"Same goes for me, you don't need to hold back," Percy stated as they faced each other. Unlike Jason, Percy didn't get into a fighting stance. Instead they circled each other. Seeing that Percy wasn't going to attack first, Steve attacked with a quick punching combo. Percy dodged, dipping down to sweep Steve's legs. Steve stumbled back to avoid the move, surprised that Percy didn't do the same thing as Jason. Percy didn't let Steve recover. Since he was off balance, Percy sent a quick punch to Steve's face and other to his gut. Steve stubbled again, hitting the net on the edge over the ring Percy stopped and backed up giving Steve room to get off the rope; he frowned.
"Why did you stop," he asked. Everyone was thinking the same thing, since Percy had Steve cornered but stopped.
In response, Percy shrugged. "I did say you didn't need to hold back." Steve moved to the center of the ring again. He knew Percy was a skilled fighter since he fought him in central park, and after seeing Jason fight, he knew he couldn't underestimate him. This time, he waited for Percy to attack first much as Clint did, but Percy moved fast, slipping past his guard before he could blink, giving a pretty hard kick to his stomach and sweeping his legs. Steve landed hard on the mats, his breath knocked out of him. He was surprised that the kid could hit that hard; he wondered if he had super strength like Peter did.
"You good?" Percy asked, helping Steve up. He nodded smiling. They began trading blows with one another, Steve tried to sweep Percy's feet ,but the teen saw it coming and jumped over Steve. He attacked Percy without warning. Much to his and everyone's surprise, Percy caught the fist and pushed it back. Percy smirking "You almost got me with that one surprise attack, I like it." Percy now got in a fighting stance just as flawless as Jason's, and Steve realized Percy was just playing with him before. The fight picked up. Steve got a couple of good hits in a couple to the face and one good one to the solar plexus making Percy stumble. When he thought Percy was going to hit the mats, Percy surprised him by taking Steve down with him, and much like Jason's fight Percy ended his in a sleeper hold, forcing Steve to tap out.
"I can't believe it. Both Clint and Steve were beaten by teenagers." Scott gasped, eyes wide in disbelief.
"Just because we are younger doesn't mean we are less skilled." Percy stated with a slight frown as he hopped out of the ring. "A mistake many people make" he added, also not breathing hard.
"He is right. You shouldn't underestimate your opponent based on age or sex." Widow stated. She had a slight smile on her face as she watched Percy and Jason's both impressed her.
"That. Was. Awesome!" Peter shouted, jumping to his feet. "You just beat Captain freakin America!" he raised his hand to high five Percy. A couple of the Avengers noticed Percy flinch back a little before he returned the high five.
"Language" Steve sighed, getting out of the ring.
"You both are extremely skilled." Clint said, "and strong." He added, rubbing his shoulder.
"Do you guys train like you are in a real fight?" Bucky asked.
"Sometimes. When we first start we are taught the basics and techniques, but we do push ourselves hard in training, we even have a rock-climbing wall with real lava that sometimes rains rocks to try and knock you off. What is the point of training if you don't push yourself to your limits? If you don't train for real, you could end up dead." Percy stated. The Avengers stared in shock at the teenager.
Peter frowned. "Can't that kill you?"
Percy shrugged. "As far as I know, no one has died doing our obstacle course or died in any training exercises. Plus, if you get knocked off, the lava is immediately shut off and covered."
"And that is fun for you?" Scott asked, horrified. Percy and Jason looked at each other. They thought they had downplayed their training enough to not freak them out. They thought they could handle that, since they were superheroes. The demigods didn't understand their shock and horrified expressions or how they could backtrack to make them calm down.
"Um, sometimes. I mean, we also have games we play too, usually after dinner," Percy started rubbing the back of his neck and Jason nodded.
"What kind of games?" Tony asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer or not.
"my favorite capture the flag," Percy stated smiling
"That's a game I recognize." Clint breathed a sigh of relief that these kids had normal games.
"Really? You guys play that game too… my first time playing I was an untrained newbie so got stuck on border patrol and almost got killed when I was outnumbered by some bullies." Percy smiled, glad that they calmed down. Jason elbowed him and he looked up seeing the confused expressions on everyone's faces.
"Wait, What?," Peter and Scott asked.
"Um... capture the flag is two fighting forces, all weapons allowed, the only two rules are don't maim or kill anyone," Percy stated slowly.
"I don't remember any version of Capture the Flag with weapons." Rhodey said.
"They are one of the war games. It is battlefield practice. There is another game where one team builds a fort and the goal of the other team is to breach enemy lines and take the fort," Jason said, thinking that sounded less dangerous.
"So, all your games are just fighting each other?" Scott asked.
"Well, there was another one that was banned but it was brought back." Percy thought out loud only to get elbowed again.
"What was it," Natasha asked. Percy looked up.
"It's nothing." Percy muttered but all of the adults glared at him.
"What was the 'game'?" Bucky asked. The word "game" left a bitter taste in his mouth. These kids' "games" were nothing but fighting each other.
"Chariot races. You have a week to build your 'chariot' with your partner, and then we race." Percy explained.
"That doesn't seem so bad. Why was it banned?" Peter asked. Percy looked back at Jason. Jason just shrugged, as if to say "you might as well finish the explanation."
"Well, it was deemed too dangerous. You have two-person teams, and one person drives and the other tries to knock out the other teams. Anything is allowed. I think it was banned because a couple of people died…" he trailed off, not noticing the shocked looks on the superheroes faces. He just continued, not noticing Jason facepalm. "That was before my time, though I did almost die when another team threw a grenade in our chariot and I couldn't get it out while driving and my partner was occupied trying to knock another team out of their chariot-." He stopped looking at the gathered people flinching from too much information. "We won though, and no one died or got seriously hurt." He added quickly.
'Mortals.' He thought. He missed war games, they were really fun, but to people that aren't used to it, it would sound extremely dangerous for kids to be doing… okay it was dangerous, especially if they were normal kids, but for demigods it was slightly less dangerous.