That Green Kid (a)officalBeastBoy

Look out for alien robots #NYC #EmergencyAlert #AlienInvasion #StayInside

Hitting a river after falling from the height of a commercial airliner was by far the most exciting way to get the wind knocked out of you. That was what Wallflower decided anyway, after she was able to breathe again. Actually, breathing wasn't possible underwater, unless she wanted to drown. Oops. Also, ew, because she'd landed in the Hudson River.

Wallflower felt water rushing past her and then she was able to gulp in air after coughing out a lungful of water that was probably going to make her grow a third eye or something. "Thanks, Aqualad."

Aqualad waited until Wallflower was treading water before he let go of her arms and signed "No problem."

The five-armed alien robot that had knocked Wallflower out of the sky dove at them with two sets of claws extended. Aqualad threw out an arc of water with one of his water-benders and cut the robot in half. Wallflower picked herself up with the air and got out of the river before the sparking robo-corpse touched the water. Aqualad wouldn't have any problems with mixing water and electricity. Wallflower would.

Above the warren of New York streets, in the air and on the rooftops, the Teen Titans were fighting for their lives. A robot dove towards Bunker, all of its hands extended towards his head. Bunker was busy brick fist punching another robot and was standing above a very long drop on a floating platform made of his remaining bricks so he didn't have any wiggle room. Wallflower intercepted the robot headed his way and lobbed a fireball at the centre of its mass. It didn't do much more than distract it. The robots were shaped a bit like spinning tops with four arms all around and the fifth extending from their wider end. They were smart, they were hard to hit and they played for keeps.

Superboy grunted as the robot he was fighting tried to stab him in the gut and broke all the knife-like attachment at the end of one arm. Raven retaliated for him by using her magic to send the robot tumbling towards the Hudson. The water reached up and crushed it. That was two for Aqualad.

One of White Canary's arrows stuck to the back of the robot that Bunker was fighting and exploded into a torrent of flame. That was a lot more effective than Wallflower's tiny fireball. The robot crashed into the street below, nothing more than a burnt husk.

"I got an explosive arrow to work," White Canary said over the comms.

"What did you hit?" Red Robin asked.

"The robot, right at the base of one of the arms," White Canary replied.

Red Robin's laugh sent shivers up the spine of everyone who heard it.

Troia ripped the arm off another robot. "Red, what are you planning?"

"I can't hear a thing anyone's saying, so I'll assume in thirty seconds I should duck," Wallflower said. She threw another fireball and flew out of the robot's range. Just as she'd hoped, it followed her to an intersection where she had enough space to use the wind to batter it against the street. When she made a mistake and wasn't able to pick the robot back up, Skitter was there to finish beating it into submission.

Wonder Girl dodged a cutting arm, threw her lasso and used it to smash the robot she was fighting into the ground. It took out a lamppost on the way down. The property damage claims were going to be so much fun for this one.

The remaining dozen robots began to gather for a coordinated attack but they froze when a series of explosions went off. The explosives that Red Robin had placed reduced the invading force to a rain of scrap metal.

"How'd you do that?" Beast Boy exclaimed. "I didn't see you. Did any of you see him?"

"Troia, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, make sure there aren't any robots left," Red Robin said. "Everyone else, let's get started on clean-up."

Red Robin took the fire escape he was crouching on down to street level. The rest of the team was scattered across a several hundred blocks radius. He didn't think they'd destroyed any buildings, so the first pass wouldn't take too long despite the area they had to cover. They'd get most of the damage fixed over the next few days, assuming nothing else came up. People would still complain but they couldn't please everyone.

After summoning his bike with one hand and sending Batman a message with the other, Red Robin drove around in a search pattern with Titans Tower as his final destination. He bagged some of the smaller robot remains. Leaving alien technology lying around where anyone could get a hold of it was asking for trouble. He saw Superboy carrying away larger pieces of the robots. Wallflower was sitting on a roof seven stories up next to a green eagle that was probably Beast Boy trying to get water out of her ears. She waved as Red Robin drove past and the eagle raised a wing tip.

It took almost an hour for the entire team to reconvene on Titans Tower. By that time, New York had long ago returned to the usual hustle and bustle. Little things like alien invasions couldn't keep New Yorkers from going about their business.

"We may be out of hot water," Delilah said when they were gathered in the living room for debriefing. She sneezed and added, "But my hearing aids survived. Thanks for the waterproofing, Tim."

Tim nodded in acknowledgment and made a note to stock up on cold medicine. "You're welcome. Did anyone else take a dip in the Hudson? Jackson, you don't count."

"Then no," Jackson said. "Just robots. Any word on what all of that was about?"

Tim checked his phone. He had no new messages, only the one from Batman that was low on details. "Something about a planet with too many consonants in its name to be healthy to pronounce and multiple invasions. Stand by for further communication, etcetera."

"Cool, cool." Gar nodded. "Movie night?"

Donna and Delilah excused themselves for homework purposes, but the rest of them crowded onto the couch and the surrounding floor space, arguing over if they were going to watch Frozen or Monsters, Inc. for the umpteenth time. Eventually they decided on Big Hero Six and were actually able to get through most of the movie before people started falling asleep.

Wonder Girl [red heart emoji][yellow heart emoji] (a)realWonderGirl

Happy (late) Singles Awareness Day! [Image: Wonder Girl, Troia and another girl with an emoji heart covering her face toasting the camera with drinks in disposable coffee cups.]

🐯🐯BurningBright (a)Blake_Williams

Replying to (a)realWonderGirl

Aren't you dating Superboy?

Wonder Girl [red heart emoji][yellow heart emoji] (a)realWonderGirl

Replying to (a)realWonderGirl and (a)Blake_Williams

It's complicated

Conner knocked on Tim's door.

"Do we have any plans this Friday?" he asked when Tim told him to come in.

Tim looked up from his tablet. "Which 'we'?"

"We the team," Conner said. "All of us. Delilah's mom invited us for dinner." He held up his phone as evidence.

There was silence. Tim blinked as his brain processed that sentence.

"Huh," he said eventually. He had to wonder if Ms. Kamau knew what she was signing up for.

Conner's phone lit up as another message came in. "Delilah says 'Please say no', which kind of makes me want to say we can go even more." Conner grinned.

"Tell her we'll bring food," Tim said. Expecting the average household to singlehandedly feed a speedster was cruel and unusual.

It snowed in Finley on Friday. They didn't have to slog through it since Raven was able to teleport them directly into Ms. Kamau's living room, but Bart spent a lot of time watching the flakes falling past the windows.

"We don't get snow in the future," Bart said when Miguel tried to get his attention. "It's different here than in New York."

"Si, hermano, but you're being rude," Miguel said.

Bart turned and saw Ms. Kamau being greeted by the rest of the team. "Oops."

David got home ten minutes after they arrived. He stared at the crowd of superheroes and seemed not to notice when blood dripped from the arm he was holding to his chest.

"Oh, that's today," David said. "Hi."

Delilah descended on him with a flurry of sharp signs. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I got stabbed a little." David grimaced. "It's fine. I'm fine. Stay with your friends."

Delilah glared but didn't say anything as her brother gingerly shrugged off his coat, kicked off his boots and headed for the kitchen.

"That's not normal, right?" Bart asked.

"Nope," Cassie said.

"Yes," Tim said. "They've got a gang problem here."

Conner raised an eyebrow. That wasn't something that had come up in conversation. Then again, they didn't talk about Cassie's dad or Donna's son or Solstice being trapped in the future or Conner being mind-controlled to murder a bunch of people either.

Maybe they should think about taking the Justice League up on that offer to find them a therapist.

Once David had bandaged his arm there were thirteen of them who had to fit around one table. They didn't have much space but somehow no one hit anyone else in the face once during the entire meal. Well, Gar kicked Bart who kicked Miguel, but that was intentional. Jackson kept blushing every time David talked to him and Gar had to pass that news along.

Delilah was also blushing. Her mom had broken out the embarrassing childhood stories.

"So, you like cats?" Conner said with a smirk.

Delilah groaned. "It was one day." Pretend to be a cat for one day when you're five and the good part of your family never lets you live it down.

The multiple discussions that were going on didn't pause until after dessert, when Tim's phone vibrated frantically. He looked at the screen and grimaced.

"There's a slime creature in Times Square," Tim said. "Looks like it could turn into a hostage situation."

Every superhero in the room jumped to their feet. Delilah ran upstairs the second Tim finished explaining the situation in sign and came back a minute later dressed in her black jacket and pants and pressing her mask over her eyes.

"Thank you for dinner, Ms. Kamau," Donna said.

"Yes, thank you," Tim said. "Raven, take us back to the ship."

Raven nodded and the group disappeared in a wave of darkness.

David and his mom looked at each other.

"They're good kids," he said.

"I'm just glad she has friends now," she said.

Encouraging.

That Green Kid (a)officalBeastBoy

Art reflects life (except Sarlot is cooler and not trying to end the world) [Images: A drawing of Cthulhu compared to a photograph of Aqualad standing next to a green, scaly humanoid with tentacles covering their face who is two feet taller than him and flashing a peace sign at the camera with a webbed hand.]

Conner hit the mat with a thud. He didn't even bother groaning, just stared at the ceiling with an expression that said he was deeply regretting his life choices.

"And that's ten wins for Tim," Cassie said.

"I don't know why I keep doing this to myself," Conner said. Tim was ten for ten in mock fights against Conner won.

Tim smirked. "Hope?"

"An unwillingness to admit that it's impossible to beat someone trained by Batman?" Cassie suggested.

Conner lifted a hand off the mat and pointed in Cassie's direction. "Cassie's right."

"You've got the strength," Tim said. "You just have to work on your technique." He held out a hand to help Conner to his feet. Conner took it.

Cassie was sparring with Tim next. She took Conner's place on the mats and waited for Tim to make the first move. That was the only way to have a snowball's chance in hell of not losing horribly to him. Otherwise, Tim had the entire fight mapped out from the first punch.

While Tim and Cassie chased each other around the gym, Conner sat down in the corner next to the punching bag. He grimaced as he drank the protein shake that Gar had been experimenting with and insisted everyone try. This iteration tasted like cabbage and rotten eggs.

The sound of the door hitting the wall drew Conner's attention away from the fight. Delilah stormed in and headed straight for the punching bag. Halfway there she stopped and took a detour to pick hand wraps out of the storage cabinets Bart and Tim had labelled during a shared night of insomnia.

"What happened?" Conner asked.

Delilah wrapped her hands with jerky movements. "My dad and his wife."

Conner stood. "I'll hold the bag."

Delilah nodded her thanks. Then the gym was filled with the noises of the punching bag getting pounded to a pulp and Tim winning his spar with Cassie for the third time that month.