Chapter 9: Percy Drops the Mic

Steve rounded on Fury, with barely masked anger showing on his face. "Why?" Before Fury was able to answer, the shaking in the ground finally stilled.

"Captain Rogers, I don't need to justify myself to you now, do I?" Fury asked in a condescending tone.

"Humor us." Tony replied. "As soon as I'm done checking to make sure the building doesn't fall down on us, you're going to explain why you just knocked the kid out and what the h*** just happened with that Thorn guy." Tony turned back to the control panel while Steve focused on Percy. He was completely still, but Steve could see his eyelids flickering rapidly. Steve didn't know how someone could enter a dream that fast, but he was also a super soldier that had dealt with Norse gods before, so it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever seen.

Looking closely, Percy looked no worse for wear after the shocking, and the boy seemed for the moment, so he turned back to Tony.

"Alright, I've got good news and bad news," Tony began. "The good news is, we're not about to be crushed under tons and tons of rock. Bad news is that the majority of power across the city is out. We're only good because we're powered by an arc reactor. That earthquake was one of the strongest we've seen in centuries. There's never been one recorded over 6.0. It came out of nowhere."

"I don't think it came out of nowhere, Mr. Stark." Fury said dryly, turning to stare at Percy. "I believe that Mr. Jackson here is a bit more powerful than we thought."

"Sir, you can't possibly believe..." Steve began but Fury cut him off.

"I saw that whole exchange Rogers. 'Thorn', as Mr. Jackson called him, did manage to give us some answers." Fury turned and walked to the glass so that he was only a few feet away from Percy and stared down at him. "You both heard him. He clearly implied that Percy here was the source of that earthquake. The more upset he got, the worse the earthquake got. When Thorn mentioned Annabeth, it slowed." Fury glanced up at Rogers. "I assume you agree he was referencing Annabeth Chase. This sword must belong to her, and those two boys must mean something to him as well. We'll run some facial recognition to see if we can find some names."

With that, Fury grabbed the sword off the ground and snatched the photos off the desk where Tony was still furiously typing. But before he walked out, he turned back. "Alert me when he wakes up. We're going to have some more questions for him."

The doors slid shut behind the director, and Steve sunk into his chair with a groan. Why did everything have to be so complicated? He wondered.

"Cap come look at this." Steve's head snapped up at the deadly serious tone of Tony's voice. Tony was never serious. This was bad. He quickly walked over to Tony and glanced at the screen he was showing him. At least a dozen different snatches of video feed were playing in front of him. "What's the problem?"

Tony sighed. "The problem is that I can't find that Thorn guy anywhere, either before or after he was here." He gestured back at the clips. "I've had Jarvis scan everything from the past twelve hours, but the only time he was on camera was when he was talking to us. After that he just went poof! and vanished.

Steve's eyes narrowed. "But that would have to mean...

Tony nodded. "Either he's still in here, which he isn't, or he somehow managed to teleport."

Steve groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Well after the Tesseract I'm really not that surprised."

Tony grinned slightly. "Touché, Capsicle." He turned and started heading for the door. "Come on, we'd better report to the team and show them the footage. They're all still upstairs, trying to keep Bruce calm."

Steve felt a spike of fear hit him. If the Hulk appeared right now, while the rest of the city was in shambles... well they'd probably have to restart building New York right after they had managed to fix most of it.

They both walked out of the room, while both shot one more concerned glance at Percy.

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Percy was once again surrounded by the fog. "Percy," his father's voice echoed, and this time, the fog was whisked away. He looked around, surprised to find himself in the throne room on Olympus. He looked up and saw his father, Zeus, and Athena sitting in their thrones, the rest were empty.

"Perseus Jackson." Zeus' voice boomed across the room, but Percy barely acknowledged him. He leveled his gaze on his father.

"Where is she?" His voice was surprisingly calm, but anyone that knew him could see the cold fury in his eyes.

Poseidon shifted uncomfortably under his son's stare. "Your suspicions are correct, my son. Annabeth was taken to Mt. Othrys."

"I heard the prophecy, so I know Tartarus is involved, but Thorn mentioned that one of my great uncles is involved. Which one?"

Athena cleared her throat. "Based on what my daughter told me of your escape from Tartarus, I would assume it is Koios. The rest are either gone or have remained neutral. You've encountered him before, correct Perseus?"

Percy nodded. Bob, Annabeth, and him had just exited the Palace of Night and were approaching the Doors of Death. While wading through the hordes of monsters, they had encountered Koios. Percy remembered the Titan's icy cold power. "The Titan of the North."

"Correct. And because he is also the Titan of Knowledge and Foresight, it is likely he is leading Tartarus' first strike."

Percy started to grow frustrated. "Fine. But what about Annabeth?"

Zeus cut in. "Her capture is... unfortunate, but we cannot interfere."

Percy's eyes narrowed into a hard glare. "So once again its up to the heroes to save the day."

The air grew charged with ozone as Zeus' temper grew. "Watch your tone boy."

"Percy," Percy turned to his father. "This will not be easy. The manticore's appearance has caused the mortals to get too close to the truth. It won't take much for them to figure it out. You must do your best to keep this quiet." The edges of the dream started to fade out at the edges.

"I'm sorry Father, but if it's the Olympians secret or Annabeth, you know what I'll choose." Percy's gaze hardened. "I won't lose her." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Athena shaking her head. To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world, he remembered.

The last thing Percy saw before his vision went black were his father's eyes, so similar to his own, filled with sadness and understanding.

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Bruce looked up as Tony and Steve walked into living room. He was sitting at the computer, trying to figure out Percy's strange DNA, while Clint and Natasha were walking around replacing objects that had fallen during the earthquake. They'd only just avoided an incident with the other guy, and he was still on edge.

"So, boys, how did your talk go?" Natasha asked, looking up from where she was picking up a broken cigarette tray.

"Good, until a random guy showed up and sent Percy into an earth-shaking fit." Tony replied.

Bruce's head shot up. "Wait, PERCY did that?!?!" He asked incredulously.

Steve shrugged. "That's what Fury thinks. And I have to agree with him that it's a bit too coincidental."

"Wait, I'm confused." Clint spoke up. "You're telling me that the Percy, the kid we've seen do a bunch of water stuff, just caused a 7.5 earthquake?" His eyebrows shot up. "How does that make sense."

Tony pulled up the footage on the screen. "See for yourself."

Bruce left his computer to go sit on the couch. The clip started with the Percy, Steve, and Tony laughing like crazy.

"What?" Bruce turned and saw Nat giving Tony the stink-eye. "He's a funny guy!"

"Doesn't change the fact that he's a SHIELD prisoner." Bruce grinned as Tony tried to defend his and Steve's actions, but his attention was drawn back to the screen when he heard a new voice.

"Ahhh, Mr. Jackson, someone finally put you where you belong." Bruce's eyes widened as the man exited the shadows.

"Jarvis couldn't find any record of him in SHIELD's records. He's definitely not military." Tony said. "He couldn't find anything on facial recognition either. If not for Percy, we wouldn't even have a name."

Bruce heard Percy hiss out "Thorn." Bruce could hear the hate dripping from the teen's voice. He didn't know the young man was capable of sounding so furious.

They watched in silence, totally enraptured by the events unfolding in front of them. Uncle Koios. The shape of the sword. Tartarus. All of these small details were little pieces of a puzzle, but Bruce wasn't sure if he'd like the complete picture. Perseus. The name of an ancient Greek hero. He spoke easily in Ancient Greek. Mysterious powers over water and earthquakes. Daughter of Athena. It... wasn't possible... was it?

"Tony..." Bruce said hesitantly, as the team watched the conversation with Fury end.

"Yeah Bruce?"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Bruce asked nervously.

"If you're referring to the multiple references to Ancient Greek culture... then yes."

"That's what I was afraid of." Bruce sighed.

"I mean, it's not too far-fetched, considering what we learned about Thor, Loki and Asgard." Tony pointed out.

Steve butted in. "Care to let the rest of us in on the secret, geniuses?"

Bruce turned to Steve, Clint and Natasha, seeing the expectant expressions on their faces. "Think about what we know of Percy. He's named after an Ancient Greek hero, Perseus. He's also fluent in Ancient Greek and he can control water and can apparently create earthquakes." Bruce glanced back at Tony. "I'm with you on that, by the way. It's too much of a coincidence that the earthquake started when Percy's emotions reached their peak."

Tony took over. "Also, what Thorn said. He was talking about an Uncle Koios, and Athena, both from Ancient Greek mythology, and Percy mentioned Tartarus, the Greek equivalent of hell."

Clint raised an eyebrow. "So, we're dealing with a terrorist organization that's uses Greek codenames?"

Bruce shrugged. "It's possible, but I think its something a bit worse."

"What's worse than terrorists?" Steve asked.

"Another New York." Tony replied solemnly. Everyone's eyes widened.

"Explain, now." Natasha snapped.

"Think about it, Nat," Bruce said. "A few years ago, you would have sworn that Thor and Loki were just myths. Now, we work with a god!"

"So you're saying that they might not be the only ones?" Steve asked.

Tony nodded. "It fits too perfectly. Thorn also called Annabeth Chase a daughter of Athena, the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom. The Norse gods exist, why not the Greeks?"

Steve rubbed his eyes in exhaustion and muttered, "I'd almost prefer the terrorists."

Before Bruce had a chance to respond, Jarvis spoke up. "Sir, Percy Jackson is waking up."

Immediately, there was a mad rush for the elevator, each of the Avengers eager to question Percy.

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Percy stirred and groaned. This was starting to become a bad habit. He was getting worse than Jason.

He sat up and saw the Avengers gathered outside his cell. He moved over to the side of the cell and leaned his head against the glass, positioning himself so that they could only see the side of his face. His face was like stone.

"Percy?" Steve asked quietly.

"More questions?" Percy asked, his voice totally flat and emotionless.

"More like confirming our guesses." Tony shrugged. "You have my word that this will never go farther than this room. I've disengaged all the cameras and mikes. Fury will never know what happened in here."

Percy sat there silently for another few seconds. So, they've figured at least something out. He sighed, then turned and met Tony's eyes. He had to be sure that he was telling the truth. They stared at each other for a minute until Percy was satisfied with what he found. He then locked eyes with all of the other Avengers. He wanted to trust them, he needed to trust them, or else... well Percy didn't what would happened. He nodded to himself and turned away from them. "Shoot."

He could feel the tension in the room ease as they all relaxed slightly. Bruce stepped forward. "We were listening to the exchange you had with Thorn. You were the source of that earthquake, weren't you?"

Percy winced. "Is everyone alright?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"No casualties have been reported, and first responders are working on restoring power." Steve answered.

Percy groaned and rubbed his hands over his eyes. I thought I had this under control! he berated himself. I haven't lost control like this since Mt. St. Helens.

"So, you can control water and cause earthquakes." Tony said. "Any other powers we should know about?"

Percy grinned humorlessly. "Nope that about sums it up." They don't need to know about the whole "control all liquids" thing I figured out in Tartarus... or the hurricanes...or talking to horses and fish...

Bruce interrupted his thoughts with another question. "Have you heard of Thor? Loki?"

Percy snorted. "Yeah. So?"

"We know they're real." Percy looked up at him. "Thor is one of our teammates, he helped us save the world last year."

Huh. Percy thought. Is that what Poseidon was talking about when he talked about the Norse gods opening the eyes of mortals?

Bruce continued. "So we're prepared to accept some things that others might think are impossible."

Percy snorted internally. That's what you think, he thought.

"We heard what Thorn was saying about your friend, Annabeth." Percy grimaced. "Percy... he called her a daughter of Athena."

Here it comes, Percy thought, and closed his eyes. There was a pause, and Percy heard the doors to his cell sliding open. When he opened his eyes, Steve, Bruce, and Tony were standing in front of him. Romanoff and Barton were still standing outside. I still need to learn their first names, he thought idly.

Steve squatted down so their eyes were at the same level. "Percy... you know who your father is don't you?"

Percy didn't confirm or deny it. They both knew the answer.

Steve swallowed. "Do you know... what he is?"

Again, no response necessary.

"Your father was a god, wasn't he? A Greek god."

Percy hesitated. This one needed an answer. He looked around, trying to find a way to stall. Then he closed his eyes and asked hesitantly. Dad?

A feeling of reluctant acceptance flooded through him, and a cool sea breeze floated past him. He grinned slightly and relaxed, before meeting Steve's eyes.

Something passed between them in that moment. Maybe it was just because they'd seen so many of the same things, shared so many experiences, but they were able to understand each other. In that moment, Percy knew that he could trust this man as much as he trusted Annabeth, Nico, Jason, or any other of his friends. And he knew that he had once again found a person that he would sacrifice himself for.

In that moment, when Percy slowly nodded, a small shockwave was emitted through the Mist. When they'd fought, the tremor had torn the Mist even more. However, this wave was gentler, and instead of tearing the Mist, it parted it. Percy knew that something big, something important, had changed, and maybe even for the better.

He stood, and Steve rose with him, eyes still locked. After a moment Percy took a deep breath and faced the rest of Earth's mightiest heroes. "I am Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, the god of the seas, the Earthshaker, and Lord of Horses. Slayer of Titans and Giants and survivor of Daedalus' Labyrinth and Tartarus. Former bearer of the Curse of Achilles and praetor of the Twelfth Legion of New Rome. Leader of Camp Half-Blood. Hero of Olympus." Outside, thunder shook the building.

A stunned silence followed. The Avengers just stared at Percy, none of them wanting to break the quiet, so for several seconds, no one said a word.

Then, Tony cleared this throat loudly, drawing everyone's attention. "Sooooooo... not a terrorist then?"