Chapter Text
***
“I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.”
***
Well, fuck.
Leo pressed a hand against the exterior chamber of one of the ship’s roaring engines, the thrum of the core reactor like a heartbeat in his ears and responding steadily to his touch. Festus whirred and chirped beside him, but Leo waved him off. “It’s fine. I know what I’m doing,”
Which, by all accounts, should be true, given that he had built the ship himself. But, despite all the back-breaking work and effort Leo had put into the ship, the damn Argo was constantly giving him shit. He wagged a finger at the metal, pointing at it accusatorily. “Don’t talk back to me,” He murmured, scrunching up his nose.
It was never meant to be a fighter, but Leo put in an intense amount of work into making it one. Long, tiring nights had been spent installing the best shields he could both build and afford after scouring markets for decent parts, not to mention the amount of odd jobs he had to take to equip it with as powerful blasters as he could manage. Apparently, the Argo disagreed with its line of work. Really ungrateful, if you asked Leo.
The core was steady at least, the beat of it drumming, but Leo could tell there was more wrong than it was letting on. He could feel it, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, a wound underneath the surface of his skin.
“Festus, run system diagnostics,” Leo ordered, listening closely to the smooth hum of the engines, racking the air without rattling the ship too harshly. He was practically inside the floor, crammed between the core reactor and the ship’s engines. For any regular person, it was an impossibly dangerous place to be while the ship was still running.
Leo was not a regular person.
He rolled his sleeves up, shiny blue oil coating his hands and staining his tank top from the hours of work he’s already put in. He slicked back his curly hair, pressing his hands against the hot metal side of the machine, feeling for any small discrepancy as Festus beeped at him, feeding Leo any information he couldn’t discern with his eyes or ears.
“Weapon’s are fucked… shit,” Leo huffed, digging further through the metal and pulling out the plasma cannons’ inner workings. The coolants were shot, and Leo would have to repair them fast before the Navy caught up to him again.
For Caldera’s sake, why now-?
Festus beeped anxiously, crouching over the engines’ hatch and gently bumping Leo’s shoulder with his metal snout.
“I’m not goin’ planetside. We’re wanted everywhere on this side of the galaxy, and I’m not plannin’ on stoppin’ until we’re out of it,” Leo snapped, handling canisters that glowed orange with their overheated contents. He ran a hand over it, tracing the faint grooves in the steel where the platings fit together like puzzle pieces. Coolant leaked out onto his fingers, bright magenta and steaming. He hissed in frustration as the pointed ends of his ears tilted downward, ignoring the pinpricks of pain from the chemicals.
Fucking Navy and their ion blasters.
“I’m the best damn engineer in the galaxy anyway. If anyone can fix it, it’s gonna be me,” Leo added. No one worked on the Argo except for him, and it was a fairly simple repair anyway. If they had the proper supplies.
Which, as Festus was reminding him, they didn’t.
Leo groaned, bumping his head against the wall. He worked the cannon back into place, adjusting the flow of the ship’s climate control until the coolant turned to a bright yellow, still a smidge off from the neon Leo was looking for. A temporary fix, and it wouldn’t last for long in a battle. He could maybe mess with the insulation further, but other systems would suffer for it.
He could rely on evasive flying for now, but there wasn’t much telling whether or not the coolant would hold up long enough to get home, even without firing shots.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Leo whispered harshly, and the ship’s indifferent metal walls echoed the words back at him.
Admittedly, Leo probably loved the Argo more than it was healthy. He got borderline offended whenever someone dared to even brush against its paint job. He had poured every spare second of his time into making sure it was in perfect shape, he wouldn’t rest if even a single screw was out of place. He depended on it as much as it depended on him, and he was careful to ensure it was a fair partnership. But right now? Leo felt like abandoning the ship for scrap.
He hated going planetside.
Not that Leo was particularly fond of the recycled air or the confined spaces that came with being a pilot, but there was a certain freedom that came with being off the ground. Landing meant sacrificing his ability to run, tied him to the ground and trapped him without any way to escape. On land, his path ended at the horizon, nowhere left to run if things went wrong. Among the stars, the only limits he had were his mission and his fuel tank.
Being a pilot pretty much ensured him that freedom, plus it kept him surrounded by the familiar machinery he so craved and adored, only his engineering work taking priority over his flights. The only downside- besides the active warrants and getting shot at- was that a need to land always came eventually.
Planets meant people. And people meant bounty hunters, Navy officers, and opportunistic criminals. Not ideal for someone who works for one of the biggest threats to the Terra Firma Empire. There was a lot of money on his head, and there’s always at least one person out there who’s desperate enough to risk something for it.
But as much as Leo wanted to be stubborn, to tell Festus to stay at light speed and hope for the best as they made their way home, he could feel the pain the damage was causing. And because being a good engineer was one of the few things he could still pride himself on, he knew better than to ask too much of his ship.
He scowled, one hand pulling at his already oil-soaked hair.
Festus made a very smug chirp, already knowing the conclusion Leo’s come to. Leo half-heartedly chucked a hammer at the droid, shooting a glare at him. Festus scrambled out of the way, claws pattering against the metal floor. He hopped up towards the cockpit, chattering in self-righteous annoyance.
Leo sighed, climbing out of the hatch and kicking the door closed with a little more force than strictly necessary, a loud clang then click as it locked shut. He examined himself in the metallic sheen of the ship’s walls, eyebrows furrowed.
His skin was covered with blotchy fiery reds and oranges, like he had pools of magma running through his veins instead of blood. The coloration made it even harder to see his already faint markings, dark freckles that covered his flushed cheeks, adrenaline still coursing through his veins from evading Navy cruisers.
Leo deflated a little, dropping the defensive posture he’d adopted. It probably wasn’t the best idea to land while looking like a walking volcano. He took a deep breath, calming himself until his skin turned back into a dark reddish-orangey-brown. A few bags under his eyes, but nothing extreme, nothing that would stand out in a crowd, except for the bucket’s worth of oil he’s managed to coat himself in. He climbed into the cockpit, half-heartedly attempting to rid himself of all the grime as he went.
He settled in his captain’s chair, screwing his eyes shut with a small sigh. The cold metal armrests dug into his skin, cooling him off as his frustration slowly dissipated. He cracked his knuckles absent-mindedly, eyes scanning over the screens that surrounded the controls.
Festus climbed up next to the control panel, flapping his metallic wings excitedly, apparently deciding that he’s forgiven Leo for his latest transgression against what must be the most perfect droid ever created. He circled a few times before nestling himself in his charging station, blinking up at Leo expectantly.
Leo sucked in a breath, scanning the holographic map for nearby planets, swiping away the desolate ones and zooming in on a large planet with a promising population. Decent atmospheric make-up, and a big enough port to warrant a mechanic. No doubt it had connections to the Navy, most planets of that size did, but Leo didn’t really have a choice. If the coolant wasn’t fixed, the cannons might overheat and detonate.
And, given past experiences, Leo was swiftly learning that explosions weren’t really his thing.
Festus beeped rhythmically, spelling out a name as a transmission request flashed on screen. Leo grimaced, a small pit of dread forming in his stomach at the alert, groaning as he checked his transmitter.
Leo carefully weighed his options: Either answer Piper and be forced to make a very unpleasant mission report while thoroughly sleep-deprived, or probably get the shit kicked out of him when he got home for not answering their calls.
As enticing option two was, Leo knew better by now than to let his crewmates worry, and he was fairly certain that his probation requirements constituted the check-in anyway.
He sighed loudly for the third time in ten minutes, hitting his head against the console a few times before sitting back up, plastering on a grin as the transmission started.
A view of Piper’s room quickly took up the majority of the windshield, Piper themself sitting idly at their desk with her feet propped up on its surface. Leo continued to scroll through the planet’s information as she flashed a lazy smile at him.
“What’s up?” Leo asked, typing the coordinates into Festus’ autopilot program. He listened to the gears click as his processors whirred, giving Festus a pat on the head for his efforts.
“Nothing much. Politics been keeping me busy, have a thing with Hazel later. Gotta say, though, I missed your ugly face today,” Piper grinned, clearly proud of themself for that one. Not that ‘ugly’ meant much in comparison to someone like Piper. The pretty wing colors didn’t hurt either.
Leo rolled his eyes, giving her an unimpressed look. At least the insults were usually more creative than this. Maybe it would’ve had more bite if he had been back home, less of a restless tone beneath it.
“But what about you? Did anything interesting happen?” She continued, deep brown eyes flashing with the usual glint of mischief that made people think they were siblings, too akin in their own brands of troublemaking to not be cosmically aligned in some way. Leo loved when those trouble-making eyes turned on him, a reckless look that promised fun. Usually. Not so much, as of late.
“Nah, just hurtling towards my death as usual. Has the Navy gotten pissier since I’ve been gone, or is it just me?” Leo mused, flashing a toothy grin at the camera that Piper didn’t return.
Piper leaned back in her chair, eyebrow raised at Leo’s casual admittance of failing anything resembling stealth, a qualification that really should’ve eliminated him as a contender for this mission in the first place. Not that they didn’t try. “Told you to take me with you. Only Leo Valdez could turn a simple transport into a battle,” Piper teased, upper pair of arms crossed against their chest, the lower typing rapidly at something Leo couldn’t see.
The grounds of their HQ were bustling with movement in the window behind them, orange badges, training blasters, and what looked suspiciously like smoke flashing by. He didn’t bother to point out that taking Piper with him would have defeated the point of a trial run, eyes lingering on her backdrop before turning back to them.
Leo shrugged, not letting his smile fall. “I do my best. How’s Princey doing?”
Piper shrugged back, and two pairs of shoulders made the motion a little dizzying. “Percy’s handling it. Nico’s tough- a great diplomat, as far as they go. Solace is insisting on a few more check-ins before they clear him, though,” She brushed dark hair behind studded and feathered ears, their usually loose hair neatly braided. Probably heading into a negotiations meeting, then. She could talk a fleet captain into giving her the keys to a cruiser.
“Cool. And Annabeth?”
“Our captain’s as badass as ever. You know ‘Beth. She says to hurry your butt back or we’ll miss a mission. And you know how long I’ve been waitin’ for us to get an assignment together,'' Piper smiled, voice full of playful excitement, almost wistful, but there was still a hint of worry in their eyes. Leo tried not to feel too bad about it, ignored it when he saw it. He knew that the others weren’t entirely comfortable with him going on solo missions yet, not after last time.
It only slightly offended him.
But still, the prospect of going on a real mission with Piper was enough to make his smile a little more genuine. He twisted the chain of his necklace around his fingers, a silent reminder that he’d be home in just a few short hours, his last test over and done with.
“I’ll be there soon. Just g-gotta make a pit stop,” Leo replied, the planet coming into view as he cruised toward it. He couldn’t go too fast, or the stabilizer on the ship might fall off. More parts the empire owed him for. Leo just hoped that one day he could collect on that debt.
Piper frowned, her colors shifting a million different shades, fuschia to green to vermilion. “A pit stop?”
“Don’t even w-worry about it, Pipes. I’ll be in and out,” Leo reassured them, petting Festus’ metallic wings as he guided the ship, easing it into orbit. Festus beeped, nudging himself into view of the camera, trying to sneak a peek at Piper. Leo pushed him back down.
Mostly because Piper didn’t look particularly convinced. In all honesty, Leo wasn’t either.
“It’ll be fine. The Argo’s the best ship we’ve got, and I’m a good pilot. I just need some supplies, that’s it,” Leo said, not entirely paying attention to Piper’s reaction as he pulled up the cloaking system. He was a great pilot, actually. The best they had. They could trust him.
Leo re-examined the controls and checked the cloak, not that he needed to, he knew every system like he knew himself, but having something to distract his perpetually racing mind felt good. He pulled up the planet’s information on his screen, eyes scanning the article.
The planet was, in fact, Imperial property, but they had work arounds for that. Leo and Annabeth had built those work arounds, actually.
“Supplies for what?”
“R-Repairs,” Leo answered innocently, both knowing full well that Leo would never land unless it was an emergency. They also knew that they had protocols for emergencies. And landing on an empire owned planet was not one of them.
He could see Piper’s posture straighten dramatically, their furrowed brow and flashing colors more than enough to vocalize her immediate concern.
“Leo, I swear to Praxiteles-“
“Oh, wow, look at the time, I have to feed Festus-“
“Festus doesn’t eat, Leonidas-!“
“Bye, love ya!” Leo forced a grin, ending the transmission. Piper immediately started spamming him with transmission requests, but Leo elected to ignore it, shutting down communications for the time-being.
The port was getting closer, and Leo snuck in behind a colossal cargo ship, clinging to the back of it as they entered the bustling port. The cargo ship landed heavily down on the ground, warm yellow dust coming up from the impact and obscuring the Argo from view as Leo detached from the larger vehicle. Leo discreetly piloted to a remote corner of the port, keeping the cloaking system online as he climbed out of the ship’s more subtle emergency exit, hopping onto the sandy ground.
The air was cool and the ground well-trodden by hundreds of pairs of boots, the port filled with crews loading and off-loading volatile looking containers onto armored ships. The sun, while not obscenely warm, beat down on the ports, creating glittering paths that hurt to look at. The dirt beneath him was gold-colored, a shiny metallic sand that reflected the planet’s sun, reminding Leo briefly of Solace during one of his lectures. Another reminder not to let their medic know how risky he’d been flying.
He shielded his eyes against the glare, squinting as he navigated his way through the loud shipyard. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the planet, a stark contrast to the dim lighting aboard the Argo, but the sun felt pleasant enough on his skin, and it wasn’t so bad once the clouds moved in.
He wrapped his green flight jacket around himself, hands shoved in his pockets and ears dipping downwards as he took in his surroundings. The port led to a city, towering in size and crowded in population. The planet’s streets were bustling with activity, with people hurrying along to get ready for the day, not paying Leo any mind as they went about their business.
Most folk were feathered or furred, but the population felt remarkably diverse. He felt a little jealous as he watched groups meander past, obscenely tall and speaking amiably to a group of hovering insectoids above them. The only consistent trait among these people seemed to be size.
It seemed like lots of creatures flew here too, sometimes winged and sometimes hovering, perching on rooftops and moving with purpose across the bridges that connected them. The architecture itself was eye-catching, something a certain captain he knew could appreciate. The buildings were tall with entrances both at ground level and several feet above, holes in the structures so people could fly easily through the winding cities, creative solutions to the overwhelming foot traffic that Leo himself never would’ve thought of.
Annabeth definitely would’ve loved it here.
It was one of prettier planets Leo’s visited, with vibrant green plant life crawling up buildings and pleasant weather. The air itself smelt like sunshine, warm and reassuring as he let himself be pulled along the current.
Festus beeped at him, a helpful reminder that there wasn’t much time to look around. Maybe next time, if a mission ever brought him back here long enough for a tour. Leo was curious about the engineering work it took to maintain such a populated city. He’d love to look around and find out.
Well.
Maybe not, considering Leo couldn’t take five steps without spotting a Navy insignia. He stared at the gold and green symbol adorning the tight knit buildings, a familiar tightening in his chest that’s been dulled by experience and time. Leo pulled his hood up, keeping his gaze down as he passed the officers, pretending he didn’t notice the bounties projected on the walls and his friend’s names among them.
It wasn’t hard to find the shopping district at least, with the help of Festus’ map easing the journey. Leo kept Festus in his more portable mode as he traversed the roads, the tiny version of the droid occasionally peeking out from underneath his shirt, his larger body left charging on the ship.
The market stalls and lines of stores proved to be loud and grating on his ears as people haggled and vendors debated prices. He winced as he lowered the volume, swiping hair past his ears, but the mechanics shop was easy enough to locate through the hubbub. Buying parts dipped far too much into Leo’s emergency funds for his liking, but it’d be worth it as soon he was back home again.
Even with some bumps in the road, at least the hard part was over. Leo had the cargo, now all he had to do was go home. A successful solo-mission is proof enough that he was ready for regular work, and he’d officially be cleared from probation. No more mission reports every hour, no more worried looks, and no more questions.
Then Hazel would be off his ass about resting, Percy would stop asking him to do pity tasks, and Chiron could assign him something more worthwhile than the occasional counseling session- not that they had a real psychiatrist. And Leo was getting real tired of talking to Grover’s pet plants in the lab.
The walk back to the ship was quiet enough, even with Leo having to dodge the parades of Imperial dogma that passed through the streets. It unnerved him a little, the shows of military power that marched through the city, raised banners and drums banging in Leo’s ears. He shrunk back against the walls, sticking close to the buildings and alleys as he eyed the parades with distaste, keeping his hood up and his gaze lowered. But for the most part, he could ignore it. He just made a mental note to avoid this place next time, if he could.
Sadly, per the universe’s usual rules, Leo was never allowed peace for long. He stopped in his tracks as he rounded the corner to where the Argo was hidden, Festus alerting in his ears.
A stranger, looking up at Leo’s carefully cloaked ship with far more understanding than Leo was comfortable with. He held a clawed hand over the glinting haze that shrouded the Argo, a sharp finger pressing through the illusion and revealing bronze paneling. Festus’ alert catches the man’s attention, whose gaze snapped towards Leo with wide eyes.
For a moment, Leo’s hand flies to his hip, thinking he’s been caught before catching the apologetic look on the stranger’s face. A kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
“Shit- sorry. I was just…” The man winced, looking awkwardly between Leo and the ship. He dropped his hand, letting the illusion fall back over the Argo, blue buzzing holograms netting back over the tear in the image. They stared at each other, neither one of them making a move.
“…Yeah, no, don’t worry about it,” Leo waved off, warily, his brow furrowed. He didn’t quite let his hand leave his holster. He wasn’t sure whether this guy was about to call the cops on him or not, but the lack of government officials swarming him seemed to be a good sign. At least, he was hoping so.
The stranger seemed to follow his lead, scanning the area before he turned to look at him properly, something registering in his fleeting gaze.
“Is this your ship?” He burst out suddenly, eyebrows furrowed and as if the thought had just occurred to him. Leo took a pause, his more cautious nature kicking in. Festus whirred uneasily at him, nudging Leo’s chest. He shared a glance with the droid, attempting to keep his cool… not that he was very skilled at that.
“...Yeah?”
A look of relief passed over his face, something like desperation and hope filling in quickly behind it. “I know this sounds insane, but is there any chance I could hitch a ride?”
Huh?
Leo looked the stranger up and down, taking in how distressed this guy looked now that he was fairly certain the police weren’t coming. His purple cloak was torn and his shirt stained with what could be blood, skin pale and curly muted golden hair a mess with dirt and sweat.
His clothes clearly used to be crisp and clean, a certain quality Leo wasn’t used to but marred with debris that he was, not unlike the stray rich kid that would run away to join the camp’s numbers on occasion. His shirt was embellished with something that looked suspiciously golden, intricate designs that were too small for Leo to make out details. His skin was scarred but agitated with fresh wounds, something Leo would’ve noticed immediately if his mind hadn’t been on the Argo.
Scars meant that the stranger had been through danger and survived it. He’s learned enough to know that scars are something to look out for. Fresh wounds were a whole other can of worms. Leo swallowed, gritting his teeth as he internally cursed the universe for making a simple mission so needlessly complicated.
Leo resisted the urge to take several steps back as the man took a couple of steps toward him, closing the short distance by half. The guy was clearly from here- the fucker was tall.
He had electric blue irises, edged by cerulean sclera, ringed with such intensity that it made Leo a little dizzy. Leo allowed himself a small step backward, hand still resting on his blaster. Festus made an anxious little whine, like nails on a chalkboard in his ears, not doing much to relieve the mounting panic building in Leo’s chest.
Definitely from here- Mr. Hitchhiker had a smattering of white markings edging his square jaw, leading into feathers that burst out to surround his pointed ears, not quite avian, but shaped closely enough to pass as one. Kind of like Piper, except his coloration was much lighter, blond hair buzzed short at the sides, a mess of curly locks on top.
“Uh- s-say what now?” Leo choked out, glancing over his shoulder because with the way this dude keeps looking behind him, Leo’s expecting some sort of monster to jump out of the shadows.
“Please. I’d really owe you one. I’m stranded and-” He glanced around anxiously, muscles tensed. He swallowed, a certain set to his jaw that made Leo nervous. “-And I have somewhere I need to be. You don’t even have to take me far, just to the nearest transport station-”
Festus climbed out of Leo’s shirt, poised on Leo’s shoulder with his fangs bared, clearly ready to get mugged because they’ve heard sob stories like this before. Told a few, even. The man froze mid-sentence, staring at the droid with something like curiosity. Leo seized the opportunity.
“Listen, dude- um- I’m- I’m sorry, but my ship’s damaged. I’m just here to- uh- to get parts,” Leo explained, holding up his bag of shiny new coolant canisters. Part of him is annoyed at the way his voice breaks and his words trip over each other, a habit that Annabeth claimed was due to the fact Leo’s brain worked faster than his mouth could keep up with. Inconvenient during missions, annoying when trying to be taken seriously.
He was starting to feel grateful for the city’s noisy atmosphere, their little scene gone unnoticed by the crowds just around the corner. Unwanted attention was the last thing he needed, especially after this morning’s events.
Still, he cast a glance backwards, thinking of those parades of Imperials marching past.
“Please. It’s important, it’s- it’s-” The man struggled for words, biting his lip so hard Leo was sure he’d draw blood. At this point, he was starting to get a little freaked out himself.
The stranger took a deep breath, composing himself before glancing back at Leo, eyes glancing at a spot on Leo’s shoulder. “Please. I need help.”
Oh.
Leo glanced at the orange insignia on his jacket, realization hitting. “I- uh- listen, man…” Leo averted his gaze as he trailed off, unsure of what else to say. Leo felt his resolve weaken just the tiniest bit, and he looked around vaguely for a way out. “Look, d-dude, I’m sorry, but I’m not looking- uh- for trouble. I don’t think- think- I can help you,” He tried to move past him, but the stranger grabbed onto his wrist, trapping him in place.
Leo stared at the hand gripping onto him, feeling nausea bloom in his stomach before something like regret passes over the man’s face and Leo’s free once more.
Absent-mindedly, Leo drew his arm to his chest, wrapping a hand around his necklace.
“I’m sorry. I just- I don’t have anywhere to go. I won’t… I can’t make it out of here on my own,” Blondie apologized, looking unsettlingly small despite the way he towered over them. Leo swallowed, relaxing his posture just the tiniest bit.
With his blond eyebrows furrowed and electric blue eyes downcast, the guy made a pretty good picture of someone in need of help.
Leo grimaced, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, dude, I- fuck- I get it. But if- but if you know who I am, then you- you gotta know you’re taking a risk here. I am too if I let you on board- plus, you might end up in more trouble than you’re already in,”
Leo ran into lots of fucked up situations and scams in his line of work. His absurdly dangerous line of work, the kind that was full of smuggling and stabbings and shoot-outs and pissing off government officials that they couldn’t pay to look the other way, the kind that desperate people got caught up in. Regular folk stayed far out of the way of people like him- at least, the ones that weren’t playing with life or death.
The man gave him another pleading look, muscles tensed and eyes something between frantic and hopeful.
Leo’s eyes traced small wounds on the man’s arms, pinpricks of fresh blue blood rolling across the skin. Wounded, scared, and asking for help.
He shared a glance with Festus, who pointedly tapped the insignia on his jacket with his tail.
You took an oath, remember?
“L-look. Are you really that desperate?”
***
“Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.”
***
Jason, while extremely curious and extraordinarily fucking stubborn, wasn’t entirely useless. He was surprisingly helpful replacing the faulty coolant canisters, and held the ladder steady as Leo repaired the wing stabilizer.
Hours. Leo had spent hours working on repairs, and despite the thousands of times Leo had firmly told Jason a lot of much safer options for finding help around here, the guy had never strayed more than ten feet away from them. It was an annoying kind of determination that Leo couldn’t help but admire.
Leo figured that any reasonable person would’ve gone off and looked for help somewhere else, but Jason stuck around. A gigantic red flag if Leo’s ever seen one, but it’s not exactly like he could call the cops on the guy. At least Jason wasn’t too inquisitive.
He hadn’t questioned the boxed up cargo of the ship, only looked around the interior of the Argo with a certain sort of discipline that reminded Leo of a well-trained animal. Leo had allowed him onboard for the sole purpose of cleaning off all that blood, but between Festus and Jason’s stubborn insistence, he was starting to doubt his own resolve.
After maybe five hours of work, Leo gave the fuck up. He suspected that no matter what he said, Jason would stowaway anyhow.
He figured between Festus and himself, they could probably overpower Jason if things went south anyway. Probably. Maybe.
“Was the ship expensive?” Jason asked as Leo ran a system check, flipping the weapons system on and off as he listened closely to make sure they were running smoothly after replacing the coolant canisters. Jason seemed calmer now that Leo wasn’t actively trying to get rid of him, but he still held himself extremely stiffly, as if touching anything would lead to immediate and painful death.
Leo let his necklace fall from his mouth, only halfway aware until now that he had been chewing on the metal. “Nah. I scavenged the- uh- parts, so it was pretty cheap to build,” Leo shrugged, standing on his captain’s chair to ensure that the wires and cables running through the ceiling were intact. The electricity buzzed beneath his fingers, feeding cleanly into the correct systems.
“You built this?” Jason sounded genuinely impressed, and Leo couldn’t help the way he faintly glowed with pride. The Argo was pretty damn impressive, he’ll admit, and easily the quickest way to his heart. It had taken him ages to build, but it was by far the best thing he’s ever created.
“Yep,” Leo popped the “P”, hopping down and stretching his arms out in front of him. He rolled his shoulders, shrugging off his jacket as dull aches ran through his muscles, complaining about the overexertion Leo had put them through. He ignored the sting, letting out a small huff as he flung his jacket over his pilot’s seat.
“Festus, we ready for take off?” Leo called out, and an affirmative whirring came in response. Festus barely looked at him, walking in circles around Jason and dogging his every step. Now that Jason wasn’t covered in blood and standing menacingly over them, Festus seemed to like him. Maybe a little more than Leo was entirely comfortable with.
He glanced at the blonde that was decidedly still on his ship despite many, many warnings, eyebrows furrowed as he chewed his lip.
A lack of the tattered, purple cloak exposed a fairly simple white sleeved shirt- barring the faint shimmering gold patterns that detailed down the arms- and a pair of feathered wings that Leo would maybe call bird-like if he didn’t know better. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about Jason’s wings were… off. Different, somehow.
Festus blew steam at the blonde, chittering excitedly.
Leo rolled his eyes, tapping out a message to not get too attached. Festus gave him a half-hearted hiss. He jumped onto the control panel, followed by Jason, who Leo begrudgingly gestured for to take a seat.
Jason hesitated before sitting down, looking a puzzling mix of surprised, relieved, and thoroughly uncomfortable, muscles relaxing just a smidge as Leo started to take off. Festus hummed as they rose into the air, the thrum of the engines finally settling Leo’s nerves.
Being on Terra Firma land was never good, but especially not for people like him. The perpetual anxiety Leo’s had since he came into his line of work lessened just the slightest bit now that they were leaving the atmosphere.
“So… you got into some- some- trouble?” Leo asked, leaning back in his captain’s chair, feeling that if he was going to so graciously give Jason a ride, he was owed a reasonable explanation. “I mean, no judgment, but like… what’s up? Can’t be bad enough to hitch it with me,”
Jason went the tiniest bit paler, making his golden freckles stand out enough that Leo could count them if he wanted. “...I was supposed to attend a coronation, and I ran into some… unfortunate circumstances. I need to report the issues to the appropriate parties, but there are no ships available to me at the moment,” He trailed off with a shrug, looking straight forward out into the starry expanse of space. Leo glanced at him, easing them slowly out of orbit.
“A coronation? Yeah, sounds like some- some shit,” Leo whistled low, not really surprised. There’s almost always a power play of some sort, or opportunists who saw crowds of nobles and stirred shit up. Explained the fancy clothes, anyway. “So, like, some noble from your country in trouble or something?”
“Prince of the planet,” Jason replied automatically, not seeming too enthusiastic about Leo’s neverending need to talk. Too bad for him, because Jason just chose the chattiest pilot in the universe. He isn’t exactly convinced that Jason couldn’t have found a better ride if the situation wasn’t absolutely abysmal.
“Sorry- the planet? Like- the whole thing? Cuz, not gonna- uh- lie, man, that’s a big ass planet,” Leo frowned, glancing at the planet slowly shrinking behind them. It was larger than most without being a gas giant, and Leo couldn’t possibly imagine governing a population of that size.
He had enough trouble keeping his cabin mates from fighting.
Festus kicked into auto-pilot, guiding them towards the nearest transport station. Kind of far, but on the way to camp at least. Leo glanced at the screen, calculating the amount of time the trip would take in his head.
“The planet. Technically there’s other countries and nobility, but there’s really only one ruling family. Officially, he's just the prince of the most politcally powerful country on the planet, but it's more of an empire,” Jason shrugged, and wow, Leo needed to brush up on his politics. Annabeth made a point to let the crew know about the more politically important planets, and an oddity like that one has probably come up in a conference or two.
Not that Leo ever paid that much attention in half of those meetings anyway. He liked to learn, sure, but his brain had a hard time making sense of all the names and countries and galactic treaties.
“Oh, shit. S-so kinda important, then,” Leo mused, having no real idea of how monarchies even really worked. Terra Firma kinda squandered a lot of important leaders on larger planets, so this was definitely a first for him. Unless you counted Nico, but that’s pretty foggy territory. “I- uh- know a prince. He’s kinda emo, though. Cool guy,”
Festus stared at him. Really? He seemed to ask, regarding Leo with an exasperated look. Leo glared back at the droid, flicking his metallic snout. Festus nipped his hand in retaliation.
“…What brought you to S’tratos?” Jason asked, tactfully shifting topics as the awkward tension started to grow too heavy.
“E-Emergency landing. My ship got busted,”
“How?”
“Asteroid,” A lie, but Leo wasn’t in the business of being truthful. At least this way, Jason wouldn’t have to ‘report to the appropriate parties.’ Festus nipped at him again, so Leo shoved him out of the way with his foot.
“Where are you from?” Jason asked, watching Festus’ movements with great interest. Festus flared his wings, showing off to his rapt audience.
“Uh- dunno. Around, I guess. I’m an engineer, so my work- work kind of takes me all over the universe,” Leo shrugged, giving Jason more or less the same answer that he had given Annabeth years ago, and to Piper even earlier. His earliest memories were of the vast expanse of space, so he couldn’t really give an exact coordinate.
“Really?” The smallest bit of intrigue entered Jason’s voice, and Leo suddenly felt he was on much more solid ground. Jason’s ears tilted towards him, making Leo smile, even if the guy barely looked at him.
“Yeah- um- first time on your planet, though. But I’ve been in the solar system plenty of times,” Leo explained, fiddling with a puzzle cube he kept on the control panel. Jason’s eyes followed the movement, gaze shifting every time Leo’s hand moved.
“I’ve never been outside our solar system,” Jason admitted, a certain tone in his voice. Leo glanced up at him, and Jason’s demeanor had relaxed the slightest bit, no longer so robotic. Though, then again, Leo would probably be having an easier time if Jason was a robot.
“Why not?” Leo asked without thinking. He paused his hand movements, leaving the puzzle halfway solved as the air grew heavy again.
This is why Piper did the talking.
He straightened up in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as his face flushed. “Sorry, that was rude-”
Not everyone could travel, what with the money it cost and the ever-changing laws that so heavily restricted Terra Firma’s citizens. Usually, only big trade planets with rich citizens had travelers, and recruitment to the Imperial fleet was one of the only ways for a poor citizen to see the galaxy, among other things. Percy had taught him this much. According to the others, people didn’t like it much whenever intergalactic travel was mentioned, a fact Leo frequently forgot. He was lucky in being able to find parts and build his own ship, but not everyone had the means.
Not everyone’s like you, idiot.
Everyone always said he was shitty at socializing- tone deaf and filterless, they had called it.
“No, it’s fine,” Jason shrugged. “My family has high expectations. Kind of strict. I can travel the solar system for jobs, but outside the solar system at all isn’t permitted,” The words sounded practiced, clearly familiar on Jason’s tongue.
Leo raised an eyebrow, shifting the cube so it clicked into place, his panic dissipating now that he was sure he hadn’t accidentally offended Jason. A small fanfare of noise celebrated the puzzle’s completion. “Sounds lame,”
Jason cracked what could’ve been a smile at that, turning to look at Leo properly, bright blue eyes fixed firmly on him. “Yeah. It can be,”
A beat of silence passes before Festus beeped, gently headbutting Leo’s chair. Leo let the droid crawl into his lap despite his size, as Festus was firmly under the illusion that he was a lap droid. “Did you make him?” Jason asked, gesturing towards the bronze-colored robot. Festus looked up at him, head tilted slightly. He huffed, a small snort of flame coming from his snout.
Jason’s gaze zoned in on him, eyes twinkling.
“Festus? Nah, my siblings did, a long time ago. I’ve rebuilt him more times than I- um- I can count, though,” Leo hummed, rolling his eyes as Festus showed himself off. He shoved the droid gently, causing Festus to fall head over heels off the chair.
“How does he work?” Jason watched Festus climb back onto the control panel. Leo grinned, always ready to talk for hours about the intricate mechanics that came with the droid’s construction. Jason listened intently as Leo explained the Festus’ AI system and his wireless connection to the ship, acting as a remote control panel for the Argo. Festus practically functioned as a mobile supercomputer, and, much like Leo, he was one of a kind.
“Your siblings must be pretty smart,” Jason mused, sounding genuinely impressed and not politely intrigued like most of his acquaintances. The words interrupted his vague and circular rambling about differing control disks, making Leo look up at the blonde.
Blue eyes stared back, bright with interest and slight awe. Leo felt warmer than usual under Jason’s stare, and he felt remarkably awkward all of a sudden. It reminded him vaguely of his first interactions with Piper, stumbling over his words and never quite sure what to say, always afraid of messing things up.
Piper was a smooth talker, smart and always knew exactly the right thing to say to get what she wanted, a trait that Leo envied. The best that could be said about Leo was that he was occasionally funny.
“Yeah, they were,” Leo agreed a little too slowly, turning his attention back to his ship as an excuse to look away. The transport wasn’t far now, and though he could let Festus fly the rest of the way, Leo needed to keep his mind busy because- Wait. What the fuck?
Leo frowned, checking his radar again.
“The fuck?” Leo murmured, pulling up multiple visuals for the satellite. Imperial ships were smothering the place, and from the look of these transmissions, no one was being allowed in or out. A few Navy guards weren’t unusual to see on travel ports, but this? Something must have happened. Or maybe security got tighter around these parts than he remembered.
Leo huffed as his ears pinned back, tapping into a few information feeds just to make sure. The longer Jason was onboard, the more danger for the both of them, but now it didn’t really seem like they had a choice.
“What’s wrong?” Jason asked, eyebrows scrunched up as he leaned over to see Leo’s screen. There’s a small scar on his upper lip, a line of pale-ish pink skin that Leo’s eyes zoned in on before he remembered that the outside world exists.
“The port’s closed. Mind waiting ‘til the- the- next one?” Leo hummed, wondering if maybe someone else’s mission had gone awry. He made a mental note to notify the others at camp, not wanting anyone to accidentally wander too close or for someone to bet on an escape route that wasn’t open. Transports were good because security was loose depending on the region, the timing of the flights made it hard for enemies to track you, and they were known for making multiple stops. Plus, they were pointless to rig- mostly just workers going to off planet jobs- so there was no real point to monitor or track them.
Someone probably knew that this one was shut down already, maybe had even messaged Leo about it while his handheld was off, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Uh, I can wait, sure. The port’s closed?”
“Yep,” He popped the ‘p.’ “Imperials shut it down,”
Jason frowned as his feathers flared ever so slightly, eyebrows knitting together. “Where’s the next one?”
“About… a couple hours, unless you have a destination in mind that’s closer,” Leo shrugged, feigning nonchalance while mentally cursing himself for taking a civilian on his ship while he still had a mission to finish. He hadn’t planned on a detour, and he was already running late.
“Uh- I’ll wait for the next port,” Jason replied after a moment, seeming distracted as he stared at the fleet ships circling the transports.
Leo couldn’t blame him; the sight of the Imperial Navy usually unnerved him, even before taking his oath.
“Oh, that’s not- not- good,” Leo murmured, watching as some Navy ships started toward their direction. He urged the Argo to go faster, knowing that even if the officers just had some questions for them, they’d probably recognize Leo pretty quickly.
And he wasn’t looking for a reunion with a jail cell any time soon, no thank you.
Jason’s so tense that it turns the air heavy, his muscles primed for a fight the entire time Leo guides them away, and only relaxes once all signs of Terra Firma are gone, nothing but the starry void in sight.
Okay, cool, Leo picked up a criminal.
Well, okay, the chances were always pretty high, given that only bat shit insane people, truly desperate motherfuckers, or someone who couldn’t go to the authorities would ever look to someone like him for help. Sometimes those categories overlapped. Not that he could really judge, considering all his active warrants, but the amount of danger they were both in was now considerably high.
And, in his experience, most criminals weren’t exactly trustworthy.
Leo glanced at Jason, and while not the pinnacle of friendliness, he wasn’t exactly shifty either. Admittedly, Jason’s whole demeanor screamed look out! I’m dangerous!! But Leo couldn’t exactly say he was harmless either. As long as Jason wasn’t some kind of assassin, things would probably be alright. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not a great sign that the thought wouldn’t leave him, though.
“So… uh- tell me about yourself,” Leo tried, attempting to keep the awkwardness out of his voice and failing miserably. “Do you like… things?” He choked out, mentally berating himself before the words even left his mouth.
“What?” Jason turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, confusion apparent on his face. It was a break from the neutral, thoughtful expression the blonde had been holding, clearly a little lost in his own mind.
“I… um- have not spoken to a regular person in weeks,” Leo sighed, burying his head in his hands as his body temperature rose. Jason snorted, something like a smile on his face before quickly covering it up. Leo felt his face warm up in embarrassment, and he vaguely wished for a Navy ship to come blast them out of existence.
“I like sparring, I guess.” Jason answered, albeit a little awkwardly, after a long moment. His nose scrunches up a bit awkwardly, upper lip curling. “And history. Art history. Music.... Books?”
Leo looked up, forcing himself to get his fire under control before he melted through his chair. “My friend Rachel loves art. S-She’s a painter,” Leo latched onto the topic, and Festus beeped in vague encouragement. Talking is better than wondering who exactly he was stuck in here with.
Rachel sometimes painted murals around the camp to make the station walls less gray and dull, the atmosphere much brighter for it. Percy sometimes got her to paint his old record sleeves, and Annabeth and Leo employed Rachel’s help for decorating their newest ideas into something marketable and flashy.
The only downside was that Rachel complained about Leo’s music taste, but Rachel's playlist just seemed to be a series of assorted synthetic noises, so he felt she had no right to judge.
“Do your friends travel a lot too?” Jason asked, in a not so subtle way to get Leo to keep talking about his travels. Leo didn’t mind; he could talk all day about the places he’s been.
“They do. Some of the shit they’ve seen is virtually unbelievable,” Leo shrugged, glancing at Jason. “Like, there’s this water planet with around seventy-three moons. Holy Caldera, those waves, man,”
Jason’s eyes lit up, making Leo smile. “Have you ever been to Crēperrrüm?” And yes, he has, so he tells Jason all about it, how the atmosphere is almost pitch black, the entire planet shrouded in darkness, only broken up by the local’s bioluminescent antennae.
Jason starts to ask question after question, like is this true? And have you seen this? Or have you been there? He listens with rapt attention when Leo recounts a scuffle he got into with a guy as tall as a building, a fight that nearly destroyed a village. Jason gets Leo to tell him almost every little thing about every exciting day he can remember, pressing for details and waiting patiently while Leo rambles before asking another question.
Pretty soon Leo runs out of stories he can tell without leaking sensitive information, and Jason starts telling him about his own travels in the solar system, death defying missions and battles that remind Leo a little of what Percy told him about the things he did before they met.
They certainly don’t tell each other everything, skate on the edge of multiple secrets, but it passes the time. Leo thinks he might even make it through this with a fun story to tell back home.
***
Leo thinks he’s losing it a little by the time he gets the third transmission about a port being closed.
“I might have to just drop you off. I can’t afford to get off-course, I gotta get- get- home soon,” Leo explained, feeling guiltier by the minute as the others waited for Leo’s arrival. He was already hours behind schedule, and while Festus sent regular written transmissions that they were on-course, Leo’s first solo-mission while under-going evaluation wasn’t looking good.
Jason just stared at him, and a small nod of acknowledgement was Leo’s only way of knowing that Jason was listening.
Okay, the stares were something he was used to. He couldn’t not get looks- he was practically a walking ball of fire, and finding folk that looked like him wasn’t exactly common, at least not in his travels. But most people shrug it off pretty quickly- Leo wasn’t the oddest creature in the universe, not even close to it.
Jason, however? Didn’t seem to realize that staring was rude. And it was kind of wigging Leo out.
“Dude. Stop,”
“Stop what?” Jason asked, ears raised in surprise as soon as the words left Leo’s mouth, clearly not expecting any further words beyond that brief travel report.
Leo glanced at him, watching as Jason’s eyes ran across Leo’s bare arms, covered in scars and freshly healed wounds from past missions, some more recent than others. The blonde didn’t even try to hide it, irises tracing over the jagged lines and explosive patches of healed over skin, blemishes that Leo either neglected to scrub out or decided not to erase.
“Stop staring,” Leo huffed, and Jason’s gaze lifted to meet his own.
“I’m not staring,” Jason deadpanned, blinking at Leo like he was crazy, which he might be, given just how long he’s been traveling for without rest.
“Bullshit. You k-keep looking at me,” Leo argued, pulling his eyes away from the scar on Jason’s lip that captivated his interest whenever Jason’s mouth moved. It was wildly distracting, like a scratch on a fresh paint job. Part of him wanted to reach over and wipe it off.
“I’m looking at you because you’re distracting. You’re constantly moving around. It’s hard to ignore,” Jason tilted his head, speaking so matter-of-factly with such a distinct lack of judgment in his voice that it was hard to be offended. Leo’s face burned red anyway, feeling the tips of his ears grow hot. “How do you stay moving like that?”
“What can I say? I’m a ball of energy,” Leo shrugged, embarrassment encouraging him to look away from his passenger. “A perpetual motion ma- machine,” He added, mostly to fill the silence.
“I don’t understand the problem. You keep looking at me too,” Jason pointed out, raising an eyebrow at Leo and completely ignoring the joke. He was right, but Leo couldn’t help but look at Jason. It was far too distracting to have someone in the co-pilot’s seat, a sight that Leo’s frazzled mind wasn’t used to. He was used to being alone in his ship, and being stuck with a stranger was starting to grate on his nerves after so many hours.
Hazel and Frank rarely sat there, and Percy or Annabeth did it even less. They only sat in the co-pilot’s seat if they were in a battle, never so… casually. They were usually too busy doing some sort of calculation or going over some complicated plan to really pay much attention to piloting.
There was always work to be done in the cargo hold, or on some planet, or something.
Leo almost preferred it when it was empty.
“Dude, I’m just checking you’re not actually gonna kill me because I fell for a sob story. And all the staring makes me think that you’re trying to decide the best way to off me,” Leo shot back, brain supplying the words before fully processing them. Jason snorts out something like a laugh, feathers flaring before composing himself, turning his amusement into something like controlled curiosity.
“Does that happen often?” Jason asked, but the lingering hint of amusement is enough to let Leo know had managed to stumble upon some sort of sense of humor.
“Already had it happen three times this week. Just- just yesterday I picked up a family of murderous circus performers. Barely escaped with my head,” Leo grinned, not ready for the way Jason tries and fails to hide his smile.
“Think you would’ve learned your lesson by now, then,” Jason joked, resting on one elbow as he leaned against the armrest. Leo made an ah-ha! noise, turning to Jason with a bright smile and a furrowed brow. “So you are planning to kill me?” He accused, as if catching Jason in a lie.
Jason’s about to retort when something dings the side of the Argo, jostling them a little but not enough to even activate the alarms. More of a bump in the road than anything.
“Space debris?” Jason suggested as Leo turned to the controls, eyes scanning for any asteroids whose paths they may have strayed into. Unlikely anyway, since shields took care of anything smaller than the ship itself. When nothing comes up, Leo shrugs, turning to Festus with a quizzical look.
The droid doesn’t respond, completely focused on the auto-pilot he was running, only glancing haphazardly at Leo with disinterest. If anything was wrong, either he or Festus would’ve sensed it.
“I guess… anyway- stop staring at me. You look like a creep, bro,” Leo chastised, flopping back down into his chair. Jason rolled his eyes, crossing his arms at the pilot. “You stop staring first,”
Leo’s the first one to crack, flipping Jason off with a small smile.
“Alright, golden boy, one more try, but if the next transport is closed, I just gotta drop you off and you get a ride somewhere else. Sorry, man,” Jason didn’t look very upset about that, accepting the situation as it was and that Leo needed to get home.
“Your ship’s fast,” Jason remarked, seemingly as unwilling to sit in silence as Leo was. “Hitting transport after transport would’ve taken a while longer for anyone else,”
Leo tried not to grin too widely, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. He knew the Argo was a good ship- second only to those Navy pricks and their unlimited budget and resources. “Well- uh- I worked hard on it,” He admitted, unable to keep the smile out of his voice.
Leo’s mechanical skills were what he contributed to the team, and he couldn’t help but glow whenever his efforts were recognized.
“Or maybe you’re just a better pilot than most,” Jason added, as if seriously trying to figure it out. Anyone else and it might have been a compliment, but Jason phrases it like a hypothesis, a puzzle that needed to be solved. Leo’s cheeks turned into burning embers as the nonchalant praise seeped into his skin, illuminating them both with his embarrassment.
“Yeah, yeah. Enough about me,” Leo waved dismissively, brushing off Jason’s words. The blonde shrugged and fiddled with his hair, which is neater than before somehow, even with Jason’s constant messing with it and combing his hands through the locks.
“Tell me about- uh… tell me about your planet,” Leo suggested, circling for any excuse to change the subject. Festus beeped at him, nipping playfully at Leo’s fingers. The razor-like teeth barely grazed him, careful not to pierce skin.
“What do you want to know?” Jason replied, an eyebrow raised as he waited for a prompt. Leo shrugged, tapping his fingers against the controls of the ship. “Anything. Surprise me,”
Jason nodded, taking a moment to think about it before finally starting to speak.
“S’tratos… it’s… it has this thing in the spring. People pray to the sky gods of our planet. It’s rumored that the royals are descended from them, so the monarchs make a point to attend the festivities,” Jason starts slowly, picking his words carefully, gaze getting a little farther away as he spoke. His expression turned almost wistful, a softness in his features.
Leo hummed in acknowledgment, feeling his skin go from glowing hot to cooling magma. “What are the festivities like?”
“There’s usually a big game where children will make a big fort and then divide into teams: attackers versus defenders. The winners get candies and toys, the losers have to jump in a lake or something. Most do it anyway, since it gets warm out,” Jason explained, drawing idle patterns in his skin with his nails, pink lines of irritated skin left in his wake. They were sharp, tipped with claws that rivaled Festus’.
Leo tilted his head. “I know a guy who would love that. He’ll use any excuse to get in the water,”
Years of semi-aquatic assaults in capture the flag games swirled through his brain. A memory of Hazel and Annabeth celebrating a victory over Percy wins out amongst them, filling Leo’s head with thoughts of strategies for the next game. His hand subconsciously reaches for the thin chain around his neck, fingers running over the beads and charms.
“What are your friends like?” Jason asked, and Leo took a moment before answering.
“Absolutely the w-weirdest people I’ve ever met. They’re pretty smart, but kind of dumb too, in a good way,” Leo listed, thoughts spilling out without filter. “Competitive as fuck, too,”
When they last compared bounties, Percy’s was easily the highest after that stunt he pulled on a volcanic planet. Annabeth had never been so pissed. The resulting arguments lasted weeks, Percy’s bragging being so insufferable that Leo was tempted to fry him.
The thought dies out in a heartbeat. He clutches his necklace a little tighter.
Jason smiled, posture relaxing and leaning forward a little. “Sound like interesting people,”
“Mhm. You’d probably like ‘em,” Leo replied, not so much basing the statement off of fact and more so on feeling. They’d probably like him too, with how tall and soldier-y he is.
Maybe Jason was some sort of bodyguard type. It would make sense, but you don’t really get those through illegal means. A mercenary, then? Nah, seemed too nice to be a merc- those guys never shut up. And coming from Leo, that was saying something.
He considered the possibility of Jason being a bounty hunter, but they don’t usually run when a mission goes awry. Hunters stick to targets like glue.
Leo exhaled loudly, finding his brain a little more unwilling the more he tried to think properly. He leaned against the armrest, holding himself up on one elbow as Jason watched him.
Jason says something, but Leo doesn’t really hear him. “Huh?” He asks, tilting his head as he watches the stars rush past in the windshield.
“I said that I still don’t know your name,”
Oh, right. Leo hadn’t told him. They’ve been traveling together for hours now, and Jason didn’t even know what to call him. “‘s Leo. Call me Leo,” Leo hummed, feeling a sort of light-headedness as Jason hummed back in acknowledgement.
Jason speaks again, and something must be wrong with his hearing aids because Leo doesn’t hear him, only watches his mouth move, eyes zoned in on the scar on his upper lip. Probably a migraine, with the way the edges of his sight blur and head starts to ache. He gets them after working for too long without sleep.
“Jason?” Leo called out, and the blonde turned towards him, a frown on his face. Jason’s breathing is slowing, and he looks confused. In the back of his mind, Leo can faintly make out Festus’ whirring and beeping, the alarms going off but his brain is unable to register the panic he should be feeling.
Jason’s breathing goes from slow to fast and shallow, as if struggling to suck in any air, speaking to an un-hearing Leo, and suddenly one word makes its way into his disoriented head.
“-oxygen-!”
Leo leaps up on unsteady legs, falling against the control panel with his brain chanting swear word after swear word. His ventilation and air recycler had the most alarms and safety measures of literally any other function on his ship, redundancy after redundancy built in for these exact kinds of situations, so how the fuck-
Leo’s brain brought up the very recent memory of something bumping against the Argo.
“WHERE’S THE OXYGEN TANK?” Jason yelled, or at least it sounded like yelling, loud and demanding in Leo’s hazy, oxygen deprived brain, though Jason probably couldn’t afford the breath. Leo pointed, not wanting to waste his breath, and Jason grabs the toolbox on the cockpit floor and rushes in that direction.
Back-up oxygen stores should’ve kicked in already but they weren’t and sure, he could survive without oxygen for a good while, but Jason probably can’t and Leo really wasn’t looking to be floating through space in a coma.
Festus is working alongside him, but Leo shakes his head and directs him wordlessly towards where Jason is. He can feel the way Jason’s wrenching something out of the vents, thankful for another person on board. Alarms went off in his mind, both literally and figuratively- how, why didn’t he feel it, why didn’t Festus know- but right now, he needed to focus on getting them somewhere with a breathable atmosphere.
The engines, despite very recent repairs, aren’t working at full capacity- whatever got to the oxygen was hurting other systems- but Leo forced the jets towards the direction of the nearest planet, Navy land or not.
Leo feels a thud against the hard metal floors, and he knows without looking that Jason’s fallen to the ground, but he checks anyway, and is beyond overjoyed that Jason’s eyes are still open despite drooping ears and fumbling hands, still working on that obstruction in the vents.
No way to gain back the oxygen they lost if there’s a leak, and there was no way of knowing until they could repair it, so it was absolutely imperative that Leo get them the fuck out of there. Leo pushed the engines as hard as they could go, navigating with blurred vision and a dizzy head.
They’re close to entering orbit when something slams violently into the side of the Argo. “F-Fuck,” Leo whispered without the breath to spare, his shaking hands being jostled from the control panel.
He slowly sunk to the floor, panting. They were heading toward the planet, and that would have to be enough. Leo probably wouldn’t be able to land them, but Festus could take over at that point.
Festus chirps worriedly, racing to Leo’s side and tugging on his tank top, trying to get him to stand up and only half succeeding. Leo let the droid drag him to Jason’s side, shaky hands working to help him at the oxygen tank.
Through spotty vision and burning lungs, he could tell a spidery droid had lodged itself into his oxygen recycling system. Motherfucker-
Jason was barely moving, strength being sapped out of him at rapid speeds. The insect-like droid was cutting at his hands, but Jason powered through anyway, either ignoring the pain or not even registering it.
Festus bit into one of its robotic legs, tearing one out as the sound of metal scraping and electrical sparks filled their ears, mixing with the shrill alarms blaring at them. He was too big to fit properly in the vents, though, snapping at what he could with powerful jaws.
“You are being boarded. You are being boarded. You are-“
Jason slumps forward, clearly fighting to stay awake but losing. Helplessly, Leo watched as Jason passed out, breathing so shallow that Leo couldn’t tell if his chest was even moving.
The cargo hold was open. Festus shrieked, and Leo turned to rest his back against the wall, relishing in the cool metal against his skin. He watched as the industrial metal doors were forced open, heaving.
His eyes locked onto the masked assailants, a familiar symbol on their chests.
“Mier-“
They shoot, and he’s out.
***
“-da!” Leo swore, sucking in oxygen as his systems started back up, recovering from the electrical shock of the photon beam stunning him. Electrical beeps and chirps sounded in his ears as his vision went staticky and fuzzy, clearing away into something like a sharp camera view as his inner workings tested themselves. A forced reboot, blood rushing to his brain as his heart started pumping. His chest stung and ached horribly where he had gotten shot, but adrenaline quickly dulled it.
He scrambled to stand, but his feet were tied together, tugging at his ankles. Metallic cables were digging into his skin, and it burned where it touched him, pinching and scraping with tough metal fibers. Festus was powered down beside him, no visible damage on the droid’s body, a small respite that relieves just the slightest bit of tension from Leo’s pounding head.
His eyes found Jason next, still passed out and slumped against him, breathing slow steady breaths that were soft against his neck, enough to make Leo want to cry from relief. Alive, thank fuck. He did not want a hitchhiker’s death on his hands.
Taking a deep breath, Leo looked around, finding it in him to be grateful that the bounty hunters hadn’t taken them off the Argo yet.
Except, if bounty hunters bothered with a mark’s ship at all, that meant-
“Oh, fuck off. Keep your fucking hands off my ship!” Leo shouted, mouth moving before his brain could catch up, acutely aware of how stupid it was, but unable to stop himself. Still, no fucking way that his precious ship- the one he had built from the ground up- was going to get sold for scrap, or- Caldera forbid- sold to the Navy.
He struggled against his bindings, pushing himself onto his knees as the nearest bounty hunter glanced at him, unimpressed and thoroughly apathetic toward Leo’s attempts at escape. A little insulting, really, even if Leo knew his bounty wasn’t exactly the highest. But, hey, he was still worth a few credits, at least.
Not that he really remembered the last time someone went for it. Most bounty hunters, the ones who follow the bounty hunter’s guild, were closely allied with the camp Leo worked for. They usually did their best to keep information about each other to a minimum. But there were a lot of people in the universe, and money meant a lot more than some guidelines to most of them. Maybe he got a little rusty assuming that Artemis’ crew was still top dog.
Leo glared at the green and gold parody of an officer’s badge that adorned their armored vests, the mark of Navy Sanctioned bounty hunters, approved by the Empire for hunting down criminals- and dissidents- that they didn’t want to dirty their hands with.
The ones who had somehow caught up to them were distracted by Leo’s complex control panel, clearly not understanding the intricate mechanics as they poked blindly at the holographics, their fingers swiping through the changing lights. A taller, winged digitigrade hit the screen with the handle of their knife, and Leo yelled in response.
Their leader, a green hooded woman with bright white skin, pale blue antennae, and green markings on her face, crouched down in front of him. He could recognize her vaguely, some bounty hunter that used to give his more unsavory acquaintances trouble way back when.
She grabbed his face without warning, ice cold hands on his skin that made him gag, trying his best to pull away as the hunter lifted his chin with a three-fingered hand. He momentarily forgot how to breathe, trying to focus on literally anything other than her ice cool flesh on his. There was a tattooed web on the inside flesh of her wrist. Arachne’s branch.
“Geez, your nails are- are- sharp-“ Leo choked out, wincing when a claw pricked his cheek. He could feel a pinprick of blood bloom from the nick, a wet, warm contrast to her touch. He’s pretty sure all the movement jolts Jason, which wouldn’t be good for an injured humanoid, but he can’t really do much about it. She hummed at him, squeezing his jaw before speaking, pressing down on bone. “… I didn’t expect a heíroas to be caught so easily,”
Leo spat at her, earning a slap that dragged her claws against his cheek, stinging red lines that barely missed his left eye. He blinked rapidly, trying to urge away the tears. She turned her attention to Jason. “This one’s worth a lot. Both of you combined should be enough to catch a few meals,”
Leo rolled his eyes with a grimace. He really didn’t want to listen to it, not right now, not when he was trying to figure out how in the fuck this could have possibly happened. Leo wasn’t exactly stealthy, sure, but for him to get caught by a bounty hunter? It was embarrassing, probably the most mortifying way to go. It’s like-
Wait.
Both of them?
“Say,” Leo winced as the cables scraped his arms, pinching at his flesh. Oh, oh these assholes were gonna owe him for when Solace tears him a new one next. “Did- did- those bounties say anything about needing us alive?”
“No,” She replies automatically, disinterested.
“Oh,” Leo blinked, pausing his movements for a second. He filed away the information that someone wanted Jason dead for later. Leo glanced at him, who he was ninety percent sure was only pretending to still be unconscious, and then at the very flammable rope that Jason was tied with.
“So, uh- I dunno what you’re talking about, but uh- what’s a heíroas?” Leo rambled, stalling for time as he inched closer to Jason. Playing dumb was easy. Maybe not very convincing, but it gave him a few more seconds to live, at the very least.
The bounty hunter rolled her eyes, a sort of pretentiousness that didn’t bode well in that line of work. “Shut up. Don’t bother with the bullshit,” She leaned closer, her icy breath uncomfortably cold on the tip of Leo’s nose, who tried not to wince as her henchmen rummaged through his things behind her.
Leo held back a scoff at the pretentious tone. Like he could be silenced- he prided himself on being annoying. He was very good at being annoying. “‘Kay. Y’know I- I get it, m-must get tiring to h-hear after a while. Uh, one question before you kill me- how’d ya do that thing with the oxygen? Been sort- uh- sort of dyin’ to know ever since you tried to off me,” His eyes scanned the room. Not a big crew, maybe four or five other hunters, though there could be more out of sight.
“I picked up this droid from one of my last marks. He cut a deal to make us pretty weapons instead of spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. Too bad this asshole over here destroyed it,” She bared thin, razor sharp teeth, reminding Leo of something extremely reptilian and extremely venomous. She kicked the mangled remains of the spidery, multi-legged droid, crumpled into a dark and charred heap on the floor. Leo felt a pang in his chest, full of pity for the poor thing, watching it twitch and spark pathetically. Disgust flooded him and Leo had to look away, ears pinned down and bile on his tongue.
He tried not to think about what’ll happen to Festus if he fails.
He bit his lip as he turned his gaze, focusing on raising his body heat instead, funneling the fire into his hand. Jason flinched ever so slightly- definitely awake now, if he hadn’t been before.
Leo gave him a million silent apologies, trying his best not to singe skin or feather as he hooked a finger around the rope restricting Jason’s wrists, bright ambers crawling along the cord. He resisted the urge to pull away at Jason’s discomfort, swallowing hard whenever a spark strayed onto flesh.
“Damn. I’m s-surprised you could even work it. Congrats, you don’t usually meet- m- meet- a bounty hunter with a br- brain! Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look,” Leo smiled humorlessly, pushing the temperature higher with every impulsive word. Jason buried his face into Leo’s shoulder, his body frozen stiff as the air around him grew scaldingly hot. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but Leo could only pray that no one would notice, and that Jason held the resolve not to flinch.
The hunter hummed, slapping him again. Leo bit down a grimace, breath catching as claws ripped through his cheek.
“Wow,” Leo forced a grin, licking the blood off his split lip. “A hatchling could hit harder than that,”
There have been very few times where Leo has been grateful for his big, stupid, thoughtless mouth. This was not one of them.
Mercifully, just as Leo was about to get his neck torn out by an overly sensitive bounty hunter, the rope around Jason snapped, pieces of it crumbling away into ash.
Jason pushed forward, tackling the huntress to the floor with a heavy thud. Leo turned his attention to Festus, trying to wake his droid as fast as possible so Jason doesn't have to fight for too long on his own.
What Leo doesn’t expect is for Jason to knock out their leader before Festus even gets a chance to untie him. It’s a cheap blow to the jaw, but it works, and it takes the crew by surprise enough to give him a few seconds to plan. Leo whistled lowly, watching Jason hastily kick off the ropes around his ankles as he grappled with a bipedal reptile. It’s strangely reassuring to see Jason hold his own, even at a disadvantage, that Leo stalls for a second as well, processing for a long second that they really couldn’t afford.
But their assailants recover from surprise much faster, at least enough to make a grab for Jason’s wings, unfortunate enough for him. Jason hissed in pain as feathers crumpled and tore, a clawed hand raking through them. Blood ran through the plumage, blue-ish purple stains on the reptile’s claws.
“Shit!” Leo quickly scrambled to his feet, directing Festus to Jason’s aid and pushing his way past the bounty hunters to the ship’s controls. Festus jumped onto the reptile, digging his razor-sharp teeth into their shoulder as webs of blue sparks flew off Jason’s body, jolting the reptile off of him like he’d been tased. Which, okay, concerning, but it draws enough focus on Jason to let Leo reach the cockpit, at least.
Leo pulled the steering back as he best he could, spiraling into the nearby dwarf planet’s orbit as the alarms started back up again, blaring as the ship shook violently, the engines rattling in their chambers. His hands flew to steady the descent, fighting against the pull of the small dense planet, which seemed to be sucking them in like a miniature black hole. He can tell by the sounds in his ears that the engines must be fucked, so he has no choice but to try and control the inevitable crash.
A hand on his shoulder suddenly spins him around and rips him from the control panel, forcing him to come face to face with a massively overgrown furball of a person. Leo’s swiftly lifted up by the front of his shirt, being hoisted towards the ceiling with embarrassing ease.
“Oh, w- wow, you’re strong,” Leo smiled weakly, waving one awkward hand at his enemy. The creature growled at him in response, long floppy ears raised in anger, one eye bloodied and face raked with claw marks, no doubt Festus’ work, and it seemed like the guy decided he’d rather try his luck with the pilot instead of the droid. Leo reached out and grabbed his assailant’s wrists, hands still scorching.
The smell of burnt hair filled the air as the bounty hunter yowled and dropped him, pulling back his burnt arms, raw and red and oozing.
Percy’s hands burnt and gory, scrubbed clean by Will as everyone stared at Leo with accusations in their eyes-
Leo kicked out, his foot connecting with their stomach and causing the creature to heave, doubling over in pain and holding tender hands out in front of them. Leo shoved them through the doors into the cabin, sending them tumbling through their compatriots.
“Jason?!” Leo screamed, eyes scanning for the blonde as his heart raced and head pounded, the Argo jolting dizzyingly around them like a twisted thrill ride. He had to hold onto the captain’s seat to keep from being thrown around.
“Yeah?!” Jason’s voice comes from somewhere nearby, but with the fighting and the flashing lights that routinely leave them in terrifying darkness to bright red horror flicking in and out, Leo can’t place where he is. He settles for the fact that Jason is alive, and that Festus will do his best to keep him that way, even as he hears the sickening buzz of blasters powering on and the ship’s erratic movement starting to knock them around.
“Need- uh- need any help, man?!” Leo called out, turning his attention back to the screen, doing his best to keep them from dying instantly on impact. The time that it had taken to defeat that furry asshole had placed them far too close to the planet’s atmosphere, and gravity was starting to drag them harshly downwards, almost into a nosedive.
There was a loud series of noises, blaster fire and yells and Festus’ claws tearing through Leo didn’t even want to know what, followed by the sound of Jason panting and the steady beeps of Festus’ voice module. “Nah. I’m good,” He called back, sounding rightfully exhausted as he helped Festus pull the doors to the cargo hold closed.
“Ch- Chill,” Leo replied, mind racing as the blaring alarms invaded his ears, making him very tempted to turn off his hearing aids so he could fucking think.
The motherfuckers busted up his ship, and now Leo had to regain control with about half of the panel cracked and sparking. He could ease the steepness of the nosedive and cut the speed a little, but they were one hundred percent crash landing no matter what he did- Leo could only hope to lower the chances of them dying instantaneously.
“JASON?!” Leo called out, gritting his teeth against his panicked tone and swallowing down bile as the Argo rocked and spun wildly.
“YEAH?!” Jason called back, accompanied by a symphony of mechanical swears from Festus in a language only Leo understood, sounding like he could barely even breathe, but that was a problem for later.
“MIGHT WANNA STRAP IN, BRO,” Leo warned, struggling to secure himself in his pilot’s seat, tools knocked from their secure hiding places and flying around wildly, dodging debris and leftover weapons.
Jason rushed over to the co-pilot’s chair, strapping into the seat and looking toward Leo for any sort of instruction. Leo glanced back at the bounty hunters’ ship behind them, eyebrows furrowed. They must be strapped onto the ship somehow, but-
“FESTUS! OPEN THE CARGO HOLD!” Leo shouted, and the droid obeyed, chirping as the jets roared and the mechanical symphony of the ramp opening and emptying the hold of everything not bolted down to the floor, ripping off the connections to the bounty hunter’s ship just in time to slow their descent, finally not as weighed down by the extra ship attached to them.
Hopefully, he had secured the actually important cargo properly, or else this has been a huge fucking waste of time.
Leo stared at the planet’s surface barreling towards them, fighting against gravity as he aimed for a vague clearing in the thick, forested continent. The air around them protested against the invasion, throwing the ship around and pounding at the hull, pieces of metallic paneling ripping off the Argo’s sides as the forest grew ever closer.
The trees clipped their wings, shaking so violently that Leo could barely see, the sounds of the alarms mixing horrendously with the sound of rendering metal, sending sparks flying and grating against Leo’s skull.
They were so gonna die.
***
“Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours, all they hear is a continuous scream.”
***
Once, when Leo was younger, before he had met Piper and the others, he had met a Navy officer.
It was maybe a few seasons past the beginning of his memories, far beyond the shipwreck he had woken up in, but still a while before he had made his way onto the camp’s radar. The officer was tall and winged, insect-like antennas and multiple pairs of eyes that followed him wherever he stood, an unwelcome spectator in the streets.
Navy officers, on average, were uncomfortable to be around. They were remarkably disciplined, and even relaxed the soldiers still held themselves extremely stiffly, always ready and awaiting orders, no matter what was demanded of them.
This one wasn’t like that.
Leo didn’t really know the insectoid, but the officer had been stationed in a system that Leo used to hang around, for a while. Long enough for Leo to start to recognize patterns among the uniformity, at least.
Subordinates never spoke unless spoken to, never moved unless ordered, never thought unless asked to, never deviated from unquestioning obedience unless they were particularly suicidal. The commanders were harsh in their punishments, and handed them out liberally. The insectoid was a lower rank, and often used as an example whenever they dared to defer.
Eventually, the officer began to fall in line with the rest of them. Didn’t question things anymore, never hesitated to carry out an order, no longer flinched whenever a person was turned to nothing more than... well, it didn’t really matter. A worker drone who knew better than to disobey. Leo remembered being sad when it happened. Sad, but not surprised. It was a shame, really, but unavoidable.
Jason reminded him of that. Kind of.
A ripple of disobedience underneath a well-trained body, a wrinkle in the fragile fabric of Empire-mandated perfection. Like a dog that was almost perfectly obedient, but had a bad habit of barking. Still trained and tense, but spoke and acted more freely than the rest of them.
Newly let off the leash.
He wasn’t surprised when Jason knew how to stitch up their wounds, or particularly shocked with Jason’s rather clinical examination of the dead bounty hunters, who had landed a few miles north of them.
Honestly, it reminded him of his friends. Percy, Grover, and Annabeth had all run away from the Imperial life, but parts of them whispered their pasts like a ghost that refused to move on, ingrained into every action and decision.
Most people he knew had that quality about them. Haunted.
It definitely made Leo wonder why a deserter would have such a high bounty. Sure, deserting the Navy was practically treason, but they were rarely so actively hunted down- better to ignore the problem than admit it existed. And to want Jason dead? Whatever Jason did, someone really had it out for him.
Leo’s brain ran through everything that had happened so far like a maze, a puzzle to solve, like the way out could be revealed like a prize to be won.
Neither had mentioned the bounty hunters beyond the smoking remains they had found that first day, and Leo knew he shouldn’t, not with the risk of hysteria and accusations that would threaten their chances of making it home, but he couldn’t help it.
He kept trying to make sense of it. Of the odds. Of the fact they both nearly died. Of the fact that they were both virtual fucking strangers, and that within the first 24 hours of knowing Jason, he had nearly been killed and exchanged for credits. But then again, so had Jason, so really, what was the angle there?
Two outlaws, apparently equally high in price, handed to a group of hunters in one neat little package. As wide and weird the universe was, Leo had a hard time believing that was a coincidence.
He sighed, trying not to pull his wounds as he slid a bolt into place. “Hey, Leo?” Jason called out, nearly making Leo drop his toolbox into the engine’s combustion chamber.
Repairing the Argo was proving to be slow work, as they were unable to do any heavy lifting without agitating their stitches, and Festus could only do so much on his own. Leo had even gotten the misfortune of tearing up his arm a bit, which hindered progress enough for Leo to start to worry a little bit.
Not that he’d ever admit it.
“Yeah, Sparky?” Leo shouted back, crawling out of the engine compartment. He was covered in grease, and he could only hope it hadn’t gotten under his bandages. Jason helped him up, a steady hand on his waist to ensure he didn’t fall. Only the thin layer of fabric of Leo’s shirt separated Jason’s hand from his skin, a cool, foreign weight on his body. Leo fought back his instincts to pull away, not daring to breathe until Jason let go.
“‘Sparky?’” Jason repeated with a raised brow, watching as Leo flopped down onto the cool, dewy grass, not bothering to walk all the way to their pseudo-campsite.
The Argo had managed to make it to the clearing before falling apart, a small lake to thank for the breakage in the dark woods. Leo was just glad they hadn’t landed in the water.
“Because of that trick you- uh- pulled with the reptilian,” Leo explained, shrugging as he stared up at the lavender sky. “Unless I- um- imagined that,” He added, only receiving a small huff in reply.
Birds and land creatures alike sang somewhere in the trees, a tune that was less of a melody and more of a screaming caw. It didn’t do much for Leo’s nerves.
“… You really think we can fix it?” Jason asked, which was a fair question- two days had gone past, and even with Festus working almost constantly, they weren’t making much of a dent in the ship’s damage.
Leo raised his head to look at the Argo, taking note of the shredded wings, punctured hull, and absolutely decimated ventilation system that they were yet to fix. And he didn’t even want to think about the fact they only had a little less than half a tank of fuel left. “… I can swing it,”
It didn’t hurt as bad to connect to the ship anymore, at the very least. After Festus dragged them both out of there, Leo had promptly emptied his stomach into their newfound water source from all the pain-induced nausea, left dizzy and disoriented from all the various alarms going off in his head. The damage in the ship left a hole in Leo’s heart, physically and mentally.
The horrible part was that most of the cargo he had risked his life for was either ruined, or they had been forced to use in order to repair both themselves and various parts of the Argo, basically making this whole fucking mission pointless in the first place.
Even worse, someone else would have to make another journey to get the supplies camp needed, because they sure as fuck weren’t going to let Leo do it.
He doubted they’d let him do much of anything at all after this. They’d extend his “medical leave” indefinitely, which was really just code for “Leo’s too nuts to handle the one job he has.” There goes his last chance at being a useful member of the team, and after all that insisting that he was ready to be on the field again.
Way to go, Leo. You sure showed them.
He sighed, screwing his eyes shut and listening to the gentle breeze blow through the forest. “I hope you don’t mind surviving on r-r-replicated food and rations,” Leo sat up, wincing as his wounds pulled uncomfortably, a nauseating stitch in his side.
He’d heal, no doubt about that, and forget infection- his natural body temperature could kill most bacteria, and definitely anything that lived on this temperate little shithole.
Still, it hurt like a bitch.
Painkillers were out of the question though, since Leo couldn’t afford losing any time to sluggishness or fatigue. He could work through pain, not through a medicated haze.
“Eh. I’ve had worse,” Jason said, sitting down on the grass next to Leo, and somehow, Leo didn’t doubt it. Jason sat unflinchingly close, undisturbed by the heat rolling off Leo’s body. His wings, despite bandages and broken and bent feathers, grazed against Leo’s skin.
Leo stiffened, not quite sure whether or not he should move away.
Anyone who’s experienced Leo’s more fiery side never touched him again. Except for Piper, and even then, they tried not to touch Leo too often, given his habit of bursting into flame. Once, the Stolls had tried to play a few pranks on Leo’s cabin, and Leo had come stumbling back to his bunk late at night after a rough day of work- only, something was already in there. Percy had to lead a lecture on fire safety after that. Everyone sort of avoided Leo’s flame since, which was just fine with him. He kind of figured it was the natural reaction to not want to be burned alive.
Jason was weird, to say the least.
Hesitantly, Leo pulled his gaze from him, letting his eyes settle on the wreckage in front of them as he fiddled with his necklace, running his fingers along the familiar patterns etched into the metal.
They both stared at the ship for a few minutes, wondering how exactly they would manage to get home. Or, well- Leo was wondering that. Jason’s expression betrayed no emotions, only quiet contemplation. Jason was just kind of a blank slate since the crash. Leo couldn’t tell if it was some sort of trauma response, but the guy was practically a statue whenever he wasn’t speaking.
It unnerved him a little, if Leo was being honest.
“Is your transmitter working yet?” Jason asked, eyes flicking over to Leo’s handheld communicator. Leo picked it up off the ground, sighing at the busted up hunk of metal. The artificial steel compound had basically crumpled upon impact, having had the unfortunate position of getting stuck between Leo’s toolbox and the ship’s hull.
“Nope. Dead- dead- as nails,” Leo grumbled, knocking it against the ground to prove it. He couldn’t contact anyone for an evacuation, and he definitely couldn’t report back to camp. Piper was probably going to kick his ass the second he got back- he was supposed to be home by now, and if a heíroas went MIA-
They were probably planning his funeral already, given his track record.
He sighed, fiddling with the buttons and listening to the plasticky clicks that filled the air around them. He would’ve installed an intergalactic transmitter a long time ago, but unnecessary body mods made him feel weird. Cosmetic ones were incredibly cool looking, of course, but Leo already felt more machine than man sometimes.
He didn’t entirely know if that was a bad thing or not, but he didn’t really want to find out.
“…Have you ever had a body mod?” Leo asked, purely to fill that all-consuming silence that happened so often. Like back on the ship, so much of it was just staring. Jason never looked him directly in the eyes, which was fine, but he was constantly looking at whatever Leo was doing, which kinda made Leo unreasonably insecure.
At least the conversations before the crash had been more interesting. Leo didn’t know if that was a horrible thing to think or not, considering how both of them were likely still in a horrid state of shock, and would probably stay that way until they were safe.
Well- whatever safe meant to two outlaws.
“No. I mean- I have sights?” Jason tilted his head, tapping the small earpiece. They weren’t active, but it was a conversation point, at the very least. Leo hummed, tapping his handheld absent-mindedly. He could fix it with the right parts, but it wasn’t worth wasting anything when the ship was in such critical condition.
The ship sparked, heavy bundles of wires hanging torn and ripped from the side of the hull. His heart tightened, deft fingers ripping up the grass beneath them.
“You? Any mods?” Jason asked, turning to him and briefly glancing at Leo before looking back up at the Argo. Leo shifted to sit cross-legged, fingertips brushing over his wrists, feeling the magnetic pulse beneath the skin. He squeezed his forearm, letting the pain that bloomed wash over him.
“Uh, yeah, kinda,” He nodded, leaning back on his elbows as he stared up at the soft violet clouds. “Like, uh- hearing aids, prosthetics- stuff like that. Not really mods, but like- yeah,” Leo trailed off, picking at the remnants of the dark green, almost black, blades of grass. The plants were weird here. Grover would like it.
Jason hummed in acknowledgement. “Is that how you can do that… hot stuff?” He asked, glancing at him with a sort of caution that Leo wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with. Jason does a sort of grimace that suggests he regrets the words as soon as he said them, but it’s too late now. Leo snorted at the uncomfortable phrasing, a grin crossing his lips as he lit up his fingertips.
“Nah, that I was born with. I’ve never seen a working mod that comes close to the things I can do,” Leo replied, showing Jason the way his skin lit up like hot coals. “But, y’know, weirder creatures exist. Ever expanding universe ‘n all that shit,”
Jason reached out towards the warmth radiating off Leo’s hand, making Leo quickly pull away as if he had been burned instead. “Woah- no touching, dude, unless you like n- nerve- nerve- damage,” Leo warned, a hint of nervous laughter in his voice.
“Oh, yeah- shit- sorry,” Jason apologized, wincing as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. It’s… almost charmingly dorky. Leo doesn’t entirely know how to feel about it. “It’s just- you kind of saved our asses back there. I mean, without you- uh- yeah. It’s… useful,”
Leo stared at him for a moment, picking at his bandages as he regarded him. Jason’s eyes flickered to his hands then back to Leo’s face, betraying nothing in his gaze. Perhaps the inscrutability was intentional, or maybe Leo was just as awful at social interaction as he thought.
“…Uh, yeah. I guess,” Leo shrugged, turning his gaze back to the ship. He didn’t want to start working again, not yet, but he couldn’t quite make himself look away from the wreckage.
“What planet is your species from?” Jason asked, tracing patterns in the grass. The colors shifted as Jason touched them, responding to the cool touch. Leo squinted at the plants, studying them for a moment to force his brain to quiet. A hand goes to his hair, twirling it until it tugs harshly against his scalp, a different kind of burn than he’s used to.
The question was dull against his ears, and Leo was tempted to not answer at all. He doesn’t know what compels him to tell the truth.
“I dunno. I don’t remember,” Leo shrugged, eyebrows furrowed. The words were familiar on his tongue, but they tasted sour.
“…You don’t… remember your planet?” Jason tilted his head, frowning at Leo as he felt his body heat up uncomfortably. The ship’s wings were salvageable, but it would take a lot of welding and work. Maybe if they worked through the night, they’d have them done by morning. They’d have to work fast, though- the plant life kept threatening to encase everything that touched the ground for more than a night. It had taken hours to cut the ship’s landing gear out of the foliage. He was getting a little anxious about it at this point.
“And? What are you, a cop?” Leo pushed off the ground, deciding to start on those wings right now. Festus sidled up to him, a deep grumbling in the droid’s chest that signaled concern, though Leo couldn’t figure out what for.
He was fine, no big deal. Sure, he was disoriented from pain, and he had gotten maybe a solid hour of sleep in the last few solar cycles, but his body’s been through far worse. Spare energy stores could keep him running long enough, anyway.
Leo pressed his hands against the spot where the left wing connected to the hull, sighing softly. He took a deep breath, letting the Argo soothe his nerves. The cool metal against his skin made his blood hum with adrenaline, reminding him of the fact that his ship was still in distress.
He didn’t mind the extra work. Being a mechanic was what he was made for. And keeping busy let him not think for a while.
Made him feel useful, at least.
“I’m sorry…?” Jason tried, eyebrow raised as Leo rested his forehead against the hull, deflating a little, his shoulders sagging.
“Nah, I’m being a bitch. Sorry,” Leo winced, hands flying to reconnect the cables that ran through the turbines. Tangled, but mostly intact, except for a three foot length of insulation that got torn up, exposing the metallic innards.
“Help me with this?” Leo asked, looking over his shoulder at Jason. Festus shook his toolbox at him, chirping enthusiastically.
Jason stared at him, eyes scanning over Leo’s exhausted body, his skin patchworked with sterile white gauze and dark bags under his eyes, trying valiantly to lift a bundle of cables and coils against gravity’s best efforts. The weight pushed against him, but Leo ignored it, stubbornly trying to slot the materials into place.
Jason nodded, arriving in time to help Leo lift the burden.
***
Leo stumbled, but a hand on his back balanced him, lifting him up to reach the topside of the ship. “Remind me of the plan again?” Jason called out, passing Leo the length of sonic emitters they had pried from the bounty hunter’s crash site. Leo hummed, sitting on his knees above the cargo hold and listening to Festus’ neverending squeaks and groans. He ran the fuel line through his fingers, a bronze panel lifted off the roof and exposing tangled innards.
“If you-” Leo started, pointing to Jason, who nodded dutifully, if a bit skeptical. “-flash these components-” He gutted the emitters, pulling out pulsating converters that turned stored energy into power and hooking them up to the engines under the Argo’s wings, which would probably do the least damage upon exploding if the experiment failed. “-with high enough voltage, then we might be able to jumpstart the Argo,” Leo finished, pulling on his gloves and silently mourning the loss of emergency jet fuel stores, which had been deemed too dangerous and volatile of an idea.
“...And that’s safe?” Jason asked, sounding as if he already knew the answer. Leo peeked over the edge, making eye-contact. “Probably not,” He shrugged, tossing down the jumper cables for Jason to hold.
“Well, it’s a lot smarter than anything I would’ve come up with,” Jason sighed, wrapping the un-insulated portion of the cables in his fists. Leo’s ear twitched, feeling the new spark of electricity coming in just from Jason’s touch.
“Yeah- well- it’s only smart if it works,” Leo huffed, snapping his welding mask over his face. Otherwise, it is a huge waste of resources.
He gave Jason a thumbs-up, and the world lit up in bright white sparks. Jason looked vaguely uncomfortable, but he held the charge without complaint, and Leo could feel the arching webs of electricity coursing through the cables like snakes, rushing into the engines as they started to whirr to life, a steady orange glow starting in their core and holy shit they’re starting to hover-
The converters give out, and the whole thing fizzles.
Leo threw off his welding mask, burying his face in his hands as Festus whined. He groaned, letting it build into something just shy of a cry, tugging at his hair before abruptly getting up. “Motherfucker! Come on, I can’t- I can’t keep- Maybe if I scrounge around the crash site a little more, I can find something else-” Leo slipped down the side of the Argo, about to run off when Jason catches him by his muddy tank top, enough to make Leo jump.
“Leo, it’s okay-” Jason tried, but Leo yanks himself out of his grasp, turning to glare at the sky for a few long seconds with heavy breaths. Jason waits patiently, gives Leo a slight questioning look when he finally looks back down. “‘m fine,” Leo muttered, rubbing his bare arms as a way to keep from screaming.
“We’ll figure it out,” Jason assured him, having that kind of build and look to him that made people want to believe it when he said those kinds of things to them. Something in Jason’s voice almost made Leo want to believe it too.
***
“What’s your deal, dude?” Leo asked, watching the way Jason was setting up their campsite with evident experience, further enforcing Leo’s suspicions of this being a sort of run-away situation.
Not that he judged. He was just- curious. And really, he was allowed to be, given everything. Plus, asking questions would distract him from the fact that they didn’t have enough fuel to fly. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that, but he’d rather not think about it until the ship’s repairs were completely done. Worse comes to worst, he’ll take things apart and try to rebuild his transmitter to request a rescue.
Then all he has to do is hope whoever picks up doesn’t mind harboring two criminals.
“My… deal?” Jason asked, cocking his head, briefly glancing at Leo. Leo nodded with a small shrug, laying his head against Festus’ warm metal side.
The droid blew a small flame at him, the warmth licking Leo’s face fondly. Leo’s nose scrunched up, leaning away from Festus’ persistent affection. “Yeah. Like- uh- who are you?”
“Uh- I’m… Jason?” He tried, voice clearly indicating that he had no idea what Leo was talking about. A blonde eyebrow raised up at him in confusion, a crease forming on his forehead.
“Okay, but like- who’s Jason? What are you all about? Your goals, your m-morals? Your criminal record? Your whole deal, y’know?” Leo huffed, gesturing vaguely in the air to accentuate the message, growing a little frustrated when Jason gives him another blank look.
“I don’t have a criminal record,” Jason stated, sitting down on the sleeping bag that Leo was planning on hogging. Leo raised an eyebrow, sitting up a little straighter as he tried and failed to make eye contact.
“Uh- so we’re just ignoring the bounty hunters after us? Cool, cool, then I’m to-totally not an outlaw either,” Leo waved his hand flippantly, voice dripping with sarcasm. Hopefully, sarcasm existed where Jason’s from.
Jason grimaced, screwing his eyes shut before he relaxed. If you could call it that, given how stiffly the guy held himself. “Bounty hunters aren’t always after outlaws. I don’t have a record,” Jason repeated, tugging on the slightly too small sleeves of the shirt Leo had given him.
Bandages covered the rest of what exposed skin was left, sterile white. Another thing Leo regretted; Any more injuries and their first aid kit might just give out.
It was supposed to be enough for three people, given the number of team members that was standard for a mission, but half of it had gotten torn up in the crash or used already. The pair’s wounds hadn’t exactly been light, and while they could scavenge a little more through the bounty hunters’ ship, it had been little more than a burning wreck when they had found it.
“But they do hunt troublemakers. Believe me: I’ve got some experience,” Leo pointed out, tilting his head up at Jason. Jason’s eyebrows furrowed, feathered ears twitching at him. He seemed to consider this, frowning at something in the distance.
“Yeah, well, I’ve probably caused a lot of trouble by now,” Jason sighed with a slight edge to his voice, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I haven’t- done anything wrong,” He added, not bothering to even glance at Leo as he continued to put the bandages back inside their waterproof packaging.
Leo made the executive decision not to believe him.
Leo wrinkled his brow as he pressed on through the conversation, unaware of the warning in Jason’s voice like a blind man wandering through a field of land mines.
“Okay… but someone wants you dead, man. I don’t know what happened, but-” Leo started, frowning as he spoke, only to be harshly interrupted.
“Stop. Just- don’t,” Jason snapped, enough frustration in his voice to make Leo flinch. Festus raised his head and looked between them, tail swishing.
The silence that followed was heavy. The kind that Leo hated more than anything, would blast shots into the sky if it meant he never had to stay quiet again. Leo waits until the creatures start to sing again before breaking the quiet, unsteady and unsure in his response.
“Sorry… but… You begged me for a ride, man. And then bounty hunters show up to kill me? I- uh- think I- I- should be allowed to ask,” Leo argued, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second. He couldn’t quite look at Jason either, but he watched anyway as Jason drew his knees to his chest, hugging his legs as he drew frantic patterns in the grass, a crack in Jason’s composure.
“It- it was a mistake. Or they were lying. Bounty hunters aren’t reliable sources of information,” Jason replied, glaring at the foliage under him, his eyebrows crinkled.
Leo’s ears pinned back. “Fine, ex- except you didn’t exactly tell me I was picking up a guy with a- fucking- a price on his head. They would’ve thrown you out the airlock if they were just there for me,” Leo pointed out, feeling himself grow increasingly warmer the longer this conversation continued. He didn’t really know if he would’ve picked Jason up if he knew that he was wanted or not, but something told him that if he had known, Leo could’ve at least taken extra precautions against getting caught. Instead, he had been careless in his ignorance, and now they were stranded.
He tugged on his necklace, feeling the stark contrast of the cool metal start to fade as his body temperature warmed the silver-colored chain.
Jason stiffened, tearing up blades of grass by his feet.
“Okay. But you work for an organization that regularly commits treason. I don’t think I’m entirely at fault here,” Jason argued, a touch of strain to his voice. The air around Leo’s skin starts to bend and wave as heat radiates off of him, a scoff escaping his throat.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t- didn’t- realize you were a boot-licker. News- news flash: you knew f- full- full- well what I was the moment you saw me. You decided to take that risk,” Leo frowned, earning an anxious whine from Festus as Jason stared toward the sky, taking a deep breath as Leo’s composure spiraled out of control and crumpled.
“I just thought I was doing someone a favor! And, y’know, it fucks with me how un- unbelieve- un- how fucking naive of me that was!” Leo threw his hands up, flopping down on his back. Of course shit would never be that easy for him. Everything going according to plan is just as suspicious for someone as unlucky as Leo Valdez.
Idiot, been on safe easy missions for too long, let yourself believe you were capable- you naive, stupid motherfucker-
The plantlife beneath him glowed a radiant neon green as heat rolled off of him, responding to the sudden change in climate. There’s a beat of silence as he watches the patterns wave through the clearing.
“I mean- I know you saw the badge,” Leo added, purely because Jason doesn’t respond, just keeps looking out toward the sky. “Why would you board a ship like mine? Two outlaws floating through space in a tin can is just begging for trouble. I’m just- just saying- you could’ve told me what was really happening, man,”
Jason chewed his cheek in thought, and Leo sat there helplessly as silence permeated the air, unable to force a response out of him and unwilling to try. He just laid back, turning his head to watch the view across the lake.
The color shifting light followed his movement, some small part of his brain that sounded suspiciously like Grover starting to bring up fun facts about bioluminescence, the silence grating on his ears like sandpaper.
When Jason’s voice comes, the answer pretty much is as Leo expects. He wasn’t really looking for one anyway.
“If… If I had told you the truth, you wouldn’t have helped me. No one else would’ve let me onboard. You were there, and I was desperate.” Jason tore up the blades of grass at his feet, ripping them from the roots and sending crackling blue bolts through them as they crumpled and singed, blackening in his fist.
“Clearly,” Leo muttered, pushing off the ground and ignoring Festus’ inquisitive growl. He could feel Jason’s eyes on his back as he walked away, a little vindicated but a little satisfied that the bastard was finally looking at him.
“Where are you going?” Deep voice crumpled with concern and exasperation, smooth but diffused with youth, a stark difference from his previous tone. Leo knew he was just being pissy, but fuck it, honestly. He just wanted to go home.
“D- Don’t- don’t- know. But I’m pretty desperate to get out of here,” Leo shot back, walking off to circle the lakeshore, glowing steps illuminating his path as he wandered just barely out of sight.
He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, stepping over the crawling vines and leaning against a tree-ish structure.
He really needed some sleep.
Leo couldn’t really handle dealing with people at all, let alone during emergency situations like this one. That was always Solace’s forte, both experienced and trained in how to comfort and help others. Will had a magic to it. He’d probably lecture Leo about getting rest while still managing to calm him in a situation like this. Leo was no good with people, not like the others were.
Part of the reason he liked solo missions, but part of the reason they were hesitant to let him do them.
He sighed, resting his head against the soft smooth bark. It was definitely his fault for picking someone up when he shouldn’t have, but what else was he supposed to do? Leave the guy stranded? Ignore Jason’s pleas?
Yes. That’s exactly what you should have done. Maybe then you would be home by now.
Leo fiddled with the chain around his neck, grabbing and twirling the necklace around his throat, twisting it until his blood flow stopped, only letting go when the pain overcame the nagging voice. It left as quickly as it came, leaving Leo alone in the woods.
The silence was back, which made him almost immediately regret his decision to storm off, but Leo was famously impulsive and stubborn. He wasn’t about to go back on his decisions. He’s made it this far, anyway.
Foreign flora and fauna crept around him, but Leo was too preoccupied with the unjustness of it all to care. The forest around him was covered in a rainbow of pigments anyway, neon and glaring against his already frazzled mind, flashy enough to give him fair warning of any possible predators.
He distracted himself for a while by tracing small patterns with his foot in the glowing grass, testing how bright the bioluminescence would get depending on temperature, forcing his brain to quiet as he focused on the fluorescent swirls. Distracted enough to not notice the silence of the forest.
Festus was with Jason, so they’d probably be fine without him. He just needed a moment. He couldn’t go back like this. He’d just end up picking more petty fights, and Jason seemed like the type of guy who’d probably let him. Alone he could manage, alone he wouldn’t be in this mess, but-
Leo blew out a tired breath, considering turning off his hearing aids and pain receptors so he could just work on the ship in peace. Jason would probably get the hint to just leave him alone until time for take-off. But the last time he did that, Leo had been found passed out inside the garage. Annabeth had lectured him for over an hour about overworking himself. Like she could talk.
He tapped out a small message on the ground, watching how the blades of grass blinked in the patterns he and Annabeth would trade for hours at a time while everyone else slept, usually the only two left awake in their sector.
Grover had given them a little lesson on bioluminescent plants once. Leo wasn’t good at memorizing things that didn’t have to do with math or equations, so Grover had done him the kindness of connecting it to engineering work.
Some species of plants were used as lighting and/or fuel sources, but certain species were dangerous. Poisonous, or maybe it was venomous. He should probably learn the difference. Poison implied danger to predators, and venomous implied that he was the prey.
He glanced at the forest around him, watching the world around him carefully, a hand glued to his blaster.
Something rippled through the grass, streams of light dancing toward him faster than he can counter act, flashing bright enough to burn his eyes and leave swirling colors in his vision, his shots firing off uselessly into the foliage before he is swallowed into the earth beneath him.
***
Leo had learned a long time ago that the most dangerous things in the universe usually didn’t have a discernible why or how, only that they did. The wider expanses of space usually offered very little in explanation of its nature, and Leo had rotten luck anyway, so he couldn’t say he was all that surprised when the roots of the tree opened up and tried to eat him.
It was mostly the flailing around like an idiot that managed to save Leo’s life.
Maybe the plant was hungry, maybe it was defending itself from the heat and destruction that their arrival had caused, or maybe the universe just hated him, but Leo fought back just the same.
A large opening had erupted out of the foliage he was resting on, vines shooting out and dragging him inside, encircling his limbs and waist so fast that he could barely react. His hands were caught in the fabric of his jacket and a tangle of thorn covered vines, scratching at his already battered and bruised skin and tearing at his bandages. Leo writhed, dragging the spines through his flesh as he tried and failed to wretch his hands free, bloodying the already raw and sore flesh.
The grip on his wrists was tight enough to cut off blood flow, restricting his movements so quickly that it was almost a moot point to struggle at all.
Leo did it anyway.
He would’ve screamed too, but the vines had wrapped around his mouth and neck and he couldn’t draw in enough air to make any audible noise, only a choked out gurgle of surprise as thorns pricked into the delicate flesh. Rainbows of iridescent neons danced in his vision, psychedelic and almost hypnotic as they blurred the sight of the outside world, which about half of him was still anchored to, decreasing at an alarming rate.
Leo’s nerves were alight with white hot pain and left a sharp metallic taste in his mouth, adrenaline coursing through his veins as his heart rate soared, clawing with blunt nails at the barbs that were squeezing around his throat.
The smell of acrid smoke filled his nose, coating his throat and devouring every inch of his senses. His lungs welcomed it, breathed it in like pure gulps of fresh air, fueling his adrenaline and urging him further in his efforts as the plants began to smolder. Vaguely, he knows his body is saving him, destroying the plant life that was meant for temperate environments, unused to volcanic prey.
The fire spreads the more he moves, attacking the vines that dig deeper into him in retaliation, dangerously tight around his throat as it attempts to choke out his life and therefore his fire.
It was the second attempt on his life so far via asphyxiation, and Leo didn’t appreciate the pattern they were establishing. He thrashed and kicked out, fingers hooking under the crawling vines by some miracle, and he immediately pushed his body heat as far as it could go, hearing a sickening sizzling hiss as the blood leaking from him began to boil, a pair of hands and claws joining his own as the vine around his neck snapped and burned away.
His hands flew to the blaster that was sinking below him, yanking it free and shooting off bright blue charges into the remaining foliage before collapsing, falling into the arms that dragged him out of the suffocating death.
***
Leo is less embarrassed about his sleep-deprived tantrum than his near death experience. Which is ironic, given how he should be used to those by now.
But he couldn’t help the way he gasped, gulping up air and blinking away stinging tears as he buried his face in the sweater Jason borrowed from him, upset and appalled at himself for getting into trouble after a whole fifteen minutes of being on his own. And he felt disgusted at how much comfort he found in the fact that Jason’s arms were around him, never pulling away despite the boiling surface of his skin. There were probably burns on his hands- Leo could already tell he was too hot to touch.
“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re safe,” A hand is brushing through his curly hair as Leo hyperventilated, gripping Jason’s shirt like a lifeline.
And- Caldera- if those words don’t feel like honey on his heart, and he has to stop breathing entirely in an effort not to break into all out sobs. He’s still dizzy, knew that his throat would ache and bruise and that he would need about a thousand more bandages they didn’t have, but for a second, he just buried himself further into Jason’s body, his fire burning so hot that Leo knew it must hurt.
But Jason doesn’t pull away.
The shock of the past few solar cycles finally hits him, the shock of the past few months, even, because Leo doesn’t remember the last time he was actually willing to let someone hold him. And here Jason was, a complete fucking stranger who just happened to be in as much shit as Leo was. Near-death experiences pretty much happened on the daily where he’s from, but it’s the second real bout of hysteria he’s had in weeks, so Leo feels pretty ready to hand-in his “untouchable badass” card.
It was a very rare occurrence for any of his crew to have such intense and public breakdowns, but Leo’s currently holding the record at a total of three in three months.
Maybe they were right.
“Fuck,” Leo choked out, fisting the fabric of his faded sweater between his fingers, vaguely noting how it was too small on Jason’s larger frame. The crown of his head was resting on Jason’s collarbone. “I’m kinda- kind of a dick, h- huh?”
Jason sighed, hands carefully carding through Leo’s curls, hesitant and feather light, as if worried that Leo would stop him. But he didn’t, and his simple refusal to push Jason away makes him feel impossibly selfish and ashamed.
“I haven’t decided yet,”
Leo couldn’t help the laugh that bubbles from his lips, grinning uncontrollably into the messy white fabric, refusing to meet Jason’s eye, even though he knew Jason’s gaze was fixed on him. He burrowed further into his sweater for a few minutes, breathing in the comforting scent of ash and jet fuel and oil, mixed in with some sort of herb that Leo couldn’t identify.
“Yeah, well, get- uh- used to it. I’m a- a- certified dumbass. An idiot of epic pr- proportions. The universe will tell- tell- tales of ‘Leo, the st- stupid fucking f- fuckwit,’” Leo sighed, forcing himself to pull away from Jason’s grasp as he recovered enough to force his emotions down, swallowing hard as he sat up. He leaned instead against a worried Festus, who noses at Leo’s arm until Leo finally holds him.
“I’m sorry. About all the bounty hunter stuff. And the thing about your planet. I’m sorry,” Jason said, ignoring Leo’s words and getting straight into the thick of it.
Leo raised an eyebrow, deciding not to speak in an effort to even his ragged breath, choosing to look around instead. Festus and Jason had dragged them to the lakeshore, ending up on the opposite bank from their campsite. Leo could see the Argo from here, not quite smoking anymore, but still a big ugly scar against the relatively serene horizon. He sighed, leaning back against Festus’ side and staring up at the sky.
“Damn it- fuck you, man. You can’t apologize for me acting like a brat. Now I know for sure that you’re hiding something,” Leo grinned, adoring the way Jason laughed despite himself, shaking his head and sighing.
They sat together in silence for a long moment, listening to the birds sing.
“... I can’t tell you everything. It’s dangerous. For both of us. And… as cool as you are, I can’t exactly trust you beyond a mutual need to survive, as much as I want to,” Jason continued, showcasing a sense of rationality that Leo kind of appreciated. It was grounding after an intense few days of Leo doing nothing but overworking his brain.
Exhaustion laced Jason’s voice, cerulean lines adorning his face and hands, weeping wounds that splattered blood against his feathers. Leo’s own dark red blood dripped down Jason’s skin and mixed in a mess on their clothing, while old wounds and new were agitated enough to give them shit in a few hours.
His teeth were bared in slight pain, sharp and dangerous. Not quite avian.
Leo could… respect that answer. He just hoped whatever it was, it wouldn’t come back to bite them in the ass. Which, knowing Leo’s luck, was very fucking likely.
But he couldn’t force him. For now, they just needed to survive.
Leo sighed, glaring up at the lavender above them. “Got it. It sucks, but I- I- got it. Don’t gotta tell a heíroas about trust. Caldera, we barely trust each other,”
Well. At least not certain Jupiters.
“Just- give me a fucking heads-up next time. If I get dragged into some deep shit, I got a right to know. I’m still mad at you for fucking me over like that,”
Jason nodded, eyes heavy and dull. He looked utterly exhausted, appearing in that second like he had lived lifetimes more than Leo, and held the weight of every single one on his shoulders.
Leo bit his lip, focusing on that scar on Jason’s mouth, one of many that adorned his warm sun tanned skin. Scars showed up like fireworks against Jason’s skin tone, pinkish to white as the scars heal and fade, but most of the wounds that had made them clearly weren’t clean cuts, jagged and explosive, a parody of Leo’s own.
Leo stared at the blood that swirled together, purples and reds and blues that reminded him of a miniature galaxy.
“Still. B-Better to know less when it comes to shady shit,” Leo sighed as he wiped at his eyes, accidentally smearing blood across his cheek bones, a brushstroke of red against mahogany.
Jason deflated a little, holding out a hand for Leo, who begrudgingly let him wipe away the blood that littered his hands. His jacket had been mostly spared from the assault, thank the universe for small mercies.
“Yeah, well… you won’t have to deal with it for long,” Jason sighed, each touch sending shocks down Leo’s spine as he carefully applied pressure to the leaking wounds.
Again an awkward silence, and again Leo had to break it.
“So… sorry. For, y’know, everything. And a-almost dying,” Leo winced, staring off at something in the distance rather than the fingers that scrubbed away dirt and chlorophyll.
“Weird thing to apologize for, but it’s okay, I forgive you,” Jason might’ve been smiling, but Leo couldn’t bring himself to check. “Festus suddenly just took off after you, so I followed. I figured something was wrong if he seemed worried,” Jason added, the pressure on his arm alleviating before coming back more forcefully.
Leo tried not to flinch. Jason had hurt himself saving him, so the least he could do was put up with some first aid.
“Yeah… Festus is basically the only- only- reason I’m alive at this point,” Leo grinned half-heartedly, earning a small huff from the droid. Festus blew a small flame at Leo’s face, tickling his skin and brushing against him fondly.
The droid must’ve sensed his high adrenaline levels and rushed to Leo’s rescue. Or maybe heard the missed shots he had fired. Can’t go one mission without needing someone to save his skin, huh?
“You’re definitely lucky to have him. Though I should’ve known something was off about this forest,” Jason sighed, tilting Leo’s chin to better clean a cut on his cheek. The movement is enough to surprise him, but Leo forced himself to stay still, looking at the lake at the edge of the woods instead of those intense blue eyes.
“I had a unit about cavernous plants. I should’ve known there was something up,” Jason sighed, an edge in his voice that surprised Leo a little.
“Uh- dude, it was like- one hundred percent my fault, don’t worry. I mean- um- I took lessons too. I’m just stupid enough to walk off by- by- myself on a st-strange planet,” Leo tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he made the grave mistake of looking Jason directly in the eye.
There was a hardness in his features, eyes alight with guilt and some other emotion that Leo had seen in the mirror a thousand times before.
“I shouldn’t have been so…” Jason cut himself off with a sigh, not letting go of Leo’s face. He ran a thumb over his temple, coming away with a brilliant shade of scarlet. “You saved my life on that ship, twice, and I almost let you die,”
Leo tried to remember whatever the fuck Jason was talking about, but the way his eyebrows were furrowed was far too distracting. Little scar on his lip close enough to touch, golden freckles close enough to count.
Leo’s ears tilted downward, mouth set in a frown as he looked up at the blonde.
“You’re not responsible for me, and we don’t owe each other shit. I got into a- a- mess, you fixed it. Call it even?” Leo offered, feeling as though he might explode if Jason continued to touch him. He held out a hand, offering some semblance of peace as Jason stared down at him.
A rough, calloused hand in his, they shook on it. Jason didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t protest when Leo declared them officially “cool.”
“On the bright side…” Leo sighed, glancing at the bioluminescent fluid leaking out of the chopped up tree, gathering in a puddle on the minty grass. “I think we might just be able to get off-planet,”
***
Gathering and filtering the fuel source was easy. Jason made quick work of it, his physical strength far out ranking Leo’s own, a fact he both appreciated and envied. Jason had diligently followed Leo’s careful instructions, clumsily yet satisfactorily emulating Leo’s own work as they got the Argo back to working conditions.
The navigation and transmitters in the ship weren’t salvageable, but at least Festus had his own navigator built-in. Leo had let Jason choose which planet to land on for repairs, cross-checking it with the list of planets where he was actively wanted before agreeing on a small mining planet with decent repair shops.
Leo had almost sobbed with relief as Festus lifted them off the ground, the sound of the engines soothing every single ounce of panic that had resided him for the past few solar cycles. Piper was definitely going to kick his ass into next year for going M.I.A, but thank fucking Caldera he was almost home.
Leo sighed as he laid across his captain’s chair, hanging his legs over the armrest, his hands flying through his puzzle cube as Jason struggled.
“I don’t understand how you do this so quickly,” Jason sighed, glaring at the puzzle Leo had lended him. Leo cracked a small smile, starting to feel a little more comfortable in Jason’s presence. Leo had forgotten how good it felt to be around someone who didn’t look at him like he was fragile. Everyone at camp had their shit, of course they did, but thanks to Leo’s latest on-field fuck-up, everyone had been treating him like he was made of glass while he was on leave. Jason, despite seeing Leo at his bitchiest and most pathetic seemed… surprisingly less bad at acting normal around him than Leo’s oldest friends.
Leo had actually started hanging out with Clarisse for the sense of normalcy. He had never been so thankful to get his face pushed into the mud during drills.
“It’s just- it’s just math, dude,” Leo explained, shrugging as he snuggled deeper into his jacket. He was still utterly exhausted from a combination of work and near death experiences, and the adrenaline in his veins was finally starting to fade out. “Math’s the code of the universe,”
“Except when it isn’t,” Jason pointed out, tilting his head a little.
“Except when it isn’t,” Leo relented, enjoying the little clicks Jason’s cube made as he twisted the dials.
Jason’s frown deepened, the small scar on his lip getting wrinkled by the expression. Leo kind of wanted to reach over and smooth it out. “Are you a prodigy? I mean- dude, I’m not the best at math, but this is ridiculous,” Jason tossed the cube on the shelf, closing the clear container Leo kept his games in.
Leo rolled his eyes, solving his own cube for the sixth time. Jason wasn’t even half bad at it- he certainly solved it quicker than Percy and Frank. The cube wasn’t exactly a test of smarts, just a test of mathematical thinking. Annabeth was the only one who could solve it as fast as Leo did. But he was enjoying the way the puzzle was making Jason emote, the usually stoic expression finally getting agitated in a situation devoid of danger.
“I built this ship from the ground up, then repaired it after an insane crash, and this is what makes me a- a prodigy?” Leo teased, holding up the puzzle in triumph as a fanfare played. Jason stuck his tongue out at him, genuinely shocking Leo a little.
He made an overly offended face, grabbing his chest in mock offense as Leo filtered the surprise into humor. “Wha- Did you just stick your tongue out at me?” Leo gasped, spinning his chair so he could properly face the blonde. “That’s fucked up, man. I honestly didn’t think you were capable of being that cruel,”
Jason stifled the tiniest of laughs, hand going over his mouth as the corners of his eyes crinkled.
Maybe the endorphins from finally escaping that desolate shithole were getting to him, but Leo giggled back at him, feeling his face warm as Jason tilted his head at him. The laughter hurt his throat, still sore and raw, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The tension between them was fading, at least.
“How old are you anyway?” Jason asked, swaying back and forth in his chair. Festus hummed at his feet, tail thumping against the floor of the ship as they spoke idly. “We never really talked about it,”
It seemed that neither of them could bear any sort of silence after Leo’s run in with the man-eating planet. Leo still initiated most conversations, but Jason seemed a lot more talkative now.
“Eighteen? I think so anyway,” Leo’s nose scrunched up in thought, chewing on the inside of his cheek with sharp teeth. His age had never really been confirmed, but it was the best guess that they had.
Age didn’t matter much anyway; camp took in anyone willing, trained the youngest/most inexperienced, and then sent the older members out on missions. Hazel and Nico- who were probably two of the most politically important members of their crew- their ages weren’t exactly clear either, and most members had foggy backgrounds.
Sometimes, whenever they were joking around about the common misconception that they were related, Piper liked to say they were the older and therefore superior sibling, a fact that Leo greatly resented because he couldn’t actually disprove it.
Jason tilted his head, feathered ears raising slightly as his eyes widened. “Really? That’s… younger than I thought,”
Leo made a face, eyebrows furrowing. “H- How old are you?” Leo asked, hands going still for a moment.
“Nineteen in Common terms,” Jason deadpanned, making Leo sputter. “What- Dude, how are you going to judge when you’re barely older than me?” Leo argued, and Jason just shrugged in reply. His electric blue eyes sent sparks up Leo’s spine as Jason looked him over, a hint of an emotion Leo couldn’t place in his gaze.
Sometimes Leo desperately wished he could read people as well as he could read machines.
“Yeah, but… I’ve had extenuating circumstances. I know heíroas have pasts, I just… didn’t expect you to be younger than me,” Jason admitted, turning his gaze away from him. Something stirs in Leo’s chest at Jason’s casual admittance of what Leo is and what he does, a dangerous volatile word that floats through the air from a mouth that doesn’t seem to care in the least.
A change in tone from their earlier argument, and perhaps a deliberate one.
Leo wonders for a second how someone his age could possibly have a price on his head, but then he remembered pretty much every single person he’s met so far in his short lifetime. It was probably the fact that Jason had a price on his head that surprised him. He just… Well, he didn’t seem normal, but he didn’t seem dan- scratch that, Jason was totally dangerous.
He just… didn’t seem like a troublemaker.
“I’m full of surprises,” Leo winked, shooting finger guns at Jason’s very slightly amused face. “And I am very skilled at getting myself into trouble,” He added with a shrug, Jason’s smile noticeably dimming at the words. Definitely not the effect he was going for.
He frowned, ears falling a little as they sat in renewed silence.
In a vague effort to escape, Leo spun in his chair, setting the cube down and absent-mindedly picking at the bandages around his fingers. “Anyway- we won’t get to the planet for- uh- a few more hours, so- y’know, we should get some sleep,” Leo shrugged, holding his arms and curling his knees to his chest. Despite his words, neither of them made a move towards the ship’s small sleeping quarters, which was really just a bunk bed built into the wall in the cabin.
“Sure… just- here,” Jason reached for Leo’s arm, and Leo hesitantly held out his hand, not moving from his position on his chair and forcing Jason to lean over so he could fix the bandages.
Festus supervised closely as Jason’s hands flew across Leo’s skin, sending sparks wherever he touched. Leo winced when Jason tightened the bandage, securing the gauze in place. Jason rubbed a small circle in his skin as an apology, pulling away as quickly as he came.
Leo’s face glowed softly as his skin warmed up, unused to the frankly extraordinary amount of times he’s been touched in the past few days. He didn’t understand how casually Jason reached for him, and he didn’t think he ever would.
“Cool, cool, cool-“ Leo coughed, standing up abruptly and leaving Festus to do the rest of the piloting. He scrambled out of the cockpit, leaving Jason alone with the droid.
Leo didn’t bother to change, just climbed into the top bunk and turned to face the wall, running his fingers over the places where Jason had touched him.
He heard Jason climb into the bottom bunk a couple minutes later, and they laid in silence for a while before Jason spoke up.
“…Leo?”
“Yeah?” He whispered back, though he didn’t know the point in it.
“What’s… what’s it like? Being a pilot for heíroas?” Jason asked, voice soft and hesitant in Leo’s pointed ears. Leo turned the question over in his head as he fingered the chain of his necklace, a small part of him excitedly cautious by Jason’s curiosity.
“Well- I’m not just a pilot. I run missions, smuggle stuff, and I’m an engineer too. It’s scary sometimes, but- we try to help people,” Leo said, feeling a need to justify himself in Jason’s eyes. Jason hummed, a small electronic noise that reminded Leo of the Argo’s engines.
“How?” Jason asked. Leo couldn’t tell whether the question contained judgment or not. Leo was always terrible at telling tone, but he liked to believe that Jason wasn’t that skeptical.
“My friends saved this underwater society once. Thermal vents in the ocean were wrecking their- um- shit. And one of our lead scientists is heading an effort to preserve the natural resources and environments of a- a good few planets. My pseudo-sister/sibling has h- helped along a few diplomatic deals,” Leo listed, wracking his brain on how to properly communicate how things worked at camp.
Jason hummed again. They mainly took jobs when they were available, and did charity work for smaller planets and nations. Stuff to keep the place running, and stirring dissent within the empire when the chance arises. Nothing much, honestly. Mainly a refuge.
“I dunno. Universe is complicated, but at least I get to fly, and we look after each other,” Leo muttered, unsure of why he needed to justify this so badly. Leo was used to people judging them, judging him.
“…Sounds nice,” Jason yawned, voice soft and small, barely heard from Leo’s place above him. Leo smiled softly, something in him warming at the idea that Jason wasn’t totally appalled by Leo’s more criminal activities.
Jason hummed. “How old were you when you joined?”
“A few summers. Best guess is around fifteen in common terms. I wasn’t really g- going anywhere in life, at least nowhere good,” Leo crossed his arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. Fifteen year old him was… flighty at best, and definitely too impulsive for his own good. Combine that with his constant struggle to stay fed, and it wasn’t looking good for him. Well- until he found Piper, and then they found Annabeth.
“And they…?” Jason trailed off, curiosity alight in his deep voice, as if genuinely intrigued as to what Camp could have possibly offered a scrawny teenager with nowhere else to go.
“They gave me a home. And freedom, I guess. I probably would’ve ended up doing the same stuff I do now, just with less friends, less money, and less smarts. Or- uh- probably some shallow grave somewhere, actually,” Leo chuckled humorlessly, thinking back to the countless lessons he’s learned from the others, and the many, many times they had saved his skin.
He still wasn’t as skilled as most of them, but it was a fact he had resigned himself to, just hoped that eventually they wouldn’t have such good reason to worry about him.
“Freedom?” Jason repeated, voice gone a hair softer. A quality to it that Leo recognized but couldn’t place. “How?”
“Freedom to fly. Access to good equipment. Shelter. A way to just- live my life, I guess,” Leo muttered, voice lowering as exhaustion caught up to him, the stress of recent events finally taking their toll on his overworked body.
“Doesn’t the danger get exhausting?” Jason replied, and Leo could practically hear the way his lips quirked up in an incredulous smile.
“Nah. It’s not that bad. I mean, sure, I get shot at, but it’s worth it a lot of the time. I do shit I can stand by, at least. And I get to meet people, do shit. I know it’s like- kinda ass sometimes, but… it’s mine. And I like it. Most of the time, at least,” Leo admitted, fiddling with the zippers of his jacket. He listened idly to the thrums of the engines, a softness settling over the air around them as they spoke.
“And the other times?” Jason asked, amusement edged in his voice.
Leo smiled softly, letting out a small sigh. “Then I wish I became a mechanic,”
Jason snorted, voice light from below him. “I think debonair pilot fits you better,”
Leo grinned. He thinks he’s starting to like this guy.
“Yeah? Alright, what does freedom mean to you, Sparky?” He mused, staring up at the ceiling as he chewed his lip. He isn’t really expecting an answer, and is a little surprised when one comes almost immediately.
“Being able to make your own choices. Not having your entire life planned out for you.” It sounds like something that Jason’s thought about a lot, a fact that makes Leo uncomfortable as soon as he realizes it.
Leo chewed the inside of his cheek, considering his response carefully. “Well- uh- we always have openings?” He tried, keeping the joking tone so Jason will know he’s not a hundred percent serious, cutting through the more philosophical mood of the conversation. The little joke succeeds in making Jason laugh, and Leo can’t help but smile.
“In your dreams…” Jason’s voice trails off with exhaustion, and Leo listens as Jason’s breathing evens into sleep.
He didn’t know what kind of life Jason came from to marvel at the thought of choices, but Leo hopes Jason finds what he’s looking for. He rubbed the fabric of his jacket between his fingers, rough against his skin. Leo sighed, flipping onto his back and closing his eyes, letting his exhaustion finally win out.
That night, he dreams of Piper, a disturbingly familiar blonde, and flying through the inky black expanse of space, with only the stars to guide them.
***
“Shared joys make a friend. Not shared sufferings.”
***
The mining planet’s marketplace was surprisingly nice. It’s like a flea market, and it’s comfortable, familiar. Leo left Festus to do the trading, supervising idly as he and Jason explored the market stalls. Intergalactic logs classified the civilization as hard-working resource gatherers, but completely failed to mention that A’ma’tista was full of talented artists.
“Woah, this place is pretty,” Leo muttered, taking in the beautiful assortment of jewelry and sculptures. Geodes and sparkling cuts of stone shimmered in his dark brown eyes, catching the bright sunshine perfectly and spraying a shower of light across the market. Rainbows were cast across the floor. Rock structures were everywhere on this planet, breaking up the mountainous terrain, cut and smooth with layers of pigmentation and enchanting colors. Plant life was to a minimum here too, which was a relief after Leo’s last run in with the local foliage.
The locals themselves had a rough, rocky texture to their features, walking geodes adorned with jewelry like living pieces of art, insects chirping and creaking in the distance.
Jason nodded beside him, feathers flaring as he stared raptly at the jewels. His gaze was fixated on a small bracelet, covered in crystals and intricate carvings. Leo glanced at him, smiling at the way Jason’s eyes sparkled. The vendor beamed at them both, pretty pink hair and stalactite-like horns covered in rings and wrapped in colorful wire. Leo's face flushed, bouncing on his heels as he waved sheepishly at them.
“See something you like…?” They asked, crooked teeth bared in a smile as Leo grinned shyly back. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, stammering. “Well- I- Uh-“
Jason shook his head, interrupting Leo’s awkward attempts at what maybe could’ve been a friendly conversation.
“Sorry, no, just looking,” Jason apologized, making a small apologetic gesture with his wings and tugging Leo along as they traversed the stores.
“Wha- dude! They were totally into me!” Leo half-whined half-joked, not entirely caring either way. Jason rolled his eyes, which was a little dizzying with the different shades of blue moving so rapidly.
“We shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves,” Jason reminded him, which admittedly might be a smart idea given the attempt on their lives not too long ago. Leo sighed, crossing his arms and huffing the tiniest flame he could muster at the blonde. Jason waved him off, bumping shoulders with Leo in what might have been scolding or playfulness.
“Whatever, Sparky,” Leo murmured, feeling a little dismissive about the concept of hiding. He had enough experience with running to know when and where it was okay to relax a little. A’ma’tista was full of tourists, and they were nowhere near the strangest pair there, even if Jason looked a little silly in Leo’s clothes and they were both more than a little roughed up. “But I can’t help it if the people can’t resist me,” He added with a shrug, shooting Jason a cocky smile that he didn’t quite feel like giving.
Jason scoffed, smiling despite himself at Leo’s antics.
“Come on, admit it: I’m irresistible,” Leo teased as he tested how relaxed the relationship between them had become, nudging Jason’s side with his elbow, earning a gentle and almost playful shove back.
“Sure, if you find height-challenged criminals attractive,” Jason taunted, making Leo gasp indignantly. He stopped in his tracks, shoving Jason in retaliation. “Hey, fuck you! I’m not short! And people think the whole debonair smuggler thing is awesome!” Leo argued, earning harmonic laughter in reply.
Jason covered his mouth in an attempt to stifle the giggles, accentuating the fact that Leo’s clothes were definitely too small for him, the action of bringing up his hands exposing his muscle-lined stomach and forearms.
Dark black lines started at his wrists, covered halfway by patches of gauze. Leo would assume they were tattoos, except they looked more like brandings than ink.
Leo frowned, squinting at the marks.
“You are kind of short,” Jason gave him the tiniest smile, and Leo huffed at him.
“Nah, you’re just a tall freak. Uh- speaking of- we should get you some new clothes,” Leo suggested, shoving his hands in his pockets. Jason looked himself up and down, tugging on the front of Leo’s one and only sweater as he examined himself.
“I guess you’re right… I can’t exactly wear your clothes forever,” He hummed, running a hand through his neat golden hair.
Leo nodded, chewing his lip as he tilted his head up at Jason, who stood maybe a head taller than him. Jason caught his eye, raising an eyebrow at him as they stared at each other.
“Uh- you go ahead. Tell me if you find something, I gotta watch Festus,” Leo coughed, rubbing the back of his neck and turning to stare at the smooth sculptures of local fauna that lined the paths. Jason gave him a small nod, walking off towards the fabric stalls with a tiny wave goodbye to Leo.
Leo watched him leave, his wings pressed tightly to his back to hide them better since Leo had convinced Jason to leave his cloak on the ship. Leo had been a little worried that Jason would’ve overheated, given the sunny warm environment, and Jason eventually relented to his swear-laden concerns.
Leo glanced back at the jewelry vendor, hands stuffed in deep in his pockets.
Festus slammed into his chest before he could even make a step toward it. Leo fell with a heavy thud, the wind knocked out of him as Festus blew small flames against his face, tail wagging excitedly as the droid pinned him to the pebbled path. Leo huffed at him, pushing the big metal lug off of him as best he could.
“Whoa! Damn, man, you’d think you’d know your own strength by now, big guy,” Leo huffed affectionately, holding his giant metal snout in his both hands. Festus whirred at him, hopping up and showing off the bags of shiny new parts strapped to his back.
“Good job, dude!” Leo praised, petting the smooth metal head of his droid. Festus chirped happily, circling excitedly around him. Leo grinned, letting Festus pepper him with fiery affection. Leo laughed as the flames tickled him, spreading warmth across his hands and face.
“Alright, alright!” He gently shoved Festus away once the affection got too much for him, tossing the droid a few nuts and bolts for his cooperation. Festus earned the odd look or two, but Leo found him more valuable off ship than on. Festus could catch a lot of things that Leo usually missed, and a big robot with teeth and claws usually deterred any thief.
Unfortunately, Festus wasn’t the biggest fan of walking around in his larger body. It required some persuasion, usually in the form of hot sauce and motor oil.
Leo scrounged through the bag of parts Festus had presented him with, relief flooding his system when he sees a shiny new handheld tucked away neatly in the parcel.
He grabbed the communicator, punching in the serial code for Piper’s transmitter and dialing in the frequency for their shared channel as quickly and as carefully as he could manage. He had salvaged his old handheld’s database at least, uploading it to the new one.
The world turns stock still as the transmissions start to flood in.
The first thing that comes online is the messages Piper had sent after the crash. A tense reminder that Leo was supposed to send hourly reports, and did he get distracted by something shiny again? Playful in tone, but an anxious drawl to their voice is enough to plant seeds of doubt within the message. The next one is less playful, more serious and demanding, telling Leo to call back as soon as possible, and that this wasn’t funny.
The accusation, though meaningless in the panic it’s delivered in, stings nonetheless.
The messages get more and more urgent by the hour. By hour four, Percy is calling him too. Terse, as their relationship outside of work consisted mostly of light-hearted jokes and discussions of music, not much serious talk between them at all, but worried enough to let Leo know that their minds had already jumped to the worst.
A missing camper usually meant a dead one.
Crushing weight takes its place in his lungs, and he finds himself unable to breathe.
By hour ten, Frank, still away on some mission that needed a sniper, is leaving him message after message, blasters still firing in the background. Then Hazel, who’s undercover somewhere underground, her voice echoing in a flagrant disregard to the intended stealth. Then Nico and Annabeth, and Piper is still at the forefront among them, tone going from serious to worried to panicked, rambling about how Leo needs to get back soon or she swears that they’ll kill him herself, then immediately takes it back with the tone of someone who believes he might be dead already.
It’s a fair enough assumption. Leo wasn’t meant to be on this mission in the first place, Will Solace had raised complaints about it himself, having been the one to place Leo on medical leave. Except Leo’s problem was one of the mind, not the body, and they had all really been grasping at straws on what to do about Leo’s probation.
Leo himself had reassured everyone he was fine, that he was doing better, and even reminded his crew that these last few field tests had gone extraordinarily well. Last time was a fluke, a freak accident, except clearly that wasn’t true because Leo is officially deemed MIA by hour sixteen.
An optimistic time frame, in truth.
Leo desperately wants to tell them that it wasn’t his fault, that the mission going awry wasn’t due to his own fragility and weakness this time, except it kind of was, and Leo can only stare at the screen with nauseous regret, a burning sense of shame in his chest that threatens to spread and devour him entirely.
Piper is the only one that keeps calling. The others go on for a while, but the messages from the rest of the team get more and more sporadic, missions tearing them away from their communicators. He can place a particular regret in Hazel’s voice when she informs him that she has to go into the field now, and that if he doesn’t call back soon she swears she’ll find him and make him do dishwashing duty for the rest of his life.
Frank sounds borderline anguished when he has to go, which is peculiar, because Leo was always sure that the sharpshooter didn’t like him. Annabeth must automate some sort of message to get to him every hour, because eventually the voice mails plateau into that strange little tapping language they both know.
But Piper’s voice stays. For days.
She’s exhausted- he can tell from how her throat rasps- their voice barely above a whisper, but it’s there. “You know…” The staticky air is dense, sticking and cracking as silence ebbed and flowed. Leo waited tensely, waiting for the comfort, the admonishment, the reprimanding amongst guilt ridden tears like every damn time before, an echo of every disappointment he’s managed to accomplish.
Instead, it’s a confession, an admittance, a slap in the face and a bullet through his heart.
“…I was never afraid before you showed up.”