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deadenginescribbywibs · 3 years

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Reunion - Prologue

After the battle there was an impromptu information session held in a damp and chilly bunker half a mile up from the ruined compound. Night was already closing in, as were reporters and the few family and friends tied to the heroes who weren’t present at the battle. May Parker, Happy Hogan, Cassie Lang, Clint Barton's wife and kids.

“We need to be prepared,” Captain America said, still beaten and bruised but no longer sporting dirt in his teeth, “just in case anything else happens- In case anyone comes from another time.”

And so the remaining heroes sat in October weather in the concrete room, some falling asleep- from the cold or their injuries, who could say. He talked about what he could. The battle of Wakanda five years prior, chopping off Thanos’ head, Natasha, Tony. When he couldn’t choke back the tears, Sam took over, and when Sam couldn’t continue, it was Rhodey. Towards the end it was Rocket who carried the meeting, and in the back, Peter Parker kept his eyes firmly on the ground. Nearest to the door and too cold from the draft of impending winter wind, he listened to the drone of strained, sometimes tearful voices. When it was over, wrapped in a damp blanket, Peter wondered if this is what it meant to be an Avenger.

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Peter always imagined the Avengers having a lot of energy, at least that was his impression from Germany. What he saw now wasn’t a group of unlikely heroes rising to meet challenges head on. They were just ghosts, like him, and he felt he could fade away at any moment.

His phone rang, probably Ned or May. He had nothing to say, so he didn’t pick up.

The boy sat in the hall all alone. At least it was warm, a far cry better from the two freezing nights sleeping on cots outside the upstate Avengers facility. Peter rolled his shoulders in their joints and stretched his neck. His head was still pounding, the last reminder of the physical toll of Thanos. Even safe inside, Peter’s mind was still on the battlefield, on Titan, and Tony’s face when he started to dust away, the desperate grip trying to keep him alive.

Peter started at the sturdy hand landing on his shoulder.

“Hey.” Steve Rogers stood at his side, blue eyes fixed on the sign on the far wall. MORGUE. “Thanks.”

Peter shrugged his shoulders and averted his eyes. “For what?” He croaked.

“For staying with him. Tony never liked to be alone…” Tears stung at Peter’s already red rimmed eyes but he held them in, body tense. After a moment's hesitation Steve sat down in the other dingy little mint green chair and crossed his arms. The silence stretched on until it was comfortable.

Eventually Peter fell asleep, head resting on Captain America’s shoulder.

Steve was just trying to stay awake.

“What’s up, punk?” Bucky strolled up the hall in his green sweats and grey long sleeve shirt, metal hand tucked into a pocket.

Steve gestured at the teen asleep on the floor a few feet away. “Babysitting.”

Bucky’s eyes trailed over the small figure huddled under the wool blanket pressed up against the wall, a hospital gown balled up under his head. “Jesus, we can’t get the kid a bed?”

Steve shook his head. “He wouldn’t leave if he could.” He nodded to the ‘Morgue’ sign.

“Starks?”

“Sort of.”

By the third day they were able to disperse somewhat. It took time to get communication and transportation back online through SHIELD, and to get the unhoused heroes into some kind of temporary lodging while waiting for spaceships and quinjets to be repaired. A side effect of many of the heroes being stranded on Earth and more specifically in New York, however, was that they ended up at the lakehouse of one recently widowed Pepper Potts. For having just watched her husband die and the near destruction of the universe, she was managing as well as could be expected.

Peter was sharing a spare room with Thor and Rocket and Peter Quill, and although he hadn’t been alone in a week- or a week and five years, depending how you looked at it, the sounds of breathing in the dark room were a comfort compared to the clinical silence of the medical wing hall.

At 4:40am his stomach rumbled. Peter groaned. “No.” He turned over under his covers, but the hunger wouldn’t let up. After days without food running on a super metabolism, his will finally broke at 5:13am and Peter slunk out of the bedroom tiptoeing over beings big and small alike.

The kitchen was dimly lit. Outside, a small lake glimmered under a moon hanging low like ripe fruit, illuminating the trinkets and cups and pictures in the modest but modern kitchen, not the place he pictured Tony retiring into but nice nonetheless. It was homey.

He didn’t have an appetite per se, or at least the nausea was still battling against his will to eat, but Peter eventually settled on a box of crackers in a cupboard. He plunged a hand into the crinkling plastic liner and stuffed a handful of saltines into his mouth greedily, and suddenly parched, Peter reached for a cup for water. Next to the haphazardly placed drinking glasses were a row of pictures, the first, Howard Stark he recognized from history books, and the next he wasn’t sure, but the last in the line made Peter’s heart skip a beat. Tony and Peter posed for a photo for his Stark Internship, peace signs poised and smiling giddily. He’d thought it was the best day of his life. He must have been standing staring at the picture for a long time, because by the time Peter broke out of his melancholy, the stars had faded out of sight in the early morning sky.

There was a faint shuffling to his side. Peter turned to see Pepper Potts in her bathrobe, not a trace of makeup on her face, a tissue in her hand. She’d been crying all right.

“Oh.” She said faintly seeing Peter standing at the counter, the photo lying in front of him. “I didn’t see you Peter. Sorry, I just woke up feeling-’ Pepper gestured at the room in general as if to say ‘I just watched my husband die horrifically and now our retirement home is filled with sad heroes and I don’t know what to do.” But Peter didn’t say anything. He presented her with the box of crackers. “Still not talking much, hey?” She sniffled and ran a hand through Peter’s hair before reaching into the box of crackers. “Me too.”

Pepper bustled around the room preparing coffee. When she placed a mug next to him she noticed the picture and picked it up silently. She traced her fingers over the frame. “You know, he did it for you, Pete. He loved you.” Peter could have sprinted away at lightning speed, a rush of guilt balling up in his chest and stomach telling him to escape, but he forced himself to stand very still. Pepper kissed the top of his head and turned back to her coffee, smiling still. “He can rest now.”

So there was some crying in the shower. One might call it hysterical, but Peter thought he did okay considering. If he’d gotten in before taking off his pyjamas, well. No one was around to see.

“Move over.” A voice grumbled over him. Peter was back in bed again that morning of the third day, and judging by the light slanting through the windows, it was probably still early. Thor stood over him looking quite gruff. “I can’t sleep on the floor anymore.” He said it politely enough, so Peter scooted over until he was laying practically at the edge of the double bed. Thor collapsed onto the other side and it hardly took a moment for him to fall fast asleep.

Not wanting to consider why they had given him the bed in the first place- “He slept on the floor outside the morgue. If Tony could have seen-” Peter rolled over to check his phone. 39 Text Messages, 9 Voicemails. Peter groaned, he scrolled through the latest messages from May.

May (6:43am)

Call me when you can.

May (6:48am)

And text me that you’re okay.

May (6:49am)

I larb you.

The familiar guilt returned and with it, the nausea. Peter thought he might throw up if he had to talk on the phone. He wanted to see May more than anything, more than seeing Tony again, more than eating a hot poptart right out of the toaster, but he couldn’t. It would break her heart, and with the sad eyes he was already getting from the Avengers collectively, Peter couldn’t do that to anyone else. He hastily replied. Larb u 2.

When Thor rolled over a moment later Peter found himself trapped under a huge outstretched arm. Being too tired to lift it- Thor must weigh 800 pounds, it was so heavy- he resigned himself to being crushed. With just bird calls and Thor’s faint snoring and Rocket and Quills quiet breathing to be heard in the room, Peter fell back asleep.

That afternoon the Avengers seemed to be doing better. Rocket banged around in his spaceship now housed in the backyard with Nebula’s help. Quill was checking out Bucky’s motorcycle, though the assassin still seemed very uncomfortable at the lake house in general. Steve Rogers came and went on his bike. Peter thought he was taking comfort in doing damage control, if only to spare Pepper from doing it. She was taking a nap on the couch.

The house was mostly quiet and so Peter was taking a moment of refuge to sit on the back porch with a cup of tea and his wool blanket. He didn’t know where it had come from, honestly, and it was outright filthy and dingy from getting dragged around the battlefield and the SHIELD compound for days. He was just drifting into space when the screen door swung open and a young brown haired teen stepped out. Peter recognized him as Harley Bennet, though they’d only met a couple times before the Snap and a couple times over video since the battle.

“Peter.” He said, and Peter stood up shakily in his blanket. Harley extended a hand but then shook himself. “What am I doing-” and he pulled the younger boy in for a hug. When they pulled back Peter gave him a weak smile. “How’s it going here?”

The young Avenger just shrugged his shoulders. A moment later a bounding blur of dark brown hair and blue pyjamas burst through the door. “Harley!”

“Morguna! In the flesh!” He called, sweeping her into a spinning hug. “What’s up, lil sis?”

“I’m sad.” She said suddenly pouting. Peter grimaced. To his surprise Harley knelt down by her side. “Me too. But you know what Tony said about being sad?”

“What?” She asked innocently.

“It’s nothing blowing stuff up can’t fix.” He whispered.

And so that’s how Peter, Morgan and Harley found themselves in the barn that afternoon, a frightening weapon tucked under Harley’s arms. The former two were still in their pyjamas, and all three wore safety goggles although Morgan’s were on askew. Peter reached over to adjust them and gave her a pat on the head, she smiled at him.

“Nobody tell Pepper about this.” Harley said with wide eyes.

“Don’t chicken out.” Morgan whined and received a rakish grin in return.

“I won’t. I’m not. Listen. Tony talked about-” He made a funny gesture, “alien invasions sometimes when I was a kid, and it got me thinking, what would I do if they came? So I made this gun.”

Peter eyed the glowing gun suspiciously. The thought that this was a Very Bad Idea was starting to sprout in his mind. “I mean, it’s a potato gun, okay? It’s not like Tony was going to give me real ammo.”

“Com’n!” Morgan cried, and Harley grinned again.

“Alright okay.” Harley shouldered the gun over the very poor barricade they made from a tipped over wheelbarrow and a barrel, pointing it at a bale of hay for Gerald’s lunch. “Check it out!” He said, and yanked on a lever which started a worrying, high pitched buzz. It cranked a couple times and sputtered. “Oh, come on.” Harley said, giving it a bat with his palm. Suddenly the gun fired up, and Peter just reached out to grab it just in time to point it at the target when it erupted, launching several potatoes at criminal velocities. “Ah!” They cried. The potatoes hurled through the bales, strands of hay cascaded everywhere, the potatoes made a hulking splutter sound on the other side as they crashed through the wood plank walls, splintered wood shot out the other side and someone cried “Oh my fucking god. Are you serious?!”

It was Rocket. Harley, Peter and Morguna looked at each other, at the erupted hay bale, at the light streaming through the hole in the wall, and at the potato gun. “Oh my god!” Peter whispered loudly.

“Whoever that was, you are about to be dead.” Rocket said from outside. Peter grabbed the gun, hurled it under the nearest vehicle, grabbed Morgan and Harley and launched all three of them into the hay loft.

Rockets shadow appeared before he did and he looked menacingly at the overturned wheelbarrow and scattered hay as he came around the corner. “Seriously? Whoever that was, come out now so I can shoot you in the face.”

Morgan giggled, Harley and Peter covered her mouth, perfectly still in the scratchy hay. “Shh!” There was a strand poking Morgan right in the face, and she wrinkled her nose again as it itched. Nebula came around the corner looking just as unimpressed. She glanced over the scene and then at Rocket. “Children’s games.” She said.

“I got hit in the ass with a fucking potato.” The racoon complained.

“Get over it.” She said walking away. Rocket glared into the dingh of the room. Morgan’s nose crinkled again and she shivered, and just as Rocket turned away, she let out a sneeze. He pinned the three of them with a look, probably marking a small oddly shaped mound of hay in the loft. The three children stayed very still and quiet for a second. Morgan looked at both Peter and Harley with huge brown orbs. After a moment Rocket rolled his eyes and looked off in the distance, probably at Nebula. “Well I can’t go and shoot Tony Stark’s kids in the face, can I? Where’s Quill?”

As soon as he rounded the corner, Morgan started giggling and squirming to get out of the hay causing it to slide out from under their feet until they all tumbled down onto the ground, Harley and Morgan giggling and tittering the whole time. They looked at Peter and started laughing anew. He looked down, his shirt was full of hay like an overstuffed scarecrow.

“How far along are you?” Harley snickered. Peter huffed a laugh too.

Tony’s ashes arrived that night. Pepper kept it quiet. She tucked the red silk bag into an old arc reactor Peter had never seen and placed it carefully into her dresser drawer. Peter watched from her bed. It was one of the only quiet spaces in the house around dinner. A bit of sensory overload and fatigue made him silent and sullen that afternoon and as soon as she caught wind she’d corralled Peter into bed with a cup of tea. They kept silent company, and when she was done, she sat in the occasional chair in the corner brushing out her hair while they watched TV. Eventually she started in on her cuticles, then disappeared to retrieve laundry from the dryer.

“May is coming up for the funeral.” She told Peter handing him a freshly laundered hoodie. He pulled it on, it said MIT. Peter felt like he should tear it off immediately. “She’ll be here in the morning. Your apartment is still occupied,” she frowned, “I think you’ll have to stay a little longer.”

“Thanks.” Was all he said, but he accepted a bundle of socks passed to him.

“Are you sleeping okay? I heard Thor is sharing the bed with you.”

“Yeah.” Peter huffed a little. “It’s not so bad. He’s dead asleep most of the time.”

Pepper smiled knowingly and cocked her brows. “At least it’s not Bruce.”

Bruce was still in the hospital and for that Peter was grateful. The sight of Bruce’s burnt arm was enough to send the teen into a panic attack.

Overall, Peter wasn’t so hard done by. After all, there were heroes strewn literally all over the property. Drax, Mantis and Groot slept in closets and hallways, Carol Danvers and Nebula camped in the backyard. Bucky Barnes and Captain America were at an abandoned motel not far up the road, and Sam and Rhodey took over the dining room at night. Harley slept on the couch, and Morgan in her own room was undisturbed. Rocket slept in a bed of clothes in a dresser drawer in Peter’s room, and Quill slept on a burnt mattress on the floor that had been pulled out of the Milano. Valkyrie had returned temporarily to Asgard with the help of Thor wielding Stormbreaker, but Thor stayed behind for, well… Peter had to imagine it was emotional comfort. He was the only other Avenger as pathetic as Peter, the boy thought, watching the huge hulking form curled up on the couch, cups of yoghurt strewn about the coffee table. Thor had been catapulting between emotions since the battle, but mostly he was just tired.

“Can I ask you something?” Peter said about an hour after sitting in the otherwise quiet living room. Thor shrugged, now in one of his morose moods. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen hundred, give or take. The years aren’t as important when you are as old as Asgardians are.”

Peter sat in thought for a while. The house was starting to show signs of life, laughter could be heard outside and in the halls sometimes, he even thought Pepper sounded alright talking to Happy on the phone that day. “Do you do birthdays?”

Thor shrugged. “Sometimes. Every fifty years or so. We had one at my inauguration, although looking back, maybe it wasn’t the right moment to celebrate, as it set my brother on a path of destruction that eventually led to Thanos killing him.” He supined. His nose was stuffed up.

“Oh.” The boy sat a moment longer sensing the sadness wash over the man, but even if he wanted to join Thor’s wallowing, Peter was starting to feel the pricklings of relief swell up under the surface tension of his grief. “We should have a birthday. Tonight. To celebrate.”

“...To celebrate?”

“To celebrate.” It didn’t sound all that convincing to Peter either, but anything was better than this.

They had a birthday. It was cramped. Like, really cramped. The seventeen people in the vicinity of the house were stuffed into the little kitchen, Morgan sat on Thor’s lap. The god of thunder was dressed in a little pink frilly apron. Harley was sticking a ridiculous number of sparklers on the cake in the other room with the help of Rocket and Drax. Bucky and Nebula stood stolidly in the back hall, Carol Danvers stood in the back door. Pepper sat next to Thor, and Quill and Mantis were eating icing off of a spoon. Sam stood in a narrow broom cupboard holding his beer to his chest. Steve Rogers stood behind Thor, a beacon of comfort and resolution in the sea of calamity. Groot sat on another stool playing his video game, and Rhodey sat by Peter on the other side, very much on board with a drink in his hand. “This is great.” He said. “Nice one Parker.”

“Thanks.” Peter croaked. He felt more awake than he had in days. Morgan braided Thor’s beard while they waited, and when the cake came out, they sang Happy Birthday haphazardly while Harley carried the cake. The sparklers burst into a ball of flames as soon as the cake was set on the table. Thor scrunched up his face, “Fiend!” and shot the cake with lightning, strawberry icing exploded in every direction. Pepper laughed first, then Rocket and Drax laughed, Mantis and Quill laughed and Harley, Morgan and Thor laughed, and soon everyone was laughing, and Peter was laughing too.

“That was a good call.” Sam said idling up to him that evening. Peter found solace on the back porch. The lake was beautiful to look at in the night. “Morale was running a little low.”

Peter’s mouth quirked up into a smile. “Thor’s morale was low. I dunno about everyone else.”

“Everyone else too. You just get better at hiding it when you get older.” He tucked his chin. “I know we just celebrated his like thousandth birthday-”

“Fifteen hundred and something-” Peter corrected.

“-But Thor’s not that much older than you are. Maybe a bit. He’s younger than Steve.” Sam said definitively.

“Well everyone’s younger than Steve.”

“Good point.”

This time when Peter went to the snack cupboard in the middle of the night, Nebula and Carol were in the kitchen sitting in relative silence, and Rhodey was reading in the other room.

“Hey.” He waved. Nebula and Carol nodded.

“Is Thor snoring again? I can go punch him.” Carol joked. Peter smiled bashfully.

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“It’s Quill that’s worse.” Nebula supplied. That was probably the first time she’d ever spoken to him, and he nodded guiltily.

“He’s been mumbling in his sleep.”

“About what?”

“Kevin Bacon. He, uh…”

“He was in the movie footloose.” Carol said. Nebula rolled her eyes.

“Of course.”

“Well, I guess if Peter’s up that means it’s bed time.” Carol stood up groggily. “Nice sitting in silence with you.” She chirped to her companion. Nebula nodded. Carol ruffled his hair on the way out.

What remained of the birthday cake sat on the counter so Peter grabbed a fork and took a huge mound. Nebula was looking past him, and when he turned around to follow her line of sight, he saw the picture again, the one of him and Tony.

“You were Stark’s ward.” She stated. Peter didn’t immediately reply, eyes shifting sideways out the far window. “He was the first person to ever be kind to me without expecting anything in return.” She caressed the exposed panel of electronics running from her forehead to her crown. “After the battle on Titan he fixed my head using metal from his own armor. And... he taught me how to play paper football.”

“That’s just how he was.” He mumbled around a mouthful of cake. In the other room, Rhodey was smiling into his book, eavesdropping. He had a new prosthetic exo-support pulled from a backup supply in Tony’s garage.

Still looking at the photo, she continued. “Thanos was my father, and people will shudder at the memory of him for eternity. But he's not the one people will ask about.”

Ears hot, Peter swallowed around the lump ever present in his throat, but there were no tears now. If anything, he was relieved. He shoved another forkful of cake into his mouth and stood up, striding away from the table. From the other room Rhodey piped up. “Oh my god. Was that the most words you’ve ever said?” Nebula raised her middle finger. “It gets worse. Who taught you that?”

She smirked. “You can blame Barton.” Rhodey rolled his eyes.

“Of course. That guy is a douchebag.” It sounded bad, but Rhodey said it warmly and smiled as he returned to his book. Peter swung back around with the platter of cake and set it down in front of Nebula.

“You’re pretty cool.” Then he asked hopefully. “Can I fix your headpiece too?”

They used Tony’s battle armor, the one he’d been wearing when he died. It was piled up in the garage, or at least what could be salvaged. Burnt, cracked, bent and shredded, the sight of it served a visceral reminder of the battle. Until now, no one dared go near it.

It took time for Peter to build up the nerve to touch it, and before he could, Nebula pried a piece off the left arm. She might as well have pried his heart from his chest, but Peter quelled his nerve and set to work, pilfering tools from Tony’s lab like Pepper said he could. By the time the other Avengers rolled around, Nebula had a new head plate, striking gold cut from the last Iron Man ever made. Over the brow it was inscribed, “MK2.”

May arrived bright and early that morning and the first thing she did was hug Peter, then pulled back, then hugged him again. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my-”

“May. It’s alright. I’m fine, see?” Peter said, holding out his arms.

May Parker was not one to be fooled, however, and scooped the boy into her arms again. “My baby boy. All grown up and saving the universe.” She swept a tear from her eye and then turned to Pepper, sweeping her up as well. Pepper might have needed it, she sighed deeply.

“Are you holding up okay?”

“As well as expected.” Pepper sniffled pulling away. “It’ll be nice to have another normal person around the house. There are too many manful tears happening here.”

May was introduced to Harley and Morgan, then to the rest of the Avengers. The lot of them and others returning from afar were changing into funeral clothes. Soon the funeral would be over, and that would be it. The Avengers would dissemble, and Peter would be on his own.

During the funeral he held back his tears. It was hardly his first time burying a loved one. He stayed quiet and still, and when it was over, he sat on the dock with Morgan while the adults reminisced about Tony, and about Natasha. “I miss daddy.” Came her little voice from his side.

Peter nodded mutely, swallowing his sadness. The wind over the lake blew their hair back, and Peter rubbed little circles on her back as she sniffled. “Don’t you miss him?” She asked. He nodded again around the lump in his throat. When he couldn’t hold back his tears he wiped his cheeks with the sleeve of his suit. “Your dad was my hero.” Morgan rested her head against him.

“He was your dad too.”

He couldn’t respond to that, he didn’t know how to explain the complexities of their brief relationship to his mentor’s actual blood relative, so he just stayed silent. Maybe in a few years, Morgan would understand that she was Tony’s only child, not him. But then Peter thought back to Pepper Potts in the kitchen at 5am making them a pot of coffee in the dark, and Peter wasn’t so sure.

“He did it for you, Pete. He loved you.”

Shuri took Peter for ice-cream at the diner nearby. They walked in their funeral clothes despite the rain and sleet that started that afternoon, and the ice-cream compounded the cold, but it was fun. “And so I asked them-” She recounted, “why couldn't they unlock my phone. They said it’s company policy. So I took it apart right then and there and manually unbricked it. And guess what?” She laughed, she had ice-cream on her lip and Peter was suddenly struck by how attractive she was.

“What?” He gushed back.

“They banned me from the store.”

Peter laughed while she lamented about getting tossed from a Tek-i-Mobile. By the time they arrived back at the house, covered in freezing mud and rosy cheeked from the wind, he was feeling almost normal.

That night- the last they would spend all together, there was a Mario Kart tournament. Even Pepper clad in pin striped pyjamas joined in the cajoling, Morgan sat in her lap. Shuri, Peter and Harley had the obvious edge, but Rocket was a close competitor. Bets went around. Money changed hands. Then Quill and Thor got into an argument and it ended in a milk gauntlet challenge, at which point Pepper banished them from the house and they threw up milk in the backyard.

“I’m sorry about this.” Peter told Pepper seriously. Somehow, this was his fault. She heaved a little sigh and smiled.

“Believe me, if you’d spent much time with them before, you’d know to expect this.” She paused for a moment and her nose wrinkled as she smiled, just like Morgan. “Tony would have loved this.” And she snapped a picture on her phone.

At that moment, Peter knew he would give anything to have Tony back. What he didn't know was that soon, he would.

#ao3 #read on ao3 #far from home #no way home #spider-man #post-endgame #post-far from home #peter parker #cinnamon roll #wintersoldier #avengers #fixit of sorts #peter parker needs a hug #found family #new to writing so for real leave me feedback #canon divergence #butonlybecauseIdidn'tbeatthetrailer #bucky and peter friendship #avengers need a new home

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jflashandclash · 3 years

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Tales from Mount Othrys

Alabaster: Delicate Dance of Chance IV

Alabaster found Pax in Camp Othrys, hiding with the laundry bins. There were few places Axel couldn’t smell his little brother out. This laundry room was one of them. A logical choice if Pax wanted to avoid being found. Alabaster almost forfeited his plan at the reek of towels soaked in demigod sweat and monster ooze—all cottony causalities from that morning’s training session.

One blanket trembled in the far corner of the room. Judging from its lack of filth, Pax, fortunately, must have swiped it from a clean pile. The blanket went still when Alabaster stepped alongside of it.

He hoped he hadn’t mistaken his friend for two demigods getting intimate. No. The sheet tucked tight enough to show Pax’s form: his legs curled up and arms folded atop them, looking like the grumpiest B-rate ghost. Alabaster nudged dirty towels away with his foot and settled down beside the blanket.

Alabaster lifted the small paperback from his stack of two books. The cover had a few stains and was a little too dingy for Alabaster to have kept in a library if he was a librarian. He cracked it open. The coarseness of the pages felt wonderful, even if he didn’t prefer the first page’s sketch of a baby. At an utter, a reading rune glowed on his necklace, bringing the font to proper focus.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much,” Alabaster read, “They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

The blanket ghost stopped shaking and sniffling. Alabaster paused in his oration, as though about to turn a page—a ridiculous notion. What book had a page turn after one short paragraph? He berated himself, forgetting the beautiful opening of, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… The best example of a necessary run-on sentence. Regardless of A Tale of Two Cities, Alabaster had paused here so Pax could comment.

“Is—is that Harry Potter?” Pax squeaked.

Instead of answering, Alabaster continued to read, past the turn of a page, until he came upon the sentence, “It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar—a cat reading a map.” [1]

Alabaster hadn’t meant to stop there. His breath choked. Sphinx, Lelly’s late cat, had been able to read maps. A brilliant Mist form, she’d been able to do so much more than that: a utilitarian helper in the lab and a compassionate friend to his little sister.

For the first time since he, Pax, and Axel had almost been captured by Romans, Alabaster pressed a hand over his mouth. His eyes felt warm. Every time he’d let Lou Ellen cry in his arms, he’d kept focused on his hatred of the Romans and on their own undiscovered traitor. Why, now, with this stupid, juvenile book, did he find himself choking up over the loss? Over a cat that could read a map?

Pax misunderstood his silence as another page break. “You… You said you would only read me books for educational purposes. And, and that Harry Potter was a ‘gross misrepresentation of magic and b-better as a study of plot holes,’” the words came out a rapid jumble of—presumably—snot and hiccups. They were a distracting relief to Alabaster.

“You wanted to read it. No one would read it to you. This is an apology, not for my unrequited feelings, but for the boarish delivery of my response. This is my attempt, over the next seven hours of reading, an hour per evening this week, to prove that nothing needs to change between us, that we can still be friends.”

The sheet ghost crept closer. “Friends,” Pax echoed, “We’re friends?”

He didn’t even know if we were friends, but was still willing to express his infatuation? Alabaster growled. Instead of pointing out the error in logic, he said, “Don’t get cocky. It’s not every day that I get a willing lab assistant with no sense of self-preservation.”

The next noise sounded like a choked laugh.

“Is your arm functional?” Alabaster asked, examining the blanket. “Jack never found you to tend to it.”

The ghost extended its limb out without any apparent pain or struggle.

Alabaster sighed in relief as Pax lowered his arm back down. He tapped two fingers on the edge of the book. This will be fine, he assured. Nothing needs to change. All he needed was the affirmation from Pax. “Are my terms acceptable to you?”

Pax laughed. The chime was more genuine. “You don’t have a lot of practice apologizing, do you?”

“Ajax.”

The sheet ghost rested its head against Alabaster’s thigh. After a pause, Pax squirmed further into his lap. Something familial, Alabaster decided. He wouldn’t know. He didn’t grow up with any of his half-siblings and his grandparents hadn’t been touchy. In his fatherly charades, Jack often let Pax curl up on his lap. Axel spent plenty of time shoving Pax off him when Pax was sleepy and wanted a nap.

“Will you read it in a British accent?” Pax asked, poking the book’s binding.

Six to seven hours of reading in a fake British accent? Alabaster weighed his options. He could double check to assure there was no recording equipment in the room, though he doubted Pax would press their fragile friendship with such antics. “…yes.”

“Will you make Ron’s voice higher in pitch?”

“Shut up and let me read to you.” Alabaster found where he left off and pressed his lips at the cat reading a map. He continued, lilting his words in what he hoped was a British accent. He never had the ease with accents that the Pax brothers did.

Pax didn’t complain. His breathing eased by the time Alabaster finished the next page.

At the end of the third chapter, Alabaster decided he would send Pax to bed with the other book in hand, the one for Axel (who had better not ask Alabaster to read to him). That was the other half of his plan. That book had a passage marked with a simple question, “Who is John Galt to you?” The question and passage should be subtle enough. They would strike conversations with Axel about tyranny and freewill without rousing suspicion from others. Then…

Alabaster scowled.

What would happen? What would happen if their talk of evil tyranny led to discussions of overthrowing Luke? The three of them, Pax, Axel, and he, worked well together in a stressful situation. The crowds took well to them when they were on stage. Alabaster was irritated to think a name like the Triple A Chimera (Pax didn’t even go by his first “a” name) could be useful, let alone a symbol for change, but what if it could? A symbol for liberation through insurrection.

He needed to reflect on this with his mother. Her wisdom was years beyond his own, and she could reveal their different potential futures, one that might involve the “Triple A Chimera” slaying a corrupt titan.

“We work well together. With our skill sets combined, we could make an excellent assassination team,” Alabaster muttered.

“Um… Uncle Vernon started to assassinate wizards?” Pax asked. He pulled the sheet partially off and rolled to stare up at Alabaster. His eyes were wide.

Alabaster hadn’t meant to speak aloud. “No—well—we don’t know yet. He might, judging off their insistence to break into his house.”

“But, the wizards could just magic him to pieces, right?”

“No. No, bullets work quite effectively against wizards.” Though, less so against brats with the Achilles’ curse. Luke’s weak spot was under his arm, where Axel had hefted him out of the River Styx. Kelly and Jack were the only two that Luke would let close enough to touch him there. And, Kelly would immediately rat Alabaster out if he suggested killing Kronos after the war.

What about poison? Could you kill a cursed of Achilles from the inside?

Pax pulled the sheet the rest of the way off. His amber and black eyes were so startled, they might roll out of their sockets. “Are you thinking about assassinating wizards?” With the sheet off and his sleeves rolled up, Alabaster could see bruises along Pax’s arm. The injury must have hurt more than he let on.

Alabaster sighed.

Pax wasn’t ready to talk about this sort of thing. Although the child of Eris held it together against the Romans, Alabaster noted how Pax tried not to kill anyone. Besides, right now, Alabaster was supposed to focus on being nice to Pax, not using him as a tool in this cosmic power struggle.

Alabaster removed a blank spell card from his stash and placed it between the pages as a bookmarker. “What you don’t realize Pax, is, after the events of the book series, and after he went mad with power, that I killed Harry Potter.”

Pax’s jaw dropped open at the thought. “That is a fanficiton I would read.”

“I’m sure you would. I forbid you from having Jack compose a ballad about it. [2] Come on. Let’s get you back to your tent. I have something I need to give to Axel.”

As they made their way back through camp, others were trickling in from the party. From what Alabaster heard, buses had been rented (in place of giant-carting death traps like Alabaster had to take). Some were loud with revelry; others were quiet with subtle glances tender touches, all hinting at future intimacy.

Pax didn’t speak as they walked. Under typical circumstances, Alabaster would have prayed for this. Faced with the silence, only occasionally alleviated by passing partiers, tension dug Alabaster’s fingers into his library books. Would the lab be like this in the upcoming weeks? Awkwardly quiet? Pax’s chatter and excitement made for soothing white noise. “Not that I’m regretting the ability to think without interruption, but are you alright?” he asked.

Pax’s jammed his hands into his punk jacket, toying with something in his left pocket. Alabaster knew it was probably one of those apples—the ones Pax’s mother gave him each morning to turn into someone else. “Just thinking.”

A warm breeze slithered through camp and Alabaster realized how exhausted he was. Emotional stress was tiring. He cleared his throat. “Ajax—”

“Matthias and I were talking about sneaking into the girl’s bath house again. He perfectly measured the amount of water you need to fill a balloon to simulate a realistically filled bra, and I think he makes a lovely lady when he raises his voice a few octaves,” Pax spoke quickly and adverted his gaze. This mustn’t have been what he wanted to talk about.

Another sigh choked in Alabaster’s throat. “Wait—you’re not thinking about turning into one of the girls, are you?! Ajax, that’s absolutely unethical—”

“What? No!” Pax cried. “I would not! Then, I couldn’t prove that my hair can be tamed by no amount of conditioner! Lucille thinks I just don’t use enough.”

“Prometheus and I should place a bet on how quickly you’ll be kicked out.” Alabaster shook his head. “I forbid Lou Ellen from helping you in any way, shape, or form and I certainly hope you haven’t discovered a new gift of magic, only to debut it with something so juvenile.”

“Hey!” Pax protested, “Mercedes would agree: if Matthias and I do a security test on the girl’s bath house and find it wanting, then we’ve done a favor in pointing out its weakness.”

“I’m not even the one you’re spying on and I get catharsis at the thought of your comeuppance.”

They neared the Pax brothers’ tent.

Alabaster debated whether he should give Mercedes a warning about their plan or if she’d find that insulting to her skills as an intelligence gatherer. If the Nord was strapping on a bosom and a wig and walking in the front, then it would probably be the latter.

Still, he was obligated to ask, “You haven’t found an alternative non-magic route to become invisible or a woman—”

Pax withdrew the golden apple from his pocket and nipped it.

Nothing happened, which was peculiar. Eris’ apples of mischief were never duds. Godly item only malfunctioned by intentional design. Usually, Pax turned into someone when he ate his apples, something Mercedes was thrilled to use for spy missions and something she’d only allowed Pax to tell Alabaster, Lou Ellen, Jack, and Flynn. (Alabaster suspected Mercedes’ fear—that Luke would abuse this to see Annabeth sooner, even if it wasn’t really her.)

The longer Alabaster examined Pax, the more he noticed subtleties: Pax’s jaw line softened, his shoulders looked slimmer, something far less subtle about his curvature—

“It worked!” Pax laughed, grabbing at his—no—no—her—chest and lifting. “Oh my gods—Alabaster—they dance! You put your right tit in, you put your right tit out, you put your right tit in and you shake it all about—ow.”

Alabaster shrieked and jumped backwards.

Pax, didn’t seem to notice. He—she was too busy turning to do the Hokey Pokey and giggling. “Oo! Ow, okay. Gentle with the titties. I’ll have to name them. Huh, weird that I never thought to name them before—”

“Ajax!” Alabaster repeated in horror. He was at such a loss for logical words, he resorted to profanities. “What the fuck?!”

Alabaster’s heartbeat pounded so loud in his head that he couldn’t think. He adverted his gaze to the ground. His face felt like it was on fire. Panic, it dawned, I’m panicking more than I did during Rome’s attack.

A bloodcurdling comment came from the tent as someone stepped out.

“Ajax! I’m glad you’re….” The word “back” died on Axel’s lips. “You’re a girl.”

Alabaster looked at Axel, keeping one hand firmly between his eyes and where Pax was dancing. He assumed Axel would be staring at his little brother with the same shock Alabaster felt. Instead, Axel scowled at Alabaster with the intent of a crouching jaguar. “Torrington.” Threat and accusation rolled out with the growl. Tension made the muscles in Axel’s neck strain.

Alabaster’s jaw dropped. “It—it wasn’t me!”

“It had better not have been.”

The movement behind Alabaster’s hand minimized. “Am…. Am I not allowed to be a girl?” Pax’s question was quiet and insecure.

Axel’s response was immediate. From his lack of surprise or hesitation, Alabaster wondered if Axel had been expecting this for years. “You can be whatever you want.” Axel gently ruffled Pax’s unruly hair. Alabaster lowered his hand to watch the interaction, to see Pax’s fragile smile at her brother’s approval.

Seeing Pax like this troubled Alabaster, striking some uncanny valley in the approximation to his friend. All the other times Pax had shifted around Alabaster, it had been into completely different people (pretending to be Jason Grace or Luke Castellan) or completely different species (mostly weasels since Lou Ellen struggled to turn people into much else). The scientific and magic-loving part of Alabaster’s brain should have found this fascinating—could Pax alter individual features about himself? Maybe give himself freckles, change his hair, skin, or eye color, or have a pincer in place of a hand? Why did he feel uncomfortable instead?

Axel had continued to speak, “As long as you want to be one and aren’t doing it for someone else.”

Pax tilted her head, spilling her hair off to the side. “Why would I do it for someone else?”

Axel glared at Alabaster again. Word must have spread about why Pax ran from the dance. With the ordering of events, the potential problem was obvious, though Alabaster had hoped that Axel would think better of him. “Oh, for Kronos’ sake!” he hissed. “Axel—I—he just did this! I didn’t ask him to.”

Axel finally broke eye contact to glance at Pax’s continued dancing. “Ajax,” he sighed, “What did we talk about with touching yourself in public?”

“That it’s inappropriate—oh!” Pax dropped her chest. She made quite the buxom lady and it furthered Alabaster’s discomfort. “My chest is inappropriate now… Man, that doesn’t seem fair for girls. I get why Lucille says it’s sexist bullshit. The titties should fly free—”

“Ajax!” both Alabaster and Axel snapped.

“Sorry. I normally can’t touch myself when I turn into other people because, uh, I turned into someone else, that’s their body, and that would be creepy—”

“At least you have some moral sense,” Alabaster muttered.

“But, I’m just me right now—”

“You’re just you in public,” Axel said, “And, you’re my sibling. Don’t do that in front of me. Or anyone for that matter.” Whatever Axel had predicted about this situation, Pax’s unorthodox dancing hadn’t been part of it.[3] “And don’t think Flynn is going to let us off dawn training just because there was a party in our honor.” Despite Axel’s suspicion of Alabaster, he flashed both of them a smile that might have been… cocky? Proud?

This party had been for them. Although they assuredly would have died without Jack and Flynn’s rescue, Jack happily spun the tale as an exclusively victory for the Triple A Chimera. They had worked well together, with Pax’s expert surveillance granting the opportunity to prepare, Axel’s mastery of terror and tactic, and Alabaster’s magical subterfuge. The books in Alabaster’s hands felt heavy. He withdrew the one thick enough to glaze the eyes of the feeble and handed it to Axel.

“Some light philosophy for meditation.” Alabaster hoped his voice sounded metered and not high with residual panic. “If you grow bored with the length, I marked the chapter that best encapsulates the theory. Well, the primary one of discussion.” Axel was smart, but could grow tired of things he found meandering. Worry made Alabaster swallow. What if Axel mistook the recommendation as idle chatter? What if he understood and reported him to Mercedes? Or worse, Luke himself?

Alabaster visualized Axel’s rigid posture as he stood between Luke and Annabeth’s door. There were details Luke had surely missed: the way Alabaster prepped a spell, the way Mercedes reached for darts that she kept pinned under her shirt, the accumulation of Axel’s energy as he prepped a jaguar transformation. In that room, Alabaster learned these were people who would fight for what was ethically correct, even to defend an enemy, even against a titan.

All of them were probably afraid of the same thing: expressing that their leader had lost his mind. Maybe, Axel needed a nudge in the form of a book.

Axel took it and frowned at the cover. “Atlas shrugged?” he read aloud, “That’s a little tasteless considering what happened to the General on Mount Tam.”

Alabaster smirked. He’d never liked Atlas much in the first place. “I’m glad we’re all alive. Good night, Axel.” He nodded his head and turned to Pax. In the moment, he’d forgotten Pax wasn’t his typical self.

She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, making it ever more apparent how differently she was shaped. “Thanks for staying my friend,” she whispered into his shirt.

Alabaster’s face felt hot. Although he hated the word, he could find no better adjective to address the situation other than, “This is weird.”

“Yea, this is weird.” Axel grumbled. Alabaster could hear his eye roll. “But turning us into weasels and polecats? Completely normal.”

“That is normal!” Alabaster snapped. My normal. One of Pax’s swirling black hairs had slid against his chin and he blew it away. The indents of her face felt warm as she burrowed against his chest. A puff of mint—Pax must have been chewing gum—flooded Alabaster’s senses, sending them into hyper-awareness.

Alabaster gently put a hand on either of Pax’s shoulders and removed her. Holding Pax a foot away, Alabaster flashed back to the first time they’d met. “Can you really do magic?” she’d asked, tugging at his sleeve and batting her lashes. He thought Pax was a girl, then, and been humiliated upon finding his mistake. What made someone a boy or a girl? Belief? And if it was belief, and not biological presets, what did that belief entail?

He cleared his throat. Her amber and black eyes were wide, a little afraid, and Alabaster slipped his grip from her shoulders, hoping they hadn’t been there for an inappropriate amount of time.

“Are you okay?” Pax asked. “Do you need another hug? Prometheus approved: he says my hugs are cure alls.”

“No,” Alabaster said quickly. In attempt to make the denial seem less desperate, he added, “No, I think the only person who might be able to claim panacea hugs is Apollo.”

“And no one should hug that creep,” Pax said. From the way she glanced off in the distance, Alabaster wondered if that was data in Jack’s seminar: What To Do When Pursued By a God and You Can’t Turn into a Tree. “But… are you okay? You’ve been acting funny since…” Her eyes widened. She glanced down at her curves, then back up at Alabaster. Her lips quirked into a half-smirk.

Horror clogged Alabaster’s throat. Pax knew. Alabaster wasn’t exactly sure what elusive information Pax knew, but she did, and Alabaster had to leave before she used it against him.

“You—you think I’m hot! You’re—you’re just straight—!”

There was no viable response to either of those comments. Disagreement would make him sound cruel and any compliment would require Alabaster to (both) lock himself in his lab in a vow of humiliated solitude and hide from Axel for that eternity.

Axel scowled critically at Alabaster’s pause.

This. This is what would be different if Pax was Axel’s little sister instead of little brother. Axel would have an excuse to hunt Alabaster down on unwarranted suspicions and make a sign out of his lanky frame that read, Reasons Not to Hit on My Little Sister.

With nothing else to say, Alabaster nodded to Axel. He hoped that he had managed a calm exterior: his thoughts were uselessly incoherent. His voice sounded shrill. “That’s on loan from the local library and is due in 21 days. I expect it returned to me on time and in prime condition. I hope both of you sleep well.”

Before Pax could respond further, Alabaster rigidly turned and strode away. Although the night had taken on a chill, Alabaster wiped a line of sweat from his forehead.

Stupid. Trivial. Distracting.

He harnessed his focus, tuning out the unnecessary emotions. This was something he was more accustomed to doing with shame, shutting out his grandfather’s and house servants comments about, “Witch,” and “bastard child.” It was harder with this current emotion—whatever it was that made his heart thud.

He grasped at the other thoughts drifting on his consciousness: Sleep. Axel’s nightmares. Recognizing the Pax brothers as his friends. The three of them making an excellent team. Potential for assassinations. Luke’s increasing failures as a leader. How to lead an army without their golden boy mascot.

They couldn’t. Alabaster swallowed. The chilly air cleared his head. They needed Luke for the rest of the war effort. Disposing of him now would create a rift in Camp Othrys, one that they couldn’t afford. Alabaster knew some of his siblings wouldn’t follow him if a divide happens. If something happened to Kronos, the titans would split into opposing parties. Lamia and any children of Hecate that opposed Alabaster would surely fall on that other side. They didn’t have a replacement leader strong enough to lead the war, other than… who? Flynn?

Alabaster’s stomach churned. Axel was popular, but an outsider. None of the Titans, xenophobic by Hellanistic nature, would listen to him, other than, maybe, Prometheus. Flynn, thanks the roll of luck, had no interest in being a leader. That kind of power vacuum would likely lead Krios and Hyperion to sibling rivalry.

They would have to dispose of Luke after the war. They would need a plan to dispose of Luke after the war, assuming Axel and Pax would agree.

An idea slithered along the seams of Alabaster’s awareness, one involving the murky silhouettes of a lion, a snake, and a ram. Maybe Alabaster could rid Axel of his nightmares at the same time as making a weapon to defeat Luke. The Triple A Chimera…

Magic couldn’t save his dying father, but maybe it could save the world from the return of an ancient tyranny. With thoughts of this new death machine, Alabaster walked back towards his room, blissfully unaware that—for the next week—he’d spend an hour every night reading to a curvaceous, flirty female Pax.

***

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! (Sorry for falling off the face of the earth again >>’‘‘) I rewrote this ending, like, three times XD I hope it worked! Stay tuned in two weeks (hopefully >>’‘ in the theoretical universe) where a certain maniac redhead finds himself on an island with a population of two. Love you guys. Thanks for your support! <3

***

footnotes:

[1] When everyone stopped reading Tales from Mount Othrys, to pick up on a much more nostalgic work XD If it is not obvious enough, I do not have any rights to this book. There are not enough weasels or evil parents for me to have written it.

[2] Maybe, guys. I’ll consider it XD

[3] Pax’s playing the part of Captain Cook and the Isles of the Titties. Don’t ask questions.

#Tales from Mount Othrys #TOO #Heroes of Olympus #percy jackson #Alabaster #Pax #Axel #My favorite part is--if Axel thought Alabaster could be into dudes--he would have been JUST as paranoid before this.#Nothing actually changes XD #More opportunities for Axel to go full Big Bro mode

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