Title: Pregnancy Meme.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or Return of the Joker or (sob) Ghoul and Melanie.
Summary: Choose a pairing, get them pregnant, and write a drabble for each suggestion given.
Warnings: Odd pairing and immeasurable amounts of fluff.
Technically, the only characters I own are the kids, but that's it. And please don't mock too badly. I hate using OC's, so this will already be bad enough without mentioning it.
Introduce the couple:
Ghoul of the Jokerz top gang and Melanie Walker of the Royal Flush Gang.
How does mommy tell daddy she's up the spout?:
Ghoul gently held Melanie's hands as the tiny, petite blond shook on her seat on the couch, tears pouring down her cheeks as if in shame. She wasn't sobbing yet, but he feared that if he didn't say something soon she just might. Thus, he scooted closer to her so his side was touching hers' and his long arms circled around her entirely, his own long blond hair slithering past her shoulders and seeming to calm her.
"Sshh, sshh," Ghoul soothed, rubbing her hands with his fingers, "It's okay. We'll figure this out, together."
How did this blessed miracle come to pass?:
Her apartment door swung open just enough for the blond hacker to look inside and notice the beautiful red carpet and smell the scent of melon scented incense, before Melanie turned back to look at Ghoul and slid her key back into her purse. Her eyes seemed to be searching from something for a moment, before she rose up on the balls of her feet and drew him into a really deep kiss. It was intense and she pulled him inside, lips still attached to his.
Ghoul, blinking, shut the door with his foot, the sound of it shutting like a small bang, and assisted Melanie in removing his shirt as they made their way to her soft, sweet smelling and just plain useful bedroom with the queen sized bed with the turned down covers and tiny stuffed white teddy bears.
Is there conflict with keeping the baby, or is the choice to keep it mutual?:
"Really?" Melanie squeaked, shaking almost even more than when she had first told the rather emaciated looking man about their predicament, only for now at least, it was good shaking. Like a happy little Chihuahua.
"Really, really," Ghoul smiled, leaning in and giving the Walker girl a peck on the lips, "I always wanted kids when I met the right girl. Doesn't matter if they came sooner than I had planned."
If there is conflict, does it get resolved? If it's mutual choice, what are they going to do for a baby room?:
Ghoul felt the back of his eyes start to burn as he turned in a small circle, looking over the designs of the baby room Melanie had finally finished putting up.
The entire room had been painted a lovely pond green color, with little imprints of deep blue lily pads on the ceiling. A little black wood crib stood in the center of the room (not too close to the lace curtained window) surrounded by about two-dozen fluffy stuffed beige rabbits and maybe five sandy brown smooth stitched hares.
Weird, Melanie and Ghoul still didn't know what the sex of the baby was and the woman had decked the place out in colors more suited towards boys. He had always thought that yellow was the gender neutral color for babies. Leave it to Melanie to disregard that general train of thought.
Labor is in progress, where are the parents during the time?:
"I'd love to stay and chat some more," Melanie cringed, grasping Ghoul's hand like a vice as she stood up from the diner table they had been sharing with Jack and Woof, their hands interlocked under the table top, "But me and Ghoul have to go to the hospital now. My water just broke and—"
Here Melanie stilled her speech so she could give a sharp intake of air, wait out the contractions throbbing through her and give Ghoul a hard, sharp, bone crushing squeeze. This caused Ghoul to tense up as agony erupted up his arm and Woof and Jack looked first totally freaked out and then get up out of their seats to give them a ride.
Baby is just one hour old. Is it boy or girl and what's their name?:
Ghoul still couldn't quite believe the feelings coursing through him as Mel handed their daughter to him. She was exhausted after so many hours in labor, but she stayed perfectly alert as her husband held the calm child like a precious, very fragile object. His big hand rubbed her cheek as he brought her up to his chest and he smiled back at Melanie.
"So, what are we gonna call her? I believe you had it singled down to one choice, but you still haven't told me yet."
Melanie's blue eyes lit up along with a small smile upon her lips, "I hope you don't mind if we call her Selina Walker?"
Ghoul's own face went blank for a second, taking the suggestion in and finally, he grinned back at his lady, nuzzling their daughter on the forehead with his nose, "I suppose it's good that she's named after someone that even the Justice League could respect. It's much better than Stewart Carter Winthorp the Fourth, for sure."
The child is five, which parent do they look more like?:
Dark blues eyes stared up sadly at Melanie, ashen blonde hair tied up in a little bun. Selina was getting her yearly flu shot and she was trying not to cry in her daddy's lap. Really, though, Ghoul looked far more nervous than the girl, constantly eyeing the door that the doctor or nurse would come out of to ask them in.
"Do I really have to do this, Mommy?"
"I'm sorry sweetie," Melanie cooed, patting her daughter's blond hair—so similar to her own—as she smiled exasperatedly at Ghoul as he seemed to tighten his grip on the waiting room chair's arms, knuckles already white, "But after this, I promise we'll get ice cream, okay?"
The parents go to the playground and their kid introduces their best friend(s) and their parents:
"Selina? Selina, where did you run off to now?"
Ghoul was close to panicking, eyes going over the playground and the dozens of other little ones sprinting, running around and just generally acting like kids. Melanie had stayed at their picnic table, reading another retro pad she'd bought earlier that week. He wouldn't call her just yet, but he would if he couldn't find his little angel-
"Are you Mr. Walker?"
Startled more than he cared to admit, Ghoul looked down beside his leg to find a little boy, no older than Selina staring up at him with blue eyes, his ruffled black hair flipping back as he tilted his head to look up at the tall man.
"…Yes?" Ghoul answered, brow arching as he bent a little so the boy didn't break his neck talking to him.
"Good," the boy smiled, grabbing the man's hand and leading him over the slight hill bordering the playground, "Selina twisted her ankle playing tag with us and we weren't sure if we should move her. So, I came looking for you."
Sliding on his heels down the hill, Ghoul was relieved to see his little girl huddled up beside an oak with a few other children, safe and sound aside from what looked like a scraped knee and dried tear tracks running down her cheeks. He walked quickly over and smiled at her call to him as he bent down to pick her up, all the time looking over the huddle of same-aged, slightly familiar looking kids.
"Daddy, don't get mad," Selina begged, leaning into her dad as he picked her up and looked over her knee and ankle, "We just wanted more room to run and Bruce and Warren promised we wouldn't go any further than the trees and we didn't, but when I was trying to tag John and Iris, I tripped on a rock and then Irene said not to move because my foot could be broken and—"
As his daughter continued to babble, Ghoul looked from her slightly reddening ankle and over at the other kids, watching him look Selina over. There was a pair of little blond twin girls with bright blue eyes that looked very similar to another set of twins Ghoul had met before, a pair of twin boys with jet black hair and dark blue eyes standing almost right next to him and making sure Selina didn't cry and one more boy that was maybe a year older than the others, taller than the others even, with a slight exotic look, standing just next to the twin girls.
"Thank you for coming to get me," Ghoul smirked, looking at the boy who had been standing closest to him and come to get him earlier, "It's not broken, but it could have gotten worse if she had moved up that hill. That was very clever."
The twin that had come to get him shrugged bashfully, "It was Warren and John's idea. I just went up because she was still crying and they wanted to make sure she was okay. The twins just didn't know which way to go."
"Did so!" The blond closest to who must have been Bruce piped up, looking indignant.
"Oh, than why didn't you come with me, Iris?" Bruce teased, folding his arms.
"She lost her shoes, B-man," the other blond girl spoke pointedly, holding up Selina's new shoes covered in (and here Ghoul groaned internally) a layer of mud and grass debris.
Well, if these were the kids Melanie mentioned that Selina played with, Ghoul finally understood why the ex-Royal Flush member felt so comfortable letting their daughter out of her sight for more than a few moments.
The kid is a teen and going on its first date ever. What's daddy or mommy feeling?:
Melanie handed Ghoul another steaming cup of hot coffee. Pitch black and Columbian, just the way he liked it. Though, admittedly, he was already tapping his foot on the floor like a rabbit and his fingers were pattering across the living room coffee table like a concert pianist, so caffeine was perhaps not the best thing to be giving him. However, seeing as it was brunch time and she herself had not had any coffee yet, that was all he was gonna get until he got up and stopped glaring at the front door.
"Honey, if you keep doing that, we're going to have to replace the floorboards."
"Sorry," Ghoul muttered, sipping from the cup given to him, not at all minding how the drink scalded his tongue.
"Ghoul, it's just Selina and Bruce going to brunch and then a movie. It's exactly like every other weekend they've spent together since they were ten."
"Yes, but it's different now," Ghoul pointed at nobody in particular, voice going higher in decibel than it really ever had before, "This is a date. They're going on a date. My baby's going on a date!"
Melanie rolled her big, marble blue eyes before taking his hand and giving it a little pinch. She had never thought that her boyfriend-turned-husband would be like this in his lifetime, or hers for that matter, but it was kind of cute. In an annoying, high strung, so like a man sort of way.
Mommy and daddy are told that their child is getting married. Are they happy or not?:
Jumping up and down like a crazy person, Melanie and Selina hugged and squealed and just sort of hugged at the same time, completely ignoring how the food in the oven seemed to bounce around because of the vibrations or how Ghoul was giving Bruce a sort of death glare from across the table.
Bruce, for his part, just kept his mouth shut while simultaneously keeping a nervous smile for Selina and Melanie's sake, hands clasped together. Ghoul smiled finally, though only at his daughter and only because she was a grown woman and it was her choice and she so obviously loved the man currently enduring his apparent fear of Selina's ex-gang member father that could probably kick his ass despite all of the lessons his own father had made him take with Warren. The lithe blonde man could respect a man who not only made his daughter happy, but had the smarts to be afraid of her father and give the girl a gorgeous, hard-earned engagement ring.
Still smiling (in an even more demonic way that Ghoul really hadn't worn since his days of black makeup) Ghoul held his hand out across the table in a sort of peace offering, causing Bruce to flinch just a little bit and just stare at the hand until he had the thought to grip it with his own and shake it tentatively.
"Congratulations. I'm sure you'll be very happy."
Daddy and mommy talk to their child's lover's parents after the wedding:
The ceremony was beautiful, all flowers and lights and peace and good friends (the bride's, groom's, and apparently some of their parents') and the happy couple saying 'I do' whole heartedly.
Now the partying was on, and everyone was dancing to some music that Selina had left in the charge of her maids of honor, Iris and Irene, featuring music from the 1900's that actually fit the mood. Something by an artist by the name Taylor Swift and under the title 'Today Was a Fairy Tale' that Selina and Bruce were spotlighting to, him spinning her every once and a while and making her laugh.
Sitting in the front with the groom's parents, Ghoul and Melanie held hands atop the table, talking about how their kids made such a great couple. Ghoul, personally, was still amazed that they could be friends when he clearly remembered shooting at Terry, pushing Dana off of a ledge and Melanie's one time dating of Terry. Really, really amazing.
"You two should be proud," Dana spoke up, smiling as she watched her other son Warren try and coax poor Irene onto the dance floor, giving the girl's aunt Deidre a grin from where she was seated with Rex and Merina across the floor, "You raised up quite the young woman. She has made Bruce so happy."
"And you two should be equally as proud," Melanie smiled back, "Your son has been perhaps the best thing in Selina's life."
"Go on," Terry laughed, almost sarcastically and Ghoul actually repeated the motion.
"Oh, come on," Melanie continued, listing things off on her fingers, "He was her first date, her first kiss, her first and-as far as we know-only boyfriend, her first roommate, her first—"
"Mel," Ghoul warned with a smile even as he and Terry simultaneously took a drink from their champagne, his grey hand squeezing her shoulder to stop that train before it got on.
"Well, you get the idea," the blonde woman finished, taking her own little sip of the pink alcohol as she heard Iris announce that it was time for the father/daughter dance.
"You're up, honey."
Ghoul nodded moving for the floor, though not before tossing back one more comment mostly directed toward Terry, "Make sure that they don't divulge too many embarrassing secrets while I'm gone."
"Don't need to worry about that."
One last drabble for mommy and daddy!:
The house was quiet for the first time in about twenty-something years and it made Melanie a little sad walking through the halls in the morning. Ghoul was waiting in the kitchen making eggs and bacon, the grease burning into the air and making it smell fabulous, and glanced up at his wife.
"So this must be what an empty nest feels like," she sighed, fiddling with the button-down shirt that belonged to Ghoul she liked to wear in the morning despite it dwarfing her tiny figure as the sleeves ran two inches passed her fingers and the bottom touched her knees. She often wondered how a man who weighed perhaps as much as she did could fit into a shirt that size.
"Hey, now don't start up on that," Ghoul grinned, spatula passing under the egg he was working on and setting it upon the bacon he had already made for his wife, big hand picking up the tobasco they both liked with their eggs and just sort of squirting it upon the yellow egg center, "At least now we could snuggle as much as we want in the morning."
"Ghoul!"
"What, it's true."