Come Monday, many agents were slow moving or had dark circles under their eyes, blinking away sleep as they walked. The scent of coffee was ever present in the bullpen.

Damian waltzed into the office, suit impeccable and with a familiar con smile on his lips.

"How are you so cheery this morning?" Agent Blake asked as he yawned. The coffee in his hand was steaming hot and half-gone.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Damian asked. He had a feeling he knew why but still, he enjoyed people's bafflement. It wasn't his fault that most people couldn't go without sleep for more than a day.

"Did you somehow miss that an alien spaceship crash landed in Central Park and the alien invasion that followed? I doubt anyone got any sleep last night."

"Especially when a whole fleet descended from the sky and lit the city up." Jones groaned and rubbed his eyes just recalling the moment light shone through his closed curtains. "I'm sure everyone in the city woke up then."

"Huh. I guess I did miss it," Damian said with a grin and a shrug. If he wasn't so cheery, they wouldn't believe him. As it was, those agents who had seen June's place wondered how he had missed it with all those windows.

"How do you miss an alien invasion?" Blake asked, jaw hanging. "It's an alien invasion!"

"I grew up in Gotham. If you got all worked up for any world-ending crisis, you would never have a calm moment."

Blake shook his head. "Gotham's wild."

"That's not even half of it," Jones muttered. Everyone knew at least one story about Gotham that made the place seem like the most dangerous place on Earth. Damian knew that wasn't true as he'd been to more dangerous places, but he guessed to the average person, Gotham was a place they could easily find themselves in.

"Besides, we have alien invasions every other week."

"Not like this one," Blake muttered. He walked away with his shoulders slumped.

Diana and Jones gave Damian mysterious looks. Damian hoped they didn't suspect something.

Damian was called into Peter's office.

"There was an alien invasion over the weekend," Peter pointed out. There was footage from the weekend playing on his computer. Lights lit up the sky and people cowered in their houses.

"I've heard."

In the footage, a figure with a streaming tail of purple flame trailing behind flew up towards an alien spaceship.

Peter paused it. The words 'I know you were there' hung in the air. It was obvious to anyone who met Mar'i that she was involved. Although, Damian was surprised that Peter had picked up on the 'if she's there, you'll be there' mentality. He thought he had managed to hide it.

"That looks like an interesting weekend, I guess it missed June's place or something."

Peter was not impressed. "Damian, you're putting yourself in danger. You're not trained for this."

"To be fair, I've been trained, it's why I could pull stunts during cons."

"Do I want to know how that happened?"

"No." Damian has seen enough people react to his childhood to know that Peter would be furious. "Just know that I don't associate with my birth mother and grandfather anymore for reasons." Except when they were opposing each other in battle.

The sigh Peter gave was a long suffering one. "I knew there had to be something unhappy in your past for you to end up here. I guess if you're away from the cause, that's okay for now. Just, no more aliens."

"Mar'i is alien."

"She's born on Earth, in this very city even, unless her parents lied on her birth certificate." Peter had that birth certificate in front of him and Damian was hit by a wave of familiarity.

His family would probably get along with Peter. They shared similar reactions to things.

"Do you want to explain the invasion? Even theoretically what could have caused it? El thinks that the aliens came because Earth has the best food."

"I wouldn't say that's wrong. Alien food is often inedible for humans," Damian mused. He was glad for the wriggle room Peter had given him. The agent obviously wanted the story, even if it meant pretending it was just a theory. "I would say that someone came into contact with something the aliens wanted and they came here to get it."

"What could that something be?"

Damian shrugged and grinned. "Who knows? Maybe one of the Green Lanterns brought back something they shouldn't have."

"Is that really your theory?"

"Mar'i must have offered to help protect it. And she had her hands full with it if the invasion is any indication."

"Is everyone alright?"

"Yeah, probably. Superheroes, you know?"

Peter didn't look convinced but he figured Damian would mention a 'thought' if someone had been injured. He did keep a careful eye on Damian that day, just in case he was hiding any injuries.

The invasion of New York was mentioned in the news in other cities. Burbank was one where it had a few minutes of airtime dedicated to it. Chuck had thought he was in the clear when he changed the channel to his videogame before the news story was aired.

"Hey, did you guys see the aliens in New York?" Lester asked the room at large, ignoring all the customers roaming the store.

"Aliens?" Sarah questioned. She had brought Chuck lunch while also letting him know that there was a mission Beckman wanted to brief them on that night.

"Yeah! They invaded and were fought off by the Justice League!"

"Pft, the Justice League wasn't anywhere near it. Did you see Superman in any of the video?"

'Morgan!' Chuck mouthed, making a motion for his friend to stop.

It was too late. Sarah turned to him with a frown on her face, no doubt putting the pieces together.

"And how do you know that?" she asked Morgan.

"Uhhh..." He seemed to have caught on to the trouble he was in as he stumbled to create a story. "Like I said, because Superman wasn't there?"

"Who was then?"

Morgan struggled to answer and Lester quickly interrupted, trying to look smart in front of the pretty girl.

"Some new guys, I think. Most of them looked young. Except for that one hero with grey hair who looked a little like Superman."

"Like Superman?"

"Yeah, he had a short, white, half cape thing and some kind of lightning theme going. I remember him before he brought down a whole ship and then tossed it back into space."

"A whole ship?"

"It's amazing what some people can do." Under his breath, Lester also muttered, "and a little unfair."

"You're bad enough already, I can't imagine how bad you'd be with superpowers," Chuck commented to Lester. "There's a fine line between hero and villain you know?"

"And you'd certainly be on the villain side of the fence."

"With friends like you two, of course I would." Lester huffed and stormed off. "Come on, Geoffrey, I can see we're not wanted."

Jeff shrugged and followed his long time friend into the back rooms.

"While true, I feel like that was harsh."

"If he does turn out to be our new supervillian, then we'll get Jeff to stop him."

"I doubt Jeff will let it get that far. He might not be fully motivated most of the time, he wouldn't let Lester do anything that would hurt either of them."

"Let's talk about this alien invasion. Why wasn't I invited?"

"I wasn't either," Morgan said. "You get over it." Sarah glared at him. "I'll just go now."

Chuck sighed. He would have liked to have Morgan there as a buffer between him and the fight he was certain was about to happen.

"I didn't invite you for a few reasons. One, I have a superpowered form that's difficult to hurt and you're kind of squishy. Two, I wasn't in charge of this and bringing you along without an invite would be rude. Unless you wanted to be my side-kick or something."

"I'm your wife, not side-kick."

Chuck winced. Yeah, he was in trouble. Then again, how many other heroes had wives? Actually, maybe he could do something.

"True. How about I introduce you to some people?"