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

2019 (3)

About forty minutes and a trip to the car later, and I was pretty much kitted up and ready to go exploring, clad not in my old S.H.I.E.L.D. armor, but as a hiker, although my attire was (deliberately) khaki in color, and I was armed (subtly) with celestial bronze, imperial gold and mortal steel, so not to take any chances.

Annabeth queried my noticeable lack of body armor, but I did my best to explain that there are just some occasions in which you can't skulk in the undergrowth, and sometimes blending in with the general public is an even better disguise than a few leaves and some face paint.

I parked up in one of the classic tourist car parks, and just prayed that there wouldn't be anyone patrolling the area and looking for shitty spies such as myself.

There weren't, which suggested that I was a long way from where I needed to be.

So, I guessed that I'd better get hiking, shouldering my slim backpack and locking the car, before heading off at what S.H.I.E.L.D. used to call 'relentless pace': pretty fast, but sustainable for hours on end (kind of like old-fashioned mammoth hunting). Despite what I'd told Chiron just a week ago, I'd been working really hard on improving my fitness again after the battle, and it appeared to be paying off as I scaled the first of the inclines with relative ease, pausing at the top for a water break and to zip up my rather disgusting green fleece against the brisk January gale breeze. I also decided that here was as good a place as any to pull my binoculars out of my pocket to start looking at the 'birds'.

So far, there wasn't a single wooden hut to pique my interest, so I moved on.

Quickly my afternoon became quite monotonous, but it was a monotony that I found comfort in, marking anything of remote interest onto my map of the area, and getting a little closer where I could. Some could be struck off pretty quickly: too small, too exposed, public toilet blocks, that sort of thing, but there were several which couldn't be easily accessed without obviously snooping around, and I didn't want to give any occupants cause for alarm, or the mission would end up being a bust.

By the time I had finished my reconnaissance, I had marked out seventeen buildings for us to investigate once Jason arrived in the city; fingers crossed, we'd actually find the fucker who was terrorizing the one demigod safe haven for families (that we knew of). They were spread over a relatively large area, but it was still better than it had been before I started looking in the first place, and I had my suspicions about a few more than others.

I shoved my map back in my backpack, and started the long hike back to the car.

o0O0o

When I arrived back in New Rome, I thankfully wasn't interrogated by the guards, who instead nodded their heads at me with a strange look in their eyes (Was that respect? Because nobody had ever looked at me like that before.) I waved hello to Julia, Terminus' little helper, as I walked through the boundary from the camp to the city, and finally bought a coffee from Grumio's Cafe (I'd literally only been in New Rome for two days, but I already loved the coffee, and I wanted to take all of it back to New York with me.)

A familiar blonde figure walked in and sat down in the seat across from me at the little table.

"Find anything of note?" she asked. "Reyna's waiting pretty eagerly to hear any news."

I nodded. "I've found seventeen possible sites, but my gut feeling is that it is at one of three. All are pretty isolated, so you're unlikely to freak the occupant out by going in on any of the others. I say we start with those ones and work out from there."

"Great." She nodded down at my coffee cup. "Are you almost done? Because I'm sure that Reyna would love to hear all about your findings."

"Why do I feel like you're trying to rush me?"