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They didn’t mean to almost get kicked out of the mall.
In their defense, Steve had shooed them out of the tower. “You boys smell like horse manure in the sun,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “You can’t walk around in your mission gear, either. Go to the mall and get some new stuff please.”
Percy had looked down at his tattered Camp Half-Blood shirt and made puppy-dog eyes. “Why must you be such a cruel and harsh person, Steve?”
Steve had looked at him. “I’m Tony Stark’s boyfriend, I have to be. Go. Take the Prius.”
They had taken the Prius.
They had gotten to the Tanger Outlet, an outlet mall on Long Island that Percy said was the best, without issues.
They had found a parking spot that suited all of them.
They had entered the mall and had decided to go to Nike first.
And then Percy opened his mouth.
“Y’know, I wonder what would happen if I yelled ‘FOR POSEIDON’ and jumped into that fountain,” he mused.
“I dare you,” Pietro said, pulling out his phone with a mischievous grin.
“I don’t think this is the best idea,” Peter said.
“Oh well,” Percy said with a shrug.
“You know what would be even better?” Jack said. “If you did it in full armor and Pietro posted it to the internet. That would be the best idea.”
“It’s really not?” Hiccup said, but it was three to two in favor of jumping in in full armor, so Percy ducked into the nearest bathroom and had his flying horse bring in the box containing his official mission wear.
He emerged from the bathroom wearing a complete set of classically Greek armor. The bronze breastplate was shined to perfection, a tiny wave pattern etched along the bottom edge. The jet-black plume on his helmet shined dully in the sunlight, and had Peter swung that way, he would’ve been drooling.
As it was, a couple of girls stopped and giggled.
Percy ignored them and sprinted full speed toward the fountain.
“Oh my god,” Hiccup muttered.
“This is great,” Pietro said, trying not to let the video shake as he laughed.
“FOR POSEIDON!” Percy roared and jumped into the fountain.
Of course, being the total dork that he was, he then stood atop the fountain using his weird demigod powers, rotating slowly in place and proclaiming the might of his father.
Security showed up a minute later.
“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to get down from the fountain,” the frazzled guy said into a megaphone.
“POSEIDON IS THE ALL-KNOWING RULER OF THE SEAS,” Percy bellowed, but tumbled down.
The security guard heaved a sigh. “Ripcurrent, I am going to have to ask you to leave,” he said, rubbing his forehead like he had to tell superheroes to leave every day.
“Aw, man, I was just having some fun,” Percy said. “Besides, me and my buddies haven’t had a chance to shop yet.”
While all of the attention had been on Percy, Jack had hissed at them to go change into their full costumes, so now Peter stood, uncomfortable, in his skintight spandex suit. Hiccup looked doubly uncomfortable, if the way that the leather flexed was anything to go by.
The security guard looked astounded.
“B’sides, I’ll sign some napkins, rake in some dough for you guys,” Percy said, and Peter rolled his eyes. “If you let us keep coming here regularly, we’ll up business. We shop, you get dolla.”
Security Dude sighed. “All right,” he said wearily. “Go on. But I don’t wanna have to talk to you about the whole stunt thing, you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” Percy said, and even from here Peter could hear his shit-eating grin. “Let’s go, dudes.”
Their shopping trip was… interesting, to say the least.
Wherever they went, a horde of fans went, too. Some people had them sign their stuff more than once.
Spider-Man got a lot of attention – Peter didn’t do a lot of media stunts, simply because he didn’t want anybody hurting Aunt May, so people went wild, clamoring for his attention.
Pietro got less attention but gave back more snark. He signed across t-shirt shoulders, all with a little so you wanted a signature? printed neatly in the corner with a smiley, underneath a massive scrawled Quicksilver.
Percy laughed and took selfies, declining to sign things mostly because he was lazy but also because he was dyslexic and it was impossible to spell other people’s names (e.g. Samantha – Ripcurrent). A younger kid approached him and they struck up a conversation about handling dyslexia.
That was cute.
Hiccup had no shortage of fans, either. Being Night Fury in Seattle had upped his popularity even before he had moved to New York, and a lot of people recognized him, since his mask showed up in a lot of ‘Are Vigilantes Doing the Right Thing?’ conversations along with Spider-Man.
Jack gave hugs to kids with bleached hair and blue hoodies, exchanged high-fives with teenagers with big-ass sticks, and generally had a lot of fun goofing around. He took selfies but gave no signatures, something Peter found a little odd, but Jack had been doing that from day one and so everybody let it slide.
Whenever they stopped at a store, the fans waited patiently outside while they shopped. After they purchased their merchandise, the boys showed off the things they had bought, and soon after, kids cleaned those items off the shelves.
It was fun, Peter mused as he walked with his loaded shopping bags over his shoulder. Hanging out with his buddies, socializing with people who idolized them, buying each other gag gifts of Avengers t-shirts.
What was not fun, however, was dealing with the Avengers when they got back to the tower.
They’d taken ‘their’ transportations – Peter hitched a ride with Percy on Blackjack, Pietro rode Toothless with Hiccup, and Jack had tumbled through the sky between the two black creatures. They left the Prius back at the mall – one of them would go get it after they changed back into their civvies, since nobody wanted the fans to get a picture of the license plate, since the car still technically belonged to Paul Blofis, Percy’s stepfather.
Coulson had looked, well, like Coulson, arms crossed and suit impeccable. Steve had looked grumpy, eyebrows furrowed and scowl in place. Clint was wheezing on the floor, clutching a tablet. Natasha had looked stoic and cool, as always, and Bruce was nowhere to be seen.
Only Tony hadn’t been staring at them as they came in.
“Hey, what’s up?” Hiccup said, starting to unload the saddlebags and free Toothless from his saddle. “You guys look a little pissed.”
“We have every right to be,” Steve ground out, “when one of the team yells something about a deity most people don’t believe in and subsequently jumping into the nearest fountain.”
“His fault,” Pietro and Percy said at the exact same time, pointing at each other.
Coulson raised one eyebrow minutely.
Natasha sharpened a knife.
“Okay, I don’t see what you’re so wound up about, Captain Spangles,” Tony butted in. “Look, they pulled a little stunt, so what, they increased business and income for the whole mall.”
“Of course you would only look at the financial side of it,” Steve snorted.
“Oh, what? A billionaire owning a Fortune 500 company's not supposed to look at finances?”
“Let’s go,” Pietro whispered, shouldering his bags and slinking off.
Later, they were all lounging on the couches in their civvies, eating gummy bears and generally having a fantastic time.
They could still hear Steve and Tony going at it downstairs. Other than that, it was painfully quiet, the only other sounds being of crinkling plastic as they chowed down.
And then Percy opened his mouth.
“Did Steve and Tony have their first lover’s quarrel over us going shopping?”