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Nico never expected that he would live long enough to have a baby. But there he was, holding his newborn daughter for the first time, only a few hours old but a piece of him. It felt strange holding a baby that was his own, but yet so right. She was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen, with her perfect pout and little fingers that were clanged onto him. Will was sitting next to him with a look on his face Nico had never seen before. He was sure that this was what pure happiness felt like. An asteroid could hit them any moment, but nothing could ruin the way he felt about his family. Bianca had managed to wrap him around her little finger despite being a part of their family for less than a day. Nico knew the instant he saw her that he would anything to keep her safe and happy for the rest of her life.
That didn’t change two years later. This time in a different scenery, they were celebrating Bianca’s second birthday. Just two years old but the most stubborn little girl he has ever met. “I can’t believe she turned two. Some part of me thinks that you told me that you have a daughter a few months ago.” Reyna said as she joined him gazing Bianca from a distance while she was playing with Zoe and Silena with her little pigtails going back and forth as she ran in the backyard.
“I still can’t even wrap my head around the fact that she has grown too much.” He chuckled.
“Sorry to be the one breaking this to you, but this is just the beginning. She is only a toddler. What will you do when she becomes a teenager, or she moves out to go to college?” She asked.
“Just stick around long enough and see for yourself.” He replied to his best friend. He didn’t even want to think about Bianca growing up more. He wished that he could freeze time and for her to be forever his baby. “Like look at her,” he turned at his daughter who was currently giggling while showing Will her drawing and him whispering something to her, “she is the best thing that has happened to me. I can’t believe that there was a time when she wasn’t with me.”
The following September wasn’t any less bittersweet. Him and Will watched their princess go to preschool for the first time and leave their side for the first of many times. Nico was so used to spend the entirety of his day with her which made a weird void inside of him as he realised that that way things would be. “Do you want to go have ice cream and sit around and do nothing all day?” Will suggested as it was very hard watching Bianca go.
“I think that’s actually perfect.” They drove to the first ice cream shop they could find and drove to a park nearby where they sat in peace.
“Penny for your thought?”
“Despite Bianca going to preschool, both of us starting new jobs, having a new baby in December and in general time moving too fast, no.” Nico sighed. “I just wish she could be so little for a little longer. I don’t think it was enough.”
“I love you. You know that, right?” Will said in a way so loving and fulfilling that made Nico think that everything was a dream that would end the second he opened his eyes.
“I do. I love you too. I wouldn’t want to do all of this with anyone else.” He confessed and kissed him.
He thought that nothing could top the moment Bianca was born. As Nico learned throughout the years, his favourite memory would shift to something even more wholesome and heart-warming. He remembers coming to the house back from the hospital with Will and newborn Ryder and he can’t stop smiling. It was the 20th December, and the house was filled with Christmas decorations. As soon as they got in the living room, Bianca ran and to him and hugged him.
“Bee, there’s someone you should meet.” Will said. He left the baby carriage on the couch and took Ryder out of it. Bianca cautiously approached her dad who was holding her baby brother. She had remained completely silent for a bit. “Do you want to hold him?” Will asked her in which she responded with a simple nod. She sat next to him while Will gently placed Ryder on her. And then she just giggled. And Nico knew that everything was going to be all right.
Years continued to go by like thin air. Their house started filling with even more photos on the walls, more drives with videos, more toys left around the house and with even more noise inside of it.
Nico hid himself inside the pantry while carnage was happening outside. “You thought that you could get away from me?” Will asked him playfully while he sat on the floor next to him.
“Are you going to make me go back in there?” He asked with a hint of exasperation in his voice.
“No way. That’s the most time we have gotten to ourselves since Bianca and Ryder conspired against us and sleeping. Let’s hide a bit.”
“Then you won’t mind drinking with me this bottle of wine I stashed.” Nico grinned as he revealed an already open bottle of red wine.
“I love you slightly more now. Hand it over.”
“Drinking before of me? I don’t think so.” He said in a half-serious tone. He took a sip and then handed the bottle to his husband. “Like seriously, I love them more than my existence, but I swear they’ll be the end of me.”
“Good thing we’re in this together then.” Will rested his head on his shoulder.
“Our alliance is the best thing that has happened to me.”
“Agreed.”
Then Jasmine came along. A surprise but a very pleasant one. There had been a couple years since they had a baby at home. Nico had forgotten the kind of bliss babies bring in a home. Bianca once again accepted willingly the role of the big sister and took Jasmine under her wind and never out of her sight. The only thing Nico wished for was for them to stay for forever best friends.
As he later found out, teenage girls are dangerous. Between the slamming doors, the endless eye rolling and the arguments he never expected to have, he secretly wished that Bianca could stay little. He never expected that his perfect little girl would make him lose his temper, but there he was, after another argument with Bianca sitting in the kitchen table trying to find a way to fix everything.
“How did it go?”
“How do you think it went?” Nico asked him in return.
“Never mind.” Will sighed as he sat next to his husband. “She made me drop her around the corner of the school today.” Nico gasped trying to hold his laughter. “I thought we wouldn’t have to deal with something like that. I mean we managed to escape the terrible twos. And she was always easy going and we talked all together. It’s hard realising that it has changed, and she feels embarrassed to talk to us.”
Nico nodded in agreement. “We got lucky once. But you haven’t heard what Zoe said to Percy last week. He couldn’t meet Annabeth’s eye for 5 days.”
“I really don’t want to know. I prefer to live in ignorance. And in hope that nothing worst happens to us.”
“I can make you terrified.” Nico announced. “Ryder being a teenager.”
“Nah, he will just be brooding all day like someone else present in this very room.” Will said and caught the book that was meant to hit him. “But seriously what are we going to do about Bianca?”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
And they did. But Bianca continued to grow older. And so did they. Bianca came to them and announced to them that she had a boyfriend. And three days later that she broke up with said boyfriend. The same thing happened 5 or 6 more times that year. And every time Nico’s heart ached the same way. The idea of Bianca having a boyfriend brought out every protective aspect of his character. He especially he hated watching his little girl crying over boys who didn’t matter. But she was beautiful, and boys took advantage of that.
Then, she came home a day when she was 15 and said that she had a new boyfriend named Jake and that he was so different from all the guys she had met before. He could hear her giggle and talk to the phone all night long to him for 9 months. Going on dates and all that. Nico nearly believed that he was different. Then, one day she came home broken hearted saying that Jake broke up with her. Will had to physically restrain him from killing him. But the following morning Bianca came out of her room and announced to them that all she was going to be interested about was getting in Harvard.
As he soon found out, Bianca didn’t keep the promise she had made to herself. 6 months later she started dating another guy. Not any guy, but Charlie Jackson no less. The same Charlie Jackson with the piercing grey eyes and troublemaker smirk that Bianca had grown up with. The same guy that Nico had watched consoling Bianca every time something was wrong and the same guy that was bringing her ice cream every time she had a depressive episode.
Still, he didn’t want Bianca to date Percy’s son. He knew it was childlike and immature of him, but it seemed like the perfect occasion to act that way. “Don’t you dare say anything to her. I am not even joking. Have you ever seen her so happy?” Will asked him.
“That’s not the point. What will happen when he eventually breaks her heart like every other guy she had dated?”
“I have a feeling about the two of them together but if they break up we’ll do what we always did, console and be there for her.”
“I don’t want her to hurt again.”
As Bianca’s 18th birthday approached Nico had given her the necklace she had her eyes on ever since she had wanted since he could remember her snooping through Maria’s jewellery. Then, he noticed the box from Tiffany’s that Charlie had bought her with a necklace that had managed to make Bianca go insane as it was like ‘that Taylor Swift song’ and something to do with an initial. But Bianca was happy, which was everything that mattered to him.
But, watching a guy put his hands on his daughter’s waist, or his head on her shoulder or him sitting close to her, felt so wrong for him. They were all the time together and Nico didn’t know what to do. He always knew that someone would come along and make Bianca feel the way she should be feeling. But watching her singing love songs and going on dates made him want to stop time. The only thing that consoled him was that Charlie was petrified of him even though that drew Bianca mad.
“So how are the two of you?” Reyna asked as she gave a new glass of wine to Nico.
“This is my third. Draw your own conclusions.” Nico confessed.
“He’s exaggerating. It’s the circle of life.”
“Said the man who was crying for half an hour this morning.”
“Hey! Whatever happens in that room remains in that room.”
“I have to agree with that.” Reyna added. “She has grown up so much.”
“I know, right?”
They watched from a distance Bianca blowing her candles while Zoe was holding the cake with a big smile on her face.