Unintentional Hero

Author: Nightstar Fury of Nightstar Productions

Rated: M for a variety of things that will happen

Pairing: Hiccup/Astrid

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD

~(Authors Note; Hey all! This story is coming to a close soon, I know-so sad! Planning to stop it at 80 chapters. You know what this means! Time to get on my author page and hit the voting. I have six choices to choose from for the story you want to see next! So hit that up, voting closes on Monday: October 10th, 2016. I'm sure most of you voted already-but recently I had a new idea for another modern HTTYD military story where Hiccup joins and tells no one-also, it'll be a Toothcup story. But full description is on the poll. Check it out. Anyway, onward with the story!)~

73; Promise Kept

-Hayden's POV-

Oh what a fucking day this turned out to be. A shit show-just as I hoped it wouldn't be when I'd been told that Evans, Boggs, and Greenhalgh would be coming to evaluate me-luckily I planned for it too. I got as far as telling them about asking for Anderson's help when Tarelto committed suicide before stopping for lunch-it really wasn't for me to eat, I just needed a break from talking about it all again! I didn't want to do this but I knew the officers wouldn't give me a choice-that and I had promised to and if nothing else, I never went back on my promises. Its one of the things that made me-well, me. When in the kitchen I started watching a video of the guys and I, it was the only way I could see them not dead. I really missed them, I know it had been a few years since they had died but it still hurt that they were gone.

Theo came in to talk to me-convinced me to watch the video on the big screen-but after the video ended and I was about to turn it off, I heard Anderson's voice. I'd never frozen so fast in my life with wide eyes while I stepped back quickly and saw him on screen with the others-no Theo though. I assumed he was recording. I couldn't believe what I was seeing right now-I'd never seen this before and I'd watched these videos a thousand times after all the guys had passed away. I didn't move or say a word-neither did anyone else. I just stood there watching everything.

The guys were all taking turns in thanking me for basically coming into their lives, keeping them safe, and all around having their backs-that I was the best friend they'd ever had. Seeing them all individually-it brought tears to my eyes that refused to fall until I got to Anderson. He even said that if they ended up dying they'd always still be there for me. They all smiled and saluted me-the same one Anderson gave when he was blown up. That was all it took for me to break down on the floor. I hit my knees holding myself tightly-head down, and tears falling from my eyes. Theo moved beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. I asked him why he hadn't told me about this video having this on it-he admitted that he didn't know and wasn't the one recording. I didn't know what else to do but cry-I missed them like crazy and it was hard to stand there and watch them all talk to me. All the sarcastic remarks, the humor, even the perverseness. Gods, it just hurt so much to watch and see things as if they were still alive-but what hurt more was knowing they weren't.

I still stood in silence, arms crossed over my chest and just leaning on the door frame. "Hey the video is starting again," I heard Seth state. I turned around quickly and saw that the video had changed to in the barracks-had to be Iraq. The camera was just moving around the barrack as everyone was sitting around laughing.

-End Hayden's POV-

"Was this Iraq, Hayden?" Theo asked.

"Think so, how the hell did these get on my phone's SD card though?..." Hayden wondered, aloud still watching closely as he shut the door and walked back inside. "Yeah, that's first tour in Iraq. E barrack for sure, I recognize the bed positions. Strike One took six beds in one section by the door," he added.

"Mail call!" was yelled out by Huntington. Hayden continued to watch it-how had he never seen any of these?! Who the hell was recording and how did it get on his phone's SD card!? Everyone was watching the video now-they could tell Hayden had no idea some of these were there.

The soldiers rushed over to see if they'd gotten anything. Hayden got up and pushed through them to give the Major some room to breathe. "Hey! Back off guys, you know the drill. Your name gets called, then you come up," Hayden reminded them.

"Sorry, Lieutenant." they mumbled, backing off and sitting on or standing near their bunks.

"Thank you, Haddock. Now...Let's get started," Major Huntington smiled. He began to read off names from the squadron, the soldiers coming up to get their letters or packages. Hayden got two letters and one package-he sat down on his bunk after placing the package down. Hayden grabbed his army knife and opened the first letter and began to read.

Hayden smiled as Theo used the ladder to come up and see him smiling. "My sister sends her best guys, she told me to tell ya," Hayden called out before opening another letter to read through. Hayden's left eye began to twitch at the information. "I'll fuckin kill him if he hurts her..." Hayden grumbled as his friends arched a brow at him. "Mind your own...just some ass-hat who wants to date my sister..." His friends laughed more. Hayden cut along the top and two sides where it was taped shut then put his knife down to open it.

"Awe babe, you're the flippin best." Hayden smiled wide as he saw an assortment of some of his favorite snacks-there was a letter inside from her too so he took that out then slapped Ritka's hand when he was reaching for the Doritos. "Hey, fuck off. Mine..." Hayden warned.

"Oh come on, share, Haddock! There's no way you're gonna eat all that yourself." Ritka pouted.

"Maybe I will. Now back off so I can read her letter in peace," Hayden shoved Ritka back down as he unfolded Avery's letter to read it.

The video showed Hayden reading off the letter from Avery, even smacking Ritka's hand when he reached for the snacks. Hayden wanted to laugh and he was sure he felt Avery glaring at him for reading her letter aloud to his friends.

"She fell hard for you, Haddock. Damn wish I had a girl who cared that much," Tarelto laughed, patting his shoulder, Hayden laughed.

"And hell, that temper on her. Pretty sure she wears the pants in the relationship. Shit man, threatening to join the military and come hurt the enemies if you die...The glare alone would send me runnin'." Lennox joined in on the laughter too.

"And fuck you, I wear the pants since she ain't ever been in them. And the day she does, she gonna find out who wears the pants and why," Hayden remarked: the guys hollered and cheered laughing still. "Enjoy the snacks but stay outta my cookie tin or I'll break your hands and make you do push ups on them!" Hayden grabbed the tin and quickly put it behind him on the pillow as the guys grabbed the box and tore into it. Hayden put the letters away and relaxed after eating one of the cookies from the tin.

"Hey, Lieutenant. This letter came to our barrack by mistake, it's for you. Doesn't have a return address though," Sergeant Staton said handing it to him as he sat up. Hayden opened it up with his knife and pulled out the letter while the others watched him slowly open it as they enjoyed the snacks that Avery sent him. As soon as he saw the words, his eyes widened slow.

"Who is it from, Lieutenant? Yer sister or girl again?" they laughed but Theo smacked their arms and shook his head. Quieting down they looked again to see Hayden's lip quiver and his eyes had unshed tears resting there. It appeared to just show Hayden reading silently-tear drops fall on the paper, "Dad...Thank you," he whispered finally.

Hayden didn't say a word now-someone had been recording that day, when he got the letter from his father. Theo remembered that day-first time they'd ever seen Hayden cry in front of anyone and it was a month before Ritka died. The next scene on the video was of a fire fight. When he found out who was recording-they were gonna get an earful from him about it. But something struck Hayden-this...scene looked familiar and he felt in his heart he should stop watching it but couldn't seem to pull his eyes away from the screen.

"Haddock, bird in position. Where are all of you?" came Huntington's voice on the radio.

"I'm fucking workin on it!" Hayden replied firing again and went to turn to avoid fire-but a bullet ripped through the side of his right arm and he yelled out in pain, holding it tightly. "Shit!" Hayden cursed out, "I'm hit," he added dropping down and panting.

"Haddock, you alright?!" Ritka asked quickly.

"I swear I'm gonna hit a new record for most times shot in the arm! Fuck that hurts..." Hayden cringed hard.

"I got ya covered. I'll get on the building and get the fuckers from above, is extraction here?" Ritka asked. Hayden nodded to him as Ritka ran off inside a building.

"Orders, Lieutenant?" Lennox asked.

"Extraction chopper is half mile away, we gotta get get to it to get out. We gotta push these guys back..." Hayden coughed as Theo bandaged his arm temporarily.

"Good news, the bullet only ripped right through ya," Hayden glared at Theo and he chuckled, " You'll be alright, Haddock. Least til we get back to base..." Theo told him, Hayden whipped around with his gun and just started firing his automatic from left to right effectively taking out about twelve soldiers then Tarelto and a few others threw a line of grenades to keep them at bay.

"That's the window! On the double boys, head half mile East! Bird is waitin." Hayden ordered,

The group watched as the soldiers all grabbed their guns and bolted as fast as they could but obviously someone had stayed behind because they saw Hayden look to the building that Ritka had entered. They watched an RPG slam into the building as it exploded. "RITKA!" Hayden yelled out, then scrambled to his feet and looked for an opening. For a while-there was nothing to see, just the guys sitting on the plane but no sign of Hayden until he showed up after a massive explosion and tears resting in his eyes while he jumped on the plane and just sat against the wall-Ritka wasn't with him.

"Where's...Ritka?" someone asked. Hayden clutched his fist tighter.

"He's gone...RPG took out the building he was in, he died...saving me so I could get out..." Hayden said with his head turned and eyes closed. The next time the video picked up it was when the plane landed at the base.

Major Huntington rushing over with a few others. "Haddock...You're injured." he said. Hayden opened his palm and looked down seeing Ritka's dog tags there. still a little blood on the silver where his name read: Ritka, Steven. And under that BAA. Hayden's eyes filled with tears as he just dropped to his knees and slammed his fist into to the ground as hard as he could, and then he repeated the same action over and over again. Head down, the tears fell from his eyes.

"I should have...been able to save him...And I...didn't...I cou-couldn't..." Hayden lifted his head to the sky now while tears streamed down from his eyes, "AHHHHH!" Hayden yelled out as loud as he could. Toothless had rushed to Hayden's side, seeing the state his rider was in he wrapped himself around Hayden and used his wings to cover him. "I'm...sorry..." Hayden whispered. The dragon's wings moved as they saw Hayden had passed out there-then was taken to medical.

"Theo! Shut it off!" Avery demanded. Hayden was shaking-visibly shaking. That was the fight they lost Ritka in. Theo shut the TV off right away as Avery moved off her seat and held Hayden close-rocking him to soothe him. "Ssh, it's okay-it's okay babe..." she laid her head against his. Hayden didn't move really-he didn't even cry, finally he stood up and got the SD card out of the TV and handed it to Theo.

"Find who shot those videos, Theo. They weren't taken by my phone and I want to know how they got there. No one should have been recording while on missions. It was someone from Alpha Fire or Ember Fire-those were the teams we had that night," Hayden ordered.

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel." Theo nodded firmly to him, "Someone...is gonna get yelled at, aren't they?"

"Yelled at doesn't even begin to cover what I'm gonna do when I find out who was recording that video," Hayden stated as he turned his attention back to his three superior officers, "You want the rest of your story you keep your mouths shut until it's over, got it? My mood just went incredibly bad-you set me off and I'm not responsible for my actions," he warned. They nodded as Hayden just picked up from the second Afghanistan tour. Although this time-he didn't show any emotion when he talked about it. He'd said he'd show his emotions if he felt them but everyone had to assume that right now after watching those videos-he was nothing but pissed off. Hayden told them about everything-except Avery's miscarriage-that wasn't related to military so he didn't feel necessary to bring it up and hurt Avery on the subject. Things moved into the last tour in Iraq, Hayden just got to the part about being taken POW and finding his mother was alive and in the same cell as him. "Something I never told you after returning to base was that I had been taken out of the cell for two hours to be interrogated on training Toothless," he said.

"No, you didn't mention that. Is that why you had all those bruises and cuts on your face when you got to base?" Boggs asked.

"Yes. They wanted me to fight for them-using Toothless as a weapon against Doragon base. I refused and got the shit beat out of me for about an hour in all that. I stayed quiet, never said a word just I'd been trained to do if captured and interrogated," Hayden said slowly.

"You said...you were taken for two hours, that was...only one of them. What happened the other hour?" Greenhalgh questioned, Hayden glanced over with void eyes-his arms over his chest.

"I honestly don't believe you want the answer to that question," Hayden remarked.

"You said you would tell us everything, what happened, Lieutenant Colonel?" Evans asked calmly. Hayden sighed closing his eyes now.

"Since I wouldn't break under getting beat up-they tried something else. They made me choose who would suffer the next round of torture. Myself or the woman in the cell, meaning my mother. Someone would get tortured either way-they wanted me to break. You can assume what I chose-myself to endure the torture to keep my mother safe," Hayden stated coldly.

"And the torture endured?" Evans asked.

Hayden looked over at them and he could feel the eyes on him from his friends and family, he hadn't told them about this yesterday-he actually told them to drop it before storming off to his room, now he had no choice but to tell them. If he broke the deal-they had the free reign to admit him. "SAWR," he stated as the officers froze and so did Jasmine, Theo, Ethan, Dylan, Heather, Gobber, and Valora. The others had no idea what it meant but obviously it was bad.

"Hayden...Gods, say it isn't true!" Heather and Jasmine said quickly.

"I don't understand...what's going on. What does...SAWR stand for?" Avery asked now. The rest of them looked to Hayden-they understood why he used the army code for it but did he want the others knowing the truth. Hayden just closed his eyes and nodded to them to go ahead.

"Avery, lass...SAWR stands for Sexual Assault and War Rape," Gobber told her softly as she gasped quickly looking at Hayden in shock yet he couldn't look at her-his eyes stayed closed.

"Full rape?" Evans asked.

"No," Hayden replied.

"I assume you...don't want to go into detail about this with them here?" Boggs asked.

"I don't rightly care, it doesn't bother me any. They tried to break me-didn't work. It was either me or my mother. I wasn't going to let them do that to her so I took it for an hour then they just gave up assuming they couldn't break me with that. I was taken back to the cell and then about four hours later-I broke us out," Hayden shrugged.

"You never...went to the medic when you got back-you didn't even show signs of that torture..." Theo said.

"I handle pain really well and I hadn't been torn-I saw zero reason to go to the medic. Honestly I was just really sore and wanted to sleep. It didn't matter what happened to me-my mother was safe and we both got out alive with our dragons," Hayden said.

"And none of that made you snap? You snapped when Anderson died-but not when you were a victim of sexual assault?" Greenhalgh asked.

"Anderson's death hurt me more than fingers, stroking, kicks, punches, and whips-yes. Anderson's death hurt me more than anything else I've ever endured on any tour," Hayden stated, without waiting for a response from them-he told them about it then moved right into his nightmares since being home, everything that led to his suicide attempt the day before. "And that's everything." he said.

"I'd like to know why you're so calm-complete honesty here: I wouldn't be. I would have killed myself," Evans said, "And I've seen my fair share," he added.

"I'll give you a simple answer. I'm calm because getting mad about something I cannot change does nothing beneficial to me," he replied lightly as they all looked at him now, "The reason I made you agree not to admit me was because forcing me into isolation would only drive me further into depression. When I am alone-with no one around, is when it hits the worst. I do have certain triggers-and there will be days I just hate everything. Admitting me won't change what happened on tours. It won't take it back, and it can't bring back people I've lost. When I tried to kill myself yesterday-its because I had forgotten that I'm not alone-and there are people here who care and would understand if I told them. I can tell you that I'm not okay a thousand more times-after all you've heard, you know I'd be lying to say I'm okay."

"This is...true," Boggs said.

"So I'm not going to sit here and lie to you, officers. I'm a mess, and I'm very much unstable-likely to snap whenever. I'm not okay. However," he paused now, "that doesn't mean I won't recover with time. I explained this once, when Anderson died-I went off the deep end with a fit of emotions that I honestly just couldn't control. It was the cherry on the cake of suffering. Anderson had always been the one I could talk to-and with him gone, I didn't know what to do anymore. I'll be okay one of these days-I'll never forget what happened but one day I'll be okay. I've accepted what happened to me, things I've seen and been through. It is hard to wake up everyday knowing that nothing changed but nothing in life is supposed to be easy. It's a constant test of endurance and the Gods have brought me to my knees-as low as I can go. But...when you're down with nowhere left to fall, there's only one direction left to go: up. So I might be down but I won't stay there forever. I got too many people on my side who are willing to help me get up and keeping going. So now, I'll do this for you...I release you from the deal. If you feel I'm unstable and want to admit me-go ahead. I won't fight you on it. You asked me to prove that I'm stable-fact is: I can't. Because I'm not right now, but I will be eventually as long as I have them with me. A soldier is only as strong as his support system around him is-without them, I have nothing to fight for."

The other officers looked at one another before looking to Hayden and nodding with smiles to him, "You never disappoint, Haddock. As usual, your evaluation comes out perfectly normal. And effective immediately, you are cleared and fully reinstated for active duty. There are still other wars to fight, just none that need us right now but should the time arise where they do-you are permitted to fight in them." Evans told him.

"I appreciate the offer but I'm going to have to decline," Hayden said firmly taking them all by surprise, "I love the army-don't get me wrong. But there are other things and other people I love right here at home and I want to be able to be here for them. I'm getting married in two months and I want to be able to settle down and have a family. I'll still do the dragon thing but I'm good with never having to go back to war again," he smiled as Avery's eyes widened at his answer.

"Spoken like a true soldier. We'll be in contact when Beyond The Clouds has its grand opening, until then, Lieutenant Colonel..." Evans smiled as Hayden shook their hands then they just left the apartment. Hayden took a deep breath now as Avery moved beside him.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked.

"I'm not, just said that I wasn't babe," Hayden chuckled as he held her hand and pulled her against him by wrapping his arm around her waist-he leaned in close with a smile, "but I will be eventually." He kissed her before she could respond. Her arms trailed up and around his neck while pressed his body to hers. They broke the kiss about a minute later-pressing their foreheads together and smiling widely. They couldn't believe Hayden straight out declined the offer to be on active duty again-when someone was taken off of it-it almost never happened that they'd be reinstated. Hayden proved to them that even with his unstable mind-he'd be okay one way or another, that he'd never stop fighting, and no matter what-he'd be okay. But Hayden declined it, saying he wanted to focus on family which warmed Avery's heart to know. Hayden had promised her that they'd have a family one day-this was him keeping that promise.