"Why didn't you call home?" Mrs. James demanded.

"I walked home. . ."

"Well, I know that! But if you had called me, we would've been there to pick you up! You could've gotten hurt! You could've gotten killed!"

I was silent for a moment. She actually cared for me? No one actually cared for me since. . . since mom died.

Mrs. James reminded me of mom. She would never replace mom's spot as my mom, but I started to regret making her worry. I looked down at the floor.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

Mrs. James was quiet for a moment. Then, I heard her sigh. "Percy, look at me."

I hesitated. The floor seemed very interesting. I reluctantly looked up.

"Just promise you'll call next time," she said softly. "You're like my son, even if you haven't been here that long. You going to these self defense classes are supposed to help you, not put you in more danger."

"Wait, why did you let me walk there alone?"

"I- You what? I thought Natasha was picking you up."

I sighed. "Next time we'll do a better job of communicating."

~°~

The next time I went to train with the Avengers, Natasha picked me up.

"Hi, Percy," she said as Percy climbed into the car.

"Hey."

"Tony's excited to see you again. Happy there's another genius around here he can talk to. Just promise me you won't end out as big headed as him."

I laughed. "I'll try not to."

We arrived a couple minutes later. We went up to the training room. Natasha taught me some more about self defense.

After that, I stayed to eat lunch again, but Tony grabbed me and dragged me to the garage to work on building that car I had designed. The others just ate their lunch while watching TV.

About an hour later, it still didn't really resemble a car. It barely looked like anything since really we had just gotten a bunch of car parts that most people would never think could make a car.

(A/N In the future, I'll try to be more specific on how the car is actually being built. I'll probably still fail, but I'll try.)

After that, the door to the garage opened and Wanda poked her head in.

"Natasha wants to know if Percy's going to eat before he leaves."

"Yeah, I'll go get some food," I said. We all walked to the elevator. Wanda pressed the up button, and we got in as it opened.

"So what's for lunch, anyway?" I asked.

"We got Chinese food," Wanda replied.

"Unless you want pizza or something, then I could buy some of that," Tony said.

"Chinese is fine."

We walked out of the elevator once the doors opened again. I sat down and Tony and I ate some food. Wanda sat with us, but didn't eat.

"You ate with the others?" I questioned with my mouth full.

"Yeah," she said. "But I'm going to sit with you guys anyway, because I'm bored."

"Oh, okay."

"I haven't had Chinese food in a long time," I realized out loud.

"Why not?" Wanda questioned.

I poked at my food with my fork, suddenly not feeling as hungry as before. "I don't want to talk about it," I muttered.

"You don't have to say anything," said Tony between bites of food, surprising me. "Just know that you can trust us if you ever need to talk about things." Wanda nodded to show me that she could be trusted as well.

I smiled faintly at them. "Thanks."

He grinned back at me in response and continued eating.

I lightly stabbed the food repeatedly, stating at my plate, but not seeing it. "I guess I could tell you some stuff...."

They remain silent so I could talk.

"Yeah so I haven't had Chinese food since my mom died a while back, since my stepfather didn't ever care enough to buy us anything really besides basic foods and beer."

"What happened to your mother and stepfather?" Tony asked.

"Gabe, my stepfather, is now in jail. He was caught drunk driving and hitting two people and another car while doing so, killing four people. Also, he's in jail for child abuse and neglect and attempted murder."

"Attempted murder of who?" Tony asked.

"Whom," I corrected by habit, not even noticing that I did it. "He tried to kill me, and it would have worked. He murdered my mom, but there was never enough proof, because he managed to cover it up as a suicide."

"How do you know about the murder?" Wanda asked.

"I was there," I said. "My mom and I were playing hide and seek, and I was hiding in a cupboard in the kitchen. I peaked out just as my mom walked in, and Gabe came in, and..." I trailed off.

"Why didn't you tell the police?" Tony questioned.

"I did," I replied, glaring at the table. "The police thought I had seen my mom commit suicide and had imagined up a story to convince myself that that's not what happened, or some $h!t like that."

"If you want, I can try to tell the police about all this," Tony offered.

I shook my head. "No, he's already in jail for life. Doesn't matter."

I stood up. "I'm done eating," I muttered.

Tony nodded, even though my food wasn't even half eaten. I had a feeling he could understand not having an appetite. I headed towards the door.

"Percy." I turned, seeing Tony looking at me. He continued, clearly making this up on the spot. "Everywhere is this building besides the kitchen is a depression free zone. That means if you're feeling depressed, you come in here. There's usually someone in here if you need to talk."

I looked at him for a couple of moments, not saying anything. "I've never heard of a depression free zone," I commented. "It's not a bad idea. Thank you for letting me know about this, Tony."

I left the room, and as the door was closing behind me, I heard Wanda say, "I didn't know there was a depression free zone..."

I said bye to the others, who were still watching a movie or something. I walked outside, and texted Mrs. James for a ride home.

I'll try to update this every Wednesday! I hope you at least somewhat liked this chapter.

(Migraine by Twenty One Pilots just came on. Woohoo!)

-2p England.