Prank

Here's some cuteness to brighten your day.:3

...

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Robin? Don't you think it's kinda...mean?"

Robin snapped her head back around to scrunch her nose at Sumia.

"Oh? Don't you think it was "kinda mean" when he thought it would be funny to play dead on the battlefield after our last skirmish with bandits?" Robin replied sharply.

Sumia dropped her gaze when Robin reminded her of the drama that had ensued after Henry's latest attempt at a practical joke. He had staged quite the gory death scene by lying in a puddle of blood and using the dismembered arm of one of his victims to make it seem like he had his own arm lopped off at the shoulder. He even went so far as to tear the sleeve from his sweater(ruining it, she had yelled) and withdrawing his perfectly in tact arm inside his sweater to hide it. For added effect, he draped the entrails of another victim across his stomach, as if he had been disemboweled. When Robin and the others found him in such a state, believing him to be truly dead, panic had set in with his wife experiencing the worst of it, screaming and crying and very nearly knocking Chrom out when he had tried to console her. When Henry decided that the jig was up, it was with that irritating laugh of his.

Robin had made sure to give him the blackest eye she could.

"I suppose that is just about one of the worst things anyone could do..." Sumia muttered as she recalled Henry lying at their feet, covered in glistening blood and that childish smile still etched on his face.

"Glad we're on the same page then." Robin said, the edge in her voice full of confidence and vengeance.

Before Robin could slip in between the tent flaps to set into motion her nefarious scheme, Sumia suddenly reached out to hold her back.

"W-wait! A-aren't you afraid of hurting his feelings? What if he doesn't react the way you want him to?"

Robin groaned when her friend used the same argument for the fourth time since she mentioned her plan.

"Will you relax, Sumia? He of all people can take a joke."

"I just don't really want to see the look on his face when you dash his hopes..." Sumia said quietly and sadly.

Robin deadpanned before turning away from Sumia to glide into hers and Henry's shared tent, a bounce in her step and a silly grin on her lips. If Henry was going to fall for her version of a practical joke then she needed to be as committed to her role as he had been when he had faked his own death.

He was sitting at her desk with his back turned, shoulders hunched and head bowed. From the reflection of the small mirror that sat propped on the desktop, she could see a book resting in his lap while he turned one of its yellowed pages with a free hand. After a moment of silent reading, he lifted his head to stare back at her.

"Hi, Robbie! I thought I heard your voice outside. Sumia here too?"

Forcing her smile to widen in length and brilliance, Robin answered him with as giddy a tone as she could do.

"She was just walking me back here is all but ooh, I have the best news!" She sang with a clap of her hands. Henry watched with a goofy smile of his own as she closed the distance between them with a skip, and delicately plucked the book from his hands, freeing up his lap so that she could plop herself down as cutely as possible. She even wove her arms around his neck for good measure. Upon contact, Henry instinctively placed one hand on her hip and the other on her thigh to hold her steady as she planted a kiss to his temple with a loud "smack!".

"Nyaha, so, you're not mad at me anymore?"

Robin ruffled his white hair as she giggled, "Well, I am still a little upset that you thought it would be funny to make me think you had been killed in battle... But a week is a long time to mull things over and I suppose I've given you the silent treatment for long enough. It also pleases me to see that your eye is still a lovely shade of red and green." To show that she was jesting(but not really), she gently touched her puckered lips to his bruised eyelid to kiss him softly.

"Heehee, the guys call it a "shiner". I call it a "love-tap" because I got it out of love."

"There was definitely more than just love in my fist when I gave it to you, sweetie." Robin said with a smirk but still a tiny bit surprised that he didn't resent her for punching him in the eye.

"Nyahaha, I know. I like it! It makes me look tough!"

"It also makes you look like you lost a fight to your wife."

"You can hit me as much as you like if it makes you feel better." He said, his voice dropping it's musical quality in favor of a more apologetic one. Robin carefully ran her thumb over the splotchy-colored skin under his left eye and tried not to feel guilty at having inflicted such a mark on him; he had plenty of battle-scars marking his body, he didn't need one from his wife. But still, he did trick her into thinking that he had been brutally eviscerated and killed in the heat of battle, leading her believe that he left her to a long and lonely life as a widow. And he did laugh about it, even after all was said and done and she refused to speak to him for days on end and opting to bunk with Lissa and Maribelle for a night or two. Even as he pleaded his apology to her on bended knee, he laughed about it. The little comedian just couldn't help the chuckle every time he brought it up so as far as she was concerned, the punishment fit the crime. At least until she had decided that the best way to teach him a lesson was not with physical pain(he didn't feel it anyway) but with emotional pain, i.e. a taste of his own medicine.

"I think one love-tap is plenty enough from me. Besides, I'm willing to set aside all of the terrible things I'd like to do to you for something that's a million times better." She replied gently as the smile on her face became softer.

"Oh, yeah? What could be better than evil thoughts?" Henry asked, seemingly missing her thinly veiled threat and completely entranced by the sound of her voice.

With a small chuckle of her own, she placed a third kiss to the corner of his mouth before she sat back to recount to him just exactly how she wound up in his lap, forgiving him for being a second-rate funnyman.

"Well, I'll tell you what's better." She answered excitedly. Like the skilled tactician that she was, Robin directed the conversation with little more than well-timed words as she recited her lines that she had come up with and rehearsed in her head several times that day. The acting lessons she had been receiving from Olivia definitely didn't hurt her performance.

"I was just at the medical tent before I came straight here. I had scheduled an appointment with Libra over the fact that I haven't been feeling well these last few weeks. You know, the random bouts of nausea throughout the day, the feelings of lethargy even though I'm well-rested, the vomiting morning, noon, and night..." She counted off all of her strange symptoms and watched him with amusement as he nodded at each one, the look on his face remaining as innocent and oblivious as ever.

"So, I decided that maybe it was time for me to have a healer check me over in case it was something serious. Not only is it serious but guess what!"

Henry shook his head impatiently, his one good eye cracking open to flash it's silver color. "What?! Tell me!"

Curling her lips and trying to look the part of someone who was happy and proud of their announcement, Robin flung her arms back around his neck and hugged him tightly.

"I'm pregnant!"

Robin tried to keep herself from shaking with laughter when he didn't say anything for a moment, too stunned by her life-changing news, no doubt. In fact he didn't do much of anything, just sat in the chair with her in his lap. He didn't even tense up under her embrace. A little strange, considering he reacted to just about anything and everything with joyous celebration. Was he upset? Did he not want this? Or worse, did he overhear Robin with Sumia moments before she stepped into their tent to deliver the "happy news"? Deciding that he was simply in shock, Robin continued to nuzzle his ear affectionately, prompting him to participate in the wonderful moment.

"So, you do know? Good, because I doubt I could've stayed quiet much longer, hahaha!" He exclaimed as he finally wrapped his arms around her mid-section protectively.

Robin slowly opened her eyes when she realized what he had said.

"Er, excuse me?" She asked, trying her best to remain in character despite the curveball he just threw her. She had devised many contingency plans should he react to her startling news in any way other than pure joy. Unfortunately she had not foreseen him turning the tables on her.

Brushing the platinum fringe from her eyes, she sat back in his lap to smile warmly at him. This was her prank, not his.

"What do you mean about staying quiet? I just found out, silly!"

"You may have just found out but I've known for at least...I don't know, a few weeks? I wasn't sure if you knew or not so I stayed quiet. If you did know, I figured you just weren't ready to talk about it yet. But since you've figured it out we can now celebrate! Yaay! I'm going to be a dad, nyaha!" Henry threw his arms straight up as he laughed happily.

Robin inwardly cringed. Was he serious? No, he had to be messing with her. He had to have known about her plan to prank him with a false pregnancy so as to teach him a lesson about toying with ones emotions. That had to be it. If she wasn't even aware of being pregnant then how could he possibly know? The last time she had a check-up with a healer was well over a month ago but surely she would have had some inkling to the changes her body would have been going through. She hadn't even missed her cycle yet! Right? Wait, when was the last time she had her cycle... Robin blinked herself back to clarity.

"Haha, yay! We're going to be parents!..." She joined in his excitement with a nervous wave of her hands. "But seriously, I uh, just found out today... How could you have known?"

"Easy!" Henry smiled up at her as he gently placed his hand to her stomach. "Your belly feels warmer to me than usual, like, it has a warm aura around it. Weird, huh? Also, and this one's a little hard to explain since I don't understand it myself, but it's as if something is pulling me to you? Kinda like a part of me is here," Again, as gentle as ever, he patted her belly. "And I can feel it. I don't really know anything about pregnant women or babies but that's the only thing I can think of soo, you have to be pregnant! It's the only explanation that makes sense!" He stated proudly. The flush in his cheeks that came about from his deduction was anything but embarrassed or untrustworthy. On more than one occasion he displayed an incredible sixth sense when it came to invisible phenomena but then again, he could still be pulling her leg... Even so, she was beginning to lose her nerve on the off-chance that he absolutely was right.

Raising an eyebrow at his unbelievable detective work, Robin offered a sweet smile that bordered on neurotic. "Is that so? You never cease to amaze me, love. I had no idea you were so sensitive to these kinds of things. Did my symptoms give me away as well?" She was not going to let him get the better of her.

"Heehee, I didn't know I was either! I definitely never got this tingly, magnetic feeling when Olivia was pregnant. But maybe that's because Inigo's not mine? And honestly, I just thought you had some bizarre strain of Plegian Desert Flu. Who knew babies could make you so sick?! I don't remember seeing Olivia throw up nearly as much as you have been, haha."

Yes, her symptoms were in line with being pregnant but that didn't mean that she was! She was just overworking herself! And there was that one night when Sully had been in charge of preparing supper so she could've easily just been getting over food poisoning. A lot of people had gotten sick from the meatloaf and they weren't mistaking it for a pregnancy. A lot of them had been male though, too.

"Plegian Desert Flu? We're no where near the desert. We're not even in Plegia! How could I have come down with an exotic disease when we haven't been to Plegia in months?"

"Haha, oh yeah! Sorry, I have like, no experience with something like this. But if the pregnancy is making you sick then have no fear, I'll take care of you! And my first order is to put you on bed rest! That way you stay healthy and the twins come out healthy!"

Robin nearly toppled off his lap. How could she have forgotten that she was to have twins?! This wasn't just one baby but two?! And the more he talked about it, the less inclined she was to believe her shallow delusions.

"Say, if you're getting sick, does that mean the babies are sick too? Or are they just making you sick because your body's not used to carrying them around? Man, this whole thing is confusing. We should probably ask Sumia or Olivia since they've already gone through this. Or get a book at least. That would be helpful! Haha."

And the more he talked the more she felt like fainting. Oh Gods, oh Gods, she was pregnant and how could she have been so blind to it? And here she was, expecting to have a good laugh when the time came to rub her lame joke in his face but here he was, getting the drop on her instead. And he wasn't even joking! His logic was too sound to be of any comedic use and besides, he was right. He knew next to nothing about pregnancy, so how could he possibly joke about it? So much for teaching him a lesson...

As gingerly as she could(because her knees refused to keep from knocking together from the very real possibility that she was indeed pregnant), Robin stood up from Henry's lap and placed a trembling hand over her mouth as she looked him over. He remained seated but the smile on his face was so big and happy that there was no denying it. No, he would never play with her like this.

"I'm just...going to..."

Before Henry could ask her where she was going, Robin ran for the tent flap, her coat flaring out behind her as she made haste for the medical tent.

"LIBRAAAA!" She hollered as she went, leaving her husband to scratch the back of his head in confusion.

...

I just found out that I'm going to have a nephew, so I've got babies on the brain.3