A Super Christmas Party

Diana was late to the Christmas party. She had been super busy with work lately, and then had to stop at the store for cookies before heading over to Bruce´s house. The party he was throwing had been planning a long time and Diana had heard rumors that it was going to be the best party since, well, forever. Diana fixed her hair and got ready to leave. Her phone rang and she looked down. Bruce was calling her. Whatever he had to say could wait. She put the phone in her bag and left. 

Bruce was nervous about the party. He had always liked to stay on his own for Christmas, but this year Alfred had simply insisted that he invite some friends¨ over. A Heouldn’t say no to Alfred, so he sighed and began sending out invitations. All day long now, about a week since those invitations went out, Bruce had been worrying. Would it be too showy? Too dark? Too… unfestive? Bruce looked out the window; people would start arriving any minute now. People would start coming any minute now. Bruce straightened his tie and headed out. He was having this party, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Clark’s glasses fell off his face and clattered to the subway floor. Gotham City was a long way from Smallville. He picked up the glasses and sighed heavily, leaning back against the wall. Bruce Wayne had invited him to a Christmas party. What are the odds that that would happen? It had been a while since they last saw each other, and Clark wasn’t sure he wanted to see him again, but Diana was going to be there and so was Barry. Clark looked out the window. His phone dinged, and he took it from his pocket. Bruce was calling him.

“Hello, Bruce.” Clark was trying not to be mad at the guy for trying to kill him and all.

“Clark, buddy, I have to tell you something. Like, don’t get mad, but…. I invited Thor.” 

“How?’’ Clark’s nose crinkled in confusion. Thor wasn’t a DC character, he was Marvel. Were Marvel folks allowed to come to DC parties? Well, it was Bruce’s party. He could invite whoever the pop he felt like. 

“I have my ways. Are you almost here?”

A strange twinge of excitement twinged the edges of Bruce’s voice. Clark laughed.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on my way.” He hung up. So, Batman was having a playdate, finally, and all his best super pals were invited. And Thor. Was Thor Batman’s friend? Clark was confused, so he fell asleep. 

Peter Parker and Tony Stark were carpooling. They were on their way to Gotham City. A few weeks ago, Bruce had figured out a way to bust through the Marvel-DC time and space wall, and then invited everyone over to his house for a Christmas party. Peter, for one, was nearly jumping out of his shoes he was so excited. Superman! Batman! Wonder Woman of Awesome Hair and Nice, um, Eyes! The Flash! Green Arrow! His favorite DC heroes! 

Tony, on the other hand, was slightly nervous. Bruce Wayne was a billionaire, just like him. What if he had more billions than him? What if his toilet was made of gold? What if he had adopted a weird orphan and made him his sidekick? Tony had to make sure he outdid Bruce, no matter what. That was the main reason he brought Peter with him.

The Joker didn’t get an invitation to the party, and he was quite purple about it. All the little superheroes were going to have their fun, and the Joker wasn’t invited to be there with them. Well, a little birdie had told him that Batman wasn’t just inviting his local buddies, but some friends from, shall we say out of town, too. Ooh, Batman, Joker thought, you aren’t the only one who can play at this game. He picked up the phone to call his good friend Thanos. Word on the street was that he had a new toy, and the Joker was in a very playful mood.

Bruce couldn’t decorate on his own, so he invited his friend Shuri. She and her brother came at once, and as soon as they saw the Bat Cave, they covered in his lame attempts at festiveness. they began to roll with laughter. Limp banners, some not even Christmas themed, hung like sad monkeys off the walls. Wailing music assaulted their ears. There was a scrawny little tree (it would make Charlie Brown’s look like a forest) in one corner with a single, blinking light on it. Before long, the siblings had that place glowing. Unfortunately, though, they didn’t get to stick around for the festivities. They had to go do something heroey. So now Bruce was alone with Diana. He shifted from foot to foot while she picked at the cookies piled high on the dessert table. Was this party really a good idea?

And then Clark Kent arrived, glasses on. 

Alfred opened the door and let Clark in. He showed him to the basement.

“Hello!” He bounded down the stairs. He greeted Diana with a cheerful hug and then turned to Bruce. “Hey.”

“Everyone else is on their way, don’t worry.” Bruce brushed past him. “Tony and Peter will be here soon.” 

“They’re coming too? Hey, man, wait a second. How many people from Marvel did you invite, exactly?”

“It’s my party. Why does it bother you how many people I invited from Marvel? Why does it matter who I invite, period? Maybe I invited your mother.” 

Clark scrunched his nose and his glasses rode up on his face. “You did not invite my mother.” 

“Maybe I did.” Bruce took a step closer to Clark. Clark was a little taller than him, though, so the effect was much less intimidating than he wanted. Diana pushed between them and steered towards the other food table.

“Guys, come on, we’re all friends here.”

“Oh my goodness! Batman, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to crash your Christmas tree! I can pay for it, promise! We can still be friends! Um, it is so beyond wowzers that I’m here right now. You all are like, oh wow, are those dumplings?” Spider-Man wrangeled himself from the tree and then tripped on a stray sugar cookie, knocking forward into the dessert table and sending sweets everywhere. Bruce closed his eyes and sighed.

“That tree cost more than four thousand dollars.” Bruce bent down and picked up a donut. He brushed lint off of it and took a bite. He closed his eyes again. “Where is Tony?’’

Spider-Man smiled weakly and took his mask off. “Um, he had to go run an errand, but he said I could come ahead of him. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks and…” 

Bruce put up a hand to stop him. “You weren’t really invited in the first place. Oh well, now that you’re here, you can go play with Robin.” 

“What do you mean? He’s like twelve or something! I didn’t come to babysit, man! I want to meet everyone!”

Bruce pointed towards the corner where an overeager Robin was setting up a game of Uno.

Bruce Banner was knocking at the door for over thirty minutes before someone answered. Alfred had gotten occupied in the kitchen and everyone else was downstairs, but eventually someone opened the door for him.

It was Thor.

“Hey, Brucie. What’s up?”

“Um, well, nothing much. How’s the party?” They stepped back inside the house. “They’re all downstairs. We’ve been waiting for you.” 

They went down and found a motley crew of superheroes. Or should we say, their alter egos? We should, because that’s who was there. 

Bruce looked around at everyone. Barry Allen was speed drinking shots of Kool-Aid, (No drinking adult beverages after nine, per Alfred) Diana and Clark were doing karaoke with Carol Danvers as their DJ.

Bruce Banner tiptoed over to the couches, where Don Wright, Lorena Marquez, Barbara Goodman, Steven Rogers, and Allan Scott were all watching football together. 

“Does anyone mind if I sit down here with you all?” He asked. None of them answered, so he took that as a yes and sat down, relaxing for the first time that evening. 

“JINGLE BELLS! JINGLE BELLS! BATMAN SMELLS, ROBIN LAID AN EGG! THE BATMOBILE HAS LOST A WHEEL AND THE JOKER GOT AWAY!!!!” 

Diana and Clark collapsed on the ground as they finished their karaoke song. Diana looked to where Bruce was blushing profusely. He, in the nervousness that the party had caused, had farted, therefore meaning that Batman did smell. 

Robin, however, did NOT lay an egg. 

“Bruce, what’s wrong? Do you miss your mother? Is that why you said you were going to invite mine? Because you’re jealous?” Clark waited for the laughter, but it never came. Diana took the microphone away from him. 

“He didn’t mean that, Bruce! It was supposed to be a joke!” She pleaded mentally with him not to start a fight, but it was too late. Mothers were a new territory entirely.

Bruce’s blush had turned to a shade of hot red anger. He plowed up to the stage and lunged at Clark, who toppled on impact. “It’s always just a joke, isn’t it?” Bruce began to pummel Clark.

Clark lazer eyed in his general direction, but missed, seeing as Bruce didn’t melt into nothingness. Soon they were beating each other into the ground. 

“You two! Stop fighting! Hey! I said quit it! This is supposed to be a party!”

Around them, chaos ensued. 

Barry had run out of Kool-Aid and was crying.

Bruce Banner’s team was losing and he was, well….

And then the computer Carol was using to DJ with got crashed in by Thor’s hammer so she tied his hair to the snack table with bubblegum. 

Needless to say, the party was going to somewhere in a handbasket, and it wasn’t Hawaii. 

Tony Stark had everything planned to sheer perfection. He rolled up to Wayne Manor and started up the driveway on a red velvet carpet.

The kid was already inside and if everything had gone according to plans, he should’ve crashed into the four thousand dollar Christmas tree. Tony smiled up at the forty two thousand dollar Christmas tree he had bought to replace it. 

In the truck beside him were exactly twenty eight bags of seven pound chocolates, times eight and a half. It was more chocolate than Tony had ever seen in his life, and it had cost him way more than he wanted to spend, but who didn’t like chocolate? Especially gourmet, deliciously filled, eight dollar a piece chocolate. Better yet? That was only the beginning of what Tony had planned. 

Hulk threw a table at Thor. Oh, wait a minute. I meant to say Hulk threw the table WITH Thor, because he was still tied to it with bubblegum. “I’M GOING TO SMASH EVERYTHING TO TINY BITTLES!!!”

Apparently, Hulk had become more literate since he last spoke. 

Robin and Peter were really hitting it off. They both understood what it was like to be underappreciated as a hero.

“I’ve never felt like anyone would ever get that, but you do. That’s really cool, man.” Peter clapped his new friend on the back. “I’m really glad I got to meet you tonight.”

“That, those are all the words I was about to say. You literally stole them from my mouth!” 

“Hey, great minds think alike, right?” 

Robin started laughing, but then he accidently hit the ping pong ball (they switched from Uno) way to hard and it got lodged into Barry Allen’s throat. 

Carol thumped him on the back, but to no avail. “Can you breathe?” She asked him, panic rising in her voice. 

Carol hit him even harder and a piece of his lung flew out of his mouth. “Oh no! I’m so sorry!” Barry didn’t say anything. He just looked at the piece of vital organ a few inches from his head. “Do need an ambulance?” No answer.  

Back at the Ping Pong table, the boys faceda grave dilemma. 

“We don’t have a ping pong ball anymore!” 

But a slow smile was already slipping over Robin’s face, and it may or may not have had to do with chalupas.

“Fellow evil geniuses, we gather here today in order to crash a Christmas party and ultimately take over the world. Since all the superheroes are at this party, we can take them out once and for all!” The Joker bowed, and cheers erupted.

   Clark and Bruce were both passed out on the floor.

Diana had lassoed them both up with her lasso and squeezed them until they fainted. She had to get this party under control before Alfred came to check on them. She left the sleeping beauties on the ground and went over to help Kara and Barry. With some quick help from their friend Logan, Barry was good as new and ran to the store to get some new Kool-Aid so he wouldn’t cry anymore. Kara, still traumatized by the event, went to go retake her CPR test. 

   Once that was taken care of, Diana headed over to where the Incredible Hulk was sitting on, and therefore mutilating, the flat screen TV that had once been the crowning glory of the Bat Cave.

   “Hulk, get off the TV.”

   “NO! HULK SMASH TV!” 

   Diana tried to get Thor to help her, but he was busy trying to get Loki out of the toilet. At least, that’s what he said when later asked. But that’s not what Barbara Goodman said. 

   Just when Diana thought she had everything under control, Tony walked in, and chocolate began to rain. 

   Tony stood back and admired his work. It was beautiful. 

Little bits of lovely heaven fell from the sky and covered the Bat Cave in chocolatey goodness. Everything seemed to freeze as everyone tried to grasp what exactly was going on. For a few seconds. 

   And then Peter Parker yelled, “This is so cool!” And instantly began to stuff his face. Robin followed in his footsteps and soon everyone was engaged in an engorgement of enormous proportions. (Really. Don Wright gained about four pounds. Rumour has it he’s working it off at a Zumba class.) 

   Tony leaned back against the doorframe and grinned smugly to himself. The whole scene warmed his heart like a fire warms a marshmallow. Except, not too much because then you have a nasty melted marshmallow carcass all over your hands and your clothes and your face and if you’re really unlucky, all over your neighbour’s hands and face and clothes.

   If Tony was a slightly toasted marshmallow, warmed by the sight of dozens of superheroes indulging in expensive chocolates, then Bruce was a burst tomato, exploded and bright red and generally just not having a great time. He was disgusted by how easily Tony had won these people over. Chocolate, a tree, and… oh.

   Diana glanced up from the chocolate haze and towards the moon. Or rather, what was being projected onto the moon.

Peter felt like laughing. Or crying. Or maybe both. 

Everything was a blur. There was chocolate on the floor, a really, really awesome Christmas tree that must have cost a lot more than four thousand dollars in the corner, and Iron Man’s face on the moon. Well, it was actually half Iron Man, half Tony Stark face on the moon. That not only gave away Iron Man’s true identity, but also gave away the location of the party. It was also Peter’s fault. He felt a gobsmacking thud of dread begin to hammer his stomach. What in the whole wide chalupa loving world had he done?

The Joker was having a bit of trouble finding the location of the party. It wasn’t as though he went over to Batman’s house often, like for tea parties or something. Though that might not have been terrible, Joker thought.

The GPS was not cooperating, and just when he was about to suggest they go destroy the White House or something, he looked up and saw the moon. 

Oh, Brucie bunny, you have company.

Bruce Wayne was having one lovely dream. And no, before you ask, you weren’t in it. 

It was one where he was with his parents, and he was wearing his favourite blue Thomas the Train Pajamas. Only, they were kind of too small so he flung them off into the wind, revealing the truth. He was wearing an enormously 80’s pantsuit, complete with shoulder pads and glitter. 

“Bruce!” His dad was yelling, “What in tarnation are you wearing?” 

A disco ball descended from the ceiling and everyone was dance, dance, dancing, when a shot rang out. 

Bruce looked up to his parents, but the sight was almost too awful to see.

Bruce fell to his hands and knees and screamed. 

Tears streamed down his handsomely angled cheeks and onto the pantsuit. Blood began to ooze from the walls and he fell to his hands and knees and then he was drowning in face goop and blood. 

In the background, the Joker was laughing and saying, “REVENGE IS MINE! REVENGE IS MINE, YOU DARLING BUTTERCUP!” 

He bolted uprighted, whacking his head on the table. Next to him, Clark groaned. Before either of them could take in the situation, the lights went out and the room was only lit by the glowing evil that surrounded them.

Diana turned on the light and scowled. 

The supervillains looked to the Joker for further instruction. “GET THE HEROES, YOU IDIOTS!!!” 

And then, as most presumably expected, chaos erupted in Gotham City. Fists, Lazers, plates, lassoes, potatoes, other generic flying things all flew through the air as a maddeningly explosive battle officially killed the party.

But the Joker had special plans for the few that remained. 

Let the fun begin.