The Nico di Angelo experiment

In which Jason's friends read way too much fanfic

Jason was extremely confused as to how the fanfiction ended up in his pocket in the first place.

Okay, maybe he needed to back up some. But just for the record, it wasn't his fault.

Ever since Nico's conversation with Reyna, things had been.......odd. Not in a bad way; just very, very different.

Jason had been staying with Nico and Hazel ever since his argument with Juno, and that was when he first started noticing all the strangeness going on.

For one, Hazel couldn't look between him and Nico for more than four seconds without collapsing with laughter.

Second, someone (he was pretty sure it was Leo) had hidden all of his shirts except one: a white muscle tank. How did he know it was Leo? Because he'd done the exact same thing with Frank a few weeks ago; Jason had to admit watching both Frank and Hazel turn bright red and avoid each other's eyes had been hilarious. But when it happened to him? Not funny. The little rat knew Jason hated that shirt, but it wasn't like he could go shirtless.

He'd tried to do that, but one look at Nico's face when he walked in (wide eyes, bright red, stunned and a little horrified) had made Hazel double over and Jason scramble for the stupid shirt.

Then there was the fact that they'd been pushed into a closet together at Reyna's. He suspected the Puerto Rican girl had done it herself, if the grin on her face when she finally released them twenty minutes later was any indication. Spending twenty minutes pressed chest to chest with Nico had been well worth enduring her satisfied looks, though.

He couldn't walk past Percy and Piper without them making obscene gestures, and Annabeth kept muttering about the likelihood of Leo's hypothesis happening (minus the love triangle, of course) and what that could mean for the experiment. She also complained about Jason's lack of data, but in a teasing way.

("You aren't withholding the information on purpose to keep him all to yourself, right?")

Jason figured it was all some big prank, since he was 99% sure Nico would never ever introduce him to a mutual friend as "This is Jason. He's bae ."

(If Reyna's sudden outburst of snorts was anything to go by, he'd been forced.)

Still, sometimes Nico would reach out and touch his arm unprompted, and Jason would blush. Since Nico wasn't usually a very touchy person, every press of skin felt like a small miracle to Jason. Afterwards, Nico would study his face, and Jason would get the dreadful feeling that Nico was conducting his own experiment.

They'd been in school, of all places, when one of these touches occurred. Nico had laughed at one of Jason's dumb science jokes (the one about the H202 and the assassination plot) and leaned forward to grasp at his arm.

His hand had slid down to rest on top of Jason's, and it was like everything got ten times brighter. They'd sat like that for a while, each avoiding the other's eyes, when Nico had been hit in the side of the head with a note.

Jason had peeked at it, he'd admit. It simply read "ASK HIM!!!!" in what he recognized as Reyna's handwriting.

"Uh, Jason?" Nico said, and everything in Jason's body seemed to slow.

Was Nico about to ask him out?

Jason had originally planned to ask him, but it was honestly exciting to wonder about. He just wanted to go on a date with this dork.

"Yes, Nico?"

"Would you like to...."

"To...what, exactly?"