It's okay to be saved once in a while too.

First it was his time with Lupa, then it was the Second Giant War. Percy couldn't turn off the scary anymore. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of himself in a window reflection, or when he saw himself in the bathroom mirror; every time he was thrown off by how angry he looked, by how intimidating his own face had become. It was as if all the edges had sharpened, any hint of baby fat long gone. He wasn't the same as he once had been. He was still tan of course, but you could tell he'd been undernourished for some time. He felt like he looked grey, like his skin color had faded from his time in Tartarus, he couldn't find it in himself to voice that though, and no one else seemed to have noticed anything, so Percy supposed he just looked the same as he always had.

Some things were noticeable to others though, the weight loss was the biggest thing. Tartarus and surviving off of drinking from the River Phlegethon had left Percy more gaunt then he'd ever been in his life. His clothes fit looser and he found himself cold more often, his ability to regulate his body temperature was gone. Despite the physical trauma his body had gone through, he was still alarming. He wanted to say he didn't know when or how that had happened, but he knew. It all happened after he'd turned 16 and Kronos had been defeated. He was supposed to have gotten a break, instead he was asleep for 8 months, then cast into a second war that nearly cost the world and the lives of everyone he cared about.

They'd won, the giants had been defeated and Gaea was asleep for a long long time, but that second war hadn't been without its consequences. Now Percy was just scary. He wasn't dumb or oblivious, he was aware that his fellow New Yorkers veered out of his was on the street if they caught sight of his expression. Percy couldn't fix that though. The damage had been done.

Perce was currently on his way to the Sweet on America, the candy shoppe his mom had used to work at years ago. She'd asked him to pick up an order for her from there and Percy had nothing better going on, so he'd said why not. At least he knew there was nearly a hundred percent likelihood that whatever he'd be picking up would be blue.

He wasn't unused to being watched or the feeling of being watched, it kind of came with the lifestyle he lived. This was different though. He'd picked up on it after crossing the last intersection. His jaw was clenched, he didn't want trouble today. He didn't really want trouble any day, but the world never seemed to listen. Percy kept walking though, hopefully trouble wouldn't bother him when there were so many civilians around, not that that had stopped trouble before.

It was when he was almost to the next intersection that he felt it. He looked up and to the right on a whim, Riptide tight in his fist in his pocket and-

-and it was Spider-man. The hand gripping Riptide went slack. They both froze. The elusive wallcrawler was perched on the fifth or so story of the building right next to where Percy was. In fact, Percy must've caught him right as he had moved from one building to the next. The eyes on Spidey's mask were blown wide, probably from the surprise of being seen. Percy was nearly jostled by a few New Yorkers who said some passive aggressive things under their breath but it did not matter. He watched the masked hero blink, still locked in this weird staring contest analysis they were locked in. It was too far away to tell if he was even breathing.

Percy took a breath and let his hand slip out of his pocket without Riptide. It could barely even be called a wave but-

-but Spider-man raised his own hand in return, Spidey waved back.

He let out a little huff of a laugh that turned into a full blown smile. Spider-man had taken one of his hands off of the wall he was hanging off of just to wave at Percy-

BOOM!

The street shook with such intensity that Percy was forced to duck down, the hand that wasn't in his pocket touching against the sidewalk to keep him from fully falling. Spidey was gone in a red and blue blur, headed towards the commotion. Percy stood and helped the woman closest to him to her feet. Everyone around them was starting to get themselves up and run away from the potential explosion. Perce didn't though, he started the way he'd already been going, the way that now had a lot more frantic people than before.

He caught a glimpse of Spider-man helping a mother and her kids as he himself helped a man in a grey suit with a blue, striped tie up and to his briefcase. They weren't far from the explosion now, which had to have been what it was, because there was a gaping hole in the side of a three story building. Percy continued to try and make Spidey's job easier by helping get all of the innocent civvies away from the damage.

The webslinger stopped in front of the hole and then glanced over at Percy, as if surprised that he was still here. He didn't even have time to shout, Percy's body was stuck, unable to move fast enough as Spider-man was thrown into the air by what could've only been a Laistrygonian giant or a large Cyclops. He felt icy, cold anxiety tensing up the back of his neck, it felt like the first time Smelly Gabe had threatened him with the cops, like he couldn't fucking move and it was so cold-

As it fully stepped from the wreckage of the building, Percy could see that it was a Cyclops. A big Cyclops. A big, not friendly Cyclops. A big, not friendly Cyclops with a big, steel girder as a weapon. He reached into his pocket for Riptide as he backed up to give himself some more space, some more time. His thumb muscle memory flipped the cap off so he was holding Anaklusmos in all its glory. The anxiety was on his neck, his shoulders, right below his ears. Cold, cold, cold, it was so- his breaths came in too quick, why was he freaking out so bad?! It was a single Cyclops-

He wasn't even aware of the familiar tug in his gut until the fire hydrant exploded and water mixed with concrete dust. The Cyclops paused in his approach, maybe he was realizing just who Percy was and that this would end with him gone for a while.

Percy glanced for the airborne hydrant while he had a moment; he didn't want to be anywhere near it when it came down. Except it wasn't free-flying anymore. Spider-man was back and using it as a projectile with his webs aimed right at the Cyclops just as the Cyclops was starting to swing.

"LOOK OUT!" Percy's voice was as long as the ice on his neck was cold. The hydrant and the beam made contact at the same time. Spider-man's body cracked so loudly Percy could hear it from where he was. The wallcrawler hit the three story and slumped at the same moment as the Cyclops became nothing more than gold smoke.

Percy couldn't breathe. Spider-man was dead and it was his fault. No one could've survived that, Percy heard the bones breaking through the New York midday racket mixed with terror. He was vaguely aware of sirens of emergency response vehicles approaching as he stumbled backwards. He bumped into someone and went down, Riptide dropped from his hand. The streets filled with police and firefighters and paramedics and someone gave Percy a shock blanket as he stared at Spider-man's limp corpse, refusing to move. The officers were roping off the area with "do not cross" tape. No one had even seemed to notice the webslinger except for Percy, maybe it was the debris in the air he told himself.

Then Spider-man moved and Percy let out a sob of relief. He was clearly injured, but he wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. The lenses of the mask opened up, one of them was cracked pretty badly. Percy couldn't tear his eyes away, he wanted to help, he wanted to move, but he was still on the dirty New York sidewalk not far from a newly formed pothole underneath a shock blanket.

Percy watched, transfixed as Spider-man looked around. It was slow and looked difficult from Percy's perspective. Then the masked gaze slipped right past Percy and rested on the fire hydrant, he must've been too disoriented to have registered Percy but it didn't stop a weird twinge from developing in Percy's chest for a couple of seconds before he pushed it away.

They saw it at the same time. A reporter had spotted Spidey and slipped past the emergency response personnel. That was the switch that flicked, Percy's body moved on autopilot going to intercept the reporter from bothering the clearly injured hero. He apparently didn't need to though, Spider-man slung a web with zero hesitation and pulled himself into the air with a concerning amount of force.

Percy found himself cemented again for the nth time that day. He was numb, the frost fading from his body and leaving him weary. Burny eyes from the debris, tense shoulders, trembling fingers. He stayed like that for too long. He was aware of everything happening around him, but it was like it was miles away. The paramedics bustling around, the firefighters and police officers shouting back and forth to each other. It was all too much despite being oh so far. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths, then he turned around and went to pick up Riptide. Then he ducked underneath the police tape and walked away.

Forty minutes later he was on his mom's doorstep with an unsheathed sword, covered in rubble. He didn't even remember which path he'd taken home. Thank the gods for Sally Jackson though. His mom had taken one look at him, took Riptide from him and made him shower off. When he got out of the shower and changed into some fuzzy pajama bottoms and clean hoodie he was surprised with blue nacho cheese.

The floodgates opened and Percy cried in his mom's arms for ten minutes as he told her and Paul what happened. He described his anxiety, he described the weird way it froze his neck. He told them about Spider-man and the Cyclops, the explosion, the tie with blue stripes. The fear, the fire hydrant, the shock blanket. And once he had told them everything there was to tell them, they enjoyed some nachos. Percy wasn't oblivious enough to notice that both his mom and Paul were concerned about him, their body language said everything that needed to be said. Thankfully though, they didn't push anything and they dropped the conversation entirely when they moved on from crying and storytelling to nachos.

He wasn't okay. He hadn't been in a while, but he had a support system. He would persevere. He was allowed moments of vulnerability though. At the end of the day, he had made it out okay and Spider-man was at least alive, not that Perce wasn't extremely worried about how badly injured the arachnid was. Everything would be okay though, it had to be. Percy vowed nonetheless, what happened today would never happen again. He couldn't afford to be petrified for that long again, a hero was hurt because of it. He also couldn't let Spider-man get hurt like that ever again, he owed him that much, especially since it was a monster, not a supervillain. Monsters were Percy's responsibility. He- Spider-man was hurt because-

Sally flicked Percy on the head, "Stop thinking about whatever it is you're thinking," she chastised.

"Oww!" Percy complained, but he wasn't actually upset. He still rubbed at his forehead as if the flick had hurt. His mom just rolled her eyes and gave him a fond look. He grinned and tried to not let his smile waver. He couldn't help but feel fragile. Sally saw right through it though. She hugged her son and brushed a hand through his shower-damp hair. Percy closed his eyes and let his mom just hold him, all the bad thoughts couldn't touch him in the safety of his mother's arms. There he stayed for he didn't even know how long. There he stayed until he felt stable and okay once more. There he stayed.