The Inner Circle (Percy Jackson x Avengers)

Chapter 2: Subject Twelve

Get Ready for a little background here folks. Let's make it spicy. 

Everything throbbed like he had walked through the depths of hell itself.

Percy sat in a cold and dark cellar with his hands loosely chained to the wall. He was wearing issued cargo pants and a loose fitting t-shirt that were covered with patches of dried blood and dirt and sweat. Underneath that, his body was bruised and scarred around his neck, arms, and torso after repeated injections and injuries.

Since the beginning of his memories, he had been in a routine of training, testing, and rotting in the cell. Of course, everything was against his will, but he couldn't exactly remember how he had gotten there or what was outside of the world he knew. Since they began the injections, he stopped resisting their efforts to get him under their control as he lost his sense of what he was there for in the first place.

Training, of course, was brutal in its own ways despite having done it for so long now. They would have Percy physically, mentally, and magically practice everyday that he was awake. But, the magic part was something they had only tried with no luck. For some reason, they believed he was enhanced and had tried to trigger his abilities with little progress. The most that Percy had done with his powers was sweat if that even counted for anything. At least in front of them.

When they left him to rot in his cell or when they thought he was exhausted and passed out from exhaustion, Percy would have time alone to focus on his abilities. He knew that he could control water to some extent, but under no circumstances did he tell nor show anyone else for fear that his superiors would try to use him for something else, mainly the Inner Circle.

Yet, something deep down in his gut gave him the feeling that he possessed a lot more power than what he was currently working with. A power that could bring buildings down if he chose.

The mental part of training was simply being able to follow commands which Percy was fine with. He didn't know the reason he was doing these commands, but he followed them because that was all he really knew. It gave him a purpose to keep building his strength, learning more about Hydra and himself along the way. Though, some of the superiors seemed impressed or even smiled when overseeing him because he would smoothly execute their commands with little hesitation. Apparently the other soldiers that they were training had some issues every so often with carrying out their orders in the field.

Percy brought his hands up to feel his neck where they had done the most recent injection. It was already scarred over from multiple months of consistent needles, but it still throbbed and hurt to the touch. He gasped slightly as he gently held his hands over the very sensitive area on his neck and sat there for a few minutes with his knees brought up to his chest.

Besides the physical part of the injections, Percy was allowed to always go outside afterwards which helped him not to go insane while he had been with Hydra. It was the only part that he looked forward to in his mundane routine. He noticed that he felt more apathetic after his shots too, but it was a little side effect that he was willing to deal with for a little bit of freedom here and there.

Percy knew that he was currently in a secure Hydra base in a forest that was a car ride away from a bustling city, but he had never been that far out. But, that was about to change today.

Today was supposedly supposed to be his test day where his superiors would bring him out to the field, the real city field. Despite being a soldier, Percy was excited for his little excursion like a kid getting ready to go on a field trip for school.

Footsteps began echoing in the hallway. It sounded like heavy boots and someone in uniform judging from the slight ruffle of their clothes from swinging their arms. The second pair of footsteps sounded exactly like how he remembered the protege of Dr. Zola, Dr. Cadley.