Don't Fear the Reaper

102) Schemin'

A/N: Beepy Boopy. Tis long 

Nico knew something was wrong, it wasn't exactly hard to tell. Ever since the incident, he'd been keeping pretty close to the Waynes and, while they were expert vigilantes, they were pretty messy. He'd been a silent observer for a week and, while had picked up on some things he'd missed about the other, this wasn't something that was hard to notice.

All morning, no matter where Bruce was, he'd been in a whisper argument with one of his kids that would suddenly cut off the moment Nico walked. The demigod floated between rooms, just kinda vaguely following any Wayne, and all of them seemed either stressed beyond belief or they were poorly concealing rage as they tried to act fine in front of Nico.

"What's happening?" Nico signed after knocking to get Jason's attention from his spot beside him on the couch.

Jason let out a nervous chuckle, giving his best attempt at a pacifying smile as he said, "Oh it's nothing—just our usual drama."

Nico's eyebrow raised just slightly as he stared at Jason, obviously not believing him, but the twenty-one year old didn't budge. "You're lying."

"I'm not lying, I'm just choosing which parts of the truth you need to know vs which you don't need to worry about," Jason said with a casual tone as he looked back to his book, but it was clear that, whatever the situation was, was stressing him out. "This thing with Bruce is an argument we have all the time, and we almost always win it, so it won't get to the point where it involves you. You're still recovering and you don't need the added stress of-"

Nico reached over and closed Jason's book, making him look back at the demigod. "Not knowing is worse. If I know, then I can process it, but not knowing just makes me panic and come up with my own theories, and my theories are probably worse than what is going on," Nico signed, his eyebrows furrowed as he put words—well, technically signs—to the storm that had been brewing in his gut all day. "Is it about me? Did I do something wrong? Or is it the League? Are they making another move or-"

"Hey, no, it's none of that," Jason said, his eyes widening just a bit at the desperate look in Nico's, instantly turning to better face the demigod as he uncertainly grabbed the kid's hand, waiting to see if he would pull away before squeezing it a bit. "You're okay. You did nothing wrong and we haven't heard anything from the LoA in recent days. This is just... Bruce stuff."

Nico squeezed Jason's hands, silently begging him to actually explain. He'd spent so long trying to be low maintenance—never asking for anything and only taking what was freely given—but this was like a needle in his spine that was just out of reach. Every time he heard those whispered arguments silence at his mere presence, it was like that needle was just shoved in deeper, and he couldn't take it any more.

Jason looked at him and his resolve melted away as he let out a sigh. "You almost died," he said hesitantly, looking away from Nico, but his grip tightened just a little on his hand, as if he could only fully say the words if he had a physical reminder that the kid was still there. "And after... that, Bruce is scared. We've all lost people, and each of us reacts in our own way to close calls, but Bruce gets a bit... overly cautious. He hovers and he watches and he tries to stick as close to all of us as he physically can, but when he can't..."

Nico would have asked what he was leading up to, but he kinda needed both hands to do that and Jason didn't seem to be letting go of his hand any time soon.

"The JL has been planning an operation for months and Bruce is central to it being a success... but it's in 2 days and he can't get out of it without risking the lives of everyone involved," Jason finally said, seeming to be struggling to find the right words. "And, since he's scared, he won't let anyone else fill in as the Bat, but he also doesn't what to leave us alone—even though he knows we'll be fine—so he's come up with the genius idea of bringing in some people to guard us. We all know we don't need it, but he's insisting, and with the mission getting closer, the tension is rising quicker, and it's just- I don't know. That's what we've been fighting about."