Catch Me If I Fall (PJO/Avengers Crossover)

18

Percy had been watching Thor and the mortals argue for a while now. It was getting rather tiring, especially seeing as he hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about. He knew Fury, Romanoff and Steve, Thor and Tony. He'd recently discovered the doctor guy was Banner- the same dude Loki had mentioned was a monster, apparently, but Percy couldn't sense any disruptive aura from him.

Thor laughed, snapping Percy out of his train of thought. "You people are so petty, and tiny."

"Yeah, this is a team," Banner replied, his anger rising.

"Agent Romanoff," Fury said calmly. "Would you escort Dr. Banner to his-"

"WHERE?" He shouted, making Percy almost jump out of his skin. "YOU RENTED MY ROOM!"

"The cell was just-" Fury began to explain, but Banner was having none of it.

"IN CASE YOU NEEDED TO KILL ME!" He yelled. "BUT YOU CAN'T! I KNOW, I'VE TRIED!"

Percy couldn't help but feel pity on the doctor. He realised that he, too, bore the curse of immortality. It felt like the room suddenly got much, much colder- but it was really only Percy who was shivering. Everyone was staring at Banner.

"I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out." He lowered his voice. "So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me into this freak show and put everyone here at risk." He turned. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Fury and Romanoff both reached for their guns. Percy, instinctively, started to fidget with his ballpoint pen. Celestial bronze wouldn't work on Banner if he wasn't a monster, anyway- so he wasn't necessarily putting anyone at risk if he decided to attack the doctor.

"Doctor Banner, put down the sceptre." Steve said slowly, as if talking to a wild animal. Percy raised an eyebrow at Banner, who was now gripping Loki's staff and looked rather surprised to see it. He put it back where it belonged, and a monitor made a beeping noise, reminding Percy of where he was. A room. Full of strangers- apart from Thor- who wished to do gods-know-what to Loki. Full of technology stuff that Percy hadn't a clue about.

"Got it!" Fury turned.

"Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all." Banner stormed towards the monitor, examining it and almost crashing into Percy. He imagined what would've happened if they knew he had eavesdropped on their entire conversation. That he'd been stalking them since the gala. He didn't want to think about what they'd do.

Romanoff turned too. "Located the tesseract?"

"I can get there faster," Stark said.

"Look, all of us-" Steve began, but Thor caught him off.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it."

Exactly, Percy thought, walking to the monitor and taking a look at it. Which is why I have to find it and break Loki out of here before anyone knows I'm eavesdropping.

He kept looking at the monitor as Steve and Tony bickered in the background, trying to work out what on Earth was going on on it- it was bad enough that he was stressed and it made the words wiggle all over the place, but the thing would've been unreadable anyway. It was mostly made up of odd-looking symbols and what Percy assumed to be code.

"Oh my God." Banner was looking at something on the monitor, and just as Percy bent down closer to see, there was a loud bang that made everyone go flying in different directions and the ship shake violently. Percy cursed as he felt the mist disintegrate due to his lack of concentration.

"Put on the suit," he heard Steve say.

"Yep," they both scrambled to their feet, and Percy attempted to summon enough mist to conceal himself- needless to say, it didn't work. He didn't have enough energy.

He staggered to his feet just as Fury and Romanoff did, teleporting back to outside Loki's cell before they could notice his presence. He fell to his knees, panting heavily. Loki smirked.

"Back so soon?"

"We're getting out of here," Percy whispered as he walked to the control pad he didn't know how to work. "Now... how does this thing open the door?"

"I believe you simply press the-" Loki began, pointing at the control pad just as Thor walked in.

"Perseus?"

"Fuck," Percy cursed before turning around nervously. "Hey Thor... how've you been?"

"What are you doing?" He pointed Mjölnir at him.

"Um-" the door of Loki's cell slid open, despite the fact Percy hadn't touched the control panel. He looked at Thor and smiled nervously. "Would homework be a suitable excuse..?"

Thor was already running towards Loki, and as he tackled his brother Loki disappeared, appearing behind Percy and closing the door of the cell. "Are you ever not going to fall for that?"

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," Percy backed away from Loki, who was at the controls now. "You're telling me you could get out of there this entire time?"

Loki simply shrugged and turned to his lover. "Of course I could. What did you expect?" He looked at Thor, who tried smashing the cage open with Mjölnir but was unsuccessful. "The humans think us immortal. Shall we test that?" He pressed a button, and suddenly the floor beneath the cell opened. Thor glared at Percy, and the Greek knew immediately that Thor had interpreted Percy was on Loki's side- which wasn't true.

"Move away, please." An agent had a gun pointed at both Percy and Loki, who both stepped away from the control panel.

"Do you like this?" He gestured to the gun. "We started to work on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Wanna find out?" He prepared to fire, but before he could Loki disappeared, reappearing behind the agent and stabbing him in the chest with his staff. Thor screamed, and Percy could hardly move.

Returning to the panel, Loki pressed a button and sent the cage spiralling below with Thor inside, making Percy come to his senses. He uncapped Riptide.

"You just took things too far. You're coming with me right now and I don't give two flying Kindly Ones if you try to refuse," his voice was hardly above a whisper, but it carried so many different emotions it was impossible to tell what Percy was actually thinking. "Let's go. Now."

Percy gasped as Loki grabbed him and pushed him into the railing. "You don't seriously expect me to come with you to your little Camp, do you?"

"Loki, I want to help you," Percy pleaded. "I want to help you see this is wrong. This isn't right. It's not like you."

For a moment, it seemed like Loki was considering it. His eyes faded to green for a moment as the wind blew both his and Percy's hair around their faces.

He didn't meet Percy's eyes before pushing him over the railing to fall to the ground.

                                             *

Percy couldn't breathe as he fell. He didn't see the ground below him, nor the ship in the sky. He didn't see he was on Earth, and the most he had to fear was Zeus' wrath.  He didn't see himself as an immortal.

No. He saw himself, in that moment, as a sixteen-year-old boy falling into Tartarus.

His memories of the abyss flashed before him as he fell. The noxious fumes he was forced to breathe in, the apprehensive creatures wailing and gurgling as they suffered, the water of the River Phlegethon scorching his throat and making him choke. He get as though he was trapped- trapped in the suffocating clutches of his own mind.

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I wrote this chapter really late at night sooooo-

-Megafetus