Chapter Text
Leo turned around to face his best friend, Piper McLean.
"Hey, can I borrow a pen?" He whispered, their classics teacher, Mr Brunner, was reading something about Nine Muses to the class.
"Yeah, sure. Is blue okay?" Piper handed him one of her pens. He whispered a thanks before turning back to his desk to take notes.
After a second, he turned around again.
"Could I have a pencil, too?"
Piper handed him one.
"Uhm, do you have a ruler by any chance?"
Piper sighed and gave him her ruler.
"And-" he was cut off by Piper.
"It's the first day of school. You should have all this."
Piper was right. But the problem was the orphanage. After Leo's mother died, he'd been sent to live with his aunt and cousin in Alaska. Of course, his Aunt, Rosa Valdez, blamed him for her sister's death. To be honest, Leo blamed himself too. Rosa kicked him out of her home as soon as possible. For the next five years, Leo lived in alleyways and sewers, before he was caught running and 'being a troublemaker' but the police and got put into foster care. That's when he began middle school and where he met Piper. She was his first friend. Now they were in their senior year and were inseparable to the point that Leo stole a car for Piper.
It was a long, yet funny story. Piper's dad was an A-List movie star. He was barely at home and Piper craved his attention. Her mother left, so Piper was kept with a nanny. Leo remembered Piper always complaining about it as a kid. Piper started to rebel, hoping Tristan McLean would pay attention to her. During the summer before eighth grade, Piper stole a car. It was an extremely dumb idea and of course, the police got involved. She was sent to a school for troubled kids for the whole of eighth grade. Leo couldn't survive eighth grade without her. Making friends was never easy for him, he didn't understand people. All the other kids thought he was weird after finding out he was autistic. He wasn't 'weird' or 'broken', but they treated him as an outcast.
So, to fix Leo's problem of being alone for the whole of eighth grade, he stole a car, meaning he went to Wilderness School with Piper.
He didn't regret it, but it was still awful. He tried not to think about it.
Leo realised he was distracted.
"I know I should, but I was grounded for most of the summer for running away. They offered to buy me school supplies but I wouldn't talk to them." It was partially Leo's fault, but he was too stubborn to talk to the social workers.
"You ran away twice during the summer, Leo. Of course they were going to ground you. You slept on a park bench for a week." Leo regretted telling Piper about that. Sure, he'd been homeless for years before getting sent to the orphanage, but Piper didn't know all the details about that.
After a moment, he grinned, but there was no happiness behind it. "Need to get used to being homeless. I'm turning eighteen during the summer- boom outta foster care." He'd try not to think about the dreadful future that was coming. He wouldn't be able to afford a place to stay and definitely wouldn't be able to afford to pay for college.
Piper sighed. "I've told you a million times you can stay at my house. My dad won't mind. We have plenty of money to pay for you to go to college, too."
Leo knew that. Tristan and Piper were great to him, but after being kicked out of foster homes and his only living relatives' house, he always felt like a burden. Thankfully, Leo didn't have to reply to Piper, because Mr Brunner started talking to them.
"McLean, Valdez, enough talking." He wheeled his wheelchair closer to them, which didn't seem easy in a messy classroom full of seniors. "Leo, do you have any of this written down?" He looked at Leo's sheet on the table, which only had the Title wrote down and a few doodles.
"Uh," Leo looked from the sheet to Mr Brunner. "All written in my brain, sir!"
"Okay. Name one of the Nine Muses."
Leo didn't respond. Mr Brunner thankfully went back to teaching.
The bell eventually rang. Leo packed his few things into his bag.
"What class do we have now? Please say math."
Piper looked down at her timetable. "Worse. So much worse. Gym."
"Are you joking?"
"Nope."
They started walking outside. It was horrible. Being the first day, there were students everywhere. Juniors skipping class to catch up with their friends, exchange students getting tours, lost freshmen. It was far too loud, people pushing their way through Leo and Piper.
Piper must've noticed and stopped in a quiet corner. Leo stopped too, covering his ears.
He knew they were going to be late because of him, but Piper didn't seem to mind. Once the hall quietened down, he uncovered his ears.
"Sorry." He muttered.
"Hey, don't worry about it. It's not your fault."
Leo took a few breaths and eventually walked outside, to be greeted by Coach Hedge shouting.
"Valdez, McLean! Late! Now you get D-E-T-E-N-S-H-U-N! Detention!"
Leo couldn't help but laugh. "Sir, I'm dyslexic, but I'm pretty sure that's not how you spell detention."
Piper elbowed him in the ribs, probably a sign for him to stop.
"Detention all week now! For both of you! Now get onto the field, it's soccer week!"
Of course it had to be soccer week. The worst week ever. He walked over with Piper, apologising for getting her detention all week. She sighed loudly, but Leo realised it was about the people in their class.
First was Drew Tanaka, who stood with her arms crossed. She was horrible to everyone, but mostly Piper. Leo had heard stories of things Drew had done to Piper, making Drew look very kickable at that moment.
Then there was Travis Stoll, the school's 'prankster'. Thankfully his brother, Connor, was only in junior year. If they were in the same class, all hell would break loose.
Pollux was in their class, too. He was the principal's son, but without his twin brother, Castor, he stayed pretty quiet.
Leo's eyes drifted over to Annabeth Chase, who was stretching. He looked over at Piper with a slight smile, knowing Piper would be happy to see her.
It was the last four people that were the worst. Frank Zhang was talking to Percy Jackson, one of the most popular boys in the school. Percy and his friends weren't exactly mean, they just thought they were better than everyone else. On the other side of the group, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano was standing beside the worst person in the school. Jason Grace.
Jason Grace was the most pretentious, stuck up asshole Leo ever met. Him being in their class was bad enough, but Percy being in it with Jason? That was worse than anything Leo could imagine.
Percy and Jason were rivals. They hated each other. The number of fights they got into with each other was countless. Now they were in gym class together. If they were on opposite teams for soccer- Leo didn't want to think what would happen.
However, Leo's fear came true. Coach Hedge walked over to them. "Jackson, Grace, you're team captains. Choose your team. Quickly."
Percy and Jason glared at each other.
"Reyna." Jason chose his best friend first. She was the nicest out of Jason's group, though she was somewhat imitating.
"Zhang." Percy pointed to Frank.
"Annabelle? I don't know, the blonde one." Jason shrugged. Annabeth's glare was enough to make Leo want to hide behind Piper.
"Travis." Travis joined Percy's group.
"Pollux, I guess,"
Percy looked at the three remaining people. "Drew."
Of course, Leo and Piper were the last choices, meaning they'd be on opposite teams. Jason took a while to decide.
"You." He nodded to Piper, meaning Leo was on Percy's team.
Everyone went to their places in the field. Leo stood next to Piper, complaining about Jason Grace with her.
Coach Hedge blew the whistle and they started playing. Most of the game was Percy and Jason getting the ball off each other. Ramírez-Arellano and Chase sometimes helping.
Leo just watched with Piper. Jason got the ball off Percy. Leo had never been in Grace's gym class before, but Jason seemed to be pretty athletic. He looked different without glasses and in short sleeves. Usually, Jason Grace would look perfectly presentable, every hair in place, being one of the smartest students in his class. Now, his face was sweaty. Leo noticed how muscular Jason looked with his hoodie off.
"Leo!" Piper yelled in his ear. Leo realised she'd been calling his name for a while, while he stared at Jason Grace. He forced his mind to shut up.
"Mm?"
"I'm bored. Can we make Jackson and Grace mad?" She asked.
"How are we supposed to do that?"
"Show them what we're made of."
Leo understood what Piper meant.
"You're on," he grinned.
Leo ran to Jason, tackling him for the ball. He got it, running for the goals, where Pollux stood, but Reyna took the ball from him just in time. Luckily, Percy got it back almost seconds later. Leo looked over to Piper, who went for Percy.
Piper scored, Frank Zhang was unable to block it.
The rest of the game consisted of Piper and Leo scoring, leaving both Percy and Jason unimpressed. Leo lost track of the scores, but he was actually having fun. He didn't realise how fast time was going until Coach Hedge blew the whistle.
Everyone went back to Hedge, gathering around him.
"McLean! Valdez!" He yelled, holding his baseball bat now. Leo looked over to Piper. What had they done this time?
"Yes, Sir?" Piper said.
"That was," the coach paused. "Amazing! A-M-A-Z-H-A-N-G!"
Frank Zhang looked confused.
"No more detention!" For once, Coach Hedge smiled. Leo couldn't help but smile, too.
"Uhm," Jason said, of course interrupting Leo's happiness. "You can't just take away detention."
"Okay! You get the detention instead. That means two weeks. During lunch."
Coach Hedge clearly didn't understand the rules, but Leo wasn't complaining. He and Piper ran inside, laughing loudly.
"You- you should've seen his face!" Piper said, between laughs. "That was hilarious!"
Leo couldn't reply from laughing too hard. His happiness only increased when he realised the next class was computers, meaning he'd get to do nothing.
He and Piper walked to computers together, still laughing. He sat down beside Piper.
"Play fireboy and watergirl with me." He practically ordered.
"Only if I get to be fireboy."
"No, I'm always fireboy."
"Please! Just this once." Piper said.
"Nope! I'll play Moshi Monsters instead."
Piper sighed. "Ugh. Fine, I'll be watergirl."
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Word Count: 1816 words.
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A/N:
Thank you for reading the first chapter:) there are just a few things I'd like to say, to clear some things up.
Firstly, it was mentioned that Leo Valdez is autistic.
I'm trying to show this as much as possible throughout my writing, but it isn't easy to find how to show it.
That being said, if I show Leo's autism in a harmful/stereotypical/inaccurate way please, please don't be afraid to say something! I'd never do it intentionally, and I'm doing as much research as possible.
Another thing, I do not live in America. I'm not completely sure about America's school/foster system. There may be inaccurate things, but I tried fact check everything.
Thank you again for reading. If there are any things you'd like me to add in future chapters, just comment 🥰
Edit: this fanfic was originally posted on Wattpad, by me, Marauders-Arise. It is called Found-Family (HoO, mortal au). This is my first time publishing work on Ao3. I’m not completely sure how to use it so please excuse my mess ups :)
- Rachael <3