Chapter Text
Nico wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected after his infirmary stay, but being barred from using his powers in the foreseeable future was definitely not it. Worst of all, he couldn’t even really bring himself to be annoyed at Will for his final verdict. Will had been nothing but patient and extremely professional. Nico was grateful for the effort Will had put into Nico’s infirmary stay, truly. He even thanked the guy and would say he was definitely on friendly terms with the son of Apollo. So in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t all that bad. Just a bit frustrating.
Still, Nico was very much interested in being cleared to use his powers again, so he took to Will’s re-training schedule without much of a fuss. It was a good plan, to be honest. It gave Nico a routine, which was so new to him, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it.
The routine consisted of when to wake up and when to go to bed. There was a diet plan, including when to take which vitamin supplements—Will had prescribed him a lot of those because of all the vitamin deficiencies. Coupled with the diet-vitamin plan was a recommendation of how much to be outside to get some natural lights, as well as Chiron’s schedule for the Hades cabin. There was a hole in Nico’s schedule for an hour and a half after lunch, and because Will wouldn’t stop bugging him about coming to help out in the infirmary, Nico decided to come and do just that.
It was a lot less boring than he’d expected. The infirmary never smelled sterile, exactly. Whatever cleaning product they used smelled more like the strawberry field than antiseptics, and Nico was grateful for it. He couldn’t imagine walking around all day in the stench of disinfected tools. His stay, however, meant he’d implemented a few changes to the infirmary as well. Nothing grand, just a small detail. Mainly the uniforms of the healers. Walking around in shorts and flip-flops could not be healthy for anyone. Will had laughed at him when he said so, but he’d given in eventually. With the healers in scrubs and closed sneakers, the infirmary now looked just a little more professional. Not to mention, green was definitely Will’s colour. Not that Nico paid much attention or anything.
Of course, there were the weekly check-ups on his health, which improved much slower than Nico liked. It was frustrating to still be barred from anything more than summoning smaller bones. He couldn’t help but think it was an excuse for Solace to annoy him with that wishbone comment he made before Nico’s three-day stay. But, it had been three weeks now, and Nico saw very little progress. If anything, his body seemed much more tired than ever, and on this particular Friday, he’d had sword practice, nearly dropping his sword after training. He decided then and there, this couldn’t go on. After his shower, and eating lunch, he decided to ignore his camp schedule in favour of going into the infirmary.
A lot of campers were lying around lazily, a few were having arguments, but mostly it was calm. Nico suspected the end of summer camp was to blame. Most campers had already started packing up to go home, and it definitely dampened the mood in camp. Even the campfire wasn’t as bright as it had been for most of the summer, and the flames seemed to struggle to reach as high as they normally would.
He walked into the infirmary unannounced. No one paid him any attention, used to him being there on a regular basis. Some even greeted him with a wave, or a nod of their head, and Nico did his best to greet them back. He wasn’t always good at it, his brain still catching up to actually being welcome in here. More often than not his thoughts would start going to dark places, convincing him this was just as temporary as first time he wanted to stay. His welcome was wearing out, it wouldn’t be long now before people realised they didn’t actually want him here. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the thoughts, so he decidedly didn’t deal with the thoughts. Instead he distracted himself with other things when that happened. Usually one of the camp activities or an extra bout of sword practice. Lately, he’d started going to the infirmary as well to help clean and take stock, because it kept his mind occupied with something that was not thoughts about how creepy everyone must surely, secretly, still find him.
He did a quick once over of the healers in the infirmary. They were getting fewer by the day, since not everyone went home at the same time. Nico already knew Will was here year-round. They hadn’t delved into why that was. As long as it wasn’t just to keep an eye on Nico and his progress.
Will was not on the floor in the infirmary, and Nico didn’t recall having seen him anywhere else, so he went for the break room. He walked at a bisque pace, probably looking like someone on a mission. In a way, he supposed he was on a mission. The door separating the break room from the infirmary was a fairly simple one. Nico would even call it anonymous. If you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t see it, as it almost blended into the white wall. Even though Will had told him multiple times he could just come in, Nico still straightened his back and gave three firm knocks before entering. Not knocking, in his opinion, was incredibly rude.
Inside, the break room looked much different from the bright infirmary. Even though both rooms were decorated with green plants to not look sterile, the walls in here were a soft, pastel green rather than white, shelves of bright oak stacked with documents stood against the walls. There were pastel-coloured bean bags scattered about, soft chairs with white cushions, a small kitchen area and a table to eat at. In the far corner, there was a door painted in a soft, pastel purple colour which Nico knew lead into the changing areas. He’d never been in there, because it wasn’t his place, but Will said it was great.
Apropos Will, Nico found him almost immediately. He was in there with two younger healers, reading over their patient files with them and praising them for their work. They both looked rather excited. Not one to interrupt someone in the middle of a conversation, Nico went over to one of the bean bags and sank into it. The sound drew the others’ attention, and Will even gave him a smile. Nico gave him half a smile in return, before gesturing to the two healers Will were talking to, hoping Will caught onto the message. Go on, I’ll wait. Will seemed to catch on, because he returned to walking over the files with the two others, pointing out a few things here and there where some of the information wasn’t clear enough, or they’d forgotten a timestamp of the last check-up. Very basic things, really.
It was another minute or two before Will sent off his siblings. He took hold of a beanbag and dragged it next to Nico, sitting down with a thankful sigh and closed his eyes.
“So. What brings you here, di Angelo?”
Nico picked at a loose threat in his jeans, considering how to word himself to not sound ungrateful. Will had told him he was quite forward and some people might misunderstand him if he didn’t consider his words at least a bit, which was annoying, because if you wanted something done, or wanted to communicate something, Nico believed you should do it as directly as possible.
“Your recovery plan is too slow.” That was eloquent.
Will let out a chuckle. “Right to the point as always.” He let out a thoughtful hum. “Do you have the plan I gave you with you?”
Nico shook his head. “Didn’t think it was necessary.”
“It isn’t really. I just wanted to see if I could stay down instead of getting up.”
“I can get up myself. I know where my file is and which page the copy is on.”
Will let out a grateful hum. “I’d really appreciate that. This is my first break today.”
Nico got up again and went to the many shelves. All files were in alphabetical order; Nico knew because he’d spent almost three hours redoing the whole thing with Will after a prank. Will had not been very happy, and Nico had seen first-hand how intimidated people were with the prospects of a not-very-happy Will Solace. For some reason though, his files were in A for Angelo. Something about the D in di Angelo not being upper-case. Nico didn’t really care, it made it easy for him to find his file and pull out the copy of his recovery plan. Instead of just taking the single paper with him, he brought the entire file to Will in the bean bags.
He gave the file to Will and kicked his own bean bag closer to Will’s so he could lean over and read along. Will put the recovery plan on top of the file folder, holding it in his left hand and leaning into Nico to share. Their shoulders were touching, and Nico could smell Will’s shampoo. He couldn’t quite place the scent. He’d like to say lemony, but that didn’t seem entirely right.
“Hmm…” Will hummed. “So. What exactly do you want to be faster? Last I checked your vitamin levels are starting to get a lot better these days.”
Nico shrugged. “It’s not so much that. I’m sure it’s helping, because I do feel more awake. I also don’t look like a sheet of paper anymore. I guess it’s my physical form. I feel like my stamina is going down lately. Almost like I’m too heavy for myself or something, which is ridiculous, considering I carried the Athena parthenos.”
“Carrying her did leave a great strain on you. Also, from the file we’ve compiled of your health and life history, it seems you’re used to just running your body down and ignoring the signs, but now you’re being held accountable of actually letting it heal. All the chemical levels that were off kilter because of your overexertion are starting to level out, and I think, more than your weight, that’s what’s making you feel low on stamina. Like the way it made you physically exhausted the first week. We’re talking getting back from a major burn-out. All things taken into consideration, you’re healing decently fast.”
“I do have a competent doctor.” Nico caught Will blushing in the corner of his eyes and felt his heart skip a beat.
“Yeah. You do.”
Will smiled at him in that strange way he’d been doing lately. All soft with warm, shimmering eyes, and Nico was hypnotised by it. He never wanted to look away. Then Will broke eye contact and Nico fumbled internally to collect himself. He knew what this feeling was, and it was a bit scary. At the same time though, Will seemed to be flirting as much with him as he was flirting with Will.
“Anyway,” Will said, looking back on the paper. “I’ve been thinking about adding an exercise routine for you, because your body is at a point where you can start building up your stamina again in a healthy way. I know you want to use your powers again soon, but I think you should focus on your health outside your powers first and stay to only using your powers very little. As you build up your physical health, we can start looking at your underwoldly powers and how to manage them. For that step, I’ll need to monitor you quite closely, though.”
“Let me guess. You’ll need to do your magic touching thing to measure me and stuff.”
“You do pay attention.” Will gave him a push with his shoulder.
“Of course I do, you dolt.” Nico shoved him back, and his heart did another flip. He should definitely get around to telling Will how he felt soon.
“Anyways. I’ll see about plotting in a work-out routine for you with instructions of how to up it, and how much to push it. You still might not get it until your check-up on Monday though. That okay?”
Nico decided to take a chance and lean his head on Will’s shoulder. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
Will didn’t move, and Nico could tell he was smiling. His entire body was relaxed, so Nico took that as a good sign. This didn’t need to be scary.
It took another month for Nico to build up his stamina. His work-out routine suited him well, and he had days in between to relax. There were jogs around the lakes that could be swapped for walks if he was feeling a little more tired than usual. Will joined him on most of his jogs. To keep Nico accountable, of course. At least, that’s what he said the first few times, but Nico was fairly sure it was an excuse, and at some point, they stopped pretending that was all it was. Will liked going on that jog as much as Nico did, and he liked the company as much as Nico did. Holding Nico accountable was not a major concern for him at all, and Nico knew it. Still, there was something heart-warming about being held accountable and having someone care so much. Will didn’t even nag Nico when he decided to have a cheat day, because, as he said, overall, Nico was getting along really well. Maybe it also had something to do with Nico spending most of his cheat days helping out in the infirmary.
And so, a month later, Will decided Nico could start playing with his powers again.
Nico was way more excited about that than he thought he would be. Even the prospect of having Will there with him, monitoring him, watching him, was exciting in its own right.
Between the physical work outs, the infirmary visits, and now the build-up and exploration of Nico’s powers and their actual toll on him, there were a lot of excuses to stand closer than necessary, and touch more than necessary. There were lingering looks, and flirty remarks, and legs pressed together during the campfire. To Nico it seemed both him and Will were a little more than friends, although they weren’t really anything official just yet.
“Let’s start with some of the milder stuff,” Will instructed. He fished out a paper Nico had compiled for him with what he could do, as far as he knew.
“We got summon skeletons, talk to ghosts, summon ghosts, necromancy?” he gave Nico a look and Nico shrugged.
“I don’t think we should look into that one. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.”
Will nodded with a prideful smile. “Creating earthquakes, making cracks in the ground, generally manipulate the earth and the ground, navigate Daedalus’ maze?”
“I’m not sure about that one. After I released his soul, the maze changed quite a bit, and I’m not sure how exactly it works now. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see if I could learn to navigate it again; or at least learn to read it.”
“Hm.” Will pursed his lips. “We’d definitely need Chiron’s approval for that one. What else is here?” he looked at the paper and found his spot. “Shadow travel, freezing temperature, dream-scaping?”
“I don’t know if I can enter other people’s dreams, but I can definitely manipulate my own ones. I once found Clovis in a dream, and he showed me a meeting you had here at the time.”
Will whistled lowly. “Anything else?”
Nico shrugged. “Those are the ones I know. But, you know, people seem discover new abilities all the time.”
Will nodded. “True. Well. I guess we better take it from the top then. One ability at a time. You do the ability, I measure your vitals before and after. We do some trial and error to figure out what your threshold actually is. For this reason, we will start with two training days and days of rest in between, and as your stamina, and our idea of your threshold get better, we’ll up the ante. Sound good?”
Nico nodded. “Yeah. That sounds fine.”
Will smiled in satisfaction, and Nico decided, since they were going to be spending even more time with each other, he might as well clear the air right away. It would definitely throw off Will’s readings if Nico’s mind sometimes wandered.
“Solace?”
“Hm?”
A beat. A breath. “I like you. A lot.”
Will blushed, his smile stretching. “Me too.”
Nico’s heart skipped a beat. He was kind of aware of it, but it was nice to hear out loud that this was mutual. “Alright. I just, figured that’d be good to have out there before we start this whole process.”
“Definitely,” Will agreed, stepping closer to put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s still try to net get too distracted by it.”
Nico scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I don’t get distracted easily. Now, shall we get started?”
“We shall.” Will touched his left wrist to take his pulse, wrote down something on his clip board, and nodded for Nico to go ahead.
Nico crouched, concentrated, and then he felt like impressing Will at least a little, so instead of raising one skeleton, he raised ten. The kickback was mild, but there nonetheless. Dizziness and shaking legs. Not the worst, but Will was definitely not happy with it. He scolded Nico about the data being useless now, but Nico couldn’t help chuckling. He felt lightheaded and free, so to make Will shut up, he gave him a chat on the shoulder and a challenging glance. Will’s mouth was twitching, like he was trying not to laugh, but Nico could see right through him. He had a good feeling about learning more about his powers and restrictions with Will.