Authors Note: NO, THIS IS NOT ABOUT SPIDER-MAN
Wandering across the forest, Nico felt alone. Not the kind of alone he had felt ever since the death of his sister. He felt hated, he thought that the only reason why the demigods of Camp HalfBlood left him alive was to not aggravate Hades, the father that had always neglected him: his only living son. His (sort of) half-sister, Hazel was at Camp Jupiter, the camp for Roman Demigods. After Nico had gone through the event of Cupid making him come out in front of Jason Grace in the most traumatizing way possible, Nico had distanced himself from her, trying to lose his attachment to her, to make it hurt less when she would inevitably find out he was gay and would despise him for it. Nico also distanced himself from Percy Jackson, to whom he had told him about his former crush, which was Percy himself. Due to the same reasons he evaded Annabeth Chase, who was Percy’s girlfriend.
Nico felt himself disconnect from reality, slowly disappearing into nothingness. He felt himself lighten and his vision darken. Suddenly, he saw nothing, and then he saw everything, blinding lights from buildings in a darkened atmosphere. As he collapsed he realized he had accidentally Shadow Travelled. He used to go to Percy’s mother, Sally Jackson, who always took care of the demigods associated to her son. But after he evaded Percy, he feared that if he arrived there, Percy would be there, visiting his mother instead of being at his college at New Rome.
Nico felt his legs burn, but he bit through it and slowly stood up and held himself up by the alley’s walls. He slowly walked through the dark city. He thought about Iris Messaging someone at Camp HalfBlood, but then wondered what he would do then. Nobody there even respected him, let stand want to return him.
With tears threatening to spill out of his eyes, he walked through the alley. He heard something colliding with a wall. Nico knew it wasn’t smart, but curiosity kills the cat, thus he decided to investigate.
In the alley he saw a boy, with an age similar to his own. He was fighting masked men. The boy was wearing a grey suit. It had a black mask and black accents. To Nico it seemed way better than the Greek battle armor he wore during war time. But Nico hadn’t heard of any major wars lately, so this had to be a minor battle.
The boy managed to hold on his own greatly. His moves were fast and smooth. Nico found it impossible for the boy to be new to this life, as he seemed to have a training greater than that of most demigods.
Then Nico saw a man. The man had a gun and was standing on top of a building and was aiming at the boy. “Watch out!” Nico yelled as the man pulled the trigger. The younger boy looked in the direction where Nico was standing missing the sniper completely. Fortunately, his sudden movement allowed the bullet to miss his head making it impale itself into his arm. “Argh!”
Nico wouldn’t allow the man to get a second shot, he summoned his sword as the man got ready to shoot once again. Nico used his abilities to make a short shadow travel behind the man’s back, where he impaled the man’s back making the man collapse and fall from the roof.
Nico jumped from balcony to balcony slowly lowering until he stood on the ground. He watched the wide-eyed boy and instantly realized he needed treatment. Considering Nico himself was an expert on that Nico crouched down next to the sitting boy and began healing. “You killed him,” he said softly. Nico asked, “Who was he to you?” before he started removing the bullet. The bullet hadn’t made it far into the boy’s arm, yet he had to proceed with caution if he didn’t want to further damage the boy’s body. The boy flinched, “What are you doing!?” “Cleaning your wound,” Nico said after he began cleaning. “Why?”
“You were hurt,” Nico explained. “You know damn well what I mean! Gothamites don’t simply help someone because they’re in need,” the boy argued. “What are Gothamites? And why were you in a fight?”
“I suppose you are not from here?” The green-eyed boy asked. Nico snickered, I’m not even from this time. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m Robin,” the boy explained, “Does that tell you something?” Nico shook his head. Robin explained how he was a vigilante and the former partner of the Batman. “Former?” Nico asked. “We’ve had some disagreements,” Robin explained, “I’m no longer with him. He wouldn’t want me anyway.”
“Why are you here?” Robin asked. Nico knew he couldn’t explain he was a demigod son of Hades and accidentally used his teleporting abilities to get there and was now too tired to get back to his demigod summer camp so he decided to lie. “I had nowhere to go, my h- old point of living wasn’t safe at the moment, so I hid on a ship hoping it would take me far.”
“Where are your parents?” My mother is dead and my father is in his palace ruling over the dead. Nico went silent for a second, before he made his decision, in which he technically was truthful “With the dead.” The Boy Wonder nodded in understanding. His brothers were all orphans as well, his sister was literally an ‘Orphan.’
Robin asked, “Do you have anywhere to stay?” Nico thought about answering ‘yes,’ but shook his head. “Good. Would you like to stay with me?” “W-With you?” Nico didn’t understand, he had never expected someone to willingly hang out with him. “Yes, it’ll be fun, as Kent would state it.” Who’s Kent? Nico wondered, but decided not to be too invasive. “If you’ll have me,” The demigod asked-stated.
They arrived in a small apartment, it didn’t have lights and barely had any objects inside. There was a rack filled with swords and other weapons, which Nico liked, a shower, a small kitchen, and a king-sized bed. Robin walked him through it, in the weapons rack, he saw a metal staff, some bat-shaped sharp throwables, and remains of a suit. This suit was similar to Robin’s current suit, but it had a color scheme consisting of muted versions of red, green, black, and yellow. He also saw a golden belt.
Nico touched the metal staff, when the boy said, “Don’t. Touch. That.” “What’s that?” Nico asked after putting the staff back. “Trapeze Bar. A gift from my brother, he’s from a circus.”
That evening Nico decided to cook Spaghetti. “Didn’t expect you to know how to cook.” Nico glared at Robin, who was still wearing his uniform for some reason, and said, “I’m Italian, it’s pretty much an unwritten rule we’re good cooks.”
After that Nico and Damian stood in front of the bed, “I can sleep on the ground if you want me to,” Nico offered. “No!” Robin said a little too loudly. “I mean, it’s unnecessary. If I were to want to, I would be able to fit an entire extended family there. Not mine, but any other would fit.”
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