Something to Fight For (Percy Jackson and the Avengers Crossover)

Chapter 5 - Three Furies and Nick

"Great, I thought. We just blowtorched a national monument." - Rick Riordan (The Lightning Thief) 

Small pieces of ceiling fell to the floor in clumps and piles. One particularly large part landed on Nick's head along with some gold dust, but he didn't seem to notice it. His eyes were still transfixed on the pile of gold in the middle of the room. Steve shook the gold dust out of his hair and brushed some off his shoulder. 

Percy, well Percy was standing in the middle of the room, practically covered head to toe in gold. Slowly, very slowly, the dust dissipated into the air. Soon it was like the dust was never there. 

Some remnants remained, like the one covering Nick's head. 

"Uh, Fury? You have something on your head," Percy motioned to Nick. The director of SHIELD tore his eyes away from the mystical dust and looked at the boy in annoyance. 

"I know," he replied blankly. 

Percy nodded slowly, "Okay." 

Suddenly, like a viper darting out from its nest, a gun was pointed at Percy's head. Percy held his hands up reluctantly. 

"Look, I know this is astonishing, since you must hate not knowing anything, but can you put the gun away?" he asked casually. The gun didn't drop. Percy sighed in helplessness and gave Fury a bored expression. 

Steve stepped between the two, his shield blocking the gun. Percy dropped his hands down and placed them into his pocket. Riptide leaned against his leg. "We can talk this through," Steve said to Nick, giving him a pointed look. 

Slowly, very slowly, Fury put down his gun and holstered it again. "Come," he said simply before walking away. Steve looked back at Percy and motioned for him to follow. 

"Why does everyone tell me what to do!" Percy exclaimed as he followed the soldier out of the destroyed room. "I mean, come on!" 

He looked back at the dust swirling in the room, frowning when they lingered and clung to the walls. After seeing them settle and disappear as per usual, he continued following Steve. For the second time that day, Percy sat at a metal table opposite from Nick. Neither of them spoke, and the air was crammed with awkwardness and tension. No idea how those fit together, but it did. 

Percy tapped his fingers on the table rhythmically. "So...are you going to say something?" he asked. 

Fury leaned forwards but didn't speak. Percy nodded to himself and looked at Steve, his eyes pleading for help. Steve shrugged. 

"Well, I think I know what caused the monster to come," Percy said after a few minutes passed. No one said anything. "It was my cell phone," Percy supplied brightly. 

Again, silence. 

"You know what? You are as boring as my maths teacher," Percy scoffed as he glared at Fury. "Both easy to anger and equally dull." 

"Perseus Jackson, let's continue the conversation," Fury finally said, sliding a folder onto the table. It had one sheet of paper. Percy flipped the folder open and found himself staring into a school photo of himself. He raised an eyebrow at Fury, the person he now deemed a stalker but looked down at the file again. 

"Was expelled from multiple schools for being disorderly and sometimes violent. Six schools in fact, over the course of six years. One thing I didn't mention before was how in fourth grade, a man followed you in school before the teachers drove him away. You claimed he had one eye. Another time, you fired a war cannon and blew up a school bus. 

Now, how did you know how to fire a cannon, and why did you believe the man had one eye?" Nick asked, staring at Percy with dark eyes. 

"Well, for the cannon part, instinct. For the one eye man, well, he was real," Percy replied. "Also, we didn't blow up the national monument, we torched it. Technically though, it wasn't my fault."