Entry tags:

!complete, astrid hofferson, hiccup haddock

Who: Hiccup & Astrid
What: Two amateur thugs try and steal Hiccup's prosthetic. OH NAYNAY.
When: Tonight!
Where: UCLA Campus.
Rating/Warnings: Medium for language, some violence.
Status: Complete!

College starting again, dragons to feed, a job to go to - the semester started off with a bang, most of her time consumed by responsibilities. So much for all the epic fabled college parties to attend, and while Astrid had the sass and attitude to survive something as cliche as a sorority party, it was the last concern on her list.

Because dragons. Her and Hiccup were officially cooler than any dumb greek college party, alright?

Classes over with, the sun set, night fell upon campus, and they had a date on campus. Because right now, these parts were hella safer than going out regularly, and Astrid wasn’t a terribly high maintenance girlfriend, lucky him. “It’s really quiet around here,” she muttered, almost paranoid, as they exited the cafeteria, arm-in-arm. Campus was fairly bare when usually, even at this time, it was filled with life. “Everyone’s that paranoid, huh?”

“Yeaaaaah, it’s been kind of weird around here. Heaven help the people that have night classes,” Hiccup got a little unnerved by the lack of people on campus in the evening. It was somewhat weird to walk back from the cafeteria and barely see anyone. He didn’t think that anything horrible would happen on their campus, but apparently everyone else did and they were off campus as soon as the sun went down.

Thankfully he had convinced Astrid that she should spend some time on campus with him for a date. It was kind of silly, but it made him feel a little bit better. He just wished Toothless and Stormfly could follow them around on campus and fend of anyone else, “I guess having a dragon doesn’t make me feel as paranoid, but unfortunately they’re not here right now. Maybe some of those mad Viking skills will transfer over.”

“You mean the mad Viking skills of you flailing your hands around during a conversation?” Astrid snorted, though she teased with love - obviously! “Or your amazing hobby of mapping uncharted Viking territory?” Hiccup was a negotiator, through and through, always wanted to talk things out, even in the face of danger. It was admiring and upsetting at the same time - especially in the dreams, where Astrid was more than equipped to take an axe to someone’s face and be done with it.

Times were different here. Dragons couldn’t follow them and offer protection, and walking around with an axe was frowned upon. Would probably get a lot of questions from campus police, even weapon confiscation, and that’d be a whole mess that wasn’t even worth it. So the closeness was a necessity, and it was nice, anyway. Arm in arm, she leaned in to kiss his ear. “Doubt anything would happen on campus, anyway.”

“Oh my god,way to make me sound so completely uncool, Astrid. You’re so mean to me,” Hiccup countered before dropping a hand to his heart and acting like he was completely wounded. She was completely right, of course, but he would never tell her that. His dream self tended to want to settle things peacefully, but he knew that lately in the dreams he had started to see himself become more sure of himself and take on that flaming sword. He knew that things were starting to get a little more intense in the dreams since they weren’t kids anymore. He was around the same age in the dreams as he was now, so it was finally time to grow up.

“Mmmm, I hope not,” he murmured softly as he enjoyed her kiss to his ear. He always managed to melt when he was with her especially when she kissed him. This was never something he thought would ever happen to him, but now he had a wonderful girlfriend and a dragon. Life was a little strange sometimes, but he couldn’t complain. But he did suddenly snap to attention when he realized that they were in an alleyway between two buildings and a group of huddling masses were at the one end. He stopped them in their tracks and lowered his voice to a whisper, “Should we turn around?”

Hey, she’d take him in someplace private and do something naughty outside, she wasn’t against it. Ear kisses were about to easily turn into something else until he brought up a valid point - their surroundings, and Astrid stopped. “Oh,” she mumbled, brows furrowed. “How’d we even--”

Then it hit them like a whirlwind, almost literally, because suddenly there was a violent shove from behind, tearing Astrid away and sending her skidding against the concrete, knees and palms first. Whoever was responsible (and it seemed like more than one whoevers), kept their attention on Hiccup. Men dressed in black, faces covered, and one had a bat.

“Empty your fucking pockets, kid!”

“What the fuck,” He mumbled as he felt Astrid being shoved away and then he felt a blow to the back of his knees. He fell down onto the sidewalk and looked up at the strange men that were hell bent on attacking them. Was this seriously happening? Why couldn’t he have some kind of psychic communication with Toothless to get him to come over right now and save the day. He glanced over his shoulder to see where Astrid was and frowned.

“I don’t have anything you’re going to want,” he muttered as he emptied out his pockets. He was being honest because all he had was his dorm room key, his dining card/student id, and some gum wrappers. He had thankfully left his cell phone in his dorm along with his car keys because he was just going to dinner and Astrid was right there with him. He could sense the disappointment coming off of the masked men.

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s all you have? What about you, bitch?” the man turned his attention to Astrid and Hiccup had to clench his fists tight from lashing out.

Weren’t they just talking about this? The eerie emptiness of campus, their ‘buddy system’ throughout the grounds? Buddy system was an epic failure, apparently, because these thugs had no qualms in attacking two people coupled up. Two on two though; fair numbers.

Sort of.

Knees were scraped and bled, and her hands stung, but she fiercely glared up through the curtain of blonde hair. If they had a gun, they’d be pointing that at them instead of waving a bat around, right? She didn’t know! It was her first time getting ‘mugged,’ but it pissed her off enough.

Damn. Where was Korra with her elemental bending when you needed her? Or Stormfly, to breathe fire on them.

“Nope,” she lied, hoping they wouldn’t notice the rectangular bulge of her iPhone in her jean pocket. It was dark; they might have missed it, and she wasn’t going to willingly hand goods over to punks. Hiccup could play nice, but she wasn’t.

She was about get up too, except the idiot with the bat raised it threateningly. “Stay down!” he barked, and since he was armed and she wasn’t...Astrid grumbled and complied.

“Don’t you dare yell at my girlfriend,” He grumbled as he began to stand up only to get knocked back down to the ground by the one guy’s fist. God that really freaking hurt. Hiccup moaned slightly as he fell onto his back and lifted a hand to put pressure onto the place where he could feel a bruise. That was the first time he’d ever been hit and he didn’t feel the urge to get into another fight anytime soon.

Unfortunately when he fell back his pant legs bunched up slightly and the men could see the gleam of his prosthetic leg in the dim lighting. “Oh man, look at his leg,” the one guy called out for the other to see, “This could be like Guardians of the Galaxy. Think we can get anything for it?” Hiccup couldn’t believe his ears. Seriously? They were seriously considering taking his leg away from him? That thing cost a lot of money and he wouldn’t even be able to make it back by himself to his room.

Was this real life? Fuck.

One twitch and instinctual jerk at watching Hiccup getting punched, another twitch for realizing what prized possession they had their eyes on - the prosthetic leg. Are you kidding? They couldn’t be serious!

Man with the bat stepped forward, giving Astrid a full view of his back, and whistled at that sight. “Wow, what a freak. Fuck yeah, we can. Pull it.” He laughed, slapping the weapon against his palm.

Astrid wasn’t just about to sit there and let them take his leg, there was no freakin’ way. She looked at Hiccup, giving him a little nod...before springing to her feet, adrenaline kicking in, and jumping on the armed man’s back. Nails and teeth were all out because she was getting vicious and struggling for the damn bat!

What was that nod? Was she going to? Oh. Yup. There she went. Hiccup’s eyes went wide as he watched Astrid get up with cat-like reflexes and jump onto the man’s back. He couldn’t believe that she was actually going to attempt to fight that man. She had to be crazy, but then again it was hard to think with the pounding in his face.

While that man was distracted his buddy decided to just grab on Hiccups prosthetic and pull as hard as he could. Hiccup may have been distracted by the pain, but he instantly started to wiggle and fight against the man, but it was hard to do on his back. It didn’t take long for the suction to come apart and the man obtained the leg. “Dude, I got it. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he called out to his buddy as he started to make his way down the alley way.

Crazy and feisty, maybe, but a harsh swipe of nails over his damn eyes made him screech in pain. The bat hit the ground and he bucked Astrid off his back, enough that she was successfully thrown off - but kept her balance, didn’t fall, and went straight for the bat. “I’d love to go but the bitch just blinded me!”

Which wasn’t exaggeration, either - there was skin trapped underneath her nails, she could feel it, but wasn’t morbid enough to take a good look, either. Plus, yeah, now she was armed with a bat and looked a little bewildered at first, looking between both thugs. Quickly she gathered her wits and gave the blinded punk a whack, knocking him to the ground with a groan.

Okay, ummm…

“Let. The leg. Go.”

Crap, she’s never done this before but it was time to wing it.

He had see Astrid be a fighter in the dreams, but it was completely different to experience it in real life. She was fearless right now and he was counting his blessings that she was on his side and not the other way around. He couldn’t do much now that he was laying on his back and currently without a leg and god he wished he could. He had no issue with a girl fighting his battles for him, but he wanted to do something to protect her. He loved her.

“You better do what she says, she’s a beast with a baseball bat,” Hiccup managed to mumble as his jaw was swelling from the hit earlier.

Astrid meant a good damn bit of serious business. And seeing Hiccup on the ground - with the prosthetic pulled from him - enforced it, hands painfully squeezing the bat, as she was ready to hit a goddamn home run with the guy’s head.


Armed and he wasn’t, the thug gave Hiccup’s leg a glance. Then at the friend who was kind of barely recovering from getting a good beat with the bat, and then at Astrid.

He dropped the leg, and ran. His fallen friend looked up, eyes wide, cussed a load of vulgarity under his breath, and after a few struggling attempts of getting up, he finally got to his feet and limped right after him. There was a hand holding the spot on his lower back that the blonde nailed with the bat, and she actually looked pretty proud of herself.

“Holy crap,” she breathed, tension finally draining from her muscles, and now that the coast was clear, she let the weapon drop to the ground. The sound might have been the loudest thing she’d heard. “Are you okay??” Okay, dumb question, probably - she got to the ground with him, looking him over.

He looked up at her and gave her a smile, well more like a half-smile since he couldn’t really move one side of his mouth. “You are like a badass guardian angel. I’ve never found you more attractive in my life,” which obviously meant that he was fine and going to pull through, but he really wanted to tell her how much he appreciated what she just did. It wasn’t every day that you could find a girl that would defend you like that and he couldn’t even do anything to help.

“I think I’m alright. I need ice, pain killers, and to put my leg back on. I feel like a complete loser not being able to help you though,” yeah she would probably reassure him that it’s fine that he didn’t fight, but he should really learn some self defense moves or something. He went down with one punch and lost his leg because he couldn’t defend himself. He reached up to cup her cheek lightly, “Hey. Thank you. I love you.” He pulled her close after he said that and rested his forehead against hers. This was one of the more intense things that had happened to him and he knew she was probably going to freak out more when the adrenaline disappeared.

A badass guardian angel. That was a way to put it. Astrid knew she was capable of some interesting tricks in the dreams - being a Viking meant you had to master an array of self-defense and offense skills, but this was the first time she’d been put in that kind of situation. It was a mix of sassy bravery and their luck that the fools messing with them were incompetent and only one was armed.

Lucky them?

“Should have chased the guy down and beat him in the face,” the blonde huffed, but relaxed at the pressing of foreheads. And she kissed him - tenderly, mindful of his wounded face. “I love you too, doofus. I think we handled our first mugging attempt pretty successfully? Is that even something to be proud of?” No one was shot, though both were a bit roughed up - Astrid had some scraped hands and a bleeding knee, minor stuff, and Hiccup...well. That was a chipmunk cheek he looked like he was sporting, and he might as well rest that side of his face on a pillow of ice tonight. “Let’s...let’s get you standing?” Her hands made a grab at the prosthetic.

“Um, not really sure about the pride thing. The jury is still out on that one. How about we discuss that after I’ve put some ice on my face?” It was starting to get incredibly painful because it was just throbbing. And he knew that he would have some bruises on his body from falling on the ground. It looked like the two of them would have to awkwardly cuddle in the bed tonight and just try to rest up from this battle.

“And fuck the leg, just grab it and we can hobble back to my dorm if that’s okay,” Hiccup didn’t really want to put the leg back on. It seemed strange and he was debating about just switching it up for an older model until this whole thing was over and done with. But Astrid was going to have to help support him back to his dorm room, which was thankfully nearby. He sat up and reached out his arms to her to get some help to get on his feet.

Okay, forget the leg then - she’d listen to him on that end, and if he had to lean on her for balance, she was alright with that. Astrid helped him up his feet and tucked the leg under her arm, not even thinking twice about it, and draped an arm of his over her shoulder.

“I’m staying with you tonight, okay?” Hiccup probably assumed that already but she was reinforcing it, giving him a nervous and somewhat awkward smile. Because holy crap, all she wanted to do was latch onto him, bruised and weary and fall asleep. She’d have to text Korra in case - her element-bending goddess on her couch - so she wouldn’t freak.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he turned his head slightly to kiss her temple before they started to walk. It was something that they both needed to decompress from together. It was an emotional and physical experience and he wouldn’t want her to leave him tonight anyway. There was a small part of him that was slightly afraid of being alone tonight even though he knew the men wouldn’t come after him in his dorm room, “Alright, let’s get to my room. I need something comfy to lay on while we go through the first aid kit my mom got me.”