So the twelve have stopped off at Marin County for the Spring fair (Idk if they have a spring fair but oh well. Also idk what they are like so I'm just gonna go with our Aussie fairs)

There's a little surprise in this one...;)

Percy's POV

We've just arrived at the Marin County fair. It's the kind of place where you can get anything on a stick, from the conventional fairy floss and Dagwood dogs to waffles and donuts.

"Look, guys!" Hazel exclaims. "Sugar!"

Frank groans. "You had five pop tarts this morning."

"And they were my pop tarts, too," grumbles Nico.

"I was hungry! And I had to keep my strength up for wandering aimlessly through kiddie rides, looking for the next form of sugar to eat," volleys Hazel.

"Come on, you lot! I want to get to the market hall!" Piper cuts in.

"Good idea," says Annabeth, looking relieved. She consults her map and we are soon on our way.

Time skip to when they are in the hall and also I'm lazy

Piper immediately skips over to a stall selling plaited leather jewelry, dragging Hazel with her. Annabeth makes a very un-Annabeth-like squeal when she sees a stall selling DIY nano blocks, including a massive Parthenon. 

Reyna and Thalia follow Jason and me to a stand selling airbrush caps. I get a teal one with a wave pattern and Jason gets a grey-purple cap with a thunderstorm (because I just want them to). I can hear Thalia bickering with Reyna behind me.

"Come on! These are so cool!" Thalia sounds like a little kid.

"They're silly and overpriced! Come on, you have like five at home," Reyna sounds like Thalia's mother. "Also, they don't have gold airbrush ink stuff."

"Aw, come on! They have silver! Please?"

"Maybe later. Look, they have the coolest sunglasses over there."

I have a feeling Reyna's planning something.

I wander over to a stand selling skateboards and I just have to buy the green one with blue swirls. I'm just glad this one doesn't fly. I've had bad experiences with flying skateboards. 

Annabeth comes over with a plastic bag that bulges with boxes of the Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace nano blocks. "I thought I'd stock up," she tells me triumphantly.

We hold hands as we head over to the arena, me with my skateboard, her with her nano blocks. It kind of describes us. We find a quiet spot and lay down a red picnic rug.

I lean back and watch Annabeth as she opens the Empire State Building nano block kit and builds it in record time. It's kind of ironic. Then she digs out a freestyle kit and builds a mini mountain, complete with temples and palaces, and places it on top.

"That's cool," I tell her. It is.

"Thanks. I had it in mind when I saw the stall this morning."

I'm suddenly hungry. "You wanna get something to eat?"

"That would be great. I'll go find something."

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"Come on, Seaweed Brain. I've defeated worse than grumpy vendors."

"All right." I guess I'll be glad of the chance to think, given what I'm going to do tonight. I'm so nervous. What if I mess up? What if she doesn't want to? What if she judo-flips me again?

Frank and Hazel plop down on the rug next to me. "We brought a picnic," explains Frank. That must be why Hazel looks so disgruntled. 

"I wanted to try fairy floss!"

Frank raises his eyebrows at me, like, this is what I get to live with. Hazel's mostly quite sane, except when it comes to sugar, though, and I'm no Aphrodite kid but those two are so cute together. 

"You all ready for tonight?" Frank asks me.

"Not really," I tell him truthfully. "What if she doesn't? She'll probably judo flip me again."

"Hey, it'll be OK. She's not that mean."

Everyone joins us in dribs and drabs. Reyna and Thalia wander over from the donut-on-a-stick stall and Reyna has two suspicious metallic lumps poking out from a plastic bag. She pulls one out and sticks it on Thalia's head, pulling it over her eyes.

"Hey! Who turned out the lights?" Thalia yanks off the cap, which, on closer inspection, is a silvery airbrush cap with an arrow pattern. Reyna puts one on herself. This one is gold with purple laurels. That must be what she was planning.

Thalia turns the cap around and looks at it. "Hey, this is cool."

"I know," says Reyna proudly. "I got Leo to show them how to do silver airbrush. And thanks to Piper's charmspeak, we convinced them to let a scrawny Hispanic twenty-three-year-old play with their equipment."

"That's not surprising," Thalia says dryly, putting the cap on backwards.

Another time skip cause I want to get to the point already

It's evening now, and everyone's gone off to do something like I asked them to. I can see Hazel dragging Frank to the fairy floss stand and Piper watching the last pig race for the day with Jason, while plaiting three flower crowns together.

Will and Nico bring me a blue fairy floss (you can never find those anymore) and wander off on the pretext of going to watch the ambos in their tent. Will is such a medical nerd.

Annabeth and I sit in companionable silence for a while. It feels so good that I almost forget about what I have to do tonight. 

Suddenly it's getting dark and the pyrotechnics guys are wheeling out carts full of fireworks. Leo is leaning over the railings on the other side of the arena, gesticulating excitedly, while Calypso looks bored next to him.

And I know it's time.

"Annabeth," I start.

She looks up, startled. I never call her anything but Wise Girl.

"You know, on our first adventure together, when we were in that van?"

"Yeah..." she says warily.

"How we were playing Hacky Sack with an apple?" I pause. "Did you know that, in ancient Greece, throwing an apple at a girl was considered a marriage proposal?"

There's an earth-shattering pause. And suddenly her laugh breaks the silence.

"That is the least romantic proposal I've ever heard." Shit. "But Hades yes."

And then we kiss as the fireworks start, and I have the feeling that my brain is melting through my body. (Anybody recognise that line? No? OK.)