A new JayKris inspired by the song of the same name by Woodland and the ongoing "Meet the family" by Wolfyman on AO3. I got no energy to explain the gist of the story; just enjoy. :D My way of venting shit once again. Elements of the comics and animated movies are present.
I own the two female OCs only.
Sierra Harleen Todd didn't even know these people from her dad's so-called family, yet they showed up uninvited and unannounced just before Christmas.
Grandpa and Nana Pamela were gonna be here tomorrow, Uncle Roy and Aunt Kori with Lian in Star City, and would spend New Year's Eve with all of them as usual, but these people? She was ten years old and got suspicious because Mama and Daddy never even mentioned them before. Family told everything, right? And if not, there was always a reason.
She was just getting dressed - a dark pink sweater glittering with rhinestone snowflakes and jeans with the crystals on the pockets - when she heard the voices down the hallway. Didn't sound good, so part of her was scared. Quietly, she tiptoed down the hall and found herself behind the corner leading to the living room and kitchen. Dad was ticked off, and it was always scary even though he never targeted it towards her and Mom. He was like this when it involved people he didn't like.
"- show up after ten years because NOW you decide you give a shit? And around Christmas of all times?!"
"Little Wing -" There was another man's voice she didn't recognize only for her dad to shut him up.
"No, nah uh, you don't have the right to call me that. You decided that the moment you sided with his rich, sorry ass after the shit with Penguin," Jason Todd snapped, making Sierra frown. Who's this Penguin guy? Research time later.
Another man, older maybe, piped in. "You made that choice, Jason, when we had our agreement. You could work in Gotham as long as you didn't break the rules."
Mom's turn. "You got five seconds to get your asses out of our house." There was the click of a gun - her mom's issue, because Dad for some reason wasn't qualified, as far as she knew - as a warning. "We were planning to have a wonderful time like we always do, but it's like your trespassing asses to burst in like you own everything." No one replied to that, making Sierra think none of the uninvited guests would admit they were wrong.
"Now, Miss Kristine, there's no need for violence during the holiday," an old man who seemed to be the oldest, like Grandpa was in the family, hastily butted in. "We didn't come all the way out here for this. We merely wanted to resolve our differences, or at least begin to mend the fences."
Dad scoffed. "Rich coming from you, Alfred. Defending as always."
"Young man!" the old guy, Alfred, exclaimed in shock, sounding like he was gonna cry.
"Apologize to Pennyworth, Todd," another young guy snapped. If Sierra had to guess, he sounded like the youngest. "Unless your harlot is gonna defend you when you could just do it yourself." Okay, I hate him already, whoever he is. And how DARE he call my mom that! If she had the strength and was allowed to, she'd go in and punch his face in. Though Daddy said violence wasn't the answer to everything.
"Alright, enough, boys." There was a woman. The girl was glad there was at least a female in that group. Now Sierra couldn't take not seeing anyone's face anymore. She peeked around and held in her breath at the people who barged onto her family's property.
They all looked like they came from rich people area, but one face she recognized from magazines that her friends' parents collected: Bruce Wayne. Gotham's "prince" - there are no princes or royalty here in the United States - who had some streaks of gray in his well-groomed hair, his eyes light blue with darker areas. Unlike those pictures, he wasn't smiling at all. And though her dad's back faced Sierra's direction, she knew his eyes were matching the scary glare. And Mr. Wayne's expensive dark blue sweater and black pants were the opposite of Jason's maroon sweatshirt embroidered colorfully with Santa and his reindeer and sleigh. The only one out of the group in black, white, gray, and blue was the woman in a bright green sweater trimmed with big pearls, and yeah, the only female. The oldest guy looked like those stuffy-looking gentlemen in the movies she'd seen, all those lines giving away how ancient he was. The youngest jerk was darker-skinned, looking very much like Mr. Wayne, and he wasn't someone Sierra wanted to approach, ever. The last one looked like he was older than her papa, though good-looking like the movie stars, and his eyes were a brighter blue than Wayne's. Though that smile? Too sweet for her taste. Anyone who smiled like that would hide something.
"We didn't come out here to fight," the woman with short dark hair, very pretty, insisted, trying to be the voice of reason. "It's Christmas, after all, and your old man here actually thought it a good idea to finally welcome you back. Been going to therapy, isn't that great?" She beamed, flashing her perfect teeth behind dark red lips.
"Oh, therapy for Bruce Emotionally Constipated Wayne," Jason stated sarcastically, Kristine leaving his side to go right for the door which was closed. Outside, the snow had stopped falling since this morning. "Never thought I'd see the day. Hard to believe since the stalker antics haven't changed a bit."
"What are you talking about?" Mr. Wayne demanded.
"Exactly what my husband means, asshole," Kristine stated, getting all faces halfway to her. "He's done everything you never could do. How do we know you're just lying to get the security blanket off? You think you can come barging into our home we both built together rather than it being handed to us? Being more open, comfortable, and loving with our family than you guys ever are to each other? Don't give me the bullshit you've gotten better. If you have, then why the news that a certain bat is still running loose even after Gotham was bombed to the ground? You just want the 'defective' to run back like the bitch he isn't anymore so he can answer your beck and call. It's not gonna happen on my watch, and the so-called saint -" She glared at Alfred the elder, ignoring the shocked gasps. "- isn't gonna be the honeyed lure."
She opened the door hard and let the cold air rush in. "Now, get out or we will call the cops."
Bat...Gotham...Penguin...
Now I gotta look.
Later that night, Sierra researched with the keywords Gotham and Penguin, and the results came up in the form of these Internet headlines:
RESPECTED OSWALD COBBLEPOT SHOT IN THE EYE
RED HOOD PULLS TRIGGER ON LIVE TV
BATMAN BEATS NOTORIOUS RED-HOODED CRIMINAL TO PULP
All of that...she was going to be sick and cry. She wanted her parents to comfort her, but at the same time...she wished she'd never eavesdropped because she'd been told that was wrong and invaded privacy. Why was she so curious? Why couldn't she stay innocent?
She knew exactly what she heard, and it was as simple as that to put it together.
~o~
The entire day, Jason wanted to explode with a fierce frenzy. He would have if his wife and daughter hadn't been there to keep him calm and focused.
"How - DARE - they -!"
"Jason!" Kristine hissed once they were back in their bedroom at the end of the day. "What if Sierra hears you? What are you gonna tell her?"
He stopped his rant before he could lose it to the Pit again. Thank God she was there to keep him in check. His rage around those people knew no limits. "What gives them rights? Oh, no, scratch that. It's them and their stalking ways. They have the gall to crash us before Christmas and what?" He felt the panic start to seize his lungs. His little girl, their baby princess - what if they took her from them?! What if they forced themselves into her life and called themselves what they weren't? Bruce calling himself her grandpa, Selina her grandma, Alfred the great-grandpa, Dick and Damian the uncles...
They were none of those, not by rights or any means. Roy, Kori, Pamela, and Jonathan all deserved the titles.
Kris then stood up from the foot of the bed she'd sat on as soon as they were in their bedroom. She wrapped her arms around him, the supportive pillar she was, and pressed her chin gently into one of his shoulders. "Sshh, darling," she cooed. "If I see them again, just give me you know what and I'll do the rest for us."
And right on time: there was a tap on the window. Thankfully, Jason was prepared and reached behind himself for the little bit of power in his back pocket hidden beneath his sweater, passing it to his wife, and looking over her shoulder to glare at the silhouette of tinted blue against the darkness, ice glittering from the light in the bedroom. She stomped over there, unbolting the window, the figure unmoving as she'd hidden the weapon - maybe the idiot there, Bruce, Dick, or Damian - thought she was bluffing, but oh, they were in a hell of a surprise, and if their daughter overheard the shots, they'd tell her the half-truth of fending off an attempted intruder, which wasn't a first time. "Take this, shithead!" Kristine shouted, unlocking the safety and firing the shot right at the unwanted visitor, making Nightwing shout in dismay and pull back, ducking from the three shots before pulling himself back over the window's edge.
"Hey, hey, don't kill someone, Kris!" Dick shouted, in his Nightwing costume. "What are you thinking?!"
"Exactly what my husband and I promised," she snarled, keeping the pistol at him. "I don't consider any of you family and friends since you chose the monster's life over his." She smirked. "Speaking of which, he dead yet? I'll get the champagne if he is."
Dick sighed and scowled. "We talked about that earlier, and that's not why I'm here. Everyone's at the hotel, so I'm here alone." Idiots would do that, you dumbass. You know that as much as I do! "We just wanted to get to know Sierra."
~o~
She had a great childhood, though some parts weren't good because of the trouble she got in with friends, and she'd rather forget. But not bad compared to the crap she read online last night. Christmas Eve, and wowie, this was the first time she had bad feelings towards anything and anyone.
Oh, she also found some stuff out about those people from yesterday and had to do her best to not let Mom and Dad find out, or Grandpa. Wait, Grandpa... Maybe when she saw him and Nana, she could talk to him about it? They were coming later, after all.
Those people: Bruce Wayne. Selina Kyle-Wayne. Richard "Dick" Grayson. Damian Wayne. Alfred Pennyworth. She did some reading on them based on what she found online.
Bruce Wayne was the second-to-last member of the Wayne family, his parents who were Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Martha Wayne having been killed when he was almost her age - in front of them. In Crime Alley, which was also called Park Row. Didn't Dad say he'd been born in someplace like that? Anyhoo, Sierra learned Bruce Wayne was said to have never gone to therapy or anything that helped people get mostly past losing loved ones, otherwise that would also be published here. Then he was gone for some years as a young adult only to come back, and he really made interesting headlines in those days. Everything from hilarious yet harmless hijinks, multiple women he dated from the rich and famous to the poorest who got lucky for a night or two, earning him the name "Billionaire Playboy". Now those days seemed to be behind him.
Alfred Pennyworth, that really old guy, was the butler. He'd worked for Mr. Wayne's parents before taking on their orphaned son as his ward, raising him since and still by his side. She wanted to think of him as something along the lines of Grandpa Jonny, but based on what she saw yesterday, Sierra had second thoughts and it didn't feel right.
Dick Grayson was...from a different background than Wayne's, having come from a traveling circus known as Haly's. It had stopped one time in Gotham, and Bruce Wayne had been there in the crowd when one night, the best of the best known as the Flying Graysons were gonna give their best; they were a young married couple called John and Mary, their only child being eight-year-old Dick. He, too, saw his parents die in front of him, the tightrope having been cut before the performance, and they fell to their deaths. The boy was then taken out and placed in Wayne Manor as Wayne's ward until he was barely eighteen, having been in the spotlight and showing off a flashy smile at almost every one of Bruce's charity events.
Yeah, before she went on with Dick, she doubted there was much hard work put into "charities". Because if you funneled so much money into something, why wasn't there a real change? The politicians and rich people in charge always made excuses and said "it takes time". Her family taught her all of that, so she drew the connection here, too.
Back to the subject. Grayson had a personable personality which made people like him more than Bruce even, by the looks of it. Except he wasn't seen since leaving the manor, and only came back to Gotham from its sister city, Bludhaven, a few times a year, which a lot of people thought was because he grew up to be his own man and didn't have time to come home anymore.
There was another adoption right after Dick left, making Sierra feel cold, but she decided to come back to that after the others.
Years after the one on her mind, Wayne surprised the world with the announcement he had a son out of wedlock with another woman he had an affair with overseas, several years ago during one of his business trips, when Dick Grayson still lived with him. Damian Wayne was a "special case", the youngest one, but while the articles and conversations praised him for having his father's looks and his uncanny intelligence, wisdom beyond his years, and accelerated maturity which left many questioning, Sierra saw an entitled jerk who thought he could get everything his way and look down on people. He was the last one she wanted to talk to, slightly different from his father.
And finally, Selina Kyle. That one piqued her in a positive way, because she was still a kid and loved these things. Mom did, too, when she was her age.
Now things were getting cooler. There was a thief in Gotham called Catwoman, and her real name attached was one Selina Kyle. She'd been in trouble with the law a couple of times, started as a prostitute from a young age, and took up burglary to make ends meet, but had since slowed down and changed up a bit, settling down and marrying Bruce Wayne while also having her own art gallery. Their wedding day was a lavish fairytale affair. They pay more attention to the clothes, jewelry, and other materials than the deeds towards Gotham. This is why I prefer movie stars to the ones who are supposed to do what they always promise to do.
The pictures showed an overflowing of white roses, peonies, dogwood flowers, baby's breath from the ceiling to the banisters, staircase, and everywhere else that not a penny was spared. Crystals dripped like icicles, joined with white birdcages placed with battery-operated candles for safety reasons. This Sierra read with interest but wished it had been for someone else besides these two. The bride herself looked like a queen in an equally over-the-top gown, the corset and skirt touched with gentle vintage lace from the Victorian era, with the skirt sides cascading with folds of exquisite satin. Her hair was sleeked back and held by a crown of sculpted magnolia flowers, attached to a veil that went past the ballgown's skirt and glittered softly. The article detailed her jewelry, too: earrings of square mother-of-pearl posts dripping with free-formed Japanese Biwa pearls, and a bracelet alternating with black and white freshwater pearls.
But the centerpiece of it all was the pearl necklace which was said to be a replica of one owned by the late Martha Wayne.
Sierra got bored eventually and went right to the good parts, her love of fashion thanks to Mama. She was also bored due to the fact the charity talk consisted of the same old stuff: walking to a podium and announcing a butt load of cash thrown the people's way, but the crappy situations were always the same.
All she wanted to know about the reception dress was from the picture of the first dance, it being simple satin with pearls on the bodice of varying sizes. Yeah, that, and the engagement ring from the formal photos. It said the large emerald was from Africa - she couldn't pronounce the Z-name correctly - was centered within a frame of opalescent hues, fired up by the best gold found.
Some idiot had the nerve to include that Mr. Wayne unabashedly said the price had been eighty thousand at least. "Eighty thousand for a stupid jewelry piece," Sierra grumbled, shaking her head.
She got too carried away with the articles that she didn't even hear the knock or the door opening. "Peanut?"
"Dad!" Sierra jumped to her feet, scared out of her wits and worried she was now in trouble for eavesdropping on him, Dad, and those people. He looked over her shoulder, stiffening, and his expression hardening. Uh-oh.
"You overheard everything," Jason stated, coming in and sitting down on the foot of her bed, keeping his unreadable expression on the computer. "And you got any questions you want me to answer?"
"...I don't know what to ask, or how to ask, Daddy," Sierra whispered. "I just know family doesn't do this to each other, and you had good reasons, right?"
Jason lowered his eyes for a moment, a cloud coming over his face. "You're old enough to start knowing this stuff. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack. Your mom and I were just talking, but looks like tomorrow will have to work. We have something to ask you, too, because of those people."
~o~
Yeah, Kristine Todd was here with her daughter, away from home, and with her gun on her being. Licensed and in her purse because she was a legal citizen. She coldly scowled at the cult in front of them, safely next to her child, because whether Bruce liked it or not, he wasn't Sierra's grandfather, and no matter if he intended to lavishly indulge her with thousands of dollars worth of presents to "make up for lost time", that wouldn't win Sierra over.
Money never bought love.
They were in the biggest restaurant in this town - filled with the best of home-cooked, run by a family for generations - though it wasn't five-star as the Waynes were accustomed to, and Damian the little shit had to point it out. "Could have picked something more grandiose for this big gathering."
"Hey, these people work so hard here," Sierra growled. "But you never worked hard, have you?" He glared at her.
"You little -"
"Damian, that's not a nice way to talk to your niece," Dick told him sharply, then switched sweetly. "Sorry about him, princess."
She stiffened in her seat. "Don't call me that. You're not my uncles, and I don't know any of you. If you really were family, Mama and Daddy would have invited you before and also told me about you." She didn't even feel comfortable around them, and she was making it real clear. Kristine took in all of their reactions: Damian's nose wrinkled with dismay at being talked to. Dick's crestfallen face was a smack to his "family is important" ego. Selina was utterly heartbroken and secretly wishing she'd tried harder; that was enough for pity more than sympathy. Alfred couldn't bear looking anymore. Bruce, however...
"Sierra, I don't know what your parents told you, but we're not whatever you think we are."
"Strange adults say anything to make impressionable kids cooperate."
Alfred wetly chuckled. "Smart child," he told her. Sierra grinned at him before it was gone. "Miss Kristine, are you going to let her speak to her elders in this manner?"
"Jason and I have said enough," Kristine answered. "She knows her manners but also to say it like it is. She's a little badass at her age." The ten-year-old blushed and looked down at her lap.
"I knew you were raising her right," Selina told her admirably, scowling at her husband then. "I told you we should have just left them alone."
"You mean let them keep depriving me of the only grandbaby I have?" Bruce returned.
Sierra snorted. "You're not my grandfather. Mama, I want to go home now and back to Grandpa Jonny and the others." She stood up then just as Bruce reached for her.
"Sierra, your grandfather won't be alive much longer -"
Oh, Kristine's temper snapped, but before she could give him another piece of her mind, her little girl was there before her. "You got rights to us because you're rich? My grandpa may not have all that money, but he LOVES me and spoils me, and I also got Nana Pam. I also have Uncle Roy and Aunt Kori." She scowled then and the gobsmacked Dick and emotionless Damian. "Money is nothing compared to real love. You would just take everything away as soon as we tell you no to something."
Bruce could say nothing to that, just sat down and visibly swallowed, the hurt seen in his eyes. He then turned his face to the other side, away from everyone else. "...I'm sorry," he said after a long pause.
"Liar." Sierra narrowed her eyes, perceptive as ever. Kristine was proud of her for being so smart at her age. A genetic trait from her mother's side of the family.
Dick was choking, the tears showing on his cheeks. "So, you...you don't want to give us a chance?"
The little girl shook her head. "Because you all hurt my daddy, and family never hurts each other." She then turned her back. "Can we go home now, Mama?" Nothing would make me happier.
She had to wait in the car, and unsurprisingly, they were followed. "Get in, honey," Kristine ordered her daughter who got into the front seat and put on her belt, scowling out the window.
"Father is right, you know," Damian told her, the entitled shithead he still was.
"She's a human being, not a piece of property," Kristine snarled. "And as for the rest of you: Alfred, I really loved you once, because when I was a kid, you were the grandfather figure I never had, but you always take the asshole's side."
"Language in front of your child," Alfred scolded her despite his grief.
"Oh, no, you don't get to do that as if I were her age. I can say what I damned well want to in my damned hometown as well as my goddamned house if we were there. Selina, good luck being married to Mr. Emotionally Constipated. You think it'll result in him changing for the better? Think again. You might as well stay trapped in a golden cage if the money and jewels are all that you could want because his heart is closed away because he wants it that way. Dick...too bad you're blind to your own suffering that you are his perfect bitch.
"As for Gotham, it can rot in hell with the rest of your overworked selves. It's what you wanted and exactly what you get. Jason and I deserve better than what it took from us. He did the best he could getting the people from Crime Alley and the Narrows away safely, but you? Everyone saw how picky and choosy that was when you stuck to the other areas that are smaller in comparison." She smirked. Red Hood was still hailed even after he left, but the rest of the Bats were spat upon every time they were spotted.
"Come here again and I shoot all of you in the faces. Try to plant bugs and spyware, same thing. I'm Red Hood's wife and the daughter of the ex-Scarecrow, after all."
She was back in the car with Sierra and driving them like a bat out of hell away.
~o~
Everything with the Batfamily was an endless winter.
Christmas was always a formal event, never really a warm and loving family thing. Not since they lost Jason a decade ago.
They were back in the hotel room, numb and haunted by the cruel yet justified words from Kristine, and worse, Sierra. Who rejected all of them based on the words of her parents. But children who didn't live in their world would never know better. Bruce had kept tabs more than any of them realized - more than Jason and Kristine did, without them and their Outlaw friends knowing.
His heart broke with knowing Sierra wanted nothing to do with them. With any of them. And he'd wanted to welcome her and her parents back into Gotham, have a room for her and everything she could ask for, but she called him out for being a liar with promises of sweetness covering up something sinister. No different than when parents and teachers drilled the children into knowing the dangers of stranger danger. Because that was who he, Selina, Alfred, and the boys were to her: strangers.
Alfred stress-cooked for all of them, but even the fine goose wouldn't appease anyone's ruined appetites. Damian just continued scowling with his arms folded across his chest, Dick sniffling and pushing everything around with his utensils as if he were ten years old again, Selina choosing wine over the sumptuous meat, and Bruce let himself disappear into his own little world, trying once more to plan his way back into Jason's life again -
"I'm going to go back out again in the future, without any of you."
"What?" Bruce jerked his attention to the wife he loved so much that he finally settled down with her.
She coolly gazed at him. "Exactly what I said, Bruce. It won't be today or even by New Year's. We've done enough by barging into their holiday time uninvited. I told you this was a bad idea, but did you listen? No." She shook her head. "As soon as I met Sierra, I fell in love with her, but I stupidly let myself be on the sidelines. I didn't fight hard enough, and I deserved it. After the holidays are over, I'm gonna try again, but if none of you babies grow a pair, and if Jason and Kristine keep pushing you away, I'll happily leave everything in Gotham behind for this."
They had been together for years, she'd kept them glued together, but now she was planning to abandon them all for the simple life here. That would mean reminding Jason of the "toxicity" he left behind. He would have difficulty trusting Selina, but knowing her, she was more open to his methods in life than the rest of them. Without a word, Bruce just let her be.
Dick and Damian finally shared a look with her, both struggling to stick with him and also determined to join her, because Dick lost everything in Bludhaven and was stuck back in the city which took his parents from him. Damian had nowhere else to go after the death of his mother, and while Bruce hated it, he was more Dick's than he'd ever been his own father's. They might follow her.
Bruce was once again left alone with Alfred, who collapsed in the other chair to his right, exhausted to his bones and loathing himself for allowing all of them to get to this point.
"Miss Selina is right. You are all grown and should take responsibility. I'm returning to England after the New Year. I'll not bother Jason and his family anymore if that's what they wish."
Fun fact: Zambia emeralds, and that's the name of the jewel in Selina's over-the-top engagement ring, compared to the heirloom Kristine has from her late mother.
The mention of a bomb threatening Gotham was inspired by Bane and the League of Shadows' terrorism of the city in The Dark Knight Rises.
Review, please.