Powerless (Percy Jackson and Avengers Crossover)

The Penalty of Crimes is living Life

Part II: Criminally Good
Chapter IX: The Penalty of Life is the Penalty of Life

I stare at the rain through the fiberglass window, it pours like a premonition to the fate of the gods. Or maybe it's my fate, much more predictable now that death touches out to me like a corrupt claw. They have a knife and several metal instruments that are not the musical type. They look extremely pointy and murderous.

Murica walks in first, his hand lightly touches my shoulders before the doctor in the lab coat takes a sample of my blood. My blood's not golden ichor like that of an immortal, instead it's the color of an electric shock. I think it scares both of them — they've never held the blood of the hallow.

My restraints are simply iron cuffs this time. They aren't moldable so I don't even attempt to break them.

"Please..." I croak from the lack of water, "This is America, where is your sense of righteousness? No cruel or unusual punishments..." I don't even try to lie to myself: I'm scared.

"That flew out the window the second you attacked all of us," Murica smarts. "That's why you're being tortured, not drugged," he adds.

Only idiots don't fear being tortured. I'm not afraid of dying or death, because I'm immune to it like a sickness — a mutt. They'll never kill me... They can't.

But maybe that's why I throw myself into danger and laugh it off. Because I can't.

But I can be tortured.

And I'm afraid. Afraid that my dreams might come true, that my recollections will occur again. That old scars will suddenly begin to pour out blood one more.

I won't even fight my captors, but I won't tell them anything either. I'd rather die than help Shield or a gang. Even though I can't, the gesture's still there.

That might seem the antithesis of hallow-ness, but any imbalance in power could be catastrophic, especially if the Fate tells what should never be told. If suddenly they know that my price has already been paid in the blood of others.

I clench my fists uncomfortably, angry that I gave him something to hold over me — something to to bend me.

Then I square my shoulders, I am not afraid. I am not angry.

I just... am.

I am. I am. I am.

"Who is the founder of Vulg?"

But... I'm not.

I remain silent, an focus on my breathing patterns. In, in, out, in, out, in... He waits for a few seconds before threatening me with his first item.

I slow my metabolism so when the doctor presses a silver cylinder into the inside of my left wrist I barely feel it. I probe my muscles and transmit the thought into them to try and quickly mend the severed tendons.

They barely respond, the pulse is weak but I pour all my reserves into building. Nucleus by nucleus, cell by cell, tissue by tissue.

I stare down at my arm, watching as blood bubbles like a fountain. Then I stare at the doctor, What did I do to you?

He almost seems pyretic and feverish, happy in a way. I scowl, how can you be happy intentionally mauling someone? In the heat of battle that's one thing, for information I'm not even privy to is another.