Author's note: I wrote this today because it's Tiera Skovbye's 23rd birthday. I do not follow the show in its entirety, but I have watched all MadArcher scenes several times. Sorry if I get something wrong that doesn't quite fit into the canon of the show.
Synopsis
It's Robin's birthday and Alice is determined to throw her the best surprise party ever. As it turns out, she's still not quite accustomed to the world or to throwing birthday parties.
Bad Archer Birthday
While you've barely gotten any sleep last night, you still wake up with a huge smile on your face. As soon as you open your eyes that morning, you shoot out of bed to get ready for the day. You've been looking forward to this for weeks now.
As soon as you found out that today would be Robin's birthday, you started planning everything, almost as excited as you always were for your own birthdays back when you were still that 'tower girl'.
Once you get ready, you go by the florist for the first part of Robin's special day. You arrive before the shop has even opened, so you decide to give your troll friend a little visit. You smile as you pass him, climbing onto one of his hands.
"Don't forget to wish Robin a happy birthday today, old friend!" That's how birthdays work in this world. While you were used to spending them on your own, locked in the tower, here people celebrate them with loads of people who all personally wish you a happy birthday.
Your first birthday after you were free, you met Robin, which proves to you that no matter what, birthdays are always special in a way. You want to make sure Robin's birthday this year is at least as special as that.
While you and Robin don't have a whole lot of friends here, you have made sure to invite as many people to the party you organized as possible. She was used to having big birthday parties with loads of friends previous years, after all.
As you let people know, you didn't tell them the occasion. You had read something about a surprise party, and the purpose of them was they would be a surprise. If you had told them that it was for Robin's birthday, it would have no longer come as a shock to people. Instead, you just let them all know it was for something important.
Because Robin had to work today, you figured having the party at the bar after she got off would be the best idea. She wouldn't have to go home that way. Instead, you could just go straight on to celebrating.
When you get back to the florist, the shop is still not open so you decide to move on to the next step of your daily plan. Maybe you can pick some flowers for her yourself before you head to the bar.
When you get to the party store, you get a balloon in the shape of the word 'yay', and two with the numbers of her age. You leave the store with a huge smile on your face, excited to see the look on Robin's face when she realizes you're surprising her for her birthday.
When you get back home, you unwrap and rewrap the present you got her five weeks ago for what must be the twentieth time. You draw some hearts on the paper and then unwrap it again when you mess up one of the hearts. When it's rewrapped with new hearts on it, you realize it might be too revealing and unwrap and rewrap it once more. Then you unwrap and rewrap it again. Perfect.
When you realize Robin's shift at the bar is almost over and the people you asked to come to the surprise party must already be heading to the bar, you quickly put the present in your bag, grab the balloons and run outside. If you're quick, you can still pick her some nice flowers from the little garden you'll pass on the way.
But when you reach it, you trip over the root of a tree and let go of the balloons by accident.
"No!" you scream as you quickly jump into the air, reaching out towards the strings that quickly fly away from you. Somehow, you manage to get a hold of one of the strings that is attached to the number 2, but the other two balloons are out of your reach.
"Dang it!" you swear to yourself as the other number becomes smaller and smaller as it goes higher and higher. There's no way you can get that one back… You have more luck with the 'yay' shaped balloon though. It has somehow gotten stuck in the tree of which you tripped over the roots.
You carefully climb up into the tree (not too far from the ground, you know you're clumsy) and reach out to grab a hold of the string. It's just out of your reach, but you decide that if you jump, you'll be able to catch it and still make it safely to the ground.
You count to three in your head and make the jump, mentally cheering when your hand clamps around the string in a fist, but when you reach the ground you feel some resistance and hear a small pop.
Oh no… You look up to find the first letter of the word no longer has air in it. It's dangling sadly away from the rest of the word. Maybe with some imagination you can still see that it's shaped as a 'y' though.
You sigh, disappointed, but you know you don't have any time to buy Robin any new balloons. You have to get to the bar now before you're too late to the party. In your hurry, you even forget to pick her any flowers.
Once you get to the bar you're happy to see that the place is packed. As soon as you step inside, your eyes search for Robin. You find her behind the bar, looking flustered as she's serving costumers one after the other.
You skip to her, happy to finally see her for the first time that day, your balloons dangling behind you.
You wait for her to be done serving her current customer before you reach over the bar to tap her arm. She looks over, only noticing you there for the first time since you walked in, but a smile immediately breaks out on her face.
"Surprise!" you tell her, waving your arms and looking around you at the people in the bar. You can't deny you're quite proud for managing to get that many people to the bar without spoiling that it was for Robin's birthday.
"Sorry, I'll come talk to you in a bit, okay? It's crazy busy tonight." She sends you a wink before turning back to the line hovering around the bar, waiting to order their drinks.
You look around again, your smile slowly disappearing. Hm, so maybe it hadn't been the best idea to invite everyone to come here while Robin was still working.
"Alice!" You turn around, finding your father studying you curiously.
"Why did you invite half of the town to come here? You've worried quite a few people you know," he tells you. He himself is sounding quite worried.
"It's because…" should you reveal it now? Robin isn't done working yet. You can see that your hesitation increases his worry. "It's nothing bad!" you quickly say.
"Did something happen?
"No." You guess you should just let him know.
"You know you can tell-"
"It's Robin's birthday!" you blurt out. You figure keeping it a secret now doesn't matter anymore. Robin is about to get off work anyway. "Surprise!" you add, waving your hands around.
"It's Robin's birthday?" he asks, confused.
"Yeah, this is a surprise party!" You smile broadly, happy that nobody found out about your intentions beforehand. Surprise succeeded.
"A surprise to the guests?" he laughs, seemingly as a joke, but his laughter dies down when you just keep smiling at him.
"I- I," he starts, scratching the back of his head. "I don't think anyone knows it's her birthday."
"Yeah, I kept it a secret," you raise your eyebrows, as if it's obvious. That's the whole purpose of a surprise party, right?
"Alice." He puts his hand on your shoulder and picks his next words carefully. "The guests usually know about the surprise party so they can surprise the person it's for. Nobody can wish Robin a happy birthday if they don't know that it is her birthday."
Oh. That makes sense, you suppose. A surprise party is only supposed to be a surprise to the person it's thrown for. Great. It dawns on you that this party you have been planning is in fact not even a party this way. You keep messing everything up even though you wanted so badly for everything to be perfect.
Before either of you can say anything else, someone pulls your arm. When you turn around you find Robin, her hair messy and face still a bit flushed from working so hard.
"Let's go outside," she smiles, pulling you along. You follow her wordlessly, still clutching the strings of the balloons in your fist. It'll be easier to talk outside with it being so busy in here.
Robin sits down onto the bench in front of the bar and pulls you into her side when you follow her actions. As soon as you're scooted close, she leans her head on your shoulder and sighs deeply.
"I don't think the bar has ever been that busy before," she says.
"Yeah, I think that's kind of my fault," you start hesitatingly. Not only did you screw up throwing Robin a surprise party, you also made her day that much harder by inviting so many people to the bar.
"What do you mean?" She lifts her head from your shoulder to study your face and you try not to look too guilty.
"I just wanted…" you sigh, looking up at the balloons in your hands. You may as well tell her everything now. You've been excited for this day for weeks, but once again you still managed to completely ruin it.
"I'm sorry for ruining your birthday," you slap your hands into your face to hide your eyes from the outside world.
"What?" Robin almost laughs out. She pulls your hands away from your face, quickly pressing a kiss to your cheek when it's revealed to her. "What do you mean? You didn't ruin anything."
"I did," you admit guiltily. "I invited all those people here for your birthday, but I didn't tell them what the occasion was." When she looks at you confused, you explain further, "I wanted it to be a surprise party, but I got the idea wrong…"
Slowly, realization hits her when she understands what you're trying to say. She probably thinks you're stupid for not realizing such a simple thing and ruining her whole day. Before you can start apologizing, her lips suddenly crash onto yours. You yelp in surprise, but can't do much other than kiss her back, because her hands are on your face and she's showering you with kisses.
"That is," kiss, "the sweetest," kiss, "thing," kiss, "anyone has," kiss, "ever tried," kiss, "to do for me." Her last kiss lingers before she finally pulls back with the biggest smile on her face.
You can't help but smile back, even though you're slightly confused as to why she's reacting this way knowing you ruined her party.
"But the people inside don't even know it's your birthday," you make sure she didn't misunderstand somehow.
"Alice, I don't need anyone to know it's my birthday," she still smiles, cupping your face and running her thumb over your confused smile. "As long as I get to spend the rest of the day with you, my birthday will have been perfect."
The love you see in her eyes and smile warms your heart and slowly makes your guilt fade away. You're about to cup her face to lean in for another kiss when you remember you're still holding the balloons.
"Oh! I got you these," you hold out the strings for her to grab. "Again, didn't go entirely according to plan."
"Yeah," she looks up, studying the balloons. "I've been wondering what they say." She pauses and squints her eyes. "2 gay?"
A laugh escapes your throat and she looks down to meet your eyes again with amusement.
"I lost one of the numbers," you explain, "and that was supposed to spell 'yay', but the first letter got caught in a branch." You both laugh.
"Well, '2 gay' is even more perfect," she smiles.
You giggle and shrug before getting up from the bench. She holds her hand out for you to take, silently requesting for you to pull her up. When you do so, she exaggerates the power you used and purposely crashes into you with a mischievous smile on her face. Then she leans in to kiss you again.
"Let's go grab my bag from inside and then let's go home," she suggests, already heading for the door. You walk inside hand in hand and both physically jump when suddenly music starts playing around you.
Wait, no… No music. It's people singing.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Robin, happy birthday to you."
You both look around you in amazement, all the people in the bar now standing around you in a circle and singing 'Happy Birthday' to Robin. But… how?
Then you find your father's eyes in the crowd, sending you a quick wink, and you immediately know this was his doing. You look over to Robin and see that she's looking back at you, just as amazed as you are. Perhaps this surprise party hadn't failed after all.
After the song is over and you and Robin have mingled with the other guests for the appropriate amount of time, she pulls you aside and suggests going home.
On your way back, you pass the garden you had wanted to pick her flowers from on your way to the bar and quickly bend down to pick out some of the nicest ones. She smiles shyly as she smells them, giving your hand a little appreciative squeeze.
When you get to Robin's little apartment, you huddle up on the couch under a blanket with some drinks and a little cake with a single lit candle in it. You grab your little wrapped gift from your bag and wait for her to finish pouring her glass of wine before handing it over to her.
"Happy birthday," you finally tell her, pressing a lingering kiss to the side of her mouth.
You study her face as she unwraps it, starting with a curious smile, but then it suddenly turns into an expression of shock as the present is revealed to her.
She holds up the necklace, admiring it in amazement. It's a n anatomically heart-shaped necklace with the initials A & R in it, divided by a small arrow that runs down the middle.
"This is beautiful!" she gasps, studying its details a bit longer before turning around on the couch and moving her hair aside, revealing her bare neck to you. You take the necklace from the hand she holds up and gently put the necklace around her neck and close the clasp.
When it clicks shut, you press a kiss to her shoulder, then her neck and then the back of her jaw. She turns around to meet your lips and wraps her arms around your neck before leaning backwards on the couch, causing you to fall on top of her with a surprised yelp.
"Wait, you have to blow out the candle and make a wish!" You tell her, trying to get up, but she keeps a hold of you and simply bends her neck and sends one quick blow towards the candle from her position on the couch. When the fire dies out, she turns back to you with a proud grin on her face.
"I've already got everything I want right here."
Your smile grows even wider before you dive your head back down to smother her face in kisses before finally reaching her lips.
When she laughs and says "best birthday ever," in between kisses, your heart has never felt so full.