Previously:

"It wasn't personal until you got in the way. But I made it work. I never needed you here."
"I needed you gone."

Refer to the previous chapter for Peter's recollection of the recent events

No Toothless' were harmed in the making of this chapter.

Now:

The wing whips against us as we fly around the sky, firing blast after blast down below. My hands are gripped tight to the saddle bars, and my body tense. Toothless is of course aware of this, judging by the concerned looks he flashes back at me every now and then. I brush them off.
It's not true. It's not true.

I spot a robot down below, and I give a quick and sharp lean to the left. Toothless reacts quickly and follows my lead, sending us spiralling down at such a breakneck speed, he gives a warning screech at me, communicating that he's not happy with me for my choice of sharp movements. I don't respond, instead yanking my shield off my back and tossing it as hard as I can at the robot, which cuts its path off and sends it hurtling towards the ground. Toothless dives after the robot, tearing at it with his claws then flinging it into the side of a building.
It's not true, it can't be true, it can't be.

"Shield!" I shout, and he quickly flips over and flaps his wings hard, sending us down after the falling shield. I nab it successfully and yank up on the saddle, making Toothless do a sharp direction change as we now travel up vertically. As we go up we attack another flying robot, I beat at it with the shield while Toothless has it in his claws, and I don't stop beating it until it's spike breaks off. I grab it with one hand, holding the shield with the other, and Toothless let's the robot go. He sends a plasma blast down at it and it turns the robot into a fireball. I don't watch it's impact, Toothless making a sharp right turn that forces me to grip hard with my knees, his attitude towards me still present.
I could've stopped it. If I'd just not gone.

We're flying level with a building now, an alien crawling up it.
"Edge!" I shout, and Toothless flips us over so I'm close to the building's windows as we travel sideways. I swing at the alien with the spike and behead it. I feel nothing as it's head falls from its body, it's blood spilling everywhere and even over me. I'm already looking for the next target, I feel no guilt or remorse.
Why did I have to go.

I see flying robots down to my left, they're significantly lower. I lean over and send us into a dive. There's two of them, both at slightly varying altitudes. I shoulder my shield and perch myself up in the saddle, holding on with one hand while the tower grips the spike. Toothless looks up at me and growls his disapproval, but I barely register it in the moment. "Go!" I shout, pointing to the top robot. I jump from the saddle before he can react, spike expanded.
They're all gone because of me. All of them. How am I going to face going back and them not being there? Walking the grass they walked, flying the skies they flew. Do I have to go back? Maybe I could just... not.

I land on the lower robot. "Surrender or perish" It yells at me, but I stab it over and over again, barely holding on as it thrashes in the air. I land one last hit to its 'back', rendering it useless. I jump off it and look for Toothless, who'd long taken care of the robot and was now plummeting towards the ground. He might've even been calling out to me, but I wouldn't know.

My heart enters my chest. What was I thinking? He doesn't have the automatic tail.

I send myself down through the air as fast as I can, desperate. I throw away the spike, not wanting it to get in the way. "Sorry! I'm sorry!" I shout to him, my voice cracking with the emotions that have been building up inside me ever since we returned to the battle. He glares up at me, and I know if he could speak he would be saying yeah you better be.

Luckily I'm not actually that far from him, and he spreads his wings enough to slow his descent for me to reach for the saddle bar.

For a second I feel just like my fifteen year old self above Berk, on our first official flight, desperately reaching for the cheat sheet and then the saddle as we fell through the air. For a second I wonder what would have happened if we'd never reconnected in the air all those years ago. What Astrid's life would have been like. She'd be... alive.

But the moment passes quickly as I wrench myself into the saddle, hurrying to flick open the tail and right us once again. Toothless flips over to right himself and spins up sharply, pulling away from the battle down below. He takes us up, up, up, until the battle is way down below. I look down at him, ready to ask what the Thor he's doing taking us away, but I'm met with a steady, intense glare. I let out a shuddering breath.

I pull up my visor. The wind doesn't make me feel any better. It can tear away at my skin until I'm red raw, but it doesn't tear away the shattered pieces of my heart. And I could have just lost the one piece left whole.

I look at Toothless, tears welling in my eyes. "I'm... I'm..." I can't push the words out. I give a frustrated yell, hands on my neck. Angry at myself. Angry at Strange. I drag my hands down my face, muffling another angry shout. Will I ever grow out of being the village screw up?!

"I'm sorry." I say through my hands. "I did this. I always mess everything up. I'm sorry!" The tears are falling now, one by one. Probably how they went. I know they'd fight for as long as they could, but against someone like strange? They'd all fall eventually.

I drag my hands away and make eye contact with him. My best friend. "I could have killed you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry bud."

His gaze is soft as he croons up at me, expressing himself. I know what he's trying to tell me. How could I not after all these years? He's forgiven me, probably as it was happening to be honest.

"I just... don't know what to do." I confess. I look down at the battle. It's practically over. "After this. I mean... I can't— if it's true, bud." I'm aware I'm not speaking coherent sentences, but he understands me anyway. "If it's true."

He huffs steam out of his nose, but doesn't loose the softness. He doesn't want it to be true, either.

"We can't know for sure, I know." I sigh. Toothless starts angling downwards, heading towards the ground at a casual speed—casual for us, anyway. "But I'm... I should have been there to protect them. All this time I've been thinking about coming back to them, but I don't... I never thought that there'd be nothing to come back to." By the time I finish talking we're touching down onto the ground. The last of the robots and aliens are far away from us, but I can see them falling quickly.

I swing out of the saddle, pulling my helmet off altogether and standing on the ground. I sigh, clip my helmet to my waist and start walking towards the active battle. After a second Toothless walls after me and comes to my side, looking at me in concern. "You know I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt? Killing those things?" I nudge an aliens body as we pass. "I used to, when we started—it felt like killing an innocent. Like killing a dragon, and I could never do that. Never. But I just, well, it's like a switch flipped once he said... well, you know what he said."

Toothless nudges me softly, and I give him an absentminded scratch on the top of his head as my mind runs wild.

"After all this, if we get the chance to go home, if it's even possible... I don't know if I want to go back." I confess after a few seconds of silence. "I've been thinking about it. Chances are there's nothing waiting for me back there. I don't think I could stomach going back and Astrid not being there. Or anyone."

Toothless gives me an uncertain look.

"I don't think I can deal with the loss, bud." I admit.

Then I'm a kid again, sneaking down the stairs late at night. I'd had a hard day, I'd overheard some of the other village kids talking about their mothers. I'd felt left out. But what could they say to me? I was the boy with no mummy. Not everyone has both their parents, and the kids knew that, but they also knew my daddy was the CHIEF. The strongest and bravest man in the village, and even he couldn't save me mum. I'd not yet hit the bottom of the stairs when my father lookup up at me from the fireplace. He looked sad. I felt like I shouldn't be awake, seeing this.
"Son!" He was startled to see me and he wiped his face as he spoke. "You should be asleep."

"I was thirsty." I admitted, clutching my stuffed animal close to me.

"Yeah, come here." He responded, and I ran to him. He lifted me up and onto his lap and let me use the fire poker. I got the courage to ask him a question I'd wondered since I'd gone to bed, a question another kid had asked me.

"Dad? Are you gonna get us a new mom?" I asked shyly.

He hugged me close to me and kissed my head. He didn't show me affection as much as I got older, I wish I'd knew that then.

"I don't want another. Your mom was the only woman for me." He told me. Just like how Astrid is the only one for me. "She was the love of my life. But with love comes loss, son. It's part of the deal."

But why did It have to be part of MY deal?!

"Sometimes it hurts, but in the end, it's all worth it. There's no greater gift than love."

I sighed, coming back to the present as we continued to walk towards the battle. My dad was a stubborn, frustrating man, but he was wise in ways I'm not, and as time passed I've come to realise that he always wanted to do what's best for me. I still miss him, but the ache has dulled over the two years since I lost him. Is that what will happen now, too? Will the heartache fade? But fade to what?

"It's funny," I say as we near the outskirts of the battle. I duck to avoid an aliens body that was flying through the air. "How we used to think any mind could be changed, if we tried hard enough. That everybody was redeemable. But men like Drago. Grimmel. Even Krogan! None of them could be stopped." Toothless growled, hearing their names. "What that Strange did? To our people? That we weren't even there to—to stop? He's worse, so much worse than them. Because to him going after Berk wasn't just collateral or a result of war, it was... it was just because he could. He had no quarrel with us."

It sends shivers up my spine. That someone could be that ruthless, merciless. Just for fun.

A sudden noise to my right grabs out attention and we look over to see a familiar face emerging from a building. My blood runs hot and before I know it I'm on top of the man. "Whoa whoa whoa!" He's shouting, but my fist is flying at his face.

"Hiccup, no!" Someone is shouting.

Toothless is beside me, growling, and he brings down a claw towards Strange's face, but then he stops. I panic, thinking he's hurt, but when I look over at him he's fine. He backs up from the man. I pick up the closest thing to me, a fence post. "It's me!" The man snaps as I raise it above my head. All I see is the face of the man that said he destroyed everything. The man that did ALL this.

Toothless shoved his way in front of me and pushes me back from him. "Toothless no," I protest, "he's the—"

"I'm the Strange actively trying to NOT kill you."

I get another look at him. The wood drops from my hand. He's right. We killed the evil one. I remind myself. He's dead. He's dead.

Dr Strange stands up, awkwardly brushing himself off. "So can I... return to the battle or do you want to attack me some more?"

I don't look at him, turning away. My heart is still racing. Come on, pull yourself together.

Natasha, the one who must have yelled earlier, says something.

I wave her off absentmindedly as I pass. "I'm fine."

"That's not what I asked."

I arch an eyebrow and actually look at her this time, confused.

"I asked," she explains patiently, "...i got my answer, actually. But I asked if this battle is the first time you've killed."

"Oh yeah? And what do you think the answer is?" I ask.

"I think you've killed plenty of times before. It's not the murder that's got you pressed. The others think it'd shook you."

"Yeah, well, my people are... stubborn." I don't correct myself on the tense. "And attract psychopaths, apparently. So yeah, I've killed. Hunters. Trappers. A dragon the size of a small mountain. I'm sure innocents have gotten caught up in our battles, too." It'd been something I'd struggled over for a long time, from the first time I gave a hunter a mace to the stomach, to just after I killed Grimmel.

Natasha doesn't look fazed by answer. "So why are you not up in the sky right now? You two work better in the air."

"Because I'm grounded," I cast a playful glare at Toothless, who doesn't raise to my playful ness and instead gives me a steady glare. I roll my eyes. "Whatever, bud." I know he's trying to make a point, I know he didn't like how reckless I'd been, and how much what evil Strange said has bothered me, but I don't have the energy to try to convince him otherwise. He's right.

Natasha surveys me with a look I can't read. "What?" I ask. She doesn't answer me. It's a little unnerving, she's not someone I can get a read on, but I'm not that kind of person anyway. Johann was under my nose for YEARS and I didn't notice all the times he tried to kill me.

"Well," she says finally. She hands me a coms. I'd forgotten that mine had fallen out back in the room. "Get a hold of yourself, soldier. We're still in the battlefield."

Then she's back off into the midst of things, and I'm back walking through the battlefield with Toothless. I fit the coms device to my ear again. An alien comes towards us and I use my shield to block its pounce. Toothless bites into its neck and shakes it until it stops screeching. We continue walking afterwards. There's only about fifty aliens left and a hundred robots.

"Cap, you take those ones behind you." Tony says in the coms. The different voices distract me from my thoughts a bit.
"Wanda, duck." Yelena says.
"This is getting boring." Loki sighs.
"We could always do get help?" Thor offers.
"Over my soon to be cold, dead, rotting corpse, brother." Loki responds with a sneer.
"That's not funny, you know I hate when you fake your death."
"Oh but it's so very fun!"

"If they figure it out, how to get back," I start again. Toothless looks at me like he knows what I'm about to say. "Maybe you could still go, if that's what you want. Somehow I think the Hidden World has stayed hidden. The Light Fury might even be fine." Toothless looks at me, sad and conflicted. I know he loves her, she's his mate, and I can't get in-between that. I want him to be happy. One of us needs to be.

"You're better off without me," I add.

Toothless' demeanour changes and he growls, stepping in front of me. I raise my arms. "It's true! Don't act like it's not."

He snorts. I roll my eyes and gesture wildly as I continue. "Come on, you know all I do is complicate things."

"Hiccup's arguing with his dragon." Kate says in the coms.
"Huh. Are you sure he's not practising for an argument with Stoick?" Tuffnut asks. When did he get coms? How many do these people carry around?
"Nope it seems legit." Kate responds casually.
"I'm sure it's fine, but if it eats him let me know." Tony says.
"Toothless won't eat him!" Spider-man is exasperated. I start to ignore the coms as Toothless growls at me.

"I screw everything up, I always have, and I can't lose you too." I exclaim.
Toothless' only response is a firm bat to my head and a stern growl.
"But—!" He taps me again, each one more firm. "C'mon you—" tap. "You'll be hap—" tap. "You're the alph—" he gives one last, slow, tap while maintaining eye contact with me. I give in and start playing with him, grabbing his paw and pretending to fight him. After a few moments we end up on the ground— or more accurately he's sitting in front of me and waiting until I yield.

"Oh ok!" I shout. "Fine! I won't make you go. You win." I sigh exasperated and he lets me up with a smug look on his face. I flick his ear in response and he gives me a dramatic squint. I duck away before he can lick me. His look says I'll get you later. I don't doubt it.

I climb up into the saddle, chuckling lightly. I give him affectionate scratches.

"Bud, you know I'm not sure if I can face going back." I reiterate as we take to the air again. "Maybe we could stay here? Maybe we become... what do they call themselves? Avengers? I guess it kind of fits."

Toothless doesn't seem apposed to the idea, to be honest. I guess he's in the same boat as me, he's my best friend and I'd rather have him by my side.

Ok there we go,
I know it's boring in places, and probably feels like it's running in circles, but I'm tryna show his mental state idk.
Hiccup was a bit of a prick for some of this hahaha, he's gotta learn to treat Toothless right😤
I'll see you next chapter with Peter!