Chapter Text
Not even a week later, Selina shows up at Penny’s apartment and kidnaps her.
Alright, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But when there’s no warning given and your quasi mother-in-law herds you onto a plane bound for New York with minimal explanation, it sure feels like a kidnapping.
“It’s a surprise,” she assures Penny on the short, private flight. It’s Bruce’s jet, of course. Penny isn’t entirely sure Selina even asked before commandeering it. “You’ll like it, trust me.”
A driver takes them from the airport to a high-profile wedding dress boutique. Penny blanches when she realizes where they’re going.
“What? Already?” she says, aghast. “We haven’t even picked a date yet!”
“With dresses, it’s never too early, kitten,” Selina says decisively, ushering her inside.
The staff inside are… effusive. And scarily efficient. Within about two minutes, Penny has a flute of champagne in her hand and is being led to a private suite. She almost drops the flute when she sees who’s waiting.
“Mom!” she gasps, “Jessie!”
Her mother and best friend look up, champagne in their hands too. They both look like they’re having the time of their lives.
“Hi, baby!” says mom, getting up and pulling her into a hug. “My goodness, wasn’t this a surprise? I didn’t know you had such high-profile friends!”
“You’re so fancy now, Pen!” Jessie laughs.
Something in her mother’s statement doesn't quite fit, but she has no time to think about it. The two of them have evidently been here for long enough to pick out a few dresses already. Penny’s consultant asks some questions about her preferences for silhouette and fabric, then sends an assistant off to find more while she herds her into the dressing room.
Out of curiosity, Penny looks at the tag on one of the dresses while the consultant is preparing another. And, well… When she sees five figures, she screams.
Aloud.
And not quietly.
“What? What’s wrong?” the consultant asks, dropping the gown and looking around wildly.
“What even makes a dress cost ten thousand dollars?” Penny wails, horrified. “Did angels embroider it? That’s the cost of a used car!”
The consultant relaxes and laughs. “Honey, that’s on the low end for a wedding like yours. Miss Kyle told us that money is no object. You get to buy whatever dresses you’d like.”
Penny should have expected this. She braces her hand against the wall and takes some deep breaths until the consultant gently pulls her back upright and dumps a skirt over the top of her head. Penny holds the bodice in place while the back is being laced up. Something occurs to her.
“Wait,” she says, “what do you mean dresses?”
The consultant wisely lets Selina explain, after Penny has waddled back out into the suite. This dress is a definite no—too form-fitting, where would she put her Glock?—but she shows them anyway.
“Three gowns, kitten,” Selina elaborates, lounging back against the sumptuous couch. “A rehearsal gown, a ceremony gown, and a reception gown. Don’t even look at the price tags.”
Penny stares at her through the mirror while the consultant fluffs her train. “Who needs three wedding dresses?” she asks.
“You do. Just give in and enjoy it. Who doesn’t love a blank-check shopping spree?”
She flails in a very unladylike manner. “Me! The accountant!”
“Only the best for little sister-in-law,” says Cass, who’s suddenly just there. Penny almost screams again.
“Don’t do that,” she wheezes, clutching her chest. Somehow the actual civilians in the room don’t seem affected.
“Only the best,” Cass insists. “Think of Jason’s face.”
And that… is compelling, actually. She could see his jaw drop three times. That would be pretty satisfying.
While her resolve crumbles, mom puts a hand against her own cheek and says, “Oh, that does sound lovely. Are you sure you can afford it, though?”
Penny blinks, distracted. “I’m only paying twenty-five percent,” she clarifies, and chuckles. “It’s not exactly tradition, but the father of the groom is taking care of the rest.”
“Jason’s dad? My goodness.” Mom settles back, relaxing once she’s sure her daughter isn’t about to bankrupt herself just to look fancy for a day. “You never told me what he does. Is he in the security business too?”
It feels like everyone in the room pauses—even the consultant. Something finally clicks in Penny’s head.
“Mom,” she says, turning all the way around to stare in disbelief. “Who exactly do you and dad think I’m engaged to?”
“What do you mean, sweetie? Jason Wayne. You told us he changed his name recently after he and his adoptive father made up.”
“...and you thought that was just… random? A random Gotham Wayne?”
Mom’s eyes clearly display that her brain is being consumed by a dial-up tone as she processes the implications. Then she inhales sharply. “OH,” she says with extremely delayed realization. “He’s a Wayne Wayne!”
“Mom.”
“Well, can you blame me for not realizing?” her mother defends. “That’s a crazy thing to assume! Especially since you dislike the spotlight so much, sweetie. I assumed you’d run screaming from most celebrities.”
Cass giggles; Selina practically purrs her laugh.
Penny pinches the bridge of her nose and groans.
“I had no clue or I would have told her, Pens,” Jessie says, taking a long, judgemental sip from her champagne. “But this does make her total zen about the wedding make sense now.”
“It’s fine,” Penny sighs. The conversation has to pause as she’s whisked away to put on the next dress, which is much closer to her taste.
“You really do need three dresses, I get it now,” mom says when she returns.
“Oh, not you too!” Penny groans. “How will I even keep track of three dresses?”
“That’s what the wedding planner is for, sweetie!”
They leave after several hours with three dresses ordered, including one custom piece from the boutique’s premier designer.
In sparkly pink, of course.
Penny meets her wedding planner at Wayne Enterprises, in the CEO’s office. Tim does not warn her—purposefully, she assumes.
“Nice to meet you, Penny!” the woman says, bowling her over with her bright pink (and obviously expensive) matching Chanel suit jacket and pencil skirt set. One of her hands supports a massive binder and the other reaches out to warmly shake Penny’s. “My name is Em Forrest, but feel free to call me Em.”
“Uh,” says Penny articulately, eyes wide.
“Can I just say your ring is gorgeous? You have excellent taste.” Em smiles and lets go of her hand to gesture at her own suit. “Of course I may be a bit biased.”
“Meet your wedding coordinator,” Tim, the traitor, says serenely. “She’s the best in the business, especially for events this size.”
Penny gives him a profoundly unimpressed look for the ambush before taking a deep breath and smiling. “Pleasure to meet you, Em. You’ve uh… taken on a big task. I’ll try to help manage the chaos as much as I can.”
“Oh hon, no,” says Em. “That’s my job! You just sit back and enjoy.”
“I… don’t think I’m capable of just sitting back,” Penny admits with a grimace.
“Don’t you worry, I know how that goes. But we’re going to plan this to a T.” She sets the binder down with a weighty THUD. “Let’s walk through the table of contents first and see if that changes how you feel.”
People—including Penny—hear “wedding” and assume fluff: tulle and fussy problems, stressful only because it’s a big day. But as Em lays out her plan, Penny realizes that assumption is dead wrong. Em Forrest isn’t a pink-suited fairy godmother with a Pinterest board. She’s a pink-suited army general, and she’s laying out one of the most breathtakingly detailed plans of attack Penny has ever seen.
“I think I might love you,” Penny rapturously declares at the end. Some of the spreadsheet techniques Em used are unknown even to her. And she loves spreadsheets almost as much as she loves Jason. “Marry me?”
Em laughs. “I think Jason might get a touch jealous, hon. Sweet of you, though.”
“This is amazing.” She traces a finger down the table of contents and tries to think of a single thing Em has left out. For once in her meticulous life, she comes up with nothing. There’s even a section dedicated to the transport and timing of each dress. “Maybe I can relax after all.”
Tim, the traitor who she’s marginally more willing to forgive now, looks smug at his desk.
Em—miraculous, terrifying Em—pats her hand and smiles. “That is just what I love to hear. We’ll make this a day to remember without any heart attacks on your part. That’s the Forrest Promise!”
Time passes quickly.
Way, way too quickly, at least in Penny’s opinion. Wedding prep feels like a whirlwind. Before she knows it, there’s only a month left before the big day. It feels surreal.
Less surreal is the knock on her door on a random Tuesday evening. Jason is out, getting ready for patrol, but she’s off duty tonight. She double checks her weapons before going to the door and is quite surprised when she looks through the peephole.
“Mr. Cobblepot?” she says as she opens the door.
“Oswald, my dear,” he says with humor. It’s a familiar verbal dance that plays out every time they meet. He presses an extravagant bouquet of flowers into her hands. She deliberately doesn’t think about how much it must have cost—there are so many gold and gemstone accents in it that she knows her nerves will suffer if she tries. “May I come in?”
“Oh, thank you! Yes, please come in.”
She nods to his bodyguards as they take up watch outside. They nod back. While she shuts the door and sets the flowers down, Oswald takes a seat at the kitchen island.
“Congratulations again, my dear,” he says warmly. “Now, I’ll be sending an escort for you at seven sharp on Friday, so please be ready.”
Penny blinks at him. “Wait. Why?”
His eyes are twinkling in a way that she knows means a ton of coordinated mischief has gone on behind her back. “Friday, seven in the evening. Your bachelorette party is at seven-thirty. Your friends and family RSVP’d weeks ago.”
“...what?”
The smug, amused aura intensifies. “Selina made arrangements for your gown and accessories. I believe her exact words were ‘check your closet and safe, kitten.’”
Penny gapes. “Selina, you traitor!”
Oswald laughs, a croaky and fittingly penguin-like noise. “Ah, dear Penny, I’m afraid we all knew you too well to let you stress over the bachelorette party. Now the only option left is to relax and enjoy it, hmm?”
She narrows her eyes, caught between the urge to disagree on principle and the knowledge that everyone who was in on this conspiracy was absolutely correct. “...I know when I’m beaten,” she grumbles. “Fine. But don’t go overboard.”
“Us? Overboard. Never,” the supervillain lies.
They exchange a few more pleasantries about the wedding. As usual, she tries to convince him to let her actually pay rent for the apartment. When she inevitably fails, he takes his leave. Even his bodyguards, waiting outside, seem to be in on the whole thing. They grin at her.
She sticks her tongue out when Oswald isn’t looking and shuts the door.
Traitors, the lot of them.
Oswald closes off the entire Iceberg Lounge for her bachelorette party, because of course he does. It’s a (nearly) all-girl night, with Penny’s family and close friends in the VIP section while everyone else mills about the main floor. Heroes, villains, and completely normal people mingle, congratulating her on her upcoming nuptials.
Many directly present her with engagement gifts, despite her protests. Every single one of them seems expressly intended to make her blush, which is probably why they personally hand the gifts to her. The female members of Jason’s gang-turned-security-service-ish seem especially intent on tormenting her, and howl with laughter when she glances through the clear top of the gifted box and promptly slams it facedown on the nearest table, cheeks burning.
Who the hell makes Red Hood themed roleplaying toys for the bedroom? And costumes? And why is she supposed to dress up as Sexy Red Hood when he’s already the actual sexy Red Hood?
Somehow, some way, this must be Selina’s doing.
Drink after drink is pressed into her hand as the night goes on. If not for her solemn commitment to placate Gotham’s demon with minor crimes, she would refuse on account of not being dumb enough to enter the Iceberg Lounge without her Glock. All’s well that ends well, though. She’s on the far end of tipsy when the night comes to a close, and she never once had to draw it.
“One million, one hundred and forty-eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-two dollars and thirteen cents,” she warbles to Cass and Steph as they walk her out. All of the Wayne family will be spending the night at the manor, on account of nearly everyone being drunk from the concurrent bachelor and bachelorette parties.
“Too big numbers,” Steph complains. Cass makes an inquisitive noise.
“That whole party cost one million, one hundred and forty-eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-two dollars and thirteen cents. With a three percent margin of error. And I won’t even be able to reimburse Oswald! He never lets me.” She looks down. “Wait. Where did my heels go? They cost three thousand dollars, I looked it up.”
“I have them!” Steph sings, waving the glittery pink stilettos.
Cass pinches Penny’s arm. “Stop looking it up,” she scolds.
“No,” Penny sniffs. “You knew who you were letting into the family.”
Cass pinches her arm again, but she’s smiling.
“How the hell are you doing math while drunk, anyway?” says Steph.
“I’m not drunk. And I refrained from doing math until the third Manhattan, thank you. If you didn’t want me to calculate you should have left me stone cold sober.”
“Neeeeeerd!”
“Duh,” Cass deadpans, and Penny giggles all the way to Wayne Manor.