Not Always The Hero // (Percy Jackson x Peter Parker)

A Bloody Conflict

It's okay to be saved once in a while too.

Annabeth was below the table she had previously been sitting at, before everything started exploding. The table had been overturned, facing the blast. That doesn't happen naturally. It was shielding her, someone must have done that. Someone...
Peter!
Annabeth looked around for Percy's weird boyfriend and didn't see him anywhere. But she noticed that other people were lying unconscious underneath other tables that had been turned towards the blast. No Peter though.
It was so weird, it was as if- did Percy? Would he have told this gangly nerd about the godly world?!
Annabeth pushed herself into a sitting position and groaned, Peter had leapt over the table as the blast was happening to protect her. Was this just because of Percy or? Did Peter actually care to try and fix their relationship.
Shouldn't he be right here? Shouldn't he have landed next to her? It makes sense that he could've flipped the table to defend them, but he should be here.
Wait, he seemed to realize what was happening right before anything happened. That's some inhuman intuition.
Annabeth crawled over to the edge of the table and peaked out towards what had previously been the front of the building. There was debris everywhere, but no bodies. It seemed like all the unconscious people behind the other tables were everyone that had been in the shop. Someone had dragged them into relative safety behind the tables.
Could it have been Peter? Where was he now?
Annabeth was distracted from her contemplating by a excessively loud explosion. The ground rumbled and her hands slipped from under her and she almost face planted. Whatever caused this damage was close. Was it a monster? She didn't think so, wouldn't it have come for her?
"If Percy and I ever have a chance at repairing our relationship, it won't happen if I let his boyfriend die." She mumbled to herself as she crawled out of her hiding spot completely and used the table to help her get to her feet. She slipped some ambrosia from her back pocket into her mouth, it was a little squashed but that was okay. And then she unsheathed her knife. She doubted Percy would approve that she brought a knife to meet his boyfriend, but she also knew he would understand she wasn't trying to die by monster in New York.
The fighting was close. Annabeth was quiet as she approached the street, not that she needed to be. She was sure nothing could be heard over the blasts and screaming. She ducked as something or someone went by really fast. And then something or someone following it- oh shit was that Spider-Man?!
She remembered some of her siblings in the Athens cabin that tried to stay up to date on all the crazy apparent super heroes that the world held. And she knew a fan favorite was Spider-Man because there was a poll that if he was a half-blood, he was a child of Athena. Of course Annabeth would occasionally add in and argue that no child of Athena would ever disrespect their mom by dedicating their hero name to spiders, their mortal enemy.
In fact, there was a ton of debate of different heroes and if not they were secretly halfbloods. She couldn't remember it all right now, but it got pretty heated. There were so many conspiracy theories about it at camp.
Annabeth focus. She chided herself. Clearly this wasn't a demigod situation, but it was still a dangerous one.
"Oh fuck..." she said softly when she was in the middle of the street, looking up at this mechanical monstrosity that tore up the whole block. It was currently getting itself out of some webbing that was left there by Spider-Man, and whoever was operating it was angry.
As being one of the only civilians in the area, the mechanical being turned its attention towards Annabeth. She hefted her knife and got into a fighting stance.
Of course a knife and a fighting stance isn't very useful when the enemy has crazy blasters. She ended up doing a barrel roll out of the way as the villain blasted where she had been previously standing. She barely didn't impale herself. Where the hell was Spider-Man?!

*******

Peter has been thrown into some solid concrete and was working on getting himself out of it when he looked over to where the villain still was and saw Annabeth.
She was hiding behind a piece of rubble that was getting considerably smaller as the villain kept blasting at her. There was no where for her to run.
Peter was pretty sure getting Percy's ex killed while to reconcile their friendship was a terrible thing to do, "shit."
Free of concrete and slightly more panicked then he had been earlier Spider-Man launched himself at the Mecha-villain. Where was his back up?!
"RUN!" He shouted to Annabeth as he passed by her. Then he nailed the Mech in the chest, sending it stumbling backwards a few steps. He didn't have a chance to see if she had listened to him because he immediately got batted into a building.
There was a scream. Peter's blood went cold. He picked himself up and threw himself out into the street. Annabeth has been running but wasn't getting anywhere fast, and didn't help that the Mecha was blasting at her and she was reduced to just trying to dodge, just trying to stay alive.
She had tripped and fallen, hard. The Mecha had blasted the ground right underneath her feet, so she went airborne for a second, then came back down onto the asphalt, hard.
She screamed and looked back at the Mecha, a hand raised in front of her face, which had stopped blasting. Which would have been good news, except that it was powering up for a big blast.
Peter had seen blasts like this before, they were the kind that left craters in the middle of the street.
"NOOOO!" Peter threw himself in front of her, shielding her body with his once again.
Annabeth was smart enough to bow her head and hold onto Spider-Man. His arms were wrapped around her body, making sure she wasn't in danger.
Peter felt the blast tear directly into his back. It was like in an anime where you see the hero get hit and they can feel their blood spraying everywhere. That's what it felt like.
He didn't even have enough clarity of mind to have a last thought. His body was made of pure pain shooting through all his limbs. His heart might've stopped.
And then Peter knew nothing at all, for his body could not handle the pain and his conscience mind shut down.