Downloading the app hadn't been Chrom's idea—he'd misplaced his phone for a couple minutes while getting ready to go out with friends one night and found it in Lissa's hands, her giggling to herself about how she was going to change his life. That night was spent with him and his friends huddled around his screen, scrolling through all the accounts of ladies that were desperate enough to try using the service to get themselves a significant other, cracking jokes and picking fun at almost every single picture they saw.
But when he got home that night, to Lissa sitting on the couch wide-eyed and waiting to hear how his evening had been, he brushed her off and told her that he'd ruined his night because of what she'd done. "You didn't delete it though, so that's good news," she reminded him, hurt by how he was blaming her for something but trying not to let that show. "You just have to give it a shot, all the kids at school are using it and…well, it's working for them!"
"The kids at school," Chrom repeated, eyebrows narrowing at his sister as she nodded. "You're fifteen, Lissa, no one you go to school with should be on dating apps like this, not when actual adults are using them. What if some of the 'profiles' we saw tonight were your friends, what if we were making jokes about minors that would get us in trouble? Did you stop to think about the consequences here?"
"No, I thought about how you've only ever had one girlfriend and that was years ago, and if the people I know are making this work, you can make it work too." She jumped up out of the chair she'd been waiting in to rush him for a hug, which he only accepted because he knew turning her down would only upset her. "You just have to try it for a little bit, I promise it'll work out in the end, even if it's just you and your stupid friends getting a laugh out of everyone on there."
"For you, I'll try, I suppose." He could hear the sadness in her voice as she was talking, and if there was one thing that bothered Chrom it was hearing his sister be upset, especially because of something he had done to her. Sure, he really didn't want anything to do with the dating app she'd downloaded, but she had good intentions in doing so and he was going to at least give it a shot for her sake.
As he laid down to go to sleep that night, he found himself scrolling through the app's accounts again, this time looking at them with a different perspective than the one he'd used with his friends. Rather than making fun of everyone for being on there, he accepted that he was on there as well and that he should at least think about trying to connect with at least one of these ladies, once he could be sure he found someone that was close to his age (and not lying about who they were, in case they were one of Lissa's classmates).
He fell asleep before finding anyone that interested him, his phone screen lingering on the next profile he was to check before shutting off.
Even though he had told Lissa that he was going to try using the app, after that night Chrom pushed it to the back of his mind and went to focusing on the more important things in life, namely school, family, and friends. Part of why he'd never considered doing the dating app thing on his own was because of how "busy" he felt his schedule already was, and adding another person into the whole thing would drain him of any free time he currently had. Still, though, the icon sat on one of his phone's pages, waiting for him to come back to it when the time was right; the little heart was always there when he went looking for a different app, typically with some obscene number of notifications waiting on it that he couldn't be bothered to check (yet every few days they seemed to disappear).
Little did he know that not checking it would have consequences that were simply unimaginable. It happened when he was picking up books for the fall round of classes, standing in line in the library, when he heard what was undoubtedly someone falling into a shelf. "Hey, hold all these for me," he told Frederick, pushing his books on top of the stack already in his friend's arms. "I'm gonna go check on whoever that was, that didn't sound like it was very good."
"Don't get involved if it's a fight, I'd rather not have to defend you in front of the dean like some of our other friends," Frederick replied, shifting how he was holding the large pile of books in his arms so that he had a chance of not dropping all of them. Chrom gave him an understanding nod before weaving through the crowded bookstore, seeing heads of people milling in between the shelves but no sign of whoever had fallen.
He had made it to the back corner of the store when he saw the bottoms of a pair of well-worn shoes on the floor, their owner lying on the ground and obscured by the shelf in between them. As he didn't see anyone around helping the person, he took it upon himself to do it, ending up standing over them, and looking down at their face, their eyes and hair covered by a thick hood. "Hey, are you awake?" he asked, waving his hand in front of them despite not knowing if they'd even see him. "You must've taken a hard fall in here, to end up like this. Here, let me help you up."
"I…I fell?" It was a female voice, soft and confused, that came from the lips of the person on the floor. "Strange, I don't remember doing that. Yes, please, help me up if you don't mind, so maybe I can remember where I am and how that happened." He was happy to oblige, always willing to assist when someone needed it, and soon the woman was standing on her feet, shaky but using him and the nearby shelf as support. "Thank you for checking on me," she said, slowly taking her hand off the shelf to knock her hood off her head, revealing dark eyes and the palest silver hair that Chrom had ever seen. "I really appreciate it, Chrom."
Finding the words to respond was impossible enough as he'd been looking at her, but when he heard her give his name without him telling her it first, he took in a sharp breath, wanting to step away from her but not wanting her to fall again if he did so. "My name, how did you know it already?" he finally managed to spit out, the woman looking surprised to hear his question.
"I figured you knew how I knew, but let me guess, you don't know me, do you?" She didn't seem upset at him, but with her free hand she was digging through a pocket of her heavy coat (which was bound to have been why she'd fallen, she must've gotten too hot in it being in the crowded library) until she pulled out her phone. Opening it, she went to the second page of her apps, where Chrom could see the familiar heart icon of the dating app he'd been so diligent in neglecting.
Gears in his head started turning as he watched her boot up the app and go into her messages, where he could see that he'd had entire conversations with her that he had no recollection of. "I have some bad news for you, er, Robin," he said, seeing that at some point "he'd" used her name in their conversation so he could glean it from that. "I don't actually use that app, my sister's the one who installed it and she must have been talking to you as me to try and hook me up with you. I'm really sorry about that, but—"
"I'm aware it was your sister talking to me," she cut him off with, laughing as she spoke. "I was just under the impression that she had told you about me at some point. This has been going on for a while now, she's a sweetheart and I'm a bit disappointed she hadn't told you about me yet."
"So you knew it wasn't me talking, but you trusted the pictures and figured I'd know who you were anyway," he said, finding the whole situation amusing. Of course Lissa had noticed he wasn't using the app and took it upon herself to make something happen, that was easily the most little sister-esque thing she could've done. "Well, apologies for the confusion, but you do seem like a lovely person. There has to be some reason my sister chose you to speak with, after all."
Robin blinked a couple of times in surprise, before clarifying, "I approached her, or rather, your account, and she responded to me. I was interested in the pretty blue-haired man that seemed to be dedicated to his studies and to his sisters."
"O-oh, that complicates things a bit, doesn't it?" He'd been thinking that this was all a setup by Lissa, but that revelation changed his mind about that quickly. "I'm going to guess you'd like to meet up somewhere outside of here, now that we've met face-to-face. We could do that, but…" He wasn't sure how to word I don't really know who you are in a way that wasn't so upfront, so he ended up leaving his sentence where it was.
She didn't seem to mind that, though. "But what, you're going to bring your friends along? Lissa told me about them, she said you're attached to the hip with all of them and if you're taking someone out on a date you're going to want them all there." The look of shame that crossed Chrom's face made her laugh again. "Joking, joking, I don't know what your 'but' is, but know that I'm down for whatever, even if it ends up being a study date this semester at some point. We've got to focus on our educations, you know."
"Education, right." Chrom paused, finding himself getting lost in this woman's eyes as she smiled at him, but a shiver went down his spine when he heard the sound of books hitting the floor, followed by a low-voiced apology. "Frederick! Gods, I forgot that he was holding my books, I got so distracted by you. Mind coming with me to make sure he didn't break any of those books?"
"I don't remember why I came to the bookstore today, so I don't see why not." Her smile hadn't faded even when Chrom had stiffened up and grown concerned, and she happily kept hold of his hand as he led her back up to the front, where Frederick was working to retrieve every book he'd dropped due to the weight finally getting to him.
He was apprehensive at best about Chrom bringing this woman to him, but when he realized that she was a fellow student and not someone that his friend was flirting with, he lightened up towards her slightly. But only slightly, and he made it well-known that he wasn't fully on-board with her presence, especially as the semester started and she and Chrom started having their study dates, typically on their own. It wasn't enough to fracture a friendship, but it was enough to make Frederick (and their other friends) feel like they were getting shafted rather often for this woman.
All things changed when they officially decided to start dating, and Chrom began bringing her out with him when he went out with his friends. It wasn't strange for there to be ladies among the group, but girlfriends were unheard of; over time they grew to accept her presence as if she was always one of their own. Lissa had been smug about how right she'd been to get her brother on that app, saying that it was the app's fault for them getting together, even though it was entirely her fault that Robin had known who Chrom was when they did end up meeting. That didn't matter to her, though, because her brother was happy and in love, and nothing was going to bring him down.
Nothing except losing the only other person that meant the world to him, at any rate, but losing their older sister was hard on both Chrom and Lissa. Robin was right at Chrom's side in the following weeks, as she and all of his friends helped him work through the pain that her death had caused him. If he hadn't had her there, despite having others that he'd known since childhood in the same room as her, he wasn't sure he would have been able to get through everything without losing his mind.
In the wake of losing Emmeryn Chrom did stop thinking logically about all aspects of life, though, and as a final part of his healing process he went ahead and did something that he knew his sister would be looking down on him happily for doing: he married Robin without wondering if he was rushing into things, her more than willing to be by his side for the rest of their lives. He wasn't going to admit it to anyone (aside from Lissa, who knew what he was going to say before he even said it), but the idea of waiting to get married and potentially losing his life in some unfair way as Emmeryn had was daunting to him, terrifying to the point that he couldn't bring himself to really think about it. He was merely doing what he thought would end best for him, even if it meant carrying the so-called burden of getting married before he was even twenty years old.
If there was one positive to that, it was that his friends started following in his footsteps not long after that, finding their soulmates and getting married, but by the time he was having to go to their weddings it wasn't just him and Robin that were having to go. He'd never really thought about having his own family until he'd met her, and once they had Lucina he couldn't imagine living life any other way.
Someday he'd properly thank Lissa for forcing her hand in his romantic affairs, but he wasn't going to do that until he knew the right words to say to her about it. It wasn't exactly going to be appropriate to call her up (since she'd decided to live with friends after he'd gotten married, to give him and his bride space) and thank her for being a snot-nosed little sister who'd taken his phone and had conversations on his behalf on it, but he was sure that once he got started on the thanks, she'd know exactly what they were for.
And when that conversation had a chance to happen, with her coming over to spend time with her niece and complain about how her own romantic endeavors weren't exactly going as planned, he decided that maybe rather than a thanks, she'd appreciate it if he returned the favor. After all, what good would an older brother be if he didn't help his younger sister out?
A/N: happy birthday Chrom I love writing about you
anyway, I was a good chunk of the way through this when I realized I was basically modern AU-ing the beginning of Awakening, lol