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Chapter 24

"Where's my baby?"

The female voice interrupted the couple in their tender moment. They had stopped kissing a while ago, Charlie drooping with fatigue, and Steve had sat cross-legged beside him and was running his fingers through his hair. He knew the dragon caretaker loved this caress and he could feel him falling asleep under his attention, until his mother's voice burst their bubble. Steve withdrew his hand from the red hair and moved a few inches away from his man. He wanted to give him space with his parents and let him choose how he would tell them about their relationship; he himself would have liked to have had this opportunity with his own mother.

The injured man only had time to open his eyes and sigh when a redheaded, plump woman with brown eyes and a face bathed in love and concern entered the room.

"Oh by Merlin! Charlie!¨

¨Mum, I'm f..."

He didn't have time to finish his sentence before he was suffocated by the hug his mother drew him into. Without touching his bandaged torso, she had managed to wrap her arms around his neck and nuzzle his face into her own neck.

Steve reflected that if anyone else had forced themselves on Charlie like that, he'd have sent them flying across the room by now, but now he looked on with a smile. The woman hadn't seen him yet, focused as she was on her son, and he was in no hurry to signal his presence.

The cuddle was interrupted, however, by the arrival of Bill and a man with just as much red hair as the others, green eyes, tall, thin, with glasses.

"Molly darling, why don't you let him breathe, he's been through enough these last few hours!¨

¨Oh, you're right. Sorry, darling."

Molly pulled away from Charlie, tears in the corners of her eyes, just enough to let her husband take their son in his arms in a much less invasive way. She couldn't remove her eyes from the bandages covering the wounded man's belly, one hand over her mouth, as if realizing how this could have ended. The patriarch of the Weasley family noticed Steve as soon as he released his son.

"Who are you, sir?" he asked, staring him straight in the eye.¨

¨Excuse me, I'm Steve, sir.¨

¨Steve, sir? I seem to have heard your name before.¨

¨He is my companion, Dad."

The simplicity with which Charlie had laid out their relationship warmed Steve's heart; he, who had discovered his homophobic mother only days earlier, was reassured to see that the dragon caretaker's sexuality was not an issue in this family. In fact, he could see the love they all shared, just by the way they acted around each other, and Charlie had huffed and puffed when he'd learned of his parents' arrival, but it was easy to see that he was glad they were there.

"Companion?" repeated Molly.

¨Yes, for twelve years.¨

¨What? But why didn't you introduce us to him before?¨

¨Mom...¨

¨Twelve years! But you should be married!¨

¨Mom...¨

¨Have children...¨

¨Molly! Stop it."

At last she fell silent; Charlie had closed his eyes, tired from the exchange. There, Steve understood why his lover hadn't been thrilled to hear about his parents' arrival; he knew this conversation was coming.

"Steve, welcome to the family," declared the patriarch. ¨Call me Arthur."

The former military man rose from the bed to shake the outstretched hand with a smile.