Percy Jackson/Avengers Crossover

Chapter's 5: The Perils of Exercising on a Saturday morning

Percy had been living in the Tower for a week when he found the training room.

"Found" was a bit forceful since he'd pretty much overheard Steve (Captain America, the living legend he now knew) saying he was going there after lunch twice that week.

It was now Saturday morning(ish) and since he was pretty sure no one was up there he figured he might as well go and check it out.

Like everything else in Tony - and now his as well, he kept reminding himself - 'apartment', the gymnasium was huge. It consisted of a shooting range for both arrows and guns, with its own display of weapons on the wall, to the right; a climbing wall - nothing like the one back at camp but then again, Percy thought, you can't have everything (even if Tony tried really hard) - an array of gymnastics paraphernalia that would be any acrobat's wet dream; and a lonely punching bag by the corner.

Figuring he couldn't slice up the dummies with his own sword nor with any of the other weapons on display, he went up to the punching bag. He tried a few punches tentatively before he just gave in to the exercise, which felt quite good after a tiring week of school and getting acquainted with the new place. On his way 'home' he'd taken the wrong subway and ended up on his mom's apartment before he'd even realized his mistake.

His mind drifted as his muscles relished on the exercise and took on an automatic rhythm.

Suddenly his thoughts steered towards his darkest memories and the punching bag in front of him was no longer smooth letter but rough skin, like the one of monsters. His senses of smell and vision were overpowered by his memories from both wars and, worst of all from his awful fall into Tartarus.

He knew he wasn't in a fight, and he knew he was free from the darkness of the pit and back in Ney York now. Even if he was still in Tartarus or in a fight against Gaia and her giants, he would never be fighting barehanded and he certainly wouldn't be alone.

Still his subconscious didn't really care about reality and so images of both wars kept running throw his brain and flashes of pain surged throw his body from old wounds that had now faded into scars. His worst memories were from Tartarus and he often wondered how Nico had survived it all on his own.

As these images came up in his brain he kept on punching, harder and harder, air never seeming to reach his lungs fully, until a sudden noise brought him back from his episode. He'd punched the bag so hard that the chains holding it up had broken and the bag had been hurled back into the end of the room.

Startled out of his nightmarish flashback-like visions and with his heart beating loudly in his chest, he stared dumb stroke at the air in front of him where the punching bag had stood. Now, it lay at the end of the room and the chains that had been holding it up dangled, broken, from the ceiling. With another loud clang in the silent and empty room, they too fell to the ground.

Percy started to panic as he wondered how, exactly, was he going to explain the fallen punching bag to the 7-man * and deadly women army downstairs. His eyes swapped the room - as if the answer to his problem was going to be written in the walls - and they came to rest on the other corner of the room.

A smile spreads on his lips and he starts to calm down as he notices the array of punching bags that are laying there, as if ready to solve his problem. Quickly, he picks one of them up and, with the help of a chair that was laying around, hangs it up. Tossing the broken chains and punched in bag with the others he quickly made his way out of the gym, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible.

* (A/N: I'm including Sam and Bucky because in my head they crash in the Avengers tower all the time and nobody really complains)

***

Two more months had passed since he'd moved into the Avengers tower and there had been no new developments in his parents' case.

Percy sat on the sofa, a hand on his girlfriend head, playing with her blond curls, their textbooks sprawled on the coffee table and a movie playing on the huge (even if not the biggest in the house) screen in front of them to which he was paying no mind. He'd lost the plotline - if the movie even had one, he was pretty sure it was just an excuse for loud and dangerous car stunts and flashy explosions - somewhere about half an hour after they put in the movie and was now letting his mind wander.

He was brought back from wherever his mind was going by someone entering the room.

"Tony?" Pepper's voice came from her office and her red-haired quickly followed. "Oh, Fury... Are you looking for Steve?"

"No, Miss Potts" the black man answered. He had an eye-patch over his left eye and a long trench-coat on. As discreet as he may have been trying to seem, the whole look screamed I'm a secret agent. "I actually needed to speak with Mr. Stark about what he might have uncovered while..." he turned around as he spoke and his eyes came to rest on the two teenagers, both peeking over their shoulders at the strange men. "And who might these be?"

"Oh, I'm Percy" the son of Poseidon offered with a grin "Tony's nephew. And you are?"

'Fury' just looked at him weirdly before ignoring his answer and turning to Pepper once again

"I didn't know Tony had any family left"

"Neither did we until very recently. He moved in when his parents went missing about four months or so..."

"Five and a half" Percy corrected unamused in a low tone as Annabeth rubbed her fingers in slow circles on his back.

"... But Tony should be downstairs in his lab if you still want to see him. I believe Bruce is there as well" Pepper continued and the man thanked her as he made his way to the elevator once again. As soon as the doors closed Pepper called the AI "Jarvis, please warn Tony that Nick is coming down and that he just met Percy"

(there's another one)