The Avengers screamed as their teammate was buried under a pile of burning rubble. The explosion brought the entire multistory car park down and would've decimated half the city if it wasn't for Percy.

They instantly sprung forward, leaving the evacuees and hostages with the police, and started desperately trying to put out the fires and dig the rubble. They had to find their friend!
"P-Admiral!" Tony almost slipped as he frantically scanned the wreckage for life signs.

"Admiral!" Steve was trying to remain calm, "Admiral! Can you hear us!?" They all called his name for long, tense minutes hoping against hope that he was alright. Hoping against hope that those Olympian powers of his could help him or that the bomb had blown the rubble away from him and he's been cleared or that he had time to make a shield around himself or anything that would help him survive.

"Admiral! Please!"
"Come on, Mate! Answer us!"
"Admiral! Answer!"

"Come on! Come on!" The civilians watched on, scared, as the heroes kept digging.

"Shit! No!" Clint cursed as a section of the rubble collapsed inward and the fires spread. The team felt the hope they'd been protecting and counting on dwindle as Percy's chances dropped.
Then they heard it!
Percy's groan could be heard across the comms. 
"You guys are not helping my headache." The team laughed slightly hysterically in relief, a couple of them with less than dry eyes.

"Admiral! Where are you?!" Percy grunted.

"Under some rubble." He coughed thickly. "I think something's burning." He commented idly. He always responded to deadly situations with as much sarcasm as possible. He used to think it made the situation seem less real, but he'd grown to realise it was more about the feeling of control: if he could mock something, he could beat it.

"Do you know what section you're in?" The good Captain completely ignored his comments.

"I'm scanning now, JARVIS is trying to pinpoint his comm." Ironman was on it straight away. "There! North West corner, Cap." They sprinted over and saw that the section Tony had indicated was burning.

"Fuck." Breathed Stark.

"Admiral, how are you feeling? Are you badly injured?" Cap was looking over the rubble, trying to find a way to get in.

"Umm..." Percy's voice was rough and strained. "I...I can't move my leg and...and it's getting hard to breathe...it's really hot in here...I-help, Cap. I'm bleeding more than I should be and I don't know what's wrong..." It was Natasha who answered now.

"Use your powers Admiral, like we practised." His chuckle was tired and pained.

"I'd really love to Widow, but I-I hit my head and now I can't...I can't seem to think straight."
The team cursed again and moved forward. 
"OK, Admiral, don't worry: we're coming for you." Cap vowed, "Thor! I need you to start a storm. We have to put out those fires!" 

"At once, Good Captain!" Thor flew into the air, his hammer spinning, cape fluttering in the gale-force winds above their heads as he threw lightning into the clouds and they responded by pelting the world below them with sheets of freezing rain. The civilians huddled under what cover they could find and Cap smiled grimly.

"Well done Thor. Ironman! Start moving the rubble, Hawkeye, Black Widow, help him with the smaller bits!" 
"On it, Cap." Clint and Tony replied, Natasha just went straight to work, acknowledging their leader with little more than a nod as she did so.

Cap sprinted forward to help as well, Stark periodically shouting a warning as they went to move a piece that would send the rest tumbling. They were starting to make good progress, but the buried hero's breathing was getting worse.

"Admiral. Can you still hear me?" Cap checked on their youngest teammate while they worked.

"Ye-yeah, I can-I can hear y-you, Cap..."
"I need you to talk to me Admiral," He grunted as he lifted a heavier slap of concrete from the pile before slinging it away, once again thankful for the serum's effect on his strength. "Come on, Admiral."
"Wh-what do you-do you want to-t-talk about, C-cap?"He drew a shaky breath in.
"Anything  you like. Just keep talking, I need you to focus. How about your obsession with blue food. Wanna explain where that came from?" They'd been trying to find out for weeks, but Percy refused to tell them. Steve hoped that the topic would be enough to gain the seventeen year old's focus. They were so close.

"M-my st-step father...the-the first one...Gabe. He-he was a-a b-b-bastard to-to my mom and-and I and one day he-he said that there was-there was no such thing as-as blue food and-and mom argued-she-she said that there...that there was. She got...got hurt for it l-later...Gabe didn't...he didn't like being 'em-embarrassed' but...but from then...then on...mom took...every....opportunity to...to make food...make food...blue..." His voice trailed off and his eyes drifted closed just as they lifted off the last hunk of concrete and metal.

"Admiral!" Clint and Natasha instantly descended into the narrow space and lifted him together, handing him off to Cap who held him as Tony scanned his vitals.

"It's not too bad considering, but we need to get him back to the tower fast."  Thor stepped forward and took the God in his arms before rising into the air and flying to the Avenger tower, Cap radioing Bruce to be ready as he did.

"Come on. We need to make sure the civilians are all OK. Ironman, you and Black Widow go back to help the Hulk and Thor. Hawkeye, you're with me." So they went their separate ways, Steve and Clint heading forward to contain the debris and help the civilians who needed it, but after a full day of work, them helping the public and the others tending to Percy, the entire team ended up back at their tower that evening, gathered around Percy's bed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"If you ever scare us like that again I will gut you with an arrow!" Clint didn't deal with this sort of thing very well. Percy, who was tired but awake and healing steadily laughed, though it was restricted due to his broken and bound ribs.

"I'll try my best, I promise. It wasn't exactly fun for me either." The conversation continued much like that for the next hour, the news droning quietly in the background.

But then the screen split to a different broadcast and the volume turned up of it's own accord. The resident billionaire looked up, startled.

"JARVIS, what's happening?" The AI sounded troubled.

"There's an unknown video file being uploaded to every channel around the country and I cannot stop it, Sir. It seems to be displaying your mission earlier today, Sir."
The team of heroes looked concerned as they turned to watch the broadcast. It was showing the mission, but from only one perspective. 

It was only following Percy. It displayed from the moment he appeared outside the car park with the others to the end of his battle with the robots before the narrator started to speak, taking his audience by surprise.

"Hello, America! And welcome to the Emperor's box, I am the Emperor and I'll be your host today as we explore this new so called hero of ours! As you can see he just defeated an entire battalion of my best robots in my little Coliseum with a frightening level of ease. Did he tell us where he trained again? I forget." The mysterious man didn't show his face on the broadcast but his voice was clear and filled the room as the Avengers were silent. "Oh now listen, he's all worried about the hostages and little innocents who might get hurt; how quaint! And look his easily he takes those wounds, I don't have any personal experience with field medicine, but that does look practised to me! And now he's running off to help our arrogant little Ironman with my little surprise! I do love fire works!" The video froze on him running through the dark car par.

"I think now's as good a time as any to explain, don't you?" The voice spoke over the frozen image. "I am the newest resident 'bad guy' as you would put it. I-along with my associates- am here to take over this city and defeat your Avengers, or at least destroy it. I never could decide. I'm going to be your new Emperor and stage as many fights as I like while you all fawn at my feet and my ally deals with the gritty death and battle and what not! And my first order of business is to test this new 'Avenger' to see if hes still as good as he was and if he is good enough now to be an enemy and, of course, to see if you like him! You'll find out why later, now let's see what our new little 'hero' does next." As he stopped speaking the video resumed again, running through to when he sent Ironman out, then when he checked that the innocents were out save and all the way through his team pleading with him to get out until the moment the bomb exploded, stopping on the picture of flames and his team's devastated faces screaming his name.

"There you are folks! The new hero!" You could hear the insanity fizzing from his voice like sparklers and popping candy as he spoke. "I'd say he's doing pretty well, wouldn't you? Now, to the point of showing you this! Now, my future subjects, you will get a choice! I set this up to determine whether he was good enough to fight me and to fight for you and you lousy lot are going to be the ones to decide! You see, when he was fighting those lovely little robots of mine, one of them injected him with a lovely little vial of microbes that, at my say so, will detonate and tear your new hero apart!" The Avengers paled, "But you get the choice! If, by 10 o'clock tomorrow, you've decided he isn't good enough and you don't want him to be leading the charge to defend your city, your mayor will say so on live TV and I will detonate my little beauties! If you decide he is enough of a hero to trust your freedom and care with, your mayor will say that instead and my little creations will pass through him, dormant and safe! So, as your future Emperor, I ask you my first question!" His face finally appeared on the screen, only his smirk visible on the field of darkness.

"Subjects! Mercy or Kill?!"

His crazed cackles echoed through the room as the country fell silent and thought:
Mercy...

or Kill?