Don't Fear the Reaper

71) FLOOOOOOR TIIIIIIIMMMEEE!!!!

Steph laid on the ground, just staring at the ceiling, waiting for Nico to talk. They had entered his temporary room half an hour earlier and the demigod had just closed the door silently before basically throwing himself at the floor. He had just been slowly breathing ever since—which was obviously a good thing—but it didn't quench Steph need for the tea.

"My life would have been different if she didn't die," Nico said, his voice barely a whisper.

Steph turned her head to look at Nico and saw that he was just staring up at the ceiling. "Who?"

"My sister—the older one," Nico clarified, slowly sitting up. His legs were crisscrossed as he stared at his hands in his lap. "Her name was Bianca... she gave her life to save her friends while on a quest for the gods."

Steph sat up as well, sitting in a mirrored position with her knees a few inches away from his. "She sounds really brave."

Nico seemed to sit with that for a minute, his eyes distant. "I... I know she made her choice. She chose to die to save them. She... what she did was brave and I should be proud of her." The kid's eyebrows furrowed, looking conflicted. "But sometimes... I really hate her."

Those words were spoken with the same sad and empty tone as before, but they felt like they were somehow heavier. That last stamen sounded like a dark admission—something the kid hated himself for saying, and even more for feeling.

"Why?" Steph decided to ask. She knew that most of the other Waynes would have probably gone straight into reassuring him that he wasn't a monster for resenting a dead person—but then again, she wasn't the other Waynes.

"We only had each other and I thought... I thought I was enough—that having each other meant that we weren't alone and that we didn't need anyone else—and that she would stay, but then she chose to leave me. She chose the Hunters of Art- of... a goddess, over me. She chose them... and I could have lived with that. I could have lived with seeing her only when they visited and one day growing old while she remained the same... I could have lived with that..."

Steph felt her face soften as she looked at him. "But then she died."

Nico's eye gained a hollow look. "I... I know she chose her own path, and that I should be proud of her, but... I just... I'm still so angry." 

"Why are you angry?"

"Because if she didn't die, I would have never run away," Nico said, clenching his jaw slightly as his eyes shifted to glaring at the wall. "I would have never gone into the Labyrinth. I would have never been manipulated by Minos. I would never have met-" Nico's voice cut off.

"You would have never met Talia," Steph said softly. "You would never have met the al Ghuls or worked with the League, which means you wouldn't have suffered by their hands."

Nico hesitated for a long moment before he hesitantly looked at the girl and gave a small nod. The action was tiny—minuscule in the grand scheme of things—but it was a huge moment. It was the first time he actually acknowledged the way he suffered under the al Ghuls.

"So... you blame her for you ending up how you did?"

"No... but..." Nico looked away from her once again. "How am I supposed to blame a dead girl for the things I did to myself? How is it her fault that I met the al Ghuls and not only trusted them, but kept going back? I can't. I can't blame her. She was dead when all of that happened, so it's not like she force me. She made her choice... and I made mine."

Steph watched him carefully, knowing that they were in dangerous territory. Not only were they talking about the LoA—something he had been continually volatile about—but also his dead sister. It was kinda the worst, most high risk set of topics for the conversation to be about—unless, of course, she wanted double homicide and then she could bring up his father, the other campers, his other dead sister, and/or the fact that the Waynes took away his powers.