PERSEUS MEANS DESTROYER

I Walk The Line

You give me cause for love that I can't hide,

For you, I know I'd even try to turn the tide.

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Percy sat on his bed, shuffling back to sit with his back to the wall, gesturing for Annabeth to come over. "A little, I guess. Some stuff happened. I don't really know what to do."

Annabeth handed him the brush, sitting down on the edge of the bed and crossing her legs, pushing herself back with her hands. "Well... what happened?"

Percy huffed through his mouth, running the brush through her hair, starting at the crown and moving down to the ends, snagging on a few of the smaller knots and all the ones Annabeth hadn't managed to get out herself. "Somehow, I ended up getting an x-ray on my leg while we were in the Helicarrier that first few days. The doctor—Dr... Geography? Geoham? Goehann, I think—said... well, pretty much the same thing as Will did the first time. Which was sort of why he wanted to talk today."

Annabeth considered it for a few seconds. "Do they know about the demigod thing? And what'd Will tell you today?"

Percy sighed again, tugging on the brush to force it through a particularly bad patch. "No. And he just had a name for what he was describing the other month. 'Psychosomatic Disorder' or something like that. Sounds stupid," he grumbled afterward.

"Percy, come on."

"He said it's related to stress. And... other stuff too, I guess. But I just don't get why I— I mean," he laughed again. "I feel fine. I'm fine, everything's great!"

He moved his hand back to continue brushing her hair, but she could feel the tremble even through that.

"Percy, stop for a moment." She turned around and placed her hands over his, curling gently around her hairbrush. Like this, she could feel the different skin texture left behind by the scars from their first quest together. The skin felt like it was stretched tighter across his hands, and it was a little stiff. "I know... I know that you want to be fine. But you aren't, okay? I'm not either. None of us are, not really. But pretending you're okay isn't going to make the problem go away." She tightened her hold on his hands, squeezing reassuringly before continuing. "It's like burnout; you just... you can't perform to your own standards anymore, because you're tired, and you just keep pushing through because you're used to it by now. But it just makes it worse. If you don't take the time to maintain something, it will break down, no matter how hard you push it. You can't keep doing this and expect to suddenly heal, Percy. And I know it hurts to hear, but you're never going to be who you were last year. It isn't possible for you to go back to being him after the crazy bullshit the gods have thrown at us."

Percy's gaze fell to his lap, and he turned his hand palm-up in her grasp, silently passing the hairbrush back to her. "I could— I just have to grow up. It... it wasn't..." He looked back up at her, almost pleading, like he wanted her to tell him they were going to be fine.

Annabeth exhaled slowly, leaning into Percy's chest. "Seaweed Brain."

"Wise Girl?" He tentatively placed his arms around her lower back.

"Do you know what trauma—" she swallowed, slinging her arms around him— "do you know what trauma does to people?"

She could feel his back tense under her hands. "I— I do, but—"

"Percy, it changes people. It makes them—makes us—change things. A lot of things. Sometimes everything. To stop it from happening again, to help cope, to make it better. And part of it is... well, this."

"But that wasn't— I'm not— I never had it that bad, not compared to— not compared to you or— or Jason, I just—"

"Percy, if you were stabbed with a knife, and I was stabbed with a sword, and then we both died, who had it worse?"

He flinched, raising a hand to her shoulder. Annabeth's fingers fumbled across his shirt, pinpointing his old Achilles' Heel. "Shit, I'm sorry—"

"It's fine, Wise Girl." He buried his face in her shoulder and laughed weakly. "I don't know. Were they poisoned?"

Annabeth frowned. "That's not the point. Whatever happened, we both ended up in the same place. And even if you think it's fine, I'm sorry, because part of being a good friend—and a good partner—is being able to respect your triggers. And apparently that's one of them."

"It's not—"

"Well then, you wouldn't have jumped like that."

She dropped her hands to around his waist, shuffling closer so she was sitting between his legs, with hers on either side of his waist. "Like— like me, with spiders." Annabeth shuddered. "When I was little, and still... at home, I used to have these awful nightmares. Children of Athena... we're scared of spiders. It has to do with... with mom's competition with Arachne. I would— I'd wake up screaming, because I thought they were covering me. And when I woke up... I was always covered in bites and cobwebs. And my stepmom hated me for it, because they— they'd always be gone before she got to my room. And she thought that I should have outgrown the nightmares. And... after Arachne's cavern... it hasn't really gotten better. But I'm glad you dusted her."

But she couldn't not think about the face he'd made after, looking at the pile of golden sand left behind. Like he was dissatisfied with it. Like he had wanted to do worse to her.

And as much as she wanted to pretend that part of him didn't exist, as much as she wished it didn't, she knew him better than that. And, in all honesty? She would have continued loving him anyway. As scary as he was sometimes, Percy had never directly, or purposefully, harmed her. And he seemed hell-bent on keeping it that way, for himself and everyone—and everything—else.

Besides, the darker side of him was never going away. She knew first hand that there was a sick delight in the amount of power a single person could hold over others. And if he experienced it a little more often than others, so be it.

"Huh." Tony stared at Bruce's email inbox. "From one Nick Fury. He replied after all."

Bruce sighed and open the email, reading through the lines of text as quickly as he could. "... we have permission to proceed. But only if it's last-resort. He doesn't want to take a chance and anger Perseus's gods."

Natasha pursed her lips, taking the laptop from Bruce and reading it herself. "He basically wants us to try and play nice first. Just ask Perseus straight up before we move onto 'Plan B'."

"He's never going to answer us truthfully, Tasha."

"Shut your mouth, Stark. We could get Steve to ask him; they seem to get one fine. And what about Thor? He seemed to know the kid. Even if it doesn't work, we still complied with orders."

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. But I fully reserve the right to say 'I told you so'."

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First published ::: 25.10.22
First edit ::: n/a
Wordcount ::: 1191
Chapter dedication ::: n/a

<3

Yours, l0v3rboy_