[Edited April 25, 2023]

In the time between lunch and dinner, Nico worked on his homework. That's right, homework. Bruce had gotten him enrolled in online courses that he could take at his own pace. The courses came from Gotham Academy, so he would be learning the same sorts of things the other boys were, but at a much slower pace. This would also allow him to stay out of the public eye as much as possible. 

To avoid the computer itself, Bruce would print off all the materials for him to complete and download audio versions of the textbooks that he could play without having to connect to the internet. Once a week Alfred would take him by the school with Tim, Damian, and Dick so he could drop his work at the main office to be graded later that week. He hated it, but it was a necessary evil and his brothers made sure everyone left him alone in the short time he was there.

His random appearances on campus once a week sparked up a lot of rumors among the students. Many said that he has like a rabid animal, unsafe to let into the general population. Others theorized that Bruce was just trying to make sure Nico wouldn't open up about the various random wounds they'd all sometime wind up with. Still, others claimed that he wasn't in school because he was an emotional wreck and couldn't cope with his family's deaths. There were more rumors, but those are the ones that most people seemed to subscribe to, according to his brothers. 

Nico didn't mind the rumors, since he wasn't there for them to affect him. However, it seemed to bother the other boys a great deal. Nico knew that they had each dealt with the same sorts of rumors when they had each joined the family, so he guessed they were more sensitive to it. He would sometimes hear about the rumors from the other boys who had taken it upon themselves to defend him. 

Nico was pretty sure those rumors were sticking with the faculty too. The guidance counselor there always tried to set him up with free therapy sessions, on-campus classes, and tutoring in the few minutes he was in the building and Nico always refused. She stopped after Bruce had a talk with her at a parent-teacher conference. It wasn't until later that Nico realized that it had probably been a ploy to try and pry out some abuse story from him without Bruce or his brothers there.

Nico had never wanted to go to school or continue his education, but it had been a compromise with Bruce who had wanted him to attend in-person schooling. Nico had adamantly refused to go into the school, considering he didn't want to accidentally blow up Gotham Academy. Despite the danger and how nightmarish his academic history was Bruce still insisted that he get some form of education. So far, Nico had hated it, but he understood why Bruce was making him do it. 

Number one, he legally had to attend school, it was part of the foster agreement. Secondly, it would reflect poorly on the Wayne family if he didn't and that might affect the company. The last reason and the biggest one in Bruce's mind, is because having an education is important. He wouldn't listen to any arguments to the contrary, so Nico was in school. 

He'd taken a placement test and he'd been behind several grades, which wasn't surprising considering the last school he'd attended long enough to learn anything had been in the 1930s. At least with online school, it didn't matter where he started. It wasn't like he was stuck in a classroom with kids a lot younger than him. That would have been awful. It would have been one more thing for the people in the school to make fun of him for.

Bruce had told him that he'd be happy as long as he maintained a C or better in all of his classes and Nico figured that was probably a realistic goal. All he had to do was pass. He could do that, right? With the accommodations Bruce had managed to get him, and with his brothers offering to help tutor him in their best subjects, Nico should be able to maintain at least a C. That was the hope, anyway.

Eventually, he took a break from his essay about the American Industrial Revolution, which he was writing in Ancient Greek. Bruce had told him to write in whatever language was most comfortable and he'd have the Batcomputer translate it back into English for him to turn in. Thankfully, Ancient Greek wasn't murder for his dyslexia. He was immensely grateful that he was in a position where these resources were available to him. He had no idea how demigods like Percy or Annabeth had been passing without them.

Dinner was a good time-- happy and full of the brothers trying to outdo each other. It was quite interesting to watch. They ate and laughed until there was a loud banging on one of the windows in the kitchen. Everyone instantly went still and exchanged glances. 

There were a number of things that could have been, and very few of them were good. Bruce slowly got up to go check it out. You could tell he had shifted into Batman mode by the way he held himself. He carefully left the dining room, holding just a steak knife. Even a simple knife was a formidable weapon in his hands.

The boys all anxiously watched him go, ready to back him up if they needed to. As he entered the other room, the banging came again and again. There were a couple of long moments of silence that seemed to stretch for an eternity before Bruce called out.

"Hey, ah Nico? I think this is for you..." Nico frowned as the others looked at him curiously. He met Dick's eyes and shrugged in confusion. Nico marched into the kitchen, expecting to see some monster but instead, there was a giant golden eagle. There was a scroll clasped in its talons. He slowly approached the window and slid it open. The large, magic, bird, shrunk to the size of a normal bald eagle and perched on the sill. He took the letter from it and asked Bruce to grab a piece of meat or something.

Nico unrolled the parchment and was confronted by an immediate problem. It was written in Latin. Definitely Roman then. Bruce came back in, followed by the rest of the family, holding a bit of steak. He gingerly handed it over to the demigod, seemingly wary of the bird. Nico would have found this laughable if he weren't kind of anxious himself. How had Reyna known where to find him?

The son of Hades held out the treat and the well-trained bird of prey plucked it from his hand. After having received his payment, he started his return journey home. Nico watched him leave, wishing that the letter was in a language he could read. If he told the Romans that he couldn't read Latin, he might as well hold a sign that read 'fraud'. He stared at the parchment, longing to see something that made sense. Then, it happened, the more he stared at the paper, the more words he found that he understood. Right before his eyes, the words became legible, and he could read Latin. He had no idea how that worked but he was grateful for it nonetheless. he began to read.

Ambassador of Pluto,

The legion is in great need of your assistance. Jason Grace, as I'm sure you remember as one of our praetors, has gone missing. I am commissioning you, as proof of good faith, to search for his soul in the Underworld. We do not believe he has perished, but the possibility has to be ruled out.

Do this, and as long as your sister gets a sponsor, she will be accepted as a probatio member. I hope this letter found you in good health, and may the gods be with you.

Reyna, Praetor of New Rome.

Nico read over the letter to make sure that he had the facts straight. Jason really was missing and Reyna really had come to him for help. He found it hard to believe that this was a coincidence. Two children of the big three from two separate camps go missing at about the same time?

"Is that... Latin?" Bruce sounded disbelieving, which he could hardly blame him for. It was supposed to be a dead language, after all.

"Yeah. I need to make another trip to both the Underworld and California. It seems that another Demigod has gone missing. I've been asked to make sure that they aren't dead."

"Why do you have to go back to California?" Jason butted in.

"The demigod wasn't part of Camp Half-Blood. He was surviving with a rogue group in California. They don't like Iris Messages, so I'll have to report to them in person. Hence the giant, magic, eagle, thing." Nico gestured to the window that the bird had perched in. He hated having to lie to them like that, but this was bigger than any of them and he saw no other way around it.

"When will you be doing all of this?" Bruce questioned, shutting and locking the window.

"I'll leave tomorrow morning," he replied. Bruce thought this over for a couple of seconds before nodding slowly.

"Alright, but you're taking a phone, just in case. I don't care what you say, I need to be able to get to you if you need us," Bruce insisted.

"Fine," Nico gritted his teeth. It wasn't worth arguing about. Besides, he was almost sure that Bruce is more stubborn than he is. He had to be to put up with Damian.

"And when you get back, you will be explaining what you've been doing. I expect every trip you've made to be accounted for. There will no longer be any secrets." Bruce finally put his foot down. Nico knew he would eventually, but this was really bad timing. There was too much going on right now-- too many important secrets that he still had to keep.

"You do realize that there are things that I cannot tell you?" Nico pointed out.

" I need to know what is going on," Bruce countered. Luckily they were interrupted by Tim before they could get into an argument.

"How did you know that the eagle was magic? It looked normal to me?" He asked.

"What are you talking about? It was 3 feet tall and made of gold," Damian countered. Nico could tell that there was a fight coming.

"Guys stop, the mist works better on some people than others. If you've seen a lot of magic, it's less likely to work on you. Sometimes you never see through the mist, no matter what. Some people are born clear-sighted. It all depends," he broke up their bickering.

"Can people change what the mist shows you?" Dick helped the demigod by changing the subject.

"Yes, some are better at it than others. Children of Hecate are particularly gifted at it. I can do it to some extent, and Thalia is really quite good," he replied.

"Cool," Tim sounded interested, "Is there any way that you could make it so I can see them too?"

"I don't know. The bigger the monster or event, the thinner the mist is. You might just not have been able to see something as minor as that bird," He suggested. Tim shrugged. 

Jason muttered something that he didn't quite catch but it made Tim scowl at him. Predicting another fight, Nico excused himself to his room, He sat at his drawing desk and thought about what could have happened to our two missing, very powerful, camp leaders. Someone had to be behind it but he didn't see anything to gain from this except to confuse and alarm both camps.

Nico guessed that they did take away two major figureheads of the camps, but then why not take Reyna and Annabeth as well? Both girls were just as necessary to run the camps. If they truly wanted to cripple the camps, they would have taken them too.

 Unless they were counting on them being too emotionally compromised to be effective leaders. If that were the case, they clearly didn't know Annabeth. Plus, Reyna and Jason didn't seem to have that sort of relationship. Or, he could just be blind. Annabeth insisted that all boys were when it came to girls and their feelings. He guessed it was true since he had never understood Bianca when she got emotional.

Nico decided to put the questions that he couldn't solve at the back of his mind to be thought over again later. Since Percy hadn't been dead, he was hoping that Jason wasn't dead either. He seemed like a decent guy, maybe a little too uptight at times, but he is a Roman. Plus, they were sort of cousins too. Especially if his theory about him and Thalia being related were true. Jason looked to be about the same age as Thalia, but she had been a tree and now she was immortal so he was probably a lot younger biologically. Could the same god fall in love with the same person in two different forms? Did the two sisters both attract different aspects of Zeus? Nico really wanted to know.

Eventually, he changed into his nightclothes and went to bed early since he knew he would need his energy for the next day.