A/N: Hi! Welcome. If this is your first time reading any of my stuff, I have a huge favor to ask. Click on my name, the one that takes you to my profile page, and read my three oneshots, "Wedding in the Mead Hall," "Wedding Night," and "The Morning After." They form the prologue to this story, explaining the scenario and introducing some of the themes I want to explore. I'll wait here until you get back. ::cue theme from Jeopardy!:: …Welcome back. Did you read them? No? Did you at least read the first one? Good. Ok.

There were three main things I wanted to accomplish in writing this story.

1) Get some experience as a fiction writer. I LOVE fiction, and I've read millions of words and hundreds of novels. I've written papers and a doctoral thesis but have never felt either a strong need to write fiction or an urge to share my work with anyone. Putting your work up for people to read is really, really scary. However, I really do want constructive feedback on the language, the characters, pacing, etc. I'm writing another HTTYD fic right now and if you think you write better than I do, I want your beta services.

The only thing that broke my conviction to never publish anything was:

2) HTTYD 2. I fell, hard. I adored the characters, and my brain believes they're real. I wanted to stay in that world as long I could. That said:

3) A lot of the Hiccstrid fics are over-the-top waffy. I think that all fic is wish fulfillment to some degree, my own included, but the characters in the movie were so down-to-earth and playful and honest with each other that I wanted to preserve that. And the fics that aren't waffy have the characters dance around each other for 50,000 words and I don't have the writing chops or the guts to do that. So I decided to write a short piece that preserved their relationship while exploring my favorite "what if": I noticed that Hiccup was very remorseful about running away from his father since his determination to be a peacemaker arguably was what got Stoick killed. However, Astrid also made a REALLY stupid tactical error in what she said to Drago on his boat, yet we don't see her being bothered by it afterward. The Astrid from the first movie is a total perfectionist. A mistake like that would gnaw at her. The idea started to grow in my head that this could be a source of conflict for them, and in the fatigue of coping with the aftermath of the battle I figure they might be prone to make some very poor decisions. Fatigue kills, people. Plus I have an evil whump/hc streak and also I wanted to see Astrid being a BAMF in defense of her boy. So there you go.

Firsts

"Morning, milady," Hiccup said, and then he kissed her. His lips were warm, the skin slightly chapped from having gone twelve hours without touching any drink but mead.

Astrid brought her hand up to caress the back of his head. Her fingers moved in his hair, massaging his scalp underneath in the way she knew he liked. She returned the kiss, tenderly searching out his mouth with her tongue and breathing out in amused satisfaction as she tasted the leftover flavors of their wedding feast.

She turned her head away suddenly to yawn—it turned into a mild scowl when she felt dried drool crack on her cheek. She didn't remember falling asleep. No doubt everyone at their wedding had believed they would be up all night, but Hiccup had passed out right away, only half out of his clothes, and her last memory of the evening was of her own gratitude that he didn't snore.

"How can you keep calling me that?" she asked. "You've seen me asleep. I don't look like a lady, I look like a troll."

"Sure do," he replied. "But if I said that, you would punch me, and my ribs still hurt."

Astrid's eyebrows went up. "I think you just did. Say something, that is."

He grinned at her devilishly, practically taunting her to injure him, then buried his face in her neck and nuzzled until she was breathless from laughter. She finally managed to push him back and he held himself up over her on his elbows, an arm on either side, a pleased expression on his face like he was congratulating himself that he'd teased Astrid Hofferson (Haddock, now) and still lived.

"But," she continued, "because we did just get married…"

Her finger traced the bandages around his ribcage, residual proof of the danger of small mistakes. A couple of weeks ago he'd slipped on some of the ice still atop the Mead Hall, too tired to pay attention to what his feet were doing. He might not be called Berk's walking disaster anymore, but it appeared that trouble always found him one way or another.

She was beginning to understand how Stoick had probably felt for most of Hiccup's life. You couldn't let this boy out of your sight for a second.

"…I guess I can let you off the hook for that one…"

She pulled his head back down by his braids, and kissed him again, starting with his lips and working her way over all the pillow lines on his face.

"…but don't get used to it." She tapped his nose as a warning of worse things, and he nodded at her solemnly.

"I promise."

They made love, then. It did not go how Astrid had expected, even though she'd been driven crazy for ages by the thought of finally getting to touch all of him. The elders at her ceremonial bath had told her how wonderful things were when you were lucky enough to love your spouse, but they'd left a lot of things out.

They'd told her it might hurt the first time, but not how much. They'd told her to make sure he touched her well beforehand but hadn't suggested a way for him to hold her without his neck or shoulder or arm getting sore. They'd told her he would be done quickly, as men always were their first time. They hadn't told her how frustrating it would be for her when it was her turn and he repeatedly misunderstood her directions.

Finally she said she'd had enough (she had, but not in a good way); she pushed him onto his back and pressed into his side, pinning him down with her bare leg. She leaned her face into the damp, freckled skin of his shoulder and tried not to breathe. If she didn't breathe, she couldn't cry. She was so tired. She'd slept only a few hours and her eyes hurt.

"I'm sorry," he offered. "We'll try again later, I promise."

"It's okay, babe," she said, her voice muffled against him.

They napped for awhile, and she felt a bit better. They went downstairs. Hiccup stirred the embers in the hearth and set up a kettle to make tea. Astrid had pulled her night shift back on, and Hiccup was in his trousers and prosthetic. They weren't totally comfortable with each other yet, and idea of sitting naked not ten feet from his father's sleeping quarters felt somehow weird and disrespectful.

He combed his fingers through his hair before removing the kettle from the hearth and pouring the tea. "We should eat something, too. There's stuff to do today. We still need to feed our dragons, and last week I promised Hoark I'd check out his roof again. He doesn't like how we redid the shingles."

Astrid smiled at him slyly, determined that they'd make use of the time she'd purchased for them at axepoint. "Are you sure? 'Cause I could swear I heard him telling Gobber yesterday that sure, he could wait two more days, while the chief and his new wife got acquainted. Well…more acquainted."

He blushed, but then his brows furrowed. "What? I didn't hear anything about this…"

"I got us two days to ourselves! Gobber and Spitelout will take care of everything, I made sure of it. Aren't you excited? Two days of just you, and me, and nothing to do…"

His expression flattened.

"I might be, if you hadn't, you know, gone behind my back."

The tone suggested he was hurt, and a little bit offended.

Astrid clenched her teeth in irritation. She was still tired, she hadn't eaten since the night before, and she felt slightly resentful that her husband's first time in bed had ended the way it was supposed to and hers hadn't.

Ever since her first, ecstatic ride on dragonback, five years ago, they'd been friends. Shocked at finally having someone his age who believed in him so completely, he'd told her things he still wasn't comfortable telling his father, or even Fishlegs. As they had grown older, only Astrid had learned just how much the idea of becoming chief terrified him; how the thought that he might make an error that could get someone besides himself hurt or killed made him want to throw up, and how the bull-headedness of Berk's residents drove him absolutely crazy.

As chief he was hiding it well, so far, and the villagers loved him. They had for a long time. But Astrid knew his face better than anyone else, and she had seen the strain beginning to show. So she hadn't thought twice about just going ahead and making sure they would have a couple of days off.

And now he was throwing the gesture back in her face, accusing her of disloyalty.

"So?" she protested. "Do I need to run everything I do by you beforehand? Are you going to be one of those chiefs who has to know everything that goes on, all the time? You'll use up Berk's goodwill pretty fast, at that rate. If the villagers had wanted an overbearing muttonhead, they'd have pushed your dad to pick Snotlout Jorgenson."

His eyes narrowed at the comparison. "You know I'm not like that, Astrid, come on."

"You're not? Then why are you so mad?"

"Because you're my wife," he said, a little too loudly, and she cringed, wondering who this person was and what he'd done with Hiccup. "We're supposed to tell each other things."

"What, don't I have a right to my own thoughts?"

"You know that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. Ever since the battle, you've been…weird, all hovering and protective. Whenever one of our friends makes any reference to Eret, or to Drago's ship, you freeze like you've been hit by a Speed Stinger. What the heck happened on that boat that you're not telling me?"

Her heart froze.

No.

No no no no no. She couldn't put it off anymore. She was stuck.

Then again, so was he.

She took a deep breath. They had five years of trust saved up in their relationship bank, and she was about to drain it empty.

She said, "You already know that the gang and I had set out to rescue you from Drago, and that we had gotten captured, and escaped and hid in the dragon traps until the battle started. But I didn't tell you why he attacked Valka's mountain then, or why he went to Berk afterward."

Hiccup looked at her quizzically. "He was crazy and building a dragon army to take over the world?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean, I guess he would have eventually...you know he's probably not dead, right? Megalomaniacs with dragons don't go down that easily, and we never saw a body."

"Don't remind me," Hiccup said sourly. "We still have too much to fix before we can take him on again." He took an angry sip of tea, wishing suddenly that it was mead even though he hated it.

"…Anyway," continued Astrid, "there was a reason he attacked when he did."

She looked down at her mug, unable to meet Hiccup's eyes. "It was because of me. I tried to intimidate him into letting us go. I told him we had a whole island of dragon riders, with tracking dragons, and I told him about you, that you were the greatest dragon master the world had ever seen—"

Hiccup choked on his tea.

"—and that if he didn't let us go, you'd blast through there on your Night Fury and destroy his whole armada."

Hiccup barked out a laugh and shook his head. "Yeah, that was…um, maybe not the best decision you've ever made. But it doesn't matter, it's over now. So…"

She jerked her head up and stared into his face.

"So…I made him aware of a potential threat, much sooner than he would have found out on his own. If we'd just done what your dad said, hunkered down until he came, we would have been prepared. If I'd done what he said and led the others back to Berk, he wouldn't have captured us in the first place. And then I went and made it so, so much worse, because then I ensured he attacked when Berk was completely unprepared and defenseless. All those homes destroyed—it was my fault."

"We all made mistakes that day, Astrid," Hiccup tried to reassure her. "I more than anyone. Do you think I don't lie awake at night, wishing that for once I'd listened to my father? Beating myself up over and over, wondering whether, if I'd just done what I was told, he might still be alive?"

He paused for a moment. "What I don't understand is why you'd keep it from me, or why you'd think it was such a big deal."

"I…thought you might be upset. I was afraid that every time you looked at me, you'd think, 'if she'd only kept her mouth shut, I might still have my dad. If only Astrid had thought more about what she was saying, we might not be rebuilding Berk right now.'"

Hiccup's face went deadly serious, his eyes widened and then he frowned at her, disturbed.

Astrid said, "I thought it might be too painful for you, after everything else. I was afraid you might push me away."

Hiccup rested his head in his hands for a long minute. When he looked up and spoke, his voice was strained.

"You waited until after our wedding to tell me this." He frowned again, and blinked twice. "Hold on! Were you ever going to tell me this?"

She gulped. "Probably. I wanted to, so many times, but we were so busy…"

Hiccup stood up abruptly from the table. He started to pace, pulling at the braids Astrid had woven, as though he wished he could yank them straight from his head.

"Astrid…I'm not mad about what you said to Drago. Yeah, it was stupid and reckless. Believe me, I know stupid and reckless better than anyone. But I can't believe you'd hide something that you thought might …break us up? That you'd essentially lie to me until we were stuck together. That's so…unfair."

"Unfair?" replied Astrid, incensed. "What about the disease incident here on Berk three years ago, when you decided to do what you thought was best for us, without asking me?"

"That was different," Hiccup returned, "we weren't together yet, not officially. And I wasn't hiding something I thought was bad. It was for your own good, I didn't want you to be stuck taking care of me."

"But you didn't ask," said Astrid.

"It's different!" Hiccup yelled. "I didn't wait until we were married to spring a potential deal-breaker on you….argh!" He doubled over, clenching his hands into claws as though he'd like to rip something in two. Astrid didn't think…no, she knew he wouldn't hurt her, but she'd never seen him angry with her like this and she was frightened.

He stood up and glared at her; he started pacing again, and gestured at her, the movements mirroring the sharp cadence of his voice.

"And what's worse, you didn't tell me because you assumed I couldn't handle it, that I wouldn't forgive you! Do you trust me so little? That you think I would stop loving you because you did something stupid on the same level as any of us have done? Do you look down on me so much, like I'm the kind of cold-hearted jerk you need to keep things from? I thought you felt safe with me, that you could tell me everything!"

"I—" she didn't know what to say.

Hiccup stared at her, breathing heavily, then pivoted away on his false leg and clomped up the stairs, the metal of the prosthetic hitting the wood so hard it sounded like it was making dents. Astrid could hear him banging around up in their room, and when he came back down, he had pulled a tunic on that clashed with his trousers. He slammed his right foot into the boot by the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"When will you be back?"

"Later." He stormed out, banging the door behind him.

Astrid sat without moving for a few minutes, panting, squeezing her eyes shut to force back the tears. Finally she gathered her wits and returned to their room. She sat down on the bed, the one in which they had just recently shared their bodies with each other. The sheets were still warm.

You've really messed everything up now, haven't you. Frigga only knows if he'll still want you when he gets back.

She threw herself face first into her pillow and screamed.

Don't worry, they'll be okay. Eventually.