The Reluctant Hero

Question Time!

Apparently flashing various bright lights into a war veteran's face is not a good idea. Percy persevered though. It did however, give him one Hades of a headache.

He strode in with the other Avengers and sat down, taking his place beside them as the cameras drove him insane by cutting off his vision. He didn't like not being able to seem but didn't even break his stride as he crossed the room.

"Mr Stark! Mr Stark! Who is this!?" Tony was leading the conference. The others had said that was a terrible idea, which it was, but he was the one with the most experience. Apart from Thor. But he's Thor.

 "When were you going to tell us about this new player?!"

 "Why are you endangering  a child, Mr Stark?!" 

"Has the government approved this, Mr Stark!?" Stark gave his most shit-eating grin.

"Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the latest Avengers press conference. I trust you all bought a ticket and donated the appropriate amount to charity." Natasha elbowed him in the ribs. "Ouch, Pepper normally goes for the shins." He muttered so no reporters could hear them.

"I'll remember that." She assured  him, her smile was as sharp as her knives, which, naturally, she'd managed to sneak into the press conference. Mettle detectors had nothing on the Black Widow.

"Sorry, Folks. I like to open these with some humour as most of you probably know." He smiled again. "So, who wants to start?"

His question triggered a renewed explosion of camera flashes, which didn't Percy's headache.

"Mr Stark! Are you trying to trick-"
"Mr Stark! What example is this setting-"
"Mr Stark! Are you deliberately endangering-"
"Mr Stark! Are you promoting child labour-"
"Mr Stark!-"

"Mr Stark!-"

"Mr Stark!-"

Percy sighed and rubbed his head as Tony answered.

"Yes? You in the blue shirt with the brown hair. In the front." The reporter leaned forward in his seat as he was called on, like a baby bird begging for worms.

"Mr Stark, I think I'm addressing the elephant in the room when I ask: who is this Seventh Avenger?" His vulturous gaze slipped to Percy as he finished his question. The hero resolutely kept his head down and tried to make as little of him visible as possible. He didn't like this much attention. The last time someone and looked at him like that it had been Tart-him and it had ended with a knife and pain and-

He stopped that train of thought as Tony responded.

"He's Admiral and he's our newest member. Admiral was a soldier who we, incorrectly, thought was a threat. When we arrived we realised he needed help and after dealing with that he became one of us. Since then he has helped us a lot, most recently in the confrontation you saw." That was certainly one way of putting it. They'd carefully decided how to describe their meeting before hand.

"Mr Stark! Why weren't we told sooner? Surely the public has a right to know what super powered individuals," He didn't say heroes, "are fighting in our streets." Or protecting.

"We are all doing our best to protect all we can and we couldn't tell others sooner because of the trouble we mentioned that Admiral needed help with."
"Mr Stark! Could this 'trouble' endanger New York citizens?! Is Admiral bringing danger to honest citizens?!" It was the blue-shirted reporter from before.

"Admiral is an honest citizen. And that danger was specifically towards him due to some unfortunate events in his past." Even Stark cringed a bit at that.