Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jason’s gotten pretty good at acting like things don’t surprise him. When you’re one of the acting leaders of Camp Half-Blood, especially a child of the Big Three, people and monsters are eager to get the drop on you. Jason has kept straight faces through manticore attacks and Stoll pranks and prophecies, even though all three make him extra jumpy and paranoid.

So when Nico di Angelo slides out of the shadows in Zeus’ cabin — very literally — Jason just nods at him and continues lacing up his boots.

“Hi,” he says, as though Nico suddenly appearing after several months of no contact is paramount to calling and arranging dinner plans. For Nico, it sort of is. “What’s up, kiddo?”

“Don’t call me that,” says Nico.

“Okay.”

Jason finishes with his boot laces and thinks, not for the first time, of the beat-up sneaker soles Leo has been walking around on for months. He should really get some winter boots before the snow falls. Jason should remind him. He chances a glance at Nico, who is looking massively out of his element. Also, wearing a threadbare jacket and shoes that wouldn’t hold up in a light rain, let alone the blizzards Jason can feel coming. Nico shifts under Jason’s scrutiny.

The best thing to do with a stray wolf is to let it come to you, Jason knows, so he waits patiently for Nico to state his business.

After a few minutes of silence, which is clearly uncomfortable on Nico’s end but doesn’t bother Jason, he’s rewarded with a rushed, “Can I hang out here for a while? I’m — well, bored.”

“Sure,” says Jason. He smiles at Nico, who shoves his hands deeper into his jean pockets. “I gotta check in with Leo about this shield he’s making for me — if I’ve told him once I don’t need laserbeams, I’ve told him a thousand times — but feel free to crash here until I get back. We can find something to do, okay?”

Nico’s eyes slide longingly to the bunks against the wall. The beds had been installed by the Hephaestus cabin after the third month of listening to Jason’s passive-aggressive complaints about the marble floor. They probably have lasers or some other ridiculous safety feature installed in them, too, but Jason has been wary to check it out for sure. Whatever, Nico can take care of himself if he gets attacked by a bunk bed. Jason stands up to leave, ignoring the way Nico’s hand hovers over his sword when he does.

“Yeah, I’ll be here,” Nico says. He doesn’t sound totally grateful, and he waits until Jason is half out the door before taking his eyes off him, but it’s progress. Jason knows what it’s like to coax an injured pup out of its hiding place. Nico di Angelo is just about as vicious and vulnerable as a motherless wolf pup. He can wait.

He makes his way across the camp, frowning at the clouds gathering above him.

So, Nico is back. Nobody’d been entirely sure where he was all this time, but Hazel was pretty sure she could feel him in the Underworld. Jason often wonders if she feels abandoned. Every time he speaks to her, back at Camp Jupiter, she seems okay. Still, he knows what it’s like, having a sibling that takes off at weird times and doesn’t return until they feel like it. He’s never held it against Thalia, though. She has the Hunters to take care of.

Maybe that’s how Hazel stays content. Maybe she tells herself that Nico has things to do in the Underworld, and he’s just lost track of time. Maybe she doesn’t think about him enough to feel like she’s been left behind.

That’s a weird concept for Jason. He waves absently at Piper, who’s sitting by the lake with Calypso’s head in her lap.

“You might want to hurry,” she calls out, fingers tangled in her girlfriend’s hair. “I heard Valdez mumbling about laserbeams!”

“I’m going to kill him,” Jason says under his breath. Piper laughs even though there’s no way she could have heard him. Probably she’s just happy. Calypso has that effect on her.

Jason doesn’t think she’s charmspeaking him — he really does want to strangle Leo — but he speeds up his pace. He gets to the forge just in time to see Nyssa hit Leo over the head with a hammer, which is always a nice thing to walk in on.

“Piper heard you talking about lasers again,” says Jason.

Leo rubs his curly head where Nyssa banged him. “Uh, yeah, she might have.”

“I don’t want lasers.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but hear me out —”

“I straight up do not want to fry my enemies with technology you’re not even sure works. Scrap it.”

With a heavy sigh, Leo picks up the innocuous-looking shield from his workstation and tosses it into the melting pot for recycling. Nyssa gives Jason a grateful look. The more people who try to tell Leo that he doesn’t know how to use laser technology, the more determined he is to make weapons with it.

Jason doesn’t want to leave Nico alone in his cabin too long, but if he leaves now Leo will wonder why. Loudly. He doesn’t know if Nico’s visit is supposed to be common knowledge, so he’ll keep quiet until he’s sure.

“How’s it going, anyway?” Jason asks.

“Besides the total lack of faith everyone at this camp has in me? Things are pretty good.” Leo takes a sandwich out of his tool belt and almost eats it whole. He always forgets to eat. Also, Jason notices, he still hasn’t traded in his old sneakers for some solid boots.

“Do you need me to take you shoe-shopping, man? Once the snow falls you’re going to get frostbite.”

“Okay, mom,” Leo snorts. “Next you’ll be telling me to eat more vegetables.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

Leo laughs, elbowing Jason in the side. They’ve always been best friends — though Leo’s memories are fuzzier on how, thanks to Juno — but ever since their girlfriends became each other’s girlfriends, they started hanging out a lot more.

Weirdly, Leo took it way worse than Jason had. He’d only met Calypso for, like, a week, but Leo’d never been great with rejection. For a month or so he didn’t even leave the forge, and relied on his cabinmates to bring him food. Calypso wanted to speak to him, apologise some more, but Jason wouldn’t let her. Leo had just needed some time.

He’s better now, and he agrees that Calypso and Piper have been good for each other. He still likes having Jason around, though.

Jason wants to be able to help Nico the way he and Leo helped each other, but he has no idea how. With Leo it was like Let’s blow stuff up! and Let’s go see a movie about blowing stuff up!, because Leo is nothing if not predictable, but Jason doesn’t even know if Nico likes explosions. He doesn’t know anything about what Nico likes, really, besides Percy Jackson and purposefully creeping people out.

“Hey, this is gonna sound random,” Jason says as Leo inhales the rest of his crust, “but do you know anything about Nico di Angelo?”

“Oh, yeah, totally, in the copious amount of time we spent together, he told me his life story.”

“I’m serious, man. Say he shows up again. How do we keep him here?”

Leo actually thinks about it for a second, which is more than Jason could have expected from him last year. “There was this card game Zhang wanted me to play. I said it was lame, and he was all ‘come on, even Hazel’s freak of a brother plays it’, so that could be a thing.”

“Card game?” Jason asks, trying to imagine Nico playing poker.

“Yeah, uh, Mistmagpies or something.”

“Mythomagic?”

“That’s it,” says Leo, snapping his fingers. “Did you play it, too? Is it a Roman thing?”

Yeah, Jason played it, but his deck is at Camp Jupiter. Probably divvied up among the Fifth Cohort when he refused to return. He nods anyway and makes small talk about Roman hobbies for a little while. He tells Leo several more times, in no uncertain terms, that he expects his new shield to be boring and reliable, and that Leo needs to get himself some proper shoes before Jason forces a pair onto him. For a minute, he stands outside the forge and thinks about where he’s supposed to find Mythomagic cards in a Greek camp.

There’s only one place, really, but Jason hates asking the Stolls for anything. The last time he needed a favour from them he ended up with purple hair for a week.

Still, if it makes Nico stay, anything’s worth it.

—

Jason’s hands are full of chip bags, bottles of water, and Mythomagic cards, so he can’t exactly shake Nico awake — not that he would have tried anyway, he’s pretty happy with his limbs where they are — but thankfully his voice is enough to rouse the kid.

“Is that for me?” he asks with a frown that Jason mirrors.

“Well, I mean, yeah. When was the last time you ate something? I wish I could’ve gotten you some proper food. I’m just glad you slept, man. The war’s over, Nico, and you look like you’re still running yourself ragged.”

Hesitantly, Nico accepts the offered chips. He looks more confused than is warranted. It occurs to Jason how very few people have looked out for the guy. Not acknowledged at either camp, not in the right century. Does he even have a place to sleep at night? Are the clothes on his back the only ones he owns? The most likely answers are also the most concerning. Jason sits down on the other bottom bunk, keeping his distance while Nico eats like he’ll never see food again.

He feels bad, suddenly, for not thinking about Nico more, but that’s ridiculous.

For months, he has included Nico in his prayers at nearly every meal. He thinks that, as children of the Big Three, he and Percy would be able to feel it if something happened to Nico — and Hazel definitely would — but still he asks Jupiter to keep Nico safe. Jupiter owes him a few favours.

Now Nico is here in Jason’s father’s cabin, safe and somewhat healthy, and it feels like Jupiter is saying, “The debt’s repaid, get off my back.”

Jason waits until Nico is finished eating to show him the card decks that he liberated from the Hermes cabin. Nico just looks at them warily, balling up chip bags to throw in the trash.

“I don’t play that,” says Nico. “Not anymore.”

“You don’t have a lot of entertainment options,” Jason points out. He assumes Nico doesn’t want to announce his presence to the camp yet, and Zeus doesn’t exactly have wireless in his cabin. Nico scowls, but holds out his hand to accept a deck.

“Why did you come here?” Jason asks after some rounds where it’s abundantly clear that they’re both out of practice.

“I told you,” says Nico. He puts down Poseidon like the card burns his fingers. “I got bored. I know everyone thinks the Underworld is where I belong, but it’s not really interesting to hang around dead people for months.”

“Huh. Always thought dead people would tell the best stories.”

“No,” says Nico, “they’re all too sad.”

That makes Jason go silent for a few hands, thinking about Nico alone with all those tormented souls. No wonder he’s so gloomy sometimes. Jason nearly forgets what he was trying to ask in the first place, but gathers his wits enough to correct Nico.

“No, I mean, why did you come here? Why not Camp Jupiter?”

Nico gives him a look, like he can’t believe Jason has the nerve to ask something like that. He ignores the question and plays his Cerberus. That’s alright, Jason is patient.

—

It isn’t until much later, when they’re both dozing in their separate bunks, that Nico sighs and says, “I didn’t want to see Hazel, I wanted to see you.”

He sounds defensive about it, like he’s expecting Jason to laugh at him, but all Jason feels is warm. Nico doesn’t voluntarily show affection for anyone but his sister. It’s nice to know Jason’s ‘let me be your friend’ vibes got through, at least a little.

“Thanks, dude,” he says. “I missed you, too.”

“Never said I missed you.”

“Uh huh. Go to sleep, kiddo.”

Nico grumbles about the nickname again, but Jason isn’t listening. He’s too busy grinning into his pillow.

—

“He’s not here, by the way,” Jason says the next morning. Nico pauses in putting his shoes on, questioning. “They’re both in San Francisco."

"What's in San Francisco?" Nico asks, feigning disinterest. He should really know better than to try and fool the only person who knows why that brittle note in his voice is there. Jason grimaces, thinking of Percy loading suitcases into his stepdad’s car because he didn’t want to risk air travel; Annabeth’s fond little grin when he said something dumb. Nico doesn't want to know why they’re in the Bay Area.

Jason tells him anyway. "Her family."

Nico clutches at his own elbows, clumsily shielding himself from the implications of Jason's words.

"Okay," he says. Then, he seems to really think about what Jason’s saying. “Oh. That’s actually — it’s good, that they’re not here. Means I can leave your cabin without being jumpy.”

“You’re always jumpy,” says Jason. “But, yeah, you can come eat breakfast.”

When they head towards the dining pavilion, Nico stays close to Jason. Even after living here full-time for months, Jason still gets stares whenever he goes places, and Nico probably thinks they’re looking at him. Jason is just about to reassure him that they aren’t when someone in the Apollo cabin yells, “Hey, di Angelo’s here!”

Nico shrinks into Jason’s shadow in a way that makes Jason pretty sure he could literally disappear in it if he wants to. Nobody comes up to harass Nico like he seems to be expecting — a bunch of campers just wave. After all he’s done, Nico is regarded as a true hero in both camps, though everyone is still happy to keep their distance from him. Jason pinches the cuff of Nico’s jacket to keep him from leaving. Nico shoots him a furious look, but Jason isn’t technically touching him, so he can get over it.

“Come on,” Jason says, tugging Nico along with him. “You need food, don’t act like you don’t.”

“I definitely should have gone to Camp Jupiter,” Nico mutters.

Jason ignores him. A handful of people are getting food a few yards ahead, Leo thankfully amongst them. The more meals he skips, the more worried Jason gets. He lifts his free hand to wave at Leo. After an exaggerated double-take at Nico, Leo salutes them both, sitting at the Zeus table.

That throws Nico for a moment. “He’s not supposed to do that. We have to sit with our cabin, I remember that rule. I always had to —”

He cuts himself off, but Jason knows what he means. The first time Jason lived at Camp Half-Blood, when the Argo II was being built, he ate meals alone every day. It got pretty lonely.

“Nobody stops the seven of us from doing anything,” says Jason.

Nico scoffs, but he doesn’t complain, even when he has to scrape part of his omelette into the brazier. It’s weird, because for a moment Jason doesn’t know what to pray for. He’s gotten so used to ‘please help Nico stay safe’ that he almost forgets Nico is safe at his side. Nico doesn’t notice his hesitation. Keeping his head down, he joins Leo at the Zeus table. Jason skips his prayers altogether so he can make sure Leo isn’t being — well, himself.

“Be nice,” he warns Leo as he slides onto the bench beside Nico.

“I haven’t even said anything!” Leo protests.

“You were going to,” Jason says. Leo shrugs a yes, probably. “Nico’s staying for a little while.”

“Is he?”

Shoulders tense, Nico nods. He doesn’t say anything, but that doesn’t deter Leo. He’s the king of meaningless chatter. Normally it’s annoying, but Jason is grateful for it today, the way shop-talk helps Nico relax.

At least, he’s relaxed until Leo says, “Hey, if he’s staying, he should come with us to Piper’s birthday party tomorrow. It’ll feel way less like a double date that way.”

“You wish it was a double date,” Jason retorts immediately. He checks Nico’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. Nico looks exactly how he expects him to, like he’s about to apologise for coming at such a busy time and run into the nearest shadow. He’s spooked so easily, and Jason wants him to stay, so he tries for a reassuring tone. “It’s fine, Nico, Piper would love to have you there.”

As if summoned by her name, Piper comes out of nowhere to sit next to Leo and steal his carrot sticks. She likes teasing Leo so much that Jason has never had the heart to tell her Leo doesn’t even like carrots, he puts them there just for her.

“Hi, Nico,” she says when his presence registers, eyebrows disappearing under her choppy fringe. “I thought — well, I actually thought you were dead.”

“Is he dead?” Leo asks. He pokes his spoon into Nico’s shoulder.

Nico glares at him and jerks away. “I’m not dead,” he says, the first words he’s spoken since he and Jason sat down to eat. Piper looks him over and smiles. It’s got that teasing edge to it that makes Jason nervous.

“Hard to tell,” says Piper.

“I am not dead!”

“He says he’s not dead,” Jason points out through a mouthful of oatmeal.

They’re all silent for a few moments, and then Leo gets a ridiculously solemn look on his stupid face and says, “Congratulations.”

Jason chokes on his oatmeal, and some of it ends up on Leo’s plate. Leo just pushes his plate away and grins. He’s always so proud when he gets Jason to laugh. While Piper and Leo snicker at him, Nico pats his back. It isn’t nearly enough pressure to help, but Nico is so out of practice with physicality that Jason pretends it helps get his coughing under control.

“You’re not funny,” he says to Leo as soon as he can breathe again.

“Aw, you know you love me,” Leo says dismissively. He turns to Piper. “So, what do you say, Pipes? Is five a crowd, or can Nico tag along to your super-cool party?”

“It isn’t a party, Leo, shut up, we’re just going dancing. Of course Nico can come if he wants to.”

Her lips twitch, like the idea of Nico dancing is funny. It is a bit funny, Jason agrees, but he sees a bigger problem with Nico coming along. He’s been dancing with Piper and Calypso before — this is Leo’s first go, so maybe he doesn’t know or care where they’re going — but Nico won’t want to be surprised by it.

Jason nudges Nico with his elbow while Leo and Piper squabble about the definition of a party. Nico gives him this semi-frantic look, like he’s hoping Jason will tell him he doesn’t have to come.

“Just so you know,” Jason says, too quietly for his friends to overhear, “Piper always goes to the same teen club. It’s an LBGTQ place.”

“What does that mean?” Nico whispers back.

He thinks about how best to explain it without scaring Nico off the idea completely. It would be nice if he came with them, not least because it would help his social skills and give Leo something to focus on that isn’t Calypso. This could be good for Nico, if he lets it happen. Jason wants to help him so badly. After a quick check that Leo and Piper still aren’t listening, Jason leans in and mutters, “It means it’s a place for kids like you. You should come.”

The anxiety in Nico’s eyes turns into full-fledged panic. He gets up and practically runs into the nearest clump of trees, probably to shadow-travel home. Jason sighs, listening to his friends’ conversation trailing off in confusion, and sends a belated prayer to Jupiter to bring Nico back.

“That didn’t look like something that wants to be your friend,” Leo says, cutting into Jason’s thoughts.

“I’ll break him down eventually,” says Jason. He feels awful, and he knows his friends can tell, but they don’t ask what happened. Piper does ask him if he considers their dancing expedition a party, and the bickering starts up again while Jason pokes at his food.

—

Jason goes about his usual routine — teaching new recruits how to handle a sword, avoiding the Stoll brothers, eating lunch with Leo in the forge — and tries his best not to think about Nico.

It doesn’t really work that well. He ends up heading back to his cabin when he’s supposed to be in arts and crafts, which is the beauty of being the only person in the Zeus cabin. Even if Thalia came to visit, she’d be staying in Artemis with her pseudo-sisters. Sometimes it’s lonely, but sometimes it just means he gets the option of afternoon naps instead of lessons.

He really thought Nico left, so when he goes inside the Zeus cabin and sees the kid waiting on one of the bunks, Jason nearly jumps out of his skin. Nico asks what took him so long and adds that he’s still bored, and Jason is meant to be entertaining him.

Nico doesn’t seem to want an apology. That’s not exactly surprising, since he’s always seemed to prefer dropping things. He’s holding out the Mythomagic cards in a kind of truce, and it gives Jason an idea.

“If you can beat me in this round,” Jason says. “You don’t have to come to the club with us tomorrow.”

“All right, deal,” says Nico, after deliberating for a moment. He slides onto the floor, where Jason joins him, and begins to shuffle.

—

Jason wins. Reluctantly, Nico agrees to join them for Piper’s birthday not-a-party.

—

Argus drives them, the way he always does when Piper asks, and he’s going to go see a movie while they celebrate. He’s silent as ever, so Jason isn’t sure how Piper knows his plans, but he doesn’t question her reliability. The five of them tumble out of the camp van and onto a Manhattan sidewalk. Jason has no idea where they are, and he’s pretty sure none of his companions do, either. None of them are New York natives. For a split second, he wishes Percy were with them.

After several trips to this specific club, though, Piper knows which turns to take. Jason doesn’t remember as vividly, but he’s pretty sure they have to walk for a couple more blocks.

“Why didn’t you just get Argus to drop us off at the front door?” Leo asks, shivering. His shoes aren’t the only thing unsuitable for the weather, Jason notices with a sigh. He wonders if Leo is ever going to listen to his suggestions, or if Jason is just white noise to him at this point.

“Walking there’s half the fun, Valdez!” Piper calls over her shoulder. Her arm is linked with Calypso’s, and they’re dressed to match. It’s really sweet.

“She never remembers the address,” mutters Jason.

Leo laughs, but Nico doesn’t look like he’s going to relax anytime soon. He’s been tense ever since they left the boundaries of camp. When Leo’s laugh turns into another full-body shudder, Jason shrugs his own jacket off and drapes it over Leo’s shoulders. He gets a quick grin in thanks, and he tries to school his expression into something more exasperated and less fond.

It’s hard, because Leo might be an idiot, but he’s Jason’s favourite idiot. He is never, ever going to tell Leo that — Leo’s head is big enough already — but he probably doesn’t do a very good job of hiding it. Leo pulls the jacket tighter around himself without bothering to put his arms into it.

On his other side, Nico still looks pale. Jason nudges him with an elbow and says, “Hey, kiddo. You all right?”

Nico rolls his eyes to the dark sky, clearly ready to beat Jason up with someone’s femur bone if he doesn’t stop with the nickname. He looks less tense now that he’s contemplating Jason’s demise, though, so Jason doesn’t regret saying it.

“So, Nico,” Leo says, and Nico’s eyes snap down to him in vague surprise. “You know I’m going to make you dance for at least one song, right?”

“That’s not happening.”

Leo pouts. Jason doesn’t know how to tell him that his puppy-dog eyes don’t work on anyone but Piper and Jason. He does look extra pathetic, swallowed by Jason’s jacket like he is, but Nico is severely unimpressed. After it’s clear that Nico isn’t budging, Leo drops the expression and makes a whining noise.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” he says, “I told Hazel you were coming dancing with us —”

“You told my sister?” Nico interrupts, voice cracking.

Up ahead, Jason can see the multi-coloured lights and excited teenagers that mean they’ve reached their destination. Piper is already calling out greetings to people she recognises.

Leo shrugs, unabashed. “Yeah, I told your sister. It’s not exactly a regular thing. The point is, Frank bet us that you wouldn’t dance for a whole song.”

“Frank,” says Nico, “has remarkably good instincts.”

“What are the terms of the bet?” Jason asks, raising his hand to wave at a familiar group of girls.

“If Nico dances,” Leo says in a wheedling tone that Jason privately thinks will get him absolutely nowhere, “then Frank will spend an entire week as a housecat. Or possibly a frog. Hazel and I are in pretty deep disagreement over which would be funnier.”

“And if he doesn’t dance?”

At the door, Piper is charmspeaking their way ahead of the line. Calypso motions for them to hurry up. Leo mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘firebender’, tosses Jason’s jacket back at him, and rushes off to join the girls. Nico looks confused and annoyed — but, finally, relaxed. Jason says a silent prayer to Hephaestus for making Leo Valdez happen.

He pulls Nico through the teenagers and the mostly-empty front room of the club so they can catch up with their friends at coat check. Nico glares at Jason for grabbing his wrist, but Jason ignores it.

They all hand over their jackets, though Nico is clearly reluctant about it, and Piper suggests in a sugary voice that the coat-check guy shouldn’t charge them.

“Of course not,” he says, dazed, and stamps their hands without asking for money.

Leo complains about not getting a cool stamp like the rest of them; Jason reminds him that he should’ve brought a jacket.

“But then I wouldn’t get to show off the guns,” jokes Leo. He strikes a ridiculous pose, flexing his biceps, and Piper rolls her eyes so hard Jason is afraid she’ll get vertigo. Jason turns to Nico, hoping to share a ‘can you believe this guy’ look. Nico is too busy staring blankly at Leo.

“Come on, you lug.” Calypso laughs, winding her free arm through Leo’s. “We’re here to dance, aren’t we?”

The three of them lead the way down a flight of stairs. Halfway down, Jason snags Nico’s arm again. Nico doesn’t rip it out of his grasp like he’s expecting, but the look on his face is enough to make Jason let go.

“You really should dance with someone,” he says. He’s speaking louder than he usually would, because the Lady Gaga is already at a high volume.

“Why should I?” Nico asks with a faint sneer.

“When are you going to get another opportunity like this?” Jason implores. Nico looks down at his own feet. He isn’t nearly as on-guard as he was when they left camp, and Jason calls that a major plus. “I’m not saying you need to, or anything like that, but most of the kids in here are like you. It’s a safe space. Piper and Calypso come here all the time to dance and make out and nobody bothers them.”

Nico looks bewildered. “Make out? Like, with each other? I thought — you and Piper —”

It’s a fair assumption, considering what their relationship was the last time Nico saw them, but Jason still laughs. At this point, it seems absurd that he and Piper were ever in love. It’s been months since he even thought about her that way.

“Piper and I broke up a long time ago,” he tells Nico, moving against the wall to let a couple down the stairs. They’re college age, with rainbows painted on their cheeks, and Jason sees the shocked way Nico looks at their entwined hands. No matter how much Jason had tried to convince him that this was a place for people like him, Nico must have needed proof. “She and Calypso are happy together, so I never minded. It took Leo a bit longer to be okay with it, but, you know, he’s stronger than he looks.”

“He looks strong enough,” says Nico. He doesn’t quite meet Jason’s gaze, and Jason’s eyebrows hitch up in surprise.

“Well, I mean, if you don’t want to dance with a stranger,” Jason says with a careful shrug. “Leo’s bad enough that he’ll make you look good.”

“Dance? With him?” Nico sounds a lot like Jason just suggested he jump in a vat of boiling lava. Maybe Jason’s imagining things. But no — there’s definitely colour on Nico’s prominent cheekbones, which isn’t something Jason has seen a lot of. He pretends he doesn’t notice, and walks down the rest of the stairs.

Jason is a bit concerned that he won’t be able to find his friends in the club, but he needn’t have worried — Leo has claimed a nearby sofa by lying across it.

“Crude, but effective,” Jason tells him.

He snorts, pulling himself into a sitting position so Jason can drop down beside him. As soon as Jason is comfortable, Leo falls back, head landing painfully against Jason’s thigh. Jason winces, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t expecting it. He taps Leo on the forehead to remind him that Nico has to sit, too, and Leo sighs but slides his feet up to give Nico room.

Nico looks a little bit overwhelmed by the club. Jason supposes they weren’t much of a commodity in the 40s. When Nico sits down, crossing his arms over his chest, Jason says, “Hey, you okay?”

“Fine,” says Nico. He’s lying, but Jason doesn’t push the issue.

“Why aren’t you asking how I am?” Leo asks, butting his head against Jason’s hand like a cat.

As usual, Jason indulges him. He asks how Leo is, which leads to Leo going off on a spiel about being too young to drink, and keeps Nico in his periphery. Nico is looking around with his mouth half open. There’s really nothing special about the place — a small bar that doesn’t serve alcohol on the far wall and a dance floor taking up the rest of the basement — but Jason isn’t seventy years old and hiding his sexuality, so he isn’t the best judge of what is and isn’t awe-inspiring to Nico. He refocuses on Leo and realises he’s been combing his fingers through Leo’s hair for the better part of the rant. Whatever, Leo seems content with it.

“Ghost boy,” Leo says when he’s exhausted the underage topic. He kicks Nico’s leg. “You want to go buy me a water? I don’t really wanna move.”

Nico glares and opens his mouth to argue, but Jason seizes the opportunity. It’s only across the room, but going to the bar and back will require Nico to talk to people, which was the whole point in him coming along. Loudly, Jason says, “That’s a good idea. Here, Nico.”

He digs in his pockets, ignoring Leo’s grumbling, and pulls out some cash. He hands it to Nico.

“All right, whatever,” Nico snaps. He takes the money Jason’s offering and goes to the bar, clearly determined. Jason wouldn’t be surprised if Nico pours the water on Leo when he comes back.

It’s good, that he’s opening up some more. Maybe he’ll even dance with someone. The thought makes Jason wildly uncomfortable, and he amends: maybe he’ll even dance with Leo. For some reason, Jason doesn’t mind the idea of Nico and Leo dancing together. It’s when he pictures a mortal stranger that it gets all muddled.

“Can’t believe Nico’s getting hit on,” Leo says out of the blue. Jason looks over by the bar, where some dude is indeed smiling at Nico. He makes the mistake of grabbing Nico’s arm. Without a word, Nico tenses up, grabs Leo’s water bottle, and stalks away. Jason only realises that he’s been holding his breath when he lets it go. He isn’t quite sure what he’s worried about — Nico ripping the dude’s arm off? Leo looks up at him with a fake expression of annoyance. “Nobody’s hit on me yet.”

“That’s because your head’s in my lap,” Jason points out. He leaves his fingers in Leo’s hair, though, because he doesn’t actually want Leo to move. The weight of him is comfortable.

Apparently on the same wavelength, Leo turns his face into Jason’s stomach and mumbles something incoherent that Jason assumes are more complaints. He only stops when Nico comes back and tosses the water bottle at him.

“You two look cozy,” Nico says, sounding suspicious.

“When in Rome, Danny Phantom.” Leo tries to take a drink while lying down, but Jason can’t see that ending in anything but disaster. With a long-suffering sigh, he manhandles Leo into sitting up properly, keeping a steadying hand on the back of his neck. Why he bothers taking care of the idiot, Jason will never understand. It’s become something of a compulsion at this point.

Leo asks him if it’s cool that he’s going to go dance with the girls, and Jason hesitates before nodding. Leo doesn’t seem like he’s going to start arguing with either of them. It’s probably fine. He presses his bottle into Jason’s hand and bounds off in the direction of the dance floor.

Jason watches him go with vague concern. He’s almost always vaguely concerned when thinking about Leo, and all the trouble he might get into. The look Nico is drilling into the side of his head makes Jason blush a little.

It’s not like this is the first time he and Leo have caused some raised eyebrows. He knows what Nico is thinking, and it’s the same thing most of camp thinks every time they see Jason gathering up food to bring to the forge or Leo hanging off Jason’s back during the campfire. Neither of them have ever particularly cared, but for some reason Jason doesn’t want Nico to get the wrong idea. No, he wants to say, you can’t understand how co-dependent Leo and I have gotten.

“Were you trying to set me up with your boyfriend earlier?” asks Nico. “I gotta say, that’s low.”

“He’s not —” Jason hates himself for how red his face is turning. He hopes Nico can’t tell, over all the flashing lights. “It’s not like that.”

Nico gives him this look, skeptical but amused, and Jason realises that he’s being teased. Nico di Angelo is teasing him. That’s such a foreign concept that he can’t think of anything to say for a few minutes. Nico allows the lull, frowning in confusion at the Nicki Minaj lyrics being shouted from all corners of the club.

“Would it be so bad?” Nico asks, breaking the semi-silence. Jason shoots him a questioning glance. “Having a boyfriend. Or is it just something that guys like you and Leo joke about?”

It’s almost a blessing that Leo and Piper show up then, because Jason has no idea how to answer that.

Piper is yelling something about how awful this song is, and Leo is yelling back that she needs to suck it, and then he grabs Nico’s arm and hauls him to his feet. Before Nico can say more in protest than an undignified yelp, Leo drags him into the crowd of dancing teenagers. Jason guesses he really wants to win that bet. Piper swoops down to kiss Jason’s forehead.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says. She looks unsure of whether or not she is supposed to be worried. “Are we in danger?”

“No, I just,” says Jason. He hesitates. “Piper?”

“Yeah?”

“How did you know you were — I mean, did you just wake up one morning and say, ‘hey, you know, I think I like girls as well as boys’, or have you always known? Or was it, was it just Calypso? Like, you looked at her and thought you might like to kiss her, but she’s the only one?”

Piper blinks at him.

He doesn’t know why he asked. Except that all he can think about is the secondhand swooping of fear he’d felt when he watched Nico run away from the feelings Percy Jackson caused, and the easy transition Piper made from boyfriend to girlfriend. Their reactions to it were so different, and that feels important. Is it just because of their upbringing? 1940s versus modern-day Los Angeles… that’s a hell of a difference in acceptance.

He jumps when Piper’s hand drops to his shoulder. She smiles at him, and he can hear the charmspeak when she says, “Let’s take a walk.”

—

The fresh air is definitely helpful. Well, as fresh as air in Manhattan can be. Piper pulls her coat around herself, and Jason follows suit with his own jacket. He notices, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it smells like Leo. That is not helpful.

Piper sets off down the sidewalk, and Jason hopes she knows where she’s going.

“The answer is, I never really thought about it,” she says when they’re far enough away that they can’t see the lights. “You grow up thinking you can only be one thing, basically, and nobody ever tells you otherwise.”

“But then Calypso showed up,” Jason prompts when she falls silent. “The gods brought her to camp as a gesture of goodwill, and the two of you — well, you started spending a lot of time together. You fell in love.” He has never held this against Piper, but she still flinches as if he’s yelling. “But neither of you ever seemed bothered that you were both girls.”

He stops walking and sits down on the curb. Even though the wounds from that time have all but vanished, it takes a lot out of him to think about it. Piper wrinkles her nose at the New York gutter, but grossness has never stopped her from being a good friend, so of course she joins him. She wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes.

“There’s a really stupid saying about people like me,” says Piper. “Love is love. It’s redundant, but it’s also the truth. And there’s really nothing simpler to me than love.”

“No matter who you love.” Jason thinks he understands.

“No matter who you love,” she agrees. She’s pressed up against his side, and Jason remembers being in love with her. He remembers it vividly, because getting his memories back had felt like an unnecessary, distracting prequel, and Piper was the one holding his hand when his real story started. It’s not like that anymore. Aside from Leo, she’s his best friend in the world. She waits patiently for him to gather his thoughts.

It almost surprises him that she smells like cinnamon. When he thinks about it, she always has, but it seems like he should be able to pick her scent out of a line-up, the way he can Leo’s. The way he’s learning to with Nico’s.

“Oh,” he says.

Piper envelopes him in both of her arms, and he matches his breathing to hers so he doesn’t lose his mind. She doesn’t say anything.

—

The thing is, Jason’s not freaking out. Not exactly.

He doesn’t know if he’s always been interested in dudes, because his Roman memories aren’t something he likes to rifle through a lot, but he doesn’t believe so. It was just — Nico asked him if having a boyfriend would be so bad, and then Jason had to think about it.

Jason thinks about it when he hugs Piper and apologises for ruining her birthday party; he thinks about it when he gathers the winds to help him get back to camp before the others realise he’s missing; he thinks about it when he’s brushing his teeth, putting the water he paid for on the floor beside his bunk, pulling on the Superman pajama pants Leo bought him a few weeks ago.

He thinks about having a boyfriend. What that would entail, what it would mean. It never would’ve been so bad, obviously, but just as he’s falling asleep Jason feels an unfamiliar pull in his chest.

The thing is, Jason isn’t freaking out, but he definitely wants to kiss boys, and that’s. That’s new.

—

When Jason wakes up, Nico is sound asleep in the bunk next to him. At least, Jason assumes he is — as soon as he swings his feet to the cold floor, though, Nico’s eyes fly open. Jason smiles at him. Nico smiles back, small and tired, and Jason feels it like a sword-hilt to the gut.

“You left last night,” Nico says, his smile fading as he remembers.

“Sorry,” says Jason. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

He must look sufficiently pale, because Nico doesn’t question that. Nico doesn’t bother getting up, he just watches Jason sort through which clothes are dirty and which ones he can pass off as clean.

Nico’s gaze feels like it’s piercing, right in between Jason’s shoulder blades, but the feeling lifts when Jason starts to get changed. Honestly, Jason doesn’t think he’d mind if Nico wanted to see him undressed. The thought makes him flush bright red, and he’s thankful that his back is turned. He wonders how long these feelings have been building for. Since Nico showed up in his cabin a few days ago? Since Piper told him that she likes girls as well as boys, but one girl in particular overshadowed Jason? Since he watched Cupid tear down every wall Nico built?

It doesn’t really matter. The fact is, he feels it now. To distract himself from the frightening inevitability of that, he says, “You danced with Leo, huh?”

“He’s awful.” Nico’s voice is muffled, like he’s talking into his pillow. “Truly awful. He won the bet, though.”

“So is Frank going to be a cat this week?”

“Frog,” says Nico. “Hazel’s right, that’s way funnier than a cat.”

“A frog praetor,” Jason says as he’s putting on a mostly-clean shirt. It’s the only one without any stains on it, but it’s also his purple one. He wonders how many campers are going to give him the stink eye for it. “I’m sure the Romans are going to love that.”

He sits down on his bunk to pull on some socks, and Nico’s face emerges from his pillow. He’s frowning a little bit.

“Why do you always say that?” he asks, the piercing gaze back again.

“Say what?”

“‘Romans’. Like you aren’t one.”

“Because I’m not Roman,” says Jason. “I mean, yes, in the strictest sense, I am. My dad’s Jupiter, not Zeus, and I was raised by wolves and legionnaires, but.” He shrugs, feeling weird about the attention Nico’s paying this issue. “I like it better here. You Greeks have a more… comfortable way of doing things. At Camp Jupiter, I had some good friends, but here it feels like I have a family.”

It’s strange, talking to Nico di Angelo about family. Jason thinks he must understand, though, because Nico’s only living relative is at Camp Jupiter, and yet here he is. When he got bored in the Underworld, it was Jason and Camp Half-Blood that he wanted to see.

Jason’s heart feels like it’s grown in size overnight, which will probably be nice at some point, but right now it’s just painful. It throbs in his chest as he watches Nico nod, hair strongly resembling a bird’s nest.

He wants to — but, first, he needs to see Leo. Since Piper’s talk with him, Jason has figured some things out.

“I’ll be back,” he tells Nico. “I’m going to go find Leo, make sure he isn’t too torn up about this frog thing. You know how he gets.” Nico doesn’t know how Leo gets — how could he? — but he waves Jason on like he understands. Jason needs to get out of Zeus’ cabin, like, immediately. Before he can do anything at all about his newfound feelings, he’s going to ask his best friend for advice. That’s what people do, when they have a family.

The first place he checks for Leo is the forge, because it seems more likely that he’s there than actually in his cabin. When he gets there, however, he’s informed that Leo is holed up in Bunker Nine, working on the Hephaestus chariot.

“He didn’t want any help,” Nyssa says with a slight shrug.

Jason sighs, acting more put-upon than he feels. “He never wants help.”

She smiles thinly, because she knows how Leo gets about his projects, too, and she worries about him almost as much as Jason does.

If Leo’s in the bunker by himself, that means something’s bothering him. That makes Jason nervous, even though there’s no possible way Leo could be bothered by Jason’s internal struggle. Unless Leo has suddenly acquired telepathy, which is a frightening idea, the problem has to be something totally unrelated. Concerned despite his own nerves, Jason sets off for the forest.

—

Leo’s there when Jason arrives, and he seems to be in a great mood.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, waving a wrench. “Pull up a piece of floor and talk to me, I’ve been dying of boredom.”

“I realised last night that I like boys,” Jason blurts out as he sits down next to Leo. He didn’t really think about what to say once he got up here, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Leo just nods, like he’s been expecting something like this.

“Any boy in particular?”

“Two boys,” says Jason. He groans a little bit, because he has never had to be in this sort of position before, and it sucks. He feels a lot of sympathy for Piper and Calypso, very suddenly. The situations are different, of course, but he imagines the torn feeling in his gut is exactly what they were feeling when they realised they were in love. “I don’t know what to do about that. Obviously I need to pick one of them, right? And then talk to them, or whatever, and see if it’s a thing? That could happen?”

Thoughtfully, Leo taps his chin with the wrench in his hand. “That’s assuming you go by traditional romance-novel standards of relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at our parents,” Leo says. “They’re not exactly monogamous.”

It takes Jason a moment to catch up with what Leo’s putting on the table, and it makes his brain short-circuit. Just to be sure he hasn’t misunderstood, Jason says, “You’re saying I should date both of them?”

“If they’re both okay with that, yeah, why not?” Leo shrugs. When he puts it like that, the idea doesn’t seem so crazy. Jason thinks about it in depth while Leo mucks around with the chariot. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Leo clears his throat and asks, “Hey, dude, is one of them me?”

“Y-yeah.” Jason feels his face heat up.

“Cool,” Leo says, super casually. Jason wonders if Leo saw this coming a long time ago. “Don’t kiss me right now, I’m covered in oil and highly flammable.”

“Right, of course.”

“The other boy you’ve got feelings for — it’s di Angelo, isn’t it?” Leo asks. Jason jerks his head in a move that he hopes is an affirmative but might also mean ‘kill me now’. “He’s pretty old-fashioned, so I don’t know if he’d even be down for it, but I wouldn’t mind, like, dating him too.”

“You’re suggesting the three of us should date each other?”

“I’ve been part of pointless love triangles before,” Leo reminds him. “This would be so much better for all of us, I’m positive.”

Jason blinks at him, slowly. “Leo. What you’re describing right now is a threesome.”

When Leo laughs, it’s on the verge of hysterical. He puts down the wrench and covers his face with both hands as he shakes with giggles. He’s probably getting grease all over his dumb face. Jason quirks an eyebrow, pretending he doesn’t also want to break into nervous laughter, and waits Leo out. He resurfaces with a big grin and black smears all down his cheeks. Jason has to remind himself Leo’s likely to burst into flames if he kisses him now, because he really wants to.

“Please don’t use the word threesome when talking to Nico,” says Leo, hiccupping a little. “He’s fourteen. Propositioning him feels way creepier than saying ‘hey, Leo and I both want to kiss you, and we also want to kiss each other. Is that cool?’”

“You’re remarkably chill about this whole kissing boys thing,” Jason says. “It makes me feel silly for leaving Piper’s party in a mild panic.”

“I’ve never not wanted to kiss boys,” Leo tells him.

“You — I didn’t know that.”

“Well, you never asked, did you?” Leo picks up his wrench again and goes back to work on the chariot’s gears. He acts like it’s no big deal, but Jason sees the blush staining his ears. Jason tries to remember the people he’s seen Leo interested in. Calypso, Hazel, Khione, Thalia… he wonders if Leo was quieter about the boys, or if Jason just never noticed.

Jason watches him for a few minutes, because the Leo that shows up when he’s working is not the Leo he’s used to. He’s more concentrated, serious, confident. Jason has no problem admitting that he thinks it’s hot, now, because he’s allowed to.

He’s worried, though. “What do you think he’ll say? It’s kind of a strange question.”

“Why would he say no?” Leo asks, sounding genuinely bewildered. “Look at us, man, we’re gorgeous.”

“You’re currently covered in motor oil,” says Jason.

Leo glares at him, and Jason probably should have expected the grease-covered hand that he drags down Jason’s arm. The message is clear: now we’re both covered in motor oil. Leo laughs at him, and Jason thinks, screw the chances of combustion. He takes Leo’s filthy face in both hands and kisses him. It’s meant to be quick, because he’s absolutely seen Leo start smoking when he gets excited about something, but Leo sighs happily and winds his hands into Jason’s hair so he can’t pull back. Jason wonders if this is the endgame Leo’s had in mind all along.

Maybe that should bother him. It doesn’t, aside from the niggling exasperation that if Leo’s wanted to kiss him for a while, he should have just done so. That’s months where they could have been kissing instead of talking about lasers. He knows he has to leave eventually — Nico is in Zeus’ cabin, and Jason very much needs to talk to him — but he can’t tear himself away just now.

—

“Are you just waking up? It’s almost lunch,” Jason says, disapproval colouring his tone. Nico, who’s sitting up in his bunk and stretching, fixes him with a flat look.

“Yes, mom, I am,” he says. He probably means it to be rude, but Jason is thinking about all the times Leo’s made fun of him for being so worried about everything, and that just reminds him what he’s meant to be talking to Nico about. As though just registering Jason’s appearance, Nico blinks. “You’re drenched in grease.”

Jason shrugs, most of his mind absent from the conversation. How is he supposed to bring up the subject of a three-person relationship? He runs a hand through his hair nervously and makes a face at how oily it is. He has no idea what to say. The longer he stands there silently, the higher Nico’s eyebrows go. Jason’s just decided to wing it when Nico says, quite shrewdly, “So, the Leo thing isn’t a joke anymore.”

“I don’t know that it was ever a joke, exactly,” Jason says, realising the truth of his words as he says them. He and Leo have been platonically dating for months. Now it’s just… less platonic.

“Well, good for you,” says Nico. He stands up and grabs his sword from the corner, re-attaching it to his belt.

It takes Jason a few seconds to realise that Nico is getting ready to leave, and that scares him. He still isn’t quite sure what he’s going to say, but he blurts, “Don’t leave, I still want to kiss you,” which is not exactly his finest moment.

Nico stares at him.

“Don’t you think your boyfriend might have something to say about that?” he asks, stressing the word boyfriend like it annoys him. Yeah, Jason thinks Leo might have something to say about it — that something being ‘hell yeah’. Telling Nico that would only confuse him more, though, so Jason wracks his brain for a different way to go about this.

“He wants to kiss you, too,” says Jason. “We’d both like to — well, kiddo, we want to date you.”

“Is this a joke?” Nico asks, his voice suddenly vicious. The ground around Jason’s feet rumbles. “Real funny, Jason. I thought you were my friend. I thought you both were.”

“I’m not kidding. This isn’t a prank Leo put me up to, Nico.” Jason carefully keeps his expression devoid of fear. Nico has always made him more nervous than any other demigod, but now is not the time to show weakness. He needs to ooze sincerity. Or whatever.

The floor cracks open a bit, next to Jason’s left foot, but he doesn’t back down. He knows Nico is just scared. Nico has been scared of his own feelings for years, and he’s always so convinced that rejection is right around the corner that it makes more sense to him that Jason is bullying him, rather than simply telling the truth. He waits, watching the emotions play across Nico’s face. Anger, betrayal, confusion. Then, the ground stops making that awful noise, and Nico just looks surprised.

“You’re serious?” he asks, voice cracking.

Jason smiles at him, and hopes that’s answer enough, because he doesn’t trust his own voice right now. Nico doesn’t return the smile, too busy looking stunned.

Slowly, Jason approaches him. Nico allows him to do so, eyes wide, and holds his gaze until Jason is a hairsbreadth away. He breathes out then, ragged in a way that almost makes Jason forget his manners. Raising a hand to hover over the side of Nico’s neck, Jason asks, “Is that okay?”

Nico chokes on a laugh.

He doesn’t answer Jason in the verbal sense, but he throws his arms around Jason and presses their mouths together sloppily, which Jason takes as a yes.

—

Leo is late for lunch, so the whole camp stares as he runs up to the dining pavilion, freshly-showered and unabashed. Jason is among them, but Nico, who’s got his back to everyone, is not. He watches Leo steal Piper’s plate on his way past the Aphrodite table. She doesn’t notice, because Calypso is whispering something in her ear that is apparently hilarious. At the bronze brazier, Leo catches Jason’s eye and raises his eyebrows in question. Jason nods at him, and he grins.

“Hey,” Leo says, straddling the bench beside Nico. Surprised by Leo’s sudden closeness, Nico jumps. With that stupid grin still on his face, Leo leans in to plant a kiss on the side of Nico’s face, clearly not giving a damn that most of the camp is watching him. “Sorry I’m late, dudes, but Hephaestus is definitely winning tomorrow’s chariot race.”