School had been rough, but Violet managed to get through it. Her focus was thrown out the window the moment Pitch decided to show up again. Honestly, she couldn't understand why it was impossible to get a break from the chaos for once in her life. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't find some ways to enjoy her free time.

Hiccup had asked if she wanted to go out and meet him for dinner after school today. He probably wanted to talk more about what had happened. Still, she couldn't help but look forward to it. Violet's smile didn't fade for the rest of the day and once she got home, she rushed to her closet in a panic. What was she supposed to even wear for this dinner? They were friends, so she should just pick out something casual. Yet, that purple button-up shirt was so cute and really brought out her eyes. Tony said it made her attractive on one of the few dates they'd gone on and — no, this wasn't a date.

Shaking her head, Violet still found herself reaching for the shirt anyway. Settling on the soft lavender shirt, she paired it with a pair of white jeans to keep the colors light for the day. Looking at herself in the mirror, she smiled, pleased with the look. All that was left was to brush back her hair and put on a headband to compliment the look.

Leaving behind a hasty note, Violet rushed out of the house, hoping she wouldn't be too late. Hiccup had said they'd meet up at 5:00 and she'd spent far too long being indecisive on her clothes after finishing homework. Seriously, what was wrong with her? Hiccup didn't care about her clothes. Friends don't care about what friends wear to hang out at dinner.

Arriving at the small diner, Violet smiled at the host. "Hi, I'm meeting a friend here? Um, I'm not certain if he's already—oh, there he is." She moved past the entrance, moving towards the booth where she saw Hiccup waving at her with a smile. "Hi."

"Hi." Hiccup looked at her for a moment, before looking away. "Ah, how was the rest of your day?"

"Productive. I made some good progress on our English paper when I got home today."

Hiccup groaned. "Please don't remind me. That's the last thing I want to work on right now."

"What, too much of a distraction from Merida's arrows?"

"They're going to be awesome! I've got this idea for a design that'd make it function essentially like a graphing hook." Hiccup reached over next to him, grabbing his bag and reaching inside. "Let me see…I've got the design with me in here somewhere." Triumphantly, he pulled out some papers and scattered them across the table. "I almost had the designs finished before our, ah, adventurous day yesterday. I put some of the finishing touches on them this morning, but I'm not certain what material would work best - it needs to be something that won't interfere with the accuracy of the shot, but it can't be too heavy either since that'll prevent the shot from having any real distance to it."

"Well, I'm glad you're making progress then. Sorry for not having suggestions for you though." Violet smiled at him, pushing the designs back to him. Why was this starting to feel less like the interrogation she was expecting? And was Hiccup…blushing? No, she was imagining things.

"Right." Hiccup ran a hand through his hair, frowning for a moment. "Look, I don't mean to pry but…you do know you can trust me, right?" Ah, there it was. Violet nodded, uncertain of what to add. "It's just…a lot happened yesterday. Towards the end of it all, you seemed pretty freaked out. I just wanted to say I'm here to listen, if you wanted to talk." Hiccup quickly waved his hands in front of him. "Not that you have to! Just more so that you can."

"Thank you." Violet let out a sigh of relief. "Sorry, I just…I was kinda expecting you to pry about it all. I mean, I could tell you knew I was sorta making that story up as we went along."

Hiccup nodded. "Oh, yes. It's a wonder your ex ever believed any of your 'family outing' excuses when you had to cancel dates." He smiled and Violet couldn't help but laugh at the comment. Really, how did Tony buy any of her excuses?

"Yeah, well, I suppose even if he didn't believe them, he probably wasn't about to assume anything close to what was actually going on." She paused as the waiter arrived for their orders, interrupting the topic. Once they had ordered, she turned back towards him. "But, yeah. It was just…unexpected. Honestly, I want to talk about it, but…it isn't my place to talk about what happened."

"Jamie's keeping secrets?" Hiccup raised his eyebrows. "Jack gave me the impression that the kid is usually an open book."

"Well, he's far better at lying than I am, that's for sure." Violet shook her head. "It…if you promise you won't tell, I'll share at least why I went out on the walk with him. I just don't feel comfortable interfering." Even if she still felt just as bad staying quiet.

"Promise. It'll stay between us, just like the whole, ah, secret thing with your family."

Giving him a nod, Violet leaned forward towards Hiccup. "Jamie can actually see and hear Jack. He's just pretending he can't."

That had the brunette frowning. "Why? That…that doesn't make any sense. Jamie doesn't have any reason to ignore Jack, not from what I've heard."

"Yeah, well, that's what I wanted to get to the bottom of on that walk." Violet shook her head. "He had a weird reaction when Jack started defending him, arguing with you there. And, well, I suppose I did get my answer on our walk. It just wasn't what I expected."

In fact, she didn't even know if she should be concerned. Jamie wasn't trying to do anything bad here. He just wanted to go home and relax with his family again. What Pitch was trying to do now was still a mystery. "Well, I suppose I can see why you feel like that's not something you can share." Hiccup gave her a half-smile. "It'd be weird, getting in the middle of some weird argument or whatever it is he's having with Jack."

"Exactly." They were quiet for a moment while Violet tried to scramble for a new topic. Talking about Jack and Jamie would just make her all worked up again and she didn't want to be a stuttering mess. They were having fun enjoying this dinner. "Oh, did Dash talk to you more about his whole 'super hero' team thing?"

"He didn't exactly get the chance to."

"Good." Violet shook her head. "Honestly, my brother can be a bit annoying like that. He's got this idea that we're ready for more independent work, but really, he should know by now that it isn't that simple."

"Is it really that weird working with your parents?"

Violet shook her head. "Not at all! It's great. I mean, except the fact that I pretty much have to be ready to drop everything and run at a moment's notice with them." She sighed. "But that'd happen whether I was working with them or not. It's more so that we just…know each other? We know each other's strengths and weaknesses, so that means we can support each other as needed. It makes for good teamwork and I don't think Dash realizes just how much he needs that sort of familiarity in this line of work."

"Do you guys switch up teams ever?" Hiccup blinked. "Ah, and if I'm asking for something that's supposed to be like, more confidential than I already know, feel free to let me know. I just can't help but be curious - we don't get the chance to talk about it much, what with school and the others usually hanging around."

Plus, she couldn't comfortably bring it up around her family either. There was no way she was going to risk a repeat of the Tony mind-wipe. She refused to let her family even take the minuscule chance of wiping out all memories Hiccup had of her. "It's fine. And, well, sorta? We help each other out when there are bigger villains out there - I don't know if you remember Screenslaver from the news or not, but that's a good example of one that needed a larger group to stop."

"I…was probably in Berk for most of that stuff, sorry. We don't exactly keep up with current news."

She nodded. "Well, beyond the odd team up here and there, most of us choose to work with a partner or work alone. I mean, I haven't done this for long myself, so I suppose I could just be unfamiliar with how it'll work out officially. I mean, new regulations are being made to try and appease the few people out there still objecting to the legalization of supers again - or, well the legalization of us actually using our powers anyway."

Hiccup nodded, watching her with a smile. Their food arrived and dulled the conversation for a brief moment as they began to eat. After beginning, Violet looked up at him with a smile. "So, Grump, right? Were you worried because he's like Toothless?"

"Oh, yes. And, as the name implies, he's a pain to deal with." Hiccup sighed. "Having both of them around the house is a nightmare. Toothless is constantly trying to sneak out, especially when he knows Jack is around to take him flying. And Grump just…refuses to listen to anyone. Gobber can sometimes appease him, but that beast just does what he wants, when he wants."

Violet tilted her head. "Huh. He seemed to really like Jamie though."

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, and I suppose that's part of why I decided I was being a bit harsh on him." Hiccup looked over at her. "I'm not certain if you've noticed, but those, ah, cats are a bit smarter than normal. They've got good instincts on who to trust and when. If someone approaches with a concealed weapon, expect them to react defensively until it is removed. If someone brings them a poisonous eel, well, they're gonna get mad." Hiccup shrugged. "It took me a bit to learn more about it, considering the assumptions on Berk at first, but it did teach me that they know a lot about what people want and plan to do around them. So, when I thought about Grump's attitude…I figured that meant that at the very least, Jamie didn't want to hurt any of us."

"What are the others like? I mean, you clearly know a lot about them and I don't remember you really talking much about any of them other than Toothless."

Hiccup smiled. "Well, they're all unique. Some are more willing to be tamed than others, admittedly, but they've got the right nature to just get along and live peacefully with us so long as we treat them with respect." He shrugged. "If you want specifics, I can go a bit further. For example, my cousin has one that's prone to…well, lighting itself on fire. And to make matters worse, he seems to think it's a fun prank to pull on whoever is unfortunate enough to be riding him."

"Wait, they don't always breath fire?"

Hiccup shook his head. "Oh, no, they've all got their specialties. Another one has two heads - that one operates by spitting gas out of one and igniting it with a shock from the mouth of the other." Violet nodded. "Plus, there's this one breed that breaths scalding water so really, it is completely unrelated to fire unless you count the fact that hot water can still cause burns."

"How long did it take you to learn so much about them?"

"Some of it…sorta came from our history as hunters." Hiccup looked away. "It was part of our 'training' growing up. We all had to read this book of information they'd gathered which was basically a glorified summary on all of the different ways dragons could kill. It didn't have any other details beyond a few pictures, some of which were hard to take seriously if the artist decided to give up on finding their dragon form and just drew them as a cat instead."

Violet laughed at the image that provided. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to see any book listing off murderous weapons and ways someone could be burned alive…as tools belonging to a cat. "As far as the non-death related information goes, that all started with my generation." Hiccup tilted his head. "Remember how I said I couldn't stand the hunting? Well, I…may have started a bit of a revolution to change the mindset of my entire tribe. Took a lot of effort, considering how stubborn they all are."

"Right, you mentioned a bit about that before." Hiccup nodded. "You never really gave me any details on the plan though. Doesn't seem like a simple thing to do, not with how you describe your old neighbors."

That was all the prompting Hiccup needed to launch into the story. Apparently, his research had led to the discovery of an odd hierarchy among the dragons. A very rare one had hidden away and was controlling the rest, forcing them to steal from Berk. Long story short, it required other dragons to stop that dragon and afterwords, the village became dedicated to learning more.

"Still, that didn't mean we didn't suffer losses. Some were too stubborn to even try fighting alongside of dragons." Hiccup swallowed, staring at the table. He'd stopped eating and was just staring at his food for a moment. "My dad, he…I thought he'd just started to turn around, you know? Toothless got into a bad spot, Dad noticed, and I desperately lunged to try and get to him. There was no way I'd let Toothless get hurt and just before we'd left, Dad had made his opinion quite clear on how dragons were all monsters that had to be stopped."

Hiccup shook his head. "Yet, Dad was still there. He was the stronger one of the two of us and he managed to get in between Toothless and the Red Death. Toothless trusted him in that moment, turning back into his cat form and letting Dad toss him to me…just before…" Hiccup trailed off, closing his hand into a fist. "The fight wasn't over. We still won, and in the end, that's how I ended up losing my leg too. Things…weren't really the same after that."

"That's when they took you away?" Hiccup shrugged.

"Eh, it took them about a month, but basically." Hiccup shrugged. "So, I suppose now you know why there isn't much I can say about my dad. It isn't like I could talk about it even if I wanted to, not unless it's with someone who already knows about them."

Reaching out, Violet gave him a reassuring smile. Hiccup's hand was resting on the table and Violet covered it with her own. "I'm sorry no one was there to help your dad, Hiccup. It can't be an easy thing to just ignore either."

They were quiet for a moment. Hiccup's skin was smooth under her fingers and she found herself gently rubbing the back of his hand. Realizing what she was doing, Violet felt her cheeks heat and nearly started pulling her hand away when Hiccup pressed his other hand over hers, keeping it in place. "Thank you, Violet. For being here and listening. I'm…really glad I met you."

Violet blinked, meeting his eyes. "I…of course." Her heart was pounding. Why was it pounding so hard? And Hiccup just kept staring at her with a weird expression, one that was soft yet still with some lingering sadness from his story. "I'll always be here for you. I mean, you helped me out too, right?"

When the waiter came with the bill, she hardly registered the fact that Hiccup was paying for her meal too. "Looks like we got lucky, huh? And here I was worried things wouldn't go well with the date, what with the whole hero-thing going on." Date? Violet blinked at him, trying to think back to the invitation. He'd…just asked to go to dinner. There had been no mention of a date, right?

"Violet! I'm glad I caught you." Hiccup ran over to her at lunch, avoiding her gaze and rubbing the back of his neck. "So, uh…well, the thing is—"

"Yes?" Violet gave him a half-smile. He'd just been teasing her about the nervous rambling. Seeing it on someone else, she couldn't help but smile, quite aware of the awkwardness caused by it. Plus, it just seemed to suit Hiccup well, adding another aspect to him that she related to so well.

Swallowing, Hiccup let out a nervous chuckle. "Sorry." Then, he took a deep breath. "This might seem a bit weird, but…we get along well, right?" Violet nodded, frowning over at him. "Well, see, I might not exactly have the best record with this sort of thing…but I was kinda wondering if you'd like to go out and grab a bite to eat together after school. Just the two of us, away from all the craziness of our friends and families for a day."

He'd been…nervous. Violet hadn't even taken a moment to ask herself why. Was she really that oblivious? The thought made her feel even warmer as a fluttering sensation gradually grew in her stomach. She hadn't even considered the possibility that Hiccup had actually intended on this being a date between the two of them. She'd spent the entire time thinking they were just hanging out and having fun as friends.

When he held out his hand to help her up from the booth, Violet couldn't bring herself to complain or even try to correct him. His hand was warm and Hiccup was one of the nicest guys she'd met in a long time. Maybe she really could do this normal dating thing for a change and actually have things work out. "Yeah, I guess we did get lucky." She squeezed his hand, walking with him towards the door with her heart pounding. But, of course she just had to speak a little too soon.

An alert went off, one that could easily be written off as an alarm to anyone listening in. Pulling a device out of her pocket, Violet saw an address flashing across the screen. Letting go of Hiccup's hand, Violet let out a sigh. "Sorry, looks like we spoke too soon," she said. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"Sure thing, Stay safe out there, alright?" Violet nodded, before turning and running off. She couldn't even explain how relieving it felt to be able to just leave without further questions about why she had to go or what was happening. Dating someone who knew was so much better than going on a date with someone she had to hide from, that was certain.

So, I have no good excuse for the delay here. I got distracted by other things and somewhat forgot to post this update. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!