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“How big do you think he’ll be?”
“I don’t know how big babies are supposed to be.”
“Allison was nine pounds.”
Will lets out a whistle. “You’re a superhero, Annabeth.”
“You’re talking about me.” Allison clambers up onto the couch next to Nico.
“We’re talking about what a fat baby you were.”
“Please don’t give my seven year old self-esteem issues.”
“Mommy’s fat,” Allison says matter-of-factly. Nico and Leo duck their heads to try and hide their laughter, while Percy gives Annabeth a worried look.
“Mommy is pregnant, Allison. It’s different.”
But Allison is no longer listening. She is repeatedly poking Nico in the leg and pointing at her book.
“Will you read to me?”
“I’ve read you that book three times in the past hour, Ally. It doesn’t change, you know. The tree always dies.”
“It doesn’t die!”
“Emotionally.”
Annabeth glares at him but Allison quickly changes tactics to someone she knows is incapable of saying no – Will.
“Read to me?” She says sweetly. Will makes a face.
“This book always makes me cry,” he says morosely. Nico rolls his eyes.
“Baby,” he mutters.
At that moment Jason comes back into the waiting room, and everyone looks at him. A disappointed sigh spreads through the group when he shakes his head.
“I got kicked out.”
“By the doctor?”
“No, by Piper. She’s mad at me. She wants a divorce, apparently. And to castrate me. Not necessarily in that order.”
Everyone laughs, and Annabeth nods. “Been there,” she says.
“She wants you, now, Annabeth.”
Annabeth grimaces and stands up, waddling off the hallway Jason had just come from.
“I won’t be surprised if there’s two babies born today,” Hazel says, watching her go. Jason collapses onto the couch beside Percy and rubs a hand over his face.
“This is too stressful.”
“Imagine how your wife must feel,” Leo says. Jason just shakes his head.
“Again!” Allison says to Will, who has just finished reading. Will shoots him a desperate look.
“Ally,” Nico says. “Do you know who would like to read that book to you? Auntie Hazel.”
Allison seems delighted at this prospect, and jumps onto Hazel’s lap. Hazel, in a stroke of brilliance Nico should have had two read-throughs ago, says, “Why don’t you read to me, Allison?” This seems to make Allison even more excited.
Will makes a small little sniffing noise next to him. Nico looks at him incredulously. “It’s a children’s book.”
“The tree just keeps giving! Until there’s nothing left!”
Nico rolls his eyes while Will drops his head onto Nico’s shoulder. “And the tree was happy… but not really,” he mutters sadly. Nico snorts.
“You’re a wuss.”
Will places a sloppy kiss on his ear, ignoring Nico’s scowl. “It’s not my fault you don’t have a heart.”
Percy is watching Allison, who is proudly reading the book to Hazel who, Nico notices, also looks quite distraught over it. “I can’t believe I’m having another one of those,” he says.
“Hey! This is my day,” Jason says. Percy suddenly gasps.
“Jason! If we have another girl, our kids could fall in love!”
“Your kids could fall in love even if you don’t have a daughter,” Will points out.
“Yeah, somebody has to take after their Uncle Nico.” Everyone laughs, and Percy excitedly starts planning out the lives of his and Jason’s children, to ensure they fall in love. Nico isn’t sure if he’s doing this to make Jason feel better, or if he legitimately plans to set their children up. Knowing Percy, it’s probably the latter.
After a few more minutes (Allison moves to her father’s lap) Annabeth comes back out.
“Will,” she says. “She wants you.”
Will turns very, very white. “Why?”
“She stopped trusting the doctor two hours ago and says – Allison, cover your ears.” Allison does, Percy adding his hands for extra coverage. “‘He’s the only one in this motherfucking hospital that I trust.’ Then she yelled at the doctor again. And you all think I’m scary.”
Will shoots Nico a terrified look. “I’m just an intern! I don’t know anything about giving birth!”
“Isn’t that from Gone with the Wind?” Leo says. When everyone turns to give him a look, he says, “What? I’m cultured!”
Ignoring him, Will turns back to Nico. “If I had have known I’d have to do this I never would have slept with you.”
“Glad to know I rank slightly below childbirth.”
“It’ll be all right, Will,” Annabeth says soothingly. Will stands up and starts walking on shaky legs.
“Careful bro! She can smell fear!”
“And don’t look her in the eye, she’ll take it as a threat,” Percy adds.
Nico turns to glare at him and Leo. “You two are not helping. You’ll be fine,” he adds to Will, who wanders off looking absolutely terrified.
Annabeth drops down on the other side of Percy. “I can’t believe I’m doing that again. What was I thinking? I must be insane.”
Percy looks unsure what to say to this, so he settles on the phrase he has used through 90% of Annabeth’s second pregnancy – “Yes, dear.”
Allison comes back to sit next to Nico. “I’m bored,” she says.
“I know. Do you want to race around the hospital?”
“No!” Annabeth says, at the same time as Ally says, “Yes!”
Allison grabs his hand and drags him away. He smirks at Annabeth, who glares and says, “I liked you better when we never talked.”
After a brief run around the parking lot, which he lets Allison win (“You’re really slow.” “Or maybe you’re just really fast.”), he carries her back to the waiting room (“You’re far too big for this.” “Or maybe you’re not big enough.” “Smart aleck.”) and drops her gently on Frank’s rolled up sweater, where she promptly falls asleep.
“You’re welcome,” he says to Annabeth, who sticks her tongue out at him.
Frank starts talking to Annabeth about her pregnancy – when she was due, name choices, why she didn’t want to know the gender this time, etc. – while Jason drops his head in his hands again.
“Is this supposed to take this long?” He mumbles. “What if something’s wrong?”
“Annabeth was there for fourteen hours, dude,” Percy says.
“Besides, if something was wrong Will would have come back.”
Jason looks a little better about this.
A few minutes later Will comes hurrying out, looking very pale. “It’s happening, it’s – she wants you, it’s doing that thing, with the head –”
“Crowning?”
Will snaps at Annabeth, indicating she was right, then sits down next to Nico and buries his face in his hands. Jason leaps up and runs off.
“I can’t believe you’re a doctor and you forgot what crowning was.”
Will gives him a very dirty look. “I just saw your best friend’s wife’s vagina. I am not exactly on top of my game right now.”
“She made you look?” Frank asks in bewilderment. Will nods, looking miserable.
“She wanted me to make sure it was going all right… I tried to tell her I’m not an OB-GYN but she was not taking no for an answer…”
Nico, once again, has his fist stuffed in his mouth to stop from laughing. He makes the mistake of catching Percy’s eye and he lets out a bark of laughter before stifling it down again.
“Stop laughing at me,” Will groans, which doesn’t help Nico’s fit of the giggles.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, as Will hides his face again.
“I’m so glad I’m gay,” he says into his hands.
“You’re bi,” Nico reminds him, but he shakes his head.
“Not anymore.” This makes Percy laugh quite loudly.
They sit in silence for a bit, Nico absentmindedly rubbing circles on Will’s back soothingly. Eventually Jason comes back out, a wide grin on his face.
“He’s out! He’s healthy! He’s effing beautiful! Piper won’t stop crying but he is the cutest child who has ever been born!”
Percy looks like he wants to dispute this but Annabeth elbows him.
“You can all come see her. You’re probably not allowed but no one is saying no to Piper right now.”
Nico gives a sleepy Allison a piggyback ride into Piper’s hospital room. She looks at Annabeth and immediately bursts into tears. “He’s so beautiful!” She cries.
“I know, honey,” Annabeth says, stroking Piper’s hair. Jason keeps bouncing on the balls of his feet and saying, “That’s my son. That’s my son.”
“I know, Jason,” Nico finally says, but Jason just grabs him roughly in a hug and keeps repeating, “My son! I have a son!”
“What’s his name?” Frank asks.
“Alexander,” Piper says, and this causes another fresh bout of tears. Annabeth keeps stroking her hair.
“You know, Jason, I distinctly remember in eleventh grade I helped you pass your calc final and you promised to name your first child after me.”
“You can have the next one,” he says, still grinning widely.
“Yeah, and tenth grade I helped you with your chemistry and you told me the same thing,” Leo says.
“I’m glad you’ve been promising away our children since you were fifteen, Jason.”
Jason looks slightly terrified, clearly unsure whether Piper is serious or not, so he takes a page out of Percy’s book – “Yes, dear.” Annabeth and Piper both roll their eyes in unison.
They all coo over the baby until one of the nurses braves the storm and tells them everyone but the father has to leave. Leo tries to stay on the grounds of, “Sorry Jason, I didn’t want you to find out this way,” but Hazel drags him roughly out of the room. They all give final hugs and congratulations and as they’re leaving Piper calls out – “Will! I just wanted to apologize. I was a little out of my mind.”
Will violently shakes his head. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it. Ever. We can pretend it never happened. Seriously. Please.”
Nico and Percy laugh all the way out of the hospital.
They are lying in bed a few hours later when Will says suddenly, “Do you want kids?”
“Are you pregnant?” Nico asks gravely. Will makes an irritated noise.
“It is impossible to have a serious conversation with you.”
“Sorry. I’m listening.”
“Have you ever thought about kids?”
“We’re kind of missing a major component.”
“Obviously they wouldn’t be biological, idiot.”
Nico thinks. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought about it. We’re not even married.”
“You don’t really seem like the marrying type.”
“I’d marry you,” he says, very quietly, as if he didn’t want to be heard.
“You are such a sap.”
“Shut up!”
“No, seriously. Do your friends know how secretly sappy you are? That this scary exterior is just a disguise to hide the tortured soul within?”
“I hate you.”
“You write romantic poetry about me, don’t you?”
“Shut up!”
“I bet half of them are called something like ‘He’s my Solace,’ aren’t they?”
“You are so annoying.”
“You love it.”
“I do not.”
“Liar.”
Will kisses him. After they pull away he says, “Will you let me read your poetry?”
Nico shoves away from him and rolls out of bed. Will follows him to the kitchen, reciting awful poetry the whole time.
“Oh, Will,
You give me such a thrill,
For you I would kill,
And pay our every bill,
My love for you will never chill –”
“This is literally making my ears bleed.”
Will laughs and grabs him, pushing him against the counter. “I am not the sensitive poet in this relationship.”
“No one is the sensitive poet in this relationship.”
“Whatever you say, Whitman.”
Nico punches him lightly in the stomach. “Ass. I’m glad you had to see Piper’s vagina.”
Will makes a face. “Why did you have to bring that up?” He moans, retreating back into the bedroom. Nico follows, laughing the entire time, until Will starts reciting poetry again. After that they call a truce.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind kids,” Nico mutters into Will’s collarbone later. “I haven’t really thought about it. But if it were with you… I’d like that.”
Will strokes his hair absentmindedly. Nico waits for him to say something. He’s never been good at this kind of stuff, but it was different with Will. Will was different. Will makes him think about a future together, something which only a few years would have caused Nico to hightail it back to L.A. and hide. He’s changed so much over the years – who would have thought he could sit across from Percy without staring at him out of the corner of his eye? The idea of sitting in a waiting room with all of those people would have made the old him tired just thinking about it, but he finds he’s spending less and less time alone as he gets older, more time with the people around him. Sometimes he thinks back to college all those years ago and the fight he had put up to stay secluded in his nice little bubble, only opening up occasionally if Jason or Hazel really pushed him to.
That him had been so miserable. That him would never have been able to envision a future with the annoying blond who kept showing up everywhere. That him would never believe that one day he would be able to look at Percy without hurting.
That him would never be able to comprehend being completely, overwhelmingly happy.
“A child with you…” Will starts. Nico wonders what he’s planning on saying. Then Will continues.
“A child with you,
Yes, that would do,
I would love to raise a child with you,
Even though neither of us have a clue,
And you would be in charge of every poo –”
“WOULD YOU STOP RHYMING?”
Will cackles and Nico slams a pillow over his face. Eventually another truce is called, and Will quickly falls asleep with his head on Nico's shoulder.
He doesn't know if they'll get married, or if they'll have kids. No matter how much planning goes into your future, he's realized, it never really works out like you plan. No matter how hard Percy tries, there's no guarantee his second child will fall in love with Jason and Piper's.
There are some things he knows for certain, though. He knows that Piper will be a great mother. He knows that no matter what Annabeth says, both of them are far happier now that they're really close. He knows that no matter how hard Frank tries to keep his upcoming proposal a secret, Hazel is probably going to find out about it, because Hazel kind of knows everything.
And he knows that whatever comes up, he'll be able to handle it with Will.
God, Will was right. He's a goddamn sap.