The Hard Way (A Female Percy Jackson/ Young Justice Crossover)

11

"I still think we should hold off," Robin told his teammates as he strapped himself into a seat on the bioship.

"You're just bitter because you're outnumbered now," Wally commented, doing the same.

Despite being split down the middle only a week prior, the team's multiple discussions had led to a successful majority vote in favor of checking out their last clue. Of course, that clue was a wide area, an entire state more like, and it was highly unlikely they would find anything. At least, that's what Robin told himself. And yes he was, in fact, bitter because M'gann agreed to switch her vote simply for the sake of settling the dispute between their friends.

"Whatever, let's just get this over with." The youngest team member zipped up his white coat and pulled up his hood. He had a really bad feeling about this.

M'gann lifted the bioship and exited the mountain. Dread squeezed Robins chest, but he did his best to conceal it from his friends who hopefully didn't care. His eyes met Conner's from across the ship. The expression written across his face was a worried, somber looking one-one which seemed awful familiar to the younger boy. Afterall, he was wearing it too under his mask.

---

It had been a rough day for Percy. No actually, it had been a really long week, and the entire time she was alone in the cabin, completely alone. Khione hadn't even made an appearance since she arrived. Diana was "giving her space," as Percy had requested. And as for the team, she had only seen them a few times this week for training. The worst part, she wasn't even sure she was sad over Roy anymore. She spent the week begging for someone to come back to her, anyone really, although she did have a few very specific people in mind. It was like everyone else in the world, living and dead, had simply vanished, and now it was just Percy in this icy cabin surrounded by mythical blue roses and snow. It was different here, in the cabin or outside didn't change that. Something about it felt warmer and not in terms of temperature. The birch walls and old fashioned decor felt more comfortable than the big metal mountain where she could hardly find any alone time. But this place was somewhere else, a safe little island that she could disappear in. The loneliness up here was almost bearable in exchange for good sleep and sweet dreams.

She was chilly, but if she minded the cold she wouldn't have sat in the bedroom window between inside and outside. A thick black cloak made entirely of fur warmed her middle though it didn't cover her fingers gripped on the top and bottom of the sill for balance. She also let one leg dangle out of the house, so her toes could disrupt the perfect white sheet of snow that stretched all the way to the horizon. A pale orange sky combined with the wind to make the frost covered trees shimmer like swirling water. An almost invisibly quick animal scurried across the snow and stopped at the foot of a tree. Against the white snow, Percy couldn't quite see the thing for what it was. Maybe a rabbit or a large shrew. She leaned out trying to see it better, only to realize it had gone too far.

Before relaxing back against the window frame, she stretched her fingers out toward the jagged black vines stretched across the walls of the cabin. It crumbled as she touched it. Tiny white flecks of frost fumbled past her fingers to the snow, just slightly whiter than the ground.

Percy focused on something past where the vines had been.

Huh, she thought, what are you doing here?

It was odd to see such a creature this far in the north. Then it called out to her, sending chills through her affection deprived heart. She stared at it for a long moment before either of them moved. The pale brown dove turned it's head and hopped slightly closer to Percy from its place perched on a notch on the wall. It was a rain dove, as her mother called it. Hadn't she also said that birds were a sign of lost loved one? Or did she make that up?