Chapter Text
He wakes up to a very loud, very angry sounding clearing of the throat. He also wakes up to the sun bright in his face, and a really sore back.
Also, Jason is there, and he is flying, and his arms are crossed, and he looks pissed.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
And it sinks in, rather quickly – he is still on top of the roof. Will is still beside him. The day had changed.
“Will!” He shakes him. “Will! Will! It worked! Wake the fuck up, Solace, gods, your dad is the literal sun, get up.”
“Is anyone going to explain to me what the hell is going on?”
Nico looks back at Jason, and he is grinning, and honestly it kind of feels like he can fly, too.
“Jason – gods. Holy fuck. Hang on, I’ll explain, let me get down before Chiron sees.”
“I should report you,” Jason mutters as he lands.
“Chill out there, Mr. Praetor, and let me explain this.”
“I think I pretty much got the picture here, Nico.”
“No, you really don’t –”
“How did you know we were up there?” Will interjects to ask. He is holding Nico’s hand, which isn’t a new thing, but – fucking hell.
“I went to try and get you this morning like I normally do and you weren’t there, and I checked with Percy and everyone, and then I checked the Apollo cabin, and guess who was also missing?” He levels a glare at Will. “And then I remembered all the strange fucking noises I had heard last night, and I was right, and I can’t fucking believe that you were making out on top of my cabin.”
“How do you – we were not.”
“You might want to go see Drew about that huge mark blooming on your neck, there, di Angelo.”
Nico glares at Will, utterly mortified, but Will doesn’t look even remotely apologetic. But honestly, it doesn’t even last. He doesn’t care. He throws his arms around Jason and he almost wants to cry.
“Nico, what the hell is happening here?”
And so he has to explain, again, giving Jason a quick rundown of everything that had happened, “And this is like the fourth time I’ve told you this but it worked, I fixed it –”
“I fixed it,” Will says.
“And gods, I never thought I would see this fucking day, this is my favourite day, holy shit.”
Jason looks slightly horrified at the story he had just been told. “Nico, holy – that’s – wow. I’m – wow. I’m still angry at you though!” He adds, although Nico can tell he doesn’t mean it.
They head to breakfast, and when they get there Billy comes bounding over.
“Did it work?” He asks, which is kind of a stupid question, since if it didn’t work he wouldn’t even be here, but Nico is too fucking happy to point this out.
“Yeah,” he says. Billy fist pumps the air, which is kind of weird, but who the fuck cared.
“Sweet! What did you do?”
“Um.” He exchanges a glance with Will, who looks just as reluctant to explain what had happened to a ten year old. “It’s kind of a – I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
Billy turns to Jason. “That means they kissed, right?”
Jason bursts out laughing while Nico sputters. “I like him,” Jason says. “Yeah, they kissed.”
“Who did?”
“Oh my gods, there is no privacy at this fucking camp,” Nico mutters, as Percy comes up and slings an arm around him and Jason. Will shoots him a look, and Nico knows what he’s thinking – technically there are two answers to that question.
He decides it will be much easier to get through this day if he explains to everyone collectively instead of to each person individually, so he tells Jason and Percy to get Piper and Annabeth, respectively, (“Uh – I’ll get Piper,” Percy had said), and he got Leo, and he brought them all back to his cabin, where he IM’d Hazel, instructing her to please get Reyna and Frank.
And then he explains. He skims over some details – he doesn’t mention the running away, this time, because Jason had given him enough disappointed looks about that to last him a lifetime, and now he knew that he was wrong, and that these people in front of him (Percy and Annabeth were across the room from each other) were his friends, and they had proved it a hundred times over.
“So Venus cursed you?” Reyna says disbelievingly. Piper groans.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“It’s not your fault,” he reassures her.
“Yeah, Pipes,” Jason says. “If we had to apologize for every shitty things our parents did –”
“You would never stop, yes, I know, if I have to hear that one more time I might actually kill myself.” Jason grins at him.
“So how did you fix it?” Annabeth asks. “If none of the things you said we tried worked.”
Jason raises an eyebrow at him and sits back, a smirk on his face. “Yes, Nico, tell them how you fixed it.”
“It’s, you know… not really important, is it?”
“Nico and Will made out on top of my cabin.”
“Jason!”
“You shouldn’t have used my cabin if you didn’t want people to know!”
Nico runs a hand over his face, embarrassed, but no one mocks him. If anything, they all look pretty happy for him.
“Hang on,” Percy interrupts. “If you could change things why couldn’t you have stopped me from pranking Annabeth by accident?”
“It is not Nico’s responsibility to stop you from being an idiot,” Annabeth hisses.
“Imagine all the work that would be.”
“I’m happy for you, Nico,” Piper says with a smile. “And for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
“Jason and I are your official chaperones.”
Nico rolls his eyes. “Didn’t you and Annabeth get booked on the Argo II for the exact same thing?”
Percy doesn’t even have the decency to blush. “Yeah, but you’re still young.”
“I’m older than you for fuck’s sake –”
“You’re like a seventy year old virgin,” Percy says, realization dawning. Somewhere in the back of his mind Nico remembers that this is some kind of movie reference, and not just Percy being a dick.
Nico gives Annabeth a look. “Don’t feel too bad,” she says. “Percy is about to be a virgin for seventy years, too.”
“I said I was sorry! Annabeth!”
“Can we not talk about this?” Comes a voice, and Nico gestures at the IM, where Hazel is looking very uncomfortable.
“Yeah, you’re offending Hazel’s delicate sensibilities,” Leo says.
“I’m not delicate, Leo! I just don’t want to hear this about my brother.”
“Neither do I, if it makes you feel better,” Leo says with a wink at him. “So what have I been doing during all this?”
“You’ve thrown yourself in the fire like, seven times.”
Leo grins. “Never gets old.”
“No, it really, really does.”
“Anyway,” Piper says, and there is a hint of charmspeak in her voice, and Nico is immensely grateful. “Maybe we should all leave him alone for a bit. He’s gone through a lot.” Nico smiles at her thankfully, and everyone starts to disperse, but Nico says, “Hang on, Percy, can you… wait? For a second?”
He nods, shutting the door when everyone else has left. “What’s up?”
Nico takes a breath. “We tried a lot of things, over the days. Annabeth and Piper came up with a few ideas to try and stop it, and none of them worked, and then… the other day Piper had one last idea.” Percy looks confused as to why he’s being told this, but he listens patiently. “And it wasn’t one I wanted to do, and it was… well, I didn’t think it was even an option, but you –”
“Did I kiss you?”
Nico is simultaneously grateful that he didn’t have to say it but also embarrassed that it even had to be said at all.
“How did you know?”
“You’re like, really red right now,” he says with a laugh. “And Aphrodite likes to fuck with me. And it’s something I could see her doing.”
“Er, yeah. I just wanted to thank you. For doing that.”
Percy cocks his head. “Did I explain why?”
He nods. Percy looks relieved.
“Good. I was trying to figure out when to tell you that. Glad to hear I already did!”
“I don’t think it counts as a proper apology if you can’t remember.” He is immensely relieved that they are all right. He wasn’t sure if he should tell him, but he had decided that it wasn’t something he could just hide, and besides, he wanted to tell Percy how much it had meant to him, that he would even do that.
“Hey, I kind of went above and beyond normal apologizing!”
Nico rolls his eyes. “Can you, um…”
“Not tell anyone?”
“Yeah,” he says with relief. “You can tell Annabeth, if you want, but you’ll have to get her to talk to you, first.”
“Seriously, you couldn’t have stopped that?”
“I was a little fucking busy!”
Percy laughs and slings an arm around him as they leave the cabin.
Because it’s a camp filled with teenagers, the fact that Nico and Will had spent the night together spread through rather quickly. Chiron calls them both to the Big House and stares them down sternly.
“Can I just say you have no actual proof that this happened,” Nico says before he can start. Chiron gives him a very dry look.
“I am 3000 years old, Mr. di Angelo.” Oh, that was formal. “I will give you some leeway because of the situation you found yourself in but I will assign you both a chaperone if I find it necessary.”
“Percy and Jason already volunteered for that job,” Nico mutters. Will snorts.
Chiron gives them one last stare down before dismissing them. They manage to make it outside before they start laughing. Will grabs him and drags him to the side of the Big House, pushing him up against it and kissing him firmly.
“If Jason and Percy have to follow me around because you don’t know how to control yourself then I’m going to kill you,” he says, although he doesn’t exactly put a lot of effort in pushing Will off of him. Will just smiles against his lips and kisses him again and again.
That night at dinner, Billy gets claimed. He is eating beside Nico when something appears over his head, and the rest of the campers all fall silent.
“What is that?” Someone asks. Chiron goes over to inspect, and Billy seems to just notice that it’s him everyone was looking at.
“Those are… all the signs of the muses,” a daughter of Apollo says. She’s right – it’s the symbols of the nine muses, all in a circle that is hovering above Billy’s head.
“How many mothers does he have?” Leo says.
Nico starts laughing. Everyone turns to look at him. “Does that mean what I think it means?” He asks Chiron, who nods.
It is, appropriately, the Athena cabin who understands next.
“Mnemosyne,” Annabeth says.
“What does that mean?” Billy looks very uncomfortable. For someone who talks so much, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled to be the center of attention.
“She’s a – well, she’s a Titan. Is that allowed?”
“Obviously,” Chiron says, pointing to the undeniable proof that is Billy himself.
Billy tugs at his sleeve. “What does that mean?”
“Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine muses. She was also the goddess – well, the Titan, I guess, of memory.”
His world was so goddamn complicated.
“That’s why you said you were getting vibes from him,” he shouts across to Will.
“I did?”
“Well, on one of the days, anyway. Mnemosyne was the mother of the muses. Art, poetry, all that fun stuff you’re really bad at.”
Will flips him off.
“Is that why I can remember things?” Billy whispers to him. “About you?”
Nico nods. “Yeah, it does.”
“So Alanna would be her daughter too, right?”
“Most likely, yeah.”
Billy looks down at the table. “Alanna isn’t coming back, is she?”
Nico sighs and wraps an arm around him.
There is something waiting for him on his bed, when he heads back to his cabin after dinner. When he sees what it is he rolls his eyes so hard they almost get stuck in the back of his head.
“Really?”
“I figured you might enjoy it.”
He turns around. His father is lounging against the wall.
It is a copy of Steel Magnolias.
“You fixed it, I see.”
“I’m going to assume that means thank you.”
His father shakes his head. “I’m thinking of a punishment for when Dolly Parton dies as we speak.”
Nico laughs. Then he thinks about what happened at dinner and he asks, “There’s a child here, a boy, he’s a son of Mnemosyne… he had a sister. Her name was Alanna. Is she…?”
Hades nods. “She is dead, yes.”
Nico slumps. “Shit.”
“Life as a demigod is not easy, Nico,” his father says, as if Nico didn’t already fucking know that. “That boy would be dead as well if it were not for you. Think of that, instead. And he will have you.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Did you read some kind of parenting book?”
Hades scowls. “One of these days you are going to be struck down for your sarcasm and you will deserve it.”
“Thanks, Father,” he says drily.
Hades sighs. “I am proud of you, Nico.”
“Literally all I did was make out with a dude. I dragged a statue across the world and almost died doing it and this is what you’re proud of?”
Hades makes a face. “On that note,” he says. He puts a hand awkwardly on Nico’s shoulder before disappearing into shadows.
There is a knock on his door and Jason comes in. He is about to speak when he stops and stares at Nico’s bed.
“Why do you have a copy of Steel Magnolias?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Jason looks like he kind of does want to know, but he turns back to Nico. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
“Were you running away?”
He sighs. He doesn’t want to have this damn conversation again.
“Yes, but!” He says, because he doesn’t want to see that fucking face again. “I learned my lesson and we have had this conversation like, three times and I swear everything is sorted now. Promise.”
Jason looks like he wants to argue, but instead he just says, “You swear we’ve had this conversation before?”
“On the River Styx.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure –”
“I know, Jason.” Jason nods and turns to leave. “You were the first one I told, you know.”
Jason smiles widely. “I’m glad, Nico.”
That night, after curfew, Nico sets out again, except this time he doesn’t have a rucksack. He just sort of has a feeling.
Sure enough, Aphrodite is there. She looks very bright in the darkness of the forest. She grins when she sees him.
“Hello, Nico.”
“Hi,” he says.
“I’m so happy you figured it out! It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“What would you have done if I never figured it out? Would you have stopped the world so one person could fall in love?”
“But see, that is the best thing about love, Nico di Angelo. It doesn’t matter that it is only between two people. It feels like the whole universe. Wasn’t it worth stopping the world for?”
He chews his lip. “It wasn’t fair to play with other people like that.”
“Have you ever heard the expression, all’s fair in love and war? You – all of you – have had so much of the latter. I thought it was time you got to experience the former.”
“So you stopped the world for one demigod?”
“No, Nico. You are still not understanding. I did not stop the world for one demigod. I stopped the world for you. I stopped the world for Will Solace. I stopped the world for Percy Jackson and Jason Grace and that poor orphan. I stopped it for your sister and for Reyna Ramirez Avila, not that she would be happy about it.” He smiles. “You are far more important than you understand. Love is far more important than you understand. It is fire, Nico di Angelo, and if you leave it untended it will burn down the forest.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You would think that two wars would have been enough to teach you how necessary you are, but they weren’t, apparently. Listen. I do not like you. And I know, although you are respectful and wise enough not to say it, that the feeling is mutual. But so many underestimate me. So many underestimate my children. Love can build up the world or it can tear it down, and you leaving this place would have started a domino effect that not even I can see the end of. Wars, and honour, and pride, and power, and all those things all the other gods fight for, they are all fine and dandy. But at the end of the day, who do you go home to?”
He swallows, suddenly very uncomfortable.
“You are not important enough to stop the world, but you are important enough to stop their world. That’s what I wanted to show you. I had to play with time to do it, but like I said. I’ve been bored lately.”
“You said I would thank you, at the end of this.”
“I did. And you are, whether you know it or not. Every time somebody falls in love, they are thanking me, Nico di Angelo. Every kiss, every touch, every memory – those are all thanking me.”
“Will the gods leave me alone, now?”
“Probably not, no.” She gives him a wide smile. “But now, at least, you will have people beside you.”
He sighs.
“For the record, Drew did curse you with permanent makeup, but I ignored it. I figured you had been through enough.”
He looks up. “Thank you, Lady Aphrodite.”
Another smile. “I’ll take it. I would head back now. There is a certain someone waiting for you, and he might be thinking the worst.”
As he turns around and heads back there is a large flash of light. He squeezes his eyes shut.
Will is waiting in his cabin when he gets back. “Leaving already?”
“I didn’t pack anything, Solace.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t wake up Jason.”
“Are you ever going to trust me?”
Will grabs his hand and drags him down beside him. “I do trust you. I promise. I wasn’t worried. I had a dream, someone told me to come here and wait for you.”
Nico shakes his head. “She really needs to mind her own business.”
“Aphrodite?”
He nods. “That’s where I went. Where I had met her the first time.”
“What did she say?”
“She started waxing poetic about love.”
“It is kind of her job description.”
“I think I understand what she was trying to tell me.”
“Oh? And?”
“She was trying to show me that I am not important enough to not be important.”
Will stares at him. “Excuse me?”
“I was trying to run away from love, not just… how I felt about you,” he blushes, aware that this is basically him admitting that he loves Will, “but from Jason, and Hazel, and Reyna, and everyone. She was trying to show me that I can’t.”
Will shakes his head. “I don’t really understand, but I’m not going to complain if it’s keeping you here.”
Nico leans forward and kisses him, Chiron’s warning utterly forgotten.
“Can I ask you a question?” Will says against his lips. Nico makes a noise in his throat that Will takes as a yes. “Why do you have a copy of Steel Magnolias?”
Nico just laughs and kisses him again.