Ghost King Meets Batman

Ghost v Mount Justice

[Edited April 25, 2023]

Bruce woke Nico up the next morning for breakfast, insisting that he needed to get an early start even though he still had several hours before he needed to leave for the mountain. Bruce considered himself late if he wasn't ready at least two hours early. The demigod wasn't complaining, though, he wanted to be wide awake and at the top of his game when he finally went to the mountain. 

Nico showered, packed his toiletries and his schoolwork, and went down for breakfast. Alfred had already left but he had prepared some cinnamon rolls that could be heated up. There was also fresh fruit, juice, and assorted cereals in the cupboards. The man really did think of everything.

 After breakfast, the demigod packed some granola and protein bars in his bag, predicting that he wouldn't always want to have meals with the others. He preferred to avoid social situations whenever he could, unlike Dick who was a social butterfly. Even despite being the first protege of Batman. 

It always amazed Nico just how well Bruce and Dick were suited to each other when they had first started out. They had a chemistry that wasn't really seen with the rest of the proteges. It made sense, considering that Dick was the one who had connected to Bruce through a genuine and deep grief over the loss of his parents. How could any of the rest of them compare? There was just no beating the original Batman and Robin.

Dick and Tim were excited to spend that time at the mountain with their team and show their resident demigod around their base. Damian, on the other hand, was moody about the group being separated and Jason was Jason. He was saying something about reaffirming his turf. Out of them all, only the son of Hades seemed nervous. He didn't really want to go and be stuck in an enclosed mountain with a group of teenagers that he didn't know. It was basically like camp but he was the only demigod. He was less than excited.

While he may be a teen himself, wasn't going to be a whole lot of shared life experience. He wasn't even from this time period and it wasn't like he'd been able to catch up on pop culture. He was wildly out of his depth when it came to modern teenagers and he knew it. The last thing he needed was to further ostracize himself from the team because of cultural differences, though they probably had a higher tolerance for that with the sheer diversity of the team. Nico hoped so.

Despite Nico's wishes, noon soon came and Bruce had to leave for his mission. Damian and Jason had already left for their separate headquarters, though not before saying goodbye. Nico almost wished that he could have gone with Jason instead, but Bruce didn't want Jason pulling Nico along on one of his missions and getting him caught in a situation where he might kill someone, knowing that Nico had no moral qualms about killing genuinely bad people.  He understood why Bruce held the belief that all life was sacred, but he himself couldn't afford to share in that ideal. If he started letting monsters live, he would be lunch.

Nico quickly, and somewhat reluctantly, changed into his Ghost uniform and stood by the other two proteges to wait. They explained that he should come through 20 minutes later so it wouldn't look like he had come from the same place as the bat boys. It was a smart plan, but it just meant that Nico had more time to stew over what he thought was going to happen this week. He honestly had no idea what to expect and it wasn't making it any easier for him to want to go. He had pleaded with Bruce to let him stay at the manor, but the man wouldn't budge. With Nico's track record of getting into trouble, he couldn't exactly blame him.

Truthfully, now that Bruce wasn't here to force him, Nico was debating not going through the portal at all. He didn't want to go through the long-winded introductions and have all those people psycho-analyze him. He didn't want to have to keep up a facade for that long or have to watch what he said in case he slipped up and revealed too much. Just being around that many people was going to be exhausting, now he had an entire rule book to remember along with it.