And here we are with Act II of the Bonnie and Clyde AU- Dying Ain't So Bad.

Disclaimer: All characters and places related to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus series belong to Rick Riordan. All material from the musical Bonnie and Clyde belongs to Frank Wildhorn, Don Black, and Ivan Menchell.


And so it went. Nico and Will made a name for themselves, not as movie stars like Will always expected, but as fugitives, living legends of sorts.

"All right, everyone, put your hands up!" Will yelled once inside yet another store in another old town.

Nico aimed his gun at the store owner. "You know the drill! Give us your cash."

The owner seemed star struck as he inched his way towards the money. "I can't believe it! Nico and Will!"

Will nodded. "Yes, that's us!"

"You know, babe, that reminds me," Nico said, turning towards his boyfriend. "Why is my name first? Your name should be first."

"What?" Will asked, lowering his gun. "Why should my name come first? Nico and Will sounds better anyway."

Nico shook his head. "Will and Nico sounds fine to me."

Will sighed. "Nico and Will rolls off the tongue easier. There's a melody to it."

"Psh," Nico scoffed and directed his gun at a random man crouched on the floor, who clearly was not thrilled to be part of a hold-up. "Which sounds better, Nico and Will or Will and Nico?"

The hostage stared at the gun for a few seconds. "Um, Will and Nico," he squeaked.

"He's just saying that because you have a gun pointed at him!" Will pointed his own gun at the same hostage. "Now, which do you like better?"

The man glanced between the two guns near his face and promptly fainted.


Will woke up in the motel room to the sound of Nico quickly getting dressed, hours before he usually did.

"Nico, what are you doing?"

"I have an idea," Nico replied. "Last night, on our way here, we passed by a town with a perfect little bank to rob. I'm going back."

Will jumped out of bed. "Are you crazy? We'll get caught! With all those newspapers advertising us, the police are probably hot on our trail by now. Robbing a bank only makes us bigger targets!"

Nico buttoned up his shirt. "Which is why you're staying here."

"But—"

"No, you're right, Will." Nico slipped on his shoes. "This is getting more dangerous as we grow in popularity. They're all out looking for a couple of men, not one. I'll be less of a target by myself."

Will knew it was useless to try to change his mind. "Just be careful, okay?"

Nico grinned. "Of course. I'll be back in a few hours. Stay in here until I get back." With a peck on Will's lips, Nico left the room.

The waiting was absolutely treacherous. Will alternated between pacing the room and re-reading the newspaper articles about them until finally Nico walked through the door and Will could breathe a sigh of relief. His relief only lasted a few seconds due to the fearful look on Nico's face.

"What's wrong?" Will noticed blood on Nico's hands. "What happened?"

"I—he—," Nico stammered. "I told them I would shoot if they moved, like we usually do—it's always just a bluff though—we never actually intend to shoot anyone—"

Will felt his blood turn cold. "Don't tell me…"

Nico looked at his hands. "I saw him move out of the corner of my eye. I didn't mean to shoot—it was instinct—I wasn't thinking—"

"I can't believe you shot someone!" Will cried.

"He's dead, Will," Nico whispered. "I killed someone."

It took a moment for the gravity of the situation to sink in before Will bolted towards his suitcase and flung it on the bed.

"I gotta get out now while I'm still in the clear!" he concluded, hastily throwing in his clothes.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" Nico inquired.

Will paused in his hurried packing. "Robbing stores is one thing, but murder?! I'm done, Nico! Maybe I can still live my Hollywood dream, or maybe I should just go back home and try to clear my name. Either way, I can't do this anymore!"

Nico ran at Will and yanked out his recently packed shirts. "Don't say that, we're both just in shock! We need to calm down and think this through, okay?"

Will snatched his shirts back. "You might as well have shot me, Nico! How could you be so stupid?!" He slammed his suitcase closed and pushed his way past Nico to the door.

"Wait!" Nico insisted, grabbing Will's free hand and spinning him around. "Please don't go! You have to know how sorry I am. I swear I didn't mean to shoot him, and if I could turn the clock back and change it, I would in a heartbeat." He cupped Will's face and peered into his eyes. "You have every right to be mad, but the only way we're both going to move on from this is if we do so together. I can't be without you, babe."

Will deliberated as Nico's pleading eyes poured into his own. Finally he sighed and let the suitcase drop to the floor. "My heart wouldn't have let me get far anyway."

Nico smiled and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

"Besides," Will continued, "after everything we've done, it's too late to turn back now."


"Nico, I still think this is going to go horribly wrong," Will commented from the passenger seat for the twentieth time. "Driving all the way back home just to break out your cousin from jail is absolutely nuts."

Nico sighed, gripping the wheel tighter. "I know it would've been easier just to keep driving into Kansas, but we gotta go back for him. If we can just rob one bank, we'd have enough cash to get all the way to Hollywood. No more stop-and-robs, no more small towns. It has to be done right, though, and Jason is the only man to help us."

Will glanced around nervously as the car pulled up to a motel a few miles away from their home town. Once inside the room, the two went over the plan again to break out Nico's cousin before resigning themselves to waiting until nightfall.

At nine o'clock, an unexpected knock on the door brought them a wave of fear. They grabbed their guns and slowly approached the door, but when Nico opened it, he broke into a wide smile.

"Jason, you bastard! We thought you were the police!" Nico exclaimed, as a tall, blond man stepped into the room and hugged him.

"Nah," Jason said, "But what the hell are you two doing so close to town?"

"Coming to get you!" Nico responded. "Though I guess you beat us to it. How'd you find us?"

Jason took a newspaper out of his back pocket. "The police here have been off their rockers trying to track y'all down. A few days ago, a reporter in a town on the Oklahoma-Texas line spotted you two driving through, which made them believe you were heading back this way. And then this morning, someone tipped them off that you were even closer—it's all the guards have been talking about—and I knew I had to get out to warn you. I've just been checking each town this entire evening looking for your car, which by the way you need to ditch."

Will peered at the newspaper. "This is bad. The police will probably be here any minute!"

As if on cue, another knock on the door made them all jump. Since Jason was closest to the door, he opened it ever so slightly.

"Piper!" He cried, opening the door wider, revealing a woman with her arms crossed. "Nico, Will, this is my wife, Piper, who I told to stay in town!"

Piper pushed passed him into the room and quickly closed the door. "If I stayed in town, you wouldn't know that you have less than five minutes to get out before the police come knocking!"

Upon hearing that, Nico and Will gathered their things.

"Pipes, you gotta go back home," Jason insisted.

"No, I'm not letting you go off without me again!" Piper refused. "Besides, you can't leave here in the car Nico and Will have been using or the one you just stole. I borrowed my dad's car and told him I was going out with the ladies from the salon, so he won't think it's missing for a while."

In two minutes, the four of them piled into the car Piper brought and sped off in hopes of losing the police.

"I don't get it," Jason remarked after a while, "I thought you didn't approve of this."

Piper fiddled with a button on her shirt. "I don't. But I love you, and you need me."

Jason smiled and kissed his wife. The rest of the journey was filled with Nico and Will explaining their plan to Jason, at which point he showed them the large guns he had been hiding in his coat, until they reached the town with the bank they intended to rob, just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Nico drove the car to a nearby abandoned barn rather than a motel.

"This is safer," he told them. "Just in case the police somehow managed to follow us."

Inside the barn, the four unloaded their belongings, and Nico got a chance to examine the new guns.

"These are gonna change our lives, coz." Nico grinned wickedly at the gun in his hand. "All right, Will, you and Piper stay here and lay low."

Will whipped around. "Why do I have to stay here?"

Nico took his hand. "I need to know you're safe. Last time, things went badly, and I don't want you anywhere near if that happens again. Okay?"

"Fine," Will relented. "But don't come back covered in blood this time."

Will had no idea, however, that the police indeed followed them, that Nico and Jason were walking straight into an ambush, and that despite having pretend gun fights as children, the cousins were not at all prepared for their fate. And neither was Will prepared to hear the screeching of tires and see Nico scrambling into the barn, carrying the bloodied, barely breathing body of Jason.

"Jason!" Piper screamed, running towards her husband as Nico set him down on the floor. The three of them knelt beside the dying man, who managed to smile at Piper and squeeze her hand before his eyes closed and his head rolled to the side. Tears ran down their faces as Piper shook him, trying to wake him up.

"He's dead," Nico choked out, placing his hand on Piper's shoulder. The sound of policemen nearby broke through the grieving silence. "Will, you and Piper need to go."

Piper shook her head, her hand still intertwined with her dead husband's. "I'm staying with Jason."

"You'll be arrested for aiding criminals!" Nico explained, trying to wrench her from the body.

She yanked her arm out of Nico's grasp. "I don't care! I'm not going anywhere!"

Nico gave up. "Fine, Will, take the car and go!" He pushed Will towards the door.

"If I drive off, what will you do?" Will asked.

"I don't know. I'll make a run for it, I guess. You have to go now—it's me they want, and they're out to kill. You wanted out before, now here's your chance."

Will stopped. "I will not leave you here to be shot! If you don't go, I don't go."

Nico looked him in the eyes. "If I come with you, you'll most likely die!"

"Dying ain't so bad if we go together!" Will shouted. "A short and loving life is a far better fate than breathing in dusty air without you!"

"Just go!" Piper yelled at them.

Without giving Nico a chance to retort, Will grabbed his hand and dragged him to the car. They could see the police as they drove away from the barn, Nico's foot pressed hard against the gas pedal and Will's head leaning on Nico's shoulder.


The next day, the newspapers detailed how the police gunned down an infamous duo in their car on an old Texas road.

They went down together,

Side by side still.

To few it was grief,

To the law a relief,

But it was death for Nico and Will.


A/N: Thanks for letting me experiment in my writing! I had a lot of fun pretending Nico and Will were Bonnie and Clyde, but I promise the next chapter will be back to the normal one-shots we're all used to, followed by the grand finale (which I'm super excited about because I've been planning it for like a month and a half).