Disclaimer: I don't own any IPs that might appear in the story

Meeting the family

A Council of Thirteen universe story

One shot

Beta:

Sitting in the living room of their house in Milan, Dante watched with some amusement as Ri mentally went over their luggage and made sure they'd packed everything they needed for their trip to Palermo to finally meet his family.

At least she's not unpacking everything and going over it manually. The Sixth Lord thought with a shake of his head. His girlfriend wanted to be absolutely sure that she'd done everything in her power to make the trip a success and was obsessing over every small detail. Something that was largely his fault.

He was the one who had put off properly introducing her to his family as his girlfriend for so long. Not that they didn't know who she was or what she meant to him per se, but they'd never actually visited them as a couple. And that was an important rite of passage in any relationship.

It was his screw up definitely. But could you blame him for wanting to distance Ri from his family? His mafia family? Not to say he was embarrassed by them or anything but he still tried to disassociate himself from them as much as possible.

Which is why it took Father literally demanding Ri and I visit to get me to finally do so. Dante thought with a sigh, marveling slightly at his family's patience. It had after all taken them years before they'd finally put their foot down and started making demands.

"Ri, you're acting like Nexus did after she gained the mantle of the Twelfth Lord." Dante said, trying to calm his anxious girlfriend down a tad.

"Dante!" Ri hissed angrily as she turned to glare at him.

"That's an unfair comparison." Rose chided. "To either me or Nexus."

"Yeah," Iris continued. "Poor Nexus-chan was so overwhelmed by what happened that she and Dawn had to go back to Sanctuary to live with Sensei."

"And from what I heard, she's still struggling to get used to her new responsibility as the new Twelfth Lord. So cut her some slack. And I'm not overreacting as badly as she did." Both of Ri's two personalities concluded. "Not that the situations are comparable at all, mind you."

Dante glanced in the direction of his workshop which was still in the midst of being repaired after the damage caused by Nexus' very dramatic assumption of her mantle by a group of hired gnomes and could only nod.

"I suppose not," Dante conceded. "You think they'll be done by the time we get back?"

"I spoke to the foreman earlier," Rose told him with a shrug. "He assured me that the repairs will be done by the end of the month. Since we won't be back till the middle of the next, yeah, it should be."

"That's a relief." Dante said with a relieved sigh. "I'll have enough backlog on my orders from our holiday. If I have to wait after that for the repairs to my workshop to be completed, I don't know when I'll be able to catch up."

Ri rolled her eyes and Iris replied. "You can always just borrow some space in someone else's for the time being. Besides, you're a Lord of the Thirteen! Why the hell did you even take so many orders, anyways? Sure, you're the Tool User Lord and thus the greatest Mystic Code craftsman alive, but that means your work should be a rarity! You shouldn't be mass producing them like you have!"

"It helps pay the bills." Dante replied with an unrepentant shrug. "Besides, it's not like I have much else to do otherwise. Unlike you, I suck as a teacher."

It was true too. Unlike Ri who had a flair for teaching and had taken on a number of paying apprentices, the few times he'd tried to teach his craft had been dismal failures. If he wanted to contribute to their finances, and not have to live off the generous stipends that Master provided them out of her own significant salary as Sanctuary's Governor and the dividends from her family's ancient holdings, he had to make money somehow.

"Besides, I'm not mass producing anything." Dante continued. "It's just that with my workshop out of commission for as long as it has, my orders have piled up."

"So you say," Ri said disbelievingly, before turning serious. "Anyways, I'm ready to go."

"Finally~!" Dante teasingly declared as he leapt to his feet and walking over to her, took one of Ri's hands into his own. "Let's go."

Ri rolled her eyes at his teasing and silently cast the Teleport spell that would transport them to his family's estate.

As the customary flash of white light that accompanied the long distance use of the Teleport spell faded, Rose Iris found Dante and herself standing in front of a mansion that looked plucked out of the past. She didn't know much about architecture, so she couldn't pinpoint an exact period that the architecture of the building most resembled but the statues that dotted the roof every so often reminded her of the Renaissance.

"It's a copy of a famous mansion." Dante helpfully informed her as he began leading them towards the front door, their luggage floating along behind them, even as a servant spotted them and rushed inside to inform his family of their arrival.

They had barely made it halfway up the steps to the main entrance when the doors to the mansion were flung open and four brunettes rushed out to greet them.

"Dante!" The lone woman, Dante's Aunt Lucia, said as she rushed over to him and pulled him into a hug. Though she did not share her nephew's hair color, she otherwise looked like his spitting image just feminized.

"And Rose Iris! I am so happy to meet you in person at last." The woman said as she let go of a startled Dante to hug her in turn. "Welcome to our home!"

"It's a pleasure to be here." Rose Iris replied with a smile as she returned the hug.

"The pleasure is ours, dear." A man that outside of the hair he'd inherited from his mother, looked exactly like how she envisioned an older version of Dante would look that Rose Iris recognised as his Uncle Lamberto said as she was released from Lucia's hug and gently nudging his sister aside, offered her his hand in greeting. "Any friend of our Dante's is a friend of ours."

"A friend? I think Rose Iris is much more than a mere friend." A somewhat plump man with very similar features to Lamberto said with a laugh as he came forward and took his turn greeting Rose Iris.

Blushing lightly at his meaning, she replied as she shook his hand. "It is good to see you, Uncle Giusto."

"Polite as always, eh?" Dante's Uncle Giusto said with a jolly chuckle as he stepped aside. "We'll loosen you up eventually."

"Ignore my brother, Rose Iris." The last of Dante's relatives, his father, Alberto, said as he finally stepped forward. His resemblance to his son was, as perhaps fitting, even greater than Lamberto's was. He just looked older than either of them with the grey and silver hairs starting to show and giving him a salt and pepper look. "Welcome, my dear."

"Like I told Aunt Lucia, it's a pleasure to be here." Rose Iris said, playfully offering her hosts a curtsy.

That night after a hearty welcome dinner - More a feast than a simple dinner. -. Dante found himself seated in his father's private study. A room that his father had deliberately modeled after Don Vito Corleone's office in the first Godfather movie. Like so many mafiosi around the world, his family had also fallen in love with the aesthetic that the movie series had popularised and adopted it for their own.

"Papa, what is this about?" Dante asked his father curiously as they both settled into the comfortable wingbacks around the roaring fireplace, one of the few departures from the famous movie set that had served as the office's inspiration, tumblers of whisky in hand.

"Hold your horses, Dante. We need to wait for you uncles."

"And we're here!" Uncle Giusto announced as he and Uncle Lamberto entered the room.

"Sorry for the delay." Uncle Lamberto said as he sank into one of the other chairs by the fireplace whilst Uncle Giusto walked over to the bar to pour the two of them their own tumblers of whisky. "Just wanted to make sure the ladies and the children were situated first."

"And they are?" Father asked, as Uncle Giusto passed Uncle Lamberto his drink and sat down with his own.

"Lucia, Lavinia and Matilde have everything under control." Uncle Lamberto said, referring to Dante's aunt and his and Uncle Giusto's wives. "They and their girls have Rose Iris quite entertained."

"And your boys?" Father pressed.

"Last I checked, they've decided to go out for a night on the town." Uncle Giusto informed him after taking a sip of his whisky. "They would've asked you to come along as well, Dante, but we told them we wanted to talk to you."

"I understand," Dante allowed. "Though I have to wonder what you three want to talk to me about."

"Do you honestly need to ask, son?" Father asked, looking at him pointedly.

"Yes," Dante admitted. "I have no idea."

Uncle Giusto frowned at this, a strange sight for the normally jovial man. Uncle Lamberto for his part narrowed his eyes at Dante in what was undeniably anger. Father for his part just sighed.

"You get that obliviousness from your mother." He said with a wistful smile, before shaking his head and finally clarifying. "It's about Rose Iris."

"Oh," Dante said, having a fair idea what they wanted to say now.

"Yes, oh." Uncle Lamberto said sternly. "When are you asking the girl to marry you, Dante?"

"The two of you are practically married already." Uncle Giusto pointed out. "You've lived together for years. You share the same bed. Despite your attempts to keep her away, she's been in touch with us so much that she's practically already part of the family-"

"She has?" Dante asked, surprised.

"She calls at least one a week to check in on us ever since you introduced her." Father revealed. "This might be the first time you've brought her home, but she's been a more dutiful daughter of this family than some of your cousins."

"Very true," Uncle Lamberto admitted with a sigh, probably thinking of his two daughters and their own reluctance to associate with the broader family. So much so they were the few members of the extended family that had not come, or were scheduled to come, to celebrate Rose Iris' formal introduction to the family.

"I take it she didn't tell you?"

"She mentioned she keeps in touch, but I didn't think it was such a regular thing." Dante admitted.

It seemed like Ri had been trying to be an intermediary of sorts between him and the rest of his family. She'd probably mentioned it to him at some point to be honest, but with so many things about his family he probably just filed it away and forgot about it. He had been trying very hard to distance himself from them. Perhaps a little too hard.

"Anyways," Uncle Giusto said. "As I was saying, you two are practically married already so don't you think it's high time you actually made it official and proposed?"

"Uh…" Dante muttered, scrambling for a reply as his father and uncles shot him pointed, questioning looks. "I haven't come up with a good way to do it yet?"

"Why does that sound more like a question?" Uncle Lamberto asked, shooting him a dissatisfied look.

"Lamberto," Father barked, shaking his head at his younger brother and causing Dante's uncle to back down. Though by his angry frown, he was doing so quite unhappily.

"So you'll do it?" Father asked, turning to look at Dante encouragingly.

The question had Dante thinking something that to his shame he'd not even considered till now. Did he want to marry Rose Iris? Definitely. That he would marry Rose Iris was a foregone conclusion by this point. He would accept no one else as his wife.

Then why hadn't the idea of proposing occurred to him till he was put on the spot by his father and uncles?

I got comfortable. Dante realised. He'd gotten comfortable with Ri being his girlfriend. With them living together and sharing their lives with each other without the burdensome ties of marriage. But that, in hindsight, also meant losing out on the soul deep bonds, magical and mundane, that marriage would bring...

"Yes," Dante answered his father with determination. "Father, Uncles, mind helping me come up with how to do it? I want everything to be perfect."

The three older men exchanged looks before Father finally nodded.

"We'd be glad to help," Father said as he and his brothers began helping Dante brainstorm how to carry out the perfect proposal.

Later that night, a nude Rose Iris cuddled into the equally naked Dante's side after a round of exquisite lovemaking in the king sized bed of his lovingly maintained and updated childhood bedroom, running a hand playfully along his chest as they both enjoyed the afterglow.

"So," she said, breaking the pleasant silence. "Your family has been incredibly welcoming to me."

"I told you they would be." Dante replied with a shrug. "Is it really that much of a surprise? With how diligently you keep in touch with them, they consider you family."

"I know. They tell me that all the time when I call." Rose Iris admitted. "But I was still worried and pleasantly surprised by how welcoming they were anyways."

Dante rolled his eyes at her in exasperation.

"By the way, what did your father and uncles talk to you about after dinner?"

"They wanted to give me some relationship advice."

Rose Iris giggled at that, having a fair idea about what kind of advice they were giving him. His aunts had raised the idea of a wedding often enough with her over the course of their own after dinner chat for her to be able to take a guess.

"Did you need it?"

"Yes," he admitted, surprising her. "It was timely."

It was, was it? Rose Iris thought, smiling like a cat which caught the canary. I guess I should start searching for a wedding dress I like just like Lucia suggested after all.

"So what did you do with my aunts whilst I was talking with Father and my uncles?"

"It wasn't just your aunts." Iris informed him, still smirking.

"Your female cousins joined us as well." Rose elaborated.

"We just had some girl talk." Rose Iris concluded. "We talked about our relationships, travels and the standard feminine things such as fashion."

"And what did you tell them about our relationship?"

"That I love you and that everything between us is going well." Rose Iris replied honestly, even as she crawled atop Dante and shot him her best bedroom eyes. "But enough chit chat. You up for another round?"

"Ready and waiting," Dante declared with a smirk as he adjusted his position slightly, causing his erect manhood to playfully smack her behind.

Rose Iris laughed at that but happily played along with his tease as she moved so she straddled his groin, grabbed hold of his member and slid it inside herself with a happy sigh.

Shortly after breakfast, the day after their arrival in Palermo, Rose Iris walked hand in hand with Dante as they made the ten minute hike from the mansion to the family graveyard located in the picturesque woods that made up the majority of the Martin estate.

"Here we are," Dante said as they stopped in front of a well maintained grave. "My mother, Annamaria's, grave."

The gravestone was surprisingly simple. Just a small pedestal with a statue of an angel holding a cross and an inscription on the pedestal that read: Annamaria Martin, beloved wife and mother.

Next to her, Rose Iris could sense that Dante was speaking to his mother silently. So she followed his lead and likewise spoke to the deceased woman who had brought her beloved into this world.

Thank you. Rose Iris thought sincerely. Thank you for giving birth to Dante. Thank you for giving me the chance to meet and fall in love with this wonderful son of yours.

Her simple grateful thoughts complete, Rose Iris waited patiently for her boyfriend to finish speaking to his mother. She didn't need to wait long.

"Mother," Dante said, startling her slightly by suddenly speaking up. "This beautiful girl next to me is Rose Iris. She is the most wonderful person I've ever met. And I love her very, very much."

Rose Iris blushed at that. Not so much at the admissions that Dante was making. It wasn't the first time she was hearing him say things in this vein about her, but to hear him tell the mother that he adored these things… It warmed her heart in a way she hadn't thought possible.

"Wherever you are, I hope you are watching me now." He continued. "And wish me luck."

With that he turned away from his mother's grave to look at Rose Iris, who likewise had turned to face him, and promptly fell to one knee causing her to gasp.

"I haven't got a ring yet." Dante began. "But Rose Iris, will you do me the honor of marrying me?"

"Screw the ring!" Iris shouted.

"We can get it later." Rose added more softly but with just as much enthusiasm.

"Yes! Yes, I'll marry you!" Rose Iris said happily as she grabbed her fiancé by the shoulders, pulled him to his feet and into the most passionate kiss of their lives.

Done!

So Dante's family are mafiosi. Never said that all of the Lords have squeaky clean backgrounds. Just look at Dom who is descended from generations of assassins. So yeah, I don't condone organised crime at all but I wanted some moral ambiguity in my characters, even if it's via a minor detail. Hopefully this isn't too big of a deal.

I somehow feel this chapter is weak in some way that I cannot quite pin down. As such, critiques on it are especially welcome. So if anyone's inclined, please do drop a review.

Till next time, arrivederci!