The Next Morning...
"Well-well-well, look who's he... oh gods, look at the state of you. To be honest, I was hoping you'd notice my perfume today Astrid, but I doubt you'll be smelling proper for a while, a ha ha..."
"Yeah-yeah, whatever... just hurry up and fix it..." Astrid snapped in a muffled tone through the clump of tissues she was holding over her nose. She walked over to the operating table and lay back on it as she peeled off the blood-soaked tissues, rolling her eyes as the nurse shut the door and she went to her desk for a few utensils to operate with.
Valka always had a snarky comment to make every time Astrid came to her for treatment, but she was also one of the most efficient in the business and Astrid wouldn't trust anyone else to treat her after a fight, so it was worth any jokes made at her expense.
She was actually a veterinary nurse by trade, but the Haddocks had been friends with the Hoffersons for a long time. So long in fact that Astrid had come to regard Valka and her husband Stoick as a sort of honorary aunt and uncle, especially due to how they'd helped her process her grief after her actual uncle's accident.
Not that being experienced with animals made Valka incapable of treating Astrid's injuries. In fact, as far as Astrid was concerned, she was just animalistic enough to qualify for Valka's treatment, especially with her husband being the one that actually gave Astrid the fighting name that now struck fear into the heart of any poor soul foolish enough to get into a ring with her.
"Aye. She's a deadly wee Nadder, isn't she?"
Astrid chuckled to herself as she thought about this. That little remark had stayed with her since she was ten, the day she decided to make a show at the Larson kid's 7th birthday to exhibit some fighting moves Uncle Finn had taught to her. It seemed Astrid herself was the only one that day who knew this was the life she was going to choose to live, and after Uncle Finn's passing it would be an understatement to say that her parents and their friends, and even Astrid's own friends, weren't exactly jumping with joy when she told them that she'd signed with BMCA and booked her first fight.
Of course, in the seven months that had passed since then, they'd more or less come to accept it. She was sure they were proud of her success, at least a bit, but whenever she brought it up there was always an inherent reluctance to their reactions, as if they still didn't entirely approve of what she was doing with herself.
Valka was by far the most open about her dislike of BMCA, which Astrid presumed was due to the fact that Valka was having to stitch her up and click her dislocated joints back into place once a month. Though in fairness, none of her injuries had been as severe or as messy as this broken nose she had now, with the one exception being when her shoulder blade was torn with a piece of barbed wire during a weapons match against Thuggory The Meathead.
Valka took a cloth from the desk and made sure Astrid was sitting upright on the table with her legs hanging off of it. "Here... bite down hard now."
Astrid did as she was told, clenching her teeth over the cloth Valka was putting in her mouth while Valka clenched her fingers on the bridge of her nose. The cloth hadn't been used on anything but it still tasted awful in her mouth, though Astrid had accepted that it could at least help to take her mind away from the pain that was coming.
"Alright, here we go..." Valka clenched Astrid's nose a little tighter and Astrid bit harder on the cloth and dug her nails into the table she was sitting on as Valka began to twist and pull it back to the centre of Astrid's face. "Hmm! Mimm! Vul... ugh!"
CRUNCH!
"Shit!" Valka quickly yanked the cloth out of Astrid's mouth and pressed it over her nostrils, both of which were leaking out almost ink-black blood at a rapid pace once the bridge was properly realigned. Astrid had to inhale to keep it from pouring out too quickly as Valka let her lay back down on the table again.
Grabbing a clean cloth from the desk, Valka soaked it under the tap and used it to wipe away the blood that was dried and dripping all over Astrid's mouth and chin, making sure her nose was properly in place before getting out some other utensils so she could bandage it.
"Right then... just need to get the plastering done up and it'll be back to normal in a couple weeks."
"Hmm... yeah thanks, Val. You're the best. Ugh..." Astrid winced a bit as the bandages caused a stinging pain on her nose.
"So... apparently you're still undefeated, then..." Valka scoffed, her tone of voice seeming to indicate that she wasn't impressed.
"Yep... still the champ." she nodded. "If you think this is bad, you should see the other girl..."
"Aye, I know... saw the fight..." Valka sighed when she said this, adding the last few touches to her work as she took off her bloodied gloves and walked back over to the desk to get something else. "You know, you really didn't need to spit on her, Astrid..."
"That cunt had it coming." Astrid groaned, pointing to her now fully-bandaged nose as she added "this was a total cheap shot."
"Oh, did her elbow get in the way of your face?" Valka had a brow raised. "The only cheap shot I saw in that fight was you kicking her when you'd already won..."
Astrid opened her mouth to object, but found nothing coming out as she froze with wide-eyes and her mouth hanging open. It took her a moment to think about her rebuttal, before she said "well... who cares, you know, she... ugh... at least the score's all tied up with us."
"Oh aye... she's Oswald's lass, isn't she?" Valka rolled her eyes. "Suddenly makes a lot more sense why you wanted this fight... ugh... Astrid, you have to let that go..."
"No, fuck that!" Astrid hardly ever got this angry at Valka, but then again, Valka hardly ever brought up Uncle Finn's accident. "Besides, it was her idea... even if I didn't want to, do you really think she wouldn't have gone to the studio about it?"
"Suppose not..." Valka scoffed, adding one more layer onto Astrid's bandage to finish it off before going to the desk and sitting down to write out a prescription. "But I suppose since you've got your so-called revenge, you don't have anything to prove anymore, do you now?"
Astrid rolled her eyes as Valka swivelled the chair around to face her again with a smug grin on her face.
"Ugh... here we go again..." Astrid had a grin of her own, a snarky, condescending tone in her voice as she said "Val, has it ever occurred to you that maybe I just enjoy this? Hmm? Ever thought about it like that?"
"Aye, I've considered that. Then things like broken noses and torn shoulders tell me otherwise." Valka put the prescription and the small bottle of ibuprofen pills in Astrid's hand. "Take a couple whenever it starts to sting."
"Well it's only fun if you get a scar out of it..." Astrid scoffed as she put the bottle in her pocket, before then putting her hand into her other pocket to fish out a brown envelope. Valka scowled with her hands on her hips as Astrid took out a couple 100 dollar bills, waving them smugly as she said "plus, I'd say three-thousand per fight is a pretty sweet deal..."
"It'd be enough for you to retire by now if a portion of it wasn't going to me every month."
Valka almost considered turning down the payment, but was also fully aware that Astrid would keep pestering her about it and wouldn't leave unless she accepted it. So she opened her hand and let Astrid place the $250 into it, bringing it over to her desk and putting it into a drawer.
"So... same time next month...?" she snarked as Astrid got up, the latter scoffing as she answered with "only if I need you."
"I'll take that as a most likely, then..." they both chuckled as Valka said this, Astrid running over to give her a hug before she left the office.
The buzzing in her back pocket alerted Astrid to the call as she walked down the hallway, reaching to get it to see who it was. "Shit."
She almost considered ignoring it, but knowing Fishlegs he was bound to hang up and call again once it went to voicemail. So she reluctantly answered, putting the phone to her ear and saying "hey Fishlegs... what's up?"
"Well, uh... Heather's pretty torn up about the fight, Astrid..."
"Oh, really... she's bitter that she lost, huh?" Astrid scoffed, taking the phone away from her ear and holding it a few centimetres from her face so she could talk right into it. "You can tell that little whore that if she wants a rematch, I can come over there and kick her ass again any time she wants."
"No. Because she doesn't want a rematch. She doesn't want anything to do with you at all after what you did."
"Huh... smart girl."
"Gods, are you really that arrogant, Astrid?!"
"Hey I won, didn't I?"
"You humiliated her. You... you baited her into the middle of something she wasn't prepared for just so you could kick the crap out of her in front of everyone. You've done some shady stuff while I've known you, Astrid, but this is cheap even for you."
"I didn't break her nose."
"That was an accident and it was your fault! Same as your uncle's, for that matter."
"Hey!" she snapped suddenly, startling a few of the patients and nurses that were passing her in the hallway. "I have plenty of energy to get over there, you dick! So don't fucking push my buttons!"
"Look Astrid, you can be mad about what happened between her dad and your uncle all you want, but leave Heather out of it!"
"Alright, fine. I want nothing to do with her either. Oh, and by the way... tell your girlfriend that if she has anything resembling fucking self-respect she'd stop dressing like such a slut!"
"What?! She doesn't... she doesn't dress like a..."
"Fuck that, she so fucking does! I don't even like her and I'm embarrassed for her every time she dresses with those tight outfits. She looks like a fucking bitch in heat! Probably why you caught onto her so fast..."
"Astrid, I'm not just gonna sit here and let you disrespect and hurt Heather anymore than you already have!"
"Fuck her! If that little temptress ever gets raped don't say I didn't warn her! And if you wanna hook yourself up to that toxic little cocksucker and her cunt family, fuck you too!"
She hung up and shoved the phone back in her pocket, snapping her head up suddenly as a voice said "WATCH OUT!"
"Ugh!" Astrid grunted as the figure collided into her and they both fell back with him on top. The tall, lanky man quickly scrambled off of her and pulled himself up, offering her his hand which she quickly slapped aside.
"Watch where you're going, asshole!"
"Sorry, I tripped, I... I was... I was in a hurry, and you were in the way, and..."
"In the way? Pah! It's not my fault you have two left... ooh..." Astrid knew she was going to kick herself later when she looked at the man's lower body and realised he didn't have two left feet. He didn't even have one. "Oh gods, I'm so sorry. I... I didn't mean..."
"It's fine. Really..." the young man hopped over to the small, metal prosthetic on the floor, grabbing it and reattaching it to the stump at the halfway point of his left shin. "Alright, I just... I mean, it was still my fault, cause... cause I shouldn't really be running with this stupid thing anyway. Wait a sec, you're... Astrid? Astrid Hofferson?"
"Uh... yeah, who's asking?" she looked up at the man's face as went wide-eyed. "Oh... Hiccup!"
"Yeah, it's me." he held his hand to her again, but she took it this time and let him pull her to her feet. "You look really different... of course, it might just be the nose."
"Oh no, I do... and so do you... man, you look great..." Astrid hesitated for a moment before firmly putting her hands on Hiccup's shoulders. He seemed a little nervous when she touched him like this, but she kept a smile as she let him go and flattened down her own shirt down after it had been creased by the collision. "So, what's with the, uh...?"
"Oh, you mean this... thing." he shrugged as he glanced down at the prosthetic. "Yeah, car accident... y'know... amputated."
"Shit, yeah, you, uh... that wreck you were in, um... I think I remember your mom telling me about it... ugh... how long ago was it, like two years or..."
"19 months. Yeah."
"Gods... so, how are you holding up? Didn't see you at the reunion... to be honest, I kinda missed having you there..."
"Oh, the uh... the reunion, right, um... yeah... so, I um... shit..." he rubbed the back of his head. "I gotta be honest, I actually kind of forgot about that, cause I've been busy, and... um... anyway, I uh... what about you, huh champ? I... I take it the nose is because of a successful title defence?"
"Hmm, yeah... least you're keeping track of me..."
"Well not really, because... yeah... well you're doing great, from what I can tell. I'm actually doing great too. Graduated, Animal Welfare. Mom told you about my vlogs, right?"
"Wait, your... your vlogs?"
"Oh, she didn't... um... okay basically, I work at this foundation that takes care of wild animals and I have this vlog where I film them and stuff... it's kinda stupid, but it's monetised and I love doing it, so... I mean, gods, they have such great animals down there, Astrid... it's called the Hidden World, and by Thor does it live up to that name, ha-ha... I mean, for instance..."
Astrid let out a warm little grin as he passionately started gushing about his favourites at the sanctuary. Being the son of a vet nurse, Hiccup had always been a friend of the beasts, and once you started a conversation about one he'd never stop babbling about all the things he loved about them, even if they weren't even the same species the conversation was initially about. It was one of her favourite things about Hiccup when they were growing up, and aside from the facts that his hair was longer, he'd ditched his big old glasses and he'd miraculously shed his baby fat along with his left foot, she knew he hadn't changed a bit.
"Yeah, so... that's my career..." he finished in an almost ashamed, self-deprecating tone as he put his arms at his side awkwardly. "Obviously, it's not BMCA champion or anything like that, but..."
"Well no, but that sounds really cute. Plus, you always were an animal-lover Hiccup, so... at least we're both doing what we love, right..." as she said this she slowly reached for his hand. He initially hesitated and yanked his hand a little further away from hers, the abruptness of which caught Astrid somewhat off-guard. In a split-second he regretted his action, letting his hand loosen up a bit as Astrid managed to take it and hold it.
"If you don't mind, I... I'd love to look at it... it's not like a paid subscription or anything, is it?"
"Hmm? Oh, no, nothing like that..." he said. "It's just YouTube. Type in Hidden World Animal Sanctuary, you'll find my playlist there... pretty easy..."
"Hmm... yeah, okay." Astrid kept her hand clasped over his as they stayed silent for a moment, before Hiccup cleared his throat and pulled his away.
"I should probably... y'know... go talk to my Mom, cause... that's literally the entire reason I'm here, ha-ha..."
"Oh, right, sure. Um... it was nice seeing you again, Hiccup."
Astrid noticed Hiccup tense a bit again as she went in for a hug, but after a moment of hesitation she went for it anyway. It took him a few seconds to return it, but he eventually did settle into the embrace as he wrapped his arms around her back and held her a little closer. Astrid probably held onto him for a second longer than she should have done since he was the first one to take his hands away, but she eventually made herself let him go, and they exchanged a smile as Astrid walked out of the hospital while Hiccup went in the opposite direction over to Valka's office.
