The Reluctant Hero

Memorials and Revelations

"Percy! Time for school!" Steve called from where he was flipping pancakes in the kitchen. "Percy?!"

"He's not here, Cap." Tony walked in, a cup of cold coffee in his hand. Steve turned to him, confused, his brow furrowed in annoyance.

"Why not? He's got school in 20 minutes." Tony sighed.

"He's not going to school today, Cap, and probably not the next few days either."

"Why not?" The super soldier repeated, plating the pancakes. Tony took a long sip of his coffee.

"We had a talk last night. He's not been dealing with the recent clusterfuck well, or at all, and he needs some time." He held up a hand when Steve opened his mouth to argue. "You can watch the recording if you want, but he needs some time to himself." The captain must have heard something in the engineer's voice, because he stopped working and gave Tony his full attention.

"What's wrong?" His voice was heavy with concern. Tony sighed again.

"He can barely handle everything that's happened recently with the mission, the media and his PTSD. He needs a few days off school, not having to worry about the public and acting normal."

"That's not everything is it?" Steve met Tony's eyes and the genius' face was grim.

"He was considering suicide, Steve."The soldier inhaled sharply. "He wasn't going to do it because he promised Annabeth," every Avenger said her name with reverence now, "but I could tell he wanted to. He wanted to end it, Steve. If it wasn't for her, I think he would've." Steve's expression was  strained as he regulated his breathing.

"Do you know where he is?"
"No, but I can track the watch we gave him if I have to - don't worry, he knows. I don't think we need to though, he wont do anything."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah I'm sure, Steve. We'll have to show the others the video or something later, but the point is that he's going to take a couple of days off school and were going to let him."

"All right." The  soldier gestured to the pancakes. "We'll call the school later, for now, let's eat." He smirked sadly."I'll bet you haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."

 Tony smiled.

"Thanks, Cap." 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The God wandered along the stone path slowly, watching his feet as he did so.

Percy had been living with the grief for a while now. He'd come to realise that, with people who didn't live with grief and trauma as aspects of their everyday lives, after a couple of days - maybe a week at most - people expected you to get over a tragedy.

No. That wasn't quite right: they didn't expect you to be over it (they'd be appalled if you even suggested that), rather they expected you to get on with your life. For your first couple of days you'd be given allowances; allowed moments of peace and respite or forgiven for slip-ups or forgotten details, but then it was forgotten; swept away under the rug of polite society.

At first, for Percy, his grief had been debilitating. A raging fire fit for Hephaestus' forges, then it had become a black hole, absorbing and destroying every aspect of his life. Next it was a raw wound, which sent spikes of crippling pain through him at the slightest touch. Now, it was a dull ache, as though there was a tight band tying his lungs to the back of his spine, which, every once in a while, would pull tight and make it hard to breath.

Of course, there were still moments. Moments when the pain punched him in the gut and he was forced to curl into himself and sob, unable to stop himself for anything from thirty seconds to half an hour to two hours or more as it all became too much all over again.