AN: Thanks again if you have read/reviewed/favourited/followed this. Great to hear from you.

He'd been beaten by a child.

He was lying flat on the floor, disarmed, prone and bound. He couldn't get up. He couldn't even get an arm free. He knew that because he'd been trying for what felt like hours. The knots were nowhere near any of his fingers, in fact, he wasn't even convinced there were knots. He was completely helpless, prone and beaten. And a small child had managed to do it to him.

He was beginning to feel some sympathy for all the monsters and titans and giants he'd faced since he was twelve. It was bloody humiliating being beaten by a kid.

"Unngggguuunnnnnn!

That was another humiliation. Rope had forced its way into his mouth, making him mumble even when he shouted, and causing drool to pour down his chin.

And Nico was doing nothing but stare at him.

"Uuunng-nguuu!" he shouted again. He was trying to say Nico. Anything to make Nico move. He needed Nico to untie him and not just because he needed to punch Nico very hard in the face and scratch his own nose. In that order.

Nico's eyes were red. He seemed to be in shock. That was probably understandable, but right now it was fucking unhelpful.

"Unnnggg!" Percy cried.

Nico shook his head. "He's not going to hurt anyone."

"Unnnng!" Percy shouted. He didn't need this. He did not want to hear Nico's perverted thought process that led him to taking a prisoner of the gods and freeing him so all the world would suffer whatever twisted plan he said former prisoner had in mind.

"No, listen to me, Percy…" Nico urged, "He's a good person. He's sweet and kind and clever."

'He's manipulative and powerful,' Percy thought. He would have shouted it, but it came out "Mmmngggg!"

"He's not evil!" Nico shrieked, a sob breaking his voice. "He's not! Percy, you don't know him!"

"Uunnnggg!" groaned Percy, writhing in his bonds. He kicked at the floor with his heels, hoping Nico would pick up on the threat; untie him now or die a slow and painful death.

But Nico just lost it. He screamed. "You don't know anything! He's a son of Hades, he's my brother! He's not going to hurt anyone! He's a good person! He is! He won't hurt anyone!"

With a sob loud enough to shake the walls, Nico dropped to the floor. More sobs wracked his body, and Percy felt more sorry for him than he ever had. But it didn't change what he had done.

Percy wriggled, and stretched, and tried to spit out the rope in his mouth. None of it seemed to make a difference. He was getting tired, and all he could hear were Nico's sobs. The sound got to him. He may be furious with the son of Hades, but that didn't stop it hurting to hear someone he cared about in so much pain.

"Mmm-oo," he tried. "Ngeeenoo."

Was that sounding more like 'Nico?' The younger man seemed out of his mind, and Percy could only hope it was temporary. He tried again to spit out the rope, and again. "Ngeengoo."

It took so long for Nico to cry himself out. It was bitter disappointment, loneliness and shame that made him like that. At least, that's what Percy understood. He'd obviously believed in Zagreus' lies. Believed the innocence in his expression, the goodness his false personality suggested. Nico probably felt the betrayal as a personal slight as well. He had to have been completely taken in by Zagreus.

Percy wanted to hug him. That wasn't a reasonable way to feel when it was Nico's fault that Percy was helpless and bound on the floor.

"Nggh!" Percy groaned. And this time Nico looked at him.

"Gods, Percy," he whispered. "I don't… I don't know what to do. He's a child! I can't just let him wander off! What'll happen to him?"

"Nggng!" Percy replied. He tried to sound calm, comforting and like he wasn't saying 'what do you mean, what'll happen to him, don't you mean what'll he do?'

Nico crawled forward, defeatedly. He barely raised his head as he reached for the ropes that held Percy. "I guess this is where you say I told you so?" he said. Percy shook his head. Nico tugged on the ropes. "I can't find any knots," he said, "hang on." He got up and picked up his sword from where Zagreus had thankfully discarded both weapons on the floor. He brought it back and sliced through the bonds in one heart-stopping swipe that made Percy flinch.

"He's not evil Percy," Nico repeated, as Percy pulled all the ropes away from him and got to his feet. He looked at Nico steadily for a moment, contemplatively. Then he punched Nico hard in the face.

Nico stumbled back, surprised. Percy sneered. He shouldn't have been surprised. It was obvious Percy would be pissed.

"You idiot!" Percy shouted. "Why did you do it?"

"What?" groaned Nico, getting his balance back and holding his jaw.

"You stole a baby from the underworld! Are you crazy?!"

"My brother!" Nico shouted back, "I couldn't leave him there!"

"And you didn't think to check with anyone in case he was a dangerous psychopath?" Percy shouted back. "Surely when you find someone imprisoned in the underworld, you check if they want to destroy the world before you set them free!"

"He was a baby! He was hardly in chains! And he doesn't want to destroy the world! He just said, he wants to save people!"

Percy rolled his eyes, "And what if that means he wants to save the titans? Or the giants?"

"It doesn't!" Nico protested.

"How do you know?" Percy growled, "Did you even know who he was? He just said he was a god!"

"Yes," said Nico. "That could mean anything though!"

"Your crazy father kidnapped me over this!" Percy shouted, "I have never seen him so furious! And he wants to kill me on a good day!"

Nico scowled. Maybe Percy had finally started to make him see sense.

"And you just let him go!" Percy cried, "He's out there, somewhere, doing who-knows-what, and you just let him go!"

"He's not going to hurt anyone!" Nico repeated, "he won't! He wouldn't"

Percy was almost speechless, "He just threatened to kill me!"

"But he didn't, did he?" cried Nico. "He let you go, even after you said you were going to take us both prisoner and drag us back to the underworld!"

Percy fumed. "He..."

"You don't know!" Nico shouted, "You don't know what he's like, so stop pretending you do!"

And though he still wanted to bash Nico's head against a wall, Percy couldn't prove Zagreus was going to hurt anyone. But that wouldn't stop Hades tearing apart the world trying to get him back.

"So we find out," said Percy. "We go to Annabeth and…"

"We're not telling Annabeth anything about this!" snapped Nico, scowling even harder at Percy.

But that was stupid, because Annabeth knew everything about the gods., "But she…"

"No!" snapped Nico.

He looked ready to explode, and Percy got an inkling this was less to do with Zagreus and more to do with jealousy. "Well we can hardly ask Hades, can we? We won't live past the words 'you know that baby you accused me of stealing?'"

Nico narrowed his eyes. "Fine," he said, "we go to Chiron."

Unable to argue with that suggestion, Percy nodded.

"Fine," he said, "but don't think for a minute I trust you."

Nico's face didn't erupt in anger as Percy had expected. Instead, it flickered with sadness. But Nico covered it well. "Well, that's hardly anything new, is it?" Nico sneered. He turned away, and grabbed his bag, shoving clothes back in. When he came to a child size top, he paused. Percy stopped watching him after that. He didn't want to feel that nagging sense of pity any more. He couldn't hug Nico now. He couldn't. No matter how much he wanted to.

"Are you OK?" he asked instead, looking away.

"What do you care?" Nico snapped, still looking away, shoulders tensing strangely on the c word.

"Look, man," said Percy, carefully, "I know you thought you were doing the right thing."

Nico gave an irritating snort.

"What?" Percy demanded, "why interrupt there? Did you not think you were doing the right thing?"

"Of course I did the right thing!" Nico insisted, "There was a baby, all alone in the most miserable, lonely part of the underworld. Not even I had been there before! I only went because of..."

He trailed off, hand going to his pocket. Percy was sure he heard a crumple of paper rustling.

"Because of what?" Percy prompted.

"Doesn't matter," said Nico, "The point is that you wouldn't have left a monster in a place like that, let alone a child. And I mean you, Percy Jackson, you specifically. Because you're better than that!"

"I..." said Percy, "I mean, that's what I meant..."

Nico raised an eyebrow, "But now one god, a god you know to be petty and jealous, has got all pissed and you think I did the wrong thing?"

Percy hesitated. One god's shouted demands had never swayed him before.

"Well then," Nico continued without, "how do you know Zagreus isn't the one we want to support this time?"

Percy frowned, "We fight for the Olympians. We fight for Western Civilization. That's what it means to be a hero!"

"No, you don't!" said Nico. "You fight for what's right. You stand up to bullies and protect people who can't protect themselves..You fight for people, Percy. Never forget that."

Percy blinked, surprised. "I never knew you thought so highly of me."

"Huh," Nico snorted, staring at Percy as though he'd said something completely impossible. "Have you got any idea how I saw you when we were growing up?"

Percy frowned. "I imagine you thought what everyone else thought. That I was a cheeky little shit that never looked before I leapt.."

Nico actually laughed. "No one thought that. Percy, the first time we met, you stood up to a manticore, single handed." He fidgeted, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and added, "For me."

Percy shook his head. That did make him sound pretty cool, but it wasn't really like that. "I completely messed up!" he protested, "The manticore took all three of us hostage. We'd have been handed over to Luke if it hadn't been for the others."

Nico fidgeted some more, "So, if you did it again, would you have just left us to it?"

"No! Course not!" Percy replied, insulted, "I would never have left you guys in danger."

But Nico had raised his eyebrows, a smirk on his face, and Percy realized what he'd just said. He hadn't know Nico and Bianca, but they had been in danger so Percy had tried to rescue them. Just as Nico had with Zagreus.

"It's not the same," he said.

"Isn't it?" asked Nico, innocently.

"No!" Percy insisted, "You guys weren't in prison."

"Er, did you see that school?" said Nico.

Percy folded his arms. "Not the same."

Nico smiled at him. "We'll go to Chiron," he said, "but I bet he'll say Zagreus is the god of anti-bullying or something. You'll see."

Percy really hoped Nico was right.

The god called Zagreus walked without mass. His feet didn't need to touch the ground. Nor did he fly. Both the Earth and sky were kingdoms of deities Zagreus suspected might kill him, and so Zagreus travelled between, as Zeus had once lived and grown between the Earth and the sky to avoid the detection of his father or his grandmother. Zagreus knew that story well. He had been told it in a different life.

It may be over cautious. Neither Zeus nor Gaia had killed him before. That was the work of others, who he would never be able to trust. Those were the ones who would have to die.

Even this visit may turn out to have been unwise. He remembered little of the one he sought, but scraps he had learned while a babe from an old crone who prattled in whichever language the gods had moved to. One that had been treated worse than Zagreus by the proud and petty gods of Olympus. It was a gamble. This one had no reason to trust Zagreus any more than he did to trust Zagreus' father.

"Who is that?" hissed a voice. "Leave me be! I have been forgiven!"

Zagreus did not respond. He stilled where he was, and watched the arrival of his target carefully, head on one side.

"I infiltrated the titans to help the gods!" hissed the figure, tall and wiry, as he shifted, mostly hidden in the icy verges that surrounded them, "I was the spy in their camp! I filled Kronos' ears with half truths that made him careless! Zeus knows all this! He has forgiven me!"

"Has he?" asked Zagreus, "That does not seem like something Zeus would do."

"He has!" groaned the figure, "Leave me be! I will not return to Olympus until I am summoned!"

"And what if you were summoned somewhere else?" Zagreus asked, curiously.

The figure edged forward, into a smoother place where Zagreus could see him more clearly. He would be smart if he didn't look so worse for wear. Maybe being away from civilization had that effect on deities. "Who?" he hissed. "Who are you?"

Zagreus watched him carefully. It had been thousands of years, but that should not have made Zagreus so unrecognisable. Was it possible the titan of crafty council was lying to him already? Maybe he just didn't believe it was possible. It would of course be unlikely that Zagreus had returned. "My name is Zagreus."

The figure actually laughed. "That cannot be," he said, "I saw them kill Zagreus. He was torn apart by titans, devoured so he could never survive."

"I was," said Zagreus. "I was but a child, betrayed by those I trusted and broken by those who could have been my allies. I will not make that mistake a second time."

"You are still a child," hissed the figure scornfully, "You look like one."

"I have been kept a babe for thousands of years, but tomorrow I shall be a man. I came to you for council, Prometheus."

Prometheus sneered. "I am not the titan of wisdom, foolish boy," he said, "I am the titan of crafty council. No god of Olympus is fool enough to trust me."

"I do not trust you," said Zagreus simply. "Nor am I a god of Olympus. You know that."

"I know you," said Prometheus. "A babe in arms, distracted by toys when he should have run!"

"You know me," said Zagreus, "Murdered because they knew what I would become."

"And what is that?" sneered Prometheus, "a child wandering the earth, lost and forgotten?"

Zagreus merely smiled at him. He knew he wasn't alone. Nico had shown him that. "I will become the ruler of all, the sea, the sky and the earth, master of the universe. I will bring titan god and giant to their knees and I will begin the final age. The age of eternity and chaos."

Prometheus stared. Maybe he was surprised by Zagreus' strength, maybe he was impressed by the words. Maybe he was just surprised.

"You are truly Zagreus?" he asked.

Zagreus' smile grew.

AN: Reviews, as always, make my day.