Half-Bloods and the Government (What could go wrong?) Pjo/Avengers

Chapter Thirteen

Percy

A burst of speed, a sharp turn around an outcropping of rocks, and a swirl of shadow later, the men were caught up, and he was gone.

________*o*________

      Darkness, speed so fast it felt like his face was going to peel off, and then, light. He tumbled off of Mrs.O'Leary as they emerged from the shadows of a cabin. Percy got to his feet, stomach flipping, and leaned against the building while he caught his breath.

      "Good girl, Mrs.O'Leary," he patted her on her large wet nose, giving her a weak scratch under the chin, "Good work, you really came through for me there." She barked, a booming "WOOF", and then bounded away, likely to go roll around in a patch of smelly grass or something.

      His shoulder scraped against the grey stone of the wall, and he finally took a good look at his surroundings now that his head had stopped spinning. The air smelled like smoke from the campfire, which was always burning. After further observation, he realized that he was standing in the shadow of the Athena cabin.

      Perfect.

      He pushed himself off the wall and went to the front, the sturdy marble pillars and owl emblem not as intimidating as they had felt his first summer at camp. He'd spent enough time at the cabin that most of the campers had become his friends, and it was Alex who noticed him at the front door first. The thirteen year old child of Athena had been curled up on her bed reading a book titled "The Poems of Sappho" when she looked up and called out to him.

      "Percy! Are you looking for Annabeth? She came back from that meeting a while ago, but she went out again." before Percy could get a word in, she continued, "if I were you, I'd check the big pine tree on the hill, I think she was headed that way."

      "Um... thanks Alex, I'll go check it out, that's super helpful." Sometimes he got caught off guard by how much of a family Annabeth had in her cabin. Yes, Percy loved both his Mom and Paul, and the family that he had found in his friends, but there was something about walking into a full cabin and realizing that his girlfriend had a whole building of people that she could call her family that threw him off.

      As he jogged to half-blood hill, he berated himself for not thinking to check there sooner. He was well aware that Thalia's pine was one of Annabeth's go to places when she needed to think, and time was of essence right now. He didn't want to go directly to Chiron, especially with such worrying news after the bomb that was a new prophecy had been dropped, so he wanted to consult Annabeth before he did anything else.

      As he made his way up to the pine, he was careful of where he placed his feet. The moon was shining bright enough that he could see, but it was still fairly dark, and after all that running it would be a little silly if he hurt himself by tripping over a stick or something.

      He spotted her silhouette as he finally crested the hill, curled up with her legs tucked against her body, pressed against the trunk of the tree. She spent a lot of time by the pine, especially when she missed Thalia. The girl may not be trapped as the tree anymore, but sometimes when she was off on the hunt it was nice to sit by the tree as if she was there.

      She turned to face him when he approached, took one look at his disgruntled state, and got to her feet.

      "What happened?" She was straight forward like that.

      "Short version is: I was in the woods, everything got weird for a second, like it was a little fuzzy, and then Captain America was there, and he was like 'I'm here on behalf of S.H.E.I.L.D., and I want to know about you and Spider-Man', and I was like, 'how about no' and then someone was shooting arrows at me and they were chasing me, and I got out of there with Mrs.O'Leary."