Shards (A Percy Jackson and Avengers Crossover)

Guinea Pigs, Power Naps, Sticks, Mythomagic, And One Scary Son Of Hades

Percy paused. "It was like trying to do a three-legged race with a life-sized son of Hades ragdoll—also wouldn't recommend doing that. Eventually we made it outside and alarms started going off. Luckily Mrs. O'Leary—that's my pet hellhound—" he reminded them quickly,"came and shadowtraveled us to the River Styx—and no I didn't say sticks, Styx: S-T-Y-X."

A pause. "I think. Maybe it's X-Y."
Another pause. "Actually I think Mrs. O'Leary thought I said sticks. Might've been why she was so excited to travel to the river of hate," Percy mumbled thoughtfully.

"Anyway, Nico was really weak, so I gave him some ambrosia and told him he looked like schist." Percy stopped. "I was much nicer with my wording, of course. And then he was like 'With great power, comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.' I had to feed him some more ambrosia, which was very dangerous since I didn't want him to burn up. Then Achilles popped up and was like 'you don't wanna do this' and 'you're gonna have a bad heel.'"

Percy paused again. "Uh, let me back up for a sec. If someone jumps in the River Styx, their body becomes impenetrable, except for a single small spot somewhere on the body—y'know Achilles' Heel and all that jazz. Assuming, of course, that they survive. Which is highly unlikely." Percy winced. "In retrospect, it was probably pretty stupid to jump in." He shrugged. "But I did. 'Course I almost dissolved," at this Percy faltered, a bad memory surfacing, "but I lived." Percy paused for the umpteenth time. "Obviously."

Nico snorted. "And then he went and destroyed an entire army of the dead. And defeated my father."

The Avengers stared at him. Thor's booming laughter jolted everyone. The lightning god slapped his knee enthusiastically. "I had not heard this tale yet, Son of Jack."

"That's not my name," Percy murmured under his breath.

Nico met his eyes, smirking. Better than Perseus, he mouthed cheerfully. Percy scowled at the amused demigod. Why was it that Nico was only happy when something made Percy unhappy?

Thor continued, ignoring the side chatter. "I quite liked it!"

Steve shook his head, and Bruce sighed.

Clint raised his hand timidly. "I have questions." He paused, probably thinking of the other things Nico had told them when Percy was gone. "Many, many questions."

Tony nodded vigorously. "Especially about your sanity."

The two teenagers looked at each other before bursting out laughing. "What... sanity?" Percy gasped between gulps of air.

Nico slowly stopped laughing. "That's hard to come by in our kind of life. Sanity, reasoning, sound judgement—none of those are very common in our lifestyle."

Percy nodded, still grinning. "One of our, uh, friends even said, 'I try not to think. It interferes with being nuts.'" Percy felt his mood darken at the mention of Leo, but he quickly shook the feeling away. "Ah, Repair Boy. Had to love him," he muttered fondly.

Nico shook his head, thinking of the deceased pyrokinetic demigod. He hadn't know Leo Valdez very well, but he had heard many.... interesting stories about the energetic son of Hephaestus.

Nico turned to Percy. "You get in touch with your dad?"

Percy shifted on his feet, his mood turning somber. He walked over to his previously vacated spot on the couch and sat down. "Yeah, I did." He sighed. "Not quite sure how helpful it was, though."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Well... he said the Fates sent Apollo—he's the god of a ton of stuff... the sun, archery, prophecy, uh..."