PJO x Gotham Crossover

Are we sure he isn't a child of Apollo?

One lesson left and Nico was free to get the fuck out.

Nico swore he was going insane 13 times during one day, he also ended up cursing the teaches and students to the deepest pits of the underworld in his mind.

And that was him being zoned out for most of the day. It was horrible. Nico felt like lying down on the floor and crying dramatically, he also wanted to burn the building down even more so.

Being newly transferred, he was somehow (bless the gods- wait no- bless his principal) excused from homework for the first few days, just so he had time to 'settle'.

Now he just had to survive another introduction and a math class. The other introduction being that Nico, for whatever reason, was set to have math with a grade higher than his own.

He was basically just begging to get bullied. No offense to anyone good at math, but Nico would rather be with people his own age than have work that better fit his skill level.

Entering the class, all eyes immediately fell on him, he was a few minutes late. The teacher turned too, raising an eyebrow at him suspiciously, all Nico could do was stand there awkwardly and hope she remembered who he was

The teacher was a scraggly old woman with sharp nails, frizzy greying hair and a surprisingly pointed glare.

Nico felt like sinking into the ground from a look.

It dawned on her face a few moments later.

"Oh! You're the new transfer student, from New York right?"

"Uh yeah" Nico wanted to die.

"Just introduce yourself to the class and we'll move on with the lesson" great. Nico was sweating nervously.

"Um, hi, I'm Nico di Angelo, i uh, hope we can all be friends" He physically cringed. WHY did he say that.

There were a few faint hello's and hi's from the classroom, and Nico took it as his queue to shuffle towards the nearest empty desk. After unceremoniously dumping his bag besides his desk, he let his head rest on the desk and tried to block out any surrounding noise.

Which did work, for the most part. Nico was most certainly slowly falling asleep, and he could already feel his body shutting down as he used his arms like makeshift pillows.

He faintly heard the teacher call for everyone to start their worksheets, but Nico was more focused on the unknown something poking him in the shoulder.

"-lo" "hellooo?"

Oh, someone was talking to him. Nico heard it, but it took him far too long to actually process that someone was speaking to him.

"What?" Nico finally replied, looking up drowsily to the person speaking.

"Oh so you do talk! Wait that was rude, I didn't mean that I don't think you can talk, well I did mean that- but not rudely, just you know... anyways I was getting kinda sorta maybe worried I did something to piss you off, since you seemed kinda in your own world and didn't really hear what i was saying, not that that isn't allowed I just didn't- ok off topic, uhm, I was just wondering if you wanted to like work together on the worksheets because-"

The person paused to take a breath after the rapid speaking, Nico's brain quite literally only registered half of what had been said.

"-I'm not really good at math, well I am but I didn't pay attention, wait that just makes me sound like a troublemaker- I'm really not, sorry off topic again- ok so I'm assuming you're here because you're good at math and so I was maybewonderingifyoucould helpme?"

"Wha-" Nico blinked twice, vision going into focus slowly.

A dark skinned, yellowish brown eyed boy was sitting at the desk beside him, looking expectedly at him.

Nico could barely look at him properly, his soul was literally glowing. Which was a bothersome ability Nico had gained sometime the last few years, the power to, most of the time accidentally, peer at someone's soul.

And this kid (yes Nico did use his privilege of being older than everyone to refer all people as kids/small children. Said idea being given to him by Percy) was like a weirdly faulty lighthouse, except the faulty part was causing it to glow like it was on steroids.

"Uhhh, sure?"

"Great! Thanks so much, and sorry for sorta rambling earlier, I just start doing that when talking to strangers, or classmates I guess, I just-" he cut himself off.

"-Wait a minute, I haven't even told you my name yet..."

Nico was finally able to look at him more clearly, he noted the more than average amount of scars the boy had, both on his hands and few on his face, he was slightly toned, though you couldn't tell much from the uniform. Nico was used to seeing a lot of scars from kids at camp but he knew most normal people weren't as familiar with it.

The boy straightened out his uniform as much as possible and reached a hand forward.

"Hi, my name's Duke Thomas, nice to meet you:)"
Nico shook his hand lightly (how did he convey a smiley emoticon in his words???).

"I'm Nico"

"Uh, yeah, you said that already" the kid- Duke- rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

Nico flushed from embarrassment.

"Well um, you said you needed help with something right?" He leaned forward a bit on his desk, turning towards the other boy to show he was paying attention.

"Ah, I forgot about that- um I just wanted to know if you knew the answer to question B, since I didn't really listen when Mrs. Jones explained it"

Well at least Duke looked apologetic about it, unlike Nico who had not been paying attention either, though Nico knew the answer already.

"Oh yeah, I know the answer, you just have to-..."
The rest of the lesson was spent explaining and finishing work sheets, and Nico daresay he made a friend (sort of).

Nico learned a few things about Duke too. The boy referenced siblings on a few occasions while they talked, and apparently he liked studying movies. He mentioned a few movies during their conversation, though Nico sadly didn't recognize any of them.

The conversation drifted a few times, turning awkward, but for the most part it was an enjoyable social interaction. Will would be so proud.

Before he knew it, the teacher dismissed the class. The day was over. Finally. Nico couldn't help but breathe in a sigh of relief as he began packing his bag.

"Thanks so much for that, you're a lifesaver" ironic considering the reason Nico was here, Nico thought internally.

"No problem"

Duke smiled brightly.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow hopefully, maybe you can sit with us during lunch" he looked at Nico expectedly, Nico preferred sitting alone but he wouldn't mind all that much.

"Sure, s'not like I have any other friends here" Nico shrugged.

They had reached the school front now.
Duke waved goodbye, jogging towards a sleek black car, Nico started heading towards the bus stop in the meantime.

Maybe the school part wouldn't be completely terrible, It'd be a little better with a friend at least.

As long as Nico made sure not to do anything to scare him off it should be fine.

End note: foreshadowing🤨 This chapter was very quickly done so that was nice, hope you enjoy!! Also Duke appreciation squad pls, my boy is underrated

Word count: 1227