I will love again

Part 54 - Nervous and overprotective Tom

Marinette and Adrien had in the meantime returned to the bakery to tell Tom and Sabine the news. When they entered the apartment above the shop, the baker and his wife looked up at them.

"You come back late. Where have you been anyway? I thought you wanted to stay in and see Adrien only in the evening. What's going on?", Tom interrogated his daughter.

"May I explain, Sir?", came from Adrien before Marinette could even open her mouth.

The big man nodded, anger still showing on his face.

Now the young model turned towards his girlfriend.

"Would you mind, showing them the pictures? It will make it much easier to explain!" While the teenage girl showed her parents the first photographs of the newborn Hélène, Adrien continued speaking:

"Well, I guess those pictures already say the most important, but let me add please, that my little sister was born in the forest, because they were stuck there, and had no phone signal. It was just a lucky coincidence, that we followed a gut feeling after not being able to reach either one of them and could get them back home before something worse could happen. That's why Marinette wasn't home and why we both are late!"

He stood in front of Tom Dupain, not smaller than him, as he was back then, when he had been akumatized into 'weredad', but though only half of the baker's weight, he was half a head taller by now.

Tom stared back at him, then saw the picture and immediately began to smile.

"Come here, Lad!", he blurted out and hugged the young model. "Congratulations to the beautiful, little sister!"

"Thank you Mr. Du..."

"It's Tom, lad, I told you before!"

"No, you haven't, dad!"

The baker scratched his head.

"Haven't I? Well now I have so please, call me Tom!"

"Alright, T-Tom. Thank y-you", Adrien stammered nervously.

Now Sabine came to hug the boy.

"Congratulations from me too. And now tell me, what's her size and weight?"

Adrien stared at Marinette in shock.

"I-I-I d-d-don't k-know", he admitted sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

His girlfriend giggled.

"Well, lucky for you, that I know. Nathalie send me a message, after the doctors left. She is 52 cm (20,5') long and weighs 3,1 kg (6 lbs 14 oz)!", she informed the other three.

Sabine slapped her hands to her mouth, then uttered enthusiastically:

"Oh my, that's a very skinny little girl. Hopefully she'll gain a bit of weight soon!"

"I'm sure she will", Marinette laughed. "You should have seen her drink!"

Now all four laughed together, until Tom said:

"Well, to celebrate the little miracle I say, we need some Champagner to raise our glasses to honor the little girl's birth."

"Now that you mention it, dad, it's the best idea you could have, as she was conceived and born in the Champagne!"

"Well, I'll go and get us a bottle from the cellar then!"

Marinette and Sabine looked at each other with a smirk. Tom's 'wine cellar' was only a small one, but he was very proud of it. Twice a year, he took a whole day off, to just tend to his bottles, dusting and wiping, rolling them, checking the temperatures in several places, to see if he needed to adjust the air condition.