Silent Generation. PG, Will/Nico, romance/fluff, post-series.
"You know I'm not a boomer, right?" For Solangelo Week 2021, day 4: free day.

.


.

Nico pulled off his glasses and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose as the sultry beats of Normani and Sam Smith reverberated inside his skull. "Will," he called out in the direction of the kitchen, "can you turn the volume down a little? I can't hear my own thoughts here."

This was the first weekend in ages when Will was relatively free of school work and commitments, so he had offered to take care of dinner while Nico graded papers on the couch. (Well, they had originally intended to spend the day out on the town, but they'd ended up staying in for— ac-hem— various reasons. Not that either of them was complaining, mind you.) As health-conscious as Will was, he wasn't particularly deft when it came to cooking, so Nico wasn't expecting anything fancier than sandwiches or maybe soup.

Instead of answering right away, Will made his way out of the kitchen with two plates of— as expected— sandwiches and reheated fries from Friday's takeout. "Ok, boomer," he quipped as he put the food down on their kitchen table, which wasn't in the kitchen but was too small to be considered a proper dining table.

To be fair, their apartment as a whole was on the small side, but it was more than they thought they would get when they applied for cohabitation straight out of their bachelor's degrees at NRU. That was the kind of arrangement that usually involved a few extra years of service to the Legion, but fortunately for them, Nico's status as a hero of the Giant War, plus the whole Ambassador-of-Pluto thing— not to mention having a former praetor as a sister— went a long way to getting them a place in New Rome.

Now Will was well into the clinical rotation portion of his medical degree, and Nico was working toward his master's, and their apartment wasn't much but at least it was home.

Nico put down the stack of papers he'd been trying to read through for the last hour and got up, making his way to the table as Will moved to lower the volume of the music. Just a little, Nico noticed. Just enough so they wouldn't have to raise their voices to speak to each other. He rolled his eyes. Apollo children. Picking up his sandwich, Nico took a big bite. Their earlier... activities... had left him pretty famished, and Will might not be the greatest cook of all time, but he sure could make a mean club sandwich.

"You know I'm not a boomer, right?" he smartly pointed out, mouth still half full, as Will sat down opposite him. The "OK boomer" thing had taken over the internet a few months ago, and Will had been all over that ever since. In an affectionate, teasing manner, of course. But even such light teasing wasn't something Nico was inclined to take from anyone else. Will was lucky he was pretty, else he would've spent the past few weeks sleeping on the couch.

His boyfriend frowned as he picked up a fry. "What do you mean? You're like a hundred years old," he said, then put the fry in his mouth.

Nico narrowed his eyes at him. "Eighty-seven," he corrected pointedly, to which the blond responded with a wide-eyed, guileless expression. Nico sighed. Only Will could make eating look innocent. "And that's exactly what I meant," he continued, picking up a fry of his own. "The oldest boomers are in their early 70s."

"Wait, wait," Will said, "there are people older than the boomers? I thought boomers were just... all the old people." He looked so confused. It was kind of cute, Nico had to admit. Will was really smart and knowledgeable about a lot of things, but history was clearly not his forte.

Nico shook his head. "These are generations, sunshine. The boomers were born during the baby boom— that is, after the war. I was born in '32."

Will leaned back in his chair, looking stunned, an uneaten fry hanging off his fingers. "Wow," he said, "you're older than the boomers." He sounded stunned, too, prompting Nico to glare at him. Will then chuckled and winked at him, which— still, after all these years— gave Nico butterflies. Not that he would ever admit that out loud.

"Okay, okay. What's your generation called, then?" Will asked, putting the fry down and deciding to go for the sandwich, instead. Nico appreciated that he sounded genuinely interested, but he didn't want to get into the whole thing; not during dinner, at least.

So he shrugged in response. "Doesn't matter," he mumbled, going back to his own food.

"But you know, right?" Will pressed. "You're a historian; you have to know." Clearly, he was really curious about it. It was Nico's fault, honestly; he shouldn't have started down this topic, to begin with, but noooo, he couldn't help but be a smartass. Great going, di Angelo. After complaining so much whenever Will overtook a perfectly balanced conversation with endless medical babble, too.

Will looked at him expectantly, waiting for a response. Nico sighed. No way to dodge this, then. "It's called the Silent Generation," he revealed, then moved to take another bite of his sandwich in the hopes that Will wouldn't ask any follow-up questions.

Will's eyebrows rose high, like he'd just figured something out. "Oh. Huh. Actually, I think that sounds familiar— but wait, don't you mean 'Greatest Generation'?"

Nico smiled; Will wasn't completely clueless about history, after all. Not quite correct, but not entirely off, either. "No, the Greatest Generation is the one before me," he explained. "The people who actually fought in World War II. I was still a kid when that happened." He paused. "Well, I was still a kid for seventy years after that, but you get what I mean."

Will nodded, back to his food. "Yeah, that makes sense. How come I've never heard about it, though?"

Nico shrugged again. "Guess people just forget we exist, or something. Sandwiched between two wars, and all," he added, gesturing to the real sandwich he held in his hand as if it was some kind of visual aid in the PowerPoint presentation of his life.

Will snorted. "You're the Gen X of the early 20th century," he said before popping a fry into his mouth. Nico had to laugh. Will was technically a millennial— just barely— and Nico was functionally one as well by virtue of the Lotus Casino, but his thesis supervisor, a roman son of Egeria, was a Gen X-er, and he complained about that all the time, especially when he had to review sociology or political science papers. Now, Nico figured he could somewhat relate. He pointed that out to Will— who had been the resigned recipient of Nico's complaints about his supervisor's complaints on one too many occasions— and they both laughed for a bit before continuing to eat in silence.

"So," Will started about a minute or so of being quiet, "why do they call it the Silent Generation?" He was back to the topic as he polished off the last of his sandwich. That was the kind of follow-up Nico had been hoping to avoid, with the expectation of dinner giving him a few minutes to not think about history, but Will was too curious for his own good.

And that wasn't a bad thing at all, really. Nico was glad that Will was genuinely interested in his field of work simply because it was something Nico loved, and Nico loved him for it. But he did kind of want a break at the moment. He'd been reading freshman-year essays for the past two hours and he was kind of historied out at the moment.

But the question was innocent enough, and the answer simple enough, that he figured it wasn't worth it to leave him hanging. "Someone just came up with that term in the 50s, I think. Some big newspaper or magazine, probably, but I can't remember which one. I guess it just... stuck."

Will frowned, clearly not satisfied by that response. "But why? Where does the 'silent' come from?"

Nico gave another shrug. "I guess they just thought we didn't do anything impressive." He bent down to take a bite of his food. He was almost done eating as well, though he had finished his fries first. It was something he always did, and something Will liked to tease him about. Something about subconsciously going for the sides first because he was conditioned by McDonald's to always prefer his fries hot and crispy. Who knew. "We didn't fight a world war, we didn't drive a population spike, we didn't revolt against the establishment or ride a wave of accelerated technological advancement."

He heard Will huff just as he was taking a bite of his sandwich. "Well, that's just... awful!" His tone unexpectedly turning indignant made Nico look up from his food, to find that the frown on Will's brow had deepened. The expression was rare enough, given Will's normally sunny disposition, that Nico could only think he was truly upset by that revelation. "That's really the reason? An entire generation of people and the best way they can come up with to describe them is 'Oh, they're just there, doing nothing'? That's rude."

Nico raised an eyebrow at him. "Solace, are you seriously offended on my behalf? 'Cause I don't really care all that much about any of this, you know." He finally popped the last corner of his sandwich, along with a little piece of bacon that had fallen on his plate, into his mouth.

"It's a matter of principle, Nightwing!" Will insisted, way more riled up about this than Nico thought he should be. It was kinda sweet, though, if one ignored the silly nickname. "You lived through a horrible war when you were just children— well, not you you, but the silents in general— and you get no credit for that? No wonder everyone forgets you exist. Sure, the Gen X-ers are isolated and disaffected, but at least that's what they were going for!"

He leaned back in his chair with another huff, arms crossed. Nico had to bite his lip to keep himself from smiling. How was it that someone in their twenties still managed to be so adorable? "Will, it's fine," Nico said. "It's not a big deal, really."

"It is, though!" Will insisted. "If they're going to define people based on some group identity, it should at least be a group identity that actually exists, not just the absence of one. That's just dumb." He shook his head. "There's gotta be one thing— didn't your generation, like, basically rebuild the world after the war?" he suggested. "Maybe the name should be about that, instead."

Will pushed his chair back and stood up, picking up his now-empty plate as Nico thought about it. "I guess," Nico conceded, "but it's not that simple. The records don't really make a distinction between us and the Greatest Generation folks who came back from the war. Realistically, the growth after the war can't be attributed to one or the other. It was probably both of us, but it's hard to know for sure what the proportion was. The books don't really talk about that."

"Well, if there are no books that talk about that," Will said, picking up Nico's plate with his free hand, "then maybe you should write one." Giving his boyfriend a smile, Will leaned down to kiss Nico's forehead, then made his way around the corner to drop the dishes off in the kitchen.

Nico watched him go, mulling over his words. "Yeah," he mumbled to himself. "Maybe I should."

.

.

.

A few weeks later, Nico and Will found themselves walking into the Sunrise Living senior residential facility in Oakland, where a residential support worker kindly guided them toward the parlor. The area was packed with elderly people, eating and chatting and complaining loudly at the two TV screens blaring out news and soap operas from opposite ends of the space. But the person they'd come to see was waiting quietly for them in a corner of the room.

Nico smiled when his gaze set on one Ms. Mary White.

Looking for candidates for this project had taken a lot more legwork than Nico was used to— or cared for, in all honesty. He could've just done this with seniors from New Rome, but he wanted to go at this from a wider human perspective, so he set out to look for candidates up and down the Bay Area. It had taken a lot of research and time and effort, and he hadn't been entirely sure he was ever going to find the right person, but when he saw Mary's profile on the Sunrise Living website, he just knew. Her name was Mary White, after all, and she also reminded him of Hazel a little bit, so how could he not be immediately drawn to her? If that wasn't a sign from the Fates...

She was in a wheelchair— childhood polio, Mary's son had informed Nico when he contacted the man to ask for his blessing to do this interview. That's why Nico had brought Will with him. Nico couldn't really recall if he'd ever met someone with polio back in his pre-Lethe days, but he distinctly remembered being absolutely terrified of the disease. Seeing Mary made him incredibly grateful that he now lived in a time where vaccinations were widely available.

She didn't seem the least bit bothered by her limited mobility, however, as she browsed through the pages of a photo album she had on her lap and laughed quietly to herself. "Excuse me, Ms. White?" Nico asked as they approached her carefully.

She looked up from her photo album and gave them both a wide, warm smile. "Ah, you must be Mr. Nico di Angelo— did I say that right?" Nico nodded, smiling back at her. "It's nice to meet you, young man. My Alfie tells me you want to talk with me about the good old days." She chuckled, and Nico thought there might have been a little sarcasm in that last part, but he chose not to comment.

"Yes, for my book." He signaled to Will. "Thank you for having us. This is Will Solace. He's a doctor; I asked him to come with me so he can clarify anything medical that might come up." Will gave the sweet old lady a little wave and she reciprocated with a smile and a welcoming nod.

Nico looked around for somewhere to sit, but it seemed all seats around them were taken by fellow residents. Mary seemed to notice because she spoke up again. "There should be some chairs around here for y'all to sit." She gestured toward a door a little ways away to her left, just behind one of the sofas that were set squarely around one of the television screens. "If you open the door to the back patio, there should be some stacked up against the wall, you just gotta bring them in."

Nico nodded and moved to walk in that direction, but Will stopped him with a hand on his upper arm. "I'll get them. You stay here. Start to get to know each other." With a quick smile at both of them, he headed in the direction of the door, dodging a game of dominoes between two octogenarians that seemed to be getting a little too intense.

Nico turned toward Ms. White again, only to find her gesturing at him to come closer, like she wanted to tell him something in confidence. Wondering what that was all about, Nico leaned down. "That one's a keeper," she said in a low tone. "So polite, and handsome to boot. If you're not dating him yet, you should get on that."

Nico's brows rose so high on his forehead, they almost blended into his hairline. "Um..." he stammered, caught off guard. Of all the things he would've expected Mary to say, that one wasn't even on the list.

It's not that he and Will were making a production of pretending they were "just friends" or anything, but they both knew that, while much progress had been achieved in the way of gay rights and acceptance in the last decade or so, there were still plenty of people out there who had a problem with two men being in a romantic relationship. Even in 2019, even in California, and especially outside the two demigod camps. And seniors, in particular— even the more tolerant ones— tended to be more conservative on the whole. So he and Will thought it was for the best to keep their relationship status on the down-low unless directly brought up. He just didn't expect his very first interviewee to bring it up a minute after having met them.

Once again, Mary seemed to notice how taken aback he was because she waved her hand as if to dismiss his surprise. "My granddaughter is dating a very nice young lady," she said, Nico assumed, as an explanation. "A little quiet, but very nice. I keep asking her when they're going to get married, but she keeps givin' me the runaround!" She laughed, a hearty laugh, louder than the one Nico had heard from her when they first arrived. "Kids these days. I need to know if I'm going to get to wear my good party dress again, don't I? It's too nice a dress to keep in storage so long."

Nico had to smile. "I'm sure you'll be the belle of the ball, Ms. Mary." He felt reassured; with every word that came out of Mary's mouth, Nico grew more and more certain that he'd made the right decision in choosing her to start this project.

He didn't verbally confirm nor deny Mary's assertion— she might be cool with the gays, but they were still surrounded by strangers so this wasn't exactly a safe place. Regardless, when Will came back with the chairs, Nico reached for his hand. "Hey," he said, giving it a squeeze. "Thanks for this."

"Sure, anytime," Will replied, giving him that smile Nico always thought could brighten any room, but also looking a little confused. He was probably wondering why his boyfriend was being so uncharacteristically effusive about a pair of plastic patio chairs. What he didn't know is that it wasn't just the chairs Nico was thanking him for; it was everything: his being here, the idea for this book, his unfailing support. The life they had built together.

He let go of Will's hand because he had to take notes through the interview, but as they sat down, Nico thought he spied a triumphant expression on Mary's face.

"So, Ms. Mary," he started, uncapping his pen, "How did your generation change the world?"

.


.

Author's notes that are nearly longer than the fic itself (oops)!—

Happy Solangelo Week, everyone! I did not set out to write this for SW, but since I just happened to finish it in time, I figured why not? Also, while we're at it, happy Pride month to everybody celebrating. :)

So, a few weeks ago I was reading a fic and someone in the fic made an "OK boomer" joke regarding Nico, and I am too much of a nerd not to grumble to myself about how that is not, technically, correct. ^^;; That is not at ALL a knock on the fic or the author; I think it's hilarious to give Nico the boomer treatment, and I'm pretty sure the fic itself is one I enjoyed a lot (I can't really remember which fic it was, but I've been reading so much great stuff in here recently, it had to be good. Y'all are super talented!). And honestly it's easy to overlook the Silents: even I wasn't aware that was a thing until maybe a few months ago.

It's just that I'm low-key obsessed with the interaction between generational cohorts somehow? Like, I know the demarcations between them are wholly arbitrary and it has no basis in science whatsoever, but as a sociological experiment, I just find it all rather fascinating. And I was already thinking about terrible cohort names because of the whole "geriatric millennials" thing that was going around on social media a few weeks back (we're called xennials, thankyouverymuch. _ That term's been around for years now. No need to reinvent the wheel, let alone come up with the most possibly offensive moniker for it!), so when that joke made me think of the Silents, I kind of felt like I could relate. And thus, this story was born.

So yeah, the Silent Generation is indeed the generation between the Greatest Generation and the baby boomers, usually including people born from the mid- to late-1920s until 1945. The name first appeared in a Time magazine article from 1951, and then it kind of stuck. In Australia, where I'm currently living, they're known as the "Builders" because they did most of the literal and metaphorical work of rebuilding after the war. It's easy to forget they're a separate cohort since the boomers... well, because there are so many boomers, but about half of all Silents born in the US were still around in 2019. If you know a Silent, be sure to give them a hug or a handshake— they've lived through some tough shit. Which reminds me, I probably should call my grandma.

The OK boomer meme did only hit it big time on the internet around 2019, even if by now it feels like it's been decades, lol. So that's more or less when this story is taking place, with Nico and Will being aorund 23/24. Nightwing is a character from DC comics, basically the alter ego Dick Grayson chose to go by after he retired from being Robin. The song Will was playing at the beginning of the fic was "Dancing with a Stranger" by Normani and Sam Smith, which came out in 2019 and was the 14th Billboard hot 100 single of that year. PowerPoint is a presentation software owned by Microsoft and part of their Office suite. Egeria was a roman nymph and minor wisdom deity. Also Re: the significance of Mary's name for Nico— let's just say if you translate "Mary White" into Italian, it would be "Maria Bianco." You can see how that might strike a chord with him. ;)

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus that up to the 1980s infected up to 350,000 people a year worldwide, mainly children under 5 years old. Most of those infections were asymptomatic, but about 1 in every 200 led to irreversible paralysis, and out of those, about 5% to 10% died. This led to thousands of children paralyzed or dead on a yearly basis before a vaccine was developed in the 1950s by Jonas Salk. This disease is not yet eradicated, though widespread immunization has led to a reduction in cases of almost 99%. This is an incredible achievement, considering how much of a scourge polio was around the time Nico was growing up. One of the main reasons why the anti-vax movement has taken such hold over the past few decades is because we've fended off these infectious diseases so well that we no longer remember how terrifying they were. Vaccinations save lives. That's a fact. Please vaccinate your children, and in the case of COVID-19, get vaccinated yourself as soon as you are eligible.

And why do I always write when I'm hungry

Also fyi, I've started grouping all these Will/Nico canon one-shots under the Unwritten scenes in Solangelo canon umbrella, so if you've liked these so far, you might want to subscribe to the series so you'll know when I add a new fic. I don't know how often that will happen, but hey, I might surprise you. In the meantime, you can always poke me via Twitter at girls_are_weird or Tumblr at girls-are-weird to try and get me to write. Comments and kudos also help a lot! I hope you enjoyed this. See you next time.