Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine.

A full explanation of everything that happened in Siberia ends up having to wait until the next morning. Bucky, Steve, and Tony are all so exhausted that they can barely form coherent sentences. Cassie guesses, from the speed with which Steve passes out once he's in bed, that the boys have been surviving on adrenaline and caffeine tablets for the last several days.

For lack of anything she would rather be doing or that feels more important, Cassie crawls in to bed with Steve when he goes. She doesn't fall asleep quickly, too busy counting his breaths and feeling the reassuring beat of his heart under her hand, but she must drift off eventually because when she wakes up it's to an empty bed and the sound of the shower running. She shuts her eyes again, burying her head in the pillow that now finally smells the way it's supposed to now that Steve has slept on

Cassie rolls over when the water turns off and is sitting up against the headboard with a tangle of blankets wrapped around her knees when Steve emerges from the bathroom. He's changed in to a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt and is in the process of drying his hair with a towel. She doesn't speak, just watches him, drinking in the fact that the man she loves is here with her and none the worse for wear.

He must feel her gaze on him because Steve looks up to catch her eyes. The abstracted look on his face melts away as he grants her a tired smile. "Hi," he says, letting the towel drop to the floor and coming over to kiss her. He smells like soap and Cassie can feel the damp warmth of the shower still clinging to his skin as she hooks one hand in the neck of his shirt to draw him closer. She tangles her other hand in the wet hair at the back of his head and makes a contented, half formed noise that starts at the back of her throat and ends somewhere in Steve's mouth as his lips and tongue twist and interlock with hers.

Steve's hands are just beginning to wander to more interesting places on her than where they currently are braced against the mattress when they're interrupted by the sound of his stomach making the problem of its emptiness known. Cassie breaks away from the kiss to laugh and Steve joins her in a short chuckle after he's done glaring at her. The shared laugh is almost as a good a feeling as the kiss and Cassie lets it work its way through her until it tapers off completely.

"Sorry," he says softly. "I know we have a lot to talk about-"

"But you haven't eaten anything but MREs in the last two days," Cassie finishes. "I figured. I'm actually surprised you didn't make a stop in the kitchen before sleeping." She shifts, stretches, and catches a glimpse of a truly spectacular case of bedhead in the mirror. Then she looks back at her fiancé. "How about this, you go raid the kitchen and put together some food for the both of us? I'm gonna go have my turn in the shower. Talking can wait until we both have higher blood sugar."

Steve nods in agreement and leans down to kiss her again. This second kiss is more chaste, more of a brush than a real kiss, but it still sends warmth down to the tips of her toes. "I love you," he says, pulling back again.

"Cassie blinks up at him and smiles. "I love you too. Now hop along," she taps him smartly on the shoulder. "Battle stations."

Steve rolls his eyes, but goes away with a smile on his face.

Cassie slides out of bed and makes her way in to the bathroom. The mirror is still foggy from Steve's shower and Cassie takes the time to wipe a clear patch in to it with her palm to get a closer look at her own face. She concludes over all that she looks tired, but otherwise not too bad.

"She still tries to get a brush through her hair before putting her head under water. Tangles only ever got worse with moisture and Cassie doesn't want to torture her scalp by accident through pure lack of preparation. She does battle with the brush for about five minutes before calling it a draw and ducking in to the shower.

The water comes out hot and soothing and Cassie stands still a minute to let the heat permeate in to her muscles before going through the process of soap, shampoo, and conditioner. The familiar smells associated with the products help relax her further and Cassie emerges from the stall with her head and hair both much more in order. She twists her hair in to a bun without bothering to dry it and pulls on a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt back in the bedroom before going to join Steve in the kitchen.

He presents her with a platter piled with toast, sausage, eggs, and a segmented orange and Cassie takes it gratefully. The kettle whistles and Steve finishes off the meal with a cup of English Breakfast tea for each of them. Cassie eats about half of what is on her plate and waits until Steve has loaded his with seconds before beginning the conversation.

"Steve," she says, making her voice as matter of fact as she possibly can. If subtlety is out for the moment than she'll shoot for a bit of decorum. "What happened in Siberia?"

Steve swallows his mouthful of food and takes a deep breath before beginning. Cassie lets him take the moment, thinking he might need the time to organize his memory. The gods knew she herself could barely get a general report together for Chiron after quests without Annabeth helping. Steve got all the time he wanted, so long as the truth was what he relayed at the end of it.

"It was a trap," is what Steve finally says. His voice is so level that he must be making it that way on purpose. "But it wasn't to kill us. Not really."

He frowns at a point somewhere over Cassie's left shoulder. Had her fiancé had her powers, she's sure there would be a whole in the wall there they'd be trying to explain to maintenance. Steve blinks and then looks back at her. "The person who set it up didn't know that Tony knew, about Hydra sending the Winter Soldier after his parents. He thought if Tony knew, the two of us would fight it out. He thought since we were all still a time, the information must have been kept a secret."

Cassie is frowning too now and takes an absent sip of her tea. It burns the absolute hell out of her tongue and Cassie makes a face and sets the mug back down. "Who was he? Was he HYDRA or-"

"-He was no one," Steve says, interrupting her burgeoning stream of questions. "No one. Or, well, not no one but…" His voice dies suddenly as he searches for words a moment before giving up.

Moments later he's around the edge of the breakfast bar and Cassie is finding herself nearly yanked out of her chair and in to Steve's chest. Her view switches from one of the room to a close up of Steve's tee shirt before even that is essentially wiped out. Cassie doesn't quite know what has prompted this reaction, but she gets the idea that right then, Steve needs to know that she's close.

Through a small amount of judicious wiggling, Cassie gets her arms free to wrap around Steve's neck. She spreads her legs so that her ankles can lock together at the small of Steve's back and the action lets him pull her the tiniest bit closer as her complete wait leaves her chair. Cassie feels Steve duck his head to bury in the hollow of her throat and breath her in. Her own breath puffs out against the bottom curve of Steve's collar bone, and she counts them as she waits.

At four, Steve starts again, low voiced and rough. "The man who set it up was Sokovian," he says. "His whole family died in the Ultron attack. He blamed us for it." Cassie makes a wordless sound of- well she doesn't know what. Maybe sympathy, but she isn't sure exactly for who or for what. She combs her fingers through his hair and along the back of his neck and feels Steve's shudder of response.

Steve's arms twitch convulsively. The fabric of her shirt tightens over her back and shoulders and Cassie can feel the hard ridges of his knuckles pressing in to the top of her spine and over her left hip where he has a hold of her clothes. If he holds her any tighter, they'll be dealing with torn seams. The shirt was cheap enough that Cassie doesn't really care.

"He lost everything," Steve concludes. "Everything…."

Cassie can practically hear the thoughts under the words that he isn't saying. She moves to address the thoughts instead of the words. "It's not your fault," she utters, addressing the words to his sternum.

Steve doesn't speak but Cassie knows she has his attention. Now to get him to believe her. Her shirt actually does tare as she puts in the effort to actually push herself far enough back from Steve to look him in the eye. She brings one hand along the curve of his jaw from the nape of his neck. "We evacuated everyone we could," she states. "I know that you know that. You were there, and I've read the file on Project Rebirth. I know your memory is about as perfect as Tony's. We saved ninety-three percent of the population. Numerically, more people die in plane crashes."

"If we hadn't-" Steve tries to say, but this time it's Cassie's turn to cut him off.

"If Ultron hadn't been created then it wouldn't have happened," Cassie acknowledges. "That's true. And Tony is going to be baring the reality of that for the rest of his life. But Ultron's existence, and what Ultron actually did are separate things. Tony invented something that could think for itself. He's responsible for inventing it, but not for what those thoughts were. And you are not, and were not, responsible for Ultron at all."

Steve inhales sharply and holds it for several seconds before releasing it, sagging forwards in to her hands and letting himself slump forwards far enough that Cassie is almost all the way back in her chair at the breakfast bar. She kisses his cheek and rubs soothing circles in to his shoulders. Steve sighs, and releases his hold on her shirt, moving his hands to the counter top.

"I'm not sure that's ever going to feel okay," he admits. "Sokovia. I think that one is going to haunt me. In the war, I just joined it and the bad guys were really damn obvious. I knew for sure that no matter what I had to do, I was on the right side. And with the Chitauri, I mean, we were being invaded. Someone else moved against us. Unprovoked. But Ultron…"

He trails off and Cassie leans up in her seat to place a new kiss on his temple. "Was from your team," she concludes. "And because you're you, you feel like anything done by your team is on you."

Steve catches her hand at his cheek and turns his head to kiss her palm. "Maybe it's stupid of me," he mutters. "But yeah. That's exactly it. Maybe I didn't cause it, but this guy lost his family on my watch. He planned it out, went cold, timed it perfectly for maximum damage because of something someone on my team did that I didn't know about."

"You and Tony are like opposite teams playing tug-a-war," Cassie muses. "The moral compass of the whole team is like the knot of the rope in the middle. As long as you're both tugging evenly, the tension stays balanced and the knot stays center."

She looks straight in to the blue of his eyes. "The two of you need to talk," she says seriously. "All the time. To each other and to other people. Both of you are opinionated and impulsive. You have to make sure you're checking in with each other and other people to keep balanced. Tony's got Rhodey to keep him from doing anything too stupid, and you've got Bucky, but you've both gotta tell people when you're thinking of doing something crazy. Bucky and Rhodey have the practice."

That last bit gets Steve to crack a smile. He nods. "I know. We talked about it a bit on the flight. About how much worse things could have been if the man had been right, and Tony didn't know the truth about his parents. I think we'll be having a lot more meetings in the immediate future." The last traces of his short-lived smile fade away. "He said that when people die heroes they become saints or martyrs, but empires that tore themselves apart never recovered."

Cassie lets the pads of her fingers trace little patterns on the back of his neck under his shirt. "I know a little something about empires," she muses. "And let me tell you, no matter how they fall apart, they almost never actually vanish. Greece, Rome, Egypt, India, China, the Vikings, none of those are actually gone. They're certainly smaller, and they don't look how they used to, but they are still there."

She leans up to kiss Steve again as he processes that and gestures to their still mostly full plates as she pulls away. "I think that's enough for now," she says. "You can tell me the rest when you tell the team. For now, let's finish eating. Tell me about Wakanda. It's much more advanced than the rest of the world thinks it is, isn't it?"

"It is. Steve tells her everything that Prince T'Challa had said about his country, and gives her enough detail on the prince's plane for her to ghost write a Tom Clancy book with it if she felt so inclined. He also gives her a fair amount of information on how they had destroyed the HYDRA super soldier compound, despite her assurances that he doesn't have to tell her until the team could be debriefed later. It seems to be important to him to talk it through with her first, and Cassie tries to ask the kinds of questions that will help him put together a more comprehensive report later for the others.

That rather nebulous "later" turns out to be a little under two hours later. It's enough time for Steve to approximately half the contents of the refrigerator and put in an order to restock the contents. Apparently, he had become completely fluent in German back in 1944 and a quick brush up on the flight over had brought his skills right back up to par. Cassie spares a minute to marvel at the mental effects of the Super Soldier serum. So many people were so blinded by the physical changes that the changes in Steve's memory, strategic thinking, and mental elasticity got brushed under the rug.

It's also enough time for Cassie and Steve to have a real reunion and work off some of the lingering tension of the recent past before cleaning up again. Cassie is just exiting the shower for the second time that day when FRIDAY begins to sound a light, but persistent, pinging noise meaning that someone is trying to get through to call them. Clearly, it's time to get the band back together.

"Who is it FRIDAY?" Steve asks, all the while making his way across the room to the closet. He pulls out a set of clothes for himself and then turns to toss Cassie her own. Cassie changes quickly and takes advantage of the time saved by rushing to get her hair brushed and braided out of her face.

"Mr. Stark was previously attempting to contact you," FRIDAY replies. "When I informed him that you and Dr. Morgenstern were unavailable, he left a message for you."

"What's the message?" Cassie asks warily.

"Were it possible for FRIDAY to clear a throat, Cassie thinks that would be the noise she would be hearing now. "When reduced to the most crucial details, Mr. Stark would like me to inform you that the team is gathering in his and Ms. Potts' suite. He also requests that Dr. Morgenstern brings her, and I quote 'outdated mythological rainbow video call thing'."

"Thank you FRIDAY," Steve calls towards the general direction of the ceiling. "Please tell Tony that we're on our way up."

"Of course, Captain."

There's a tiny pinging noise as FRIDAY disconnects and Cassie makes her way over to her dresser to rummage through her sock drawer for the prism she likes to use for Iris Messaging. It's a simple, tchotchke style thing, bought at a gift store somewhere out West during the labyrinth quest when she was sixteen. It's nothing special, but it is effective, so Cassie had held on to it ever since.

Steve watches her dig away. "Two questions," he says. "First, what rainbow video call thing does Tony mean. Second, why do you keep whatever it is in your sock drawer?"

Cassie unearths the prism and holds it up triumphantly for him to see. "He means this," she explains. "It's just a way to make rainbows so we can send Iris Messages without having to mess around with a water sprayer. It gets messy. Would you hold this while I look for a drachma?"

Steve takes the proffered object without complaint but is still looking fairly confused. Decididng that it's pointless to dig through her entire drawer a second time, Cassie decides to use a trick to locate them instead of searching manually. Humming slightly to generate a sound wave, Cassie uses her abilities to direct the vibration in to the drawer. Then she follows the resulting clinking noise to locate the draw string bag where she keeps her supply of godly currency.

She tucks the bag in to the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt and turns back to Steve. Her brow furrows. "Have I never explained Iris Messaging? I thought you'd seen me do it before."

Steve shakes his head. "I think maybe you've mentioned it before, but I don't think I ever asked what it actually was. There's not a lot in the mythology books either. At least, not the ones I've read. I 'm guessing it's just some way for you guys to keep in touch? I know cell phones are normally a no-go."

Cassie tips her head. "Huh, okay well yeah. It's kinda like the ancient Greek version of video conferencing. You need a rainbow to do it because you have to ask Iris, that's the rainbow goddess, to carry the message for you. With the right offering, most of us demigods can use the system to talk to each other. Though it's not really Iris doing a lot of the messaging anymore…" she shakes the thoughts away before she gets to explaining Fleecy. "Long story, not so important, point is, Tony probably wants me to call Camp for the meeting."

"Smart," Steve agrees as they make their way towards the door and in to the hall. "We should be pooling all the resources we have to get to the bottom of this. And your friends at both camps deserve to know everything we can tell them about the Accords. I think huge groups of demigods might be a bridge to far for the United Nations to take calmly at the best of times."

"So I'm guessing you got told to bring something for Iris calls too?" says Reyna's voice from behind them as they reached the elevator.

Cassie and Steve turned to find Reyna and Bucky coming down the hall behind them. Reyna has a similar bag to Cassie's hanging around her wrist and Cassie can see and hear the telltale evidence of a second prism and drachma stash. The Legion hadn't used Iris Messaging for centuries until Percy had reintroduced the custom to Frank and Hazel, but it was a system that the New Romans had been very quick to re-adopt.

"Hey," Cassie greets. "Yeah. I was just explaining to Steve how it works. I hadn't realized we hadn't gotten around to it yet. Is there any reason you can think of for Stark to know when Steve and Bucky didn't? I can't see why it would have come up with him and not them."

They all step in to the elevator and Cassie can practically see the wheels turning in Reyna's mind as she sorts through her memory. "I know the two of us made a whole lot of Iris calls when Ultron happened," she muses. "But I think we were on our own then. And we've both got the safe phone lines for all the day to day chatter." She shrugs. "No idea."

A thought strikes Cassie suddenly and she grins, eyes widening. "Hey! Maybe that's one of the things that they put in the Orientation Film!"

"What's the orientation film?" Bucky asks as the elevator rises.

Reyna and Cassie exchange a look and Cassie has to work to push back her laughter. Reyna very deliberately looks away from her and bights her lip. "We don't actually know," Cassie replies, voice quivering just slightly from her suppressed giggles. "I've still never watched it."

That's when Reyna looses the battle and lets out an inelegant snort. The sound breaks Cassie and she starts to giggle. By the time the elevator opens again they're both laughing and Steve and Bucky are looking at each other with expressions that clearly question their own sanity. Their expressions at the time also somehow seem uproariously funny to Cassie and Reyna both, and they're both struggling for air as they step out on to the new floor. Nothing about the scenario is actually that funny, but the stress of the last hours, days, weeks, months, still has to be burned off somewhere.

The giggles are dying off by the time that they reach Tony and Pepper's door and they both have their serious faces back on by the time FRIDAY unlocks and opens the doors for them. Reyna has her Praetor expression on and Cassie is trying to channel her Doctor mode. Whatever team conversation they're about to have should probably be entered in to on a more professional note, regardless of the fact that everyone inside is their friends, family really. Most of the planning meetings that Cassie attended in her lifetime took place in a rec room around a ping pong table, but everyone had still turned up looking as serious as the situation demanded.

Apart from the Stoll brothers. And Clovis. For opposite reasons, but they were both still exceptions.

Without talking it over, Cassie and Reyna both peel away towards the windows to set up their prisms and catch whatever sunlight is coming in through the glass. It takes a little fiddling, and Cassie is moments away from cheating by bending some sunlight in to the lens, but refrains on the grounds that that kind of energy wouldn't be sustainable through the whole meeting. A minute or two later, she and Reyna get the geometry right and have two, fluttering rainbows shimmering on the walls right next to each other.

"I think most of the people we need to talk to are in New Rome," Reyna muses. "I got in touch with Frank and told him to gather people in the Praetor's house. Did you get to Chiron so he could get people together at the Big House?"

Cassie shakes her head. "Not much point. I got a message from Chiron as soon as the Accords went through telling me they'd evacuated all year round campers out to Camp Jupiter. You guys have the bigger walls. The summer session hadn't started yet this year and they've been funneling anyone with dramatic powers to California for the last two weeks."

Reyna shifts back and brushes her hair out of the way. "Do we need to run two then? If everyone is already in one spot…"

Cassie considers what her friends is saying. "I was thinking about that. Thing is though," she bights her lower lip and fiddles with one of the drachma in her hands. "Well, you know our people aren't the only ones kicking around with godly powers these days."

The words hang between them for a moment as Reyna's strategic brain sorts through the possible implications of what she's suggesting. The humming of low chatter buzzes gently through the room behind them as the rest of the team and their significant others settle in to the Stark-Potts living room. It's comforting as a backdrop for deep thought.

"I'm guessing you aren't talking about calling up Thor," she states.

It's not a question, but Cassie answers it like one anyway. "No. Don't have to. Jane left that mirror thing she was using to communicate with Thor when he was off realm behind for us to use when they left. Pepper has it. I'm assuming we'll be using that to get in touch with Thor and Banner."

"And Annabeth is getting in touch with her cousin," Reyna contributes. "She said she'll call him when we're done talking, but those guys are pretty well secure. Nice convenient doorway in to a pocket universe and all. They just have to keep out of the real world for a while until things can cool down some." She sighs and turns to carefully examine Cassie's face. "You think it's a good call?"

Cassie checks her immediate affirmative response and gives her answer the consideration her friend's question deserves. On the one hand, the line of communication she's proposing to open means allowing contact between two worldly mythological realms of power that everyone with knowledge of both had tacitly agreed to ignore. Things could get messy and could get complicated and Murphy's Law was a thing in which Cassie has nearly absolute faith.

On the other hand, Annabeth was planning to get in touch with her cousin and Thor was about to get a full breakdown of everything they knew. Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter shared all of their information as a matter of routine now and everyone would be in the know by the end of the meeting. They were making sure to cover the demigods of Rome, Greece, and Valhalla. There friends from further to the East deserved to know the same information that the others had. After all, it wasn't like they'd never worked together before, and some of the power players in that corner could be pretty damn obvious.

"I don't necessarily think it's a good call," Cassie says at last. "But I think it's the right one."

That answer is enough for Reyna and she nods. "Okay. Tell the boys and make the call. I'll handle getting Camp Jupiter on the line."

Cassie nods and turns to face the rest of the room. She clears her throat but the sound gets lost in the mixed buzz of voices filling the room. Seeing that the situation demands a bit more of an effort, she climbs lightly on to the back of the sofa and perches there, lifting herself head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. "Can I get a seconds here?" she calls.

The buzz in the room dies as Steve abruptly stops talking which causes much of the rest of the room to go quiet too since it makes Tony take notice. The faces of the team turn up to meet her and Cassie has the odd urge to thank everyone for coming. She has a feeling this is not the time to make a joke.

"Thanks. So the thing is that there are some people thought I think we should call. They're like Reyna, Meg, and I, kinda. They're the Egyptian version, and we normally try to keep those versions separate, but Reyna and I were kinda figuring this was an all hands situation. They'd be considered enhanced individuals too so the Accords could just as easily crash on their heads if something goes bad. I'm bringing this up because I'm going to fill these guys in on what we know anyway, but if you all would rather I did it later instead of now and keep things more separate, I can do that."

This little speech is greeted with several moments of silence. The silence is predictably ended by Tony who throws his hands up like a man at the end of all limits of comprehension. "Just how many deities to you people have kicking around knocking people up these days?!"

"These guys aren't demigods," Reyna contributes without turning away from the rainbow she's adjusting for vividness. "Technically, they're magicians. They're descended from Ancient Egyptian Pharos who did have godly blood. They can each channel specific gods and magics depending on personal inclinations and temperaments. It's a whole other ball game."

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. "They have kids involved over there?" he asks. Cassie nods and Steve takes a deep breath. "Then I say bring them in. We need allies right now. Tony?"

Tony sighs and rolls his eyes. "Fine. Let's make it a damn party."

Cassie cranes her head around. "Anybody opposed?"

The room is suddenly filled with people exchanging glances and shaking their heads

"I say we might as well pool the info," Natasha says calmly. "Forewarned forearmed and all. If they're still back in the U.S then we should keep that line open."

"I'm with Steve," Sam states.

Barton reclines in the chair he's claimed and crosses his arms over his chest. "I was in Egypt for a bit in the 90s. I've been worse places. Gods can't be that bad."

Meg grins at Cassie over Pietro's shoulder. "I've always wanted to meet the Kanes. The stories got around camp. Sounds like fun."

Pietro just shrugs and reaches out to tuck Meg more carefully in against his side. Wanda is watching Cassie carefully. She has the distantly abstracted look of a person reading an interesting book on an advanced topic. It abruptly occurs to Cassie that the other woman may be reading her mind and quickly straightens up at the notion.

Naturally, Wanda notices. She gives Cassie a tired smile and Cassie is reminded of how recently Wanda has made it out of near complete isolation in a hospital, and then in her room here. "You trust these people." It's a statement instead of a question, but Cassie nods anyway. Wanda nods in return and then turns to face forward again.

Apparently having the resident telepath vouching for your instincts has a way of reassuring a crowd. General murmurs of assent to her plan come from everyone who hasn't spoken yet. Cassie's glad that the decision seems to be unanimous. She doesn't have the mental fortitude for a full team debate just now. Not after the rollercoaster that the last twenty-four hours have already been.

With all the votes in, including late coming agreement from the large group of demigods calling in from California projected on the wall, Cassie turns back to the rainbow she's already created with her prism. She holds the drachma over her head and intones, "Hey Fleecy, do me a solid." The coin vanishes as she tosses it in to the shimmering curtain of colors.

"Show me Sadie Kane," Cassie pronounces clearly. "Brooklyn House. Twenty-first Nome. Brooklyn, New York." The rainbow seems to shudder, like the request isn't processing well. A supernatural message that she's crossing a line that should be left as it is. "Sadie Kane," Cassie persists. "Connect me please."

The curtain shudders again with the effort, but slowly resolves itself in to a clear image. Sadie Kane is sitting directly in view, features blurred with proximity. It's almost as if they're on a video chat and the other girl is standing too close to the camera. Cassie can see that she's trying to talk, but the words sound like they're being spoken under water.

"Take a step back Sadie," Cassie instructs. "You're standing too close."

Sadie must be able to hear her because she backs up and her image becomes much clearer. "That better?" she asks. Despite a decade living in America, Sadie still has the lingering hints of her London accent.

"Yeah you're coming through a lot better now."

"Good," Sadie says with a decisive nod. "Now maybe someone at that damn conference behind you can explain what in the bloody afterlife is going on. None of our scryers can tell us a bloody thing more than the mortal news does."

Her eyes are sparking in the electric blue glowing way that so much reminds Cassie of Thalia and Jason when they get mad. The streaks in Sadie's caramel hair are deep green these days and it warms Cassie to see that they're still there. Sadie may be an adult now, but it's nice to see that there are a few areas she hasn't made concessions in during the process.

Cassie can't help her smile or the exasperation in it. "The conference behind me is about to commence exactly so we can discuss the things that are going on. We thought it might be something that the House of Life should know. Especially since all of our people and the Norse guys are going to be plenty informed."

Sadie nods shortly. "Give me a moment, eh? I have to go fetch my idiot brother." She turns from the Iris Message and disappears from view. Cassie can hear her calling for Carter and a few moments later she reappears with her brother and three additional people in tow.

"Alright," Carter says. "I guess we're all here now. Hi Cassie, and hi…" he leans around Cassie to see the rest of the team behind her. "Everyone else I guess."

Cassie turns around and gestures between the Iris Message and the group. "Twenty-first Nome, meet the Avengers and their team plus significant others. Guys, meet Sadie, Carter, and Amos Kane, Xia Rashid, and Walt. Or I guess," Cassie frowns up at the man in question. "Are you still using Walt?"

"Walt, who Cassie is pretty sure is simultaneously an ancient jackal-headed funeral god named Anubis sharing the same body just shrugs. "Walt works. It gets me way fewer odd looks at the coffee shops."

"Okay," Sam says. "For the record I am all for making a few new friends. But I got a couple of questions I am gonna want to ask later about some mummy legends if that's chill with everyone."

"Hi Captain America!" Sadie calls with a cheery wave. "Hear your marrying Cassie. Well done."

"Do you have other Greek and Roman representatives present?" Amos asks. "All information will be valuable going forwards given recent events in the mortal world and their dawning awareness of the mystical."

Reyna steps around in to view. "I have Percy, Annabeth, and all the others on a separate Iris Message. Sorry you can't see them. The angles with the prisms just aren't working out the right way. We've even got a little portal thing going with Asgard to keep Thor and Jane up to speed. Say hi everyone."

"Three choruses of greetings echo through the connecting Iris Messages. With the familiarities and formalities out of the way, the meeting comes to order. Cassie and Reyna attend from their spaces next to the broadcasts and feed in additional coins at periods to keep the connections going. Steve, Tony, and Bucky relay everything that happened to them in Siberia, Pepper gives a report on their situation here in Switzerland, and Steve explains more deeply their offer of sanctuary in Wakanda. Reyna and Rhodey round out the briefing by explaining where they stand legally and in the press.

"In summary," Darcy says, rounding things up. "Anyone with any god power or magic or is associated with anyone having same should get nice and low and stay that way until the government un-fucks itself enough to remember that the Avengers are the good guys. Do I get to meet Bast?"

At the request, a small golden cat with long triangular ears and black spots runs in to view and hops in to Sadie's lap. "She's right here," Sadie says grandly. "Although in this form she is more commonly known as Muffin."

"You have named the Lady Bastet, goddess of felines and protector of Ra after a baked breakfast good?" Thor asks from where his communication line is broadcasting from the ceiling. He sounds confused but not upset so they're able to move on relatively quickly.

Muffin lets out a plaintive meow.

"Extrapolating from Darcy's summary," Steve says in to the odd moment of silence to get them back on track. "Yes, from a strategic stand point, anyone with extraordinary abilities should keep themselves under the radar until we can get a legal argument together to discredit the Accords. Unfortunately, we don't actually know how long that process may take."

"Pepper and I have lawyers working on it," Tony offers. "Lots of lawyers. Like, all the lawyers you can think of multiplied by an extra law firm raised to the power of the legal sector of the United Nations. They'll find what needs finding, but it's going to take a while."

Amos Kane clears his throat and leans forward. He has the kind of quiet authority that could only come from a lifetime spent being in charge of argumentative and powerful people. "Hiding is not a problem," he declares. "I can issue orders to all the Nomes to retreat to their bases behind magical borders. This is not the first time that we have been forced to go in to hiding. However, we will continue to collect all information we can and keep you appraised of it as things change. The magicians of the House of Life will stand with you in whatever is to come."

"Thank you," Steve says sincerely. "We'll make sure to do the same. You'll know everything that we do as soon as we know it." The magicians of the twenty-first Nome say their goodbyes after that, and the Iris Message terminates.

"We need to be getting going too," Annabeth says from the perpendicular wall. "We've got everybody in the borders now. All the families who know the truth are arriving in to New Rome over the next week. When things cool down a lot of the Camp Half-Blood kids without family will head back to New York so we don't push the city limits too hard. We've still got satyrs, centaurs, and nature spirits keeping their eyes and ears open. Cassie and I have phones. We'll set up a call schedule to make sure the information keeps flowing."

She moved to lean forwards and dissolve the connection but Percy catches her arm to stop her. Their matched wedding rings catch the light and Cassie has to swallow back the sudden swell of misplaced jealousy the sight causes in her. The fact that all this has completely ruined her and Steve's wedding plans is pretty far down on their list of consequences from the Accords at the moment.

"Wait just a second before you go," Percy says, adjusting his hand on Annabeth's arm to thread their fingers together on his knee instead. "I wanted to talk to Cassie about something. Not now," he hurries to add. "But can I call you back in a bit? A couple hours maybe?"

Cassie nods and spares a moment to be grateful for the practice she has had in keeping a professional face on no matter the situation. The look on Percy's face and the way that Annabeth is looking at him with worry in her familiar grey eyes concerns her. Percy isn't normally a shy or secretive person. If he wants to talk to her in private, then something very serious must be going on. She's not sure how many more bombshells worth of serious problems she can survive.

For Percy's sake, she knows she'll take on at least one more.

"Of course," she tells him, studying Percy's face, particularly the inscrutable green of his eyes. She's pleased by the fact that only the barest hint of the worry she feels can be heard in her voice. "Get back to me in two hours. I'll wait for the Iris Message."

"Thanks Cass," Percy says. He gives her his old familiar grin. Then with a flick of his hand through the image, the Iris Message connection breaks and the picture vanishes.

Wondering what Percy might want to talk to her about occupies her thoughts for the duration of the meeting and Cassie isn't ashamed to admit that she misses a lot of what Thor reports about the goings on in Asgard. There are enough people in the room capable of taking notes and information retention to fill her in later if she needs to know. Besides, the Norse gods got along without her having any idea they existed for real for the first twenty plus years of her life. Thor can hold that corner of the universe together without her being fully informed about it for a few months.

That thought/notion/assumption may well come back to bight her later….

She'll mark that down as a Future Cassie problem if it ever comes up.

"Yeah, yeah, not the most psychologically healthy or responsible decision making. Cassie is well aware of that fact. But like, Cassie has had a really hideous week and there's almost zero chance that whatever Percy wants to talk to her about is going to make it any better. Some of the problems brewing in Cassie's world are just going to have to wait.

She's choosing this one.

It takes about an hour for the rest of the meeting to wrap up. After Thor leaves the meeting, most of the rest of it is Pepper, Steve, and Tony attempting to explain the new legality of their living situation both in Switzerland and Wakanda. Apparently, almost none of it applies to Vision because nothing in current U.S law knows how to handle a sentient android and there's no containment system on the planet that can actually work.

The upshot is that Vision will be able to go back and forth to the U.S and ensure that things will hold together while they're gone. Vision is also being set up to work with Happy to look after anyone that they had to leave behind. People like Peter Parker and Scott Lang's daughter.

When the meeting is completely over the team files out to their own quarters. There seems to be a mutual, though unspoken, agreement amongst them all that this one meeting has just about maxed out everyone's mental reserves for the day. Cassie wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of maps were going to be taking place today. Or other personal activities.

And that is where Cassie is ending that train of thought.

Cassie lets Steve take her hand and lead the way back to their new apartment. Her thoughts are still spinning around what might be going on with Percy and she can't seem to focus on her personal here and now. She goes through the process of making two cups of hot chocolate without really thinking about what she's doing and pays for her inattention by nearly burning the holy Hades out of her hand when she tries to pour the water.

"Shit," she mumbles, returning the kettle to the burner and shaking out her burned hand. She knows for a fact that the action won't help the sting in the slightest, but it's an instinctual reaction that's probably as old as burns themselves. Still swearing she heads for the cold water tap at the sink.

"Okay," Steve says, reaching out and catching him around the waist with one arm. Cassie blinks up at him, not having noticed when he had approached. In fact, thinking back on it, she's not sure she remembers having noticed where he went when they opened the apartment door.

"Hi," she says. "I was just going to run some cold water on this." She waves her burned hand in illustration. The skin has already turned a shiny shade of angry pink.

Steve glances at her hand briefly before returning his gaze to hers. "And we'll deal with that," he promises. "But how about you step away from the heavy appliances for a minute? I'll go grab you an ice pack and finish the cocoa."

It vaguely occurs to Cassie that she might be being managed right now and she'd hate that under other circumstances. That said, she just lost her grasp of two decades of intensive hero training to dump boiling water all over herself. Steve might have a point about her leaving the kitchen where the electronics and sharp implements are kept until she's less distracted.

Cassie pops up on to her toes and brushes a kiss over his cheek. "Thank you. I'll be on the couch."

The look of relief on Steve's face when she agrees to go sit in the other room is enough to demonstrate just how worried she's made him in the last twenty minutes or so. He ducks to kiss her forehead and then reaches up to take her wrist and press the lightest breath of a second kiss over her burn. "I'll make sure to put cinnamon on top."

Cassie grins and backs away to go and sit on the sofa as promised. She curls her burned hand up against her shoulder and lets the sounds of Steve moving around in the kitchen to finish the cocoa form a soothing hum of background noise. Her free hand moves to fidget with her necklace while she thinks.

Is anything wrong with Rosie? Or with Sally? She supposes if there were it would make sense for Percy not to want to talk about it in front of the Avengers. But he could have told Annabeth and borrowed her phone if that were the case. Or maybe…

"One hot cocoa," Steve says, interrupting her train of thought to hand her the mug.

"Perfect," Cassie reaches for it with her burned hand but manages to catch herself in time to avoid actually pressing her burned flesh in to a hot mug. "Wait no, hold on." She lets her left hand drop and shifts her weight to reach with her right.

Instead of waiting for her to get settled, Steve simply sits next to her and places both mugs on coasters on the coffee table. Then he pulls an ice pack from the crook of his arm and crushes it to activate the cooling crystals before wrapping it around her hand. Next he ties a dishtowel over the top to hold everything in place.

"I think that'll probably help," he says. "Now here," he passes over the cocoa mug. "Drink some of that. Then take this," he digs in his pocket and passes a penny in to her burned hand. "and tell me what you're thinking about."

Cassie takes a drink of her cocoa and smiles. It's now cooled to the perfect temperature and the sweet-spicy taste that coats her tongue is Cassie's ultimate in comfort. The penny catches the light as Cassie turns it over in her fingers

"The cocoa was a good enough payment," she tells Steve with a smile. "The penny is a nice touch though. Almost no one literally actually pays to hear what you're thinking anymore. Usually it goes the other way and involves a therapist. Or alcohol."

Steve shrugs and takes a sip from his own mug. "Call it the cherry on top. You can buy absolutely nothing with it and there's a certain body within the U.S government that would like to have them discontinued."

"Weren't they going to put your face on one for a bit there?"

"Maybe," he acknowledges. "Probably off the table for now though. Pretty sure I'm a fugitive now."

Cassie takes another sip of cocoa and shrugs. "Right now pretty much everyone on United States money owned slaves. Give it time. Fifty years after we're all dead the mint'll take care of it."

"How much you wanna bet Stark ends up on the hundred?"

"So long as cash is still a thing by then I'd say the odds are pretty good." She takes another sip and moves to curl her legs underneath her. "I'm worried about what Percy needs to talk to me about."

Steve sets his mug on the table and turns to give her his full attention. "That's what's got you so distracted?"

Cassie nods. "I know you don't really know Percy that well. You two have only actually met each other a couple times, but I've known him for eleven years. Him asking to talk to me separately… that's not normal for him."

"Maybe he just didn't want the rest of us listening?" Steve suggests. "Like you said, it's not like he knows most of us that well."

Cassie frowns. "I considered that," she says. "And it's possible. But if Percy wanted to talk to me in private he could have. He didn't have to ask to talk to me later." She sighs and shakes her head. "I don't know, maybe I'm thinking about it too hard." She lifts her burned hand. "This was definitely a stupid level of distracted to get."

"Yeah, that had me worried," Steve admits. "Also kinda worried about the fact that your next move was to go for cold water and an ice pack. Healing is kind of your super power."

Cassie looks back and forth from Steve's earnest face to her singed skin. "That's…. fair," she decides. "I'll just-" she splits the fingers of her right hand on to either side of the burn on her left and concentrates. A few gold sparks jump from her finger tips and the burn warms painfully before the skin heals, smooth and tan. "There. Oh, come on!"

"That last part is because she forgot to remove the ice pack before beginning the healing process. The heat generated by her magic has liquefied the coolant crystals and the pack has started to leak a suspicious blue liquid on to her clothes. The chemicals are starting to sting in their own right and Steve hands over the dishcloth that had been wrapped around the ice pack to mop things up.

"What if you call Percy now?" Steve suggests, wrapping the now destroyed cold pack in the spattered dish cloth. "Then you can at least stop wondering."

Cassie feels a surge of relief at the suggestion and gives Steve a smile. "You know I actually think I might. I'm kinda hitting the point where whatever he tells me isn't going to be worse than what I'm imagining. And I'm reaching the point of being a danger to myself and others- or really you."

Steve smiles back and leans over to draw her in to a kiss. He pulls back after an interminable moment that completely wipes all thoughts from Cassie's brain. "I'll take the mugs in and then go check in on Bucky. Give you some privacy."

"I love you," Cassie tells him, because it's true.

"I love you back." Steve tips his head towards the blank back wall. Or rather, the previously blank wall. Now there's a shimmering, multicolored panel of light. It's an Iris Message waiting for her to pick up. "Go have your call."

He takes the mugs in to the kitchen and Cassie accepts the Iris Message call as the sink turns on.

"Hey Percy," she greets. "So what's going on? Did you get hurt?"

Percy grins back at her but the smile doesn't quite cover the way he's shifting from one foot to the other. Percy has some of the most acute ADHD Cassie has ever seen in a demigod, but she's known him long enough to know that this isn't one of his typical energy burning twitches. "Hey Cassie. And no, not hurt. That's actually kind of the thing I'm calling about."

Cassie frowns, trying to parse out the meaning of those sentences. "Gonna need a little more information here Perce. Are you like, concerned about having not been beat up or cut to pieces lately? It's not a superpower that fades away if you don't use it enough you know. And here in the medical community, we call not being beat to crap a good thing."

"Yeah, no, not the problem," Percy says. "All for not bleeding. I am very much on team not bleeding to death. It's an important policy in this household. Annabeth writes me notes when I go places telling me not to be an idiot and not to die. I take those reminders seriously."

"I would," Cassie agrees. "She normally means those. So, what's actually going on?"

Percy takes in a deep breath and then lets it out slowly. "Alright so, you remember how Nico and I went on that trip through the Underworld and I took the actual worst swim ever? Styx river, discarded dreams of the departed, felt like I was boiling to death in battery acid?"

"It rings a bell," Cassie answers dryly. It was a little bit difficult to forget the day that one of your best friends took on invulnerability and the curse of Achillies in order to stand a chance of defeating a titan king possessing the body of one of your other lifelong friends. That kind of event had a way of stamping itself in to your brain. "The invulnerability washed away when you entered New Rome."

"Completely gone," Percy confirms. "Which is why this is so confusing." He holds up an imperial gold knife where Cassie can see it. "See I had this dream- and not the naked in front of my algebra class dream."

"Which for you would include a Fury so that's probably a good thing," Cassie points out.

"You're not wrong. Anyway, I mean like a real DREAM. Capital letters."

Cassie nods for him to continue. She knows those dreams. As a child of Apollo, she has them pretty often. "Was it about the Styx? Or Tartarus?" She thinks Percy would probably tell Annabeth about those, but if he's worried they're prophetic then Cassie isn't a bad person to come to for help interpreting.

Percy frowns. The green in his eyes swirls like a whirl pool and not for the first time, Cassie wishes that she could read him better. "Kind of. I was back at the Styx, but it wasn't a memory. I was standing on the bank and-" he darts a quick glance at her, reading her reaction "Luke was there."

A lump springs in to Cassie's throat, but she swallows around it and is pleased to hear that her voice comes out sounding even when she says "Alright. Well that makes sense maybe. I mean, you said you saw the ghost of Achilies warning you against going in when you… plunged."

"Well Luke, or Ghost of Luke, or My Psychosis Luke, wasn't doing any warning off so that's like an epic fail if he got handed that job in the Underworld. He just- he just looked at me and said 'Any idea why we're here?'. After covering the fact that I did not, he kind of looked at the river, than back at me, and said 'Well nice seeing you anyway Percy. Never thought I'd beat Poseidon's kid in to the water'. Then jumped in the river."

"…And you like a responsible demigod dreamer sat calmly and waited for him to pop back out or have someone else show up to get a little information and then peacefully wake up?" Cassie suggests hopefully.

"Umm," Percy's face is forming an expression that is doing very little to make Cassie feel better. "Actually, I, like the impulsive and idiotic demigod I am during waking hours kinda just, tripped in after him."

Cassie groans. "Please tell me that you then woke up and nothing happened? This call was just to tell me about the fact that Luke played a guest role in your dream which you thought I should know about given my totally sick prophecy skills?

"That is very close to what happened," Percy says uncomfortable. "Actually, it hurt so much I woke up screaming. Annabeth knew I'd had a nightmare and said I should go down to the beach. Clear my head, and it worked. But I wasn't really paying attention on the way home and there was this thing with a car. Oh fuck it I can't explain this. Just watch."

He lifts the gold knife and before Cassie can speak to stop him, he cuts a wide slash across his opposite arm.

Nothing happens.

The point of the knife skids across Percy's skin with a sound like a petal being scraped along asphalt. No blood falls. The skin remains whole. Next Percy raises the knife and drives it down in to his own thigh.

The blade shatters.

"Soooooo….." Percy says reaching around the scope of Cassie's Iris Message to collect the broken pieces in to a pile that can be forged back together later. "Any idea what that's about?"

A/N: Dun dun dunnnnn. So what did you all think? I know this took a little while but as I'm sure you all know, Real Life has been a little insane lately. I hope the nice long length makes up for the time! Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo