(This is not my chapter and the credit of the characters goes to their respective authors)
Tony was having a bad morning. First he had meeting that was so early that the coffee shops weren't even open, and Pepper was off somewhere in Sweden to visit her mom so she couldn't make one for him. Happy (his driver) was home sick with a fever so he had to drive himself to the building where he'd be having the stupid phone conference, half way across the city. And now, still at least twenty minutes away from the building, his car broke down. Fucking whipdee-do.
Swearing like a sailor, Tony stepped out of the silver Lamborghini and eyed the smoke curling from under the hood dubiously. While he might be famous for being an inventor, he didn't have any idea was wrong. Tony Stark dealt with nuclear warhead and plasma cannons, not cars.
But maybe he should, because if they kept on being an inconvenience like this he might as well look up vehicle engineering and save himself a dozen trips to a faraway car workshop. Or maybe he should just get rid of cars? Yeah, hover crafts that ran on arc reactors, that he could do. It wouldn't take much...
Shaking off his wandering thoughts, Tony turned back to the problem at hand and wondered if he should pry open the hood. From all the movies he'd seen and personal experience with smoking methods of transportation, smoke meant fire and/or heat, heat meant possible explosion, and possible explosion was a big no-no in Tony's book. So the final plan was really to just call a cab and meander up to the conference like that? Ha, no way. Tony Stark did not show up in cabs.
But it wasn't like he had any choice.
"Shit," he growled. He hated mornings, and they hated him back to. Pacing back and forth on the quiet street angrily, he scowled and switched his glare from the smoking car, to his watch, to the general direction of the conference and back to the car. The debate whether to show up to the meeting at all or be a good boy and call a cab was warring passionately in his head when a man's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Oh, you've got some bad luck, don't you?"
Tony felt his eyebrow twitch at the teasing tone of the stranger. Turning sharply, he glared at the black-haired man who was standing a few feet away, a bag slung over his shoulder and faint smirk on his face. "Well excuse me for my car exploding without explanation," he grumbled. Tony was not a people person before he got coffee in his system. "And it's just before a meeting too!" He threw his hands up in the air angrily, muttering to himself.
The man watched him for a moment, smirk turning into a bemused smile. He opened his mouth, paused with a contemplative look on his face, and then smirked back at the billionaire.
Tony felt his eyebrow tick again. Oh boy, that smirk was just infuriating. It had to be a gift, that smirk. If he had that smirk, oh the things he could do to piss off Fury without even saying anything...
"I can give you a ride." The man interrupted his thoughts for the second time that day.
Tony shot him an incredulous look. "And you really expect me to believe? While I like to believe in there being nice people who help others simply because they can, it's too damn early for anyone to be nice for no reason. And you could be a creeper, who just wants to kidnap me for my body and do terrible things to me in the basement of a non-descript cupcake shop!" He jabbed an accusing finger at him to reinforce his point.
The man just threw his head back and laughed, white teeth a stark contrast to his tanned skin. "Sure sure, it's all up to you. So where's your meeting?" He asked, continuing to walk along. Tony glanced back his smoking car, then to the casual man who just strolled past him without a worry in the world. Well, he didn't seem like a kidnapper or pervert. And Pepper would smash his balls in if he missed the meeting...
Following the man hesitantly, he said, "The Majing Corporation Building. You know where it is, right?"
The other man flashed him another smile. He seemed to be inclined to always have bright shining smiles that practically blinded you in their cheerfulness. Tony wasn't sure if he liked him for it or not. "Of course. Ah, here we are." Stopping in front of a brick building, he went to a small cargo unit that was pressed into the alley leading to the back lane. He unlocked it quickly – the padlock seemed to be made of some strange bronze metal that Tony had never seen before; that was interesting – and slid open the hatch to reveal a gleaming black and green motorcycle.
Tony couldn't help but let out a whistle. "Impressive," he admitted. It was a good motorcycle, close to a Megelli Sports model, and was obviously well loved, with no scratches and barely any dirt. He idly ran a hand down the seat while the man reached into the unit and grabbed two helmets, handing the second to him. As he wheeled the motorcycle out onto the curb, Tony glanced back at the building. It was (surprise!) a bar, the small sign by the door reading 'The Golden Fleece.' "This your bar?" He asked, strapping on the helmet.
The man laughed, another brilliant smile that Tony was coming to like crossing his face, and seated himself on the bike. "Yeah; I've had for it a couple years now. Wouldn't work anywhere else." He motioned to Tony. "Aren't you going to get on?"
Tony mumbled a few choice words under his breathe but threw his leg over the motorcycle, settling behind the other man. He only had a second to grab a hold of the other's sides before their rapid acceleration nearly tore him from the vehicle. They zoomed from the quaint street and into a more bustling part of town, despite the early time. They took the corners at barely legal speed, and Tony watched in morbid fascination as the needle on the speed gauge didn't once slip over or under the 45 m/h mark. Damn was this guy good; he didn't flinch at all, not even once! It did make him think if he'd ever gotten a speeding ticket before... And that reminded him, he didn't even know this guy's name.
"Hey!" He shouted over the wind, placing his mouth near the other's ear, "I didn't catch your name!"
"And you let me drive you here anyway?" There was a sarcastic snort but the man shrugged as they began to slow down. The Majing Corporation Building was ahead, and they wheeled to a gentle stop in front of the doors. "It's Percy," he told Tony.
"Percy," Tony rolled the name around on his tongue as he slid off the bike. Pulling the helmet from his head, he handed it back to his new friend (acquaintance?) and took a few steps back. "I'm Tony."
"Yeah, I already know who you are, Stark." Percy revved the engine a bit and prepared to take off. "Who knows, maybe we'll run into each other again. See ya!" And with that he was gone, shooting off around the corner with a frightening grace.
"Huh." Tony eyed the street. "Interesting. I know where he works, so maybe sometime I could drop by... Oh look! The coffee shop's open!" With that he rushed off to get his dearly needed life-giving drink, and the matter of the mysterious Percy was shuffled to the back of his mind, but it lingered, and he found himself wondering.
————
And it was three days later that Tony did drop by, though he was completely sleep-deprived and almost hallucinating when he did. After staying away for thirty-five hours and ingesting probably a dozen cups of caffeine, he had been in the process of trying to find a name for his newly finished robot when the title, 'Percy' popped up in his head. Immediately it made him think of the black-haired man, and being in the slightly delirious state he was, he decided it was an excellent idea to go and visit him. He climbed into his car, which was thankfully controlled by JARVIS because it wasn't possible for him to drive safely, and wheeled off to the small bar called 'The Golden Fleece' he'd found those days ago.
Lucky for him it was probably one in the morning, so a good deal of the bar's customers were either passed out on the floor or already gone. Percy was standing at the counter, cleaning cups and yawning idly. Any sense of lethargy he might have felt had disappeared completely when Tony staggered into the building, mumbling incoherently. "Jesus!" Percy said, hurrying over to him. Slinging an arm around him, he quickly hauled Tony to the back room before he could attract any more attention.
"What's wrong with you, Stark?" He asked, dumping him on the couch pushed against the wall. The inventor just blew a raspberry blearily and stared up at the wooden ceiling, idly admiring the nice contrast the wood made to the rustic walls. Percy pried open his mouth and sniffed his breathe, and after crinkling his nose a bit he murmured, "You're not drunk, though you could do with a mouthwash. No concussion or head trauma," he held Tony's eyes wide open to the light to confirm his last statement, then grunted when he saw the normal pupil dilation. He checked his pulse for a moment, and then eyed his face. "You just seem to be extremely tired. How long have you stayed up?"
Tony waved a hand airily. "Mmm, a day or more? Hey, you're a lot like a field doc, checking me up like that. Do you know a field doc? I do; I met tons. They're real pricks, some of 'em..."
"Great, glad to know that." Percy got up and grabbed a glass of water, dropping a few pills into them. He swirled it for a moment then handed it back, the liquid slightly cloudy. "Here, drink this, you fool. It'll help you sleep. Going this long without rest is gonna destroy your mind."
With wavering hands the billionaire grabbed it and looked at it dubiously. "Will not. I've done it plenty of times and I'm still a genius." He squinted some. "Where'd the pills go?"
"They dissolved, numbskull. Now bottoms up."
Reluctantly doing as he was told, he coughed as the liquid trickled down his throat. In a mere couple of minutes he could feel the medicine kicking in, sending his mind off into the hazy world of sleep.
————
Tony woke with a groan. His body ached and his mouth felt like something had gone and died in it, but the couch beneath his back was comfy enough to make up for that. Mm, it even smelt like fresh ocean air and mint.
Wait, he thought, my couches don't smell like mint or ocean air.
He sat up and gazed around the nicely furnished room that was most definitely not one of his. It had two couches, one of which he was sprawled upon, and a tall backed armchair, arranged neatly around a coffee table. Pushed up against one wall were a stove and fridge and a huge rack of wines and whiskies. Through an open door off to the side he spotted what seemed to be an even more varied collection of alcohols, and stairs to what he guessed was a cellar.
Swinging his legs off the couch, he closed his eyes and tried to think back to whatever he might have done to end up in this place. Well, I definitely hadn't slept in a while, and I was done up on caffeine so I was probably messing around in the workshop. I made a new robot, and his name was gonna be Percy... Percy!
He jerked abruptly to his feet then staggered as all the blood rushed out of his head. Grimacing he eyed the room once more, vaguely remembering it from last night. So he had wandered in to Percy's bar, and somehow hadn't gotten kicked out. Great.
"Oh, you're awake." Percy's somewhat familiar voice tugged his from his thoughts, and the inventor turned to look towards the main entrance. Percy stood there, dressed in casual clothes and his hair in the same state of black disarray as the last time he'd seen him. Behind him was the bar, empty of patrons and morning light streaming in through the low-slung windows.
He walked further into the room and dumped the bag he held on the armchair. "I didn't think you'd be up so soon; you were completely out of it yesterday evening. Well, technically this morning. It was around one am when you stumbled in."
And no that did not make feel Tony the tiniest bit guilty. Nonetheless he shoved away the emotion and wandered over to riffle through the bag, finding only some food items. Leaving them he went to inspect the cupboard and fridge, ignoring any thought of privacy as he did so. He had the reputation of an asshole-billionaire philanthropist to keep up.
Within the cupboard he found several books, most of which were written in a language he vaguely recognized as Greek, and wasn't that odd? He hadn't thought Percy to be the bilingual or studious type, but then again he'd only known him for an hour or so in total. There were also indexes on alcohols and a notebook in the very back, which he assumed to be the bar's log. Inside it there were probably several different brews that regular customers favored or recipes for snacks that were popular. He was opening the one next to it, and could have sworn he saw the twinkle of something metal and sharp when a tanned hand landed on the door of the cupboard and slammed it closed.
"I think," Percy said dryly, "that you should wait until you know me a little better before you start snooping, Stark."
Tony swallowed at the unfathomable look in the other man's green eyes but covered up the movement with a carefree shrug and a dashing grin. "What can I say? It's just who I am."
"I'm sure that's true. Now, why exactly did you stagger into my bar last night?"
"Er, I might have been slightly deprived and had the equivalent of an IV drip of coffee running through my veins, and when your name popped up in my head I figured it was a brilliant idea to drive over here and see if you were in. I remembered your address from when you picked up your bike." He grinned shamelessly as he spoke, watching Percy momentarily pause in his shuffling around the small kitchenette.
The other man hummed thoughtfully and returned with a glass of water for Tony to drink, along with a bottle of headache pills. He handed them to the inventor, who took them gratefully and popped two into his mouth.
"So," Percy began as Tony took a sip of water, "how exactly did you get here without crashing your car?"
Tony choked on his water at the question. That was not the reaction he'd been expecting. Where was the anger, for dropping by on a whim at two in the morning? Where was the disappointment, at having him passed out on the couch for the night? Where was the greed and the gaze that would demand repayment for inconvenience he'd caused this (almost) total stranger?
But those weren't anywhere, and the only thing in Percy's eyes was curiosity, and maybe a bit of humor.
"Uh," Tony wiped a small trickle of water that had escaped lips, "my AI – artificial intelligence -" he explained at Percy's confused look, "JARVIS is installed in most pieces of Stark technology I personally own, and he took over the controls so I didn't run into some townhouse and decimate a third of this neighborhood's population."
Percy's eyes gleamed slightly. "Does that mean you could be absolutely smashed and still not be pulled over for drinking and driving? Because technically, you're not really driving, are you? Or could you take people on tours of New York, and scare the shit out of them by just turning away from the wheel and start talking to them?" His smile was slightly frightening.
Tony revelled in the newfound mischievous side of this strange bartender, and smirked. "I haven't thought of that, but yeah, I could." He stroked his small beard thoughtfully. "Actually, there is some crazy stuff I've done, with JARVIS's help of course."
"Really?" Percy plopped down on the empty chair and Tony sat down opposite of him, on the couch. The bartender placed two glasses of an interesting brand of rum and the bottle on the table and leaned forward curiously, chin propped on his fist. "Do tell."
Tony grinned and began spinning his tales. When he left five hours later, he had JARVIS drive him home to the tower so that he could a) not be arrested for driving slightly drunk and, more importantly, b) enter Percy's phone number into his phone and tuck away the note for a night of free drinks at his bar anytime.
He hadn't been so glad for sleep-deprivation and the stupid decisions it brought in years.
————
The next time Tony ran into Percy was after he had returned from Afghanistan. It was a dark night, and after lying awake for hours in bed, afraid to sleep because of the nightmares that would come, he had given up on rest and gone out for a drive. He had stopped in a quiet and slightly shady alley to lean against his car and stare up at the cloudy sky above. Idly he took out his phone and scrolled through it, not really knowing what he was looking for but feeling that there was something urging him to just open up his contacts and eye them thoughtfully. There, halfway down his rather long list of people he'd mostly given his number to half-heartedly, a single name leapt out at him.
Percy Jackson.
He stared for a while. He had nearly forgotten about the bartender, all thoughts of the green-eyed man shoved the back of his mind in the recent turmoil of Afghanistan and everything after. His release from imprisonment had only been months ago, and despite the good face he offered the media, he was still fragile. Still broken.
But the idea of meeting Percy again was... nice. The man, even though he'd only known him for a short amount of time, had seemed friendly. He had been pleasantly sarcastic, enough to counter Tony's own sense of humour at times, and intelligent. But that wasn't all. Now that he had experienced the cruelty of the Ten Ring's for himself, and faced the harsh reality of battle, he could see the same familiarity in Percy's eyes. When he looked back on his memories, he could see the touches of fighting for survival in Percy's demeanour - the way he took in all his exits and entrances of a room, his constant awareness, his easy body positioning that always let him spring into a defensive or attacking posture no matter what he was doing and the calluses and scars on his hands.
Percy was a man experienced on the battlefield, however unlikely that may seem, and right not Tony needed that. Someone who could understand, someone who really the cold truth of the world and the fighting that came with it. Not an expensive psychiatrist and a plump purple love seat to lie on and spill all his troubles, because that psychiatrist would just nod and hum then write up a prescription for drugs that wouldn't do a damn and hand over the bill. He didn't want a horde of reporters either because for all their sympathetic cooing and worrying over him and offering to splash his sob-wrenching story all over the nation he could only see them as shallow and annoying gnats, flying about his head. Even Pepper, for all he loved and cherished her and held her dearly, didn't understand what was locked away inside of him, despite all her trying.
But Percy would, because he had probably been through something close to it. Maybe he was wrong, and maybe he was insane, but he just felt that his situation was probably familiar to Percy. Call it instinct or the voices in his head, but something urged him to drive to The Golden Fleece and he didn't think twice about listening to it.
The bar was surprisingly quiet when he pulled up in front, but it was a Monday, so it might have explained why there were less people there when he pushed open the door. He glanced around, a small smile quirking his lips. The place hadn't really changed in the eight months or so since he'd last been there. Sure, there were a couple of new tables, a new rack behind the bar and the counter had been redone but everything else was the same. And there was Percy, standing in his usual place behind bar cleaning glasses, smiling softly as he gazed down at his hands. He glanced up when the door creaked open, and a look of surprise crossed his face when he saw him standing there.
He stared for a moment, then put down the now-clean glass with a strong clank. Somehow the sound echoed throughout the entire bar and the dozen or so men talking softly glanced to him. Percy met their eyes and said softly, "We'll be closing early, gentlemen. Please close the door on your way out."
Tony never would have the men, who were tough and burly and many sported tattoos and grim faces, would have actually obeyed, but to his surprise they stood and filed out with no objections. It must have been something in Percy's eyes, because when the bartender looked at Tony, the genius found himself drowning in the sea of green.
"Hey," Percy said quietly.
"Uh, hey." Tony felt the beginnings to awkwardness creeping up his spine and rubbed his neck nervously. He had just barged into this man's bar to ask for help when he'd only known him for a few hours, and it had been months since they'd talked. What was he thinking, that this might have ever worked out? He should just turn around and walk out; he had no right to bother Percy like this. It would be better for both of them if he just -
"Do you want to come to the back?"
Percy's gentle question made his gaze jerk up sharply from his boots to the other man's face. The bartender was currently holding open the door to the back room, gesturing vaguely to the couches that he could just see beyond him. Deciding to grant his selfish wishes, Tony took a step forward, then another. He slowly made his way past his sort-of-friend, who made no move to rush him, and gingerly settled himself on the same couch he'd woken up on last time he'd been there. Percy sat down in his armchair too, and they stared at the coffee table between them for a moment. Then the green-eyed man said, "Are you here to get drunk, or to talk?"
Tony hesitated, before falling back on his usual life motto of 'Oh fuck it all,' and answered, "A little bit of both, I think. You know, A will help B, and B will cause A, and the circle of life continues."
Percy snorted in agreement and got up to grab two bottles of the same rum he'd had last time. (How did the man even remember that he'd liked it? That had been months ago.) They both clinked their bottles together and cracked them open, taking a deep gulp. Then Tony wiped his lips, placed his elbows on his knees to stare at the floor, and began to speak:
"You probably know some of this. I mean, it's been splashed all over the news in just about every country on the globe, as far as I know. The Ten Rings, my imprisonment, the escape, this damned -" he tapped the glowing circle underneath his thin grey T-shirt, "- thing stuck in my chest. I know it's been a little while since I've gotten back, and all the doctors in New York reassure me that my wound are healed, but they're not. Sure, the gashes are gone, the bruises faded, bones healed, but those didn't hurt the most. It hurt," he took a staggered breathe and clutched at his head, "it hurt in here the most."
Percy didn't say anything, just took another sip of alcohol and gestured for Tony to do the same. The billionaire did so eagerly, and after a moment continued.
"I can see it in their eyes; they don't really get it. What it's like to be trapped in a cave, to think that that place was going to be your coffin six feet under. Then to have Y-Yinsen," his voice broke, "have to cut you open to put a fucking car magnet-thing in your chest to keep frag from stabbing your heart. We didn't have anything - no sterilisation equipment, no meds, no sedation or all that stuff. All then he goes and dies, and leaves me alone and I blunder out of that hell in that metal coffin made of spare parts I'd assembled while delusion and delirious. My head, it was such a dark place, after. It didn't feel like my mind I was thinking through; everything felt frozen and cold and sharp. I hated it, and I still do."
Tony didn't look up from the floor when he heard the clink of glass, but was vaguely aware of Percy getting up to grab something from on top of one of the shelves. A blue glass orb, the size of his palm, was set down on the table in front of him. He glanced at Percy questioningly as the other sat back down.
"Look into it as you talk," Percy instructed, talking a sip of rum. "I've used it before. It'll make it easier to just let it out. I'm not gonna try and force you to think that everything is fine now, because it's obviously not, but you can make it so. First you have to work yourself out, find what's lurking and chase it out, let it lie there in front of you. What you're hiding and denying can't hurt you anymore if you stop those things. Pull it into plain view. Admit to it, know it happened and shove it aside. Rip it to bits if you have to. All those dark things swirling inside you just," he waved a hand at the orb, Tony and the table, "spill them all out."
And spill Tony did. Now he spoke, sometimes for a minute, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes he'd go ten minutes without saying anything only to just burst into rants all of a sudden. To a normal psychiatrist Tony would expect them to think him crazy, but Percy didn't say another word after his little speech. He just listened, absorbing everything Tony was expelling and after hours and another bottle the billionaire realized that whatever Percy was getting his to do was working. He felt a bit lighter, and a lot drunk, but better. Better since he'd left those terrible caves and dry dunes riddled with memories he didn't ever want to look back on.
When he woke up he found himself with a terrible hangover and Percy asleep in the armchair alongside him. He had warily shaken the other man awake, nearly received a punch for it, accepted Percy's half-hearted apology for it, and proceeded to try and clean up his mess. He went to pick up the strange orb still on the table, and nearly panicked when it suddenly split down the middle and the blue swirls disappeared.
Percy just waved it off with a mysterious smile and a vague, "It's done its job." and taken off with the glass shards. They spent the next hours talking about lighter, more mundane things, and when Tony left he greeted his hysterical Pepper with an easy smile that was more real than any of the others he had given her those past months. It would take around another year of more late night meetings with Percy then moving onto day time excursion that he would never call 'hanging out with friends' because Tony Stark did not "hang out" with friends, and finally introducing Percy to Pepper that made him admit it:
Percy was a friend, a damn good one at that, and at times, his own personal therapist. A damn good one at that, too