Chapter Text
Turns out there weren’t a lot of places a 12-year-old could go for answers. He was laughed at when he tried to get into the New York State Archives and got weird looks when he started asking around city hall. At one point someone tried to get him to wait while they ‘made a few calls’ but he was smarter than that. He slipped out of their office as soon as their back was turned.
The one place that didn’t bat an eye at a lonely boy wanting to look up nearly century-old records? The library.
“Hi, can you help me?” Nico asked the first librarian he saw.
“Of course! What do you need?” The woman behind the counter looked at him over her half-moon glasses. She had a smile that crinkled the corner of her eyes.
“I need to look up some… genealogy.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“It’s for um, a school project.” Nico went to fiddle with his sword hilt but remembered it wasn’t on his belt. He’d tucked it in a corner behind the building, out of the way. Even if the Mist made it look like he wasn’t carrying a deadly weapon, he still wouldn’t have been allowed in with even the most innocuous of baseball bats.
“I can show you where you can find the census records,” She walked around the desk and gestured to him to follow, “What are your parents' names? Or grandparents?”
“Erm. We’re just supposed to look up our last name in general. I’m looking for di Angelo.”
They rounded a corner and made their way deeper into the stacks of books,
“Ah. Well, you can start with these. They’re organized by year, then alphabetically. So you can pick a year and go from there. It might help to start with the family members you know.” The librarian pulled a few dusty books from the shelves and handed them to him. “You can leave the books on that cart when you’re finished with them.”
“Thanks.”
Nico looked at the title of the top one; Census of the City of New York: 1990 . He sighed. If his father was to be believed, he was going to have to go back much farther than that before he found anything. He carried the few books over to a nearby table and settled in.
A few hours later, Nico had exhausted all of the New York City censuses back to 1950. He’d also found the regional records, army enlistment records, and telephone records. He stretched in his chair and glanced out the window. It was getting dark. The library would probably be closing soon, and he’d barely touched the surface of the information here. He’d have to come back tomorrow.
He returned to the library each day for the next week. He sorted through endless books and records searching for something that might give him a lead on figuring out who his mother was. All he could find was a reference in an old newspaper to some diplomat with the last name di Angelo who had moved to Washington D.C. in the 1940s. He felt like that should mean something, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t remember anything before he and Bianca had been pulled out of the Lotus Hotel. He couldn’t even remember what year he was born. Part of him was fine with that for now. Being 12 was hard enough, he didn’t want to also have to deal with being elderly.
He sighed as he closed New Orleans Passenger List: 1943 . A small mention in a decades-old newspaper really wasn’t much to go off of, but it was all that he had for now. With his luck, it was probably just a coincidence.
Even if he wasn’t finding everything he wanted to know, the library was an easy place to hang out. As long as he didn’t bother anyone, he could find a quiet corner and have a relatively comfortable place to spend the afternoon. Eventually, he got tired of looking at census records and started pursuing what other books he could read.
He let out a snort at the title of one particularly relevant book, 1900-2000; Everything you need to know about the past century. He pulled it from the shelf and brought it to his corner, settling into the comfortable chair as he flipped through the pages.
A lot can happen in a century but turns out most of it was war. 1920, Women fight for their right to vote (they hadn’t had it already?), 1939; World War II starts. 1940; McDonalds is founded, 1941; Pearl Harbor is attacked. 1949; Nato is founded (because of more war) and 1950; the Korean War starts.
“War… war… oh, look, even more war,” Nico mumbled to himself. “Ares was really busy in this century…”
He was just about to close the book when the entry for 1969 caught his attention. His eyes widened as he read the title and he snapped the book shut. He had to find a whole book on this, he couldn’t believe it -
We went to the MOON???
With the help of his new librarian friend, Nico quickly found himself going down the space mission rabbit hole. Missions to the moon, sending satellites to Jupiter, landing robots on Mars?! It was amazing. It was also pretty funny how many NASA missions were named after Greek gods. Nico wondered how Artemis felt about the missions to the Moon being named after her brother.
Speaking of Greek myths… Ever since his encounter in the Underworld, Nico had been wondering just who Patroclus was. He had to have been significant, to have been given the freedom to roam the Underworld and the responsibility to escort Nico to the exit. But Nico couldn’t remember who he was.
The next afternoon, he skimmed the shelves with various mythological anthologies. One of them should have something. Picking a few at random, he brought them back to his little nook.
The first was a collection of snippets from the Iliad. Nico barely got into the first section describing Apollo and his plague (Nico needed to remember to never get on the god’s bad side) before it dawned on him. A swim. Invulnerable. Achilles.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed.
“Shhh!” His outburst was met with a chorus of shushing from all around him. He blushed and muttered quick apologies as he gathered his things. He had some investigating to do. He knew how Percy could beat Kronos.
Over the next few weeks, Nico tried to keep on the move. Most of the time he snuck his way onto trains or swindled a few bucks to buy a bus ticket, but occasionally he tried his own method of travel. After his failed attempt back at camp, he’d been hesitant to go charging into any more trees, but every so often when he found himself in a particularly dark alley he’d reach out to the shadows again.
He hadn’t been making it up the first time. The shadows did really feel like they could act as doorways. He just had to figure out how to open the door and step through.
He glared at the dark patch of shadow against the brick wall between two buildings. The sun was setting, making perfect conditions for long deep shadows. He could hear the horns of rush hour traffic in New York City coming from the alleyway entrance. He was determined this time. This time he’d do it.
With a deep breath, he rushed the wall.
SMASH! His nose and the bricks played a game of ‘who can smash harder into the other?’ - the brick won. He tasted the sharp tang on his lips telling him his nose was bleeding.
“Ugh.” He held the back of his hand under his nose as he dug into his bag for some ambrosia. He’d managed to grab a little bit more in the aftermath of the battle, but he’d felt guilty taking advantage of the hectic infirmary. He didn’t want to imagine the look on Will’s face if he found out Nico had stolen from him.
He leaned against the wall as he had the smallest of bites to help his nose heal. Why did he keep running into solid walls? He knew he could go from one shadow to another. He’d done it with singular body parts. Why couldn’t he do it with his whole body?
Maybe he just had to feel it. He was trying to storm through the shadow as though it was two-dimensional, to spend as little time in it as possible but maybe that wasn’t right. A shadow was like an endless void, pulling him in, not a doorway from one bright space to another. If he let himself surrender to the darkness, maybe he’d have an easier time navigating it.
He took another deep breath, trying to focus on what being surrounded by darkness would feel like. He closed his eyes to ignore the dying sunlight. He stopped listening to the traffic on the street. He let all sense of his surroundings go.
And then he was falling.
Icy coolness encompassed him, there was a roaring in his ears and he felt squeezed from all directions. The sensation ended as quickly as it had come and the next thing he felt was the unpleasant squishing as he fell into a puddle of mud.
He blinked as he started up in the sky. Bright blue and clear. It had been dusk in New York. Did he just -?
He sat up and looked around. He was in the middle of a flooded field. All around him were other segmented terraces each filled with a different type of crop. Next to him, Nico could see green stalks shooting up out of the water. He was in a completely different place. He did it!
His excitement was short-lived as he immediately felt light-headed and dizzy. He fell back into the mud with a splash.
When he woke up he was incredibly hungry. He was also no longer wet. His clothes were caked with dried mud, and he was lying on a small cot in the corner of a room. Across from him, two people were busying themselves with a stove.
For a frightening moment, he wondered if he’d been captured. Kronos’ army was still out there, gathering strength. What if he’d fallen right into their laps?
Still, getting him warm and dry while he was unconscious didn’t seem like a thing bloodthirsty monsters would do. The two people at the stove seemed as human as could be, quietly going about their routines, easily stepping out of each other's way as though they’d shared the space for years. He didn’t think telekhines and empousa would get along that well.
As Nico tried to sit up, the cot groaned and squeaked, letting the others know he was awake. They turned and hurried to his side. The first, an older woman, pushed him back down to keep him from getting up too quickly. The second, a man in worn work clothes, immediately started talking in - was that Mandarin?
Oh great, he had no idea what they were saying. His confusion must have been clear on his face because they soon started communicating with gestures as well as words. The woman held out a small bowl to him. He took it greedily and snarfed down the small bit of rice she’d offered.
Mouth still half full he managed a muffled, “Thanks.”
The man raised his eyebrows at him in surprise and nudged the woman. They had a quick exchange before the younger of the two headed outside. He came back a minute later with a boy a year or two younger than Nico. He waved and said very carefully, “Hello.”
“You speak English?” Nico asked.
“A little. I am learning. At school. What is your name?”
“Nico. What is yours?”
“Yufei” He turned to the man who urged him to continue, “My father wants to know how you got here.”
“Where is here?”
“Um.. I don’t think I understand.”
“Where are we? What city or um... village?”
“We are in Ganzi Village.” He gave Nico a weary glance before adding, “China.”
China . He’d fallen through a shadow and ended up on the other side of the world. Nico gripped the edge of the cot to keep the world from spinning.
“Are you okay? You slept very long. Many days.”
“I did?”
“Yes. We were…” Yufei ran his fingers through his hair like he was trying to remember a word, “worried.”
“Oh.” He knew using his powers made him tired, but he didn’t expect to pass out for days. Nico swung his legs off the cot and looked around him. Where were his things? Oh gods, what happened to his sword? “I had a… bag.”
Yufei dug underneath the cot and pulled out the beaten-up duffle Nico had carried with him for the past several months. Nico took it gratefully and dug through it. There didn’t seem to be anything missing. In fact, there might have been a few pieces of fruit that hadn’t been in there before. He found some ambrosia and took a few bites. Soon he was feeling well enough to try to stand. Yufei’s father put a hand on his arm to steady him.
“You also had this,” Yufei pulled out another long object from under the bed and handed it to Nico. It looked like a gardening tool with a long wooden handle and a piece of bent metal attached to the end. As he wrapped his hand around the handle, it shifted in Nico’s vision into his familiar dark sword. He had a mini heart attack as he realized Yufei had been holding it by the blade.
“I got it!” He quickly took it from the boy and returned it to his belt as Yufei cocked his head in confusion. He really needed to figure out a better way to carry it. With the ambrosia clearing his head and all his things returned to him, Nico started for the door. The others watched him, too surprised by his burst of energy to do anything.
Before he left, he turned back to Yufei, “How do you say thank you?”
The boy smiled, “xièxiè”
Nico repeated the words, nodding his head to Yufei’s father and the older woman. He was sure he’d butchered the pronunciation, but hopefully, he just didn’t say something vulgar. It was the thought that counted, anyways, right?
As he made his way out of the building, he looked for the nearest out-of-the-way shadow. The best thing he found was a dark corner between a shed and a tall tree. He sat against the trunk of the tree and tried to remember what he had done the first time, something about focusing on the empty void and ignoring everything else.
It was easier this time now that he knew it was possible. It didn’t take long before he felt the shadows pulling at him. He tried to envision New York, giving himself a point to aim for. He took a deep breath and let himself fall.
He emerged somewhere new. Luckily this time it wasn’t in the middle of a field.
He was on a sandy beach, in the shade under a dock. The sun was low above the ocean, and he could hear people further down the beach chattering - playing games of volleyball and setting up bonfires. So not New York… but at least he was back in North America.
His eyes drooped as he tried to get himself up. This new travel-through-shadows thing really did make him tired. He was going to need to find a safe place to take a nap. Even so, he smiled as he stumbled up the beach toward the street. No amount of tiredness could take away his excitement. Who needed swords that could turn into pens or the ability to keep your clothes dry in icy-cold rivers?
Nico could teleport .