The Sea Prince (Percy Jackson and Avengers crossover)

11

~Percy~

Nico bolted up out of his seat at y words, his eyes wild as he turned to me and Annabeth. "WHAT?" he yelled.

I flinched involuntarily and Annabeth looked away. "It's what we think," She whispered. Panic covered Nico's features. "But- how- no!"

I got up and moved closer to my small friend. I didn't know what to do, so I just let myself move. Next thing I new, I had Nico wrapped in a hug. We both had terrible memories of that certain monster. He'd stolen Annabeth from me, was one of the reasons Nico lost Bianca. 

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I couldn't make myself say anything else, but he seemed to understand how much I wanted to say. Yeah, I still blamed myself for his sister's death. For all I knew, he might too. 

I needed to apologize for so many things. Too many, really. For not being good enough to save Bianca. For hurting him like I had, ending him up alone with that awful ghost as his only company. For not trusting him when he'd told me his plan to defeat Kronos. 

He shook his head, wrapping his arms around me too. "It's not your fault." He replied. "It never was. And I'm sorry too. For everything."

I realized this was the first time we'd really had time to sit and talk, and apologize for all the pain we'd caused the other. First it was just tiny quests we'd been sent on together then we went our own directions. Then we were saving him from that jar and I fell into that pit with Annabeth.

After that, we had both been so busy helping camp we'd never really talked besides him admitting he'd had a crush on me.

"It's okay. We'll make it through this, I promise. It's not the worst threat we've faced together, right?" Nico pulled away, looking up at me with a mixture of sadness and a smile on his face. 

"Remember when we had to fight Bob?" He asked.

"I miss Bob," I whispered, looking down. I saw Nico nod.

"I think he's still alive though. I haven't felt his death, but him being down there it's a little harder to tell. But he may be just trapped down there. Maybe one day we'll bust him out, hugh?"

I smiled gratefully. "Remember that time at Greyon's ranch?"

"Still not entirely clear on what happened there," Nico admitted. "Something with you shoveling horse poop?"

"And then we basically blew up Rome together!" I laughed, avoiding the thought that right after that I'd fallen down. Down. Down. I closed that thought off quickly.

"Thank you for saving me, Percy." Nico muttered, the mood dropping a little. 

"Anything for my lil' death boy cus." I told him. "What do you say we go kill this monster now?"

Nico grinned at me, his eyes flashing. "That would be immensely enjoyable. And I thought we don't count family on the god's side?"

"Well, I would have said brother but too much alliteration makes my head hurt."

"You really are a seaweed brain," Nico muttered.

I looked around to find only Annabeth and Will still in the room, waiting for us by the stairs. Nico and I walked over to them, Annabeth slipping her hand into mine. Will wrapped an arm around Nico's shoulders smoothly.

"The Avengers all went to the lab. I explained they couldn't do much because they don't have the weapons. We're to find them later." She told us. I nodded. My Wise Girl thought of everything, as usual.

 "Good. Let's go kill that Manticore now," Nico said.

I stepped forward. "The Manticore sucks! Who need a scorpion tail anyways! And he's too scared to even come out and face us like a true monster! Manticore is a coward!"

I figured the quickest was to get this over with was to say his name and talk bad abut him a lot instead of searching the whole tower for him. And, well. It worked.

A furious howl rose though the air, chilling my bones. Then a figure leapt from the darkness. Straight at me.