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It goes better than Will had planned.
Will, despite being fully informed of Hazel Levesque’s sweet demeanour, had still been expecting a shovel talk. Especially after talking to Leo.
(“You should have seen her after my visit to New Rome,” he’d said, letting out a whistle. “Girl hits hard.”
“Leo,” Nico had cut in, boredly. “You faked your death for six months.”
“I didn’t mean to!)
Especially after knowing that for all of being thirteen and whisked into the century from another world altogether, she was one of The Seven, she’d taken down Gaea. She’d probably saved Percy Jackson’s ass at least twice, and she could make sweet of animals who’d injure any pleasant enough veterinarian.
However, Hazel does not start by pinning him up against the wall (hey, Nico doesn’t look that strong either, and he could hand Will’s ass to him on a platter any day that he liked) and looking him in the eye with an icy glare, threatening his future children in more than one way.
Will is not greeted with shovel talks or glowers, or even an intimidating comment made when Nico isn’t looking.
When Hazel Levesque sees Will Solace for the first time, fiddling with his thumbs behind his back while awkwardly shadowing her older brother, she hugs him. Literally, she runs across the grass and open space, nearly knocks over two or three Demeter campers who are just trying to water some plants, and entangles him in a bone-crushing hug before she even looks at Nico.
All the breath is knocked out of her lungs.
"Hazel,” Nico says, and he doesn’t sound remotely surprised.
Eventually, Hazel untangles herself from Will, steps back a little. She looks right at him, catches his gaze (even though she is significantly shorter - she and Nico have that in common) and beams.
“I’ve heard so much about you!” she gushes, and Nico groans.
“Hazel.”
“Shh, Nico,” Hazel says. And then, seemingly remembering that she hasn’t seen her brother face to face in weeks, she flings herself into his arms and hugs him in a way that not even Jason Grace could get away with. “I’ve missed you so much!”
Nico laughs. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. He sounds a little uncomfortable, but mostly he sounds happy and Will thinks that happy is a great look on him.
Nico catches Will’s eye behind his sister’s mass of curls.
“At least she hasn’t got any baby photos,” he sighs.
::
Reyna, in fact, does give Will a shovel talk.
At least, he thinks she did - the whole experience was kind of strange and rushed and over in a flash. Her and Nico have a weird seeming relationship, he supposes, but only on the surface.
Minutes later, she’s barely conscious of his existence, because she’s so caught up in the smile she’s got aimed at Nico and the stories he’s telling her.
Reyna had not greeted Will with a hug. She had, thankfully, greeted him alone and not with an army behind her or two terrifying and giant and glaring silver and gold dogs. Will’s pretty sure he might have actually melted into a puddle of fear at that point. Not that Will had expected anything of the sort.
(“Reyna’s great,” Nico had said, one evening in the Hades cabin, starlight streaming through the window.
Will had asked Nico about his family, and Nico liked being able to answer.
“She’s not like Hazel,” he’d continued. “She’s very… closed. She’s like me. She’s a warrior but she’s a sister, and she makes things make more sense.”
He’s liked her since then.)
But Reyna hadn’t gone on the other side of Will’s imaginary expectations, either - pinning him up against some cabin and prodding him with flaming torches while Nico rolled his eyes in the background.
It seemed, in hindsight, Will wasn’t very good at envisioning hypothetical situations. That said, he was still refusing to go to dinner with Lord Hades and Persephone for fear of death.
(“My father is way too busy to actually kill people,” Nico scoffed. “He has other people to do that for him.)
"Solace, right?” is what Reyna says when she actually sets two dark eyes on the two of them, having firstly drawn Nico against her and given him a tight but brief hug.
Will shrugs off the urge to salute.
“Yep,” he nods. “Uh, Will. Reyna. Preator.”
“Reyna’s fine,” Reyna says, coolly. She reaches out her hand, and Will oblingly takes it in his own and shakes it. “I’ve heard… a fair bit about you.”
“Reyna,” Nico says, warningly.
Reyna smirks.
“Not much,” she continues. “Nico’s as closed off as he’s ever been, but he’s getting there. The amount I’ve heard your name in casual conversation when he doesn’t realise he’s rambling is a good sign in itself…”
Will grins. “Yeah?”
And Reyna smiles, kindly. Softer, like she’s seen something she likes on his face or in his eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him. Will reads like an open book and most of the words are like gold when it comes to Nico.
Most of them, at least. Shadow travelling not included.
“Yeah,” she confirms. “So it’s nice to meet you, I’m glad that he has you. Really. You two… look good together.”
Nico is blushing a little and Will’s smile is stretching out to the far corners of the universe, far surpassing the moon and all the planets and the sun. He breathes out a sigh of relief and it feels like releasing all the winds in the world.
“That said,” Reyna’s tone changes, dips a little. Not scary or threatening so much as authorative. Kind of like how Apollo sounds when he’s telling everyone to quieten down so he can talk about himself. Actually… probably not that, not so much.
Will gulps.
Reyna does not pull out a sword or a javeline or a lightsaber to threaten Will’s life. But the intention is there.
“Make my little brother sad and I will have to come at you with the full force of the Roman army, Solace.”
Nico rolls his eyes.
“Reyna, seriously.”
Reyna smiles again.
This time, Will is unable to stop himself from saluting.
“Noted,” he says, and Reyna pats him on the shoulder. And when Will looks back, despite himself and his words and his manner, Nico can’t stop smiling.
::
There’s one sister he can’t meet, not really.
Bianca is out there somewhere: soul basking in the light of the sun and the warm blue skies, wind breezing against her skin.
Every day she is relearning something that she loved about the world: moonlight and rainfall on a roof top, archery, girl power, girls like Thalia Grace. She must be a little kid now, at the point of discovering little songs and colourful things.
When Nico talks about it he sounds sad but there’s something in his voice that’s as though he’s thinking, yeah, she’d really love that. He once said that Bianca loved every new part of the world that she got to see, and Will supposes in that case it’s fitting that she’ll get to see it all through two pairs of eyes, both big and beaming, like Nico’s.
But one day, months and months and a year or so, they’re wandering through the Camp Half-Blood grounds, exploring their way through wilderness and overgrowth and bright colours submerged in uncut grass. The sun is out and the two of them are drowning underneath white light and gold hues that make this place feel like home.
Nico will never be warm. He’s a child of the Underworld. But lately, his hands haven’t felt quite so cold when he’s holding Will’s.
“Where are we going?” Will asks, but Nico’s pulling him through wildflowers, barely dodging stinging nettles and the odd thorn, and he doesn’t really care.
He’d go anywhere with Nico.
Even the Underworld - yes, he did do that, he’s a stupid kid for love, okay. He went to dinner with Lord Hades of all people and ate special food that didn’t trap his soul or whatever, and Persephone made small talk while everyone looked incredibly awkward. Will hadn’t known what to say - he couldn’t exactly say “hey, nice place you got here,” and asking Nico’s father about his job was the last thing he wanted to do.
Will gulps. He pushes that particular experience out of his mind.
“You’ll see,” Nico says. He pauses but doesn’t stop moving, still pulling Will further and further out into the wild. Hell, Will likes being outside and even he’s probably never come this far out into the greenery.
And after stumbling down another hill, they’re lead down into a clearing, one which lets light fall beneath the roof of trees. It’s empty but for the vague pulse of magic that Will swears he can feel, the thump-thump of life.
The glowing gold light.
And a marker. Something that stands out in the centre, where the beams of light really meet. Not a headstone, exactly, not - but it’s something and it stands proud and made of stone.
An engraving of a girl, stood in position with a bow, poised to shoot an arrow into the sky ready to rip apart the constellations. A girl who could do anything and a name that Will doesn’t need to read to know.
“I found this place a few months after the war,” Nico says, after clearing his throat and looking awkwardly around, eyes sweeping the trees and the memorial and the ground. “I made this… place for her. She’s not - here, like, physically. It isn’t a grave so much. But it feels like her, it’s somewhere she’d like. So it’s like a little bit of her is here.”
Will squeezes Nico’s hand, and feels a gentle pulse in return.
“I’m sorry if it’s weird,” Nico says, hesitant now. “I know you can’t know her, not really, but I wanted you to - meet her, I guess.”
“It’s not weird,” Will murmurs. He squeezes Nico’s hand again, clasps their fingers closer together. “It’s not weird, not at all. And I’m - I’m glad you brought me here,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Will says. He steps forwards, urges Nico to do so too, still not letting go of the gentle grip on his hand.
The light falls down on them and Will knows what he means now: the way that this place feels, the sleepy magic, warm light. They make their way closer and fall against the soft ground and Nico lays his head against Will and he feels safe.
And Will says, “tell me about her,” so Nico does.