Everything's Changed

~ Chapter Eight ~

Third Person POV

Everyone in the room stared at the place Percy was last standing.

"What are we going to do? We can't let him give himself up," Hermes said.

Poseidon sighed, "We have to think of something quickly. If we don't think of something he'll leave and never look back."

"Poseidon's right. He'll do anything to protect us even if that means leaving, dying, or being tortured for an eternity," Athena said.

"He's been suffering this whole time and none of us knew," Thalia muttered.

"No. Some of us didn't know," Artemis said looking around the room.

"What do you mean daughter?" Zeus asked.

Artemis rolled her eyes, "Did none of you idiots notice how the Avengers, Hades, and Apollo didn't react like the rest of us?"

Poseidon looked at those mentioned with a murderous look in his eyes.

"You knew and didn't say anything to any of us for a month?" he seethed.

"We were not allowed to tell anyone," Thor told them.

"He's right. We wanted to. Trust me. But Percy trusted us enough to tell us. We couldn't break that trust," Bruce sighed.

"We got into an argument the day we all found out about it. He didn't want to worry you. He wanted to deal with it himself," Clint said.

Natasha looked around the room at the sad occupants before speaking, "We wanted him to tell you himself but he didn't want to. As you can see, he wants to protect you all even if it's with his life. We tried to show him other ways to deal with situations such as these."

"But as you can see it did nothing," Tony said.

"He's acting on emotions, not logic. He's only thinking about protecting the people he cares about," Steve told Tony.

"And why didn't you two say anything?" Hestia asked.

"As they said, he didn't want us to tell anyone," Apollo shrugged.

"We wanted him to at least tell Thalia and Nico but that went south," Hades muttered.

"That's why you all were arguing and Percy stormed out of the room when I came to tell him that news a while ago," Nico said with a look of realization.

They all nodded.

"Why didn't he want us to know?" Thalia asked.

"He wanted to keep you both safe more than anyone. You were his top priority. He said that after the last war, you all were finally happy. Thalia with Artemis and Nico with Will and his dad. He didn't want to take that happiness from you just because of his 'minor problems,'" Steve answered.

"So what do we do?" Hera asked.

"I could lock him in the palace with Triton and me?" Poseidon suggested.

Tony and Clint burst into laughter and everyone in the room looked at them strangely.

"Sorry. It's just that when we asked Percy to tell you all again, he laughed. When we asked why he laughed he said that his dad would try to lock him in a tower in his palace-like Rapunzel," Tony said, barely getting the words out.

The gods chuckled while Nico, Thalia, and Clarisse burst into laughter.

"What if the Avengers and Percy stayed here? We can get Hecate to put another barrier around camp to keep Percy from leaving. If he tries to sneak out everyone in this room would be notified and we can try to find him," Athena suggested.