I've been waiting to write this chapter ever since I started this story, almost three and a half years ago!
Wow, it's been a long time...
Ages, maybe, but still don't own Marvel.
TapTap
"Awww!" Christine smiled at the nurse expressing this sentiment; it sure seemed like the most common viewpoint. Little Alice Sophie Palmer Strange was almost three months old by now, and indeed the most adorable being in the known universe. And there wasn't any Nick around to make a scene and spoil the moment, either.
Christine sat in the breakroom with her baby girl, letting her colleagues coo over the two of them, answering questions and generally enjoying her break. She'd been on her feet for almost ten hours already, including two surgeries, and she had missed her little baby girl, too, much as she enjoyed standing in the theatre.
"I see someone acquired a baby," the head nurse joked as she came in the door. She came up to peer at the little bundle of only half-awake child. "And here I thought you were on duty!"
"I am," Christine assured her. "But I have no surgeries for a few hours, so Stephen brought her in. He's here for a brief consult, then he'll take her away again. But he doesn't like leaving her," Christine could feel her own smile, and she knew how she looked absolutely smittened as she looked at her daughter, "and I wanted to see her."
"Of course you did," one of the doctors from the maternity ward sat two seats away, and she took another look at the little girl as she ate. "Nothing could be more natural."
They chatted some more, briefly looked in on Elice before she ran off again for labs, before Stephen entered; visting doctors as well as local ones in tow. His wife-to-be had to laugh at that, as he looked around for her. He always ended up leading, he just had that air around him. How he had survived his residency she'd never understand - but of course he'd been brilliant already then so maybe he got away with it. Or at least was harder to catch unawares in retaliation.
His eyes lit up with a smile as he saw her the next moment, and she smiled back. She remained where she was, baby in her arms, as he approached with his temporary entourage.
"Doctor Strange, did you make Doctor Palmer watch your daughter?" The visiting surgeon looked scandalised, much to the amusement of the local doctors and the plentiful nurses who heard him.
Stephen Strange shrugged in response, entirely unmoved. "Well, she is her mother after all, so I thought it'd be fitting."
The stranger blinked, just as Christine snorted lightly and offered the baby to her husband. "Well, a devoted but also somewhat rubbish mother, please take her Stephen. I figure I carried her for nine months, the next nine are on you!"
Cradling his baby daughter lovingly, the sorcerer neurosurgeon smiled. "I shouldn't think so. I claim the next twelve years, or she'll never make it into puberty!"
There was general laughter around them, and the stranger apologized confusedly and congratulated Christine on a beautiful daughter.
Kissing her daughter on her head and her soon-to-be-husband on his cheek, the surgeon returned to work.