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Jason woke up alone on his birthday.
He was lying on his left side, facing the empty space next to him. He extended a hand and ran his fingers across the place his boyfriend had once been laying. Still warm.
His hand touched something out of place. A piece of paper.
Jason rolled onto his other side and fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table. Once they were on, he picked up the note and read it.
Jace-
Sorry I left you alone like a one-night stand, especially considering what day it is. I wasn’t really sure what to get you, so I thought I would send you on a scavenger hunt while I figured it out. Good luck!
-Leo
P.S. Clue #1 _____ Birthday
Jason stared at the note for a moment, then smirked. Classic Leo, he thought.
He brainstormed the clue as he got out of bed and got dressed. The floor of Cabin 1 was ice cold against his bare feet, but he was used to it by now after his many summers spent living here.
He changed out of his Superman pajamas (a gift from Piper last Christmas) and into jeans and a Camp Half-Blood shirt. Not much of a birthday outfit, he admitted to himself, but whatever.
_____ Birthday.
Happy Birthday?
It certainly made sense.
Unless it was something like “your” or “my” or “Jason’s.”
No, he was sure the answer was “happy.” But why?
Happy.
Haaappppppyyyy.
Happy.
HAPPY.
It hit him like a brick to the brain, and he felt stupid.
He bolted out the cabin door, smiling like an idiot.
***
Bunker 9.
The Hephaestus Cabin’s hidden workshop wonderland in the woods, and the place Leo spent almost all of his free time since he found it a few years ago.
Jason shoved the massive doors open and burst inside.
Empty.
Well, empty of campers, at least.
An enormous bronze dragon with ruby-red eyes sat perched on the center workshop table with a piece of paper in his mouth.
“Hey, Festus,” Jason greeted his metal friend. “Got something for me?”
Festus, the Latin word for happy.
Jason smiled to himself as memories flooded back to him.
Creak…
Jason snapped out of his flashback.
“Sorry, bud.”
He clambered onto the workshop table and looked up. The note in Festus’ mouth was still a good ten feet above him.
“Festus… can I have that, buddy?”
The dragon tilted his head to the side as if he didn’t understand.
“Playing dumb, are we? I know you understood me, Festus.” He put his hands on his hips, giving his friend his very best praetor glare. Festus only stared at him.
“Okay, I’ll admit, my praetor glare is a bit rusty, but come on, Fes, it’s my birthday!”
As if he had said a code word, Festus began lowering his head.
“Thank you,” Jason sighed. He reached up to grab the note, and Festus jerked his head back up.
“Festus!”
Although the metal dragon couldn’t form facial expressions, Jason could tell he was smirking like a smug little-
I need to calm down take a deep breath, and ask really nicely… He thought. Nope, screw this, I can fly.
Jason thrusted his hands towards the ground, mentally commanding the winds to lift him up into the air.
He shot upward until he was at eye level with Festus. The dragon dropped his jaw and the note slipped out of his mouth. Jason snatched it out of the air and raised an eyebrow at Festus, who blew a puff of smoke in his face.
Coughing, Jason lowered himself back to the ground.
“Ugh… Festus your smoke smells like Tabasco… Ew…”
He opened the note and read it aloud.
“Good job, birthday boy. That one was easy. Here’s your next clue: hermana. ”
***
Hermana.
Despite knowing Leo for years, Jason hadn’t picked up on a lot of his Spanish. He mostly spoke it while he was tinkering or sleep talking, and occasionally when he was trying to be romantic (it was very effective). There were some similarities between Latin and Spanish, since it’s a Romance language, which Leo forgot the first time he said “I love you” to Jason.
They were sitting on the end of the canoe lake dock with their shoes off. Jason was dipping his feet in the cool water. Leo’s legs weren’t long enough to reach the water, much to his frustration. They talked for a while, but eventually Leo had to go.
“I gotta get back to the bunker, Nyssa needed my help with a project.”
Jason smiled at him. “Alright. See you at dinner?”
“For sure… Unless I forget again. Which hopefully won’t happen.” He smiled sheepishly.
“Don’t worry, if you don’t show up I’ll bring you something.”
“Thanks, Sparky. Te amo,” He leaned in and kissed Jason on the cheek. When he pulled back, he noticed that Jason was staring at him wide-eyed.
“What did you say?”
“I said te amo, Jason.”
Jason flushed bright pink all the way down to his neck.
“What?”
“Leo, you can’t just say that without warning!”
“What did I say?!”
“Te amo means “I love you” in Latin.”
Leo groaned in disappointment. “Seriously? I was trying to be all mysterious and stuff with the Spanish!”
Jason laughed. “I’m guessing that’s what it means in Spanish too.”
“Yeah…” Leo looked sheepish and embarrassed, not at all like his usual jokester self.
Jason kissed him. “Well, te amo too, Leo.”
“Uh, Jason? Why are you smiling at that bush?”
Jason startled and snapped back to the present.
Hazel was standing in front of him, looking worried.
“Oh, uh, sorry, Hazel. I zoned out.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. What are you doing way out here?”
Jason was standing at the edge of the woods, a good hundred meters from any of the camp buildings.
“Well, uh, Leo made me a scavenger hunt and I’m kind of stuck on the next clue, so I came out here to think.”
“Well, what’s the clue?”
“Hermana . It’s Spanish for something.”
“Oh, well I don’t speak Spanish, so there’s not much I can do to help. Sorry, Jason.”
He sighed.
“Hey, wait, don’t give up yet. We both know someone who does speak Spanish.”
“Reyna!” Jason exclaimed.
Hazel grinned at him. “I saw her talking to Annabeth by Arts & Crafts.”
“Thanks, Hazel, you rock.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Ugh bad pun, I’m sorry that was not intentional.”
“Haha! I thought it was funny. Oh, I almost forgot why I came over here in the first place.”
She practically pounced on him in a hug. “Happy birthday, Jason!”
He hugged her back. “Thank you. Has Frank been giving you hugging lessons?”
She smiled up at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Weather Boy?”
At his confused expression, she shrugged and said “Percy says it a lot. Apparently it’s something called a Vine.”
“Huh. Okay.” Jason shook his head. “I’d better go find Reyna. Bye Hazel!”
“See you, Jason!”
***
“Reyna!”
She didn’t look surprised to see him.
“Jason.”
She was sitting on the steps of the Arts & Crafts building with Annabeth.
He ran up to them and stopped a few feet short of the bottom step.
“Hey,” he said.”
She smiled. “Hey. Happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday!” Annabeth echoed.
“Thank you both. Reyna, I have a question.”
“And that is?”
“Um, what’s does hermana mean?”
She frowned, slightly confused. “It means “sister.” Why do you ask?”
Oh. OH!
“Uh, scavenger hunt thing. Gotta go!”
He took off running.
***
By the time he sprinted back to his cabin, he was getting tired.
“Hermana. Sister.” He mumbled to himself. He beelined it for the back of the cabin, to a hidden alcove out of the sight line of the Hippie Zeus statue.
Thalia’s space.
Just as he suspected, resting on top of her dust-covered sleeping bag was a piece of folded paper.
He picked it up, careful not to disturb any of his sister’s belongings.
¡Hola!
I sent you in a circle, LOL, get wrecked nerd. Sorry I’m not sorry! Anyways, here’s your next clue.
Good romance starts with friendship.
Bad romance starts with:
“Seriously?” Jason said to himself. “That’s the clue?”
Somewhat reluctantly, he turned and ran out the door once more.
***
Knock knock knockknockknock-
“What?! Oh! Hey, Jason!” The door of the Aphrodite cabin opened and a girl with a braces-filled smile stood in the doorway.
“Lacey, hey.” Jason greeted. “Is Piper here?”
“No, sorry.” Lacey looked sad, like she wished she could’ve helped him. “She ran off with Leo a few hours ago.”
“Yeah, I suspected that might be the case.”
“Oh, happy birthday, by the way!”
“Thanks,”
“I know Piper’s not here, but is there anything I could help with?”
Jason smiled. Piper loved her younger half-siblings, and time and time again Jason could see why. Lacey was so kind and helpful, and was the official head of the Piper McLean fan club (long story).
“Yeah, um, I’m on a scavenger hunt,” He told her about the clue.
Lacey laughed. “Oh, that’s easy!”
She grabbed his fingers and pulled him through the door. He had to resist the urge to cough from the overpowering scent of perfume.
On the left side of the room, there was an old speaker and iPod that had been painter and bedazzled by the Cabin 10 campers. Lacey dragged him over and plucked the iPod off the speaker.
“No wonder you came to Cabin 10, if that was the clue. Bad Romance. Ha! I’m surprised you didn’t get this one on your own.” Lacey chattered away while she tappety-tapped on the shiny pink iPod. “Here we go, Bad Romance.”
She hooked the iPod back up to the speaker.
It’s a song? Jason thought. Than it started to play.
“Rara ra-a-ah, roma, romama, ga ga ooh la la, want your bad romance,”
Jason barked out a laugh. “Oh my gods.”
Lacey raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“I figured it out. Thanks, Lacey.
“No problem! Go find that clue!”
***
“Reyna!”
“Deja vu,” she said with a smile as he sprinted up to the Crafts building once again.
“Reyna, I-“
She held out a folded piece of paper between her pointer and middle fingers. “Here you go,”
He took the clue. “Thanks.”
Annabeth leaned towards him. “I’m curious. What does it say?”
Jason unfolded the clue and read it aloud.
“Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and blank.”
Annabeth chuckled. “Oh, Leo.”
“You already solved it?”
“Did you expect anything less?”
Jason laughed. “Nope.”
“Do you know what the answer is, Superman?”
Jason thought about the clue. “Superheroes, right?”
Annabeth nodded.
“Superman… Batman… Wonder Woman… the Flash… Green Lantern… uh, what’s their team again?” He wondered aloud.
Since Jason basically grew up at Camp Jupiter, he really didn’t know a lot about pop culture. He only really knew superhero stuff because of his nickname, and because Leo made him watch a couple movies.
“They’re not the Avengers… Isn’t it the League? League of something…”
Annabeth looked amused watching him think, she was like a scientist watching a guinea pig in a maze.
“League of… Justice? League of Justice? No, no, wait… Justice League!” He snapped his fingers. “Justice League, that’s it.”
Annabeth smirked. “Good job. Now, solve the clue.”
He thought about the names on the clue. The Justice League had a lot of members, but there were only a few main ones.
Superman.
Batman.
Wonder Woman.
The Flash.
Green Lantern.
And…
There was one more.
He was in one of the movies Jason watched with Leo. He remembered that. The actor was named Jason, just like him. He liked water… He had a trident…
Aquaman.
“Percy!” Jason exclaimed.
Annabeth grinned. “You got it. Last I saw my Seaweed Brain, he was training at the arena with Frank. Good luck.”
“Thanks for your help Annabeth, you too, Reyna. Bye!”
They waved as he ran off towards the hills.
***
When he found Percy, the Son of Poseidon was wrestling a bear. He was straddling the grizzly’s neck, his arms crossed under its muzzle.
“Percy?!” Jason called.
He smiled down at Jason, green eyes flashing with glee. “Hey, man! Happy birthday!”
The bear shifted form, turning back into the big, huggable Frank, who now had Percy sitting on his shoulders.
“Jason! Hi, happy birthday,” He greeted.
Jason beamed at them. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.”
“We’ve been expecting you,” Percy said mischievously, rubbing his hands together and grinning like a supervillain.
Jason playfully rolled his eyes. “Hand it over,”
Percy feigned innocence. “Hand what over?”
“The clue, Jackson.”
“Yeah, yeah, hold your electric horses, Grace.” Percy stuck his hand in his back pocket and extracted one (slightly crumpled) clue note.
“Here you go, man.”
Jason accepted the note, waved goodbye to his friends, and read it as he walked away.
On the clue was a rough sketch of what looked to be Jason getting clocked in the head with a brick. His eyes had been replaced with X’s. “K.O.” was written above the sketch. On the side of the paper were the words “ What happens when you hit Jason in the head with a brick? ”
Jason groaned in embarrassment. He hadn’t been hit with a brick since the quest that fateful summer, but his friends still made jokes about it to this day. Leo often joked that the brick was his biggest competition for Jason’s heart.
“Leo,” Jason grumbled. He had been at this for almost four hours, if you count the thirty minutes he spent eating lunch. He hadn’t even seen Leo at lunch. Now it was a creeping into the afternoon. His birthday was slipping by, and he hadn’t seen Leo a single time. He didn’t even care that much that it was his birthday, he just missed his boyfriend.
You’ll get to see him if you focus and solve this scavenger hunt, he told himself.
“What happens when you hit Jason in the head with a brick?”
He brushed his thumb over the “K.O.” at the top of the page.
“He gets knocked out,” Jason mumbled.
I know that better than anyone, he thought to himself. Knocked out… I think I know where to go!
***
“Will!”
Jason ran into the infirmary.
“SSSSHHHHH!” Will turned around and shushed Jason with a murderous look in his eyes. “I have patients sleeping, Jason Grace, I don’t care that it’s your birthday, I will not have you bargin’ in here and causin’ a ruckus.” He whispered viciously.
Nico, who was lounging on one of the medical beds next to a sleeping camper, snickered.
Will’s head whipped around to look at his boyfriend. “What?” He hissed.
Nico laughed, but kept quiet enough not to incur the healer’s wrath. “Your southern accent comes out when you’re angry.”
Will flipped him off and walked over to Jason.
“What is it? You don’t look like you need medical attention, and you certainly ain’t acting the part.”
Note to self, Jason thought. Don’t get on the head medic’s bad side.
“Sorry, Will. Leo’s sent me on this scavenger hunt for my birthday-“
Nico got up and walked towards him. “Happy birthday, Jason.”
The son of Hades wrapped his arms around Jason and buried his face in his chest.
Jason took pride in the fact that he was one of the only people in the world that Nico di Angelo felt comfortable hugging. The others were his boyfriend, his half-sister, and Reyna. Nico’s hugs had evolved from limply draping his arms around Jason to full on boa constrictor style squeezing the life out of him, which was what Nico was doing now.
“Woah, easy there, Nico.”
Nico pulled away and stuck his tongue out at Jason, then went to stand next to Will. The son of Hades nodded his friend. “Continue,”
“Uh, yeah. Scavenger hunt. The clue was “knocked out,” or some variation of that, so I thought I’d come here.”
“Hmm.” Will considered that. “Y’know, Leo did leave a note here, said you might need it.” He reached over to his medical cart and pulled a piece of paper out from under a bottle of nectar-infused cough syrup.
Jason took the note from him and unfolded it.
Hey, Sparky,
I had a feeling you’d think the answer was here. Well, you were WRONG! I gotta hand it to you, this one was tricky, so have another hint: Piper.
Sincerely your super hot boyfriend,
Leo McShizzle Valdez
“What does it say?” Nico asked.
Jason didn’t answer. He was thinking.
Knocked out… Piper…
Knocked out… Knockout…
Piper…
Knockout… Piper!
Jason groaned for the billionth time that day. “Seriously, Leo?!”
***
He skidded to a stop at the top of the amphitheater. Panting, he looked around. At the bottom, near the lit campfire, tables were lined with food and drinks. Chiron sat and the end of the table in wheelchair form, talking to Rachel. Annabeth and Percy were talking to Hazel and Frank by the fruit punch. Reyna was feeding her dogs jelly beans by the fireside. And standing on one of the amphitheater benches were Piper and Leo.
Jason held the clue up in the air and shouted “Seriously, Leo? That was years ago!”
“Wow, Piper. You’re a knockout!” Leo called in an imitation of Jason.
The son of Jupiter rolled his eyes and jogged over to them. When he was a few feet in front of them, he stopped and rested his hands on his hips.
“You know,” He said, breathing heavy. “You’ve had me running back and forth across camp all day. I’m pretty wiped.”
Leo smirked devilishly. “I never said you had to run, Sparky.”
Jason breathed a laugh and threw his head back. “Yeah. I know.”
“Happy birthday, blondie.” Piper nudged him with her elbow and then pulled him into a hug.
He looked back down and wrapped his arms around her. “Thanks, Pipes.”
She pulled away. “I’ll leave you lovebirds to it,” Piper walked off to go talk to Reyna.
Jason looked at Leo. “Found you.”
Leo smiled contentedly. “Happy birthday.” He stepped forward, grabbed the sides of Jason’s face to pull him downward, and kissed him.
Jason could hear their friends “ooh”-ing and jeering and generally just being immature, but he didn’t care. He kissed Leo back, moving his hands to the son of Hephaestus’ waist. When they finally broke apart, they rested their foreheads together.
“ Te amo, Leo.”
“ Te amo , Jason.”
They separated their heads. Jason moved his hands to the sides of Leo’s face and stroked his thumb across his boyfriend’s cheek.
Will walked past them holding Nico’s hand and pulling the boy behind him.
Nico looked at Leo and Jason.
“Ew, homos.”
Leo and Nico flipped each other off and laughed.
Jason smiled at them. He took another look at all his friends gathered here, and the others who were slowly starting make their way over to the amphitheater. He was so grateful for all of them.
“So, the big 18, huh?”
Jason’s attention snapped back to Leo.
“Yeah,”
“Think of all the things you can do legally now!”
Jason scoffed. “Leo, I’ve been presumed dead by the government since I was two. I can’t legally do anything.”
“Eh,” Leo shrugged. “I’ve been a missing persons case for the last four years.”
“Yeah, so when it’s your birthday in a week you can’t do much either.”
“Sucks to be us, I guess.” Leo grabbed Jason’s hand and started pulling him towards the tables. “C’mon, you’ve worked hard today birthday boy. Let’s get you some cake.”