La'gaan had faced many daunting challenges before, and hadn't even batted an eyelash. He was a brave warrior, trained in the art of combat at the Conservatory of Magic, and fought side by side his King, the mightiest hero Atlantis had ever seen. He'd gone up against foes twice his size and double his strength, and came out on top. But this was probably one of the most terrifying things he'd ever attempted to do.

"I will conquer you." He says defiantly to the oven across the room.

Valentine's Day was tomorrow, and he wanted to do something special for his Angelfish. M'gann was always baking things for him, pies, cookies, fish sticks, (She promised she'd make something called crab cakes for him one day. He didn't know what they were but they sounded delicious) so he decided to make something for her for a change. Brownies were her favorite, so he stole her recipe, and tonight, he was going to make it.

He'd never used an oven before, but it couldn't be that hard, could it?

Cooking was different in Atlantis. For one thing, they didn't have ovens. They couldn't exactly light a fire underwater, so most of what they ate was raw. And no, raw did not mean he chased after fish and caught them in his mouth, eating them whole. (As Gar had so kindly asked him, 'Do you catch your food like a shark?' Why would he catch his food like a shark? He was a human for Zeus' sake. Though, it was still better than the people who asked him why he ate fish at all. They seemed to think he was best friends with all the fish in the ocean. Where'd they get that from?). Atlanteans prepared their fish in a similar way to sashimi, but in his opinion it tasted a thousand times better than the stuff they served on the land.

He cracks his knuckles, as though preparing for an intense battle, and reads the first direction.

Step one: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

He pushes the preheat button to start the oven. It's already set to 350 degrees, so he just presses start. Well, that was easy.

Step two: melt one cup of butter or margarine, and mix all ingredients in the order given.

Okay that's easy too, he can even use the microwave to do that. M'gann taught him how to use them. She'd make popcorn in the microwave, and then melt butter to top it with. He heads over to the pantry to find a cup.

Never until now did he think about how many sizes cups come in. There were tall cups, short cups, wide ones, narrow ones, rounder ones, straighter ones, ones with handles, ones without them, mugs, thermoses, glasses. He had no idea what the recipe meant by a cup. He decides on a blue and green striped mug, as it looks pretty average in size, and he likes the colors.

He's not sure at first how to fit solid sticks of butter into the mug, but he soon realizes it's soft enough to cut with a knife. He fits four finely diced sticks of butter in the mug, he might have been able to fit another one if he really tried, but he doesn't want to risk it. It might overflow when the butter melts. One minute is what M'gann does for butter, but he's using more than her. That would mean it would take longer to melt, right? He shrugs and sets the timer for three minutes.

He doesn't take his eyes off the mug of butter rotating around and around in the microwave. He'd never heard the expression 'a watched pot never boils' (which would make sense, as pots don't boil in Atlantis), and was growing frustrated at how slow cooking took. There wasn't a whole lot of prep work in Atlantean cooking. Cut the fish, mix with some greens, and eat. No melting and blending and all this other time consuming stuff.

He's about to pour the liquid butter into a large mixing bowl, until he remembers he needs to add the ingredients in order. He's not really sure why. Does it make a difference? He doesn't know, but he figures it's best not to question the directions.

The first thing listed is 2 cups of sugar. He finds another mug, roughly the same size as the first, and pours two carefully measured cups of sugar into the bowl. He then adds the butter, and a cup and a half of flour. He can't find anything called 'cocoa powder', but they have hot cocoa packets, with multi-colored mini marshmallows, which are probably the same thing. He adds five of them (half a cup worth) to the mix.

He knows better than to put a whole egg into the batter. He has to crack it open, but he has no idea how. He's never actually cracked an egg before, but he's seen M'gann do it a few times, so he tries to imitate what she did. He bangs one egg against the side of the bowl, and the shell shatters. The sticky, goopy, yellow stuff inside the egg seeps all over the bowl, the countertop, and much to his disgust, his hand. Chicken egg insides were by far the grossest thing he's ever felt, and he spends several minutes thoroughly washing his hands.

He tries again to crack an egg. This time he taps it very, very gently on the side of the bowl a few times. It breaks, and the liquid inside slowly drips into the bowl through the small crack. There's got to be a faster way to do this. He tentatively separates the two halves, and the egg's insides plop into the mixture. He grins; his second attempt at cracking an egg was a success. The recipe needs four eggs, so he does this three more times, hoping the small amount of egg from his first failed attempt won't throw things off too much.

The recipe then calls for a teaspoon of vanilla. Was a teaspoon different than a regular spoon? He's seen some of his teammates use spoons to stir tea, but they use the same spoons to stir coffee too, and eat things like cereal and ice cream. There isn't as much size variety with spoons as there are cups, so he takes what looks like an ordinary spoon and adds the vanilla, along with half a teaspoon of baking powder and salt.

Step three: Add a half cup of nuts if desired, then beat with an electric mixer for 10 minutes, or until batter is evenly mixed.

M'gann always put nuts in her brownies, so yes, he did desire nuts. They had almonds, honey roasted peanuts, unsalted peanuts, pecans, Grape-nuts, and walnuts (both whole and chopped). Since he's not sure what kind of nuts the recipe wants, he adds a bit of each, including several still shelled walnuts.

He knows they had an electric mixer somewhere, he just isn't sure where. He'd never had a reason to use it before. He tries the cupboard next to the sink. Coffee maker, waffle iron, blender, George Foreman Grill, chocolate fountain, no electric mixer. The next just has pots and pans, and the one after that has a juicer, a can opener, and few other things he doesn't recognize. After his fifth cupboard, he finally finds the box containing the handheld, electric mixer.

He looks at the slew of pots, pans, and appliances he threw on the floor. Eh, he'll pick them up later.

Mixing everything together isn't that hard. Just plug the mixer in, turn it on, and that's it. Okay, so he made a small mess when he took the mixer out of the bowl without stopping it, but he figures it can't be that hard to get it off the walls.

He thinks the batter looks evenly mixed. It's mostly a smooth, brown color, except for the nuts, and a few clumps that didn't mix, and…wait is that an eggshell? He yanks it out, and quickly searches through the batter to see if there are any more.

Step four: Pour batter into greased 8x8 inch pan and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the surface of the brownies begin to crack.

Grease? Like that stuff on French fries that causes heart attacks? Eww… He doesn't want any of that stuff tainting his brownies, so he foregoes the grease and just pours the mixture into a pan, or rather scoops it. The stuff is really thick, like putty, he can actually hold it in his hands, and it doesn't pour well. He thought M'gann's batter was thinner, but maybe he remembered it wrong. His batter had to be right. After all, he followed the directions perfectly.

He manages to wait about two minutes for the brownies to bake before he is bored out of his mind. There's got to be a way to make these cook faster. He thinks if it takes twenty minutes to bake the brownies at 350 degrees, then it would only take them ten minutes at 700 degrees, or two minutes at 3500 degrees. He cranks he oven up to its hottest temperature, and mentally pats himself on the back for being so smart.

Ten minutes later, he curses himself for being such an idiot.

Smoke is billowing from the oven, and the kitchen is quickly filling with the smell of something burning. Coughing, he rushes to the oven and opens the door. More smoke enters the room, and he knows that soon enough, yup, there goes the smoke detector. A few seconds later, water sprays from sprinklers on the ceiling. They're intended to put out a fire, but there's only smoke. Smoke, a charred pan of what was supposed to be brownies, and one very distressed wannabe chef. He sighs, and tries to take the pan out of the oven, but not knowing he needs oven mitts, yelps in pain when he touches the hot brownies.

Hearing the commotion, Nightwing and Conner come rushing to the kitchen. They look around and see appliances littered on the floor, brown stuff splattered on the walls, bits of flour and egg on the countertops, and La'gaan nursing a red, raw looking hand.

"La'gaan, what are you doing?" Conner shouts.

He sighs, "I-I was making brownies."

-o-

"I'm really sorry I messed up your Valentine's Day, Angelfish." He apologizes, for about the thousandth time.

"La'gaan, it's fine." She smiles. Her boyfriend had tried to cook for her. Something he'd never done before and was out of his comfort zone, all to make her happy. Sure, his attempt ended up making a giant mess of the kitchen, but at least he promised to clean it up.

"It's our first Valentine's Day together, and I wanted to do something special for you. Instead I just made a big mess."

"It's the thought that counts, really. Maybe, next year I can teach you how to cook as a present."

La'gaan chuckles, feeling a little bit better, "I'd like that. Anyway, I got you something else, to make up for my botched present."

"Oh, you didn't have to do that." She tells him, but he hands her his gift anyway. It's not much, just package of Oreos, with a red bow stuck on top.

"I hope you like it." He's afraid of looking like he put no effort into his gift. He wanted to get her something really nice, like a huge stuffed bear, or chocolates in those heart shaped boxes, but Nightwing said Oreos were the key to her heart.

"Oreos." She says, hands trembling, "You-you got me Oreos?"

"Yeah, err… Nightwing said you liked them."

"Oreos?" She keeps repeating, with a crazed expression on her face that legitimately worries La'gaan.

"Listen, if you don't like them, I could always- OOF." She glomps onto him with so much force and enthusiasm he loses his balance, and they land on the floor together with a loud thump.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She squeals, when she's not kissing him sloppily all over his face.

"Uh… you're welcome." He smiles sheepishly.

He has no idea why M'gann loves those cookies so much, but he'll have to remember to buy them for her birthday, and Christmas, and Sweetest day, and their anniversary. You know what, he'll surprise her with a box or Oreos every other day, if she keeps up this reaction.

Maybe he doesn't have to be a chef to make her happy.

For anyone who doesn't know, Martian Manhunter is known for his obsession with Oreos. I assume M'gann feels the same way.