Brothers Reunited

Chapter Ten: Nico PoV

My door creaks open. I instinctively reach for my sword, leaping around to see Clint with his hands up in the universal gesture of "I come in peace."

"Hi, Nico. Umm, I'm Clint,"

"I know," I shoot back, still disgruntled from his sudden appearance, "Did you want something, or are you just going to stand in the doorway and stare at me creepily?"

Clint scrambles forward, "I actually was wondering if you wanted to play a video game or something?"

I mentally snort at his half-baked attempt at an olive branch. I almost shove him out the door before remembering Will's orders to 'be nice,'1' "I don't play video games. I'm a 30s kid, remember? The Silent Generation when we didn't have fancy phones," I relent a little, "but maybe you could teach me."

Clint grabs me by the arm and quickly drags me to his room.

"These are my Xboxes! Here's a controller," he dives into an in-depth explanation of everything's purpose and how to play his Call of Duty game.

We started playing. A feeling of dread begins to overcome me. Clint's avatar draws out its gun and begins shooting. I reluctantly follow suit and fire off my avatar's gun. Then I see the blood.

The Titan War floods back. I see all the dead demigods lying around Manhattan; their blood surrounds me. I stand with my army of skeletons around dead children. I scream. I cry. I shake. The blood is everywhere. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know Clint's shaking me, but I can't wake up from this nightmare. Finally, I feel someone dump a bucket of frigid water on me, and I leave my flashback.

"Nico! Are you okay?" Clint asks worriedly.

We're now both on the floor. I'm leaning against the wall, and Clint's standing worriedly in front of me. I wince at the onslaught of questions I know are to come.

"I'm fine," I mutter. My head's pounding, and I desperately want to be alone.

Clint continues, "You don't seem fine. I'm so sorry; I should have known. Steve and Bucky said something earlier, and I just forgot. Are you sure you don't need anything? Do you want an Advil? Do you want to talk? We've all been through some pretty hard times, so we're all here for you. Even Natasha, though she pretends she doesn't, cares."

I grumble out again, "I'm fine," and I leave it at that.

Clint leaves unwillingly muttering to himself, "stupid, stupid, stupid."

I run out of Clint's room to mine. I can't believe I had another flashback. I'm taking medication, moving on, blocking out the past, but, "It's not working!" I pound the wall and scream, realizing I need Will. I brought with me a few drachmas for IMing. Chiron told me not to reveal my identity or draw suspicion to myself, but I'll be careful.

I move into the bathroom and put a piece of paper over all of the cameras. Then I asked JARVIS to turn off the cameras and audio as an added measure.

I turn on the faucet and shine a lamp on top. Next, I say the incantation, "Oh, Iris goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering. Will Solace."

My drachma comes flying back at me, and Will appears in the mist in front of me. Iris hasn't been accepting any of my offerings. It's like everyone's treating me with god worship. I can't pay for things around demigods, and even the gods are treating me like I'm special and delicate.

"Hey, Neeks! How's it going?" Will asks. He's in the Medbay with his scrubs on. The sun glints off him making him sparkle in a way only children of Apollo can.

"I-I had another flashback, another panic attack," I mumble out.

Will lets out a tired sigh, "What happened? Do you need me to come over?"

"One of the Avengers had me play some sort of video game with them. When I saw blood, I freaked out. You don't have to come over. I just wanted to talk to you,"

Will looks disquieted, "I'm sorry, Neeks. There's only so much I can do when you refuse therapy. Asclepius' offer still stands, you know. Pain doesn't go away because you ignore it."

"I know, but I talk to you," I reply.

"And that's good, but you do know that if I'm ever not enough, you have an entire group of people more than willing to talk. Some of them might be able to empathize with certain experiences more than I can. Percy and Annabeth have said a few times that they're willing to talk about, well, the Pit." Will reminds me.

I quiver slightly at the mention of Tartarus, "I'm not ready. How are things?" I quickly change the subject.

"The Medbay's been pretty empty lately, so that's always a good thing. We're doing Capture the Flag with the Roman's later though, so I'm just getting ready for Rush Hour."

"Who are you betting on?" I ask.

Will smirks, "It's our territory. Also, Hazel and Frank are going to convert to our side today. We're definitely going to murder them, literally. I overheard a portion of the Ares cabin planning a way to smuggle candy in once they've lost their dessert privileges."

"I'll send over Jules Albert to help you drag the bodies to the Medbay," I joke.

Will suddenly seems to remember something, "Your dad actually got in touch recently with Chiron. He said something about training? What's going on?"

"Right, umm," I'm not sure how to broach the subject, "My dad wants me to become his successor, his heir, so he's trying to train me in some of my other abilities."

Will grins, "Wow, Nico! That's really huge, but what exactly is there left to train you in?"

"You know how I was born in Rome, Italy?" I ask.

Will nods, "Yes."

"Well, since Rome is the birthplace of the Roman empire, I have latent Roman demigod powers. With some training, I should be able to control precious metals like Hazel," I finish.

Will's eyes are wide open with shock, "Geez, Neeks. How powerful are you?"

"I'm not sure I want to know."

I hear a bunch of screaming from Will's side of the call, "Nico, I've got to go. We'll talk in a bit."

"Bye," I reply as he ends the Iris message.

I remove the paper from the cameras and let JARVIS turn them back on.

After a bit, I head to the main level and look around to find all the Avengers. They seem to all be out.

"JARVIS, where are the Avengers?" I ask.

The AI quickly responds, "They're out visiting a doctor by the name of Helen Cho."

I shrug and head down to the training room.

Le time skip brought to you by Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated...

The Avengers still aren't back. I turn on the news, and things don't seem to be going well. They're currently in a small country called Sokovia. I would be out there helping them, but Will says I've already fought my share of battles. They have enough new help anyway. After realizing how unprepared they were, they recruited the Scarlett Witch, Quicksilver, and Spiderman. JARVIS has been taking care of me in the meantime.

AN: IM SO SORRY!! I've been way to busy, but that's no excuse. Thank you all for reminding me to update. Also, thank you soo much for, AND HERE'S THE CRAZY PART, 11.9K READS!!!!!!! Ok, maybe I'm being a little generous with the exclamation marks. I promise I'll try harder to update. Just maybe not this coming week because I have exams and a gigantic debate/public speaking event. I'll try!

I'm thinking about having Clint be a demigod son of Apollo that abandoned Camp Half-Blood during Percy's second year there. I would have Will hate him to some extent for having left him in charge of a cabin and the Medbay at the start of the Giant War, considering that Will was only 14 then... What do you guys think? Hate it, love it, don't care?

Any suggestions for a ship, chapter, scene, or plot direction? Any constructive criticism?