This story is a treat for those who have read Unexpected. It takes place between the birth and the Welcoming Ceremony. Kind of an in-between tale.

A Few Tweaks: The Iron Pants

"Mom's gonna love this," Finn announced proudly as he looked over his creation. He had spent the last several hours painstakingly sanding down the rough edges of the small wooden weapons rack before he had given it to his sister to paint. Their father had come to them only about a week before to remind them of their mother's upcoming birthday. "But why'd you have to go and make it all girly?"

"It's not girly, and in any case mom's a girl!" Adrianna retorted. The weapons rack was a beautiful, bright baby blue, and decorated with small rose colored polka dots. "Where should we put it so she sees it when she comes back?"

Finn furrowed his brow in deep thought. His bright blue eyes scanned the room for a perfect location. Somewhere it would be seen the moment his mother returned from her outing to the Academy.

"Over there." he said at last, pointing to a window close to the front door. The only things currently occupying the space were a pair of ugly, oddly shaped metal flowerpots containing wilting herbs. "Then she can grab her weapons before she goes out."

Adrianna brightened at this prospect and immediately ran to the location. She was too short to reach the place her brother had pointed out but she wasn't about to let that stop her. Standing on tiptoe, she strained her body as far as it would reach. She was still several inches short of her goal.

"Get me something to stand on!" she grunted, trying to raise the rack just a little bit higher.

Finn immediately grabbed the first object he saw: a rickety old bucket that was missing a small piece of its brim. This, he reasoned, was the perfect stair for his sister. He flipped it upside down and pushed it to her feet. She immediately stood on it and strained even more to hang the weapons rack on a nail in the wood. A little higher… a little more…

"Mom's coming!" Finn shouted, his eyes focused on his mother's flying form coming into view outside the window. Toothless, who was watching them from the far corner of the room, stood in response to the rising excitement in Finn's voice. "Hurry up!"

"Don't rush me!" Adrianna snapped irritably.

Just as she finally managed to hang the rack, she took a small step back and the bucket toppled over. Her arms flailed about, desperately trying to grab onto something to support her weight, but they only managed to find one of the metal flowerpots, which she knocked in front of the door. Toothless lunged forward just in time to catch her on his nose before she hit the floor.

This was the sight which met Astrid as she opened the door: her daughter resting, one foot on a broken bucket, body leaning backwards across a dragon's head; the sound of her son's raucous laughter; and the contents of a flowerpot strewn across the floor.

"Well, I see that you all have had a quiet morning." Astrid commented as she stepped over the mess into her house. A sudden glint of silver caught her attention, and she stooped to remove something from the mess. "Why is there an axe head in my flower pot?" Had she been looking his way, she may have noticed Finn cock his head in what could only be described as baffled recognition. Adrianna straightened herself and ran to hug her mother. Right before she reached her, the girl's foot caught on the flowerpot and she tripped into her mother's arms.

"Yep, you are definitely your father's child." Astrid deadpanned as she caught her daughter.

"That hurt! Why is it so heavy?" Adrianna asked, rubbing her sore foot.

Finn walked over and picked up the indestructible home garden. It featured an oddly squished oval opening at the top, and expanded into a wider base. A thick leather piece at the bottom of the container had flipped over in the fall, revealing two rather sizable holes and a metal covered water drain.

"Mom," he asked slowly, "what are these big holes for? Roots?"

Astrid had to stifle a sudden laugh as she looked over at what her son what inspecting. Over the years she had forgotten about the awkward matching contraptions she had re-imagined as flowerpots.

"Unfortunately not," she replied, taking it from him and turning it over in her hands, allowing the memories to well up. "These actually were for legs."

"Legs?!" The twins managed to say this in unison, both utterly aghast at the idea.

"What could fit legs in that?" Finn asked.

"What would wear that?" Adrianna countered.

"Well…" Astrid began slowly, "it was actually a present from your father for my birthday right after you were born."

"Daddy gave you flowerpots?" Adrianna had a hard time imagining her father presenting her mother with something so mundane, not to mention… housewife-ish.

"No, I gave me flowerpots. Your father gave me something… different."

Finn wrinkled his nose slightly. "But you said—"

Astrid gestured to the couch along the far wall. "Sit down, you'll enjoy this." She grabbed a separate chair and sat down with the flowerpot in front of them, ready for storytelling. "Now, you two may not know this, but after you were born we spent about two weeks staying with the healer while you were growing and I was healing. During that time, your father…"

Hiccup's hands were still cold from washing them in the bucket of icy water beside the table in the healer's hut. He was tempted to put them on his sleeping wife to warm them, but even still sore and immobile from her traumatic birthing the week before she could pack a mean punch. He made do by wrapping the bandage that had been around his left hand pre-washing around both. So long as he was careful not to jostle the fractured bone in his hand, he should be able to have a comfortable night. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep a loud, screeching wail echoed through the hut.

"Hiccup…" Astrid moaned.

"No, that would be Finn." Hiccup replied, pulling his cold hands back from within the warm bandages. "Because I just finished cleaning his sister up he decided it was obviously his turn."

"Well, you know that parents aren't supposed to play favorites," Astrid muttered, snuggling back into the bed. "He's going to wake up half the village."

"Yes, waking up only me would just show a total lack of ambition for a future chief. Leadership runs in his veins, so he should start off life bringing the whole village together at the crack of dawn."

Hiccup pulled his screaming son from the crib in the center of the room and headed into the larger healing room in the center of the hut, where he could close the door and leave his wife in some peace. A low fire was still burning in the center of the room, and he could hear the elderly healer snoring in the room adjacent. He placed the baby on the table they had been using for changing diapers and began to untie the knots holding the wrap in place.

"It's like the two of you plan to do this," he continued his quiet tirade. "Within seconds of each other, I swear." He pulled the dirty diaper out from under his son, began cleaning him, and trying to center him on the clean diaper laid out for him. "I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of this, how long has it been now… A few days, no, wait, it's been…" He paused suddenly as realization rushed over him, "it's been a week, little guy! Happy firstweekday! No, wait, that doesn't sound right."

The baby cooed and wiggled excitedly on the new diaper. "Yeah, that's right," Hiccup said cheerfully, smiling at the little boy, "celebrate! You've made it a whole week with me changing these disgusting things. Not to mention having me and Astrid as your parents, well, Astrid is—" He froze suddenly. "Having a birthday. Tomorrow, actually. I was a little preoccupied with your birthday that, I totally—oh dear." He started drumming his fingers on the table anxiously. He only had twenty-four hours to come up with a brilliant idea for his wife's first married birthday, not to mention parental birthday, and create it, and… Oh dear. "What should I do? I mean, what do you think she'd like? I mean other than weapons, but frankly I think we have enough weapons. Actually, I feel like giving her more weapons might be dangerous. What about something to do with, you know, becoming a parent? Something that would be meaningful to this new adventure, this new… Do you have any ideas, Finn?" He leaned down over his son just in time for something wet and very warm to hit him full on in the face.

"Oh gross. That was… just… oh gross." He wiped his face off with another diaper from the clean pile in the corner of the table. "Well, thank you for your suggestion Finn, but I think that we've had enough of that. Oh, gross. I definitely need a bath now. And I definitely can't go back to bed."

After Hiccup had managed to get Finn cleaned up and put back in his crib, he headed out into the dawning day to begin drawing water for a bath, still muttering to himself.

"If that is any indication of my future experiences as a parent, then there has got to be an easier way to deal with this. This is exhausting." He pulled off his night shirt and dunked his head and upper body into the water, trying to scrub away any remains of his son's suggestion.

Suggestion.

Wait.

Hiccup yanked his head out of the water as quickly as he had plunged it in. He had an idea. A brilliant, completely foolproof idea. Without even bothering to go inside and find a clean tunic, he turned on his remaining heel and bolted off across the village, not stopping until he had barged into Gobber's home.

"Gobber!" He shouted as he came through, forgetting himself completely in his excitement. "Gobber, I have a wonderful idea, but I need your help because of my hand!"

He heard something flying through the air towards him, and a moment later there was a dull thud as an axe imbedded itself into the wall next to his head. Immediately afterward, a gruff hand came out of the near darkness and grabbed him around the neck. "Eeeck! Gobber! Gobber! I can't breathe!"

Gobber, still half-asleep, seemed to come to some realization that the strange bluish blob in front of him was actually Hiccup's face, and relinquished his hold of the young man's neck. "Great Thor, Hiccup, what were you trying to do, sneaking up a man in his skivvies?"

"Well… that was an awkward question…" Hiccup rubbed his neck. For only possessing one hand, Gobber still could manage to throttle relatively well.

"So what was it you wanted so much you had to wake a man up?" Gobber asked, thunking across the room to find an appropriate hand for the day.

"I had a brilliant idea. Get dressed and come to the forge, I need your help with something."

"I could say the same to you. What are you all wet and naked for?"

"Nak—oh, I forgot to put another shirt on. Yeah. You don't want to know." Gobber raised an eyebrow in a mischievous way, "No, not that, it was Finn, and, yeah, it was messy."

"Ah, well, I think similar things used to happen to your father," Gobber stated patiently as he began to screw on a hook, "there was this one time I was put in charge of changing you at a war meeting because your father said—"

"No, no, I just don't even want to hear this story." Hiccup interrupted. "I'm just going to, yeah, go get a shirt. I'll meet you in the forge."

Gobber yawned and began to prepare for the day as the door closed behind his former apprentice. This was going to be-

"Genius. Your husband is a genius, Astrid."

Astrid cocked her head inquisitively from where she was sitting up in her bed, still cradling Adrianna in her arms and using her foot to rock the bedside cradle in which Finn was drifting off to sleep. She had just finished nursing Adrianna when Gobber and Hiccup had burst into the room after being locked up for almost a full day at the forge. She was feeling distinctly annoyed.

"Where have you been? Bed empty, no note, prosthetic gone, out of my mind with worry! Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III you'd better have a brilliant explanation for this one!"

Hiccup suddenly felt rather small and distinctly threatened. "Yeah, uh, about that… I had an idea." He found it difficult to look at his seething wife all of the sudden.

"You mean an idea other than abandoning me with your week old children?!"

"Yeah, another idea, not that, no, wait, I didn't have that idea to begin with, this is a totally separate and completely non-abandoning idea."

Astrid was not convinced. Hiccup was beginning to feel as though this may not go exactly as he had anticipated. "Well, umm, I bet you don't remember what today is!" He began.

"My birthday."

"Oh, so you do remember."

"Yes, I do generally remember my birthday, Hiccup." Astrid's eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, well, I thought maybe with the other birthdays it had slipped your mind…" He almost felt disappointed.

"I was planning on apologizing to my mother when she came by today. Then I was going to ask her to babysit while I tracked down and killed my errant husband."

"Can we not do the killing part?" Hiccup asked, definitely feeling quite sheepish at this point. "In any case, I really think that you're going to like this idea. It will totally make up for… my… leaving… Not that I'm leaving you, but for not returning, and… And… Gobber, just give me the present."

Gobber, who had backed up to allow the couple more privacy for their bickering, stepped forward, carrying with him two fabric wrapped packages. He handed one to Hiccup and turned again to Astrid, "You really are going to like this, I think, Astrid. It's a stroke of—"

"Genius. I heard."

Hiccup stepped forward with the package out in front of him like an offering and placed it on her lap before leaping out of the way, just in case. Astrid lifted Adrianna up to her shoulder so that she could free one hand to tug the fabric wrapping out of the way.

"What... is it?" She asked slowly, looking at the oddly shaped metal… thing in her lap.

"It's a diaper." Hiccup said, rather proudly. "The only one we'll ever need!"

"Isn't it great?" Gobber interjected. "Hiccup thought of it himself."

"That doesn't surprise me," Astrid groaned. She lifted it inquisitively to get a better look and frowned a second afterward. "Hiccup, this thing weighs more than both our kids combined!"

"Well, we made it a bit big so they can grow into it some." He headed towards the crib. "Here, let me show you with Finn."

"NO!" Astrid dropped the "diaper" and lunged for the crib, grabbing the second baby out of it. Her hair fell haphazardly around her face as she held the two small bundles tightly to her chest. "You are not going to put that thing on either one of my children!"

"Oh, they're your children now. Until just yesterday they were mine every time they needed their diapers changed."

"What on earth are you thinking?" Astrid spat at him.

"Come on, let me show you how it works—"

"Not on them!"

"Okay, then, just let me demonstrate on this… doll! Yeah, one second," he reached out and grabbed an almost life-sized baby doll which one of the women in the village had given as a present to Adrianna, and he deposited it within the metal contraption. "So, as you can see, this is what it looks like when it's on a baby, well, not a baby per se—"

"And how exactly are we going to fit clothes over that?" Astrid gestured to the gaping distance between the doll and the edge of the diaper. "It's huge!"

"They can just wear big clothes."

"And how will it stay on?" Astrid shot back.

"Well…" Hiccup looked at the loose diaper, knowing that if he shifted to holding the doll instead it would hit the ground like a rock. "We can work on that. Minor problem. I am open to suggestions."

"How about using cloth diapers?"

"Come on, just give it a try. It'll grow on you."

Astrid rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, the great thing about this is you never have to take them off. If they get dirty, you just wash them out from within. You see, there's a drain down here," he pulled a little switch on the back of the diaper, which caused a small piece of metal inside the diaper to pull up in the front, revealing a drain in the crotch of the diaper. "And then you can run water through it. Shake it a little bit, maybe add some soap. The baby gets a bath, the diaper gets cleaned—it does two things at once! Isn't that convenient? Not to mention, sanitary. Let me demonstrate…" He grabbed the nearest vessel of water and tipped into the diaper beside the doll. The drain worked perfectly, just as he had planned, but Astrid seemed more focused on the negatives of the diaper than the positives.

"It comes out the legs."

"Yeah, well, I mean, they did need to be a bit bigger so the twins can grow into them. We can put some leather or something around them to help… plug it up."

"And what do we do if the kids 'grow into them' too much and we cannot get them off anymore?" Astrid was still skeptical.

"Oh, well, I planned for that." Hiccup looked especially proud of this feature. "Give me one moment, you have to sort of jimmy this thing in the back… But just think, Astrid" he positively glowed at her, "they won't be able to get hurt if they fall on their bottoms while learning to walk, we won't have to deal with dirty diapers, bath times will be a cinch, I mean… this is perfect." There was a loud click as he set his escape hatch into motion, and the back of the diaper opened and slid to the side perfectly. However, the accomplishment was marred by an equally loud ripping noise as the doll's legs detached and fell to the floor. Astrid's eyes followed them in horror.

"You wanted to put THAT on our children?! Do you want sympathy?!"

"Ah, well, no," Hiccup looked at the diaper in his hands awkwardly. The back panels had done as he had designed them to, and slid into the diaper, which, as a matter of fact, had bypassed and closed the leg holes completely, ripping off the doll's legs. "I guess there are a few kinks left to work out."

"A FEW?!" Astrid was enraged, and was clutching the two crying infants tightly to her chest. "They can't move in them—"

Hiccup interrupted, "Well, it does make it easier when they start crawling away to keep them in one place—"

"they will get sores from never being properly dried—"

"Well, we actually thought of attaching some sort of funnel and having the dragons—" Gobber tried to add in.

"they will get pinched, or fall out of them, or grow into them, and they'll lose their legs—"

"I'm pretty sure I can fix all of those!" Hiccup yelled, trying to get a word in edgewise.

"What in Thor's name convinced you that this was a good idea in any way?!" Astrid shouted over him. By this point both of the babies were crying rather frantically, and Gobber was the only person in the room who did not look like he was in the middle of battle.

Hiccup fell silent, feeling somewhat hurt. "I was just trying…"

"To kill our children?!"

"To make things easier! You know, make it so that it was easier and we didn't get… peed on… or anything." Hiccup was struggling to get his thoughts out of his mouth, or even truly coherent within his head. He had gotten a rather pathetic amount of sleep since the twins had been born.

Astrid blinked in confusion. "If you're worried about… pee… then you just… put something up in front of him while you're changing him."

Hiccup's face fell. "Yeah… I guess… that does make sense."

There was an awkward silence punctuated by the wails of their newborns. Hiccup averted Astrid's gaze, feeling distinctly sheepish.

"Well... umm..." he finally said. "I guess I will go... uhh... work on your other gift." he shrugged awkwardly and shuffled into the other room.

Gobber felt a little out of place in the couple's argument so he handed the second diaper to Astrid with a gruff, "well I wouldn't put them on the kids yet but, you know, a few tweaks and..." Astrid was glaring at him now. "You know, he really was trying to be helpful."

Astrid sighed deeply. "I know. But does he have to try so... so..." she struggled to find the right word. "So hard?"

"That's just Hiccup. I'd'a thought you'd have known that when you married him." Gobber stated. "Well... I'll head back to the forge now. Happy birthday, Astrid. Goodbye, little guys."

The older Viking slunk out of the room, leaving Astrid with two crying babies and heavy metal contraptions for which she had no use. Just as the door seemed to close, it slammed back open as Hiccup flew in, a dagger outstretched.

"Gods, Hiccup, are you trying to kill our children?" Astrid jerked back in surprise, holding both babies even closer to her chest.

"No! No! It's for you!" her husband exclaimed, brandishing the sharp object far too enthusiastically.

She placed the babies in their crib and reached out to accept the dagger. It was breathtakingly beautiful; the hilt was hand carved and engraved with her name and the tang was perfectly balanced.

"It's perfect." she gasped. "But either you're the fastest blacksmith in the world or you made this a while ago."

"Oh. Yeah. Well you remember that argument we had before the kids were born?" Hiccup scratched the back of his head. "The one where I lost my temper and said something completely inappropriate and offensive."

"Oh yes, I remember that. Vaguely." Astrid deadpanned.

"Right. Well I made that for you as an apology. But when I was looking to give it to you, I got a bit... distracted." Hiccup continued.

"By my kidnapping?"

"That was a contributing factor, yes." Hiccup shrugged. "And what with... things happening," he jerked his head toward the crib. "I kind of forgot until now."

"Well... I guess I can find some use for these." Astrid said, gesturing toward the iron diapers.

"I knew you'd warm up to them!"

"As flowerpots." she finished.

"Oh... well... I guess that works too." Hiccup remarked.

She reached up, grasped him by the tunic, and pulled him in for a kiss. "Thank you. For trying."

Both children were laughing uproariously as Astrid finished her story. She had held the former diaper up to demonstrate its multiple features as she reminisced.

"Did daddy really think that was going to work?" Adrianna giggled, attempting to stifle her hiccups.

"Well... you guys kept him pretty busy so he didn't get a lot of sleep." Astrid explained, looking at the iron contraption fondly.

"So dad invented that diaper changing barrier... because of me?" Finn asked incredulously, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Oh yes. You went through a bit of a leaky phase until you were outhouse trained."

Adrianna's giggles grew louder, as did her hiccups while Finn's face reddened slightly.

At that very moment, Hiccup came sauntering in, his hands full of some new contraption that he had just completed. Upon seeing the main character in their story, his family's laughter became much more raucous.

"Do I even want to know?" he asked, glancing at each guffawing face.

"Oh I was just telling them about your original intention for our flowerpots." Astrid informed him.

"Oh... well thank you for undermining their confidence in me as a parent." Hiccup remarked dryly.

Adrianna hopped to her feet and threw her arms around her father. "It's okay, daddy. I still love you." she said cheerfully through yet another hiccup.

"I'm sure they love you even more since they can now appreciate still having both of their feet." Astrid added.

"Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I'd very nearly managed to bury that particular blunder in my subconscious." Hiccup placed the contraption down so he could properly hug his daughter. "For the record, Gobber still thinks it was a brilliant idea."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "That's why Gobber is not a parent."

"That reminds me, why doesn't Uncle Gobber babysit us anymore?" Finn asked.

"Well... that's a story for a different day." Hiccup smiled and affectionately patted his newest invention. "Now who wants me to turn this thing on and show you how it works?"

Both children screamed in horror and bolted from the room. Hiccup looked slightly offended. "But... but it's not dangerous! Not if you use it right!" he called after them but it was to no avail.

"It's okay. I just wanted them to leave us alone." Astrid pulled her husband in for a kiss.

"But you know, this is a pretty cool invention. I call it a stitching machine and it'll make saddle repair so much-"

"Hiccup!" Astrid shouted suddenly, making her husband jump.

"Huh?"

"Just shut up and kiss me." she whispered.

But just as he was leaning in, she pulled back. "Okay now you're just confusing me."

"What is that?" Astrid asked, looking at something just over his shoulder.

"I just told you, it's a stitching-"

"No, that. Above the window." Astrid pointed to the blue and pink object hanging above the remaining flowerpot.

Hiccup turned around to inspect the object. "Looks like a weapon's rack. But I didn't make it. And I sure didn't paint it those colors."

"Yeah, looks like Anna got her hands on... oh." Astrid smiled. "I think our kids made that for me."

"Wow!" Hiccup exclaimed, inspecting the rack further. "Look at the detail on that. They did a great job."

Astrid reached down and removed Hiccup's much more satisfactory present out of a sheath on her belt. She placed it on their children's masterpiece. The moment she let go of the dagger, the hook gave way and the weapons rack went clattering to the floor.

'Yep. They really are your kids."

"Well I never thought they weren't but now I might worry about it some." Hiccup said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm sure the rack just needs a few tweaks." Astrid winked at him and pulled him in for a kiss.

They later believed it was a good thing the kids weren't in the house.

As you can probably tell, there are a few more Hiccup inventions on the way, some that work and some that don't. I hope you've enjoyed this story. amyboomerang and I laughed very hard while writing it.

~KateMarie999