(Not) An Almost Normal Life (A Percy Jackson-Avengers Crossover)

Settling In, I guess

~~ two weeks later~~

Percy's pov:

Remember when I told you that I finally made normal friends?

Scratch that. I take it back.

In the past weeks I spent with my new friends, I noticed some minor details that shoved doubts in the back of my mind.

There was something wrong.

Though, MJ's character wasn't normal in general, so nothing surprised me there. I was just dreading the moment I'd introduce her to Annabeth.

What really surprised me was Peter's behavior, and it hurt me to not know what was wrong with my friend. I may have just known him for a short amount of time, but he had grown on me really quickly.

Peter sometimes came to school with the heaviest bags under his eyes, sometimes he was limping slightly- something I was way too familiar with.

And sometimes a black limousine picked him up from school and he only returned late in the evening. He never told me where the mysterious car was taking him.

And something I had just noticed a few days ago: The wetness in his eyes when he thought no one was looking.

Some wound couldn't heal.

I knew that too well. I'd felt exactly the same, days after Zoe and Bianca had passed away. It had taken a while for me to realize that their deaths weren't my fault.

But something that bad couldn't have happened to Peter, right? I mean, the death of his uncle had happened almost seven years ago, wouldn't Peter have gotten better at learning to live with the pain?

I've asked Ned about it (very cool dude, since we're mentioning him), and he stared to talk about natural disasters. So he must know something, otherwise he wouldn't be avoiding the subject so badly.

I should finally get an idea during class: History and current topics. Sadly one of the fewer classes I shared with Peter.

We sat in the middle of the room and our teacher announced the new topic. "Recently, the whole curriculum was taken apart and put together again. We passed some topics to teach important subject matters from more recent events instead. And we all agreed that this one topic should be covered in class because everyone needs to know what happened. Our new topic is the Infinity War."

I thought that the idea was cool and frightening at the same time, but that probably wasn't even close to what the sixteen-yearold next to me was feeling.

I glanced at him and saw his whole body tensing. He was sitting on the edge of his chair and paled suddenly.

I could imagine that it was probably worse for the blupped people (if that was what they called it?), but the other blupped ones didn't seem as affected as Peter. They even looked exited, for some reason.

Mr. Smilling (not smiling, believe me) looked over the sea of mixed faces and raised his voice to be heard over the loud chatter of students. "I know, some of you don't like to talk about it, but it's part of the curriculum and we really have to do it. Something that could be interesting, though: We had a course for teachers and were told everything, so we know all the information about the war. Well, we might as well jump right into it. Who can name a superhero that was involved in the battle?"

Several hands flew into the air and a grinning Flash was the first to be picked. "Spider-Man."

Smilling just nodded and wrote the name on the board.

"Miss Brant?"

Betty sniffed quickly and said: "Black Widow."

Our teacher seemed to know more than we did, because he lowered his head in respect before her name got a place on the board as well.

Names over names were mentioned, of which I only knew one half, until no hand was raised anymore and our teacher spoke up again. Peter stayed still the whole time.

"Very good, everyone! I'm surprised how many heros you all know of, even Rocket, but you can't know the ones I'm adding now yet. A whole group of aliens fought as well. Groot, Gamora, Starlord, Drax, Nebula and Mantis."

With the mention of aliens, countless new whispers filled the room, but Peter continued to stay quiet and pale. And I swear that I saw his eyes getting wet for a split second...

Our teacher skillfully ignored the loud students and talked over them until everything got quiet again. "I can tell you already, that the names Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Black Widow and Iron Man played an important role at winning the war. We would have lost the war without the knowledge of Dr. Strange and Ant-Man and the sacrifice of Black Widow and Iron Man, and many of us wouldn't be sitting here today, if it wasn't for them. But we will go more into detail of t-"

He was interrupted by something very strange, which was probably the reason why we didn't register the word "sacrifice" in Mr. Smilling's little speech.

A small piece of wood from Peter's table was lying on the floor, and the boy himself was putting his hands in his hair with ragged breath, until he ran out of the room, banging the door behind him.

What. The. Hades?!

It was dead silent in the class room, some stared at the semicircular piece of the table, others looked at the door dumbfoundedly. I raised my arm. "Sir, can I go look for him?"

Before he could even answer, I grabbed the hall pass, left the room and started to search for my new friend.

"Peter?"

I walked though countless empty corridors, but didn't find him. In the second restroom I checked, I could hear quiet sniffles.

"Peter?," I asked for what felt like the thousandth time. "Are you alright?"

Oh man, why did I ask that, I was such an idiot!

"Yeah," came the answer from the third cabin. I walked towards it and wasn't surprised when I found out it was locked.

"I almost believed you. Please, let me in. Or not, eew, you better come out."

I could hear a quiet chuckle and the door was opened by a Peter with red-rimmed eyes. But he didn't cry. He breathed multiple times, very deep and slow breaths, as if he had an attack or something.

"What is it?," I asked this time. Peter looked past me and remained silent for a while. Then he answered with a weak voice. "I'm not really comfortable with the new topic."

I looked at him questioningly and waited for him to elaborate.

"I- I was one of the last ones to blip and I... I knew ehrm,... I somehow knew that it would happen to me, too. Wasn't cool."

He spoke slowly, as if he was choosing each word carefully. I really felt sorry for him. I couldn't imagine what it was like to see everyone around you turn to dust, not knowing what was wrong- I had been in Camp Half-Blood when it happened, where no traces of Thanos's plan were seen.

"I didn't want to die."

Something told me that this story was just as true as the one I told the Parkers about Gaia, when we'd had lunch together. "There's more to that, isn't there." It wasn't even a question.

Peter looked at the floor. "Well... it's hard to hear stories about Mr. Stark.... I knew him personally and..... I miss him "