PERSEUS MEANS DESTROYER

Twin Sized Mattress

Maybe shake a tambourine,

Or when I sing, you sing harmonies.

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"Welcome to the Helicarrier!"

Perseus let out an unimpressed grunt. "This is great and all, but theatrics aren't really my thing. What are we doing here?"

"You're aware your charge is the god Loki?"

Perseus paused briefly, leaning heavily on his crutch, taking the weight off his right foot. "I knew they were a god. Not which one. I didn't know they would be from an entirely different pantheon."

Bruce shrugged. "Sorry, then. We figured, since his brother's domain is in the sky, it'll be safer for him... meet his new 'handler' somewhere where we've got the upper hand."

"Okay. Fair enough. When is he getting here?"

Bruce checked his watch. "Er... very soon. We need to get to the hangar."

"Great." Bruce didn't miss the sarcasm in Perseus's voice.

As Bruce led the way to the hangar and Percy swung along behind, he tried to piece things together.

He had been summoned to Olympus, and given the mission he'd been asking for—a distraction, if anything, without being told what it was really about.

He knew he'd be dealing with a rogue god for a group of mortal heroes based in New York (weird he'd never heard of them, but if they associated with a different pantheon it sort of made sense—the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans and Nords had managed to exist without rubbing against each other until he and his friends popped up—so he figured Magnus probably at least knew about these guys).

The hangar was simultaneously bigger and smaller than he had expected.

In all honesty, the fact that he hadn't really been thinking about the hangar probably had something to do with it.

The others had already assembled at the open doors, and Bruce and Percy joined them, forming a long line across the entrance.

Percy took up his spot as far from Natasha as possible.

"How long are we going to be waiting? Because soon isn't exactly... exact."

"Teenagers these days, so impatient." Tony's thinly veiled annoyance was creeping through. "It's too early for this shit anyway. But he's got a point. When's lightning bug getting here?"

Steve raised an incredulous eyebrow. "'lightning bug'?"

Tony shrugged, turning slightly to eye the blond. "Yep."

Percy snickered quietly. "That's not half bad."

"Not half bad, he says!"

"My Uncle Z would probably want to kill—" Percy shut up quick once his brain caught up with his mouth. "... he doesn't like my nicknames for him."

Natasha's head flicked over to the pair of them for a second.

Uncle, huh? Since when did Perseus connect with his father's side of the family?

She made a mental note to prod Bruce into probing deeper into that, and then dismissed it.

It wasn't something she could afford to waste mental space on, because even though they had defeated Loki once before this was still going to be a very vulnerable position.

Clint had noticed Natasha's minute movement, quickly realising what she'd figured out—he hadn't heard Perseus's biological father mentioned in his file either.

After the event, Percy decided that this Thor guy had a thing for drama.

The skies had darkened, sheet lightning rippling through the clouds. Winds had started bringing pelting rain in through the hangar doors, causing everyone inside to curl in on themselves a bit, hiding from the cold, only amplified by their height.

Percy's first reaction was to take a half step back, dragging the rubber base of the crutch with him, then pause and retake his position—this wasn't Zeus, it was Thor, godly child of the Nordic equivalent of Zeus (in some aspects, at least).

And then, out of the middle of it all, a dark—and more–than–slightly misshapen—figure shot through the clouds, coming to a jolting halt and jarring landing on the hangar deck.

The vibrations rattled Percy's teeth.

Once the thing had landed, and he had managed to get his rain–soaked hair out of his face (the wind wasn't much help with that, by the way), Percy could see that the one thing was actually two things—a tall and admittedly buff blond dude in what looked like spandex, and some lanky guy who Percy kind of thought looked a bit like him, just with longer hair and greener eyes.

And handcuffs, and a gold helmet–horns thing on his head.

Maybe they weren't so similar.

At least the guys who wanted Percy dead, or at least incapacitated, let him keep his dignity and purpose, and even if he was running their stupid errands for them, at least he looked free.

Loki was well and truly marked as the property of the gods he served.

Or maybe they were similar. Just not quite in the way he first thought.

Percy self–consciously tucked his crutch a bit further out of sight.

His leg should've healed by now, and it didn't hurt much anymore—it hadn't for a few months, but he refused to let his mom or Paul take him to a physiotherapist—but he found that he couldn't bring himself to leave home with the dam thing.

Thor was all smiles when Steve and Tony walked over to chat, but Natasha and Clint were keeping a close eye on the scowling Loki.

Bruce had hung back with Perseus, who had been looking uncomfortable since the two gods had shown up.

"Are you alright...?"

"Yeah. Just twitchy. Haven't had the greatest experience with gods."

Bruce semi–raised an eyebrow. "You've met these guys before?"

Perseus shrugged and gave a non–committal hum.

Looking back on it, Tony figured it was a bad idea from the start.

But he had wanted a little something to spice up the morning, and he was a child at heart, so of course he poked the figurative bear.

"Oh, Thor! You know your brother's new handler?"

Thor's expression had darkened by a bit, but Tony brushed it off as the lighting outside (the guy had created a thunderstorm, of course the lighting was dramatic).

"I am aware that he is here, yes."

"You wanna meet him? He hasn't been very talkative yet, though."

Tony didn't know if Perseus had a sixth sense or something, but he could have sworn he felt the kid glaring at him from behind. He glanced over at him sheepishly.

Thor frowned. "I imagine I would need to meet him before handing over my brother."

"Oh, aren't you staying?"

"I will be required to report back to my father about today, so I will return, but I must leave after this."

Tony shrugged, turning on one heel back to Perseus.

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First published ::: 07.06.22
First edit ::: n/a
Wordcount ::: 1086
Chapter dedication ::: n/a

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