I know this is late... by two years. I have no excuse but hey, I'm not dead. I don't own anything.
Nico stirred the pasta dutifully, the macaroni elbow noodles finally becoming softer in the pot of boiling water. Once in awhile he'd glance up at the clock only to see time hadn't passed that much, and scowled; it wasn't any closer to Will getting off work and being able to come home.
He got a call from Will a while back, who sounded hurried and rushed, that he had fallen asleep at the Stark (Er, well - now Avenger's) Tower, and was on his way home. Nico knew something wasn't right with the whole situation; Will seemed out of breath, stressed, and anxiety-ridden; not a good mood for Will to be in. Nico knew he should be worried about this so-called 'Prophet' and the gatherings of monsters, but he couldn't help but be nervous about Will. Something was wrong when he called Will earlier, but Will just muttered a quick 'not now' and brushed off his stressful musings.
One thing was for sure; Will wasn't going to get out of this talk so easily.
Hurried footsteps on the stairs outside alerted Nico of the presence, and the hard clacks of Will's familiar hard soles hitting the concrete confirmed it to be Solace. Nico stirred the pasta more as the jingling of keys being fumbled permeated the door.
Nico looked over his shoulder just in time to see Will fumbling with his bag and coat and laughed quietly to himself before walking over and helping. He grabbed Will's bag as he shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the hook rack they have on the door. Will gave Nico a sort of lopsided smile, "So, honey, what were you up to today?"
Nico frowned a bit, knowing this was a diversion from the situation at hand, but let it slide for a moment. "Nothing too extravagant. Walked around downtown for a while to see if I could find anything about the 'Prophet' dude." Nico made air quotes around the word prophet, obviously not liking the title. "But... I'm a bit more interested in what you've been up to today."
Will looked down, a blush evident on his cheeks, "I fell asleep on their couch after watching a movie."
"You did what?"
Nico stared in amazement as his boyfriend blushed yet again, "It's why I'm late for dinner and I'm sorry but I guess I was just really tired or something because as soon as I finished eating my food and had a blanket wrapped around me on the couch I was just asleep and I'm so sorry that I left you hanging but I'm back now with no incident and - "
A kiss was planted on his lips before his run on sentence furthered. Nico dropped Will's bag on the floor before resting his hand on his hip to pull him closer. Will's blush spread further, reaching the tips of his ears before Nico pulled away.
Will stood frozen in his place for a moment, his arms still slightly outstretched. He blinked a few times before stuttering out, "Th-that was unexpected..."
"Well," Nico mused as he went back to making dinner, "With everything that's been going on the past couple of weeks, I'm just glad you being late is because you took a well deserved nap instead of being chased by some sort of monster."
Will gave a grin, "Yeah, I suppose a nap is much better." The blond took off his shoes and set them by the door before walking over to the kitchen and taking down a couple of bowls for the two of them. He listened to Nico slightly humming to himself and glanced over to the taller man.
Was it possible that they would same day have a kid? A blush overwhelmed him and he distracted himself by getting some forks.
PJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJ
Will tugged at his collar a little bit as he held the stack of papers at the copying machine. After a quick rundown of how it worked a few days ago, he had a few packets he needed to copy for an upcoming meeting Pepper would be having with a potential partnering company. He wasn't allowed to screw this one up!
He sighed quietly to himself as he copied yet another page full of business dialogue he barely understood. Something was off with Pepperoni lately, other than her resurge of independent tendencies as her injury has been recovering at a speedy rate. She kept having these sudden waves of either letting Will do his own thing and shouldering off a lot of work to him or not letting him leave her sight.
Fidgeting with the stapler, he finally copied down the last few pages and stacked them together before making his way to the elevator to her office. He stepped in the elevator quietly, nodding to the few staggered office workers in there before hitting the button to the top floor of the building.
Will kicked the wall quietly to the beat of the song playing in the elevator (Something from the 80s or 90s… he was sure his mom would know). Soon enough, he was the only person in the elevator as it stopped on Pepper's floor.
He took one step out before a hand grabbed his arm and whirled him inside.
"Will, we need to talk."
He was thrusted into a spinning office chair, and as he hurled the papers everywhere in surprise he heard a small 'click' of a lock. He swallowed anxiously, trying to get some sort of words out, but the only sentence that came out was, "Peps, you can't be hurling people with your bad arm."
She sighed, and Will finally got a better look of her today as she leaned against the locked office door. Her hair, in her normal tight bun, was a bit frayed and messy this morning. Her pencil skirt and blouse seemed messy, and Will knew that Tony wasn't in the office today, so she was just frazzled.
Pepper yanked the sling off of her shoulder before throwing it in the corner of the room. Will reached forward to check on her before she held up a hand, "The scar is gone. The pain is gone." Will looked away from her, panicking slightly, "Will, you said any hypertrophic scarring could take months to recover from! There's no scar!"
He leaned back into the chair, keeping his gaze on the scattered charts littering the floor. He… he didn't do it on purpose! He thought the rate she was healing was normal for a human! Will counted off the weeks in his head before he cursed; he did heal her too early, didn't he? A mortal doesn't just magically recover from a gunshot wound with hypertrophic scarring in only four weeks!
"You… have good genes?" He offered.
"God, Will. I know you're a meta."
"A meta?"
He opened his mouth before closing it. A meta… like a metahuman? Those were the recent people in the news with those cool powers. She thought he was a meta? Will mulled over his options. He could either play dumb, which wouldn't work because Pepper is really smart. He could expose the entirety of his heritage and the Camp to someone who might have her office bugged by either Tony, S.H.I.E.L.D., or both. Which, not only would the gods be furious with him, but Nico would would chastise him like crazy.
Or he could roll with it.
Will dropped to his knees from the office chair and stuck out his bottom lip, clasping his hands in front of him. He said a quick prayer in his head to Hermes in hopes that he could trick her, "Peps, please you can tell anyone! I'm a good meta! I only heal things!" His voice cracked as he looked at her shocked expression in front of him. "C'mon, Pepsi, you know me! I… I'll do anything! Please don't tell anyone!"
She grabbed his shoulders roughly before shaking him really hard, "Why wouldn't you just tell me! I wouldn't have cared, Will! My boyfriend is freaking Iron Man!"
His eyes grew wide and he looked away from her, blushing, "I… I know! But what if!"
"God dammit. You're an idiot." She sighed and hung her head down, "First the lights, now this? You're going to give me a heart attack."
"The… the lights?"
"The lights, Will. The lights!" She flung her hands in the air before walking away from him and pacing the length of the room, "From your hair! And your face!" He blushed again and he pointed at his face, "There it is again! Your freckles and eyes turn into lights!"
"Uh… no they don't?"
She grumbled under her breath and grabbed the collar of his shirt, "Don't play dumb with me, Will! That's what I like about you; you've never played dumb with me!"
"So what if my hair and face think I'm fucking Rapunzel! I never wanted it! I never wanted to be a lightbulb!"
"Then why pretend to me that you're not?!"
"I don't know!" He turned his head away, trying to hide his face from her. This conversation, although slightly faked on his part in terms of what he was, hit a little too close to home for him. "I'm scared, okay? I'm scared I can't save everyone! I'm scared of seeing kids die in my arms again! I'm scared of giving away my position with my fucking hair and face! I saw you get shot, and I wasn't going to let you die because I can't take another person dying because of me!"
He kept his gaze fixated on the ground as he felt a sob move through him, wracking his body as he looked up at her shocked face. She reached down and wiped his face with her hands as he sobbed again, reaching out to grab her body and hug her tightly. He felt her hands wrap around him tightly as he cried, "I couldn't lose you too."
PJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJ
Nico kept his head down as he maneuvered through the streets and alleyways, his hands twitching at his sides.
He was frustrated now with finding the Prophet more than ever the last week. Seems as if some of New York's finest heroes have been out and about more frequently at night, patrolling the streets. Nico almost got himself caught once, and wasn't going to fight a freaking American legend again.
He thumbed at the ring on his hand, sighing while he wished he was at home with Will. He went to bed early tonight, which gave Nico a greater window of snooping around the city without his boyfriend calling him every ten minutes to make sure he's safe.
Nico ducked behind a trashcan as a car whizzed by, the lights blinding him as he squinted through them. As he was blinded, he heard quick steps coming toward his direction, and he somersaulted backwards to avoid an oncoming punch.
He shook his head as he looked up to see a large woman with a Chihuahua in her hands, who was shaking like a leaf. She looked angry and punched the wall again, staring straight at the son of Hades, "Now why would you move?!"
Nico drew his sword and held it tightly, "I didn't want to be a part of a wall, thanks."
The woman, who after closer observation seemed to have slitted eyes and a reptilian tongue set down the small dog, "I only want sonny to have a playmate…" She smiled, flashing jagged fangs in his direction, "Won't you play with my boy?"
Nico watched as the small dog grew and expanded, seeming to grow taller and wider that the woman. Its body morphed into a goat-like creature, its head a lion, and a snake-headed tail that lashed out at Nico, barely missing him as he raised his sword to deflect the fangs dripping with venom. Nico gathered his strength before doing a now more familiar move; diving straight toward the creature and baseball sliding under it, avoiding the fire breathed in his direction as he did so.
He ended up on the other side of it, his hood now at his shoulders. The woman turned toward him and snarled, "Now come on, boy, Don't make this too difficult!" She lunged at his throat, grabbing it with scaled hands and lifted him off the ground.
Nico struggled and lashed out with his sword, slicing her hand in the process before she let him go. He sprawled on the ground for a second before looking up, "What… what in Hades are you!"
She laughed as she cradled her hand, the chimera now turned to face the demigod on the ground, "I am Echidna, Mother of Monsters! You must be honored to face me, little half-blood!" And with that, the chimera lashed out with its massive lion head, crushing Nico's leg in its powerful fanged jaw.
Nico cried out at the burning pain in his leg, momentarily flinching as he dropped his sword to try and pry the chimera off of his leg. Tears streamed down his face as he screamed at the beast. He faintly recalled Percy fighting her and the chimera, but he couldn't remember how he beat them.
Oh wait. Percy didn't.
He cursed as he remembered that the only reason Percy survived was because he jumped off of the St. Louis Arch to escape the beast, and there was no way Nico could do that. The chimera's mouth began heating up, and Nico cursed loudly as the flames licked up his pant leg. The demigod pushed his thumbs against the eyes of the beast, pushing until the pressure relieved from his leg and the chimera whined loudly as Nico felt a soft squish under his fingers.
The chimera cried out loudly as he fell backward, pawing at its face as the Echidna growled and grabbed Nico by his collar, dragging him toward the center of the street before slamming him down on the asphalt. Nico cried out in pain as his burnt and crushed leg crumpled under his body. The Echidna-lady held his throat on the ground before leaning in closely, "My husband Typhon was defeated by your little gods in the First War. We'll rise again, half-blood, and when we do you won't even know we have already begun walking among you."
A shield above him was hurled toward the Echidna, making her stumble backwards and let out a guttural cry. Nico leaned his head back and cursed again. Earth's Mightiest Heroes were back.
Nico tried to drag himself away but his leg was too injured, so all he could do was lean himself up on his elbows to look at the mess in front of him. Captain America and that red head lady…. Black Widow were the ones 'coming to his rescue'. He shook his head and grumbled as they came closer.
Natasha was the first to see the blood. The boy's leg was covered in it, and it looked to be broken in several places. There was a large woman and a small… dog? The dog's mouth was covered in blood, and it was missing its eyes. The woman had blood on her hands on her dress, and she shot her hands up and cried out, "He assaulted me! This rebellious youth kicked my dog!"
Steve grabbed the shield as it bounced back to him as he saw a familiar dark haired boy panting on the ground, clutching his leg, "Nat, it looks like his leg was crushed… and burnt? How does that happen?"
The Echidna smiled, and both adults saw something shimmer around her, and for a brief moment saw blood stained scaled hands and a large beast behind her. Natasha sent a look at Steve and he nodded at her, confirming what she saw.
That meant she must be using some new cloaking technology or is some sort of mutant, and a dangerous one at that seeing the state of the young man in front of them. He looked scared, which was understandable considering his current predicament of his leg looking like it was torn to bits.
Now, Nico? He wasn't scared because of his leg. He knew Will could fix him up easily and he'd be walking and running within a few days and would be at full health at the end of the week. He was worried that he didn't have enough strength to shadow travel away from the 'helpful' heroes. He hung his head against his chest as he thought of what to do before feeling heat coming from the Echidna and chimera's direction.
Both of them burst into flames, and Nico was vaguely reminded of an empousa. Right. Mother of Monsters. They probably got that trait from her.
He groaned, not only in pain from his leg but also the situation was shitty. He looked over his shoulder again and tried his best not to look too awestruck with Captain America (again). The red-headed assassin jogged her way over to him before kneeling and grabbing his shoulder lightly, "Do you want to be taken to a hospital?"
Nico's eyes widened; he was sure he was going to be taken to be interrogated, but it seemed the high morals of the two in front of him would rather he be safe than questioned. He shook his head at the two before looking away, still kind of embarrassed that he couldn't finish that fight and got hurt in the middle of it. Steve squinted his eyes at him, "You can't walk on that leg. You need medical attention."
Nico shook his head again and stuttered out to his idol, "U-uh, I can just… i can just go home?"
The red-haired woman raised an eyebrow at him, "I don't think we can just let you go home to where ever with your leg like… that." Nico grimaced as he was reminded of the growing pain in his leg; at least he didn't get bit by that stupid snake tail. Natasha continued, "At least let us take you back to the tower so we can wrap it up for you."
Nico sighed and hung his head against his chest, "Do I have a choice?"
PJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJPJ
Will was laying in his bed, his eyes locked onto the ceiling. Nico went out a couple of hours ago while he thought Will went to bed, but as soon as the son of Hades kissed Will's head goodbye, he was wide awake.
He almost wished they had a pet or something so he would have some sort of company right now. The bed felt cold and lonely, and he was positive that as soon as he fell asleep he would have some sort of nightmare, so why bother? The young man sighed before swinging his feet off the bed to get up and get a drink of water.
His feet dragged against the wooden floor of the hallway and his pajama bottoms hung loosely at his waist, showing a sliver of skin between the flannel pants and one of Nico's old t-shirts. He yawned loudly, covering his mouth as he found himself in front of the kitchen sink with an empty cup.
No water came out.
He groaned and rested his head on the cabinets above the sink, cursing Nico's name. It's not like it was a big pain getting water from the sink in the bathroom, but Will was too tired to want to put in the effort for a drink of water.
Before he could put his cup back in the cabinet, he heard a ringing noise from their bedroom. He groaned, again, and slowly shuffled back to the room to pick up his phone. Strangely, however, it wasn't Nico's caller ID that showed up.
It was Pepper's
Well, specifically it said Pepperoni and Cheese, but it was Pepper Potts. He stifled another yawn before answering the phone, his mouth dry, "Heyo."
Pepper, however, seemed wide awake, or at least much more awake than Will was. Her voice hurried out of the speaker, "Hey we have a problem."
He rubbed his eyes before finding a pen and paper, already knowing he might have to leave the apartment. He was preparing writing out a note for Nico as he spoke, "What iss it?"
"We picked up an injured civilian who might need your attention apparently. Bruce isn't here to do any procedures."
Will nodded and yawned loudly over the phone, causing Pepper to stifle a yawn, "Mhm. Age, gender, status of wounds?"
"Uh, don't know, don't know, leg is crushed and burned?"
Will started snapping out of his sleepy daze, "What do you mean you don't know."
Pepper huffed over the phone, "Well I wasn't the one on patrol tonight, Steve and Natasha were. They called me a bit ago to get an operating room ready and a doctor."
Will sighed and rubbed his eyes, hurrying up the note he was in the middle of writing and started wriggling out of his pajama bottoms. He kept his neck pressed against his shoulder to keep the phone in place, "Go ahead and have you and Natasha set up a room, I'll be there shortly."
"Do you want me to see if I can have a nurse on standby to help?"
Will didn't hesitate, "No, it'd be easier to work alone. Just make sure there are some tools there i can use? Scalpels, tweezers, gloves, the whole nine. And they should be sanitized too before I get there."
Pepper's voice seemed calm yet tired over the phone as will slipped on a pair of jeans and his jacket over his shirt, "Just get here quick. If you need to we can set up a room for you afterward."
"That shouldn't be necessary. Just clear a path for me."
"Understood. Coffee?"
"Absolutely."
Just to update everyone on me? I've been encouraged to use my writing to help me cope with certain issues I've been having. Don't expect consistent updates as I'm in the middle of transitioning jobs, taking care of my mother, going to college, and maintaining a relationship.
Luckily, I have gotten new medication for my anxiety and depression, so I now actually have motivation to write thing again. Don't think of this as me wanting any pity or anything, I just know some of my friends on this site have been worried about me and I wanted to post an update. My profile will have a larger explanation.
Thank you for listening!
Love, Hate