Chapter Text
Nico pulled me out of the infirmary when he brought in Leighton. He knew something was up the moment I had asked him to bring in Leigh to tell Piper what was going on. He grabbed my arm and led me outside the infirmary. He crossed his arms and looked at me with a questioning look. He had agreed with Percy after some convincing, but I hadn’t. That wasn’t the point, though.
“Will, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong”
“William Solace, I’m your fiancé, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know, okay. How am I supposed to look at our friends who don’t know what Percy’s planning? Nico, how do I look at them when I can’t tell them? What am I supposed to do? Not feel like I’m betraying them because they deserve to know too? I can’t do that, Nico” I was on the verge of tears at this point. I felt like I was lying to them.
“Will…,” He took a breath before continuing. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me with a soft face. “He’s going to tell them at some point, you know this. It’s actually bound to happen sooner rather than later. Once everything with Pipes is all figured out, I’ll talk to Percy. And breathe.”
“What do you mean, “breathe” I am breathing perfectly fine.” I asked in a confused tone, not understanding what he was trying to say.
“Your anxiety is acting up again, breathe before you throw yourself into another spiral. Deep breaths.” He was right and he knew it. I hated when he knew me better than I knew myself. It showed that I ignored my body’s signs of distress, and I was going to school to be a doctor. What was I supposed to do, watch for every minor difference in my body language that I didn’t even know was happening? Basically impossible, I would’ve had to watch every breath I took, and how I walked every time I did. It wasn’t something I was going to do. I didn’t have the time nor the patience to do that. That’s like asking a toddler to be careful.
“I’m fine, Nico, it’s not going to happen again. It only happened once—”
“No, it only happened once at camp. It was only that big once. It’s happened plenty of times since. Finals week, when you wake up too late, hell, even when you had to call your mom to tell her about our engagement because you were scared she wasn’t going to approve. Will, you have spirals and nothing is wrong with that. The problem is that you won’t admit that you have anxiety. You know all the signs, I’m pretty sure I can get Leigh and Peyton out here to diagnose you, if you’re worried about self diagnosing. But that isn’t your problem. The issue is you don’t want other people, including me half the time, to worry about you.” He wasn’t yelling, he still had the gentle tone, and soft expression. This was the Nico that I fell in love with, the one that cared about everyone probably too much, but didn’t show it. “Here’s the thing, no matter what you try to hide, we all worry. Just like you worry about Percy, or Leo, or Reyna. They worry about you. You aren’t going to get around that by not accepting that you have severe anxiety. Now far be it for me to tell you about psychology, but I could get the twins out here, if you want.”
“No, I think it’ll be fine. Do you think that they’re wondering where we are?” I asked, when I realized how long we’ve been out here. His hands went back to his sides
“I honestly don’t care. As long as Pipes is in good hands right now. Which I know she is. As much as Leighton drives me up a wall, she’s really good at the whole bedside manner.” He shrugged and leaned against a wall. The sun was setting, and it was getting a little late. It had been a long day between Percy and Piper.
“Okay, if you say so. But we should honestly get inside before they start looking for us.” I let out a deep exhale. I knew that the Apollo kids, including me, knew how to get on Nico’s nerves and could purposely frustrate him if they wanted. Leighton, specifically, was argumentative and didn’t back down when she believed something. She also disregarded her health a lot. Especially, after prophecies.
“Before we do that, are you okay? We don’t have to go back in right now. We can wait, no one is going to fault you for taking a moment to breathe.” He did the thing that I hated when it came to my anxiety. He looked at me as if I was fragile. He knew I hated it.
“Don’t” I got quiet I wasn’t about to start an argument, but I was more than capable to take care of myself and I knew when I needed to back away.
“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know that. I’m worried Will. I can’t help that anymore than I can breathe. I don’t want to start an argument, and neither do you,” I went to speak, but apparently he wasn’t done, I knew he wasn’t done. “No, because you know you’re not fragile, I know you’re not fragile. You are quite the opposite, and it scares me sometimes. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be fragile. You don’t always need to be strong, not with me. You know that.”
I nodded because apparently that was all I could do. So said my brain, who couldn’t string together words to reply. Nico smiled, and kissed me. I kissed him back, and then pulled away and rested my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me. “I love you,” I whispered.
He chuckled, “I love you, too” . We stayed there for a minute before either of us moved.
We were both tired of the drama and the wars and knowing that we were going to be the cause of the next one made my stomach weak. After everything that we fought for, just to go against it. Yes, I knew it was more complicated than that but that's it simplified. I knew that Percy said I could choose what my dad does even though he was one of his three exceptions and I already knew what I wanted him to do. I knew my father's greatest fear and I was never going to make him live through it. That would've been cruel and my father was a good immortal. He was also an excellent father. He didn't deserve to have his immortality stripped away from him just like that. And it wasn't my place to tell him to do so.
What I was surprised about during that conversation was that Percy was going to let Frank choose what to do with Mars. Even though Ares is his greatest rival. It's honestly probably a good thing, meanings if he went against Ares and made him choose it would be bad for everyone involved. This was already so complicated it didn't need to get more complicated.
“What are you thinking about?” Nico's voice brought me back to the present.
“What would happen if Percy decided what to do with Ares. It honestly seems pretty explosive in my head.” I replied, he laughed.
“That's because it would be, I'm honestly glad he decided to let Frank deal with him. Way less stress, I have a feeling that Percy would torture him for the rest of eternity if he decided what to do with him.” I could hear the smile in his voice. The relief he felt when he thought about the future, and we weren't under the Olympians. It was a relief, quests suck. I've only been officially on one. I can only imagine how it was like for Percy, who's been on at least ten.
“I forget how many quests have you been on?” I asked because I wasn’t about to recall how many he’s been on, my brain was already on overtime.
“How many I’ve been on or how many I’ve crashed? Because that’s two different answers.”
“How many total?”
“Uhh, there was the quest that I wasn’t necessarily on because technically it didn’t start until after we got to camp, and I was made to stay here while my sister died, and I had no idea. Then there was the summer after that, I crashed the first quest Annabeth led. Then the war in which I brought three Olympians while Percy only brought one,” The tone in Nico’s voice was like he won an argument that he would never forget.
“You mean after you gave him up to your father?” I reminded him of what also happened.
“Semantics. Then I didn’t crash Percy, Hazel, and Frank’s quest to Alaska, but I may have withheld information from Percy that would’ve helped on that quest. Then there was the quest of the seven, which I unintentionally crashed. Not my fault. Then the quest with you.” He responded and kept going.
“What about the first trip to Tartarus?”
“That was in the quest of the seven, I wanted to help but got kidnapped. I felt guilty for everything Percy had done for me in our lives, and thought I could help him at least once without having to make up for something I did.” He answered, like it was a normal question.
“You know Perce, as well as I do. Actually you know him better, whenever he does something he doesn’t expect anything in return for it. You had to of known that back then. After everything.” I tried to explain to him.
“I didn’t though. He had tried to protect my sister and did. It wasn’t his fault she died. Then he came back from Ogygia, for both Annabeth, and because he didn’t want the prophecy to fall on me like Thaila did to him. We’re not going to even start about the rest of that quest, because there’s more. Then he fought the war against Luke and still forgave me after I had betrayed him in the underworld. Then he was one of the few people that didn’t look at me and Hazel for who our dad was. I felt like I owed him my life, because I did.” I hugged him tighter as he kept talking. “There was a time that I felt like Percy was a monster.”
“Me too.” I whispered into his shoulder. And then I felt him waiting for me to go on. “Micheal and Lee. I blamed Percy for their deaths. Because instead of searching for them with me, he dragged me away to help Annabeth. Yes, she was dying. And their deaths wasn’t his fault, I know this now. But then, I blamed him for all of the deaths in cabin seven. I blamed him for everything that that war brought. I blamed him more than I did Luke, because I knew Luke better than I did Percy. I now know that wasn’t Percy’s fault either. He had tried, he even knew my name in the Battle of Manhattan. Honestly, what made everything worse, is that he took the blame, he blamed himself too. He thought that he deserved everyone mad at him for the war.”
“Everyone blamed him because they were scared of what he showed he could do. I saw it first hand the first time I came to camp. Thaila had just come back from the dead. And she was basically worshiped, but Percy got all of the backlash from that. Thaila had picked fights with him, and he felt like he was outcasted. It was the capture the flag game that told me why they did that. The way Chiron had to just tell Thalia to stop it, and the way he had to beg Percy to stop before things got out of hand. Everyone was scared of what he could do. It made so much sense after Camp Jupiter. After Hazel explained that Percy radiated power.” I thought for a moment before I spoke.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why he thought he deserved it. That only explains why everyone blamed him, but he thought he deserved. He never did.”
“He believed it because of his childhood trauma, everything was always his fault,” A voice said. A voice that sounded entirely too familiar.
“Hey, Percy.” I replied to the voice.
“Hey lovebirds, this is what you do when you go away? You talk about me? How sweet.” Percy teased. I rolled my eyes as I picked up my head.
“You know for a fact this isn’t what we do. We were actually talking about Lee, Michael, and Bianca, did you wanna stay for that conversation?” I replied snarkily back.
“Why so harsh Solace?” he asked rhetorically. “Anyway, Annie’s getting worried and sent me to come check on the two of you.”
“Why’d she send you?” Nico asked, crossing his arms.
“‘Before I did anything that would have any of the other campers thinking they could disrespect the gods’ quote unquote. I called Apollo, Polly and Artemis, Arte. And apparently that’s not allowed anymore.” he said like he was confused. He probably was.
“It’s not that it not that it’s not allowed. It wouldn’t fly for other people. Only you could call them Polly and Arte, just like only you and Tyson can call Uncle Sei ‘dad’. You have a different relationship with most of the gods than everyone else. Hell, Thals isn’t allowed to call Uncle Sei, Uncle Sei. Apparently she tried, and he ignored her or something, she’s not happy about it.” Nico tried to explain to Percy. I think he understood because of what he said next.
“Ohhhh, just like no one else can call Zeus, Uncle Sparky, because he can’t do anything to us.” Nico nodded. I looked at him with a confused look.
“Later, we better get back inside before Annabeth sends out a search party for us.” I nodded
“Agreed, I don’t need to see her Judo flip, Percy.” I replied. Nico laughed.
“Okay, but that was awesome to watch. Like it was awkward at first, because like we were meeting new people and like we had never seen their relationship in person before. We had only heard stories. It was amazing, though.” Leo said, he came out of nowhere and scared the shit out of me. “My bad, Will”
“Oh, yeah, Leo came with me. Actually, for that reason. She didn’t want me to get taken away by a certain goddess. And it hurt, especially when I was praetor and all of those people saw one of their leaders get judo flipped by someone they didn’t know.” Percy countered.
“Okay, but Reyna thought you deserved it. You know, their other leader. She had to stop herself from laughing.” Nico stated. Trying not to laugh while he was remembering.
“Okay, sea of monsters was not my fault. Releasing the pirates on Circe’s island was not my fault. I’m sorry, I want to be a guinea pig for the rest of my life. I hadn’t even met Reyna, when I showed up to camp. I met Hylla, Annabeth met Reyna. I showed up at the Island, Circe started talking about makeovers and the next thing I know Annabeth was getting whisked away, and I was getting turned into a guinea pig.” Percy said, defending himself as if he was on trial. “Oh and then my senior year we met more people from Circe’s island, and they hated me for the same reason, they even turned me into an octopus. They turned Annabeth into an owl and made Grover have human feet. Well, actually, I just had octopus arms and Annabeth had an Owl head. It was a really weird day.”
“You didn’t know that they were pirates when you were a guinea pig?” Nico asked.
“Okay so I did but the Hermes vitamin kind of got thrown in the cage, and they also got a hold of them. Are we done talking about my ‘adventures’ now?”
Nico looked around, then his gaze fell on cabin three, whose plumbing was still blown from the last time Percy was here. And I looked at my own cabin as it was glowing. Then I looked up at the sky, where I saw my father coming down, not slowly mind you.
“Watch out, everyone, take about ten steps to the right.” They all looked at me confused, and I shrugged while I took the ten steps. My father crash-landed in front of us. “Hey, dad, what are you doing here?”
“Um, I sorta had a prophecy saying that you were going to take over Olympus. You wanna explain?”
“All you Percy.” I said to my father’s question and turned my head towards Percy, who was still getting up from the crash site.
“Dad, do you always have to crash-land?” The twins came out of the cabin from where it had stopped glowing.
“Hey, my Linnaea borealis, Yes, yes I do. It brings out a flare.” He said towards the twins, and then looked back at me. “What do you mean, Percy, can answer that.”
“I don’t even want to do it. But because you had that prophecy, I know we’re going to end up doing it anyway. I had a feeling before you said anything.” I looked at Percy, who had regained his stamina.
“Polly, so um, you already know I tried so hard.” Percy complained.
“No you didn’t. There are ways not to get information released to prophecies. And you knew that. You didn’t try. Plus, your father knew.” Dad crossed his arms at Percy’s complaining. Which was when I noticed that Percy had started glowing with godly energy. It was faint, anyone who didn’t have healing powers wouldn’t have been able to see it. I looked at the twins and I saw that they saw it too.