It started with grease on his hands and you, sitting cross-legged in the corner of Bunker Nine, flipping through a half-burned manual on celestial bronze wiring like it was beach reading. The forge was humming low in the background, some unfinished automaton twitching on the table nearby, and Leo—well, Leo was doing that thing where his brain refused to shut up. Not in a bad way. Just… in a Leo way.

(Which meant: Hey, I just fixed a malfunctioning hydraulic core with a fucking wrench and chewing gum, but somehow I can’t stop thinking about the way your hair falls in your face when you concentrate.)

It was stupid, honestly. How something as simple as your hair messed with him. Not like Aphrodite messed-with-you, like sexed-up-lust-drunk nonsense. Nah. It was the soft stuff. The real shit. The kind of stuff he’d tease you about because it was easier than saying, Hey, when you look down and your hair falls across your cheek, I forget how to breathe for a second.

So when you muttered something about it being “too hot” and scooped your hair up in that messy, half-pulled ponytail thing that made you look like a sleep-deprived art student with five midterms and a sword collection—you ruined him.

That’s when he said it. Or more like blurted it. And then it happened.

You sat between his legs, back against his chest, surrounded by metal scraps and engine oil, and Leo Valdez, Son of Hephaestus, Defender of the Toolbelt, Fixer of All Broken Shit, was trying to braid your hair.

Trying.

Which is generous.

His fingers were made for gears and wires and explosive triggers. Not soft strands and flyaways. He got halfway down one side before realizing he’d somehow created a tangled, slightly lopsided disaster that looked more like a pretzel than a braid. But gods, you laughed—this real, warm sound that made his chest crack open a little—and he swore he could’ve set the whole place on fire from just that.

(He didn’t. Mostly because he triple-checked every valve earlier. But emotionally? Yeah. Combustion.)

You didn’t stop him. That was the weirdest part. You didn’t flinch or pull away or say, “Okay, Valdez, thanks for the experiment, now go build me a toaster or something.” You just leaned back against him, humming, letting him try again.

Your hair slipped through his fingers like warmth itself. Soft and messy and real. He messed up the part three more times. Accidentally tied a wire into one strand because, in his words, “it added aesthetic.”. You giggled. Actually giggled. Which shouldn’t have made his stomach flip the way it did, but here we were.

By the time he finished, he’d somehow created two uneven braids, one with a twist in it that wasn’t on purpose but looked cool enough to pass off as intentional, and he swore on Festus’ left wing that if braiding hair was a quest, he’d come out a B-grade hero at best.

But damn if it didn’t work.

Not in the textbook way. Not like those neat Pinterest braids the Aphrodite girls could whip up in five minutes with glitter and hair serum. No. It was you, braided by him, and that made it magic. One of the braids kept unraveling at the bottom, and he tied it with a zip-tie. Dead serious. Just looped it through like it belonged there.

You didn’t complain. You leaned back against his chest, head tilted to one side, letting your braid swing while you reached up and messed up his hair right back. He should’ve protested. Should’ve made a joke. Should’ve done anything but sit there, feeling weirdly like his bones had turned into something molten and steady and right.

He pressed his forehead against the back of your neck, just for a second. Just long enough to catch his breath. Just long enough to tell himself he wouldn’t say the thing in his chest because he was Leo Valdez and saying it out loud meant it might vanish, and he was really fucking tired of losing good things.

So instead, he whispered, “I hope this mess stays in forever.”

And maybe he meant the braids. Maybe he meant you. Probably both.