Percy Jackson Avenger and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent

2019 (1)

I stood there open-mouthed in front of Chiron. "There's a Roman Camp? And you neglected to tell us this during the war? They could have helped!"

Chiron waved away my protests. "They had their own battles to fight."

I did a good impression of a fish, jaw dropped. "What kind of excuse is that? The world was ending!"

"As was theirs." Sometimes I forgot that Chiron had taught generations of snot-nosed heroes, but his never ending patience was definitely only obtained through years of putting up with assholes like me.

"Okay, okay, but why me and why now? Why not send someone nice like Will, or someone who hasn't been in physical rehab for the last five months? And why January?"

Chiron smiled. "I trust you, Percy. As for your fitness, I think that you are too hard on yourself. You have always had much more strength and stamina than most of the other campers. Besides, you are older than many of them, and prepared to both negotiate and fight your way out of a situation. Between you and Annabeth, I think that you will make an excellent pair of diplomats. You have sensible heads on your shoulders."

I mean, thanks, but he still hadn't said why I had to trek across the whole of the goddamn country in what is hands-down the worst month of the year. "Can Nico at least shadow travel us there?"

"Nico does not have the strength to take you all of the way there, no matter how stubborn he is. He also has his own battles to fight now. He never expected to survive beyond the battle, and he now must come to terms with the fact that he has. You'll manage in the car."

The car in question was a tiny, decrepit and thoroughly battered Mazda with a concerning rattle that I was almost certain was older than me. How he expected us to fit our gear and ourselves in it, and not kill each other before we got there, was a mystery. It was also a stick shift, and I hate stick shift with a burning passion.

But apart from all of that, the car was fine.

"Will that be all?" Chiron asked. Passive-aggressive bastard.

I gave my best sarcastic smile. "Yes, thank you."

It was basically dark when I stepped out of the Big House. It was also ten in the morning.

Man, I hate January.

I thought about going for a swim, but a brisk breeze was rippling the greyish surface of the lake, and it didn't look appealing, even to me.

So I wandered over to the car, to find Annabeth sitting staring at the boot with the most done expression I had seen in my entire life (tough when you've lived with Natasha Romanoff).

She was surrounded by our bags of shit, and it was rather apparent that it was not all going to fit in the microscopic boot of the car.

"Need a hand?" I asked on approach, slightly wary. Annabeth can be scary when her pride is injured.

She just sighed. "I'm the Architect of Olympus, and I can't fit these in. What use is the title if I can't even pack the car?"

"Well, maybe it just doesn't fit in the trunk. We'll just chuck stuff on the back seat and hope we don't have to stop too fast and get decapitated."

Annabeth shrugged, slightly dejected, so I decided to take some immediate action, picking up a couple of large-ish looking bags and shoving them into the trunk, squishing them as much as they allowed to try and fit them together. There's nothing quite like a bit of real-life Tetris to kick the old tactical brain into action.

Between the two of us, we managed to fill the boot with armor, rifles, knives and plenty of other dodgy stuff (we decided to put non-lethal items like clothes and snacks on the back seat in case of aforementioned decapitation risk).