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Bart really enjoyed Christmas and the holiday season. He didn’t really get to celebrate before he got here, well he actually didn’t even know things like Christmas and Thanksgiving existed before he got here, but Gramps and Gramma always went all out.
It was his second Christmas ever, and he had no idea how the first was gonna be topped. Gramps’s tradition was to invite Uncle Ollie and Uncle Hal, so it used to be him, Gramma, Uncle Ollie, Uncle Hal and Roy hanging out every year. Then Wally started coming every year even before Gramps and Gramma got custody of him, then the Garricks started getting invited, then Max and Helen started getting invited, and then Uncle Ollie and Dinah got together. Then Connor and later Mia started living with Uncle Ollie so he of course brought them too, and then the twins were born but they lived here so that was a given. After that, Linda and Wally became serious enough that she started coming over for holidays. Uncle Hal was always allowed to bring a plus one that he never used until like two years ago when Kyle became Green Lantern and had no one else to spend the holidays with. Then Bart arrived in present time and Cissie was taken from her mom for reasons so she started living with Ollie and-
Yeah it was a full house.
(Bart was gonna ignore how some people were missing in some years due to the fallout of the three amigos, parallax, Roy’s drug addiction and - nope he wasn’t gonna think about it)
Wally and Linda came early to help with preparation. Bart offered to help too, but because his kitchen ban extended to every kitchen to ever exist, he was asked to watch the twins. Honestly he didn’t mind, at least he could help. Besides, the twins were very well behaved today. Bart had a bad feeling about it but oh well!
Roy came early too, just a bit after Wally and Linda. Bart was told that Roy used to live between Gramps’s house and Uncle Hal’s apartment after he was kicked out of Uncle Ollie’s. Even though Roy had his own apartment in Star City now, he still came over a lot to help.
Uncle Ollie, Dinah, Connor, Mia and Cissie were the first guests to arrive.
“Welcome” Bart greeted as he opened the door, Dawn on his hip and Don peering around his leg. “Mi casa es su casa”!
After they all greeted Bart and the twins, Dinah and Ollie went to go greet the adults, so Bart guided Connor, Mia and Cissie to the living room. Don unlatched from Bart enough that he was able to give Cissie a hug.
“How’d your finals go?” Bart asked, remembering Cissie stressing out about them with Cassie during their last YJ study session. Bart didn’t get the stress, they were just tests. Cissie groaned, plucking Dawn from Bart’s arms.
“Don’t remind me,” Cissie complained, making a face at Dawn who giggled. “But I passed all my classes and that’s all I wanted”.
“Same” Mia complained. “I just wanted to get it over with”.
The doorbell rang again and Bart zipped over to get it while Connor grabbed Don before he could latch onto Bart again.
“Max! Helen!” Bart cheered when he opened the door, latching himself onto Max. Max laughed.
“Bart you saw me this morning” Max said, running a hand through Bart’s hair. Bart squeezed him tighter.
“I know” Bart told him as the twins ran over yelling “Max! Max”!
The twins decided to go with Max to the kitchen where the adults all were, but when Bart went back to the living room Wally, Linda and Roy had joined them. He went to sit down next to Cissie when the doorbell rang again.
“I just sat down,” Bart complained as he stood up.
“I’ll get it,” Gramma called from the kitchen. He could hear her walk to the front door, the twins walking behind her asking “Who’s at the door Mommy”!
“But I just stood up,” Bart said sadly and Cissie laughed.
“Doorbell! Doorbell! Doorbell” the twins chanted and everyone laughed.
“Do they always do that?” Mia asked.
“Yeah but you get used to it,” Bart said. The twins were talking a lot more. Like, a lot, a lot more, but Bart didn’t mind because he also talked a lot. It kind of showed him where he got it from.
“Like how we get used to how much you talk Connor” Cissie joked. Connor rolled his eyes but he was still smiling.
“Okay listen-“.
“Torchie!” the twins screeched from the front door.
“Torchie!” everyone in the living room called out before bursting out laughing.
Because there were multiple “Green Lantern”’s in the League Database now, they all had nicknames that differentiated them for when someone did a call out. Much easier than guessing who someone meant when they said “Green Lantern do that”!
It was put into place after John became a Lantern, and Uncle Hal had given his two fellow Lanterns their nicknames of Problem Child (John) and One-Hit (Guy). They had retaliated by giving Uncle Hal the nickname Captain Crybaby after hearing the story about how Uncle Hal had told Gramps his secret identity. Hal then gave the other Lanterns their nicknames as they joined. There was Torchie (Kyle), Braincell (Jessica), Vroom (Simon), and Teeny (Keli).
Uncle Hal poked his head in with baby Will in his arms, and waved to everyone before heading to the kitchen, Carol doing the same. Kyle appeared a few seconds later, a laughing twin under each arm. The twins for some reason really liked Kyle, latching onto him ever since the first Thanksgiving he had come to. Bart has asked Kyle why, but Kyle had said he didn’t know either.
“Hola!” Connor greeted and Kyle rolled his eyes. Something about teaching Kyle Spanish? Bart didn’t know.
“Shut up” Kyle joked, setting the twins down on the sofa. They immediately scrambled off and ran back to him. “Okay at least let me sit”!
They had dinner outside since the house was kinda small. Bart loved the miss matched tables and chairs, feeling like it felt more homey that way. There was tons of food since they had five people with hyper metabolism. Gramma and Gramps had cooked a lot, and basically everyone had also brought something.
Bart sat on the “kids side” of the interconnected tables between Cissie and Kyle, who had been saved from the twins by Gramma who insisted they had to sit with her and Gramps. The twins hadn’t been happy about that but they settled down when given food.
They were in the middle of eating when their comm system went off. Several people pulled their devices out of their pockets. Something had shown up on the radar and needed to be checked out.
“On Christmas Eve? What sorry suckers are getting chosen for this” Bart said and Cissie laughed.
“Please don’t be me, please don’t be me” Kyle pleaded, crossing his fingers and looking up at the sky. The Lanterns were a likely choice since whatever this was involved a space thing.
Losers.
Bart’s comm system pinged him again and he glanced at it before groaning. Young Justice had been chosen.
“Aw come on” Cissie complained, looking ready to throw her comm system against the wall. She held it up to show everyone.
“YES- I mean, sorry guys that sucks” Kyle said, leaning back in his chair. At least he looked sympathetic. Will laughed.
“Sending kids on Christmas Eve,” Gramma said, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s also Kon’s first Christmas!” Bart said, hoping one of the others would offer to go for them. Bart really just wanted to be with his family on Christmas, and he would absolutely use Kon’s situation to milk it.
“Sucks for him,” Cissie said as she stood up. “Come on, we gotta go”.
Bart groaned loudly again as he stood up too.
“Be safe” Gramps said and Bart nodded sadly.
“I will. Let’s go Ciss” Bart said, putting an arm around Cissie’s waist and zipping off.
It was so dumb that he had to miss out on time with his family. By the time he and Cissie got back, they would probably be gone already or too tired to do anything fun. That was so lame! Whatever, Bart would make the best of it. You can’t be sad on Christmas Eve because Christmas was the next day!
It’s a law actually, and Bart was a law abiding citizen.
They got to the cave and immediately made their way to the locker room. They passed an already suited up Robin on the way, which wasn’t surprising since he was always suited up.
“Suit up and meet at Supercycle in 5” Robin instructed as they passed.
“Yes sir!” Bart said with a mock salute.
“You got it boss” Cissie chimed in.
He was quick to change and when he was leaving the locker room, Cassie was walking in.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Cassie joked. Bart shrugged.
“No rest for the not wicked either I guess” Bart said before zipping off to where he knew Supercycle would be.
He was surprised to see Kon already there with Robin, but Kon must’ve changed at home before getting to the cave. Bart was about to zip up and greet him when he caught part of their conversation.
“-you sure Kon?” Robin asked softly, putting a hand on Kon’s shoulder.
“Yeah. We can talk about it later” Kon said, sounding off. It was his first Christmas, he should’ve been with his family not here.
“I can send you home. The four of us can take care of it” Robin said but Kon shook his head.
“No, really I- oh hey Bart” Kon said, not looking at him. Bart immediately zipped over to him and pulled him into a hug. Kon immediately hugged him back like he always did.
“You should be home waiting for Santa!” Bart said into Kon’s chest.
“Again with Santa, Bart?” Cassie asked.
“He’s real! Stop being haters and ruining the magic for Kon” Bart said, turning to see Cassie and Cissie suited up and walking towards them.
Bart, because he was amazingly awesome, had the honor of explaining the concept of Santa to Kon. Kon had been confused about the whole thing, even more so when Bart had assured him that Santa existed while Robin, Cissie, and Cassie had said the opposite. Bart didn’t know where Kon stood on it, but he would sway Kon. He would sway Kon just like he did during the Blåhaj v Djungelskog debate.
Cassie frowned when she looked at Kon but Cissie rolled her eyes from where she stood behind Cassie. If Bart couldn’t be home to enjoy Christmas Eve with his family, then at least he would get the enjoyment of watching Cissie and Kon hide how much they fucking hate eachother from Cassie.
That itself was a gift.
“Kon-“ Cassie started.
“We should go,” Kon said, hopping into the front seat of Supercycle where he usually sat. “We have things to do people! Weird space stuff isn’t gonna stop for chit chat”!
Robin frowned but climbed into his usual spot on Super Cycle, so the others did the same. Bart would snoop later! It felt like an after Christmas activity.
They got to the coordinates and saw what looked like a meteor heading towards them.
“Oh, easy peasy! We’ll just like, blast it out of the sky!” Bart said. “We’re over the ocean so no property damage or anything”!
Then he could go home!
“Problem” Cassie said and Bart almost threw something, not that he had anything to throw. Maybe Kon? She pushed back one of the headphones she was wearing that was connected to some kind of device that Robin had given her. Bart could probably figure out what it was but he was more focused on getting home as fast as possible. “It’s talking to me”.
“Oh” Cissie said. “What is it uh, saying”?
“The recap is this guy is named Mordrek and he hates our planet because we keep defeating him. He put all of his essence in a blast and that’s gonna destroy the Earth, even if that means he’ll die in the process”.
“Let’s blast him,” Kon said, glaring at Mordrek.
“Supercycle you know what to do” Robin said. Multiple weapons came out of Supercycle, like a lot, and aimed at Mordrek. The five of them braced themselves as Supercycle blasted Mordrek, causing it to jolt a bit, but when it finished Mordrek seemed completely unharmed. If anything it seemed to be coming faster.
“Uh, Robin?” Cissie said. Robin’s grip on Supercycle tightened.
“If Mordrek hits Earth we all die” Robin said. “Maybe if he hit something big enough before that, Earth will be unaffected”.
“Hit what?” Kon asked. Bart looked around for something it could hit but-
“Do you mean us?” Bart asked. Everyone looked at Robin with wide eyes. He didn’t answer but maneuvered Supercycle in the path of Mordrek.
Bart wasn’t afraid of dying, but he couldn’t help but think of how sad his friends and family would be. But he would rather cut his life short than let them die. That was why he came to the past in the first place.
“Okay” Bart said, reaching his hand out to Robin. Robin took it and crawled into the back with them, Kon following after studying them for a minute, sitting in between Bart and Robin.
“So this is it,” Cassie said, sounding kinda dazed. Bart understood, it didn’t feel like they were about to die. At least, it didn’t feel like how Bart thought it would feel.
“I love you guys,” Cissie said. “All four of you”.
“Uh. Cool” Kon said, still staring at Mordrek and Cissie rolled her eyes. Kon’s hand found Robin’s and Kon laced their fingers together. Robin stared at their intertwined hands in almost shock and Bart would have laughed if they weren’t about to die.
They all huddled together, gripping each other tight. Bart pressed himself against Kon and wondered if it was gonna hurt. Should he say more? But his friends knew he loved them, he told them basically every day! The sound of bells made them all look up.
“What the hell” Robin said and Bart gasped.
“OH MY GOD IT’S SANTA” Bart shrieked because it was! There he was, flying in the sky in a sled drawn by reindeer.
“I told you he was real,” Bart said in delight.
“No way,” Cassie whispered.
“He’s right there” Cissie said as Robin sat there with his mouth open.
“Santa” Kon said softly in wonder, his eyes wide as he stared at Santa.
“HI SANTA! I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!” Bart yelled, his hands cupped over his mouth. “SANTA! SAN- OH NO SANTA”!
If Santa kept flying in the same direction, he was gonna get hit by Mordrek. The five of them screamed trying to get Santa’s attention but it was too late.
“Ho ho h- OH NO”!
There was a huge flash of light, forcing Bart to shield his eyes so he wouldn’t get blinded. When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing there. No Mordrek, no Santa. Just a burnt smell in the air.
“Oh my God” Cassie said, looking around in horror. “Did Santa just die”?
They all just stared at each other for a minute, trying to wrap their heads around it. But Mordrek- and the sacrificing themselves- and then?
“Santa?” Kon asked softly, staring at where Santa had been flying. Everything erupted into chaos.
“NO SANTA” Bart wailed. He didn’t even get to meet him and now he’s dead!
“Did we just kill Santa?” Cissie asked, looking between them in horror as Cassie went to cover Kon’s eyes even though Kon clearly already saw what happened. Kon lightly slapped her hand away, looking disturbed.
“What do we do? Who do we call? The Justice League?” Cassie asked. Robin gesture wildly with his hands.
“I dunno their isn’t a plan for what to do for Santa fucking dieing” Robin said. Batman hadn’t planned for this? He was slipping.
If Bart was attacked by the tooth fairy, he would not be asking Batman for help.
“Call a trusted adult!” Bart interjected. Someone told him to do that if- wait when was the situation he should call a trusted adult? Accidentally killing Santa seemed to be a good time to call a trusted adult, so that's probably it.
“What adult do we trust?” Cissie asked.
“Reddy?” Cassie suggested but Robin shook his head.
“No he’s with Traya and his wife! We need to call someone who doesn’t have a life or obligations” Robin suggested. He turned to Kon who was still staring at the spot where Santa had been. “Kon! Call Kyle”!
Kon fumbled to get his phone out of his thigh pouch and called Kyle. Unfortunately they only got his voice mail. The five of them then proceeded to have a mental breakdown in Kyle’s voicemail.
After that, Bart noticed something laying in the front seat of Supercycle where Kon usually sat. He crawled into Robin’s seat to get a better look and realized it was a sack. He pulled it into his arms and realized it was full of gifts.
“Guys, look” Bart said, interrupting Cassie and Robin’s battle plans. “It’s his sack with all of the gifts inside! And they’re all addressed! We gotta finish his run”!
“What” Robin asked and Bart handed him the sack.
“He died for us! It’s the least we can do” Bart argued as he slipped back into the back compartment and onto Kon’s lap. “He saved the world! Come on guys”!
The four of them cheered and off they went. It started out actually kind of fun! Kon and Bart did most of the work at first, being the fastest two of the group, but they did end up sending the other three at one point. Did Bart send Kon and Cissie to the same house for his own amusement? Yes, but like he watched Santa die and he couldn’t spend the holidays with his family so he deserved some entertainment. Not his fault he didn’t know that family had a German Shepard.
“Down boy, down! Fuck”!
“You can fly dumb ass”
“Oh shit right!”
“Wait, take me with you”!
Oops. Only Kon got bit though!
They finished at 3am and all of them were exhausted. Bart was curled up with Kon in the front seat as they drove back to the cave. The only presents they had left were the ones for their households. Bart and Cissie kept Santa’s bag with them, since they had the most presents between the two of them.
“What did we learn today” Cassie said as they arrived at the cave.
“Turn off your comms during holidays”.
“The League hates children's happiness”.
“I can fly”.
“The contingency plan for Santa dieing is to become Santa”.
Hopefully they didn’t have to do this next year.
“Good enough,” Cassie said. “Let’s go home. Merry Christmas guys, I’ll see you at Cissie’s birthday party on the 27th”!
Kon laughed.
Bart and Cissie decided that Cissie would sleep over at Bart’s since he was so tired that he didn’t want to run to California. Uncle Ollie, Uncle Hal and their families would unfortunately be gone by now, so Bart would take Cissie back to Uncle Ollie’s when they woke up.
Bart unfortunately didn’t remember to bring his house key so he had to vibrate through the door, but before he could let Cissie in, he heard snoring. Gramps, Grandma, Wally, Linda, the twins, and Helen didn’t snore. And Max snored but different.
Bart walked into the living room and was surprised to see Uncle Ollie and Dinah asleep on the pull out couch, while Uncle Hal and Carol were asleep on the floor next to the tree that now had presents underneath. Like a lot of presents.
Oh he left the presents outside.
Oh he left Cissie outside.
“What took you so- why is Ollie still here?” Cissie whispered as she stepped into the house. “I can hear him from here”.
“Slept over I guess,” Bart said, feeling a bit warm. Maybe they could still all hang out tomorrow?
They left the presents under the tree and the bag disappeared once empty. Convenient! They quietly went upstairs and Bart could hear Max snoring from the twins room, which meant the twins were probably sleeping with Gramps and Grandma. Which meant-
Bart opened his room door to see several people sleeping on his room floor. Wally and Linda were curled up together with Linda’s head on his chest. Roy was curled up in a ball back to back with Connor who was hugging a pillow. Kyle was asleep on his stomach and Mia was laying in a Starfish position with her arm over Connor’s face.
Aw.
They had already changed back at the cave so Cissie and Bart just cuddled up together in his bed. They had no responsibilities tomorrow, so they would sleep in. They deserved it.
“IT’S CHRISTMAS! WAKE UP, WAKE UP”!
Bart sat up to see Dawn jumping up and down on his bed, and Don was hitting Kyle awake. Connor jumped up and nocted an imaginary bow before realizing what was happening.
“Oh. Merry Christmas” Connor said, unnocting his imaginary bow and putting his imaginary arrow back in his imaginary quiver.
“Should’ve used the punching glove arrow Connor” Mia teased and Connor rolled his eyes.
“Sorry” Gramps said, zipping into the room and grabbing Don off of Kyle. “You alive Kyle”?
“Good morning world” Kyle said into the floor. Bart turned to see it was 6am and groaned. Well he was up now. Gramps sat on the edge of Bart's bed with Don still in his arms and gave Bart a kiss on his forehead.
“Merry Christmas kiddo”. Bart smiled.
“Merry Christmas Gramps”.
Bart, Kyle and Cissie stayed to clean up the pillows and blankets from Bart’s floor while Wally, Linda, Mia and Connor offered to help with breakfast set up. Roy was given the extremely difficult task of keeping the twins from opening their gifts, but it sounded like Max and Uncle Hal were helping. The Garrick’s came back to help as well, and Bart could hear Gramma and Dinah cooing at Will.
“How’d it go?” Kyle asked as he gathered pillows. Bart just sat on his bed and Cissie still seemed to be sleeping. They took the mission so Kyle wouldn’t have to, so Kyle could clean up Bart’s room. Could Bart get him to fold his laundry while he was at it?
“Eventful” Bart said with a shrug because he was not awake enough to unpack what happened. Kyle raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Bart watched him finish cleaning before he sat at Bart's desk chair, pulling out his phone.
“Oh, Kon called me last night and left a voicemail,” Kyle mused. Cissie sat up suddenly.
“Wait don’t listen to-” Cissie cried out just as Kyle pressed the play button.
“Kyle, Kyle, we just murdered Santa! What do we do” Kon’s voice wailed from the phone.
“Why did we have to deal with this? Why can’t the fucking Titans do SOMETHING for once”!
“Robin what do we do what do we do what do we-”
“Shut up SHUT UP i'm thinking okay”?
“Kyle, why couldn’t you answer your phone if you're not doing anything”!
“Are we gonna go to jail”?
“Okay we didn’t kill Santa though so-”
“He’s still dead just to clarify. It’s just not our fault”.
“Am I my father now? Too many things are happening Kyle and I don't know what to do! And it’s your job-”
“Kon, stop having an identity crisis, this isn't about you”.
“Shut the FUCK up Suzanne. You’re not being helpful either”!
“Santa’s dead, Santa’s dead and we KILLED him-”
“For the last time, no we didn’t”.
“Santa’s dead”?
Kyle paused the voicemail and the three of them turned to see the twins standing in the doorway with wide eyes. Oh fuck.
“No! No! We said Satan! We uh, we killed Satan” Cissie said quickly. “In the uh, in the name of the father, brother and something else”?
“By the way Kyle, we figured it out we don't need your help anymore” Bart said. Kyle stared at him. He looked disturbed.
‘Uh yeah. That's nice to know. I guess”.
“Do you wanna-“?
“Nope, Kon will tell me later. Against my will”.
They had breakfast and then went to open gifts. The twins were especially excited to open the gifts Santa brought them, and Bart ignored how confused Gramps and Gramma were. Will was still too young to get excited about Christmas, but Carol let him wave around the discarded wrapping paper while also keeping him from putting it in his mouth. After that they were about to go play games when something caught Bart’s eyes that made him want to projectile vomit.
“Cissie come here,” Bart said, waving her over. Cissie glanced over from where she and Kyle were helping the twins put stickers on Connor and Uncle Ollie before handing her duties off to Roy so she could talk to Bart.
“What’s- oh” she said when she saw what Bart was pointing to. It was a card that Bart was 95 divided by 7 times 2 divided by three percent sure was not there before.
To, Bartholomew Henry Allen II and Suzanne Victoria King-Jones
“Are you gonna open it”?
“What, why me”?
Bart ended up being the one who opened it.
To Bartholomew Henry Allen II and Suzanne Victoria King-Jones,
I would first of all like to thank you and your friends for finishing my run and bringing Christmas joy to all. I know what you all had seen could not have been easy, yet you carried on. I would now like to implore you to never do it again. The elves and I had to work overtime to salvage the damage you all caused while doing my run. Nevertheless, I have a special present for you all next year.
Merry Christmas,
Santa
“Oh shit he’s alive” Bart whispered happily and Cissie looked relieved.
“We don’t have to do that next year,” she said happily.
“I guess we don’t have to tell anyone about this then. It’ll just be between the five of us and Kyle” Bart said, glancing over at Kyle who was still giving them weird looks “We should totally tell Reddy though”.
“Oh yeah 100 percent”.