Percy woke up to subtle vibrations.
It was weird. His body felt heavy. Slow, even. He could feel he was somewhere warm, and he could smell... he could smell... was that hand sanatizer?
He took an experimental sniff and then grimanced.
Whatever it was, it stunk.
Wasn't there something he was supposed to do? It was... he was... it was something grey? What was he...
He worked hard to keep up with his train of thought, but it was like his head was filled with cotton.
He felt the air around him shift.
Oh, right.
He was trying to figure out where he was, wasn't he?
A hand reached out and touched his arm and his eyes shot open. He tried to sit up, but the hand held him back. He struggled for a moment, but then stopped, because something about the hand felt familiar.
He looked up and his eyes focused.
"Steve?"
And then he panicked.
He reached for his throat and felt it. "Steve?" He asked again, looking up at Steve's concerned face.
Steve's mouth moved and Percy stared uncomprehendingly. Steve frowned and leaned closer.
Percy wasn't paying attention, because the pieces were coming together. His eyes glanced around the room and his breath sped up.
Steve gripped his shoulder. When Percy didn't respond, he pressed a button on a nearby device.
Percy slowly lifted his hand up to touch his ear. He snapped his fingers several times, first in front of his right ear, then his left.
Steve moved away from him and a nurse in colorful scrubs looked at him, concerned.
Percy looked at the nurse, his eyes wide. He could tell the nurse was talking to him, he could see his mouth moving, but...
Percy vigorously rubbed his ears.
The nurse gently grabbed his hands to stop Percy from hurting himself and held them. He looked Percy in the eyes.
His mouth moved slowly, he had an air of calm about him.
Percy looked from the nurse to Steve.
Steve wasn't paying attention, he was talking on the phone to someone.
But Percy couldn't hear that.
He couldn't hear anything.
Percy's mind sped up, going million miles a minute. There's no way what he's thinking is true. There's no way.
He opened his mouth and screamed.
Steve dropped his phone and the person on the other line was shouting, but Percy didn't realize. The nurse had jumped up and ran out of the room, but Percy didn't notice.
He closed his eyes and leaned back on the bed. His eyes glazed, because it was true. He couldn't hear anything. Not even his own voice.
———————
a day earlier
———————
"Tony." Bruce's soft voice fills the silent room and Tony and Steve stand up. "The test results from Percy's CT scan came back."
"And?"
"They're normal."
"Good!" Tony says, falling back into the hard hospital chair in relief. "Good, that's good." His face fills with trepidation. "So why do you still sound worried?"
"There's nothing that explains why he's still unconscious. We're worried. I'm worried! That in-human healed him! There's nothing physically wrong with him, aside from a few bruises! But it's been two days and he still hasn't waken up!"
Steve looks at Bruce intently, his face filled with worry. "Could it be something magical? I keep thinking about that Doctor fellow Natasha told us about when her and Buck-James came back in the magic box. Maybe he did something?" Steve runs his hand through his hair. "Maybe we should have someone with magic take a look a-"
Tony waves his hand and cuts Steve off. "No! That was all science, and can be explained with science. Nothing magical."
"Steve has a point, Tony. Maybe Loki-"
"No." Tony's eyes are cold. "No, absolutely not. I refuse to let that criminal near my nephew! It's only been two days, he might still wake up without... magic, or whatever."
"Tony, from the scans we did, there are very contradictory results. It could very well be magical. Some scans read him as being brain dead, which doesn't doesn't sense, as he can breathe on his own. Some scans read him as fully awake, which does not make sense, as he is in a coma. Some scans show he's in a coma, which does make sense, but the brain activity would lead us to believe he's been in a coma since he was twelve, which, obviously, doesn't make sense!"
After a few moments of tense silence, Steve speaks up. "We should ask Thor for help."
Bruce nods. "Yeah, he can get us a magic doctor. Or just a magic healer, or whatever. If it's someone from Asgard, that's licensed, or whatever the equivalent is there, then it should be safe to let them examine him."
Natasha and Clint walk in with two boxes of pizza. They keep quiet, interested in the conversation. They heard some bits of it from the hallway before they walked in.
Tony spares them a glance and then looks back at Bruce. His eyes eyes gleam with wariness. "I'm not letting some 'magical' asgardian near my nephew! I'm sure Sally would agree with me. Except we can't talk to her, because of some dude claiming to be from the future!"
"I looked at the evidence, Tony. I don't like to think that he's form the future either, but all evidence points towards it." Natasha sets the pizza box she's carrying down on a nearby chair.
"Okay, everyone needs to calm down." Bruce raises his hands in a placating motion, "I know this is stressful,"
"Stressful? Stressful! One of my only family members is lying on a hospital bed, in a coma, and no one will let me see him! And now people are thinking of letting Loki examine him?"
Clint's eyes shoot up. "Loki? Oh heck no." He looks over at Bruce. "We are not letting that lunatic near the kid."
At this, everyone silences, because they all half expect to see Percy pop up and say, "Not a kid!"
The air turns somber.
"Okay," Bruce sighs. "this conversation isn't working out right now, we're all to emotional. We can come back to this later. In the meantime, pizza?"
Tony scowls but sits down. His leg bounces back and forth and he watches the doors to the waiting room anxiously. "Are they doing anymore tests on him?"
Clint hands Tony a piece of pizza. Tony nods in thanks.
Bruce grabs a piece of pizza from the box. "Not unless it's absolutely vital." He takes a bite of his pizza. "We don't want him to be exposed to any more radiation than absolutely necessary."
Tony sets the piece of pizza on his knee. "So what you're saying is, we either get a sorcerer from Asgard, or it's it's a waiting game."
Bruce swallows his bite of pizza. "Essentially, yes."
Natasha think for a moment. "Did they do an MRI?"
"No."
"I would have them do one of those. Probably with contrast dye, so they can see more."
Bruce ponders this for a moment. "Okay, I'll mention it to his doctors."
Steve looks up from his seat, confused. "I thought you were his doctor?"
"Oh, no. The only thing I have remotely similar to doctoring is a doctorate in health physics, which deals primarily in the biological effects of radiation and the like. I was trained as a field medic so I, as Bruce and not the Hulk, could help out on missions, but other than that..." he trails off sheepishly. "The actual doctors just keep me around and listen to my advice because I know a lot of things about biochemistry and biomedical engineering. Usually I'd be down in the lab, but because Percy's case is so peculiar and they think it has something to do with some sort of radiation he got from Hydra..."
"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."
Tony grumpily takes a bite of his pizza. "They should let me back there."
Bruce sighs and stands up. He grabs a other piece of pizza out of the box. "I'm going to go talk to the doctors about getting him a contrast MRI. I'll be back in an hour or three, depending on how long it takes to get him back. If he can go back. There might be other people scheduled already."
He gets up and leaves the room.
Tony scowls. "I don't like this."
"Who does?" Natasha asks neutrally. She takes another bite of pizza.
Clint shoots up from his chair. Everyone turns to look at him. He'd been quiet during the conversation, so they were curious about his input.
Clint's eyes are wide. "Holy crap." He says slowly.
Natasha's expression grows serious. She knows that tone. "What is it?"
"He has the same symptoms now that he has after a panic attack or flashback."
Tony blinks. "What?"
"What if whatever's been going on is being triggered by his panic attacks? Because now seems an awful lot like what happens after his attacks. What if he got poisoned, or attacked with magic, or... whatever and it only shows up in certain circumstances?"
Natasha's eyes flicker towards the door. "Like the mission we got sent on where multiple people were dying randomly, from what looked like natural causes, but it ended up being a terrorist using a poison that only activated if your heart rate was above a certain amount?"
"Yeah. And didn't he just leave a war zone a month or so ago?" He turns to Natasha. "And didn't you say something about someone-"
"Someone targeting him?" Natasha cuts in, "Yeah." Her face turns grim.
"So it's been progressing all this time, and none of us have noticed it?" Tony looks incredulous.
"No, we have noticed it. We've just been blaming it on mental health rather than physical."
Toby slumps down in his chair. "Are we even sure this is what's going on, though? It's logical, sort of, but we have so little information to go off of! We can't access his files, so we don't know what happened when he was in the war! If it is true, how are we going to cure it?"
Clint pats Tony's shoulder. "I know you're worried, Tones. But currently, other than a magical cause-"
"It could still be magical. They have inhumans." Natasha points out.
Clint continues, ignoring Natasha's interruption. "that's the only other logical thing we have right now that could be causing this."
"I'm worried it's going to be something that I can't fix." Tony admits quietly. "He's my responsibility. I have to make sure to get him back to Sally in one piece. If it is magical or something that happened in the war... I can't do a single thing about that. That's not okay. And I am not letting Loki near my nephew."
"Tony," Clint sighs, "I know it's hard. But if Percy were here, would he want you down in the dumps over it? Or would he want you to take a breather and then find a way to fix this?"
Tony clenches his hands together.
"No. In fact, he's probably laugh at you and say something sarcastic."
Tony rolls his eyes. His lips twitch in a small smile. "He would, wouldn't he?"
"He'd probably say, "Uncle Tony! Your face looks uglier than normal today! I'm glad I didn't inherent my looks from you."
Tony groans. "That kid really does wonders for your patience, doesn't he?"
Clint looks strangely cheerful. He puts his hands behind his head and laces his fingers together. "Oh, not my patience. If he says something sarcastic I just flick him."
"You what?"
"I flick 'im. Whichever part of him is closest!"
Natasha hums. "Does he refrain from sarcastic remarks around you now?"
"Nope. He's gotten better at dodging, though."
Tony sighs. "You two are insufferable. I'm glad you haven't tried to team up in prank wars."
Natasha groans. "Tony..."
Clint grins. "Oh, that's a lovely idea, Toes-"
"Toes?" Tony's face twists. "My name is not-"
"As I was saying, Toes, that's a wonderful idea. Next prank war... heh. You better watch out."
Tony throws his hands up and walks out of the room. "That's it. I'm moving out of the tower! I'm going to find myself a nice little cabin near a lake and settle down for the rest of my days, far away from humanity."
Clint laughs.
Once Tony is out of sight, Natasha walks up to Clint and stands beside him. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"Cheering him up."
Clint looks at the bustling hallway, full of nurses and doctors. "It was the least I could do."
Natasha claps him on the back. "Now c'mon, we need to go see if we can hack into any of the files about the war. Maybe we'll find something about what's going on with Percy."
—————————
current time
————————-
Tony looks about ready to cry. "I don't get it! There's nothing wrong with his eardrums but he's deaf? What the heck is going on?"
Bruce holds a large cup of coffee in his hands. He has dark bags around his eyes. He's wearing nursing scrubs. Someone got him out of the lab long enough to change clothes, but he didn't want to go back to the tower, so he just borrowed someone's scrubs. "One thing at a time, Tony. First, let's be glad he woke up. And he can communicate with us through sign language."
Clint is the one to look frustrated now. "That's another problem! His sign is all... slurred! I can barely understand anything he's saying!"
Clint has a grey hoodie and a pair of jeans on. He looks exhausted but the kind of exhausted where you're used to it.
Tony sighs and thumps his head on the table. "Can they do a neurological exam?"
"Not without a way to communicate! And he can't communicate because his sign in slurred! And anytime he tries to write it's all out of order and backwards!" Clint leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.
"He's trying his best." Bruce says.
"I know!" Then, calmer, he says, "I know. I'm not mad or frustrated at him, but I am frustrated at the situation. And I'm mad at hydra for taking him and doing... whatever they did."
"So what're they doing to help him?" Tony's voice is slightly muffled through the table.
"Letting him rest. His thinking is delayed, he's very forgetful, and he can't communicate with us because he refuses to talk and no one can understand his sign or anything he's written."
"So we're just... waiting? Again?" Tony sighs.
"Yep."
"Ugh. I hate this."
"Me too." Bruce mutters. "Wanna go punch something?"
Clint and Tony perk up. "Yeah."
They make their way down to the physical therapy section of the hospital.
Bruce greets the receptionist warmly. "Hi, Bethany. I need something to punch again. Except for three people?"
Bethany nods. "You know where to get them."
Bruce holds his hand out to tell Tony and Clint to stay where they are. He walks down the hallway and into a room. He comes out a moment later, carrying three, thick, blue mats. They look more like pillows than they do mats.
He walks back down the hall. "I'll return these in about an hour, Beth."
"I know. Bye, Bruce."
"Bye."
They walk out of the office. They take the elevators to the private room floor. They walk into the room they've been sharing. No one has wanted to leave, and the hospital staff wanted them to rest, so they loaned them a room for the time being. The only person they got to leave was Natasha, and that's only really because Fury wanted her to come update him on whatever's been going on.
Steve hasn't left Percy's room since Percy's woken up.
Bruce has been down in the lab, examining Percy's blood and anything else he could get his hands on to see if what's going on is anything related to his physical health.
Clint's been sticking to Tony's side like glue so that neither of them get too depressed. Both of them have trouble with things like this, so they tend to stick together when hard times come so that they can cheer each other up.
Bruce sets the blue mats against the wall. "Have at it."
Clint flexes his hands and curls them into fists. He stares intently at the mats and then quicker than Tony or Bruce can see, he punches them. All three at once, almost. Or at least that's what it looks like. He was so quick even the sounds of him hitting the mats sounded like one hit. The only reason Bruce and Tony know he hit all three is because of the indents in the mats.
Bruce groans and pats the mats down. He vainly tries to press out the fist indents. "Oh, this is going to take forever to smooth out. How am I gonna explain this to Beth?"
"Later." Tony gently prods him to the side. "You'll explain later. It's my turn."
The hospital staff makes sure to stay well away from that room for the next few hours. They aren't sure what exactly is going on inside, but by the angry yells and hitting sounds, they know it's not something they want to be involved in.
A/N
so. i did some math today (you should be proud, my brain is like seaweed and math is very hard) and. guess what.
this books has 60,000 words. sixty thousand! that's a ton!
60,000 words is about 120 pages!
that's like,, a novel! i feel very shocked. but also happy. like yooo look how much i did!!
ah, but i do apologize for any mistakes or repeated things, even in the already edited chapters. i have a very bad memory (in fact i took a neuropsychological test a few days ago to kind of examine or see what we can do about it) annnd it only seems to be getting worse. i am trying to fix things as they're pointed out to me, so please be patient as i work on editing and making this book more enjoyable for you!