Not Always the Hero; Rewritten // (Percy Jackson x Peter Parker)

stalking gone wrong

It's okay to be saved once in a while too.

Peter knew better, he did, but the anonymity gave him a fucked up sense of security. Spider-Man was currently positioned on the underhang of a building that hid him completely from the bustling New York street below him. A certain Percy Jackson was currently on said bustling street, walking like he had places to be. It was almost humorous, if not extremely concerning to the wallcrawler that all who looked at Percy veered out of his way. It didn't particularly make sense, the boy was hunched in a dark hoodie, hands in the pockets of his loose black pants, there couldn't have been anything exceptionally wrong with that. He just looked like any other New Yorker that wasn't in a suit.

Or at least Peter kept telling himself that until Percy got close enough to the building Pete was on that he caught a glimpse of his facial expression. Resting Bitch Face was not the right term; Percy looked downright scary. His eyebrows were furrowed and cast enough of a shadow over his eyes that they looked even harsher when he glanced up. Those eyes that Peter knew were green, but from here only looked angry, any color indiscernible. His mouth was set and Peter knew for a fact that his jaw was clenched tighter than it should've been. He looked like a predatory animal, stalking and indignant. No wonder all the onlookers gave the 17 year old a wide berth.

Percy moved a little further up the street and as a result so did Peter. He had just barely moved onto the next building, now visible to the few public who would look up. What he wasn't expecting though was for Percy to look suddenly and spot Spider-Man. They both froze. Peter hadn't been expecting the look of surprise and then absolute wonder on Percy's face. The scary look from before was totally gone as he stared at the spiderling a little slack jawed. It was almost like he'd never seen Spider-man before, but surely that couldn't be true; Pete had been Spidey since they were both 15.

Regardless of it all, Percy was staring at the webslinger, completely stationary on the busy sidewalk. Instead of veering around him, other passer-bys narrowly avoided him and shot dirty looks to which he was unaware of. They stayed like this for an uncomfortable amount of time for Peter, even if his ADHD hadn't been heightened by the spider-bite it still would've been an unbearable amount of time to just stay.

And then finally, Percy lifted his hand in the barest bit of a wave, still staring at Peter, or, at Spider-Man. Pete felt his own hand lifting involuntarily. For some reason he felt like a fly caught in a web, which didn't make any sense because he was the one that did the catching in webs.

A grin. A real, toothy grin of actual happiness, or at least as far as Peter could tell from over 50 feet. He hadn't seen a look like that on Percy Jackson's face since the night of the other boy's mother's wedding.

The kind of look that Peter wouldn't mind seeing more often-

CRASH

An explosion rattled the entire block, knocking New York citizens over left and right. Had Peter not been Spider-Man, he'd have for sure eaten shit from the strength of the vibration that hit the building he was on. Somehow Percy Jackson had managed to stay standing, albeit crouched, but-

Peter had no time to hesitate, his city needed him. All thoughts of his strange neighbor were gone in a heartbeat as he thwipped towards the concerning sound. Already there was screams from terrified people who'd just been trying to go about their day. Maybe it was the amount of debris and smoke in the air, but whatever had caused the explosion was hard for Spider-Man to see.

His immediate focus though was making sure all the civilians were safe, but he wasn't the only one with that mindset either. Spidey helped a mother gather her three children, checking them for injuries while crowds ran past. Unlike most of the other New Yorkers, Percy Jackson was not in the process of running from the damage but towards it. He helped a man in a suit and tie off of the concrete while Spider-Man moved onto webbing up the loose debris.