You'll Learn to Love Me (Leo Valdez x OC)

Chapter 6: Chicago and Drains

"Cyclopes!" Jason shouted as he woke up.

"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Laylana was directly in front of him, leaning on Leo who sat in front, driving. She was still asleep, not stirring at Jason's shouting. "Keep it down. Laylana is still asleep." 

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

Jason's head throbbed. He remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over him—a face with one eye, a massive fist—and everything went black.

"How did you—the Cyclops—"

"Leo and Laylana ripped them apart," Piper said. "She kept them hidden the whole time. She kept throwing her daggers and taunting the Cyclopes'. You should've seen Leo too, he was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

And she did—how Leo and Laylana defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. Jason was impressed. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit and Laylana's shadows? Not bad. 

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I—I know... but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Leo cleared his throat. "About that... she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

Jason wasn't sure he'd heard that right. "Did you say... Porta-Potty?"

Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.' I also think Laylana would've killed me if I tried to leave."

"You're damn straight I would've." Laylana grumbled, leaning up and stretching her arms out, wincing slightly at the pain in her ribs. "Good to see you're awake and alive, Jason." 

"You too, Jackson. I heard about what you did at the Cyclopes den." 

"Oh that? That was nothing. I was just following Leo's lead." Laylana smiled a bit sheepishly.

"Nah, without you I probably would've died." Leo looked back at her with a grin. "You kept me hidden long enough. And gave me enough of a distraction to finish what I was working on." 

"Hey at least you had a plan. I was just gonna go in swinging and hope for the best." 

"Well you didn't get injured or die when you were running circles around them."