Percy Jackson/Avengers Crossover

7th Chapter: Shit Goes Down

The phone rang and rang until it finally reached voicemail. Tony was met not by the girl's voice, like he'd been expecting, but by his nephew which felt like being stabbed in the gut.

"You've reached Wise Girl. She's probably out with me saving the world or on her own building amazing things" Percy was interrupted, in the recording, by a laughing Annabeth in the background telling him to stop joking around "Anyways, leave a message and she'll try to get back to you. I hope it wasn't important" he finished kindly before the tell-tale beep. Tony gave himself a couple of seconds to recover enough before speaking.

"Annabeth this is Tony Stark, ah Percy's uncle. We... We haven't heard from him since last night and we were kind of getting worried and I was wondering if you knew where he was? Anyways, get back to me as soon as possible please" Tony almost pleaded before finishing up the call.

The multimillionaire turned on his heel before he could give himself too much time to think – which would certainly lead to a panic attack, with which he could not and would not deal with right now – and headed to the mission room where the (available) Avengers were probably already gathered.

His suspicions were met when he arrived at said room. Steve seemed like he was about to chew him off for being late to a reunion in his own house and that he himself had called but one look at Tony's face and he settled back down.

"What happened?" Black Widow, asked, her voice bordering on kindness – Tony knew that was the most sentiment he was going to get from her and even that much was a testament of how trashed he must have looked.

"Percy. He didn't come home last night" Tony said in one breath and the room exploded with voices, as expected. The kid had been quick to warm his way into the teams' hearts

"What do you mean he didn't come home?"

"Have you tried calling him?"

"You're sure he didn't just pass out on the couch or something?" someone suggested hesitantly.

"Have you checked with Annabeth?"

"Maybe he went to his mom apartment by mistake" that was Clint talking and it was the first thing to be said that had any sense to it so everyone shut up and got back into their seats.

"I can try and call the apartment" Tony said quietly.

"I'll have Jarvis look in the traffic cams around his old block" Natasha volunteered gently as she pulled the keypad in the table to her and started up the screen on the wall.

Both things came up empty, as most of them feared, and this time it was Steve's turn to come up with a suggestion.

"Have you 'surfed' the computer to see where he went after leaving his friend at the metropolitan station?" he asked, still looking rather uncomfortable.

If it was any other day, Tony wouldn't have let the opportunity to mock the super soldier on his lack of knowledge on everything from the XXI century, and specifically his reluctance in calling Annabeth Percy's girlfriend.

Instead, the billionaire only nodded at his suggestion, wondering why the hell none of the other (read: him) had even thought of that sooner as he asked:

"Natasha, can you..."

"Already on it" the master assassin answered as she tipped away furiously on the keyboard.

In under a minute the wall lit up with four different cam views. Percy walked in front of the building, his hands in his pockets and his head hunched down as if protecting himself from the none-existing rain or the cold.

He disappeared for a few seconds from the top-right window before walking past the right-bottom view and then stopping in the left-top one. It was just a normal alley, barely light up, the kind of place where only shady deals and robberies at knife point could go down. Percy stood at the edge of the camera's line of sight, only half of his body visible and barely.

"Can you get a better angle?" Tony asked Natasha, knowing it was unlikely. The secret agent never did anything halfway and her negative nod only strengthen his suspicions.

"This is the best I can do" Natasha stated.

In the screen, Percy had started pacing in and out of view. He froze for a split second – there was no sound in the video but Tony supposed he'd heard something that had sent him on alert – before quickly resuming his pacing. As if out of nowhere – or, more precisely, out of the cover the dark alley provided – two man attacked Percy with cat-like agility. One of them tried to shoot him with a taser gun but the Team (minus Bruce, who was away in some kind of conference and Thor who was still asleep in one of the rooms upstairs) could only watch, bewildered, as Percy easily sidestepped the electrical charge and proceeded to overcoming professional assailant after professional assailant without appearing to break a sweat. Finally, two of the previously knocked out men managed to taser Percy, who promptly fell to his knees while still remaining conscious, and his partner didn't hesitate before hitting him over the head with the but of the weapon.

Natasha stopped the fee as soon as the attackers disappeared to a blind spot where they probably had some kind of means of transport hidden, and none of the Avengers thought there was anything more to see. They are all staring dumb folded at the frozen screen. Even Natasha who should know more than anyone how deceiving appearances could be or how young you could start training – seamed taken aback by the display of skill and training from the teenager.

"How..." Steve starts, but the super soldier doesn't seem to know what he wants to ask or how to even phrase it.

"Well, the kid knows how to fight" Clint remarks pragmatically "So who taught him?"

Nobody has an answer for that – yet – and Tony quickly chips in:

"More importantly, who are these guys and what do they want with my nephew?"

"Well" Natasha started, back in her business-like tone "These guys are organised and methodical, so they likely belong to some organization, and it didn't have anything to do with you, Tony, or any of us otherwise we would have already heard from the captors."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked, knowing the Black Widow was leading up to something.

"This was about the kid." Clint answered before Natasha could "We need to figure out who Percy Jackson actually is."