Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I know you,” Percy says, pinning the two boys with a hard, calculating stare.

Nico offers a hand to shake, looking coolly over the older demigod while simultaneously (and somewhat unsubtly) stepping hard on Jason’s foot to keep him from saying anything. “Do you?”

--

Nico had meant, originally, to strike out on his own and figure things out. And if he died, well – it wasn’t like anyone would miss him anymore. Bianca probably wouldn’t have missed him even if she were alive.

What he didn’t expect was that Jason, one of the only people Nico had made any kind of connection with at Camp, would follow him. But then again, maybe he should have – Jason seemed to know a thing or two about being left behind.

(Wasn’t that Thalia girl his big sister? Leaving him for the Hunters just like Bianca had?)

“Leave me alone,” Nico spat.

“No,” Jason replied.

And that was that.

Or rather, they went back and forth like that for a while and then Nico gave in, because it was easier to have backup and a living person of similar size to him to spar with, and because he really, really didn’t want to be alone.

And that was that.

--

Jason was there when Minos started pushing Nico further and further over the edge, to say “Hey, Nico, I don’t really trust this guy,” and “maybe Bianca has her reasons not to want to talk,” and “you know, Percy’s just a kid, too, and there couldn’t have been much he could do –“

“Say whatever else you want, Jace, but I don’t want to hear about Percy from you,” Nico hissed.

“I’m just saying,” Jason said. in a low voice, “that he didn’t mean for Bianca to get hurt. You’re just spiraling. Also –“ he glances back over his shoulder – “Minos gives me the creeps. You’re angry, and he’s just making it worse.”

“He’s a ghost, they always give you the creeps,” Nico dismissed, glancing back at the shadowy figure.

“Not like this,” insisted Jason. He gripped Nico’s arm tightly. “Please, Nico, just be careful.”

But he didn’t say I told you so when Minos tried to betray them, just stood at Nico’s back with lightning crackling at his fingertips while Nico took hold of his powers for real for the first time. And he didn’t stay at Camp with Annabeth and Percy and Grover, even though they asked. Even though Annabeth gave him that older sister glare that even gave Nico a chill.

“I’m staying with Nico,” Jason said. He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Nico, solid and grounding.

Annabeth’s eyes flicked from Jason to Nico. “And Nico is –“

“Leaving,” Nico said firmly. “Don’t kid yourself, Chase, there’s no place for me here and we both know it. I’m better off among the dead.”

“Jason is a son of Zeus,” Annabeth bit out, obviously restraining herself. “And the best place for him is –“

“He is right here!” Nico interrupted with a sharp gesture toward Jason. “And he told you what he wants to do!”

“Annie,” Jason said, his voice soft now, “I’m staying with Nico. The best place for me is anywhere but here. In fact, I’m sure it’s with my best friend.”

Annabeth, though clearly still unhappy, didn’t argue about it anymore.

Nico tried not to go too red at the casual way Jason had called him his best friend.

--

Hades and Jason didn’t precisely like each other, at least not for a very long time. Hades had his ideas about Nico’s worth, and which of the di Angelo children should have survived. Jason had his own opinions about those things, too.

In fact, the first and only time that Nico saw Jason pull a Percy Jackson and backtalk a god was standing in Hades’s palace in the Underworld.

“With all due respect, sir,” Jason said, one hand firmly gripping Nico’s, “Bianca hadn’t even come into her powers when she died. Nico has been working very hard to master his, and he has a degree of control I can only wish for. He’s really a great tribute to the power of your house. Sir.”

“Who are you?” Hades replied.

“Jason Grace, sir,” Jason said, the picture of politeness. “Son of Zeus.”

Hades rolled his eyes, dismissive. “You just want the glory of the prophecy for yourself, like the Jackson boy. Bianca was older than you.”

“I really don’t, sir,” Jason blurted. “Percy can have it.”

That gave Hades pause. “You don’t want to be the child of the prophecy?”

“No,” Jason said emphatically. “Why would I? I’m just a kid, sir. So is Nico. That’s a lot of responsibility for a sixteen-year-old, and – and I don’t want anyone else to die for me to be the one.”

Nico squeezed Jason’s hand.

“What is your interest with my son?” Hades asked, changing tack so fast Nico was left with some hefty metaphorical whiplash.

“Uh,” said Jason, glancing nervously at Nico. Great, now he was nervous. “He’s my best friend?”

Hades hummed thoughtfully, eyes narrowed, and Nico was just starting to get nervous about how long he was just staring at them when he said, “You are, without doubt, the strangest son of Jupiter I’ve met in all of my years.”

“Son of –“ Jason echoed softly, brow furrowed.

“There is somewhere you boys should visit,” Hades said.

--

Camp Jupiter was strange. Structured where Camp Half-Blood was not, with a survival rate amongst legionnaires that had both Nico and Jason in stunned disbelief. But it was also…

“You have to join,” Praetor Reyna insisted. Despite the fact that there were legionnaires as old as their early twenties, she could not have been older than fourteen or fifteen herself. Her partner, a stern-looking legacy of Apollo, seems to be a few years older. “We have not had the honor of a child of Jupiter in our ranks in decades, and this is the safest place for a demigod of your power to be.”

Jason, visibly uncomfortable, looked to Nico before saying, “Like Ambassador di Angelo said, we are here on behalf of his father –“

“A child of Jupiter, running errands for Pluto?” Praetor Helen asked, raising an eyebrow.

“More like keeping his son company,” Jason corrected. He grimaced a bit. “Lord Pluto and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on everything, but he doesn’t mind that I tag along with Nico on official business.”

This was the official story for why Jason was here, though in reality it was something of the other way around – Hades had given Nico and Jason the opportunity to see where Jason “should” have been raised, what Roman life could be like.

“Perhaps it will be good for both of you,” he’d said, before giving them a busy-work reason to excuse their presence at the camp.

“You’ll at least allow us to host you both for a few days,” Praetor Helen said, not a request. “Perhaps we’ll change your mind.”

So they did stay. Jason told Nico quietly one evening that he did feel some connection here, not quite an all-encompassing need to find a place here but a gentle tug in his chest.

“I don’t know,” Jason murmured, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Nico in the shadows of Pluto’s shrine. “It’s like – some missing piece of who I am has fallen into place, but also it’s –“ he flushed, ducking his head to avoid Nico’s gaze, “it’s nothing like the tug I feel telling me to stay with you.”

Nico’s heart skipped.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Nico replied, “stay with me.”

Jason pulled Nico’s hand into his, turning with his entire torso toward him. “But I want to, Nico. I always have. And anyway, we’re a team now. Even the Romans understand that you don’t leave your teammate behind.”

And Nico, in the shadow of his father’s statue on the hill of an unfamiliar camp but also in the most familiar place he knows, inches away from his newly-gangling best friend, says, “Right.”

And then he says:

“I’d stay here with you if you wanted to stay.”

“I don’t,” says Jason. “It’s the same as Camp Half-Blood. Everyone wants something from me, and all I’ll ever be is the son of Jupiter. With you, wherever we are, I’m just Jason.”

And that was that.

Or, at least, it would have been – but war was looming, and the Romans needed Jason’s power and Jason couldn’t look Luke in the eye with a weapon in hand, not really, but Nico needed to be at Camp Half-Blood so they separated.

Annabeth looked at Nico like he’d done something personally awful to her when he dared to show up without her beloved baby brother, but Nico had long since learned to take Annabeth’s dirty looks with a grain of salt. She was stressed, and she didn’t know what Nico knew.

“He’s on a mission for my father,” Nico said, and it was mostly true, “we’re in touch. He’s fine.”

Percy spouted his usual bullshit about wanting to look out for Nico, immediately before and after dragging Nico along with him into a dangerous situation. Nico had long since learned to take Percy’s promises with a grain of salt, too.

Percy took on the Curse of Achilles – Jason and Nico had come to it as the best, possibly only, solution last year after it had clicked that that was what Luke had done. Jason and Nico had an overlapping if not quite identical interest in understanding the world that made them, and it had been Jason’s idea in the end. Dad – Hades – took an opportunity to try to screw Percy over one last time in hopes of at least Jason being child of the prophecy, not that he much liked the idea of a child of Zeus/Jupiter getting the glory but he did at least like Jason well enough nowadays.

Two nights before Percy’s sixteenth birthday, Nico and Jason had a long, late Iris message. It ended with:

“Be safe.”

“I’m always safe.”

Jason snorted. “You’re not usually on your own.”

“At least I’m with Chase and Jackson,” Nico replied, rolling his eyes. “They don’t always have my back like they have yours, but at least we know them. The Romans make me nervous. Too many unknown elements.”

“I’ll be okay,” Jason said, waving him off. “And if anything happens you’ll be there like that.” He snapped, with a goofy little grin.

They had been testing the limits of Nico’s shadow travel lately, and it had gone… well, Nico was getting much more reliable at it than he had been when they started.

“I miss you,” Nico blurted. He didn’t mean to, not really, because they didn’t say things like that, but before he could blush or take it back Jason just said,

“I miss you, too.” He sighed. “You know we haven’t been apart this long in two years? Not since we ran away. It’s weird.”

“Yeah,” agreed Nico. “Just a few days, though.”

Jason said goodbye and wished Nico luck in clumsy Italian, which he’d started learning after Dad told them a few months back that Nico had been born in Italy. Nico couldn’t help but smile, somewhere between amusement at his still awkward pronunciation and warmth at the fact that Jason was trying at all.

“Thanks, Jace,” Nico replied. “Take care of yourself.”

--

“Where’s your shadow?” Connor Stoll asked, after it was all over.

Nico let out a startled laugh. “Cali. On a job for Dad.”

“You’ve got Jace Grace doing your chores, Nico?” asked Travis.

“Not exactly,” said Nico. “It was something Dad wanted him for, not me. Helped us turn the tide though.”

This, Nico knew. Jason had led the Romans up Mt. Othrys, fighting the Titan Krios and helping to topple Kronos’s throne. The Romans didn’t know what had happened in the East, not any more than the Greeks knew what had happened in the West, but if the two camps hadn’t been working in sync, neither could have succeeded.

Jason had called after things had settled somewhat. He was battered and bruised but alive, and looked just as relieved as Nico felt to see that the same was true of Nico.

“Tell him he should come home sometime,” Connor said seriously. “We know it’s complicated for you guys here, but this is still home, isn’t it?”

“I only lived here a week,” Nico pointed out.

Travis threw an arm over his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. There’s a place for you here. Even if it’s only with me and Con.”

Weirdly, Nico is pretty sure that they mean it.

“Thanks,” he said sincerely, “but we’re going to keep moving, I think.”

--

Hazel came as a surprise. The rules of Death were getting weird and blurry, and Nico wasn’t sure why, but it was as good an opportunity as any to do one last sweep of the Underworld to try to bring Bianca back. Jason, who had watched Nico fall to pieces when she died, kindly did not point out that this was probably a bad idea.  

And anyway, they didn’t find Bianca. Bianca was gone, reborn to some new life. Maybe in that life she won’t have a little brother to run away from.

(Maybe in that life, she’ll have a little brother she won’t want to run away from.)

Instead, they found Hazel.

Taking her was a bit impulsive, but no one has ever accused Nico of not being impulsive.

“I’m your brother,” Nico said when they were on the surface. “My name is Nico.”

“And you’re –“ Hazel said, eyeing Jason curiously. He towered over Nico nowadays, and Hazel was nearly Nico’s same height. He would look a bit intimidating, Nico thought, if not for the crooked glasses (smushed out of alignment in a fight and they haven’t gone back to the ghostly optometrist who prescribed them yet), stapler scar, and goofy grin.

“Jason,” Jason supplied helpfully. “I hang out with Nico.”

“In the Underworld?” asked Hazel.

Nico and Jason looked at each other for a moment, then shrugged.

“Everywhere,” they said in a funny almost-unison.

“She’s Roman,” Jason murmured into Nico’s ear later, and Nico didn’t ask how he knew. “We should take her to Camp.”

Nico wanted to say no, she should stay with us, but he knew that there were things he and Jason couldn’t teach her. She needed real training, control.

Camp Jupiter it was.

The Romans were wary, looking at this small, dangerous girl backed by the Ambassador of Pluto and the Hero of Mt. Othrys, but they accepted her, let her go through their ritual for arrival and that was going to be that.

Reyna and her new partner, Praetor Mike Kahale, made their offer again for Jason to stay. Jason said no.

Mike looked across the both of them, something strange and knowing in his gaze.

“Alright,” he said. Reyna didn’t press.

Nico, feeling oddly and uncomfortably seen, nodded sharply. He pressed a kiss to Hazel’s cheek before she would be escorted to the Wolf House. “Be safe. Be brave. We’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon,” Hazel replied.

Jason waved. Hazel waved back.

--

Things fell apart pretty quickly after that, unfortunately. Hazel had just started to settle at Camp Jupiter when Mike went missing, when Percy went missing and that felt like a slap in the face and a weight in Nico’s chest, and then he and Jason were scouring the country, looking for anything and everything that might be a sign of one of them.

Mike showed up first, on some field trip with a pair of Greek half-bloods, and Nico and Jason showed up with Annabeth to save the day. Mike didn’t recognize them.

Jason wanted to spill everything immediately, but Nico held him back. The last thing that they needed was to piss off whatever god had set this up; best to hang back and watch for the moment. Not to play their hand too soon.

And to get to Camp Jupiter as soon as possible to see if Percy had shown up there.

It turned out that Mike and Piper – one of the two other demigods he’d picked up – are siblings on the godly side, and they had some complicated web of fake memories that meant that they knew that they were half-siblings who shared a mom, just not who that mom actually was. And Leo, the other one, is their implanted-memory best friend.

(Percy was not at Camp Jupiter. Yet.)

So Mike and Leo and Piper went on a quest, and Mike got hurt bad but survived and when they got back to Camp he was starting to get his memories back. He gave Jason this look when they visited Camp next, and Nico figured it might be time to make themselves scarce a while until Percy showed up on the West Coast.

“I know you,” Mike said, gripping Jason’s arm tightly. It was late, everyone else had dispersed from the campfire.

“It’s complicated,” Jason said, ducking his head.

Nico met Mike’s eye, defiant. He may be smaller than Jason, but he was no less powerful. If it came to it, they could take Mike in a fight easily. “We work for my father.”

“And we’ve crossed paths before?” said Mike. It wasn’t really a question. “You’ve been to the other Camp.”

“It’s complicated,” Jason repeated, more firmly this time. “Mike, you can’t tell anyone. Not yet.”

“They already don’t trust me,” Nico said, soft.

“And should they?” said Mike.

“We –“

“Yes,” Jason interrupted. “Yes, they should. And you should too.”

Mike frowned, eyes narrowed. “Is Jackson at the other Camp?”

“No,” said Nico. “Believe me, we’ve been looking.”

“Alright,” said Mike.

--

They knew this was coming, but it’s still a surprise to see Percy Jackson trailing Hazel up Temple Hill.

“This is my brother,” Hazel introduces, indicating Nico like his coal black eyes don’t give away his parentage, “and his – friend.”

Jason makes an awkward, startled noise, clearly unprepared to just be introduced.

“Nico di Angelo,” Nico says, offering Percy a hand to shake. “And this is Jason.”

Percy doesn’t take the hand, just glares at Jason and Nico both. “I know you.”

“Do you?”

Chapter Text

Nico doesn’t exactly like the idea of his sister going on a quest with Percy Jackson, though he refuses to tell her why. Jason keeps looking at him with these big, sad eyes and he knows he won’t be able to avoid a Conversation About Bianca for very long, but Jason does at least have the decency to not engage with it in front of Hazel.

“Please be careful,” Nico says. “Don’t take unnecessary risks –“

“It’s a quest, Nico, risks are inherent,” Hazel says patiently.

“Unnecessary,” Nico reiterates. He puts a hand on her arm, just above the elbow. “Please, Hazel.

Hazel glances at Jason, who is standing by with his hands in his pockets and a worried frown on his face.

“Of course,” says Hazel.

“Be careful around Jackson,” Jason offers suddenly.

This surprises Nico, a bit. Jason is generally more trusting than Nico himself is, and he has known Percy longer. And Annabeth trusts Percy with her life, and Jason respects Annabeth’s opinion more than anyone’s.

“I know you like him,” Jason continues, as if he hasn’t noticed the wide-eyed look Nico is giving him. (He has, of course, Jason notices everything.) “But he’s still a new recruit and an unknown entity; don’t take for granted that he’ll be predictable and watch your back.”

Nico nods firmly.

“I’ll be careful,” Hazel says again. “I promise.”

She brushes a swift, gentle kiss across each of their cheeks before they leave – her, Percy, and Frank Zhang, Hazel’s new best friend – even though it requires pulling Jason down a bit to bring him within reach, towering over both children of the Underworld as he does. Hazel has taken Jason entirely in stride, though she doesn’t seem to know exactly what to call him.

Jason waits a solid four hours after they watch Hazel, Frank, and Percy depart before he says anything.

“Percy didn’t kill Bianca.”

Nico pointedly doesn’t look at him. “We’re just doing this, then? In the middle of the Roman camp?”

Jason catches Nico’s hand, tugging it to force Nico to turn. “If you don’t want to do it here, take us somewhere else.”

It’s late enough in the day that there are heavy shadows falling across them from the nearby buildings, and it’s easy to fall into them, the only grounding through the darkness Jason’s hand in his. They’ve done this plenty of times, now.

He takes them, without really thinking about it, to the newly-constructed Hades Cabin at Camp Half-Blood. No one will bother them here; the only people who ever visit are Connor and Travis Stoll, and even them only when they’re confident that Nico and Jason are at Camp. If they don’t draw attention to themselves, they’ll be left alone.

“I know Percy didn’t kill Bianca,” Nico says defensively, as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “But he could have –“

“He was thirteen,” Jason says pointedly. “He made promises he couldn’t keep because he didn’t have the good sense to know he couldn’t keep them. Percy didn’t kill her, Nico, and he’s not going to kill Hazel.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to watch another sister go off on a dangerous quest with him,” Nico snaps.

“I do,” says Jason. “Believe me, Nico, I understand. I don’t want to lose Hazel either.”

Nico looks away. “I know.”

Jason has, if possible, even more complicated issues related to sisters than Nico does. Thalia died so that Luke had time to carry four-year-old Jason over the camp border, and then she’d come back to life – nothing short of a miracle – only to abandon him to avoid being the child of the prophecy. It’s really no surprise that he’s just as attached to Hazel as Nico is.

“I backed you with Hazel before we left because I understand how nervous he makes you,” Jason says. This is the understatement of the century, but Jason knows that, too. “But you have to assume that she’ll be okay. If Percy is anything, he’s experienced on quests. They’ll be fine.”

“He doesn’t remember any of that experience,” Nico points out somewhat childishly.

“You saw him,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “He knows. He doesn’t remember, but he knows.”

He reaches over and tugs Nico into a hug, which Nico sighs into, resting his head against Jason’s chest.

(Nico doesn’t like to be hugged, as a rule. He doesn’t like to be touched at all. But he has his exceptions – for a long time, Jason was the only exception. Now there’s Hazel, too.)

“Let’s go get dinner,” Jason says once he’s released Nico. He tugs him by the hand toward the cabin door.

“What, here?” says Nico, though he lets himself be dragged.

“We came here, it’s dinner time, yes,” says Jason.

They sit together at Camp Half-Blood, defiant. There was no table for Nico, before, and with Thalia gone Jason was alone at Table 1 again anyway. Now there is a small Table 13, and they sit there instead. Together.

Chiron clearly doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t comment. He also doesn’t comment on the fact that Nico and Jason have materialized from the shadows without warning, but he rarely does anymore. They come and go as they please, and nothing he says is going to stop them.

(Nico thinks that Mr. D finds them amusing.)

“Hey, you’re that son of Zeus, right?” that new girl, Mike’s sister, calls after Jason as they walk away from dinner. “Jacob? No, Jason!”

Jason grimaces at Nico before turning around. “Uh, yeah. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to thank you for helping to save us at the Grand Canyon,” the girl says. She also flutters her eyelashes a few times, which is… a choice.

“Right,” says Jason. “Uh, you’re welcome. It was no biggie or anything; Annabeth needed a hand.”

“It was very heroic,” the girl insists.

Nico snorts.

Jason elbows him.

“What’s your name again?” Jason asks, because he’s politer than Nico.

The girl deflates just a little bit, seeming disappointed not to be remembered. “I’m Piper McLean.”

“Nice to meet you again, Piper,” says Jason. “Nico and I have to get going again, though. Maybe we’ll see you around.”

They don’t get far, though, before Annabeth corners them.

“Any word on Percy?” she says.

Jason and Nico glance at each other. Nico gives Jason a look that he means to say something like I am not touching this.

Jason shoots back a what makes this my problem?

To which Nico offers she likes you better than me.

“Boys,” Annabeth says.

Jason startles. “Right. Uh, no – nothing. Don’t you think he’s probably at the Roman camp that Mike came from?”

“Probably,” says Annabeth. “I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything.”

“No,” Jason says again. He flushes a bit, not quite meeting Annabeth’s eye. Jason is by far the much worse liar of the two of them, too earnest for his own good, but –

Well, Annabeth has never much liked Nico.

She blames him for Jason leaving Camp (not his fault) and she’s wary after his behavior in the Labyrinth (partially his fault) and, perhaps, a bit intimidated by or jealous of his relationship with his father (as she should be). Meanwhile, she and Jason grew up as something like siblings; the lone year-rounders of their age, some of the longest-tenured campers, and bound tightly by the circumstances that brought them here. Jason may be a shit liar, but Annabeth is much more likely to take him at his word.

“You don’t sound certain of that,” Annabeth says suspiciously. She changes tack, lightning fast. “You two have been travelling around a lot these past few years – are you sure you’d never heard anything about a Roman camp before?”

Nico and Jason make eye contact again.

“Positive,” they say in decisive unison.

Annabeth looks from Jason to Nico and back again.

“If you’re sure,” Annabeth says.

“We’re sure,” says Nico. He grabs Jason’s hand and starts to drag him away. “Now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long day and we really need to get some rest before we get back to our travels.”

“Alright,” says Annabeth. “Just – promise me you’ll tell me if you hear anything new.”

“Of course, Annie,” Jason says, his voice so soft that if Nico didn’t know he was lying, he’d believe it was the truth. And this, from Jason “Worst Liar in Two Demigod Camps” Grace.

“Leo’s ship, the one he’s building from what’s left of Festus,” Annabeth says, running her hands through her hair, “it’s almost done. We’re planning to fly west to the Roman camp and then overseas; I just hope Percy is there when we get there.”

“You’ll find him,” Jason assures. “I’m sure of it.”

 And then, before Jason can spoil the best lie he’s ever told, Nico tugs him toward their cabin.

“Are you both going back to Cabin 13?” Annabeth calls after them, the familiar thread of disapproval back in her voice. “Sharing a table is one thing, but Jason has his own cabin to sleep in!”

Nico twists, still walking away with Jason’s hand gripped tightly in his own. “Jason’s under my father’s protection now; he’s more than welcome in Cabin 13. And Cabin 1 kind of sucks.”

Jason laughs, and before Annabeth can try to engage them again, they make a break for the cabin door.

Inside the cool dark of Cabin 13, Nico feels like he can breathe again. No weird Aphrodite girls flirting with his best friend, no Annabeth breathing down their neck, no need for Jason to put his Polite Face on to wriggle them out of anything.

He flops, fully dressed, onto one of the beds. There are two in the cabin, despite Nico being Hades’s only surviving child; he doesn’t know if that is optimism bordering on absurdity or if Connor and Travis – who had done the decorating – had just known to leave space for Jason. He thinks it’s likely the latter.

Not that Jason takes advantage of the bed-that-is-probably-his.

He crawls in right next to Nico, the two of them used to sharing space after all this time. It isn’t the same as it was when they were younger; Jason has grown tall and broad in the shoulders, no longer able to nestle in quite as neatly with Nico when they curl up to grab a few minutes or hours’ sleep here and there. Nico is still small, but he can feel in his legs that a growth spurt is coming on fast.

In the relative safety of Camp Half-Blood, they sprawl a bit. No need to sleep back-to-back to always have a lookout or to wedge themselves into a corner for protection. Jason lays flat, one arm up over his head and the other wrapped over Nico, his legs sprawled half off of the bed. Nico’s head is resting against Jason’s chest, the familiar drum of his heartbeat sometimes the only thing that can calm his racing mind enough for sleep.

(Nico feels Jason’s heartbeat always, one of the few he can sense across nearly any distance, but this proximity is soothing. He is alive, they are safe.)

They set no alarms. Jason always wakes with the sun.

“Nico,” Jason says softly, “wake up.”

“No,” Nico mumbles into his shirt. “Mars said they had four days; I’m sleeping in.”

“Don’t you want to see the Stolls?” asks Jason.

Connor and Travis are the closest thing to friends Nico has besides Jason. Percy, for all of his repeated insistence, doesn’t count.

“Later.”

“What about the boat?” Jason presses. “I’m really curious about it.”

“And you want to do this at dawn because…?”

“I don’t get the impression that that Leo kid is a particularly early riser.”

Nico snorts. “I suppose I don’t either. You wanna check it out before anyone else is there?”

“Don’t you?” says Jason.

Nico sighs, rolling over enough to let Jason up. “I will admit to some curiosity. But Leo seems like –“

“A lot,” Jason agrees.

So they dress – though Jason ends up in a shirt that’s noticeably tight across his chest, since the last time they stocked the dresser here was before his latest growth spurt – and sneak out to the forest, where they’ve heard construction is taking place.

It’s a hell of a thing, the Argo II.

“I can’t believe he named the dragon Happy,” says Jason. His tone is hushed, like despite his amusement or distaste at the name he’s still a bit in awe of the ship itself.

“Are you kidding?” says Nico. “I may not know this Leo kid well, but that seems entirely on-brand for him.”

“What’s on brand for me?”

Jason startles, bad, which Nico thinks is pretty funny since he’s best friends with the king of jump scares.

“You named your dragon Happy,” Nico tells him. “That’s what Festus means in Latin.”

“You two speak Latin?” Leo says, looking somewhere between surprised and suspicious.

“No,” Nico and Jason reply.

“Right,” says Leo. “Well, he’s turning out pretty nice, yeah? I should have everything good to go by tomorrow and then we can head out.”

“You built the ship by yourself?” Jason asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Leo shrugs. “My siblings helped, but I designed it.”

“That’s impressive,” says Jason.

“Thanks, man,” says Leo. He seems sort of startled and confused by Jason’s compliment.

Nico has the very sudden impression that in the mix of everything – all the drama with Percy going missing and the quest with Piper and Mike and then building the Argo II – no one has actually told Leo this before. Poor kid’s been pouring his heart and soul into the thing, and nobody’s even thanked him.

“It’s really cool,” Nico agrees. Even Jason seems a little startled by that one; Nico usually isn’t casually nice to people.

“Who are you guys, anyway?” Leo blurts. “Like, yeah, son of Zeus, son of Hades, but that’s all anybody ever said about you and then you just, like, disappeared for a couple of months. I didn’t think that was allowed.”

Jason laughs. “We’re sort of outside the rules.”

“What he means is that I’m a bad influence,” Nico says, rolling his eyes, “who stole away the golden child of Camp Half-Blood, and we’ve been on the run ever since. Chiron has long since stopped trying to pin us down.”

“Cool,” says Leo, and it sounds like he means it.

--

“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

Nico crosses his arms. “I was talking to Rachel about the prophecy and she said something that got me thinking – something isn’t right with Death and it isn’t just that Thanatos was captured. I need to go into the Underworld and investigate.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Jason says.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Nico. “We don’t know what I’ll be walking into, and I don’t want to risk losing you.”

“I thought you knew better than to go wandering into dark corners alone!” snaps Jason.

“It might not be safe for you,” Nico says. “The Underworld is in my blood; it isn’t in yours. Dad might like you but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be safe.”

“I don’t like you going alone,” says Jason.

Nico grimaces. “I don’t like it either, but I can’t risk you. Stay here, and don’t get into any stupid trouble while I’m gone.”

“You’re telling me –“

“Yes,” Nico cuts in. “Please, Jace. Be safe.”

Jason softens a bit. “I’m always safe.”

Nico lets Jason pull him into a tight hug. He’s almost certain he feels a firm kiss pressed to his temple, but maybe he’s just imagining things.

“See you in a few days,” Nico says. “I promise, I won’t be long.”

Jason smiles, but it’s a tense, thin smile. Nothing like the bright, golden smile Nico usually sees. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Chapter Text

Jason doesn’t mean to get caught up in the Quest of the Seven.

The problem is that Nico goes missing, and Nico being missing changes everything.

Mike had tagged along on the Argo II to New Rome mostly for the sake of proving they don’t mean any harm, but he messed his knee up on his quest with Piper and Leo in the winter and it still isn’t quite trustworthy for questing. Jason wasn’t sure who the seventh half-blood to “answer the call” would be, without him in the game – the obvious choices were Annabeth, Piper, Leo, Percy, Hazel, and Frank, but the prophecy said Seven. Jason had even been thinking about it as the Argo II left Camp Half-Blood, but that was the end of it.

Then he has a nightmare – Nico in Tartarus, Nico captured, Nico in danger – and he knows.

He has to get to the Argo II. He has to be the seventh.

(Isn’t that appropriate anyway? He is at least as much of a bridge, in his way, between the Romans and the Greeks as Percy or Mike would be. He is both Roman and Greek, and at the same time he is neither.)

He prays to Hades and Persephone for guidance in finding the Argo II and rescuing Nico, rather than his own father. Hades for Nico, Persephone for himself – his half-sister likes him better than she likes her stepson, though she’s warmed to Nico significantly in the last few years. Both of them, Jason trusts more for guidance than Jupiter.

Jason calls Tempest the storm spirit, the distance to the ship too far for Jason to be confident flying unaided. He usually only flies for short bursts, relying much more on Nico’s more reliable shadow travel. Nico hates flying, anyway.

All of this is to say that he blows onto the deck of the Argo II with lightning at his fingertips and a storm cloud at his back, to be greeted with blank, stunned looks from the six demigods aboard (Coach Hedge is the only one to seem utterly unsurprised).

“Jason?” says Percy, half a step ahead of the others with Riptide in hand. His eyes are narrowed with suspicion.

(For a half second, Jason has time to wonder whether Percy has any of his memories back before his brain shifts focus to everyone else.)

Annabeth, ever at Percy’s back, is staring at him wide-eyed. “What are you doing here? How are you here?”

Everyone is just staring at him, frozen, for a long moment.

Everyone except –

“Jason!” Hazel shouts, darting forward around Annabeth and Percy and launching herself into his arms. Jason catches her without thinking. “Thank all the gods you’re safe.”

Jason sets her on the ground, not fully breaking contact but stepping back a bit. “Not for long, I’m sure.”

“I was afraid something had happened to you,” says Hazel. “I keep having these awful dreams about Nico, but he’s alone –“

“He wouldn’t let me come with him,” Jason murmurs. “But we’ll find him, I promise.”

“Jason,” Annabeth cuts in. “What are you doing here?”

As casually as he can muster, Jason shrugs. “I heard you were missing a demigod. Seven Half-Bloods shall answer the call, and all.”

“Jason,” Percy all but growls.

It’s strange, to see him in his full child of the Big Three power, looking at Jason like he’s a threat. There’s a harder edge to him than Jason has ever seen there, and he isn’t certain whether it belongs to Camp Jupiter or to losing (and regaining?) his memories.

“Nico is in danger,” Jason says, his hands up placatingly. “And prophecies hate a vacuum. I had to come.”

“How did you get here?” Annabeth asks again.

Jason waves vaguely across the sky behind him. “Tempest is an old friend. This is further than I feel comfortable flying on my own, but –“

“Why did you lie to me?” Percy says, harsh.

“We should take this inside,” Jason says. The wind is whistling around them and there is a bit of a chill in the air, and this conversation is going to be uncomfortable enough without being outside.

“Fine,” snaps Percy. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Jason as they troop into the main interior space of the ship.

“So,” Jason says once everyone has taken a seat. “Uh, hi.”

That Piper girl leans forward on her elbows, chin propped on one hand. “Hi. That was an impressive entrance.”

“I really didn’t intend for it to be,” Jason admits. “Flying isn’t my first choice for travel, to be honest.”

“Why?” Leo asks with interest. “It’s pretty damn cool.”

Jason shrugs. “Nico is afraid of heights. Shadow travel is faster, anyway.”

“Why –“ Percy starts again, a storm behind his eyes.

Jason raises a placating hand again. “Nico and I have known about the Roman camp since a few months after the Labyrinth. Hades told us about it; it turns out that I’m technically Roman, at least by birth.” He makes eye contact with Annabeth. “That’s where I was when you guys were fighting Lu- Kronos. I knew that I couldn’t face him, and the Romans needed someone powerful on their side to take down Krios, so Nico and I split up.”

“We needed you,” Annabeth says.

“No,” Jason says gently, “you didn’t. But the Romans did – until Hazel, I was the only Roman child of the Big Three.”

“Why not say something, then?” Frank asks, his brow furrowed. “When Mike and Percy went missing?”

“We weren’t sure that they had been switched right away,” says Jason. “And we’d been sworn to secrecy; that was one of Hades’s conditions before he told us anything.” He smiles a bit wryly, more for himself than anyone. “And Nico thought it wouldn’t be wise to piss off whatever god set the whole thing up once Mike showed up. I think he was right; Hera has never been my biggest fan, especially since I went off-script and ran off with Nico.”

“Why deny that you knew me once I’d made it to Camp Jupiter, then?” Percy says, his eyes still narrowed with distrust.

“You still had to find your place among the Romans,” Jason says with a shrug. “Also, to be honest, you’ve never liked Nico much and we didn’t want you to distrust Hazel because you don’t like us.”

“Maybe I don’t like Nico because he keeps secrets like this,” replies Percy. “Because he’s dangerous.”

“Nico has helped you over and over,” Jason snaps. “And you’ve never given him a second look except to act like he’s somehow a problem! Is it really any wonder that he didn’t want you to know you knew us? And anyway, we never lied – we just didn’t tell you everything.”

Annabeth is looking at Jason like she’s never seen him before. And maybe, Jason finds himself thinking, she never really has.

Jason grew up in Annabeth’s shadow, a year younger and a lot less certain in his abilities. They were both so young when they came to Camp, so lost after losing Thalia, but Annabeth had decided she was going to play big sister come hell or high water. Luke had looked out for them for a long time, of course, but then Luke –

Camp was never the same after that. Jason and Annabeth weren’t, either. But where Annabeth had gained new freedom – she was trying to reconnect with her father, she was going on quests, she was making new friends – the borders of Jason’s world had closed in.

Thalia coming back to life was a miracle, but she was gone again from Jason’s just as quickly.

So when Nico left, Jason followed. He’s been following ever since.

He would be the first to admit that he hadn’t really come into his powers until after that, with someone equally strong to spar with and the world out to test them. But it wasn’t until today that Jason realized that that meant that his oldest companion had never really seen him. Not as he is now, the fully realized son of Jupiter and ward of Hades.

Has her image of him still been the 12-year-old who hovered when he was nervous this whole time?

“I can’t and won’t apologize for holding things back before we had all the information,” Jason says firmly. He very intentionally meets Annabeth’s eye. “It was by far the wisest course of action. As for why and how I’m here, when I started having dreams about Nico in Tartarus something fell into place for me. You set out one half-blood short, and I am just as much a bridge between the Greeks and Romans as Percy is, just in a different way. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

Hazel reaches over to him, gently touching his elbow. Jason sinks into his chair next to hers, feeling a bit drained.  

“Jason is a son of Jupiter,” Hazel says simply. “Are we really surprised that he can fly or find us in the sky?”

“How do you two know each other, then?” Leo says, gaze flicking from Hazel to Jason. “I thought you said you weren’t around for the last war.”

“Jason and Nico stole me from the Underworld,” Hazel answers. She holds her head high and fixes Percy with a scalding look. “I owe them my life, and I trust them both unconditionally. They kept the secret of the Greek camp from us, too, even from me, but I have enough information to understand why they did it. Do you?”

Percy’s venomous expression fades under Hazel’s sharp gaze. “I guess.”

“Right,” Hazel says. “Now that that’s settled, we should focus on what’s next.”

Chapter Text

Despite Jason’s best effort to stay with Hazel and Frank to look for Nico in Rome, he ends up tangled up in Percy and Piper’s side quest, following Piper’s dreams toward the Giants. Leo goes in Jason’s place instead.

(He isn’t happy.)

Percy and Piper might, honestly, be the two demigods Jason least wants to spend time with of the Seven. Percy is no longer acting outright hostile, but it’s clear that he doesn’t really trust Jason fully anymore either. Jason isn’t entirely certain that Percy ever trusted him fully, just trusted that if Annabeth trusted him that was good enough.

But like Annabeth, Percy has never really known Jason as a fully realized demigod, settled in his powers and comfortable in his skills outside of them. And now he’s been forced to reckon with that somewhat – Jason is no longer the excitable tween he’d been when he ran away from Camp, and Percy has not had to work alongside someone as powerful as he is very often.

So things are, understandably, a bit tense with Percy.

They’re also a bit tense with Piper, though Jason isn’t entirely sure she’s noticed. She just gives him kind of a weird feeling. She keeps trying to flirt with him at inappropriate times – and he has noticed that, he’s just trying very hard to ignore it – and doesn’t seem to be getting his gentle hints that he’s not interested.

He has more important things to worry about.

(And even if he didn’t, they’re a little busy. They are a lot busy, actually. They’re separated from their friends, Nico might be dying, and Piper keeps stopping to flutter her eyelashes at him!)

But he pushes through; Percy is good enough at putting his feelings aside for the sake of the quest and Jason is good enough at ignoring Piper’s increasingly pointed flirting that they do, eventually find Nico. And some giants, obviously, but most importantly Nico.

Nico is alive. That’s about the best that Jason can say for him, at the moment. He is groggy, barely awake enough to recognize Jason’s presence, and he looks paler and gaunter than ever. Worse than the Labyrinth days, which is the previous all-time high for Jason’s Nico Is In Trouble meter.

He lets Percy and Piper handle the giants. He’s distantly aware of Bacchus arriving, and the stands of the Colosseum suddenly roaring with sound – great, good, Percy and Piper can’t defeat the giants without the help of a god. Even if that god is Bacchus, who in either form has never taken much interest in being actively helpful with anything in Jason’s life so far.

(That isn’t true, Jason knows. Mr. D is the reason that he was allowed to run off with Nico, the reason they are allowed to sit together at Camp when they bother visiting. The most interest he’s ever had in Jason’s life is letting him do this one fucking thing for himself without Chiron’s interference, and Jason is, distantly, glad for that.)

One way or another, it isn’t Jason’s problem. Jason’s problem is Nico, curled close to his chest and barely breathing.

“Hey,” Jason says, squeezing Nico’s shoulders, “Nico, you with me?”

“Always,” Nico croaks. His voice sounds awful, just a scratchy whisper. Jason squeezes him again. “You came.”

“Always,” Jason echoes. “We’ve been partners too long for me to want to work with anyone else.”

That earns him a thin, wheezy laugh. It’s the best sound Jason’s ever heard in his life. All he wants now is to hear it again, hear it get stronger until he sounds like himself again.

“Can you see Perce fighting from here?” Jason asks, his tone as light as he can make it. “No wonder you’ve got that embarrassing crush on him, he looks –“

“Jason,” Nico whines, swatting at his chest. “I don’t –“

A shadow passes overhead, which turns out to be the Argo II, swooping in for the rescue. It’s all a blur of Greek Fire and godly might and figuring out how to get back to the ship’s deck with Nico barely able to sit up, let alone climb a ladder –

“Just fly, Jace,” Nico says, rolling his eyes.

“But you hate flying,” Jason replies.

“I hate falling more,” says Nico. “I trust you.”

“I know,” says Jason.

They fly.

When they land, it takes a moment to get Nico reoriented into a mostly standing position. He’s upright, but leaning heavily on Jason. Jason can see that Percy is revving up for another round of the ‘why didn’t you tell me something you were explicitly told not to tell me’ game, but he’s interrupted by Hazel barreling at full speed into Jason and Nico.

She’s murmuring a nonsense stream of relief and reassurances into Nico’s shoulder, her grip on the back of Jason’s shirt vicelike.

But there isn’t time, there isn’t time – Annabeth is still out there, so to Annabeth they have to go, and Hazel can catch up with Nico later, assuming they all survive. And really, they come so close to all surviving.

Jason isn’t close when Annabeth falls, not close enough to help. Percy grabs her but Percy falls too, and Nico –

Nico tries. He’s not quite fast enough, though, too weak from his week in the jar and whatever else he’s been through, his strength not what it usually would be. Percy yells something indistinct and Nico answers, quieter. He’s leaning too far over the edge of the chasm when Jason finally reaches him, watching Percy and Annabeth fall, fall, fall, his hand outstretched like he might still be able to reach them. To save them.

Jason pulls him back. Nico fights it at first, wrestling against Jason’s grip, but eventually he gives up and basically collapses against Jason’s chest. Jason pretends – for now - that he can’t feel Nico sobbing, too wrung out for actual tears but shaking.

“What did he say?” Jason asks when Nico’s breathing sounds normal again.

“I promised him I’d lead the others to the Doors,” Nico says, choked and scratchy from crying. “He said they’d meet us there from the other side.”

“So we’ll go,” Jason says. “And we’ll meet them.”

“Jace,” Nico whispers and he sounds so tired. “They’re in Tartarus, I don’t –“

“You know Annie and Perce,” says Jason, “the only person as stubborn as one is the other. They’ll get through it; they have to.”

They have to.

And Nico and Jason have to get through this.

They go to Jason’s room – not as nicely personalized as the others, of course, but still a quiet place with a door that they can close – and curl up together at the head of the bed. After all this time apart, after all that they’ve been through, it’s comforting to once again be side-by-side and entirely alone.

“You came,” Nico says again.

“Nico,” Jason says seriously, “I would always, always come for you. Always have, always will.”

Nico is sitting cross-legged, pressed against Jason from shoulder to knee. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at his hands. “I’m glad you didn’t come with me. I was sure I was going to die, and I – I don’t think I could’ve watched you go through it too.”

“I still wish you didn’t have to go through it alone,” says Jason.

“I know,” says Nico. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to go through it alone either.”

Jason reaches over and takes Nico’s hand, pulling it into his own lap and Nico’s gaze with it. “Hey.”

Nico looks up. He and Jason are close, very close, almost nose-to-nose, but that’s how they live their lives, honestly. Back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder, close enough to feel each other breathing.

“Hey,” Nico says softly.

“You’re okay,” Jason says, just as soft. “We’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”

“We’re going to be okay,” echoes Nico.

“From here on out, I’ve got your back,” says Jason. “We’re not separating again.”

He doesn’t promise, but he means it as one all the same. And it’s a promise he fully intends to keep.

The first test of this is in Split, Croatia: Nico wants to stop for Diocletian’s Scepter. Hazel wants to go with him. Jason refuses to be left behind again.

 “Three’s a quest, anyway,” Jason says, and that’s that.

No one else argues to tag along, though Frank seems like he might for a moment. He’s been nervous about separating from Hazel since they lost Percy and Annabeth. Leo and Piper have been nervous about everything since they lost Percy and Annabeth, though they’re not showing it quite so obviously.

“I’m sorry about the others,” Hazel says once the three of them have their feet firmly planted on solid ground. “They’re just –“

“Scared,” Jason finishes, nodding. “It’s alright, Haze.”

“Yeah,” agrees Nico. “I’m scary.”

Jason snorts. He knows exactly what Nico is capable of, having watched him master his powers himself, but it’s hard to look at Nico and see something scary. Nico is all of five feet three inches, still not yet having hit the growth spurt he’s felt coming since last summer, and scrawny in a way that completely hides how strong he is. Aesthetic choices aside – and Nico had leaned into black and skulls and death hard a few years back – most people assume that Jason is the dangerous one.

(Jason isn’t not dangerous, is the thing. It’s just that Nico has always been more ruthless, and Nico’s the one whose powers let him slip around silently to be wherever he wants or needs to be. Nico’s the one who people underestimate. Jason is dangerous in exactly the way you expect him to be: he’s tall, he’s strong, and he can call lightning and storm clouds at will. But he has always been the distraction while Nico makes the kill.)

“Sure,” says Jason.

They meet Favonius in Diocletian’s Palace, for a certain value of “meet.” He leads them away, then sweeps them away, to his master and the holder of the prize they seek. He tells them a story that makes Nico – still skittish after all this time in the modern world – stiffen up and glance sideways at his sister.

“He?” she echoes, tipping her head to one side. She doesn’t see the way Nico stops breathing.

(Jason wonders if she feels it anyway.)

“Yes, he,” says Favonius. “I fell in love with a man. Does that shock you, Hazel Levesque?”

“No,” says Hazel.

Jason hadn’t realized that he’d been holding a breath, too, until he releases it.

Favonius hums thoughtfully, his gaze sliding from Jason to Nico and back before he continues his story. When he’s finished, he leaves them to his master. To Cupid.

And Cupid is –

Cupid is –

It’s hard to say what Cupid is, actually, because Cupid is first and foremost invisible. And he wants something from them, from Nico or from Jason or both, and Jason isn’t sure what. Isn’t sure he wants to know what.

Nico, on the other hand, does seem to know, if the look of utter despair on his face is any indication.

“You’re always hiding, little hero,” says Cupid, “always running. Why won’t you face me?”

“Why won’t you face me?” Nico retorts. His grip on his sword is too tight, Jason can tell from here. “I’ve been to Tartarus and back! You don’t scare me!”

“Oh, I scare you very, very much.”

Nico screams, falling to his knees, and both Hazel and Jason try to run to him, but before they can reach him the world falls away.

--

Nico is ten and he’s just arrived at Camp. He’s starry-eyed over everything but nothing so much as Percy Jackson, with is magic sword and fluffy hair. He sits side-by-side with Jason at Campfire and watches him across the way.

--

Nico is ten and Percy has just told him that Bianca is dead.

(Jason is twelve and Thalia has just joined the Hunters.)

The world feels like it’s ending, and it’s all wrapped up in Percy, who swore he’d keep Bianca safe. It’s all wrapped up in Percy, who seemed so unstoppable until right this moment.

--

Nico is eleven and Jason is twelve and Minos has betrayed them. They stand back-to-back in Daedalus’s workshop, and they save Percy’s life despite the ache in Nico’s chest.

They stand side-by-side at the border of Camp Half-Blood as Percy tries to offer Nico a home, as Annabeth tries to convince Jason to come home.

They leave together and don’t look back.

--

Nico is eleven and Jason is thirteen and Jason is backtalking Hades for him.

It’s a tide turned in their relationship, a shift that will ripple out for the rest of their lives. Hades looks at Nico and sees a son for the first time. Hades looks at Jason and sees someone worth something more than what Zeus or Jupiter have made of him.

Hades sends them to Rome.

--

Nico is eleven and Jason is thirteen and they’re with the Romans.

Jason has a place here, Jason is wanted here, Jason feels drawn to stay here, but Jason says –

“It’s nothing like the tug I feel telling me to stay with you.”

--

Nico is twelve and Jason is fourteen and they have to separate.

Jason can’t face Luke and the Romans need him. Percy needs Nico and Nico can’t say no. They have never been apart this long. Nico can feel the separation in his bones, and in the way Jason’s heartbeat is a distant, distant echo when it’s usually close enough to feel in tandem with his own.

“Be safe.”

--

Nico is twelve and Jason is fourteen and Bianca is gone, but Hazel –

“I can’t leave her,” Nico pleads.

“I’m not asking you to,” Jason replies.

There is a tenderness in his gaze that burns. It feels like he can see straight through into Nico’s soul. There is no one else who knows Nico well enough to even try. He doesn’t let anyone else close.

--

Nico is thirteen and Jason is fourteen and Percy is here.

“Are you okay?” Jason asks, after the quest is over and they know Hazel is safe.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Nico asks even though they both know very well why.

“Are you okay?” Jason asks again.

Nico leans on him. “I will be.”

--

Nico is thirteen and Jason is fifteen because Nico missed his birthday, trapped in Tartarus.

“I’m sorry,” Nico chokes out, between the jar and losing the others.

“What?”

“Your birthday. I missed it.”

Jason laughs, light but startling. “Nico, I don’t care. You’re alive, that’s the best birthday present I could’ve asked for.”

--

Jason comes back to himself with a gasp, shocked to find himself on his stinging knees a few feet away from Nico. Hazel is still on her feet, standing between them with a look of shock and horror on her face.

“Nico –“

“Don’t,” Nico says, refusing to meet Jason’s eye. “Don’t, I – I don’t want to –“

“Still hiding, are you?” Cupid’s voice rings through the air again.

“Jason,” Nico chokes out. “I’m sorry, I never –“

“Interesting. Do you have the strength after all?”

“It’s okay, Nico,” Jason says, “it’s okay, I –“

“It’s not, though,” says Nico. “I’m not.”

“Apparently not. Keep running, little hero, maybe one day you’ll actually get away.”

“Fine!” roars Nico. “Fine. You want to hear me say it?”

“If you can.”

Nico is still on his knees. He isn’t far from Jason, but he still won’t look at him.

“I have a crush on Jason,” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper. “That’s the big fucking secret. Are you happy now?”

Now, Cupid finally reveals himself. He tilts his head to one side, looking at Nico like he is, perhaps, a very interesting bug.

“I wouldn’t say love always makes you happy,” he says. “Sometimes it is just hard. But you’ve faced it and that is the only way to conquer me.”

He holds the scepter, the scepter which cannot possibly be worth all of this, out to him.

Nico takes it.

Hazel snaps. “How dare you?”

Cupid’s gaze shifts to her, his posture unconcerned. “What do you mean?”

“How dare you?” she seethes. “My brother is trying to save the world and you just – you just – this isn’t Ancient Greece or Rome anymore! The danger you could have been putting my brother in for the sake of your trial, for the sake of – of your own amusement! There are no rules here but the ones you made, and yet –“

“Hazel,” Nico says. He’s finally pulled himself to his feet, and he moves to place himself between his sister and the god.

Fortunately, Cupid is still just staring at her, a mix of cool amusement and curiosity on his face.

“Hazel Levesque,” Cupid says.

“Forgive her,” Nico says, still trying to block Hazel from view. “She just –“

“Loves you,” Cupid finishes. “Enough to fight a god.” His gaze shifts to Jason, still frozen on the ground. “She is not the only one.”

“I’m sorry,” says Nico. “She didn’t mean to offend.”

“She did not offend me,” says Cupid. He pauses for just long enough that Jason’s nerves start to kick up again. “Perhaps she is even right.”

“You’re damn right I am!” Hazel snaps. Nico steps on her toes.

“Go now,” Cupid says, “with my blessing. The three of you have more than earned your spoils.”

He vanishes. Hazel is still breathing hard. Nico doesn’t seem to be breathing at all.

Jason is still sitting, dumbfounded, on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Hazel says eventually. “I know I shouldn’t have said that. I was just so angry. I mean, times are different now, but it’s still – it’s still not right to go forcing people to share that kind of secret.”

“It’s alright,” Nico says, his voice gentle. “Jason already knows that I’m gay. And I’d meant to tell you, anyway. I just hadn’t gotten around to it because I was – I was scared.”

“And I don’t blame you,” Hazel replies. “As for the rest of it…”

Nico finally looks over at Jason. He looks devastated, like he’s mourning a loss that hasn’t yet come.

Jason staggers to his feet. “Nico, I –“

“I know you don’t feel the same,” Nico murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“But I do,” Jason blurts, finally finding his voice again. “I do, I have for – for ages.”

“Oh,” says Nico.

“Oh,” agrees Jason.

“We should go,” Hazel says, when neither of them makes a move to say anything else. “You two can talk this out on the ship, but we need to keep moving.”

“Right,” says Jason. He offers a hand to Nico, who takes it more tentatively than he ever has before. “Are you feeling up to shadow travel, or should we fly?”

“Shadow travel,” Nico says firmly. “I’ve had enough of the winds for today, haven’t you?”

And then they fall into the comforting familiarity of the dark.

Chapter Text

As it turns out, there isn’t time for them to talk for a long while after that. The Argo II is chaos from the moment they step back aboard to the moment the six of them debark in Epirus.

Nico has briefed the others on what to expect, but there’s still a long moment of silence when they reach the cup of poison that will let them descend further.

Nico drinks first, no hesitation. He passes the cup to Jason, who would never question Nico on something like this. Jason passes it to Hazel, who trusts the both of them with her life.

And then the three of them stare down Frank.

“Do you trust me?” Hazel says, soft. It isn’t a challenge, the way it might have been from Nico, just gently sincere.

“I –“ Frank says, his gaze flicking from Hazel over Jason and Nico, “yes.”

Piper and Leo are having what seems to be a very involved eyebrow conversation, but when Frank turns to them they take it one after the other.

Nico leads the way through the House of Hades, one hand on his sword and the other gripping Jason’s wrist tightly.

(The thing is, despite their recent confessions, this isn’t new. Nico’s night vision is better than Jason’s, and their sense of personal space mostly includes each other after all this time. They touch constantly, they hold hands and sleep side-by-side and this should not feel earthshaking but it kind of does.)

The whole thing is a blur, honestly, but they survive. It feels like a miracle.

Percy and Annabeth have survived, too, which –

Once everyone is above ground again, safe as they’re going to be in the light of the sun, Percy staggers over to Nico.

“Hey,” he says.

Nico curls a little closer to Jason. “Hey.”

“Look, I – can we talk?” Percy says.

“If you want,” says Nico.

“Jace –“

“Please don’t call me that,” Jason says, his tone polite but firm. “And I’ll be staying right here if it’s all the same to you.”

“Right,” says Percy. He refocuses on Nico. “Look, I realized some things while I was – I realized some things, you know? And one of those things was that I keep promising to protect you, that I’ll look out for you, and then just forgetting to follow through. And I’m sorry.”

Jason and Nico look at each other, then back to Percy. There isn’t an easy, delicate way to handle this – to be honest, it’s a topic they’ve picked up and dropped more times than either of them could likely count. Jason resents Percy for it more than Nico does, he thinks, because Nico had his reluctant crush on Percy making things complicated. He was angry with Percy for ages, but not as angry as he wished he was. He was angry with himself, for falling for a boy and for falling for a boy who had always treated him like an afterthought even more so. But Jason has always been protective of Nico, even before that crystalized into Feelings, and he holds grudges nearly as well as his son of Hades best friend.

“That’s nice,” Nico says eventually.

“What?” says Percy.

“I said that’s nice,” Nico repeats. “But it doesn’t really mean much if you don’t stop doing it.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m going to stop doing it,” Percy says. “I want to be someone you can rely on, not – not someone you’re afraid is going to throw you under the bus.”

Nico tilts his head to one side, curious. “Then do it.”

“What?”

“Do it,” Nico repeats. “We aren’t that hard to reach. Even when we’re avoiding you.”

“Alright,” says Percy. “I will.”

“You know, Perce,” Nico says lightly, “I used to really like you. But I don’t think it was very healthy for me. You’re kind of self-centered, you know?”

“My fatal flaw is literally loyalty,” Percy blurts.

Jason laughs, he can’t help himself. “To the people you actually care about, sure. But you’re a little –“

“You’re very focused,” Nico offers diplomatically.

Before this conversation can fall apart any further, they are interrupted by Piper letting out a startled shout.

“Mike!”

The three of them turn; sure enough, Mike Kahale is climbing out of a taxi at the base of the hill where the Argo II is parked. He climbs up to meet the Seven-plus-Nico, still with a bit of a limp but much more smoothly than he’d been walking the last time Jason saw him.

“What are you doing here?” Piper asks, running to meet him partway down. She catches him in a tight hug before stepping back to help him up the steeper part of the hill.

“Someone needs to bring the Athena Parthenos home,” Mike says. He tucks his hands into his pockets, looking as cool and collected as anyone could as he says, “The Legion is falling apart; I left Reyna to hold things together, but Octavian has more of a following than I’d like to admit. He’s launching an attack on Camp Half-Blood.”

Jason surveys the group, taking in everyone’s reactions. It’s clear that Piper, Frank, Leo, and Hazel hadn’t known about this. Hadn’t known Mike was coming, hadn’t known how divided the Legion was. Jason and Nico knew, because Jason had dreamed about Rachel Dare telling Mike to come, and Jason knew that Annabeth and Percy had known because it was Annabeth who told Rachel to reach out. Somehow.

(Jason has long since stopped being surprised or impressed when Annabeth figures out how to do something that should be impossible. He has known her too long to not just shrug and accept it nowadays.)

The problem is this: while Mike was able to fly here by plane, there is no way that that’s a viable option for getting home with the statue.

The problem is this: the prophecy says seven half-bloods, and right now there are eight-plus-Coach Hedge.

The problem is this: there is only one viable option for getting Mike and the statue home, and Jason hates it.

“It’ll be okay,” Nico murmurs.

“You can’t promise that,” Jason says.

“It will be okay,” Nico repeats, insistent. “We don’t have any other option. We’ll separate and we’ll be okay.”

“You almost died, like, two days ago,” says Jason.

“I almost die all the time,” says Nico. “So do you. We don’t have a choice.”

Jason sighs. “I hate this.”

“I know.” Nico runs his hands through his hair. “I do, too.”

They stand in silence for a beat, listening to the others preparing for departure.

“Look out for Hazel for me, alright?”

“Of course.”

Nico nods firmly. Then he turns away from Jason, one hand coming up to skim along Jason’s wrist as he does. “Hey! Perce!”

Percy breaks off from the group to join them again. “What’s up, Nico?”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure,” says Percy, looking confused but unwilling to question it.

“Watch Jason’s back,” Nico says firmly.

Percy blinks twice. Jason can see him processing it, clear as day, can see the moment where it clicks for him exactly how huge a show of trust it is for Nico to ask him. The last time Nico asked something like this of Percy – whether it was a reasonable expectation or not of a thirteen-year-old hero – Bianca died.

This is Nico offering Percy the second chance he’d asked for. Now it’s just on Percy to take the offer.

“Of course,” Percy says after just a moment too long. “Nico –“

“I am trusting you,” Nico says, dark and threatening. “Do not make me regret it.”

“You won’t,” says Percy.

--

Mike, Nico, and Coach Hedge are camped at the outskirts of Pompeii, having narrowly avoided tumbling into Mt. Vesuvius.

“Did you know,” Nico mumbles sleepily, “that Mt. Vesuvius is due for another eruption soon?”

“That so?” Mike says, more amused than Nico thinks he has a right to given their most recent near-death experience.

Nico waves vaguely. “Last big one was when I was a kid. After we left Italy, though. Mid forties? Anyway s’on a seventy-ish year cycle, so it’s due soon.”

“Why do you know that?” Hedge asks.

“Jace has always been into history, demigod history,” Nico says. He nods in the direction of Pompeii’s forum. “He’s done a lot of reading about Pompeii. Also volcanoes are cool.”

Mike chuckles. “It’s just been the two of you for a long time, right?”

Nico wraps his arms around himself, drawing his walls up a bit. “Three years this winter.”

--

Jason is still a bit groggy from being stabbed and then healed, and his teammates – friends? – are taking turns keeping an eye on him as he sleeps it off. He learns this as he rolls over, groaning, and is met with Annabeth perched in a chair pulled from the dining table to be at his bedside.

“You’re lucky to have survived that,” she says.

“That’s me,” Jason says, letting his head drop back against his pillow. “Lucky.”

“You’re lucky to have survived to fifteen in the first place,” says Annabeth.

Jason hums. “No, that’s training.”

“And who trained you? After you left Camp?” Annabeth asks. It’s funny, how clear it is in every inch of her that she’s been dying to ask for days and never had a chance.

“The Romans, a bit,” Jason admits. “But mostly dead heroes. Whoever was willing to help when Nico summoned them. And we practiced together.”

“You have more control than I remember,” she says.

“I’ve grown,” he replies.

Annabeth sighs. “You have, and I missed it.”

--

Fortunately, Hades favors Nico enough to appear to him relatively balanced in Évora. Unfortunately, he mostly brings bad news.

No real change, there.

“I was surprised that you separated from Jason so willingly,” Hades says casually, as if he hasn’t just told Nico that someone he loves may die soon and he may die soon too. That’s Hades for you, he supposes.

“No choice,” Nico says. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “Jason is one of the Seven, I’m not. And there was no other way to get the statue home.”

Hades hums. “True enough. But the two of you have always excelled at slipping around expectations.”

“We couldn’t find a way around these,” says Nico. “So we’re just – just holding out hope that we’ll make it through to the other side.”

“Have faith, son,” says Hades. “You are both more powerful than you think, even apart.”

It isn’t until later – much later, when he finally has the downtime to stop and think – that it occurs to Nico how odd a phrasing this is. Even apart, he said, as though the two of them being powerful together goes without saying. If it does, he’s the first to think so.

--

It’s late, but Jason can’t sleep.

He’s got a bad feeling about all of this. To storm or fire is haunting him worse than any ghost he’s ever met, and he doesn’t like that he can’t even reach out to Nico to talk through it. They’d decided before separating that it wouldn’t be wise to Iris Message while Nico, Mike, and Hedge are traveling, because there’s no way to know if it’s a safe time to talk. And Jason doesn’t regret that agreement, but he also wishes it weren’t the case.

Jason is perched in the crow’s nest, which had quickly become Nico’s favorite hiding spot in his handful of days aboard. It’s a short enough distance from the deck that he’d even been willing to let Jason fly him up to it.

“You should get some sleep.”

Jason startles worse than he’d like to admit. Usually he’s more alert than this.

(Usually Nico has his back.)

“Piper,” he sighs as she pokes her head in.

“Sorry,” Piper says. She hauls herself up to sit across from Jason. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’d just seen you come up here, and Annabeth’s worried about you.”

“You can tell Annie that I’m fine,” Jason says tiredly.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Piper replies.

“Yeah, well,” Jason says. He doesn’t continue.

“I know we don’t know each other well, but I’m kind of worried about you, too,” Piper says, more tentatively. Jason isn’t sure he’s ever seen Piper tentative before.

Jason shrugs. “Just counting down the minutes until all of this is over. Until Nico and I can stop fucking separating.”

“Oh,” says Piper.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says. He pulls his knees to his chest, dropping his forehead onto them. “I’m not usually – like this.”

“It’s okay,” Piper replies. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for everyone.”

“Tell me about it,” mumbles Jason.

“Are you –“ Piper starts, then pauses. “No, it doesn’t matter. Do you think you’ll be able to do this? Alone?”

Alone isn’t a word that Jason expected anyone but him to apply to this situation. He isn’t alone, of course, but at the same time –

Nico is across the ocean by now (gods willing), and Nico is the only person Jason really, really trusts to have his back. Even Annabeth, who Jason has known since he was a handful of years old, months before either of them first stepped foot at Camp Half-Blood, is a bit of an unknown nowadays.

Jason sighs, picking his head up to meet Piper’s eye. “I’m going to have to.”

--

“Shit, man, that Thalia girl does not like you,” Mike says, wheezing with laughter that borders on hysterical. They’ve just survived their closest call yet, with Orion but also with the Hunters and the Amazons, because none of this can be easy, can it?

Still, it is kind of funny that Thalia found time to snipe at him in between everyone fighting for their lives. Nico can’t help giggling a bit, too. “Never really has.”

“How do you even know the Hunters?” asks Mike. He’s pulled himself together a bit, but still sounds a little breathless.

“Met them the day we went to Camp,” Nico says. He stretches out on the floor, reaching for his ankles in hopes of loosening up after their most recent battle. “My full sister joined up and immediately died.”

“I thought the Hunters were immortal.”

“Generally.” Nico picks his head up enough to look at Mike properly. “She was on a quest.”

“I’m sorry,” says Mike.

“It was a long time ago,” says Nico. “Thalia joined up at the end of that quest, and it was… mostly political, to be honest. But Jace ran away from Camp after, and she’s always blamed me for that. Like we’re in any less danger there.”

Mike stretches, too. “What does Jason have to do with it?”

“They’re full siblings, too,” Nico says. “She’s the reason he wasn’t raised Roman. Ran away from home with him when he was a toddler. They don’t talk much anymore; she was a tree for a while.”

Mike stares at Nico for a beat, then shakes his head. Sometimes it’s easier not to ask about the demigod stuff. “Sucks she doesn’t like you.”

Nico shrugs. “She ran off first.”

--

There is a brief moment in Athens – ever so brief, between the defeat of the Giants and Zeus returning the Seven home – when the gods and demigods are left just sort of mingling. Zeus (Jupiter?) pays Jason no mind, naturally, because he’s never paid a moment of attention to him before, why should he start now?

But in the midst of the other heroes talking to their parents, Hades approaches Jason and rests a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve done well, Jason,” he says.

Jason, startled, blurts, “What?”

“You’ve done well,” Hades repeats. “And I am very proud of you.”

“Oh,” says Jason. “I – thank you.”

“My brother may not appreciate the hero you’ve become,” says Hades. “He may not even remember you are his to appreciate most of the time. But know this: Persephone and I see you. We have watched you grow and become a hero worthy of the title you will now bear. Whether you and my son continue to travel and quest or settle and rest for a while, we are proud of the heroes you have grown to be.”

“Thank you,” Jason says again, tears prickling at his eyes.

Suddenly it hardly matters that Zeus has barely spared him a glance since the gods joined them. Suddenly, Jason realizes that it hardly mattered to begin with.

He was meant to be Juno’s champion, Jupiter’s perfect son.

But Jason Grace has been forging his own path for years, and he’s going to carry on doing it as long as he can.

--

It’s over.

It’s finally fucking over.

It’s over in flashy, dramatic demigod fashion with two final deaths to cap it all off.

Nico hugs Mike on impulse – he’s not much of a hugger but they’ve had a hell of a week and they’ve both actually survived it – and after a beat the older boy laughs and hugs him back.

“You’re not bad, kid,” he says.

“I’m older than you,” Nico replies, but he’s smiling. He and Mike had been wary of each other at the start, between the secrets and the patchy memories and the deep instinctive Greek-Roman thing, but they’ve come to an understanding. They’ve saved each other’s lives a time or two, not to mention –

(“I’m terrified,” Nico had admitted late one night. “This could change everything.”

“Would that really be so bad?” Mike had replied. “Change is part of growing up.”

“Is it not enough that he’s a foot taller than me now?”

Mike had laughed. “It could be worse, right?”

“Yeah. I could’ve still been into Percy.”)

- well, they’d bonded.

 Jason is with Hazel when Nico finally gets to him, an arm wrapped around her shoulders while she speaks softly with Frank. They’re still in sight of the others – Piper is sobbing, wrapped up in Annabeth’s arms and an atrociously orange sweatshirt, while Percy watches protectively over the two of them – but apart enough for Nico not to feel like he’s intruding.

Even if he had, Jason’s quiet, relieved sigh of, “Nico,” is enough to make sure he knows he’s welcome.

“You’re alive,” says Nico. Jason very politely does not point out that Nico absolutely would have known if either of them had died.

“You’re alive,” says Jason. “Will Solace told me you almost evaporated or something?”

Nico waves him off. “Will’s exaggerating. I just wasn’t super solid for a bit.”

“Like,” Jason says, his eyes narrowing, “physically solid?”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Nico.

“I’m worrying about it,” says Jason. “Hazel, are you worrying about it?”

“Hmm? Oh, definitely,” says Hazel. She glares at her brother. “You need to be more careful.”

“I need to – what were you expecting me to do, huh? Not get here in time?” Nico puts a hand on each of their shoulders. “I lived. And it’s not going to happen again. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s less reassuring than you think it is,” Hazel murmurs.

“How’s this for compromise,” Jason offers, “let’s rest. No one needs us now – let’s go back to Cabin 13 and sleep for a week.”

“At least a few hours,” Hazel amends.

Nico nods, the weight of exhaustion finally catching up to him now that it’s safe to drop his guard. “Frank can come, too. There’s only two beds but Connor and Travis gave us an excellent armchair he can sleep in. If you don’t want to try your luck with Cabin 5, that is.”

“I don’t,” Frank says quickly. “I’d rather stay with you guys.”

“Connor and Travis,” Jason says, picking his head up sharply to look straight on at Nico. They don’t have many real friends left here, and the Stolls have always been the best of them.

“They’re fine,” says Nico, waving him off. “I saw them a few minutes ago.”

Jason relaxes. “Good.”

Percy nods at them as they pull away, but Annabeth and Piper don’t seem to notice.

Cabin 13 is just as they’d left it – weeks ago, now – dark and cool, with one bed pristine and the other unmade. Nico beelines for their bed, flopping onto it and scooting over toward the wall to nestle in.

“That one’s you, Haze,” Jason offers, nodding to the unused second bed as Nico wriggles into a cocoon of blankets.

“If you’re sure?” Hazel says softly.

Jason chuckles. “Oh, yeah, it’s yours. Nico and I always share.”

“S’paranoia, mostly,” Nico mumbles into the pillow. “We’re safest closer together.”

Hazel makes a sad little noise, but doesn’t say anything as Jason crawls into bed next to Nico.

“Think there’s clothes in the trunk,” Nico says. “F’you want to change. Not Frank, though. Nothing we have would fit Frank.”

That wins a laugh from Hazel (and Frank).

“Thanks, Nico.”

“No prob,” he mumbles, rolling over to smush his face into Jason’s shoulder. “Love you, Haze.”

Hazel smiles softly. “Love you, too.”

--

“Will you stay, this time?”

Jason laughs. “Do you ever get tired of asking?”

Annabeth crosses her arms. “Jason, be serious.”

“I am,” says Jason. “My answer hasn’t changed. We are going to take a bit of a break, but we’re taking it in New Rome so we can be close to Hazel for a while.”

“Why are you so determined to run away?” Annabeth says. “After all this time, why are you still running?”

“We’re not running,” says Jason. “Not anymore. We haven’t been running in a long time. There are different ways to be a hero, Annie, and after everything… I don’t think I could ever be happy here. I know Nico couldn’t.”

“You and Nico can separate, you know.”

“But we don’t want to,” Jason says, quiet but firm. “You’ve been ride-or-die for Percy Jackson since you were twelve, is it really so unfathomable to you that Nico and I might be, I don’t know, kind of attached to each other at this point?”

Annabeth runs her fingers through her hair. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just – even after all this time, it’s hard to imagine that you’re not my little brother anymore.”

“I’m still your little brother,” Jason replies. “But we’re not five and seven anymore. Sometimes growing up means growing apart a bit. It doesn’t mean I love you any less, just that – that there’s other people in my life that I love. And other places I call home.”

“Is there, though?” says Annabeth. “Another place?”

Jason chuckles. “A few. You know, Hades told me that he’s proud of me?”

“Hades?”

“Yeah,” says Jason, “so… don’t worry about me too much, okay?”

--

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

Nico turns, smiling. “I was going to wait for you.”

“I was just getting flashbacks to the first time you took off,” Jason teases.

They’re near the edge of Camp, in the shadow of what was once Thalia’s tree.

“Hazel will be mad that we’ve gone without saying goodbye,” he says once he fully catches up with Nico.

“We’ll see her next week in New Rome,” says Nico. He slips his hand into Jason’s. “She’ll understand.”

“Well, where are we going next?” Jason asks.

Nico squeezes Jason’s hand. “Anywhere. Anywhere but here, as long as we stay together.”

“Maybe somewhere we can avoid monsters, for a while,” Jason suggests. Nico laughs, a brighter sound than Jason’s heard from him in weeks.

They slide into the familiar depths of the shadow of Thalia’s tree, stepping out into the soft dawn of their next adventure, whatever that may be.

--

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Away. Far away from here!”

“But – but Camp is the only safe place for kids like us.”

“Tell that to my sister!”

“I’m sorry about Bianca, but –“

“I’m not staying and you can’t make me.”

“Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”

“Leave me alone!”

“No.”

And that was that.