Tread Lightly (PJO + Avangers) *FEM Percy*

The Party Has Started, Percy Style

The elevator has always been noisy. Old. Clanging metal wires and shaking floors. The top half of the walls are coated in mirrors, reflecting the somewhat timid appearance Persephone presented outwardly by accident, her brave front failing.

Persephone thought that Peter didn't look too much better off than her. He attempts to straighten himself up and stand tall. Eventually, he gives up trying to be brave and shrinks into himself after a few glances towards Persephone.

"Hey, before we walked in did you feel like something was off? Like you just felt extremely uneasy about what you're about to walk into?" Percy asks into the stale air, both of them too tense to have said anything sooner during the short elevator ride.

The door dings and she flinches. Peter never responds, his face pale, but serious.

"Hey, Spider-man, are you hearing me?" Percy was getting impatient with the young man.

His head snaps towards me, brown eyes wide. His face flits into one of confusion, then turns back to the slowly opening doors. "Why would you think I'm Spider-Man? I mean we just met and there hasn't been any way for you to even believe for a second that I could be. What if I--"

"Oh please. A magician never reveals their tricks. Why would I share how I could have possibly pieced together this intricate mystery when you've hardly admitted to it yet?" Percy cuts him off and throws a half-hearted wink his way. She tries to relieve the tense atmosphere that has fallen upon the both of them, but falls short when the hall spreads out in front of them, the shadows seeming darker than ever before.

The two of them slowly venture out into the hall, Peter listening behind them and Percy feeling with the water molecules in the air to make sure their backs are covered.

Peter crouches low to the ground, peering at something. Percy joins him, trying to spot what could have stopped him in his tracks.

There on the floor, muddy footprints. Someone was here, and it was very recently. They were faint, but both of them could see them clearly. The path the cracked dirt created were leading straight to Percy's door.

"Get behind me Persephone," Peter says, quickly, shuffling so that he was blocking Percy.

"What is this, some 'male effort to protect the damsel?' Or are you actually going to admit that you're Spider-Man? I've faced plenty of dangerous situations, why can't you let me go in first? Also, just call me Percy, Persephone makes me seems so... high and mighty. Let me tell you, I am the trying to be the exact opposite," she starts lightly laughing to herself, thinking this was so ironic. Peter doesn't seem to find it funny. 

He shushes her. "Okay, I understand. I'm sorry Percy. Please, can you just, I don't know, not take this so lighthearted?"

"So will you admit it?" She questions him, not willing to give up just yet. Peter stops before his apartment, 303, the one just before the Blofis resident. Percy doesn't want Peter to know it, but she's still fighting the panic creeping from the sidelines because of the elevator. The Doors of Death in her mind are threatening to open the paining memories, just like when Annabeth and her were stuck, trying to keep them closed for so long before they could finally make it to another side where they could rest after running from terrible things for so long. She wants to also protect this mortal from knowing the truth of the situations she faces on a daily basis, from fighting in her second war, to taking down monsters of all types.

"Admit what?" He's starting to sound slightly exasperated with Percy's constant stream of words despite the dire situation at hand. He brings them fully to a halt so that he can understand her before they enter a potentially life-threatening situation. 

"You know what, never mind, Spider-Boy. This calls for the expert!" She was fully ready to go and bust down the door to her apartment to make sure that her family was doing alright when Peter stopped her, reaching out but never touching.

"Wait! We don't know what is behind that door! Shouldn't we, you know, watch and listen for a minute?"

Naturally, she doesn't follow his lead. 

This calls for the Seaweed Brain Extraordinaire! Persephone is great at this. 

She stalks towards her apartment and gives a second's thought to what Peter just said. She listens for all of three milliseconds, not hearing or sensing movement, before she calls out to him.  

"All clear, Peter. You can get your arachnid-ass over here." He goes to protest, but thinks better of it. Percy is feeling through the apartment more thoroughly with her powers, looking more and more concerned by the moment. She can't take what she's sensing any longer and kicks the door in, the thin wood breaking with ease. 

"Doorknobs do exist."

Percy disregards Peter, not caring he's there, in her rush to see if she was wrong. She can barely hear anything over her own heartbeat.

In the kitchen, where blood is splattered over the once pristine cabinets, her mother lies. Throat slit open and her eyes wide with shock. Her mouth open like she was about to yell, but now the only thing leaving it was a trickle of blood. 

You drool when you sleep. 

Except this is entirely different. What was a temporary exhausted sleep from Percy is an eternal slumber for her mother. Percy's breath catches in her throat, not willing to cry just yet. She has to check the rest of the apartment. 

Peter slowly approaches Sally Jackson's body, wishing, needing, to feel a heartbeat, even knowing with his enhanced hearing that he wouldn't find one. 

Percy leaves as he does this, walking at a fast pace down the hall, steps getting quicker, almost jogging. The photo frames that once lined the wall are now scattered along the floor, the same muddy footprints from the empty halls stamped along the gloss of printed standstills, and the rug, once treated well and cared for throughout Percy's childhood, torn and ripped from the shattered glass and neglect of heavy boots worn indoors. 

Within the first bedroom resides Paul. His flushed skin and pink nose from this morning long gone, replaced with the chalky, paper white of the dead. She runs over to him, trying to see if there was something, anything she could do to save this person, this man, that has taken her in like she was one of his own. Someone who didn't treat her any differently because of her dyslexia or her ADHD, because she was kicked out of so many school. 

She pulls back the blankets gently, cautiously. And found there was nothing she could do. Not even if she was a god of healing. A stab wound, directly through his heart. Sheets soaked with blood.

Percy still forced herself not to cry. She couldn't. Not yet. Not now, not anytime soon. 

There was still someone she was missing. 

She walked towards the doorway, back to the destroyed hall to get to the furthest bedroom. To her sister. 

Peter met her by the door to the forest decorated nursery. 

"Stella! STELLA!" Percy's voice betrayed her worry, raw desperation clear, the agony seeping through her tightly sealed emotions. 

"Stella please be in here. Please," Percy's voice was failing her. 

And there above the crib was a large, bold symbol, painted in deep-red drying blood. A skull surrounded by six tentacles.

Hydra. 

And inside of that crib, a small infant. Lips blue.

Gone.

And now I disappear for another unspecified amount of time :D

Hope you all enjoyed after waiting for a proper update for *checks calendar* like 2 years haha