Chapter Text
Percy was quiet today, Leo noticed.
It wasn’t like he and Percy were fairly close - Leo was a little bit intimidated by the guy, if he was being honest, but usually Percy was talkative, cracking almost as many jokes as him.
Today was different, though Leo couldn’t quite figure out why. It was a normal day on the Argo II, they were sailing across the ocean towards Rome with minimal issues. So far the day had been almost peaceful, apart from the encounter they’d had with a few Telekhines in the morning.
They had made quick work of them, with Percy diving into the waves to fight them, and the rest of them making quick work of the few that made it on board.
Leo didn’t think the encounter would’ve caused Percy’s mood though, considering what he’d fought before - according to Hazel and Frank, he’d killed Polybotes almost single-handedly, not to mention the rumors that he’d defeated Kronos himself.
Compared to Titans and Giants, some fish-dog mutants weren’t much of a challenge for Percy.
But that brought Leo back to his original train of thought, why was Percy acting so weird?
Shaking his head, he resumed his work on his current project - an innocent-appearing disk that when you pressed a button expanded into a flamethrower that could also shoot acid, in case they ran into fire-resistant monsters.
He didn’t think about Percy’s strange mood until the crew had gathered together for lunch in the dining hall, minus Coach Hedge, who was keeping watch on deck. Percy was just as quiet as he had been at breakfast.
Looking around, he didn’t think he was the only one who had noticed Percy’s strange behaviour. Piper kept glancing over at Percy, and Hazel looked worried when she mentioned Arion and Percy didn’t make a comment on the horse's “foul language” like he usually did.
Even Annabeth had a worried look on her face, which was what prompted Leo to speak up. If Annabeth was worried, something was up.
“So, uh Percy, do you usually find Telekhines in the Atalantic, or was this morning just unlucky?” Leo asked, though he regretted it when Percy looked up from his food and stared at Leo, his expression stormy.
“I wouldn’t know, never seen them in the wild.” Percy replied, his tone flat. A person with better social skills may have picked up that Percy did not want to talk, but unfortunately, Leo was terrible at keeping his mouth shut.
“So where have you seen them then?” Leo asked. Annabeth shot him a look, but he ignored her, focusing on Percy.
“Mount St. Helens” He replied curtly, turning back to his food.
“Dude, why were you at an active volcano?” Leo pushed.
“Wasn’t there that freak accident a few years ago?” Piper added.
Percy’s expression darkened even further at that.
“I was that freak accident” he practically growled, and it took everything in Leo not to recoil.
Leo had a million questions swirling around in his head, but before he got the chance to answer them, Percy stood up sharply and left.
The door slammed behind him, and everyone turned to look at Annabeth.
She glared at them, and for a moment he thought she was going to storm out after Percy, but instead she just sighed and slumped in her chair.
“Your dad sent us to investigate Mount St Helens” Annabeth said, looking at Leo.
“Why?” He asked, not able to stop the question from slipping out.
“It’s his biggest forge, there was some strange activity, and we needed a favour from him” she said, before continuing.
“Anyway, we went to investigate, and there were loads of Telekhines - turns out they had taken over the forge and were using it to make Kronos’ Scythe” she said, frowning.
“One thing led to another, and they figured out we were there. I had my invisibility cap, and they were really after Percy so he told me to escape while he distracted them, I…” Annabeth trailed off, faintly blushing before she continued her story.
“Anyway, I escaped, but Percy… didn’t. We didn’t know what happened, apart from the eruption… thankfully I was safe from the blast, but Percy was just… gone”. Annabeth took a shaky breath.
“We didn’t hear anything for two weeks, we thought he was dead… we even had a funeral for him, which he crashed” Annabeth scowled.
“The idiot showed up, two weeks without contact after he disappeared after the volcano he was in erupted… and he was covered in burn scars…” Leo thought back to the pink scars he’d seen on Percy’s arms, he’d never thought about how he got them.
“But wait, how did Percy cause the eruption?” Piper asked.
Annabeth shook her head. “He’s only talked about it a couple times… I don’t know what happened exactly, but he mentioned something about summoning water, my best guess is all the water he summoned turned to steam and the pressure caused the volcano to erupt.”
Leo was stunned. He knew Percy was powerful, but summoning enough water to cause a volcanic eruption… that was another level.
Taking their silence as the end of the conversation, Annabeth stood up.
“I’m going to check on Percy” she said, leaving the dining hall.
Leo looked around at the rest of the group. Frank and Hazel looked only mildly surprised, while Piper and Jason seemed to be experiencing the same amount of disbelief as Leo.
“The smoke spread all the way to Vancouver… there were weeks where we couldn’t go outside because the smoke was so bad” Frank said.
Leo shook his head. “And I thought flaming explosions were my thing” he tried to joke.
The others didn’t say anything, before Jason awkwardly stood up, muttering something about trading off Hedge for watch duty. Piper said she’d come too, and Hazel and Frank wandered off to go train, leaving Leo alone in the dining hall.
Leo got up. As much as he had questions about the Percy-Volcano-Eruption, sitting alone wasn’t going to get him any answers.
Heading back to the hull, he let his mind wander away from Percy and towards new additions he could add to the flame/acid-thrower.
