Hopefully there aren't too many typos. I don't have time to edit right now, and the chapter isn't pulling up for me anyway. I'll be back tonight to run over it and fix any problems. I hope you enjoy it in the meantime anyway! :D Happy Reading!

Warning: There might be a word or two . . .

"Maybe they won't notice . . ."

Dick's mouth tightened as he gently rubbed a little of Alfred's bruising crème on her cheekbone. She knew she was full of it, even as she said it. While she might . . . might get by with pulling her hair forward, there was no not noticing Dick's broken nose. It was crooked; and swollen; and black, blue, and red with the bruising extending outward underneath both eyes; giving him the appearance of a raccoon. It would have been kind of cute if it hadn't looked so painful.

Knowing that it hurt made Elle wish she had done more damage to Jason than she had. Which, in truth, had been close to nothing. Jason had admitted to only a little bit of ringing in his ear. She decided that she must not have done it correctly.

Elle sighed. She was going to have to take her training more seriously if ever she hoped to help Dick in another situation like this.

Oh, Lord, what am I thinking? She had no business trying to help Dick in situations like this. Just look what a fiasco this night had turned out to be!

Dick pulled back at her wincing, believing he had hurt her, but really it was only her own thoughts that had her grimacing.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

"You didn't hurt me," Elle tried to reassure him. He didn't look like he believed her though.

"Oh, they're so going to notice," he muttered under his breath.

Elle made a sympathetic face as she cupped his jaw. "Are you okay? That looks like it hurts . . . a LOT." She decided not to mention the faint whistling noise he made when he breathed.

"I've had worse," he scoffed.

Elle looked horrified. "You have?"

"This is the third time my nose has been broken," he told her. His nasally tone made it sound as if he had a bad cold. Dick touched the side of it ruefully. "But this is the first time it's going to have to be straightened."

"Oh . . . Well, shit," Elle whispered at that ugly thought.

Dick laughed, and then groaned. "Stop! Don't make me laugh," he complained, grinning.

"I wasn't trying to," she huffed, sadly. "I just feel so bad for you."

"Not for yourself, though?" Dick pushed back her hair again to eye the damage she had taken.

They had determined that it hadn't been the table that had been the culprit; Elle's elbow and hip and taken the brunt of that impact. It had been the chair that had struck her face when it had fallen on her that had caused Elle's injury. The heavy metal frame that made up the chair support had hit her with enough force to cause her to black out momentarily.

She shrugged. "I'll probably feel it more tomorrow," she admitted, touching the swollen area lightly with her fingers. "I've had worse myself. This is nothing."

Dick's entire demeanor changed with her confession. His face darkened, and despite his comically-misshapen nose, he suddenly appeared dangerous.

"Did your brother . . ." he snarled.

"No! No," she interrupted that line of thought quickly. "I was talking about the accident."

Dick face morphed into an expression of sympathy. Elle only felt a little twinge of guilt at the lie.

Yes, the accident had been much worse, but she had been referring to numerous altercations she had had with Aiden throughout the years. But Dick didn't need to know about that. The tension between her brother and Dick was already volatile enough the way it was, what with Aiden's unsubtle threats hovering in the air.

Elle had a pretty good idea of what her brother was capable of, and she didn't want Dick to go after him and draw Aiden's wrath onto himself. Sure, her bondmate was Nightwing, but Aiden had so many ways in which he could draw blood; not all of them were in the literal sense. She worried that Aiden would pull some strings and get Dick fired or worse, framed as a dirty cop.

No, she decided. It was better if she handled Aiden.

Oddly enough, her father's bequest to her had given her the leverage to do just that. It was a realization she had only just discovered in one of her meetings with her lawyers. Elle was no longer going to fight having the company thrust upon her. She could hire someone to handle the day-to-day business of it, but in the meantime, it gave her the equal footing she needed to take on Aiden one-on-one.

She had yet to tell Dick about all of her plans, but wouldn't he be surprised to learn that she had already updated her will in such a way that would keep the company forever out of Aiden's hands. But this was Christmas! Not the time to bring all that up. Sitting in the car in the crappy part of town wasn't the place for it either.

Uncomfortable with where their conversation was heading, Elle changed the subject.

"Shouldn't we get back? We are already more than an hour late," she remarked.

"Ugh! Don't remind me. Alfred's going to have my head," Dick groaned. He tugged out his Bluetooth and tucked it in his ear. "I better give them a call."

"Don't worry about Alfred. I doubt he would want your head tonight," Elle smirked. "It's not as pretty as it usually is."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me that I'm ugly now?"

Elle laughed and leaned over to kiss his cheek; careful to avoid his currently oversized schnoz. "You will always be beautiful to me," she assured him sincerely.

"Beautiful . . ." he sighed dramatically; rolling his eyes as he cued in the number for the manor.

She laughed again as he put the car in gear and they pulled out onto the relatively empty streets. Most everyone was already somewhere on Christmas Eve.

Dinner was over by the time they arrived back at the manor. Dick and Elle had insisted that they not hold dinner for them. They made themselves plates of leftovers and joined everyone in the living room around the Christmas tree as soon as they got back.

"I told you Jason wouldn't come," Damian smirked, sending a conspiratorial look in Tim's direction.

"No one likes hearing 'I told you so,' Damian," Bruce admonished.

The boy didn't appear to be overly worried about it, however. Too pleased, Dick suspected, that Jason hadn't been with them when they arrived.

"He said he might show up tomorrow," Elle told him.

"Really?" Tim looked startled.

"He may change his mind, but Elle coaxed a maybe out of him," Dick announced.

"How did she do that? Beat him with your face," Damian snarked, looking pointedly at Dick's nose.

Alfred had been busy cleaning up the dinner dishes when they arrived, so Bruce had done the honors of snapping Dick's nose back into place as Dick sat on a barstool. He would have preferred Alfred to do it than Bruce, but admitted that it probably would have hurt the same amount no matter who had done the deed. Alfred would have at least made sympathy noises, though. Bruce . . . Eh, not so much.

"No, I kind of guilted him into it," Elle commented lightly.

"I don't understand," Bruce told her.

"Jason wouldn't have cared that he broke Dick's nose," Tim remarked. "Not enough that you could guilt him into doing anything he didn't want to do."

"Oh! Um . . . well, that is . . ." she sent a panicked look over Dick's way.

Dick sighed. "You might as well give it up. It's only a matter of time before they find out anyway. And it's better if it happens tonight rather than tomorrow if Jason decides to show up."

Elle's eyes widened as Dick tucked her hair behind her ear; revealing the ever-widening bruise. Although the swelling hadn't gotten any worse, the bruise now extended along her temple and cheekbone and into her hairline. It framed the corner of her eye in a way that would have been impossible to hide in brighter light. The fact that the living room was lit only by the light extending from the hallway and from the Christmas tree had left just enough shadows for her to effectively hide it until now.

"Elle was accidentally hit by a chair," Dick explained.

"What," Bruce gaped.

"It was an accident," he stressed again.

She had been successful so far in hiding her own injury by pulling her hair forward on that side, but then again, no one would have expected Jason taking out his anger on her, so no one had been looking.

"How can you hit someone with a chair by accident," Bruce growled. He stood up and moved to Elle's side to better inspect it.

"Not with a chair," Dick corrected. "By a chair."

"There's a difference?" Tim asked.

"It was all my fault," she admitted quickly; embarrassed.

"Your fault? I wasn't born yesterday, missy," Bruce snapped. He glanced at Dick. "The truth, now!"

Elle 'eeped' a little as Bruce's temper flared unexpectedly. She glanced hurriedly at Dick with wide eyes.

"When Jason punched me in the nose, Elle jumped on his back," he explained calmly. One would never have guessed from his present demeanor exactly how upset he had been at the time. He wanted to defuse the sudden tension in the room.

"Jason hadn't realized that Elle was with me because I had asked her to wait in the hall. We got into it when he had mistakenly taken exception to something I had said. When Elle jumped on him from behind in the heat of things, Jason had assumed that she was Tim. So, he threw her over his shoulder and across the kitchen table," he told them, uneasily.

No one said anything; apparently finding it totally reasonable for Jason to take offense and go rabid. Dick hadn't found it out of character either, actually. It had been the basis for his earlier argument that Elle stay behind.

Bruce tsked, as he moved back to his chair. "Better have Alfred take a look at that."

"You really jumped on his back," Damian asked her, impressed.

"Not my best idea," Elle admitted. "And when I slid off of the other side, the table and chair fell with me, and the chair hit me in the face." Elle admitted.

"And you," Bruce pointed a finger at Elle. "You will need to step up your training if you keep inserting yourself into volatile situations."

Dick objected. "She's not going to do this again."

Bruce leveled a look at him. "Really? She's already done this twice now. How do you propose to stop her?"

"I won't do it again," Elle promised.

Bruce hummed, but didn't look as if he believed her. Tim, however, was staring at her; his face pale. Dick knew that he was obviously thinking what might have happened had he gone to Jason's with Dick instead of Elle. What might happen still if Jason decided to show up the next day.

"You should have ice on this," Bruce was grumbling. "Damian . . ."

"Going, Father," Damian jumped up.

Dick was certain the boy was anxious to share the news with Alfred; undoubtedly to place his spin on it in order to influence the butler's objectivity in what the boy would deem the 'proper' direction. Luckily, Alfred, although bound to be concerned, would take the news with a grain of salt when he considered the source of the information. He would wait to make judgment until he had confirmed all his facts.

They needed to smooth things over before tomorrow. If the family laid into Jason because of Elle's injury, they would never get him to come back again.

"So," Elle began, smiling brightly. "What kind of traditions to you have at Wayne Manor?"

Everyone stared at her.

"Traditions," Tim asked. "What do you mean?"

Her smile dimmed somewhat as she looked around at the blank faces. Even Dick was staring at her curiously.

"What do you do on Christmas Eve each year?" Why was this so difficult for them to understand?

Bruce pursed his lips but said nothing. Damian ran back in with an ice pack which he thrust into Elle's hands.

"What'd I miss? Are we going over to Todd's and kicking his . . ." Damian glanced over his shoulder to find that Alfred had followed him back. "um . . . butt," he finished lamely; cringing somewhat at the raised eyebrow of the formidable butler.

"No one's kicking anyone's butt tonight," Bruce told him.

"Elle was asking about our Christmas Eve traditions," Tim supplied helpfully.

"Huh," Damian grunted. "We had dinner together . . . Or we would have if you two had made it back in time instead getting pummeled by Todd. Really, Grayson, I can't believe you allowed him to punch you in the face." He shook his head, obviously disappointed.

"It wasn't exactly intentional, Dami," Dick told him.

Elle raised an embarrassed hand. "Um, that was kind of my fault, too. I distracted Dick when I showed up in the doorway unexpectedly. I was supposed to wait and I didn't. Although, in my defense, it was hard to ignore the sounds of breaking furniture. Still . . . I'm sorry," she leaned over to give Dick a kiss on the jaw at the end of her admission.

"I already forgave you," Dick smiled and took her hand. He leaned over and gave her a proper kiss.

They suddenly remembered where they were when Damian began making gagging noises. They parted, blushing.

"Sorry," Elle murmured.

She blushed deeper when she saw everyone staring with different expressions ranging from Bruce's amused tolerance, Tim's disgruntlement, Damian's disgust, and Alfred's usual British stoicism . . . Or perhaps that was the Brit's look of approval. It was really difficult to tell with the Englishman.

"If it doesn't disturb you, Miss Arabella, I would like to see the extent of your injury," Alfred said after clearing his throat discreetly.

Elle blinked up at him. "Oh, o-okay," she stammered. People were really making a big fuss over something that would likely be gone by morning. "Might as well. Everyone else seems to have taken a turn."

"Alfred is an experienced field medic," Bruce told her.

Oh, well, that made sense. Batman probably needed someone to look after his injuries after a rough patrol. She tilted her face to give the gentleman's gentleman the best view. Everyone was silent as Alfred gently prodded the swelling and critiqued her bruises. She had noticed bruises on her elbow and hip from where she hit the table while in the bathroom when they had first arrived, but Elle had no intention of showing those off to anyone. They would go away as quickly as the one on her face, after all.

Alfred rose up after his inspection. "It doesn't appear to be serious. Application of an ice pack and some of my bruising crème should be all you need," he announced to the room in general.

Elle bit her lip to keep in her amusement. Everyone present seemed to take this very seriously. They probably wouldn't share her flippant attitude, but neither did they share her speedy healing abilities. She obediently applied the ice pack to her cheek as Dick assured the butler that he had already administered the crème as directed.

"Now," she said, in order to get things back on track. "About these traditions . . . Or lack thereof."

Bruce rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, much as Dick sometimes did. So that was where he had picked up, she thought amused.

"Well, I think Damian covered it rather well, although there have been a few years that we attended Christmas Eve parties," Bruce was saying.

Elle looked a little surprised. "Dinner together is your only tradition?" She sighed, slumping. "Terrific. And I managed to screw that up for you."

"Don't feel too bad," Tim rushed to reassure her. "It isn't like we've haven't had numerous dinners interrupted before."

Slapping her legs, she came to a decision. "Well, I think it's time you adopted another tradition or two this year," she declared.

Everyone looked at Dick, and he laughed, holding up his hands helplessly. "Don't look at me," he said. "I have no idea what she's thinking!"

"We can do some of the things we do when I spend Christmas with my grandparents." Elle stood up. "My nonno's family often come over on Christmas Eve and we have an evening of music and games."

There was an exchange of uncomfortable glances, before Dick asked her what everyone was thinking. "What kind of music and games?"

Luckily, having his nose straightened and his own ice pack supplied, Dick's voice was back to it's normal wonderful baritone. He'd need it for what she had planned.

Elle laughed at him. "Christmas music, of course, silly. But we can do other types of music, too, if you prefer. Now, hang on," she told the others. She grabbed Dick's arm and pulled him up. "I'm going to need you, though. Come with me."

They watched the two of them run out of the room.

"Well, that seems kind of ominous," Tim murmured.

"Nonsense, Master Timothy," Alfred told him. "It has been far too long since music has been an integral part of this house."

"I don't get it," Damian frowned. "What is she talking about?"

Tim supplied the information. "I think Elle wants to sing Christmas carols."

"Who's Carole," he asked.

Bruce chuckled. "Carols are songs, Damian. Elle plans to sing Christmas carols for us."

Dick and Elle rushed back into the room at that point as Alfred excused himself to get a tray of beverages.

"Actually, I was thinking we could all sing Christmas carols," Elle announced suddenly. "I already know Dick can sing."

She was carrying a mike and a long cord in one hand and in the other she held a guitar. Dick followed her in carrying a large piece of electronic equipment. Tim jumped up to help make room for it, moving a potted poinsettia from a side table onto the floor.

"I think we might need an extension cord," Dick told him, and Tim rushed out of the room to retrieve the necessary item.

Elle set the guitar down by her seat in the love seat. She handed Dick the mike and its cord for him to attach.

"I want to grab a couple more things," Elle said. "Damian, you can help me this time."

"What is that," Bruce asked leaning forward. "A speaker of some sort?"

Dick grinned. "It's a karaoke machine," he told him. "Elle brought it with us. It plays music so you can sing with it. It also puts up the words of the song on this screen so you can follow along."

"So, she's serious about this," Bruce murmured.

"What's the matter, Bruce? I've seen you face off with the Joker with less trepidation," Dick laughed.

"Have you never heard me sing?" he asked.

Dick paused, thinking. "Actually, I think I have. But it was so long ago that I don't remember if it was real or a dream."

"Was it good singing or bad singing?"

He smiled. "It wasn't that bad," he said.

"Hmph," Bruce grunted. "Then it was probably a dream."

Dick was laughing when Tim rushed back in with the extension cord. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," he told him. "I'm just thinking that tonight will be the most interesting Christmas that I can remember having here."

"It should be," Elle said as she and Damian came back in carrying a small electric piano and . . .

Bruce squinted. Were those maracas? He tugged at his collar as he glanced at the fireplace. Was it getting too hot in here?

REACTIONS?

I would love to be a fly on the wall on this particular night.