#Sascha Sionis

[doks-aux]

Sascha’s been around mobsters and rough characters her whole life and has a very advanced vocabulary for her age. Roman thinks it’s hilarious hearing her cussing in her little kid voice, but the calls from her teachers are getting tiresome.

Sascha: Dads said I can swear, just not at school. *intense whisper* But that's where I need to the most.

She has to save it up all day until her driver picks her up.

Angie: How was school, kiddo?

Sascha: *from the backseat* FUCK!

Angie: ...That bad, huh?

Sascha: No, it was fun. We did state capitols.

[doks-aux]

Sascha calling Roman "boss" before she calls him "Dad" is still my best idea.

She's probably been doing it for days before he realizes.

Sascha: Can I eat in front of the TV?

Roman: Knock yourself out. But spill anything on the couch, and it's your ass.

Sascha: Thanks, boss!

Roman: *five minutes later* ...What the fuck? How long has that been going on?

Victor: I'unno. 'Bout a week?

Roman: And you just let it?

Victor: Kinda figured you were fine with it since you didn't say anything. And I thought it was pretty cute.

Roman: It's fucking adorable, Victor. That's not the point.

[doks-aux]

Sascha watches The Godfather and the next day has to make absolutely sure that Roman doesn't kill horses. Otherwise she might have to rethink this whole adoption situation.

For the record, his answer is "Ew, no."

Also for the record, she's seen Victor kill people*, and this is apparently perfectly fine and not a cause for reevaluating her parentage like potential ponycide would be.

And, yes, Roman probably could've tried a little harder to figure out how to put parental controls on her TV instead giving up in a snit after fifteen minutes, but seeing as she had already seen Victor kill people*, he wasn't sure what good they would’ve done anyway.

*(Technically, they were mostly reanimated Talons, so exactly how alive they were by that point is debatable, but still.)

[doks-aux]

Sascha eventually amasses a tiny posse of gremliny little girls, many of them Rogue-adjacent, but before that he has a lot of trouble making friends. She didn’t really have any when she lived in Bludhaven and wouldn’t have had many opportunities to spend time with them even if she did. Things don’t improve quickly once she relocates to Gotham.

It’s hard enough to adjust to a new school, new city, and new living situation with new guardians. Add onto that her previous parents being assassinated by a bird-themed cabal, her new parents being a mob boss and a serial killer, and her own idea of extracurricular activities being at least misdemeanors, and her new classmates tend to keep their distance. Nobody wants to spend recess with the kid that roleplays extortion scenarios with your Barbies.

This is antithetical to Roman’s efforts to let her be a normal, stupid kid, so he tries to find her some more open-minded playmates.

Roman: *on the phone* Dinah, you've have that stray kid now, right?

Dinah: You mean Cynthia. My daughter. Who I adopted.

Roman: Yes, that one. I want to set up a playdate with Sascha. She’s not having the best luck making friends.

Dinah: Are they bullying her?

Roman: No, she’s just got a little... creative during a game of house or fairy princess or whatever the fuck kids play. Might’ve scared them off a little.

Dinah: ...What kind of creative?

Roman: ...Martin Scorsese?

Dinah: What era Scor--? No, ya know what? Fuck it. I’ll pick her up on Friday.

Roman: You will?

Dinah: Cyn needs friends, too. I mean, as long as your cool with the whole thing where she was sheltered from the modern world to be trained as an assassin from birth.

Roman: ...

Dinah: ...Or if that’s a problem--

Roman: No. No, that’s perfect. My kid’s really fucking weird, too.

Dinah: Yeah, I picked up on that.

[doks-aux]

Currently obsessed with the idea of Roman calling his children “mockingbird” as a pet name.

[doks-aux]

Having philosophical conversations about death with a ten-year-old because you’ve both been fucked up by loss and by having to escape from a horde of nigh-unkillable zombie assassins in scary ass bird masks.

[doks-aux]

Sascha is very much both Roman and Victor's child because on the one hand she has an eye for fashion and art and carries herself with poise, and on the other she has a little jar full of her baby teeth that she's labeled "Pieces of My Skeleton."

I just adore the concept of her as a very feminine, friendly girl with good posture who knows how much force it takes to rupture a kidney. She has excellent penmanship and bug-out bags stashed all over Bludhaven. She collects stuffed tigers and has committed indictable offenses in the state of New Jersey.

[doks-aux]

Roman and Victor are so unprepared for parenthood, and here I am throwing a traumatized ten-year-old at them.

Sascha’s pretty good at taking care of herself by the time they end up with her, but that's not necessarily a good thing.

It might lend itself to interesting conflict, especially between Sascha and Roman.

Sascha had a lot of responsibility for a young kid, helping her mom with the chores and upkeep of a crummy apartment in a bad neighborhood in an even worse city and getting roped into her dad's criminal activity. To her it was normal, even though she had an idea that it wasn't supposed to be. She actually does have a lot of resentment over it and the danger she was constantly put in, but she’s repressed it to the point that she doesn’t recognize it for what it is.

And then there’s Roman, who as a very young kid had to learn to take care of certain things for himself because his parents would forget or wouldn't bother, and he had a lot of pressure on him to perform to their high expectations, which he was frequently punished for failing to do so. He grew old enough to recognize that it wasn’t fair and to wear his resentment openly.

He’s self-aware enough that he’d worry about doing the same thing and would try to give Sascha room to just be a kid and definitely not involve her in the business side of things. But Sascha would interpret being discouraged from helping with anything as not being welcome.

Roman: For once I will be a responsible, considerate adult and not screw up this kid.

Sascha, who came pre-screwed up: New dad doesn't want me to commit crimes, so he must not want me. :(

It’s the exact opposite problem anyone would have expected Roman to have as a parent.

Sascha: *sad* Daddy always said I was a lifesaver when I'd done the laundry and made $500 at the track by the time he got home. But Mr. Sionis just wants me to do my homework and play.

Harley: ...Oh, shit, I think Romy might be a good dad. *clears throat* Sit down, sweetie. Auntie Harley's gonna make you a sundae and explain why we don't need to commit felonies to make a man love us.

Sascha: ...But you--

Harley: Lemme finish. We should commit felonies because we love us and it's what makes us happy.

[doks-aux]

There is no root or reason for Sascha’s love of skeletons. She is simply a weird little girl.

Roman and Victor’s death fetishism can at least be traced back to child- and adulthood trauma, coping mechanisms, denial, etc.

Sascha just saw some bones one day and thought, “Neat!”

[doks-aux]

Okay, I talk a lot about Roman and Sascha, but like. Victor picking up a sleeping Sascha from the couch and carrying her to her room to put her to bed. And she just barely wakes up, sees that it's him, and puts her head back on his shoulder and goes back to sleep.

He's a notorious assassin and serial killer, and she knows this. She doesn't know a lot about him yet, but she knows that. She’s seen it.* But she also knows he won't hurt her. She trusts him. She feels safe with him.

He's a killer. Cold-blooded, unrepentant. And she's asleep in his arms like none of that matters. Because he's her dad. Because he’s killed for her.*

*(To be fair, she’s seen him kill quasi-immortal zombie assassins for her, but she didn’t know that first part at first, and she’s ten, so the emotional impact still stands.)

[doks-aux]

Sascha: *at the library* May I please check out Dante's Inferno? The computer said it was behind the desk.

Librarian: Of course! Do you need it for a school assignment?

Sascha: No, I just want to learn about Hell.

[doks-aux]

God help me, I love my ZsaszMask fankids so much.

[doks-aux]

Victor telling Sascha not to be scared of a dead body because it's just like seeing hermit crab shells on a beach.

Just a home someone outgrew.

[doks-aux]

I love the idea of Roman doing Dad things with Sascha without realizing that’s what he’s doing.

He doesn’t know how to be a dad, and he’s not really been around kids since he was one, so in the beginning he sometimes defaults to treating Sascha like a colleague who happens to be very small and needs some extra assistance and accidentally ends up getting it right.

Roman is putting in an appearance at some museum benefit or something (and he likes museums anyway), and he’s explaining some piece of art to Sascha when he notices that she’s too short to properly see it. Clearly it’s very important that she pay attention, so he picks her up to give her a better view while he keeps talking. And then he keeps carrying her around like that because otherwise he’d just have to pick her up and put her down over and over. This is just easier.

And after a while, he kind of starts to like it.

He puts her down to use the restroom and starts groaning and rolling out his shoulders while he complains to Victor. “Fucking Christ, that kid is killing my back.”

“I can carry her for awhile, boss.”

“No, get your own.”

[doks-aux]

"And I've known The feeling you've had when you're held The comfort of being unwell So something can cradle you Oh, I don't need it Oh, I won't grieve it"

Sascha song 😌

[doks-aux]

Bruce probably helps push Sascha’s adoption through.

Not that there would be much resistance. Roman is the cohabitating partner of her biological father, her mother and her previously assumed father are both dead, and her only other living relatives are some maternal grandparents who have never met and want nothing to do with her.

Still, it’s better to get it done quickly, and it’ll go more smoothly with Bruce’s good word backing up Roman’s money. (And by now Bruce probably carries the adoption papers around with him at all times. It’s just convenient.)

There relationship as adults isn’t the best, but they’re still friends. There’s something about the way they grew up together that won’t allow them not to be.

He’d also take the time to try to warn and prepare Roman for how the press and paparazzi are going to react to this. He’s been through it several times himself now, and however bad it could get when they were kids, it’s so much worse now. When you’re adopting. When you have an illegitimate child. When you’re queer.

"They're going to eat you alive, Roman," Bruce tells him over the phone while Roman watches a little girl flipping through a fashion magazine on his living room floor and making faces at all the same outfits he hates. "Both of you."