Beginning Notes

sunshine_deathboy (ao3): What if Nico saves Will in the Battle of Manhattan while he was healing a patient in the midst of it all, as a monster secretly approaches him from behind?

Yes, lovely prompt, honestly.

Also, just a disclaimer: not everything in this chapter will be cannon compliant since obviously it's a 'what if' so it doesn't have to be, but most of all because I believe that the Apollo cabin (just the healers, the other's joined in the battle) was set up in the Empire State Building to heal campers who got hurt during battle, so there would be no reason for them to be out in the open and vulnerable to monsters like that.

But that's not the point here! The point is that we have a great prompt, and hopefully a fun chapter to go with it :)

As always, characters belong to Rick Riordan, and I hope you all enjoy!

Nico

Nico ran over the battlefield slashing his way through any monster he encountered, all which turned to dust at the hands of his Stygian Iron sword. With all the adrenaline filling his veins, there was nothing that could possibly stop him, not even Kronos himself.

And Nico was determined to challenge the Titan. He would fight him together with his father and show everyone that he was not the demigod to mess with.

He summoned yet another wave of undead warriors and sent them to fight Kronos's forces along with the others he and his father had summoned. They were slowly overpowering them, the amount of undead warriors becoming too much for the forces of the Titan, but Nico knew it wouldn't be that easy; this was just a start.

As he continued to run across the battlefield, he saw a Laestrygonian giant, wounded from what seemed to be a shot-wound, but still very much alive, and very much about to attack another camper.

The camper in question was leaning over a badly wounded satyr, tying bandages and trying to stop the excessive bleeding. There was no way the camper would be able to grab a weapon, if he even had one, and fight off the monster in time, Nico could tell.

Kronos would have to wait, because right now this camper's head was about to get chomped off by the Laestrygonian giant. So, Nico stopped in his tracks, turned around and ran to the giant as fast as his legs would carry him.

He knew he was never going to make it on time, for he was too far away when he noticed it all. It would take him about five more seconds to get there and the monster already had its maw wide open, ready to eat the unnoticing camper whole.

'WHATCH OUT!' Nico yelled at the top of his lungs hoping the camper would hear over the noise of the battle going on around them.

Thankfully he looked up just in time to notice the giant and roll aside just as it swooped one of its massive hands down to grab him. The giant missed and Nico ran over to it and with a leap he slashed the giant right across the chest with his sword, killing it.

Nico took only a second to catch his breath before taking off again, not even bothering to let the other camper thank him. He had more important things to do than hang out with some random guy during battle. The other camper, who Nico had by now guessed was a son of Apollo, probably had important healing stuff to do anyway.

After the battle when they had defeated Kronos, Nico came to know that the camper was indeed a son of Apollo by the name of Will Solace.

'Hey, uhm, you're Nico, right?'

Nico turned at the sound of his name.

'Yeah,' he said and looked up to see who even their right mind had decided to talk to him.

It was another boy, tall, blonde and tan with freckles scattered over his face and striking blue eyes.

'I'm Will,' the boy said. 'Will Solace.'

Nico was trying to think of where he'd seen Will before. He knew he had, because he remembered his face, but he couldn't quite place a finger on when exactly that had been.

'You've probably already forgotten about this, but during the battle you saved me from a Laestrygonian giant, and I just wanted to thank you, because I probably wouldn't be alive anymore if you hadn't killed it.'

Oh, so that'd where he knew the boy from. Nico hadn't forgotten, he knew exactly what Will was talking about.

'You probably should have been more aware of everything around you, but it's fine,' Nico said softly.

'Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have been out of the Empire State Building in the first place, but there were people on the battlefield who were hurt, and I felt like I needed to go help them, but I should have waited until they were taken to us,' Will said, looking down at the ground in embarrassment. 'But I still wanted to thank you.'

He looked up at Nico at that last part and wow, he has beautiful eyes, Nico thought. Wait no.

'Uh- uhm... you're welcome?' he stammered and Will laughed.

'Alright, well I need to get back to the infirmary, but I'll see you around, right?'

Nico didn't really know what to say to that so he just nodded, hoping that that would be an acceptable response.

Will smiled at him and then waved as he left off to go back to the infirmary, and Nico felt some strange kind of honour inside him. This Will guy had specially come up to him to thank him personally for something that had happened during battle. That was definitely something new, but he didn't hate it. Or maybe he just didn't hate the way Will had smiled at him so sweetly, and seemed like an actually nice guy.

Whatever the reason, Nico remembered him. Will Solace.

And perhaps they did see each other around again.

End Notes

Tadaaaa! I hope you guys liked that, it was definitely fun to write haha. I don't really have much to say anymore, so I suppose I'll just see you in the next chapter. Have a gorgeous day! Byeee :)