Natasha glances at Bruce with a questioning expression, trying to ask if he put the sensor in the chair Percy would most likely sit in without saying anything.
Bruce barely nods his head back in affirmative. If people weren't paying attention, they wouldn't notice the two second mental conversation between Natasha and Bruce.
Percy sits down in the only available seat, considering Tony actually came to dinner for once. They eat dinner how they usually do; chaotically and without any manners.
Except for Natasha, Bruce and Steve, of course. Natasha was too eloquent to eat chaotically, Bruce was too shy to eat without a care in the world, and Steve was raised in the 1940's. That should speak for itself.
Once the table was cleared and the kitchen was clean, Tony went to his lab (he didn't want to get triggered, he always made himself scarce when anything even close to an interragation was happening, it reminded him too much of all the times he had been captured.) Clint didn't know what was happening, he challenged Steve to a Call of Duty match.
Natasha and Bruce sit across the table from Percy, their earpieces firmly in their ears.
Jarvis's calm voice comes through their earpieces. <<Stress level at 4%>>
Natasha folds her hands in front of her. "Okay, we're going to start with some easy questions."
Percy nods. "Got it."
Natasha nods to Bruce, signaling for him to ask some easy questions. She flips open Percy's file (the little bit she could find that wasn't classified), and begins reading it again while Bruce asks Percy some easy questions so they can make sure the stress indicator is accurate.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Blue!" Percy grins.
"Have you ever had a pet?"
"I had a pet goldfish when I was little, his name was Jarry."
"Where's your favorite place to go?"
"Definitely the beach. Montauk is really nice, me and mom go there a lot. It's where she met my dad."
Natasha looks up at this. "What do you remember about your dad?"
Percy gets a small smile on his face. "I remember him smiling down at my cradle."
"Nothing else?" Natasha raises an eyebrow.
<<6%>>
"No." Percy states with a poker face.
Natasha gives Bruce a look. Definitely a lie.
But why wouldn't he want to tell us about his dad?
Bruce leans forward. "What about your mom?"
Percy smiles.
<<2%>>
"My mom is the best mom in the world. She makes the best cookies."
Natasha closes the file. "Tell me about Gabe."
Bruce looks at Natasha sharply. That wasn't in the plan.
<<32%>>
"He uh... he was about as bad as Tar-"
<<57%>>
Percy's eyes grow wide and he takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. Natasha and Bruce share another look. Natasha makes a mental note to look up someone Percy associated with whose name starts with 'Tar'.
<<50%>>
"Gabe enjoyed hurting people. He said he was gonna hurt mom if I told her about it. We made a deal, he can hurt me anytime he wants, but he doesn't hurt mom." Percy taps his fingers on his leg. "He died when I was twelve."
"Did he have friends who hurt you too?" Natasha berates herself for asking him all these questions, but she can help him more if she understands what's going on.
And if she can figure out what Percy's home life is -- or was -- like, maybe she can figure out what happened with Percy's platoon. Maybe not an organization, but old friends of Gabe's?
Maybe one of Gabe's friends was a mutant?
Is the man who kidnapped Percy when he was twelve a mutant? All evidence points towards him being one.
Did Gabe have those kinds of contacts?
Was he involved in something illegal?
Well, more illegal than domestic abuse?
<<53%>>
"Y-Yeah... yeah, he uh... he did." Percy shifts uncomfortably.
Bruce clears his throat. "When you were twelve, you got kidnapped, was that by any of Gabe's friends?"
<<47%>>
Percy coughs to cover up his laughter. "No. None of Gabe's friends were that powerful."
Natasha leans forward. "We have sources that say the man who kidnapped you is a mutant, do you know if this is true?"
Percy tilts his head. "Mutant?"
"Someone who has special abilities or mutations that change their appearance. Mutants are man-made, such as the lab accident that created the hulk."
Percy hesitates for a moment. "... What about powers that weren't man-made?"
"That would be an inhuman."
"Inhuman?"
"Someone who has an... alien gene in their body that gets activated in a special circumstance. An inhuman is someone who already has abilities in them, they just don't notice them until they were activated."
<<22%>
Percy gets a strange look on his face. "What if... what if you- what if someone you know is inhuman?"
Natasha watches Percy carefully. "Are you saying you're an inhuman?"
Percy flinches. "That depends on what you do to them."
"We put them on a watch list to make sure they won't try world domination and we try to recruit them. If they don't want to be recruited we assign an agent to watch them to make sure Hydra doesn't try to capture them, and to help them control their powers."
Percy shifts in his chair. "What would you say if I was an inhuman?"
<<37%>>
"I've worked with many inhumans, heck I work with Steve and Bruce who are mutants. I won't treat you any different if that's what you're asking."
<<30%>>
Percy gets a gleam in his eye as he realizes how to keep demi-gods and gods a secret. "I come from a long line of people with powers... or these alien genes."
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Like an organization?" She gets serious, "Do they pose a threat to us?"
"I guess you could say that we're an organization. We don't call ourselves inhumans though. We have two... hideouts. The one I live in, we call ourselves half-bloods. The other one is very formal, they call themselves demi-gods."
"Demi-gods? As in Thor?"
Percy pauses, trying to figure out how to explain it without revealing the Greek world. This was a thing that had been kept secret for thousands of years, and he wasn't about to be the one to reveal it. "Not necessarily..."
<<32%>>
Natasha folds her arms across her chest. "Explain."
"In the beginning, there were... multiple um, inhumans as you call them. They grew unruly, a system had to be put in place so they wouldn't destroy themselves. The most powerful among them, a group of six people, came together and created a council. They called themselves the Olympians."
Natasha tilts her head. "After the Greek gods?"
Percy shakes his head. "No. The Greek gods are after them."
Bruce leans forward. "You're saying Greek gods are real?"
"That's what people thought. In reality, they were just assumed to be gods. They're immortal."
Bruce and Natasha's eyes widen. Clint spews water all over the dining room floor and everyone turns to look at him.
"Are-are they still around today?" Clint asks in disbelief.
"Oh yes, very much so. Now shush, let me finish the story. Zeus, the youngest of the council, became the leader," Percy leans towards Bruce and Natasha and whispers, "Spoiler alert, he's a prick."
He clears his throat and leans back. "Anyway, Zeus got married to Hera, she joined the council. Fast forward a while, now there are fourteen people that are a part of the council. Hades, Hestia, Poseidon, Zeus, Hera, Ares, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Dionysus and Hermes. They're like a big family, which means they fight a lot. They also live forever, so after a few thousand years, Hestia and Hades retired. Sort of."
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean, sort of?"
"Hestia wanted to relax, so now she just watches over everyone and tends to the hearth, her favorite thing to do. Hades just wanted to retire from Zeus and everyone else so he went to the underworld."
"The underworld?"
"His job is to oversee everything going on down there. Thanatos, helps him with that.. Hades has a whole system set up."
"Wait," Clint raises his hands. "So you're saying an inhuman controls what happens to us after we die?"
<<40%>>
"Pretty much, yeah. Hades got a hold of a powerful artifact. One that is way older than even Earth. He now controls the underworld." Percy taps his fingers on his leg. "And no, he doesn't reap souls. He's not the god of death, or whatever the human myths say he is. That's Thanatos' job. Hades is the ruler, yes, but he's also basically... the uh... y'know..." He looks down apprehensively and then scans the room for threats. "The paperwork guy." He whispers.
Natasha frowns. "Great..."
"Don't worry! There's judges, everything is done in a fair manner. Plus Hades is actually a really nice guy."
Bruce raises his eyebrows. "You've met him?"
Percy nods. "I got sent on a mission and had to go to the underworld."
Natasha leans forward. "How do you come into play?"
<<47%>>
"Usually the immortals stay among themselves, they don't want to have to watch their mortal friends die. However, sometimes they come and mingle with us. The Earth is their home too, and they like to see it. Sometimes, they... hook up with mortals."
"I see. You're one of those kids?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"So are you immortal?"
"No. We live like humans. Sort of. The immortals have lots of enemies. The enemies come after us. Therefore why we have hideouts. We call them the camps. The big three-"
<<22%>>
"Big three?"
"The most powerful among the council. Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. They vowed not to have kids after their kids caused a world war."
"That was them?" Bruce asks, trying to process everything.
"Yep. Poseidon and Zeus broke their oaths." Percy shakes his head, mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like idiot gods.
Natasha stares at Percy. "Do they pose a threat to us?"
"No. Not unless you attack them."
"Can we visit their base of operations?"
Percy coughs to stop himself from laughing. "It's more like a camp."
<<34%>>
"And no, you can't. There's a couple of terms and conditions we have. One, no one will try to find either of the camps. Two, sometimes on missions, to get away, we have to do... criminally stuff. Like... creating an entrance in a building that wasn't there before. We don't do this on purpose, we don't want to hurt anyone, but we don't want to die. So if some of these things appear in our records, and we prove they are from accidents and us trying to get away from monsters, then can you erase that stuff off of our records? We still want to try and get in college and stuff."
"I'll have to talk to the director about it. And you said 'monsters'?" Natasha raises an eyebrow.
<<42%>>
Percy nods. "Literally. There's another immortal group that's evil. They send... monsters after us. Uncle Tony was talking about genetically engineered things, I guess you could say these are like that? They're descendents or clones of original monsters from long ago."
"So you're like shield and they're like hydra." Clint looks at Percy.
"Yeah, pretty much." Percy's eyes widen. "Oh! And there's spies in shield, so please don't put all of this on digital files or something. One of my friends..."
<<57%>>
Percy clears his throat, determining not to cry. "Leo. He uh, hacked your base for fun. He played baby shark over the sound systems for hours."
Clint shudders. "That was him? I still remember that haunting melody. Fury had to add b-b... that song to the list of things our agents needed to be able to resist. That song is torture."
<<21%>>
Percy laughs and Clint glares at him.
"You won't be laughing when you have to listen to that song on loop for hours! We were in the air Percy." Clint advances towards Percy. "In. the. air. No one could leave! We tried screaming louder than it, that didn't work. Pillows didn't work. Nothing worked! Someone," Clint glares at Natasha. "freaking brought out icers and everyone started sedating themselves! But when one got to me, there were no bullets left!" Clint practically sobs. "I couldn't ice myself. I had to suffer through it."
Natasha pats Clint's back. "It'll be okay Clint."
"Oh, don't give me that!" Clint turns towards Nat. "You were the one to ice yourself first!"
Nat holds her hands up. "Let's just get back on topic, shall we?"
Clint huffs.
Nat turns to Percy. "Anything else?"
Percy shakes his head, still trying not to laugh. "Not that I can think of."