Nico's Heroes

Knitting

NicoPOV

I sit down on the loveseat in my cabin and pull out some needles and yarn. Maria comes over and looks at my yarn. She raises her paw and starts to bat it around.

"Maria no! Don't do that!" I scold her. She looks up at me and continues to bat it around. I sigh and grab the ball of yarn from her. I start to wrap it back up as Maria meows at me.

"You are a little shit, you know that right?" I tell her. She looks up at me and meows again. She stands up on her back legs and paws at my legs.

"No, you can't play with the yarn, Will, help me. Maria is being a little shit." I call out to Will who is in the bathroom. I can hear him laugh as he walks out.

"Nico cats do things like that. It only gets worse from here." As if to prove his point, Maria goes over to my yarn basket and knocks it over. She then starts to bat around and unravel all my balls of yarn. I sigh and chase after her. I pick up my balls of yarn and wrap them back up as Will laughs at her antics. I glare at them both as I pick up the last ball. Marai meows at me.

"I got your toys, you little shit," I tell her. I then go over to her basket of toys and grab out one of her favorites. It is a long pole with a string attached to the end with some feathers at the end. I start to bounce the pole up and down as Marai starts to jump around and try to catch the tuft of feathers. I laugh as she twists and turns in the air. Will is smiling as well. We play for a good half an hour. Once she tires out I go back over to my needles and yarn to do what I planned to do earlier. I pick up my needles and start to knit. A lot of people don't know that I knit. Will showed me how to knit as a coping method. So I turn on the T.V I have and put on a movie to watch as I knit. Maria jumps up on the couch with renewed energy as she bats the yarn around. This time I don't try to stop her. Once she stops all of my yarn is scattered across my cabin. I hear a knock at the door and I call out,

"It's open!" Hazel walks in and takes a look at the mess that Maria has made. She looks at me with a playful look. I smile back as Maria walks over to Hazel. She bends down and pets Maria. I look over to Will who just shrugs.

"Hey Nico, I'm gonna guess that this little one made the mess?" Hazel asks playfully.

" Oh yeah, Maria is a little shit. Aren't you?" I tell them. Hazel laughs and Maria pounces on a piece of yarn as if it insulted her. We laugh as Maria kills the poor yarn piece. Hazel comes and sits down beside me. We chat for a while until Will informs us that it is his shift in the infirmary. He gives me a kiss goodbye and heads to his "work" I continue to knit while Haxel and I continue to chat.

"What are you knitting?" Hazel asks.

"Um, a scarf, they are very simple to do and the camp needs some more winter wear," I tell her.

"That's really cool Nico. Can you teach me? So I can help?" Hazel asks.

"Okay well. You need needles. Here," I pass her some needles and some yarn.

"Oka so first you need to know how to cast on. So I do a very easy and repetitive one." I show her how and she does this fifteen times. I then show her how to actually knit.

"The first row is always the hardest part, but after it gets easier I promise." She starts to knit the stitches with a bit of trouble but she manages. Once Hazel starts to get the hang of it we chat about New Rome and Camp Jupiter. I ask about Reyna and Frank and Hazel asks about he seven. We chat and knit for a few hours. Maria continues to kill my yarn as I knit. We knit until the horn blares signaling dinner time. We put our needles down and I pick up Maria. We walk to the dining pavilion and sit down at the Poseidon table that has kinda morphed into the big three table. Percy and Jason are already sitting down and bickering about blue food. Again. I roll my eyes at them. Hazel giggles softly as we grab some plates of food. We go to one of the fires and burn some portion of our meal into the fire. We walk back over and sit down and tuck into our food. Will, Piper, Frank, Annabeth, and Reyna all comeover. I look at Reyna, stand up and walk over to her calmly. I look her dead in the eye and say,

"You asshole, you didn't tell me you where coming." 

"Well surprise." She sasses. She pulls me into a hug and I cuddle down into her chest. Gods I missed Reyna.

"Miss me?"

"Fuck you... yes," I tell her. She laughs and we sit down to eat. Will sits beside me and Reyna sits on the other side. Hazel sits across from me and Maria just chills in my lap. I give her a noodle and she sniffs it suspiciously before eating it. She seems to like at and peeks her head upon the table.

"Hey, no, not for you," I tell her. She meows and looks up at me. I sigh and give her another noodle.

"Little shit," I tell her. Reyna laughs.

"So the rumors are true, you do have a cat." I look at her confused

"Rumors?" I ask.

"Yeah everyone is talking about you and your cat. Some say you stole her, some say you adopted one, someone said that the cat is a demigod in disguise." Reyna tells me. Will puts a hand on the small of my back and Maria buts her nose against my chin as my breathing quickens. I get my breathing under control and look at Reyna.

"She is an emotional support animal," I tell her. She just nods and we continue to eat. About halfway through dinner Leo comes running out of the forest screaming, behind him are some of his machines, who look pretty angry at him. We all stand and go help him. The robots are all made to look like greek monsters.

"Will, can you keep Maria safe?" I ask him. He sighs and nods. I run after everyone else and pull my sword out of my sheath on my hip. We all start battling the rogue robots as Leo catches his breath and builds a quick remote. He presses a button on the remote and all of the robots fall to the ground, lifeless. We all look at Leo who just smiles.

"Thanks, guys, damn those robots are a lot harder to program then I thought. Sorry for the inconvenience. Umm, could you maybe help me bring them back to bunker nine?"

"Wait, Leo, why the fuck do they look like the greek monsters we battle?" Percy asks. Leo who had turned around to inspect the metal deathtraps. He stands up from his crouch and turns on his heels to face us.

"Well, I thought that since we have human practice dummies, why don't we have monster practice dummies? So I decided to make some. They kinda got loose and went a little rampant. I forgot a few lines of code and I am gonna need to fix that and need to make the weaknesses a little more visible and.." Leo rambles on. 

"That is actually a really good idea Leo," Piper interrupts his rambling. He looks at her and smiles.

" I know right? Well, I need to get these fuckers back to Bunker nine. Anyone wants to help?" Leo asks. We all help him get the metal monsters back to Bunker nine. Leo goes back to working on the robots. I leave him and go back to Will and Maria.  I grab Maria and cradle her in my arms. We go back to my cabin and crash on my bed sleeping.