Demigod in Gotham

74) Sally is our QUEEEEEEEEN

A/N: This one is a little short, but I've been spoiling you guys will long chapters so you'll have to cope.

Nico sat against a tree as he stared at the sky. It was strange going from Gotham to New York City. They were only about two hours apart by car, but the energy between the two was completely different. People say that New Yorkers are angry, but they had nothing on Gothamites. The fact that he had been sitting alone in Central Park for an hour without anyone attempting to rob him was proof enough of that.

"Nico?" A familiar voice called out to him.

Nico shot up and stared at the speaker for a moment before shaking himself from his shock. "Hey Aunt Sally."

Sally smiled at the name but sadly didn't forget that Nico was alone in New York. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in Gotham?"

Nico looked away from her and shrugged. "I needed a change of scenery."

Sally crossed her arms and looked at him for a long moment. "Fine. Get up, let's go."

"Wait, what?" Nico asked, though still doing as he was told.

"I won't make you go back to Gotham, but you're not being alone." She picked up his jacket off the ground and tossed it to him as she began to walk off. "Paul is making lasagna for dinner. I'll tell him to set another plate."

Nico walked after her. "I don't want to intrude-"

Sally stopped, turned around, and stared down at him. "Just because Bruce Wayne adopted you, doesn't mean that I stopped being in your life. You are not intruding. We want you to dine with us. Plus, Estelle misses her cousin."

"Cousin?"

Sally rolled her eyes with a smile as she grabbed his sleeve and began walking again, this time pulling him after her. "You just called me your aunt; that means that Estelle is your cousin."

"Oh," Nico said lamely. He didn't really know what was happening to be honest. He went to the park to be alone and now he was being dragged to family dinner. "Is Percy in town?"

"Not this weekend. He was going to visit, but his homework was too much." Sally kept her grip on his sleeve, but now they walked side by side. "Though if you need to see him, I can call and I'm sure-"

Nico shook his head. "No, I don't need to see him. I was just wondering."

Sally looked at him for a moment, seemingly trying to read his mind while they walked down the busy NY sidewalks. "So who did you get into a fight with?"

Nico's eyes widened. "How did-"

Sally smiled. "You went to Central Park, right by the doors of Orpheus. That place is half way between the underworld and my apartment. You went there because you were thinking about going to both places."

Nico was quiet for a long moment. She was kinda right. He was thinking about either seeing Percy or just hiding in the Underworld. He ended up in Central Park and just decided to sit around. "I got into an argument with Dick."

They walked up the steps of her apartment building in silence until they'd finally reached the door. "It's definitely more than that."

Nico followed her in, awkwardly standing by the door until she basically shoved him onto the couch while she took an armchair across from him. "We just had a disagreement."

Sally rolled her eyes. "Nico, I have played this game before when Percy was your age. He says nothing too bad happened, and then I later find out that he blew up a volcano and crashed his own funeral."

"It was just an argument."

Sally raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

Nico shrunk a little in his seat, trying to avoid Sally's eyes. "Nothing."

Sally crossed her arms. "Nicodemo Ermanno Mansueto DiAngelo Wayne."

Nico sighed. "It was about how I became a vigilante and how I didn't think the family saw me as an equal. Also about how a supervillain is apparently a son of Ares and now targeting my vigilante alias, but they're defiantly keeping something about it from me which is complete bullshit. They think that just because I'm younger than most of them, I can't handle that stuff, but I have been through so much more than all of them combined."

It was silent for a long moment before Paul stuck his head through the doorway. "I'll never complain about Percy's life being complicated ever again."

"Jesus," Sally mumbled.

Nico nodded. "Yeah..."

"Okay, so, I don't really keep up with vigilante stuff, so first things first: does Bruce know you're a vigilante?"

"Yeah," Nico said, not really sure if he wanted to out the Waynes as the Batfam.

Sally nodded. "Okay, so long as you have a parent aware, I'm gonna call that part of that situation handled. Next question, is the supervillain going after all demigods, or just you."

"As of right now, it's just me, but we aren't sure what his endgame is. I'm working with a team to find him and take him down."

Sally nodded. "Okay. So I was right about it not being just a fight, but I think this is more about your family than anything else. If you were just mad about some guy you were fighting, you would have gone to camp or to see Reyna."

Nico looked at her skeptically. "How do you know so much about where I go?"

Sally laughed. "Percy talks about you a lot. He was worried for a while about when you'd disappear, so I started keeping a mental list."

Nico smiled lightly at her, the sentiment meaning a lot more to him than she probably realized. "Dick knows something about what's going on and he didn't tell me. I'm pretty sure he told the whole family except me and then, when I approached him about it, he lied."

"Do you trust him?"

Nico looked at Sally confused. "What?"

"Do you trust him? Do you trust your family?" Sally asked, as if it was the simplest question in the world.

"Yes, but—"

"Nope, no buts. Just yes or no. Do you trust them?"

Nico sighed. "Yes."

"Then trust that he had a valid reason for hiding it." Sally leaned forward in her chair, looking Nico right in the eyes. "You, more than anyone else, should understand the position they're in. You've been put in positions where you had to lie to others in order to protect them. I know that you are used to being the one who knows what's going on, but that doesn't mean that you can get mad at your family about stuff like this. The other demigods learned to trust you to tell them what they needed to know, so you have to do the same with your family."

"I know..." Nico knew she was right, but it didn't change how he felt. "But he's hiding it because he doesn't think I can handle it. He's doing it out of pity."

"Is it pity, or is it because he cares about you?"

Nico slid down in his seat slightly and groaned. "You sound like Mr. D during our therapy sessions."

Sally chuckled and patted his head as she stood up and began walking to the kitchen. "I'm going to check on dinner. You should call your brother and let him know where you are. You can stay in Percy's room tonight, then they can pick you up tomorrow morning."

"I can just shadow-"

"Nope," she said with a smile. "I want to meet your dad and brother/brothers, so they'll pick you up."

Nico sighed but nodded anyways, knowing he wasn't going to win.

A/N: fun fact, I almost forgot to do an A/N for this chapter. Also, I am basically done writing the book. I have like one chapter left and then an epilogue which is so exciting and you guys are gonna be very mad at me. I will hopefully be able to continue doing the daily posts with Book 2, so you can't be that mad. 

Vote. Comment. Tell me you're predictions for how the book will end (I have given a few hints throughout the book for smaller things).