Teacher, Not Hero (femPercy Jackson X YJ)

Thirty: The Barrel of a Gun

**warning, gory scene. If you are triggered by gruesome scenes, please read with caution**

3rd P.O.V:

Shaking.

Everything was shaking.

The young woman on the floor was shaking as she was pulled down into memories she had tried so hard to forget. Memories that broke her.

The blonde hero standing above her was shaking. Shaking because she never thought she would see someone so broken. So young. Shaking because she knew she had caused the young ravenette on the floor to collapse, shaking.

War.

That had been the young woman's answer.

The child's answer.

God, what had she done?

She had been trained to be a counselor. To deal with these types of things. To help people through their traumas. To fix them. Make everything alright. But no training prepared the Canary for this. For the shaking girl in front of her.

Still, she had to try.

"Percy?" The blonde said hesitantly, creeping down to the ground, leveling herself with the green eyes girl. Those same green eyes snapped up at her. Only, they weren't green. They were a dull, broken grey. A lifeless shade that held no meaning. No purpose.

And yet, those same eyes held so much fear. The way Percy looked up at Dinah could be described as the way a child looks down the barrel of a gun. A look that held nothing but terror. Enraptured in it. Tangled and twisted in it until nothing was left but a basic horror; undeniable, unflee-able, unstoppable death.

The hero withdrew her position, opting to back away from the shaking, shattering girl. It occured to the Canary that Percy was having a flashback. She was caught in a memory that Dinah could not see and most certainly couldn't understand.

The ever twisting mystery of Percy Jackson had only become more convoluted. A true enigma. A supernova of confusion. Whatever the girl had gone through, it was far more than the blonde woman had ever suspected. The roots of Percy's trauma ran much deeper than she could have ever imagined.

It was most defiantly a deep, burning psychological one. Something that tormented her psyche every hour of her life. Something had shattered the young girl's mind. Torn her apart and stitched her back together into a mess of a girl. This kind of mental trauma almost certainly was accompanied by physical abuse. After all, the 22 hours of punishment the girl had withstood by itself definitely vouched for physical trauma. Who knows what other kinds of torture Percy had been exposed to...

Canary's eyes were drawn a small moment Percy made with her hands. While Dinah was now on the other side of the room, so as not to spook Percy, she could see the grabbing motion the girl made with her hands. After some time, Percy managed to bring them together, holding the pointer finger of her left hand in her right.

Her eyes were still glazed, her face pale and sweaty. Her short hair matted to her head and her sweatshirt clung to her from swear and static.

She blinked.

Once.

Twice.

At the third time, Dinah saw Percy's face contort into one of pain. The blonde looked to Percy's hands and nearly screamed at the sight she was greeted with.

Percy had snapped her left index finger to the point of the bone pushing through her skin. It was snapped between her base knuckle and the middle one, were the bone was strongest. Her index dangled by a single tendon, the piece of bone snapped, jagged and in pieces. Blood oozed and sprayed from her severed veins and arteries.

Percy's expression faltered, her eyes focusing briefly, before glazing over once more, her hands threatening to drop from grip. Horrified, Canary found herself unable to move as Percy took the middle finger of her left hand and snapped it in half without a second thought.

Canary screamed.

Blood poured through Percy's self inflicted wound, her two fingers threatening to be completely separated from her hand. Canary could only gag when she saw that the second finger she broke was in worse shape than the first. With a break in the same place as her index, the jagged bone slicing through her skin, exposing itself, a second break was between her middle and top knuckles. Percy had not only snapped the bone, but tore off the skin around the wound, leaving the tendons, muscles, veins, and arteries exposed.

The smell of vomit filled the air as Canary took on the gruesome sight before her. Never had she seen someone inflict such a high level of pain onto themselves before. The most horrifying thing about it was Percy didn't seem in control of her actions. He body seemed to operate numbly, as if following a muscle memory. The thought sent shivers down Canary's spine.

Once Canary had managed to regain some of her composer, she looked at Percy once more, only to find her eyes had cleared and she was groaning softly.

Reaching into her back pocket, Percy pulled out some gauze and medical tape. She wrapped her fingers tightly, blood soaking the bandages instantly.

"Percy?" The blonde whispered, hesitation and a touch of fear hinting through her voice. The ravenette looked up at the blonde, offering a slightly reassuring glance.

"I get pretty intense flashbacks. Sometimes, pain is the only thing that will snap me out of it." Dinah could only fall backwards at the girl's words, her head hitting the floor hard as the shrieking hero fell unconscious, fainting due to shock.

The blood from Percy's wounds had soaked into the carpet, permeating the room with the metallic smell of her blood, mixing with the stench of Canary's vomit. The room was hot and stuffy, smelling terrible and looking worse. Canary, passed out, half sprawled on her desk half on the floor and the dark haired girl sitting in a pool of her own blood, her two snapped fingers threatening to bleed out.

Faintly, among the slight moans from Canary and the hisses of pain from Percy, you could just make out the grumbling complaints of the ravenette as she worked herself to standing, leaning on the wall for support. 

"How come whenever I need medic attention, someone else passes out?"