A/N:
Hello everyone! This is a rewrite of my old story "The Mist Has Fallen". If you're new here, then welcome! If you've come over from the old story and decided to give my rewrite a try, then welcome to you, too! You guys are amazing, and I sincerely appreciate every single one of you!
This is a Percy Jackson x Avengers Crossover story—in case you missed that in the description somehow—and my play on the classic "disappearance of the Mist" trope. I do not have an update schedule, as some of the old timers can tell you, but I'm hoping to post a new chapter at least every one to two weeks.
I love to see your reactions, so don't feel shy leaving a review or shooting me a PM!
~ August 13, 2012 ~
Percy stared out the window at the crowds of people on the sidewalk outside as his van inched its way along Fifth Avenue. He'd lived in this city his whole life, but sitting as he was now, with his armor chafing and the sounds of his friends' nervous chatter drifting up from the back seat, everything around him seemed foreign. Like he was outside of himself, somehow. Transported back in time.
"Percy?"
Annabeth nudged him, and he realized she must have asked him something.
"Hmm?" He tore his gaze away from the window and turned to look at her in the seat next to him. Her blonde curls were tied back in a ponytail, and she looked fierce in her armor, still all dinged up from their last game of Capture the Flag earlier that summer. Her grey eyes were studying him carefully. "Sorry, I just spaced out for a second. What's up?"
It was more than that, and they both knew it, but thankfully she let it go for now. "We're almost there and still no sign of Loki. What do you want to do?"
He knew her well enough by now to know that she was only asking for the benefit of the others in the van. And, sure enough, the idle conversations behind him tapered off as they all waited to hear the answer.
Only the willing and most capable had come to fight in this battle, so most of the demigods riding in this van and the one behind them had done this song and dance before. That didn't make it any less nerve-wracking, though.
He raised his voice and turned in his seat so that he could be heard in the back. "Our priority is to protect Olympus, so we'll concentrate the majority of our forces there. With the gods now back to normal, I don't think he'd get very far if he decided to take the direct approach, but better safe than sorry. Especially since he's apparently using some sort of space alien army—which is a new one, for me, personally." Annabeth elbowed him in the side, but he got a couple of snorts of laughter, so he still considered it a win. "Everyone else will fan out around the perimeter to catch the stragglers."
"Will, that will be mostly you and yours along with Thalia's hunters. The mortals don't appear to be evacuating the city, so if there is a battle here, there's probably going to be a lot of casualties." Annabeth added, building off of the rough plan they'd made in the early hours of the morning.
The son of Apollo nodded solemnly and readjusted the med pack he was holding on his lap. Sat next to him, Nico bumped his shoulder and said, "I'll help with transport."
Annabeth nodded her thanks and looked up as the van came to a stop outside of a Starbucks. She exchanged looks with Percy, grounding herself in his familiar presence at her side, before opening the door and stepping out onto the street. "Alright. Let's go."
It was a normal day in the city. In fact, it was so normal, that it was almost unnerving. Percy and Annabeth wandered around a park a block away from the Empire State Building, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible with their weapons and armor. There was no sign of the invasion Rachel had woken them up that morning to warn them about. No aliens. No crazy Norse gods. Nothing.
Percy huffed and leaned against a wall, idly scanning the veritable river of people as they passed by in either direction.
Annabeth came to lean up next to him. "Bored, Seaweed Brain?" she asked teasingly.
"We've been here for two hours and nothing's happened!" A sharp movement out of the corner of his eye had him turned and with Riptide at the ready before he could even blink, but it was just a pigeon. "I hate just waiting around like this. It makes me jumpy."
Annabeth let her hand fall from where it had flown to the drakon bone sword sheathed at her waist and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. At least last time, we knew what we were up against. But Loki?" She shrugged helplessly. They didn't know a whole lot about the Norse gods. They obviously interacted with mortals a little bit more directly than the Greeks did, but for the most part, they were content to keep to themselves on Asgard. The two pantheons only ever interacted in neutral territory, and none of Them had ever gotten this close to Olympus before.
Percy sighed and rejoined the flow of people heading back towards the Empire State Building. "How long should we wait before we try to hunt him down some other way? Maybe Lou Ellen can rig up some sort of tracking spell."
Annabeth shrugged where she was keeping pace at his side. "In the painting Rachel made of her vision, the sky still seems bright, so it could happen at any point before the sun sets. It'll definitely be today, though. Rachel was right. He attacked Stuttgart last night."
They were just approaching the fancy glass doors when the ghostly image of Leo Valdez shimmered into existence in front of them. He was grinning, as always, but his brown eyes were serious as he asked, "Anything?"
Percy shook his head. "Nope. How about up by you?"
"Nada. This place does have some killer hot dogs, though."
"Leo!" Annabeth scolded from over his shoulder, "You're supposed to be keeping watch!"
"I am! But we've been here for hours already. The stupid guy's probably not even going to show."
Naturally, as soon as the words left his lips, the ground shook beneath them and a strange synthetic sound, almost like the ringing of a gong, rang out from somewhere above them. Percy recovered his balance quickly and searched for the source, immediately spying the blue laser punching into the sky on the roof of one of the nearby buildings.
"Holy shit", Leo breathed.
Percy sighed and smiled at his friend tiredly through the rainbow. "You just had to jinx it."
"Hey! This was so not my fault", Leo protested. He was staring, transfixed, at whatever he could see of the light from where he was stationed closer to Central Park. "Is that coming from Stark Tower?"
"It is", Annabeth agreed, grey eyes gone steely as she took in their newest problem. "That's the portal Rachel saw in her dream."
Sure enough, an inky pool of blackness was growing where the light touched, almost like that laser or whatever it was was feeding it energy. Nothing but stars was yet visible on the other side, but Percy knew from experience that it wouldn't take long for the invasion to begin.
Once again, he made eye contact with Leo through the Iris Message, but this time, his expression was deadly serious. "You know what to do. Keep the mortals safe and out of sight. If you see any creepy uglies from outer space, blast 'em to ashes."
Leo gave a wild grin and a sloppy salute before slashing his arm through the mist and cutting the connection.
Percy looked at Annabeth next to him, gaze finally broken from the portal above them. Her eyes were distant, and he took a moment to bask in her presence before they had to separate for the battle. She was frowning already, and he knew her mind was running through every possible scenario, both good and bad.
He reached out, smoothing the furrow that had formed between her eyebrows with his thumb. "We'll be alright", he said quietly, leaning forward and planting a kiss in that same spot, "Together, remember? You and me."
For a brief moment, they leaned into one another, supporting each other just as they'd done countless times before.
An eerie screeching began to echo from the sky above them, and Annabeth pulled away, expression hardened once again and a new steadiness to the set of her shoulders. "Let's do this."
Thor had fought many strange creatures in his long lifetime. But not any quite as formidable as these flying… abominations his brother had let through the portal. Their armor was completely impenetrable. Only brute strength or the power of his lightning could bring them down, and with so few allies, he could not afford to waste so much energy on but one foe.
He leaped from one of their flying machines, aiming for its hopefully weaker face with a crushing blow of his hammer. But the creature simply turned, catching him on the spiked, plated armor, and sent him flying into the rubble-filled streets below.
He crashed through a building and landed on an abandoned car on the other side, completely flattening it. Luckily for him, there was no one inside. Or on the entire street for that matter. It seemed this area had already been evacuated.
Groaning, he rolled off the pile of new scrap metal and glass, clutching his side. A few more hits like that, and he might actually break something—not an easy feat for one of his kind.
A familiar chittering, scraping sound came from behind him, and Thor whipped around, hammer at the ready to defend himself from the group of Chitauri he now sensed behind him. There were about a dozen of them, all clad in their dark armor and wielding their strange laser weapons. Where Loki had even found such mindless beasts to be his soldiers, he still didn't know. But that was a concern for another day. They opened fire, and he rolled behind a pile of debris just seconds before the car he'd landed on was reduced to a charred lump of slag.
They had him pinned down. He had to do something before they managed to outflank him, too. Thor shifted his grip on Mjolnir, readying to throw it in a wide arc and hopefully catch them unawares from behind.
The ground trembled, and he paused, waiting. What new horror would show itself now? This was no distant crash of building or foe. This felt like something else. Something rising up from below.
The shaking increased in intensity before giving way to a sudden roaring sound that had him crouching down even further to take cover.
What was it? Some sort of explosion? One of their mortal rockets?
The sound of fighting echoed from where he'd last seen the Chitauri, but something now clouded his vision. At first, he thought it was smoke or dust, but it smelled terrible and settled on his skin in foul droplets so that he soon realized it was steam from the sewers beneath them.
It was a smart move, and Thor grinned, launching himself back into the fray using his ears as a guide.
With their advantage of range now eliminated, the Chitauri fell easily. They were weak creatures, their bones crumpling like wet sand beneath his hammer, even with their armor. And Thor was in no mood to play with his food. Not when seemingly endless swarms of them continued to stream out of the portal.
The last one died somewhere to his left with a wet gurgle and a scream, and as the vaporized sewer water began to dissipate, Thor could almost make out the silhouette of the person who had come to help him.
He expected it to be one of his new allies. Stark with his many gadgets, or maybe even the archer with his trick arrows. But the man he could make out through the steam was no one he recognized.
He was shorter than Thor, but still tall for a mortal, and his frame was bulky and jagged enough to suggest plated armor. The dead Chitauri soldier was impaled on what was probably a sword through its midsection, and as Thor watched, the creature finally went limp and slid to the ground.
The scoffing sound the warrior made echoed strangely from underneath his helmet, and Thor's eyes narrowed as he recognized the plumed, Mediterranean design of it. Greek or Roman? He could not remember enough detail from so long ago to distinguish between the two. But either way, their presence here was unexpected and troublesome. Relations between their two pantheons had never been bad per se. But neither had they been particularly good. As far as he was aware, the Western gods hadn't been directly involved in the affairs of mortals in thousands of years. That one of them had come down now and sought him out specifically could not be a good sign.
The other god's armor was completely covered in the black blood and gore of the Chitauri. If this interaction carried any less weight, Thor may have allowed himself to be impressed. As it was, the sight of the black-splattered bronze just served to set him more on edge.
He flicked his sword and immediately, what steam remained in the air condensed to form a bubble around the blade, cleaning it. The display of power was minor, but the control it required was impressive, and Thor eyed him carefully. "Who are you?" he asked. He did not bow–he bowed to no one but his father–but he did temper his tone slightly more than he usually bothered.
Another scoff echoed out from beneath the helmet, though this time Thor could understand more of what was said: "Figures I'd find the wrong one." Before he could question the confusing statement, the man removed his helmet to reveal a surprisingly young-looking face. "My name is Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, and I'm assuming you're Thor, the Norse god?"
Thor tensed. A demigod? A god he could have worked with. There were too many laws and treaties in place for a true battle between the gods of their pantheons to be worth the risk. Demigods, though, were different. They could go anywhere—challenge anyone. Thor very rarely had any of his own, but then, his people were not reliant on the worship of mortals for their sustained power and immortality as the Greeks were. It was less of a necessity for them.
"I am," Thor confirmed haltingly, "What business do you have here, mortal?"
The newly-introduced Percy's expression cooled considerably at the address, and Thor winced internally. "I should be asking you that, don't you think, viking?" He looked away to clip his helmet onto his belt, but his sword remained unsheathed, and Thor had the sense that his lack of a helmet would not hinder him much if they were to fight. "I came here looking for your brother, not you. Where is he?" The question was blunt, and a chill crept down Thor's spine at the murderous intent he could hear buried under the words.
"Why do you want to know?" he stalled, but it seemed the demigod was in no mood to play games.
Glowing green eyes snapped back to meet his. "Why do you think?"
They considered each other in tense silence for a few moments before Thor broke first and looked away.
His attention snagged immediately on the ball of powerful magic above one of the nearby "skyscrapers", as the mortals called them. He had assumed it was some trick of Loki's, yet to be revealed. But now, with the demigod standing before him, he could see the truth of it: an ancient city, sprawled across a floating mountain-top, dangerously close to the hole his brother had ripped in the very fabric of space.
Dread spread from his heart to his limbs like ice, and Thor turned back to face the demigod with the dawning realization that things were somehow much worse than he'd originally thought they were. Because that was Olympus, the stronghold of the Greeks. And by inviting his monstrous army here and proclaiming himself this realm's ruler, Loki had all but declared war.
The newly-named Percy frowned and followed his gaze. "You think he's up there?"
"No!"—he better not be—"My brother has interest only in the mortals. He has no quarrel with your family, I swear it." Thor spoke quickly, hoping to appease the demigod (and thus his father) and hopefully avoid yet another conflict.
Unfortunately, that seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as the boy took a threatening step forward. "My family is the least of your brother's worries right now." In the distance, another building collapsed, the force of it shaking the ground beneath their feet even from so far away. Percy looked towards it, and for a moment, his expression looked almost pained, as if seeing it go down physically hurt him. By the time he turned back, he looked even angrier than before. "This is my city, and your brother is destroying it. You're lucky our oracle warned us about this invasion ahead of time because if one hair on my mother or baby sister's heads had been hurt, even your fancy rainbow bridge wouldn't have saved you from me."
He did not raise his voice, but his eyes blazed, and his tone was deadly serious.
Thor readjusted his grip on his hammer, preparing to fight. "You forget to whom you speak, mortal," he said darkly. He was not at all pleased with the tone this boy was taking with him, and yet, something deep inside still stopped him from acting as he normally would. The air felt thicker somehow. Compressed. Like the heaviness before a storm.
The mounting tension was broken by a piercing whistle from somewhere further up the street, and Thor broke eye contact to locate its source.
A blonde girl stood on the corner, dressed in similar-looking bronze-plated armor and holding an odd-looking sword in her right hand. Like Percy, her helmet had been clipped to her belt so that her face was visible. Also like Percy, she was utterly covered in oily black gore.
Percy turned only just enough so that he could see her without losing track of Thor, and she gestured in the direction of Stark Tower and beckoned to him. Thor had no idea what she meant, but Percy obviously did.
"I know exactly who I'm talking to, Lord Thor," he said, using the title more as a taunt than the symbol of respect it was supposed to be. He grinned, an eerily lupine thing, and spread his arms so that what little sunlight filtered through the smoke glinted off the edge of his sword. "Either get your brother under control, or we will."
With that, he turned, walking back towards the girl, replacing his helmet as he went. He seemed utterly unconcerned at turning his back on a god he had just antagonized, and Thor briefly considered showing him exactly how much of a mistake that was. But as he glared at the retreating form, he made eye contact with the girl over his shoulder, and her intense expression gave him pause. He could tell she was watching his every move, and Thor was struck with the uncomfortable sensation that she somehow knew everything about him.
It was clear neither of them should be underestimated. The look on her face and the rage in his voice were the only indications Thor needed to know that they would follow through on their threats if given the opportunity.
And while he would like nothing more than to smite them for even having the gall to make threats in the first place, he had to find his brother. It was likely the two Greek demigods before him weren't the only ones in the city, and if they were all as formidable as these two, his brother was in grave danger.
No matter his faults, Thor wouldn't allow Loki to be killed. He couldn't lose him. Not again.
So, with one last silent promise of revenge, he spun his hammer and flew away.