Catch Me If I Fall (PJO/Avengers Crossover)

44

Natasha advised Percy to go to his room and try to get a few hours of sleep, and, for once, he didn't argue. In truth, he was extremely tired and quite tipsy from how late it was and the drinks he had had earlier that night. He didn't even undress before getting into bed. He just flopped down on it and immediately fell asleep, which was an incredibly rare occurrence, especially for him.

When he woke, it wasn't from a nightmare, but instead from a knock on the door and Steve telling him to get up as they'd found a lead on Ultron. For a moment, Percy hadn't got the slightest idea what Steve was talking about, and the familiar feeling of a hangover was weighing his thought process down immensely- but, bit by bit as he got dressed, the events of the night before came back to him.

The actual party was a blur. He remembered flirting with one or two people, maybe kissing someone, and having a lot of drinks, but apart from that, there was nothing he could really piece together. Until Ultron.

The events of the rogue A.I forged from the sceptre attacking the team a while after the main party had ended came back to Percy so clearly that it felt as though he had been slapped in the face. He groaned as he took a long drink of his emergency nectar to tone down the effects of the hangover, and, in a matter of minutes, he was as fresh as a daisy. He left his room and made his way downstairs to Tony's lab, where only Tony, Bruce and Thor were waiting.

"Morning, guys," Percy smiled, walking in and seeing on the clock that it was five A.M.

"Good morning, Percy," Tony said quietly. He clearly was feeling the gravitation of what he'd done. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Oh, yeah," he smiled, sitting on a counter because there was only one chair, which Bruce was occupying. "Not one nightmare."

Tony smiled a little at that. "That's good."

Eventually, Steve, Maria, Clint and Natasha walked in, and Steve showed the team and image on a tablet. It seemed to be a dead Strucker in a prison cell and, in his blood, the word peace was written on the wall- along with that, a robotic arm was in view, which Percy assumed belonged to Ultron. How he had upgraded himself so quickly, however, Percy didn't know.

"What's this?" Tony asked, looking at it.

"A message," Steve replied. "Ultron killed Strucker."

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us."

Natasha shook her head. "This is a smokescreen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Steve figured.

"Yeah, I bet he..." she walked to a computer, checking a few files, and then sighed. "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."

Percy cursed, but Tony had that little glint in his eyes that he only got when he had a great idea. "Not everything," he said, smiling.

They had physical files, and Percy thanked the gods. Then he realised they were all in English, and therefore unreadable to him. He sighed but struggled through a few sentences regardless.

"Known associates," Steve was looking through a file. "Well, Strucker had a lot of friends."

"Well, these people are all horrible," Bruce commented.

"Wait. I know that guy," Tony pointed at a photo Bruce was looking at, who passed it to him. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." Steve gave him an accusing, wary look, and Tony simply rolled his eyes. "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer, it was all very 'Ahab.'"