There was a whir of motion from the front door, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, spanning a mere five seconds and ending with a deafening slam of the upstairs door. Twenty seconds later and Stoick would have missed it as he was about to grab his helmet and head out the door. At least he had narrowly avoided being slammed by the whir of color that was his ten-year-old son. It was only out of muscle memory that his helmet made it to his head.

"Hiccup?" he called.

"I didn't do it!" came the response, clear as crystal though the thick wooden door.

Stoick had never trusted those four little words. He sighed and lumbered to the stairs. "Hiccup, I know I'm going to regret this, but what didn't you do?"

There was a pause so long Stoick assumed Hiccup was not going to respond. But at least it came. "It."

"It". Three less words and the remains was even worse. Stoick tried to remember just what he had been going out to do. Hiccup was very good at rearranging someone else's thoughts. "What is it?"

This time, silence and nothing but.

"Hiccup?" Stoick called again.

Nothing.

He made his way up the stairs and threw open the door. Hiccup was face down in his pillow, lanky arms and legs spread across his bed. He was sniffling.

This couldn't be good.

"Hiccup," Stoick said sternly. "What didn't you do?"

"The boat." The boy's voice was barely audible from the pillow. "The little fishing boat that sunk."

Stoick hoped the little fishing boat was not a euphemism for large war ship. Maybe it was best not to ask. Asking could make things so much worse when it was best not to know the truth. But here was Hiccup crying into his pillow and saying something about a fishing boat on the bottom of the ocean and Stoick had to do something. "Son, tell me what happened."

"No."

"You know you don't say no to me."

The sniffling stopped. "I know."

Stoick crouched down next to the bed. "I need to know what happened."

"No, you don't. Because it doesn't matter any more because I'm not going out there again!"

"Outside?" Stoick shook his head. "That's ridiculous! Of course you'll go back outside."

"Everyone hates me." The sniffling returned.

It was an odd thing to hear from his son. In so many ways to be hated was a good thing. It meant a Viking was feared and respected and had proved his point to someone. And yet Stoick hated that someone was hating his son, his Hiccup. "Who hates you?"

"Everybody. Because the catapult worked and it hit the fishing boat and it sunk and everybody laughed because it was supposed to throw the rock the other way."

"The catapult." Stoick sighed and rubbed his forehead. He had heard about the catapult for days now. A pet project of Hiccup's. All the spare time he had went to working the darn thing. Stoick hadn't minded, he had actually approved of it. Hiccup was smart enough to be designing weapons. "The catapult didn't work."

Hiccup rose to his knees, gaze still focused on the pillow. His eyes were red. "It didn't work the way I thought it would work. The way I told everybody it would work. And they all laughed at me when the boat sunk and then they were mad at me because the boat sunk. So it was a bunch of people who were mad at me and laughing at me. So I'm not going back outside."

"It was just one boat?" Stoick didn't know whether he was supposed to get mad or be comforting or what.

"An old fishing boat. A rowboat. No one was in it, no one was hurt, no one really should have cared. It would have sunk anyway. It wasn't seaworthy."

Stoick could see it in his mind. A mini catapult built by Hiccup. A boulder flying through the air and smashing into a boat. It was actually a rather cool idea. Even smashing the boat. "Hiccup, it's not everyday someone destroys a boat."

Hiccup moaned and crashed back into the pillow. "You're making it worse, Dad. Snotlout called me Hiccup the Useless. Everybody laughed. And he's right. I am useless."

"You're not useless. You just need to…" What did one do with machines? "Tweak it."

"That'll just make it worse."

"Did you show it to Gobber?" Gobber was the one who knew about these things. "Before you… tested it?"

"I forgot."

Hiccup was just as upset as when he had run into the house. And Stoick still had no idea what to do about it. "Then have Gobber take a look at it."

"It doesn't matter. I'm not making anything again. Because no one likes anything I make it. None of them work anyway. Because they're stupid. You don't even look at them."

Stoick had no response to that even though he had seen them. Maybe not when Hiccup was around, but he had seen these crazy things the boy came up with. But he couldn't think of anything to say.

"I miss Mommy," Hiccup mumbled into his pillow.

Stoick shook his head. "Hiccup—"

"Please just go away."

At least he had used the word please instead of yelling at him. Stoick found himself standing up even though he knew he should be saying something else. It was his job, wasn't it? Make it all better?

But all he did was leave and close the door behind him.