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Percy glanced around the interrogation room he’d been shoved in. It was starkly lit with ugly white fluorescent lights that hurt his eyes and buzzed too loudly. It was absolutely freezing, too, but that might’ve just been the fact that he’d been put in a chair directly underneath an air vent. There was a sad, droopy palm in a vase in the corner that needed a good watering. It was nicely complemented by a big tv on the wall to one side, and a one-way mirror on the other.
He was in the middle of the room, on a chair bolted to the ground, handcuffed to a table that was also bolted to the ground. The other chair was not bolted to the ground, and it was also not under a vent. It was clearly the superior chair. He considered rolling over the table to get to that one.
Before a decision could be made on the chair front, the door opened and the not-quite-silence Percy had been sitting in with his good friends, the buzzing lights and the loud AC, was broken. An imposing black man planted himself in the good chair and busied himself organizing files. He made a point of not looking at Percy, which would have been off-putting if he wasn’t intimately familiar with that move.
And besides, it gave him a chance to study the guy. He was bald, and he had a pretty neat eyepatch going around his head. His black overcoat was covering a black jacket and a black shirt, and he had black jeans and unfortunately for him, Percy was not nearly as intimidated as he was probably supposed to be by the whole all-black ensemble.
He finished playing with his files and looked up. Percy caught his gaze and held it. This wasn’t going to be a game of cat and mouse like he wanted. It was going to be more like chess, and he had the first move.
“Director Fury,” he introduced himself. “I’ve been looking over your case.”
“What case would that be?” Percy asked. Then he added, “Director of what?”
Fury ignored the second question. “Don’t you know what happened? You were there.” He was trying to get Percy to admit to something. Smart.
“I have never claimed to know anything, ever.”
The Director smirked. “Well, I think it was you controlling water and using it to battle the giant robot that attacked Manhattan a few hours ago.”
“You are very wrong,” Percy told him.
Fury picked up a tablet from his stack of papers and tapped the tv screen with it. The tv blinked to life, presumably showing the footage he was talking about. “I don’t think so.” The director pointed at a little blob; the tv zoomed in and revealed security-footage-Percy. “How are you doing that?”
Play dumb. “Doing what?”
“Controlling the water in the fountain,” Fury said. He pinched and zoomed around the screen until Percy and the water shooting out of the fountain were both in view.
Percy shook his head. “Oh, I can’t control water.”
“So all of this moving water,” Fury gestured to the jets of water hitting the giant robot in the face, “isn’t because of you?”
“It is not,” Percy replied with a nod. He started bouncing his leg, which might make him look nervous, but sitting still was slowly starting to feel torturous. He itched to be moving, doing something useful and not sitting in an interrogation room, blatantly lying to the Director of Nothing, but here he was.
“Even though,” Fury zoomed in and pointed to security-footage-Percy, who had his arms outstretched and a look of concentration on his face, “you’re standing five feet away from the fountain doing that?”
“That is correct,” Percy answered.
“So someone else,” Fury pointed at some of the various civilians running away from the robot and screaming for their lives, “is fighting that robot with water.” Percy glanced at the screen for a moment. He was the only one who wasn’t running away.
He leaned back in his chair, as far as the handcuffs allowed. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
Fury scowled at him. “You didn’t happen to see anyone else that looked like they might be controlling water, did you?” He asked dryly.
“I didn’t.” Percy said, leaning forward and putting a hand to his chest, “but I’m sure someone did. You know how hard it is to get away with things like that in Manhattan.”
“Uh-huh.” Fury raised an eyebrow, and damn he had a great judgmental expression. If Percy hadn’t disappointed his mom and literal gods as often as he did, he’d be really tripped up by that.
As it was, though, disappointing gods was a hobby, as was lying to mortals about his capabilities and being a sarcastic little shit. “Have you considered that there was a really big water cannon in the fountain?” He asked. “Maybe the fight was staged.”
“Why the fuck would anyone do that?”
Percy shrugged. “Advertising their new giant robot company?”
“Why the fuck—“ Fury stopped, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.
“Maybe they weren’t.” Percy admitted, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “I admit, that is kind of a stupid idea. With a show like that, it’s much more likely they’d be advertising a new water cannon company instead.”
He watched as Fury slowly lowered his head into his hand. “I am not licensed,” he muttered slowly, “to kill defenseless civilians.”
And normally, Percy would argue that, hey, he’s not defenseless, thankyouverymuch, but that’s actually exactly what he was trying to convince this guy and maybe keeping his mouth shut would get him out of here faster. Fury took another deep breath before straightening himself out.
“Let’s review: you, despite being right next to the fountain, in a clearly defensive pose, with quite a fierce and focused look on your face if I may say so myself, have absolutely nothing to do with and no additional knowledge of the fact that the water seemed to gain a mind of its own.”
“Wow,” Percy nodded, “bit of a mouthful, but spot on.”
Fury nodded in reply, shrugging a bit; even he couldn’t argue that point. “Now how are you going to go about proving it to me?”
Percy paused. “What?”
“I’m a man much more likely to believe definite proof over your word,” Fury clarified. “So how are you going to prove it wasn’t you?”
A scowl made its way across Percy’s face. “Man, my girlfriend is a science geek. I’ve sat through enough lectures to know it’s impossible to prove a negative. I could sit here for the next twenty-four hours trying and failing to make water move on its own, and it wouldn’t prove a fucking thing because I could just be purposefully not doing it.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at the director. “Why are you trying to trap me in a corner?”
Fury raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, intent on answering Percy’s question and probably trying to trip him up, but he was interrupted. The door flew open, hard enough that Percy spent a good moment worrying about the hinges. “Thor,” Fury frowned, “what do you need?”
“Thor?” Percy asked. Not, like, that Thor, right?
“Thor is the Norse god of thunder,” Fury explained. Ah. So exactly that Thor. Percy glanced over at him, and he was eyeing Percy back curiously. Their gazes met.
“I’m an atheist,” Percy quipped.
Someone had clearly taken the time to spell out what exactly that was for him, because he smirked and glanced over at Fury. “The giant automaton has been taken care of. Stark and the Captain have expressed interest in speaking with the child you are holding here.”
Fury closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through his nose. Percy, who had managed to get that exact reaction from him multiple times throughout his interrogation, knew exactly what that meant; whoever Stark and the Captain were, they annoyed the shit out of Fury.
He wanted to meet them immediately.
“How much of the interrogation did Stark watch?” Thor blinked innocently. Fury sighed again. “All of it. Of course.”
Percy raised his hand—well, hands, due to the handcuffs—as high as he could despite being chained to the table. “Personally, I am very interested in meeting Stark and the Captain. Anyone who annoys you that much has got to be fun to hang out with.”
Thor chuckled at Fury’s exasperated growl. Percy just smiled and shrugged at him. “Or you could let me suffer in here alone for the next, what—forty-two hours?—that you’re legally allowed to keep me for.”
“Why do I get the feeling that if I left you alone in here, I’d come back to the room in complete disarray?”
Percy mirrored Thor’s earlier innocent look and shrugged. “I get bored sometimes.”
Fury clearly had a method for dealing with annoying people: he dropped his head, set his feet at shoulder width, and put his hands on his hips. That was a thinking-don’t-talk-to-me pose if Percy had ever seen one, and Percy was dating Annabeth. He’d seen many. Percy started fiddling with his handcuffs, which he hadn’t picked the lock on purely because there was no visible lock, while Fury grumbled to himself.
He didn’t have to wait too long. Fury shook his head. “Take the kid to Stark. I’ve got a meeting in ten, anyway.”
Aw, yes. This was gonna be fun.