The New Avenger

Qualifications

Percy's POV:

"So Percy," Tony opens the door to the infirmary abruptly, giving me a strange look, "What qualifications do you have to come on a rescue mission?"

"I thought we'd already gone over the fact that I'm a, how did you put it, unarmed, untrained, and emotionally unstable civilian?" I throw Tony's words in his face. Just because I wanted him and Peter to make up doesn't mean I have to. It's hateful, unkind, and certainly uncalled for. Still, I say it anyway.

"Look, it might be possible, however unlikely, that I misjudged you." Stark shoots an almost pouty look in Peter's direction, who somehow managed to come in without my noticing. Tony admitting he was wrong seems like something that simply doesn't happen, ever. So even though I don't want to be kind, I don't want to give him a chance, I don't want to do the "hero like" thing, I do. I extend an olive branch, because it's the hero thing to do. And even now, even after everything, everything I have done, everything I have failed, all the times I have proved without a shadow of a doubt that I am not a hero I still want to be. I still fight to be a hero, someone worthy of the trust, reverence, praise, everything people at camp give me even though I don't deserve it.

"Nah, no qualifications. Sorry." I shrug.

"You said you lived in a war zone for a year or something." Peter butts in. My lie. My big, all encompassing lie. But I can't let them believe I have any qualifications. At all.

"Didn't you say that everything I told you about my past is a lie?" I smirk, as though proud of fooling him, as though I'd been comfortable in my lie. Peter wants to believe I'm a liar? So be it. But I can at least make it work in my favor, at least I can get one set of lies off my chest. 

"There are some things that you can't lie about." Peter says after a moment, measuring his words carefully. 

"Guess I missed the class on lying etiquette." I laugh, because nothing matters to Percy Jackson, he's a prankster, a jokster. Nothing gets to him, hurts him, bothers him. Not the fact that five people just died because of him, not his past, not his future, not his present. Life is all one big laugh to Percy Jackson. That's what they have to believe. Except Peter won't.

"Not what I meant." Peter tries to not let my off-handed attitude bother him but it does. The world isn't a joking place. He know's that, I know that. Of course, that makes it all the more important that I act that way. "Percy, some things you can't fake. Somethings are just real, unable to physically be lied about because they're such a huge part of you, your past."

"Well I lied. Boohoo, you must be heartbroken." Keep up the walls. Keep me in. Keep them out. Stay alive.

"All the best lies are rooted in truth."

"And when did you become such an expert?" I'm being cruel, but it I'm not then I might let them in. I might get close to this team, become friends with them. And nobody deserves that kind of pain. The pain that comes from being around me.

"I'm not trying to pick a fight with you Percy." Peter tries to be calming, friendly. He too is trying not to be hurt. Again. The realization shocks me but it shouldn't. Somewhere along the way Peter was hurt, really badly hurt. Him living with his Aunt should've tipped me off, but it didn't. His parents are gone. Are they dead? Did they leave him? Divorce? Jail? Worse? I don't know, because I was to wrapped up in myself. 

That isn't all the hurt in his past though. He blames himself for something, something beyond what happened today, something that he believes was undeniably his fault. 

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to pick a fight either." Except I had been, I had been trying to make him angry, start a fight. Anything to distract him. Anything to stop where the conversation was going. Because there are somethings you can't lie about and this is one of them. 

"Okay. Well um." Peter seems taken off guard. In his eyes I'm the sort of person who is always trying to pick a fight. That's never who I wanted to be, but it is who I keep becoming.

"Do you have any experience with weapons?" Tony jumps back in hopefully. He wants to stop the budding fight, stop whatever chaos is waiting in the air, the black tendrils of lies swirling around us.

"Well we did archery in P.E a couple time. I accidentally hit the instructor, instead of the target. It was pretty impressive." My lie is almost true. I am horrible at archery, I did hit Chiron in the tail. However, it was at Camp Half-Blood, not in P.E. Also, archery isn't exactly my entire weapons experience. The blackness does not grow.

"That is unfortunate." Tony looks at me with grudging respect. "Didn't you get into a gun fight with some dude who kidnapped you when you were twelve?"

Of course he'd done his research. Guns are not my style. The Mist however wisely thought that my little spat with Ares would be less noticeable if we were fighting with guns instead of Greek swords. Because obviously the Mist couldn't have made it look like we were feeding pigeons or something.

"That was a long time ago..." I mummer.

"Like riding a bike, you can't forget!" Tony grins, happy to have found a way in which I'm qualified.

"Even then I was terrible." I try and dissuade him. Also, I have to clue how to shoot.

"We'll help you improve!" I have no clue where or why Tony found all this pent up optimist, but it can't be good. 

"Ever, ever since that fight on the beach." I make myself swallow painfully, as though I'm about to cry, "I, I can't look at guns. I can't touch them, I can't shoot them, I can't have anything to do with them," I turn away from Tony and Peter, trying to seem as though I'm hiding tears. In reality I can't lie to their faces, not now, not after everything. Maybe that makes me weak. Or maybe it makes me stronger.

A/N

Sorry if the chapter makes no sense, I am sick and feverish and my good ideas this week have basically been if I become a billionaire I will assemble the Avengers and then *singing*"I don't know about you, but I'm feeling" *hypnosis voice* "very very sleepy". So yeah, that's been my week and it may show in my writing. Oh well.