Chapter Text
Nico was pressed against Leo and Jason at the bar of a surprisingly busy establishment, his hands still tied. Piper had thrown the rope with which Nico was bound at Leo when they walked in so she could put herself in Jason's lap. This affectionate arrangement was the only way they all had a place at the bar to sit at all - every patron of El Gallo Caprichoso was congregated around the bartender like crows at a carcass, and there was very little room.
'Our middleman will be here soon,' Leo said, after ordering them all a round of drinks. 'Don't look so down, depre! Drink!'
The thought of putting Leo at his back did cheer Nico up. He took a sip of the wine. It had obviously been thinned liberally with water. 'This is shit.'
Leo shrugged. He had his fingers tucked loosely into the ropes at Nico's wrists, for some reason. 'I'm not rich enough yet for nobile wine.' He said, with a casual grin. 'But we're both about to get what we want, hey, depre?'
'No.' Nico snarled. 'I never wanted to be ransomed by pirates in the worst bar in Spain.'
'Huh. Well, I'm not a mind-reader.' Leo pursed his lips and looked Jason and Piper up and down, leaning back in his chair so it rocked on the back legs to see around Nico. Watching his expression slip between giddy happiness and far-away wistfulness was like watching dolphins disappear into a blank, windless ocean.
'Do you love her?' Nico asked, before he could remind his mouth that he didn't care about Leo's feelings.
'Piper? She's basically my sister. Of course I love her!' Leo righted himself in his chair and slid his elbow down the bar so he was hunched around Nico. 'No offense, but if you were being eaten alive by sharks, and Piper had a bee sting, I'd help Piper.'
Nico's eyebrows rose. 'What could you do to help her with a bee sting?'
'I don't know, put a bandage on it? It's not a perfect metaphor; I'm not a miserable intellectual who practises sad poetry and broody frowns in the mirror every morning.' He jabbed his thumb at his chest, grin broadening. 'I'm the fun guy.'
'Ok.' Nico nursed his wine. The bar was noisy, for early evening. 'Do you love him?'
Leo's face turned just a bit ruddier. 'No.' He said. 'Jason's my best mate. Why do you care, anyway, depre?'
'I don't.'
They sipped at their drinks in silence - well, Nico was silent. Leo didn't seem capable of it. He had pulled something brass off his toolbelt and was opening it, closing it, opening it, closing it. It clinked and clicked with gears, and had a set of mirrors like a spyglass. Nico didn't ask what it was, or try to make Leo stop fidgeting. He was trying to remain aloof. He'd become aloof in his adulthood, he had to remind himself.
There was a disturbance at the door, and Nico turned to see a towering woman enter, pushing her way through the crowd like a battering ram. She met his eyes, and then her gaze slid over to Leo. She stomped towards them with the grace of a hungry bear.
'Clarisse!' Leo greeted, when she had shouldered the stranger sitting next to Leo off his stool and sat down in his place. 'Great to see you here! This is Nico, my miserable booty.' He wiggled his eyebrows. 'Nico, meet Clarisse - if you look at her too long, you might to turn to stone. She terrifies me.'
Clarisse grunted in confirmation.
'Pleasure.' Nico said.
'Probably not for you.' Clarisse smirked down at the place where Nico's hands were tied. 'Where'd you pick this up, Valdez?'
'Merchant ship. He's a molto molto ricco visconte. Nico DiAngelo. His dad will pay a lot to see him returned home safely.'
'You don't know that.' Nico growled.
Clarisse laughed, a great bludgeon of sound. The barkeep pounded a stein of beer the size of a man's forearm in front of her, and she drank a gulp to wash away the laughter. 'I know who he is.' She said.
Nico was surprised to hear it, but only slightly. He was a viscount; of course people knew of him.
'Let's talk price -'
'No.' Clarisse bullied Leo easier than a cat playing with a broken mouse. 'I don't deal with you anymore.'
'What?' Leo sputtered. 'Why not? I'm the Great Leo Valdez! I bring you more booty than any other pirate in Spain!'
'I know.' Clarisse said. 'Everyone knows, because you never shut up. You're a liability. Every hermanded in Spain has a drawing of you in their back-pocket.'
Piper was watching the exchange with a frown. 'Not Jason.'
Clarisse bared her teeth viciously, looking Piper up and down. 'No secret why.' She grunted, taking another swig of beer.
Leo was opening and closing his contraption with mounting frenzy, but his smile stayed casual. 'I'm Jason's best friend.' He said, shrugging. 'I'm not scared of the hermandades; my bounty is a well-earned compliment. I'd be offended if they weren't looking for me.'
'I don't want trouble, either.' Jason sighed. He had pushed Piper's hair behind her ears, so her bronzed cheeks glowed bare in the candlelight. 'But I am glad you're here.'
'What does that mean?' Piper asked. 'We're trouble now?'
'Leo's always been trouble.'
Piper snorted. 'You better not be breaking up with me because of his bounty.'
Clarisse pushed away from the bar. 'Well, we're done here. Good luck getting rid of your noble.' She said tauntingly. 'I'll come to your hanging.'
'Not if I come to yours first!' Leo called after her, indignant. She disappeared out of the door, and the crowd closed behind her like a bow wave.
'You could just let him go.' Jason said. 'It's dangerous for you to be here at all, let alone with the son of a powerful man as your... prisoner.'
Leo huffed. 'I get it - you're the Golden Boy, always doing the right thing. But I'm a pirate, Jason. This is my life. I steal stuff. I sell it to my fences. That's all I have.'
'Apparently not.' Nico drawled.
'Shut it, you.' Leo slumped onto the bar. 'I need to think.'
Nico swirled his awful wine. 'I imagine that must be very difficult for you,' he said idly.
'No thanks to you, depre. Maybe I'll make you walk the plank...'
'... a predictably small-minded solution.' Nico said in Italian, raising his eyebrows at Piper, who was watching with an amused, mischievous look. 'Is this how pirates get rich? Throwing their valuables into the sea?'
Piper tutted, like a protective mother hen, and then repeated everything he'd said in Spanish before saying, 'sometimes we bury them.'
'X marks the spot,' agreed Leo. 'We could dig you up again when the hermandades have calmed down a little.'
'I think you'll find me considerably less attractive full of worms.'
Leo buried his ruddy face deeper into the folds of his stolen jacket, laughing, while Piper cooed excitedly and lightly hit Jason, who was shaking his head firmly, with the back of her hand. 'Dead or alive, you would probably look the same.' Came Leo's voice from the pile of dark curls and expensive fabric on the bar counter.
'I think my molto molto ricco father would disagree.' Nico wasn't sure about that, actually, since his father hadn't seen him in over a year. It was altogether too easy to imagine Leo presenting his corpse in Italy, slumped against Leo's shoulder, explaining that he was just suffering from a bout of narcolepsy, and sailing away with the ransom money before anyone noticed that Nico was growing maggots in his ears. He finished the horrible wine and nudged it against Leo's arm. 'I need more wine.'
'You're so expensive, at this rate I'll end up losing more money than I make.' Leo grumbled. He ordered two glasses, handed one to Nico and tapped the other against it. 'To kidnapping.' He said.
'To kidnapping?' Nico raised his brows. 'I'm not drinking to kidnapping.'
Piper laughed, and raised her own glass. 'To love!' She declared, pecking Jason's smiling upper lip. 'We should probably go.'
'I'll escort you to the coast.' Jason offered. 'There's more we need to talk about.'
Nico didn't miss the way Jason inclined his head, twice and sharply, in Leo's direction, nor did he miss Piper's responding frown and the meaningful way she widened her eyes back at him. He wondered how long they'd been having a silent conversation with one another while he was focused on Leo, and felt a tug of panic. He wasn't an acquaintance of theirs, they weren't having a friendly round of drinks together. He couldn't afford to let himself go soft just because Captain Valdez was pouting at his pinkish wine, narrow shoulders slumped, looking entirely harmless and rather in need of a hug, or some other thing which Nico would never provide and shouldn't worry about. He took a gulp of wine while staring over Leo's head at the wall.
'Thanks, but I've got one more trick up my sleeve!' Leo announced, 'I can meet you at the ship if you want to be alone.' The salacious way he grinned made Nico roll his eyes before he could stop himself.
'I don't know...' Piper said, her eyes flicking from Leo to Jason to Nico with worry, longing, and suspicion respectively. 'You shouldn't be by yourself.'
Leo spread his arms, so Nico had to lean back to avoid getting an elbow to the chest. 'I'm great at being alone!' He said, 'The best! Solo is my middle name! Along with handsome, charming, witty, and brilliant, and all those other things I said it was. You've got nothing to worry about, Pipes. Tell the crew we sail at sunrise, and they can take a sabbatical on-shore. Do your thing with Jason. You never know when we'll be back in Spain, especially since I'm so wanted. I'll probably be on deck in three hours, tops.'
'Digging my grave will go faster with more hands.' Nico pointed out, before mentally smacking himself for talking so much.
'Wow. Even the guy who most stands to benefit from getting you alone wants us to stay with you.' Piper said, and then sighed, her grip tightening around Jason's middle. 'But you're the Captain, Captain.'
'If you don't have your toes in the sand in three hours, I'll tell my command where you are so they can have you arrested.' Jason threatened. 'For lying to Piper.'
'If you were in jail, we'd know exactly where you were.' Piper agreed. 'So we wouldn't have to worry about you anymore.'
'And we could enjoy the afterlife together.' Nico added. He'd drained the last of his wine, and was feeling relaxed despite his best efforts. 'After your hanging.'
Leo groaned. 'I regret kidnapping you so much.'
Leo had grown up on the coast of New Spain, padding barefoot across the decks of ships moored in the inlet, squawking at the feet of sailors like a curly, sun-battered seagull. The unforgiving siren call of Old World fairytales had rattled between his ears and behind his teeth ever since his mother first let him loose into the muggy mast-forest at the docks. He soaked in the thick accents of foreign traders, their melodic Eastern songs, like choir-boys over the sea learnt hymns. He crouched daily at the waters edge and peered down as rapturously as a devout at prayer. So was his education.
By nine, he could tie every kind of knot, skip a stone fifteen times over the ocean waves, build rigging and read maps, work like a dog on the Atlantic ocean, and suffer wordlessly of life-threatening illness. He had also started taking out loans, to fund his dreams abroad.
'My debtor is pretty understanding,' he was telling Nico, as they kicked up dust side by side in a looping alleyway. 'I paid part of my board back when I was a skipper by challenging his crew to feats of daring.'
'It has become clear to me that my captor is a madman.' Nico muttered, staring straight ahead. And then, louder, 'I hope this debtor is as understanding as you say, so I can be ransomed already.'
Leo nodded agreeably. 'Thanks, depre. Do you miss your high Italian thread counts?'
'Que?' Nico growled. Sometimes Leo's mounting excitement made him talk faster than an auctioneer with a van Dyck.
'Ay, depre, think of this as an adventure! That's what I always do, when I'm ransomed.'
Nico frowned. 'We are very different people.'
The city spread before them like brittle starfish arms, dry in the fading light. They were wandering further towards its chalky white centre. Leo smiled warmly the entire time, his fingers playing with the trinkets at his belt and making soft clanking music that was incredibly irritating.
'You're hurting my ears.' Nico grumbled, when Leo started whistling to accompany his nervous percussion.
Leo's fingers stilled, but his grin spread in a way that was becoming very familiar to Nico. He broke into rowdy, contrary song. The people of the city kept on boisterously and noisily ignoring them.
'Madre de dios.' Nico sighed.
Leo laughed between versus, his crooked steps drawing him in and out of Nico's strict personal space like a buoy on a changing tide, as they navigated the arms of the starfish.
Leo's debtor was in a smooth stone English-style house with blue-shuttered French windows and a busy German garden - neat and wealthy and bizarre among the boxy Spanish villas. He was another blonde American, like Jason; Nico was starting to wonder where Leo found them all.
'What are you doing here, Valdez?' The debtor asked, once they'd settled around an oakwood table in the bowels of his manor. Three other Englishmen and a frowning woman crowded them from all sides; they were packed nearly as tightly as they had been in the bar. It struck Nico as devastatingly unecessary - the room itself was cavernous and empty, like a toothless maw. Most normal men decorated with a plant, or a portrait. If there had been a small rug, a vase in one of the white-rock corners, Nico might have felt better about this Luke Castellan Nico had so much casual faith in.
Leo teetered back in his chair and lifted Nico's arm, like a hard-won triumph, displaying the silver chain that bound Nico's wrists. 'I'm here to make a deal. I think you'll - '
'Looks like a foreigner.' Said the girl.
Nico jerked his arm back down, making Leo's chair bang back to the floor. 'I will pay you to take me away from this pirate.' He interjected, 'You outnumber him. Kill him quickly.'
The debtor laughed. 'You've interrupted us in the middle of a game of Loo.'
Leo took up drumming the table with his worn fingers. 'Don't listen to my hostage. His father is the Italian Viscount Hades. The incredible riches you'll receive when you ransom him is my way of repaying your generosity in bringing me here from New Spain.'
'Really? We haven't been introduced.' The debtor thrust his hand across the table at Nico's chest. 'I'm Luke Castellan. This is Thalia. Isaac, Hugh, Perry.' He pointed at the sharp woman, and then at each of the stony faced men whose elbows were in their personal space.
'Nico di Angelo.'
'Good.' Luke steepled his fingers. He looked completely un-phased by Leo's proposal. 'Ransoming is risky business, even when you aren't involved, Captain Valdez. Why won't you contact the Viscount yourself? Have you brought me a commodity or a curse?'
Nico certainly looked the part of a curse - sombre, slouching, and dead-eyed.
Leo shook his head. 'You said it yourself - the great Leo Valdez is too wanted a man to be writing letters to nobles! I'm very famous in Italy. Trust me, this is a business opportunity!'
'And you'll be moreso now that the di Angelo heir knows you personally.' Said Thalia.
Luke nodded. 'I think you've done something stupid again, and you're trying to pawn it off on someone else.'
Leo's grin flickered. 'No way! I never -'
'He is,' interrupted Nico in English, 'very stupid. But I will pay handsomely to be put on an Italian-bound ship, and will tell no one of this incident if my safety is guaranteed. My father need not be contacted.'
Thalia laughed - she seemed to delight in leaving Leo out of the conversation, positioning herself so she blocked his view of most of the table. One of the men rose a little out of his seat and grabbed Leo roughly by the lapel of his coat, sensing the odd change of mood that Luke's creeping smile brought down like a grey veil over the table, but Luke waved him to sit back down, fingers still twisting at Leo's throat.
'In that case...' Luke nodded. 'I would be doing you both a favour. Remember that. Did Leo tell you how behind he is on paying his debts?' He asked Nico conversationally, as Leo glared out from the high collar of his ruffled shirt.
'I am his prisoner, not his confidant.' Nico snapped.
'Well, he is a loud mouth. I assume he confides in everyone he meets. He first borrowed money from me 13 years ago, and I helped fund his first ships and men.' Luke explained. 'It's beeen long enough now that I'm starting to wonder if my investment in the pirate Leo Valdez will ever pay off.'
Nico shrugged. 'Not my problem.'
'No. But it is, isn't it, prisoner?'
'He makes everything everyone's problem.' Agreed Thalia.
Nico sighed. The entire situation was obviously out of control - he might have felt bad for Leo, whose head was being pushed back quite uncomfortably by the fist of Luke's man, if it wasn't Nico's stolen jacket that was being so roughly wrinkled.
'Well, Nico di Angelo.' Said Luke, 'The Italian military is making it very difficult for my ships to move between ports, as I'm sure you're aware. Your friendship could be valuable to me and my operation. And is the man who rescued you from an infamously devilish pirate not a true friend?'
Nico nodded curtly.
'Good. Thalia is with the polizia. As an act of friendship, she will escort you both back to Italy tomorrow morning. You will pay her on arrival.'
Thalia shrugged.
'What do you mean both of us?' Nico asked.
'I mean, viscount Nico di Angelo, that I am rescuing you from the very wanted pirate Captain Valdez, well known across Italy, whom I have apprehended.' Luke reached towards the centre of the table for the pack of cards and started to shuffle. 'In the meantime, how about a game? Do you play Loo at all, viscount?'
Nico nodded. 'I do.'
Leo hadn't struggled while they talked, hanging in the shirt fabric like a tame and trusting rabbit in a trap, but he must have understood that something had gone very wrong for him when Luke dealt Nico a hand with a conspiratorial half-smile. Leo jerked sideways, kicking his captor squarely in the stomach, and dove to the ground, sending Nico sprawling across the smooth floor underneath him. It took longer than Nico would have expected for Luke's men to wrestle Leo's hands behind his back, and in that time Leo had drawn his long bone knife and cut himself out of their grasp by slicing Nico's good jacket into two neat halves, crawled backwards like a startled crab halfway across the room towards the open doorframe, and completely winded Nico.
'You won't get another coat.' Nico said, sitting quite shocked on the floor next to a panting Leo while Thalia confiscated the gadget-packed belt and checked that Leo's arms and legs were secuely bound. Nico'd also gotten his shoulder bruised when Leo threw a chair across the room at one of the candles on the card table, nearly causing a house fire, but the only emotion he managed to feel following Leo's struggle was a vague, molasses-creep of awe.
Leo grinned. 'Don't underestimate the Great Leo Valdez.'
Luke and his men sat back in their seats. One of them was licking at a spittle of blood that dripped from his lip and threatened to slide down his chin with no sign of stoppering. Nico picked up his cards, aware of Leo leaning to peak at them from the seat next to him as though to cheat, though he'd of course not been included in the game.
Every time Nico glared at him sidelong throughout the night, Leo was smiling toothily, dimples bruised. He wore the same expression when he was losing as he had when he was winning.
Don't underestimate the Great Leo Valdez. Nico thought to himself, Might actually be very good advice.