The Hidden Son (Percy Jackson / Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Crossover)

7. Tin Can of Death

          "WHAT'S GOING ON?" Mack demanded, reluctantly moving away from the spectacle being shown on the monitors.

"There's somebody attacking the Bus," May said flatly. "All hands on deck." With that, the woman turned and left.

Fitz stood, looking as confused as Mack had ever seen him. "We're thirty-five thousand feet in the air," he called after May. "Who could possibly—"

He never finished that sentence. The plane tipped violently to one side, the hull creaking. Both agents crashed to the floor with almost every loose item in the surveillance room. "What the hell?" Fitz half-whispered, rubbing his head where he'd gotten knocked with something.

"Goddamnit," Mack swore. "Not again." He peeled himself off of the floor and jogged after May to the place he personally called Mission Control, Fitz right on his heels. The rest of the team was crowded around the holo-table as the plane shook once again. Coulson was searching through the feed from different cameras to find the perpetrator—and sure enough, one of them showed a small blotch of purple against the roiling clouds. It rocketed closer to the plane until it came into focus.

          It was the boy. The boy from before, in the lightning. Mack didn't know what else to call him.

          "Don't shoot!" Coulson shouted to no one in particular as the team tried to maintain altitude. "I won't have him fall out of the sky. May!" He turned around this way and that until he found her. "Find us a place to land."

          "On it," she said, and hurried off.

          The hull groaned under an invisible impact. Mack prayed it would hold together until they touched down. Daisy was typing away at the holo-table, her brow furrowed in concentration, but she couldn't seem to find anything to her liking. Fitz was nowhere to be found, but if Mack had to guess, he was downstairs in the lab, making sure something didn't blow up. Mack was suddenly very glad that Fitz knew what he was doing.

          One of the screens showed the boy flying through the air, right towards the plane. He hit with an alarming force—not a weapon in hand, but still the enormous vehicle groaned and tilted under the weight of a high-school quarterback. Mack scrambled to grab something, anything to hold onto, his mind racing, yielding nothing.

          What the hell were these kids?

★

          Annabeth shouted in frustration as she peeled herself off the floor of the cell and held her hand out to Percy.

He took it, groaning as she helped him up. "This tin can is going to lead me to an early death."

Annabeth scrunched up her face in annoyance. "What in Hades is going on?"

"Funny you should ask," said a familiar voice.

          She made an unearthly squawking noise and whirled around to find him melting into the room from the dark corner behind her. "Nico, what the hell?"

          Percy's reaction was a bit different. "Dude! How'd you get here? You know what, I don't—"

          Nico cut him off. "We don't have long," he said quickly. "Jason's doing his best to distract, but—" The room tilted suddenly to the right, making them lose their balance for a moment. "—it's only a matter of time." He grabbed Annabeth's arm, urgency written all over his face. "We've got to get you guys out of here."