Summary: Fate was hard to understand, especially when Leo realized that he fell in love with the daughter of Pluto who already had a boyfriend. But that didn't stop him from trying. LeoxHazel.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Fated

If he was being completely honest with himself, Leo Valdez had to admit that he didn't mind being the seventh wheel as much as he had initially thought.

Sure, he would love to find a beautiful girl and take their friendship a step further, but he figured that being single was more than satisfactory at the moment—especially if they were currently trying to stop the awakening of a certain earth goddess. In a sense, he liked to think of himself as lucky. Not being in a relationship meant less worrying about your partner, like whether or not they were going to die the next week, day, or second, which left more excuses for Leo to be selfish and save his lips for nothing but food.

Of course, the Fates could have also deemed him unworthy of a girlfriend, but Leo liked to just forget about that possibility.

But for someone as unpopular as the son of Hephaestus, he seemed to attract a lot of other things, like, say, a giant, oversized eagle that was charging at him at full speed, its beak looking sharper and pointer than anything he's ever seen before, which was saying something because his room on the Argo II was basically a storage room for all his sharp and pointy equipment.

What the—?

The eagle, with its wings tucked in tightly against its sides, was plunging from the sky straight at Leo. And before he could react—yeah, thanks ADHD—the bird grew closer and closer to him, until it practically collided with his nose. Flailing his arms frantically, Leo inwardly groaned and wondered what in the world he could've done to anger a freaking eagle. When the eagle dropped onto the ship's deck after Leo finally managed to whack it away, the boy started panicking because, no doubt, the animal would be back up in less than a minute to attack his face again. So doing the only logical thing, he threw a fireball at it and watched it discinerate.

Leo was still panting hard when the smoke cleared, but soon, he realized that a paper airplane was lying on the ground where the eagle had been. Cue an incredibly stupefied look on his face.

Behind him, he heard laughter that he instantly recognized to be Franks' mocking snicker. When he saw Hazel beside the son of Mars, everything finally made sense.

Hazel ran over to him, stifling back giggles, and Leo couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked with her hair swaying behind her as she made her way towards him. "Sorry about that. I was just practicing using the Mist and you seemed like a good victim at the time." She grinned sheepishly at him and she was so close, fixing his messed up hair and placing a band-aid over his nose where the eagle—or rather, the paper airplane—had hit him.

"Thanks," he muttered, adverting his eyes away from her before he did something stupid to ruin the moment. If he could get Hazel to fuss over him whenever he got injured, then he would gladly break a leg and maybe even get a concussion so that he could kiss her and then blame it on the fact that he couldn't think properly.

Okay, so everything before was just a lie and the fact is, Leo really did want a girlfriend.

Or maybe he just wanted Frank to shut the hell up.

-xXx-

Leo's hands moved quickly. Everything on the ship just seemed to be malfunctioning today and it was already late at night and damn it, there just wasn't enough time to fix it all.

He took a deep breath and quickly scanned the room. "Okay, so this piece goes over there, but what's going to happen to the wires here? And if that—wait, where did this even come from?" Take it from a child of Hephaestus: Repairing all this was not going to be easy.

The boy ran a hand through his hair in anger and frustration. He hated it when something didn't work properly, and he hated it even more when he had no clue how to go about fixing it; he would change something, move a piece somewhere else, only to have another problem surface, and the vicious cycle would repeat.

His hands refused to work, his eyes threatened to close, and his brain momentarily shut off... until he heard a knock on the door.

"Leo?"

He heard a hushed whisper and jolted awake. His head turned towards the doorway and saw a girl with curly brown hair peeking in. Quickly, he dusted off his shirt and straightened up. "Oh, um, hey Hazel. What are you doing here so late? It's already—" he glanced up at the clock "—one in the morning." And then did a retake. Crap, it's one in the morning.

Hazel walked in and grabbed his hand. "Stop working for a second and come with me. I have something to show you." She dragged him outside, the two of them looking like silhouettes in the dark. Leo blinked in surprised, feeling his heart speeding up when he realized that they were practically holding hands, and desperately hoped that she couldn't see the blush on his face.

They stopped in front of a bench that faced outward and Hazel gestured him to join her. "Sit down," she said and he complied. "Isn't the view beautiful? We're so close to the stars." She reached out a hand, as if attempting to grab a star right out of the night sky, and Leo thought if anyone, she would be able to do just that.

"Yeah," Leo agreed, "I guess we can all stop being jealous of Jason now."

The daughter of Pluto giggled lightly and closed her eyes to feel a cool breeze pass by. "Sometimes, I like to come out here at night and just look at the sky and forget all about the stuff with Gaia. And sometimes, I feel like I could just fall asleep here..." She paused and opened an eye to look at Leo, giving him a teasing smirk, "Until I hear you banging away in one of the nearby rooms."

Leo laughed nervously. "Sorry."

He watched as Hazel took a deep breath before sighing in content. And then she did something he never would've expected: she leaned toward him and rested her head on his shoulder; eyes still closed, and sort of snuggled against him. Leo tensed up because, what was he supposed to do in this situation? He should probably push her away—she had a boyfriend for gods' sake—but another side of him was cheering wildly and thinking: Go team Leo!

Eventually, he rested his head on hers, the two of them slept peacefully that night on the bench, with no disturbances from any dreams. For once, he was glad that he didn't get to finish all his work.

And when Leo watched the daughter of Pluto frantically try to explain how everything as all just an accident to a very angry Frank the next day, her cheeks coloured with a light blush, he couldn't help but smirk and think that maybe he still had a chance after all.

-xXx-

When Leo watched Hazel talking to Frank from the sidelines one day, he realized that she only smiled and laughed like that when she was around the Chinese boy. Of course she laughed with Leo too, but it was different—more cheerful, more upbeat, happier.

Leo understood now, after watching the two of them. It pained his heart and made his stomach churn, but he understood: Frank and Hazel were meant to be together, the Fates had decided that, and there was no place for Leo in their relationship.

Walking over to them, the son of Hephaestus threw his arms around their shoulders, causing Hazel to gasp and Frank to glare at him.

"It's nice to see you're in such a good mood, Valdez," Frank grumbled.

And Leo was in a good mood, despite just finding out that he'd never have a chance with Hazel, though he was sure that he knew it before, but just never accepted it until now. He grinned widely at the two of them—a real, genuine smile taking over his face—as he hugged them both. "I wish you two the best of luck; especially you, Zhang, because you'll need it."

And then he released his grip on them and walked away, his smile never faltering. Once upon a time, Leo had fallen for a certain daughter of Pluto; but so what if she didn't return his feelings? There were other people out there—other people way out of his league—for him to impress with his amazingly hot body (no pun intended). Maybe he could only spend a limited amount of time with each girl, Hazel included. Maybe he'll never get into a lengthy relationship. But it didn't matter.

After all, there was only so much Leo Valdez to go around.

A/N: Requested by Awesome as Annabeth.

Think of this as a random event that could've occurred during their time on the Argo II, because I feel like a lot more things could've happened while they were on the ship. And... I'm sorry this took so long. ^^"

Reviews are appreciated!

~Madin456.