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Will is only in Gotham because of Nico.
Apparently it’s a good place to recharge, to absorb the doom and gloom and death that hovers over the city like a veil. Will goes, because he loves Nico and he’s never been to Gotham, even if the thought of the city makes him shudder.
It’s not too bad, he thinks, as they cross the border from New York to New Jersey. He feels it, feels the way it dims him, but it’s not oppressive enough to be more than a minor annoyance that he can easily stomach. Still, he can’t imagine staying here for more than a day at most without crawling out of his skin. He’s a child of the sun; he belongs in bright, sunny places, not…this.
Nico drags him to a fast food place—Batburger, with the items all named after heroes and villains. Will gets Night-Wings and Jokerized fries, and Nico gets Robin Nuggets and steals Will’s fries.
Will pretends to be annoyed, but he can’t help the fond smile that spreads across his face. Gods. How did he get so lucky?
They’ve only been there for maybe fifteen minutes when the door opens and a group of people spill into the building, laughter ringing in the air. Will, right away, a familiar flash of blond hair—Stephanie, he thinks, and then, Tim. Most kids at camp, especially new ones, tend to stick with their cabins, but not Steph. No, Steph is like a butterfly, flitting around to every flower, making friends with everyone with her pretty face and her jokes and her sharp mind, including Will. She sticks to Tim a lot, but she’s popular, even with the short time she’s spent there. Will watches as they claim a booth towards the back, nudging and jostling each other. It’s a big group; Tim and Steph, and one other girl and four other boys.
Nico frowns at one of them, the one with the white streak in his hair. Will finds his gaze flickering between his boyfriend, the other half-bloods, and the oldest one of the group: black hair, skin pale in a way that comes from living in a city like this, tinged with a darker hue, blue eyes bright and warm and inviting. His hair falls in messy curls over his forehead, and he’s squished between Steph and the youngest boy (green eyes, noticeably darker skin than the rest, save for the brown-skinned teenager that Tim is avidly talking to), a crooked grin stretched across his face.
“Why are you staring at him?” Will asks, dipping a fry into ketchup and nibbling on it. He looks at Nico, though he has to make himself look away from the man.
“He smells like death," Nico says, his eyes narrowed in something that could be suspicion or speculation. “Why are you staring?”
Will jolts and smiles sheepishly. “I was just—Steph. And Tim.”
“Okay,” Nico says, “but that’s not who you were staring at.”
Will looks again at the man, and quickly looks away when the boy stares back at him, eyes hard.
“He’s…familiar,” Will says, because yeah. That’s it. He’s familiar, even if Will can’t quite put his finger on the why or the how.
Nico frowns again and slurps his soda. Will tries not to look at the booth again, tries to focus on his boyfriend, but the next second a head of blond hair is sliding into the seat next to him.
“Will!” says Steph, grinning widely. “Hey! Jack Skellington.”
“Rapunzel,” Nico returns.
“Hi, Steph,” says Will. “Um.”
“What’re you guys doing in Gotham?” asks Steph, her eyes keen. “And why didn’t you tell me? I could have given you a tour or something!”
“And you wonder why,” mutters Nico. Steph makes a loud cooing noise that has Nico scowling at her. Will stifles a smile.
“We’re not here long,” he says. “Nico just needed to check something out. We’re gonna finish eating and head back.”
“Aw,” Steph says. “You sure you don’t want to stay? I can show you the best gargoyles.”
“No thanks,” Will says, filing that away (gargoyles, Gotham is such a weird place). “But thanks.”
“Well, if you ever want to,” she says. She leaves, then, flopping back down on the man who Will can’t stop thinking about. If he strains his ears, he can hear what they’re saying.
“—could say hi,” Steph is telling Tim. Tim shrugs.
“I need to convince Jason that he’s wrong.”
“Fuck you,” the guy with the white in his hair says—Jason? “I’m right and you know it.”
“You’re not—”
“I am—”
“Dick!” Tim cries, and Will blinks at the insult for a few seconds before realizing he’s not insulting Jason at all, because the oldest in the group laughs.
“Easy,” he—Dick? Who names their kid Dick in this day and age—says, reaching over and gently shoving Jason’s shoulder back. “C’mon, you promised you’d keep the fighting to a minimum.”
“We promised no maiming, stabbing, or other sorts of bodily harm,” corrects Tim. “Nothing about not fighting. And we’re not fighting.”
“Yeah,” adds Jason, with a shit-eating grin, “we’re bickering.”
Tim glares; Steph snickers; the other girl smiles; the kid huffs; Dick sighs fondly. It tugs at Will, the familiarity of that sound, and it’s killing him that he can’t figure it out.
“Okay, well, can you maybe tone the bickering down? Please?”
“Whatever, Goldie,” says Jason with a snort (Goldie, Will thinks, why is that sticking out to him). “Don’t be a mother hen.”
“I’m a mother hen?” says Dick, incredulously. “Did you even see yourself last week?”
“You were being an idiot—”
“It was a calculated risk, and I can take care of myself—”
“Yeah, but you don’t—”
“Now who’s bickering?” mutters Tim. The kid aims a glare at him.
“Oh, be quiet, Drake,” he spits, and a new round of bickering starts, this time between Tim and the kid; the last two of the group that Will still doesn’t know the names of are deep in their own conversation, and Steph is watching it all with a grin.
“What?” Will asks, finally turning back to his boyfriend (!).
“You’re staring,” says Nico, dark eyes slitted like a cat’s as he levels a piercing gaze onto Will.
“Yeah, I just—something’s bugging me,” Will admits. “I can’t figure it out.”
“Why he’s familiar?”
“Yeah.”
Nico purses his lips just as someone says the word sun, and suddenly everything falls into place.
“Nico,” Will whispers urgently. “Nico, babe, I think that’s my dad.”
“What?”
“Shh!” Will darts a quick look at the booth, but they’re focused on each other and not on Will. “I don’t know!”
“But he’s human.”
“He looks human.”
“Why would Lord Apollo be playing at human?”
“I don’t know!”
Will groans, sliding down in his seat and rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “I really don’t. I mean, he told us he was mortal, and he told us he was—he has a lot of siblings, and he’s a cop, and something about daddy issues? But I didn’t think…”
“That he would still…”
“Yeah.”
Nico hums, stabbing his fork into a nugget. Will watches him eat it, the way the skin around his throat stretches when he swallows. Pretty, he thinks, before blinking and forcing himself to focus on something other than how badly he wants to leave marks on Nico’s pale neck.
“Did you see what Leo did?” asks Nico, and Will is so lucky to have him because he really doesn’t know what to do. Does he go up to his dad? Corner Steph or Tim? Ignore them? Nico’s giving him a distraction, and he latches on gratefully.
Will’s back in Gotham the next week, though—Steph had asked him (begged, really) for a ride, and he’d given in; so here he is now, awkwardly staring at his dad’s human face.
Steph is grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She’d dragged Will inside the apartment—his dad’s apartment—and hadn’t said a word, just grinned.
Finally, Will has to break the silence. “Dad,” he says.
Dick pauses, gaze flickering between him and Steph, and groans.
“How long have you known?” he demands her.
“Not long,” she protests. “Only since last week. Tim told me.”
“Of course he did,” Dick mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose, looking like he’s praying for patience. “Of course. Because I can’t get one fucking day of piece.”
“Language,” Steph gasps; Dick digs his knuckles into her hair, and she yelps and ducks away. “Rude!”
“I’ll tell Alfred,” he threatens, a completely nonsensical threat to Will, but it seems to cow Steph because she huffs and drapes herself over the couch. Dick turns to will, raking a hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry,” he says with a wince. “I didn’t mean to—you weren’t supposed to—” He groans. “Just don’t tell anyone. Please.”
“I won’t,” Will promises, even if he doesn’t understand why.
“I’m serious. No one. Not even your siblings.”
“What about Damian?” asks Steph, and Dick’s eye twitches.
“Steph,” he says warningly.
“It’s a genuine question! Does he count as one of Will’s siblings or—”
“Steph, I swear on the Batmobile,” Dick snaps. Steph stops in her tracks, looking vaguely guilty. Dick sighs, perching on the arm of the couch. “I’m sorry. It’s been—a long few weeks. I didn’t mean to snap.”
“It’s okay.” She nudges him. “I pushed too far.”
Will watches this interaction, an outsider to their dynamic, and suddenly wishes that he’d never left camp last week, that he’d never stumbled onto this complicated secret he now has to keep.
“I don’t understand,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say because he doesn’t understand.
“I said I was human, right?”
Will nods, seating himself on a chair.
“Right, well. I didn’t want to give it up.”
“Oh,” Will says lamely. Of course he wouldn’t want to give up a whole life. He lived as a human, without his memories; of course he wouldn’t want to leave.
“Hey,” Dick says, drawing back Will’s attention, “that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be in your life. I do. I’m trying to be better, and it’s—I know I could do more—”
“The laws,” Steph interrupts. Dick flicks her an annoyed look. “I’m just saying. Don’t drown in guilt when it’s literally against the law.”
Dick huffs out a sigh, but his shoulders lose some of the tenseness they’d had that Will hadn’t even noticed until it was gone.
“Right,” he says. “The point is, I want to be your dad. I want to know you and I know what’s going on in your life.”
“I know you do,” says Will, giving him a small smile. Dick matches it. “I know, Dad. We all appreciate you putting in the effort. But…maybe I could…hang out with you sometime? In Gotham?”
Dick lights up, and a bit of his godliness shines through the mortal mask, and Will sees how he can survive in this gloomy city—he is the only light he needs, bringing the sun everywhere he goes. Will smiles helplessly.
“Yeah,” his dad says, “yeah, I’d like that.”
Steph coughs out something that sounds like “demon brat” and “jealous.” Dick rolls his eyes so hard Will’s sort of afraid they’re going to pop out of his skull.
“Steph,” says Dick, exasperation coloring his tone.
“I’ve seen the papers, that’s all I’m saying.” She holds up her hands in a surrendering motion, and Dick exhales a long, calming breath.
“Why are you here, again?”
“Because you love me,” she answers promptly, and Dick makes an annoyed noise but tugs her in for a hug so he probably agrees.
“I’m sorry you found out this way,” he adds, directed to Will. “But I suppose I’m not really sorry that you found out at all.”
Will blinks, then flushes a little and smiles. “Me neither.”
Steph wriggles out of Dick’s hold, glances between them, and grins triumphantly. “You’re welcome!”