The Secret of an Athena Kid (one shot)

It's a headcanon ok

Disclaimer: all characters belong to Rick Riordan

"Hey Mal, you're always welcomed in the Hephaestus cabin, you know I love the company, but when are you gonna tell them, bro?" Leo asked.

Malcolm widened his grey eyes, a little reluctant to reply. He didn't really plan to tell his half-siblings at all. He had been hanging around Leo for a while. He had been visiting Leo's underground chamber a lot too. He wasn't particularly interested in the gadgets or the new inventions, he just enjoyed hanging out with the son of Hephaestus there, reading graphic novels all afternoon, knowing that he wouldn't get caught by his half-siblings.

He shook his head. "They cannot know about this, the whole Athena cabin would definitely freak out if they did."

Leo was one of the few demigods who knew about his secret. The other demigods wouldn't see it as a big deal, though that was actually the reason why Malcolm worried about them making a slip of the tongue and letting the Athena kids know by accident. Part of him felt that he should be ashamed of himself, how would the children of Athena react? He wondered if Athena would be bothered as well. Everyone knew about the mutual fear that all Athena kids shared. He was the only one who didn't have that in common with his half-siblings.

Malcolm walked up to Leo's bookcase and took out a comic book. "My guilty pleasure." he said as he waved it, "It's what sets me apart from them. You may not think it's important, but this is very serious to children of Athena."

Leo rolled his eyes. "Gods, your half-siblings won't hate you because of this. Sure, they might think you've lost your mind, but they'll accept it! It's okay to be different. Plus reading is especially encouraged by you nerds, right?"

"You know it's not about reading comic books and graphic novels, a few other Athena kids read them too. It's about-"

"Yeah, yeah, you've been telling me all about that since day one. You're not afraid of spiders and blah blah blah. Self-discovery and stuff. I don't need to hear your life story again. You gotta quit leaving them in the dark, man. They're bound to figure out why you're always sneaking into this cabin."

"Self-discovery? Life story? And you think I'm the one exaggerating." He raised his eyebrows. Leo just shrugged in reply.

Malcolm didn't like spiders, but he was never afraid of them. He would always be the one to get rid of them in the Athena cabin since the other Athena kids wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.

"I guess I'll tell them eventually, but not today. We'll discuss this later, alright? I'm meeting up with Lacy for Pegasus riding in half an hour and I really want to finish this issue." He sat down on a bean bag chair and began reading.

"I still dunno what the big deal is, but it's your secret, so do whatever you want with it." Leo replied, he sat down on the bean bag chair beside the son of Athena with another graphic novel. "Holy Hephaestus, dude. I never thought you'd be a huge fan of Spider-Man."

Malcolm grinned. It was true, Spider-Man had always been his favourite superhero, he looked up to him a lot. He had been reading comic books and graphic novels since he was little. He had loads of Spider-Man comic books, Spider-Man action figures and other Spider-Man merchandise back home, but he didn't dare bring any of them to Camp Half-Blood, fearing that the other Athena kids would find out. All children of Athena were very reasonable, but they would freak out about spiders and spider-related things.

"Well I never thought you'd read and collect hundreds of Marvel and DC comic books. Thanks for lending some of them to me, by the way."

Leo chuckled. "No problem, dude. We fanboys need to stick together."