Violent!Adora makes me giggle. These are the things I think up when I should be studying for my next semester exam... Or sleeping. Sleep is good for Sensei.
Disclaimer: Wow, imagine if I did own Tin Man... That'd be pretty sweet.
This story is dedicated to everyone who thinks Adora needs more fandom love! (She's not even in the character list, WHY? Cain/Adora is... like... CANON/end Cain/Adora fangirl rant. We are a proud ship that includes about five people and a donkey, and even the donkey prefers Cain/Glitch.) Also, BONUS POINT: Find out who Cal is!

Five Times Cain Knew He Loved Adora

One

Cain's earliest memory was of a dirty blonde haired girl playing with a doll.

She was the youngest daughter of his father's friend, a few annuals shy of his own age of five, but that was as far as his knowledge of her went. In his mind, she was a defenseless little girl, playing all alone on the shore of a small river near their village, who was in possession of something that he wanted.

Now, it wasn't like he wanted the doll to play with or anything, for he fully understood that the little bundles of straw tied together to resemble people were for girls, while the clay and tin horses and army men were for boys, but still... It was shiny. And he wanted it, if only to say that he had it. And that was reason enough.

Certain in his motives, he stalked up behind her and snatched the doll away, proudly shouting out, "Mine!" The girl's eyes widened and she whined, holding up her hands and jumping up and down in a vain attempt to grab it. He jeered at her and held it high above his head, laughing when she screamed in frustration and stomped her foot on the ground...

He expected her to start crying and run away to her mother, like all the other little girls did when he took their toys. He expected that he would have to sweet-talk his way out of a thrashing when the girl's squat beast of a mother would rush out of her house, waving a rolling pin as she cursed obscenities at him. He expected that his father would halfheartedly chastise him, but after the woman left would join him in teasing the silly little girl, like he always did.

What he didn't expect was for the little girl to pick up a thick branch and bring it down over his head with a loud crack.

Mind spinning like he had just finished rolling down an especially high hill, Cain fell backwards into the river. The girl, smirking at him as she took back her doll, stuck her tongue at him and merrily skipped off.

Before he could even call out for her, his mother appeared out of the woodwork and scooped him up, cradling him in her arms. "Oh Wyatt, whatever am I going to do with you? Silly boy." she said fondly, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She didn't even seem to mind when he rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand soon after. "What were you doing, teasing poor Adora like that?"

"Adora..." he said softly, resting his head on her shoulder as she carried him in. Adora... Yeah, Adora was a good name. A good name for a girl that would always keep him in check. Cain didn't know it then, but that was exactly what Adora planned to do.

Two

School in Cain's village was something of an afterthought, a thing that the adults about greatly only after the crops were harvested and the chores had been finished. During the wintertime, the twenty-odd children would file into one of the empty storerooms and pretend to pay attention while a stuttering, stout young traveler from the university read from a textbook while doing everything in his power to avoid the children's uninterested stares.

Cain spent most of his time talking to his friends, but at some point it became boring for him and he took to staring at the back of Adora's head. All of the parents had dressed up their children for the occasion, and Adora's pretty hair had been tied up into a neat ponytail...

A seemingly inconspicious inkwell on the corner of his desk suddenly made itself known, and Cain knew what he had to do.

Gently, Cain grabbed hold of the hair and led it to the open inkwell. Holding his breath, he gingerly dipped it in before letting go and looking away quickly, whistling in an attempt to make himself look innocent. His friends noticed, and began to snicker.

It took Adora quite a while to notice, and Cain probably would of gotten away with it had she not decided to preen midway through the lesson. The girl shrieked and turned around to face him, and if looks could kill, he would of dropped dead instantly. "Wyatt, you dummy!" she hissed.

He held up his ink-stained hands. "I didn't do it, Adora! Honest!" he said rather cheekily. His friends were full on laughing at that.

They were practically rolling in the aisles when she picked up her writing slate and began whacking him with it.

"P-please stop d-doing that." the teacher said quietly, hiding behind his book and wondering if that job teaching for the royal family was still available...

Three

At age fifteen, Cain started working with his father and the other men in the fields. He was more mature now, leaving behind the childish, bullying ways of his youth in order to make way for newer, more mature bullying ways. And even as he hoed and hacked at the thick weeds that covered the new land they were tilling, his mind was still fixated on ways to provoke Adora.

Adora was, Cain decided, the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he thought she looked especially pretty when she got really mad and turned the cutest shade of purple. His every waking moment was spent thinking up new ways to get her attention, to make her notice him. Unfortunately, the only good ideas he thought up were ones that involved her getting angry and hitting him. But, he decided, it was well worth it if one day they fell in love and got married and had seventy kids.

While she didn't directly work in the fields, Adora tried to make herself useful by always bringing water out to the men. She pranced by him, looking elegant and regal in her brown calico dress and wide brimmed straw hat, and suddenly he had the greatest idea.

He grabbed the bucket of water, and tossed it on her.

A few of the teenage boys laughed, while the older men and women simply rolled their eyes, seeing through Cain's act like glass. But even they had to chuckle when Adora, soaked to the bone, yelled at him and whacked him with her ladle. There was no way he was going to win her over by doing that...

Four

Much to everyone's surprise, he did win her over by doing that.

By age seventeen, he was dating her, and at age twenty, he decided to ask her to marry him.

On the day he planned to pop the question, he spent most of the morning and afternoon pacing in the woods near the village. "I just don't know what to do..." he said to his best friend, Cal. "What if she says no?"

The man laughed and shook his head. "You two are made for each other! There's no way she could say no, especially when she sees the ring!"

Cain smiled and looked at the ring in his hand. The ring itself was made of shining tin, but the stone was a pearl, the largest he had ever found. It had taken him hours of wading through the river where they had first met to find one, but she was definitely worth it. "You think so?"

"I know so! Especially when she hears the lovely poem I helped you write..."

"Dear Gods, not again..."

Cal cleared his throat and got down on one knee, staring up at a tree with utmost affection. "Adora, I adora ya! Marry me!"

Cain rolled his eyes. "Well, I'll say one thing: You're certainly not a poet."

"Tch, like we'll ever need to write poetry when we're Tin Men."

"Don't think so far ahead... We need to make sure Adora doesn't kill me first."

"Don't worry so much." he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "I'll be right behind you, every step of the way."

"You're going to chicken out and run off the moment she comes here, aren't you?"

"Yes. See ya later, Wyatt!... I hope!" Cal ran off, leaving Cain alone and mentally cursing the cowardly man.

"Wyatt? Are you here?"

"Adora!" Cain smiled as sweetly as he could when she walked into the clearing. "Please, sit down! See, I have a nice romantic picnic set up for us and everything!"

She gave him a wary look. "It's not my birthday, or our anniversary. What's the occasion?" she asked.

He continued to grin stupidly. "No occasion. I'm just doing it because I love you."

"Oh... Well, ok then." He had packed her favorite dinner, fried pork and wild rice. For dessert, they shared a bottle of apple-flavored liqueur that Cain had stolen from his father's secret stash on his way out. "Oh, Cain... I don't care if it's a special occasion or not. This is such a sweet thing you did." she said softly, cuddling up next to him as they watched the stars through the trees.

"Yeah... Oh, shoot! I almost forgot!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring...

And suddenly forgot everything he had ever learned, up to and including how to breathe.

She frowned and waved a hand in front of his face. "Wyatt? Are you ok?"

He turned several shades of red and started to stammer like a lovesick idiot. "Adora, I... Adora, I... Marry?!" he said finally, thrusting out the fist that held the ring.

Staring at him curiously, she pried open his fingers, then gasped. "Wyatt..." she said slowly.

'Uh oh.' He started to raise his arms, knowing full well that she only used that tone when she was angry...

Much to his surprise, Adora did not find a large stick and beat him. No, instead she simply tackled him to the ground and kissed him to within an inch of his life. After her vicious attack, she lied on top of him, staring at the shining ring on her finger. "Oh Wyatt, whatever am I going to do with you? Silly boy." she said fondly, leaning down to give him another kiss on the tip of his nose...

And then bopped him playfully on the head.

"That's what you get for not asking me sooner, you dummy!"

Five

'Gonna miss it, gonna miss it, gonna miss it!'

The normally quick ride from Central City to his village seemed to take twice as long as usual, frustrating Cain to no end. He mentally chastised himself for not staying home on the most important day of his life, choosing his future career over his beloved wife and future son.

He also cursed himself for taking one of the slowest horses his family owned, and didn't even bother tying up the wretched creature when he arrived. Practically diving off the horse, he rushed into his home, only to see Cal and a couple of his other friends standing near the doorway.

Cal grinned. "They had platinums on you not making it and Adora slaughtering you when you actually did make it back. I still believe in ya, man!" he said with a cackle as Cain pushed him aside and entered the room.

He found Adora lying on their bed, sweating and shouting while a bunch of twittering young midwives generally made themselves useless. Grabbing her reaching hand, he smiled as reassuringly as he could despite all of the excitement and worry. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

In answer, she gripped his hand tightly, smiling weakly. "You're here. I'll be fine." she said, her voice hoarse.

Time flew by quickly, and the next thing Cain knew, one of the midwives was cleaning a baby. His baby. He looked down at Adora, who was still holding his hand in a vicelike grip, and it suddenly hit him. He suddenly remembered what he wanted to say all those years back, when they were drinking together in the woods and he proposed.

"... Adora, I love you."

Adora blinked a few times, smiled, and squeezed his hand so tightly he was sure it was going to break. "You're not half bad yourself." She laughed softly at his slightly hurt expression and hit his arm softly. "I love you too, dummy. I love you too."