Christmas Was Always Special
Title: Christmas Was Always Special
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bruce/Selina aka Batcat
Warnings: Minor swear, minor sexual references, tons of fluff
Summary/Notes: Part one of a collection of mine called “The Batcat Fluff We Deserve” this is set post the 1991 film Batman Returns where the next two terrible movies after that don’t exist and the basic premise being that Selina decided to go with Bruce in the sewers that night. This is how their lives turned out. Enjoy!
Christmastime was always special for Bruce and Selina. They first met around Christmas, discovered one another’s true identities, and made the bold choice to start their lives together around Christmas. Selina almost walked away. She was the one saying hours earlier “does this mean we have to start fighting?” The look on her face from then on broke Bruce’s heart. He wanted to make things work. He knew they could both be better for it. He didn’t have to worry about someone trying to take advantage of his love for Selina because he knew she could hold her own. He wasn’t wracked with fear each night when he crawled into bed and reached for her because he knew she’d be there, that he had seen her out and about hours earlier, heading towards the manor.
All of their milestones surrounded Christmas. They could never quite figure out why it happened that way. They weren’t religious so the holiday representing the birth of the Christian diety didn’t have any special meaning to them before or after their coupling and yet each Christmas, something new and big and exciting happened for them.
The first Christmas, Bruce couldn’t believe they made it a whole year. Sure there were days even weeks where Selina ran off because she just couldn’t wrap her head around why they worked. Why they worked despite her sometimes criminal behavior. Why he would want a nobody like her, why he would want just her when any girl would love to have the chance to be with Bruce Wayne. Even just him without his alter ego was impressive enough. Selina also hated being his arm candy. She absolutely hated it. The way the tabloids would make comments about her hair, her weight, and even ask if she was good enough for the man behind the bat.
Selina tried not to let those things bother her. Bruce would pull her close and reassure her that none of what the press said was true and that what she felt about herself was what mattered most. She usually ran off for a few days after particularly hateful press about her but then he’d find her while he was out on patrol and convince her to come home.
He had wanted to put an end to Selina’s doubts, or quiet them at least. Wanted to give her a solid, concete reason not to run. They still weren’t one for all the pageantry of the tree lighting ceremony so a year later they sat curled on the couch watching it thankfully Penguin, Shreck, and other Gotham villain free as the new mayor of Gotham and Commissioner Gordon lit the tree in bright twinkling lights. As they sat there, Bruce’s arm draped around Selina’s shoulders and she reached her hand up to tangle her fingers with his. Soon she felt something cold and metal slip around her ring finger. She looked over at their joined hands to see a diamond ring and looked up at Bruce with tears prickling in her eyes.
“Do you not like it?” He had said.
“Like it? Bruce, you love me enough to... enough to want to marry me?” She had shifted to straddle his lap so they could talk face to face.
“I love you enough that I want you to be my wife, absolutely. Will you marry me, Selina?”
Of course she had said yes.
They had married the following Christmas, both vigilante and villainy kept them pushing it further and further into the following year until they sealed their union with a kiss in a snow covered church filled with some of their closest friends and unfortunately due to Bruce’s celebrity, most of Gotham.
By the following December, Selina had let her hair grow out longer than Bruce had ever seen it, which also confused him because he knew it would make her overall suit more complicated. He had upgraded her suit (without her permission) as a six month anniversary present. It was now a sleek all black, well made leather and bulletproof rubber (because he never, ever, wanted to relive seeing her being shot four times, ever), complete with cat ears in the cowl and high tech goggles. He made the comment to her about it in passing as he twirled a strand of it while their dinner sizzled and popped on the stove. Her reply nearly stunned him.
“Well I don’t think suiting up is going to be the most practical. I know you upgraded it, Bruce, but I don’t think the leather is very expandable.”
“Expandable? Why would you need it to be?” He had asked.
Selina had taken the hand still in her hair and moved it down to her stomach. “Because I won’t be able to fit in if it’s not expandable and I also don’t think you’ll want me going out much over the next few months.”
He had to be sure he was understanding her right. “Selina... Selina are you pregnant?”
“Yes, I am.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in for a kiss. “You’re happy about this?”
“So happy, and so happy that I don’t have to fight you on not going out on patrol with me.” He chuckled and kissed her back.
Helena Wayne wasn’t born around Christmas, but their first Christmas as a family was almost their last. She was just four months old when her father went out to fight the Joker and almost didn’t come home. Her mother had waited and waited four hours past when her father had promised to be home before swiftly passing Helena to Alfred and said something about suiting up to bring him home.
Selina had stumbled in the manor barely able to hold up her husband in his mangled Batsuit. Her suit was pretty torn up as well but she hadn’t cared. She would hang up her cowl forever if it meant keeping her family in one piece. She never had that growing up. Her mother was a bitter woman who called her a gold digging whore when she had seen the newspaper announcement which featured a picture zeroing in on the ring Selina now sported on her left ring finger and her father was always absent. She couldn’t even remember his face. She didn’t want Helena to grow up like Bruce either, without parents entirely. Even without witnessing it, she knew it would scar Helena for life. Alfred helped Selina patch the two of them up, having put Helena to sleep that Christmas Eve, so she could dream of baby sugarplums instead of her parents almost dying.
Come Christmas morning, though bruised and bandaged, Selina watched as Bruce picked their daughter up with a smile on his face and she walked over to them holding her family closer than she ever had.
Now Helena was six and refused to go with Alfred up to her room since her parents Christmas party was now “grownups only”. Her wild blonde curls bounced angrily when her parents instructed her that it was time for bed.
“It’s time for bed, kitty kat,” her mother affectionately said. She had crouched down to her level, which Helena appreciated, and kissed her hair. “Tomorrow morning all these boring grown ups will be gone and it’ll just be you, me, daddy, and Alfred. Can you go let Alfred read you a story so tomorrow morning will be here?”
“No I want you and daddy. You guys do better voices than Alfred. With his accent the voices all sound the same.” Helena pouted.
“I’m sorry baby but we have to stay down here.” If it were up to Selina NONE of these people would be in her house past nine. And even after being married to Bruce for eight years it was still so foreign to call the manor her house. She had moved in with him after that night in the sewers, never looked back at her crummy pink apartment. Bruce had offered her her own room even her own wing of the house, but she just wanted the safety of him in his room to fight off her nightmares of killing Shreck and being shot, so she gave her cats that entire wing instead.
Bruce finished talking to one of his investors and saw his wife and daughter in one of their famous staring contests. Bruce valued his life very much and never once vocalized just how much Helena was like Selina. The great Bat being brought down by his wife’s wrath. Yeah he was good. He walked over to them and put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
“Helena, you really have to go to bed for mommy and daddy. We promise that if you still can’t fall asleep by the time the grown ups are gone we will come read to you, how does that sound?” He watched as his daughter’s face lit up and she nodded.
“Okay daddy! I’ll wait up for you! I love you both!” She hugged both her parents and skipped over to Alfred who was patiently waiting in the doorway.
Once Selina and Bruce both straightened up, Selina gave her husband one raised eyebrow.
“What?”
“She’s just like you, you heard her, she’s going to fight Alfred on sleep even more now, even though she’s left the room. These “grown ups” won’t leave until at least one and our six year old should not be up that late and now you’ve challenged her to stay up that late.”
“I did not!”
“Oh bats, you old softie, you have that little girl wrapped around your finger. You’d compromise on anything she wanted. If not cave in.” Selina began to walk away but Bruce pulled her into his arms.
“That’s only because her mother already conditioned me that way.” He growled and kissed her deeply.
xxxx
The “grown ups” all filed out around midnight, most were tired and the rest were tired of Bruce constantly pointing at photos of his family and explaining the circumstances of each photo right down to the last detail. Once the party cleared, Alfred informed them that Miss Helena was still awake and demanding they tell her a story before promptly excusing himself to reach his own slumberous state.
Bruce and Selina climbed the stairs and made their way to their daughter’s room. Since black was Bruce’s favorite color and Selina hated the color pink since becoming Catwoman, they had taken the longest time picking out a color for Helena’s room. Black was too depressing for a baby room and white was too sterile. Pink was out but Selina still wanted something moderately feminine while also something Helena could grow into as she formed her own person. They settled on different colors of purple. The walls were all a lilac color and the accents were dark shades of purple. Bruce had just finished painting a large “H” over where her crib would go when Selina had came rushing into talking about contractions.
Their daughter’s room had matured over the years but still stayed purple. Helena loves the color, still unaware of the gravity of her parents nighttime jobs, Helena said she wanted her costume to be purple when she got big and pretty like mommy. That had warmed Selina’s heart but she also desperately wanted Gotham to be safe enough by the time Helena was older for her not to need to don a cape. Because of her dress she more slid rather than sat on her daughter’s bed. She settled next to her and wrapped an arm around her. Selina was still in her cocktail dress from the party which was incredibly hard to sit in but “fantastically showed her curves” as Bruce stated. What curves? She loves Helena and loves that she and Bruce produced something out of their love but Helena wrecked her body. Her catsuit never fit the same again.
“Kitten, why are you still up?” Selina asked and stroked her daughter’s curls.
Bruce settled onto the other side of his daughter and loosened his tie.
“Because you guys tell the best stories. And it’s Christmas. I want to know the best Christmas story you know!”
Bruce and Selina both thought for a minute, sure they had seen most of the Christmas specials their daughter made them watch on television, and there were the classics such as Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas but what could be a Christmas story easy and short enough for their seven year old to digest?
Bruce cleared his through. “How about one where a lonely prince fell in love with a sad princess on Christmas?”
Selina raised and eyebrow. She hadn’t heard this before. Maybe he was making it up as he went along.
“Okay!” Helena clapped happily. “Tell me, tell me!”
“Once upon a time...” Bruce started, “there lived a sad and lonely prince who mostly spent his days in his castle wishing he had someone to share his life with. He longed for just one person to fill his life with a joy he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. Then one day, the prince was meeting with an eeeevvviiiilll sorcerer, though the prince didn’t know that at the time, and in walked the saddest but most beautiful princess. She was the sorcerer’s slave! The prince desperately wanted to court her but she was always serving the sorcerer...”
This story felt weirdly familiar to Selina, she shifted after getting a cold chill and continued to listen to her husband’s crazy fairytale.
“But one night on, Christmas Eve in fact, the lonely prince, disguised as a valiant knight saved the sad princess from being harmed. But she didn’t know it was him. Soon enough the princess was able to defend herself. And even fought against the lonely prince when he was dressed as the valiant knight! And then on Christmas Day, the evil sorcerer had a ball, and the prince knew it was finally time to confess his true feelings to the sad princess. They realized who each other were. Really and deeply, on the inside. They fought one last battle not sure if either would survive but then they both did! And they ran away to live in the prince’s mansion... I mean castle and lived happily ever after.”
Selina tried to hide her tears in her daughter’s curls. She remembered all those years ago describing a life with Bruce as a fairytale. How it would be too good to be true. He convinced her that no, it wouldn’t be a fairytale, but life him would still be good. Great even. And now holding onto her’s and Bruce’s daughter, while they sat in their home, she realized they were both half right. Life with him was a fairytale. And it was pretty great.
Selina looked and saw her daughter was on the verge of sleep. She stroked her hair hoping to coax her finally into a REM cycle but she asked one more thing.
“Were the prince and princess happy forever? Sometimes grown ups say happily ever after but they don’t mean it. Did they get married and stuff?”
“They sure did,” Selina said, “and they had a beautiful princess of their own who they made sure was never lonely or sad a day in her life.”
“Oh good. I was worried.” This made both of Helena’s parents chuckle. “What? I was!”
“Goodnight, sweetheart, we love you.” Selina said. She stood up with Bruce’s help.
“Merry Christmas, mommy and daddy,” Helena said as she yawned, finally drifting off to sleep.
Selina and Bruce shut their daughter’s door and made their way down the hall to their own room when Bruce stopped them. He pointed up to one of the many pieces of mistletoe that hung up in the house. It was such a pivotal piece of Christmas for their relationship that Bruce took great delight in setting it up everywhere.
“You know that this means...” he grinned.
“We never actually researched if eating mistletoe can kill you.”
“We’ve done plenty of research on kissing though, haven’t we?” He grinned and pulled her even closer.
“Yes and I’ve found... kisses give life. They don’t take it away, at least not when a lonely prince kisses and sad princess.”
“You figured it out?” He turned his face away, sheepish.
“Once it got to the part about the valiant knight I knew it was about us. I never thought that our life being a fairytale was actually going to be a good thing. I was angry and sad and deluded into thinking my life couldn’t be this wonderful when I said those things to you. I’m sorry that I ran away for as long as I did. Mentally, emotionally, sometimes physically. I love being your wife and I love being Helena’s mom. You framing our life as a fairytale made me just feel so grateful for those things. Thank you.” She leaned in and kissed him deeply. She stopped being afraid of taking off her mask around him a long time ago. She could just being Selina Kyle around him. Cat scratches and all.
“I think that given how special this time of year is for us, I knew that was the perfect story to tell Helena. We’ll tell her it’s actually our story one day. But for now, she has this childlike hope that I want her to hold onto for as long as she can. I’m sorry that I pushed you at the beginning. I know I did. I was all in, I had fallen so hard in love with you so fast, Selina, that I didn’t want you to slip right through my fingers like so many others in my life, romantically or not, had before. I wanted this. I wanted this day all those years ago. Us retiring to bed on Christmas Eve after tucking our children into bed and making love until the sun came up rather than fighting crime until the sun came up.” He kissed her once more.
“Well then come on then, big fella. No hard feelings, I needed the tough and intense love to realize that I could let myself want this life with you.” She tugged on his hands and led him into the bedroom. Bruce immediately put on music from his one and only piece of technology in his bedroom. That was how he kept his boundaries in life. The only addition had been the baby monitor when Helena was small and now that she was six it was gone.
“Really, you want to play music while we have sex? Bruce, that has been and always will be tacky.” Selina started to unzip her dress but Bruce stopped her. “What?”
“I didn’t get to dance with you at the party.”
“It wasn’t that kind of party.” She chuckled. “But if you insist.” She wrapped an arm around his neck and took his other hand. They swayed gently to the soft jazz music over the speakers.
“I do insist, Mrs. Wayne.” He pecked her lips.
“That has been and will be by far the weirdest thing I have ever been called and I was called a gold digging whore by my mother when we got engaged.”
“Are you still not willing to accept that we’re married and in love even if sometimes we suit up and fight each other.”
“I do accept it. We have to keep our marriage interesting somehow.” She winked.
“I’ll show you interesting.” Bruce picked her up and carried her over to the bed and promptly threw her onto it then covered her body with his.
“It’s only the best way to ring in an anniversary.” Selina said and pulled him in for a hard kiss, ready to spend her anniversary and many more with this man, just like this.
