Archive of Our Own

“Orientation for Greek demigods, this way.” A girl with dark red hair who’s sitting behind the desk tilts her head to the left down another hallway. 

Will doesn’t even ask how she automatically knows that he’s Greek, but just nods and heads in that direction. It makes sense, he supposes, that the Greek demigods will have their own orientation—even though it also doesn’t, because Camp Half-Blood is pretty tight-knit and Will already knows all of the other campers that have registered to start college at New Rome University. He saw them all last week, right before he flew to Austin to spend a few days with his mom and take a shopping trip so that he had more in his closet than just seven orange CHB tee-shirts, re-washed and re-worn every week. 

He has a NRU tee-shirt in his suitcase now. Three of them, actually, because the number of options he now has in his wardrobe kind of scares him, so it’s nice to know that if he just has three of those purple tee-shirts, and still a spare two CHB tee-shirts, then he only needs to choose an outfit for two days of the week. 

Will’s early. He arrives in front of a room that’s labeled GREEK DEMGIODS , except the “demgiods” part has been scratched out and a correctly spelled version is written above it.

He recognizes the handwriting. He knocks once, then opens the door, the tension in his body easing slightly as he sees two familiar faces.

Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are clearly busy with something, as Annabeth is typing furiously, hunched over a laptop open to a PowerPoint. Percy stands next to her, scratching his head, and asks, “Don’t you think they already know all of this?”

“Can’t hurt to repeat it—”

Will clears his throat.

Annabeth’s head whips around, and her eyes immediately light up. “Will! Oh my gods, it’s been ages!” She quickly turns around to finish typing whatever sentence she was on—Will hadn’t known that technology was even allowed here, but he guesses that because of the heavy security of New Rome, they get to worry less about attracting monsters—and then rushes over to pull Will into a hug. 

“Nice to see you, dude,” Percy says, a relaxed smile on his face. Will has to admit that he doesn’t know him that well—or at least, not as well as Annabeth, seeing as they were at camp for years together, and she often helped out at the infirmary—and there’s still some lingering tension after the Battle of Manhattan. Will doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to call each other best friends or anything, but he smiles in return and gives him a small nod. 

“You saw me last month,” Will responds.

Annabeth ignores it. “You’re early. Orientation doesn’t start till three.”

“You guys are in charge of it?”

Annabeth nods proudly. “Yes. Well, us and Nico. But Nico’s always late.”

The name sounds an alarm through Will’s head; it repeats over and over: Nico .

Nico di Angelo. Son of Hades. It must be, right? Will nearly chokes on thin air, but he saves himself with a small cough, avoiding Annabeth’s confused glance. “Uh—Nico? He’s here?”

Percy raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. Didn’t he tell you after he left? I saw you guys talking back at camp—after Gaia and all that.”

Yes, they had talked. And Will had asked him to stay at Camp Half-Blood. He had offered the olive branch, told Nico that people wanted him there, that he could find a home. 

And Nico had just said, “I’ll think about it,” and walked away. He left some time between that and breakfast the next day, when Will had pulled himself out of the infirmary and knocked on Cabin Thirteen, only to find it empty.

“No, he didn’t,” Will mutters. He shouldn’t be as bitter about it as he is—he should be happy, really, because if Nico is in New Rome, then that must mean that he’s found himself a home. And Will wasn’t really close with him in the first place—honestly, he doesn’t even know if Nico would remember him now. He can’t call himself his friend, not when he let Nico slip through his fingers twice—no, three times, if he counts after the Battle of the Labyrinth (which Will did) and four times if he counts the time he left when they were both eleven, before the war had really started (which Will also did).

He’s not close with Nico. And he’s resigned himself to the fact that he never will be. The universe had given him enough chances, and yet every time, something else had been more important. Maybe he should have sought him out after the Battle of the Labyrinth to check if he had any injuries, but Lee had just died and Will had been pushed to take care of the infirmary. Maybe he should have invited him to the Apollo cabin’s activities after the Battle of Manhattan, but they had lost over half their cabin and Will was now the head counselor of two younger siblings. Maybe he should have kept Nico somewhere in his sight after the Giant War to make sure he wouldn’t leave again—or maybe he should have found some other way to prove that he was being honest when he said he wanted him to stay, but he had thought that his words had been enough.

But another memory is brought up—his dad, just three years ago, had mentioned Nico showing up to the fight at New Rome. Will had brushed it off, because Nico always seems to show up just in time for the big finale—even though technically, he hadn’t shown up to the fight with Nero, but Will guessed that he had already played his part. 

It seems like he hadn’t traveled to that fight; he had just been there. Living here. In New Rome. Will he be going to college here too? Will racks his brain, trying to remember Nico’s age—would he start this year, or next? He had been slightly younger, hadn’t he?

Will doesn’t know. 

Annabeth seems to read his expression, switching the topic. “But anyway, if you’re early, and Nico isn’t here, you can help—can you get those chairs over there and just put them in a circle? I think we just have… nine people? No, ten. Right?”

Percy nods. “Ten this year, looking to be fourteen next year.”

“You guys won’t be there next year, though, will you?” Will asks as he turns around to do as Annabeth asked. After years of working in the infirmary day in and day out, moving a chair is the least of his problems. He’s caught up on more sleep in the past week than he ever had since the whole Dad-turning-mortal thing. 

“Well, we’ll still be in New Rome,” Percy answers, and Will looks back to see Annabeth hunched over the laptop again. “But yeah, graduating. Probably won’t be around as much, though—we’re working on a project with Chiron, so we’ll be back and forth a lot.”

“How’ll that work? Not being able to fly and all that.”

Percy grimaces. “Yeah… we’ll be doing a lot of road trips. Nico offered to help us through a shortcut in the Underworld, but—uh, yeah. I don’t think that’s that much better than flying.”

“Can’t Nico shadow travel?”

“Oh, he can,” Percy nods, glancing at Annabeth before seemingly deciding that she doesn’t need his help, and walking over to help move the chairs. “But after the war—do you know what happened? Well—anyway, he does a lot of errands for his dad. But too much shadow travel can be really damaging, and so we wouldn’t want him to spend that energy just teleporting us back and forth.”

Will nods, a frown on his face. He remembers Nico fading. He had asked Nico to come to the infirmary about it, but when he hadn’t showed up, instead disappearing, Will had figured that the problem had just been the forty foot statue.

He wishes he had known. 

“But we’re thinking of maybe trying a cruise ship every once in a while,” Percy continues. “I mean, there’s a few that go through the Panama Canal that look pretty nice. And we’ll have to drive a bit to get from the port to New York, of course, but it could make the trip more fun sometimes.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice—”

“Not late!” Will nearly jumps at the sudden voice, though his shock vanishes the second he sees Nico di Angelo step out of a shadow in the corner of the room. 

“I’m not late,” Nico repeats, breathing heavily and placing one hand on the desk next to him. “Hazel just—”

“Mhm.” Annabeth’s voice comes from behind Will, and he looks around to see her looking amusedly at Nico. “Not like we planned to meet up at two. It’s two-forty.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Just come and check over this PowerPoint. Oh, and Will’s here—you remember him, right?”

Will holds his breath unintentionally, focusing all his energy into not blushing as Nico glances over to him. Godsdamnit. Three years, and Will still hasn’t gotten over his crush. Seven years, actually, if he’s counting when it first started—after the Battle of the Labyrinth.

“Oh, yeah,” Nico nods vaguely. “Head Counselor of the Apollo Cabin.”

Will attempts a smile. “Not anymore. Kayla’s taking over now.”

“Oh, yeah, Kayla!” Percy exclaims, pulling Will’s attention again. “How was the training going? I haven’t heard that much about it, but with so many of the senior campers leaving this year…”

Will listens to his questions, and answers them as best he can—how the new Apollo campers are, how the rest of camp is, updates on everyone else who are enrolled in NRU that year—and watches out of the corner of his eye as Nico’s gaze lingers on him for just a moment before looking at Annabeth’s computer.

-

To Will’s surprise, he actually doesn’t run into Nico after that. He’s learned that Nico isn’t a student at NRU, but that he just hangs around New Rome, and is still the Ambassador of Pluto, despite not being a child of Pluto. He used to be part of the legion, but apparently he left that after all the business with Apollo. Will can’t really blame him.

He finds it a bit confusing that they haven’t even changed the title to Ambassador of Hades, but who is he to judge? He only decided to go to New Rome to try and gain some semblance of normal and not feel like he was wasting his (probably short) life away at the same camp he had lived at since he was a kid. 

And also, after passing out one too many times after long infirmary shifts, Kayla and Austin had pointed out to him that maybe college could offer him a break . He had kind of assumed that it would be the opposite way around, and that college would be more stressful—but the longer he slept on it and considered it, the more he realized that they were right. Maybe worrying about grades instead of campers nearly dying under his watch would allow him to finally take a moment to breathe.

So he had signed up. And he had gotten in. And now he’s here, on the other side of the country, and even though it’s just been one week since his classes started, he’s already starting to feel it—he’s not always keeping one ear out for someone to call him to the infirmary; he’s finally able to fall asleep properly, deeply, instead of worrying that he’d need to get up; he’s able to, for once, focus entirely on himself . 

It’s something that he doesn’t think he’s done since he was thirteen. It feels unnatural, the same way that stepping up to the Head Counselor position had felt in the first place—now, just the opposite way around.

Despite not seeing Nico, though, he’s heard plenty. The rumors had always been strong around the son of Hades, probably because he never really let anyone get close enough for people to actually learn things about him, but it feels slightly uplifting to hear that Nico has managed to find a way to fit in at New Rome, even if he still spends most of his time down in the Underworld.

He’s close with Percy and Annabeth, Will hears, and obviously his sister, who’s the new Praetor. From what he had seen after the war with Gaia, Will assumes that he had probably still remained close with Reyna, the old Praetor, before she joined the Hunters (something that Apollo had briefly mentioned), and Jason Grace, before he died. 

But even the rumor mill around NRU seems to draw the line before talking about the retired Praetors. 

As he walks back to his dorm from one of his classes, he finds his mind wandering—as much as he tries to pretend that he’s fine with the fact that Nico and Will are not friends and never were, he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop lingering on the what-if’s . 

He heard another rumor that day before class, with his roommate finding out that Will used to know Nico (which was a bit of an exaggeration on Will’s part, because he doesn’t think anyone at Camp Half-Blood actually knew him), and wanting to confirm his gossip (as if Will had any idea what Nico’s been up to in the past three years—or before that, actually, aside from saving their asses in two wars). 

He used to go to a mortal high school with Jason Grace. That makes sense, Will thinks, seeing as Nico had practically rejected his offer of friendship—he swallows the bitterness, and is grateful that, at least, Nico had found some sort of home and family.

At least, before Jason’s death. Will hadn’t thought much of it at the time, hadn’t even known Jason well because he’d only briefly visited the infirmary to check his glasses prescription and if he had any lingering head injuries, but he feels a stinging in his gut when being reminded of it, and of how close Jason and Nico seemed to have been.

I should have been there , is the absurd thought that passes through Will’s head before pausing that idea and reminding himself that he hadn’t even properly met Nico yet. 

Either way, Will had just nodded along to what his roommate said, giving vague responses because he really has no idea if it’s actually true or not, until they split up and his roommate said he was going to go down to the dining hall.

Will lets out a sigh of relief. It’s calming, in a way, to have an extremely talkative roommate, seeing as Cabin 7 had always been filled with noise, but even then, Will had needed an escape sometimes. 

He turns his key into his room door and pushes it open with his back, holding his pile of books to his chest because he had forgotten his new backpack in his dorm—he’s still not used to everything being so far apart, and him having to actually carry his stuff elsewhere. 

Will dumps the books on his desk, which is already a mess even though he’s only been here a week, and starts to hum absently before he hears a noise behind him. He turns around.

There, on his bed, sitting with his hands in his lap and his feet slightly above the ground, a bashful look on his face, is Nico di Angelo.

“Uh—”

“Sorry!” Nico says quickly, though he stays exactly where he is. Will is pretty sure the high pitched noise he had let out when first seeing Nico could qualify as a squeak. What the fuck is he doing here?

Not in a bad way, though. It’s just. Surprising. To see him here, in Will’s dorm, instead of oh, literally anywhere else?

“Um—hi,” Nico says, this time quieter and more controlled. “Sorry for not telling you I’d be here. I saw that your class ended twenty minutes ago and thought you’d be here when I showed up, but then you weren’t and so I thought I’d just wait, but now I realize it’s probably really creepy to see a guy you’ve never met just sitting on your bed. So, uh, sorry.”

“We’ve met,” is all Will can think to say. “And it’s not creepy.”

Nico raises an eyebrow.

“Well—just that it’s a bit weird and not expected,” Will stammers, a hand reaching up to scratch his head, “But, uh, not creepy. And we have met. So.”

“Right,” Nico nods. He looks down at his hands, and Will notices that skull ring that he used to wear is still on there, just on a different finger, and there’s a bandage around his left wrist. “About that. I wanted to apologize.”

Will blinks. “For what?”

“That time we—met. You told me to stay at Camp Half-Blood.”

“Oh,” Will says blankly. His heart beats just a bit faster, and he knows it’s ridiculous, but he’s just thinking Oh, shit, he remembered that? “Yeah.”

“And I said I’d think about it,” Nico continues, clearly having planned this out. He looks like he wants to bolt out of the room as soon as he can. “But then I left. And I didn’t tell you good-bye. And I realize that I probably should have at least said something, because you had reached out to me, but I didn’t. So I’m sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to,” Will says, but he’s not really thinking about it, because he feels butterflies in his stomach and his cheeks starting to turn pink, because a crush is a crush, and it hasn’t gone away one bit. He’s pathetic. He really is, but just one glimpse of Nico showing that he cares about Will, and he’s already falling hard. 

But also, Will has played over this moment in his head ten million times. Thinking of ways that he could have phrased it better, could have asked Nico nicer, could have shown that he cared more. And so he has an answer prepared: “I mean, thanks. But that was your decision—I didn’t have any right to force you to stay. I just—I know that it felt like Camp was excluding you, but really, we would’ve loved to have you in Cabin Thirteen. Or—” and this is the moment of truth; Will can’t even look at Nico, instead looking back to where his books are slowly tipping to the side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, “— I would’ve loved that. I— well, I really wanted to be your friend.”

Understatement of the century, Will knows, and he quickly steps forward to prevent the books from falling and instead places the top two on the ground. He doesn’t know why his professors decided that so many were necessary, but he had left the dorm with two and returned with six. 

“Oh,” Nico says, but Will still can’t bring himself to look at him. 

He continues rambling. “But obviously, you’re happy here, and that’s great—and you’re healthy , which I was honestly really worried about—I mean, you were fading into shadows! So I was a bit terrified when I first found your cabin empty because I thought you had died or something, but when Dad told me that you were okay, I was really happy. I mean, not that you weren’t there, because it would’ve been cool—great—if you were, but it’s great that you’re here too!”

When he finally glances at Nico, he sees his lips slightly parted, an almost amused, yet surprised look on his face. Will knows that he’s made an absolute fool of himself. He doesn’t really know what he expected with that tangent. Nico to suddenly confess his feelings and kiss him?

He’s delusional, but he’s not that delusional. At best, they may become friends. At worst, Nico thinks wow, what a weirdo and shadow travels away only to never see Will again.

The thought sends a small chill down Will’s spine. He really hopes it doesn’t end up being the worst case scenario.

Nico doesn’t say anything. Will forces his mouth shut so that he won’t go on another long-winded tangent about how huge of a crush he’s had on Nico throughout their entire two sentences spoken to each other, and even before that.

“Nope,” Nico says after a few moments, his voice careful. “Still alive.”

“That’s—” Will pauses, then shrugs, “—That’s good.”

Nico snorts. “Right. Um. Thanks. About that—I mean, asking me to stay. I know I didn’t, but…” He trails off, leaving Will with nothing but guesses for what he could mean. 

After another awkward silence, Nico gets up from the bed, heading to the corner where Will notices a shadow. Before Will can even process his movement, he reaches forward, grabbing Nico’s wrist to prevent him from leaving right then.

He doesn’t immediately recoil, like Will almost expects him to, just pauses and turns around. Will freezes for a moment, his mind blank other than the fact that Nico is right there, right in front of him, and if Will twists it enough in his head, he could say that he’s holding Nico’s hand. Or at least, close enough to it.

“If—well, I know that you’ve made a life here and everything, but, um… I’m here for the next four years. And probably four years after that. I’m not sure yet about New Rome’s med school program so I’ll have to see if the requirements are different, but—” Will clears his throat, stepping back awkwardly and letting go of Nico’s wrist. “If you wanted to… be friends now... I’d still really like that.”

Will bites the inside of his cheek while waiting for Nico to respond, and ends up rambling. “But there’s no pressure. I mean, you can just disappear right now. And it’s fine if you don’t—”

“I’d really like that too,” Nico cuts him off, and when Will’s head snaps up to look at him again, he notices a soft smile on his lips. “Next time, I’ll try and meet up with you outside of class or something. Not your room. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” Will says dazedly, as he watches Nico smile one more time before falling into the shadow of the corner of Will’s room.

He stands there for a few minutes, just processing whatever the hell just happened, only to be interrupted by his roommate rushing in and saying that he had forgotten a binder or whatever—

“Hey, are you good?” the son of Mercury asks, raising an eyebrow at Will, who’s pretty much frozen.

It snaps him out of it, and he says, “Good!” about an octave too high before rushing to the seat in front of his desk and trying to pretend like he had been doing work.

It’s pointless, though, because the only thing that Will can really focus on right now are the words, Next time .

-

Nico holds true to his promise. He still doesn’t give Will a warning, though. 

As Will leaves his Art of Poetry in Warfare class (which his dad had highly recommended/insisted that he take, despite Will having no skills in either poetry or warfare), he nearly jumps upon seeing Nico on the other side of the hallway. 

His back is up against the wall, and his head quickly turns to the side as if he’s been caught watching the door. Which, Will realizes, is the case, seeing as he was the first one out, and he probably should get out of the way to let the rest of the class leave as well.

Will notices the few glances that are thrown toward Nico, which Will supposes makes sense—Nico, despite having an inclination to stick in the shadows, isn’t really one to go unnoticed. It must be a Big Three Child thing, the way that he still radiates power when just standing simply in a hallway.

For a second, Will thinks that Nico must not be here for him. It’s been two weeks since he randomly visited Will in his room, and sure, he had said that they could be friends, but he could’ve also just been polite. It’s not like Will really has any way to track him down, not like Nico does with Will’s routine school schedule (and still having access to his dorm, though Will doesn’t think that Nico would do that again—he had seemed really apologetic the first time).

But when Nico looks back in Will’s direction, his eyes brighten up just a bit, and he stands a little straighter. Will almost panics—Nico had been waiting for him .

He moves along with the crowd before reaching Nico, unconsciously smiling despite having no idea what Nico is planning. “Hi.”

Not the most formal of greetings, but it comes out of Will’s mouth before he can properly think. Nico seems to have that effect on him; except, instead of staying silent when without thoughts as normal people do, Will just seems to not stop talking, and it’s always pure nonsense.

Luckily, Nico speaks before Will can go on. 

“Will. This way.” Before giving Will a second to process, he starts walking in the opposite direction. 

Will, of course, follows.

Nico leads him down the hallway and into a corner, and looks Will up and down really quickly. “Would you be up for shadow travel? Short distance.”

On a normal occasion, Will would say no, especially because it doesn’t seem to be some life-threatening situation—but this is Nico, and Will’s brain has recently found itself in the habit of shutting off around him. “Sure.”

Nico nods seriously, grabs Will’s wrist, and starts a short countdown. “3…2…”

The “1” is said after Will has been sucked into the shadow of the hallway, his sight and breath disappearing for a brief second before stumbling out into an empty courtyard.

He manages to steady himself before falling over, but he still needs a few seconds to catch his breath.

When the black spots fade from his vision, he’s able to see where he is—though he doesn’t think he’s ever been here before. 

“You alright?” Nico asks, making Will jump just slightly before easing into a smile. 

He nods. “So, where are we?”

“I thought I’d set up a picnic,” Nico tells Will, walking forward again with determination, making Will aware of the picnic blanket and basket on the grass further away, just at the edge of the shadow of a tree, so half the picnic blanket is under the sun, and half shady.

Will almost wants to melt at that little detail, but it’s combined with the overwhelming panic of oh shit, is this a date?

Picnics seem like a date activity. But maybe Nico’s just really formal when it comes to friendship. Will had overheard that he’s from another time—maybe this is what he usually does to see if the other person is worthy of friendship? Or maybe it’s some platonic courting practice. Is platonic courting a thing?

Gods, he doesn’t even know if Nico likes guys. Technically, for all Will knows, he could be homophobic. But he’s friends with Percy and Annabeth, so Will doesn’t think so…

He’s in over his head. “That looks great,” he compliments, wondering if it’d be too forward to grab Nico’s hand.

He decides not to, and Nico doesn’t either, so Will thinks that’s a minor win for not embarrassing the hell out of himself. Or at least, not anymore than he already has in their past two conversations. 

Nico sits down on the shady part of the blanket and opens the basket, revealing a variety of fruits and some pasta in a tupperware. 

“Did you make that?” Will asks, and Nico looks up with a small glimmer in his eyes. Immediately, it seems to be the right topic, because Nico nods and starts explaining exactly what type of pasta it is and how he had sneaked into the kitchen to make it.

Will could swoon. He doesn’t. But he could. 

The conversation flows, except for a few pauses where Will might be overthinking. But Nico seems to like the silence occasionally, so Will won’t worry too hard; he likes it too, the way that he could fool himself into thinking that this is natural between them, that this is a sign they work well together.

Finally, though, after about an hour passes, Will can’t help himself any longer, and he blurts it out—“Is this a date?”

He’s probably reaching too far, and Nico will probably be confused, and maybe annoyed, and then they won’t ever be friends, and Will thinks that he may have just ruined something that he had honestly wanted since he was twelve, but—

Nico freezes up. Will’s heart sinks.

“Why—why do you think it’s… that?” Nico stammers, eyes stuck to the blanket. He won’t look at Will, and Will can’t really look at him either because he’s ruined the mood, even though for some reason Nico’s cheeks look bright red.

“Just… sorry. It doesn’t have to be!” Will quickly retreats, already regretting his earlier question. “Honestly, just forget I even said that.” He lets out a few awkward chuckles, as if that’ll help.

Nico turns his head, eyes narrowing at Will. “Did—did someone tell you? Did you think it’d be funny, or something?” 

“What?” Will’s eyes widen. “Is what funny?”

“Who told you—”

“Told me what—”

“That I’m gay?” Nico’s eyes seem to be boring holes into Will, and it’s almost enough to distract Will from that world-shattering revelation.

Will breathes, “You’re gay?”

Nico blinks a few times, the fire leaving his eyes as he seems to really take in Will’s surprised expression. “I— um. Sorry. So… no one told you that?”

“No,” Will quickly shakes his head, “I just thought—‘cause of the setting—”

“Is a picnic not a friends’ hangout setting?”

Now Will is feeling really embarrassed, and his face is burning. “Well… normally, no. I mean, yes, but like, not… really? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just watched too many rom-coms.”

“Rom-coms?”

“Romantic comedies,” Will clarifies unnecessarily. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

“Oh,” Nico says blankly. “So…you didn’t ask that because you thought I was gay?”

Will shakes his head again. 

“And just because it’s a… picnic?”

Will should just leave it at that, but because he’s an idiot, he says, “And because I wanted it to be.”

He watches Nico’s eyes widen as they stare at each other in equal surprise.

“I—”

“You… wanted it to be?”

“I’ve had a crush on you since I was twelve.”

Gods, Will really likes digging his own grave, huh? He should go find a hole to bury himself in. Or maybe Nico can give him the VIP pass to the Underworld so he can just skip the line. He thinks he’ll go straight to another life. Maybe the new-Will would be able to actually speak a sentence without spilling out his deepest secrets.

But because the only way to move is forward, Will swallows and commits to it. “So—yeah. I think I was kind of hoping—that it’d lead to that eventually , and I was kind of skipping ahead of the whole being friends part of it even though we should really just focus on that, and if you don’t like me that way—pfft, how would you even like me that way? You don’t even know me! I don’t even know you —so you can just, uh. Shadow travel away now and leave me to stare at the sun for a few hours.”

A hand is carefully placed on Will’s. His head snaps down, looking at it— Nico’s hand on his—and then up to Nico again, whose eyes are focused on the blanket and whose cheeks are a light pink.

“I’d like it to be that, too,” he says quietly, before abruptly pulling the hand away again and using his arm to cover up half his face. “I mean—I really wasn’t planning on it being one. I asked Percy and Annabeth what to do with a friend…I probably shouldn’t have.”

Will snorts. “They may have just given you one of their date ideas.”

“No, Percy told me this is just what normal friends do!”

“Well—” Will says in between laughter, “—I mean, it can be. But I can’t say that any of my friends have ever set up a picnic for me.”

“He was setting me up,” Nico insists. “Godsdamnit—and Annabeth too!”

“Okay, but if it really wasn’t intended to be a date—you have other friends, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Nico admits, shrugging and leaning back on his elbows. “But none of them are normal. I mean, Percy is… Percy. There’s lots of history there. We don’t have to get into it. And Reyna and I literally went on an end-of-the-world quest, and I assumed that you wouldn’t want to do that—”

“Yeah, maybe not.”

“And Hazel’s my sister. So.”

“What about…” Will almost says Jason , knowing that they had been friends, but stops at the last second. How insensitive would that be?

Somehow, though, Nico knows what he’s about to ask. And for some reason, he’s willing to respond. “Another traumatic event. Definitely not recreating that.”

Will accepts that as an answer, and nods. Hopefully, if things go as well as they go in Will’s daydreams, Nico would be willing to share more in the future. But for now, all he needs is this. Nico, sitting just a foot away, and them, on a date. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad that Percy and Annabeth set you up.”

Nico turns his head slightly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Yeah. I am too.”