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

watching it all go wrong

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

First it was his time with Lupa, then it was the Second Giant War. Percy couldn't turn off the scary anymore. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of himself in a window reflection, or when he saw himself in the bathroom mirror; every time he was thrown off by how angry he looked, by how intimidating his own face had become. It was as if all the edges had sharpened, any hint of baby fat long gone. He wasn't the same as he once had been. He was still tan of course, but you could tell he'd been undernourished for some time. He felt like he looked grey, like his skin color had faded from his time in Tartarus, he couldn't find it in himself to voice that though, and no one else seemed to have noticed anything, so Percy supposed he just looked the same as he always had.

Some things were noticeable to others though, the weight loss was the biggest thing. Tartarus and surviving off of drinking from the River Phlegethon had left Percy more gaunt then he'd ever been in his life. His clothes fit looser and he found himself cold more often, his ability to regulate his body temperature was gone. Despite the physical trauma his body had gone through, he was still alarming. He wanted to say he didn't know when or how that had happened, but he knew. It all happened after he'd turned 16 and Kronos had been defeated. He was supposed to have gotten a break, instead he was asleep for 8 months, then cast into a second war that nearly cost the world and the lives of everyone he cared about.

They'd won, the giants had been defeated and Gaea was asleep for a long long time, but that second war hadn't been without its consequences. Now Percy was just scary. He wasn't dumb or oblivious, he was aware that his fellow New Yorkers veered out of his was on the street if they caught sight of his expression. Percy couldn't fix that though. The damage had been done.

Perce was currently on his way to the Sweet on America, the candy shoppe his mom had used to work at years ago. She'd asked him to pick up an order for her from there and Percy had nothing better going on, so he'd said why not. At least he knew there was nearly a hundred percent likelihood that whatever he'd be picking up would be blue.

He wasn't unused to being watched or the feeling of being watched, it kind of came with the lifestyle he lived. This was different though. He'd picked up on it after crossing the last intersection. His jaw was clenched, he didn't want trouble today. He didn't really want trouble any day, but the world never seemed to listen. Percy kept walking though, hopefully trouble wouldn't bother him when there were so many civilians around, not that that had stopped trouble before.

It was when he was almost to the next intersection that he felt it. He looked up and to the right on a whim, Riptide tight in his fist in his pocket and-

-and it was Spider-man. The hand gripping Riptide went slack. They both froze. The elusive wallcrawler was perched on the fifth or so story of the building right next to where Percy was. In fact, Percy must've caught him right as he had moved from one building to the next. The eyes on Spidey's mask were blown wide, probably from the surprise of being seen. Percy was nearly jostled by a few New Yorkers who said some passive aggressive things under their breath but it did not matter. He watched the masked hero blink, still locked in this weird staring contest analysis they were locked in. It was too far away to tell if he was even breathing.

Percy took a breath and let his hand slip out of his pocket without Riptide. It could barely even be called a wave but-

-but Spider-man raised his own hand in return, Spidey waved back.

He let out a little huff of a laugh that turned into a full blown smile. Spider-man had taken one of his hands off of the wall he was hanging off of just to wave at Percy-