I learn everything by looking into your eyes

Author's Note: Hello! This is my first ever (published, that is) fic, and i'm not entirely pleased with it, but we'll see what happens. Obviously, none of the characters in this story are mine and belong to Uncle Rick.

"Mr. Valdez! Come up to the front, please."

Leo rubbed his eyes after the monotonous lesson finally reached his end, and blearily registered his teacher's words as he yawned and made to go to his tormen- teachers desk. The bell had just rung, signaling the end of his sentence- at least, until his teacher decided to 'speak' with him. More likely he was going to get another scolding for his grades, but it was already difficult enough to focus even without considering his ADHD.

A few of his peers snickered on their way out as he made the trek to Mr. Brunner, his biology teacher. He internally rolled his eyes at their antics. Half-Blood High students could be so immature. Definitely misrepresenting the population of New York.

Mr. Brunner waited until the last child had exited the room before he began to speak.

"Mr. Valdez, I regret having to mention this, but your grade has been less than satisfactory recently."

Leo had already anticipated this speech- after all, he wasn't wrong, his grades were abysmal- but there was no way he was ever going to tell apart a monosaccharide from a polysaccharide or remember the chemical formula for cellular respiration. "I know, sir. I'll make sure to work harder."

At this, Mr. Brunner simply raised a single eyebrow. "I wasn't finished, Mr. Valdez." Leo had the grace to look away bashfully. "It is my belief that you would be best suited with a tutor."

Leo scoffed at his remark- after all, he didn't need a tutor. He was perfectly fine by himself. Sure, perhaps his grades were a little low, but he definitely did not need some perfectionist judging him over his mistakes.

Mr. Brunner was persistent, however, and continued his speech. "Your performance isn't from a lack of ability, but more of a lack of motivation. Thus, I am assigning you a tutor."

He wanted to protest this and say that he was perfectly fine on his own, but he could see he would get nowhere by keeping his demurrals ongoing. So, despite his reluctance, he hesitantly acquiesced.

Later that day, he went to the library- but not of his own accord. Leo snorted at the thought of him going to the library willingly to study. No, Mr. Brunner had told him his tutoring was starting the same day at the library after school hours. Some 'Calypso Atlas' was supposed to tutor him- gods, her name even sounded pretentious. Nonetheless, he trudged through the library doors and mulishly walked over to a table, completely ignoring his surroundings.

Unfortunately, this resulted in him knocking into someone, sending books flying and both him and the person he ran into falling to the ground in a resounding crash.

"What are you doing, imbecile! Do you ever watch where you're going?"

Leo groaned as he looked up to whoever he had crashed with, already steeling himself for a confrontation with someone who was incredibly rude. They- she, he thought, from her voice, which he idly remarked was quite pretty- had already insulted him within three seconds of interacting with him.

Her comment caused his irritation to flare up slightly, which was probably the reason for his sarcastic reply. "Oh, I'm sorry. Clearly you weren't looking where you were going either, genius, or we wouldn't have crashed!"

As he finally got a good look at this incredibly incorrigible individual, the first thought he had was that she was quite beautiful. She had curly caramel hair that tumbled off her shoulders, a near flawless visage, and hypnotically dark eyes- although, the words coming out of her mouth immediately closed off any thoughts he may have had of her appearance.

"You are impertinent! How dare you try to spin this on me?" Her voice was raising as her anger rose, obviously displeased at his response. Her fuming continued as she furiously picked up her books that were strewn wildly astray from their collision- how does someone even pick-up books furiously, he listlessly thought- and she angrily marched off away from him.

Leo rolled his eyes at her outburst and walked around the library for a few minutes longer, trying to look for his tutor. Where in the world are they?

The only other person besides the librarian's assistant- Frank, Leo believed his name was- happened to be the same person who he had ran into previously. With a sense of dreading realization, he walked over to Frank- he was correct after glancing at his nametag- and asked him if he knew where or who Calypso Atlas was.

"Oh, I think that's her over there." He pointed to a table in the corner of the library, near the window.

And, sure enough, it was the one and only Ms. Overdramatic who was tutoring him. Wonderful. Never mind how the sunlight streaming in from the window made her look near angelic- for heaven's sake, this was going to be a nightmare. He thanked Frank and made the slow walk to his demise, passing several shelves of books that he had never heard of. After all, who would ever read a book called Seven ways to tame your Pegasus? It wasn't even non-fiction.

As he approached his nightmare- tutor, he reminded himself, he saw her glance up from her phone. Her previously disinterested expression immediately morphed in to one of annoyance.

"Why in the world are you bothering me? I don't wish to be near your insolent personality."

There she was again with the insulting assertions. He might actually take offensive if he wasn't so used to being ridiculed- after all, foster homes weren't perfect, or near it in general. As a result, he resigned himself to a few weeks- he hoped- of dealing with his tutor.

"Calm with the insults, Sunshine, don't need to play so hard to get. You're my tutor."

Her expression changed to one of irritation- likely at the former- then confusion, and finally back to annoyance. It seemed to be her favourite mood.

"You're Leo Valdez?"

"In the flesh, Chica. So let's try to tone down the scathing comments, comprende?"

She audibly scoffed and replied, "Don't call me Sunshine. Or Chica. Let's just get this over with so I don't have to withstand your insufferable personage."

While that was a great idea in theory, it only lasted for about 2 minutes.

"Will you stop fidgeting?"

Leo rolled his eyes for what had to be the fiftieth time in their 10 minutes of knowing each other and sarcastically responded, "Sure, Sunshine. As soon as my ADHD goes away."

She looked contrite for half a second- so short he thought he may have imagined it- and continued her droning on about enzymes and formulas.

After an hour or so of studying- which consisted more of them trading insults- he began to zone out on the single rebellious caramel curl grazing her cheek, wishing that he could brush it away. Sheer surprise shut that thought up and he zoned back in to… whatever she was talking about.

"Well, that's all the torture I can handle from you today. As much as I would rather never see you again, I'll expect you back here next Friday." With that pleasant end to their session, she began to walk away.

He couldn't resist one last dig at her. "See you next week, Sunshine! Don't miss me too much."

He heard her indignant huff as he walked out of the stuffy library and grinned to himself. Perhaps this tutoring gig wouldn't be so bad after all.

After a month and a half of tutoring sessions, where their tutoring had evolved to two times a week- Wednesday and Friday- his grade had begun to rise up from its unencouraging 61%, and he started to learn more about his unfairly pretty tutor.

Despite what he had originally perceived her to be, she was not as insufferable as he first believed. In fact, she had a biting wit that could match his own, and he soon began to look forward to his afternoons with Calypso.

He also learned that she was a senior that had transferred from a different state, which explained why he had not seen her around. He had also ceased his reluctance at her tutoring, silently thanking Mr. Brunner- teachers apparently do know best after all.

After the first few weeks of talking about nothing other than biology and barely going a few minutes without snapping at each other, they had finally grown used to each other, and she began to relax in his presence and laugh at his jokes- which she always managed to smother whenever he teased her about it.

Regrettably, this tutoring session he was not looking forward to as much as the previous ones, as he had a test coming up on Monday- and it was the last grade for the first semester. Whoever thought that having a test immediately after the weekend was crazy, he idly thought. This test was going to make or break his grade, as Mr. Brunner had decided to make this test worth 20% of their semester grade, so it ended up being more of an exam.

With this thought in mind, he opened the doors to the library and began to walk over to their normal table by the corner. To his surprise, Calypso didn't seem to be present. This was the first time she had not been there to greet him- at first with a scowl, but lately it had upgraded to a slight smile on her part. He tried to push back the thought of her being in trouble, reassuring himself that he was overreacting.

Sure enough, half a minute after trying to calm his nerves, she burst into the library panting, cheeks coloured slightly from the cold. He tried not to focus on how gorgeous she looked- after all, it wasn't good to crush on his tutor- especially one so obviously out of his league. Even though he had always gone for girls out of his league, something his friends constantly teased him about, something about Calypso seemed… different. He quickly pushed his not-crush to the back of his mind as Calypso practically collapsed in the chair across from him.

"Sorry, sorry! I got caught up at the bookstore and saw a book about plants, and you know I love gardening so I started to read it and couldn't stop reading about moonlaces and how they look and their growing conditions and-"

"Woah, woah Sunshine!" Leo interposed. "Let's calm down a little bit, Bueno? You're rambling."

Calypso blushed lightly as she rummaged her backpack for her biology notes. She finally found her notebook and brought it out, clearing her throat to begin their study session.

For once, Leo gave his undivided attention to Calypso- or at least to what she was saying. He always found himself staring at her curls that seemed to taunt him and her full, luscious lips whenever she talked, or how her brow furrowed whenever she was concentrating, or how her eyes narrowed whenever she was annoyed or trying to hold back laughter. Leo sometimes felt like he could learn everything just by gazing at her hypnotically dark eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity of monomers and the purpose of the intermembrane space floating around his brain, he looked at his phone to check the time and was shocked to find that it read 10:38 p.m.- this session had gone nearly twice as long as their normal tutoring meetings.

Leo found himself interrupting what Calypso was saying- something about Adenosine triphosphate- "Calypso, it's 10:38."

A look of confusion graced her beautiful- shut up, Valdez- face as she glanced at her phone. "Is that really the time?"

Leo rolled his eyes and retorted, "No, Sunshine, that's just the timer I set for when the bomb is supposed to explode."

Calypso responded with a deadpan glare at his alleged 'lame' joke, to which he threw a pencil at her with a chagrined huff. "Leo!" She exclaimed. Leo merely responded with a chuckle and dodged her poorly aimed return throw.

"Well, looks like we ought to get going, Sunshine. I'll see you next time!"

"Good luck on your test, Leo. I have great faith in your ability." With her final remark, she leaned forward and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek while hurrying out, leaving him slightly stunned.

Leo shook his head and thought to himself, Mi palabra, que Chica.

More often than not, Leo found his thoughts drifting towards Calypso.

They had exchanged numbers a few weeks prior and were constantly texting and occasionally calling.

After a particularly long call which lasted for three hours, he flopped onto his bed and allowed his thoughts to wander to the caramel goddess- too cliché, he thought- who had turned his life upside down.

Of late, he had begun to dream about what her lips would feel like against his and whether she would taste of the gardens she so often inhabited.

Leo allowed himself to dream these fantasies, as they were likely the only way he could experience them- Calypso was way too pretty, and smart, and perfect for a nobody like him.

While he knew that he wasn't entirely a nobody, his self-deprecation caused him to feel like an ant in comparison to her. He never allowed his thoughts to stray too far as wondering whether he would ever be given a chance to brush a curl from her cheek or tell her how he felt.

He was always one to advocate for telling a girl you liked how you felt instead of agonizing over your feelings- but now he was not following his own advice, just like a hypocrite. He sighed as he bubbled in the final question to the test.

Leo handed his fifty-seven-question test into Mr. Brunner with twenty minutes to spare of his hour and forty-five-minute allotted time, sending a silent prayer that he at least passed the test- he didn't want to disappoint Calypso. Or end up with a failing grade.

As Leo started to exit the room, he heard Mr. Brunner call for him to stay behind. Oh no, Leo thought. He didn't want to tell me I failed in front of everyone so now he's telling me it now. No, no, no, no. Leo tried to steel his nerves as he obeyed his teachers request and walked near his desk.

"Well, Mr. Valdez-" that's not a good start "it seems that my prediction has come to fruition." Wait- what?

Mr. Brunner showed him his test score, and he nearly fainted from mere shock at the single letter that had come to mean so much to him- not only for his grade, but to make Calypso proud. And while that may have been a stupid reason, it still mattered to him. The single cursive A made him want to jump for joy and yell his achievement so loud they would hear him in Greece.

He didn't, of course. He settled for whooping quietly and profusely thanked Mr. Brunner- for what, he didn't know, but he felt like thanking him, because he was going to pass! After nearly having an F two months prior, it felt like he had gone through an upheaval in his life- and to be fair, he had.

Mr. Brunner smiled and told him that the thanks was all owed to him for his hard work- and 'Ms. Atlas', as Mr. Brunner had called her. Leo was then caught with an urge to jump into Calypso's arms from the absurdity of his grade. He quickly bid Mr. Brunner a farewell and jammed Calypso's number into his phone and impatiently waited for the beeps to stop.

"Leo? How did you do?"

"Caly! Meet me at the coffee shop! I'll tell you then!" He was sure Calypso could hear his impossibly wide grin as she laughed and told him she would be there in 20 minutes.

It turned out that 20 minutes could indeed feel like a week. After fidgeting more than was normal and glancing at the door every few seconds, he decided to get up and order a coffee- which he didn't even enjoy that much, but at least it would be something to do while he waited. After getting teased by his friends that worked there-Percy and Piper- about his frantic excitement, he tried to calm himself and was marginally successful. As he sat down with his cup of coffee in hand, he heard the bells chime and immediately looked towards the door to find Calypso walking in.

She looked slightly winded as though she had ran to the coffee shop, which was ridiculous since it was a few miles from her house- and stood near his table with a smile and an expectant air around her.

"Hey, Leo! What did you get on the test?"

His answering grin probably told her most of the answer anyway, but he gave her a verbal confirmation as well. "I got a 91% Calypso!"

Her smile turned blinding, and he found himself lost in the brightness of her smile that could probably have lit up the sky on its own before he found himself in her embrace as she joyously congratulated him. Although they had hugged before, he felt as if he could stay an eternity in her arms- no matter how cheesy it sounded- and found his gaze involuntarily going to her full lips.

On an impulse, he found himself surging forward and crashing his lips against hers- reminiscent of their original meeting- and losing himself in her brightness as warmth spread throughout his body before his brain caught up with his body.

He quickly pulled away after a few seconds and turned bright red, stammering apologies as he mentally berated himself for ruining what they had and kissing someone so out of his league it felt like she was a universe away, and wondering what was wrong with him.

His stammered apologies were answered with a resounding kiss as Calypso shut him up effectively by pulling him to her and causing what felt like flames to curl inside him. She tasted like the flowers she so often planted, sweet and grounded. He pulled her closer and relaxed into the kiss, wondering if this was what paradise felt like.

The moment, however, was ruined by a wolf-whistle coming from the counter as she pulled away with a luminescent smile and tousled hair- had he done that?- and a blush painting her cheeks. Leo thought he had never seen someone look so radiant until this instant.

"So… uh- does that- I mean, will you- are we…" He stuttered out, his words for once failing him as he could not articulate his question.

Calypso laughed in response, and pressed another kiss to his lips.

"Does that answer your question?"