From Camp Half-Blood to Gotham (Nico x Batfam)

Great, Wet, Stranded, and...Adopted? (2)

Nico groaned as he slipped on the wet concrete and tumbled forward into the river-which he was pretty sure was sewage- with a loud splash. Nico hastily scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, the souls of his shoes barely gripping the slimy bottom of the river. It was definitely man-made.

Once Nico managed to steady himself (after several minutes of embarrassingly flailing his arms) he looked up. His heart sank.

The good thing was it didn't seem that anyone was out to see him. The bad thing was... The cement walls of the canal shot into the sky; they were twice as tall as he was. Nico figured it was because this place probably got a lot of flooding. He had no clue how he was going to get out. Nico would have shadow traveled but his skin felt clammy, and his eyelids felt like lead weights were attached to them. Power use was out of the question.

Nico looked down at the water he was stuck in. It was definitely muddy but at least it didn't seem like it was sewage, like he had originally thought, that was a relief. Nico sighed in defeat as he reached his arms as high as they could go over his head and grabbed at the wall. This was going to be a long night.

When Nico finally managed to scramble up onto the ground he was gasping. His hands felt raw from gripping at the rough concrete for so long and he definitely had several bruises growing on his knees from all the times he had smacked them into the wall.

Nico plopped down onto the dirt and yanked his shoes off. They were wet and muddy, and so were his socks and his pant legs. The water hadn't seemed that deep when he was standing in it, but Nico now realized it had reached all the way to his knees.

Nico's teeth chattered together as he yanked his aviator jacket tighter around him. He was glad to be out of the water. Poseidon's territory or not. But now came the question of where he had landed himself.

Nico's eyes scanned the area, he looked to be in some sort of shipyard. Which would explain the canal. Nico grumbled to himself and stuffed his shoes back on. He needed to move or else he would catch hypothermia; it didn't help that his clothes were soaking wet.

Nico wandered around the port yard for a while, trying to find a way out, he could have climbed the fence, but he honestly wasn't in the mood to climb anything else. Nico eventually found a hole in the fence and slipped through. There was a long road that led to who knows where. Nico followed it. He didn't have anything better to do.

While Nico walked he pondered why he had even left camp in the first place. He had desperately wanted to get away. The campers had gone back to staring, just like they did after the Titan war. Sure, they had praised him for delivering the Athena Parthenos to camp but that only lasted so long. Now there were whispers about his depleting abilities traveling through camp. Nico didn't know why they were talking about it, but it made him uneasy. Nico didn't like being talked about; he could barely stand talking in general.

The port must have been pretty far from the city it belonged to because Nico felt like he had been walking for hours. But it couldn't have been that long because he was still painfully aware of the trail of wet and muddy footprints he was still leaving behind. Nico didn't want to be followed by anyone, or anything. But there wasn't much he could do about that, other than not wear his shoes or socks and that was so not happening.

Nico reached the city limits and ducked into an alley. He immediately knew something was wrong. The city seemed... evil. And Nico had had his fair share of encounters with evil, he was not happy about doing it again. Nico took a deep breath and checked his pockets, something he should have done the second he appeared. He had two drachmas and a crushed granola bar. Other than that Nico had the clothes he was wearing and his sword, which was in ring form resting on his index finger.