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Quickly rushing to the door, Pidge checked the time on their phone and breathed a sigh of relief.
11:40 pm.
They ended up having 20 minutes to spare, which was great given they were so sure they were going to miss curfew. Thank whoever made the buses run on time for once in their life.
Knowing they weren't late, they opened the door and quietly closed it behind them, knowing that the smaller kids were probably asleep at this point, even with it being a Saturday night, and they didn't want to wake them.
"You're back late," a voice called out, causing Pidge to jolt and look over to see Bug sitting in the recliner over in the living room. God, that gave them a heart attack. Their pseudo-dad sure liked to scare them whenever he could get away with it.
Wait…why was he sitting there? Pidge had gotten back on time right? So they shouldn't be in trouble?
Risking a glance away from Bug, Pidge glanced over to the clock in the kitchen. The glowing numbers on the stove re-confirmed it. 11:43. So then…what was going on here?
"I got back before curfew," Pidge pointed out hesitantly, "And knowing them I probably got back before Flicker and Crab."
"True," Bug agreed, "But you're normally back by 10 at the latest, you're not often out til nearly midnight like you were today."
What was this? Why were they being interrogated like this? "I lost track of time," they spoke.
Not a lie. They had indeed lost track of time.
"Didn't know River was that distracting," Bug hummed, a knowing smirk on his face as Pidge stared at him in disbelief.
What, how they hadn't-
They had made sure to keep it a secret, especially from Bug and Henry, knowing those two would be doing something just like this.
"How," Pidge finally managed to get out, the possibilities running through their head. They had tried to be so careful-
"If you really want to keep things a secret, you really shouldn't have let Chaos meet your," Bug paused for a second, thinking, "…girlfriend correct? I'm not one hundred percent sure on that. Chaos said something about her sometimes being a guy-"
Pidge was going to murder Chaos later, that much they were certain of, even as they nodded. "She's a girl most of the time. It's a running joke that she's only a guy for the bit."
"Well either way, if you truly wanted to keep her a secret, you really shouldn't have let Chaos meet her. Chaos can't keep a secret to save her life."
This may have been true, but Pidge still was planning on murdering their younger sibling later. Especially as they could feel how red their cheeks were from now having to explain all of this to Bug.
"So, when do I get to meet this River?"
Oh no. No, they did not want this to happen. It was nothing against River, being the utter sweetheart that she was. They knew with warning, River would be perfectly fine with meeting Bug.
The problem is, it wouldn't just be meeting Bug. It would turn into meeting everyone.
When their siblings version of behaving meant not blowing things up for an hour or so if they werelucky, they were right to be concerned. Especially knowing River didn't do well when it came to chaos. Pidge didn't react well to their chaotic siblings some days either, but they were at least used to it. River was not.
They loved River enough to give them time to get used to the people they now called their family before throwing them right into the deep end.
"….I am not having her meet everyone at once," Pidge finally decided on saying. "I feel like that would be…a lot. I know some of the later additions to our family have said similar."
Pidge had actually gotten lucky on that part, having been able to meet everyone in small groups instead of as one herd. They would prefer to have something similar happen with River if possible.
"I can try, but you know all too well what your younger siblings are like."
Pidge huffed a bit, knowing what Bug said was true. They were all menaces the lot of them. But that was also why Pidge cared about them so much…so-
"I still can't believe you stayed up to call me out like that."
"Hey, be glad I was the one who won the coin flip, Henry also wanted to bully you a bit, and knowing him, that would have involved a bit of threatening your girlfriend as well."
Pidge could practically feel their face pale slightly, making a mental to note to also wait on letting Henry meet River. Poor girl had been through enough in her life, didn't need getting threatened by one of their psudo dads on top of that.
Bug snorted a bit, clearly not knowing what Pidge was truly thinking, but finding the way the color drained from their face at his statement quite amusing.
"It might be better if it's just you meeting River to start with. Probably better for everyone involved that she isn't threatened."
They would not be going into anymore detail then that, even as Bug raised an eyebrow. All Bug needed to know is River getting threatened wouldn't go well.
"Can we figure out more of this in the morning," Pidge spoke in answer to Bug's eyebrow raise. "It is a bit late and I want to be able to talk to River before we try to make any plans."
Mostly to warn her about how chaotic their family was and how there was a chance they all would show up even if they weren't invited.
Bug looked Pidge up and down for a second, long enough that they thought they were going to get bullied again before Bug sighed. "Fine, go get some rest."
Pidge shot out of there and to their room faster then they thought possible, quickly shooting River a message that one of their dads wanted to meet her and that they wanted to talk about that in the morning.
This…was going to be interesting.