It was still afternoon when Astrid came down and took a seat in Hiccup's kitchen. She watched him for a moment as he was twirling pizza dough. "You're really good at that." She stated causing Hiccup to startle and the pizza dough to land on his face.

"I didn't even hear you come down the stairs!" Hiccup told her surprised as he peeled off the dough. Heck, he hadn't even heard her pull out a chair.

"It's a vampire thing." Astrid blushed slightly. "It took me a while to perfect." She still remembered Heather having her climb so many squeaky stairs until she could do it soundlessly. Hiccup had gotten back to pizza making while Astrid watched. Neither saw the little black dragon sneaking on the other side of the counter. Once the pizza bottom was finished Hiccup turned around to grab the sauce and cheese only to find Toothless lapping up all the tomato sauce. "Toothless!!" Hiccup admonished causing Astrid to stifle a giggle. The small dragon's head was covered in sauce while a pink tongue lapped it up. "You have got to lay off the sauce bud." Hiccup groaned. Astrid guessed that this had happened before.

She asked while Hiccup cleaned the squirming black scaly mass up with a wet cloth "So how did you two meet?"

"It was an accident actually." Hiccup told her.

"How does someone meet a dragon by accident?" Hiccup gave a nervous chuckle and then thought back.

----------Flashback------------

Sometime after Henry had left Berk

Hiccup knocked on his parents' front door. From inside he could hear "Honeybuns could you get that?" A pair of heavy footsteps followed and when the door opened he saw his dad with a frilly apron on that read 'Kiss the cook'.

"HICCUP!" Stoick exclaimed before wrapping Hiccup in a bone-crushing hug.

"Dad....need...to.....breathe!" Hiccup rasped causing a sheepish Stoick to quickly put Hiccup back down. "So honeybuns??" Hiccup asked when he had caught his breath and walked into the house. He could have sworn he saw his father blush but with the big bushy red beard it was hard to tell.

"Your mother's trying out new nicknames she picked up during her travels." Stoick told him. "So how is house hunting going? You know you could always move back here if it's troublesome."

"It's actually going fine." Hiccup told him. "I actually put down a deposit on one yesterday so I came to get the rest of my stuff."

"Snickerdoodle, is that Hiccup!!" They heard from the second floor.

"Snickerdoodle???!" Hiccup silently mouthed as his father facepalmed. "Is this her way of telling you she wants to spice things up?" Hiccup then asked with a laugh.

"HICCUP!!" Stoick shouted as the blush was quite noticeable now. Hiccup couldn't stop laughing. He hadn't seen his father this flustered since Gobber and he had accidentally walked into them making out on the couch when he had been eight. "Get a room." Gobber had joked. He remembered his eight-year-old-self asking quite loudly 'what get a room' meant.

"I'll go see how mom is." Hiccup told his still flustered father as he started making his way upstairs. He found his mother in the bedroom busy packing. "You're leaving so soon?" Hiccup asked as he stood in the doorway.

"Hiccup!" Valka turned around. She quickly closed the gap and hugged her son before swatting his shoulder. "You should come more often! Especially since I got a new assignment. Your father will get lonely."

"You know I will, and a new one already?" Hiccup asked. "You just got back two weeks ago."

Valka sighed. "I know Hiccup, but this is important." She motioned for Hiccup to hand her a pile of clothing.

"Is that why you've been trying to clue dad in on you know......" Hiccup let the question hang causing his mother to laugh.

"I've been trying to clue him in since this morning." She muttered. "....So dense...." Hiccup heard her mumbled as she packed her toiletries.

"I think I might have clued him in." Hiccup chimed up as Valka was trying to get the suitcase to close. Hiccup sat on it while asking "Geeze mom what have you got in here? A dragon?"

"NO!" Valka said far too loudly before she composed herself. "I mean no, no dragon. Just lady stuff." She added and then let out a soft curse. "I forgot to pack my combat boots." She mumbled as she picked up some well worn black leather combat boots.

"Mom aren't you just going to a conference?" Hiccup asked. She had always told him that they were zoology conferences that she had to attend.

"You can never be too prepared Hiccup." She told him. Hiccup raised a brow and then thought back to some of the weird things he'd seen his mom pack over the years, including a crowbar. Before Valka could say anything more an alarm sounded through the room. She quickly scrambled to a small sleek tablet that was on the nightstand. Valka said something in what Hiccup thought might have been Hungarian or Russian but it didn't sound pleasant. "Hiccup honey, mom has to go take care of something urgent." She told him before quickly making her way out of the room. "Honey I'm going out real quick! Emergency!"

"OKAY!" He could hear his father's voice boom. He quickly came down the stairs and saw his father take a tray of cookies out of the oven before Stoick spotted something. "Hiccup I'm going out as well!" He told Hiccup as he grabbed the decorative staff Valka always seemed to carry with her. "Valka you forgot......" The door slammed shut and Hiccup was left in the living room wondering what in Thor's name had just happened. Making a quick decision he also ran out the door and after his father. Stoick wasn't a man you could miss and Hiccup easily saw his father head into the woods behind the house. Hiccup kept his distance as he followed, wondering where his parents had run off to and how there was an emergency in the forest. He hid behind a large tree trunk when his father ran into a clearing where he saw his mother face off against four men dressed in camouflage.

"Give it up Thuggory!" Hiccup could hear his mother shout. The men she was facing off against looked young. He'd guess them to be around his age. "Just leave the dragons alone!"

'DRAGONS?!' Hiccup's mind screamed. Supernatural beings living in the town was one thing, but even he never thought that dragons still existed. 'Didn't they go extinct thousands of years ago?' He thought as he noticed several small cages behind the men with creatures in it. His father had run up to his mother by that time and handed her her staff.

"Who's the old man?" The guy his mom called Thuggory joked.

"Watch your tongue! I can still take you!" Stoick growled causing the four young men to laugh.

"You've gone too far coming onto this reserve Thuggory." Valka said as she took a battle stance.

"Tsssk" Thuggory huffed. "Don't get a big head Dr. Haddock. "These dragons were company policy before you showed up!" Hiccup overheard before his parents suddenly charged at what he guessed where poachers. They took Thuggory and his men by surprise with the sudden charge. Stoick landed on two of the men while Valka was trading blows with Thuggory.

"GO!" Hiccup saw Thuggory quickly order the fourth man who grabbed a burlap sack with something squirming in it from the top of one of the cages.

His father stood up as quickly as a burly man could and chased after the fleeing man, but the poacher had the advantage. They were heading right toward where Hiccup was hiding though. Hiccup still behind the tree heard the footsteps getting closer and stuck out his foot causing the poacher to stumble and fall towards the ground. The sack the man had been carrying flew out his hand and landed not so far away. A small black wiggling snout stuck out.

"HICCUP?!" Stoick exclaimed as he caught up. His eyebrows had shot up upon seeing his son.

"We'll talk later." Hiccup told him. He had a million questions. The poacher groaned causing Stoick to sit on him while Hiccup approached the sack.

"Careful son." Stoick said as the poacher gasped under him.

"Is mom alright?" Hiccup asked as he saw a small tied up black dragon in the sack. The dragon's green eyes landed on Hiccup as he untied the ropes holding the reptile's paws, wings and maw closed.

"Valka's just fine." Stoick told him from where he could see his wife knocking Thuggory out with her staff. Hiccup held the small dragon in front of him when the bonds had been taken off. The sharp green eyes focussed on Hiccup.

"Careful son. That's a Night Fury."

"What's a Night Fu-AAH!" Hiccup shouted as he ducked because a fireball went flying past his ear. He looked back at the small dragon in his hands. "Temperamental aren't you?" He asked as the dragon let out a huff.

----------End Flashback------------

"Only you would pick up a temperamental dragon." Astrid told him once Hiccup had finished his story. Toothless, now clean, had made himself at home on Hiccup's head.

"Well at least mine doesn't try to eat me like Hookfang does to Snotlout." Astrid raised a brow but then asked "So your mom managed the preserve before you?"

"Yeah and she goes around the world gathering the dragons that had escaped from the genetics labs that were raided." Hiccup told Astrid. "I know it sounds like a wild movie plot but it's true."

"So she's like Indiana Jones?" Astrid joked.

"You know, I asked her that myself." Hiccup stated. "She said, I don't have a whip but a grappling hook, and then winked."

"So how did your mom know that there was an emergency?" Astrid couldn't help but ask.

"Well the preserve doesn't have fences but it does have sensors. If a dragon were to leave the large preserve an alarm would sound. It also sounds if people enter the area and don't have the special pins that the alarm system recognizes." Hiccup tells her and taps a small dragon pin on his collar. Astrid nodded. "So what happens now?" She asked.

"Now I put the pizza in the oven and ask you if you're free tonight. Cami came by and told me to get you to the twins. I think they may want to cheer you up."

"I'm free." Astrid told him. 'It's not like I'm dating that slimeball conman after today.' She then noticed Hiccup's expression. "Why do you look worried?"

"The twins......... they must have been plotting." She heard him mutter. "It's never good when they plot."

"Oh right...." She had heard about some of the twins' plots. Yak tipping, setting the Mayor's beard on fire, something involving a vat of superglue and Mildew's sheep, setting the Mayor's pants on fire, and some type of boar pit.