Hey y'all! So, if you have read this story back when it was a one shot, you might remember my spiderman mention... its gone now to correlate with the MCU timeline. i switched it with a daredevil mention. i wrote that part ages ago before Spiderman was introduced to the MCU. i had my own plans to bring him into the Avengers and PJO world I mashed together, but alas, Marvel beat me to it and I love their incarnation of Spiderman/ Peter Parker. it might not be soon, but he will appear at some point. Thanks for reading! The reviews motivate tf outta me so go wild! Thanks to everyone who hoped for a continuation and stuck around for it. Y'all are the best! Love you guys, V

His next few weeks were a blur. So much was happening, that he was still trying to find a way to tell Annabeth. What was he supposed to do? Say, "Hey, so, I willingly volunteered myself up for the next big world altering crisis, aren't you proud?"

It was always hard picturing what Annabeth would say in situations like these. She thought so broadly, from every point of view. It was a roll of the dice. Either she was gonna kill him or well, worse. Especially since he had been keeping it from her for so long.

All she knew was that he had gotten a new job. A better job, one that paid a heck of a lot more than that stupid coffee shop. He didn't go into details and he knew it was bothering her. Annabeth hated not knowing everything.

He had finally planned it all out. He was gonna explain. And if he was gonna explain, he was going to have to tell her about his involvement in stopping the invasion. Which was another thing she was gonna wanna kill him for.

He had decided not to tell her. Annabeth had finally looked alive again after Tartarus when the invasion happened. She laughed more, her intense focus was back and she just looked a lot more happier than Percy could remember. He didn't have it in him to ruin that.

Tony must have knew Percy had something on his mind that day. In a way, the man reminded him of Annabeth. Maybe it was because they were both scarily smart.

"What's got you in a foul mood, Fish Boy?" He asked as he leaned against the railing that overlooked the tower's indoor pool. Percy found himself gazing over the water from time to time. It's wasn't the Long Island Sound, but it still gave him peace.

Percy cast a blank look at Tony. He liked him, but he wasn't sure if he trusted him fully. Maybe it was the way he threw money around. Percy has always been relatively poor and so seeing Tony so cavalier with money made him question the man's motives.

There was no evidence at all to backup Percy's paranoia, but he still reminded himself to tread carefully. Anyways, he knew that's what Annabeth would have said. "I gotta tell my girlfriend. I've been lying to her and she knows it."

Tony's face changed into one of concern. "Take it from me, it's probably best not to drag her into this. If I could keep Pep out of this, I would… but it's too late, you know?"

Percy looked away and shook his head. "Annabeth isn't like Pepper."

It was like a lightbulb lit up above Tony's head. "She's like you."

Over the weeks, Tony has grown accustomed to the vagueness of Percy's words. Their discussions about Percy's past were of few words, but with the knowledge Tony already had on Percy, it was easy for him to understand what he meant. Percy has told him at the start of all this that they gods really didn't like it when their existence was shared. From then on, Tony only asked the questions he needed to and carefully.

Percy's "job" didn't really entail much. Tony told him to train. Prepare for the worst. He hadn't seen the other Avengers, yet but Tony had mentioned that they all had a mission soon. The man wouldn't get into detail, but Percy found himself kind of giddy to finally put his sword to work again. It had been a while since Riptide had seen the light of day.

The son of Poseidon nodded, "She's gonna be pissed. I know that much. Probably just because I kept her out of it. She already knows something is up. Annabeth is smart. Scary smart… Her mom is Athena."

Tony took that information in with a look of interest. "Just how smart is she?"

"Smart enough to keep up with you." the demigod told him, remembering the numerous amount of times Annabeth had went off on a tangent about Tony and his inventions. "She's really impressed with you and your work with clean energy. I'm hoping once she learns I'm working for you, she'll soften up a bit, but I doubt it. Annabeth isn't really the soft type."

The engineer laughed at the anxious look at the younger man's face. "Sounds like you got yourself a keeper."

"That's if she'll let me live after this." he claimed, "I'm worried she's sick of my surprises."

"Yeah, I'm just waiting for Pepper to get sick of me and my surprises. She hasn't left me yet, but I wouldn't blame her if she did."

"That makes two of us." Percy admitted, looking over the water again and sighing. "Annabeth is just killing it in normal life, but normal life has always been tough for me. For the longest time, I thought that that's what I wanted, you know? To be normal. I was twelve when my life got weird and dangerous, and I wanted something normal… but I've been trying to be normal for a couple years now. Honestly, I'm just not good at it." he muttered, almost annoyed that he couldn't just be normal like he had initially planned. " I just think I'd be a whole lot happier doing something I'm good at. Sure, it's dangerous, and sure, it's scary, but it's not just that. I've helped people. I've saved the world twice and I've come to realize that maybe it's worth it all. I just don't want to waste my life and I don't want to regret not doing something when I know I could have."

The billionaire looked at Percy and realized that he may have looked like just a kid, but he was a lot more mature than Tony had pegged him for. "It took me twice as many years to realize something pretty similar. You're a smart guy, Jackson."

It stunned him a bit that Tony would say that to him. Percy wasn't dumb, but he really would have never expected that Tony Stark would consider him smart. He couldn't wait to brag to Annabeth. "Thanks, Tin Can Man, you're a lot less douchey than the papers say."

At that, Tony snorted. "Don't you got a girlfriend to stop lying to?"