[Edited April 25, 2023]
The next morning he woke up to find that the bats once again had trouble waking him from his shared dream. They, of course, wanted to know what he thought was making him sleep so deeply, like if he had some medical history that might explain it. Tim explained that conditions like insomnia or other sleep disorders were often comorbid with ADHD. That would mean that it would make sense for demigods to suffer from these conditions too.
Nico didn't know much about any of that, being new to the whole concept of ADHD, but he knew that the dreams didn't help his sleep. Sometimes they just had trouble shutting their thoughts down. They knew that demigod dreams sometimes told the future but that was very different from being able to communicate through them. He didn't know how they would feel about that. And if he did tell them about it they may ask who he had been talking to and that would lead them straight to the Romans.
"I can't really talk about it, but it's not a sleeping disorder kind of thing. I mean, a lot of demigods have insomnia and things like that, but that's not what this is," Nico assured them. He wouldn't be surprised if most demigods did have some form of sleep disorder. Hell, he probably had something that would count as a disordered circadian rhythm, but he didn't think that was the main problem in this situation.
"Boys, can we have the room?" Bruce asked as he settled down on the edge of the bed. The other boys all filed out, shutting the door behind them. Nico took this pause in the conversation to pull himself into a comfortable sitting position, hoping that this wasn't going to be a conversation like the one when he had last run away onto the streets.
"I thought we were done keeping secrets?" Bruce sighed, exasperated. Nico knew that he wasn't trying to make him feel guilty-- or he hoped he wasn't-- but he couldn't help but feel bad about it. It wasn't like he wanted to keep secrets from them. He had spent years lying and withholding parts of the truth, only to end up lonely. He didn't want to be that way anymore. He wanted to be able to rely on people and ask for help when he needed it. Today was not that day.
"I wish I could tell you about this but I just can't. Not yet, at least. There's just too much at stake right now and I can't take unnecessary risks," he tried to explain. He felt like his words had come off as condescending which wasn't the way he wanted this conversation to go. Nico sighed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He still didn't feel fully awake.
"What? What's at stake?"
"The existence of the United States as we know it?"
"You're not making much sense here," Bruce replied, unimpressed. "Work with me. What secret could you possibly be holding onto that could be that important? You're fifteen."
"Age isn't everything," Nico frowned. Bruce of all people should understand that.
"I know, but most fifteen-year-olds, even the ones in the Young Justice, don't get their hands on intel like that. Especially not those with little to no field experience or League resources," the older man countered.
"Well, most Leaguers or sidekicks don't have access to the Greek gods, dreams that tell the future, and spirits of the Underworld," the son of Hades shot back.
"True," Bruce considered this for a moment. "That still doesn't tell me how this secret can change the course of an entire nation.
"Well, this secret could cause World War 3." The son of Hades wanted to do anything else but discuss the restrictions involved in demigod life, but here he was.
"What kind of secret could cause that level of disaster?"
"You're telling me that Batman has never come across a secret like that?" Nico teased. The look Bruce gave him made him regret making the comment. His mouth went dry.
"Batman has, yes. You aren't Batman. Nico, what have you gotten yourself into?"
"I can't explain. Look, I'm on the brink of something that I need to go one of two ways. One: I need them to trust me so that I can maybe act as a mediator between two groups of two heavily armed, highly powerful, people with family issues. Two, they can think I'm a spy, kill me and everyone else I care about, and cause WW3. I know what I have to do and I need you guys to let me do it." Nico used hand gestures to punctuate his points.
"Them?" Nico winced.
"I can't--"
"You can't tell me, right? Then tell me this: are you in danger?" The intensity in Bruce's eyes made Nico hesitate for a few moments. He didn't want to tell him the truth, but he couldn't bring himself to lie, either. He doubted it would have done much good anyway.
"Always." Bruce sighed, but he didn't seem shocked. Nico got the feeling that his children being in danger wasn't new. They were vigilantes, after all. It stood to reason that they were constantly in danger in some way or another. Especially since they lived in Gotham, where criminals like the Joker were made. Jason had discovered the dangers first hand and Nico knew the effects were still echoing off the walls of this home even years later.
"Does this have anything to do with the disappearance of your friend?" He asked. Nico wasn't sure how to answer that. If he told him too much, Bruce might figure it out. He wasn't the smartest person to have tried to keep a secret from Batman, after all. He had to play it safe-- safer.
"I sure hope not, that could get really ugly. World War Three would start without question." The son of Hades knew that the Greeks would try to destroy the Romans for stealing Percy. It would be a bloodbath.
"Nico, I want to know when you leave to go these places and you will at least have a communicator of some sort." Bruce laid out his conditions.
"Monsters are attracted to signals. Internet and satellite seem to be the worst," the demigod protested.
"I understand your concern, but I want to be able to get to you if I need to. That is final." There was no arguing against Bruce so Nico conceded, though reluctantly.
"Good, now let's get lunch. Someone slept through breakfast and most of the morning," Bruce teased to ease the tension. Nico rolled his eyes at the billionaire, not really feeling all that annoyed. He was getting used to the ways things worked around here. Teasing was a sign of affection. This family was growing on him, he was surprised to realize that he considered them family.
"Alright. We can continue this conversation later, don't you think?" Bruce asked as he stood to go. Nico nodded and pulled the covers off of himself. He left for his closet to grab a change of clothes as Bruce retreated from the room.
++++
Today was the seventh training session between Nico and the famous Batman. After the heroes learned his secret, he no longer had to hold back. Nico showed them the full extent of his physical capabilities that he had obtained through various means. He still wasn't a match for the big bad Bat, but he was holding his own much better than he had even in the first three fights. Nico found that promising.
Bruce had insisted that they needed to know what experience Nico already had so that they could help him build on that knowledge. Bruce also wanted his medical records so that he could be aware of anything that might come into play down the road. He had the records for all of his boys including dental records, DNA samples, blood types, retinal scans, and fingerprints. Batman was nothing if he wasn't thorough.
Nico, however, didn't have medical records or really any other records for that matter. He didn't know whether or not he had seen doctors while he still lived in Italy. If he had, he doubted that there were still records from those days. Knowing that, Bruce needed to create a new file for him-- a private file.
Nico, equally curious and cautious, allowed them to draw some of his blood to analyze it. Considering gods technically had no DNA, Nico was interested to learn what that meant for him. He was confused when it turned out that he had all 23 pairs of chromosomes. The son of Hades decided not to question the magic and let the Batfam puzzle over it. They were especially confused about how gods could not have DNA but still pass on traits.
During this training session, Nico was going to learn how to use a staff as a weapon. Bruce wanted to see if his battle instincts applied to all forms of combat. Bruce's teaching methods tended to lean towards the side of 'sink or swim'. Much like Hades, actually. The god of the Underworld told him what he wanted from his son and he had to figure out how to do it on his own. The god claimed it made the demigod less dependent.
Right now, Nico was barely holding his ground against Bruce in the ring. He was on the defensive and it was all he could do to keep from getting hit. The demigod blocked what would have been a headshot and re-directed the blow towards the floor. He saw the opportunity to hit Bruce in the shoulder and took it, only to be blocked by Bruce's staff. The vigilante didn't even seem to be breaking a sweat.
The pair had been trying to find each other's weaknesses for a solid 5 minutes now and were still no closer to beating each other than they were when they started. Nico suspected that the bat was going easy on him, but he couldn't be sure. Bruce charged him without warning. He had only enough time to spin out of the way to prevent being body-slammed. The extra force sent Bruce off balance since he hadn't made contact, and he fell to the floor.
Knowing that he would die if he allowed the man to get back up, Nico quickly got on top of him and held one end of the staff to his right temple. Given enough force (which Nico physically couldn't generate) he could kill him. He would have to weigh a lot more and be a lot stronger for that. Plus, the angle he would have to aim at was nothing like it was now. The son of Hades just hoped he could bluff Bruce into believing he could pull it off.
"Yield," he warned. Bruce had tensed when Nico set the staff against his head.
"And if I don't?" Bruce taunted.
"Then prepare to have one hell of a headache." Nico lifted the staff threateningly. He didn't plan to hit the older man, as he didn't want to bring the man's wrath down upon him.
Bruce chuckled good-naturedly, "I yield."
Nico out of the way as the man pushed himself up off the floor. The son of Hades knew he hadn't really won, but he took this as a small victory nonetheless. It was the closest he had gotten so far. He wasn't even close to the skill level needed to win. Winning meant incapacitating the opponent without causing fatal damage.
"Would you have hit me?" He asked, putting away the weapons. He didn't sound upset, but he was an expert at maintaining a poker face.
"If you were really the enemy I would have," he admitted.
"But what about right then? If I had refused, would you have hit me?"
"No, I just would've pretended to hit you. Then claimed you were unconscious and that I won anyway," Nico explained. It still wouldn't have been a true win, but he couldn't imagine hitting Bruce hard enough to knock him out intentionally. He hoped he'd never have to do that.
"I presume you aren't squeamish on the subject of killing." Bruce didn't sound pleased, but Nico tried to shrug it off. He knew about Bruce's no-kill rule. It was something he had been waiting for the man to mention.
"Not really," Nico agreed, "In my world, it's kill or be killed. If you aren't willing to kill, you need to either be able to hide, stay inside a protected place like Camp Halfblood, or get comfortable with the idea of dying young. Those of us who are children of more powerful gods don't have the option to hide, our scent is too strong. Staying at camp is usually our only option."
"So you've killed before?" Bruce clarified. There was an edge to his voice and Nico didn't like it. It made him feel guilty, though he didn't feel that that was fair.
"I've killed monsters before, yes," Nico admitted.
"Killing is killing," Bruce replied. Nico stopped cold at the ridiculousness of that statement.
"No, it isn't," Nico replied, incredulously, "It's much more complicated than that." Bruce stopped too and leveled the demigod with a critical look. "For one thing, monsters never truly die so killing them is inconsequential. Even if they didn't respawn, I'm not going to apologize for killing something that wants nothing more than to eat me and my kind. That'd be like apologizing for killing a bear that was trying to eat you. It's ridiculous." The son of Hades crossed his arms over his chest.
"They never truly die?" Bruce frowned.
"Right, they go to Tartarus to reform before coming right back and trying to eat some other unfortunate soul. Some beings take longer than others to reform. Titans take a long time and Giants can take centuries." Bruce considered this, assessing this new point of view.
"Then you aren't killing them in a way that matters." Bruce reasoned. Was he seriously saying that turning a monster to dust didn't count as killing them?
"Whatever. Stay on your moral high ground. I'd kill a person if they were trying to kill me or my family just as easily as if they were a hellhound or some equally dangerous monster. If they attack me, they've chosen death," Nico promised. He wasn't going to compromise because Bruce had a personal problem with killing. He didn't understand why that ideology had to apply to him just because he lived under Bruce's roof.
Batman wasn't a demigod. He could afford to spare people and lock them up instead. Though Nico would like to point out that every time Joker escaped, he killed people. People who wouldn't have died if Bruce had just killed him in the first place. Jason, for example.
"Then I hope you're never in a position where you have to make that call," Bruce returned. Nico nearly huffed in exasperation but instead, he just rolled his eyes. This was a point they wouldn't come to an agreement on. The pair continued their way back up into the manor. Once they'd reached the clock, Bruce spoke again, acting as if their previous conversation hadn't happened.
"I have several questions about death if you feel up to talking about it." The demigod shrugged to say that he didn't mind and they sat on the couches facing each other. Alfred brought them water bottles before promptly disappearing off into the house. Nico wondered if the man had his own form of sixth sense or a special surveillance system in place so that he would know when they needed things. He wouldn't put either option out of the realm of possibility.
"Ask away." Nico waved the older man on.
"Ok, so tell me about the infamous Underworld." Nico frowned. That was too broad of a question for him to even attempt to answer.
"What about it?"
"The entrances, the rituals, the fields, everything," The older man clarified. "I read a bit about Percy's first quest. It seems like he went to the Underworld too?"
"That stalker... err sorry, scribe Rick freaking Riordan wrote those stories, didn't he? The guy must have found a way around his oath. He couldn't talk about the demigods because of his oath unless it became common knowledge. So I guess he wrote about it until it had become common knowledge. Smart," Nico muttered, mostly to himself.
The demigods at camp were no strangers to the man named Rick Riordan. He was strange. He liked to hang around and ask questions and take notes. Most people left him be, but Percy took pity on him and once spent an entire afternoon talking about his quest to find Zeus' lightning bolt. Little did he know at the time, but the 'harmless' camp outsider took detailed notes. Soon it was a bestseller.
"What?" Bruce looked perplexed. Nico waved him off-- he didn't have time to unpack all of that.
"Oh, nothing. I'm just talking politics. Anyway, where was I?" Bruce frowned but seemed to think better of questioning it.
"The Underworld?"
"Oh yes. Well, there are several common entrances to the Underworld. The Doors of Orpheus in central park. A recording studio in Hollywood, and a couple of others. There are special ways to get into, and out through, each entrance," he started.
"Central Park? Hollywood?" Bruce raised his eyebrows. Nico nodded in agreement.
"The Doors of Orpheus will only open to music. The recording studio will only let you in if you have enough drachmas to bribe the ferryman or you are dead. Percy ended up having to bribe him during his quest. I don't have to use these entrances because I can shadow travel." The son of Hades continued.
"That's convenient."
"Very. Anyway, once you get into the Underworld, there are many beings and monsters to look out for and avoid." He advised, "Before you can truly enter the realm of the dead, you must pass by Cerberus, who makes sure you're really dead. If you make it past him, you have to watch for the Keres, the Eidolons, the kindly ones, etc."
"Kindly Ones?"
"The furies," He whispered, not really wanting to invoke their name. Bruce's mouth formed an 'o' shape.
"Continue, please," he pressed.
"Well, one of the rituals in the Underworld is the judgment. You stand in front of a court and they decide where to place your soul based on who you were in your life. Sometimes, Hades has a say in this process."
"What about other religions? No one really follows the Greek pantheon anymore."
"The mortals see whatever afterlife they choose to see. Only the people in the fields of punishment see it for how it truly is. Though, they still probably interpret it as hell."
"Ok," Bruce nodded in understanding, "tell me about the fields."
"Let's see, there's the field of punishment. That's where the souls who have been especially horrible during their lives go. People who disrespect the gods go there. Unless you've messed with Athena or Zeus. Then you're going to be turned into a monster. Like Lycaon the wolfman and Arachne and all those people," the demigod elaborated.
"Then you have the fields of Elysium. People who have done great things in their lives end up here. Achilles, Perseus, Jason, and a fair number of mortals make it into Elysium. If you chose rebirth, and achieve Elysium in the next life, you can achieve the Isle of the Blessed. That is reserved for heroes mainly."
"Finally, you have the fields of Asphodel. This is where you go if you aren't a really bad person, or if you haven't done enough good in your life to get to Elysium. A majority of people will end up there. Those spirits forget their previous lives and eventually fade. It takes several centuries for a soul to start to fade though, so it's not really a common occurrence."
"Does it bother you to know that they don't remember who they were? That those souls in the fields of punishments undergo constant pain?" Bruce asked.
"Mmmm." Nico hummed, not knowing how to answer. He had never really thought about the soul's continued existence after he had left the Underworld, "I only ever really think about it while I'm in the Underworld. Only really bad people get sentenced to the fields of punishment. Hitler and people like him." Nico paused, gathering his thoughts. It was at this point that he realized that he had gained an audience. Jason and Dick had settled themselves down on the couches. Nico continued, ignoring their presence.
"I think it may have been easier for me due to the first experience I ever had with spirits. It was at the end of the summer known as The Titan's Curse. Percy had come back from his quest, with two fewer quest members than they had started with. One of the people he lost was Bianca. The other was a several thousand-year-old huntress, Zoë Nightshade."
"Sometime during his quest, a bunch of skeletons was grown from the teeth of an ancient being. Atlas, the titan who was supposed to be holding up the sky, was the one who planted and watered the teeth. Atlas had captured Artemis and forced her to hold the sky in his place." Nico said, working backward.
"Anyway, those skeletons are hard to kill and don't stop until they find their prey. The perfect hunters. A couple of them had followed him back into camp. Since they were human skeletons, the camp's borders wouldn't keep them out. Percy and I were in the dining pavilion at the time. He had just broken the news to me that Bianca had died." He took out the Hades figurine and set it gently on the coffee table.
"She died in the junkyard of the gods. She was grabbing it for me. She died over a stupid figurine. Hades, the only one I didn't have. Ironic right?" Nico stared at the statue for a couple more moments before continuing.
"When Percy told me, I was angry. I had been having dreams telling me that she had died but I had refused to believe them. While I was yelling at him, the skeletons found us. I couldn't just let them hurt Percy so I screamed at them to go away. The ground opened up from beneath them and they fell into the crease. My powers scared me so I threw the figurine at Percy and I ran." He grabbed the Hades model and examined it as he spoke.
"I ran into the forest, which even the older campers aren't allowed to go in unarmed. I had a sword, but it wasn't balanced. I ran until I was out of breath and I sat down to rest. While I was sitting a ghost popped into existence in front of me. The first one I had seen. His name was Minos, King Minos of Crete."
"Owner of the Cretin Bull?" Bruce inquired.
"The very same. I told him everything and he offered to help me find a way to get her back. He took me to the mouth of the labyrinth. Of course, had I known the dangers within, I never would have entered. Minos was persuasive and claimed to have my best interests at heart so I followed him."
"He and I spent a long time in the labyrinth and in the Underworld, which lies below the labyrinth. He taught me how to use my powers and found my stygian iron sword. I thought he wanted to help me. Under his teachings, I grew cold. Children of Hades are the best at holding grudges. It's our major character flaw. Our fatal flaw. I was angry at Percy, father, Bianca herself, the fates, Artemis, Zoë, and especially myself."
"Turned out later that he was only using me." Nico finished off his story.
"Using you?" Dick spoke first.
"Yes. He used me to get to Daedalus. Got me captured by the enemy forces in exchange for bringing him straight to the inventor. Daedalus had stored his animus, his soul, in an automaton for centuries to escape death. Kronos' army chained me up and dragged me through the maze. Kelli the empousai was charged with watching me. It was a miracle they didn't kill me when I refused to join the army."
"What happened?" Bruce prompted.
"They took me with them when they went to collect Daedalus. He had offered Percy and Annabeth up to them. In exchange for what, I don't know. Percy and Annabeth never got around to telling me. Long story short, once Daedalus saw that the monsters weren't going to hold up their end of the deal, he helped us all escape using his wings."
"Hell, that would be fun! Not the whole running from monsters thing, but flying? Cool!" Jason said, smiling.
"Not if you're a child of Hades or Poseidon."
"What do you mean? Are you afraid of heights?" Tim inquired.
"Surprisingly no. But flying to any children of the big three except Zeus is dangerous. If he knows you're in his turf, he will shoot you down."
"So no flying," Damian stated grimly.
The demigod nodded, "Or sea travel."
"That sucks."
"You obviously survived this." Damian pointed out.
"Yes, Zeus was probably deciding whether to shoot me or Percy," Nico said, only half kidding.
"What happened then? When you landed, I mean." Tim cut in. Nico was about to launch into another explanation when they were interrupted by their favorite butler.
"I think it is high time that you all go get ready to eat. I think you've picked through the poor boy's brain quite enough for one day." Alfred came back into the room. He took their bottles before retreating.
"Yeah, he's probably right." Bruce eyed the demigod with appreciation. Nico stretched and excused himself to take a shower.