Percy Jackson and The Avengers Crossover

Chapter 3

Percy Jackson POV:
I stepped out of the apartment building and welcomed the crisp evening air into my lungs. I lingered in the doorway for a moment, before breaking out into a jog and making my way down to the cemetery.
Reaching the gates, I heaved a shaking sigh. My legs, and the rest of me, was weak from unintentional starvation. It's not that I felt I should be starved, just that I couldn't find purpose in eating. Or anything else, really. It seemed my life had burnt out like a flame when she left, and now I was just a walking husk of who I used to be. Percy Jackson was dead.
As I thought this, a small bit of longing seized my heart. If only I were.
I clutched the golden lilies, laurels, and the olive tree branch I held in my hand. Each week I brought a new colour of lilies sacred to Athena, as well as the same laurels and olive branches to lay on her grave.
A tear slipped down my cheek. I decided it was best to keep moving. I could weep at her gravestone.
I stepped along the path, heading to the secluded corner reserved for Greek heroes. To anyone else, it might seem weird to have a bunch of totally unrelated kids grouped up in a corner, but I and the few other demigods I saw mourning a loss, we understood. Most nodded respectfully at me, and a few bowed. I grimaced, this was just a bitter reminder of my new position in the world... and the fact that I'll never get to see Annabeth again. Gods don't die after all. We don't go to Elysium, we fade, forever lost from memory.
Each word brought a new wave of pain, and I concluded it was just better to stop thinking. Thinking only brings misery.
I came to her grave and knelt. Gently placing the delicate florals by the bottom of the plaque. Tear after tear slid along my face, while I knelt, overwhelmed with the desire to join her, then faced with the knowledge I never can. Each day brings me closer to insanity. At this point, the only thing keeping me fixed to reality is Paul. My only living family besides the Gods. He had to watch my mother die, ripped limb from limb by an invisible force he wasn't allowed to see. He still hears her screams of agony, much as I hear Annabeth's. Neither of us deserve this pain, this torture, yet here we are. Tormented night after night, day after day, by something we couldn't control, no matter how much we wished, begged, pleaded that we could.
We glue smiles to our faces, in hopes that we can mimic sanity. In hopes we can convince our brains that we are still alive. That we are still here, not stuck inside our brains, reliving moments over and over. 
In truth, we are broken. Shattered. Destroyed beyond repair.
Many people try to sympathize, or send us to therapy. Their imagination cannot begin to grasp even little pieces of what the bedevilment is like.
Not even this could keep the gods away from me. No, I wasn't allowed to grieve in peace.
I stared down at the grave. Wishing so desperately she was here. My Wise Girl.
Suddenly I felt two presences behind me. My battle instincts kicked in and my hand flew to my pocket, where I brought out riptide.

Natasha POV:
Clint and I crept between the trees of the forest surrounding the cemetery. Our target headed toward a secluded corner, and naturally we followed him.
"Hey Nat," Clint muttered, "The kids he's passing are all nodding, one even bowed! Who is this guy?"
"I can see that, and that's what we're here to find out," I replied.
He eventually knelt down in front of one grave and placed the flowers he was carrying, before crumbling. He put his head in his hands wept. I could almost see the waves of anguish and utter misery radiating from him. I really didn't want to disturb him, he was grieving. Plus, I still couldn't get over the feeling that there's something we're missing.
Before I could mention this to Clint he took a step toward the nearest tree, a few feet in front of us, Perseus jumped to his feet and retrieved something from his pocket. Upon closer inspection, it was a pen. Why would he need a pen?
He just stared at me. Holding that pen honestly quite ominously.
Clint scrambled up the tree and I stepped out of the shadows.
"What do you want?" He growled, a glare even scarier than Fury's resonated in his sea green eyes.
"I just want to talk-" I started, but he cut me off.
"Okay, but what does your friend in the tree want?" He asked, deadly serious.
My eyes widened a bit, but that was all the surprise I let my face show, schooling my features into an unreadable expression.
"He's just in case you would rather make this violent." I stated, calmly and firmly.
"I don't want that, but I don't want to talk either," he said, and bolted into the shadows of the forest.