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The huge building stood in front of Nico, and he stared at it in trepidation before gently pushing the door open. He stood awkwardly by the door until Will noticed that he had finally gotten there.
“Nico!” Will hurried over to him and ushered him into a bed. He hadn't had time to wait for Nico while he was talking to Percy, and Nico could tell that he didn't expect him to come.
“You need to rest,” Will frowned. Nico opened his mouth to argue, but was overcome by a wave of exhaustion.
“No I don't,” he muttered, barely even trying to make his case evident.
He yawned, and Will smirked.
“Fine,” Nico said.
“Okay! I'll be back over here in a couple hours, since you probably won't be able to rest that much. Please try to get some sleep.” Then Will was gone, and the pit in Nico's chest returned. Will didn't actually want to hang out with him, he was just trying to make sure Nico didn't kill himself since he helped bring the Athena Parthenos back.
×××
When he woke up, it was to the sound of people rushing around. He'd been so tired that he hadn't noticed it a couple hours ago, but the infirmary didn't reek of death like he had expected it to. He guessed that all of the terminal patients had already died.
He'd just opened his eyes when he heard something that made his ears seem to zoom in. It took him a second to realize what he was hearing because it was butchered so badly.
The Apollo cabin was speaking Italian.
“ What do you guys want to do for capture the flag this weekend?” Austin asked.
“Well we all know Will won't play, he never leaves the infirmary.” Kayla replied.
“Hey!” Will's voice sounded from the other room.
“You know it's true!” She replied. She continued to explain her strategy.
Nico filed that information away for later, just in case Jason came to visit. The Apollo cabin probably wouldn't end up winning, anyway, because they were playing against the Athena cabin, but it would be funny if they were defeated within five minutes.
“You're awake!” Will exclaimed, walking back over to Nico. “How are you feeling?”
“I'm fine,” Nico replied, shifting uncomfortably.
“Okay. Uh, can I check your vitals to make sure that you're actually okay?”
“What, don't trust me, Solace?”
Will blanched, then his face turned red, then pale again. “No, I trust you. You might not be able to tell, is all.”
Nico sighed, then nodded. He hardly tensed when Will grabbed his wrist. “Well, your pulse is okay. 80 bpm, which is average. You're kind of… translucent, though, so don't do any death magic until I give you the okay.”
“It's not death magic, Will.”
“No underworld-y stuff.”
“Fine.”
Will smiled at him brightly, and Nico ignored the flitter of skeletal butterflies in his stomach.
“What were Kayla and Austin talking about earlier?”
“Oh! Since our father is the god of music and Italian is the language of music, we can speak it fluently. I'm pretty sure that our accent is really thick, though, because I have no idea what people are saying if I hear anybody else speak Italian. I'm trying to learn what they're saying, though, since it's latin-based and a lot of sciencey stuff is latin.”
“...Sciencey stuff.” Nico repeated.
Will flushed and looked away.
“Will, you need to check up on Connor. Clarisse just broke his leg.”
Will sighed and got up, flashing Nico a smile.
Nico tracked his movement across the infirmary until he heard Kayla and Austin talking some more.
“I can't believe Will managed to get death boy in here,” Kayla said. “He never listens to anybody.”
“Yeah,” Austin replied.
Another one of their siblings, somebody that Nico didn't know, came over. “I'm so excited that he's here. Now I can check him out without anybody noticing.”
“Will will notice,” Kayla smirked.
“True, but—”
“Hey! Stop chatting and get to work. I can't fix Connor's leg by myself.”
“He noticed,” Kayla singsonged.
Nico felt a sharp pain in his chest. Did Will really like him so little that he wouldn't even let his siblings talk about him?
“Nobody gets to check out Will's favorite patient,” Kayla continued.
What in Hades did she mean by that? Will wasn't even talking to him, and he got angry when people did talk about him.
Just at that moment, Jason walked into the infirmary and headed over to Nico. “I'm surprised that Will managed to get you to come in here.”
“Yeah, well he annoyed me into saying yes, and I swore on the Styx so that he would leave me alone.”
Jason's face told Nico that his lie hadn't deceived him at all.
Will walked back into the room to grab somebody and waved at Jason. Jason waved back.
“When are you going to ask him out?” Jason asked once they were alone again.
“Jason!” Nico hissed. “And besides, he hates me. He won't even let anybody talk about me. He's hardly even in the room, I don't know why he even wanted me to come in the first place.”
“... You're an idiot sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
Jason just shook his head and got up to leave the infirmary.
“Jason! Wait up!” Will ran towards him. “Can I ask you something really quickly?”
“Sure,” Jason said.
Will leaned forwards and whispered in his ear, then pulled back and studied Jason's face.
He looked like he was laughing, then replied quietly enough that Nico couldn't hear him, but he didn't have to whisper in Will's ear.
“Oh! Uh, okay. Thanks.”
Then Will disappeared until it was time for dinner.
He came back into the area of the infirmary where Nico was with a plate of food; there was an apple and some pasta.
He handed the plate to Nico then said, “I kinda really like you so, uh, yeah.”
Nico almost dropped the plate in surprise. “What?”
“Um, nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
“Did Jason put you up to that?”
“Um, yeah, he dared me to say something in Italian to you.” Will lied, quite obviously.
Nico swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I'll be right back, I promise, sunshine.”
“Um, okay?” Will said.
“Jason Grace, did you tell him to say that?” Nico stormed into the dining pavilion.
“In my defense, he said that he wanted to tell you that, but was too nervous to without knowing whether you liked guys or not, and I wasn't going to out you. I just suggested something that wouldn't embarrass him, but would still work, since you're obviously too dense to realize that he likes you.”
“Still not okay, Grace.” Nico said, then turned away and went back to the infirmary.
“...What was that about?” Will asked.
“I just wanted to tell him something about his capture the flag plans for this weekend.”
“Oh. It was that important?”
“Uh, yeah. Totally.”
Will moved to leave, so Nico grabbed his elbow to stop him.
“Did you want to eat with me?”
Will practically lit up, and Nico felt skeletal butterflies in his stomach. “Yeah! Let me just grab my dinner really quick.”
“How's your Italian coming? It sounded a lot more like Italian earlier.”
“I can almost sort of understand people who grew up in Italy! Apparently my siblings can all understand it, they just can't replicate the accent, which isn't fair.”
“That sucks. You could practice by saying stuff to me, I guess.” Nico offered.
“Okay. Um, sorry that I'm being so awkward, you're just really cute.”
Nico almost choked on his tongue, and he wasn't sure how his face wasn't scarlet. “That sounds pretty good, to me.”
“Thanks!”
Nico smiled, then took a bite of his apple.
×××
The next day, Jason came in again. “So?”
“Um, I didn't tell him I knew what he was saying.”
“What?! Why not?”
Nico shrugged and scooted over so that Jason could sit down.
“That's not a good enough answer. You like him; he likes you. Ask him out.”
“We ate dinner together yesterday?” Nico offered.
Jason sighed and rolled his eyes.
“I can't believe it! He said that he was going to confess to him yesterday, but they aren't even acting any differently.”
“What are they talking about?”
“... Sunshine and I,” Nico muttered.
“I guess he told them that he was going to confess, or something, and they're upset that he lied—which he didn't.”
“Kayla!” Jason said.
“What are you doing?”
Jason ignored him as Kayla walked over. “Yeah?”
“Will did—” Nico shoved his hand over Jason's mouth.
“Sorry, he hit his head again. He'll probably be fine, but he's talking in gibberish right now.”
“Uh, okay. Did you need anything?”
Jason glared at Nico. “No, I'm fine. I'm probably going to leave now, anyway. I think Piper was looking for me.”
Kayla looked bewildered, but went back to talking with Austin.
“If he doesn't make a move soon, I'm locking him out of the infirmary.”
“He said that he told him already, but—”
Nico twitched at hearing ‘already’ pronounced incorrectly. “Guys, it's pronounced ‘already’ not… whatever you said.”
Kayla whirled towards Nico. “What?”
“Um—” he hadn't meant to actually say that.
“Since when do you know Italian?”
Nico winced. “I was born in Venice and lived there for the first ten years of my life?”
“Wait, so you've been able to understand us this whole time?”
“Well, your accents are horrible, but… yeah. Just… please don't tell Will. I don't want to make him uncomfortable at all.”
Austin's eyes darted to the door, which was swinging. “I think it's too late for that.”
“Merda. Should I go after him?”
“It's probably best to just give him space. He'll be back in an hour or two.”
“Okay. Can one of you get Jason, please? Unless you're too busy.”
“Fine,” Austin said. “I'll be back in a little bit.”
Nico spent the next ten minutes picking at his nails.
“Nico? What's up?”
“I may have messed up. Will found out that I speak Italian and he… disappeared.”
“Oh. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I did tell you to tell him.”
“I know! But I'm awkward, and I couldn't. And he kept—ugh! This is all my fault, I should have just told him right off the bat.”
“You should have,” Jason agreed. “He'll come around, though. It's just a misunderstanding.”
Nico buried his face in his arms.
×××
He'd finally relaxed again when the door swung open and Will came in with his dinner. He refused to meet Nico's eyes.
Will put the plate on his side table then turned away. Nico grabbed his arm to stop him. “Will! Wait, please.”
“Why should I?” His voice cracked.
“Please, just—let me talk to you.”
“Fine.” Will turned and sat down on the bed, studiously avoiding Nico's eyes.
“I swear, I wasn't making fun of you, or anything. At first I didn't say anything because I was planning on waiting until after this weekend—Austin and Kayla were talking about their strategy for capture the flag. And then, I was angry at you because you were telling them to not talk about me and I thought that you were hated me or something. And then, when you told me, you just seemed so comfortable saying that without me knowing what you were saying, and I couldn't just put you in that position, and I wasn't entirely certain you were serious and I didn't want to tell you that I liked you back unless you were serious because that'd be a mess, and I'm really awkward, and— mi dispiace. I never meant to—”
Nico broke off, then looked at Will.
“Oh. I thought that you were making fun of me, or something, which isn't like you at all, but… You never said anything, and I just automatically assumed. Wait,” Will said. “You like me back?”
“Yeah, sunshine. I wouldn't have bothered even coming here unless I liked you. I almost left, when I thought that you hated me, but I couldn't.”
“Oh.”
“So, are you guys going to kiss, or…?”
“Kayla!”