Heroes of Olympus Series. Annabeth Chase X Male Reader Story

A Third Party Enters the Fray

Hazel's POV

On the way back, Hazel tripped over a gold bar. She should have known not to run so fast, but she was afraid of being late for muster. The Fifth Cohort had the nicest centurions in camp.

Still, even they would have to punish her if she was tardy. Roman punishments were harsh: scrubbing the streets with a toothbrush, cleaning the bull pens at the coliseum, getting sewn inside a sack full of angry weasels and dumped into the Little Tiber—the options were not great.

The gold bar popped out of the ground just in time for her foot to hit it. Nico tried to catch her, but she took a spill and scraped her hands. "You okay?" Nico knelt next to her and reached for the bar of gold.

"Don't!" Hazel warned. Nico froze. "Right. Sorry. It's just...jeez. That thing is huge." (Y/N) started laughing, and Nico shot him a glare, then he pulled a flask of nectar from his aviator jacket and poured a little on Hazel's hands. Immediately the cuts started to heal. "Can you stand?"

He helped her up. They both stared at the gold. It was the size of a bread loaf, stamped with a serial number and the words u.s. treasury. Nico shook his head. "How in Tartarus—?" "I don't know," Hazel said miserably.

"What's the deal with you being a walking treasury anyway? I mean I know Hades...Pluto, is meant to be super rich, but this is getting a bit obnoxious. Even for that guy." Hazel tried to explain her curse.

"I can't do anything really powerful like Nico here, he's the strongest demigod I've ever met, he can pull up dead people from the underworld. I just make stuff like this appear" Nico stuck out his chest a little, but (Y/N) seemed unimpressed and offended.

"You, stronger than me?" (Y/N) said. Before bursting into laughter like she had told him a very funny joke. "Hazel, if you knew anything about me, I'd be insulted by that. Luckily you have ignorance to forgive you."

He turned to Nico, "What other lies have you told her?" Nico glowered at him, "Oh shut up, you were dead, that automatically made me stronger than you." "No, you have to raise spirits and other Hades kids to make bodies, I can make new ones."

"That was only once, and you nearly died, even after stealing all that power. And so can anyone genius. That's what kids are" "Semantics, besides, you're wrong anyway. not everyone." "Yes, anyone."

"Nuh uh, not the hunters of Artemis." "That's by choice. Not function." Hazel was utterly lost as the two continued to argue, it came to a head when (Y/N) declared. "Hazel, I taught him everything he knows. Everything. You should have seen him before he met me, pathetic. Couldn't even hold a sword."

"But back on track. So you're cursed, big deal...That sounds more up Pluto's alley, the greedy old toad." Both Hazel and Nico frowned at him for that comment. He didn't even pay attention to them. "But it's not all bad, I mean, luck is subjective to how you see it there's no way to always be unlucky."

Hazel then explained to him all the horrible things that ever happened to people before because of her gift and the treasure that popped up around her, but even after all that, he shrugged. "I don't believe in luck based curses."

"You have literally died to a curse before. Remember Kelli?" Nico interjected, "That was a prophecy, not a curse. But even if it was, here I am, that puts me in the right, luck curses aren't real." "Yes they are!" Hazel said forcefully, (Y/N) just shrugged again. "So what, shiny stuff follows you?"

"It could've been buried there by robbers or dropped off a wagon a hundred years ago. Maybe it migrated from the nearest bank vault. Whatever's in the ground, anywhere close to me—it just pops up. And the more valuable it is—"