#nico birthday event 2k21

[buoyantsaturn]

I’m Cool to Watch Atlas Burn (1/?)

summary: Bianca's been having a lot of private conversations with Chiron. Nico won't hold anybody's hand but Will's. Will might be 13, but sometimes he still acts like he's 10.

chapter title: Bianca's Rescue Operation Goes Very Wrong

word count: 3,388

read on ao3 | read bring on the monsters

When Nico turned twelve, he decided that he was suddenly too old for hand holding. Sometimes Bianca would reach out for his hand as they climbed the stairs out of the Underworld, or even just on the walk between the dining pavilion and the Big House, but Nico would always snatch his hand away. He had led a quest across the country, he was training with the best warriors in Elysium (and Punishment, when Alecto wasn’t looking), and he was almost a teenager. He didn’t need to hold anybody’s hand.

Except that Will was already thirteen, and he still liked to hold Nico’s hand whenever he had the chance. If it was Will, it was okay. Best friends were different. And it just so happened that Nico’s best friend hadn’t let go of his hand since they left camp. 

They were heading north, the three of them packed into the backseat of Jules-Albert’s car. Nico wasn’t entirely sure where they were going - Chiron had given the message to Bianca, because she was older - but he knew they were on a “retrieval mission.” Whatever that meant. For the last hour, Will had practically been bouncing in his seat and tugging on Nico’s hand, babbling some over-excited nonsense. Nico was just surprised that Bianca hadn’t told him to shut up yet, but she’d been abnormally quiet for the last week or so, ever since Chiron had pulled her aside for some important discussion.

“It’s so cool that you have your own driver,” Will was saying for maybe the fifth time. “That’s, like, rich people stuff! Like, my mama doesn’t even have her own driver, and, I mean, she doesn’t say she’s rich, but she kind of is.” 

“Well, my dad is the god of riches,” Nico reminded him.

Will elbowed him. “Your dad’s the god of a lot of stuff.” 

Nico grinned. “Okay, Apollo spawn.”

“Can you please get him to stop calling me that?” Will asked with a pout.

“Seph calls you that sunshine boy,” Nico told him. “Is that better?” 

Will’s nose scrunched up. “I think just sunshine is good enough.”

“Okay, just sunshine.” 

“Gods, you’re the worst.” Will dug his elbow into Nico’s side with more force than before. “Anyway, how come you didn’t get this guy to drive you to Texas when I was at school last year? Maybe then you wouldn’t have spent the whole visit asleep.” 

“Dad said I had to get better at shadow traveling before he would give me a better mode of transportation,” Nico explained. “Jules is good for long distances when I need to keep my energy up, and he’s fast, but he’s not always fast enough, you know? So I had to know how to get somewhere quick without draining all my energy in case of an emergency.” 

Jules turned off the main road, and Bianca sat up straighter. She spoke up for the first time since leaving camp. “I think we’re here.”

“Okay,” Will said. “And where’s here?”

Nico leaned over Will to look out the window. It was difficult to see so late at night, but he’d trained his eyes to see better in the dark after spending so long in the Underworld. “Military school?” He turned back to his sister and grinned. “Bia, we’ve talked about this, you’re not getting rid of Will that easily.” 

Bianca huffed and folded her arms. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

“Are you going to tell us?” Nico demanded. 

“There’s a demigod here,” Bianca said. “Chiron got a message from one of the satyr scouts. She’s powerful, but undetermined, so Chiron thinks she might be a target for Beckendorf.” 

At the sound of his old friend’s name, Will’s gaze dropped to his feet. Nico squeezed his hand.

“We’re here to pick her up and take her to camp,” Bianca continued. “It should be quick and easy. Grover should be waiting for us inside, and he’ll take us to the demigod. We’ll sneak her back out, and we’re done.” 

“That’s it?” Nico asked with a frown. “Then what are we here for? That seems easy enough for just one person.” 

“I invited you for the company.” 

Will leaned around Nico to ask, “Then why am I here?” 

Bianca rolled her eyes. “Because you two are attached at the hip.” 

The car stopped. Jules stepped outside, moving around the car - faster than one might usually expect for a zombie - to open Bianca’s door. Before climbing out, she turned to the two boys and said, “Stay behind me, stay quiet, and don’t touch anything.” 

Jules waited outside while the demigods walked in through the front door. 

It didn’t take them long to find Grover - really, he found them. “Bianca?” he asked as he approached, and his eyes flickered toward Nico and Will. “I thought you were coming alone.” 

She shrugged one shoulder. “I brought backup. My brother, Nico, and his friend, Will.” 

Grover’s eyes widened. “Two Big Three kids? Oh, that’s no good. Um. Maybe you should go back outside and I’ll just find a way to bring Lou Ellen to you.” 

Bianca frowned. “We’re already here. What’s the problem?” 

Grover leaned forward and hissed, “Monsters.”

“I think we can deal with a couple of--” 

“Mr. Underwood,” a voice boomed from across the hall, and the four of them turned to face the man walking toward them. “You were not supposed to leave the gymnasium. And who are these others? Outsiders?”

Bianca raised one hand and snapped her fingers. Nico felt like the very atmosphere rippled away from her fingers, and he had to blink a few times to shake that feeling away. She told the man, “We go to school here.” Really, he should’ve easily been able to tell that she was lying, considering how much snow they’d tracked inside.

The man blinked, then said, “Yes, of course. Why have you all left the gymnasium?” 

“Bathroom,” Grover blurted, causing the man to raise a suspicious eyebrow. “We were all looking for the bathroom, and went through the wrong door. We’re going back right now.” 

The man hummed and nodded. “Yes, I’ll walk you back. Lead the way.” 

Grover started forward, so the demigods followed. They weren’t able to speak again until they had entered a crowded gymnasium, complete with gently flashing lights and too-loud music. Will made a noise of disgust, and Nico glanced at him in confusion. “School dances are the worst,” Will explained. 

Nico would have to take his word for it. 

The teacher that marched them into the gymnasium vanished as soon as they were inside, so Grover pulled them toward the corner to continue talking. 

“That was the monster!” he whispered - as much as he could over the music. 

Will frowned. “But he’s just a guy.” 

“You didn’t see that lady with the chimera,” Nico commented. “I thought she was just some lady, too.” 

“What is he?” Bianca asked. 

“I don’t know yet,” Grover replied, shaking his head, “but the smell...that’s undeniable. And there’s no doubt that he can smell you guys, too. Which is why we need to get out of here, and fast.”

“Right,” Bianca said with a single nod. “So, where’s our girl?” 

Grover pointed across the gym toward a set of bleachers. There was a group of boys playing cards, and a girl with dip-dyed purple hair amongst them. She seemed to be winning, if the noisy complaints from the boys were anything to go by. “Lou Ellen Blackstone. She has a crazy kind of control over the Mist, but nothing that tells me who her parent might be.”

“A minor god?” Bianca suggested.

Grover shrugged. “Maybe, but she’s the most powerful child of a minor god I’ve ever seen.” 

“We can figure that out later,” Nico told them. “How do we get her out of here without Mr. Monster catching us?” 

“Dr. Thorn,” Grover corrected.

Will replied, “Nah, I like Mr. Monster better.” 

“Ignore them,” Bianca said to Grover. “Nico and I can shadow travel. I think I should just grab her and make a jump. The Mist should cover up our disappearance.” 

“You’ve never jumped with another person before,” Nico reminded her. 

“I’ve jumped with you.” 

“No, I’ve jumped with you.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said--” 

Will waved an arm between them. “Okay, nobody’s shadow traveling with anybody. We’ll go out the old fashioned way. Grover, what’s the best escape route?” 

“Back out the way we came,” he answered. “Through the front door.” 

“That’s the best route?” Nico asked. 

“It’s the fastest.” 

“But we’ll be out in the open!” 

“Hey, shut up,” Bianca said suddenly, her eyes darting through the crowd. “She’s gone.” 

The three boys spun around to see what Bianca was looking at. The bleachers were still full of boys playing cards, though Lou Ellen was no longer with them.

“What do we do?” Will asked. “Split up and look for her?” 

Nico squeezed his hand with a, “No, no splitting up. We don’t know what Mr. Monster is, and I don’t want him to try to pick us off one by one.” 

Will’s grip on Nico’s hand tightened. “Uh, yeah, no. I don’t want that, either.” 

Without saying a word, Bianca pushed past them, leaving them no choice but to follow after her. She marched up to the boys on the bleachers and demanded to know where Lou Ellen had gone. 

“She went somewhere with Dr. Thorn,” one of the boys answered. 

“Which way did she go?” Bianca asked. 

The boy pointed across the gymnasium. One of the doors was still swinging shut. 

They took off at a run. Grover definitely wasn’t the fastest of the group - Nico thought it was pretty unlikely that he’d ever meet anybody faster than Will - but he was clearly pushing himself to lead the group outside onto a snowy cliff. 

They found Dr. Thorn about a hundred yards away from the school, far enough away that the lights didn’t reach him, so they could really only see shadows in the glow of the moon. Bianca already had her bow drawn with an arrow nocked by the time they heard a shout of, “Stop! Not one step closer!” 

They paused. Nico focused on the shadows, forcing himself to see more clearly after being among such blinding lights - he felt much more comfortable out here in the cold, the quiet, the dark, about to fight a monster instead of socializing with people his own age. He could make out the difference between Lou Ellen and Dr. Thorn. He had a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. His other hand had a small box that Nico couldn’t identify.

That was as far as he got before a projectile launched toward them. Nico tackled Will into the snow to get him out of its way. 

“Where did that come from?” Bianca called out. 

“Somewhere behind him,” Nico replied, jumping back to his feet and pulling Will up with him.

Dr. Thorn yelled to them, “Keep your distance, and I won’t have to kill you yet.” 

“Let Lou Ellen go, and we won’t have to kill you,” Bianca shot back as she pulled out her knife. “Yet.” 

“Bia,” Nico said softly. “Jump.” 

His sister nodded, and in the next second, she had disappeared. Then, Thorn was howling in pain, and Will ran forward. He managed to get a hold of Lou Ellen, and Nico could hear him reassuring her that everything would be alright. Nico was about to jump in and help his sister finish off the monster when Bianca was suddenly thrown aside. Nico didn’t even have the opportunity to move before Thorn dove toward Will and Lou Ellen, grabbing them both. 

Nico had his sword in his hand in a second.

The next few things that happened were so quick that even Nico couldn’t see it all through the dark. There was the deafening noise of giant fan blades and wind that almost knocked him off his feet - something mechanical was flying near the edge of the cliff, though it wasn’t an airplane, so Nico didn’t know what it was. He did know that they started firing guns in their direction. He hit the ground to avoid any stray bullets. 

Something caught Thorn’s shoulder, causing him to release Lou Ellen, but it wasn’t a bullet. Whatever it was came from the opposite direction, somewhere behind Nico. He was able to see Lou Ellen stagger toward Grover, who pulled her off to the side, away from the fight. Then Thorn started dragging Will toward the edge of the cliff, and that’s when Nico got back to his feet. He could risk a few bullet wounds in order to save his best friend from monstrous kidnapping. 

He ran about halfway, and when it became clear that he wasn’t going to catch up, he jumped into the darkness and emerged with an arm outstretched, inches away from grabbing onto Will’s coat. Something silver flashed by the side of Nico’s head, lodging into Thorn’s body and knocking him off balance, over the edge of the cliff.

Will went with him, screaming Nico’s name. 

“Will!” Nico shouted back, scrambling to the cliff’s edge, but he couldn’t see anything down below. All he knew was that the giant flying fan blades were getting farther and farther away, and his best friend had been lost to the darkness. 

Nico was still screaming for his friend by the time Bianca pulled him back from the edge. “There’s nothing you can do for him right now, Nico,” she told him. “He’s not dead, so let’s just hope it stays that way. We’ll find him, after we get Lou Ellen to camp.” 

Nico let his sister pull him to his feet, then he brushed her off. “No, I’m not going back to camp. I’m going to find him.” 

Bianca grabbed his arm in a death grip. “No, you’re coming back to camp. You’re no use after a single jump, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. You’re lucky that Jules is still waiting for us, because you’d probably pass out just from summoning him.” 

Nico yanked his arm out of her grip, crossing his arms across his chest, though he continued to walk alongside her. They found Grover and Lou Ellen heading toward the light of the school. 

“Where’s Will?” Grover asked as soon as he could see them. Nico’s eyes narrowed into a glare, which he pointed at the ground. “Oh. Oh, no. Not another one…” 

“Another one?” Lou Ellen asked, eyes widening in fear.

“Don’t listen to him,” Bianca told her, drawing Lou’s full attention in her direction. “Lou Ellen Blackstone, right? My name is Bianca, and this is my brother, Nico. We’re going to take you someplace safe, alright?” 

“What was that thing?” she asked. “And what kept hitting him?” 

“We don’t know,” Bianca replied, “but I don’t want to stick around to find out. C’mon, we have a car--” 

“Hang on a second,” a new voice said, and four heads whipped toward the woods. A girl, maybe a year or so older than Bianca, stepped toward them, and as she entered the light, Nico saw at least ten other girls following behind her. They all wore the same silver jackets, though the girl up front had an extra ring of silver in her hair. “Nobody’s going anywhere before we get some answers.” She grinned straight at Nico. “Hiya. Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, lieutenant of Artemis. I hear I have a couple new cousins.” 

Thalia explained the situation while the Hunters of Artemis - a group of girls all around Bianca’s age - set up camp, complete with silver tents and a few campfires. Lou Ellen was set up with Grover near one of the fires, with one of those silver jackets wrapped around her. Grover seemed to be explaining everything to her to the best of his ability.

Nico just wanted to get out there and find Will. 

He couldn’t even be excited about meeting the goddess of the hunt herself, only requesting that she let him hunt with her. She had refused, claiming that she didn’t hunt with the company of men, and then she ran off into the woods. 

Now, Nico sat with the name manticore burned into his brain, ready to raise hell in a literal sense if that’s what it took to get his best friend back. 

He sat inside one of the tents with Bianca and Thalia, drumming his fingers impatiently against his crossed arms. Thalia seemed ready for a nice, long chat, and if Nico didn’t feel quite so dizzy, he would’ve been out of there already. 

“Why don’t you two tell me what happened out there,” Thalia said after a short while, “before we showed up, at least.” 

“Chiron sent us here to pick up an unclaimed demigod,” Bianca explained, “but once we got outside, it was too dark for me to see much of anything. Nico has much better night vision than I do.” 

Thalia turned to him, and Nico heaved a heavy sigh. “That thing - the manticore - almost pulled Lou Ellen off the edge of the cliff. Then this...flying thing showed up and started shooting at us. Will pulled Lou Ellen away from the manticore, but it grabbed him and took him over the cliff.” He paused. “I almost had him… Just an inch more, and I would have had him…”

“Flying thing,” Thalia cut in. “What do you mean by that?”

Nico shrugged. “The loud, flying...thing! I don’t know, I’ve never seen one before.” 

“Oh,” she replied with a grin. “The helicopter.” 

Nico raised an eyebrow, and nodded his head slowly. “Sure, the...helicopter.” For the tenth time in as many minutes, Nico wished Will was there. He always managed to fill in the blanks in Nico’s sentences perfectly without making him feel like an idiot for not knowing about different things from the modern world. And he was much better at explaining that Nico and Bianca were - what was his phrasing? - misplaced in time. 

Thalia stretched her arms over her head. “Well, since Lady Artemis is hunting down the manticore, we really just need to wait around for a while. It shouldn’t take her that long, at least not to track him, but we’ve got plenty of time to relax. We can all rest here tonight, and then in the morning, we’ll head to Camp Half-Blood to wait out Artemis’s return.” 

“No,” Nico snapped. “We’re not waiting around. That thing took my best friend!”

Bianca set her hand on Nico’s arm, and he leaned away from the touch. “Nico, there’s nothing we can do right now.”

“We can try!” he shouted, his voice cracking near the end. Nico looked away and pulled his knees up to his chest. He was not about to start crying in front of a couple of girls. 

Bianca turned back to Thalia. “We’re going back to camp tonight. You can come with us, or you can meet us there later, but I won’t make Nico wait that long.” 

Thalia didn’t respond right away. It wasn’t until Nico looked up at her and saw her nodding that she said, “Okay. Give us a few minutes to pack up, and we’ll go with you. Bianca, would you mind helping out?” She stood, so the siblings got to their feet as well. “Sorry, Nico, but the other girls… They don’t work well with boys.” 

Nico crossed his arms with a huff. “I don’t want to hang out with a bunch of girls anyway.” 

Thalia grinned. She ruffled Nico’s hair as she passed him, telling him, “You’re even cuter than Percy, sometimes.” 

Before Nico could ask what that meant, Thalia stepped outside. 

Bianca took Nico by the shoulders, forcing him to face her, though he kept his gaze to the ground. “We’ll find him, Nico,” Bianca told him, and Nico’s eyes flickered upward. “First thing in the morning, we’ll talk to Chiron.” She waited until Nico nodded before continuing. “Go find Jules-Albert. We’re going to need a bigger car if we’re getting everybody back to camp.” 

Nico nodded again, and Bianca’s hands fell away from his shoulders. She started to leave, but Nico caught her with one hand wrapping around her own. 

He held his sister’s hand as they left the tent together.

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[solangeloweek]

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