Chapter Twenty
Bruce seemed to buy our flimsy excuse of a story, but I knew it wouldn't hold up for very long, not with me living under the same roof as four of the world's best detectives. Jason and I had to figure something out. I was already the cause of too much suspicion. I was only thankful that nothing too irreparably terrible had happened yet.
Chiron and Percy said the war preparations were going well, but nothing had happened yet. Not even an increase in monster attacks, which was weird. I hadn't had to suffer through any attacks here either, which was definitely weird. I was a child of the big three, and a powerful one. I should be attracting monsters like flies to a corpse, but so far there was nothing.
I had no word from my father either, no more weird visions or dreams. I was getting paranoid, honestly. I was jumpy and constantly on edge, fidgety, tense. I wanted to do something, I was so tired of sitting around. Summer was just around the corner, and Bruce thought it would be pointless to enrol me in school for a month.
Which meant I had literally nothing to do except sit at home. Dick and Jason were busy with school and work, which left me the entire estate to do whatever I wanted with, but I couldn't read, I wasn't allowed off the property alone (especially after Jason and I had just got back) and I had spent so much time either fighting or on the road that I didn't really have any hobbies.
It was just past one in the afternoon when I decided I was fed up with doing nothing. I poked my head into Jason's room to see him sitting cross-legged in bed on his laptop. "Hey, I'm going to the Underworld, I shouldn't be gone long."
"You're what?!" He yelped.
"...Going to the Underworld?"
"Isn't that where dead people go?!"
I gave him a look. "...Yes, it's the Underworld, Jason." He sputtered for a few seconds before I realised that he was probably assuming I had to die to get there, which is how most people would. But fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you ask), I was not most people. "Jason. I am the son of the God of the Underworld. Do you seriously think I can't just come and go whenever I want?"
He paused. "That's a good point. Well, fuck off then. Get gone, I'm busy."
I rolled my eyes. As much as I know Jason cares, sometimes it's hard to believe.
Thanatos was waiting for me when I arrived, pacing the throne room in an agitated way that set my nerves on edge. "Nico!" He greeted, in both a friendly and slightly tense tone. "How have things been going?"
"Well, considering I'm me, pretty well. Any word from father yet?"
Thanatos shook his head. "I contacted the rest of the Olympians, but they've heard nothing either, which isn't unusual, you know how things are with Hades and the rest. Nor have they felt anything out of the ordinary–"
"But that's also not saying much since they ignored Kronos and pretty much left us to fend off Giae ourselves too."
Thanatos gave a solemn hum of agreement. "Are you sure things are...alright, Nico?" I told Thanatos about the lack of monster activity, which he also deemed weird, and about my vision. He was just as confused as I was. There had been no further clue as to where my father had gone, but I wasn't keen on involving myself in whatever he had going wrong when I was dealing with this stupid new prophecy already. I figured if he really needed me, he'd reach out again and give a little more than some vague-ass riddle and an image of a highway to go off of.
Slightly defeated, I returned to the mansion to find chaos.
Jason was pacing my room, and he jumped when I reappeared, but looked immensely relieved to see me nonetheless. "Nico!" He whispered, urgently. "Look, the others have been looking for you, Dick couldn't find you anywhere so he called Bruce and I think he's about two seconds away from calling the fucking police, so you need to come up with a cover story!"
"Shit! Uh, what did you tell them?"
"I told them I hadn't seen you since you left my room. You came in to ask me what I was doing and I told you to get lost, okay? That's all I said."
I nodded. "Okay. Okay, I can work with this. Okay. I was never here, alright?" Jason looked confused but nodded all the same as I vanished back into the shadows. I reappeared outside the front door, which I pushed open and waltzed through like I wasn't about to be declared missing.
Bruce was pacing the length of the drawing room, talking on the phone with someone, but he stopped when he saw me, relief instantly filling his features. I tried my best to look confused, seeing as how he was supposed to be at work right now. "No, he just walked in...yes, thank you. I'll call you later." He hung up and rushed over to me, shouting over his shoulder that he found me. Dick came running in a moment later from the back door, and Jason managed a very convincing rush down the stairs.
"Where the hell have you been? You didn't pick up your phone, do you have any idea how worried I was? Nico, you can't keep disappearing like this!" Bruce reached a hand out as if to physically assure himself that I was, in fact, standing right in front of him in one piece, but I shied away from his hand and he retracted it, settling for staring me down instead.
"I...went out? I didn't take my phone, because I didn't think it would be this big of a deal! I was gone for what? Half an hour? And you call the police?" In the background, Dick got off the phone with Alfred, who was apparently out searching for me, and Jason raised an eyebrow judgmentally as if to say really? 'Went out' was the best you could think of?
"Nico, Gotham is dangerous, I would like to know where you're going to be!"
I rolled my eyes again. "Oh please. It's not that bad. I am perfectly capable of defending myself, and, in case you forgot, out deal was that if I lived here, you wouldn't ask any questions. And you can't seriously expect me to stay here all fucking day with nothing to do! I'm gonna lose my mind!"
"There's tons of stuff to do here!" Dick interjected, likely about to list a lot of useless entertainment before I cut him off.
"Yeah. Well, not when you're me."
This, of course, prompted Bruce's dad-side to come back out. "What do you mean? What about you specifically makes it hard to stay here? All I ask is that you be safe, and stay where I can keep an eye on you until the Joker is caught. It shouldn't be too long–"
"It's already been too long, Bruce! I can't just wander around your huge-ass house and wait for something to happen, okay!" I breathed out heavily, tamping down my anger. "I have ADHD, alright? And I'm used to being able to move around, and go wherever I want, literally anywhere in the world! This is a huge change, and I'm trying to be patient and adjust, but I can't! Not when suddenly, I have nowhere to go and nothing to do with myself."
I felt like I really was losing my mind. There was a mystery war looming on the horizon, and I couldn't do anything to help the people I care about to keep safe, or prepare, or anything. I had no monsters to fight, no ghosts to track down, nothing! My father was missing and each day that passed made me increasingly agitated as my situation forced my mind to draw conclusions and make connections where none existed. I couldn't use my powers, couldn't talk about my family, my past, my problems. I had to pretend everything was okay, and in reality, nothing was! Everything was coming crashing down and I couldn't do anything to help anyone.
I felt useless. And I hated it.
I looked back up at Bruce, furiously blinking tears away. "This is a big change," I repeated. "And I'm really trying to make this one thing work for me, but I don't- I've never been a part of a real family, I don't know how these things work, I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Bruce sighed. "Oh, Nico. I had no idea this was so hard on you. I'm sorry I couldn't see it sooner." He stepped forwards and gently encased me in a hug. My hands, which had balled into fists so tight they hurt, relaxed and I rested my head on his chest, sniffing the tears back. "I know this is going to be hard for you, and I know that I can't fix everything. But I can help you, okay? You don't need to be afraid to ask for something from me, alright?" He pulled back, leaving his hands on my shoulders.
I nodded. "Thanks," I muttered.
-
"What I don't understand," Batman said, "Is how he got to the front door without any of the cameras picking him up. It's like he appeared out of nowhere."
It was late, and Bruce, Dick and Jason were gathered in the batcave. Bruce and Damian had just returned, and Tim and Dick were getting ready to head out. Damian was showering and Tim was getting dressed. Bruce was reviewing the footage from earlier in the afternoon, when Nico returned from his 'outage'. The front camera had picked up nothing, no motion or infrared or heat signature. It truly was like Nico had just appeared, and it was confusing the hell out of both Bruce and Dick.
Jason hung back, remaining suspiciously silent. Dick picked up on this unusual behaviour, knowing that Jason would have jumped at the chance to prove his own prior accusations of odd-ness from Nico correct. Bruce, luckily, had not noticed his second eldest's silence, as absorbed as he was in the footage and possibly also slightly affected by a rather hard hit to the head he had taken from the Riddler not too long ago.
"Why don't you go get cleaned up. We'll look at this with fresh eyes again tomorrow, alright?" Dick suggested, nudging his father away from the screens and towards the showers. When he was gone, Dick turned to Jason, who was also trying to make his way, sneakily, out from under Dick's scrutinising gaze. "Not you, casanova. Get back here."
Jason groaned. "I've told you to stop calling me that."
"And I've told you to stop calling me Dick-wad." The two locked eyes until Jason eventually looked away. He knew what was coming as well as Dick did. Nothing escaped the budding detective's eyes.
"You know something, don't you? About Nico?" Jason ran his tongue over his teeth, not meeting Dick's eyes. "You know why he didn't appear in the camera footage, and you know where he went today, because it sure as hell wasn't just for a nice little stroll. So what is it?"
Jason squirmed under Dick's interrogation. "I..."
Me: OOOoOoOoooOOOOOoo!!!!! Cliffhanger ahhhhh! What's gonna happen????
Me: **realising I have to write what's going to happen**
Me:
Me:
Me:
Me: Well fuck.
predictions anyone?