Leo Valdez x Reader

I Didn't Know...

"So you can summon fire?" I asked Leo, waiting in line for a bus ticket back to New York. Nyssa had gone to the bathroom, so it was just me and Leo.

"Yea. It's a curse that some of the kids of Hephaestus get. It's extremely rare though," he replied.

"Why a curse?"

"Well, people who have it never have good stories. You know? Like they get this cool power, but then their lives are cursed," he said, looking away.

"Did something happen to you? Like, involving the curse?" I asked.

"Well—last summer, six other demigods and I had to sail to Rome, Greece, and back to Camp. And we also had to sail to Camp Jupiter, which is a Roman version of ours. There were three Roman and four Greek demigods, sailing on the Argo II. It got destroyed though in our attempt to defeat the earth goddess, Gaea. Nico, Jason, Piper, Hazel, Frank, Percy, and Annabeth are the ones who were the most involved. Nico wasn't part of the seven, but he helped us so much."

I'd heard all those names before, from gossip and people talking. I'd heard a lot about the story of the Earth goddess, and the whole war the summer before.

"I uh—well on this quest I fell into this island called Ogygia, where a goddess named Calypso was trapped. She was cursed to stay on the island and fall in love with anyone who came to the island, and so I promised to come back for her. Part of the prophecy was "an oath to keep with final breath" and so I swore on the River Styx I'd come back for her."

My heart took a dive into the underworld. I hoped my face wasn't showing it, because my heart was shattered. But what was I doing? I'd only known him a couple of days and I was already expecting that he liked me. I mentally slapped and chastised myself.

"So I grabbed the goddess with my dragon and raised her into the air so that she would weaken away from her home. When I was high enough, I told my best friends, Piper and Jason, to let go of my dragon. They escaped, and then an explosion triggered and the earth goddess and I exploded."

"But how are you still alive? If you disintegrated an earth goddess, how are you still here?"

"I used the physicians' cure. It can cure death. I had my Festus inject it into me after I died, and when I woke up I was flying into Ogygia. I took Calypso onto my dragon, and we flew away from the island. But then, the curse broke. And when the curse broke, she fell out of love with me. She demanded to be dropped off elsewhere, so I dropped her off wherever she wanted to go and I flew back to camp. I was um—I was pretty upset. But I guess I should've seen it coming. Hera told me that I was meant to be the seventh wheel. I guess I didn't think that meant forever."

I didn't know what to say. Leo had been through so much and I felt like he had no room for me inside him.

"Leo—my gods. I'm so sorry," I said.

"Thanks. But that's not even the end. My childhood really just tops the sundae," he said, laughing a laugh that was one people only expressed when the situation was so awful they could only laugh.

"What do you mean?" I asked. It was a lot for me to analyze.

"Gaea made me murder my mom. She made me set my mom's machine shop on fire, and Gaea locked the door so my mom couldn't escape. My mom burned to death because of me, y/n. And that's why I killed Gaea the way I did. Nobody I cared about was ever going to die at my hands again. And I wasn't going to let Mrs. Potty Sludge win her stupid war."

"That perra."

"Whoa! I didn't know you were one to curse."

"When someone hurts people I care about, I get serious."

He laughed again, but this time there was joy behind it.

"You're cute when you're defensive," he said.

"You're cute, even when you're defensive," I said, praying to anything that I didn't cross a line.

Then Leo kissed me. On the lips.