Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Three Questions

You and Nico went way back.

It wasn't anything like the stereotypical story where the girl and the boy meet in a flowery meadow on a nice Spring day, with the two of you exchanging eye-contact and then instantly becoming the best of friends. There were just so many things wrong with that story and it was nowhere near realistic—nowhere near realistic as you and your relationship.

When Nico and his sister Bianca transferred to your school in tenth grade, you didn't know about them until a few months later because they were put into another class. As weird as it sounded, your first meeting was awkward, but definitely memorable. It was after school hours and you were spending your precious free time digging through the dumpster behind the school building, making yourself look like a mud monster in need of a long bath.

You were wishing—praying—that no one would walk past there because you definitely did not need to give other people a reason to blackmail you. Your (colour) hands were gathering up with dust while the filth from the garbage was happily making itself at home under your fingernails. Some strands of loose (colour) hair were falling out from your ponytail and in the process of trying to retie it back up, you smudged some dirt onto your face.

Eventually, you gave up on trying to fix your appearance and went back to digging in the trash. It was getting dark, and while you usually enjoyed watching the multiple colours of the sunset, there was no time for that today. Your hands worked through the garbage furiously and finally, they landed on something hard. Heart racing, you quickly pulled it out, dusted off the dirt, and flipped through the pages of the book you thought you lost forever. Holding it up into what little sunlight was remaining, you squinted your eyes to read the words on the cover.

"Greek Mythology."

You flinched at how deep your voice sounded. It sounded nothing like how you remembered it to be—could you even forget the sound of your own voice?—and you thought that maybe all this filth was finally getting to you, maybe you were going insane because you were still at school at such a late hour, heck, maybe the Gods themselves have spoken to you, when you realized that it wasn't not actually your voice, that there was another person, a boy, standing behind you, reading over your shoulder.

Eyes wide, you turned around to come face-to-face with a dark-haired boy. Your first thought was: How long has he been standing there? How did I not notice him until now? And your second thought was: Oh god, I must look like a monster to him with all the dirt on me. What kind of girl hangs out after school in the dumpster, anyway? And your third thought was: ... He's kind of cute.

The boy tore his eyes away from your book and looked up at you. "You like Greek mythology?"

You stared at him stunned for a few minutes. Not a "What are you doing here so late?" and not even "Why are you so dirty?" but instead he asked if you liked Greek mythology. A smile made its way onto your dirt-filled face and you nodded to answer his question, because if he didn't care about how you looked, then you didn't either.

"Cool," he said, and the only thing cool you could think of right now was him. He walked over to you and sat down beside you on the ground, back leaning against the dumpster. You had to strain your eyes to make out his outline because he was almost completely surrounded by darkness with his black T-shirt and dark jeans. "I'm Nico."

His comment didn't even completely register in your head; all you could think of at the moment was how anyone could willingly join someone on the ground beside a garbage bin and act so casual about it, as if there was nothing wrong. He finally noticed you staring at him, because he leaned over until he was so close that you could feel his breath tickling your cheeks.

"I think this is the part where you tell me your name." He was smirking at you and blood immediately rushed to your cheeks. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice in the darkness of the night.

"I'm (Name). What are you doing here so late?" You finally found your voice again.

He shrugged and leaned back. "My sister has an archery club meeting and I have to wait for her before I can go home." He paused and glanced up at you. "What are you doing here?"

You looked down nervously. "Um, I lost my book and when I checked the lost-and-found, they said they threw it out, so I had to search for it myself..."

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. You turned away, trying not to look at him, and the two of you sat in an awkward silence for what seemed like forever. Something told you that Nico didn't think that you were weird for digging through the dumpster, but then why did he stop talking? Slowly, you glanced back at him to ask him what was wrong, why he suddenly fell silent, who exactly was he, when you noticed the space beside you was now empty.

You didn't even realize that Nico had left.

-xXx-

The next time the two of you meet, it was a few weeks later when you were wearing more decent clothes and you were glad the setting didn't take place by the dumpster again.

This time, you were in the library volunteering after school like you were almost every day, helping check out and return books for customers. It has been peaceful so far today with not that many people coming into the library, so you were the only one on duty while the other workers took their break. On days like these, you could basically monitor everyone in the room; the workaholic who was in the back studying even though there were no tests coming up, the gamers who were using the library computers because their parents were limiting their internet usage at home, and so on.

You could also watch everyone who walked in and out of the door. When a black-haired girl came in, you smiled at her politely and nodded towards the books in her hands. "Are you returning those?"

She nodded back somewhat shyly and handed them over for you to scan. You put the books aside when you were done and expected her to walk away, but instead, you found her staring directly at you, her head tilted to the side with a thoughtful expression on her face. It wasn't exactly a creepy look, but you were starting to get uncomfortable.

"Uh, is something wrong?" You asked.

She was slow to react, but she blinked and shook her head and she was about to walk away when she stopped so abruptly that you almost flinched. You could practically see the light bulb go off in her head as she turned around again. "You're in my English class, aren't you? At the school from across the street?"

This time, you were the one who's shocked, but when you thought back to the class that you had only a few hours ago, you realized that she was right and that she sat a few rows in front of you; the teacher always read her work aloud and you were always amazed at her approach to essay writing. "Yeah, Mr. Brunner's class, right?"

The girl nodded enthusiastically. "I'm Bianca." After you've introduced yourself, she asked, "What do you think of the new unit?"

"I really like mythology, so I think it's going to be a fun unit. Especially Greek mythology. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo—they're all just so interesting." You had to stop yourself before you started to sound too nerdy. Once you began talking about Greek mythology, you could never stop.

Fortunately, though, the girl didn't seem to mind. She beamed and her dark eyes sparkled. "I know! My brother and I started learning about them when we were little and there just never seems to be enough information on the gods."

"I'd really like to meet your brother, then," you said, smiling.

And you did get to meet him, because in less than a second, there was a boy standing beside her who seemed to have walked in without you noticing. His hair was a lot messier than the girl's, but it was obvious by how both of them were so pale that they could easily be mistaken as a ghost in the night that they were related.

"Nice to meet you," he said casually, a small smirk playing on his lips, "again."

You blinked. "Do I know you?"

He mock-gasped. "Don't tell me you've already forgotten, Trash Girl."

Blood rushed to your cheeks as they walked deeper into the library and picked out books they wanted to take home. The two of them left after that, leaving you to think about the boy's comment for the rest of the day. Honestly, what kind of nickname was Trash Girl? Just because you dug through the dumpster once before didn't mean—oh. That day, while you were looking for your book, a boy came out of nowhere, quite like how the boy appeared in the library, which must mean he was...

"Nico," you whispered quietly to yourself.

And let me tell you: You certainly didn't mean to fall for Nico di Angelo at the time. But things happened.

-xXx-

It was a simple crush, you thought. A phase. It would eventually pass.

It didn't.

It has been another few weeks since you last saw Nico and his sister at the library, but you haven't been able to get them out of your mind. Sometimes, when you were having a bad day after completely flunking a major test or forgetting your lunch money at home, you would see Nico in the halls and he would wave at you, or even stop to make a conversation. The two of you would talk until the bell rang for class to start and you would be smiling uncontrollably for the rest of the day.

Today was one of those days.

"What's wrong?" The girl in the desk beside yours asked. "You've been smiling the entire period. It's getting kind of creepy."

You scowled. "Shut up." But the smile was still undeniably there on your lips and you were starting to creep yourself out at how fast your heart was racing at the mere thought of the boy dressed in all black, with his messy hair and occasional teasing about the first day you met and damnit, what was wrong with you?

A few days later, when you've finally managed to settle your heart down a bit, he wormed his way back into your life and all those hours of meditation and calming yourself down was suddenly useless. You were taking a walk one Saturday afternoon, simply enjoying the first set of snowflakes that are falling from the sky as they began to cover the trees, driveways, and buildings with their magical holiday greeting.

You were in a trance as you took in the winter wonderland around you, watching the squirrels quickly collect nuts to store for the cold weather that was coming, and the birds that filled the sky, migrating south, and the—

BANG! BANG!

—the hammering coming from your left that was interrupting your thoughts and ruining the beautiful scenery. A frown settled on your face as you walked towards the sound, both out of curiosity and annoyance.

You followed your ears into a forest and up ahead, you could see a large pile of neatly chopped wood planks with a girl kneeling on the ground, hammering two pieces of wood together. Twigs snapped and leaves crunched under your feet as you walked towards the girl, eyeing her work with newfound interest as she continued diligently. You could tell that she knew you were there, but was too focused on what she was doing to care.

"Bianca!" A voice came from behind you and both you and the girl turned around simultaneously to see a boy. "Oh, hi (name). What are you doing here?"

At first, you didn't recognize him but soon, your eyes lit up because there was no way that you could mistake his messy hair, his dark eyes, and his choice of black clothing; immediately, your heart started fluttering and your breath caught in your throat. In front of you stood Nico di Angelo, who was still waiting for an answer.

You quickly recovered and spoke up. "I just followed the sound of hammering and it led me here."

Nico was holding a few pieces of wood, hugging them close to his chest, and you could see that he was sweating from the heavy load. He nodded and placed the wood gently on the ground, taking out another hammer and began working with another set of planks, just like Bianca. "We're making a tree house." He gestured towards the extra set of materials. "Wanna help?"

You glanced over at Bianca, who smiled and nodded encouragingly at you.

"Okay."

Although you knew you were far too old for this and the last time you built a tree house was when you were still in elementary school, you sat down with them anyway.

-xXx-

For the next few weeks, your afternoons were spent with the di Angelo siblings in the forest, working on the tree house. The three of you did everything by yourselves; it was a miracle that the result wasn't lopsided and that it didn't topple over. When it was done, however, it was surprisingly cozy inside and there was a lot of room for you to move around and play games.

During the time you spent together with Nico and Bianca, you became good friends with them, even if they did tend to pop out of nowhere quite often and stare the hell out of you. (You made a mental note of inviting them over to work on a haunted house next year for Halloween.) You also shared a lot of interests with them, such as Greek mythology, and found out that Nico was even nerdier than you and that if you ever needed to go hunting, Bianca would be the first person you'd call because her archery skills were simply amazing (well, before she threatened to aim an arrow at your head).

Now, almost every weekend, you would go and meet Nico and Bianca in the tree house. As you climbed up the steps to the entrance, you knocked on the door and heard Bianca answer from the other side. "Three questions."

You smiled, remembering the routine. It was sort of like a password; the questions had to be related to Greek mythology somehow and only the three of you would know the questions because you were fairly sure that no one else was this informed about the gods and goddess as you were.

"First question: Who is the uncle of more than half the gods?" Bianca asked.

"Hades."

"Aphrodite's love powers affect everyone but whom?"

"Artemis."

"Who was the first mortal woman?"

"Pandora."

The door swung open and you were welcomed into the tree house. As you were about to walk in, your foot slipped and you found yourself falling down, head-first. You reached out to try and grab a branch, a piece of wood, anything to stop your fall, but you were met with nothing but air; you cursed because you could feel yourself going faster now and you made the mistake of looking down because you head was only a few metres away from going splat—

—and then you stopped.

Looking up, you saw that Nico had his hand around your wrist and he caught you right before you were going to get a concussion. You took a deep breath of relief and let him pull you up. Once you were safe again, you shut your eyes for a few minutes before you tackled Nico into a hug and thanked him repeatedly.

He brushed it off and pushed you away gently, adverting his eyes away from you. "I—uh, I'll get something for us to eat." He turned away from you and started climbing down the tree, but you were almost certain that you saw the tips of his ears turn red.

When he was completely out of sight, Bianca leaned over to you and whispered with a wide grin, "I think Nico likes you."

You almost choked.

-xXx-

"Hey."

You yelped and spun around when you heard a voice calling from behind you. "You seriously have to stop doing that, Nico," you said, glaring at your friend. The boy was smiling innocently at you and faked ignorance.

"Stop doing what? Saying hi?"

"Stop sneaking up out of nowhere!"

"And give up the chance to scare you to death?" He smirked. "I don't think so."

You sighed and gave up on the argument. There were times when Nico was completely unsociable and times, like this one, when he cracked jokes with ease. At first, you were surprised, but eventually, you got used to his bipolar behavior and not-so-constant teasing.

"So when are we going to the tree house again?" You changed the topic to something that didn't focus on you.

He blinked in surprise and looked away quickly—a bit too quickly. "Um... I'll talk to Bianca and then I'll tell you." After that, he excused himself and left, mumbling about having something to do. You stared after him, confused, but shrugged it off.

It was only later that you realized he lied about talking to Bianca and going to the tree house.

-xXx-

"Nico, you never come to the tree house anymore."

The boy in front of you looked away and found sudden interest on the ground. "Yeah."

"Why?"

He was silent for a while. "... It was getting awkward."

You frowned, confused. "How is it awkward? Your sister and I are the only other people who go there." When he said nothing, you continued. "Did something happen between you and Bianca?" He shook his head, still avoiding eye-contact. "Then are you mad at me for something?"

There was another long pause. "Kind of."

At this point, you started to get angry at how unresponsive he is. "What did I do then?" You demanded with a bitter tone. "I hardly even talked to you these past weeks. How could I have done anything to you if we never spend time together anymore?"

"I don't know, okay?" He snapped back. "Bianca's been on my case about this too and I'm just tired of being interrogated all the time. Whenever I'm with you, I get this weird feeling in my stomach and it never goes away and I just don't know."

You blinked in surprise at his harsh words. "So you've been avoiding me because you're sick?"

"No! I'm not sick!"

"But you said—"

"Forget what I said!" Nico took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "I'm not sick, I don't have a stomach ache or a fever; nothing's wrong with me! It's you. The reason I stopped going to the tree house is because of you."

You were taken aback at how he was blaming you for something you didn't even know you did. "Well, what did I do wrong? Tell me."

For the first time since the conversation started, Nico looked you in the eye. "You made me fall in love with you." The words came out as a whisper, barely audible, and it took you a few seconds to register what he was saying. By now, his gaze was on something else again, but you knew from the look he gave you that he was telling the truth.

"What?" You murmured.

"I—" He looked like he was at war with himself and maybe he was about to say it again, but decided against it. "Nothing."

And then he walked away, leaving you to stare after him, eyes wide in disbelief, as you began to realize that Bianca had been right all along.

-xXx-

For the next month or so, you didn't see Nico even once.

It was as if he was avoiding you on purpose (which he probably was) and you couldn't even count the number of times you mistook someone for the black-haired boy. To say you missed him would be an understatement.

It wasn't long before the teachers got worried as well.

"(Name), can you stay after class for a while?" Your teacher asked you and you nodded nervously and waited for the other students to leave the classroom. The teacher looked you in the eye with a worried expression. "You've noticed that Nico hasn't come to school for the past month, right?" Your eyes widened slightly at the news; you knew that he was avoiding you, but you didn't know that he's been ditching school altogether. "Do you know if something happened?"

You thought about this. You used to know everything about Nico, you used to be able to predict his actions, he used to tell you about his problems, but not this time; this time, you had to spend countless nights lying in bed, trying to figure it all out yourself. Sure, you had an idea, but you still don't know why.

"I'm not sure, sir," you replied to your teacher. "You should ask his sister Bianca."

It was useless advice, you knew. You've tried to ask Bianca multiple times already, but all she said was that you should ask Nico, and that's exactly what you want to do, if you could just find him.

The teacher sighed and dismissed you.

-xXx-

It's been a while, you greeted the tree house as you made a detour on your way home. No one has gone up here for a long time and you thought it was sad that all your hard work has gone to waste in only a few months. The di Angelos, who used to be your best friends, were never around anymore and although you chatted with Bianca occasionally, it was never like how it was before.

For some reason, you got the urge to revisit your old memories at the tree house. You reached out a hand to touch the old pieces of wood and when you turned around, you could almost see the three of you laughing while working on this, but when you blinked, the image was gone and you were reminded of the cold, hard truth of losing your friends again.

You climbed up the steps slowly, remembering all the times you had to bandage your fingers because you hammered them by accident; the time when you slipped and almost fell, when Nico caught you; the times when you could make easy conversations, the times that you wanted to go back to.

To your surprise, when you reached the top, the door was locked. You jiggled the doorknob, thinking that it might just be jammed, but it was shut tightly, and you started to panic a bit because this was the only place that could really help you remember how everything was before the incident with Nico and you just wouldn't know what to do if you couldn't come here anymore.

On the other side of the door, you heard some shuffling and you realized that someone else was in there; someone who has locked you out, someone who took over the tree house, someone who—

"Three questions."

—someone who sounded a lot like Nico.

"What does the goddess Aphrodite represent?"

This was a no-brainer for you. "Love."

"What is something the gods are too prideful to say?"

This one, you had to think about for a minute. "Sorry."

"Last question." You heard him take a deep breath. "Can someone like Hades love and be loved?"

Your eyes widened as you realized that this was Nico's own special way of telling you his true feelings, telling you sorry for everything that happened in the past few months, and asking you for permission to be his girlfriend. Your heart skipped a beat and you felt the corners of your mouth tugging upwards.

"Yes," you breathed out.

The door to the tree house slowly opened.

-xXx-

You and Nico went way back.

It was nothing like a fairytale story, but that was okay. It didn't have to be perfect; you weren't perfect and neither was Nico, and although there were still misunderstandings at times, although the tree house was eventually destroyed, the two of you were just like the immortal gods:

Forever.

A/N: Requested by The-Seam.

I rewrote this so many times, you don't even understand, which is why I didn't reread and revise it, so excuse the mistakes. I honestly have no idea how this turned out... but this was my first ever reader-insert and it's probably the longest chapter I've ever written. And I'm not sure if I got Bianca's personality right because it's been a while since I've read the earlier books. In fact, I'm not sure about quite a few things in this story...

Just a question: Do you guys prefer OC stories or reader-inserts?

I have a lot more Percy Jackson story ideas, so look forward to those! The HoH book really got me back into this fandom. :D (Any Caleo fans?)

~Madin456.