Don't You Have Enough Edgy Kids, Bruce?

lucky he's used to bullshit like this

Nico hadn’t been in this world for long, but a few things were abundantly clear to him.

Yes, he made a list. It was a habit he picked up from Annabeth. And it helped, godsdamnit.

First, this wasn’t his world. Not his dimension, possibly. He wasn’t sure how to classify it. But this place was different, with usa cities he never heard of before and more crime than freakin New York, apparently taken care of by caped weirdos.

Second, he didn’t know how he got there. He just woke up on the sidewalk of this so called Gotham City.

And lastly, Though it had been a while since the last time he had to travel the streets alone in the shadows, fending for himself, he still had it in him.
He may have been a little rusty, but after a few days he was back, full-on ghost king.

(As he thought, Will had been overreacting. Nico was fine to shadow-travel in small doses. Over-dramatic Son of Apollo.)

(Though maybe… Maybe Nico liked being coddled by his boyfriend a little bit.)

(sometimes.)

...This was why he wasn’t allowed to think about will. It was too painful, and much too distracting.

Nevermind. From what he learned about Gotham, It was only a matter of time before he would run into the bat.

Even after almost two week in this world, Nico didn’t know that much about Batman.
He was a bit of an enigma.
Nobody seemed to agree about who he was. Nico heard the oddest things about him. He was an alien. He was a vampire. He was Superman’s boyfriend. He was a grown man dressed as a bat.

The rumors did have a few things in common.

Most importantly: He was dangerous. He was mysterious. He was weird as hell.
And seeing as all of these things applied very well to Nico’s life, especially about arriving in this world, Nico had a feeling him and the bat were going to collide.

Well, there was the feeling, but also the fact that Batman seemed to fight crime. And Nico, having no money or resources, had been stealing food for a while.

He would walk into a store (some big chain. He wasn’t going to cause problems for a small business).
He would walk around a bit, and take what he wanted.
Then he’d vanish into a shadow and eat his meal in the solitude of an alley. He almost felt fourteen again.

He was at such a store now, browsing the snacks aisle.
Gods, what would Will say if he knew of Nico’s current diet of salty junk?

Nico suppressed a small smile at the thought and settled for some kind of potato chips that were, apparently, “endorsed by The Flash himself!” Whatever that meant.

But as he raised the bag, he heard gunshots echoing in the small fluorescent lit store.
He ran toward thesource of the sound, most likely the cashiers, chips long forgotten, to see two armed men in masks. One of them had a gun aimed in the general direction of the cashier. The other man had his gun aimed up - he had probably just fired some warning shots at the ceiling.
The cashier,a tiny old lady, was in the process of opening the cash registry. Her hands were shaking.

Well, it wasn’t like Nico had much of a moral highground. He was there to steal, too. But he didn't use violence.
And as the woman struggled with the registry, Nico saw one of the robbers take a more precise aim at her. Without even thinking, Nico disappeared and reappeared behind said robber, punching him across the jaw.
For a kid, he threw a pretty good punch, and the man fell down.

The first robber's buddy aimed his gun at the Nico, who quickly pulled his sword out of the darkness. The man stumbled backwards, surprised, and Nico hit him across the forehead with the swords hilt, a trick he learned for dealing with mortals a little after the war with gaea.
His blade, like most demigods’, was built for dealing with monsters only. But the swords hilt, a piece of shiny black metal, worked on mortals just fine.

Nico backed away.
Nice. Very minimal damage, plus less guilt for stealing a bag of chips.
Speaking of which…

He ran back down the aisle and grabbed a bag, sprinting back out.

But as he exited the store, he ran directly into somebody's spandex clad chest.

It was a young man in a full body black suit with some kind of blue stripe across, ending on his fingers. He had the same dark hair and lean, muscular physique as Percy, though even at a first glance he appeared much more flexible.

Still, this man didn't have Percy's easygoing, goofy smile, at least not at the moment.
And what was with the suit and mask? Dramatic much?

The man looked at Nico, then at the store behind him. The robber's were still on the floor. The cahier seemed fine.

The man turned back to Nico.

“Even if there’s trouble, you shouldn’t be risking yourself to help. You could have gotten hurt”, he said.

Ah. So he was a bit Percy on the outside, but he seemed to be pretty Jason-ish in his motherly worry. Or, you know, nagging. Whatever you wanna call it.

Nico smiled tiredly, hoping to fool the guy into thinking he actually cared about his opinion. “Right”, he said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The man still stopped him from walking away, though.

“Did you pay for those?” He asked, pointing at the bag of chips Nico was clutching.

Nico rolled his eyes. “Money is a construct”, he mumbled as he started to walk once again.

The man wasn’t amused, and tripped Nico as he was walking away.

Nico fell into the ground with an ‘oof’ and immediately rose up.

Now it was his turn to point an angry finger at the man’s chest.

“Listen”, he said, “unless you want to buy me dinner, I’m going to take this. I think Walmart is going to be fine without this.”

The man seemed taken aback. Tilting his head to one side like a confused puppy, he slowly asked Nico:
“do you… not know who I am?”

Nico scratched his head.

“Uh. No. Are you like… this place’s version of a kardashian?”

(He was a bit proud of the reference. Leo had told him about the kardashians.
Also, it was possible. This man, as annoying as he was, had a very well defined ass. Nico wasn't blind.)

The man shook his head.

“That’s pretty close, though. I am part of a big, crazy family. No, I’m nightwing. I… help around. I work with Batman?”

he paused for a minute, as if waiting for a reaction. “Have you heard of him?”

Nico nodded. “Sure. I’m not sure your weird codename or vigilante connections are supposed to convince me to return this, though. So if you don’t mind…”

Nico backed away into a nearby shadow and started shifting away, when the man grabbed his shoulder, like an absolute dick.

Too deep into the shadow travel to stop, Nico pulled both of them into the close alley he was planning on eating his dinner in.

But as they arrived at the alley, he found himself staggering, his breathing heavy.

Holy hades. He had not teleported with company for a while and it was exhausting.

Damn Will and his correct medical thesis of Nico not being ready for this.

The other man, at least, seemed a bit shaken as well. He grabbed the wall and gasped for air.

Thinking this was his chance, Nico began to walk away, only to collapse on the floor.

Well, shit.

As he was blacking out, he heard the man behind him - Nightwing, he said - talk, seemingly to himself. Maybe to someone on a phone.

“I have a situation. Might end patrol early to deal with this.

Yeah.

…Happy first night back in Gotham, me.”