Just Not Ready (A Female Percy Jackson/ Avengers Crossover)

XV

AUTHOR SNOTE--Anything in 'italics with apostrophes' is internal thoughts of the character in question.

Percy woke up in a cell. Yes, a cell. She had been detained at the Raft prison. From her cell, she could see a few of her teammates, but was too far to speak with anyone.

It was absolutely boring. Percy could do nothing but pace, sit, stand, or stare at walls. She supposed it could be worse, she could be close and have to talk with them. She wasn't ready to do the whole reunion thing just yet.

So, of course this is Percy Jackson we are talking about. She found something to do.

First, she laid down and tried to sleep, but that didn't happen. She tried pacing, but got bored, then tried working out (push-ups, crunches, etc) but got tired. She braided her hair and counted the scars on her arms then unbraided her hair and rebraided it as a French braid. Percy did some stretches and hummed some song she liked. She's bored and doing everything she can think on to occupy herself. Eventually, she was bored again though. 

Until, an idea struck her. She was gazing at the bottled water they left her and thought 'i used to be able to control water. Wouldn't it be cool if I could do that again?'. Then, of course she remembered why she couldn't. She was unsure if it was worth it to deal with those issues, but she was really bored. Percy didn't think she could take the boredom much longer, so she grabbed the water and opened it.

First, she took a large gulp, knowing she would need some water in her system if this was to work. She wasn't sure exactly how to do this, so she had to experiment with a few methods.

One attempt, was to pour a bit of the water out on the uncarpeted floor of the cell and try to move it. As she expected, it didn't work. Next she poured some over her hands and tried to see if that would be effective, but it failed.

One potentially helpful attempt involved Percy holding some water in her cupped hands and concentrating on it, trying to will that familiar tug in her gut. She found with every attempt, nothing seemed to work, but she still went on for what felt like hours trying different methods.

Finally, she gave up. Percy sat down with her back against her bed and stared at the empty water bottle in defeat. She felt like a failure because she couldn't succeed at doing the thing that was once easiest for her. It kind of hurt emotionally for a moment before she pushed that out of her mind.

'Why should I care if I can do this or not? It doesn't affect my life at the moment. It's not getting me out of this box'.

Percy shoved away all of those thoughts and emotions and closed her eyes for a moment and then felt another annoying feeling spring up in her chest. This time pride. Pride she hadn't earned.  What had this pride come from? Telling herself not to feel bad? That's ridiculous! She was still trapped in the box and had accomplished nothing besides internal banter.

Percy decided to push that away too. 'What the hell, it's not helping me. I might as well get rid of all of it.'

And so in a split second decision, she focused her entire comcioys thought on...? She quickly glanced around the boring cell for something to focus on and landed on the water bottle. 'Good enough.'

She glared at the empty bottle and tried to keep her mind from wandering, but failed.

'A poet might say that I want to feel as empty as this bottle.' At her thought, she smiled and lost focus.

As soon as she noticed this, she tried again to focus. But alas, it still took several more tries until something happened. She hadn't actually been expecting a reaction from her concentration, but was thankful anyway.

Shock filled her system as an unfamiliar weight settled in her chest and began to burn. It felt like heartburn and then intensified. Percy struggled to fix her breathing and moved into a . In fact, she couldn't catch her breath as the pain in her chest increased and she passed out.

She would be unconscious, so she would unfortunately not see that the empty water bottle was now full. She would also be unconscious and miss when her father used his godly powers teleport into the cell. He'd felt her reach out to his domain. He wanted to reach back becaus e he didn't before. Last time when she needed him, he ignored her call. Poseidon wasn't making that mistake again. He didn't want to lose her any more than he already had.

He scooped her up and teleported them both out of the holding cell she was in. Aware of her quest, Poseidon dropped her off in a car that Connor and Nate had stolen for the quest.

When she woke up, Percy was in the back of a moving
Car with two sons of Hermes in the front seat. She had a bag next to her filled with supplies, a gift from her father. When she opened the bag, Percy found a familiar water bottle and understood what she had done. She smiled lightly at the bottle, then frowned. 'Am I really going to have to go through that every time I want to use my powers though? Might not be worth it.'

Well, at least Conner and Nate were stopping for food. Percy was really hungry.

-------

Tony Stark was absolutely livid.

First, he had battled his friends and fellow heroes at an airport in Germany. Then one of his opponents was revealed to be his niece, but Tony couldn't talk to her because she was unconscious and the government agents took her to some prison before she woke up. Okay, so by this point Tony was pretty annoyed and just wanted to see Percy. But when he tracked her down again and went to see his beloved niece she was gone. Disappeared.

Tony couldn't have been more pissed, so he talked to Sam, fucked with the cameras, and left to team back up with his former ally and opponent.

AN sorry for the short boring-ish chapter and sorry for my awful updating schedule. I'll try to update again soon but I have finals, so you'll have to be patient. Bear with me. It's almost Summer. Thanks for reading.