Leo Valdez had made it his mission to make Nico di Angelo smile. The only person he'd ever seen really succeed at this was Hazel, who, honestly, could probably make Hades smile. There was occasionally some sort of weird expression on Nico's face whenever he looked at Percy, but Leo couldn't really call that a smile. Especially when Percy met his gaze and Nico scowled.

Either way, Leo was going to make Nico smile. He didn't care what he had to do, he was going to make him smile.

He cornered Nico on the ship one day after eating. Nico tried to move past him. Leo stepped in his path. Nico sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "What do you want?"

"I'm going to make you stop being so gloomy all of the time," Leo said cheerfully. "Bad for morale, you know."

Nico rolled his eyes.

"So!" Leo said, clapping his hands together. "I would use up some awesome jokes but, to be honest, you'd probably hurt me if I did that. So we're not going to do that. But! What do you like to even do, besides being all doom and gloom and sneaking up on people in the middle of the night?"

"Nothing. Move."

"You have to like something. I mean, even if it's just… some sort of food, or a lame card game- aha! You flinched! You like a lame card game!"

"I do not, move, I don't like anything," Nico said, wriggling under Leo's arm and heading away, hands shoved so far into his pockets he was probably reaching Narnia. Leo followed him.

"C'mon, tell me what you like!"

"You not following me around."

"Oh, I am an absolute joy," Leo said. He edged past Nico and placed himself in Nico's path again. "C'mon. C'mon, let's do something. Everyone else is, like, paired off, and we're the only ones left out. So let's do something."

Nico just sort of looked at him, slightly pinkish.

Then Leo realized what he'd just said.

"Uh," he said. "That came out different than I wanted it to. But the whole, spend time together thing still stands. And the unintentional part too, I guess."

Nico's 'slightly pinkish' look turned into 'full-blown tomato.'

Leo rocked back on his heels, glancing around awkwardly. "So…" he said. "Come here often?"

That was, apparently, enough to snap Nico out of his tomato impression, because he just scoffed and tried to push past him again. "Move."

"C'mon. C'mon, just… give me ten minutes. I'm really good at being persistent."

"I can see that," Nico said. He sighed.

"So, what would make you smile?" Leo asked. "Because I've really gotten no hints at all from this conversation."

"This isn't a conversation."

"But I still want to make you smile."

"That's not going to happen."

"Oh, yeah? Wanna bet?"

Nico was silent. He was kind of scary when he glared, Leo realized. Like, 'don't want to meet this guy in a dark alley' scary. 'Oh wow he's going to kill me now' scary. Leo tried to bare his teeth in his own smile, but he was pretty sure it just looked like he was uncomfortable. Which wasn't entirely untrue.

"So," Leo said. "That's a no-go on smiling, hanging out, and betting on whether I can get you to smile."

Nico didn't answer.

He was really scary right about now.

So, Leo did the natural thing and asked an entirely inappropriate question for the situation.

"Ever been kissed?"

It had the desired effect of Nico turning bright red and sputtering out a "Wh- wh- what?"

Leo shrugged. "Just thought I'd ask, since we sort of are… running out of things to talk about. I mean, with Jason and Piper making out on every available surface, and Percy and Annabeth-" he sees Nico flinch at this, so he cuts himself off.

It's quiet again. It's always really quiet with this guy. Leo has the impression that he doesn't like him too much.

"Either way, do you want to be kissed?"

"B-by you?"

"Who else? Festus?"

Nico sucks in his cheeks and, still bright red, averts his eyes. "Make it quick."

Leo wonders how old he is, exactly, because the doom and gloom sort of makes him seem older than the blushing and stuttering thing he has going on right now, but he figures that he can't be more than two years younger than Leo, so it should be fine. So, Leo looks at Nico. He looks at him some more.

Then he swallows and just goes for it and their faces collide in an awkward meeting of pain.

"Okay, that was bad," Leo said, rubbing his cheek. "Who told you to move your head?"

"You were taking too long! I thought you were joking!"

Still, when Nico hurried away, face redder than the tomato impression earlier, he thought that he saw some sort of smile.

Well, it was a start.

This was requested by a user on Tumblr, who wanted Valdangelo, preferably something cute and happy! And… I hope this is cute and happy enough~