Before we begin, I would first like to wish everyone who's reading a Happy Holidays. This fiction series of mine has become a good, stable part of my life and a big reason why it has is because of you guys reading and giving me support. The people I've met and the friends I've made over the course of writing this has made the labors more than worth it. More specifically, I'd like to thank Rachel Wilson, Leigh Teetzel, and Shawn Watson for finally needling me into doing a series of Christmas stories. Once again, you guy and gals, along with the rest of my dozens and dozens of fans, are some of the best readers that a somewhat mature teacher and student could ask for.

As for setting the frame for these particular stories, these tales all specifically take place in The Misfitverse so those of you who have stumbled upon this story and aren't familiar with my overly bloated magnum opus might be a little confused. Still, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at the address on my profile and I'll be happy to try and lend a hand. After all, Lord knows I'm always ready to talk about the stuff that I make.

As for when in The Misfitverse takes place, well, that would be somewhere in the six months between Issues #83 and #84. Yep, we've got a futurefic on our hands and, given that I haven't actually published those yet, I, as the all-powerful author, reserve the right to change what may happen in the future at my very whim.

And now all that crap is out of the way! Sit back and enjoy. . .

The Twelve Days of Misfits

Chapter One

Track Three

Wayne Manor - December 24th - 2:26 P.M.

Unable and unwilling to keep the small, kindly grin off of his face, Wally West took a moment to wonder, as he watched his youngest child sleep away the lazy, snow-drizzled afternoon, if he would ever get tired of seeing such a wonderful sight. His son's face seemed to shine in front of his eyes, the bits of sunlight slipping through the window casting Jai West's coffee-colored skin with a radiance that meshed nicely with the dark green blanket and the rich, sapphire quilt wrapped around his tiny, three-year-old body. The young father felt the sudden urge to sweep his long fingers across his son's forehead, if only to swipe away an errant lock of hair that was threatening to fall into the boy's eyes, but he eventually resisted the urge. After all, the scene was quite appealing already.

It's your first real Christmas, little guy, Wally thought with a smile, the speedster's grin growing even stronger as a sliver of drool began to slip from the right side of Jai's open mouth. And here you are eating and sleeping your way through the whole thing. Grandpa Barry would be so proud. .

Unfortunately, not all was as it should be in the life of the man known the world over as The Flash. In fact, as pleasing as the sight in front of him just so happened to be, the young father was currently more concerned with what wasn't there to be seen upon returning to the stately home on Mountain Drive after a late morning patrol.

And a very boring patrol at that, Wally added to himself. Another day at the office, another day with nothing big to report, and another instance where my daughter isn't where she should be.

Of course, it didn't take long at all for the young father to realize where his eldest child had run off to. As a matter of fact, he didn't need to employ his unique ability to sense the motion and kinetic energy of others or use even an ounce of his unparalleled running speed to piece together this particular mystery. If truth be told, the man who could run circles around even Superman himself had begun to drag his feet as he left the Wayne Manor nursery and made his way down the immense staircase that stood near the foundation of the impressive mansion. Letting out a hearty sigh and a weary shake of his head upon reaching the ground floor, Wally did his best to try and keep from getting too angry or too pouty as he stalked his way over towards a familiar grandfather clock and the even more memorable passageway that lay behind it.

As he began making his way down the stone steps leading into the catacombs below the manor, Wally couldn't help but think back to how much he had come to hate coming down here. Not that he couldn't stomach the trip or the sights inside, of course, but it had remained a distasteful experience whose lack of appeal had only grown over the course of a decade. It had started during his teenage years and those hated days when his uncle Barry would drag him over to Gotham so he could speak to Batman about, well, whatever the hell they talked about. Though the trips had gone a long way into helping him make one of his oldest and most loyal friends, Wally had to confess that he still didn't like what he had to endure in order to become buddies with one Richard Grayson, yet another important person in his life who clearly did not share his distaste for the dark, creepy caves and the dark, creepy man who happened to call it a second home.

In fact, perhaps the thing that frustrated him the most about this place was the fact that so many of his loved ones didn't seem to share his particular difficulty. It didn't take too long for Linda to confess to him that she had been coming down here more frequently, his beautiful, sharp, and usually sane wife claiming that the dark, overly quiet, bat-riddled confines actually helped her think. Barry's affection for the cave was even more stressful, his memories of all but dragging his uncle out of the cave most likely adding wrinkles that had no business being on the face of someone who wasn't even old enough to go to college yet.

And Bart? Forget about it. That kid would have been quite happy to waste many a day away looking around at all the cars and planes and computers and bats pooping on the floor right next to your shoulder as if they were marking their territory.

All of the damage wrought by those past memories had only been slightly soothed when Jai had revealed his distaste for The Batcave, the boy's initial sniffling and eventual crying on his first trip down to these dark confines giving the young father more than enough evidence to believe that his youngest child had little desire to take another trip down to these drafty corridors and the humming hard drives and the flapping of leathery wings. Unfortunately, judging from the way a certain redheaded three-year-old was bouncing around in her chair, that perfectly natural reaction didn't appear to be shared by Jai's older sister. In fact, it was quite obvious to Wally that little Iris West seemed quite at home in front of one of the massive Crays that populated the center of The Batcave. The immense monitor above the computer was occupied with the task of showing an oft-repeated episode of Spongebob Squarepants, a function that was most likely not expected of the supercomputer upon its initial construction but was still being performed quite nicely.

"What brings you down here, Flash?"

Wally tried hard not to jump as he quickly tore his green eyes away from the ongoing exploits of Sandy and Patrick and towards the middle-aged nutcase who had managed to sneak up on him yet again. The Fastest Man Alive had no idea how Bruce Wayne had gotten so close to him without noticing and that surprise did little to ease his frustrations towards the situation at hand. Swallowing away the usual ball of nervous anger that seemed to pop up every now and again when it came time to speak with The Dark Knight of Gotham, Wally bravely went to his task.

"Just what is my daughter doing down here, Bruce?"

Bruce Wayne quickly turned away from Wally, the detective looking somewhat affronted about having to answer such a pointless question. "Alfred is going to the store to pick up some things for the dinner and Linda is on assignment for The Times," he replied while returning to his usual spot in front of the cave's central computer, his dark cape billowing behind him as a result of his rapid turn. "Alfred dropped the kid off here and told me to look after her."

Wally found he had to put quite a bit of effort to avoid raising his eyebrows at that reply. Though he certainly wasn't quite the master of deduction that Bruce had proved himself to be, The Flash couldn't help but see not only a fair share of holes in the older man's logic but also a great many questions that he could have asked in response.

Then why isn't Iris just taking her nap like she's supposed to be doing?

Why would Alfred just not take Iris with him to the grocery store? Or leave her with Stephanie, someone who would have been more than happy to watch over her?

How in the hell did the Spongebob Squarepants DVD that, as of last night, was on top of a cabinet in the living room that Iris could not possibly reach, somehow wander its way down to The Batcave when Alfred would have sooner contracted malaria than have anything to do with it?

Instead, the question that Wally wisely decided to go with was: "Do you ever take a break from all of this?"

Batman cast a familiar glare as Wally familiarized himself with what was on the central monitor, doubtlessly a portion of one of the detective's many criminal data files. "Crime doesn't take a holiday, Flash. There's no reason that I should either."

Once again, Wally knew he could have formed quite an argument in response to the detective's words. Lord knows the time that he had spent worrying about Dick during the Christmas holidays, the sparsely divided hours wondering just how his best friend could even survive spending the holidays alone in a place like this, gave him more than enough ammunition. However, The Flash let the opportunity to raise a ruckus slide past him once again as he chose to employ another safer route.

"Well, I'm going to take her upstairs. I don't want her to get in your way or anything."

Wally had spent a lot of time focusing on the little moments of time, those split seconds where you could read almost everything about how to win a fight or what made a person tick. Tragically, that left him perfectly equipped to catch the phenomenally sudden flicker of sadness that passed through Bruce's normally ironclad countenance. That little moment, when combined with the feeling that rumbled through his gut as he turned to see his daughter's eyes widening to doe-like proportions with childlike sadness, left him with a hint of nausea that had nothing to do with the fourteen mini-pancakes he had gunned down at the breakfast table six hours before.

"She isn't causing any problems, Flash," Bruce reasoned with as much sternness that could be realistically applied to such a situation. "You're welcome to keep her here if there's something you need to do."

The Flash felt as if he would have to press his hands down onto his forehead to keep his eyebrows from rising upward that time. I'm welcome to keep her down here?! the concerned father spat out to himself, the gall of the glowering man in front of him forcing Wally to turn away. Of course, that only forced him to weather the spark in his little girl's green eyes, a flicker of excitement doubtlessly caused by hearing what the cranky, sarcastic, insensitive, annoyingly guileless, unsympathetic, ill-tempered, anti-social, backbiting know-it-all had suggested. Once again, the young father hardly needed to be a master detective to realize that his daughter was hoping that her father would go through with such a ridiculous suggestion.

"Well, she can stay down here if she wants to."

The excited cheer that rose from his daughter's lips told Wally more than he needed to hear. Finding that he had to practically push in his lungs in order to mute the deep sigh that slipped from his lips, he slowly made his way up the stone staircase.

The Batman made certain to wait for the sound of the grandfather clock sliding back to its normal spot before turning his eyes away from The Black Dog's latest log entry. As he absorbed what little information that he hadn't already taken in from what was on the screen, the dark detective could feel a pair of eyes watching him intently. Swerving his chair to his right, he quickly stared back at little Iris and watched her in return, the two of them sharing an almost conspiratorial look.

Iris, of course, was the first to break it.

"TRACK TREE!" she shrilled happily while continuing to hop in her chair. "TRACK TREE!!"

Bruce Wayne found he had to work very hard to keep himself from laughing as he shook his head to and fro. Quick to give in to the pressure, he pressed an increasingly familiar button on his console.

"Computer," he growled. "Bells of Dublin. Track three."

The Batman quickly turned back towards his work. The squeaking sounds of Iris's computer chair was nothing more but a slight distraction as the pleasant sounds of Matt Malloy's tin whistle and Paddy Maloney's Uilleann pipes wafted through the gloomy cavern. Then, approximately forty seconds in, the voice of Elvis Costello joined the well-crafted melody, the veteran songwriter's stylings quickly followed by Iris's poor attempt to sing along.

"I knew of two sisters whose name it was Christmas, and one was named Dawn, of course, and the other was named Eve."

As he tapped his fingers to the beat, Bruce tried not to think about how, as he listened to St. Stephen's Day Murders for the twelfth time in the last hour, that the half-smirk that had been on his face could have possibly turned into a genuine smile.

Misfits Confidential

Yes, I know that this story is sickeningly sweet. Still, I think we could all do with a little bit of harmless happiness right about now. That's what the holiday's about for most of us, right? Still, if you're looking for the emotionally complicated, action-packed stuff that you usually see in the main series, then you're probably barking up the wrong tree. These stories are basically going to be about just what makes us Christmas for a lot of us and, in this case, I mixed in a tribute to my love for two of my favorite comic book heroes, my favorite Christmas album, and a child's desire to listen to the same song over and over and over and over again.

Please feel free to review. I could do with some feedback under my Christmas tree.

Chapter Two Preview

Tomorrow comes a trip to Rockefeller Center as the spotlight shines on The Black Dog and The Last Daughter of Krypton. Tune in as the young couple share their own Christmas memories in the next installment of The Twelve Days of Misfits: Compensating Holiday Wishes. Until then, remember to say what you think and write what you feel!