PERSEUS MEANS DESTROYER

Breezeblocks

Please don't go, please don't go,

I love you so, I love you so, please break my heart

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Natasha frowned. "With a pantheon watching your back, why would you need a sword?"

Percy let out something uncomfortably close to a cackle. "'With a pantheon watching my back'—? Oh, you're funny."

Natasha's frown deepened.

"You're being serious? Gods— do you know what this whole thing—" He gestured to the gym and vaguely to the floor, and hoped Natasha would understand on some level he the deal with him and Loki— "is to them?"

Natasha tried to be careful with her words, but they were difficult sometimes.

"I figured someone of power within your pantheon owed a favour to Thor."

Perseus smiled wearily. "If only. They're probably hoping this is a suicide mission."

"What? They're hoping you die?"

Percy made finger guns towards her. "Got it in one! Give this woman a cookie!" He wasn't trying to be cruel or sarcastic or anything. It just slipped out, and he didn't know how to take it back.

She didn't allow it to show outwardly, but Natasha would have physically recoiled if she wasn't who she was.

Steve didn't have much of a reaction, which startled her as well.

"Why would they want you dead? Aren't you their... hero—?" Again, she still wasn't sure of the working position between Perseus and his gods.

Perseus snorted, "okay. Okay, look— you guys have Thor right? And he's... I guess he's your patron god. Now, that kind of means you guys are invaluable, because you're... the only ones he's supporting. There are about two hundred and fifty or so of us, of kids like me. We are expendable to them. It's like... money? The more you have, the less value a single dollar is to you, even if it holds the same worth overall."

Natasha wasn't quite sure if she understood him correctly. "We're valuable commodities because we're... the only ones?"

"Essentially. I mean, the Norse gods have other people, who are more like me, but they're not quite in the same situation. They're... more for one, upcoming date. Whereas me and my friends just sort of... do the gods' dirty work for them."

Sally had been delighted when Percy had come back home and said he was able to stay for the week, but still insisted on driving him out to Camp Half Blood to at least say hello to his friends there.

He didn't think he could handle staying there and getting looks of pity from every other demigod.

He was the only one of the Seven not doing anything; Leo and Annabeth were renovating the camp, vamping up old cabins and adding new ones. Piper was helping to reorganise cabins in the aftermath of the war, partnering up with Annabeth to provide support for new Head Counsellors.

Frank and Hazel had gone back to Camp Jupiter. Reyna was planning on stepping down and moving to Camp Half Blood to assist with training and defences, improving her fighting skills at the same time by supplementing her style with the Greeks'. Jason had stuck it out with the Greeks as well, feeling more at home here than in the Twelfth Legion.