Don't Fear the Reaper

80) Does a Boat That's Full of Holes Really Care What Made it Sink?

A/N: I need to stop spoiling you guys. My chapters are supposed to be like 1.5k words, but all the recent ones have been 2k+... this one is 3.5k so... have fun party animals. Also, the chapter title is a line I love from the song I mentioned at the end of the chap.

Nico sat in his room back in the manor, and while he was vaguely glad to be back, he felt a weird sense of longing for the normalcy he'd found at the mountain. That place had been stressful and off putting, and it'd kinda fallen apart for him at the end, but at least he had things to do. He'd felt like he was finally getting back something he was missing... and now it was gone again.

He'd spent his first 2 days back in his room, the others knocking on his door every few hours, but they always accepted his lack of response as a sign that he wanted to be alone. Alfred would drop off a tray of food in front of his door, calling that if he did not eat at least half of the food, he would come back with the most boring newspaper he could find and read it through the door.

On day 3 he could tell they were getting antsy. Their knocks came with attempts to lure him out, asking him to join them for random activities that he honestly didn't care about. Duke had even had Riko knock on his door, but the demigod remained where he was in bed, just staring at the wall.

"Nico?" Bruce's hesitant voice called through the door. Nico's eyes widened in surprise, expecting the man to be on patrol. "May I come in? It's important."

Nico hesitated for a moment but reached over and knocked on the wall twice. The man came in, closing the door behind him, and pulled out the desk chair before sitting down. He looked exhausted, like he hadn't slept in a few days.

"Why aren't you on patrol?"

Bruce looked momentarily surprised to hear his voice, but he quickly recovered and just smiled softly. "Alfred has me benched. I was going to try and fight him on it, but I think we both know how that would wind up."

Nico smirked a little. "He would beat your ass."

Bruce chuckled, nodding. "He would."

It was quiet between them for a long moment before the man let out a breath, seeming to steel himself for the conversation.

"Okay, none of us were sure what to do or say about the situation. We didn't want to keep information from you, but we also didn't want to say anything that might trigger something for you, but... with the way you've completely withdrawn since coming back, I wanted to give you the choice to know about which demigods they sent-"

"Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Will, Kayla, Lou Ellen, and Clarrise," Nico said, cutting him off. The man stared at him in surprise, definitely not seeing that coming, but Nico just shrugged. "Dreams."

Bruce nodded slightly, looking still a little in shock. "Your cousin said something about that last time he was here, but I didn't know if that was something that would be stopped by the ringlets."

Nico's eyes shifted down to the metal around his wrists and shrugged. "It's not technically a power—the prophetic ones at least—but this... this was someone else." He considered just leaving the statement where it was, but he let out a small breath and continued. "An... old friend reached out to show me. I, well, I hadn't spoken to him since the last war, but he said he thought I deserved to know what was happening."

"Did you tell this friend that you were staying with us?"

Nico shook his head. "No, and there's no real way he could find out where I am. Plus, I don't think he would tell if he knew."

Bruce hummed. "And... how did seeing this friend go?"

Nico was silent for a long while, because he really didn't know what to say. It went fine, but he'd also spent the entire interaction either in shock or suppressing rage. After waking up, he spent the entire night training without taking a break just to let out some of that anger... but then he had talked with Black Canary and actually interacted with the rest of the team. "It's been nearly 5 months since my last exposure to the Lazarus Pit, and the rage still feels all consuming. I try to push it down and ignore it, but... it's overwhelming. Every minute of every day, I feel it, just boiling beneath my skin like a poison—begging to spill out and destroy everything. I'm trying to keep it in, and I fail a lot, but... I think I'm getting better." He stared at his hands for a moment, at the spot his ring used to sit. He didn't really know what he was saying or what he was trying to say, but he just kept pushing through. "I saw Clovis and I was mad. I wanted to rage and scream and tell him to just leave me alone... but I kept it in. I didn't let it out and I listened to him—I even spoke to him a little. I—well, I was still angry, but it was contained. It... went better than I thought it would."