought you were dead. My personal theory was aliens, but no one believed me. I maintain the alien theory as the gospel truth."

Percy shakes his head. "No aliens. Did some traveling, now I consult with SHIELD."

"Ha! SHIELD works with those alien guys in the Avengers," Travis cackles. "I was sorta right. Kinda. I'm gonna rub this in Cletus's face so hard."

Percy tries to play it off with a good-natured chuckle and flags a waiter down for a menu and some water. "It's not that exciting, trust me. At least you're one of the few demigods I've reunited with that hasn't wanted to punch me in the face."

Travis makes a non-committal noise. "I figured you had something going on, you know. It's not that easy to put a demigod like you down. If the great Percy Jackson is going to die, it's going to be spectacular."

"Come on." Something gripped Percy's stomach at the idea of his own death, that it might be as mundane as Jason's. "I could get taken out by some bad sushi. I'm not that special."

Travis waggles his eyebrows. "You sure? You had everyone weeping at your funeral. Now that you're alive, that funeral is kind of moot, but we'd already accidentally done a funeral for you before, so what's another one on the table?"

He waves Travis away. "No more morbid shit. I'm tired of that."

"Okay." He sips his drink noisily around the ice collecting at the bottom of his glass. "What do you need, then?"

His eyes narrow. "What makes you think I need something?"

Travis sets his now empty glass down. "I'm going to level with you, Perse, we were never great friends to begin with. I doubt you just wanted to check up on me. Spill."

Percy rubs at his chin and sighs. "I'm working a case."

"An alien case?" Travis looks far too excited for comfort.

"No, I don't work with any aliens."

"Bummer, man," Travis pouts. "What do you need me for? I'm hardly on someone like SHIELD's radar."

"That's okay. I need something else." Percy leans on the table, lowering his voice. "Who else that works for Stark is a demigod?"

Travis thinks for a moment. "I dunno a full list, but there's a few besides me. A daughter of Tyche, some Hephaestus kids that are older than us, and some Athena legacies. I don't know any of them personally. Why?"

Percy gnaws at his bottom lip. "I can't tell you everything— classified, you know— but we're tracking a guy, real piece of work, and think he might work for Stark or knows someone who does. Probably a demigod, definitely went to camp based on their actions."

Travis leans back in his chair and nods. "Yeah, I can make you a list of people who might fit that. It might not turn up anything, though."

"That's okay, anything you can give me is helpful." Percy lets out a sigh of relief. This had been easier than he thought, but he still felt like he'd run a marathon with all the stress he's been under.

Travis looks at him. "Besides all that, how are you? Really."

Percy exhales and nods. "Good. As good as I can be. Work is… stressful, but I'm alright."

He tilts his head to the side. "You seeing someone?"

"Why? You offering?"

Travis's trademark snicker is music to his ears.

"No, dude! You just…" He gestures vaguely. "You look like you did when you were with Annabeth, is all. I was curious."

Percy blinks. He'd never considered that. How odd to have an old friend notice it before he did.

"And I'm good," Travis continues. "Thanks for asking."

Percy runs a hand down his face. "Fuck. I'm sorry. I've been so wrapped up in— you know how it is."

"I do, dude, I do indeed." Travis nods sagely. He leans across the table, spreading his fingers wide and looking at Percy with an anticipatory gaze. "Now… you look like a man who knows where to get some really fucking good weed."

Returning to the apartment somewhat high after chilling with Travis in Central Park probably wasn't the world's best idea, but it was the only one he had. Natasha takes one look at him and bursts out laughing.

"What?" Percy blinks.

Clint sighs. "Goddamn."

Flora looks up from her hand of cards and squints in his direction. "Is he high?"

Natasha stands and claps Percy on the shoulder with a massive grin that should be outlawed in several states and principalities. "Yes he is, Flora. Our boy is absolutely flying right now."

Flora snickers and tries to hide it behind the cards.

"I'm not that high, guys," Percy sighs. "I just smoked a little with Travis."

Rachel perks up from where she was at the table, busy organizing her cards. "Travis Stoll? You smoked with Travis Stoll ?"

Percy gestured with his hands. "Uh, yeah? We used to smoke all the time in the Hermes cabin back in the day. Just having some summer fun, Rach."

Rachel repositions what she has in her hand for the second time. "His weed was always the gnarliest shit I've ever seen, and I hang out with art students."

Percy grabs a chair and sits on it backwards, leaning his face on the chair back. "We smoked my weed, for your information."

Flora's eyes widen. "You have weed—?"

Clint shushes her, putting his hand over her mouth. She bites down and he yelps. "Fuck, stop doing that !"

"Yes Florita, I have weed. I'm a son of Poseidon, it'd be a miracle if I didn't smoke." He swings his gaze to Clint. "Are you going to pull the morality police on me?"

Clint rubs at the bite mark on his finger. "No, but now you're on babysitting duty while we go out."

"What?" Percy whines. "But we haven't been out in so long."

"Tough shit," Clint says as he stands. "I don't want to deal with you cross faded and right now, you're probably the gremlin's favourite person."

Rachel puts down her cards. "Can I come? I can sub in for Percy."

Clint exchanges a glance with Natasha and shrugs. "Why not?"

"Oh come on . You'll take my roommate but not me?"

"I was losing at poker anyway," Rachel says. She leans over to kiss Percy on the forehead. "I'll text you if things go wrong."

"That," he points at her. "Is a bad policy if you know it. Text me every half hour so I know you're not dead."

Rachel grabs her things and goes to follow Natasha out. "Likewise, idiot. I don't want to return to either of you having murdered each other."

Clint trails his fingers down the back of Percy's neck. "Be good. We'll be back."

Percy is about to reply, but they close the door before he can. He looks at Flora.

"So…" she trails off. "You any good at cards? Because I was taking those assholes for all they had."

"Language, Flora."

The bar is dark and dingy when they arrive. Natasha and Clint like to go out fairly regularly; they found out a long time ago that keeping a steady schedule of letting loose prevented the stress from bubbling over for the most part. Grabbing a drink here and there kept the international spy assassins sane, so to speak.

And now they had Rachel, which— well, they'll see how this pans out.

Rachel and Natasha share very superficial similarities; this is the first thing that Clint notices. He doesn't know much about Percy's roommate and childhood friend, but he knows enough to see that she and Natasha are just about polar opposites. Where Natasha had straight hair, she had curly. Natasha was tall while Rachel was short. With the red hair they shared, they could pass as sisters, but by every other metric, they were fire and ice.

Still, Rachel tries her best to maintain a conversation with Natasha, and it's going better than Clint expected. They're chatting about different artists and their influence on the current art world when they approach the bar, finding Bucky already there.

He nods in Clint's direction, slipping an arm around Natasha's waist. His eyes find Rachel, who looks far too excited to be included. "Who are you?"

"Tactful." Natasha tugs on his hair. "This is Percy's roommate, Rachel. Rachel, Bucky."

Rachel nods. "Right, right, the metal arm guy."

Bucky cracks a smile. "Yeah, that's me."

"What are we drinking?" Clint claps his hands together.

Bucky gestures to his vodka and the second glass he hands Natasha. "The usual, but you can't have it if you're going to get all sad and find dead bodies again."

"That was one time," Clint replies. "Rachel, you a beer girl?"

She shrugs. "I can be. I don't really drink much since drinking alone is incredibly sad."

"Alright, a pitcher it is. Then, I'll trounce you all at pool." Clint flags down a bartender to get the pitcher.

"So, Percy's roommate." Bucky turns to her. "How do you know him?"

"Uh, well, that's a bit of a long story, but we're…. I guess you would call it childhood friends?" Plausible enough. "I always keep a room open for him; he comes and goes so often and Lord knows I have the money."

Bucky hums to himself and sips at his vodka.

"What was Percy like back then?" Natasha asks.

"Back… when we were kids?" Rachel knits her brows together. "Kind of annoying, to be honest. But we all loved him. Very much the golden boy. He's saved the known universe a few times, so I guess he's earned it."

Natasha looks unmoved by this. "Can you tell us any stories? I like to have a good stockpile of blackmail at the ready."

Clint comes back with the pitcher and pours Rachel a drink. She takes a hearty gulp.

"Did you hear about what happened to the Hoover Dam?"

It's Flora's idea to watch a movie and Percy's idea to do a back bend over the ottoman until he can't see straight anymore. Head rush aside, it's doing wonders for hiss back.

"Find anything?" Percy asks.

Flora flicks through the channels. "Nope. Nothing good is on."

"You know," Percy starts. "This would be a perfect time to tell me about your time in the woods."

"No," Flora shoots back.

He groans. "Come on. Not even a crumb of information? I'm never interrogating teenagers again. You suck."

She cocks her head to the side. "You're slightly more interesting when you're high."

"Everyone is, Flora. It's why weed was invented."

She rolls her eyes. "How about a question for a question?"

Percy thinks to himself, his head almost pressing against the floor. He rotates on the ottoman to face her, albeit upside down. "Deal. I'll go first."

"Nope." Flora shifts to the edge of the couch to face him. "I will. Why are you so interested in this case?"

"Because people are dying, Flora. It's not a massive leap to think I'd want to solve it," he sighs. Percy puts his hands out, palms up, waiting for her to do the same.

She dutifully hovers her palms over him and they begin the slap game as they're talking.

"Why were you picked for the quest?" he asks.

"I'm a daughter of Hermes. And I haven't really done well on quests. I think they wanted to give me an easy one." She chews her lip as she concentrates on the game. "What did he do to Julian and Topher?"

Percy pauses. "You don't want to know that, Flora."

"Yes, I do."

He sighs. "He staged them in mockeries to their godly parents. That's why we know it's a demigod and someone who went to camp. Where did he capture you guys?"

"He didn't." She pauses. "I mean— he didn't get us all at once. We were sort of… picked off. After that rest stop you found me at, everything gets so… blurry." When Percy doesn't comment, she continues. "Why don't you go back to camp?"

His fingers still mid-air and eventually he drops them to push himself upright. The laid-back expression he wore for most of the evening faded away.

"Before Jason and I were picked to serve the gods personally, there were others. And not all of them made it out."

"And then he went off to travel the world. You probably know the rest."

Rachel finishes off her pint of beer and gestures for Clint to pour her another.

"Yeah, he was going around with Jason, right?" Clint sloshes a bit onto her arm. "What was that all about?"

"He didn't tell you?" She looks between Natasha and Clint.

"Not a word," Natasha says. "Just that he served the gods."

"Huh." Rachel brings her glass to her lips, but doesn't drink. "Did he ever tell you why he was off on those missions?"

Clint shakes his head. "The man's a closed book; always has been."

"Not always," Rachel says. "Not back then." She worries away at her bottom lip. "Percy and Jason, along with some more demigods from that generation, they were a pretty tight-knit group. They were the ones who stopped the Titans and the Giants; that was a big deal. The kids who came up under them had no idea what was out there; they never fought in the wars like they did. So something was proposed."

Clint's gaze drifts to Natasha, and they share a look of understanding.

"It wasn't like a team, really," Rachel says, sipping her beer. "They were just… testing them, I guess? I wasn't there because I wasn't one of them. Neither was Annabeth— Percy's girlfriend at the time. We were both doing outreach in New Rome. I guess they decided they didn't need her.

"That whole group was taken somewhere. I can't remember where— it's sort of fuzzy when I look back. I was caught up in Oracle things and didn't really pay it any mind. I guessed they were training somewhere upstate to be bigger and better child soldiers; typical stuff for the gods."

She takes a large gulp of her beer. "But not all of them came back. We— we weren't supposed to ask about it. Something happened— maybe a monster ambushed them? There's a lot of those up in the wilderness and it's easy for them to get the drop on you when you're outside of camp's boundaries.

"The worst one was Connor Stoll. When he didn't come back, it was like a piece of camp died with him. His twin is Travis, the guy Percy met with today for information. He's pretty hard to read these days— I mean, I don't exactly keep up with him, but he's fully severed his ties to camp. I don't blame him."

Natasha looks at Rachel with a keen eye. "What happened up there?"

Rachel looks nervously at her beer. "I don't know. Whatever it was, it's bad. Percy didn't talk for three weeks; Jason was even worse. He broke up with Annabeth as soon as we arrived back from New Rome. He wasn't the same after that. None of them were."

"Five dead," Percy says. "Five out of fifteen. A third of our class, gone, and I can't even remember what happened." He places his head in his hands and inhales. "But I know it was in those mountains."

Flora hesitantly reached out to touch Percy's hand. "I don't know if I'll even remember where he kept me."

He smiles ruefully. "You'll know it when you see it. I think we both will."

She doesn't know what to say. "Did they ever tell you what it was for?"

He shakes his head. "No. I only remember pieces, the stuff Jason's showing to me in my dreams. The cabin, the lake, Ares. This— vial of something, some kind of… elixir, I think. Red and swirling. They had us drink it."

It's a lot to put on even a fellow demigod, let alone a kid. As his high ebbs away, the grimness of his story dawns on him.

"I—" Flora looks conflicted before standing and retrieving her small pile of things from the guest room with her lips pressed together.

"Flora—" Percy looks at her.

"I didn't show you before because I didn't know— I mean—" she gulps. The folds of her old hoodie fall away. "Did the elixir look anything like this?"

Flora holds up a small glass, the liquid within it swirling a dark, blood red.