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"Iron Man, on your left," the Captain's sharp orders crackled through Percy's earpiece as he swivelled around and blasted the crap out of a whirring robot.

Some idiot had salvaged whatever alien tech they could and stupidly decided to experiment with powering robots with it. As was clear, that hadn't ended so well.

"You know, Bruce, we could use with some of this stuff," Percy mused as he regarded the short-circuiting robot, the shattered purple gem spilling onto the ground.

The Hulk roared in response, and Percy was treated to a wonderful view of him ripping apart a car and using it to crush two more bots.

Percy winced inside his suit, landing with a slight stumble, his metal boots clanking against the tarmac road. Oh, Mr D was going to kill them for all the collateral damage.

"Save Manhattan first and satisfy your scientific curiosity later, Jackson," Captain America said shortly.

Even though her snappy answer might've offended anyone else, Percy was just glad she didn't tell him off in that harsh tone for not using their code names in battle.

"And we're not supposed to use our real names in the field."

And there it was.

"Someone's got a stick up their ass," Percy muttered, knowing full well that the snide comment would be caught by the sensitive mic.

Hawkeye's snicker reverberated in his helmet, and Percy allowed himself a small smirk.

"At least someone thinks you're funny." The voice that should've come out of his earpiece came from his left, and Percy nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the Black Widow speak.

"Thought I told you not to sneak up on me like that. I might blast your head off next time."

Hazel snorted. "I'd like to see you try." Her frizzy hair was in tight braids today, and it just made her so much more of a mystery to Percy; where the hell did super-secret assassins learn intricate hairstyles?

"Can we cut back on the sarcasm and focus on the fight?"

Percy rolled his eyes, his face plate flipping up as he scanned the sky. "We're all clear over here."

A small figure in the sky started to look closer, gradually growing bigger until it was a Norse god who smashed into the sidewalk on Percy's right.

Jason's blonde hair was ruffled from the wind and his blue eyes danced with the mix of childish excitement and manic adrenaline that he always had. "Well, that was fun," he boomed.

Percy eyed the hammer in his hand warily. Miu-Ma — Okay, he was never going to remember its name — Jason's hammer always made him tense up. That thing was a lot more dangerous than it looked; he knew that first-hand.

Hazel crosses her arms. "Again, look forward to receiving a dictionary in the mail so you can look up the meaning of the word 'fun'."

A deafening growl turned their heads as the Hulk came galloping up, Frank on his shoulder and clinging on to his ear for dear life.

"You look like you're doing well," Hazel said amusedly as they watched Frank tentatively slide off of the Hulk and land on the ground, light on his feet.

"Yes, being piggy-backed through a battlefield is very super of you," Percy remarked.

"It wasn't a piggy-back!" Frank grumbled, slinging his bow around his arm.

Percy's giant, green teammate pounded his chest, looking rather self-important. "Hulk piggy-back Chinese-Canadian baby man!"

Percy released a throaty chuckle. "Well, I think we have a new name for you, Hawkeye."

Frank shot him an ugly look. "I think I preferred 'Legolas'."

"Where is our brave leader?" Jason wondered aloud. Percy didn't know if he'd ever not be put off by the god's formal way of speaking.

"Speak of the devil and she shall appear." Percy rotated so he was facing the Captain as she jogged up to them, holding the shield by its edge. "Oh, Captain, my Captain," Percy declared dramatically.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but Percy couldn't say the same for their leader, who simply replied with a pointed glare.

"All's done," Annabeth said decidedly, glancing around at the path of destruction the bots had left in their wake. "Mr D wants our reports in by tomorrow morning."

Even thought it was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, Percy bit back an angry retort. He knew from experience that all that did was make Annabeth angrier, and Percy just wanted to go home.

As they usually did after a battle, the Avengers parted ways. The Wonder Twins went off together, the Captain hopped on her motorcycle, and Jason flew off to who-knows-where.

Percy left the Hulk leaning tiredly against a building, knowing that Leo would join him back at the Tower when he was ready.

Humming Led Zeppelin under his breath, Percy landed on the balcony outside his bar, cracking the floor slightly.

"Sir," JARVIS commented disdainfully as the machinery retracted the suit from his body while Percy took a leisurely walk towards the glass doors. Percy felt that familiar sense of freedom when wearing the suit disappear as the gauntlet of his armour was taken away for repairs. "Might I recommend replacing the floor material with something steadier? You crack it every time."

"Well," Percy answered as he removed the help met and passed it off to a metal robot arm. "Seeing as that was Piper's idea, I will not be doing it. Can't have her knowing she was right about something else. I don't think I could deal with—"

He walked through the glass panels into the penthouse, gulping as he saw his two oldest friends — well, pretty much his only friends — sitting on the sofa. Judgemental gazes raked over him.

"You're late," Piper said snippily. The purple pantsuit she was wearing today complimented her eyes, but Percy couldn't find it in himself to appreciate it when she was glaring at him like that.

"Bot attack," Percy said defensively, raising his hands.

"We had an appointment," she said, clearly not accepting his excuse.

"So I was just supposed to let them burn the city?"

"You could've been a little faster."

Percy opened his mouth, then quickly thought better and shook his head. "Yes, next time we're in mortal danger, I'll make sure to let the enemy know that I have to have drinks with you. I'm sure they'll understand."

Piper combatted his deadpan tone with a sweet smile that sent a shiver down Percy's spine. "Good."

Grover, who had been silent up till now, shot them alarmed looks. "Well, then, now that we're done with that, I did bring Thai food."

Percy's gaze flickered to the plates of pad thai and mango sticky rice. "Actually, I kind of need to take a rain check," he found himself saying tiredly.

Piper's eyes widened, but Percy held up a hand before she could start yelling.

"I have to do repairs on my suit, and there's a mission report—" Percy cut himself off with a dismissive spread of his hands. "Good night."

In the back of his mind, Percy knew he was being a massive dick, but right now, the fatigue on his mind allowed him to ignore that.

After stumbling down to the lab, Percy pulled up some designs he had been working on for the last two days. New exploding arrows for Hawkeye, and a more potent form of the Widow's Bite.

"Knock, knock."

Percy didn't even turn around. "Telling bad jokes now, are we?" But he waved a hand, and JARVIS opened up the door.

There were footsteps as Grover walked up behind him, hands shoved in his pockets.

"I thought it'd be okay to be around her," Percy said shortly. "Guess I'm not that over it."

After almost a decade of struggling with his feelings for Piper, Percy had finally gotten everything he wanted. Then the Battle of New York had happened — wow, had it really been six months already? — and Percy disappeared over Christmas, and then EXTREMIS, and really, Percy wasn't surprised that Piper called it quits by New Year's Eve.

Of course, in an ideal world, they could instantly go back to being close friends. And maybe Piper could, but Percy couldn't. At one point, he really had thought that Piper would be the one. Unfortunately, it seemed like he was simply too messed up to have a relationship with anyone.

That was, like, only partially his fault.

"You don't have to explain yourself," Grover sighed. "Piper understands. I think she was just hoping that it could go back to how it was before."

Percy had vague memories of the three of them huddled around his bar, tipsy and spilling secrets. Well, it was a bit more difficult now when two of them used to be in love.

"It will," Percy said, hoping he sounded more convinced than he felt. "I just need some time." A month was not nearly long enough.

His gaze was glued to the ruined helmet of his armour in front of him. If he looked at Grover, this would all get far too sappy for him to take seriously. Fortunately, Grover had known him since his M.I.T. days — knew him better than anyone did, really — and simply patted him on the shoulder.

"Get some sleep, Percy," he said quietly, before his footsteps faded away and Percy knew that he was, once again, alone in the Tower.

For how much he had yearned for solitude, Percy thought it should feel better.

<<< >>>

Urgh. Coffee.

Percy's mind was always a mess in the morning. Leo insisted it was because he had so many different trains of thought lying around. Percy knew it was just because he had gotten so used to daily doses of caffeine that he couldn't properly function without it.

So when Percy staggered into the kitchen, half-awake and mumbling at his sentient Nespresso machine to start brewing a mug of coffee for him, he didn't notice the archer lounging casually behind his marble island, jabbing away at his phone.

"Hey, do you—"

"Jesus Christ!" Percy almost had a heart attack, releasing a string of vulgarities under his breath as he spun around fast enough to give himself whiplash. "What the hell are you doing here?" he almost shrieked.

Frank Zhang was perched on the tall barstool, somehow managing to look both bored and intrigued as he scrutinised Percy's attire. "Are those...Iron Man boxers?"

Percy went as red as a tomato, glancing down to see that he was, in fact, wearing Iron Man boxers. The black robe he'd thrown over didn't do much to conceal his lack of a shirt and trousers.

"Well, sorry, I didn't think to dress for company?" Percy said, still staring bewilderedly at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sitting in his Tower. "Was there an Avengers call I missed? Does Mr D want something?"

When Frank didn't answer, continuing to tap away at his phone, Percy clutched his mug of coffee and repeated a mantra in his head to keep himself from punching the other man.

"Hawkeye," he said again.

This time, Frank tore his gaze away from his phone with a "Hm?"

Percy stared right back. "What are you doing in my house?" He made sure to enunciate.

"Oh, hey, good morning, Jackson." Hazel strolled into the kitchen, carrying a giant duffel bag like it weighed nothing at all.

Percy did a double take. But no, he wasn't going crazy. No, he wasn't dreaming — well, frankly, this was more of a nightmare. There really were two spies sitting in his kitchen.

"Um, what—why—" he spluttered unintelligibly. Percy closed his eyes as the coffee machine halted its whirring. He picked up the mug, took a swig of burning liquid, then set the ceramic cup down on the counter. "Why are you here?"

Frank glanced up at him. "Didn't Mr D tell you?"

Of course, he did, because this looks like a person in the know! Percy wanted to shout.

"He thought it'd be better to keep all the Avengers in one place," Hazel explained, hopping up onto a second barstool. "Easier for assembling."

"And he just assumed that I'd take all your strays in?" Percy demanded.

Hazel rolled her eyes. "Of course, not. Mr D can be an ass, but he's not that much of an ass. Your CEO said it was fine."

Percy opened his mouth to demand what the hell she was talking about, then was shocked still but the recollection that Piper McLean was his CEO, and apparently, had resolved to completely ruin his life.

"JARVIS," his voice came out at a higher pitch than usual. "Call Piper. Now." Percy whirled out of the kitchen, although, in hindsight leaving those two alone in his house probably wasn't the best idea.

When Percy arrived in his lab, Piper was thrown up on the big screen, shuffling through papers as she lounged back in a plane seat — yes, that was one of his private planes, and Percy made a mental note to ask about that later.

"There are two agents in my kitchen," the words fell from his mouth with an accusatory tone before Percy could find a way to better articulate his question.

Piper arched an eyebrow. "And?"

"Is this some kind of revenge for last night?" Percy demanded. "Look, I'm sorry that I ditched you guys, but if you hadn't noticed, I'm having a bit of a hard time—"

"Oh, Percy," Piper interrupted with an eye-roll. "I okayed the other Avengers moving in a months ago."

Percy felt his eye twitch. "Why?" he said helplessly. He couldn't help the anger bubbling up inside him. Piper had walked out of his life — had made sure that she had no jurisdiction over his choices.

"It's simpler for the team. You can assemble quicker, train together, and all that." Piper's tone was firm, stating facts, but something about the way her gaze shifted made suspicion pool in Percy's chest.

He unconsciously tapped his arc reactor, glaring at the screen. "You know this also means that I have to live with them, right?" he said imploringly. "With five other superheros who are as chaotic as I am — even more, if you've met Frank or Jason. Piper, this is probably the dumbest idea you've ever had."

But his tone didn't really hold real venom. Percy wasn't mad at Piper, really. He was just—not impressed by Mr D's idea.

Piper didn't look offended.

"They're invading my home," Percy emphasised.

"Maybe it would do you some good to interact with other human beings for occasions other than saving the world," Piper suggested. "Like normal people do?"

Percy squinted at her. "That's sounds pathetic."

Piper rolled her eyes as her hand came up to cross the screen, and the video call hung up abruptly.

Percy slumped into his desk chair, elbows propped up on the table as he pressed his palm to his cheeks.

Damn it.

His fingers twitched, once again unconsciously drifting to his arc reactor, but for a different reason this time.

The Avengers was a sham, if Percy was being honest. Yes, they fought like demons, but when the battle was over, they couldn't even look each other in the eye. That shouldn't be the case for people who had known each other for almost an entire year.

The team was made up of quite possibly the strangest people in the universe; a Norse god who liked pop tarts, an uptight super soldier, a scientist with raging anger issues, an irritating archer, and an assassin who Percy trusted as far as he could throw her.

Percy didn't know any of them, and he didn't like people invading his personal space, much less super-powered acquaintances.

It took ten minutes before he sulked back into the kitchen. Frank was sprawled on the couch, limbs everywhere as he and Hazel argued about something. Hazel looked about as relaxed as someone in a shark cage, her posture straight as she perched delicately on the armchair.

When Percy returned, the two assassins looked up at him with unreadable expressions. Percy wondered how the hell Fury expected him to live with two people who would probably stab him in the back given the chance.

"I..." Percy trailed off with a frustrated sigh, kneading at his temples. "Come on, I'll show you your rooms."

As Frank later pointed out, saying "rooms" was misleading when Percy had given them each an entire floor.

Percy simply shrugged in response. He had a lot of space. Leo had already taken up residence just above the laboratories. Besides, Percy figured that having their own floors meant that he'd — hopefully — see less of them.

Only when Hazel and Frank were both settled did Percy stumble back to the kitchen, throat parched and begging for him to finish his coffee.

He found Leo standing there, staring at the knife sitting on the table.

Leo's eyebrows pinched together with disapproval. "That—that's Hawkeye's."

Percy winced. God, if there was anyone who would take this news worse than him, it was Valdez. Leo tended to keep to himself to avoid any accidental Hulk-outs, but got along well enough with Percy that they could work together in silence.

Frank and Leo didn't get along. Percy didn't know why, but he supposed it was just a clash of personalities. Leo had a wicked sense of humour that Frank often didn't pick up on, and Percy had a feeling that Leo sometimes made Frank feel a little stupid.

"Yeah." Percy scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Mr D kind of self-invited the others to move in."

Something between worry and frustration crossed Leo's face. "I'll be in the lab," he said tiredly, trekking out of the room. Percy pursed his lips, sinking onto the barstool as he sipped his now-cold coffee.

"Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "This is a team."

Percy managed to waste away the following 72 hours in his lab. Piper was chasing him down for new designs for their technology. As much as he complained about it to her, Percy didn't mind. He liked tinkering. Liked just mindlessly making his ideas into realities as his music blasted in the background.

Grover found it hilarious that Percy's home had been overrun by superheroes. Percy just loved how he was getting entertainment at his own expense.

Around 3am on a Thursday night, Percy deemed it safe enough to enter the kitchen after JARVIS declared the coast clear.

Percy assumed the super spies were snoring away peacefully, although he really didn't know — and didn't care — what they got up to during the day. He knew that Hazel had gone on a mission two days ago, but she had come back that night, seemingly satisfied with whatever she accomplished.

Frank had practised archery with the targets in the training room down below yesterday afternoon, because Percy had actually wanted to test out his improved gauntlet firepower, but JARVIS had informed him of Hawkeye's presence, and Percy really didn't feel like any social interaction, especially not with Frank. So he'd stayed in his lab and destroyed some walls.

Leo was still continuing with his research on gamma radiation, made easier now that he was technically unaffected by it. He frequently came down to get Percy's input on calculations.

Percy liked that Leo never asked questions, even when he walked in, open-mouthed when he saw Percy crumpled into the roof of one of his sports cars with only a third of his armour on.

It was dark outside when Percy made it to the kitchen, pleased with his avoidance of any of his teammates. Rummaging around the fridge, Percy spotted some leftovers from his Chinese takeout yesterday and greedily pulled it off the shelf.

Just before he could dig in, the glass wall beside the dining table splintered in a million pieces as a mass hurtled through, spraying Percy and his food with glass shards.

Percy's panicked yell echoed as he shot to his feet, hands instinctively in a position to fire off a blast, even though he wasn't wearing the armour, only to see Jason dust himself off, unfazed by his entering and breaking into Percy's house.

"Jason!" Percy's voice went into a squeak. "What the—"

"Son of Jack!" Jason declared cheerfully. "It is a pleasure to see you up at this hour!" He set down the hammer on the countertop and traipsed over to the cabinet.

A battle cry came from the door as three more figures bashed in, Hazel, Frank and Leo bursting into the kitchen in almost ironic succession.

"What happened?" Frank yelped, staring at the mess of the kitchen.

Leo looked like he was on the verge of turning green, so Percy nervously pointed to Jason. "Apparently, Asgard doesn't teach people the etiquette of not breaking windows when they visit."

Jason waved at them, unaffected by the palpable alarm in the room.

"Holy shit," Frank panted, sinking to sit on the floor. "I thought we were under attack!"

Percy was staring at Hazel. "You-you just got out of bed, how do you manage to look so together all the time?" he demanded. "Seriously? What's your secret?"

Hazel's hair was in a tight bun, and she had a cardigan pulled over her tank top and pyjama pants.

"At least it's not Iron Man boxers this time," she remarked. Percy looked down self-consciously, only to see that he was actually dressed decently this time. The blue My Little Pony t-shirt had been a gag gift from Grover, but as it turned out, it was surprisingly comfortable. Plaid bottoms hung low on his hips.

"Where are your pop tarts?" Jason turned around, looking like someone had just committed a venial sin.

Percy rubbed at his eyes. "My-my what?"

"Pop tarts?" Jason repeated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Reyna has them. They are crunchy and have sprinkles on them." Reyna Arellano was the astrophysicist who introduced Jason to Earth last year.

"Yes," Percy held up a hand impatiently. "I know what pop tarts are. But I don't—I don't have any with me?" he said bewilderedly.

Jason shook his head and gave them a hearty sigh. "That is a depressing thought, friend Percy. No pop tarts is truly a sad way to live your mortal lives."

Before Percy could interject about their "mortal lives" and diabetes, Leo piped up with a suggestion that made Percy want to slap him.

"There's a supermarket around the corner," Leo told Jason. "They sell pop tarts."

"We must go!" Jason's explosive shout took Percy by surprise, making him jump. The god picked up his hammer and beamed.

"Woah, woah, we can't just go out," Percy said nervously. "You'll be attacked. There is a reason I never go anywhere without a bodyguard."

"It's us," Hazel emphasised. "Who would attack us?"

Percy closed his eyes, trying to pray to an entity he didn't even believe in for patience. "Do you want me to list names?"

"Okay, Jackson's kind of right," Frank admitted. "But if we all went, surely it'd be fine?"

Percy snorted. "You're joking, right?" Then he glanced at Jason, who didn't seem to have a problem with Frank's suggestion.

Jason looked like he was pondering over something. "I really, really want pop tarts," he said at last.

And that was how Percy found himself wrapped up in a heavy winter coat over his pyjamas, staggering down the road with four other Avengers as they tried to inconspicuously buy pop tarts for their resident Norse god.

"This is ridiculous," Percy hissed under his breath as Jason raced around the store with Frank, searching for snacks. "We're going to be recognised."

"No one would think we're stupid enough to do something like this," Hazel whispered back. Her expression consisted of exasperation that didn't really reach her eyes.

"Isn't that evidence enough that we shouldn't be doing this?"

Hazel didn't answer, her eyes flickering with amusement as she watched Jason admire the Kinder eggs.

Jason and Frank returned shortly after with a basket of snack items that gave Percy the urge to give them a health lesson. That might be kind of hypocritical, given that he mainly survived on coffee and crisps — but, still.

"Okay," Frank said breathlessly as he turned to Percy. "You got your card?"

Percy's jaw dropped. "Why am I paying?"

"'Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,'" Leo quoted back perfectly.

Percy opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. "Whose side are you on?" he demanded.

Leo spared Jason a look as he sheepishly fiddled with the zipper on his coat. "He has pop tarts," he answered lamely.

Percy gritted his teeth — but, well, they'd come all this way, hadn't they? — and passed the card to the cashier. The man at the register looked rather bored, and Percy had to give Frank a warning look before he got any ridiculous ideas to reveal their identities and make this cashier's night a whole lot better.

"Here's your—" the man stopped short as he squinted at them. "Wait a second, aren't you—"

"Bye," Percy said loudly as Jason eagerly grabbed the grocery bags. He ushered his teammates out the door before the cashier could say anything else.

The walk back to the Tower was significantly more silent than the journey to the shop. Percy still couldn't believe he'd left the building to get pop tarts at 3am.

Leo was the first to break the silence. "You really do need to tell us the secret to waking up and looking like you spent an hour getting ready," Leo told Hazel, more curious than anything.

"She'll never tell," Frank said boredly as he munched on a pop tart. "It's one of her talents. Along with a crazy good poker face." He pulled a face. "She's taken at least five hundred bucks off me over the years."

Percy felt the corner of his mouth quirk up into a smirk. "Well, she hasn't played with me yet, then."

Hazel's head swivelled to scrutinise him. "I'm a trained assassin," she said, like she found his challenge amusing.

"I grew up as a Jackson," Percy snorted. "It doesn't get better than that." Howard Jackson had been more concerned about their family name and reputation than Percy himself. The tabloids had followed him since before he could walk, and Percy had long-ago learned the art of his 'public facade' as Piper called it.

It's this annoying smirk, like your eyes are saying, 'Yes, I am better than you'. Piper had once said.

Percy had replied, well, that's because I am better than most people.

Piper had smacked him on the arm.

Hazel stared right back at him, eliciting some sort of competitiveness within Percy that he thought had disappeared long ago. "I have poker cards upstairs."

Of course, Percy couldn't just back down after that. So Hazel brought down the cards, and she started to teach the uncultured others — like Leo and Jason — who didn't know how to play poker.

"We're not playing for money," Leo said decidedly. "Percy's got a shit-ton of that."

Percy shrugged. "I mean, I'm not going to deny it."

"What about strip poker?" Frank suggested.

Somehow, no one could come up with a better idea than that, so they ended up actually playing strip poker, to Percy's disbelief.

Hazel would good, though he'd never admit it out loud, and her poker face was definitely better than his. But Percy had his brain, and all the years of running meaningless calculations in the back of his mind finally came in handy.

They were pretty much equally matched, which left the others to lose every round. Somewhere during the match, Percy and Hazel had begun to gang up against Frank, until he was sitting in his underwear, glaring sharply at them.

Then Percy stopped the game before Frank's butt cheeks could touch his chair and force him to burn the kitchen down.

A week passed. An entire week since Hazel and Frank had moved in, and Percy gave himself some credit for not killing anyone. Jason, who usually resided with Reyna, had also taken up the floor above Hazel, and Percy was growing more and more aware that they were creeping closer to the penthouse. There was only one floor between the other Avengers and himself.

Poker night had been somewhat of a fluke. Pop tarts aside, Percy retreated to his lab the next morning, leaving the rest to do whatever they wanted to do.

On Monday night, Percy was woken up by a nightmare; another one of the Battle of New York, where he was falling, and he couldn't breathe, and outer space was endless.

Since thrashing in his sheets before waking up in a cold sweat wasn't exactly a good environment to fall asleep in, Percy blearily stumbled down to the kitchen, prepared to make himself a cup of coffee and go down to the lab to take his mind off things.

What he didn't expect was to see Hazel huddled on the couch, face gaunt and tight as she jabbed at buttons on the TV remote.

Percy fought an internal struggle that he eventually lost when he said, "Couldn't sleep?"

Hazel's head snapped back with mild surprise, and Percy nearly took a step back. The fact that he managed to sneak up on Hazel told him that more was wrong with her than she was letting on.

She schooled her expression into an unreadable one, but not before Percy caught the glimpse of unhidden anxiety etched into her features.

"Drank coffee before I went to bed."

Wrong. Percy knew for a fact that he was the person to use the machine since the morning. For an assassin, she needed to learn to lie better when it concerned one of the most important aspects of his life.

Percy set down his coffee on the island as he slowly drifted over to the couch. "Downton Abbey?" he read off the screen, almost chuckling.

Hazel shut down any humour he felt with a look that could kill. "You're the one with the DVD box set."

"Christmas gift from the CEO of some company. Wanted to get on my good side." Percy risked a glance at Hazel before she pressed play on the show.

Her hair had been straightened the night before, and now hung down in a curtain of shimmering bronze that shielded most of her face.

Percy sat down in the armchair, staring at the screen as the show started playing.

They watched the first episode in silence as 4 o'clock quickly faded into 5. Only after Percy returned to his bedroom, ready to sleep again, did he realise that his coffee had been left untouched and forgotten on the countertop.

Percy spent the next day inside the lab, finally sending off designs for the newest Jackson Phone to Piper. He received a 'thank you' message in return.

Another week passed. Percy spent two more nights downstairs watching the British show with Hazel. Neither of them ever spoke about why they were there.

Two weeks since the Avengers passed, and everything was fine. Yet Percy couldn't explain the tugging in the back of his mind.

Okay, that was a lie. He knew exactly why he couldn't concentrate on his work, and the reason was narrowed down to two words; Annabeth Chase.

In the days following the other Avengers' abrupt arrivals in his life, Percy had been so preoccupied in avoiding them and trying to find privacy that he hadn't noticed their leader never came.

A few days ago, Leo had made an off-handed comment about the Fourth of July, and it was suddenly brought to Percy's attention that Captain America was still missing from his strange entourage.

When he asked Frank about whether Mr D had mentioned it, Frank said that the S.H.I.E.L.D. head had, in fact, extended the invite to Annabeth. Her lack of answer told Percy all he needed to know.

The second Sunday of living with the Avengers brought their first call to assemble since the bots-gone-wild. The mission wasn't exactly an emergency, but it was a possible location to Loki's sceptre.

In Percy's opinion, it was kind of annoying and below his pay-grade, seeing as losing the sceptre had been S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fault in the first place. Apparently, some crazy scientists —crazier than Leo — had stolen it to use for experimentation.

The location in question was in Russia, which brought up so much curiosity in Percy about Hazel's past. It was just his nature to ask questions, but he held himself back, knowing that Hazel wouldn't hesitate to roundhouse kick him in the nose should he even try to approach the subject.

The actual mission went over smoothly, except that Loki's sceptre wasn't actually in Russia, and so the wild-goose-chase eventually led to absolutely nothing.

Just as Percy prepared for the Avengers to Disassemble, Leo turned to Hazel.

"Remember when you told us that Russian food was better than anything else?" Leo asked, spreading his hands expectantly.

Percy raised an eyebrow, preparing to see Leo beaten to a pulp.

To his surprise, Hazel merely nodded. "I do remember."

"I think I saw a restaurant round the corner," Frank noted.

Percy stared at the shattered pavements and rubble strewn across the street. "Yeah, I think it might be closed."

"Two streets over," Hazel said, surprising Percy again — would he ever get used to her? — as she led them down the road.

Percy was also peripherally aware of the fact that he hadn't been present for Leo and Hazel's conversation about Russian food, which only confused him more because it meant that his two teammates been speaking more than was necessary, and that was just implausible, wasn't it?

Glancing over at the only person who wasn't a roommate, Percy noticed that the nasty gash on Annabeth's forehead had already healed up. A nice side effect of the serum.

Hazel introduced them to her favourites of Russian cuisine. Vareniki, okroshka, and borscht were three good dishes with rather unpronounceable names. Personally, Percy was still very much a cheeseburger person.

Jason indulged in the meal with all the enthusiasm he gave to everything else. Frank looked like he had eaten a cockroach, but Leo begrudgingly admitted that it wasn't bad. His new clothes that Percy had created a compartment in his suit for were the only clean things about the other man.

They are in less silence than usual. Hazel and Leo made small talk, with Jason interrupting every now and then with a topic that made Percy hypothesise that the god may have been on crack.

The Quinjet brought the six superheroes back to New York within a few hours, and Percy once again prepared for them to go their separate ways before he realised that 80% of his teammates lived with him.

"Hey, Cap," Percy called as Annabeth's blond ponytail disappeared behind the plane's door.

There were a few moments where Percy assumed that she had simply ignored him. But then there were footsteps, and Annabeth appeared by the door again, a hand on her hips.

"What?" The thing about Annabeth was that she never relaxed, never gave up the Captain America composure. Percy had come to realise that that was probably because she simply was Captain America. In every way that counted.

"Everyone's moved into the Tower," Percy said with a shrug. "Don't want you to feel left out, so you're welcome to join us if you want. You'll have a floor to yourself so you won't have to worry about seeing me everyday."

Annabeth's cheek twitched, and for a moment, Percy was astounded by the notion that she might actually have the ability to smile.

Her eyes didn't soften. "I don't want to intrude," she said shortly.

Percy threw a glance over his shoulder to see the other four sitting impatiently in his limousine. "Yeah, well, you'd be the first one to have reservations about that."

Annabeth looked hesitant, almost disdained at the idea. Percy fought the urge to deflect and say something rude. She still had her shield, and Percy's armour was in the briefcase.

"I'll think about it," Annabeth said, in a way that Percy knew meant that she wouldn't. He shrugged again, turning his back as he headed back to the car.

Well, it was worth a short. Grover and Piper told him to be civil, so here he was, being civil. It wasn't his fault that Captain America was such an ass.

All those thoughts running through his head made it all the more astonishing when the next morning, JARVIS woke Percy up, saying that Captain America was standing at the front door, waiting to be let in.

Percy blinked a couple times in disbelief when he arrived at the glass door, the lobby to his building bustling with his employees.

Sure enough, Annabeth Chase stood at the door, a duffel bag over her shoulder and a doubtful look in her eyes.

Percy shook his head, mostly to himself. Well, maybe there were still some surprises when it came to Captain America.

***

"It's a lovely night for a jog, isn't it?" Percy couldn't help himself when Annabeth walked into the kitchen, in mis-matched leggings and sports bra.

The clock read 2.34am, and Percy and Hazel had just finished another episode of Downton Abbey.

It was Annabeth's first night living in the Tower, and clearly she wasn't feeling very peaceful. She didn't answer, simply taking a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator.

Words echoed in Percy's head.

Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?

Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

He cleared his throat turning back to Hazel. "Another episode?"

Hazel's gaze was narrowed in on Annabeth, who was facing the other way. Percy could almost see the analyses running through her head.

Stop that, he wanted to tell her. It freaks me out when you look at us like another one of your case files.

Percy didn't say it though. Hazel already disliked him, as was clear from her initial report about him to Mr D — "doesn't play well with others" — and he didn't need to make it worse.

I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself.

This was officially the most time Percy had spent in Annabeth's presence since the Battle of New York. Apparently eight months apart hadn't been enough to ease the tension.

Fighting was easy. Shooting robots as Annabeth bounded by his side, his rays rebounding off her shield to sear away enemies.

This was the difficult part. After the battle. Percy couldn't think of a single conversation they had ever had that didn't end in an argument.

It was a clash of personality, Percy told himself. He'd pretty much spent his entire life fending for himself, and then suddenly, he was expected to be a team player.

Annabeth was a leader. And a soldier. She expected him to take her orders like gospel.

You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.

Percy hadn't forgotten the harsh words Annabeth had thrown at him on board the Helicarrier. He doubted that she'd forgotten either.

I think I would just cut the wire.

Always a way out. You know, you might not be a threat but you'd better stop pretending to be a hero.

"So, what's keeping you up late?" Percy heard his own voice like it was coming from someone else. Annabeth's words from almost a year ago were imprinted on his brain like a horrible burn. "Missing old friends? Trying to figure out how to turn on a phone?"

He knew it was harsh — reopening old wounds. But he felt so angry, hearing their argument replay in his head over and over again.

A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Chase, everything special about you came out of a bottle.

Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds.

"You know, I do miss my old friends. Especially Howard. I don't know how he ever made someone like you. He's ten times the man you'll ever be," Annabeth spat.

Percy flinched like he'd been slapped. Annabeth didn't back down, defiance and obstination shining in her expression.

"I take back what I said about the show," he said icily. "Goodnight, Hazel."

Percy didn't stop until he reached his room, heart hammering and blood pounding past his eardrums.

Percy knew he was being unreasonable. He had started it. But just the sight of Annabeth made him want to punch a wall, and generally Percy wasn't a very violent person.

And for her to bring up Howard? The person who'd made Percy feel inadequate his entire life, like he had to prove himself just to be loved by his own parents?

Percy stopped at the door to his bedroom. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep after this. He redirected his route down to the workshop.

God, if he'd known Annabeth Chase had been like this, he wouldn't have felt so pressured to live up to her image his entire life. Hell, Howard spent more time searching for his long-lost experiment than he did with Percy.

Then lo' and behold, she was alive. 70 years trapped sleeping in the ice. And with the incredible ability to piss Percy off with a look.

Annabeth reminded Percy of everything he could've been, everything he failed to be in Howard's eyes.

You're a failure, Howard would snap. How can you even call yourself a Jackson?

And even after all these years, Percy still couldn't quite convince himself that Howard had been lying.

The next day, there was an Avengers call to sort out a neo-HYDRA cell. This was Annabeth's area of expertise, so Percy followed her orders, at least until he figured out how to disarm the bombs inside the warehouse.

He'd left the capture of the culprits up to Frank and Leo before zooming into the now evacuated warehouse.

On the bright side, Percy did disable all the explosives in time. But the delinquents got away, and Percy landed outside with his team, bracing himself when he saw Annabeth fuming expression.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Annabeth demanded. "That was an order to stay on the HYDRA cell!"

"Can I get a 'thank you'?" Percy flipped the faceplate up, returning the glare. "I saved the warehouse from exploding! It was a shit order!"

"No, you disobeyed orders, almost got killed in the process, and let the culprits get away! Who says they won't try something like this again, and this time, succeed?" Annabeth threw her hands up in the air. "You never listen, Jackson! If you had just listened to me—"

"We'd be standing next to a pile of rubble!" Percy snapped.

"It was evacuated!"

"The force of the explosion could've sent debris flying our way!"

"No, don't even pretend like this was in our best interests! You did this for you!" Annabeth yelled furiously. "You always have to play the goddamn hero, and one of these days, you're going to get yourself and all of us killed!"

"Disobeying orders was the right decision!" Percy said firmly, refusing to sway from his opinion.

"Disobeying orders is not how a team works!"

"A team?" Percy echoed, releasing a mirthless laugh. "Right, because teammates and their captain always have shouting matches every time they see each other!"

"Maybe if you just stopped being so infuriating all the time—" Annabeth cut herself off, cheeks flaming red.

"You look like a tomato," the words tumbled out before Percy could stop them.

"That's exactly what I mean," Annabeth said harshly, gnashing her teeth together frustratedly. "It's like you live to annoy me!" She took a deep breath. "Stop trying to be a hero, Jackson. It's not you."

As she stalked off, Percy flipped down his faceplate so the other Avengers wouldn't see his murderous expression. They were standing a little ways away, staring between the two of them like it was a tennis match and they were watching to see who would crack first.

Percy wished he'd taken up Annabeth's offer to go a few rounds. Hell, he could probably pound her into the mat without any effort.

"The Quinjet's ready," Percy's robotic voice came out, altered by the suit. "Let's go." He ignored Hazel's piercing stare as he started towards the vehicle, not waiting for them to follow.

As much as Percy fought with Annabeth, he had grown to not mind the presences of the other Avengers as much. Usually, the others tended to flit off whenever he or Annabeth came within a five-metre radius of each other — for good reasons — but Percy often found them in the communal kitchen despite having their own spaces.

He'd come down for coffee, and find Frank and Jason playing on his Xbox — Lego Star Wars was, funnily enough, the god's favourite. Hazel, for unexplained reasons, had created a world in the Sims.

"We are having a team dinner."

Percy glanced up to see Leo standing in the doorway to his lab. Valdez was the only one of his teammates with access to his lab, and that was only on days when he didn't have JARVIS shut down the place.

Looking sideways at the clock, Percy turned back to him. "It's 8."

"Yes, we are having a team dinner," Leo repeated. "Now."

Percy arched an eyebrow. "Will Cap be there?" When Leo nodded, Percy snorted. "Right, and you want us in the same room with sharp knives, why, again?"

"It's good for bonding," Leo insisted. "That was the point of everyone coming to live here. Bonding."

Percy resisted the urge to say that 'team bonding' was a lost cause. Leo was the only person on the team he trusted, and he couldn't even be in the same room as Annabeth.

Reluctantly, and because he knew that Leo wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, Percy followed him up the stairs, warily coming to a stop in front of the kitchen.

The dining table was bustling with Avengers, the table having been set already. To Percy's surprise, a nice smell wafted through the air and made his knees go weak.

"Well, look at that, one of us has enough basic skills to cook," Percy remarked.

"That would be me and Annabeth," Leo replied.

Percy spared the Captain a side glance, to see her carrying over a steaming pot of beef stew to the table. Her expression closed up when their gazes met, and she looked away before he could even say anything.

Fine by him.

"How was everyone's day?" Frank asked, and Percy almost choked on his water.

"You don't get to say that and pretend we're friends over for dinner." Percy snorted. "We killed a scaly eagle yesterday."

Frank shuddered in response. "What even was that?"

"Some kind of freaky hybrid." Leo paused. "That sounded a little hypocritical."

"You're not a hybrid," Jason interjected.

"So I'm freaky?"

Jason went red. "Uh."

"I'm kidding," Leo rolled his eyes. "Relax. I won't Hulk out over a joke." He paused. "Well,
not anymore."

Percy reached over to grab the ladle. "While that was a wonderful way to dispel the palpable tension in here, who wants some beef stew?"

Choruses of "me" erupted from the dinner guests, including Annabeth.

As he grabbed her bowl and started piling meet into it, Percy couldn't help noticing the wariness in her face. What, did she think he was going to throw the pot on her?

Actually, that wasn't completely implausible, but he'd had a good day making improvements on the suit, so Percy was, with all meanings of the phrase, in a good mood.

Dinner was a strange event. Sometimes an awkward silence would settle over them, but someone always broke it. Percy never spoke directly to Annabeth, but he did talk to everyone else at the table.

Success, in his opinion, since the night didn't result in a shouting match. Their other teammates visibly relaxed as the night continued. Apparently, Percy wasn't the only one certain that the night would end in disaster.

After a half-hour meal, Percy decided that he'd done enough bonding for a lifetime and excused himself.

"There's a gala this weekend," Hazel reminded him before he could leave. "The Winter Solstice."

Annabeth's brow furrowed. "What's that?"

"An excuse for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get more investors," Percy said without thinking.

"It's mandatory for all of us to attend," Hazel said, ignoring him.

"You know, 'mandatory' has always been quite flexible for me," Percy mused.

"We'll be there," Annabeth said, also ignoring him, though Percy could tell from her disapproving face that he'd angered the beast again.

Sensing the rising possibly of another argument, Percy really did leave the table this time.

The Winter Solstice occurred on Sunday night, marking the third week since Percy had stopped living alone.

When Jason asked why he had to visit a tailor before every event, Frank had made a cheeky comment about Percy's need to keep up with the tabloids.

Percy rolled his eyes; he'd expected it to come up at some point. He'd just come back from the tailor to see the team coincidentally in the kitchen. Frank and Jason were playing another video game, Leo and Hazel were baking, and Annabeth had stopped for a snack

But, yes, he knew it would probably be mentioned, and honestly, he was surprised it took three whole weeks.

"What is he talking about?" Jason asked curiously, looking between Percy and Frank like they were conspiring about something.

"I have," Percy thought about how to finish the sentence. "A reputation."

"He means that he's had about a billion girlfriends," Hazel elaborated, smirking. "And boyfriends, if the rumours are true."

"Rumours?" Percy repeated with a laugh. "You mean some people actually still believe that I'm straight?" He had been bisexual for as long as he could remember, and even though he'd settled down a lot more, and had a preference for women, Percy had blurred memories from his college days of men and women alike sharing his bed.

"Well, you're not as crazy anymore," Leo said with a shrug.

"Oh, yes," Jason nodded, now knowing what they were talking about. "Reyna talked about you and the Lady Piper."

Percy allowed himself a humorous smile at Jason's formal tone, but he didn't miss Leo's worried gaze.

"We aren't together anymore," he told Jason. "Not for," Percy frowned. "Wow, three months. It doesn't feel that long."

Unable to help it, Percy glanced at Annabeth who had given up trying to look focussed on her food and was now listening to the conversation.

In the back of his mind, Percy wondered what she had thought of him having been with guys. For someone from the 1940s, this new world of openness was probably upsetting.

Percy felt a fiery jolt course down his spine. Well, if she had a problem with it, they'd soon find themselves in another shouting match.

They took a limo to the Winter Solstice as a team. Jason was still in awe of the automobiles, and Percy was glad to tell him that he had constructed the engine used in this one.

The gala was as expected. Cameras flashed, blinding Percy as he pulled on his public face, the smirk with the sunglasses, even at night. When he looked at the rest of his team, he saw their stricken, surprised expressions, and remembered that they weren't as used to this as he was.

For the most part, Hazel was the best at this. She held herself well, flashing a flirty smile at the cameras. Jason was just overall a good person, and was friendly and welcoming to everyone.

Percy spotted Mr D out of the corner of his eye, shooting them death stares that told them they had to make sure they got a lot of money tonight. Percy knew he had more money than ever person in this room, but there was no way in hell he was funding all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dirty business, although he was starting to consider doing it just to avoid attending events like this.

Just because he was used to it didn't mean he liked doing it. Stuffy benefactors who adored flattery? No thanks.

Percy was good at the whole flirting thing, throwing out compliments throughout the night, telling entertaining stories and laughing whenever it was appropriate. Somewhere around 11, he began to realise that his laugh was starting to sound a bit hollow, and his cheeks ached from the constant smiling.

After managing to duck out from the most monotonous conversation ever, Percy slumped over the bar, sipping from a glass. A Shirley Temple for the recovering alcoholic.

The bartender shot him a smile, and Percy knew she was pretty, so he flashed a dazzling grin, but it was too much effort to even try, so he turned back to silent drinking.

His gaze darted around the ballroom. It was an event room in some fancy hotel, and Percy recognised some of the usual benefactors.

There was Mrs Hollander, a sleazy widow who spent her late husband's money on remedies to keep her young — which only worked to make her increasingly more terrifying — and extravagant nights like this. Mr Oscar Grant, a 60-something year-old who went through women like a hurricane and abused his power over everyone.

Then Percy's vision narrowed before he could get to anyone else, because Tiberius Stone was standing in the ballroom, unsettlingly close to Annabeth.

Tiberius Stone was the CEO of Viastone and owned several newspapers — Percy knew this because Ty had printed a lot of bad headlines about him following their break-up.

Yeah, Ty had been his on-off boyfriend during college, and it took Percy almost two years to recognise the emotional manipulation enough to get the hell out of there.

Annabeth looked like she was growing increasingly more uncomfortable with each passing second. Her feet shuffled back slowly even as she plastered what even Percy could recognise as a falsified smile on her face. Then Ty placed his hand on her waist, making Annabeth flinch, grey eyes flickering anxiously.

Percy waited for her to push him away, to slap him or go all Captain America on his ass. But she didn't do anything, just continued looking petrified and pale.

Percy stared at the pair, struggling with himself. Annabeth was quite possibly one of his least favourite people, but Ty was even worse. No one else deserved to suffer through him.

"Damn it." Percy cursed his conscience under his breath as he took long strides to cross the ballroom, feeling eyes following him as he sidled up beside Annabeth.

"Ty," Percy flashed him the famous smirk. "Always a pleasure."

He felt Annabeth shoot him a sharp what-are-you-doing look that he promptly ignored.

Ty did not look amused. "Percy Jackson," he said coldly.

"Are you bothering my dearest teammate?" Percy asked, plastering an innocent expression across his face.

"Of course, not," Ty said, every word charged with venom. "We were having a wonderful chat before you showed up."

Percy cocked his head to the side. "Actually, I think Annabeth would say otherwise."

"I think," Ty said self-importantly. "That we should leave this choice up to her." He offered out his arm.

Percy met met Annabeth's eyes for a fleeting moment. He had never noticed how grey they were before.

I'm trying to help you, you daft idiot, he thought.

Without moving, Annabeth finally spoke, "I think I'll head off with a Percy, if you don't mind." She tore her gaze away, and Percy dropped his eyes back to Ty, who looked like he was about to hit him.

Percy offered out an arm mockingly, which he felt Annabeth take very reluctantly. He led her out of the ballroom, feeling everyone's eyes on them, including the surprise of his own teammates.

Once they were out of earshot, Percy pressed the button for the lift, retracting his arm.

There were a few beats of silence.

"I like that there's someone you hate more than me," Percy offered.

There was a soft "ding" as the lift arrived, and Percy gestured for her to step in first. He hadn't actually expected Annabeth oblige, begrudgingly holding the door open for him as he followed her inside.

Annabeth pursed her lips. "It's a close call."

The elevator ride was taken in silence, and Percy only spoke again once the doors opened. "Ty's a dick. Most of the people in that ballroom are anyway. And to think that S.H.I.E.L.D. ended up using the Avengers to flirt with potential investors."

He stepped out of the lift onto the open roof, slowly inhaling the fresh air.

"Stop that."

Percy turned his head slightly to see Annabeth exit the lift, face crinkled into that angry expression that she seemed to permanently wear.

"Stop what?" Percy regretted the question almost instantly. Oh, God, this was going to be another very public screaming match, wasn't it?

Annabeth waved her hands around in an uninterpretable gesture.

"Thank you for that amazingly detailed explanation—"

"It's like you treat everything as a joke!" Annabeth exploded furiously. "You don't take anything seriously! The point of the gala is to procure money — now, it's not my favourite part of the job, but if getting money means that we can save people's lives, then it's something I'm willing to deal with!"

"Yes, it's important to get investment, but you don't have to compromise yourself for it!" Percy snapped. "If you never say 'no', people will just take what they want. You didn't stop Ty, even though I knew you wanted to beat him up."

"It's part of the job," Annabeth said curtly. "Which you treat like a joke. You have everything you could ever possibly want, but there are others out there, who we swore to help, who you are depriving of—"

"Do you know what it was like to grow up with Howard as a father?"

Annabeth's words died on her lips as she shot him an irritated look. "What?"

"I know you worship my dad like he hung the moon," Percy said harshly. "But he was a terrible father. He never told me loved me — hell, never even told me he liked me."

"I use humour as a defence mechanism because of him," Percy said shortly. "Maybe if you stopped being so goddamn self-righteous you'd see that I do take things seriously."

"So you act like you don't care about anything?" Annabeth demanded. "Not your friends? Not your team?"

Percy shot her a withering glare. "I do care about them. All you need to do is look a little closer, and you'll be able to tell when I'm lying and when I'm telling the truth."

Because when you care about people, then your enemies know how to hit you where it hurts, Percy didn't say. He'd gone through this with Octavian — his father's right-hand man who had frozen him in place and torn the arc reactor from his chest, leaving him to die.

"You're right."

Percy blinked. It took him a few seconds to realise that Annabeth was speaking.

She wouldn't look at him, instead gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. "I did want to beat him up."

<<< >>>

The fourth week brought Percy a lot of pain, because his teammates just wouldn't leave him alone.

First it was Frank, asking Percy if he wanted to play Grand Theft Auto. Percy agreed that time, and it had been fun for a while, but then he retreated back into his lab.

After that it was Jason asking him to join him in picking up more pop tarts. Percy went reluctantly — only because the god threatened to place the hammer on his chest and never let him up.

Then it was Leo, asking Percy to help cook dinner, and Percy drew the line there. For God's sake, he was trying to focus on his work. Which resulted in Percy's blackout order.

Every time one of his teammates came knocking, Percy barred them immediately, telling JARVIS to lock them out, despite the AI's insistence that he eat and spend some time out.

After a day of keeping people out, Percy became pleased with himself for being able to stay alone. AC/DC blasted from the speakers as he rolled around on his desk chair, fixing up Dum-E's malfunctioning arm.

He slept on the couch, knowing that if he left the lab, someone would ambush him. He just needed some time to be alone, especially with half a dozen other superheroes roaming the halls 24/7.

Hell, Percy hadn't been alone in four weeks. He deserved this.

"So this is where you've been."

Percy almost thought he imagined the voice — which was weird, because hallucinations tended to kick in only after over 60 hours of staying awake — but then he threw a glance over is shoulder and did a double take when he saw Annabeth standing there.

She was wearing a grey exercise top with leggings — did this woman own any normal clothes at all? — and had clearly just come from the gym. Her hair was in a ponytail, literally the only way Percy had ever seen her wear her messy blonde curls, and she hugged a plastic bag of containers to her chest.

"Screw you, JARVIS," Percy muttered under his breath. Of course, he'd banned all his other teammates from the lab, but Annabeth had never visited before, so he'd never specifically told JARVIS to keep her out. That little bastard should've been programmed with less sass.

"You're never in the sun," Annabeth continued before waiting for him to reply. "I'm starting to think you're a vampire."

There was no anger or intense disdain in her voice. Percy was starting to wonder if this was a dream.

Percy arched an eyebrow "Vampires? So I guess you've been catching up on pop culture?"

Annabeth didn't stop eyeing the place like something was about to jump out at her. "Frank made me read this book about sparkling vampires. It's...confusing."

Percy stared right back at her. "What are you doing here?" he finally said.

"You haven't been up in days," Annabeth wrinkled her nose. "Which I just realised means you haven't showered in days. And that's more than a little off-putting. If you were a dame—" She seemed to catch herself and stopped abruptly.

Percy couldn't help the snort. "'Dame'?" he repeated. Annabeth had done a good job of adjusting to the 21st century since coming out fo the ice, but some things never change.

"Accident," Annabeth muttered with a roll of her eyes as she held out the food. "And you have to eat."

"Why?" Percy asked, just to wind her up.

To his dismay, Annabeth saw right through him and placed her free hand on her hip. "It's movie night," she voiced, and Percy had to shake his head several times to comprehend what she was saying.

"Movie night?" he repeated incredulously.

"If you hadn't noticed, the rest of us are trying to make an effort," Annabeth said shortly.

Ah, there it was. Percy prepared for her to lose her temper and start shouting at him, but she simply continued to look at him.

"You're not fun when you're calm."

"Well, the others are trying to catch me up on pop culture—"

"Catch you up?" Percy laughed. "The Norse god, the Russian spy, the scientist who's lived more in India than in America for the last year, and Frank? They aren't going to be any help."

"I'm sick of not understanding when people make references."

Percy felt her gaze bore into his head, and he refused to meet it. Of course, he'd been one of those people. Something close to guilt pooled in his chest; Annabeth probably didn't like to be reminded that she wasn't from this time every second of every day.

Percy swivelled his chair back so he was facing his desk. "I'll be there," he said finally. "You need someone who knows what they're doing to teach you about this stuff."

In the reflection of the screen, Percy saw the Annabeth's lips pull up into a small, satisfied smile.

It shocked him still even as Annabeth disappeared up the stairs. After she was gone, Percy turned around to see the food she'd left on the square glass table.

Percy realised then that he'd never seen Annabeth smile. In the eight months that he'd known her, he had never seen her smile. It was nice, Percy decided. Made her look more human and less like a demon.

After about half an hour of internally debating whether or not Annabeth had poisoned the food, Percy eventually went over to the table and started eating it.

To his surprise, it was Thai food. How the hell had she known that he liked Thai food?

"JARVIS," Percy was saying before he even realised what he was doing. "Did Cap ask you about what to bring me?"

"I don't know, sir," JARVIS answered. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "I'll reprogram you," he threatened as he opened up the box to see mango sticky rice, and grinned to himself.

"Sure, sir."

Around 9 o'clock, Percy stumbled up warily to see the rest of the team already assembled in the living room. Hazel and Frank were on the couch, and something Percy had noticed over the month was that Frank was incapable of sitting like a normal person.

Tonight was no different, and the archer had his legs thrown over the arm of the sofa, as he twisted in a way that should've been impossible to look at the screen. Hazel leaned against his back, her feet propped up on the coffee table.

Annabeth sat on Hazel's right, wearing a large hoodie with pyjama pants that Percy recognised as Hazel's. Their close proximity surprised Percy; when the hell had they become friends?

If there was anyone less likely than Percy and Annabeth getting along, Percy would've pegged the two of them for it. Well, maybe this was one of the rare times that he was wrong.

"What," he declared as he claimed the vacant armchair. "Are we watching?"

"We're still deciding," Frank informed him.

"I say we watch Titanic," Leo suggested. "It's a pop culture staple."

"What? We need some horror!" Frank insisted. "The Shining!"

"The only reason you don't want to watch Titanic is because you cry every time," Hazel said airily, and the rest burst into laughter as Frank reddened.

"Okay, no horror movies," Annabeth announced. "I do plan to sleep tonight."

Percy bit back a comment about her running for 6 out of 8 hours every night.

"Star Wars," he said at last, and was met by a chorus of groans.

"Geek!" Frank accused.

Percy's jaw dropped. "Star Wars is the basis of pop culture!" he said dramatically, shooting to his feet. "Not one person alive doesn't know—" He cut himself off abruptly.

"Oh my God," Leo realised at the same time.

"What?" Annabeth turned her head from side to side bewilderedly.

"We are in the presence of the last unspoiled adult in America," Percy said slowly as he scrambled to grab the Star Wars DVDs from the cabinet.

"Should I be not be confused?" he heard Annabeth ask Hazel, who stifled a laugh.

"What is this war of stars?" Jason asked, frowning as the screen flashed a couple times before displaying said movie.

"You'll love it," Percy assured them. "It's my favourite movie of all time. Unbeatable."

They ended up having a Star Wars marathon — the original trilogy, of course, without any of that prequel crap, because those were a crime against humanity, and no, Percy wasn't taking any constructive criticism.

Somewhere between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Annabeth voiced, "You guys do know that 'Vader' in German is 'father', right?"

Percy offered some choice swear words in response to that, which Annabeth replied with a roll of her eyes.

"It's the most obvious thing ever," she protested as the text for Return of the Jedi started rolling.

Towards the end of the movie, Percy sleepily raised his head to look around the room. Jason was snoring unabashedly from his place on the other armchair, head thrown back rather unattractively.

Frank, who was also fast asleep, had somehow shuffled to now lay upside down, his legs hanging over the back of the couch as his head lolled neared the rug. Hazel had her head on his shoulder, eyelids drooping as she fought to remain awake.

Annabeth was wedged between Hazel and Leo, the assassin's legs on her lap as Leo slumped in his seat, eyes closed peacefully. Percy was surprised to see how comfortable she was, especially since she was the only one amongst them who was wide awake.

Her eyes were large and glued to the screen. Percy could see Yoda's reflection in her pupils.

Percy looked around the room. It had taken five weeks and half of them to be asleep, but it seemed like they'd finally found a way to be around each other.

<<< >>>

The fifth week of living with the others in the Avengers Tower wasn't as agonising, Percy found.

After a lot of persuasion, Percy reluctantly lifted the black-out over his workshop. Of course, that also meant the begrudging acceptance of his teammates coming down to bother him.

To Percy's surprise, none of them did. This only prompted him to resurface on Tuesday afternoon, wondering if the world had flipped upside down.

He was surprised to see Leo and Annabeth cooking together. The kitchen was silent except for the sound of steaming pots and pans.

"Percy!" Leo spread his arms when he saw the billionaire walk in. "We're trying to make Chinese food based on Frank's recipes. Want to try some?"

Percy squinted to see the soup that was clear as the sky on a sunny day. "I don't know whether you've poisoned it."

Something flashed in Annabeth's eyes. "Why don't you try it?" It took Percy a second to realise that she was joking. Joking.

That was a word that didn't go with Captain America. Whenever someone said the name, Percy had very vivid memories of Annabeth being stoic enough to pass as a rock.

"Okay, this is hopeless," Leo said, throwing his arms in the air. "If there is one thing I can't do, it's cook Chinese food." He turned to them, saying casually, "Want to grab lunch at that shawarma place?"

Percy blinked. "I-Yeah, okay." It took all the energy he could muster not to look over at Annabeth.

"Sure," came her flippant answer, though there was an undercurrent of uncertainty.

Lunch with Leo and Annabeth was not how Percy had expected to spend his day, but Jason was back in New Mexico to visit his friends, and the Duo From Hell were off on another S.H.I.E.L.D. mission.

Leo was entertaining, making relaxed conversation as he ate, while Percy and Annabeth remained quiet. Percy wasn't really in that chatty of a mood today — was he ever? — and he didn't want to risk anything that would make him fight with Annabeth.

Around two o'clock, their phones went off with simultaneous chimes and Percy groaned out loud. "Damn," he muttered under his breath, already knowing what they were up for. Percy peered over at Annabeth, who was reading off her screen with a mildly irritated expression.

"They think they've found the sceptre," Annabeth sighed, setting her phone down.

"It's their problem, they should deal with it," Percy said, rolling his eyes. "Any chance you guys would be up for just ignoring it?" A pointed look from Annabeth told him all he needed to know.

So they drove back to the Tower, Percy pressing into the gas rather generously as Leo clung on for dear life. Percy was surprised by Annabeth being unfazed by the speed of the drive. In fact, she almost looked like she was enjoying, an adrenaline-induced hint of a smile on her face.

"...calling Thor, but he hasn't responded yet," Percy caught the end of Annabeth's sentence as he flew in, landed beside his two teammates with a metallic clanking.

His faceplate flipped up. "What about Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dum?"

"Uncontactable," Leo said, looking laughable in his Spandex trousers. It was the only material Percy found that could survive his Hulk transformations. Unfortunately, they still hadn't found any shirts that worked for Leo, so his way of suiting up was pretty much just stripping down to his pants.

"Does it not bother anyone else that they're always on these secret, dodgy-sounding missions?" Percy said to no one in particular. He felt a jolt of satisfaction when he saw Annabeth roll her eyes. "I'm starting to think they're part of the mafia."

They boarded the Quinjet, and Percy had long become familiar with the plane. JARVIS piloted the plane — a compromise he'd coerced Mr D into — so the three Avengers could mill about, planning their strategy and trying to figure out this would work.

The number of missions they took on as a team had increased, and Percy had to admit that Mr D had been right in that aspect. It was much easier to Assemble when they were all in one place.

As the landscape outside changed, Percy began to miss the approaching April spring in New York as the unending winter of Alaska came into view.

"Why can't they ever hide the sceptre in the Bahamas?" Percy mused, interrupting Annabeth mid-sentence.

"Yes," Annabeth didn't bother to look up at him. "So inconvenient." The Captain's sarcasm always caught Percy off guard because he didn't expect the American Dream to have such a cutting sense of humour.

From the coordinates S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided, Percy figured they were in one of Alaska's uninhabited areas. Temperatures dropped way below zero, and ice stretched for miles with no end in sight.

Percy didn't know what to expect — he'd never been to Alaska before — but based on what he'd seen so far, Alaska was basically just the Arctic but American.

A snowstorm pummelled ice shards into the Quinjet's windows, and Percy was just so looking forward to going out into that. Well, at least he had his suit. He felt kind of bad for the Captain, who had a Tundra-appropriate version of her suit, but was bound to still feel the chill.

Percy allowed himself a moment to mentally thank his past self for installing the heaters in his suit. JARVIS would keep him toasty warm for the duration of this mission.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. jets will give us back-up from above, but our mission is to storm the compound itself. The sceptre should be inside, but prepare to encounter a defensive force of maybe 20 people," Annabeth summarised. Percy's faceplate flipped down as he nodded and Leo slipped his shirt off with a wary look.

None of them were looking forward to this.

The Quinjet's door opened with a hissing sound, and the cold breeze filtered inside. Percy didn't feel it, but he did see Leo shiver and his visor fogged up.

"Initiate de-fogging protocol," Percy said to JARVIS, powering up his boots as he erupted out of there, flying off in an explosion of yellow sparks.

"Thermal imaging, JARVIS," Percy said as he squinted to see far. "And night vision. I can't see a damn thing in here."

As the visor's settings shifted, Percy could make out the compound about 200 metres away. Annabeth had mostly been right; there were 17 heat signatures, some underground.

"Do you recognise the usual radiation signature of Thalia's sceptre?" Percy asked.

"No, sir. But there is the possibility that A.I.M. is simply covering it up."

Percy sighed exasperatedly under his breath. He was nearing the building now, gauntlets at the ready as he prepared to enter the place.

The Hulk's roars echoed behind him as he galloped along, Annabeth on his shoulder.

100m.

80m.

The sound of a bomb going off caught Percy's attention, and he came to a screeching halt as four missiles were fired into the air by the compound's cannons.

Percy sword under his breath, swerving to avoid the first missile. Spinning around mid-air, Percy blasted another one into oblivion before it could hit his teammates.

"Fall back!" came Annabeth's order. "Iron Man, you need to take out the cannons before any of us can even get close."

"Copy that." Percy shot forward, streaking through the air more quickly than the missions as the compound loomed before him.

50m.

20m.

Bringing his right gauntlet forward, Percy swooped over the first cannon, a large ray setting of a chain reaction as the heavy artillery exploded, killing the A.I.M. employee manning it. 

"Deploy flares," Percy instructed. "Target the—"

"Sir, begind you." JARVIS pulled up the rear camera and Percy gritted his teeth as he saw the two ballistic missiles chasing him.

Numbers rambled through Percy's brain. "Shut off power to the thrusters!" he almost yelled, the artillery inches away as the momentum carried him backwards.

Percy clenched in on himself as he whisked past the missiles. "Now, JARVIS!" The thrusters powered up again, and Percy quickly stabilised himself with the gauntlets before he blew up the two missiles from behind.

The flares from his suit had done their job; the cannons were destroyed. JARVIS did a rapid scan, and Percy declared to the team, "All clear."

"Nice job. Going in now." Percy glanced down to see Annabeth slide nimbly off Leo's shoulder and start sprinting. He would never not be in awe by the super serum's effects; the Captain could sprint for miles without even breaking a sweat, and Annabeth's figure making its way to the compound was evidence of that.

Percy landed on the roof of the building, cracking the floor with his boots as he blasted away the three armed soldiers who'd come to fight him.

Big mistake, Percy thought to himself as his firepower knocked them off the roof.

Looking at the stairwell, Percy reluctantly peeled himself out of the armour. The suit gave him a certain type of control that he craved, and taking it off was always an unwelcome relinquishing of that control.

The suit reassembled itself beside him as a metallic bodyguard, and Percy quickly hurried down the bannister.

"JARVIS!" Percy said in alarm when he came face to face with a massive man, whose arms rippled with muscles to rival Thor's. As Percy raised his hands, the suit mimicked his movements and fired off two powerful beams that knocked the man off his feet.

"...Man, Iron Man, come in."

Percy readjusted his earpiece. "I'm here," he replied. "On the top floor. I'll start sweeping from the top."

"Okay, I'm on the ground floor. Hulk's taking care of the underground. I've got Agent La Rue on supervision."

"Meet you in the middle," Percy finished, and when he received an agreeable noise from Annabeth, he set off to search the place.

"JARVIS," Percy voiced as he turned on one of the computers. "Can you get through their firewall?" Technically he could do it himself, but the sceptre was more important. Them the A.I.M. stuff was mostly for his own private curiosity.

"That will take approximately ten minutes, sir," JARVIS replied.

"Okay, use a thumb drive to import your systems onto the computer. Move all the stuff over to my private servers."

"Not S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, sir?" JARVIS sais amusedly.

Percy rolled his eyes, gaze roaming the room. No sceptre in sight. "Get your scanners looking for the sceptre's signature. That might make it easier to find."

As the suit plugged in a device containing JARVIS' program into the computer, Percy took the stairs down.

The next two floors didn't have anything, and the suit came back to join him by the third. As was planned, Percy entered the middle level to see Annabeth already completing her futile search.

Evidence of a struggle were the five men lying unconscious on the ground.

"Well, that was pointless," Percy grumbled.

"We shut down an A.I.M. cell." But Annabeth didn't sound any less disgruntled than him. Her helmet lay abandoned on the table along with the glasses meant to shield her eyes from the snowstorm. 

"Captain! Iron Man!" a voice crackled through.

Percy's brow furrowed. It was Leo's voice — as in, Valdez, not the Hulk.

"The self-district protocol's been set off downstairs, you have to get out of there."

Percy swore under his breath, holding out his arms as the suit attached itself back onto him.

"How long?" Annabeth demanded, face creased anxiously.

"30 seconds."

The faceplate came down, and Percy turned to see Annabeth already peering out the window to find an escape route.

"JARVIS—"

"On it, sir." A red path traced itself out on the map, showing the shortest route they would have to take to get a safe distance away from the compound. The landing site would have to be on the sea ice surrounding them. 

"Cap, I hope you like flying," was the only warning Percy gave before his armoured right arm circled Annabeth's waist and the thrusters shot them out of the already shattered window.

To her credit, Annabeth only yelped when they took off, hands tightening around his gauntlet as they entered the snowstorm.

Boom!

A deafening explosion rocked the background, leaving Percy's ears ringing. Flames licked at his boots as he whisked them out of there just in time.

"Cap," Percy said once they were at a safe distance and he started the landing sequence. "You're kind of crushing me."

Alarms blared on his visor as Annabeth released his gauntlet. Her cheeks were red, whether from the whipping winds or embarrassment, Percy couldn't tell. Her helmet and glasses had been lost in the explosion, and she shielded her eyes with her free hand as they came to a stop on the ice.

Percy checked his armour for injury — the worst damage had been done by the Capsicle herself — as Annabeth rattled off their coordinates to S.H.I.E.L.D., who were sending a transport to pick them up.

His gaze drifted back to the destroyed compound, squinting as the visor zoomed in on the explosions. "It's not stopping," Percy noted as Annabeth finished her S.O.S. call.

"Shit," he cursed, raising his hands and blasting away a piece of debris that some hurtling their way. JARVIS must've calculated their route without taking the debris into account.

Percy didn't catch the other piece of rubble in time, and the concrete smashed into the ice a few yards away, releasing a spray of seawater into the air.

Alarm bells went off in Percy's head as cracks started to rapidly sprint across the ice until the cobweb of it reached their feet.

Percy saw Annabeth's eyes widen a split second before the ice under her feet gave way and she slipped into the subzero water below.

"Cap!" Percy's thrusters saved him from the same fate just in time, and he find himself hovering over a sea of floating ice and water. "Cap!" he called frantically, whipping his head around wildly.

Annabeth had disappeared from sight, and Percy forced himself to suppress the panic and work out the direction of the current.

"Thermal imaging, JARVIS," Percy said hurriedly as he zoomed due South-West, eyes scanning the landscape.

His heart leaped into his throat, the blood rushing in his ears almost blocking out JARVIS' voice completely.

A heat signature appeared on the screen, much farther away than Percy had expected. His brain lagged behind his actions, making calculations as Percy sped up, trying to find the optimum spot for him to crack into the ice.

A blinking red circle narrowed in on the spot on his visor, and Percy dove into the ice, splintering the thin layers as he plunged into the freezing waters.

***

The red silhouette on Percy's visor was starting to fade into a much duller colour.

JARVIS rattled off numbers in his head that made Percy's heart clench fearfully — his suit's heating wouldn't be enough to withstand the cold at this rate. His teeth started to chatter about two seconds into the dive, but Percy continued to propel himself down to grab Annabeth.

Come on, you made it out of a wormhole. You can swim a little.

Percy tried his best to ignore the fact that he was surrounded by water — trapped by it, almost — as he accelerated, arms out to grab Annabeth by her arms.

Her eyes were shut, lips bluer than the sky when he finally nabbed her about three meters from the surface.

They exploded onto the surface with a Percy gasping, his skin crawling and feeling like the cold would never ever leave his veins.

"Cap!" Percy spluttered as his faceplate flipped up and he laid Annabeth out in front of him. "Cap!"

Wracked gasps escaped Annabeth, as she shook uncontrollably, eyes fluttering deliriously as her pupils rolled underneath.

"JARVIS!" Percy almost shouted.

"Cold water shock response, sir," came he British accent. "Sir, you need to calm down. It will only last for one to two minutes, assuming she hasn't inhaled any water."

Percy's heart hammered against his ribcage, matching Annabeth's rapidly increasing heartbeat as she jolted on the icy ground.

"It's not stopping!" Percy ripped the gauntlet off and pressed a hand to Annabeth's cheek, the only exposed part of her. "Holy shit, she's freezing."

"You need to warm her—"

"I know! I know!" Percy snapped. "I don't exactly have a lot to work with here, do I?"

Like a lightbulb going off, an idea slipped into Percy's brain, and before he could fully comprehend how stupid it was, he was stripping off the armour and slamming it onto Annabeth's limp figure.

"JARVIS, turn on heat settings to the max. Redirect all power from the thrusters," Percy panted, pulling through helmet off and setting it on the ground.

The armour was already readjusting itself to close around Annabeth. It was a little big on her, considering that Percy was bulkier and taller than her, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Seconds felt like hours as Percy waited with bated breath.

Her chest heaved, partially reassuring him that she was at least breathing, but worrying because of the continued hyperventilation.

"It's not working!" Percy said frustratedly, after about twenty seconds. "JARVIS, what's her temperature?"

"Nearing 35 degrees."

Percy frowned. "What? But—that's fine! Why is she—" Percy cut himself off as a whimper escaped her lips, a shudder rippling through her body, even inside the suit.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped wide open, panic flashing in them as she sucked in a choked gasp.

Percy's own legs were starting to go numb from the continued exposure to the cold, but he shoved that out of his mind.

"JARVIS, what's wrong?" Percy demanded.

"I don't know sir," the AI replied bewilderedly. "She should be fine by now."

Percy's eyes narrowed as her lips trembled.

God, of course. Dread washed over him as Percy resisted the urge to slap himself.

"She's having a panic attack," Percy realised, quickly ripping off the armour. "Oh my God, I'm so stupid."

He recognised the sheer fear and feeling of being unable to breath — remembered it from the months following the Battle of New York.

Annabeth had been stuck in a block of ice for 70 years.

"Cap," Percy said anxiously as the armour lay abandoned in scattered pieces all around them. "Hey, hey! It's me! It's Percy."

His hands reached out as if of its own accord and Percy pulled her into a sitting position, his fingers sliding between hers. Skin-to-skin contact was the only thing he could think of that would remind Annabeth that she was out of the ice.

"It's 2013," Percy continued to ramble as he knelt in front of her, searching her expression for any sign of chan he. "You're out of the ice. We were on a mission and you fell into the water. You're just having a flashback, but I need you to calm down, because if you die while I still owe you for saving my life about ten times I will be extremely mad—"

Percy cut himself off as he glanced down at her again, terror piercing his heart. What the hell was he supposed to do? Percy was not equipped for this.

But it was working. Whatever he was doing was helping, because Annabeth's breaths started to grown further apart, and her eyelids fluttered more slowly.

The panic started to fade in her eyes, and this time, when Annabeth looked up at him, she wasn't looking through him anymore, just looking at him.

"Oh, God," the words tumbled from her lips with a sob, and Percy pulled her into his arms, his own heart palpitating rapidly.

"You're okay," he murmured as he felt the tension start to evaporate from her. She was still slack against his body, but at least she was breathing normally now.

Relief coursed through Percy and made him light-headed. The ice was cold enough to hurt his knees as they sat like that for who knew how long, but Percy endured it, because it meant that Annabeth knew she wasn't frozen in time anymore.

Percy guessed they must've been there for less than five minutes when Jason landed behind them, but it felt like an eternity. Annabeth's breaths curled up in the air like wisps of smoke as a comfortable silence blanketed them. Jason, thankfully, didn't say anything, but he helped both of them onto the Quinjet, where Leo was standing, eyebrows pinched together with concern as they hobbled aboard.

<<< >>>

"What the hell were you thinking?" Percy burst into Mr D's office, vision tinged red with anger. "It's Alaska! You don't send a super soldier terrified of ice into Alaska based on a maybe!"

Mr D's expression was menacing, but Percy really couldn't care less.

"It was a necessary mission—"

"Necessary, my ass!" Percy spluttered. "This was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fault for losing the sceptre! You can't send us in to do your dirty work for you and cover up your mistake!"

"You are a team under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jurisdiction," Mr D said sternly.

"No, we're a team under Annabeth Chase," Percy emphatically. "And I can promise you that every single one of us will not hesitate to ignore your orders next time you send to us to find this stupid sceptre without any concrete proof."

Mr D remained silent.

"We aren't foot soldiers," Percy snapped. "Chase is in the med bay right now, and you are, from now on, forbidden from sending us to find Thalia's sceptre without hard data that it's there."

Whirling on his heel, Percy exited the office like a brewing storm, feeling like he could wrestle a bear. Eyes followed him as he went; most of them belonging to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and employees who were shocked by the outburst.

Quite frankly, Percy didn't care that Mr D was one of the most dangerous men in America. All he cared about was that one of his teammates was hurt because of him, and he had to make sure it didn't happen again.

His anger didn't evaporate until he was back in the Tower, sinking into the couch in his workshop until his fury dissipated it.

A whirring sound made him look up. Dum-E has rolled over to his side, the nozzle that worked as a fire extinguisher poised as if to release.

"Don't even try it," Percy threatened as Dum-E waved it around, but his shoulders had relaxed. He got to his feet, sighing as he knocked the robotic arm out of the way. "Okay, come on. We're altering Cap's Tundra suit to have installed heaters. Can't have the same thing happening again, can we? And while we're at it, JARVIS, can you make a note for me to increase the firepower on Frank's grenade arrows..."

It took over two hours of working for the chill to leave Percy's bones. Alteration to Annabeth's  suit was his priority, but once that was finished, he drifted between Frank's arrows, a conductor on his suit for Thor's lightning and several other projects.

"Good afternoon."

Percy's gaze flickered to the workshop entrance, where Annabeth was standing in an awkward stance, a stack of three boxes in her hands.

Her lips had returned to its normal colour, but her cheeks were still whipped red.

"Feeling better?" Percy asked, eyeing her warily. Was she here to scream at him? While he had technically saved her, Percy wouldn't put it past her to tell him off for practically hugging her for three minutes.

Annabeth shrugged. "There was nothing wrong with me. Doctors said it was all in my head."

Percy stood up from his kneeling position in front of U, and leaned against the wall. "Doesn't make it any less serious." He arched an eyebrow. "Are you here to say 'thank you'? Should I be expecting an infamous Cap monologue?"

"Why do you call me that?"

Percy blinked. "What? 'Cap'?"

"It's so," Annabeth waved a hand unintelligibly, still unmoving from her position. "Indifferent."

"What would you rather me call you?" The corner of his mouth twitched humorously. "Spangles? Capsicle?"

"Wasn't looking for suggestions," Annabeth snapped. Percy didn't miss her clenched fist. Wow, this really had to be painful for her. "I do have a name."

"'Annabeth'?" Percy tried it out, the word feeling foreign on his lips. "Seriously?"

Annabeth simply held her stubborn gaze and the tilt of her chin that said she wasn't going to back down.

Percy rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Then you have to call me 'Percy'."

"Deal," she said, satisfied. "And," Annabeth added. "I came down because you missed lunch. Again."

Percy stared at the boxes in her hand with newfound disbelief. "I'm sorry, you came here to bring me food?"

"You missed lunch," she repeated.

"Yeah, if you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly the epitome of good health."

Then, as Percy watched, Annabeth sat down on the floor opposite the black leather couch, setting the food on the table as she began unboxing it.

"I must be dreaming," Percy muttered to himself as he reluctantly joined her. He sat on the couch, across from her as she slid over the cheeseburger.

"Frank says that fast food is a big deal, but I don't get it," Annabeth noted as she dug into her fries. God, that woman could eat a horse and still be hungry.

Percy spent most of his lunch just staring at her, because he couldn't believe she was actually here, forcing him to eat. And it was working. Percy couldn't just tell her to leave — even though he'd done exactly that to his friends and his teammates.

It was weird, to say the least. Neither of them said anything. They ate in silence, and when Annabeth finished first, she piled up her rubbish, tossed it in the bin, and promptly left Percy sitting alone on the couch, staring after her with confusion.

The next afternoon, Percy had convinced himself that it was just Annabeth making up for him dragging her out of the sea, but then she came down again at 1 o'clock sharp, this time with Japanese food; two bowls of ramen and some sushi to share.

And Percy couldn't find it in himself to turn her away, especially since she had already seated herself down without an invitation. So they had another lunch in silence.

Whether the others noticed this, Percy wasn't sure, because they never mentioned it. But when Annabeth dragged him up for movie night on Saturday evening, Percy didn't know if he was imagining Hazel's curious looks directed at them.

On Sunday afternoon, Percy left his workshop of his own free will; yes, a shock to all.

He jumped slightly when the lift doors opened up to Annabeth standing inside, a pizza box balanced precariously on her palms.

Percy was the first to speak after about two seconds of them just ogling each other. "Domino's?" he finally managed. "That's disgusting. C'mon, I'm ordering Pizza Hut."

They walked side by side until Percy flopped onto the couch in the communal living room and told JARVIS to get the usual. Annabeth sat down in the armchair as Percy scrolled through Netflix.

"Have you seen Harry Potter?" Percy asked, gesturing to the screen. When Annabeth shook her head, he pressed play on the movie and triumphantly sat back in his seat.

When the Hawaiian pizza arrived, Annabeth eyed him with distaste. "Fruits don't belong on pizza."

"It's a national treasure," Percy insisted.

Annabeth squinted at him. "Aren't you part Italian?"

"Yes, my ancestors are glaring down at me with disapproval right now."

She laughed at that, and Percy felt a smile tug at his lips. Her laugh was nice. Kind of like bells.

By the time the sixth week arrived, Percy was starting to realise that Annabeth was actually a decent person. Sure, Captain America annoyed him, but Annabeth Chase didn't.

She had a good sense of humour, and could pass off the dirtiest jokes harmlessly because of the natural innocence she carried. Annabeth had a certain way of making Percy laugh, or snort on his milkshake because she'd made a comment about Mr D in spandex.

Another thing Percy realised was that Annabeth was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. She didn't understand anything about technology — but that was more to do with her 1930s upbringing. Annabeth's battle strategies and insight were so different from Percy's, that the eighth time they had lunch, he asked for her input on one of his suit's new functions.

She was helpful, so Percy started bringing various projects to their lunches, which had quickly become a regular occurrence.

Of course, they pretty much still sat in silence, just with the occasional conversation.

Percy found that for someone from the 1940s, Annabeth was more relaxed than he'd expected. After he stopped assuming she was uptight, it was easier to talk to her. Annabeth seemed to have taken his words from the gala to heart, because the jokes that he sometimes let slip just made her roll her eyes.

"JARVIS," Percy called. It was the end of April, marking the ninth week of living with his team. Okay, gun to his head, Percy would admit that, maybe, it wasn't as unbearable as he'd initially thought it would be.

"Yes, sir?" the AI prompted when Percy didn't finish his question.

Percy felt his cheeks warm. "Um, where's Annabeth?" The name still felt strange to say, even after two weeks, but Percy was getting used to it.

His eyes drifted to the clock in an attempt to ignore JARVIS' judgemental silence. For a computer program, JARVIS sure acted like one of his friends.

It was half past one and Annabeth hadn't arrived yet. Obviously, it wasn't like they'd actually talked about the arrangement they'd had so far, but two weeks seemed to have ingrained the habit in Percy.

"Annabeth is in the gym, sparring with Ms Levesque and the others."

Percy's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Oh." He tried to ignore the block of disappointment that had wedged itself in his chest. "Right."

Well, of course, Annabeth would get along better with the rest of the team. And it wasn't like Percy had ever made an effort to join them while they were hanging out.

"Sir?" came JARVIS' voice. "Ms Levesque has said to tell you to join them in the gym."

Percy blinked. "I-um, I don't really want to intrude."

Another moment of silence.

"Mr Zhang says, and I quote," JARVIS said sternly. "'If you don't get your ass down here, Jackson, he will send Jason up to drag you down.'"

Percy rolled his eyes, feeling a grin surface despite his efforts to hide it. "Alright, alright, I'm coming down."

When he arrived on the training floor, the lift doors open to reveal an absolute uproar. Hazel and Annabeth were indeed still sparring, hand-to-hand combat, with sharp jabs and nimble movements.

Jason was eating dried apple chips that Reyna had sent — did he ever stop eating? — and was sprawled on the floor. Frank sat beside him, a massive bruise on his forehead that Percy guessed Hazel had put there. Leo lounged on the couch behind them, watching the girls spar intently.

"No, no, feint right! Feint right!" Frank yelled, grabbing one of Jason's apple chips and throwing it into the boxing ring. Jason's indignant expression was almost laughable.

"Percy!" Annabeth spotted him from over Hazel's shoulder, and a blinding smile momentarily flashed over her face.

His heart skipped a beat. Jesus Christ, how did she do that?

Annabeth seemed to catch herself, her calmer composure returning, although her eyes still danced cheerily. Her cheeks warmed a dark red.

Hazel paused, turning around with her hip swaying to one side as she waved amusedly at him.

"What're you doing?" Percy asked, quickly stealing some of Jason's apple chips before he slumped onto the couch beside Leo.

"King of the Court," Frank said through a mouthful of food. "Or, as it turns out, Queen of the Court. Spar in pairs, and the winners fight to determine the absolute champion."

"I'm just spectating," Leo piped up. "None of you could beat the Hulk."

The Norse god turned around to give him a thoughtful look. "I am fairly certain that I have pummelled you several times, doctor."

"Actually, no, you didn't," Percy corrected. "I did."

"The armour did," Leo protested. "If it came down to hand-to-hand, the Hulk would win."

Percy chuckled. "Is that how the two of you lost?"

Frank pulled a face. "Hazel beat the crap out of me. I swear she revels in it."

"And the good Captain is a brilliant fighter," Jason added. "Without Mjolnir, she has the upper hand."

Percy redirected his attention to the ongoing fight that had resumed following his arrival. Hazel was an incredible fighter, with decades of training and experience, moving like a blur. But Jason was right; Annabeth was amazing. The serum had given her the strength to overpower Hazel with brute force, and her brain helped to calculate the best times to strikes.

With a blur of movement, Hazel executed her signature move, clenching her thighs around Annabeth's throat and using the momentum of her swing to knock her off her feet. At the last second, Annabeth flipped and slammed Hazel into the mat, eliciting a groan from the Russian.

"Damn," Hazel panted, as Annabeth gave her an apologetic look and pulled her to her feet. The spy's eyes glinted as she looked over at the men. "Hey, Percy, since you just got here, why don't you take on Annabeth?"

Percy's hand paused midway to his mouth with the apple chip. He gulped. "Um—"

"Yeah," Frank was grinning wickedly. "I'd like to see Percy get his ass kicked." The archer got to his feet, forcing Percy up and shoving him towards the ring.

"Can you, like, go easy on me?" Percy said lamely as he ducked under the ropes and into the ring. "I have a board meeting tomorrow so I can't exactly show up all bruised and battered." He looked down at himself, noticing that today probably hadn't been the best day to wear a tank.

Annabeth's eyes flashed with competitive determination, but also humour. "Yes, I'll go easy on you," she promised.

"Why," Percy said as he readied himself. "Do I not believe you?"

Annabeth's right fist swung forward, and Percy ducked quickly. As he mentally congratulated himself for the near dodge, she landed an uppercut on his jaw that made him wince.

They circled each other in the ring, and Percy tried to remember everything Beckendorf had taught him about fighting last year. Percy wasn't stupid; he knew there was no way he could beat Annabeth. Out of everyone in the team, except for maybe Leo — but he had the Hulk — Percy was probably the worst at hand-to-hand fighting without any weapons. But he would like to at least last long enough that his friends sitting outside the ring wouldn't laugh at him.

Percy blocked two of her strikes and ducked under her leg before he managed to get an open-palm hit on her shoulder. Annabeth was shoved back a few paces before she bounced back, kicking him in the gut before she swung up to jab at his chest.

Percy ignored the sharp pain and aimed for her cheek, but Annabeth grabbed his wrist, and before Percy knew it, he was flying through the air.

The wind rushed in his ears for a few seconds before his back hit the mat, knocking the breath out of him. Hands pressed against the mat by his arms, and Annabeth hovered over him, knees straddling his hips.

Percy almost laughed. Annabeth had judo-flipped him.

"Ow," Percy moaned, eyes fluttering open. The words died on his lips as Percy felt the breath catch in his throat, but for an entirely different reason this time.

God, Annabeth was really, really pretty. In a "stop talking" way.

Percy swallowed with difficulty. Wow, okay. He'd never really noticed it before, between the shouting and the, um, intense dislike.

But with her kneeling over him, blonde hair curling around her face like Cinderella and grey eyes flashing against adrenaline-flushed cheeks, Percy felt a dizzying haze drape over his mind.

Then Annabeth's lips curved into a wide smile. "I win."

"Yes," Percy managed. "Yes, you do." Her blonde ponytail swung as she got back to her feet, saying something to Leo that faded into background noise for him.

Percy pressed a hand to his head. He hoped his cheeks weren't as red as he thought they were. When he turned his head to the right and saw Frank's smirk, Percy knew that he was wrong.

Later in the evening, after Percy showered and returned to his workshop to consolidate documents for tomorrow's board meeting, he was surprised to see Annabeth in the doorway.

"Very vintage," he remarked upon seeing the large, billowing black trousers she wore with a hugging red shirt.

"I needed some of it," she shrugged. Her grey eyes drifted to look at the lit-up render of the suit in front of him. "What are you working on?"

Percy ran a hand through his hair and winced. "I, uh, I'm supposed to be doing work. Kind of got distracted. I was thinking of putting a compartment for a handhold on the suit." He sniggered. "Seeing as you constantly need a lift."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright. You can just leave me to die next time if you're gonna be like this."

His gaze flickered to the thin, black notebook in her hands. "What's that?"

She looked down, as if only now remembering that she was holding it. Something close to embarrassment filled her eyes. Percy thought it was hilarious.

"My sketchbook," Annabeth admitted reluctantly. "I draw whenever I'm bored."

In the back of his mind, Percy thought, so that was what she did during the day. "I thought you lived in the gym."

"I'm kidding," he chuckled, when she mock-threatened to leave.

"We missed lunch today because of sparring," Annabeth reminded. "I thought I could, um, just sit here and draw while you work on your stuff." Her cheeks flamed red to match her clothes.

Percy couldn't lie and say that her words didn't make him want to grin feverishly. Years of practice of schooling his face into an expression of nonchalance was all that saved him.

"Sure." He spread his hands. "I talk to myself sometimes, by the way. Just ignore me." Percy cast a glance to the right. "Oh, U, get me the shock-absorbent prototype armour."

"Sorry?" Annabeth interjected.

Percy blinked. "Oh," he realised. "No, no, not 'you'." He pointed to the massive robotic arm in the back of the workshop. "That's 'U', as in, the letter 'U'. He's one of my bots. The one over there — the stupid one — is Dum-E — made him in my father's workshop when I was in M.I.T."

Annabeth's eyes widened. "You made a robotic arm when you were 18?"

"16," Percy corrected. "I started college when I was 15. Child genius and all." He watched as Annabeth shook her head in disbelief.

"I mean, I always knew you were smart but..." she trailed off.

Percy shrugged. "Eh. It's common knowledge. But not many people have met my bots, so count yourself one of the lucky four."

"Four?"

"Rhodey, Piper, Leo," he rattled off, counting on one hand. "Most people don't come down to my workshop." He glanced around at the mess. "It's kind of like walking into my brain. I don't let just anyone in."

"Well, I think your brain needs to be more organised," Annabeth informed him, already putting a bunch of papers into a neat stack.

"Not wrong," Percy muttered, tapping his head. "But it's an organised mess. I know where everything goes."

Annabeth stood in front of the shelf. "What's this?" she asked curiously.

Percy looked over, and his heart did a little mournful gallop when he saw the glass case with his first arc reactor inside, and a plague reading "Proof that Percy Jackson has a heart".

"Piper gave it to me as a present years ago," he managed. "The first one got broken, so she gave this one to me after." It pained him just to look at it — Piper had given it to him at a time when they'd been in love, and all it did was remind him that they weren't anymore.

Annabeth seemed to sense the tone, and moved on.

"And this is supposed to be?" Annabeth raised up a large rectangular parcel wrapped in colourful paper.

Percy slapped a palm to his head. "Oh, man," he groaned. "That's Piper's birthday present."

"Is it her birthday soon?"

Percy winced. "Um, if soon is two weeks ago, then yes. JARVIS, please tell Piper that I swear I had a present, and she'll receive it when she's next in New York." He gave Annabeth a sheepish look. "Okay, maybe I should clean some stuff up."

"It would look weird if it was clean," Annabeth offered. "I don't know, I think your brain's always a bit messy."

Percy stared at her. "Wow, thanks."

"No, not in a bad way!" she protested. "Like, you're always thinking about so many things at once. When we're in battle, you're always muttering numbers into the earpiece. Or when we're in a meeting, and you're doodling stuff on the briefing sheet."

"Don't tell Mr D." But Percy hadn't even realised he did all those things. Apparently Annabeth hadn't either until now, because she looked like she was deep in thought.

Percy turned back to his work as U handed him the aforementioned armour and he proceeded to conduct the usual tests on it. After about ten minutes, Percy glanced back at the couch to see Annabeth curled up on it, fiddling with a pencil  as she stared concentratedly at the sketchbook in her lap.

<<< >>>

Drowning.

The crackling of the earpiece had been replaced by an eerie radio silence. The whooshing of water in his ears felt so faraway.

I'm drowning.

Percy's limbs were frozen, not like the ice-type frozen, but the terrified-beyond-breathing frozen. His lungs felt like someone had punctured a hole straight through them.

Sometimes Percy wished his brain wasn't the way it was. It meant that, as he sunk further into the ocean, his brain traced out a vivid image of his alveoli, lung cavities, bronchial tubes and trachea filling up with water.

JARVIS was gone, and Percy was alone in an unpowered suit, trapped in a dead weight as he sunk faster than the Titanic.

Water filled the hollow spaces in his suit, starting from his feet, and the level was starting to brim at his hip, and fear had absolutely petrified Percy.

This was how he was going to die. Not in a cave in Afghanistan. Not because of his arc reactor. But from Jason's lightning rebounding and frying his suit in a routine mission to shut down the illegal trade of Tesseract-powered weapons in a Portuguese harbour.

Percy closed his eyes, but nothing he did changed the half-sob half-gasp breaths that wracked his body. Any minute now, the water would be up to his mouth—

And then Percy was back in Afghanistan again. There was a wet cloth draped over his face, a rough hand shoving his face into a bucket of water as he spluttered desperately for breath. Only when his lungs screamed for oxygen and his brain was convinced he was going to die did they yank him out and push him back again.

Percy's fists clenched and unclenched helplessly. His vision shook between Afghanistan and the Atlantic Ocean. Some part of his mind — the only part unaffected by delirium — ordered him to get out of this metal tin can before he drowned.

Except he couldn't. Because the circuits were fried. JARVIS was gone. And Percy was about to die alone.

Water lapped at his chin, and his suit was about to fill up completely with water, and Percy struggled to kick his legs...

A flurry of bubbles streaked across his vision — the glint of a silver hammer, a flash of stringy blonde hair — and then something seized him around the arm, and Percy was zipping through the Atlantic Ocean like a jet ski on water.

Percy opened his mouth to yell or to scream, he wasn't sure, but salt water entered, and he choked, struggling to breathe again as his brain started to black out from the lack of air.

There was a numbing explosion in the background, and then there were screams, shouts, and a whole bunch of yelling. Percy's eyes fluttered weakly, water still covering his face.

Blinding light pierced through his eyelids as someone ripped the faceplate off of his helmet, and Percy coughed, gasping for breath.

A wet cloth — making him feel like he was drowning until he wasn't, and then he was again—

"Percy!"

"Wake up!"

Different voices echoed in his head, and Percy frowned, because no, he was alone, in a cave, why would there be anyone else here?

The clatter of something metallic, and a new voice, pleading, "Come on, don't be dead, don't be dead..." And confusion flooded him — Captain America wasn't anywhere near Afghanistan, hell, she was dead somewhere in a crashed plane—

Percy's eyes sprang open, a shudder running down his spine. "Annabeth!" he choked out, saltwater blurring his vision and making his eyes sting, but he forced them open because he needed to see those grey eyes—And Annabeth was looking right back at him, immeasurable relief in her face as her head dropped.

"I thought—we thought—" Annabeth struggled for words, and in the end she just settled for a shake of her head. There was a strand of hair on her cheek, and without thinking, Percy raised a gauntleted hand to brush it away.

"Percy!" an emotional voice broke his thoughts, and Percy dropped his hand, blinking as he tried to comprehend what he'd just been about to do. "I am terribly sorry, I didn't mean to—" Jason looked like he was inches away from tears, and Percy gave him a reassuring smile.

His vision was starting to clear, and the world came into view. Annabeth and Jason were kneeling on either side of him, the rest of the team hovering worriedly behind them.

"Don't worry, not your fault," Percy got out before a fit of coughs erupted from his mouth. Raising a hand, Percy wiped the water out of his face, which was tougher than it sounded when using a bulky metal arm.

"Tiny Percy got hurt," came the Hulk's gruff voice. Even the big guy was here, sitting cross-legged. There was a puzzling shift in his features before the Hulk starting to shrink back into Leo.

Percy struggled into a sitting position. "Thank you for that addition of 'tiny'." He looked down at himself. "Um, can someone press the 'eject' button, please? Unless you feel like carrying me home like a rag doll."

"It is tempting," Hazel said, arms folded and a cross look on her face.

A large grin stretched from ear to ear. "Were you worried about me?"

Hazel scowled. "Throw him back in the water," she said, not really meaning it. Hazel reached down and pressed the button. With a hiss, the suit detached, and Percy felt like he could breathe again.

Groaning, he wrenched his arms and legs out of the suit, one by one. "Remind me to waterproof the suit."

"Is that even possible?" Leo was back to his normal size, which was funny, because his human form was similar to a scrawny Latino elf, and add that to spandex bike shorts and — well, the image spoke for itself.

"I am in need of a challenge," Percy assured him. His other teammates began to draw back, partially satisfied that he was still alive. Percy's heart rate hadn't quite slowed down yet, but that was fine.

To his surprise, Annabeth didn't budge. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly. "I, uh, in your file, it said that, in Afghanistan," she cleared her throat. "I just don't want you to have to go through what I went through in Alaska."

"You remembered," Percy said suddenly. "What you read in my file."

"We're six superheroes with bad pasts. Everyone has a trigger." Annabeth fiddled awkwardly with her hands. "You gave my suit warmers after the-the incident. The least I can do is make sure I know what to avoid with you."

A smile tugged at Percy's mouth. "Aw. You're gonna make me cry."

Annabeth rolled her eyes as she got up, offering a hand to him. Percy took it gladly, feeling his hand tingle until she released it. 

When he looked down at the suit, his brain screamed at him to take it home now and start waterproofing the damn thing.

Frank interrupted his thoughts, "Want to try Portuguese food?"

Percy blinked. "What?"

Fix the suit, voices in his head screamed.

He gestured to the city of Lisbon in the distance. "It's a fifteen minute ride by Quinjet." Frank looked at him expectantly. "So, do you want to?"

The voice in the back of his mind quietened.

"Yeah, I do," Percy said, and to his own surprise, he meant it.

<<< >>>

"... I'm not a romantic, but even I concede that the heart does not exist solely for the purpose to pump blood."

The blanket was bunched up to Percy's neck, his hands twiddling together absently as he stared at the screen. Outside, it was 3am and pitch black, and the TV's light was the only illumination in the room.

A soft pitter patter of footsteps drew Percy's attention away from the screen. He glanced back to see Annabeth appear on the staircase, wearing pyjamas and with her hair hanging loose around her face.

Out of the corner of his eye, Percy spotted Hazel's eyebrows pinch together worriedly, but neither of them said a word as Annabeth silently joined them, fitting herself snugly into the armchair.

For the rest of the episode, Percy found himself distracted by her presence. His and Hazel's tradition of coming down to watch TV when they couldn't sleep wasn't reserved just for them. Leo had joined them once before after a news publication about the dangers of the Hulk, and Frank and Jason had each been down twice too.

But Annabeth's outlet for stress was always running. It had been for as long as Percy had known her, and to see her down here was as curious as it was bothering.

Of course, the unspoken agreement about Downton Abbey was "no questions asked". So as usual, they sat in silence, no one asking about why the others were down here.

When the episode finished, Percy's gaze drifted to Annabeth who simply got up and retreated back up the stairs. He shot Hazel a confused glance, but she merely shrugged back at him. She was as much in the dark about this as she was.

The late night (or morning) meant that Percy only stumbled down to the kitchen for breakfast at noon. Jason was video-chatting with Erik Selvig and Reyna in the corner of the room, his booming voice travelling across the room.

"Where's the Captain?" Percy asked as he slid into the seat behind the counter beside Frank. "And why are you here? Don't you usually train in the mornings?"

"The answers to those two questions are one and the same." Frank glanced over at him, and Percy was surprised to see the complete absence of any humour. That was weird. Frank cracked jokes and used sarcasm like his life depended on it.

"She's downstairs," Hazel replied for him. "Destroying the gym."

Percy frowned. He had seen Annabeth absolutely destroy punching bags with her bare hands before. "Did she have a nightmare?"

Leo, who was cooking — a habit Percy realised resurfaced whenever Leo was stressed — set down the spatula and turned around. "Percy, it's Memorial Day."

Percy felt his heart clench. "Oh." Guilt tugged at him. "Oh, man," he groaned. Of course, that explained why Annabeth was so down today. It was her first Memorial Day since coming out of the ice. A day dedicated to reminding her about the life she'd lost probably wasn't her favourite thing ever.

"Have any of you talked to her?" he inquired.

"Not unless we feel like being one of those punching bags," Frank muttered.

Percy resisted the urge to ask JARVIS for a video feed of the gym.

"It's how she deals with stuff," Hazel said quietly when she noticed his pensive look. "Just give her space."

Percy clutched his mug. "Sure." He'd become close enough with Annabeth over the last two months that he might even call her his friend — though she probably wouldn't reciprocate — and from what he knew, spending a day like this wallowing alone didn't seem like her.

But the others are probably right, Percy told himself. Don't want to make today worse.

And he repeated that as a mantra throughout the day, as Frank and Hazel disappeared to mourn the day, as Leo and Jason kept each other from sinking too low in their spirits.

Percy busied himself with his work, but he couldn't get Annabeth out of his mind. He was so sure that he could cheer her up, help her deal with this in a better way than beating up cotton, but he wasn't sure if he should risk it.

"Percy," Annabeth said in surprise.

Percy was standing in the lift, on his way up when she'd showed up in the doorway. Annabeth had left the gym hours ago, and she was dressed in a fresh pair of dark jeans.

Percy tried to reassemble his thoughts enough to form coherent words. Annabeth looked like hell; dark circles under her eyes were testament to her sleepless night and she looked like she was about to collapse any second now.

"You look like crap," Percy found himself saying, and instantly wanted to throw himself off a cliff. "I'm sorry, I-I don't do well with...emotions," he finished lamely.

Annabeth tiredly brushed the hair out of her face. "It's okay."

"Are you?" Percy asked before he could stop himself. "Okay?"

Annabeth swallowed, but she didn't answer. "I don't know."

Percy recalled Hazel's advice to leave Annabeth to it. But...

"I want to show you something," Percy blurted out. Annabeth looked like she was having n'a internal struggle with what to say, but she eventually nodded, and so Percy led the way out of the tower.

The darkness outside shrouded them as they walked along the street, keeping their heads down to avoid attracting any unwanted attention.

Percy mentally traced out the route as they walked silently along the pavement, neither of them saying a word.

"Have you been here?" he asked when they finally arrived at his intended destination. "Battery Park?"

Annabeth didn't answer, but Percy delved on anyway. There were people littering the ground, all mourning in silence.

Percy found a vacant bench and sat down, Annabeth following suit.

"That's a war memorial," Percy said softly, gesturing to the stone eagle. "I, uh, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to bring you here—"

"It was a good idea," Annabeth interrupted, offering him a weak smile. "It's nice to know that-that they were commemorated."

Percy swallowed. "I'm sorry. That I haven't talked to you about, y'know, coming out of the ice and skipping 70 years of your life. It can't have been easy." He looked down at his feet.

"It wasn't at first," Annabeth finally broke her silence. Percy glanced over at her to see her eyes fixed on the tall stone walls. "Everyone I loved was left in the past. Everything I've ever known."

"I hated it here," Annabeth confessed. "It was horrible. I didn't understand anything. All my friends were either killed in action during the war or had died from old age. The guy I—" She broke off hastily.

"Luke," Percy finished.

Annabeth's eyes widened. "You-you knew him?"

Percy winced. "It's kind of weird, but, he was good friends with my father. Uncle Luke, actually." He knew that Luke had dementia and was in a care home, which couldn't be easy for Annabeth.

"It wasn't like I was in love with him or anything," Annabeth said, her voice tight. "It was mostly in the moment, because of the war. But it could've been something. I-I missed out on everything. And I can never get any of that back."

"But," she folded her hands in her lap. "While I lost a whole lot, I also...well, I gained a lot of things I didn't have." Annabeth's eyes angled towards him and for a moment, Percy almost couldn't breathe.

"I get to protect the world," she said with a shrug. "I get to save lives and lead an incredible team." Annabeth allowed herself a small smile. "And somehow I ended up with a bunch of people who've come to mean a lot to me."

"Even if I could," Annabeth said slowly. "I don't think I would go back." She looked back up at the memorial. "Memorial Day doesn't make me sad about the past anymore. It makes me sad because I lost someone very important to me during the war — Nico di Angelo. He was my childhood best friend. We-we grew up together, but he-he died during a mission in 1945."

"I'm sorry," Percy knew the words were hollow, but he meant it. He'd read all about Nico di Angelo in Annabeth's file. Hell, there was even an exhibit about the guy in Washington DC. He'd fallen off a train and was never found.

Annabeth just shrugged, eyes still fixed on the floor. Percy tried to pretend he didn't see the tear that splattered onto the ground.

"I-I lost someone important to me too," Percy fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. "His name was Chiron. When they captured me in Afghanistan, he was a doctor they kidnapped. He saved my life, changed my entire outlook. Before that, I was a pretty big jerk. I wouldn't be here if not for him."

She looked up. "What happened to him?"

"He sacrificed himself so I could get out of there," Percy said, voice wavering. "They killed his entire family with my weapons, you know, and he still tried his best to save me. I made him a promise that day to never waste a second of my life."

"You fulfilled it, you know." Annabeth stared straight ahead. "You're a good person, Percy. I hope you know that."

"Thanks." Percy sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if it'll ever fully make up for the things I did."

"You've gone above and beyond," Annabeth assured him. "Never feel like you're not good enough." She released a groan. "Oh, I just remembered that it's your birthday tomorrow. I'm sorry, I'm dragging you down with me today."

Percy chuckled. "It's okay. It's not a big deal anyway." He pulled a face. "I'm getting old. I'll be 32 tomorrow."

"If it helps," Annabeth said lightly. "Technically, I'm turning 94 this year."

Percy hummed. "That does help."

They returned to the Tower shortly after midnight, and Percy watched warily as she walked off to her room. He retired blearily to the kitchen, waving absently to Leo, who was sitting by the counter.

Leo frowned. "You good?" His gaze flickered between him and the door. "Was that—were you just with Annabeth?"

Percy shrugged. "Yeah. Not sure if I did the right thing though."

"Whatever you did," Leo nudged him gently. "She looks like she's feeling better."

***

"Happy birthday!" Percy's teammates chorused as he stumbled into the kitchen.

"Birthday greetings, Man of Iron!" Jason boomed, his rumbling chuckle filling the room as he got out of Percy's way to the coffee machine.

"That thing is acidic enough to burn a hole in your stomach," Hazel said accusatorially as he downed the triple espresso.

"It's black as my soul," Percy grumbled.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "So, a glass of warm milk, then?"

"Shut up," Percy groaned. But he couldn't find it in himself to really be mad, because Annabeth looked significantly better than yesterday. Memorial Day had taken its toll on her, but Percy was glad to see her back to her usual lively self.

"What are you doing for your birthday?" Leo asked.

Percy pursed his lips. "Well, seeing as during my last birthday, I thought I was going to die, I plan to just appreciate that I'm still here." The bitter coffee jolted his senses.

"Percy Jackson missing an opportunity to throw a party?" Frank feigned disbelief.

Public persona, Percy wanted to remind them. "All my party habits were knocked out of me after college," he pulled a face. "Had so many bad experiences that I grew out of it."

The day was uneventful. As a special gift, Piper cancelled all his meetings and gave him the day off. Grover's gift arrived in the mail — a terrible scrapbook that was probably meant as a joke, though Percy appreciated it.

Percy was looking forward to spending the day surrounded by his trusty bots and JARVIS, but when dinner swung around, a very irritating archer started rapping on his door until he came up.

The kitchen was in utter chaos, and Percy would never have admitted it, but there was nowhere else he'd rather be. Leo, who was usually docile and calm, had taken charge of the stoves and was frantically fanning out stray flames.

Jason's hair was singed at the ends, and Percy suggested a shorter haircut, which the god responded to with a derisive snort.

"No one is allowed to touch my hair," Jason declared sternly, eyeing Percy suspiciously.

Percy's jaw dropped when he saw Annabeth walk into the room. "Oh my God, what are you wearing?"

"I found it with a bunch of stuff in the cabinets," Annabeth protested sullenly. "There weren't any others." The apron she wore was red and blue, with white stripes and a gold star in the centre.

Hazel smirked. "Why do you even have a Captain America apron?"

Percy scratched the back of his head. "I honestly have no idea. I think I bought it for Grover as a joke." He flashed Annabeth a mischievous grin. "You know, he practically hero worships you."

"Oh, he'd get along well with Will," Frank almost cackled.

"I think I should introduce them," Percy mused as he slid into one of the seats.

Annabeth had gone red to match her apron. "Please don't." Will Solace was Frank and Hazel's handler at S.H.I.E.L.D. and a huge fan of Captain America.

Annabeth had told him about the whole "I watched you while you were sleeping" fiasco that almost made him go blue from choked laughing.

Percy snapped his fingers. "They could exchange vintage trading cards," he exclaimed.

"I hate you so much," Annabeth muttered under her breath, threatening to throw the pot of pumpkin soup onto him. Percy dodged the hit by swatting her away with a ladle.

"Today is a special occasion," Jason announced. "It calls for some of the best Asgardian mead." With a flourish, he pulled out a small metal flask from his coat and started pouring shot glasses for everyone.

"Is no one going to question that he had that in there this whole time?" Percy demanded to no one in particular.

"I can't get drunk," Annabeth reminded them. "And even if this is magical and I could, I really think at least one of us should be sober."

"More for us," Frank interjected, grabbing her drink for himself. As the clear liquid slid down his throat, he almost gagged. "Jesus Christ, that's strong." The others followed suit as Annabeth looked on amusedly.

"None for the recovering alcoholic," Percy chuckled as he waved Jason's hand away.

The god's dismay was palpable. "You didn't say so! We've already taken our shots!"

"Don't worry about it," Percy insisted dismissively.

"I didn't know you quit," Hazel said, eyes narrowed even though her voice slurred with the alcohol.

"Piper made me quit while we were dating," Percy sighed. "There was an...incident at my birthday party last year. I was clean till we broke up, then there was, um—"

"Another incident?" Hazel finished amusedly.

"Why am I even telling you this?" Percy wondered aloud. He'd gone on a binge after their break-up, and woken up feeling like absolute crap and with new motivation to stay clean. He hadn't touched a drop since.

"You sure you won't feel excluded?" Leo drawled. "'Cause we love you man. You're my, uh, Frank, what did you call it?"

"Science Bro," Frank filled in helpfully. "You know, when the team first got together, I thought you two were—" He paused dramatically, throwing a furtive glance at Percy. "Boinking."

"Boinking?" Percy chortled. "I don't know whether to laugh at your choice of words or the idea that Leo is my type."

"Excuse me?" Leo's palms came down on the table as he frowned in an almost comical manner. The scientist rarely let loose. "Am I not good enough for you?"

Percy held up a hand. "We are not having this argument again," he said exasperatedly.

"Again?" Annabeth echoed incredulously. Percy shot her a pointed look, silencing her snickers.

"Is it my body?" Leo demanded. "Am I not hot enough—I'll have you know that the Hulk is ripped!"

"You have a girlfriend!" Percy said bewilderedly. "Why are we having this conversation?"

"Whatever, man," Leo said blearily. "It's fine. I get it."

"Well, I would be honoured to court any one of you," Jason declared proudly. "Unfortunately, I am heterosexual. My sister Thalia, on the other hand—"

"Pass," Hazel muttered, shuddering.

"It doesn't matter, you are all very incredible people," Jason said with a flourish as he downed another small glass of the mead.

Percy gave him a wary look. "You might want to slow it down there, Sparky."

"Sparky?" Jason repeated. "That has to be your least creative one yet."

Frank hummed in agreement. "Come on, Percy. He makes lightning — it's a little obvious."

Percy rolled his eyes. "It's 'Sparky' because he sparkles, dumbass." He ignored Jason's blank "What?" and proceeded to point to each member. "Jolly Green. Triple Imposter. Bird Brain. Capsicle. Don't ever say I'm uncreative."

"'Capsicle'?" Annabeth wrinkled her nose.

"That's the best one!" Percy protested. "It's the magic of portmanteaus!" He leaned back in his chair with a smirk. "But, I mean, I've got a billion more if you want to pick, Old Fellow."

"I take it back," Annabeth grumbled.

Despite that, Jason did not take Percy's advice, and soon he was dealing with the Tower being overrun by hyper, drunk superheroes.

Hazel was a giggly drunk — something that surprised Percy so much that he stared at her for twenty seconds after she burst into a fit of pitchy laughter after Jason was electrocuted by the television and had his hair sticking up at the ends.

Leo got even more agitated and energetic, if that was even possible, and borderline ADHD. He rushed around, uttering nonsensical equations to Percy and JARVIS.

Frank, if anything, shocked Percy the most, because he was sappy and emotional and everything an assassin should not be.

"You are just a giant teddy bear, aren't you?" Percy noted as Frank lay sprawled on the couch as he watched the last scenes of 'Titanic' roll out on the screen.

"They had only each other!" Frank almost yelled, his voice cracking.

Percy took the vacant seat beside him, exhausted at his team's antics. "I think I have a new set of abs from laughing so hard," he said to no one in particular. A right eight-pack, he expected.

"Tiny Avenger," Jason fumbled with his words as he flopped onto the ground, still rumbling with deep laughter as he struggled to stand up. "We'll protect you, Percy, do not worry."

"Yes," Percy said emphatically with a gri . "I feel very protected right now." Glancing up at the ceiling, he said, "JARVIS, please remind me to go through the footage from tonight for blackmail."

"Noted, sir. This may not be a large concern, but Miss Levesque is about to prove to Dr Valdez that she can flip off the balcony and survive."

"Hazel!" Percy yelped, leaping off the couch as he scrambled to the glass doors, only to see Annabeth already pulling the spy back, alarm on her face.

When Annabeth looked back to shoot him a disbelieving look, Percy doubled over with laughter at the absurd sight.

"Don't manhandle me," Hazel complained. "I could've done the flip."

"The only person who could flip off this building and survive is me," Annabeth said sternly as she released a struggling Hazel and locking the doors behind them. "And maybe Jason."

"No, no, Mjolnir would save me," Jason mumbled. "My hammer — she's reliable."

"Mjolnir is a 'she'?" Percy raised an eyebrow. "Did not expect that." He and Annabeth exchanged looks of mixed amusement and fatigue. "Hey," he said suddenly, setting down his glass and lowering his voice. "Five bucks says they wouldn't even notice if we left."

Annabeth jumped off her seat faster than he'd ever seen her move. "Get me out of here," she said breathlessly.

Percy stifled a snigger as he grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the elevator, the two of them hurtling across the floor like madmen before anyone could spot them.

"JARVIS," Percy panted once the lift doors close and Annabeth jammed at the button for her floor. "Lock down the kitchen so they can't get out on the balcony. If anyone's in imminent danger, call us."

"If there's danger of death," Annabeth added. "They can lose some limbs, it's fine."

Percy was still laughing when they stumbled out of the lift. "Well, that was a great birthday. I now know that Frank's actually a big softie, and that Leo may or may not be gay," he joked.

As he entered Annabeth's floor, Percy was surprised to see that it wasn't anything like he'd imagined.

"I don't know what I was expecting," he voiced aloud as he pivoted, looking at the pristine, almost untouched living room. "Maybe some American flags. 'The Star Spangled Man' playing in the background." He looked at her cheekily. "By the way, that's my ringtone for you now."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "So a propaganda poster was what you were imagining?" she asked, ignoring his last comment.

"I don't know. But you never fail to surprise me," Percy replied. The cream leather couch was nice, and he was a little offended that Annabeth didn't seem to use it at all.

"Sorry that you didn't get to have a big party or spend it with your friends," Annabeth said with a shrug.

"It was fun," Percy said truthfully. "Much better than any party; guaranteed."

"You hate partying so much," Annabeth remarked. "Why do you have such a reputation for it?"

Percy flopped onto the sofa, spreading his arms out over the cushions as Annabeth settled into an armchair to his right. "Well, when I finally got to go to college, I'd just hit my rebellious phase. Kind of wanted to give my dad a little 'fuck you', you know?" He shrugged. "And I liked it, at first. But as I got older, I just got tired of it. Everyone either wants to sleep with me or use me for money and influence."

"That's horrible," Annabeth frowned.

"It's what my dad made me do from childhood." Percy waved a hand dismissively. "Be cute and smile so people donate. And so they like you. The media is as important as the board." He pursed his lips. "As for the reputation, I've only slept with about half the people who say so. Most of the time I just found a girl drunk enough that she wouldn't remember the night, took her back and let her crash on the bed, then when she woke up, she'd just assume we'd slept together."

"Why?" Annabeth said bewilderedly.

"Another lesson from dear ol' dad," Percy sighed. "If the media is interested in you, they're less likely to turn on you. At least that way, I got to control what they said about me. Besides, it worked out well. Lots of business leaders underestimated me to be a frivolous playboy, and I got away with a lot of good deals before they realised otherwise."

He glanced back up at her. "Sorry, I know Howard was your friend."

Annabeth sighed. "I didn't know him that well outside of work. He was a good engineer. A good tactician. And if I ever saw him again, I wouldn't hesitate to punch his lights out."

Percy's eyebrows shot skyward. "Violent."

"He wasn't a good man," Annabeth supplied. "It's clear enough from the way he treated you. No one — especially a kid — should go through that."

"Wow, and I thought you were besties."

"Honestly," Annabeth said thoughtfully. "He was an asshole sometimes. Like I said, I only really interacted with him for Captain America purposes, so I never got to see outside of that. But, uh, there was a 'fondue' incident."

"Fondue?" he repeated.

Annabeth's cheeks went red. "A misunderstanding. He asked if I wanted to get fondue, and I thought he meant something else—" She broke off with a mortified expression, but Percy couldn't see past his blinding grin.

"That's the best thing I've ever heard," Percy choked. "You really are the epitome of innocence."

"Why do people always assume that?" Annabeth complained. "I was in the army. It's not like we were all angels."

Percy faked a dramatic gasp. "Don't tell me Captain America isn't a virgin." When she went even redder, Percy reassured her, "I'm kidding, by the way. I really don't care, seeing as I've slept with half of New York." He winced, recalling the 12 models of that magazine.

"And it's the image, by the way," Percy told her. "Captain America and the whole shebang. You're the American Dream — quite literally. My dad never failed to tell me all the way I'd never live up to you."

When she grew silent, Percy said lightly, "Well, my closeted childhood issues are for another day. I should leave you to it."

As he made to get up, Annabeth interjected, "Wait, um." Percy paused mid-movement, arching an eyebrow expectantly. Annabeth fiddled with her hands awkwardly. "I almost forgot to give you your present."

"You got me a present?" Percy echoed in disbelief. "I thought I told you guys—"

"'No presents'," Annabeth finished. "Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively as she got up. "Look, it didn't cost anything, but I just figured I should do something. I mean, you've done a ton of stuff for us, and we never really said thank you."

Curiosity got the better of him, and Percy followed her into her bedroom. His gaze swept the room; there were framed pictures up on the dresser, the shield lay against a chair in a manner that was too mundane for a superhero, and the bedspread was a fun grey colour with owls decorating it. 

"Nice sheets," Percy chuckled.

Annabeth rolled her eyes as she rummaged inside her bedside drawer. "Shut up," she muttered before she turned around, a rectangular package in her hands.

"Wrapping paper was courtesy of Jason and Leo," she said with a laugh, gesturing to the Iron Man helmets dotting the red paper. "Hazel and Frank were in charge of the card." She shrugged. "The gift was mine. I hope you like it."

She handed the present to him, and Percy stared down at it with intrigue. "Mysterious," he commented as he started back-pedalling out the room, Annabeth at his side. "Thank you for the gift, though."

"It wasn't any problem," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You gave us all a place to live and pay for everything; which, considering how much Jason eats, is incredible."

"You eat more than he does," Percy said with a smug grin. Annabeth blushed. "Seriously, our grocery bill is a nightmare." He tucked the gift under his arm. "But it's my pleasure." The elevator bell rang out as the doors opened.

"Goodnight, Percy," Annabeth said, flashing him a good-natured smile.

Percy nodded in response, retreating into the lift. He held her gaze steadily until the doors closed.

The lift carried him up to the penthouse, just a floor above Annabeth's. Percy was a genius, but he didn't have a clue what the gift could be. It felt like a book — a very big one if it was.

Percy ducked into the penthouse, laying out the gift on the glass table as he settled into the couch, propping his elbows on his knees and his chin against his palm.

"JARVIS, any ideas?" he asked.

"I think it's better than you be surprised, sir," the program replied.

Percy slid a finger under the folded end of the wrapping and started tearing at the humorous wrapping paper. As he opened the gift, a corner of white canvas appeared, and Percy frowned.

A painting? 

When he slid the actual present out and shoved the rubbish aside, Percy regarded the drawing.

It was an A3-sized canvas, with pencil depicting the six Avengers strewn across the couch, drowning in fluffy blankets and popcorn littering the setting.

Percy felt an uncontrollable smile tug at his lips. He remembered this; one of their movie nights with everyone present. No one on missions, at board meetings or an extraterrestrial world.

Frank and Hazel were squished together in the arm chair, the latter throwing popcorn kernels at Jason. The Norse god swatted them away with a childish scowl from his position on the sofa. Leo was curled up in front of the coffee table, the only person actually paying attention to the movie. Three pieces of popcorn were nestled in his curly hair.

To Jason's left, Percy was buried in pillows, the tip of his t-shirt peeking out from under the blanket as he reclined so that he was practically lying flat on the couch, his feet propped up on the table. His head was tilted up, grinning blindingly up at Annabeth, whose features were creased in laughter as she looked down at him.

Simple water colours filled in the colours of the scene, with the background left blank and white.

Below the scene, in black lettering, read, 'Proof that Percy Jackson has a heart'.

Percy sagged in his seat, something akin to warmth creeping up on him. "Of course," he murmured, a smile growing on his face.

He and Annabeth never discussed the gift, but the next afternoon, when she came down with a precariously balanced box of hot wings in her hands and saw the picture up on the wall in a wooden frame, Percy didn't miss the small smile she hid.

<<< >>>

The automatons whirred to life, massive bronze statue-like robots that were terrorising the city. Percy executed a smooth flip in the air before he aimed his repulsors at the closest bot.

"What the hell is this?" he yelled into the intercom. "Godzilla?" The hackles on the back of the dragon-like robot — hell, it was Godzilla — rose and catapulted a bunch of flares into the air.

Percy was pummelled back by the tiny explosions, but the titanium exoskeleton of his suit held up well and he was up and ready within seconds.

Hurtling towards metal creature, Percy slammed into its chest, deploying a missile from his left gauntlet before he pushed off and spun away, letting the explosive do its job. The robot was blown to shreds with a low rumble and a flash of light.

"There are too many of them," he said urgently, scanning the landscape from higher up. "We have to find out where they're coming from and block it."

"Copy that, Iron Man," came Annabeth's authoritative voice. "Locate the source but don't make any rash decisions before consulting me."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Lighten up, Cap." The thrusters powered up, shooting him further into the atmosphere. "I'm not that irresponsible."

His visor started honing in on any energy signatures matching that of the robots. "J, any idea where these guys are coming from?"

A soon as he uttered the words, Frank's voice crackled through the helmet, "Hazel and I have cornered the crazy dude in an alleyway. He says his name is Dr Doom."

Percy frowned. "Antagonistic name. What does he want?"

"Well, apparently his goal was to draw out the Fantastic Four."

"Lucky for him," Percy remarked. "He got us instead. We are way cooler than Reeds and his gang of misfits."

"Isn't Reeds one of the smartest men in the world?" Annabeth asked amusedly.

"One of," Percy emphasised. "Doesn't mean he's smarter than me." The red marks on his visor honed in on a concrete building near the street where the first mechanical monster had been sighted. "I've got eyes on the source. It's just off 125 Street."

"I'm calling Reeds," Annabeth added. "Maybe he'll know how to deal with this guy."

A few muffled curses that Percy recognised as Frank's came through. "Shit, we lost him."

"You what?" Percy demanded.

"Hey, give us a break," Hazel said exasperatedly. "The guy can fly."

"Of course, he can," Percy muttered irritatedly. He landed on the pavement in front of the building in question, the stone cracking beneath his weight. Tuning out Annabeth's orders to Hazel and Frank, he said, "JARVIS, scan the building for a power source, probably nuclear judging by the machines we just saw."

"There's an energy trace remarkably similar to your arc reactor underneath the building. Basement 3."

Percy's eyebrows shot skyward. "Well, a fellow scientist." Metal boots clanking against the ground, Percy entered the building, blasting down the door with his repulsors.

"It's completely deserted," Percy informed his teammates.

"Heading over to you," Jason replied, followed by the vivid sound of his hammer swinging in the air.

It was strange to stand in the elevator in the suit, but Percy managed it. When he arrived at the floor JARVIS had indicated, his AI abruptly cut in, "Sir, there's a—"

Ding!

The elevator doors slid open, and a massive metal snake woman pounced on him. Percy ducked, narrowly avoiding the spear before he drew his hands up, searing the robot with hot beams.

The suit wasn't that great for close-range fighting, so Percy had to make do with dodging hits — which was easier said than done in 200-pound metal armour.

"JARVIS, where the wires on this thing?" Percy said gruffly as he parried the automaton's blade. Following JARVIS' instructions, Percy pried open the metal plate on its back and promptly ripped out as much of the circuit as he could.

Fortunately, guesswork was sometimes successful, and the machine whirred to a halt. Tossing the wires to the side, Percy regarded the room cautiously. It was clearly Doom's workshop, judging by the computer screens and half-finished projects.

Against the right wall, seven more automatons, twice Percy's size, were being charged up by the power source — a bright circle of light rotating faster than the eye could see.

It was something close to a primitive arc reactor, or at least a power source using a technology similar to it, but nothing close to Percy's own model.

"We've got seven more bots here," he said warily.

"If they all start up you'll be dead meat."

"Thank you, Hazel, for the uplifting commentary," Percy said sarcastically as he stepped out of the suit. "Speakerphone, J."

As he pulled up the keyboard, Percy started loading up one of his programs capable of getting past just about any firewall. Keeping small thumb drives of them in the suit was easier than typing out the code during every mission.

"I'm in the system," Percy informed them as he clicked on one of the running application. "Okay, I've got the program for the bots here. It's pretty basic, so I should be able to shut down the power from here."

Percy clicked on the 'CUT POWER', and a message flashed on the screen; 'Password required:'

Swearing under his breath, Percy pulled up the source code. "Shutdown is password-protected." He threw a glance back at the docile robots. The first one, a large gladiator-style machine was 78% loaded up. "I'd have to manually hack into it, and I'm pretty sure half the machines here will activate before I can finish."

"Jason and I are on our way," Annabeth told him. "We'll cover you while you do it." The sound of footsteps echoed through the system.

"Wait," he said suddenly. "I think there's a quicker way around it." Percy approached the power source cautiously. "JARVIS, yo ure on the database, what are the safety mechanisms on the power source?"

"An immediate self-destruct protocol should it be tampered with."

"But other than that," Percy frowned. "Just the glass case?"

"Yes, sir."

Percy slid the helmet on. "Cap, Jason, you can back away from the building now. We have a cleared perimeter of radius 500m, right?"

"Yes," Annabeth's voice was clouded with suspicion. "And we're sticking the plan."

"Do I need to remind you that our initial plan went out the window five minutes into the fight?" Percy said as he turned off the self-destruct defence protocol using the computer. "We improvise; it's what we do."

"Iron Man—"

"I can break the glass casing," Percy insisted. He glanced at the robots; 95% loaded. "Two of the robots will activate before you even get here."

"Iron Man, you are to wait for cover," Annabeth snapped. "That's an order."

"Sorry, Cap," Percy fired up his repulsors at the power source. "Can't let anymore of the bots get out. My suit'll absorb the impact — probably. Keep the streets clear."

"Percy!" came Annabeth's shout before he released the blast of energy. The beam pierced the glass casing, growing the web of cracks by the millisecond before the entire set-up shattered with the force of a rocket, throwing Percy back.

The last thing he saw was debris raining down on him. Then his head hit the pavement and the world blinked out of existence.

Percy woke up, expecting his least favourite place of all — the S.H.I.E.L.D. medical bay — and instead, was faced with the tolerable infirmary at the Tower.

Struggling to sit up, Percy glanced around, eyes squinted as he peered around the room. Leo was standing a few feet away, typing away at some computer with his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Good morning," Percy yawned, rubbing blearily at his eyes.

Leo's eye twitched as he turned to face him. "I should've let you die for doing something so reckless."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic. I did the math. It was within a 50 to 100 psi range for detonation pressure."

"That's almost as much as dynamite," Leo reminded. "And I've seen your suit. There's no way you could survive a 100 psi blast." He leaned back against the wall with a judging look. "What was the percentage chance that you'd survive?"

"Like 80%!" Percy exclaimed. "That's good odds!"

Leo shook his head exasperatedly. "You know, what? I'm not even going to try. You're too self-sacrificial to deal with."

"So I can go, right?" Percy suggested.

"You had a severe concussion," Leo informed him.

"No broken bones."

"By a miracle," Leo relented.

Percy swung his legs off the side of the bed, wincing as his head started to throb. "I'll get ice," he told the other scientist. "Relax, Leo. I've had worse."

He left Leo in the room to rifle through his readings as he headed down to the kitchen, kneading at the uncomfortable bruise forming in the back of his skull.

"You're looking less death-y than expected," Frank remarked as he entered the room.

"Charming," Percy responded as he pulled out an ice pack from the freezer. As he turned around, he saw Hazel sitting at the counter, arms folded. "Please don't tell me you're going to tell me off too."

"Oh no," Hazel chuckled. "We're all very mad at you, but we're leaving it to Annabeth. She's still at S.H.I.E.L.D., debriefing Mr D about why our resident engineer almost got himself blown up in the middle of Harlem."

Percy shrugged off the cold weight that settled in his stomach. He hadn't even thought about that. "Yes, she's probably very mad that I tried to play the hero again. Well, if she didn't realise, that's what we're supposed to be."

Hazel arched an eyebrow. "You're incredibly stupid, did you know that? You think that's why she's mad at you?"

Percy didn't bother with her words. "I already have a headache," he muttered. "Don't need to make it worse." Grabbing the ice pack, Percy traipsed out of the room, heading down to his workshop.

The suit had to be in terrible condition, considering the force of the blast. Percy once again chided himself for blowing up all of his suits for Piper. Of course, it had been dramatic and a grand gesture — so, right up his lane — but it had been convenient to have a ton of back-ups, and they'd broken up anyway.

"JARVIS," Percy announced as he descended the stairs into the workshop. "Put it on my to-do list to make another Iron Man suit."

The armour was on his table, probably put there by Jason, seeing as he was the only one strong enough to do so.

"Oh, Doom owes me a lot of money for damage," Percy said with a frown as he inspected the scratched paint, various dents, and parts blackened from the explosion's heat. "JARVIS, put the suit under normal maintenance. I think the arc reactor's housing is too damaged to repair, so just use the most recent blueprints to reconstruct—"

"What the hell were you thinking?" Annabeth's shout echoed around the workshop as the glass door slid shut behind her.

Percy gritted his teeth as he set down the armour and turned around to face her. "Annabeth, lovely to see you." Apparently two hours hadn't been enough for her to cool off.

Annabeth was more furious than Percy had ever seen her, and in the back of his mind, he was a little disappointed that they were about to break their streak of peace. No fights for over a month had apparently culminated in their worst argument yet.

"No, don't you dare treat this like it's nothing!" Annabeth threw her arms in the air, cheeks red with anger and grey eyes flashing. "What were you thinking?" she repeated, every word charged with force.

"I was thinking that it was the best option in the moment!"

"In what moment?" Annabeth demanded, voice rising to a near-yell. "You had an order to stay and wait for cover. Jason and I were only a few yards away!"

"A few hundred yards," Percy snapped. "You wouldn't have gotten there in time! The way I see it, it was a win-win plan! Destroy all of Doom's work so he would have to start from scratch should he try to recover it, remove an incredibly dangerous power source from the equation, and shut down killer machines. There was no downside to the decision I made!"

"How can you say that?" Annabeth shouted frustratedly. "How can you even think that? You almost died!"

The last word hovered between them as Percy recoiled, stunned into silence. "That's what this is about?" he finally managed, incredulity flooding his tone. "I thought you were mad because I disobeyed orders!"

"I don't care about that!" Annabeth ran a hand through her hair, infuriated. "You were thrown back by an explosion that looked a whole lot like dynamite! For the first few seconds, I thought you were dead! We thought we lost you!"

"It's not like it's a big deal!" Percy fired back. "The suit was fine — look!" He gestured wildly at the armour. "Repaint it and it'll look like it's brand new! It's not like you'd have lost Iron Man!"

"The suit?" Annabeth echoed, face twisted in disbelief. "You think this is about—It's armour with flashy colours, Percy, I don't care about the suit!"

"You are Iron Man!" she snapped. "It's not like we could just find someone else to pilot it. It's your brains — it's you — that make the hero. Not a pile of scrap metal!"

Percy stared at her, unable to form comprehensible sentences. A pin-drop could've been heard in the thick silence.

Annabeth's chest heaved as her glare pierced him. She was still in the Captain America suit, mud and dust staining the material as she set down the shield, which clattered to the floor.

"It's hard to believe that someone who's so cocky all the time," she said, her voice low but still equally dangerous, "can have such a ridiculously low sense of self-esteem."

Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?

"Can't blame me for thinking that the suit is the only reason you still keep me around," he said quietly.

Annabeth's features twisted painfully. "You have to know that I didn't mean what I said on the Helicarrier. The sceptre was winding me up — winding all of us up." She swallowed. "But most importantly, I didn't know you. I judged you too quickly, and I made the wrong judgement."

"The moments after I saw you fall were horrible, Percy," she said, her voice flat. "I thought you were dead."

"Careful, if anyone overheard they might think that you cared about me." It was the automatic defence mechanism in him.

"For someone who's supposed to be a genius, you can be really stupid sometimes, Percy." Annabeth glared at him. "You're my friend, you idiot."

The words died in his throat, and Percy closed his mouth, speechless.

Friend? Percy had thought that she simply tolerated him, played nice and acted friendly because it was her duty as their leader.

"If that wasn't clear before, then I'm sorry," Annabeth said, not as harshly as before. "That's my fault. But you should know that I do care about you. You and the team."

"I didn't mean what I said either," Percy said abruptly. "On the Helicarrier. You're a hell of a lot more than a laboratory experiment."

Annabeth expression softened, and the tension began to leave her posture. Her glare faded as she held his gaze before she broke it and glanced away.

"And you're more than," she paused, cheek twitching. "A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

Percy allowed himself a small smile.

"And I'll be here to remind you," she told him firmly.

Percy's gaze flickered to the large TV screen he had in one corner of the room. "And it wouldn't hurt to finish that the last 'Lord of the Rings' movie while you do that."

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "Only if you order pizza." She narrowed her eyes. "With no pineapple."

Percy made a "tsk" sound. "Oh, the sacrifices I make for you."

<<< >>>

"Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way?
Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day?
Who will campaign door-to-door for America?
Carry the flag shore to shore for America
From Hoboken to Spokane
The Star Spangled Man with a Plan!"

"I hate you so much," were the first words Annabeth uttered when she stepped into the communal space.

Red, white and blue streamers rained down from the ceiling against the backdrop of a massive American flag. 'The Star Spangled Man' blasted from the speakers overhead.

Percy's jaw dropped. "Why me?" he whined. "There are five of us in here."

"It looks like America threw up in here," Annabeth retorted. "It reeks of Percy Jackson."

"Offensive," he said, feigning hurt. "I spent a lot on today." It was Annabeth's birthday, and coincidentally, the 4th of July. Percy held up a hand. "Before you say I shouldn't have spent money on you, let me make it clear that most of this is for myself."

Leo raised a hand. "I have a question," he declared. "Why is it 'The Star Spangled Man'?"

"Because only a sliver of the general public believed a woman could actually fight," Annabeth answered automatically. "The song was catchier if they thought it was a guy doing all that stuff."

"Doing all that stuff?" Hazel gestured to the speakers with a wicked smirk. "You mean 'you'll rise or fall, give your all for America'?"

"Once again, I remind you that I am eligible for retirement," Annabeth threatened. "And I'm reconsidering it."

Percy chortled. "I can't believe your birthday's actually on the 4th of July. How is that even feasible?"

"It's a coincidence," Annabeth protested. "Trust me, Nico never let me hear the end of it."

"Just do you know, the whole Tower is playing this song in your honour today." Percy grinned as she turned her glare on him.

"For the record," Frank interjected. "Percy's the only one hell-bent on torturing you today. I mean, I did think it was hilarious, but I think what he's got planned is bad enough."

Annabeth groaned, burying her face in her hands.

"It's decent," Percy insisted, though the following grin contradicted his words. "Come on, we have lunch reservations at Jimmy's Diner in half an hour."

Annabeth frowned. "It's 11am."

"We're going full-on American today," Percy informed her. "Chop chop, Old Lady."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I'll bring my ID," she said begrudgingly. "Maybe we'll qualify for the senior's discount."

"That's the spirit!" Percy exclaimed as she exited the kitchen to get dressed. When he turned back to the rest of his friends, he was faced with smug expressions and palpable curiosity. "What?"

"What's the deal with you today?" Frank questioned, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Jimmy's Diner? It's in Brooklyn and they do a special 4th of July set." Percy spread his hands. "Hey, you guys are the one always bugging me to attend team lunches—"

"No, not that," Hazel interrupted with an eye-roll. "You and Annabeth are doing that flirty banter thing."

"What?" Percy's voice came out almost an octave higher, to Hazel's delight. He cleared his throat, "I mean, what?"

"Oh, come on," even Leo joined in. "The teasing? You've put more effort into her birthday than you put into missions."

"That's because missions are boring," Percy insisted. "And I'm doing this because Annabeth absolutely hates everything that makes her out to be patriotic — ironic, I know — and I'm not missing an opportunity like this." He pointed to Hazel. "And you, miss, are crazy. Annabeth and I don't 'banter'. We fight — or are you forgetting the billions of arguments we constantly get into?"

"Yeah," Hazel paused. "But that was, like, months ago. You guys have been joined at the hip for a while now."

Percy opened his mouth to release an indignant statement, when Jason interrupted him, "Do you not have lunch together everyday?"

"That's-that's different," Percy stammered. "Okay," he shook his head. "This is ridiculous. Just because we aren't trying to kill each other every second doesn't mean we're 'joined at the hip'—"

"You even go on dates!" Frank said accusatorially. "You went out to that ice cream place yesterday!"

"That's different!" Percy said frustratedly. "We've run out of places to order take-away from."

"Sure," Leo dragged out the syllable, plastering an innocent look on his face. "You can keep pretending—"

"Pretending what?" Annabeth finished as she walked in, wearing a blue and white romper, her hair bunches into a ponytail.

"Nothing," Percy blurted out, silencing the rest of the team with a sharp glare.

"Okay then," Annabeth said, giving him a weird look.

As she started out the door, Percy turned back to the others. "You are all terrible people!" he hissed. "You've absolutely ruined today for me."

Despite the commotion his friends had made about everything, it slipped his mind by the time they got to the diner. The day was fun, and, of course, because it was Annabeth, she still spent two hours sparring with the others in the gym downstairs.

Percy made the excuse that he didn't feel like getting pummelled today and had some work to finish in the workshop.

Around 9pm, he returned to the kitchen just in time for the movie to start.

"We were just about to get you," Annabeth said as he materialised in the kitchen. "I get to choose the movie tonight."

Percy groaned at the mischief in her expression. "Whoever said you were pure and good was an idiot."

"'Citizen Kane'," Annabeth announced, eliciting annoyed protests from the others. "Hey, I've suffered through over 50 plays of 'The Star Spangled Man' today; I get to pick the movie."

Percy grabbed a packet of Doritos and headed over to the armchair, only for a blur of movement to obstruct his path as Frank pointedly settled into the seat.

"Taken," the archer said, not a single drop of apology in his tone. "Sorry."

Percy wrinkled his nose. "What?" He eyed Frank suspiciously. "You're being weird — well, weirder than usual."

He saw Leo elbow Jason in the most conspicuous manner possible. The god's eyes widened. "Oh!" Jason cleared his throat. "Percy, there's some space on the couch beside Annabeth."

Percy glared at them, who had made it a point to occupy every space except for the sofa. He glanced back at Annabeth, who was too busy trying to find the movie in the system to pay attention to them.

"We like the floor," Leo said lamely.

"Yeah, get used to it," Percy muttered. "All four of you are gonna be sleeping in the yard pretty soon." He shot them one last accusatory look before he reluctantly trudged over to Annabeth.

Percy sank into the couch beside her, trying to ignore the stares of his teammates burning into the side of his head.

"Can you pass a blanket?" Percy told Annabeth. "I'm cold—" He turned around to look at the blasting air conditioning. "Why is it cold? It's the middle of summer."

"There aren't any more," Annabeth said absently as she pressed 'Play' on the movie. "It's fine, we can just share."

Percy felt butterflies attack his stomach as she flipped the fluffy M&M blanket over both their legs. His gaze flickered to the side to see Hazel swamped in layers of unnecessary blankets.

The spy gave him an "I don't know what to tell you" shrug, which Percy responded to by flipping the finger when Annabeth wasn't looking.

As Percy had predicted, 'Citizen Kane' was so boring that he actually fell asleep in the middle of the movie. Late nights of working and all that Avenging finally caught up to him, and Percy only realised it when he woke up the next morning, in the same clothes and same position as the night before.

Well, almost the same position.

Percy's eyelids dropped blearily as he shifted, groaning to himself at the cramp in his side. His head was propped up on the arm of the couch, something heavy pinning him down.

He felt a jolt of surprise when he saw Annabeth sleeping, half-on him, their legs tangled together under the shared blanket. Percy felt his cheeks flame.

"Oh, so you can blush."

Percy's head jerked up to see Frank sipping a milkshake at the kitchen counter, a smug expression on his face.

"We have at least 5 polaroid pictures of this, by the way," Frank supplied helpfully.

"Fuck you," Percy said half-heartedly. He glanced down at Annabeth again. She was probably the only one who sat through most of 'Citizen Kane'. Her hair was out of its usual ponytail and was strewn across his abdomen.

"Aren't you gonna get up?" Frank asked with a snicker.

Percy glared at him. "If I move, she'll wake up."

"Sure," Frank dragged out the syllable, smirking in a way that made Percy want to leap up and sock him in the jaw.

***

"Hey! Hey!" Percy's yells reverberated between the stone walls of his prison cell. "Where are you taking her? Let her go!"

The guards didn't heed his shouts as they dragged Annabeth off by the arms, her figure still limp from whatever serum-battling drugs they'd pumped her with.

Percy sank to the floor, back against the wall as a cold sweat started to mat on his skin. This was a really, really bad situation.

People loved to kidnap Percy; in fact, it happened so often, even when he was a kid, that some of them were boring. There were multiple reasons to kidnap Percy Jackson — ransoms and extortion just two of many — but seeing as Captain America had also been a captive, Percy guessed that this time it was about the Avengers.

Or, this was one of millions of organisations who wanted the super soldier serum, and Percy had just been lucky enough to be with her at the time. They had just finished lunch and were ordering dessert.

And Percy knew it probably shouldn't be a priority right now, but he was really, really annoyed that he hadn't gotten his doughnuts.

Percy surveyed the area of his confinement. He was alone in the pitch black, with maybe one or two guards standing watch outside. Annabeth was gone, but if he let himself think about that then he wouldn't ever stop, and they wouldn't get out of here.

They'd been disarmed within minutes of their capture — off-duty Avengers still carried weapons — but he was Percy Jackson, and he'd built a state-of-the-art suit of armour in a cave with nothing but scrap metal, so this wasn't even the worst of it.

Percy's hands were bound with zip ties — those shouldn't be a problem to get out of — which he got to loosening. Once that was done, he could do the same for his feet.

From his guesswork, they'd probably been kidnapped about 45 minutes ago, which meant that it would take maybe 3 to 4 hours for the others to realise they were missing.

Percy hoped that the team would be able to find him, but that was unlikely, seeing as he didn't even know where the hell they were being held.

He did a rapid inventory — his phone and wallet were gone, as well as his watch, which had mechanisms he'd specifically designed to help in situations like this.

Fortunately, Percy's paranoia and borderline insanity paid off at times like this. The 49 micro-repeaters he'd injected into himself back during the entire Mandarin and Extremis fiasco, though still a work in progress, could summon Mark 42 to here.

Closing his eyes, Percy tried to summon the armour. He didn't know where he was, but he hoped the armour would be here within the hour.

Or, if he was wrong and lack of use of the armour had made it break down, then Percy was stuck here with no way to get out.

Figuring that there was nothing else he could do but hope, Percy slumped against the wall, letting his mind drift to better things as he waited.

Turns out, he didn't have to wait long. He nodded off within minutes, anxiety on the forefront of his mind, and was roughly woken up an undefinable amount of time later by the slamming of the cell door.

Percy jolted awake with a startled yelp, blinking the daze from his eyes as the same guards from earlier stampeded inside, Annabeth slung between them.

Percy's vision tunnelled. Blood stained her arms and her uniform, enough that the original colour of the material wasn't even visible. "What the hell did you do to her?" he demanded furiously, resisting the urge to leap forward and punch the guard.

The guard simply sneered at him before throwing Annabeth towards him. She rolled across the floor, form slack like a rag doll in a way that made Percy's heart sink into his stomach.

Percy forced himself to wait until the guards left the cell and were out of sight before he yanked his hands out of the zip ties. His heart hammered maniacally as he fumbled with the restraints around his ankles.

Once he was free, Percy rushed to Annabeth's side, kneeling down as he frantically searched for a pulse. Fortunately, she did have one — weak and fluttering, but it was there, just beneath his fingertips.

"Annabeth," he whispered, voice trembling. "Annabeth, can you hear me?" As he tentatively brushed the hair from her face, Percy shuddered at the scratches on her collarbone.

Her uniform was cut almost into shreds, long incisions made along her ribcage. Percy assumed they'd been trying to bleed her out — not enough to kill her, but to keep her in unconsciousness.

"Jesus Christ," he murmured, voice thick with emotion. "What did they do to you?" he whispered, fist clenching as he gritted his teeth.

A soft groan escaped Annabeth's lips, and Percy sat back down with a mix of relief and concern.

"Percy?" she croaked weakly.

Percy leaned forward, grabbing her hand. "I'm here," he whispered back. "We're gonna get out of here, okay?" Hell, she wasn't even healing. She'd lost too much blood for the serum to do its work.

"AIM," she coughed, blood splattering against her palm. "They're—they're AIM."

Percy gnashed his teeth. "Of course, they are." Annabeth's blood was like the Holy Grail to most scientific organisations — the unprecedented and non-replicable serum. Percy just wished people would see more in her than a blood bag.

As her arms started to shift, Percy released her hand in alarm. "What do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

"Going to bust us out of here," Annabeth slurred, clearly not in the right state of mind.

Percy sighed exasperatedly as he helped prop her up against the wall. Sometimes, Annabeth's rock-hard determination and stubbornness was something close to a death wish.

"You can't even sit up," he told her firmly. "You need to recover your energy." Percy lowered his voice, casting a spare glance at the guards outside, who were preoccupied with their own conversation. "Look, I have a plan."

Even in her daze, Annabeth's brow furrowed. "You have a plan," she repeated, almost sarcastic.

"Like, 45% of a plan."

"Reassuring," Annabeth muttered. The sickly pallor of her skin was starting to fade into her usual warm colour. "Serum's working, just a bit slowly."

"If you were anyone else you would've died by now," Percy whispered. A tiny part of him marvelled are the wonders of it, but the rest of him really didn't care — all that mattered was that they get out of this alive. "How are you even talking?"

"I've learnt not to question it." Annabeth reaches down gingerly, brushing her palm over her ribs.

"Don't," Percy interjected grimly. "It's not pretty."

Her features twisted into something close to nausea. "AIM is a real bitch."

Percy felt something close to a laugh bubble up in the back of his throat. Annabeth swearing was one of his favourite things in the world. It was so un-Captain America-like, especially paired with her blonde hair and grey eyes.

"My suit's on the way," he explained. "Once it's here and you're up to your usual strength—"

"Your suit?" Annabeth's eyes widened. "How?"

Percy scratched the back of his neck. "Uh. Around last Christmas, I injected these micro-repeaters into my blood. They interact with my nervous system so I can control it with a thought."

Annabeth squinted at him. "Is that safe?"

"Probably," Percy said helpfully. "Trust me, it's worth it. I've escaped capture a million time simply because villains underestimate how bat-shit crazy I actually am."

Annabeth choked out a pained laugh.

"Are you okay?" Percy said immediately.

"It's fine," she gasped between shallow breaths. "Just...can't believe how insane you are. Shifted my broken ribs a little but it was totally worth it."

Percy glanced at her. Her ribs were broken, her abdomen slashed, her eyes bruised and cheeks cut from what could only have been a punch. And those were only the injuries visible to him. "What did they want?"

"What else?" she grumbled. "The serum. Used me as a bloody pincushion."

"But why the..." Percy waved his hands at her other injuries.

"Because I said no," she said simply. "And, um, told the guy he could kiss my ass."

Percy had to disguise a laugh as a cough so as not to alert the guards. "Oh my God. You're worse than I am at being captured. I once annoyed someone into giving me back."

The sound of footsteps silenced Annabeth's retort, and they exchanged alarmed looks.

"I'm not at full strength yet," Annabeth whispered.

"My armour's not here," Percy said worriedly. "Shit."

"No, it's fine, I can buy us time," Annabeth assured him. "Just go with it, okay?"

Percy opened his mouth to inquire further, but the cell door burst open as the leader of the operation strutted in.

"Captain," the man said with a southeastern drawl.

"Oh my God, you're from Florida?" Percy wrinkled his nose. "That's, like, the least cool state ever." Annabeth sent him a sidelong 'what are you doing?' look.

Buying time, Percy tried to convey with his gaze.

"And we'd love to chat, but unfortunately, we're kind of busy — I mean, I ordered doughnuts before you kidnapped us, which was incredibly rude, by the way," Percy informed him. "So could you just tell us what you want so we can go?"

"The serum," Florida man snarled, gesturing to Annabeth.

She frowned. "That explains why you took me, but why Percy? He doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Percy Jackson is probably the only person in the world who could break down the contents of the serum," the man said, turning a piercing gaze on him. "And you will do as we say, or you will see each other suffer."

"Um—" Percy was interrupted by the sound of clashing metal outside the cell. Familiarity rushed through his nerves; the armour was here.

Percy resisted the urge to groan. Mark 42 was, among other things, a prototype. It wasn't his best piece of tech, and probably crumpled into pieces upon impact against the wall.

Annabeth shot him a "seriously?" look as he flushed embarrassedly.

"What was that?" Florida man demanded, turning to his henchmen.

"Doesn't matter!" Annabeth yelped. "Um..." She trailed off, shooting Percy a panicked look.

Smooth talk him, Percy wanted to scream, making a conscious effort not to look out the small window in the cell.

Percy wanted to laugh and cry. He'd forgotten that, despite the image, Annabeth was probably the least smooth talker ever.

"I don't care what you want," Annabeth picked up abruptly, eyes darting to him for help. "My blood is my blood, it, um, stays in my body?" She cleared her throat. "Yes, and obviously as Captain America, the serum makes me a super soldier, and it gives me strength and advanced healing and an eidetic memory..."

As Annabeth rambled on, Percy was impressed by how she made absolute nonsense sound almost interesting. That was the power of Captain America, he guessed.

On the downside, it was becoming startling clear that Annabeth was stalling, and once Florida man turned back to his men with confusion, Percy knew their time was up.

Fortunately, the armour chose that moment to bust in through the window, smashing straight through the iron bars.

"Yes!" Percy released a sigh of relief as the first gauntlet wrapped around his forearm. "Time's up, you son of a bitch." Whirling around, Percy blasted a bolt of energy at the leader, who was pummelled backwards.

Annabeth broke into a fight simultaneously, but Percy could see from the limp in her steps and the way she rolled her shoulder that she wasn't fully healed yet.

Nevertheless, an injured Captain America was still thrice as powerful as the normal human. She punched the lights out of one of the guards before proceeding to sweep the other off his feet.

Annabeth shoved the rest of the guards out, slamming the door shut, locking them out, but also, locking Percy and herself in.

She arched an eyebrow. "I could've sworn your suit was bigger."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Okay, you do not get to sass me after that terrible speech." Annabeth flushed. "I mean, you monologue during half of our missions! You should be better at it!"

He threw a glance over his shoulder. "JARVIS?" he called out uncertainly. "Relax," he assured Annabeth. "He likes to be dramatic."

On cue, the rest of the armour hurtled through in bits and pieces. Flashes of gold and red surrounded Percy as he felt the metal latch onto his body, grunting at the force of some of them.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Percy yelped as he grasped the crotch plate before it could make him sterile and attached it by hand. Last of all was the face plate, which slammed onto his face, clicking in perfectly.

The whirring sound brought a wicked grin to Percy's face. "Now we're talking."

Annabeth gave him an exasperated look from her position braced against the door. Forces from the other side shook the room, but she held her own. "Can we get out of her now?"

Clanking noises echoed as Percy turned to face the wall. "JARVIS, any way we can blast our way out?"

"Sir, the debris would kill the Captain."

Percy sighed to himself. "Well, unfortunately, we might have to go out by the other—"

A massive explosion rocked the room, making Percy stumble. Annabeth promptly caught and righted him, looking around warily. "What was that?"

"Ceiling's caving in." Percy swore under his breath. He glanced to his right; Annabeth was growing paler. "Cap, you need to rest. You're still injured. And I can't carry if you if you pass out — not sure if you noticed, but you're like a muscular elephant."

Worst case scenario, Percy knew the armour could save her — like he'd done for Pepper when the Mandarin bombed his mansion in Malibu — by wrapping around her and protecting her from most of the debris. Unfortunately, he would die in that scenario, so that was a last, last resort.

"I can break the wall now," Percy informed her, eyeing the cracking infrastructure. "Grab on so I can fly us out once it crumbles."

Annabeth face was scrunched in hesitance.

"Improvising, remember?" Percy reminded. "It's what I do best." He glanced at her. "Do you trust me?"

She frowned. "Unfortunately, yes." Reluctantly, Annabeth stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Don't drop me."

"I'll try my best." Percy raised his hands. "JARVIS, let's get out of here."

The two beams blinded him as they smashed through the wall, the final blow to an already crumbling structure.

Percy waited until light peaked through the cracks, and propelled forward, an arm wrapped tightly around Annabeth as they smashed right out of the cell, swooping into fresh air.

His whoops could be heard as he stabilised them further out, spinning around to see what was happening.

The facility they'd been kept in looked about as evil as it felt. Dull concrete and shuttered windows. A building deep in rural land with nothing around for miles. 

The Quinjet hovered overhead, to Percy's surprise, shooting missiles at the building. So that was the explosion.

"Annabeth—" Percy broke off in alarm when he saw Annabeth's eyes closed, her body slack in his arms. "Oh, crap."

Percy tightened his grip around her before he shot them towards the Quinjet, pushing determinedly against the air resistance.

"Percy!" Leo was the first person there when Percy landed inside the plane, helping take Annabeth off his hands. "What the hell happened?"

"Went to get doughnuts and got kidnapped instead. Same old, same old." Percy tore off his helmet. "JARVIS, how are the Captain's vitals?"

"Fine, sir," JARVIS replied from the ship's speakers. "The air pressure was the last blow, but she's just asleep. Initial scan shows partially healed ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but nothing fatal."

"What?" Hazel demanded, sliding off the pilot's seat.

"AIM wanted the serum," Percy spread his arms. "Who else is surprised? That's right, no one."

"You want to help?" Leo asked, gesturing to the facility, where Jason and Frank were wreaking havoc. "It's not critical, so no Hulk."

"I should stay," Percy said uncertainly. "Right? I mean, at least until she wakes up." He spared Annabeth a glance. "I have no idea what they did to her in there, but it wasn't pretty."

"She'll be fine," Hazel told him firmly. "We'll make sure she stays stable. If anything changes, you'll be the first to know."

Percy suppressed the concern in his chest. "Right," he managed. Annabeth was going to be fine. Percy blinked. "Right, the mission."

Hazel folded her arms, raising an eyebrow. "You never miss a chance for a good fight. You too worried about Annabeth?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "You ruined it." Powering up the repulsors, he shot out of the Quinjet and into the battlefield.

<<< >>>

"You sure you want to miss a chance to see Mr D?" Frank offered.

Percy crossed his arms. "Even if my life depended on it." There was some S.H.I.E.L.D. seminar on defensive fighting at their headquarters, but Piper and Grover were in town today, so Percy had a great excuse to skip half of it.

"Well, I am looking forward to it," Leo grumbled. "Can't wait for a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to look at me like I spit poison."

"On a side note," Percy pointed at him. "How cool would that be?"

"Highly stupid," Annabeth answered for him. "And don't worry, Leo, I'll spar with you."

"Oh no, you've avoided 13 for far too long," Frank declared. "I went through all that trouble to get him to go out with you—"

"I didn't ask you to!" Annabeth protested.

Jason's brow furrowed. "Who is this '13'?"

"Agent 13," Frank supplied. "Chris Rodriguez."

"Oh," Percy wrinkled his nose. "Oh, is this the great-nephew?"

Annabeth pointed at him. "Exactly!" she said accusatorially to Frank. "It's weird!"

"It's basically incest!" Percy exploded.

"Because that's why you have a problem with it," Hazel said. "And not because Annabeth has a date that isn't you?"

Percy looked over at Annabeth, exchanging exasperated eye-rolls.

"You know, I'm starting to think you aren't joking anymore," Percy informed the spy.

The team had taken to making jokes about him and Annabeth and their...romantic standing. At first, Percy had taken the brunt of it, but after Jason made a comment about it during dinner and Annabeth laughed it off, the others started to do it openly.

If Percy had a dollar for every joke they made at their expense, well, he'd be a trillionaire.

"It's getting old," Annabeth agreed. "Come up with some new material, please." She gave Frank a stern look. "And aside from the fact that Chris is related to Luke, who's kind of my ex, I just don't click with him that well. That's all."

"You went on, what, one date?" Frank demanded.

"Five, actually," Annabeth deadpanned.

"Oh," Frank relented. "Fine, then. Well, there's this other guy—"

"No more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents!" Annabeth barked, scrunching up her face with displeasure. "I have a new rule; no dating co-workers."

"Well, of course; S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are boring," Percy added, ignoring Hazel's glare. "No offense."

The defensive seminar was about as bad Leo had expected. Percy found it hilarious how afraid people were of the Hulk — honestly, he was just a giant green toddler.

Annabeth kept to her promise and when they were made to pair up to spar, she took Leo, seeing as she knew how to not trigger him.

Seeing Clarisse barrelling over to him with a smug expression, Percy grabbed the person nearest to him with palpable alarm. "Be my partner?" he blurted out. "Yes? Okay? Thanks."

When he released his grip and turned around, Percy was surprised to see that he'd picked one of the few agents in here whom he didn't recognise.

"Percy Jackson? Choosing me? Please, I'm honoured," the woman replied. "Let's pretend it wasn't because you're terrified of La Rue."

"Oh, no need to pretend," Percy snorted. "She knows I'm terrified of her." He took a real look at his sparring partner. "I don't think we've met?"

"Rachel Dare," she introduced with a sarcastic flourish. Rachel had hair redder than anything Percy had ever seen, and green eyes bright and lively. "I was on the Helicarrier," she admitted.

Percy's jaw dropped, a memory flitting through his brain. "Galaga Girl?"

"That was really embarrassing, by the way," Rachel groaned. "And it wasn't my fault; you have no idea how boring S.H.I.E.L.D. operations can be."

Percy snorted. "Finally, someone with common sense."

Rachel's eyes widened. "Oh, Mr D's looking. Quick, widen your stance."

To Percy's surprise, Rachel was actually a decent person. Okay, she was more than decent; Rachel was funny and had a nice laugh.

Percy didn't usually get along with agents — Hazel and Frank bring exceptions — but Rachel was different. Something about her was refreshing. To be fair, she was his only normal friend, other than Piper. The rest of his friends were superpowered and highly damaged. 

Rachel was just Rachel.

None of that stopped her from beating the crap out of him. In all honesty, Percy thought he did pretty well. He held his own against a trained agent, and their final match was more or less a tie. Both of them were too tired to finish anything.

Percy flopped down onto the ground beside her, groaning agonisingly. "Why did I come to this? I knew I should've gone to China."

Rachel gave him a strange look. "Why China?"

"Furthest country I could think of."

"Wow, geography took a hit today."

Rachel's voice faded into the background as Percy's gaze drifted to the other side of the room. Leo was on the sidelines, talking to Frank.

Which meant that Annabeth was on the sparring floor, with some brunet that's Percy didn't recognise.

"Who's that?" Percy asked suddenly, gesturing to the agent in question.

Rachel peered over. "Oh, Chris? He's another agent. Grandson or something of the guy who founded S.H.I.E.L.D."

Percy felt something close to a rock weigh on his heart. So that was Agent 13. "He's not that good-looking," he muttered to himself. At least, not to him.

"What?" Rachel asked.

Percy cleared his throat. "Um, nothing." Something he couldn't name settled in his stomach, making him feel nauseous. Percy shoved the feeling away. "Ready for another round?" he tried.

The next ten minutes felt like an eternity as Percy counted down the seconds till he could leave. When the minute hand struck 7 o'clock, Percy legged it out of there as quickly as he could manage.

He got back to the Tower, still out of breath from the session and with aching muscles. When he strolled into the penthouse, Percy felt a grin surface when he saw Piper and Grover sitting on the sofa.

"Ah, my dear friends," Percy declared dramatically. "Thanks for getting me out of S.H.I.E.L.D. by the way."

He hadn't seen Piper in person since their attempt at drinks' night way back in February, and had only caught Grover about once a month since then.

"You look..." Grover was staring blankly at him. "Healthier than usual."

Percy looked down at himself. "Really?" he said incredulously. "I swear Leo overdoses everything he makes with salt. I thought I'd have heart disease by now."

"You eat what he makes?" Piper's expression mimicked Grover's exactly; astonishment.

Percy took a moment to realise that — oh shit, there was a time when they had to drag him up for team dinners. He'd completely forgotten about that. "He makes really good stews," he supplied helpfully.

"Who are you?" Grover snorted. "Next, you'll be telling me you eat regular lunches."

"Okay, you make me sound really bad when you say things like that," Percy said pointedly. "And yes, I do. Usually with Annabeth — actually, JARVIS, can you make a note for us to try out that new Japanese place down the road?"

"Annabeth?" Piper echoed. "As in Annabeth Chase? As in Captain America? As in the "tightass incapable of smiling" — quoted directly from you?"

Percy paused. "Uh, yeah." Had he really said that? "She's not that bad, actually. Kind of funny once you get to know her."

He took a second to think about what super had just drawn to his attention. He hadn't really noticed it before, how vastly his impression of his teammates had changed within the matter of a few months.

"You look like you got hit by a truck?" Grover informed him.

"I feel like I did," Percy said bleakly. "Except I only just realised it now."

As he glanced around the room, he began to realise that the two people who had once been the scarce few under the category "Friends of Percy Jackson" weren't alone in there anymore.

At some point in the last six months, Black Widow became Hazel. He stopped thinking as of the Tower as his but as theirs. Jason wasn't just an extraterrestrial friendly who battled with them, but was the man who somehow consumed more Pop Tarts than physically possible. Hell, Leo had turned to one of Percy's closest confidantes, and even though Frank still pissed him off — Percy doubted there would ever be a time when he didn't — it was in a different way.

And there was Annabeth. In the blink of an eye, she'd gone from his worst enemy to, quite easily, one of his best friends. That scared Percy a such as it surprised him.

The way her grey eyes sparkled when they were in battle. The casual banter they exchanged on a daily basis was no longer charged with anger and venom, but with a friendly rivalry and playful grins.

Fighting together had never been an issue — that was the idea of the Avengers — but going from a team to a family was something that had completely snuck up on him.

Percy wondered how he could be classed a genius, yet miss something as monumental as this. He'd never asked any of them to barge in on his life and turn it upside down for the better — they'd done it anyway.

And as Percy swapped stories with Piper and Grover that evening, chortling at Grover's expense and swearing on his life — fingers crossed behind his back, of course — that he wouldn't ignore anymore of Piper's calls, he realised that it was different with them; a good different.

Percy could be himself — himself as selfish, ridiculous, witty Percy Jackson. For the first time in...well, a long time.

And he looked over at Piper, and Percy knew he would always love her. But it was a different type of love. The same way he loved Grover. The same way he loved Jarvis when the butler had still been alive.

The pain that had clamped down on him for the past year that Percy thought would never fade — had felt as Piper inevitably drifted further and further away till she left for good — was gone.

He felt a swell of pride when he looked her, for getting through that to where they were today. Any lingering feelings had evaporated. And Percy hadn't even noticed.

"I'll top us off," Percy offered, grabbing the glasses. "The same for you, Honeybear?" Grover rolled his eyes when Percy mimicked blowing a kiss.

"Can't believe I've been replaced as 'Honeybear'," Piper scoffed. She froze up, playing back the words in her own head.

But Percy just chuckled. "What can I say? My Sourpatch always comes first." 

The corner of Piper's lips quirked up. "I'll help you."

Percy tried to pretend like they weren't just walking in silence as they headed to the bar. He hadn't been alone with Piper — at least in un-work-related instances — since the break-up.

"It's good to see you," Piper said gently, once Grover was out of earshot. "I, uh, I know I haven't been the best friend lately—"

Percy raised a hand to interrupt her. "No need to apologise. Everything's okay." And he meant it. He hoped Piper could hear the sincerity in his voice, because he meant it.

"There was a time when I didn't think we'd ever..." Percy gestured between them unintelligibly. "You know, be friends again. But breaking up was definitely the best decision. I'm glad you did it."

"Look at you, all capable of having a mature conversation." Piper shook her head in disbelief. "You really have changed."

"Oh, don't count on it too much. That's the most you're getting for the next decade." Percy eyed her suspiciously as he poured Grover a glass of whiskey. "You want to say something. Out with it."

Piper laughed. "How did you know?"

"I've known you for almost ten years, Pipes," Percy reminded.

Piper grasped her cup with both hands, her face creased in an unreadable expression for a moment. "Fury didn't ask the Avengers to move in," she said at last, eyes angled up warily at him.

Percy blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

"What?" was all he managed to form amidst jumbled thoughts.

Piper gave him a sheepish look. "He suggested it, right after the whole Chitauri fiasco, but I turned him down, said it was a bomb waiting to explode." Her fingertips thrummed against the glass. "Then we broke up, and I was worried about you. No one heard from you, and you were all alone in the workshop, day and night, without fail. And I just thought...if there were some other people around, it wouldn't hurt."

"You invited the others to move in?" Percy echoed incredulously.

"Well, I couldn't check up on you myself!" Piper said exasperatedly. "And you and your stubborn ass refused to do anything except mope. So I reached out to Fury and kindly accepted his previous offer."

"Don't be mad," she said tentatively.

Percy thought for a moment. "I am a little offended that you thought I had to be babysat by five superheroes," he informed her dramatically, clutching a hand to his chest. "Betrayed, really."

Piper rolled her eyes.

"But it goes to show that you really do — and it kills me a little to say this — have the best judgement," Percy admitted. "In many ways."

He shot her a warning look. "But I'm still not meeting Hammer's new start-up."

Piper threw her hands up in the air exasperatedly. "They keep pestering me," she complained. "If you would just meet them and tell them it's a hard 'no', then they'd stop!"

Percy whisked the filled glasses away from the counter, his own brimming with some very delicious apple juice — apparently Frank had a thing for it — and scurried away before Piper could talk about anymore business.

"Nice little rendez-vous over there," Grover remarked upon his return. "I don't feel left out at all."

"Date me and you can join," Percy said with a wink. The sofa cushions sank in as Piper sat back down, irritatedly staring daggers at him.

"So your team," Grover continued, curiosity dripping from his tone. "It's a little crazy to think that you live with the Avengers. What are they like?"

Percy gave him a scrutinising look. "You just want to meet Captain America."

Grover's mouth fell open in a half-formed protest. "No, I don't!" he said childishly, cheeks already reddening.

Percy hid a grin. "Relax. She's actually very nice. And in some kind of miracle, is even better than the legend. Don't get me wrong, it's incredible when she swears — which she does a lot, surprisingly, you should come over when the Dodgers play."

"She's the one you eat lunch with everyday, right?" Piper inquired.

"Well, I mean, I guess so. Sometimes it's dinner if neither of us can make it. And it's not everyday — like, if I'm on a business trip or she's off on a mission. Most of the time it's just her sitting in my workshop and doodling while I work, and then we take a break for food—" Percy cut himself off when Grover and Piper exchanged furtive smirks. "What?"

Piper's features were flawlessly rearranged into a smooth, calm composure. "Nothing."

"It's something. Grover looks like he's about to explode."

Piper turned on him with an accusatory look. "You are the worst liar."

"Sorry," Grover said unabashedly. "But it just seems like," he scratched the back of his neck. "You have a crush on Captain America."

Percy leaned back against the couch, releasing a groan. "Come on, not you too. Hazel is bad enough."

"Hazel?" Piper repeated. "As in the super spy who specialises in analytics? I don't think she'd read the situation wrong."

"She's just joking," Percy snorted. "She's just found one thing that's embarrassing and has exploited it to ruin my day."

"No super spies here," Grover said. "For the record. But this is what you get like when you have a crush. You go on about them constantly — I have many memories of zoning out during your conversations because of a cute barista who smiled at you."

"Okay, first, that's ridiculous," Percy said pointedly. "If there was a cute barista who smiled at me, I'd probably be back there—"

"No!" Piper interrupted forcefully and with visible alarm. "Do not need to hear about your sexual exploits, Percy."

Percy wrinkled his nose. "Because you're my ex?"

"Because I have ears, Percy," she retorted.

<<< >>>

As August started coming to a close and autumn loomed round the corner, multiple
things in Percy's life changed.

One; Rachel Dare was becoming a good friend of his. Once upon a time, Percy would've laughed if anyone told him that a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent would be fun to be around. Apparently that was just his style nowadays.

While his team was like his family — yeah, following his revelation during drinks' night, Percy had decide to just go with it — Rachel was a good person to hang out with casually.

He'd called her up one day, proceeded to explain that he'd hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D. databases to her contact information, and then asked if she'd like to accompany him as his back-up to a meeting with Justin Hammer — yeah, he'd finally cracked under Piper's contestant e-mails.

After the disastrous meeting where Percy pretty much just verbally destroyed him, Rachel asked if he wanted to get ice cream, and Percy, eager to escape a meeting, agreed immediately.

They ended up having a great time — Rachel was hilarious, in a witty way. She liked art; mostly painting.

"Annabeth likes art," Percy had recalled. "Hey, do you know any good places to get art supplies for her?" He knew Annabeth would protest against it, but Percy was a billionaire; he had to spend his money some way.

So after that, he started asking Rachel to come hang out more. Whenever she wasn't on missions and he wasn't too busy with work or the team, and within three weeks, Percy was proud to say that he had expanded his list of friend to encompass her as well.

"Back from your lunch?" Hazel asked when Percy stepped into the kitchen, shoving his raincoat onto the wall pegs. "How was it?"

Percy shrugged. "Good, I guess."

"So you're seeing Rachel again, huh?" Hazel noted. Percy rolled his eyes when she squinted slightly, in thought.

"It's not what you think," he repeated exactly what he told Grover when he'd asked. "We're just friends."

"You're either blind or stupid if you think that," Hazel told him. "The woman likes you, Percy. Why don't you ask her out?"

Percy snorted. "There is a long list of reasons."

Hazel closed her book, walking over to perch on the barstool. "Please, enlighten me."

He hesitated for a few seconds, but Hazel's scrutinising gaze wore him down. "Relationships are too complicated," Percy said finally. "I've had my fair share of casual relationships — that didn't work out, and Ty is more than enough evidence for that. Then I tried serious relationships. I gave everything I had with Piper, and it still didn't work."

"I've decided that I'm destined to just be platonic with everyone; and it's fine, I don't really need romance," he finished dismissively.

Hazel frowned. "So you had a few failed relationships and you just want to give up?"

"'A few' is an understatement," Percy said pointedly. "Come on, you know I'm not made for relationships — it was in your evaluation — "Doesn't play well with others"."

Hazel stared like she was about to slap him. "You're kidding, right? You do know that I clearly made a snap judgement there."

Percy shrugged. "It's kind of true. I am a narcissist. You were very clear. 'Yes' to Iron Man, 'no' to Percy Jackson." He searched Hazel's hesitant expression. "What? I have never once seen you give me that look."

"That's because I'm rarely wrong," she said shortly. Hazel clasped her hands together, giving him a closeted, dangerous look. "Even master spies make mistakes. Both Iron Man and Percy Jackson deserve to be on the team. If you tell anyone that what I say here, I will kill you."

"And I wouldn't put it past you," Percy assured her.

"I was wrong when I wrote those things in my evaluation," she admitted. "Mostly because you hide your real self even more than I do — which is saying something — and it took me a couple of months living with you to realise that."

"Well, thank you for the kind words," Percy offered. "JARVIS, file that security footage on my private server, please. It's now one of the most valuable things I own."

Hazel rolled her eyes, but the exasperation was fond.

"And now I feel obligated to say something too," Percy sighed. "What did I say you were like when we first met?"

"'A little quiet', 'little bit of an old soul'," Hazel quoted back perfectly, grinning wickedly.

"I'd like to add to that," Percy informed her. "You were the first Avenger I met, you know? And I thought I'd never be able to trust a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but as it turns out, I might just be that stupid."

The corner of Hazel's mouth quirked up. "You're a mystery, Percy. You make me feel like I want to either shoot you or take a bullet for you."

Percy winked. "That's where I live."

The door clicked open, bringing about an end to their unexpectedly sappy conversation.

Percy felt his heart do something close to a somersault when Annabeth stepped inside, wearing a short denim skirt with a t-shirt. That was unfair, Percy thought. No one should have legs that nice. Her hair was down for what Percy could've sworn was the first time ever, and hung across her shoulders in loose waves.

Now, Percy had realised that Annabeth was attractive way back when, during the sparring session where she'd pinned him to the ground in seconds. But it was like the thought had become so much more prominent recently.

It wasn't so much in the obvious things; Captain America had always been gorgeous with her lithe figure and sun-kissed cheeks.

It was the fleeting moments where Annabeth understood something about technology after hours of explanation and smiled in the most dazzling, blinding way that stunned Percy to silence for a few moments. Or her I-hate-that-I-find-you-funny laugh, paired with an eye-roll; something Percy had very quickly become familiarised with.

Of course, Percy's momentary daze crumbled when 13 walked in behind her, and it became clear that she was laughing at something he'd said.

Averting his gaze, Percy gave Annabeth an awkward wave as she fell silent, realising that they weren't alone.

"Chris," she introduced. "This is Percy Jackson, and you know Hazel."

Percy rearranged his features into a cool composure; his media face. "Nice to meet you, Chris." He bit back a comment about the man's decision to wear mismatched trousers and shoes on what was clearly a date.

"I should get going," Chris said nervously as he excused himself.

When they were finally just superheroes in the kitchen, Percy turned to her. "I thought you guys broke up."

Annabeth hovered by the door, as if she was unsure of whether to leave or stay. "Yeah, well, he asked me out again after that training session, and I figured — why not? He's actually a really nice guy..." She trailed off, cheeks flushing.

"But?" Hazel prompted. She snorted. "What, he doesn't get the blood pumping?"

Annabeth pursed her lips. "Something like that."

Percy's heart was now doing something else entirely — squeezing like it was going to explode. "Yeah," he cleared his throat. "I'm gonna go. Have some work to finish." He really, really didn't want to hear about 13.

No one brought up the topic of romance until that Friday. And Percy had to say that, this time, he really hadn't seen it coming.

"This is nice," Percy remarked. He and Rachel were seated on the balcony of his penthouse, just lazing around and talking. "I mean, why don't people go outdoors more?"

"Because it's summer and hot and gross," Rachel pointed out.

Percy closed his eyes. "You know, I have a private jet. We should go to the Bahamas. Hypothetically, sounds cool. I doubt Mr D let's you guys have days off. He's kind of a dick."

He expected Rachel to chuckle, equally likely to join in with jabs at Mr D or to tell him off because respecting the boss was part of her contract. When she didn't reply, Percy turned to the side, squinting slightly at her.

"Speaking hypothetically," Rachel said slowly. "We could be...two normal people. On a balcony hats not part of an industrial tower. Talking about going to the Bahamas one day."

Percy hummed in agreement. "Sure. Let's say, uh, I can be an accountant?"

"I don't think you could be anything else, Percy." Rachel paused. "But, say, hypothetically, if these two people liked each other, what would it take to get the guy to kiss the girl?"

Okay.

Now, Percy could be oblivious sometimes (Piper had apparently had feelings for him for years before he even noticed) but he wasn't that stupid.

"Um," he garbled, unsure of what to say. Alarm bells were going off in his head, like a warning "Abort mission!"

Rachel gazed at him silently as Percy frantically scrambled for words to say.

He finally settled for "Are you asking me out?" and instantly regretted it. Percy groaned. "Sorry, that was bad."

"No, it's fine," Rachel shrugged. "It's just, we've been doing this for a few weeks now. And it's been fun. But I just...don't want to waste time thinking about something happening if it's never going to."

Percy wanted to throw himself off the tower. God, he was sitting here with a perfect girl; Rachel, who made him laugh and liked spending time with him, and he just couldn't bring himself to think of her that way. He couldn't summon a drop of feeling besides friendship for her, and he wanted to punch himself for it.

"I'm really sorry," he blurted out. "You have no idea how much I wish I—" Percy cut himself off frustratedly, running a hand through his hair. "You're great, and so fun, and I love hanging out with you as a friend. But it wouldn't be fair to...to date you when I don't feel that way about you." He gave her a wary look. "I really am sorry. You're a great person."

Rachel waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. I just figured I'd shoot my shot, you know?"

She left after that, promising that they could still be good friends, leaving Percy alone and feeling like a really shitty person.

Night fell and Percy remained on the balcony, lost in thought as he stared out into the skyline of Manhattan.

Why did he have to turn Rachel down? Why wasn't he attracted to her? Why couldn't his life just be easy for once?

"I'm just gonna be alone forever," Percy muttered to himself. "Well, me and JARVIS."

"It would be an honour, sir," the disembodied AI replied amusedly. "But I think you might want to backtrack on that statement."

Percy's brow furrowed in confusion as the whirl of the elevator drifted into earshot. Casting a glance over his shoulder, Percy watched in surprise as Annabeth appeared in the lift, looking both hesitant and curious.

"Want to join me?" Percy called. "I'm wallowing."

Annabeth pulled a face. "Yes, please." Percy turned back to facing the stars until the footsteps neared and Annabeth sat down beside him.

"I saw Rachel on the way out," she said quietly. "Sorry."

Percy exhaled slowly. "It's fine. She was great and all but..." As Percy looked over, he felt a flurry of butterflies erupt in his stomach. The words died in his throat.

Something about the moon casting a glow over Annabeth made her look even more beautiful than usual.

"But...?" Annabeth prompted.

Percy blinked. Right, he'd been mid-sentence. "Um, I guess she just wasn't right for me." Averting his gaze, Percy picked at the stones on the floor, feeling a familiar tug at his heart.

No, he told himself sternly. No, don't you dare.

No, no, no, he couldn't—surely not Annabeth—

"If it helps," Annabeth said, sounding tired. "I just broke it off with Chris. For good, this time," she added. "Realised I was just forcing it for the sake of not being alone."

"You're not alone," Percy said, without thinking. "You have me." Realising what he'd just said, Percy was glad that the dark hid his visible mortification. "And, uh, Hazel. And Leo, Jason, and Frank. The team's here for you. Collectively."

"Stop acting weird, Percy," Annabeth informed him, though she didn't delve into it.

Percy swallowed back some other nonsense he'd been seconds away from spouting.

But his heart hammered madly against his ribcage. Deliriously, Percy wondered if the serum meant that Annabeth could hear it. He sincerely hoped not.

And, of course, how typical was it that he'd end up crashing headfirst into a crush on Captain America? A childhood hero who'd quickly become one of his best friends. Who turned to actually be better than the stories, no matter how impossible that sounded.

Annabeth stood for everything good and pure in the world, and was so incredibly unattainable that in made him dejected just thinking about it.

On the bright side, it was just a crush — one that Percy would get over with time. God, he would never hear the end of this if his friends found out.

It was harmless. Feelings were harmless as long as Percy didn't act on them. He'd acted on them with Piper, and that had been a hot mess. He wouldn't make the same mistake this time.

As he looked over at Annabeth, Percy was sure that he would get over it soon.

He had to.

***

"Iron Man!" Jason's voice shattered his reverie.

Percy blinked, the haze over his mind dispelling gradually.

"You're staring," came Frank's voice from his left, a smirk on the archer's face.

Percy felt his cheeks burn and was, more than ever, grateful for the faceplate hiding his expression.

They were in the middle of a battle against Dr Doom — yes, again, the guy was incapable of taking a break — and Percy had just dropped Frank off on top of a building. The wreckage that was an avenue on Queens spread out around them, and Percy found his gaze wandering to Annabeth, who had hurtled through the air, arms throttled around the neck of a Doombot as she hacked at its head with her shield.

"I wasn't," Percy lied easily. "Got distracted talking to JARVIS." Frank didn't look convinced, but Percy flew away before he could hear another comment.

"Chatter," Annabeth warned, breathless. "I've got two bots on my tail. Jason, help me out here?"

"On it, Annabeth," the god replied, and Percy was greeted by the sight of Jason flying towards her, grappling with the Doombots trailing after her.

Percy landed beside the Hulk, defending Leo from above while he took out the bots on the ground.

He glanced around. "JARVIS, how many more are there?"

"You have cleared 65% of Doombots."

Anything to distract him from the knowledge that this tiny crush was starting to become a problem. The thing was that Percy got crushes all the time.

A waitress who smiled at him. Piper, who'd been his assistant for so long and looked out for him.

Few culminated in actual relationships. In fact, Percy could probably count the number of relationships he'd ever had on one hand.

That being said, crushes tended to disappear or, if he started sting them, evolve in deeper feelings. The waitress didn't make him feel butterflies anymore. He'd fallen in love with Piper, then consequently out of love.

It had been a month since he realised that he had feelings for Annabeth, and he hadn't acted on them, but they were still there. In a way that made him have to catch his breath when they went to galas and she wore a blue dress — it should be illegal to look that good — or made him stammer when she drifted too close into his personal space.

It was incredibly annoying because it had taken three months for them to be on speaking terms, and six months to become friends. There was no way he was going to screw this up because of some feelings.

But his body apparently wasn't corresponding with his mind correctly, because, well, refer to the aforementioned incidents.

Not to mention that the team had finally fallen into step with each other. Percy wasn't willing to risk that or this new fragile family.

It's a small crush, he told himself. You'll get over her in a week, tops.

An explosion of rubble and dust a few yards away alerted Percy to the fact that Jason had just plummeted from the sky into the pavement. The god's resounding groan filtered through the helmet as he lay limp in the ground, pained from the impact.

"Jason! I need an extraction here," came Annabeth's frantic voice. "I'm about to decapitate this bot, and I need you to catch me. Jason? Can you hear me?"

A wrenching sound told Percy that she'd already gone ahead and done it, and was now falling with no backup.

"Captain, I can't get clear," Jason grunted as three his hammer, crushing a nearby bot.

"Iron—"

"On it," Percy said before Annabeth could even finish, firing up his repulsors and shooting into the air, fire streaking beneath his feet. "Cap, where are you?"

"Iron Man!" Annabeth shouted. "Requesting backup!" Wind rushed past her earpiece, enough to muffle her voice.

"JARVIS," Percy ordered. "Get me a visual on her." The visor zoomed in on a small figure falling helplessly a distance away. He cursed under his breath. "Supersonic flight, JARVIS. Now."

"Iron Man!" Annabeth's voice crackled through again, tinged with worry.

"Hold on," Percy said through gritted teeth, clenching his fists as the suit pushed itself to its limit. "Almost..."

A wracked gasp came through the coms. "Percy!"

"Come on, J," Percy yelled, willing himself to go faster.

Annabeth was nearing the ground way too fast to survive a hit like that, even for a super soldier.

Percy swooped in at the last second, Annabeth only twenty feet away from the ground. He slammed into her right side, arms grappling for a good hold. Coming out of supersonic flight made his ears ring, his blood pounding in his ears as he grasped Annabeth around the waist, both of them tumbling through the air with the momentum of the catch.

The suit's sensors pinged as they crashed into the road a few yards away. Percy instinctively turned them so his back was to the ground, Annabeth lying with her back pressed against his chest as the impact wracked his brain in his skull.

It took a few seconds for Percy to come to, his head throbbing with a dull ache.

He groaned softly as he reached up with difficulty and yanked his faceplate off, Annabeth rolling off of him and onto the ground. "I feel like I got hit by a bus."

Annabeth chuckled as she lay tiredly by him, head propped up against the rubble behind.

Percy tilted his head to the right, squinting against the sunlight.

Her eyes were closed as her chest heaved. "Thanks for the save, Percy."

"What happened to only using code names in the field?"

Her eyelids fluttered open and Annabeth promptly rolled her eyes at him. "Shut up."

Percy released an easy laugh, relief bubbling up. That was close — too close. If he hadn't caught her...

Damn. It wasn't just a harmless crush, was it?

Crashing-landing on the road was one kind of hurt, but it was a whole other level of pain for Percy to gaze over at the girl of his dreams, knowing full well that he was in love with someone he could never have.

<<< >>>

"This is officially my new favourite thing," Percy declared as he strolled into the penthouse.

"You're late," Piper enunciated with a scowl. She stared at him. "And what are you wearing?"

Percy frowned. "See, this is my Halloween party, so technically, I can't be late." He held up a hand. "And secondly, this is my costume."

"The skintight leather suit?" Piper demanded.

Percy winced. "I'll admit, it's significantly more uncomfortable than I imagined." When Piper continued to stare at him like he was crazy, Percy explained, "We picked names out of a hat. Frank thought it'd be funny if we dressed up as each other."

Piper folded her arms. "And you got the Black Widow?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "No, I just like to curl my hair for fun," he deadpanned.

"Isn't this going just a little overboard?"

"Hey, at least I put in effort," he protested. "What are you even supposed to be?"

"A goddess," Piper said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"A white dress and a golden circlet on your head doesn't make you a goddess."

"Just because I threw this together five minutes before I left doesn't mean anyone has to know," Piper insisted as she walked away. To her credit, she was also wearing brown sandals.

"Oh my God, what are you wearing?" Hazel's face was struggling between incredulity and hilarity.

"Hey, appreciate it, I had to hand-order this from Amazon," Percy said accusatorially.

"No complaints," Hazel said, raising her hands in surrender. "It's a good look on you."

When her eyes wandered, Percy almost choked. "Seriously?"

He wore a red undershirt beneath the suit, which was black leather, stretching to his wrists and his ankles, with the top zipper pulled down to his arc-reactor, the collar framing his neck and the red shirt jumping out against the black.

"I never really got the whole "devilishly handsome" thing in the tabloids, but I see it now," Hazel informed him.

"Did you just call me 'hot'?" Percy demanded.

"You look ravishing, shield brother," Jason declared in agreement, clapping him on the back in a way that made Percy trip over his own feet. "And you too, lady Hazel."

Percy glanced over at Hazel and released a half-laugh half-wheeze. How had he not noticed that she painted green? From head to toe, Hazel's skin was green, and she wore a white sports bra, paired with purple trousers ripped at the cuffs.

"Has Dr Valdez seen you yet?" Jason asked, amused.

"How do you make the Hulk look good? That's not fair," Percy said indignantly.

Hazel ignored him. "Leo said he might opt for a white sports bra the next time he transforms too." Her hair was in cornrows that hung to her chest. "He's dressed as Jason, by the way. And wearing a wig; be sure to take pictures."

"I definitely will," he promised, turning to Jason. "And you're supposed to be..." Percy's gaze raked over him; sleeveless gear, quiver on his back and a bow sling carelessly over his arm. "Frank?"

Jason nodded vigorously, visibly pleased with himself. "I think I did a good job."

Percy raised a fist. "Hey, we're the Wonder Twins." When Jason simply stared at him in puzzlement, Percy gestured to his fist. "It's a fist bump. It's like a high-five." Jason mimicked the movement, and Percy was momentarily proud of himself for imparting wisdom.

"This is the weirdest guest list ever," Hazel declared as she glanced around the room. "Is that Rachel?"

Percy nodded. "I haven't talked to her in a while, but I figured a party would be fine." Things were still a little awkward from the time she'd asked him out, but Percy was hoping to smooth things over today. She was dressed as the Disney princess Merida to match her hair.

"Is that..." Jason gasped. "You know a goddess!" His eyes lit up in delight. "You really are a wonder, Percy."

Percy followed his gaze to see Jason staring at Piper, who was by the bar, chatting to Grover, who was in a tacky Darth Vader costume.

"Oh, no, no, no," Percy tried to explain to Jason that it was just his friend, not some entity, but the god was already gone, buzzing with excitement. "Well," he said to Hazel. "That's a terrible misunderstanding just waiting to happen."

When he was facing Hazel again, Percy saw her face go a frightening shade of red as she choked out silent laughter. "What?"

Hazel didn't reply, just pointed over his shoulder, and Percy pivoted to see Frank walk in baring the most ridiculous Captain America costume of all time.

Percy clapped a hand to his mouth as his eyes bugged. "Oh. My. God."

However spangled Annabeth's first suit had been, this was a million times worse. There were two stars on the suit where Frank's nipples would be, and Percy found himself saying, "How is this even real right now?"

"This is the best thing ever," Hazel announced.

"This has to be illegal," Leo insisted, joining them in ogling Frank disbelievingly. "Defamation of public image."

"Defacing government property is what it is," Percy snorted. There was a piece of mesh fabric covering Frank's stomach, sort of like an ab window.

"Annabeth's gonna throw herself off the balcony when she sees me," Frank chuckled to himself. "Petition for this to be Annabeth's new uniform."

"Our enemies will fall over themselves," Jason agreed. His face brightened as he spotted someone behind Percy. "Our dear Captain is here!"

Percy was not prepared for what he was about to see.

Sure, being a genius, he should've been able to work out, with his team all around him, whose name Annabeth had drawn, but he'd been a little too distracted by Frank's stripper-Captain outfit to realise that he picked Widow, Hazel picked Hulk, and so on, meaning that Annabeth had picked Iron Man.

"I changed my mind," Hazel managed. "This is the best thing ever."

Because Annabeth was standing there, in an Iron Man costume that left very little to the imagination. The red and gold leotard covered her arms and went up to her neck in a collar, but the fact was that it was skintight and ended at her pelvis. An arc reactor image was printed on the chest.

From there, shiny red and gold lycra stretched to mid-thigh, and ended at her ankles, where Annabeth wore black pumps.

Her blonde hair was tucked behind her ears, which only left her face bars and made it clear that she was going as red as the costume.

"I ordered it on that website," Annabeth protested, when she was faced with stunned silence. "It-I think I chose the wrong one, and I don't have another costume."

Percy was physically unable to speak. As in, if he opened his mouth, an unintelligible croak was probably all that would come out. Because Annabeth was dressed like—like something out of a porn movie, in his colours, and oh my God, he was going to pass out—

"I think," Leo glanced at him. "I think you broke Percy."

Percy was very aware that his cheeks were flaming, and he still hadn't said a word, and his thoughts were too jumbled up to think straight because all he wanted to do was kiss Annabeth until he saw stars—

"Uh," Percy's voice came out a little higher than usual. "It—you—it looks—it looks good."

It seemed that he and Annabeth were in a competition to see who could blush the hardest.

When Percy finally brought himself to look at Annabeth, he was surprised to see that her expression matched what he imagined he looked like right now.

"Y-you're dressed as Black Widow?" Annabeth's statement came out as more of a question. Her grey eyes were glazed over, pupils dilated, and Percy had a second to think, what? "It-it's tight."

There was a choked "oh my God" from Frank, as Percy went even redder.

"I mean, it's—it's accurate," Annabeth amended lamely, looking horrified at herself.

"Um," Percy managed. "Yeah."

There were a few more beats of silence where Percy wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Then Annabeth's gaze flickered to Frank, and it was comical to see her do a double take, jaw dropping.

Annabeth choked. "What is that?"

Laughs eased the tension as Frank proceeded to explain his journey to find the most obscene Captain America costume on the planet.

Percy still took a few more minutes to fully recover, and even as the night progressed smoothly, he found himself having to look back at Annabeth to make sure he wasn't imagining things.

Later, when Percy was sitting round the coffee table, after they had reached the point of joking, Grover telling some (terrible, in Percy's opinion — Iron Man was way better) War Machine stories and Jason explained to them how Mjolnir worked, and Percy and Annabeth made some very valid points about a lift being 'worthy', some of the group split off to get more drinks, some to the bathroom to make sure no wardrobe malfunctions occurred (Annabeth had made it clear that she was worried about the leotard ripping because of how tight it was), Percy was left with the four members of his team, sans Captain.

"So," Hazel raised her cocktail to her lips. "Are we going to talk about what a goner you are for Captain America?"

Percy deeply regretted not choosing to go with Piper and Clarisse to the bar to discuss legal matters.

"No," Percy muttered, glaring at her. 

"That reaction killed me, by the way," Leo informed him with a grin. "Should've seen your face when she walked in."

Frank gave him a curious look. "Was it the nature of the costume or the fact that it was Iron Man?"

Percy flushed. "It's..." he groaned. "All very good."

"What is the issue with this?" Jason asked, puzzled. "Back on Asgard, we appreciate all things aesthetically pleasing. The Captain is very beautiful, why does that pain you to admit?"

"Yes, yes," Leo said dismissively. "Annabeth's a pinnacle of human hotness and all that; none of that was ever up for questioning. But Percy likes her. As in, not the 'she's hot' kind of way, but the 'I want to be with her' way."

"You have feelings for the Captain?" Jason said, tone understanding. "Ah, I see."

"Hold on, how did we get here?" Percy demanded. "I haven't said anything."

"It's the other stuff," Hazel insisted. "Even a blind person could see it."

"You two spend the most time together," Leo pointed out.

"You and I do experiments," Percy said half-heartedly. He already knew there was no point because his friends were onto him and could read him like an open book. "Hazel and Frank disappear for days."

"That's work stuff," Leo dismissed. "Annabeth sketches while you work, and you have lunch together everyday."

"You haven't dated anyone in a year," Frank emphasised. "And we all know that it's not like you don't have options."

Percy frowned as they all looked at him expectantly.

"You can't tell her," he said finally, and he didn't miss the triumphant gleam in Hazel's eyes. "Seriously," he groaned. "It would make things so awkward."

"Why?" Frank wrinkled his nose. "She clearly likes you too."

Percy's eyes widened. "What?"

"Frank," Hazel hissed. Frank gave her an apologetic look.

"Okay, you might've been spot-on about everything else, but that's insane to even think about," Percy told them. "She doesn't—" He shook his head. "Trust me, she doesn't."

That promptly ended the conversation — actually, it was Annabeth's return to the table and Percy's frantic look at his friends that ended it.

But Percy considered his friends' words. It was ridiculous, he knew, and entertaining the notion would just make it all the more depressing because she didn't feel the same way.

She couldn't. Annabeth was good, pure, and everything Percy wasn't — no way in hell did he deserve her.

<<< >>>

"The rules are simple," Hazel had said. "$20 budget. Gag gifts allowed. No telling anyone who you have."

That was three weeks ago, back in November, during the drawing for their first ever Avengers Tower Clandestine Gift-Giving Ceremony — the name was courtesy of Frank, who, being his annoying self, insisted that 'Secret Santa' was politically incorrect, and now they were stuck with this mouthful that Percy refused to say.

The names were in a bowl, regulated by Hazel, because she didn't trust Frank not to rig the game.

Percy picked last, and when he unfolded the paper, the name he read was, Annabeth, in her neat, cursive handwriting that practically screamed '1940s'.

Shit. Given that Percy had been in love with her for just over two months now, he probably should have jumped at the chance to have her for Secret Santa — no, screw Frank, because there was no way he was going to call it the first ever Avengers Tower Clandestine Gift-Giving Ceremony.

Problem was that Percy had absolutely no idea what to get her.

He wracked his brain that night in the workshop, discussing potential ideas with JARVIS, but every single one came to a dead end.

Annabeth liked art, but Percy had already bought her a ton of stuff for her birthday. She also liked Italian food — well, that was just a dead end.

Things Annabeth disliked; the cold, people who didn't vote, Percy being reckless, cats (?) and annoying reporters.

None of that information helped when it came to gift-giving. Percy marked Christmas Day on his calendar as a reminder for the gift swap, hoping that he'd come up with something by then.

He didn't.

Grover was utterly useless in emergencies like this — "It's not that hard, Percy", bullshit — and he couldn't ask the rest of the team. So when Christmas morning came, Percy was buzzing with palpable panic and alarm.

"Sir, Annabeth requests that you hurry up," came JARVIS' voice.

"Tell her I'm in the lift — almost up."

A pause. "She says that she knows you're still in the workshop, and that if you don't resurface she'll come down and drag you up, as she's done many times before."

Percy blinked. A lightbulb went off in his head. "JARVIS," he said urgently. "Give me five minutes. I'm about to improvise the shit out of this."

Ultimately, it took Percy six minutes and 27 seconds to complete his last-minute present, and as he made to bolt for the door, he almost collided with Annabeth, who had entered his workshop with a perfectly wrapped box in hand.

"I told you I'd come drag you up," Annabeth reminded. "The others have already started—" She cut herself off, "What are you doing?"

Percy winced. "Okay, okay, please, don't kill me. I swear I didn't mean to leave it till last minute — I've spent weeks mulling over this and I only just thought of the best gift for you, so I had to make it really quickly—"

"You got me?" Annabeth asked in surprise.

Percy slapped himself on the head. "Shit."

Annabeth laughed. "No, it's fine." She shuffled her feet. "It's just—I got you too."

"No way." Percy grinned. "Okay, do you want to swap gifts now?"

Annabeth cast a glance upstairs. "Oh, why not? They've already finished anyway."

As Percy tore open the wrapping paper, he inquired, "So what did everyone else get?"

"Oh, well, Hazel got Jason this mug, where, if you put in a hot drink, her face appears on the ceramic..." Annabeth trailed off. "Percy, what is this?"

She was staring at the mess of paper and tape that was the wrapping of his gift. Percy scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, um, I'm not great at wrapping presents."

"Wrapping presents?" Annabeth repeated. "This is a brick — Percy, I could knock out Dr Doom with this." Reaching over and swatting his hand away, Annabeth grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk and started to cut at the outer layers.

As they opened their gifts, Annabeth rambled on about the occurrences upstairs. In addition to her gag gift, Hazel had also gotten Jason a massive carton of Pop Tarts. Some gifts were thoughtful — Leo gave Hazel a Black Widow poster with the signatures of her fans and other inspirational messages from them (she sometimes felt like she wasn't as needed in the group).

Some gifts were hilarious. Frank got Leo two presents; a pink, sparkly children's chemistry set for the scientist in him, and a fluffy blanket for the Hulk. Jason bought Frank a Nerf bow and arrows — apparently, Toys 'R Us had been an eye-opening experience for him, and he was now petitioning for one to be opened on Asgard.

Then Percy opened the box that was his present from Annabeth, and was faced with a matching wool beanie and scarf, with a pattern of small Captain America shields and Iron Man helmets.

"I love it," Percy managed, his lungs seized with a wheezing laugh. "This is officially the best thing I own, and I'm wearing it every single day — even in the summer." He carelessly wrapped the scarf around his neck, doing a dramatic twirl. "Where'd you get it?"

"I made it," Annabeth said simply.

"You what?" he said, stunned. "Like, knitted it? I didn't know you could knit."

"I can't," Annabeth agreed. "I stabbed myself about a hundred times trying to make them. Frank showed that application, the—the tube?"

"YouTube," Percy said amusedly. "And no one says 'application'. Except for old people."

"Frank also gave me a few choice suggestions for a gift," Annabeth said, laughing. When she saw his inquisitive look, she blushed. "Um, to quote him — 'a blow job'."

Percy almost choked on air. "Right," he said strangled. "I am very impressed though. Seriously. Thanks." He pulled on the beanie. "It really is a fashion statement. Sort of like your spangly outfit."

Annabeth rolled her eyes as she finally got her package open. A frown turned her eyes down as she pulled out a small booklet of coupons.

On the title page were the words 'Your Very Own Percy Jackson Coupons'.

Percy watched eagerly as she flipped open the page to see the first coupon.

"One free..." Annabeth paused, a grin spread across her face. "Pass to medical."

"Produce that after a mission and I'll go to the medbay with zero argument," Percy informed her, already kind of regretting this. "Please don't abuse it."

Her eyes glinted mischievously. "Wouldn't dream of it." She continued to peruse through coupons, reading them aloud as she went. "'One free movie night with no protests'. 'One free mission where I obey every single order'. This is extremely creative. 'One free lunch'."

"Anywhere," Percy spread his hands. "And I'll pay."

"What if I chose somewhere in Japan?"

"I do have a private jet," Percy reminded. "Again, don't abuse it."

"I wonder if they have restaurants on Mars."

Percy mulled over the thought for a few moments. "I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I could get us to Mars a hell of a lot faster than Elon Musk." He shrugged. "Unfortunately, I just don't have time for that."

Annabeth was squinting at the page before her as she eased herself onto the stool. "What's this one?" She moved over as Percy sat down, sharing the chair as he peered over at the coupon.

"One free," Annabeth paused. "Date." Her cheeks reddened.

Percy's eyes widened as he realised what that sounded like. "Oh, no, no," he stammered nervously. "Sorry, I did this in a rush, and I seriously didn't think a lot of it through — I meant, like, to one of your interviews for publicity or a gala, so I could handle all the reporters for you..." He trailed off when Annabeth tilted her head up, grey eyes clouded with curiosity.

Percy wet his lips nervously. Annabeth was awfully close to him, their thighs touching and her face just an inch away. Close enough to feel her short breaths fan his cheeks.

His mind blanked, and Percy couldn't find any stupid comment to ease the tension in the atmosphere.

Was she moving forward? Percy's mind was going into overdrive, alarm bells going off left and right as his heart palpitated strongly enough to rip right out of his chest.

Percy didn't know if he was moving or she was, but his nose was almost brushing hers, her head tilted up to gaze at him.

The blaring sound of the Avengers alarm reverberated deafeningly, making Percy leap backwards and Annabeth almost topple off the chair.

"The alarm!" Percy yelped. "Um, emergency—"

"Right, right," Annabeth stammered. "I, uh, I should." Her face was hot, eyes splayed open in shock. "Shield," she finished lamely.

"Suit," Percy said in agreement, tripping over his feet as he stumbled to the case with his suit in it, footsteps telling him that Annabeth had practically sprinted out of here.

"Oh my God," Percy groaned agonisingly once she was gone. "No, no, no, no, JARVIS, tell me I was hallucinating and I didn't almost kiss Annabeth?"

"I don't know what to tell you, sir. You programmed me not to lie."

Muttering a few choice words as his AI, Percy fumbled for the suit, adrenaline still pumping through his veins. Oh God, oh God, this was really bad. There was no way Annabeth didn't know that he liked her now.

He almost kissed her. She definitely knew that he was harbouring feelings for her, and it was going to ruin everything. Percy could beat himself up for this later, but right now, they had a mission, and he was almost thankful that he had something to distract him from the problem at hand.

Fighting was easy. Fighting was simple. Even when he and Annabeth hadn't liked each other, they still fought together like demons.

Percy burst out of the Tower in full armour. "J," he said, voice still slightly shaky. "Patch me into team comms."

There was a soft crackling as Annabeth's voice came in and almost made Percy crash into a building.

"What is it this time?" Percy asked, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

"Not Doom, if that, um, if that helps," Annabeth sounded distracted. "Some time-travelling, universe-hopping guy."

Directions patched through to Percy's suit, and JARVIS directed him to the source of the action, pulling up video footage from newscasters.

Explosions were occurring everywhere, spraying dust and dirt in every direction. There was already a body count of two people, and Percy promptly directed more power to the repulsors.

The main area of the attack was in Brooklyn, and Percy could hear Annabeth's clipped tone at the personal strike against her hometown.

"What the hell..." Percy trailed off as he stared at the sparse alien army expanding out from the Italian restaurant.

If he didn't know better, he'd think they were—

"The Chitauri," Hazel gasped. "How is this possible?" The Quinjet hovered up as the rest of the team dropped down beside him.

The alien army wasn't as dense or as many as the Battle of New York, but more were joking their ranks by the second. JARVIS' scanners indicated a foreign signal emitting from inside the restaurant, and Percy guessed that the portal they were entering by was in there.

The ranks parted as a taller creature approached the team. La Rue informed them through the comms that S.H.I.E.L.D. was evacuating civilians in a 500m-radius.

Percy peered at the creature, the apparent leader of the army. "Who the hell are you?" Jason demanded.

The man looked like a human, except for his blue skin, and the alien-type purple armour he wore across his shoulders and head. His eyes glowed white, no iris or pupils, just a void.

"Kang the Conqueror," the man declared.

"The Chitauri," Percy said warily. "You brought them from the past." It was a nagging suspicion that he didn't want confirmed.

Kang smirked in a way that made his heart sink. "You are smart, Stark, I'll give you that."

"What do you want?" Annabeth challenged.

"To claim the Earth as my own," Kang replied.

Percy sighed. "Yeah, I was afraid of that." She raised his voice, "Sorry, Papa Smurf, but Earth is closed today. Come back soon."

Kang chuckled in an unsettling manner. "I suppose you think you can stop me. I'll let you know that I'm not some pathetic Norse god." Jason's look of outrage was comical.

"We protect the Earth," Annabeth said firmly. "You'll have to go through us."

Kang spread his hands. "Please, be my guest."

Without warning, the Chitauri exploded into action, and Percy missed three blasts by a hair's width each.

"Oh, this guy really is a dick," he muttered under his breath as he headed for Kang. "Jason, back me up here!"

Percy bashed into Kang from overhead, both of them tumbling across the ground. Drawing his fist back, Percy punched him in the eye, the gauntlet giving him more strength.

Kang responded in kind, raising the gun in his hand and shooting Percy back like a skipping stone.

"Ow," Percy moaned when he sat up, seeing Jason plummet down and batter Kang into the pavement. Annabeth whirled up behind him, using her shield to beat Kang back.

As he zoomed closer to rejoin the fight, Kang fired off a bright white bolt from his gun that hit Annabeth square in the chest and sent her hurtling through the air. She hit the wall behind with a sickening crack.

"Cap!" he yelled, rushing to her side.

Annabeth was swearing under her death as she struggled to get to her feet. "Broken ribs," she said irritatedly. When Annabeth looked up, her eyes were bright with alarm. "I'm not healing."

Percy frowned. "What?" He glanced back at Jason, who was taken down by a blast to the shoulder. As the god struggled to his feet again, Percy saw his fatigue escalate rapidly.

"His gun saps your will," Jason growled. "Temporarily removes any superpowers."

Percy glanced down at Annabeth. If she was back to her pre-serum self, there was no way she could be in the field — hell, Percy had seen the never ending list of her medical issues.

"Go," she urged. "He can't remove your suit or your brain."

Percy cocked his head. "Aw, you think my brain is a superpower?"

She rolled her eyes, wincing as she clutched her abdomen. "Just go."

Percy obliged, the Hulk's roars echoing in his helmet, tackling Kang before he could get up again. Trying to wrench the gun out of his hands, Percy's repulsors planted themselves into the ground as he released a frustrated yell.

A shot caught Percy off-guard when a few of the Chirauri's army surfaced behind him. "JARVIS, incarcerate him, please." A metal clamp detached from his suit and wrapped around Kang, pinning him to the floor with a growl.

Whirling around, Percy blasted the Chitauri soldiers away. He glanced back warily at the restaurant. "We need to shut down the portal before one of those giant whales come through."

"I'm pretty sure they were more like lizards," came Frank's insistant voice.

"Whales," Percy said adamantly. He glanced down at Kang, who was already prying off the metal — which shouldn't be possible for normal villains. "Shit, I can't hold Kang for long."

"How are we supposed to take him into custody?" Hazel demanded. "He just depowered a super soldier and a god. If he hits the Hulk, it's over. The Chitauri are too many for us."

Percy glanced at the gun in question as he kicked it away from Kang. "You know where my location is? Come get it." He could've sworn he heard Hazel's smirk.

"It's wearing off," came Annabeth's relieved voice. "I'll be back in a minute. Mr D says to knock him out and take him in."

"That isn't going to be possible," Jason said between pants.

"Jason's right," Percy agreed. "He's too strong to subdue. Can't risk him breaking out again." He turned back to look at the restaurant. "But if I throw him into the portal and destroy it..."

Percy scanned the landscape. "JARVIS, what's controlling the Chitauri? It was the master ship last time."

"A signal from the portal, sir," his AI informed him.

"If we shut the portal, Kang disappears and the Chitauri power down," Percy told the team. "Best option."

"Wait, Iron Man—"

Ignoring Annabeth's words, Percy grabbed Kang by the armour, hurtling towards the restaurant at top speed.

Smashing through the floor, Percy entered the basement of the restaurant and was faced with a circular metal structure with a thin layer of shiny purple matter floating inside.

"This is so weird," Percy murmured to himself. The moment of distraction was enough for Kang to wrench himself free of his grip and knock Percy to the ground.

His repulsors shot him backwards before Kang could land another punch, and Percy drew his fist back to parry the hit. Annabeth's training kicked in as he narrowly dodged another strike before going for a nasty undercut to the jaw.

The image of Annabeth judo-flipping him onto the mat flashed through his mind. Securing his hand on Kang's shoulder and the other on his forearm, Percy twisted painfully, his shoulder screaming in protest, and flung the man into the portal with as much strength as he could muster.

Using the repulsors to stabilise himself, Percy peered warily at the portal. "I think he's gone." A silhouette appeared. "Oh, no."

Fortunately (or unfortunately), it was just a few members of the Chitauri. Percy took care of them in seconds before he hurried over to the contraption.

"JARVIS," he said finally. "Any ideas on how to close this thing?"

"Sir, I am not familiar with alien technology."

"Don't sass me." Percy rounded the back of the metal circle. "It's powering itself. No power source to cut off."

"There's a structure resembling a lever near the floor."

Percy knelt down, following JARVIS' pinpoint of the part. The gauntlet retracted as he used his fingers to feel for it.

"I'm pretty sure it'll close the portal," Percy guessed. "A little too easy, isn't it?" As he surveyed the contraption, Percy frowned. "You said it was self-sustaining?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, all that energy has to go somewhere," Percy sighed. "First law of physics, J. Conservation of energy and all that."

Damn it.

"Good news and bad news," he informed them.

"Good news first," Hazel said immediately.

"I know how to close the portal."

A pause. "But?"

Percy pursed his lips. "The energy released from closing it will probably obliterate the building and everything within a five-metre radius."

JARVIS confirmed in his ear that he was correct.

"No," came Jason's decisive reply. "Absolutely not. That kind of blast will kill you."

"He's right," Frank said shortly. "There's another option."

"If there was, you don't think I'd take it?" Percy demanded. "Look, Kang will be back any second now. Probably a whole lot stronger and angrier."

There was a beat of silence.

"My suit will protect me, I'll be fine," Percy fibbed assuredly.

"Don't lie to us, Percy," Hazel snapped. "We know you well enough now to know when you're telling the truth." The Hulk's roar of dismay could be heard in the background as Frank relayed the information to him.

"Percy," Annabeth's voice was urgent. 'Percy', not 'Iron Man'. "There has to be—"

"There isn't," Percy interrupted, biting the inside of his lip when pain blossomed in his chest. "Jason isn't at his full strength yet. He's basically a human. I have a suit." He paused. "It's something."

"And you," Annabeth cut herself off. Her shuddering breath could be heard over the comms. "You're sure about this?"

Percy glanced at the circle, hating that this was a reality now. "This isn't one of my self-sacrificial tendencies," he said finally. "I-I have a whole lot to live for now." You. "Believe me, this isn't my top choice at the moment."

Kneeling down, Percy pressed a hand to the lever, fingers trembling inside the suit.

"You're gonna wake up, okay?" Annabeth said fiercely. "Or I'll bring you back and kill you myself. Got it, Percy? That's an order."

Percy closed his eyes. "Yeah," he whispered. "You know me; I would never dream of disobeying a direct order." He knew that everyone else could hear them, but he was about to die, so Percy really couldn't care less.

Annabeth released a light laugh.

God, I wish I had told you how I felt. I wish I had taken you out to dinner and kissed your under the stars. You'll always be my biggest regret.

The gauntlet grasped the lever and yanked.

There were a hundred things Percy had to say, but he only had time for one. "Annabeth, I—"

"I love you," Annabeth interrupted, voice desperate and frantic.

Everything slowed to a stop around Percy as a singular thought occupied his mind; what?

His hand went slack with astonishment when the purple portal snapped out of existence, and the resulting portal furled in on itself like a broken rubber band, the energy expanding outwards like a bubble about the burst.

The shockwave threw Percy back, tumbling head over heels, the sensors on his suit going haywire and his mind sinking into unconsciousness.

Everything went black.

<<< >>>

"Percy!"

The shout was frantic, almost hysterical. It ripped through his skin, making his blood curdle.

"Percy!"

The name echoed. Reverberated.

Blue burst forth from the inky haze that had swallowed him whole, and against all odds, Percy woke up.

"Percy!" He knew that voice. Blonde hair. Grey eyes. Beautiful. Annabeth. Shit, what was she—

Percy's lungs were on fire as he hacked out a cough, eyes springing open abruptly. Black spots danced in his vision as the light momentarily blinded him.

When his sight refocused, Percy found himself staring tiredly at the familiar face of Annabeth Chase. There was a large bruise on her left cheek and her right shoulder was bleeding, but her pupils were dilated to blot out almost the entire iris and Percy became aware that she was looking at him like that.

"You—" Percy broke off, giddy with disbelief. "You love me?"

Annabeth's face went pale, ashen even as inward horror washed over her. "Oh, God—oh, no, I thought you would—I didn't think—"

A mirthless laugh slipped from Percy's lips, because of course she did, and he'd almost died but it was okay because someone loved him, and not just anyone but Annabeth Chase.

Reaching out, Percy gently pulled her forward by the harness on her suit and pressed his lips to hers.

Annabeth was frozen for a moment, but she melted into the embrace, a low groan that stirred up all kinds of feelings in the pit of Percy's stomach escaping her as she fluidly shifted to kneel between his thighs, back arched over him as they kissed.

Maybe it wasn't the ideal kiss; her lips were chapped from the night and Percy had nearly been fried by an explosion, but they were both here and they were both alive, and she loved him, and that made it absolutely perfect.

"I love you too," Percy mumbled feverishly against her mouth before she drew back, breathless and eyes wide.

"This whole time—" Annabeth shook her head.

"How long have you..." Percy gestured between them. A numb happiness had overwhelmed earlier, but now his wounds were starting to sting and woke him up from is daze. This wasn't a reality he'd ever prepared himself for.

Annabeth managed to go even redder than before, not the flushed-with-adrenaline kind but the bashful Captain America blush that made Percy's heart curl. "Too long." She frowned. "Do you know how difficult it was to see you walk around in tank tops, covered in grease?"

Percy's mouth dropped open. "Me? What about your outfit on Halloween? I almost had a seizure!"

The corner of her mouth twitched, and she laughed.

"We might have to erase the security footage before submitting it to Mr D in the mission report." It was Hazel, standing a few feet away from there with a knowing smirk, the rest of their team approaching.

"I mean," Annabeth shrugged. "Technology can be so unreliable."

"You're kind of interrupting a moment," Percy called out in complaint.

"No, we suffered almost an entire year of you two trodding on eggshells around each other," Frank said pointedly. "You can survive for five minutes."

"Ignore him," Percy insisted, gently turning Annabeth's head back to him. "So, I almost died and all — I think I deserve another kiss."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"It's essential for my recovery."

"You're ridiculous." Annabeth's eyes twinkled in a way that made Percy's heart skipped a beat. He didn't think there would ever be a time when he could look over at her and not think, wow. "And, by the way, my coupon for a free date? I think I might want to cash that in."

Percy grinned wildly. He knew he probably looked like he was insane; a smile practically announcing how smitten he was, hair still singed from the explosion, his helmet lying abandoned on the ground. "I think something can be arranged."