Trick or Treat
On Halloween and Lizzie and Grayson were ecstatic.
Lizzie was excited because she got to dress up and wear more make up than she had ever been allowed to before, and Grayson was excited by the amount of candy he would be receiving.
Several weeks before, everyone had went shopping for costumes, even taking Missy, who's mom had (unsurprisingly) made some lame excuse about why she couldn't help her daughter try on costumes, instead simply sending Missy with her platinum credit card.
The empty-storefront-turned-Halloween-warehouse was chaos. Danny and Sam shared a look as they were both pulled across the store in opposite directions: Danny with Grayson to the boy's clothes area, and Sam with Lizzie and Missy to the girls clothes area.
Within a few seconds, Lizzie had filled her arms with costumes she wanted to try on.
Of course, being who she was and, being the daughter of Danny and Sam, she didn't pick the Disney Princess costumes or the butterfly costumes. Instead, Sam noticed that the costume bags stacked in her arms consisted of Bat Girl, The Queen of Hearts, a Samurai warrior, The Joker, a fallen angel, a zombie, the "Bad Spirit" cheerleader, and Sally from The Nightmare before Christmas.
Sam shook her head, an amused smile playing on her lips. Of course her daughter would choose those costumes. With a bright smile lighting up her face, Lizzie bounced to the dressing rooms.
Missy, on the other hand, seemed to be having a difficult time deciding.
"What are you thinking, Missy," Sam asked the quiet, shy, girl who was so unlike her mother. In fact, since they had first started school together, two years before, Lizzie and Missy had been inseparable, and Sam had been around more, and more of a mother to Missy than Paulina would ever be.
Sure, Paulina was always there to give her daughter the best clothes, and occasionally pose with her in a picture before handing her back over to the maid, but as far as advice and mothering went, raising Missy was usually left up to Sam and her nanny.
Missy shrugged, still a girl of few words.
Sam glanced down at the four costumes in her arms: a princess (which, she had been for the past four years at Paulina's insistence), a pirate girl, a "sassy cat," and (and Sam nearly laughed out loud at this one): Luna Phantom.
It was true that her family had become popular icons, and she knew that there would be costumes (she and Danny had already explicitly informed their children that no, they could not be themselves for Halloween). On the costume bag was a girl, one of the same stock-photo girls that was on many of the other costumes, dressed in an outfit very similar to her daughters (although, nowhere near as detailed) with a white wig.
"Which one do you want to go as?" Sam asked the girl.
Missy shrugged, always making Sam's job harder than it needed to be. Sam pulled the bags out of Missy's arms.
"Do you really want to be a princess again?" she asked the girl.
"My mom wants me to be," Missy replied quietly.
"Well," Sam smirked, "Your mom isn't here."
At this, Missy brightened a little, realizing that Sam had just informed her that she did not, in fact, have to be a princess again.
"So, that just leaves three," Sam told her, "I really like the pirate girl, but, how about you go try these three on, and Lizzie and I will help you decide."
Missy nodded, heading to the dressing room.
By this time, Lizzie was almost already done making her decision, having gone through all the costumes in a matter of minutes with the aid of her ghost powers.
"Which one do you like, Liz?" Sam asked her daughter, sitting on the bench in front of the changing room.
"I like either the zombie or The Joker," she decided.
"Okay, try them both on, I'll help you decide," Sam told her. Sam knew, that the main reason her daughter had picked both of those costumes was because, in both scenarios, her face would get to be almost completely painted.
First, Lizzie stepped out of the makeshift dressing room in the zombie outfit.
The outfit was, well something you might expect from a zombie, torn, tattered, stained with fake blood, but still, it seemed ordinary.
"Try on the joker one," Sam told her daughter who turned around disappearing behind the curtain.
A few seconds later, she stepped back out, adorning a joker costume, compete with purple long-sleeves shirt, a green vest, and a purple blazer overtop. But, instead of the matching purple pants, the bottom was a green and purple tutu.
"I like that one," Sam grinned at her, "And now I can paint scars on your face."
At this, Lizzie smirked in devious satisfaction.
"Hey Missy," Sam called to her, "You should go as Harley Quinn then you guys can coordinate."
Sam hadn't actually intended for the girl to take her advice, but, Missy asked her to bring her the Harley Quinn costume to try on, and, evaluating the opinions of both Sam and Lizzie on her costume choices (the Luna Phantom choice immediately ruled out by both mother and daughter), Missy actually did decide on the Harley Quinn costume, which, had looked the best on her, besides, her blonde hair matched the character.
After the additional decision on a green wig for her own daughter, and the makeup she would inevitable be using on both girls the night of, the three went to the checkout line.
Danny and Grayson were already in line.
And what costume had Grayson chosen?
Ironically enough: Batman.
Sam smiled to herself, the costume choices could not have been any better if she had planned it herself.
Well, the pictures during trick or treating would be great, this year.
Sure enough, on Halloween night, Missy was dropped off at the Fenton household.
Apparently, her mom had put up a little bit of a fight about her costume because apparently "hanging out with that Goth loser and her family was beginning to rub off on her perfect daughter." Paulina hadn't expressly told this to her daughter, but the subliminal suggestion was there, Sam had no doubt. Of course, she no longer understood what Paulina held against her, they weren't in high school anymore, they were mothers and accordingly they should be mature adults. Plus, Sam wasn't even Goth anymore.
Of course, Missy had shown up, fully dressed in the alternating red and black costume, that ended in a skirt much like her own daughter's costume including the black mask, but no makeup, except for an ungodly amount of glitter had been put on Missy's face.
"Time for the paint," Sam announced and both of the girls became excited, gathering in her master bathroom.
Missy was barely allowed in her mother's room, and usually it was only if her mother wanted something, so being allowed to sit on the edge of the bathtub while Lizzie's mom helped them with makeup, was a treat for her.
Missy had her whole face painted white, her lips lined in black, and then, filled in with dark red lipstick. When she was done, she looked at herself in the mirror and was surprised to see that she actually looked like Harley Quinn, or at least what she had seen of her from watching reruns of Batman cartoons with Grayson and Lizzie. Batman, or anything else that would be considered "a boy thing" was not allowed in her house.
Lizzie's makeup took a little longer because the scars were difficult to get right. Sam, being the artist she was, put far greater detail into her daughter's makeup than she probably should have, but, the end result was worth it, the scars almost looked real.
When they were done, Sam and the two girls made their way back into the living room where Danny and Grayson were waiting. Sam laughed when she saw that Danny was dressed up too, he was wearing a Robin costume.
"Danny, what are you doing?" she struggled to contain her laughter at the fact that nearly everyone in this room as Batman themed, at the fact that that would make Danny their son's sidekick, and at the fact Danny looked ridiculous.
Danny shrugged, walking over to her, "I got you a costume too," he grinned.
Sam gave him a "you have got to be kidding me look."
"No," he said, "I'm serious it's in the closet, go try it on, please?"
"I better not look to ridiculous," Sam warned him, walking back into the master bedroom with a sigh, before laughing as she opened the closet.
Poison Ivy.
She rolled her eyes, putting on the green costume and the red wig and walking back out.
"There, now all the girls are the villains and us guys are the heroes," Danny said smugly.
"Fine," Sam sighed, "Let's just get some pictures, okay?"
She took plenty pictures of the kids getting ready to go trick or treating, and, even, eventually, surrendered to a few pictures of all of them together.
"Come on, let's go," Grayson whined (although he whined in a slightly deeper voice, trying to portray Batman).
"Okay, okay," Sam agreed and the three kids ran off ahead of Danny and Sam, running up to the neighbors' front porches saying "Trick or Treat" and having candy deposited in their pillow cases.
"You know," Danny breathed in Sam's ear, "I think Robin and Poison Ivy were a pairing at one point."
Sam arched an eyebrow at Danny.
"We'll see, Boy Wonder," she whispered back, winking at him, before walking passed him, catching up to the kids who had moved farther down the block.