Percy PoV

Uh-oh.

I told them too much. Like way way way too much.

Maybe they'll leave me alone now. Probably not, but I gotta hope.

I fall onto the bed next to Annabeth, who throws an arm over me in her sleep.

I doze off.

Tony PoV

It's nine thirty in the morning. These past few days have wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule. Not that I really have one.

I'm in the living room, rewatching footage of Percy. I even watch him play cards with Steve.

Natasha and Clint bring me a coffee. Steve joins us after a few minutes.

"What are we thinking?" Clint asks cautiously.

"PTSD." Steve voices.

"Abused in some manner." I add.

"Survivor."  Natasha states.

"High pain tolerance." Bruce says, walking into the room.

"Huh?"

"I just intercepted him on his way to the gym." Bruce sighs.

"Maybe he's an adrenline junkie or something?" Clint suggests hopefully.

"No. He's not." Natasha inputs.

"Where's he now, Bruce?" Steve asks.

"I sent him to the library."

"I'll go visit him. Clint?" Natasha announces.

"I'm coming." He follows.

Clint PoV

I follow Nat to the library.

"Nat?" I ask.

"I just have to know something. I'm not going to threaten him."

"Okay."

When we walk in, he's bent over a book, and he turns the page.

"Hey." I say.

"Hey." He replies, not taking his eyes off the page.

"What are you reading?" This has got to be one of the most awkward conversations I've had to start.

"I forgot."

"Well, what's it about?" Maybe I've read it.

"Some general guy."

Then I remember something. "Didn't you say you couldn't read?"

Then he looks up, his eyebrows scrunched together.

"What language is that?" Natasha questions.

"Huh?" He looks back at his book. A couple seconds later, "Oh. That's why I wasn't having trouble."

"Care to explain?" Natasha asks him.

Percy looks at her, then me. "It's Greek."

"You can read Greek?" Natasha sounds surprised for an assassin of her calibre.

"Oh. Yeah. I'm fluent in Greek. It's actually easier to read in Greek for me. My dyslexia doesn't interfere." Percy says.

"That's why you said you couldn't read."

"Yup."

"Wait, you're fluent in Greek?" I catch up a bit.

"Um, yeah."

"So if we go to Greece, you could be our translator?" I pry.

"Um, I don't know, actually." He looks thoughtful.

"You said you were fluent." Natasha states, but it sounds kind of like a question.

"Well, My style is a bit, uh, aged." Percy admits.

"How aged?" Natasha pries.

"Like, Heracles?" Percy sounds unsure.

"Ancient Greek?" Natasha's eyebrows raise.

"Yeah." Percy slips lower into his chair.

"Prove it." I demand.

"Why would I do that?" He says.

"Because I want to know if you actually can. And if you can, that would be awesome."

"Πρόστιμο. Ποια είναι τα ονόματά σας?"

"What did you say?" I ask.

"I asked what your names were." He deadpans.

"Natalia Roman." Natasha says.

"I don't think that was it." Percy says.

"Excuse me?" Natasha says.

"You're obviously a spy or something. Show more stuff on your face. You're too blank. Might as well hold a sign. The blank might work well for spy stuff, so people can't tell what you're thinking, but it makes some stuff way more obvious because it's foreign to you- you don't know how to hide it." Percy tells her. "You don't have to tell me your real one."

There's a silence. Then Natasha speaks up. "I thank you for the unusual observation."

He nods respectively. "What about you, Mr. Archer?"

"Mr. Archer?"

"Well, I don't know your actual name, and I had to call you something in my head."

"Clint." I introduce. He shakes my hand.

"If he was Mr. Archer, what did you call me?" Natasha questions.

"Ah, you were the 'Don't Annoy Lady' or something like that. I hadn't decided for sure."

Natasha nodded her approval. 

"Where's your girlfriend?" I ask him.

He points to a different area of the library. "She found some architecture books."

"Is she interested in architecture?" I'm curious.

"She wants to- no, Is- an architect. She's a genius." Percy grins.

"What kind of styles does she like?" Natasha inquires.

We've sat down at this point. I realize the conversation has turned friendly.

"She likes the modern marvels, but the old stuff too. She loves trying to put the different elements together. I don't understand all of the fancy stuff she says, but I love listening to her talk about it. It's like she glows." Percy grins.

He's kind of 'glowing' talking about Annabeth.

"So, what are you interested in?"

Natasha and I talk with him. We got a few annoyed looks from the few other people in the library.

"Maybe we should move somewhere else?" I suggest.

"Yeah, just a sec." Percy goes over to the blonde who is bent over a table, writing notes and sketching while she reads. He rests a hand on her shoulder, says something, she nods and he gives her a quick kiss before coming back to us. "Sorry, just had to tell her I was leaving for a bit."

"What is she your mom or something?" I tease as we start walking.

"No," Percy says, "But if I went missing she'd freak out and when she found me again she might kill me or something. She can be scary if she wants to be."

"You seem really close." Nat observes.

"We were best friends since we were twelve before we started dating." He grins.

"Ooh!" I tease.

He shoulders me. It kinda hurt a little.

"How are you doing?" I ask him, reminded of last night. Or this morning. Whatever.

"Huh?"

"From this morning?" I clarify.

"Oh. Yeah, I'm good." He shrugs.

"Really? You sure about that?"

"I've had worse, Clint. It's just an ache now." He says.

"You do realize how concerning that sounds, right?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"So, tell me honestly. Do you two think  I'm a terrorist?"

Nat and I exchange a look. We agree. "No."

"Thank you." He says sincerely. "So, what do you guys do for fun here?"

"Well, we usually train or watch movies or something like that."

Percy looks thoughtful for a moment. Then Nat and I both catch his eyes light up with mischief. He looks at us, debating internally.

"How long are you guys gonna be here?" He asks us.

"As long as it takes to get your situation settled, and after that we'll be dropping by quite often." Nat informs him.

Percy looks at me, a gleam in his eye.

"Pranks?" He suggests.

"You any good?" I counter.

"Depends. I've learned a few tricks."

"I like the sound of that." I say, grinning myself. "You in, Nat?"

"I think I'll stay neutral. Watching the chaos is fun."

"Can't argue with that." Percy says.

Watch out Avengers. Pranks incoming.

"Alright. I'm heading back. You can go plan your trouble." Natalia dismisses herself.

As soon as she's gone, Percy turns to me.

"So, I was thinking, we go really passive agressive with the pranks." He says.

"Okay... What do you mean by that?" Passive agressive pranking?

"Something that seems small and insignificant, but after a couple days people get really really frustrated and mad."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I was thinking for Tony, we could move one of his big toolboxes, you know, the rolling kind, and move it to the same spot on the opposite side every time he puts it back."

"You evil little genius." I compliment.

"Thanks." Percy grins.

"What else were you thinking?" I inquire.

"Um, we could take some of someone's clothes and just leave them everywhere- like folded and put away, but in the cabinets."

"Okay, I think that one's for Bruce."

"Um, maybe we could use that thing, whatsitcalled? The robot thingy?" Percy asks me.

"JARVIS?" I offer.

"Yes! That's it. So maybe we could set the lights to turn off or on right after one specific person tries to use the switches."

"That. Is. Brilliant. It's gonna look like a ghost haunting." I chuckle.

"I hadn't even thought of that." Percy laughed. "Then we should prank ourselves too."

"Are you sure you want to do this? Cause there's no backing out." I warn.

"One hundred percent." Percy grins, and I'm very glad that we are on the same team.

Let the games begin.

Tony PoV

Natasha comes back from visiting Percy.

"How'd it go?" I ask her. "Where's Clint?"

"Clint and Percy are still talking."

"What about?"

"Video games, I think." Natasha says, walking to the kitchen. I trail after her.

"Video games?" I thought it would be something more serious.

Natasha nods, and pulls out some green 'juice' that's really just veggie and fruit guts.

"What did you guys talk about?" I lean against the counter, and pull out a bag of berries.

"Annabeth at first. She's really into architecture." Nat says, drinking a glass of the juice goop.

"Huh. What else?" She might be someone I can talk with about designs.

"Percy loves the ocean. He and his mother would go to Montauk all the time. He's a great kid, Tony." Nat says sincerely, looking me right in the eyes.

"Really?" I doubt.

"He is. Clint and I trust him." She gives a tiny smirk for a second.

"Wait, what?" I say quickly.

"We trust him." Nat restates.

"Oh. That's great and all, but you smirked. For a second. I saw it."

"Hm. I told him my name was Natalia Roman. He didn't believe me." Natasha says, sipping her 'juice'.

"The kid saw through you?" I gape.

"He did. He even gave me some advice. He didn't know how to say exactly what he was thinking, but I understand what he meant."

"Are you serious?" I'm still gaping, even more, actually.

"Deadly. Anyhow, he said he doesn't need to know my real one, but I think he meant 'I'll wait for your real one'."

"Wow."

"Your nephew, Stark..." She trails off.

"What about him?"

"He's smart. I just think that the school system doesn't cater to his mind. You know, trying to teach a fish how to fly." She says.

"Huh. What makes you think that?" I inquire.

"Not only is he extremely good at noticing small details, and he's good at putting things together. Tony- when we walked into the library, he was reading."

I frown. "Isn't he dyslexic?"

"He is." Nat confirms. "Can you guess what he was reading?"

"Um... I feel like this is a trick question. I kinda want to say comics, but I also think that's gonna be wrong." It's a trap question.

"It wasn't a comic." Nat says.

I nod. "Then what was it?"

"The Iliad." Nat says.

"The Iliad? Why would he try to read that?" I question.

"I think the only thing he found 'trying' about it was that it was boring." Natasha has a little laugh playinng on the corner of her lips.

"But the writing in that is tricky, and he's dyslexic." I say, confused.

"That isn't even the most surprisng thing."

"Then what is?"

"He didn't realize it wasn't in English."

I laugh. "So he was trying to read something and he couldn't understand because it wasn't in English, and he didn't realize? Oh, I shouldn't laugh." I try to squash the laughter.

"No." Natasha shakes her head.

"What?" I ask, my laughter subsiding.

"I'm going to go out on a very thick and sturdy limb here and say that you had no idea he was bilingual?"

"Wait. He's bilingual?" My eyebrows are somewhere near my hairline, I think.

"He's fluent in speaking, and he reads easier because the dyslexia doesn't interfere."

"Are you kidding me?" I blurt.

"No. And that's not the kicker."

"Then what is? What language?"

"Ancient Greek." She says.

Ancient Greek, she says.

"Haha, very funny. You had me for a minute." I turn away.

"I'm not joking, Tony."

"You're not?" I turn back.

"No. I recognized enough to know he wasn't making it up when he demonstrated."

"So, my nephew can somehow speak and read in a dead language?"

"Correct." Natasha clarifies.

"Holy shit." I announce.

My nephew could be a genius.

Or our resident assassin could be trying to pull a big joke.

I walk over to my lab to think, or distract myself from thinking and get some work done.

I look over plans, and then I absently reach for a tool in the box next to my table. My hand meets air, and I look to see that my giant toolbox isn't there.

I glance around and see it at the opposite side of the room. I frown. I don't remember putting it there. I return it to it's proper place and get back to work.