Don't Fear the Reaper

86) F*ck Around and Find Out About Mussolini

A/N: yo soy dying... long chap and barely edited :P

Tim stood nervously in front of Nico's door, not sure what to do. He kept raising his hand to knock before dropping it again, never deciding either way if he should do it. It wasn't like Nico was still the same angry ball of spite he used to be, but that didn't mean he was exactly approachable or easy to read.

Nico existed as a phantom around the manor most of the time. It'd been 2 days since the kid was shot and he'd been seen about the house—joining them for meals, watching them train from a distance, floating in and out of the room as they would hang out—but he hadn't really spoken to anyone. Sure, he'd answer questions and maybe mutter a 'good morning' unprompted, but his words were always quiet—like he was scared to say the wrong thing.

"For the love of fuck!" Nico's voice called from the other side of the door. "Either come in or fuck off already!"

Tim's eyebrows shot up at that—not expecting that type of reaction at all—before he hesitantly opened the door and stepped into the room. "You knew I was there?"

Nico looked up from the book he was reading with a 'really?' look. "The hall light is on, so I could see your shadow under the door, and you were muttering to yourself in Vietnamese."

Tim felt his face flush slightly before he cleared his throat a little and closed the door behind him, looking to Nico for permission before sitting down at the demigod's desk. "I uh, I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

Nico looked at him with intrigue, seeming surprised that Tim was asking for help. "Is it for a case?"

Tim made a so-so gesture with his hand before opening up his laptop and turning it so Nico could see. "I have been in communication with a representative of the UN from Italy. It's for a Justice League mission and it's kinda time sensitive, but she only speaks Italian and Bruce locked me out of the cave, and the translation software I've been using is on the batcomputer so..."

Nico just blinked at him for a minute. "Aren't you locked out of the cave because you were over working yourself?"

Tim just blinked back at him. "Are you saying you won't help me or..."

"You suck," Nico muttered before fully putting down his book and shifting on his bed so he could fully see the screen. "So what am I looking at—or like, am I telling you the general idea of what she said, do you want the specifics, or what?"

"A Sparknotes version is fine so long as nothing important stands out to you," Tim said with a shrug before noticing Nico's blank stare and realizing the kid had no idea what Sparknotes was. "Yeah, just a summary is fine."

Nico hummed, leaning a bit closer so he could read the computer screen better, mumbling under his breath in Italian as he read, pausing every few sentences to summarize what he'd read so far. "She confirmed the statistics you provided... the board approved the numbers... some guy name Mitchel Leroy is-"

"Ugh, I fucking hate that guy," Tim muttered, not able to contain the amount of annoyance he felt at just hearing the man's name.

"Well, she basically called him a dickhead, so it seems like you have a friend," Nico said with a small chuckle before continuing. "She wants to know how you plan to get the information needed if it must be obtained without replying on 'illegal activities'... also she has a whole paragraph about how it seems unwise to trust vigilantes with this task since it has been proven that the target has 'probable knowledge of identities' for most league affiliates... she recommends passing the job along to a government agency... and that's pretty much it."