Beating Hearts

Blue Hawaii

The chapter title isn't too relevant, but one of my trashed ideas was relevant to Hawaii, and I felt like keeping it, so there.

Okay, so Percy could definitely see where Banner was coming from.

He'd disappeared for a day, and while that time frame was no where near 8 months and it happened more and more often nowadays, he could sympathize with the guy.

That did not mean that the flood of questions was appreciated. Like, at all. Percy dealt with actual sea disasters, not metaphorical representations of word vomit.

"...I asked JARVIS to at least alert us to when you were here and when you'd left, because well, what if you needed help, right? Y-you didn't seem like the type to have a high level of self preservation, despite what you said, and you must get hurt a lot to have that level of tolerance, not to mention that you carry around the healing bar..."

He was rambling, but Percy did that himself, and he tried his best not to be a hypocrite. Besides, the stuff he was saying was sweet, you know? He was just worried about Percy's health, which, inconvenient the concern may be for Percy himself, reminded the demigod of a mix between Will and Grover.

Gods, he hadn't seen Grover in forever.

Once upon a time, they were best friends. Sure they kept secrets from each other, like having an abusive stepfather, or being half goat, but that was all in the past, and none of it was really that big of a deal.

The empathy link had been burned the moment Percy drank that firewater from the Phlegethon. He'd felt it, and while he was pained at losing such an important connection, he was grateful that Grover was spared most of Percy's emotions. Especially after what happened with Akhyls.

Regardless of the heavy trauma associated with anyone and everyone in Percy's life, Grover remained wholly the same. His self-doubt had dwindled early on, only fading further as time passed. Grover had always been awkward, and endearing in a way that annoyed you at times, but also made you want to protect him from harm. He'd significantly grown into his role as Lord of the Wild, and was a true leader for all that his social skills were lacking otherwise.

Meanwhile, Banner's confidence issues were far from evanesced. He was entirely non-confrontational, even the meekest satyr would stand up for the preservation of nature, and Grover himself spoke out against Roman and Greek warriors many a time. His complacence could result in him being pushed to the brink, yet remaining unable to speak the words to let anyone know. He'd just let himself stumble off the edge without protest.

Or worse, he'd allow the pressure to build up inside of him, a dangerous amount of it suppressed with no stress relief to speak of, and all of a sudden it would hit him full force. Likely releasing the Hulk, but definitely burning some bridges with a spontaneous overreaction from an otherwise soft-spoken pushover.

Anyways, Percy was content to let him let out his frustrations on Percy. The subject matter was just a bit too precarious for his tastes.

He didn't need any check-ups, or people looking into his medical records, and he certainly didn't want too many questions about his whereabouts, so he'd better come up with something now. His trips were too short and frequent to be passed off as missions without garnering some serious suspicion from the spies and tech dude- they already hated him enough without lying being thrown in.

Banner was still ranting. Percy should probably start listening.

"Where did you even go? It was snowing last night! There's no apartment you could have run to from this tower before being buried in snow- what if you're sick?"