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Chapter Text

It was way after midnight on a dark night in Gotham City.

Batman and Robin were on top of the Waynetech building, right in the city centre. The night was strangely silent and neither Batman or Robin trusted this silence. Penny-One had suggested they'd come home earlier than planned and Batman was considering they'd do so, as something caught his attention.

The street lights in the busiest roads as well es some smaller side alleys where gradually getting darker, until they eventually fully turned off. The cemetery close to the City centre was especially effected by this, and  it soon became the darkest place in the City.

Batman looked at Robin and without exchanging any words the order was clear: We need to get down there and find out what is causing this.

As the two made their way down to the cemetery Batman noticed particles of light in the air. At first, they were just floating around but they eventually stared forming a big, bright ball of light. Just before the dynamic duo arrived in the centre of the cemetery, where the ball was taking its shape, the ball of Light opened up in a silent explosion, revealing the corpse of a teenage boy.

Batman immediately rushed over to the teenager to help him and soon realised that he wasn't dead, or at wasn't dead yet. 

The press initially showed great interest in this case. Batman rarely gave his cape away, even most of the children he had saved only had their memory as proof of their encounter, but apparently the teenager was so close to freezing to death, Batman had seen no other way. One of the paramedics had told the press that much, and thanked Batman for the cape, because without it the teenager would have died. Now he was in a coma, with all signs pointing to his survival.

Public interest in the case reached it's peak rather fast however, since barely anyone had witnessed it to beging with and without any new developments, there would always be more dire situations in Gotham on the rise.

After a few months, three to be exact, only the Wayne Family and the Police remained interested in the case.

The Wayne family had been interested in the case from day one and always publicly said, that if this kid woke up and had nowhere to go, he would always be welcome to stay with them. The foster care system in Gotham was so overloaded that a teen without a clear family situation would be very likely to go to Juvie, as the few spaces in better facilities were reserved for younger kids, and Gotham was Gotham, so it would always have free jail cell.

The Police tried to find out who the boy was, but his fingerprints were in no database they had access to. If the wanted to take a DNA sample they had to get consent from the boy's legal guardian and with nobody legally able to give that consent they ran into another dead end.

Through all of this, the teen never once woke up from his coma. Although he was getting better, the doctors still didn't know what exactly was wrong with him. To them it looked like he was knocked out from exhaustion, just that he showed no signs of activity that could cause this level of exhaustion.

After three additional months, the few people still interested in the case stated to wonder if the boy would ever wake up. They weren't even sure how he got to Gotham. The widest spread theory was, that he was unlucky enough to be close to a battle Zatanna was fighting the same day he appeared and he somehow got caught up in the magic. Others believed he was a metahuman who just developed his powers and went fully overboard on the first try.

They soon would be able to ask the boy himself, because after six long months in a coma, the boy finally woke up.

Chapter Text

The first thing Nico di Angelo noticed when he woke up, was how incredibly exhausted and weak he felt. 

His first thought was, that he had overused his powers again. Then he realised he had never felt more exhausted in his entire life, and while overusing did exhaust him, it had never made him feel weak. It was almost as if someone or something had tried too cut him off from the underworld, and judging by the state of him, whoever had tried that had almost been successful.

Nico noticed that he wasn't wearing his clothes and he was uncomfortable by the though of someone else undressing him. Before he could properly deal with his feelings towards his different clothes, he also realised that there where wires attached to him and a beeping noise announcing his heartbeat in whatever room he happened to be in. So, he couldn't be in the camp hospital, since they didn't have tech like that (not that it could work properly in camp anyways) and since they usually relied on nectar, ambrosia and the healing powers of Apollo's children.

He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it as the bright clean hospital light shined into his eyes. After a few seconds of his eyes adjusting to the light, he looked around the room and was proven right. Wherever he was, he wasn't at the camp hospital.

But then, where was he? And where were everyone else? Where was Will? Will wouldn't just dump him in some hospital and then leave, something had to be going on. 

Nico wanted to ask both of these questions, but for some reason, his voice was to weak to talk out loud. His eyes started to hurt so he closed them again, then he heard an unfamiliar voice, a door opening and foot steps coming towards him.

The unfamiliar voice was a male voice, and it, or better he, started to talk to Nico. For some reason, Nico was unable to process some of those words. He tired to open his eyes again, which worked with effort, but the light was just as bright and uncomfortable as the first time he opened them.

The person behind the voice turned out to be a man in his late twenties, who had the most amazing green eyes and blonde hair. He seemed quite nice and also familiar in a way that Nico couldn't quite place. He did however seem happy about Nico having his eyes open.

"If you can hear me, blink twice.", the man said.

Nico looked him in the eyes and blinked twice. He then opened his mouth, made a sound like dying bird and then stopped his attempt at taking.

"Most people who where in a coma for a bit longer have trouble with their vocal cords, don't worry about it.", the doctor said.

He wrote something down on his clipboard and then looked at Nico again. "I am Doctor Charly Jackson. If we-" Nico stopped listening. This man had the same surname as Percy and blonde hair. Since Jackson was a pretty common surname, he dint think too much of it, but this man could easily be Percy's and Annabeth's child. He made a mental note to tell them that the next time they meet.

"Hey are you even listening?", the doctor asked.

Nico managed to shake his head and tried to look sorry while doing so. He wasn't sure if the message came across, since all Dr. Jackson did was write something down and before he began taking again.

"We have no clue who you are, and we understand that you are probably unable to communicate that with us just yet, but we really need to know that, okay?"

Nico nodded again.

He only wanted to close his eyes for a short while to give them a break from the sharp white light, but he somehow fell asleep. The last thing he remembered thinking was that waking up from a coma felt like falling asleep in the hypos cabin.

• • • •  

After what felt like two days worth of sleep, Nico woke up again. When he looked around the room this time, he saw a man in perhaps his early 40s talking to the doctor. He was wearing expensive looking clothes, but he was no chid of Aphrodite, so maybe he was wrong with that assumption. Next to the first man, also talking to the doctor, was another man. He looked a lot younger than the first one and appeared to be about 25.

"...daytime, but he has been asleep for almost 16 hours so he should wake up again soon enough.", the doctor explained.

"Bruce, I know you're tired, you have been here for quite some time.", the younger man said. "If you want to go home and get some rest or even just go back to Wayne Enterprise, I can wait here. We-"

The doctor made eye contact with Nico and interrupted the younger man talking. "He's awake."

"You've slept quite some time, almost 16 hours.", the doctor informed him.

"So...", Nick's Voice cracked and he had to drink some water before he could continue to talk.

"Where am I?"

Nobody seemed surprised by this question, and the man named Bruce gave an answer straight away.

"You are in Gotham city."

"How did I get here?"

"We were actually hoping you could tell us that."

"And who-"

"We are sure you have a lot of question, but since you can speak now, could you tell us your Name first?", the middle aged man, was his name Bruce?, asked.

Nico nodded, drank another sip of water and then said his name.

"Okay Nico, I am Dick Grayson, this Bruce Wayne, and you already met doctor Charly Jackson, right?, the younger man, Dick Grayson, asked. Nico nodded again.

"Okay, I think we should get right to it. Do you have parents or a legal guaridan?", Bruce asked.

Before Nico had a chance to answer, the doctor gave him a notepad and a pen.
"It's best if you write your answers down, at least for now. You just talked a lot and we don't want you possibly damaging your vocal cords now do we?"

"My Mother is dead and I don't live with my dad so no I guess." He wrote down, answering the first question.

Or at least he tried to, but given the time the others needed to figure out what he had written, he wasn't too sure. 

"I'm dyslexic.", he said unprompted into the silent room.

"Don't worry about that, we can understand what you've written and that's whats important here. Since the orphanages and other care facilities in Gotham are already very full, Mr Wayne said you could be his foster child.", Dr Jackson said with a smile on their face, like that meant the news were good.

"Only if you want to of course.", Bruce said.

Nico thought about what he would do now. His first plan of action was to get back to the Camp, after all they should be worried about him. "What would be my alternative?"

The people in the room all seemed surprised by this question, apparently living with Bruce Wayne was considered a big deal. Nico never heard of him, but he never was one to know a lot of famous people, not in 1940 and not now in 2014.

"You would be put in Juvie because the foster system has almost no capacity left, at least in Gotham. The little space that is left is, unfortunately for you, reserved for younger children. You could try to emancipate yourself, but that takes time, and you'd be more comfortable doing so at the Waynes than anywhere else you could end up."

"How long have I been in a coma anyways?" Nico wrote after a short while of silence.

"For about six months. I'm sorry to say, but you missed new year's.", Bruce said and gave Nico a sad look.

"So, what date do we have?"

"It's the 12th of April.", the Dick said. He gave Nico some time to take that information.

"I understand if you need more time to think about your decision, but please do let us know once you have decided if you want to live with us or not.", Bruce said.

Nico figured the Wayne family wouldn't be too bad to stay with, Bruce made a nice impression on him and so did Dick. Also it would be easier to get away from them than it would be from Juvie. Or at least so he thought.

"Yeah sure, I'll live with you.", he said and pressed his lips into a thin smile.

"So, I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but what year do we have?"

"Oh, no need to apologise, it's 2065.", Dick said.

"What?!", Nico exclaimed, almost screamed, much to the surprise of everyone in the room. His neck began to hurt and he could see why he was supposed to write his answers down.

"How come you are so surprised?", Dick asked carefully.

"It's just..", paused writing for a second to think, when Hades' Voice suddenly told him: "You didn't think you where living on the streets that long."

"I didn't think I had been living on the streets that long.", Nico wrote, thankful his father had helped him out.
"I mean I missed my 15th birthday on the streets and by the looks of it my 16th birthday by being in a coma."

"Wait how long have you been on the streets for?", the younger man asked.

"Well that really depends on how you define "on the streets".", Nico wrote, dawing extra quotation marks on the paper. "But I guess since I was about 10 or 11."

They looked shocked but not surprised. Back in the 1940ies the stuff Nico heared about Gotham wasn't too bad, just that in this city more crime families had influence on stuff like politics than in other cities. Then in 2014, he heard about it slowly becoming a shithole, but still a good city to live in; so what happened that 10 year old homeless children didn't come as a surprise anymore?

More more and more questions where piling up in Nico's head and he wasn't really listening to the conversation the others had anymore. The only thing he thought he heard was Dick saying something about a Kid in the 1940ies and a kid from the 2010s who both mysteriously disappeared, who where both named Nico di Angelo and who both also had similarities to Nico here.

Finally the doctor said he had to visit the next patient, and he told Bruce Wanye and Dick to leave, so that Nico could get some more rest. When they where leaving he asked where his stuff was and the doctor told him he'd tell a nurse to get his stuff to his room.

When they all left Nico realised how tired he was and couldn't help but fall asleep.

• • • •  

The next time he woke up he was alone and he was happy about that. His things had been bought to him while he was asleep and so he started to look through them.

Apparently he was wearing a normal pair of black jeans, his usual skull t-shirt, his jacket and his backpack when he appeared in Gotham. Judging by the state his clothes were in, he wasn't involved in a fight before he appeared in Gotham, wich confused Nico. There also was a strange, heavy blanket-like thing with his clothes, and he wasn't exactly sure how that was part of his things, but before he could spend any time trying to figure out, why this blanket was here, he noticed that the strange blanket wasn't the only thing technically not his, but with his stuff. The other things that weren't his included Will's Camp Half-Blood necklace and Percy's watch he knew could turn into a shield, among other things he knew belonged to other campers.

But Nico hadn't asked for his stuff just to look through it. He was looking for something specific, and he was relieved when he found his box full of ambrosia squares and his flask full of nectar.

He ate half a ambrosia square and wanted to start drinking the nectar, when he remembered he could burn alive if he ate too much. After a quick scan of his room, he saw that there was other food available for him too, it was just standing at the other end of the room.

Nico got up, took exactly two steps, then his legs gave in and he fell.

Since the device on his left hand detecting his heartbeat also fell of when Nico fell, there now was no monitored heartbeat, which meant the machine previously showing his heartbeat now started to make an annoyingly loud beep sound.

Nico was a bit dizzy and it took him a while to be able to sit up straight and the minute he did that a nurse rushed in, worried something had happened to Nico.

They scolded him, saying he should be staying in bed at all times unless a doctor told him otherwise and that if he wanted food he shouldn't get up, he could just call her by pressing the button to do just that.

Throughout the week, Nico amazed the Doctors by how quick he made a recovery. They didn't know Nico had help and he couldn't explain to themselves why he was recovering to fast.

One Doctor had asked him for his consent to searching his DNA for the Metagene, since maybe Nico was a meta and they all didn't know about it.

Nico, who had no idea what a Meta was, and who was scared that they would find something Demigod related in his DNA, politely refused the request. When asked why he simply told that doctor it was against his religion and so that was that.

Still unsure as to how Nico had recovered so fast, the doctors didn't see any reason in keeping him in the hospital anymore after one and a half weeks, and so he was released after earning the title for fastest coma recovery. 

Nico just felt bad for the doctors, as they would never know what was actually making Nico heal so fast.

Chapter Text

"So, I guess you still remember me from the hospital, but just in case you don't: I am Bruce Wayne.", Bruce said when he came to pick Nico up from the hospital. Nico remembered him, but he wasn't sure whether he wanted to be called Bruce or Mr Wayne. He decided to just avoid using sentenced where the name would be necessary.

"Alfred, my butler and my 4 other children are at home. I actually have 5 Children, but Duke, the second youngest, is on a student exchange at the moment. So, I hope it doesn't bother you to live with 3 other boys and a girl. We also have some Animals, like Alfred the Cat, Titus, who is a dog by the way and a cow, although I haven't seen the cow in like 3 months."

"Why do you have a cow?", Nico asked. His voice had recovered along with the rest of his body.

"It would have been slaughtered and Damian didn't want that to happen so he just took the cow and it has been living with us ever since."

Nico nodded as a response.

"You haven't said anything about the others yet so I assume you don't have a problem with that?", Bruce asked.

"Oh no, don't worry. When I was still with my Dad's side of the family the lowest amount of people my age was 23 so 4 others will be like a vacation."

Bruce thought that living with his children would probably not be like a vacation to Nico as they could be very difficult, especially to each other, but he decided not to say anything. Bruce also thought that it was weird Nico's Dad had such a big family, but no one managed to show up at the hospital even once. Of course, there was always the chance they didn't know where Nico was, but according to commissioner Gordon, there was no missing person who matched Nico's description and was called "Nico di Angelo". Bruce again, decided not to say anything, as family can be a rough subject for any homeless teenager.

The two of them walked out of the hospital, over the car park and Bruce navigated them to his car. It wasn't anything special, as he wasn't out to be seen by the public today. They where silent while walking and the silence was somewhat awkward. Because Bruce didn't want Nico to feel uncomfortable, he decided to start up another conversation as soon as he started the car.

"Nico, I have access to your hospital files, but we couldn't find a medical record. So, do you have any disorders, allergies, disabilities or other health problems I should know about?"

"I have ADHD and Dyslexia, and maybe also dyscalculia, but I don't have a diagnosis for that.", Nico said.  'I also have anxiety, PTSD, a bit of depression, y'know, the usual', he thought, but then he would have to explain, and that was none of Bruce's business.

"I know a great specialist, we can see her if you would like a diagnosis for dyscalculia.", Bruce offered.

"I'll have to think about that, but I'll let you know if I want to. Thanks for the offer", Nico said. He forced himself to be nice, after all Bruce didn't have to take him in. He still was going to disappear at the first opportunity that presented itself.

They parked at Wayne Mannor and Nico would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed. Wayne Mannor was huge, at least by mortal standarts.

They got out of the car, and started to walk towards the door, when Bruce started to talk again.

"Now, before we get in here, I wanted to let you know, that while the four of them are all good kids and all mean well, at least most of the times, they can be really mean. I told them to be nice to you, but some may take that less serious than others. I don't want to make you afraid or anything, I am pretty sure they will all like you once they get to know you, and I'm pretty sure you'll like them. If they are a bit distant, don't take it personal, and if you have like actual, serious problems with one of them, please let me or Alfred know."

"That's a lot to take in, but thanks for the heads up.", Nico said.

"Yes, well that wasn't everything. Things can get chaotic, like really chaotic. They aren't related to me or each other, at least not by blood, and they all came into my life at a different Time. The youngest, Damian, is the only exception and one who is biologically mine, but I love them all equally."

Nico nodded.

"And yea, like I said, I am pretty sure they'll like you, and you'll like them, one you guys got to warm up to each other." Bruce took a deep breath, then looked down at Nico.

"Ready?"

"I guess so. Also, thanks for waring me beforehand." Nico prepared himself mentally by telling himself that he could even get the Ares kids to respect him and these kids couldn't be worse than the Ares kids. Beides, he still actually planing on staying with them. Camp should still exist, even in 2066 and as far as Nico was concerned, Camp would be the only place he could get answers to all his questions.

Bruce gave Nico a last reassuring smile, them he rang the doorbell and an old man opened the door almost immediately.

"Hi Alfred, is everything ready?"

"Yes Master Bruce, I made sure of that.", the old man answered, then he looked at Nico. "Is this the boy you where talking about?"

Bruce nodded as he took of his coat.

"I'm Nico.", the son of Hades said without being asked. Alfred took Bruce's jacket and offered to take Nico's, but Nico declined. His Jacket was the last thing he had left from Bianca and his old life (or should he say his old old life?), he wasn't about to trust a stranger with it.

"This way.", Bruce said, and both Alfred and Nico followed him.

The room they entered was a dining room. It had a big dining table with space for up to 16 people, a fireplace and a chandelier. There where 4 People already seated and like Bruce said, 3 of them where boys.

The oldest one was the one Nico had already met at the hospital, although Nico didn't remember his name. Then there was a boy who was about Nico's age, he seemed somehow sleep deprived and hyperactive at the same time.

The youngest one was definitely younger than Nico. He looked like he couldn't be any older than twelve. He had darker skin than the others, which made him appear middle eastern. He also had some asian features and yet he still looked an awful lot like Bruce. Nico was pretty sure this was Damian, after all he was also the youngest.

The girl was older than Nico, that he could tell, and she also was asian. He noticed how straight her posture was in comparison to the others and himself and stood up a bit straighter.

They all had black hair, and they all looked fit, like their bodies where made for battle. Nico wasn't quite sure how to feel about the last part, but he decided to give the Waynes the benefit of the doubt. Rich people worked out a lot in 2014, why shouldn't they also work out in 2065?

When Bruce opened the door, Nico noticed they first looked at him and greeted him not in the most polite way, but Nico could definitely tell they had a good relationship with each other. 

Their attention shifted to Nico, and suddenly Nico had the strong urge to walk away from the whole situation. He hated when he was the main focus of the room, any room really, and this time he couldn't help but feel analysed as well as being stared at.  Unfortunately, Bruce already stared to talk and Shadow travelling away right then and there would just bring him more problems. Besides, he hadn't shadow traveled anywhere since waking up from his coma and he wasn't sure his body was already up for it.

"Nico these are Dick-", Dick, so that was his Name, smiled and looked genuinely interested in meeting him, "Tim-", Tim, the one in Nico's age, looked interested in Nico as well but also like his mind was somewhere else. "Damian-", Nico guessed that right. Damian was the only one who didn't seem very happy to see him, and also seemed like he was a lot more sceptical towards Nico, but maybe also like he disliked the idea of Nico being there altogether. He crossed his arms but kept a neutral expression on his face. "and Cass." The girl waved her hand and smiled. Nico somehow felt like she was the one analysing him the most but also the one the most happy to meet him. He wasn't sure what make of her.

They sat down, all at one end of the table, with Nico being in the middle between Cass and Dick. Tim was in front of him, Damian was in front of Dick and Bruce was in front of Cass.

"Isn't Alfred going to eat with us?", Nico asked.

"Oh no, Alfred prefers to eat after we have eaten. It has to do with Butler etiquette or something like that.", Dick said.

Alfred came into the dining room in that exact same moment via a passage Nico hadn't noticed before.

"We didn't know what you like so we decided to have pasta with tomato sauce because people usually don't have a problem with that.", Bruce explained.

They all got their food and even before Nico could start eating he was asked the first question.

"How old are you, Nico?"

"I'm 15.", he answered and ate some of his pasta. The pasta was good, but not as good as his mother used to make it. Then again, Alfred had a British accent, so it was quite decent for food made by a Brit.

"Or wait, I missed new year's by being in a coma, and now it's march right?"

Cass nodded.

"Well, then I'm 16."

"When was your birthday?", Bruce asked.

"28th of January."

"Well then happy late birthday.", Dick said.

"Thank you", Nico answered, although it felt weird to think of himself as a 16 year old.

The others at the table also said something along the lines of happy birthday, and Nico thanked them.

For a while they ate in silence, until Dick talked again.

"So what do you like to do in your free time?"

Nico had to think about that for a short moment. It had been so long since he last had the time for free time activities, and he wasn't about to tell them he liked mythomagic. He wasn't even sure if he still liked mythomagic.

"I like to play capture the flag and I'm good at sword fighting."

"Sword fighting? Damian and Cass do that too.", Bruce said.

Cass nodded and Damian asked: "What style do you use?"

"Er... ancient Greek style?", Nico answered, unsure of what his 'style' actually was or even what the point of the question was.

"I mean sword style. Like European longsword, Katana, Rapier, Saber et cetera."

"Oh well in that case I don't know. I learned sword fighting in a summer camp and they just gave me a sword. I never thought of asking what style it was. Why, what style do you use?"

"Cassandra and I mainly use the Katana, but we're also good with the styles I just named and some more." Nico wasn't sure if he had just imagined it or not, but he could swear there was a hint of superiority in his voice.

"You mean Cass is very good with the other styles and you're jealous of her?", Tim teasingly said.

"At least I have a-"

"Alright, so capture the flag huh? Haven't played that in years.", Dick said, Interrupting Damian.

"It's been a long time since I played too, but I think I'm still good at it."

"We should play sometime, maybe get a couple of friends to come along with us. Wayne Mannor has a huge yard, it could be fun.", Tim suggested.

"Sounds like a good idea.", Nico said and smiled a genuine smile.

"Cass, Nico and I could use our swords, I bet that would make it even more fun.", Damian suggested and smiled what could only be described as a murderous smile.

"Or we could not kill each other, I bet that would be even more fun.", Dick said.

"I never said we had to use real proper swords, we could use training ones made out of wood or something like that.", Damian defended his idea.

"I actually think that would be a cool idea. Capture the flag with training swords.", Nico said. He wasn't sure how anyone would play capture the flag without weapons, but already had come to the conclusion, that mortals shouldn't just hack at each other with deadly weapons, given their lack of ambrosia.

"I can see what we can do, but if everyone here would like to, I could definitely organise something." Bruce said. 

They all said they'd like to, which was the first time Nico heared Cass' voice, and Bruce promised he'd organise something.

Nobody really knew what to say after that so they continued eating in silence. After a while, Nico came to the conclusion that he had to break the silence if he wanted to get a rough idea of these people, so he turned to Cass.

"How come you don't say much?", he asked.

Cass looked at him with a slight, polite smile on her lips and then stared talking in sign language.

"Oh my Gods. I didn't know. I'm sorry for just assuming-", he cut himself off and then  and looked down at the table in embarrassment. 

He used to understand sign language without any problems. Some of his father's most trusted workers were deaf but he still wanted to communicate with them in some way and so he had some dead people teach him every chance he got. It had been years since Nico last lived full-time with Hades, years since he had last talked to those workers, so he had lost a big chunk of his ASL vocabulary, and he wasn't even sure if all of it was ASL to begin with. 

"I'm not very good with sign language", he admitted as he looked back up, "I used to know someone who was deaf but that was a while back. Would anyone mind translating?"

She signed something, Nico could make out the word explain, but the rest was lost on him.

"Of course I can.", Tim said. He cleared his throat and then continued talking. "Cass can't really talk verbally, she can hear you though. She has been doing some verbal training, so she can say simple words or short sentences. Sign language is easier for her to use, but don't worry about not understanding her, you will pick up on ASL faster than you think. That good Cass?", he asked. She showed him thumbs up.

"Okay, that'S good to know. Thanks for telling me.", Nico said.

"I'm sorry if I'm being rude, but English isn't your first language, is it? You're European somehow?", Dick asked. 

"You don't have to answer any of our questions if you don't want to by the way.", bruce quickly added.

Nico had the feeling Dick already knew the answer to his question, and he didn't like that. If felt like Dick was testing him somehow, like Dick didn't trust him.

"Why are you asking if you already know the answer?"

Dick was surprised by this question. It was true, Dick had already figured out that Nico was Italian, just like everybody else who was sitting at the table. He just didn't think Nico would be able to see through him that easily.

"Because I am Romani and before my family came to the US, my grandparents and parents lived in Europe. Also, I don't want to be rude, but your surname is literally di Angelo, it not that hard to figure out that you're Italian."

Nico had dealt with lying people his entire live, so he knew that wasn't Dick's entire truth. He didn't want to press it through as he didn't want to seem too distrusting to the peope he could be spending the rest of his teenage years with.

"You're Romani? That's cool. Yes, I'm Italian, my mum came here with me, to live closer to my dad."

Cass tipped on Nico's shoulder to get his attention. She signed something about containing the words "Italy" and "You"

"She wants to know where in Italy you're from.", Damian said.

"Thanks Damian.", Nico said, the he looked back at Cass. "I'm from Venice. Me and Mamma came here shortly after I turned ten."

"Does that mean you speak Italian?", Bruce asked, genuinely interested.

"Yes I do."

"Anch'io. Parlo italiano da 10 anni.", Bruce said with a wink. His american accent was poking through but it wasn't distracting. 

"Do you speak any other Languages?", Tim asked.

"I mean English, obviously, I used to be better at ASL than I am now but I just lost some of the language, then I also speak Cantonese, Spanish and Arabic, I know some ancient Greek and a couple of phrases in Latin, but nobody really speaks those languages." He could understand more languages, but they didn't ask for that so he didn't say that.

"How come you speak so many Languages?", Damian asked.

Nico was caught off guard, which was a bit dumb that he thought about it. Of course they would ask how he spoke so many languages, especially since they knew about his dyslexia. What was he supposed to say? The dead don't all speak English so of course he picked up some more languages when spending time with them, but he couldn't actually say that.

"My dad... he has a lot to do with people changing countries, and helping them find a destination. They don't all speak English and if you spend a lot of time sharing your home with them you start to pick up on those languages." That was as close to the truth he could get without exposing himself.

"Your dad helps immigrants?", Damian asked.

"To a certain extend, but he also takes care of people from within the US. It's all kind of hard to explain, and I don't really understand it either.", Nico said. The last part was a lie, but he hoped they wouldn't catch on to it.

"Maybe try to describe what he's doing, I probably know more about his Job that you do anyway and then-", Damian was cut off by Tim hitting him.

"There is no need to be rude Damian. Pull yourself together.", Tim said and he sounded like he had these typed of conversations regularly with Damian.

"I will 'pull myself together' as soon as you stop hitting me.", Damian said.

"I'm not touching you right now. Bruce I'm not touching him, see I'm not-"

"Damian listen to your brother and Tim stop hitting Damian.", Bruce said, his voice sounding like he said something similar a hundred times already.

"I only hit him one to get him to stop talking, I wasn't toughing him", Tim said.

"Then how come-"

Before they could start actually fighting, Alfred came in again.

"I hope everyone enjoyed their meals", Alfred said as he came in the dining room again, interrupting Tim and Damian, "desert will be served soon. Miss Cassandra, would you mind helping me?"

She signed something, then got up and started helping Alfred. Bruce also got up and said he had to talk to Alfred about Nico's room.

Without Bruce and Cass in the room, the atmosphere felt a lot more hostile towards Nico.

"How 'bout this: we ask some questions. If you don't wanna tell us the answer, tell us.", Dick suggested after a while of hostile silence. It somehow felt like Nico would be asked anyways, even if he said no.

"Haven't we already been doing that?", Nico asked.

"Yes but this is different because Bruce isn't here.", Damian answered.

Nico didn't like the sound of that at all, but then, without waiting for an answer, Dick asked the first question.

"What is your favourite colour?", Dick asked and got a seriously? look from Damian.

"Black."

"Is your Mom dead?", Damien asked and imminently got glared at by his brothers.

"Yes"

"How did she die?", Damian asked again, ignoring the looks he got from Tim and Dick.

"Skip."

"Did you come to Gotham on purpose?", Tim asked.

"No, I would have chosen a more normal way to get here if I actually, you know, had chosen to be here."

"Does that mean you want to leave again?", Dick asked.

"I don't know. There wasn't much for me were I came from and now I live in a mansion, but like I said, I didn't actually choose to be here."

"Favorite childhood memory?", Dick asked. Nico had one, but it wouldn't seem very happy to the others.

"My 10th Birthday.", Nico simply said.

"Why?", Tim asked.

Hades, Bianca and his Mother were together, being happy and just talking about normal things, while Nico was super happy about his presents. Italy had just switched sides in the war, and Hades was talking to Maria how great it would be if they moved to America.

"Skip."

"Does your Dad really help illegal immigrants come into this country?", Damian asked again.

"No." Nico answered confused. He could tell them wanted more context but that would have to wait. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Then what does he do exactly?", Tim asked, ignoring Nico's question.

"It's complicated, like I said. You wouldn't understand and I don't want to explain it."

Nico was getting even more uncomfortable and he really wanted to leave.

"What's the story behind-", Damian asked, glanced up to see Bruce was coming back inside and immediately changed the topic.
"Alftred the cat you ask?"

Before Nico could respond Damian stared talking again.

"It's quite simple actually. Alfred gave me a cat as my last Christmas gift. I decided to name him Alfred in honor of Alfred. We already had Titus but Titus is more of a family dog, also you can't really cuddle with him. So I got Alfred the Cat from Alfred the butler."

Nico nodded slowly, unsure of what just happened.

Alfred had made cookies for dessert, and they ate them while the cookies were still warm and the chocolate still soft. Nico thought they where really good. They talked a bit more about meaningless topics, before Bruce decided to show Nico his room.

"We were planning on giving you a full tour of the monnor tonight but it's quite late, so that'll happen tomorrow, okay?"

Nico nodded.

"If you're tired you can just stay in your room. We didn't actually plan anything else for tonight."

"Then I'll be staying here. Good night, Bruce."

"Good night Nico. Oh, before I forget, you'll find a fresh pair of PJs on your bed and some clothes in your wardrobe. They are all meant for you, so just help yourself."

 "I will. Can you tell Alfred I really liked his cookies?"

"I will, don't worry. Sleep well."

"You too."

Bruce went down the corridor in the direction they had come from and Nico went inside his room. He didn't want to go to bed just yet, as he still somehow wanted to make sense of what had happened between him, Tim, Dick and Damian. He took a notepad out of his backpack, it was a gift he rarely used, and started to write some of his thoughts on the whole situation down. The more he thought about it, the less sense his situation made to him. Why would a Billionare who already had 4 children take in him of all people? How was he in the year 2066? What had happened to him?

The more he though about the situation the more he realised how little he knew. He wanted to leave for Camp right there and then, after all, maybe Chiron would have some answers. His one and only attempt at shadow travel for the night failed and simultaneously drained him of all his energy.

He looked at his large, freshly made bed and decided he just wanted to test how comfy the bed was, but the second he lied down he already was asleep.

Chapter Text

After being woken up by Alfred the next morning, Nico felt like he desperately needed to change clothes and shower. He asked Alfred where the bathroom was, and Alfred simply opened a door in his room Nico hadn't really paid attention to before.

"Almost every bedroom in this part of the mannor has an en-suite. Hurry a bit, breakfast will start in 30 minutes."

As he was getting ready to shower, Nico noticed how he looked even paler and skinnier than usual. He looked down his body that was covered in scars and noticed a new one that went across his chest, although he didn't know where he had gotten it from. Like most of his scars it had a somewhat dark colour and it stood out from the rest of his very pale skin. He didn't like how his body looked, how the scars made him seem even sicker and even more like a corpse and he especially didn't like how he could clearly see the outline of his ribcage. It was concerning really, and it wasn't something Nico was used to. Maybe this also had to do with the way he got here, or maybe Nico had just avoided mirrors for so long he forgot how his naked body looked like.

While he stood there, thinking about his new scar and his declining weight, Nico realised he didn't want to pay it any more mind, so he covered the mirror and got in the shower.

The shower itself was a small adventure already. There where a lot of options, like scented water and something that felt like foam rain, so it took him a while to actually get started.

He only noticed how long it had been since he last showered when he felt the comforting warm water running down his back. It was nice, especially because there was no danger of running out of said warm water and no limited shower time, something he didn't miss about Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter. Also he knew it was actually his shower so he didn't need to wear Flip-flops out of fear of getting athlete's foot.

Once he was finished, in the Bathroom he looked into his wardrobe, unsure of what he was expecting.

The wardrobe was full of mainly hand-me-downs. It also contained new clothes, but the new stuff was mainly underwear and socks. The clothes looked like they should roughly fit him, although some pieces certainly were too big. He didn't know how they knew his size, and he wanted to ask them later, but for the moment he put on a grey sweatshirt and a black pair of trousers.

The clothes were bigger on him than expected, so he ended up with rolled up sleeves and a belt holding his trousers on his waist. He didn't think the clothes were far too big and he didn't think they looked too bad so he went downstairs into the kitchen.

Since it was a Saturday, everyone was there to eat breakfast. Breakfast was held at a more informal dining place, a table in Alfred's Kichen, however the table was as far away from the actual cooking as the room allowed. Nico was a few minutes late, but nobody said anything about that.

"What would you like to eat? We have cereal, bread, toast, croissants, i can scramble some eggs or an omelet, you could have waffles or pancakes, although you would have to wait a bit for that, I could-", Alfred asked.

"A croissant please.", Nico said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be runde but the more options you give me the harder it is for me to decide.", he said with an apologetic smile.

"No worries, I know that problem. Why don't you sit down, there is a basked with croissants on the table."

Nico sat down, took a croissant and startet eating. He looked around and noticed Dick eating cereal, Cass easing an omelet, Bruce and Damian eating breakfast rolls, and Tim eating nothing except for his cup of black coffee.

"So Nico, like I said yesterday, you'll get a tour of the mannor today. Dick said he could show you around. When you're done with that, we'll be going clothes shopping-"

"But why?", Nico said, interrupting Bruce, "There is like a ton of clothes in my wardrobe already and they are just fine."

Bruce looked at Nico's rolled up sleves and the back into his face.

"They don't seem to fit though, do they? Also you don't need to wear Dick, Cass and Jason's old clothes, you deserve clothes of your own. Also also, you'll need formal attire, there is none of that in your wardrobe yet. If you absolutely don't want to go clothes shopping, we can think of something else to do for the day. We don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do."

Bruce sounded honest and like he wouldn't be mad or disappointed if Nico said no.

"No, clothes shopping sounds good. It's just been a while since I got new clothes and I figured with perfectly good clothes already in my room that wouldn't happen."

Bruce smiled. "Well, you are getting new ones anyways. If we have time left by the end of today and if you want to, Tim suggested he could play some Mario cart with you."

"The others are welcome to join of course.", Tim said.

Nico had heard kids in Camp talk about the game and while he couldn't imagine why so many people liked it so much he still wanted to find out who.

"Sure. I always wanted to play that game

Tim looked shocked and Nico was feeling like he was also getting stares form the others.

"You never played Mario Kart?", Dick asked, also visibly shocked.

"Living on the streets since I was 10, remember?"

"Oh, yes, sorry."

Silence filled the room and Nico was glad about Damian breaking that silence.

"Has anyone seen Alfred the Cat? He wasn't on my bed this morning and he hasn't eaten anything yet."

They shook their heads and Bruce mentioned seeing the cat in the music room last night, so maybe he still was there.

They talked to each other while finishing breakfast, mainly about Wayne Enterprise and a gala that would be happening soon. Nico made sure to listen to the conversation, but he didn't really say anything.

When they were finished, they stacked the dishes and then Tim put them in the dishwasher, while Damian put the leftover food in the fridge. Nico didn't know why they had a Butler if they were going to do stuff like that anyways, but he didn't question it out loud. Dick told Nico to follow him and they left the kitchen.

"So, how about we start upstairs and work our way down?", Dick suggested.

"Sure, why not.", he answered and followed Dick upstairs.

On their way to the top floor Dick mentioned them having an elevator further down the entrance hall and in the part of the building they had galas in, mainly so that his girlfriend Barbara would be able to properly access the building.

"She was attacked in this horrible incident a couple of months ago and now she uses a wheelchair."

They started in the attic. There were some old paintings, statues and furniture up there, but Dick didn't seem to be interested in that. He went to a big window, opened it and climbed on the roof. Dick held his hand down for Nico to follow him, but Nico was hesitant to take it.

"C'mon Nico, the view up here is amazing and there are stairs up here as well."

Nico climbed out of the window and he had to admit that the view really was beautiful. From up there, they had an almost complete view of the Gotham skyline, and only then Nico realised that they where quite a bit away from the Gotham city centre.

"I wanted to show you this last, but this is an official fire exit, and Alfred told me to show how to get out in case if emergency, so yeah."

"I like it up here.", Nico answered and smiled. It was so quiet and peaceful on the roof, that Nico was sure he would go there again.

"Do you see that big building over there?", Dick asked and pointed at the Gotham Skyline.

"There are a lot of buildings over there.", Nico answered jokingly.

"I mean duh but the tallest one, you can see it, right?", Dick asked again.

"Yes what about it?"

"That's the Wayne Enterprise building. You will get to know that building almost as good as this one, especially if you decide to have your mandatory internship for school there."

They spend a bit more time on the roof until Dick decided it was time to actually start the tour.

During the tour, Dick told Nico that they had about 160 rooms in the mannor and that most of them were unsed, as about 50 of them were old servant rooms and they didn't employ 50 servants. Alfred had his own apartment in the west wing of the mannor.

"If there are so many rooms in this house, how cone all of our bedrooms are on the same corridor?"

"When Bruce first took me in, I insisted that I would have the bedroom right across from his. Before that I had lived in the circus and always shared a wagon with my parents, and while I wanted a room for myself, I wanted to be as close to Bruce as I could. When Jason came he didn't want to be left out and took the room next to Bruce's. Tim took the room next to mine and so on and so forth. Now it's just like this y'know?"

"What about this Duke? Bruce mentioned him on our way here yesterday."

"Oh, Duke's room is the one across the hall from yours. He's doing a student exchange right now, and I honestly forgot when he was supposed to be back, but he will be back eventually."

Nico nodded. He was about to ask who this Jason was, when Dick decided to continue the tour before Nico got the chance to.

On the third floor, which was the real top floor, there was an office for Bruce, a very big Library, and a living room. At least those were the rooms Nico remembered.

After seeing half of the second floor, which included a cinema, another library and a gym, they saw a black cat.

"Oh there you are Alfred.", Dick said and held his hand out for the cat. Alfred the cat actually came towards them, but he didn't go to Dick, he went to Nico.

Alfred the cat went around Nico's legs and purred, which made Nico smile and pet the cat.

"That's weird, he doesn't usually do that around strangers."

"I guess he just likes me."

Dick texted Damian and told him they'd found his cat, then they continued the tour.

As the tour went on, Nico opened up about his personal life and what life was like in Italy before his family came to America. Dick also told him about himself, mainly about his life as a Police officer in Blüdhaven and how his life was when Bruce first took him in.

At the end of the tour, Nico had seen several different secret passages, the most important one being from their corridor to the pantry, although that wasn't much of a secret passage and more of a supposedly unused servant staircase. Dick had also shown Nico several more secret passages, as well as some cool places in the mannor he could go if he wanted to be left alone. Nico made sure to remember where exactly these places were, because he had a sneaking suspicion he'd use them a lot.

Infront of Nico's room again, Dick told Nico they'd probably eat lunch soon, so he'd recommend being somewhere they could easily find him. Nico nodded and Dick went downstairs, probably to get to the kichen.

Inside his rooms, Nico thought about what to make of his situation. He had already thought about it in the hospital but now that he had met the Waynes he was unsure again.

Initially, he wanted to run away as soon as he could and then go back to camp or the underworld or somewhere where he didn't have to hide his Demigod side and also get some information on his new situation. However, there was something about the Waynes that made him want to stay, at least for a little white longer. He didn't know why he wanted to stay exactly, especially after the weird question round last night, but he had the feeling there was something he needed to find out about the Waynes before he could leave.

Chapter Text

Nico didn't think having his measurements taken would be so awkward. And yet here he was, inside a strangely big dressing room, having his measurements taken in a t-shirt that wasn't his, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him.

The man talking him through the process wasn't the issue, neither was the dressing room, the tailoring shop or the ungodly amount of money Bruce had set as buget for Nico's suit.

The issue was the T-Shirt Nico was wearing.

You see, nobody had told Nico that measurements were usually taken in tight fitting clothes, and since Nico was already wearing a relatively tight pair of jeans, everyone in the Wayne Family thought someone else had told him. Unfortunately, Nico wasn't wearing a tight-fitting shirt, he was wearing an oversized hoodie and a loose-fitting shirt underneath his jacket.

The people who worked at the tailoring shop said that was no problem, they had several different t-shirts in the back, since "these kinds of situations happen more than you'd think".

Nico didn't like wearing t-shirts. They showed not only how skinny his arms where but also the scars on his arms he'd gotten in all of the different battles he was a part of. If Bruce asked about his scars or his malnourishment, his plan was to say something about living on the streets and that he didn't want to talk about it.

Nico told himself he'd be fine, he'd survive, because he didn't know how to communicate that he didn't like wearing t-shirts, and he didn't want to be the reason they'd come for nothing. After all, he helped Apollo defeat the triumvirate, he had bought the Athena Parthenos across the Pacific Ocean and he was the reason the demigods won the battle of Manhattan; he would survive having his measurements taken in a t-shirt.

The poorly disguised worried look he'd gotten from the tailor and the better disguised worried look he'd gotten from Bruce almost changed his mind. He was sure now, although he'd survive the act of having his measurements taken, he wouldn't survive the awkwardness of the situation. Although he had survived gruesome battle wounds, he would not survive the careful treatment he would be getting now, as if a too hard grip or a too loud noise could kill him.

To be fair, those things would probably trigger his PTSD, but he didn't ask them to be careful around him and he didn't want them to start now.

"You know, you're not the first Wayne boy to come in here with scars? That kid Jason also had loads of 'em when he had his first appointment for measurements. He wasn't very keen on people toughing him, so I told him he could take the measurements himself. I could talk him through it, stand next to him to see if he did it right. He would tell me the measurements and I'd write 'em down. That worked for the two of us. If you want to, we can do that too.", the tailor told Nico in the dressing room.

"Yes, please. I would like that.", Nico said after short consideration. Following instructions would be a way more pleasant experience than having a stranger touch him.

It took them about 40 Minutes, but then they had every measurement the Tailor could think of, most of which wouldn't change anymore, so if Nico ever had to get his measurements taken again, the process would be significantly shorter.

Once they were finished with the measurements, the tailor and Nico started talking about different suit designs. Nico noticed how passionate the tailor was about his work, since he knew exactly what kind of design would look good on Nico and which ones would look ridiculous. He was also really passionate about Nico not getting an all-black suit, because that would make him look "even paler than he already was".

Bruce ended up ordering two suits for Nico, because Nico was indecisive about the materials he wanted.

"We have enough money for it anyways, so you might as well get two while we're at it."

After Bruce had finished up the order for the two suits, him and Nico went back into Bruce's car and Bruce drove them to a shopping center. To Nico's surprise, Bruce didn't ask about Nico's body or his scars, he just wanted to know if he was happy with the colours they'd picked out for the suits and what part of his wardrobe he wanted to buy first.

The shopping center was big and almost exclusively had shops inside Nico had never heard of before. The few ones he did recognise, he recognised for being incredibly expensive, at least back in 2014. It shouldn't have surprised Nico, given the fact that Bruce was at least a billionaire, but it still did.

"So, where do you want to go to first?", Bruce asked.

"Good question.", Nico said as if that answered the question.

"I don't know any of these shops.", Nico said after a short while of silence.

"Oh yes, right. How about you just tell me that you want, I don't know, to get a new pair of shoes and I can take you to the shop we get them from?", Bruce suggested.

"Sounds good to me. Let's start with a new backpack."

Nico just wanted one Backpack, Bruce told him to get at least two; one for school and one for travel. At the end of the day, Nico had 3: One for school, one for travel and the last one was for his free time, because he didn't want to use the same old one all the time. He made sure to pick the ones that cost less than $500, which was already too much to spend on a backpack if you asked him, but there wasn't anything priced normally and if he actually endet up leaving the Waynes, he would't feel guilty for essentially stealing the $1000 backpack.

Eventually, he just tried to not look at the price tags while they were shopping. He already felt bad about how much money Bruce had spent at the tailoring shop, especially since he was still considering leaving them, and now it seemed like Bruce was going to spend at least three times that money on clothes for Nico. Just not thinking about it didn't mean he ended up spending up less money, but it did mean that he felt at least a bit less guilty about that.

Bruce also tried to get Nico a phone, but Nico denied.

"It's a religion thing. I'm not allowed to have a portable device that can connect to the internet or to the phone network.", Nico explained.

"Oh, alright. You never mentioned any religion, aside from saying 'Oh my Gods' yesterday so would it be okay for you to tell me what your religion is?", Bruce asked. He seemed genuinely interested, so Nico decided to tell the truth.

"I'm a Hellenic Pagan."

"As in you believe in and worship the ancient Greek Gods?"

"Yes, exactly.", Nico answered. "Although they will have to wait a long time before I start worshipping them.", Nico thought to himself.

"Hellenic paganism did get a lot of new followers after Wonder Woman made an appereance, but I didn't know it was against Hellenic Paganism to have a phone."

"It's not exactly forbidden, but I'm a Hellenic Pagan because of my dad and like, his side of the family and they say we shouldn't have phones, so I don't have a phone."

"Alright so no phone for you, got it. Do you know if you can have a laptop or a tablet?"

"I think as long as I don't have them on me at all times, I should be fine.", Nico answered, genuinely unsure if laptops or tablets would also amplify his Demigod scent the way phones do.

"Then come on, let's get you a laptop and a tablet."

At the end of the day, Nico was the owner of an entire new wardrobe mainly consisting of black and dark red or dark green clothes (Bruce said he wouldn't let Nico get away with buying just black clothes), as well as 4 new jackets (one for every season), 10 pairs of shoes and 5 new fancy watches (If Nico wasn't getting a phone, he still needed to be able to tell the time).

In the car on their way back to Wayne Mannor, Nico was sitting on the back seat while Bruce drove the car. He was beginning to feel bored, so he started to dig though the pockets of his Jacket. It had been a long time since he actually went through them so he had a lot of old candy wrappers and chewing gum packaging in his pockets. He also felt something else that didn't feel like garbage, so he pulled it out of his pocket.

It was a heavy brown envelope that clearly had more than a letter in it.

He opened the envelope and a prism, a few drachmas and a note written in ancient Greek fell into his hands.

"IM me when you're awake, I need to talk to you."

"How am I supposed to message you if I don't know who you are?", Nico whispered to the note.

The demigods at camp usually didn't leave each other notes like this. He only ever had received notes from Will, but he was sure this wasn't Will's handwriting. So he didn't actually know who had written the note. Regardless, he was sure it was someone affiliated with Camp Half-Blood, because of the ancient Greek but also because neither the Romans, the Egyptians or the Norse used Iris Messages, at least as far as he knew. Since the note wasn't signed, Nico would be unable to follow the author's request, since you can't send Iris messages to unknown people.

He told himself he would visit camp soon. His friends would be old, but if they'd made it, they should still be alive. 2066 should be too early for them to have died of old age. Also, he could ask Chiron about that note, because if anyone at camp would be able to recognise handwriting it would be the teacher for Ancient Greek.

Dinner was simple, Alfred said. "Just some soup and homemade bread". Nico wouldn't have called home made bread simple but he apperently was the only one.

Dick wasn't eating with them, since there was an emergency at the Blüdhaven PD, but everyone else was there.

They talked about their days, apparently Tim had met some friends from school in a skate park, Cass had been at ballet practice and Damian was at the petting zoo with Dick. Nico didn't expect Tim to be a skater, but he didn't know enough about Tim to be seriouly surprised.

"Tim and Percy would get along well.", he thought and hoped, that Percy still was the way Nico remembered him to be.

Like Tim had promised Nico, they met after dinner to play Mario cart, and like Nico expected, Cass and Damian tagged along as well. What Nico didn't expect was that they'd play in the cinema room.

"We're in the majority, Bruce can use the regular TV.", Damian had said after he'd seen Nico's confused look.

Tim explained the game and what buttons Nico had to press to go forwards, and in between every now and then he told Nico that he couldn't believe he had never played Mario Cart before.

Unsurprisingly, Nico always came in last among the four, but he did usually rank 7th or 8th, so he wasn't super bad at it. He best he placed was 4th place. At some point they stopped believing Nico when he told him he was new to the game.

"It took me two weeks to place any higher than 11.", Cass signed.

"And Cass is a fast learner, it took me a month.", Damian said after translating for Nico.

"So, tell us Nico, did you just say you were new because you wanted us to go easy on you?", Tim asked half joking and half serious.

"This is the first time I played, I swear.", Nico said in sarcastic helplessness.

"Is that the answer you want to stick with?", Tim asked in the same sarcastig tone.

"I won't say anything else before I talk to my lawyer."

They laughed and continued to play Mario Cart, until it was about 11:30 pm and Alfred came in.

"Master Bruce send me to tell you kids that it is time to go to bed. You may not have school tomorrow, but breakfast will be the usual 9:30 and if you don't want to miss it, I suggest you go to bed now."

"Alright, will do. We'll just play to the end of the round.", Tim answered.

"I'll check in here in 10 minutes, please be finished by then.", Alfred replied and left.

Nico tried to help with turning everything off once they were finished, but he was just standing next to Tim and Cass as they did all the work (which wasn't a lot but Nico still felt weird), so he just wished them a good night and left.

By the time Nico actually started to get ready for bed, he had already forgotten about the Note in his pocket.

He would have also forgotten about his planned trip to Camp Half-Blood, if it wasn't for his dream that Night.

His first dream of Will in a long time.

Chapter Text

Nico's dream started like a lot of his dreams did: He was somewhere in Camp Half-Blood, reliving memories.

In this particular memory-dream he was racing up the climbing wall with Jason, although none of them were actually climbing. Jason used the winds to fly up the wall, and Nico shadow travelled to the top. Unfortunately for Nico, Jason won.

"So much for shadow travel being the best form of traveling.", Jason said with a smirk, as Nico arrived on the top platform.

"It's not my fault there aren't enough shadows up here. Also, I never said that it's the best, I said that it was the fastest."

Jason gave him an amused look and Nico realised his mistake.

"Which, I realise now, still means I'm wrong"

"That is correct.", Jason answered and both of them chuckled.

"C'mon, let's get back down. How about we do another round, but this time we actually climb?" Jason suggested.

"Why would we climb?"

"Because I don't want to get in trouble with Will because you used your powers to much", Jason said half-jokingly and flew back down. Nico used that bit of Shadow that got him on top of the platform and stepped back inside of it. One more shadow travel certainly wouldn't kill him.

Instead of landing at the bottom of the platform, Nico landed in a bed in the Infirmary. Nico could tell it was a different time of day, by the way the sun was standing and falling into the room. He had a bandage around his left arm and he could feel a cut healing underneath that.

"This game was so unfair.", someone somewhere in the infirmary said.

"For real, I think Chiron should stop Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades from teaming up. We were defeated from the get go!"

Nico realised the memory he was reliving had switched, which wasn't a bad thing. He was now reliving the time Jason, Piper, Annabeth and Percy had visited for the weekend and teamed up with him on capture the flag. All four of them had just finished some high-school exams and then were in desperate need for some action.

Nico had retrieved the flag in last game of capture the flag, so it was up to him to find allies. When Jason, Piper, Percy and Annabeth arrived, the boys communicated with one look, that they'd be fighting together. Piper managed to get the Aphrodite kids on their team and Nico had recruited the Apollo Kids. Athena's cabin had already made allyship with Hermes', so Annabeth was on the opposing team.

Needless to say, that Nico's team won the game, although it was an Aphrodite kid who actually captured the flag. Annabeth had made elaborate plans on how to take Jason, Percy, Piper and Nico out. That however meant she and everyone else were overly focused on them, allowing everyone else to slip through, which is why the Aphrodite kid got the flag.

His dream was an almost perfect replica of his memory from after the match, however someone was missing.

"Can anyone tell me where Will is?", Nico asked into the seemingly empty infirmary.

"He's in our Cabin I think.", Gracie, Will's younger sister, shouted from somewhere in the infirmary.

Nico stood up and immediately was outside of the infirmary. His hand was healed and it was now early afternoon. He walked in the direction of the cabins, and saw some campers, including Drew and Butch, who were discussing something while repeatedly pointing to either the beach or the lake.

After a short while of walking, he finally arrived in front of the Apollo-Cabin, where he heard two voices discuss something. One of the voices belonged to Austin, Will's younger brother, Nico was sure of that. He however wasn't sure whose voice the second one was.

"All I'm saying is that everyone needs a little time for himself. We can ask Chiron if he knows when he's back, because I'm sure he will know.", the unknown voice said.

"If you say so. I just wished he'd leave us a note or something like that.", Austin answered.

Nico didn't know what was going on. This wasn't one of his memories he was reliving and he highly doubted these were someone else's. He decided to go inside the cabin, since maybe this was that kind of dream where he could talk to people. So, Nico opened the door and stepped inside the Apollo-Cabin, to offer his help with whatever problem they could be having, but found himself in a new environment yet again, only this time it was completely unknown to him.

The room Nico found himself in was a conference room, that had seven people sitting around a table. The conference room was on a high floor of a skyscraper, so high that he couldn't see the city underneath them, he could only see clouds.

Nico looked around the room and realised, that he couldn't see the faces of the attendees. It seemed like there was a bright light in front of their heads, that didn't hurt to look into, but that did stop anyone from seeing these people's faces.

"It is all in motion now, we have One, Three, Four and Five, Two is still loose however, which messes with the time table.", a female voice said.

"I will take care of securing Two.", an old and yet somehow intimidating sounding man said.

"You'll need to hurry up with that if you want me to deliver on time. My research depends on him and Three.", another male voice said.

"You'll have him by the end of next week.", the old man answered.

"The others are coming along just fine by the way. Except Three actually, but we did expect that so I think-"

Nico's dream froze, like someone had pressed pause on a film. The space around him that had just been a conference room now was purely white and Nico had the feeling he was floating, as well as having strange pressure on him, especially his ears, and not being able to hear very well. It felt like he was underwater, a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time.

A man appeared in front of him. He was tall, had paper white skin and a big head. The man had a hood covering half his face, which he now took off. Nico was shocked to see, that the skull of that man was basically see through, allowing his to see the man's brain through his skull.

"What do we have here? A curious little Demigod?", he chuckled.

Nico wanted to say something and to get away from this man, but he couldn't open his mouth or move any other part of his body.

"Not so fast, little Demigod.", the man said and lifted a hand to his head. "Psymon says wake up."

Nico woke up, covered in sweat.

He didn't know what to make of his dream, especially the last two parts with the weird conference room and the man named Psymon.

He started to get the sneaking suspicion that things were weirder in the future than he initially thought and that maybe the Waynes weren't the only ones he should keep a close eye on.

He sat down at his desk and wrote his dream down in the journal he had been writing about his thoughts on the future and on the Waynes, hoping to make sense of all of this somehow. He remembered the note telling Nico to IM the person who wrote the note and now was 100% sure he needed to visit Camp Half-Blood as soon as possible, to get help with decoding his dream, to find out who wrote that note and to check in on his friends in case they were still alive.

The only thing Nico wasn't sure about yet was how on earth he would explain this all to Bruce, without revealing that he was a Demigod. Nico had the feeling that Bruce had already grown protective over Nico and so suggesting to go visit that side of the family that he had just told him was fine with letting him live "on the streets" maybe wasn't the best idea, although it was as close to the truth he could get.

He came to the conclusion to get a snack and think about it while eating. Dreaming weird and mysterious dreams usually made him hungry and food helped him think, so he took his notebook and went down the "secret passage" to the pantry.

Chapter Text

“Okay, Bruce I know this is a weird request, but I want to meet with someone from my dad’s side of the family and basically tell them what’s up with me, where I am and all of that.”, Nico told Bruce.

The plan Nico had come up with yesterday evening did end up being just asking, because everything else was way more complicated. Besides, if Bruce were to say no, Nico would still be able to sneak off and do one of the many insane back-up plans he had come up with that night.

So now here the two of them were in Bruce’s office on the third floor. It was morning, after they had eaten Breakfast together. Nico had asked Bruce if they could talk in private, and that’s how they got there.

“It’s not a weird request Nico, I understand that you want to see your family.”, Bruce said, and Nico was feeling relieved.

“That’s great, could you maybe drive me to New York? The person I want to see lives there.”

“We can most certainly get you to New York, however I want to be there when you meet your family.” Bruce said and his tone and overall appearance made it clear he was dead set on that.

“Oh.”

“If you don’t want it to be me, I would be okay with Dick or Alfred being there, but I want an adult with you. Cass is an adult too, but I don’t want it to be just you and her, because you can’t really understand her.”

Nico didn’t say anything. It was a reasonable request from Bruce, but it made it basically impossible to visit Camp Half-Blood, or any other Demigod place for that matter.

“It’s just that nobody showed up in the hospital, there was no missing person's report issued, which means they weren’t looking for you, and also the whole thing with you being homeless while having that big of a family that, how many people your age? 25?, is a low number. I’m sorry but letting you meet your family all alone doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

Nico had to think about what he would say next. He hadn’t expected a ‘yes, but’, so he hadn’t planned for this possibility.

“I understand why you think that way Bruce, but they don’t really like people that aren’t part of the family in their homes.” Nico said. He could see that Bruce was about to say something about that, maybe offer a solution to his problem, so Nico decided to keep on talking. “I would want to ring a couple of them first. Do you have a landline?”

Bruce looked at Nico amused but then saw that Nico was serious in his question.

“I don’t have a phone, Bruce. We went shopping yesterday and I told you all about my religion, remember?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I though your whole no phone thing just meant you couldn’t have one. I didn’t know it meant you needed a landline.”

“Well, it does.” Nico said, trying not to sound too annoyed. He didn’t mind not having a phone, he probably wouldn’t have been able to properly use it anyways, he minded Bruce not remembering. “Do you have one?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll get you the phone.”

“Okay, thank you.”

Now, 15 minutes later, Nico was sitting on the roof, the place Dick had shown him on his tour around the Mannor. He had the phone for the landline in his hand and was about to start typing in the number, when Nico realised, he didn’t know the phone number for Camp Half-Blood, or any other phone numbers that weren’t 911.

He pulled the thick envelope out of his hoodie pocket, took the prism out of it and put the prism down on the fire escape stairs. The rainbow was small, but it was a rainbow and that was all Nico needed.

“Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering and show me Chiron, Camp Half-Blood, long Island.” Nico said and threw in one of the drachmas.

“All I am saying is that if the portal had worked properly in the first place, we wouldn’t have this problem.”, Chiron said. Nico was sure Chiron was in the big house, although he couldn’t really see Chiron’s surroundings or the person he was talking to.

“Yes, I know that, but that doesn’t make it- Oh Look, you’re being messaged.” A somewhat familiar Voice said, although Nico couldn’t tell who the person was.

“I’m sorry, we are discussing something im-” Chiron said before looking down and seeing Nico was the one messaging him. Then, Chiron’s face suddenly looked older, although only slightly.

“Do me a favour and come back in about half an hour. This is more important.”, Chiron said to the person he was talking to before.

“If you say so.”, The voice said. Nico could hear a door closing, then he saw Chiron sat down in his wheelchair.

“Nico, is that really you? How are you still alive, what happened to you? Why do you still look like you did 50 years ago? Are the-”

“Chiron, I don’t know what happened, or why I am here, or how I got here. I was hoping you would know something.”

“Where are you anyways? And where were you? Why didn’t you come back to Camp?”

“I am calling about that. I appeared out of nowhere in Gotham City Park, and then I was in a coma for 6 months or so. When I woke up, they told me I could either be Bruce Wayne’s foster child or go to juvie because the foster system in Gotham is at its limit.”

“What? Can’t I-”

“I don’t want to talk everything over right now; I was hoping we could meet somewhere in New York and talk about the details there.”

“Yes, of course we can do that. When could you come over? Today? Tomorrow?”, Chiron asked. Nico wasn’t sure if he was hearing Chiron correctly or not, because he sounded somewhat frantic.

“Not so fast. You see, I wasn’t sure what to tell them about the whole ‘half of my family is made up from the divine’, and so Dad spoke to me and said I should tell them I was homeless. I mean that is partially true, but you know. Now they believe Dad’s side of the family is huge, but no one cared enough for me to take me in when I became homeless or missed me enough to make a missing person’s report or look for me in any other way. He wants himself or another adult he trusts to be there with me when we meet. He thinks he’s doing this for my own safety, at least I think so.”

“That would be a problem, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome. I have talked to mortals almost my whole life, always trying to convince them of things I need them to believe. I think you forget that we have the mist on our side, so it would be easier than you’d think for me to become your legal guardian and have your legal residence be Camp Half-Blood.”

Chiron talked with the same certainty Nico had expected. Now that the possibility of him living at Camp again and leaving the Waynes for good was so close and reachable, he became more secure in the decision he made last night.

“I don’t actually want to leave the Waynes. I have this feeling, that I was sent here for a reason and that I must find something out about them before I can leave.”

“If that’s what you want, I can’t stop you, but I still need to see you Nico. So much has happened while you were gone, I still can’t... I can’t quite believe you are alive.”, Chiron said, and while he was saying that tears formed in his eyes.

Nico didn’t know how to react, to him it seemed like he had just spent a week in the hospital and then two days with the Waynes since he had last seen Chiron, but he understood the way Chiron felt.

“I really don’t know what to tell you, I’m sorry.”

“It's fine, don’t worry.”, Chiron said and wiped away some tears.

They spend some time in silence while Chiron was trying to calm himself down again.

“I’m sorry if this is insensitive, but when we meet, I need you to seem just as happy, if not even more to see me. We somehow have to convince Bruce that you and the rest of the family aren’t all horrible people for not filing a report and stuff like that.”

“Don’t worry Nico, I don’t think it would be possible for me to not seem happy to see you.”

Nico smiled and for a little while longer they just sat there in silence, until Nico remembered something.

“What’s your mortal name again? I mean I can introduce you as Chiron, but I think that would just make them confused, because you don’t really have a last Name and you are kind of well-known as a mythological creature.”

“I used to use ‘Chris Brunner’. If that works for you, we could use it again.”

“I would have said it’s more important that that works with you, so I guess we can use ‘Chris Brunner’ as your name. Oh, and before I forget, can you also give me the Camp’s phone number? Chances are Bruce will want to ring you.”

“Oh yes, the phone. Just a second.”

Nico could see Chiron look though the stuff on the table in front of him, then he pulled out a card.

“Its 0800 56789 111, you got that?”

Nico had written the number in his little notebook and then stuck his thumb up.

“Great, expect someone to call in about half an hour.”

Nico was about to wave through the Picture in front of him, essentially hanging up, when Chiron shouted “Wait!”. Nico looked up again and saw how scared Chiron looked.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got you back after having lost you for over 50 years. How do I know I won’t lose you again? I don’t want that to happen. I just got you back Nico, how do I know I will ever see you again?”

Chiron’s distress grew and it became more and more visible.

“Don’t worry Chiron, we will see each other again, today. I promise. Even if for some reason I would be unable to come down to New York, because then I would send you another Iris message. We will see each other again.” Nico tried to put the same certainty in his Voice that Chiron usually had. It seemed to be working because Chiron looked at least a bit relaxed.

“I am alive and well. Nothing will change that, at least not today.”

Chiron nodded.

“I am sorry Nico. I don’t know what just came over me. Normally I am-”

“Chiron, there is nothing you need to apologise for. Reunited family members in Elysium often can’t believe they have each other back either. You thought you had lost me forever; you can be as overwhelmed by this as you are, it’s big news.”

“I can’t wait to see you again in person.”, Chiron said.

“Neither can I. Now, I need to go and tell Bruce that he can ring you to figure out the details of us meeting again. See you later.”

“See you later.” Chiron said, and Nico waved his hand through the image to essentially hang up.

꧁꧂

“I am sorry but I have to ask this one last time. Are you sure you want this?”, Bruce asked Nico around the corner of the café they were supposed to meet Chiron in.

“Yes Bruce, I want to meet him. He hasn’t seen me in ages, and he only ever was kind to me. He deserves to see that I am alive and well.”

Bruce nodded and then said: “Well, here goes nothing.”

Nico was glad Bruce was on board with meeting Chiron. He of course would have preferred to meet Chiron alone, in Camp Half-Blood, but like the rolling stones had said, you can’t always get what you want. At least this way, Nico didn’t need to be sneaky about it.

“Here comes another dumb question: What did you say was your relationship to this Mr. Brunner?”

“He’s my half uncle, if you can say it like that. My father and Chi- Chris have the same father, but they have different mothers.”

“Yes, I think you’re right, that is called half-uncle.” Bruce said in an attempt to keep the conversation alive.

“Bruce, I know we don’t know each other very well yet, but can I ask you something somewhat personal?”

“Of course you can, Nico. I am supposed to be something like a father for you. You can ask me anything you want.”

Nico smiled and took a deep breath.

“Is it normal for me to be this nervous? I mean to me it feels like it’s been 2 weeks since we last saw each other, but to him it was so much longer. What if he changed since I last saw him? Changed into a person I don’t like?”

“Nico, of course it is normal to be nervous. I don’t know your uncle; I can’t say if he is the type of person to change drastically in 6 months or not. All I can say is that he seemed like a reasonable man on the phone, and like he was genuinely happy to hear you are alive and well. Believe me, if I had a bad feeling walking into this, this meeting would be happening under very different circumstances.”

Nico took a deep breath before the café entrance, then he nodded, and Bruce opened the door for him.

Chapter Text

“Nico, I’m over here!” Chiron’s voice rung through the half full Café.

Nico looked in the direction the voice came from and could see that Chiron wasn’t alone at his table.

Chiron, who was using his wheelchair and decoy legs, just as Nico expected, was now on his way to greet both Nico and Bruce. Nico suddenly didn’t care about looking normal or being in a café anymore. He ran towards Chiron. They shared a long and intimate hug and Nico only then started to realise how much he had missed his mentor.

As Chiron and Bruce shook hands, Nico walked towards the table and realised he knew the other person sitting there: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were sitting at the table, looking older than they did the last time Nico had seen them, yet still significantly younger than 68, the age Nico had calculated they should be. If he had to guess, he would place them in their early to mid-thirties, just a couple of years younger than Bruce

“Annabeth? Percy?”, Nico asked without even trying to mask the disbelief in his voice.

Percy stood up and looked at Nico. For just a split-second Nico could see something in Percy’s eyes he hadn’t seen before, then he looked even happier than Chiron to see Nico. Nico was pulled into another two hugs with Percy and Annabeth.

The situation was similar to how Nico had imagined it, and yet Nico’s senses were telling him that something about the situation was off. Aside from that look in Percy’s eyes he couldn't figure out why. That was until he looked back at the table and realised Percy and Annabeth were the only Demigods who had come with Chiron to see him.

Something horrible must have happened.

After all, Will wasn’t there.

“Wait, if you are here, then where are the others?”, Nico asked. “Where is Will?”

Mentioning Will bought that look back in their faces, and now Nico was certain his hunch was right, something terrible had happened.

Percy only managed to say a hushed “later”, then Bruce and Chiron arrived at the table.

Of course, he hadn’t expected Will to have stayed his age, and he would have wanated for Will to move on after Nico’s “death”, but Will dying was not something he had anticipated.

“Bruce, I see you just met Chris, now allow me to introduce you to Percy, my cousin, and Annabeth, his Girlfriend”, Nico said, quickly pretending like his world wasn’t falling apart as they were speaking.

They all sat down and had some friendly small talk, ordered drinks and some cake, which Bruce offered to pay for, and they were all in all warming up to each other.

While they were talking about things that weren’t really important, Bruce seemed kind of fidgety, touching the bottom of the table multiple times and moving things like the napkin dispenser slightly. The others didn’t seem to notice, which didn’t surprise Nico as the three Demigods were all way more fidgety, but Nico thought Bruce’s behaviour was somewhat out of character for him.

He rationalised Bruce’s behaviour by telling himself that he had only actually known Bruce for a couple of days and so behaving unusually might just be behaving in a way Nico hadn’t seen in the last couple of days.

After a while they ran out of unimportant things to say. Bruce asked Chiron to speak to him privately about custody and other legal things, to which Chiron agreed.

“I’m sure it would just bore you guys, and besides I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.” Bruce explained and then patted Nico on the shoulder before they left for a different table.

“So, Bruce Wayne huh? What’s it like being rich?”, Percy asked teasingly as Bruce and Chiron were walking away.

“I don’t really know what to tell you guys.” Nico said with fake excitement in his voice. The he turned around to see if Bruce could still hear him, figured he couldn't, then he said: “It’s fine. Now, do I have to ask again or are you going to tell me about what happened to Will and the others?”

Percy and Annabeth looked at each other and then at Nico. They both had that look in their eyes again and Nico realised that what he was seeing was of sadness and unprocessed grief. Suddenly, Nico knew what they were going to say before the words were spoken out loud.

“Most of the others are dead.”, Annabeth said.

“Oh.” Was all Nico managed to say.

There was a long moment of silence between them, then Percy spoke again.

“Hazel was the last one to leave us and she died very recently, so... yea.” Percy looked down at the ground.

There was another moment of silence in which the reality of Hazel’s death started to hit Nico, but he pushed his feelings aside in order to better help Percy and Annabeth, who both clearly hadn’t processed their grief properly.

“I’m so sorry. You genuinely don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I can always ask Chiron, or someone else.” Nico said, trying to be helpful.

“No, no, we want to tell you. We came prepared and everything it’s just seeing you like this just a month after Hazel died... it feels unfair. She was your sister. She should have seen you again. She deserved to-”, Annabeth’s voice broke and the leaned against Percy’s shoulder, who put his arm around her.

“I’m going to start were you left off, the day after you disappeared.”, Percy said after a while, his arm still around Annabeth.

“I wasn’t there, but from what I heard, Will was worried about you because you didn’t show up to breakfast. He went to your cabin to check in on you, only you weren’t there. It looked like you had left, taking your important possessions with you but not leaving a note or telling anyone. So, he assumed you left willingly, but on a very short notice. He heard you used to do this a lot, especially during the two wars, but he still was worried. I mean after all, you promised him to stay at camp and as far as we all knew you were happy there.”

Annabeth seemed to be doing okay again, she sat up straight and continued telling the story.

“Will checked in with Camp Jupiter, but Hazel and Frank didn’t know where you were, then he checked in with Reyna, Thalia and the hunters, but they also hadn’t heard from you. Then he send us and Iris Massage to ask us if we knew where you were.

I can still remember how he looked, so tired and so worried about you. I think all he did that day was trying to figure out what happened to you.” Percy said and Nico knew what expression he was talking about.

He had seen it on Will more times than he wanted to. Nico felt a stab in his chest, and he felt bad for leaving Will like that, for making Will feel like that, although he hadn’t left voluntarily and nothing of this really was his fault.

“We went through all the people you knew in an at least slightly positive way and well, most of them were at Camp Half-Blood or Jupiter, except for your dad, Persephone, Piper, Leo and Calypso. We wanted to help Will, you are our friends too after all, and so we offered to contact Leo and Calypso, while Will would ask Piper. Mr. D said he could try and talk to your dad or Persephone, but he couldn’t guarantee a successful conversation. When we called each other again, neither Leo, Calypso nor Piper knew where you were while the gods didn’t meet with Mr. D.”

“Although we have had enough quests to last us three lifetimes, we promised Will right then and there that if a prophecy was to appear that could have anything, and I mean anything at all to do with you, we would be a part of that quest. But that prophecy never appeared, and the Gods never answered our questions about the disappearances.”

“Wait, disappearances? Like multiple? Not just me? Who else disappeared?”

Nico had a gut feeling, that these other disappearances would affect him too somehow.

“How do I put this? You weren’t the only one who disappeared, other cabin counsellors disappeared similarly to you in different nights.”, Percy said slowly.

“Who? Who else disappeared?”

“I assume you are familiar with Lou Ellen Blackstone?”

“Daughter of Hecate? Yes, I know her.”

“She was the second one to disappear. Katie Gardener, Demeter's daughter was next, she disappeared a week after Lou Ellen. Sherman Yang the Ares kid was last seen three days after Katie vanished and finally...” Percy looked at the table, avoiding Nico’s eyes.

“Will.” Annabeth concluded.

“What!?”, Nico shouted, having forgotten what Percy and Annabeth said at the beginning of their conversation. Then, he quickly looked around the Café, to make sure no one, including Bruce, was starring, and no one was.

“Will is missing and left just like you and the others did. We send out search parties but without a prophecy or a quest there is only so much we can do. And we really did try finding you. Calypso and Leo both died when they went out on their own to find you guys.”

Annabeth looked at Nico with compassion, which didn't stop more guilt buiding up in his chest. Not only did he make everyone worried about him, but Leo and Calypso had died trying to find him.

“He had built some kind of detector to pick up on this energy he had related back to the five missing demigods, something about their godly parents and the mist. When it had landed a hit Calypso and Leo went to check it out. They were right about the energy signals, but not every child of a God is a Demigod, or even freindly towards us.

We don’t really know what happened, but when Satyrs showed up a couple of days later after being alerted by local Dryads, they found what was left of their bodies. The two of them didn’t go down without a fight, but they were simply outnumbered, or at least that is our theory.”

Nico could no longer push his feelings aside, the news of Leos death after he had just come back from the dead was too much for him. He didn’t even realise it at first, but at some point, he had stopped blinking the tears away and now he just sat there, in the middle of a restaurant in New York City, sobbing about the loss of his friends and his boyfriend, and they all somehow felt like his fault.

“Nico don’t blame yourself.”, Percy said softly, as if he was reading Nico's mind. “You didn’t choose to disappear. You didn’t make Will, Lou Ellen, Sherman or Katie disappear. You didn’t tell Leo and Calypso to trust that device of his. None of this is your fault.”

Percy patted Nicos arm and offered to hug him, but Nico declined. He wanted to just sit there and be miserable, and despite what happened when he just entered the café, Nico had never been big on physical contact. At some point, he realised the shadows were reaching out for him and the floor was starting to crack.

He didn't care for a second. Then he remebered, Bruce was there. Having to explain to Bruce that he cried while talking to his cousin would be relatively easy. Having to explain to everyone in the Café why the floor was cracking, and the shadows acted weird would be way harder. So, Nico did what he aways did when his emotions became too much to handle. He tried to botte them up again, which kind of worked, at least he was able to stop sobbing.

“Do you still want to know what happened to the others?” Percy asked carefully.

Nico nodded.

“I feel like I have to.” he said.

“Well, we spend years and I do mean years, searching for you and the other missing demigods, but we weren’t able to find anyone. At least the whole thing had a couple of good sides to it, because we fixed every issue with the security at Camp Half-Blood and finally made it a place where demigods could also grow old. Camp Jupiter is still far ahead of us, but we now have our own place, and I quite like it.” Annabeth said and Nico could tell Camp Half-Blood was her long-term home.

“For a while, like I think 10 years, none of our friends died or went missing. Me and Annabeth got married, the ceremony was beautiful, we wish you would have been there.

Frank and Hazel had also gotten engaged, but then Frank died.

There was another large-scale attack on Camp Jupiter, many Roman demigods left their life defending Camp Jupiter, including Frank. It all happened to quickly that by the time they managed to contact us for help, the enemy was already retreating.

It all happened just once, and despite our best efforts, all we could really say was, that it was the doing of mortals. Which is strange, since mortals shouldn’t even know Camp Jupiter exists, and they most certainly shouldn’t be able to perceive it because of the mist. Also, Camp Jupiter couldn’t do much about those mortals, except for reinforcing their magical border and intensifying the mist.”

“What about Hazel? Was she okay?”

“No, of course she wasn’t okay Nico, her fiancé had just died. At first, she tried to stay strong, but it was killing her, so she stepped down from her role as Preator. She really struggled with loosing Frank, and we were all really worried about her.

She decided she needed a change of scenery and spent some time with your father in the underworld, where she got to properly say goodbye to Frank. Hazel spend the winter in the underworld and when she got back, she said it was the worst thing she ever did but exactly what she needed to do. She did go back to visit Pluto several times, but she never stayed for so long again.”

Annabeth paused to take a sip of her Coffee. Then she continued taking about everything Nico had missed.

“Percy and I, we are immortal now, did you know that?”

Nico shook his head in disbelief.

“I mean, it’s true. The quest was given to us by both our parents, could you imagine that? They needed us to go back to the old world again and get them some special olives, water from a sacred spring and some special fish. It was some kind of emergency, I think. The whole thing was harder than it sounds, but we managed to get all of the items while staying alive, and so we were rewarded with the kind of immortality that is very similar to Thalia’s and Reyna’s. We won’t die of natural causes, but we can fall in battle. It wasn’t really what we had asked for, but we still took it. Because of that we also age very slow, we have a higher tolerance against all kinds of poison, and it takes us longer to die of wounds that are deadly for mortals.

I think shortly after that we had our first child, is that right Percy?”

Percy pulled his wallet out of his pocket, opened it and took out a picture of a very young Babyboy.

“His name is Charly, we named him after Beckendorf, and he is a doctor now.”

“No way.” Nico said thinking of his doctor in the Gotham hospital. “Does Charly work in Gotham by any chance?”

“Yes, why? Did you meet him?” Percy asked half-jokingly.

“Yes, actually I did. After I had woken up from that coma, I was telling you about he was the doctor who was treating me.”

“I feel like such an Idiot. Charly told us about you when you first came into the hospital. He said there is a teenager who looks just like ‘that Nico person from the photos’, but we thought it was just a coincidence because you had been dead, or just missing I guess, for over 50 years.” Annabeth said.

“We both were idiots ‘Beth. Remember two weeks ago, when he told us your name was Nico di Angelo and we said that the fates have a weird habit of reminding you who you have lost?”

The three of them laughed for a bit, then Percy continued telling Nico about their other kids, Kira and Luisa. There were several more years in which noting important happened, until a couple of years ago, the year Piper died.

“Living in Camp Half-Blood has made us kind of unaware of what is going on in the mortal world, something I think you are familiar with. We knew the mortals now had heroes like Superman or the Flash, we knew of Diana of Paradise Island and how she partially exposed our world, but we-”

“Wait, What?” Nico asked in disbelief. “Does that mean I can just tell the Waynes I’m a Demigod and they won’t have me institutionalised immediately?”

“It’s all a lot more complicated than it seems at first. How about we give you a crash course on the few parts of the modern world we actually know after we finished telling you about the others?”

Nico nodded and signalled Annabeth that she should continue telling her story.

“Where was I?” Annabeth asked.

“Something about a woman named Diana of Paradise Island exposing our world.” Nico said trying to be helpful.

“No, before that.”

“You were saying that we didn’t really know anything about the Heros of this society.”, Percy said.

“Oh, that’s right. So... We didn’t really know a lot about them and we also, to a certain extent, didn’t think of them as people you had to take very seriously. That changed when Piper died in one of their fights.

It was six or seven years ago, so we didn’t know as much about the heroes as we do today, but basically this Alien called Darkseid came to Metro-”

“Aliens are real?”

Nico stared at Annabeth and then at Percy in disbelief. The two of them exchanged looks, basically telling each other ‘This is going to be harder than I expected.’

“Nico, you did miss quite a lot, huh? Just f.y.i, aliens are real, the public knows the gods are real, Cyborgs exist, and regular people can have superpowers too, they are called metahumans.”

“I don’t think we have time for me to process all of that, so why don’t you continue telling me about the death of almost every one of my friends and family.” Nico said sarcastically.

“No but seriously, you should continue telling me about the others, I don’t know how long Bruce and Chiron will talk to each other.” He then added, after seeing how his friends hesitated.

“Okay, so, Darkseid came to Metropolis while Piper was living there and attacked Superman. I don’t think we were ever told why. Now you remember the Battle of Manhattan, right? And the battle for Camp Half-Blood? And you were even involved in the battle in Nero’s Tower, right?”

Nico nodded. How could he ever forget those battles?

“The battles these new heroes fight are different. We had some regard to the lives of the mortals on the battlefield, because it wasn’t their battle, they were just caught up in it. Of course, there was damage to the city and of course some mortals died, but we tried to keep it to a minimum.

These heroes have no regard for the cities they have their fights in. The battle between Darkseid and Superman was especially destructive. You have to give credit where credit is due, Superman tried to safe some of the civilians at the beginning of the fight and tried to get everyone to evacuate, but that didn’t stop him from destroying all those buildings.

Piper went missing during the fight. It is assumed that she was killed by debris from one of the collapsing buildings and that her body fell in the river running through Metropolis, but nothing is confirmed because they never found her body. So many died that day, including Superman, Hazel said she could feel it and it felt horrific.”

Mentioning Hazel reminded Nico of the beginning of their conversation and Nico braced himself for what was next.

“And what about Hazel? How did she die?”

The atmosphere at their table changed. Beforehand, they were all sad, but Percy and Annabeth had time to process their grief and come to terms with the loss of their loved ones. Now, Percy and Annabeth themselves were still grieving.

“You know Hazel mourned Frank for a very long time, but she eventually moved on and found someone else. His name was Tom, he was a son of Bellona and a couple of years younger than Hazel. They were a cute couple and they loved each other dearly. They never had children and lived in Camp Jupiter for most of their lives because Hazel still had trouble manoeuvring our modern world, which just got worse with every invention and the eventual appearance of superheroes. The two of them would go on trips in the world outside of Camp Jupiter with Tom being her guide through all the things she didn’t understand. They made it an annual tradition to go on a road trip from Camp Jupiter to Camp Half-Blood every spring. They would spend two weeks with us, or more if they felt like it. Me and Annabeth, and while she was alive Piper as well, in turn would always visit Hazel and Tom in autumn.

This year, when they came to visit, they attracted a lot of monsters, maybe because they were also transporting some trophies from past Demigod quests to be displayed in Half-Blood, or maybe the fates were just in a bad mood. Their car was crashed about half a mile away from Camp Half-Blood by the minotaur. The two of them ran and somehow arrived somewhere with enough water-mist in the air to form a rainbow. The Iris Message... the iris...”, tears were forming in Percy’s eyes and this time Annabeth comforted him while trying to tell the story herself.

“The Iris Message was a desperate call for help, but all help we had send was already too late for Tom, because we saw him getting ripped apart by Cyclopes right behind Hazel as she was sending the message. The last moment we saw was her turning around to find her dead Husband ripped to pieces on the ground. I... I still hear her shriek, crying out for Tom and then... then the message just cut off. We got there as fast as we could, but all we found were marks of their fight and big blood puddles. We wanted to follow the traces and attack them in their base, Chiron told us to form a proper plan first, but when we went there again in the evening, with proper preparation and a proper plan, all the traces led nowhere. I just wish...” Annabeth started crying again as well. “I just wish we could have been there faster or...”, her sobs swallowed the rest of the sentence.

Percy and Annabeth were both crying and holding each other. Nico felt very out of place, because somehow, he didn’t even feel sad. At some point these stories had stopped feeling real to Nico.

Of course, he knew Annabeth and Percy weren’t lying, but all these stories were so overwhelming that the reality of them didn’t hit him again. Which was partially because he made a conscious effort to process the feelings that were staring to rise in him when he was alone in his room again, and partially because a part of Nico he himself was unable to control refused to believe these stories were real.

He was in denial, but because he was self-aware about being in denial, he told himself it wasn’t abig deal.

Nico gave Annabeth and Percy some time to comfort each other, then after both looked like they were a bit better, he felt like he had to distract them from their sadness.

“Do you want to hear what happened to me after I disappeared?”,

“If you don’t mind telling us we would like to know.” Percy said, his voice still shaky but his interest genuine.

“No, I don’t mind. That’s why I offered.” He took a deep breath that was still shaky and began to tell his story.

“Have you heard of what the people in Gotham call ‘The light Incident’?”

“The Gotham light incident? Yea, I read about it in the newspaper like half a year ago.”, Annabeth said, her voice was also still shaky.

“That was me appearing in Gotham City.”

Nico saw the disbelief in their eyes and knew he succeeded in making them forget their misery for at least a bit.

“But how? I mean we talked about it too, to decide if it was Demigod or Superhero related but we landed on Superhero because Apollo would never do that much show in a place like Gotham and other gods weren’t really related to, well, light.” Percy said.

“Also, we doubted any Demigod would have enough power to do that on their - wait, don't your powers work with shadows and not with light? Isn’t light like your weakness?”, Annabeth asked.

“They do work with shadows and yes, too much light makes me weaker, but I don’t think those were my powers. I think they were someone else’s. That whole manoeuvre put me in a coma for what? half a year if not more? and when I woke up my body felt strange, like there was some kind of force or power left over in me that shouldn’t be there. I remember being incredebly exhausted but now that I look back on it, that exhaustion felt nothing like being exhausted from shadow traveling. I believe someone wanted me here for a reason, I just don’t know what that reason is or why they had to take me of all people.”

Silence filled the room yet again, while Annabeth and Percy took the information in.

“I’m sure we can figure all of this out easily once we got all of this sorted out and you are back at Camp.” Annabeth said.

“About that...” Now Nico was the one avoiding eye contact. “I think I will say with the Waynes, I mean I still think all of this happened for a reason, and with all of this I also mean living with the Waynes.”

“But they are mortals, what happens when you start acting like you just did a couple of minutes ago, but you don’t catch yourself? What if they insist you always take a phone with you?”, Annabeth asked, and Nico could tell that she was genuinely worried about him.

“What if we want to talk to you, so we send an Iris message but then ‘oh no!’ the mortals are with you?”

“I haven’t though all of the details through yet, but I know this is the right decision. You will just have to trust me with this one. Also, I do still want to see you again, so we can figure this all out later?”, Nico suggested carefully.

“Also, you said Will, Katie, Sherman and Lou Ellen disappeared just like I did. Don’t you think there is some kind of connection? Shouldn’t we focus on that?” he added before Annabeth or Percy had any chance to respond to his suggestion.

“Fine, but we are still going to talk about your living situation.” Annabeth shot him a serious look, then continued speaking.

“We investigated the possibility of a connection, but because nothing happened with you or the others for the last 50 years, we eventually labelled it a cold case. I do think there is a possibility for the others to be alive as well, after all you are, but there was nothing like the Gotham light incident ever again. If that is necessarily for them to come here to us, then maybe they are alive but stuck in a different time.

This is time travel, so mostly unknown stuff to us. I mean, the only entity we know to be able to manipulate time is Chronos, and we would have gotten a prophecy about him rising up again again ages ago. The only explanation I really have is that it has to do with the mortals somehow, but I don’t know how they would be able to pull something like this off.”

Percy looked around the cafe to make sure no one was paying attention to them, and no one was, so he pulled something out of his pocket and put it down on the table. Nico looked at it for some time then realised it looked a bit like an USC stick, or however those things were called.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“The Hephaistos kids make them. You plug it into a computer, and it dampens your demigod amplification stuff. It works best on desktops, but don’t use any computer for too long or the monsters will pick up on you regardless.

If you really don’t want to come back to camp that’s fine, but you do need to catch up on the last 50 years if you don’t want to seem suspicious and the internet really is the best tool for that. I would personally recommend going to a public library, because the Waynes can’t track what you are doing there.”

“Do you mistrust Bruce so bad you think I shouldn’t even be on the internet at the place I live?”

“He has something to hide Nico, we have been saying it to each other for years.” Annabeth said in agreement with Percy.

“It’s like Percy said: if you want to live with him that’s fine for now, we can’t really stop you, but we do want you to be careful.”

Nico was about to say something when Annabeth pointed out that Chiron and Bruce were coming back.

“Alright everyone we have come to an agreement about all of this. Nico will still spend the majority of his time with me and the rest of my family, but he can visit Mr. Brunner every second weekend. And because the time I had planned for being here is up you can either come back to Gotham now, or someone will pick you up here later. What do you say, Nico?”

Nico had never expected Chiron and Bruce to be having a custody battle, so he was taken aback by Bruce’s suggestion.

“Er... sure. We can give that a try.”

“Good, I assume you want to stay here with you uncle to catch up?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Alright, here is some money in case you have to pay for something.” Bruce handed Nico a bundle of 100$ Bills. “That will be enough for one afternoon, right?”

“I think so.”

Bruce smiled at him with relief.

“Alrighty then, I’ll see you later.”

Bruce left the cafe in a bit of a hurry and Chiron pushed his wheelchair to their table again.

“This was the best I could do Nico. He kept making all these accusations that I should have put out a missing person’s report and that I should have helped you while you were homeless. What have you been telling him?”

“That was my dad’s idea. I didn’t know how else to explain the whole Demigod thing.”

“The worst part about this is that I think he is immune to the mist or at least memory manipulation of the mist. I couldn’t get him to agree to you moving back to Camp Nico, I’m sorry. And then when I was reluctant to take his deal of one weekend a month, he threatened me. He said something about having looked into my business of selling strawberries and other fruits and he says involving unpaid children in these kinds of processes is a federal crime. It’s not like anyone is being forced to work on the fields, the most work is done by the nature spirits anyways, but I couldn’t tell him that. He said you could have two weekends a month as a sign of his good will, but I felt like if I didn’t acept that, he would sure me or Delphi Strawberries.”

“Like we said, you can’t trust the guy.”, Annabeth said.

“But that’s just us I suppose. Now, Nico tell me, what have you been up to?”

Nico told his story again, this time in more detail.

They spend the rest of the day together, exchanging stories and just talking to each other. After some time, they left the Café for a stroll in a park, Nico got to spend some of the money Bruce gave to him. While Nico did have a good time, he could physically feel how much Percy and Annabeth have changed and he wasn’t sure how to feel about these other versions of Percy and Annabeth.

At the end of the day, he couldn’t help but feel glad he got to go back to Wayne Mannor.

Chapter Text

Bruce had originally planned to spend the entire afternoon with Nico and his family. He was curious, Nico was a nice boy and he wanted to meet whatever family he had left. Yes, they didn’t file out a missing person’s report, but maybe they were in a position in which they couldn’t just go to the police. Maybe they had been looking for Nico in their own ways, who could know.  

Normally Bruce judged people and situations fast, he had to as Batman and it came in Handy as Bruce Wayne, but this time he tried to keep an open mind.  

The actions of Nico’s family did not leave a good first impression with Bruce, but there were good possible explanations for everything they did or didn’t do, and he was certain they could reach a common ground of some kind. 

It had started good enough.  

Nico had apparently really missed his uncle. Bruce let them have their moment, then he introduced himself. Nico already headed to their table and Bruce could see a couple sitting there, probably waiting for him and Nico. 

Luckily for Bruce, Chris Brunner was great at small talk, so much so that he didn’t need to say much at all on their way over to the table. 

When he recognised people he had investigated on his own as well as with the Justice League as the people sitting at the table with Nico, he began to feel sceptical. When he saw how at ease and clam Nico was around Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson, he changed his mind entirely. He wanted to trust Nico di Angelo, he really did, but he had only really known the boy for a couple of days and having Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson as people he felt comfortable around with spoke for itself.  

Bruce was only half paying attention to what everyone was saying, his mind racing to the many reasons why Nico could be affiliated with these people, why he would call them his family. Maybe he was in over his head and didn’t realise what danger he was in. The tone of their voices and their body language at least gave away that they hadn’t seen Nico in quite some time, maybe he didn’t even know of their borderline villainous activities.  

"Bruce, I see you just met Chris, now allow me to introduce you to Percy, my cousin, and Annabeth, his Girlfriend", Nico said with a smile on his face, but Bruce could tell that something was off. 

One clear thought formed through all the chaos that was in Bruce’s head: Get Nico out of here.   

If Nico was in on it, working with them and all of that, then maybe limiting the contact he had to these dangerous people would limit the influence they had over him. And if he was too far gone then he could recognise that faster if Nico lived in the Mannor with him. 

He did what anyone in his position would do: send a text to Oracle. 

Batman: I need all the information you can get me on Chris Brunner ASAP. 

Oracle: Y 

Oracle: Who is that 

Batman: He is affiliated with Nico, I’ll explain later, but hurry up! 

Batman: If you need a picture of him hack into the security cameras of the café I’m at. 

Oracle: kk 

Oracle: I’ll see what I can do 

Bruce had another idea, it wasn’t the most ethical thing a man in his position could, so tried to be as discreet as possible when placing the tiny microphones all around their table. He still thought he must seem off somehow to people who knew him, perhaps more fidgety than usual, or perhaps just plain old weird. But nobody at the table knew really knew him, and he was sure he had gotten away with it when nobody commented on his behaviour. 

While waiting for Oracle to text back he made some more small talk with everyone. He was good at talking about unimportant things, he did it all the time when he had to give an interview or talk to other rich people at events and galas.  

After what felt like an eternity, he finally got a text back from Oracle: 

Oracle: Chris Brunner runs a company called “Delphi Strawberries”; they produce fresh fruit near the Long Island coast. They distribute their fruits through all of the US, but most of it is sold in New York. As the company name suggests, their main focus is Strawberries, but they also produce fruits like Raspberries or Blueberries in smaller quantities.  

Oracle: I couldn’t find out where he was born, who his parents are or how old he is which is strange. 

Batman: Agreed. 

Oracle: But here comes the big news: 

Oracle: His business uses child labour 

Oracle: Allegedly that is but still 

Oracle: He has been investigated by the local authorities a couple of years ago about that, it came to a court case but somehow all the charges were dropped. 

Oracle: This is all I could find in this short time but I still hope this helps 

Oracle: I can do a deeper dive if you want me to 

Batman: More research would be great, but there is no rush. The part about the child labour will hopefully do the trick. 

They slowly but surely ran out of things to say, and Bruce thought about a way to get Chiron to speak to him away from the rest of the group. 

Bruce had decided that Nico didn’t need to see him and Mr Brunner fighting, he had probably already seen enough adults in his life fight during his time on the streets and the time that lead up to that, and he didn’t need to see his new and old legal guardian fight about him.  

Plus, he wanted to get Chris Brunner as far away as Possible from Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase, so that they couldn’t back him up in any way.  

He chose to just ask Mr Brunner directly about a private conversation. 

“We still need to talk about custody, guardianship, child support and other legal things”, he turned around to face Nico directly, “I'm sure it would just bore you guys, and besides I'm sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”  

He flashed his best Interview smile and then looked at Nico’s Uncle, who promptly agreed.  

Bruce initially didn’t want to leave Nico with his supposed cousin, but he had already placed the microphones and if he wanted to know what their relationship looked like, he should leave. He would get the most authentic insight when they thought he couldn’t hear them. 

They sat down in another corner of the cafe, where Bruce still had a good view of Nico and the other two but definitely couldn’t hear them. 

 “Okay, Mr Brunner, we both want what is best for Nico, right?” 

“That is right. And what is best for him is his family and a safe place he can stay at.” 

“His family you say. You mean the people, you included by the way, who just stood by and watched as he became homeless when he was the ripe old age of 10? Or the people who didn’t file a missing person’s report after he just disappeared from your life one day? Or are you may be talking about the people who didn’t visit him once while he was in the hospital for over 6 months?” 

Bruce gave Mr Brunner a chance to speak, but when the latter didn’t say anything, Bruce spoke up again. 

“I think you can see why I am hesitant to leave Nico with you.” 

“I can see that, but I would hardly call Gotham City a safe place to live.” 

Bruce didn't like leaning into the whole rich asshole thing, but he had too sometimes.  

“Maybe not for someone of... your economic status, but for me, Gotham is just as safe as New York or Long Island.” 

There was an expression of disbelief in Mr Brunner’s face for just a second, but Bruce caught on to it and took it as conformation of the information Oracle has just given him. 

“And besides, I think having my income not directly tied to crops as fragile as fruits is already reason enough to let Nico stay with me. Really, what I want to discuss is visitation.” 

Mr Brunner was good at hiding his panic from the average person, but Bruce Wayne wasn’t your average person. He knew he had Nico’s uncle backed into a corner. 

“You’re going to let Nico stay with me.”, Mr. Brunner said. 

“Have you not been listening? No, I will not.” 

Mr. Brunner snapped his fingers in front of Bruce’s face and then waved his hand.  

“You will walk out of this café and let Nico stay with me”, he said with authority in his voice.  

Bruce could feel an attack being made on his mind and memory, if felt similar to a psychic attack but still somehow significantly different. It was a different kind of difficult for Bruce to withstand the attack, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. 

Bruce was glad that he went and accompanied Nico instead of someone else, as he had submitted himself to the most thorough anti-psychic training, and most people on his team where just trained by one psychic and not multiple. He wasn’t even sure Dick would have been able to withstand that attack, and Dick’s anti-psychic training had been the most intensive one out of all his proteges.  

“Do you think snaping your fingers and waving your hand in front of my face is going to help you here?”, he asked as calm and uninterested as possible. 

Mr. Brunner’s eyes went from confidently staring into Bruce’s to looking down at the table somewhat insecure. Mr Brunner looked like he was trying to make a decision, then he looked back up at Bruce, snapped his fingers and said the same thing again. 

“The answer is still no, I won't let Nico move back in with you. Also, can you please stop this,” Bruce snapped his fingers in front of Mr. Brunner’s face and then waved his hand, “I don’t know why you’re doing it, but it is very irritating.”  

Mr Brunner looked like he got caught doing something bad for just a moment, then he looked apologetic. 

“Sorry, it’s a cultural thing, I always forget that it’s not a custom here in the US.” Mr Brunner cleared his throat. “I just genuinely think Nico should stay with me full time because I am an important figure in our branch of Hellenistic Paganism and because I don’t think Gotham is a safe place to live, regardless of your income.” 

“Full custody isn’t an option for you. I understand that Nico should still get to practice his religion, but he is not going to stay with people who just let him become homeless and who wouldn’t even file out a missing person's report. I personally also don’t care for your opinion on Gotham or how safe you think staying there is. Nico can visit you for one weekend a month, that is my offer to you.” 

“You’ve got to see how important family is to Nico and-” 

“So important that he asked to see you only after two whole weeks in the hospital and three days with me?” 

“I get what you mean but I still-” 

“If you have a problem with my offer we can always go to court, but they will have to check for your annual income and seeing how that is tied to your little business of selling fruits with ‘Delphi Strawberries’ I don’t think the court is going to pick you over me. Especially seeing how Your business operates using unpaid child labour, with is a federal crime that gets hard punishments, especially for physical labour jobs like the ones you need for your harvest.” 

Bruce took a short break, so that Mr Brunner could grasp the whole reality of Bruce’s words. Mr Brunner looked like he wanted to add something, like he wanted to defend himself, but he just didn’t know how to. 

“That’s not entirely-” 

“Look, I don’t want you to hate me”, Bruce cut him off, “I just want what is best for Nico, and I can see that you two care a lot about each other. You can have two weekends a month, but that is my final offer. Unless of course you have a valid explanation for all the things I just told you, or you do actually want to go to court.” 

Mr Brunner looked defeated, and Bruce felt a bit bad for him, until he remembered that Mr Brunner was somehow connected to Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson.  

He took his phone out again to text, but this time he sent a message to the whole family: 

Batman: Meeting in the Batcave in 1 hour. I want everyone present. It's about the new kid. 

“Let's make our way over to the others and tell them what we agreed to, shall we?”, Bruce asked and stood up before Mr Brunner had the chance to say something. 

On his way over, he heard Annabeth Chase say: "It's like Percy said: if you want to live with him that's fine for now, we can't really stop you, but we do want you to be careful.", and that somehow made Bruce happy.  

Yes, he was essentially ripping Nico away from his family, but at least he wasn’t going against Nico’s wishes and Nico wouldn’t hate him for the ‘agreement’ Bruce and Mr. Brunner had made. 

"Alright everyone we have come to an agreement about all of this. Nico will still spend the majority of his time with me and the rest of my family, but he can visit Mr. Brunner for two weekends out of the month. What do you say, Nico?" 

Bruce could see that Nico hadn’t expected this outcome.  

"Er... sure. We can give that a try.", was not the answer Bruce had expected, but Nico didn’t protest, which already was more than he initially had hoped for, so Bruce decided to leave it at that. 

"Good", Bruce smiled," I have to go now, but I assume you want to stay here with you uncle to catch up?"  

Bruce didn’t like the idea of just leaving Nico with these people, but he had already called for the meeting and if Nico wasn’t in the house, then Bruce didn’t have to come up with excuses as to where everyone went. 

Nico agreed, he gave him some money and then was on his way back to Gotham, to listen to what the three of them had talked about and to make a proper plan about how to treat Nico and his family. 

Chapter Text

Bruce usually took pride in his patience, it would have been impossible to raise 5 kids without it, but this one time he couldn’t wait until he was back in the cave with the others, he had to listen to the recordings before everyone else would.  He connected his phone to the speakers in his car and almost immediately heard Nicos voice ask:

“So, do I have to ask again or are you going to tell me what happened to Will and the others?”

While Nico’s question was met with silence, Bruce’s thoughts where already racing. Who was Will? Had Nico mentioned him before? The name didn’t ring a bell, so Bruce assumed not. Could he ask Nico about Will directly or would that be suspicious? What was Nico’s relationship with this Wil? Was he-

“Most of the others are dead.”   

Bruce’s thought came to an abrupt halt.

 “Oh.”

In his many years as Batman, Bruce had seen people break down at the news of having lost a loved one, had to force people to keep going after seeing a family member dead, he had almost spiralled out of control after losing Jason and had seen Tim going down that same spiral after losing his father. And yet, that “Oh.” was the worst reaction anyone could have to losing someone.  

It meant it had happened before. And not just once, or twice, but so many times that the person receiving the news had gotten numb to loosing someone.   

He paused the recording for a minute; to properly process the new information he had about Nico. The kid was through a lot more than Bruce had initially believed, and yet Bruce couldn’t help but feel relieved that Nico had made it to his place. He doubted a lot of other foster families were able to help him properly.

After having collected himself enough to listen to the rest of the recording, he pressed on play again. No noise came out of the car speakers. It seemed like the microphones had stopped working. They no longer picked up the sounds of Nico and his family and instead were picking up static. The whole recording sounded like a soothing white noise.   

Bruce was ready to blame his microphones. He hadn’t tested them before using them and the weren’t as up to date as he would have liked. Sometimes, things broke while in use, which was frustrating but also out of his control.

Suddenly, the static was interrupted by one clear sentence: “I assume you are familiar with Lou Ellen Blackstone?”  

If Nico was familiar with her or not wasn’t for Bruce to find out, as the white noise took over again. Bruce was simultaneously confused about his microphones recording again and glad because how he had a full name he could look up. He was certain that name could get him more information on Nico and his Background as well and the backgrounds of Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson.  

The white noise was soon interrupted again, this time by Percy Jackson’s voice saying “... left just like you and the others did”, Which just added to Bruce’s confusion about the functionality of his mikes. Bruce decided to have Tim or Barbara look at them later and decided to listen to the recordings while driving back to Gotham anyway.

He was sorting out his thoughts about Chris Brunner and the rest of Nico’s family while the white noise was playing and then listening to every snippet at least three times to see if they were connected in any way and to try and figure out the context of the conversation. The snippets didn’t get him very far, but he was grateful for every sentence that he got to hear.

In the end, he heard Annabeth Chase talking about energy signals, Nico saying he felt like he had to do something, Nico asking about whether or not a girl called Hazel was okay, Annabeth Chase revealing that she and Percy Jackson had a child together and Percy Jackson saying something about being reminded who he had lost.

“Does that mean I can just tell the Waynes that-” Was the first cutoff that actually bothered Bruce. What did Nico want to tell him? Was there something important about Nico he didn’t feel comfortable sharing with Bruce's family? Of course, they had only known each other for a very short amount of time. The relief in Nico’s voice, however, was so apparent that Bruce felt genuinely sorry that said secret was distressing Nico so much and even more sorry Nico felt like he couldn’t share it with him or someone else in the family.

While still thinking about Nico and his secret, Annabeth Chase’s Voice rang trough his car and announced that “These heroes have no regard for the cities they have their fights in.”  

Bruce disliked the blonde a bit more after hearing that. If he really had no regard for the cities, he fought in they would no longer be standing.

The snippets continued and Bruce actually learned a bit about Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase while he was listening. “I just wish I could have been there faster... or...”, was a clear sign that Annabeth Chase had some form of survivor’s guilt, and while he didn’t learn a lot about Percy Jackson from him saying “But how? I mean we talked about it too--”, Bruce did learn that the couple he didn’t trust also unsurprisingly didn’t trust him. “He has something to hide.”, was all that was said, but who else could they have been talking about?

“Alright everyone we have come to an agreement about all of this.”, Bruce’s own voice rang through the speakers of his car. The conversation he had with Chris and the other was recorded in full, everything after that was white noise again. Bruce stopped the microphones from recording and then listened to the last long bit of white noise, just to make sure there was no one talking again, but his suspicion was correct, and he spend the rest of his car ride back in silence. 

• • •

"B, I swear to God, if you are going to make that kid this meeting is about another Bat I will start killing again.”, Jason yelled at Bruce before he even had a chance to get out of the elevator.  

“I’m more interested in Chris ‘I use child labour on my farm and Bruce lets me get away with it’ Brunner.”, Barbara said and crossed her arms.

Bruce shared a glance with Alfred, then the two of them started making their way over to where Stephanie, Cass, Barbara, Jason, Dick and Damian were already waiting for them. 

“I thought you could wait until everyone was here to start with your accusations.” Bruce said dryly. He was about to address the in his opinion valid “concerns” the two had expressed, when a Zeta-tube opened and Tim and Duke both arrived in the cave. They both looked tried, which meant that they still hadn’t gotten closer to solving their case of disappearing Metas in western Europe. Bruce shot them a sympathetic look, then addressed everyone.

“Now that all of you are here, I think there are some things I need to explain to you all. 

The boy this meeting is about is called Nico di Angelo. You all already know that he appeared about six months ago on the centenary of Gotham city. Both Nico and his appearance are a mystery to me, that why I decided to take him in. We would be the first to know should he turn out to be dangerous and also the first ones able of acting upon it. So far, he hasn’t done a lot of things to raise my suspicion, and I don’t want any of you treating him like a potential thread, since he hasn’t actually done anything.

He says he doesn’t know how he got here and he also doesn’t know why he was bought here. I do actually believe that. That just means we have to work harder to figure these things out.

He is going to live here at Wayne Mannor most of the time, however, his uncle and I discussed visitation, and I agreed to let Nico stay with his family every second weekend. He doesn’t- “ 

“You let him stay with ‘child labour’ Chris Brunner?”, Barbara interrupted him. 

“Yes, I did let him stay with his uncle, one of the few family members he seems to have left. I’ll get to the details in a minute.

To directly address your… concern Jason: no, if I can help it Nico will not be a vigilante, he won’t even ever enter this cave.” 

Bruce could feel a general sensation of relief going through the room with his second statement. As much as everyone in the cave liked being a bat, they didn’t want someone new to get dragged into their dangerous field of work.

“Yes, this is great news until you all consider that that means so more suits or Bo-Staffs or Escrima-Sticks or anything like that in your rooms or anywhere else he might find them. The Bat things need to strictly stay down here, is that clear?” 

They all half-heartedly nodded or hummed in agreement, so Bruce asked again. 

“I said is that clear?”  

“Yes, Bruce”, They responded annoyed.  

“Okay B, we won’t leave our shit lying around, now what was that about child labour?”, Duke asked slightly concerned.

“Barbara, I think you should give them a run down on everything you have found out about Chris Brunner.” 

Barbara sat up a bit straighter in her wheelchair and took a tablet out from her bag, which she then connected to the biggest screen of the Batcomputer. She showed them a screenshot of the security camera’s footage in which Bruce was sitting at a table with Chris Brunner. Bruce realized that from the angle of the security camera no one was able to tell that Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were sitting in that same café. 

“This is Chris Brunner.”, she said and zoomed in on his face. 

“He appears to be an about 50 years old white male who obviously uses a wheelchair. Apart from the wheelchair I can’t confirm anything I just said, because he doesn’t seem to have a medical record, and I also couldn’t find any other solid legal documents on him. There is barely any proof his existence and this video and the fact that Bruce along with everyone else in the café saw him is the most tangible evidence we have on his existence right now. I did however find someone who must be his father on an old website from a school called Yancy academy. There he is introduced as their new Latin teacher.”  

She pulled up his teacher portrait from said website. Bruce flinched noticeably. 

“Master Bruce...?”, Alfred asked carefully. 

“Either Chris Brunner looks exactly like his father or he is an awful lot older than he appears to be, because that man is the man who I’ve met today.” Bruce, who had quickly gotten over his initial shock answered Alfred. 

Barbara typed something in her computer. “We should definitely do some further investigations on this man and his… dubious business.” 

She opened the Homepage of Delphi Strawberries which showed some stock images and a slogan which promised a “divine taste experience”. 

“Delphi Strawberries appears to be a relatively normal Strawberry business, until you start digging for like five minutes.”  

Barbara opened the “about us” segment of the page, which listed Chris Brunner as the chief of operations while someone named “Mr. D.” was listed as the C.E.O, without any information on who the actual owner of the company was. Both men didn't have any pictures or any other further information on them provided through the website. 

“I tried looking up this Mr D, but I mainly found porn and porn actors, and an old Canadian tv series. After manually filtering all of those out I was left with basically nothing. He’s a dead end right now, but I think we shouldn't write him off completely. My gut tells me he will be important later” 

Barbara looked around to see if anyone had any questions, but since that wasn’t the case, she then opened the page with Delphi Strawberries' contact information. Listed was a different phone number than the one Nico had given Bruce and an Address of what Bruce assumed to be the company’s headquarters.  

“This address listed is a run-down old farmhouse, just near the beach of long island. I am actually quite surprised that investors haven’t seized the area but that’s a different story. You can’t find it on Streetview or on Google earth, I only know it is a farmhouse because I used one of your satellites to check, Bruce. You don’t mind, do you?”  

Barbara continued talking before Bruce had the chance to answer.  

“Now, the real dirt on this place is actually nowhere near this website, but on external review websites. It wasn’t easy to find reviews of this place on them, but I got the most interesting ones right here. The reviews are sometimes quite old, the oldest one going all the way back to 2018, but they are all telling a similar if not the same story.” 

Barbara opened a different website and started reading reviews of Delphi Strawberries. 

“Two weeks after my son disappeared, he sent me a letter, the return address was the same one as Delphi Strawberries’. I thought it was a strange coincidence, but after reading what other parents wrote about this company, I think all our experiences might be connected.” 

“My son’s best friend got a summer job here for my son and himself. Although my son said he had a great time, I was never allowed to visit and when he came back to me his ADHD was worse than ever, he had a newfound nervousness that I had never seen in him before and an irrational fear of big dogs and baseball bats. He told me everything was fine and that he had a great summer, but I am worried about him. What did they do to my baby?” 

“My Daughter was 12 when she went missing. I tried everything, I even hired a private investigator, but nothing seemed to be working. Then she called me out of the blue to tell me she was fine, but she wasn’t coming back for the summer. She was convinced something bad would happen to her or to me if she returned any sooner. Like, she was actually terrified at the idea of coming back before the summer ends. Now get this: The Private investigator traced the call back to Delphi Strawberries.  

At first, we thought someone was using one of those things that make it look like you have a different phone number, but she called me again, this time to tell me she made new friends, that I shouldn’t be worried and that she would call me again. When I begged her to come back, she was insistent that she’d stay exactly where she was, saying I wouldn’t understand her even if she tried to explain and that it had something to do with her biological mother (she technically is my Stepdaughter, but her bio mom never was in the picture, it’s a long story.) 

I just want my daughter back! 

Edit: She called me again to tell me she wasn’t coming back at all this year, and to tell me that I should delete this review, because I’m talking about things I don’t understand. When I asked her to help me understand she refused. Since I have no way of reaching anyone at Delphi Strawberries myself (it goes straight to automated voice message whenever I try to call) but know you have read my review: give me my daughter back, or else there will be legal consequences.”  

“Where there legal consequences?”, Tim asked before Barbara had stared to read another review to them. 

“Strangely enough no. I did really try, but I could barely find any cases were someone actually sued Delphi Strawberries. They were sued once for child endangerment, another time for using child labour and a last time for tax evasion. I was actually wrong about the Child labour case, they were invested by different authorities, locals as well as federal, but just like the other cases they never made it to court, so I don’t know a lot about any of these cases. I already told Bruce everything there is to know on the child labour case and there is even less info available on the other two. What surprises me the most is that they were never sued for kidnaping or removing a child from their legal home, despite being threatened with it multiple times.”  

“So, what’s the plan here?”, Dick asked and looked from Barbara to Bruce and then back to Barbara.  

“We need to keep an eye on both the company and the man. Chris Brunner seems to be running ‘Delphi Strawberries’, but I don’t think the company will fail if the man fails or vice versa. We also need to find out who this Mr D is and how he plays a part in all of this. That being said, my personal interest lies with Chris Brunner, for two reasons. The first one being, that he mentally attacked me.”, Bruce said. The words had the desired effect, with everyone, excluding Cass, looking at him shocked. 

“Mentally attacked? How so?”, Dick asked. 

“Does that mean Brunner is a meta?”, Damian asked. 

“If Brunner is Nico’s Uncle and he is a meta, doesn’t that make Nico a potential meta too?”, Cass asked. 

Before Bruce could stop them, they were already talking over each other, spinning the wildest theories that connected Brunner to the appearance of Nico.

“We can’t forget the possibility of magic! Zatanna said more people have it in them that you might think!”, Stephanie shouted through the chaos. 

Cass shook her head. “He doesn’t seem like the magic guy to me”, she signed.  

“Everyone! I wasn’t finished!!”, Bruce shouted in a failed attempt at getting everyone’s attention back on him. Only when he added “There is more to this story!” did everyone start to quiet down and listen to him again.

“His mental attack was different. I could tell he didn’t want to use it, but I made him feel like I had to.”, Bruce said. 

“Jesus Christ Bruce, what did you do to the poor man?”, Jason asked sarcastically, which earned him a glare from Bruce. 

“I basically had told him, that I knew every shady secret of his company and that as a result he wouldn’t get Nico to live with him full time. He then told me that I would be doing just that, and I again told him I wouldn’t be, he snapped his fingers in my face and waved his hand at me. When he talked again his voice sounded different, like it had way more authority, and then I could tell that I was under attack. I managed to defend myself, just like we all learned from J’onn, but it was harder than usual, and I honestly don’t think all of you would have been able to withstand that.” 

“Maybe Steph was right, and it was a magical attack of some kind.”, Duke said. 

“Yeah, maybe. I think we should Ask Zatanna about this.”, Dick said. 

“Agreed”, Stephanie said. 

Bruce had never heard of magic psychic attacks, but it would explain why Bruce had a harder time defending himself. 

“I also found a review that sounds like someone was mind controlled in some way.” Barbara said. “Listen to this:  

My Daughter had a summer job here. I was in the area and decided to go and visit her.  
I don’t remember anything from that day, besides being in the area, looking for the farm she said she was working at, and then eating dinner in my apartment in the city again. I was so sure I wanted to visit; I don’t know why I didn’t do it. I didn’t even want to write about it but after reading all these other kinds of reviews, I don’t think this was a coincidence.” 

“Damn, imagine if he had made you forget Nico completely.”, Jason said. 

“I don’t think he can do that.”, Bruce said confidently, although Jason’s remark had also crossed Bruce’s mind.  

“Still I suggest we only ever go see him in groups of at least two, just to be on the safe side.”, Bruce added, immediately making him seem less confident. 

They again all mumbled something in agreement.

“You said you had two reasons not to trust the guy.”, Tim pointed out “What is the other reason?” 

“The other reason is, that the people he took with him to meet Nico, who introduced themselves as Nico’s cousin and the cousin’s girlfriend were none other than Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase.”, Bruce announced and just like that, he had their full, undivided attention.