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What would be the best gift of all time?
This was one of many questions Percy couldn’t answer.
Happy Holidays, from the one and only Percy Jackson who can assure everyone that the worst part of the holidays is picking out gifts for everyone. It’s stressful, and the pressure to get the best one out there increases the fewer there are to give.
Percy is spending winter break with Annabeth back in New York this year, which has been great. New Rome is awesome, but it's nice to be back at camp for a few weeks.
Almost everyone is getting together for Christmas this year, and Hazel suggested they do a gift exchange. They all agreed, some of them more reluctantly ( cough cough , Nico), and pulled names out of Annabeth’s Yankees cap, which had started working sometime after the war with Gaea.
Percy got Leo, who decided to stay at camp after the accident with Calypso. Percy still felt guilty for leaving her on that island and forgetting to check if the gods had kept their promise. Now… he didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance to apologize to her. She was kept in the big house, which Leo frequented often nowadays.
They all mourned Jason’s death, Piper and Leo especially. Which just made celebrating harder because it felt like they were still waiting for him to come flying in, announcing he’d somehow charmed or fought his way back here.
But that was how it worked. As a demigod, you lose people. That’s just life.
And now Percy had less than a month to get Valdez a present, someone who built a flying war machine, and then a flying metal dragon inside said war machine, and recently came back from the dead. What’s the saying? “What do you get for someone who has everything?” Well, try someone who can build anything.
Annabeth won’t tell him who she got but keeps hinting at how amazing her gift will be. So Percy did the first thing he could think of; Percy called his mom for ideas.
“Well, what does Leo like?” She asked, and through the misty screen of the Iris Message, Percy could see a laundry basket and the pile of clothes she was folding.
“Well, he likes building things? He’s a son of Hephestus. Did I mention he can spontaneously combust?” Percy said, tapping his fingers on the edge of his bunk in the Poseidon cabin.
“You did,” she said, nodding, “Maybe bake him something? Or get him something from a celebrity he likes?”
“Maybe,” Percy said, thinking. “Except, I can’t bake and I don’t know any other celebrities he likes besides Archimedes, and he’s been in the underworld for a while now. I guess I could ask Nico for a favor…”
His mom pursed her lips. “Maybe find someone he likes that isn’t… dead? Buy him a book written by a famous engineer and get it signed. Something like that.” A signed book? Maybe. Annabeth would know some good engineers, right?
“Okay, thanks, mom. I’ll see you this Thursday, right?” Percy asked, trying to remember what date they had agreed on for dinner.
“Yes, and make sure to bring Annabeth. I haven’t seen her in so long,” his mom said with a small frown.
“It’s been less than a month mom, you saw her at Thanksgiving,” Percy protested, but couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
“Oh, but it feels like forever,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she continued folding clothes. “Good luck with that present for your friend. I love you.”
“I love you too, mom. See you Thursday,” Percy said, not wanting to end the conversation. Percy missed talking to his mom more often.
“See you!” She said, cutting the connection as she continued folding clothes.
Percy sighed, standing with a wince; he had spent the majority of yesterday in the arena, sparing and catching up with old friends, and was just now feeling the full effects of that.
Trying to find Annabeth took him no time at all, as they almost collided outside her cabin door.
“Woah! Just couldn’t wait to see me, could you Wise Girl?” Percy said, squeezing her in a tight hug.
She laughed as Percy spun her around. “How was the chat with your mom? We’re still having dinner with her and Paul on Thursday, right?” Annabeth asked, on top of things as always.
“Yep, and I’m starting to think she likes you more than me now. She sounded more excited that you’d be coming than her own son.” Annabeth laughed as he pouted and slapped him playfully on the shoulder, looking pleased nonetheless.
“Come on Seaweed Brain,” she said, starting to walk towards the pavilion. “So why were you trying to find me?”
“I, uh, I have an idea for Leo’s present. But I need your help,” Percy said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. Technically, they weren’t supposed to tell anyone about their gift or who it was for. Now Annabeth would know both. But Percy trusted her with his life, so why not a Christmas present?
“Did you come up with the idea, or was that why you wanted to call your mom?” Annabeth asked, a knowing grin plastered across her face. Percy sighed in mock defeat.
“Okay fine, I got a little help from a third party. But will you help?” Percy asked, clasping his hands as if in prayer.
After a beat of silence, Annabeth asked, “What do you need help with?”
“Awesome! Do you know any famous engineers that might live in the city? I figured Leo probably would be less interested in architects, but that you might know some people?”
Annabeth thought for a moment as they walked in silence.
“Tony Stark. A billionaire, owner of one of the leading companies in technological advancement. He used to build weapons for the military but then disbanded his weapons department, which caused a huge upset. He built this suit of metal armor that he could fly around in, and used it to save a lot of people. Now he mostly works on energy efficient technology and general research in electronics.”
“Wow,” Percy said, thinking of nothing else he could say to that. “I’m surprised he didn’t try and take over the world or something. Are you sure he’s not evil?”
“Percy!” she scolded. “Of course, I read that from a biography I found in a library just outside New Rome. Remember when we went out for the weekend?”
“Yes, I think I might remember your endless admiration for that little bookstore, with the fairy lights, and the nice lady at the register, and-”
“Okay, I get it.” Annabeth cut me off. “But I think it was pretty up to date, up until a few years ago I think. What are you going to do?”
“Well at first my plan was to get him to sign a book or something. But… I don’t think he’s the kind of guy to write books. He sounds like a workaholic,” Percy said plainly.
“Yeah, pretty much. But he also built one of the tallest buildings in New York, 808 feet tall, powered by an arc reactor that could sustainably run the entire tower for a year.” Ah, now Percy understood why she knew so much about this guy.
“Could we get one of those? Or the designs for one of those for Leo? He would like that, right?” Percy asked.
“I don’t know, he's probably not giving away high-tech parts to teenagers. Maybe he has a gift shop,” Annabeth suggested, pursing her lips and tapping her fingers against her side as if waiting for him to ask.
“So, would you want to come with me to-”
“Glad you asked! Yes, yes I would,” Annabeth said, cutting Percy off for the second time in as many minutes.
Percy smiled. This might be really fun.
_+~+_
They couldn’t get away until Thursday, on the pretense of dinner with Percy’s mom. They left three hours earlier than necessary, so they could visit ‘Stark Tower’ before they were supposed to eat.
It was a little hard to find, given that they didn’t want to use the internet to find it. They ended up asking around, and the second person they asked responded with, “You mean the Avengers? Yeah, it’s somewhere in Midtown I think. You’ll know it when you see it.” Maybe the Avengers was a popular charity Stark was in charge of?
They thanked the helpful guy, who was walking his dog (Percy crouched down to pet, it was very cute). They wandered around Midtown for a while until Annabeth paused and pointed upwards towards a building tucked between two others.
“I think that’s it,” she said in amazement, and they walked around to the front of said building. Sure enough, There was a sign out front that read “Stark Industries Tower,” and a huge letter ‘A’ resting at the top. Strange, if Percy built a super cool tower like this he’d put his name on it.
They walked in the automatic doors and Percy suddenly felt on edge. There were electronics everywhere; computers, wall screens, tablets, and phones. If they even touched any of those things, Percy had a feeling this trip would turn into a realistic (insert movie reference here) .
Annabeth shared a look with Percy, and they made their way toward the reception area.
“Hello, how may I help you?” the woman at the desk asked. Her name tag identified her as Bailey.
“We’re here to see Mr. Stark,” Annabeth said, surprising him a little. Granted, there did not appear to be a gift shop and Percy did not want to leave empty-handed. Could you even ask for the billionaire boss without an appointment?
The answer was no, as Bailey told them with a furrowed brow. She might have thought they were kidding.
Annabeth closed her eyes for a second then opened them. She snapped; a crisp and sharp sound that changed the air around them. “We’re here to talk to Mr. Stark. Didn’t he tell you personally to let us through?” Bailey looked confused for a moment, then smiled and nodded.
She pulled out two visitor stickers from under her desk and handed one to both demigods. “Have a good meeting!” Bailey said, smiling widely.
“Thank you,” Annabeth said, then turned and started walking towards the elevator. Percy followed, dazed by how easily Annabeth manipulated the mist. He knew Thalia had taught her a few tricks, but she must have practiced on her own.
“That was incredible,” Percy whispered in her ear as we waited for the elevator to reach us.
“Thanks,” she said as if it was no big deal. Percy could still see the shine of pride in her eyes as the elevator dinged and opened.
It was much more sturdy, clean, and smaller than the Doors of Death. Thinking back, the music down there was only slightly worse, but at the time they had more pressing issues. Thanatos needed to update his music playlist.
Mariah Carey played through invisible speakers as they swiftly moved upwards. Suddenly the elevator came to a stop and a female voice made them both jump, “Who are you?”
It sounded like the woman from the metro and cut off the Christmas music abruptly. Percy exchanged a look with Annabeth and she made the universal ‘I don’t know’ gesture.
“Uh, hello? Strange, disembodied voice…?” Percy asked, trailing off, memories of similar disembodied voices invading his thoughts.
“My name is Friday, Mr. Stark’s personal AI, networked into this tower. Who are you?” The voice repeated.
“Annabeth Clearwater and Percy Rhodes. We’re here to see Mr. Stark,” Annabeth said after a moment’s hesitation. Percy looked at her and Annabeth's eyes said clearly, just go with it .
“You were not registered for an appointment,” Friday said, and Percy realized the situation they were in was not in their favor. If he died in an elevator because of an angry computer, he would be having some words with Hades.
“Were you not informed? We’re old friends of Tony’s. How do you think we got past reception?” Annabeth asked, and Percy said a silent prayer to his dad that this worked. Maybe, as AI, the mist would work on Friday?
A tense moment of silence then, “I… do not know. You did not hurt Miss Jones downstairs or manipulate her that I know of. Why are you here now?”
Annabeth’s face looked calmer as she said pleasantly, “Well, we were in town. We thought we’d drop in for a visit. It’s been years since we’ve seen Tony and we wanted to congratulate him. He’s come so far.”
Percy held back a grin. Years of getting out of tough scrapes make you a pretty good liar. If he didn’t know better, he would have believed Annabeth too.
“Of course. Shall I inform Mr. Stark of your arrival?” Friday asked. Percy saw Annabeth thinking for a moment.
“Uh, no. We want to surprise him. Everyone likes surprises, right?”
“Mr. Stark has explicitly stated that he does not like surprises,” Friday said plainly.
“Right,” Annabeth said, backtracking. “But how does he know he doesn’t like surprises if he doesn’t know what kind of surprise he’ll be getting? Maybe he’s never had a good surprise before.”
There was a moment of silence and then the elevator lurched and continued its climb upwards.
“Do you like surprises, Friday?” Percy asked, genuinely curious now that he’d thought of it. “I mean, as artificial intelligence, are you capable of feeling surprised?”
“That is a good question,” Friday said contemplatively. “I do not know the answer to that. Since Mr. Stark programmed me, I have been wired into this building, watching and hearing everything that goes on. I have not been surprised yet, nor has Mr. Stark if I can help it.”
“Well can you feel emotion at all? Can you feel sad or hopeful or happy?” Percy asked, leaning on the metal railing behind him. Annabeth gave him a strange look. He was being unusually inquisitive for someone running on three hours of sleep (Percy, Frank, and Hazel stayed up last night playing Mythomagic with Nico).
“I believe I have felt happy, in the vaguest definition of the word. It is interesting that my programming has never considered feeling things when I spend a considerable time watching humans experience feelings. Thank you, Percy, for the insight.”
“You're welcome,” Percy said, pushing himself off his elbows as the elevator slowed.
The doors opened, and the pair was met with a bright red and orange light. The room had floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, which had a beautiful view of the city and a perfect vision of the setting sun, which in the winter was blinding.
Annabeth walked to the window and surveyed the city, transfixed. Percy shied away from the crystal clear glass as soon as he saw the street far, far below them. He did not need a reminder of how high they were right now. He didn’t think Zeus would shoot him down in a building, but was 808 feet considered ‘in the sky’?
Percy peeked around the kitchen, not wanting to cause a ruckus but not wanting to go out and look for anyone either. Thankfully, he didn’t have to.
A man in an oil-stained white T-shirt came bouncing up the stairs across from the windows, juggling more than a few coffee cups on plates of various sizes. He was so focused on not dropping anything, that he didn’t notice Percy or Annabeth in the room at all.
Tony speed walked to the counter and put down his load with a sigh, thankful he hadn’t shattered it all in the process. He didn’t need Pepper’s nagging about wasting dishware.
As he washed his hands and splashed his face with water in the sink, Percy coughed softly and Tony whirled around, eyes wide as he held a kitchen knife he’d grabbed poised for attack.
When he saw a girl and boy in their late teens, he lowered the knife, keeping it in his hands just in case.
“Who are you?” he asked, tapping the remote in his pocket for his suit to come to him. Then his brain kicked into high gear and he realized they had to have been allowed up here by Friday and reception. So unless Friday was somehow unaware of their presence or unable to reach Tony…
“My name is Annabeth, and this is Percy. Before you ask, yes, we were allowed access up here.” Annabeth tapped the visitor's sticker on her jacket as proof.
“Right…” Tony said, turning his body to put the knife back in its block, still keeping his eyes on the duo. “And why are you here?”
Percy and Annabeth shared a meaningful look. Finally, Annabeth spoke again.
“We need a favor… for a fellow engineer. Nothing horrific, just a loan, of sorts,” Annabeth said, clearly putting thought into how she phrased each word. “It’s for Christmas,” she summarized.
“Okay, but do I know you..?” Tony asked, looking between the two and assimilating zero recollection. He was less on guard for an attack, and stuck between calling security and giving in to curiosity.
“Yes, and, well, no.” Percy tried to explain, waving his arms around in a ‘I’m trying to explain but not good at it’ way. “We can explain everything, if you’ll give us a little time.”
Tony looked at the two a moment, then scoffed at himself and shook his head. Pulling a hand through his messy hair, he sighed and turned to leave, checking his watch for the time.
“Alright. You have ten minutes.”
_+~+_
Tony looked at the two lunatics in front of him. After three minutes of explanation and a long pause, he was less sure of inviting two potentially dangerous strangers to talk to him alone.
“No, are you crazy? Now please leave before I call security to escort you out,” Tony said half-heartedly.
The two exchanged a glance and the girl pursed her lips before nodding, as if Tony hadn’t just declined their vague proposition.
“Are we alone?” Percy asked, gesturing to the ceiling. Friday, of course. They don’t want her listening in.
Now, this was interesting. What would happen if he shut her out of this room? Would he be in danger? It could be argued that he has been in danger this entire time, but Tony was curious now. Pepper always said if curiosity killed the cat, Tony was on his last life. Maybe there was some truth to her gibes.
Tony pulled out a wrist computer and typed in a few commands, keeping Friday active in the rest of the building and available if there was a threat. Like inviting sketchy strangers in to talk about Christmas? He thought to himself.
“Okay, shoot,” Tony said, folding his hands and sitting back in his chair to look at Percy and Annabeth. “Not literally, please,” he added, only half joking.
Percy sat forward, “Our friend Leo, who we mentioned before, is an engineer and kind of a freaky genius. My point is, anything I could ever get him for Christmas that he would like, he’s either planning to, could, or has already built it himself. And this is an important Christmas for him. Which is why we need your help.”
“What do you want me to do? Fly in and give him a high five?” Tony asked, skeptical of how much truth the words freaky-genius held.
Annabeth spoke up, “More like, you give us one of your old suits for him to mess around with for a few hours. It doesn’t even have to leave this building, Leo can come here.”
“I don’t know…” Tony said truthfully. He knew he shouldn’t even be talking to these people, who may use his suit design to create weapons or use access to the tower to memorize floor plans.
“He’ll put the suit back together just as he found it, although I’m sure you have the designs saved somewhere and could rebuild it easily. Please, Mr. Stark.” Percy said, so sincerely that it gave Tony pause.
A few minutes later, as Tony watched the elevator close, he wondered if trusting his gut was the wrong move here. He hoped it would be worth it, and reassured himself that Friday would be monitoring them the whole time.
He’d tell Pepper about it and she’d help him get it organized. Plus, it was Christmas for crying out loud! Tony was no Scrooge.
_+~+_
“My turn!” Leo said with glee, looking around the circle of demigods who had convened in the pavilion to open gifts.
So far, Piper had gotten a sweatshirt from Hazel that said, “Sarcasm is just one of the services I offer,” with a handmade sheath concealed inside the pocket. Hazel was given a picture frame from Nico with the two of them in it, smiling. Frank gave Nico a black Santa hat, which Nico mumbled out a thank you for, but proceeded to wear it the rest of the day.
It was down to the last few gifts, and Leo was looking around expectantly for his secret Santa, trying to remember who had already gone.
Percy stood up and everyone said, “Ohhh,” as they had for every present.
Leo looked confused when Percy wasn’t holding a present and even more confused when, smiling broadly, Percy pulled out a blindfold and started wrapping it around Leo’s head.
“What- stop that- wow this is really comfortable,” Leo said as he turned his head from side to side, black fabric covering his eyes.
“Uh, did you get Leo a kidnapping for Christmas?” Nico asked in confusion. Percy just smiled and shook his head. He grabbed Leo’s arm and pulled him to his feet.
“Sorry for the delay, but this might take a while. Annabeth, do you want to come?” She nodded eagerly and helped him lead Leo to the camp van and into the backseat. The rest of the group was left in the pavilion, confused and fairly sure their friends had just abducted Leo.
Leo was growing restless and started fiddling with some paper clips from his toolbelt in the car. Neither Percy nor Annabeth would tell him where they were going or any hint as to what was about to happen. Finally, they stopped, and Percy helped Leo out of the car and onto the sidewalk. He heard the hustle and bustle of the city on Christmas, and the freezing cold as he was hustled inside a building nearby.
It was warm, and quiet Christmas music played. It wasn’t crowded and only a low murmur could be heard through the blindfold, which covered his ears. Leo heard an elevator ding, and they stepped forward onto it. He stumbled as they started shooting upwards, and slightly nervous now, his fingers flew across his paperclip contraption.
“Do we have to keep the blindfold on? It’s starting to make me dizzy,” Leo said, putting one hand on the side of the elevator as it continued to climb impossibly high.
“That’s the elevator making you motion sick. We’re almost there,” Annabeth said reassuringly. Leo hoped she was right, memories of car sickness came to his head, and if he chucked in an elevator on Christmas he’d become a punchline for sure.
The elevator opened (finally) and the smell of machine grease and oil filled his nose as they carefully walked forward. He was led into another room and a door shut behind him. Suddenly the blindfold was taken off and Leo squinted through the ceiling lights that seemed blinding.
In front of him, displayed on a clean gray stand, was a suit of metal armor.
Leo’s jaw dropped and he stared at the shiny armor for a long moment. He looked at the suit like… well, like a kid on Christmas. Pulling his eyes away from the display, he looked over his shoulder at Percy. “Is this real? Can I…”
“It’s real, unfortunately,” a voice said from his left. Leo turned his head and was met with a familiar man with an odd beard, wearing jeans and a stained white T-shirt. He held a toolbelt in one hand and a dirty rag in the other, the latter of which he had slung over his shoulder.
“And you are…?” Leo asked, trying to put a name to the face he knew he recognized from somewhere.
“Really?” The man turned to Percy and Annabeth, who was standing by the door excitedly. “He doesn’t even know who I am,” the man said in exasperation.
“Wait, wait, I’ll get it,” Leo said, screwing up his face. “Uh, Starch? Starnk? No, no I got it; Stark. Tony Stark, right?” Leo said, opening his eyes in surprise. “Man, it is you! I used to read your books when I was little. I’d forgotten.”
“So there was a book…” Percy muttered to himself, realization hitting him too late.
“You read those books when you were little? What kind of kid reads about quantum theory instead of, I don’t know, Harry Potter?” Tony asked.
“Uh,” Leo looked at Percy and Annabeth for a good explanation, the former of whom shrugged unhelpfully. “My mom worked in a machine shop.”
“Right,” Tony said, obviously still miffed. “Well Merry Christmas, here’s a toolbelt, go wild, try not to break it, and don’t steal anything.”
He tossed the toolbelt in Leo’s direction and made sarcastic jazz hands before leaving through a door off to the left.
“Piper said rich people were especially pretentious. Guess she was right,” Annabeth said, watching the older engineer leave.
“So…” Leo started, turning back to the suit and the table next to it. “I can just go crazy? Like are we talking free reign or minimum restrictions? And how did you even pull this off? Actually, never mind, I’ll ask later.”
“Tony said he’d be watching from the monitors if you try and trash his suit he’ll know and have evidence,” Percy recalled with a knowing grin.
“And you heard the man,” Annabeth said, smiling. “Go wild, try not to break it, and don’t steal anything. Other than that, it’s all yours. We’re going to go back and finish the gift exchange while you have fun. Don’t drive the old man mad, Valdez.”
Just like that, they were gone, and Leo was alone with the glorious piece of machinery in front of him. He grinned.
Stark watched his expression from the other side of the camera, sipping a coffee. He frowned. What was he doing? The answer was unknown, as it was most times even when Tony tried to explain himself. He shrugged to himself and opened a book he’d gotten from Nick Fury for Christmas; 50 Steps To Breaking and Entering.
Leo tossed the provided toolbelt aside and a positively insane glint in his eye sparked as he pulled out a magnifying headpiece and some small, sharp objects from his seemingly empty toolbelt at his waist.
He laid the armor on a nearby table and poked around the outside of the armor. He eventually found a button under the lid of the helmet and everything expanded and opened up, almost like a snapshot of an explosion.
Leo dove for the chest plate first, disassembling it and examining each piece individually, sometimes making tweaks with his tools. As he moved to each section of the armor, he pulled out little scraps of metal and other materials he now kept stored in his toolbelt, twisting wires together and threading them through the metal suit.
Tony didn’t look up again from his book until Leo started welding, a shower of sparks lighting up the monitor and making Tony’s eyes widen. He put down his book and leaned into the screen, squinting at the mess the small mousy boy had made.
He looked like he was reconstructing the suit, pulling out and adding pieces to it with incredible speed, his fingers barely keeping up with his hands as he gleefully ripped wires out and rewound them, all while maintaining laser focus.
Leo took his blowtorch around the table to work on the helmet, leaving a glowing arc reactor where before there had been a dark, empty hole.
The suit had been shortened in the legs and torso by a few inches, modified just enough that it was almost undetectable. Leo had found the control panel in the helmet and figured out how to release each part from the armor stand. By the time Tony realized what was going on, Leo was hopping around like a kid trying to put on tight socks. One glance at the monitor and Tony bookmarked his page.
By the time Tony reached the room just off his main workshop, he was too late.
“What did you do?” he asked, half in amazement and half in horror.
Leo did not have a drop of shame or regret in his expression, only a big smile and a little giggle of anticipation as he pressed the button under the helmet and the suit condensed.
Whirring sounds, moving gears, the painful grinding of modified machinery that doesn’t quite move together correctly. But when it was done, Leo was standing in his own, personally modified iron man suit.
Seeing his signature red and gold on a stranger made Tony feel strange, like seeing your skin on someone else or seeing yourself from someone else’s eyes. His mind was racing on how to get Leo out of the suit before it a) blew up, b) squished him like a grape, or finally (and most horrifying of all) c) started flying like it should.
Tony might not be as arrogant and big-headed as he once had been, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea of being both outsmarted and upstaged by this curly-haired menace barely out of puberty.
“Okay, look, you win. You got the suit to fit you, but it took me weeks to perfect that and you could get seriously hurt-” Tony was abruptly cut off as Leo grinned and flexed his fingers.
He shot up, swerving at the last second so he didn’t hit the ceiling, looping back around and flying straight through the door into his workshop, which unfortunately had a tunnel for test runs. Leo made a beeline for it, Tony running after him to little success.
Tony turned to the wall and slammed on the emergency lockdown for his lab, which closed the door to the tunnel. It didn’t look like Leo would make it, and yet he pushed the suit to go faster.
Just as the doors slammed shut with a deafening clang, Leo disappeared from both the building and Tony’s line of vision.
Crap. What was Tony supposed to do now?
_+~+_
Percy and Annabeth had made it back to camp and finished the gift exchange. There were some pretty crazy and hilarious gifts given, but none matched Leo’s.
The rest of the demigods there begged Percy and Annabeth to tell them where they’d brought Leo, but Percy told them to “wait and see for yourselves,” which was the most frustrating answer ever.
After dinner, the visiting and year-long demigods sat around the fire, bundled up in blankets and sweatshirts to watch the annual demigod Christmas movie, which was filmed and directed years ago by a few of Dionysus's kids. Every year they projected it on the wall of Zeus’s empty, marble cabin (with permission from him, of course).
After a dramatic battle scene with real live hellhounds lying dead, everyone clapped. As the applause died out, a noise overtook the movie projector, getting louder and louder.
It sounded like a plane, except the magical barrier around camp redirected aircraft and weather alike so that was impossible. Campers started looking to the dark sky, finding nothing but the stars shining back at them.
Suddenly, Clarisse sheds her blanket and gets to her feet, drawing her sword. Her cabin mates follow her lead, drawing a variety of weapons as something shot down from the sky, landing about 40 feet from the fire.
By now every camper was standing, as was Chiron. In the dark, only a glint of metal could be seen reflected from the flames. The figure stood, humanoid yet clearly not human. Percy squinted from his spot next to Annabeth, capped pen gripped in his hand.
Breaking the tense silence, he started laughing so hard he doubled over, using one hand to find Annabeth for support so as not to fall over. When she realized why he was laughing, she gave a snort of disbelief and smiled broadly at the unidentified figure.
The thing came forward with a mechanical clanking marking each step, its face a literal mask of indifference. Then, the helmet slid up, revealing the cackling face of Leo Valdez.
“Oh, man,” he said, after he managed to stop laughing. “The look on your faces!” He framed them like he was preparing to take a picture with his fingers. “Priceless. And look at this thing! Percy, Annabeth, I kind of tinkered with it and then flew out before Stark could really do anything, so just don’t go back in that building again and you’ll be fine. I think.”
Pinwheeling his arms as one of the gears in the leg got stuck, Leo regained balance and grinned again as Clarisse scoffed and returned her sword to her sheath. Everyone started sitting down again, most focusing back on the movie with the occasional glance back at Leo.
Percy ran over and laughed again, helping Leo stay upright. He shook one leg until it popped and he could move it again.
“Whoops, maybe I should have done a bit more work on the legs before I put it on. I almost crashed into the Chrysler building on my way over here,” Leo said as the rest of his friends made their way over.
“Leo, what- what happened?” Hazel asked, her face mimicking the rest of the demigods' confused expressions.
“Yeah, you’ve been gone for hours,” Piper said, sounding worried. “Percy and Annabeth said not to worry but, where have you been?”
“In a workshop, working on this sweet thing,” Leo said, gesturing to the metal suit he was wearing.
“Do you think Stark will be able to track it down?” Annabeth asked him.
“Oh no, I ripped out the tracker when I was messing with the arc reactor and rewiring the helmet to play better music. Honestly, that guy’s taste is so old.” Leo did a little twirl and almost fell over.
“Thank you for the gift you guys, seriously. This is better than anything I could have ever expected, except maybe like a giant red cake with sparklers and music coming out of it. That would be pretty awesome too. But I frickin love this,” Leo amended, flexing his fingers which made flames come out on either side of him.
“Can’t you… already do that?” Frank asked, gesturing to the flames.
“Yeah, but it's so much cooler when I can do it with this sick armor on, while flying, and listening to some awesome tunes!” Leo said excitedly, his eyebrows catching on fire which he had to ask Piper to put out since he couldn’t reach them himself.
“I’m going to go drop this off at Bunker 9, see you guys later!” And the son of Hephestus left before anyone could speak.
“Should we be worried?” Hazel asked no one in particular as Leo shot off into the forest, leaving a trail of fire behind him.
“The forest has seen much worse than fire, it’ll survive,” Nico said assuringly.
“I meant about Leo having to walk back in the dark during December, but that’s also a valid concern.”
“He’ll be fine,” Piper said decisively, turning back to the movie, which was ending. “Let’s go get some more hot chocolate before they run out.”
Overall, it was a Christmas to remember, and effectively distracted Leo for months as he rebuilt and perfected his stolen suit, going so far as to repaint it.
Tony had stopped searching for the strange trio who had stolen his old suit. He never used those things anyway, and as far as he knew Leo hadn’t used it for anything nefarious, though Tony would keep an eye out.
And Percy knew that no matter what happened now, he had screwed himself over; he could never top that present next year.
The End.