Much didn't know what to do with babies. Like really little ones. Fresh ones. A few hours old ones. Even ones that were half Stoots. He'd been with Little John when news came through that the baby was on her way and he'd immediately felt like they should be there, cos they should be there, right? Little John had to grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him back down onto the sofa with a "Jeepers Creepers Much, no."
Which was a relief, to be honest. Much didn't want to be anywhere around soiled towels and hot water and screaming muses and stressed out Stoots and maybe Apollo, but he would've done it, if they were supposed to, he was just glad that Little John knew what to do. Well, he would. He had seven kids and none of the Merry Men had been around for any of their arrivals and it hadn't done them any harm (though Much would've liked the chance to take on a fey army, actually. Seemed like a problem a quarterstaff could solve. Much desperately missed having problems a quarterstaff could solve.)
So Friday rolled around, bringing a brand new Merry Man baby with it, and Much continued to follow instructions to stay out of the way until such time as he was no longer required to stay out of the way. He could totally do that. There weren't a whole lot of things Much felt totally confident in his ability to do, these days, but that was absolutely one of them.
Hanging out with Marcie was another. Easy as. It hadn't always been so easy but things were going pretty well, these curse-free days, even if they didn't see each other as much as he would have liked. He'd hoped that when they moved into the neighbourhood over from his, it kinda would have felt like they lived in the same village, and she would have been as easy to drop in on as it was to drop in on the Fox, but that just wasn't how things had turned out.
But things boded well for the night when he ran into the woman delivering dinner at the door, and after a quick exchange of tips for bags of food he was ringing Marcie's bell, pressing his ear to her door to hear her singing, and grinning at how carefree she sounded. "No it's not the same!" he called through the door. "There are wontons now!"