Note: I had a request (Thanks Jasmine!) for a Perfect Quintis Valentine's Day fic complete with chocolate fondue and flowers. Now this might not be what she had in mind, but here you go! I hope you all like it :-)
Happy had walked into a lot of different situations throughout her life - gun wielding psychopaths, burning buildings, rooms filled with poisonous gas - but nothing had ever prepared her to walk into her house to her husband bare chested and covered head to toe in melted chocolate.
"What's going on, Doc?" came her confused question as she stopped in her tracks and took in the situation. She flashed him a smirk, raising her eyebrows, "I know it's Valentine's Day, but I don't think I'm supposed to lick chocolate off your entire body."
Instead of the fun-loving, cocky, happy grin he normally shot her way or even a laugh and a twinkle in his eyes at her attempt at humor, Toby glared at her, growling under his breath, "Your daughter."
"And what about our daughter?" Happy asked, fighting the grin that was pulling at her lips, but failing fantastically.
"Your daughter did this," he narrowed his eyes at her in annoyance at her enjoyment of the situation.
She laughed and gestured up and down his body, "And how exactly did she do this? I was gone barely an hour."
"It only took her one minute to destroy my perfectly laid out plans," Toby growled again, looking over his shoulder at the kitchen behind him.
She started walking towards him, "What do you me- oh," her eyes grew wide when she saw the scene behind her husband. Their kitchen table and floor was covered in melted chocolate. And she thought she even saw flowers on the floor, also covered in chocolate. A burnt smell filled the air too, but she couldn't place what it was from.
"And where is our precious daughter at this moment?" Happy was fighting back laughter as he tried to wipe some of the chocolate off of him, but only succeeded in managing to spread it even more.
"Your daughter is with her Uncle Sly and Ralph. Didn't even get a drop of chocolate on her," he pouted, then mumbled under his breath, "My plans are ruined now."
Happy sighed and placed her hands on her hips. Cocking her head to the side, she asked, "Why is she always only my daughter when she gets into something she's not supposed to, but yours whenever she does something cute?"
At that, Toby finally cracked a smile, "Because she gets her mischievous side from you; you can't tell me you never got into things you weren't supposed to when you were little. And she gets her cute, adorable side from me."
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, "Whatever you say, chocolate man."
"It's your daughter's fault. So blame her for a lame Valentine's Day now."
Happy rolled her eyes, "She's nine months old, Doc. How exactly was this her fault?"
Toby wagged his finger at her, "That girl is a troublemaker, let me tell you. She got up from her nap about fifteen minutes after you left..."
Babbling coming from the baby monitor made Toby smile. He set his book down and listened to his daughter entertain herself in her crib - it was one of his favorite things to do. Picking up the video baby monitor, his smile grew larger as he saw her sitting in her crib, holding the Valentine's bear they had given her earlier and talking to it in her own version of words. But when she pulled herself up by the railing, her voice growing louder in annoyance, he knew it was time to go get her. Sly and Ralph were going to be there soon anyways to take her off their hands for the night so they could celebrate the way two married adults should. He had already spent the afternoon keeping Happy out of the kitchen so he could prepare the romantic dinner, complete with chocolate fondue for dessert. And nothing was going to mess that up for him.
A happy squeal when he pushed open the door to the nursery had him grinning like a fool; he couldn't believe this was his life at times. Grace bounced her legs and clapped her hands when she saw him, then promptly fell on her rear end as she lost balance.
"Da da," she grinned, pulling herself back up to a standing position.
"Well hello there, Gracie Lou," his voice rose in pitch as he picked his daughter up, "Shh, don't tell your mommy I called you that again. For some reason she doesn't want me calling you that, but I can't help it, Miss Congeniality is a classic."
She gave a little giggle when he tickled her side and patted his shoulder with one hand, the other had a firm grip on her teddy bear.
"Are you ready to go to Uncle Sly's tonight?" he asked as he laid her down to change her diaper.
He continued talking to her and blowing a raspberry or two on her stomach as he changed her, her peals of laughter filling the room. Once she was clean, he set her down on the floor so she could crawl around as he put together her bag for Sylvester, talking to her the entire time.
"Ralph already texted me about a new visualization toy he and Sly made for you. You'll like that, won't you, my Gracie girl? You better be good for them, you hear me? Mommy and Daddy need some time alone tonight, little bug, and I don't want them calling us every two minutes. I think you-"
Suddenly, the sound of glass shattering cut him off mid sentence. He whirled around, but didn't see Grace anywhere in the room. His heart stopped.
"Grace!" he yelled, sprinting out of the room, briefly noticing the door wasn't shut as shear panic raced through him. "Gracie!"
He didn't hear any crying and thought to himself that it had to be good, right? If she was hurt, she would cry. Or not? Not if something really bad happened. He gained more speed as he raced down the hall towards the kitchen where he thought the sound of the shattering glass came from; she had to be in there. He slid to a stop when it came into view.
And there was Grace, sitting on top of the table and clapping her hands as she proudly babbled to herself. Toby looked around the room and saw the vase full of flowers he had given Happy that morning had been pushed off the table and was now strewn across floor. That was the shattering sound he had heard. He sighed in relief when he realized everything was fine.
"Grace Elizabeth Curtis, what did you do?" he asked her playfully, unable to be mad at her and beyond thankful that she was alright.
When she saw him there, she squealed in delight and held her arms out to him, kicking her little legs frantically. She had just picked up the timer he had set for dinner and it went flying to the floor when she reached for Toby.
He grinned as he started walking towards her slowly. He didn't want her getting excited and falling off the table or else Happy would kill him and he was sure it would be a slow, agonizing death.
"How did you get up there, sweetie?" he murmured softly, trying to calm her excitement down. "Did you pull yourself up on the chair? And then the table?" he asked her, taken aback when she nodded and clapped her hands. He didn't think she could actually understand what he was saying, but with two geniuses as parents, he wouldn't be surprised if she could.
When she kicked her legs again, Toby realized she was close to the hitting the fondue pot he had set up earlier.
"Hey, why don't we settle down now, little miss? We don't want anything to happen."
She seemed to understand him as she went still with a large grin on her face. He continued to creep towards her, not paying attention to what what around him. When suddenly, he stepped on her Valentine's bear, which was in the middle of the puddle of water on the floor and his foot went sliding. Down went Toby right in front of the table, now soaked and sprawled out on the floor. Grace just thought this was the funniest thing as she started giggling.
"What's going on in here?" came Sly's voice from behind Toby.
When Grace saw Sylvester and Ralph, the excitement started all over again. She kicked her legs and clapped her hands, her baby babble growing louder.
"Grace, no," Toby tried to say firmly, but it was too late.
In her excitement, she had kicked the fondue pot, tipping it over. Before Toby could even react, the chocolate began rolling off the table and right onto Toby. He yelled out in surprise as Sylvester whisked Grace off the table and away from any danger.
"Uh, okay then," Sly whispered, backing out of the room, baby in hand, "Uh, we're going to get going. Say bye to Daddy, Grace."
"Da da," she said happily, giving him a little wave before turning around and pressing her slobbery mouth to Sylvester's cheek, much to his chagrin.
And Toby just sat there, glaring after Sylvester as chocolate continued to pour down on him. Only to then realize the timer to their dinner never went off, thanks to Grace, and it was burning in the oven.
But the time he had finished telling Happy what had happened, her sides hurt from laughing so hard and she had to take a seat on the only clean chair.
"You mean to tell me," she managed to get out through bouts of laughter, "that our daughter, our nine month old daughter, not only escaped from your watchful eye, but then managed to climb up on the table," she sobered for a second, "which we'll talk about later, by the way," then started laughing again, "and mess up everything you worked on all day?"
Toby continued to glare at her as he nodded, "It's not funny, Happy."
She stood up from her seat and tried to compose herself, "Oh, Toby, yes it is. Look at yourself, you're covered in chocolate. And a baby did it to you."
He ran his hand through his hair, groaning when he felt the hardening chocolate, "Damn it, taking my shirt off got even more chocolate in my hair. It's going to take forever to get it all out."
This time Happy was able to bite back the laughter, but she couldn't stop her grin, "See? Hilarious."
He smiled slightly, "I guess it is kind of funny," but it quickly dropped off his face as he looked down and shuffled on his feet, "but now our plans are ruined. You won't have a special Valentine's Day now."
"Ah," she said as realization dawned on her. It was never about the chocolate dumped on his head, but that he thought she'd be disappointed. "Toby," she said softly, taking a step towards him, "I don't care about all of this. You should know that. I don't care what we do, just as long as we're together. And hey," she said with a shrug, "look on the bright side, the strawberries are already covered in chocolate. It saves us the hard work."
Toby met her eye and finally laughed, "You're perfect. You know that, right?"
She rolled her eyes, but smiled, "So you've said a time or two. Listen, why don't you go clean yourself up and I'll clean up in here. Then we can go out and get something to eat."
"Where? No place is going to have an opening. Reservations were made months ago."
Happy thought for a moment, "What about Kovelsky's? I bet we can get in there. We can recreate one of our early dates."
"You're amazing," Toby murmured as he stepped closer to her and pressed his lips against hers.
When she pulled back, she licked the chocolate from her lips and chuckled, "You really do have chocolate everywhere, Doc."
He laughed, "Our daughter, when she makes a mess, she really makes a mess."
"That she does."
Toby sighed, "I just wish she wouldn't have made a mess of our plans."
Happy smiled gently at him, "I told you, I don't care about plans. I just want to be with you. And besides," she bit her lip as she backed up and bent down to pick up the bag she had brought home earlier, "my plans for us aren't ruined."
Toby's eyes lit up in excitement. "What's that?" he asked, taking a step towards her with an outstretched arm.
"Nope," she said, stopping him with a hand on his chest, "You don't get to see it until I'm ready to show it to you."
Pulling back her hand, which was now covered in chocolate, she brought it to her mouth and licked her finger. "Mmm," she moaned wanting to tease Toby, "you made some good chocolate. You might have to make some more...you know, for later." She winked and stepped around him to start cleaning up.
In all honesty, after all the time she had been with Toby, she should've expected what happened next, but it still took her by surprise. She had just walked past her husband, when his arm shot out, wrapping around her waist and pulling her into his chocolate covered chest.
"Toby," she giggled, wiggling in his arms to get him to let her go. But it only succeeded in transferring even more of the chocolate from him on to her.
He buried his face in her neck, covering her as much as he could in the chocolate.
"Stop," she protested half heartedly, pulling at his arms wrapped firmly around her.
But he pulled her even closer and whispered in her ear, "Uh oh, looks like you got a little something on you."
Her eyes fluttered shut when he kissed her neck and drew his tongue up the column of her throat.
"Mmm, tastes delicious," he murmured in her ear, before sucking at her chocolate covered skin again.
"Toby..." she breathed before pulling his head to hers for an all consuming kiss.
"I guess we both have to get cleaned up now," Toby whispered with a wicked smile when he pulled back, his hands sliding down to her ass to press her even closer to him.
"Kovelsky's is open 24 hours. We could always go later?" Happy mumbled with her mouth on his chest. She turned her head to grin mischievously up at him.
"I like the way you think," he grinned, then took his chocolatey hand and wiped it across her cheek. Leaning down he kissed her cheek, "Happy Valentine's Day, my sweet valentine."
Raising up on her toes, she captured his lips in another chocolatey kiss, "Happy Valentine's Day, Doc."