Gotham City, New Jersey|

December 24th, 2011|

4:26 PM, GMT-5|

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=YJ=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Dick idly tapped his fingers upon his laptop and waited for the others to get his invite. After about a minute, a screen popped up with Wally grinning.

"What's up dude!"

"Hey Wall-man. Just waiting for our last guest to make an appearance."

As soon as Dick said that, Roy's face popped up on screen.

"Hey."

"Hi Roy, is Kaldur with you?"

"Yeah, hang on, let me go get him."

Roy move out of frame and his footfalls echoed as he left the room. Wally blinked at Dick's face, wearing shades even in his own house.

"Shades? Really?"

"Hey, until I get the okay, civilian life and hero-work does not intersect."

"Fine. Wait- why didn't you get Kaldur his own invite?"

"Kaldur's online presence is virtually nonexistent and he spends Christmas at Roy's anyways," Dick answered casually as he distractedly tapped away at his computer.

Before Wally could say anything else, two sets of footfalls came closer and two people came into view. Kaldur and Roy came into view and Roy dipped out of frame again to grab something. He returned with a heavy looking book and dragging a chair.

"Give me another minute," he called.

"Hello," Kaldur called in the meantime, half-smiling at them, half-eyeing Roy suspiciously. "Uh- Merry Christmas?"

"Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too," Wally replied.

"I don't celebrate Christmas Kaldur," Dick corrected.

"But you do celebrate something, yes?" Kaldur asked.

"Uh-huh…" Dick drawled, waiting for Kaldur to guess.

"Happy… Hanukkah?" Kaldur tried.

"You got it! And thank you."

"Alright!" Roy suddenly called from off-screen and suddenly his screen shifted.

The feed cut off for a moment before coming back online, this time Kaldur and Roy were seated next to each other at Roy's desk rather than Roy sitting on his bed.

"So what's this all about?"

"Well, you see, we received an invitation for the annual Queen Christmas Ball; which of course we turned down" Dick explained. "But I overheard Agent A mention something about an annual disaster-"

"Oh! I already know where this is going," Roy interrupted.

"Yeah, so I did a little investigating myself and well-"

With a single click, a video began playing. Everyone watched as a video began playing. A woman, seemingly quite drunk, flung herself at Oliver Queen who tumbled right into the buffet table, completely upending it and flinging half the food onto the guests and servers; and the rest onto both of them. The clip ended and Wally burst out laughing.

"Dude, what was that?"

"That was-"

"Queen Christmas Eve Ball 2006," Roy interrupted.

"Yep," Dick confirmed.

"While that was funny," Kaldur said, "that is still nothing compared to-"

"Hang on, I got'cha."

Another video began, this time with Oliver in the middle of making a speech when the tree suddenly burst into flames. The blaze caught Oliver's sleeve, and he immediately dropped and rolled. Fortunately, the fire on his clothes went out quickly. Unfortunately, the tree was now completely on fire and fell over; missing the audience but smashing the remaining glass baubles as the others burst from the heat. The video cut off just as a woman screamed.

"I remember that!" Kaldur said with a chuckle. "Oliver looked very tired after that."

"He's used to it by now," Roy said as his shoulders shook with laughter. "That's not even the first time something's caught on fire."

Another set of clips played proving just that. The hanging garlands one year, the table settings, someone's plate, Oliver's blazer on several occasions, the beard of a Santa impersonator one year, and even a punch bowl, all caught fire. By the end of it, the boys were all in tears.

"Dude, you have got to share this with the rest of the team," Wally said through tears of mirth, "they're gonna love it!"

"I agree," Kaldur said.

"Already on it," Dick said. "Consider it a Christmas present."

As he said that, their phones went off, alerting them to an email containing the video. Roy was already in peals of laughter yet again.

"I'm gonna show this to Ollie tomorrow morning," he said through his laughter.

"Don't forget to record whatever mishap the Fates have planned for him," Kaldur said with a smirk.

"Oh, c'mon Kaldur," Wally said. "Cut him some slack."

As soon as he said that, the boys all broke down into fits of giggles. Roy actually falling off his chair as he laughed.

"I have- long since lost hope for that event since the first one I ever attended," Kaldur joked. "The tree catching fire was more than enough evidence."

"Speaking of," Roy said as he slowly recovered from his bout of giggles. "I need to go get ready for that stupid party right now."

"Film it!" Wally and Dick unisoned.

"Alright, alright! I gotta go," Roy said. "Bye guys. Happy Hanukkah Dick, Merry Christmas Wally."

"By guys," Dick said, "Merry Christmas!"