Unseen Scars Hurt The Most

Chapter 3

Percy POV
TW: self harm & suicidal thoughts

I dangled my feet off the edge of the building and watched cars and lorries zoom by underneath the sparkling twilight sky. This was my favourite time of the day, no-one bothered me and monsters were considerably less active at night, which I never understood. Not complaining, though.

I leaned back on my scarred hands and inspected the night's sky. Despite the light pollution from the city lights below, I could easily distinguish Zoë Nightshade's constellation from the satellites and planes. "Bob says hello," I whispered, my throat catching on the last word. "I only wish he was here to tell you that himself." I sighed sadly, "Along with everyone else."

Bringing my knees in and leaning my head on them, I thought about all the people I had let down.
Zoë
Bianca
Silena
Beckendorf
Luke
Nico
Piper
Jason
Frank
Leo
Hazel
Annabeth.
The list went on. I drew my pocket knife: I wasn't worthy enough to be touched by I went over the names again in my head and with each fallen hero I struck my skin. Blood beaded at the edges of my first cut and slowly trickled down my forearm. The stream turned to a river as more cuts bled until it was dripping onto my lap, creating a pattern of dots on my dark blue jeans.

When I reached Annabeth's name I cut myself deeper, memories of all the times I failed her flashing in my mind's eye. I stopped, a thought suddenly occuring to my jumbled up brain. She would be so ashamed: here I was weakening myself and making easy prey for the hundreds of monsters prowling New York when she was dead. I was feeling so sorry for myself that I hadn't actually given any thought to what she would want. I loved her. She loved me. She couldn't come back to me, but I could join her. I laughed humourlessly. Why in Hades had I not thought of this before?

I looked at my knife. Blood was starting to dry on it and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I decided it had fulfilled its purpose and I wouldn't need it where I was going anyway. No monsters in Elysium. Tugging down the orange sleeves of my t-shirt, I wiped away the blood. I put the cover over the blade and dropped it into the bin that was weirdly placed on the rooftop. Making my way back to the edge, I picked up a small pebble and chucked it to see if the fall was far enough. However, instead of hearing a smack, my ears were met with a clang. Odd.

Tony Stark POV

Here I was just flying through New York City after a quiet night out my (tipsy) mind wondering if Pepper had stayed up for me when some clot pole decided to chuck a rock at me. The audacity! Ok, so maybe it wasn't a quiet night out. I was at a party that was completely devoted to me (billionaire, philanthropist, genius, playboy) and things might have got a bit out of hand in the drinking game, but that was hardly my fault! Some of Rhodey's old air force (correct me if he wasn't air force, I haven't watched marvel for ages) buddies went a bit overboard with never have I ever. And I had ever. I drank at pretty much all of them - what can I say? I have a busy life.

Anyway, as I was saying. Jarvis made me fly low over the back roads (spoilsport) so that if I fell I wouldn't be as badly injured and then a huge stone hit me on the head! Vibrations rang out through my armor (why on earth did I make it metal!?) giving me an even bigger headache than I already had. Naturally, I stopped to see who the offender was when I saw a kid wearing all blue on the edge of a rooftop. Now as you know, I'm a world class genius, so I hovered close by to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

And when he did, me being the most valiant, brave, heroic, handsome Avenger on the team, flew in and saved him like the king I was.

Percy POV (3rd person)