Happy Christmas!
(Belated...)
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The knock on the doorframe almost made Christine startle. Looking up from the tiny bundle in her arms, the doctor met the smiling and knowing eyes of Pepper Potts. The businesswoman held up a small teddy with exquisite embroidery in the white fluffy ears and smiled. "I see you've joined the 'baby with a genius' club. Now we just need to set up the Bruces, and we can have full-on girl-dinners to complain about them!"
Christine laughed. "I imagine we would have plenty to complain about!"
Pepper Potts came closer to take a peek at the tiny baby girl, smiling warmly as she did. "Yes, I'd imagine so. Oh she is adorable. Have you decided what to name her yet?"
Christine shook her head, leaning back fully again and studying the woman studying her baby. "I can't say I have thought about it. It's a bit exhausting. I mean... even except the obviously exhausting things."
"Like pregnancy, childbirth and an obnoxious genius?" Pepper Potts, who when she moved showed just a tiny incling that she might be expecting the baby boy Christine knew Tony had told Stephen and the Bruces about, smirked. "There's really no hurry. I know you're a doctor, but if there's anything you need to ask about, feel free. We need to stick together in the marrying a genius club!"
Christine smirked, offering Pepper to hold her daughter. She felt a little conflicted. That tiny bundle who had been a flickering of movement in her belly just a few months ago, who hadn't been at all a mere year ago, and would be a woman grown in just a score or so.
She suspected she might love that tiny presence, now a tiny human swaddled in a blanket in Pepper Potts' arms. But she had issues relating to how that presence growing in her stomach was now a little bundle against her chest. Usually.
"Is it normal..." Christine hesitaed. She knew Pepper fairly well by now, and she liked her very well which she knew was mutual, but they were not really best friends. Yet, at any rate. On the other hand, she was more likely to know than most other people she could ask. And certainly the best choice amongst the people she knew who had children.
"Every story I've ever been told tells you you'll love your baby at sight, and certainly I've never felt quite so compelled to protect anybody or anything in my life, but...!" Christine was interrupted by the other woman laughing; but softly. It was not offensive or startling - it sounded more like she understood and related.
"Perfectly! From what I hear, men normally take more time than women - we have more of a relationship already, don't we - but while it might be as close to love at first sight as you'll ever get, you still need time to process. And everything considered; we can put fancy names on it all we like, you've just gone through a trauma. Worth is as it certainly is, it's still there. Don't worry. I spent a whole week dazed and while definitely smittened, I did not love her as deeply as I did just months later. Or even days! Tony was surprising though - he was wrapped around her little finger right away. Then again, he is a little strange. I think for someone like him, ultrasound pictures might just have been enough for him to get to know her. Geniuses..." Pepper shook her head. "He still outright refused to touch her though. He wasn't comfortable carrying her until she could hold the weight of her own head. Then, of course, I had a hard time getting her back again!"
Christine found herself laughing. Wong had come dragging Stephen away, or else she wouldn't have stood a chance to get to hold her own baby either. It seemed Stephen was a little quicker on the turns than Stark this time, though no less devoted. Geniuses. She shook her head. They needed to book a date for that rant and drinks dinner!
"Geniuses," she said aloud, making the other woman nod decidedly as she handed her her baby back. Lovable and challenging - much like their adorable baby daughters that way. And certainly they wouldn't have it any other way.