Smithereens

Chapter 12

The vid I put this time is comedy gold. Never have I laughed so hard.

This chapter is mostly just fluff, but whatever.

Unsurprisingly, Tony won custody. The jury and judge figured there was really no way they could hand Percy back to Gabe, because he was either a great actor, or he was telling the truth.

They had rescheduled a trial for Gabe, since Percy had accused him of domestic abuse. Thomas Finn would be the prosecutor for that trial, too, since he had already used the abuse as evidence against him. 

Percy was a wreck since coming back from Gabe's apartment. He spent most of his time in his room, except to eat and go on his morning run. At meals he was silent. He only spoke to ask for seconds of something, and it worried me. At least he was eating, but then again, I had never seen Percy turn down food.

I think Tony's really worried, too. He kept on knocking on Percy's door, asking if he wanted to watch a movie or play a game or go to the park. Percy always said no.

After meals, he would help clean up, then he would go back into his room. Whenever I tried to ask him to stay and hang out with us, he would just politely decline and shut the door in my face.

Tony finally got sick of this and gave me permission to stop him. We understood that he was just trying to cope with all of his trauma, but it wasn't healthy.

"Percy," I said as he made his way back to his room after breakfast.

"Hmm?" He said back, not even turning around to look at me.

"It's Saturday. We should have a Hunger Games marathon." I said. Percy loves The Hunger Games. And a marathon would take more than nine hours. That means he couldn't spend any time today hiding away.

"No thanks," He said with a small smile. He went to close the door in my face, as he always did, but I shoved my foot in the way. He groaned in frustration.

I shook my head. "Not today, Perce."

"Can we not do this?" Irritation was clear in his voice. 

"Let me in," I told him firmly. He sighed and opened the door wide, then turned and flopped on his bed.

I wasn't expecting it to actually work. I sat down next to him

"It's been almost a month," I said. "The next trial is in July. You know it's June now. Mr. Finn is going to come by soon to take pictures of your-"

"I know what Thomas is going to do," Percy interrupted. "He wants pictures of my scars. Can we not talk about the trial?"

I blushed, realizing that of course he wouldn't want to talk about that. "Um, yeah. Of course."

Gathering my courage, I spoke again. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I said. "But you need to understand that we're here for you. Me, Tony, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Wanda..." I trailed off, wondering if I forgot someone. "We want to help you, but we can only do that if you let us in. None of us are going to force you to talk to Gabe, but we can help you."

Percy was quiet for a moment, but his hand found it's way into mine.

"The Native American Indians did," he said finally. "That's what Annabeth told me, at least."

I was startled. "They did what?"

"Talked about it. They would tell the stories over and over again until it was normalized for them. That's why they never had any issues with serious PTSD. But after World War II, people stopped listening to veterans and here we are."