| PANDEMONIUM | Percy x Apollo

Chapter 4

The Avengers had found out a lot about Percy that night.

They scanned his files incessantly and tried to come up with explanations to match what they knew of him with how he had been presented in the events recorded by the police and the press. He looked nothing like his mother, so they assumed he took after his father, who was apparently, unknown.

A lot of his friends came from families with absentee parents. Some of them had gone missing in various phases of their lives,  much like Percy, while some never seemed to have existed on paper. But they couldn't do much with the information they had gotten. They tried to find patterns, some clues, but came up with nothing.

Tony was beyond frustrated by the time it was half past nine and he hadn't gotten anywhere with the information. Natasha was frustrated too, but she did a good job of not showing it. Steve was mostly confused and concerned. Clint looked skeptical, didn't seem to be very much interested in the investigation, but gave the odd comment to try and lighten the mood.

But Bruce had been against the plan from the beginning and he still felt extremely guilty for betraying his friend's confidence. He hadn't known Percy for very long, but he had only ever been kind and understanding and a very smart and supportive friend. He didn't deserve such scrutiny over some incidents from his past.

"Nobody found any connection of his to Apollo?" Clint asked, lounging on a sofa with a bowl of grapes on his stomach.

"Nothing, except some videos from when they argued at the campus the other day." Tony replied, spinning in his chair before numerous holographic screens that were processing and projecting all information relevant to the topic.

"Apollo is his stage name right? What's his real name?" Natasha asked.

Friday ran some searches on the database. He had never mentioned his real name but there were a lot of speculations and the most popular one seemed to be a tweet by Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the rebellious daughter of Robert Dare and a famous connoisseur of arts and a renowned climate change and human rights activist.

Her tweet said:
"He's never gonna admit it, and he has done everything in his capacity to erase all sources that can reveal this information, but I've decided to share my sacred knowledge with the world and bless mankind with the real name of Apollo.
It is..........*drum roll*
✨Lester Papadopoulos ✨"

"PS: If I'm dead tomorrow. Yk who to suspect;)"

The tweet had over a million comments. But what was noticeable was that both Percy and Apollo had liked her tweet. In fact, they were both following her. A link connecting them.

They sorted through Rachel Dare's social media accounts and saw that they had a lot of mutual friends between Apollo and Percy.  On the rare occasions that she posted pictures, they often made an appearance.

A very old selfie with Percy in a cowboy hat and Apollo in a red wig with Rachel dressed as a pirate. Piper McLean in a peach costume and a couple more boys and girls in the background, most of them barely discernable in the dim lighting of the photograph. They were all smiling.

She had a picture of Percy cooking pasta, Apollo doing an unsupported headstand, and a couple more cute and funny pictures with very familiar faces from when they had been researching Percy's files. Almost all of the people in her pictures were acquainted with Percy and Apollo and had been spotted in various occasions all over the world in their teenage years, near sites of suspected terrorist activities.

Tony had hoped that a connection would help them make more sense of things, but it had only confused them further.

Rachel Dare was the only one among them to have a public social media account. All the others, including Percy and Apollo had private accounts. Even with Apollo being a celebrity, he had refused to share his personal life with anyone but his closest friends and apparently that included Percy Jackson, Rachel Dare, and a number of other kids who had been suspects of terrorism.