Disclaimer - I own my Christmas presents, of which the rights to Teen Titans were not part.

A/N - This was so finished while it was still Christmas Day, and would've been posted earlier if I hadn't broken off to go and watch Love Actually. Bloody hell, I love that film despite its rampant cheesiness and schmaltz.

The Spirit of Christmas Titan

© Scribbler, December 2007.

Putting up the tree was an integral part of Christmas. It bonded people, a shared experience involving twinkly lights, miles of tinsel, lots of cussing and ornaments that refused to stay on no matter where you hung them. There was nothing quite like the experience to be found at any other time of the year, for which some people were incredibly grateful. Any nurse could tell you that around Christmas time the Emergency Room contains more people injured by their Christmas trees and food mixers than by muggings – and in Steel City that was a lot of muggings to beat.

"Hey! Hold up your end!"

"Me? Hold up your own end!"

"I knew we should've got a plastic one. They're lighter and pop up on their own. Plus you get snow on them. I don't see any snow on this one."

"It's snowing outside."

"No it isn't. It's sleeting. That's rain mixed with hailstones. It's like cold piss in the face."

"How do you even know … wait, I don't want to know."

"¡Prisa para arriba!" Mas and Menos, waving ping pong paddles the way they'd seen in movies, gestured Speedy and Aqualad up the stairs and over the threshold of the Tower's main room. "Izquierda un pedacito. ¡Nosotros izquierda dicha! Ahora la derecha... ¿Quién le enseñó cómo dirigir? Eso es mejor."

"Get off!" Speedy snapped, hulking the massive tree up a notch and making the muscles in his arms scream.

"¡Estamos haciendo mucho mejor que usted dos!"

"Will you three quit whining and lift this thing up before it spears me?" At the head of the tree Aqualad huffed and puffed, reaching out blindly with one hand to pat the control to get the doors open.

The twins darted down to shift the giant tree back into place on its directed course, and not out of a window or into the pool like it was heading. They manoeuvred the tree in with difficulty, somehow got it across the floor without snapping it in two and yanked, tugged, pushed, pulled, jerked, wrenched, heaved, hauled and lugged it into an upright position in the very centre of the room. That done, they surveyed their handiwork and collapsed as one onto the couch.

"Parece muy pelado," said Mas.

Speedy rolled his head to one side, too tired to actually lift it. "What?"

"He said it looks bare," Aqualad, who had taken more time to learn Spanish beyond 'get off my stuff', translated for him.

"Necesitamos adornar nuestro árbol," Menos added, miming hanging baubles. "Decoraciones de Navidad."

"Where are the decorations?" Speedy asked.

Aqualad looked nonplussed. "I thought you brought them up." He groaned. "Don't tell me they're still in the sub-basement."

The Tower had many basements, and many sub-basements to those. Cyborg had learned the importance of bomb shelters and storage space when Titans West's Tower lacked them, and so had designed East Tower with many more than any team would ever need. As a result, Titans East had accumulated mountains of what other people might call junk, but which they call 'inventory yet to be sorted'. Beyond that, in the deepest recesses of sub-basements, things like seasonal decorations lived where they would be brought out only once a year and then manhandled back into place in January. It took a good fifteen minutes to get there from the first basement, and if even one light-bulb went the whole place was tripped to plunge into darkness. Getting back to the light involved many bumped shins and smacked heads from falling over 'inventory'. Everybody hated going into the deeper sub-basements if they could help it.

"You forgot them," Speedy accused. "You go get them."

"Excuse me?" Aqualad was out of sorts, his arms sore and his hands full of pine needles. His unruffled demeanour was decidedly more ruffled than usual.

He didn't hate Christmas, but had come to it after many years of doing without and so viewed it as something of a curiosity land-walkers engaged in to stop themselves thinking how dark the days were and how cold the nights. Atlantis had something similar for midwinter, when the seaweed crop turned and the sea lions had departed for shorelines where food was more plentiful, but the rituals of Christmas intrigued him because they were so different than what he was used to. He even enjoyed parts of it – fairy lights reminded him of lantern fish in the caves of his childhood, and since moving to land he'd developed a taste for mince pies.

All the same, right now he could almost believe he hated this holiday. He'd been trampled by shoppers at the tree lot, attacked by the blue spruce they'd finally bought, twisted his ankle on the stairs to the sub-basement elevator and endured Speedy's whining and Mas y Menos's 'help'. He was exhausted.

"Where's Bumblebitch, anyway?" Speedy demanded. "Why isn't she helping?"

Aqualad had to admit he didn't know. Bumblebee had left the Tower early that morning before anyone else was awake. The only reason he knew she hadn't been kidnapped, beamed onto a spaceship or otherwise detained was the message she'd left stuck to the fridge door with a magnet shaped like a Christmas pudding. Her neat handwriting strutted across the note like lines of soldiers marching off to war. It was instantly recognisable and hideous to imitate, as it acted more like written type in everything but the tiniest details only someone who'd known her for a long time could distinguish. The note said simply, 'Have gone out. Will not be back until tonight. Don't worry, I haven't been kidnapped, beamed onto a spaceship or otherwise detained. Don't eat the cheesecake in the fridge.'

"She's out," he told Speedy, who harrumphed and took on an expression of contempt.

"If I tried that line I'd be kicked up the ass for laziness."

"You think Bumblebee is lazy?"

Speedy opened his mouth … and then shut it again. Even he couldn't go that far. Bumblebee worked harder than any of them, mostly out of some strange need to prove herself as more than just a turncoat villain, to confirm she was the best choice as leader of Titans East, but also because she happened to be one of those people who worked hard for the sheer satisfaction of doing so. This was a mixed bag because she always pushed herself to make sure nothing could sneak up on Titans East – no paperwork was left unsigned, no triplicate bit of litigation could trip them up, no training programme was left unimproved. However, she also tolerated nothing less than this effort from everyone else, which didn't always combine well with the bundle of personalities sewn into the team.

"No," Speedy mumbled, as though the adverb 'grudgingly' had been coined for his personal use. "But she should still be here. This is her freaking Tower too."

"Dry up," Aqualad replied, though the snipe had less effect on Speedy than it would've on your average Atlantean. "Wherever she is, she's probably working harder than we are."

Mas y Menos bounced up and down at the door, pointing for Speedy and Aqualad to follow them. They were zippy and fast, but had little upper body strength and needed their older teammates to carry the heavy boxes of Christmas decorations up from the sub-basement.

Speedy groaned. "Wanna bet?"

Later – a lot later – they were once again collapsed on the couch surveying the fruits of their labours. The tree was definitely a sight to behold; a ringing endorsement of every store that carried Christmas lights, tinsel, ornaments and glitter from Steel City to Gotham. Speedy felt like he would go blind from the illumination blasting into his retinas in an attempt to detach them through sheer intensity. Miniature Santas, Rudolphs, snowmen, fairies, angels, candy canes, shepherds, wise men, holly and teddy bears on skis dangled from each branch, shiny flecks covered the floor around the base of the tree, sequins dotted the walls where they'd fallen off the dancing Mrs. Claus doll's dress and the whole collection had been sprayed with enough snow-in-a-can to sink the Titanic twice over.

"I'm exhausted," said Aqualad.

"Yo también," Mas agreed.

"Yo también," said Menos.

Speedy didn't bother to concur. He was too tired. His arms felt three inches longer than when he woke up this morning and his head thumped too much for aspirin to handle.

The doors behind them slid open. "Wow," Bumblebee breathed. "That's … some tree."

Tiredness forgotten, Speedy shot upright and turned to glare at her. "Where have you been? We've been killing ourselves putting this thing together and you've been nowhere in sight all freaking day."

"Bee?" Aqualad said more cautiously. "Are you okay?"

Bumblebee looked just as exhausted as them, if not more so. It was unusual to see her in anything but her uniform, but today she wore a slight variation of it that turned her striped tank-top into a sweater. The sleeves were a little too long and had to be folded back, which made her look smaller than usual, and her slumped posture only enhanced the impression. Even her hair seemed to droop. "Huh? Oh, fine. You spent all day on this?"

"Trabajamos realmente difícilmente." Menos jumped up to stand on the couch and struck a pose.

Mas joined him. "Era trabajo muy duro."

"All day?"

"The tree was in Sub-Basement Twelve," Speedy said slowly. "The decorations were in Sub-Basement Twenty-Six. Except for the tinsel, which was in Sub-Basement Thirty, stuffed in with that prototype Matter Transporter Cyborg left behind."

"Really?" Bumblebee sounded distracted, her eyes unfocussed as they strayed around the room and its glittering contents. "This is … a lot of, uh, splendour. Have you had dinner?"

"Comimos cierto chocolate y tostada francesa," Mas said thoughtfully.

"We had French toast and chocolate spread," Aqualad sighed. "It was all we had. We've been running down the food supplies so we could fit in all the Christmas food. On that note, we have to go food shopping tomorrow."

"I think Bumblebitch should do that."

"Speedy-"

"What? It's not like she's done anything else to help prepare for Christmas." Speedy folded his arms. "I feel like a stretched piece of tinsel and my leg muscles are on fire after climbing all those stairs. It's the least she can do."

"I'll go. It's okay." Bumblebee frowned, buzzed across the room and whapped Speedy on the top of his head. "But the 'Bumblebitch' comment isn't."

"Yow!"

"Le sirve derecho."

"They're right," Aqualad agreed. "You deserved that."

When the boys awoke the next morning Bumblebee was once again MIA. Today's note on the fridge promised to bring chocolate cake home that evening, and informed them she'd found tins of soup in the cupboard they could have for lunch with the last of the French toast. It also promised swift and terrible retribution on the one who'd eaten her cheesecake.

"Very festive," Speedy commented when he read it. "So we're having what amounts to bread and water. Even the criminals we catch get better grub than this. It's inhuman."

"Dry up." Aqualad had already seen Mas y Menos holding another box of tinsel and wearing the scarves, hats and coats their parents had sent from Mexico.

Being more than a little inattentive in a loving sort of way (they usually remembered they had children, but only when one questioned the other about why there were small people living upstairs from their laboratory), the early gifts from their mom and dad were a lurid green striped with hot pink and dotted with red splotches that looked like the twins had been dancing in a slaughterhouse. Their arms stuck out at right angles from their bodies over the reams of padding and their faces were all but completely submerged between layers of collar and hat, leaving only their bright little eyes visible.

Speedy turned to see them. "Oh hell. Did we bring up that light-up Santa and his Sleigh to go on the outside of the Tower yesterday?"

"No."

"Which Sub-Basement is it in?"

"I'd tell you, but that'd ruin the surprise."

By early evening Bumblebee hadn't returned and the boys were beginning to get hungry. By late evening they were famished and Speedy was forced to go out on his S-Cycle (not a copycat of Robin's R-Cycle, he was forever insisting) to the local Indian takeaway. Arriving home with steaming bags of Chicken Korma, Makki ki Roti, Sarso ka Saag and Rasogolla, he grumbled into the kitchen to find five plates but only three dining companions.

"She still isn't back?"

"No," Aqualad shook his head, "and I'm beginning to get worried."

So was Speedy, but he'd be damned before he admitted it. His relationship with Bumblebee hinged on bickering and the kind of arguments you got when two forceful personalities came together. The power struggle would tip against him in the worst way possible if he gave in over every small, niggling misgiving.

Instead he pasted on another scowl and emptied the first of his plastic bags. Mas and Menos grabbed eagerly for the plastic cartons of green paste and vivid yellow rice. "I don't see why we should leave her any food. She never even told us where she was going."

"¿Compras del regalo de Navidad?" Mas paused in opening the lid of his Sarso ka Saag to look at them. "¿Quizás?"

"Christmas shopping wouldn't take this long," Aqualad replied.

"She's a girl," Speedy reminded him. "Even if she doesn't act very girly. Girls don't follow the rules of good sense when it comes to shopping – no boundaries, no tiredness, no off-switch. They're shopping machines."

Aqualad was saved from having to answer that by the door sliding open and Bumblebee walking in. She immediately stared aghast at the takeaway. "The food!"

Speedy put down the tub of Chicken Korma and laid his palms flat on the table as if he needed to know where they were in case they did something stupid without telling him of their plans first. "You forgot."

"I'm so sorry!" She turned to dash back the way she'd come. "I'll go now."

"Don't bother. Even with Christmas opening hours the stores are closed."

"I'm sure somewhere will be open – Cash Conscious! That place is 24/7."

"And under 24/7 surveillance by the Board of Health and Safety. Even the cockroaches think it's too dirty to shop at."

Aqualad pulled out a chair. "Sit down, Bee. You look like death warmed over."

"I do?" One hand reached up to pat her hair, which today looked like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket after dousing herself in water. Her sweater was crumpled and her shoes covered in stains that rivalled Mas y Menos's winter coats for dubiousness. "Man, I need a shower."

"What time did you get up this morning? You look worn out."

"¡Estancia¡Coma!" chorused Mas y Menos.

"Thanks, but I, uh, already ate." She took a step backwards, still patting her hair.

"Already ate? While we're sitting here starving, wondering where you are and whether you're okay because you haven't bothered to call in on your communicator?" Speedy fumed. Then he checked himself. "Not that I cared much. I was just hungry after a day of hard work, and you'd be difficult to replace if you got yourself killed. There are only so many bossy girls who look good in a superhero outfit." Damn. That wasn't such a great save after all.

Bumblebee shot him a withering look. "Thank for the concern. What the heck did you four do all day, anyhow?"

"We could ask you the same question-" Speedy was cut off by Mas y Menos launching into a rapid-fire account of how they'd spent their day.

"Adornamos el exterior de la torre, y Speedy cayó de su escala de Aqualad cogió lo, y los muchos de las luces consiguieron rasgado y roto cuando él se cayó pero pasamos la tarde que fijaba las y las que las colgaban afuera. ¡Parecen realmente bonitas! Y entonces cubrimos las ventanas en nieve e hielo falsos - vino en un aerosol puede tener gusto de la pintura que limpiamos a veces de las paredes del término de autobuses."

"Wait, what?" Bumblebee's expression morphed from sarcastic to thoroughly confused. So much complicated Spanish gabbled so quickly in two voices left her head spinning, as it would also have done for Speedy, had he not been present for all the events described.

"We decorated the outside of the Tower."

"Speedy fell off his ladder and had to be rescued before his split his head open," Aqualad couldn't resist adding.

Bumblebee rolled her eyes. "That doesn't surprise me."

"Hey!" Speedy snapped. "We also spent the whole afternoon fixing the damn lights after they got so tangled up trying to kill me that a couple snapped and interrupted the sequence. Do you realise how many lights we had to check to find the broken ones? It was hell! And that was before we even got the things positioned on the wall to Mas y Menos's satisfaction. Didn't you see the display as you came in?"

"I flew in through the door on the roof. I was in town so it made more sense than coming up through the hangar."

"You were in town? So why the hell didn't you remember the food? We have no turkey, no cranberry sauce, no roast potatoes, nor anything else we need for Christmas dinner! We don't even have any chips."

"Because chips are so important at this time of year." The withering look was back, but this time Bumblebee's voice was infused with a strange sort of disapproval, as if Speedy had committed an absolutely massive faux pas without even being aware of it. "I'll be in the bathroom. Enjoy your meal."

"Wait, who's going to go shopping tomorrow for all our food? We don't even have any French toast left!"

"Oh, order it online or something."

"With two days to go before Christmas? Forty-eight hours before Christmas freaking Day?"

"Oh dear. It's learned to count."

"Seriously, two days before Christmas you want us to order our entire food supply off the internet? We'd probably end up with toilet paper instead of turkey and gravel instead of gravy."

"Dry up," Bumblebee snapped and left.

Speedy turned the full force of his glare on Aqualad. "You're a real bad influence."

The next day dawned and for the third day running Bumblebee was gone before the boys had even cracked their eyes open. Speedy glowered into the empty cupboards before announcing to the kitchen he was going to McDonalds for a Sausage McMuffin.

"Do you realise how unhealthy those things are?" Aqualad asked. "Eat just two a week and you can subtract eight years from your life."

"I don't care." Speedy pulled on his boots, hopping on one foot as he spoke. "We have nothing to eat, I'm hungry, and there's no way I'm going to face Christmas shoppers on an empty stomach. That's just suicide."

There was a pinging noise as Mas and Menos slewed to a stop in front of the door, already dolled up in their outdoor-wear. They were atrociously attached to those coats. "¡Deseamos comer Sasausge McMuffins, también!" they said in perfect, creepy unison. Mas smacked his lips and Menos rubbed appreciatively at where Speedy assumed his stomach was under the layers.

Speedy sighed. "You want to make this four for four, dude?"

"No way." Aqualad shook his head. "But … I guess I could come along for some coffee. Just to make sure you three don't get into any trouble."

"Sure, Mom."

Steel City Mall was a hotpot of bustling shoppers, the ring of cash registers and body odour potent enough to strip chrome off steel. By the time Speedy, Aqualad, Mas and Menos broke through the crowds to the front entrance of McDonalds they were either gasping for air or turning a pale shade of green.

"There is no way in hell we are going back the way we came," Speedy declared as they stood in line to order, each checking the injuries they'd sustained on the journey from the parking lot. "No way, no how, no chance."

Mas and Menos bounced on their toes, chattering happily at being somewhere they didn't usually go. Aqualad looked at them doubtfully.

"I feel like such a parent," he sighed.

"Just don't spit on a tissue to wipe their faces," Speedy cautioned.

"Hey, I'm not the mom here!"

"Sure, whatever you say."

"I'm not the mom!"

"Dude, relax. Like I'd have kids with you even if you were female?" Speedy yawned. "Man, I'm still beat from yesterday. How the hell does Bumblebitch keep going with these early mornings? They're killer." He pondered for a second. "Then again she never starts her day without coffee. She must be living on caffeine."

"Maybe we'd be able to understand if she went into detail about what she's up to," Aqualad mused. "Whatever it is, I don't think it's Christmas shopping."

"It's not. She finished her shopping weeks ago."

"How do you-"

"I accidentally found where she stashed her gifts, okay?"

"Accidentally?" Aqualad arched an eyebrow.

Speedy shrugged. "Sure. Why not? This is Bumblebitch we're talking about – Miss 'Never Leave Anything to Chance'. My point is, wherever she is and whatever she's doing, it isn't buying presents for us. Which is a pain, because I already know I hate what she got me, but I also know she'll have kept the receipt so I can exchange it."

"You're really selfish, you know that?"

"Meh. It's Christmas, the one time of the year you can be selfish and pass it off as getting into the spirit of the season." Speedy stepped forward to lean over the counter at the pretty blonde girl whose nametag identified her as 'Shaniqua'. She giggled and flirted back, and five minutes later the boys found seats near the back of the restaurant to nurse their greasy breakfasts.

"Usted dijo que usted deseó solamente el café," said Menos.

"Yeah, I thought you said you only wanted coffee," Speedy echoed, gesturing to the two hash browns in front of Aqualad.

"I'm allowed to change my mind. I don't even like coffee all that much – unlike you. That's about the only thing you and Bumblebee agree on."

"Don't remind me." Speedy peeled back the lid of his cup to dump in three tubs of creamer into the dark water McDonalds passed off as Columbian blend. "I don't know how she can drink hers totally black that way she does. And she always leaves me the dregs in the morning if I don't get there first."

"Start the day as you mean to go on – with an argument. So going back to what we were talking about; what do you think she's up to?"

"How should I know? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like it's anything dangerous. She never comes home with injuries, she hasn't logged any crime-fighting reports in her precious files, and she isn't throwing off that uptight vibe like when she thought Blood was back and tried to keep us out of the loop."

A few months after Cyborg defeated Brother Blood there were reports of someone using his M.O. and a couple of his ex-pupils from HIVE in Metropolis. Bumblebee travelled there secretly, not wanting them involved and put in the line of fire a second time, and the rumours only reached her teammates' ears when she arrived back in Steel in Superman's arms after getting between her target (who turned out to be just a man with both telepathy and telekinesis), his unlucky HIVE lackeys and a locked vault full of Kryptonite. The boys were as angry as they were concerned, and had exacted a promise from her to never try and keep them from something that important again, even if she thought she was doing it in their best interests.

"Bumblebitch can take care of herself." Speedy bit into his muffin and groaned with pleasure. "Real hot food… I'd forgotten what it tasted like."

"The 'real food' part is debateable, but I get what you mean." Aqualad nibbled one of his hash browns. "It's nice to have something substantial for a change. It feels like we've been living off dried and tinned food for an age."

"We have." Speedy swallowed. "Next stop, the supermarket to restock so we don't have to do it anymore. Then we hit the rest of the mall for our own gift shopping. We need something to go under our tree. It's not Christmas without piles of gifts to rattle and guess what they are."

"¡El árbol de Navidad¡El árbol de Navidad!" Mas y Menos cried joyfully, waving their muffins so pieces of reconstituted scrambled egg spattered onto the floor. "¡Regalos para inferior nuestro árbol de Navidad!"

Speedy took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Do you reckon they plan to take together like that, or that it just happens naturally?"

Speedy was considering soaking his feet in a bowl of warm water when the bag of groceries landed in his lap. He yelped as it crushed his crotch and brought tears to his eyes.

"As promised, one chocolate cake." Bumblebee placed the plastic container of Alabama Fudge Cake on the table alongside four plates, four forks and one large sharp knife, which she gave to Aqualad. "Here. I'm going to go get cleaned up."

"Is that … food in your hair?" Speedy squinted. "Wow, those Christmas shoppers really are brutal. We never even got into the supermarket today. Too many crowds."

"His fangirls chased us to 34th Street," Aqualad said dryly.

"So don't ever say I never do anything for you guys." Bumblebee yawned, covering her mouth with one hand but not able to totally conceal her gaping mouth. The dark circles under her eyes were even larger than the previous evening and when she walked away from the kitchen table Speedy realised she was disguising a limp.

"Bumblebee, are you okay?" Aqualad asked before he could.

"Sure, sure. Some lady just rammed me with her shopping cart so I wouldn't get the last packet of sprouts. Who of us wanted sprouts?"

Nobody answered.

"Really? So why did I think I needed to buy them?"

"Because you have to have sprouts at the table for Christmas dinner. It's like a golden rule." Speedy fumbled with the top of the cake container. "Does this have butter-cream and raspberry jam filling?"

"And sprinkles on top, yeah. I remember you saying you liked it the last time I actually got you to come carry the groceries home for me sometime back in August. I see you got the Christmas gift-buying-and-wrapping thing done. You could climb that pile of presents under the tree with a pickaxe."

Speedy narrow your eyes at her. "So where did you get to today?"

"I was in town-"

"Doing what?"

"Well if you'd let me finish-"

"Because we got a call at lunchtime that Madame Pooch was trying to free all the animals at the shelter from their 'human oppressors'. It took us all afternoon to round up over a hundred cats, dogs, hamsters, ferrets, chinchillas and one pissy parakeet."

"It bit him," Aqualad translated.

"Who wouldn't? Pissy attracts pissy."

"How come you never answered the call?"

"Because I knew you could handle it. C'mon, it was Madame Hooch. Mas could arrest her on his own with his hands behind his back."

"But you're the leader-"

"And this time I delegated. You're all okay, aren't you? And you're always saying how I don't trust you enough, Sassafras."

"That's not the point. It wasn't fair to leave us to do all the work. I barely got all my shopping done. As it was they were all out of gold giftwrap. I had to make do with silver – silver. Silver at Christmas was old before I was born."

"Well next year try not to leave it to the last minute."

"What were you doing that was so important? It can't have been more vital that safeguarding the city – you know, the one we swore to protect when we moved here and formed this freaking team?"

"Sassafras, sometimes you are so full of hot air I just wanna pop that big fat head of yours with a pin. I was busy. That should be enough for you." Bumblebee yawned again. "Wow, I'm beat. Leave me a slice of cake, will you? I'm going to wash up and go to bed."

Speedy watched her leave, eyes slitted under his mask. "She's lying."

"What?"

"I don't know about what, but I'm getting that vibe – you know, the one where she's keeping something from us and doing a piss-poor job of it."

"I just noticed the way she looked at the presents when she came in," said Aqualad. "Did you see her expression? She looked like someone had just kicked her puppy and then electrocuted it. It only lasted a second, but she looked so sad. Or were you too caught up with the cake to notice?"

"Ha ha. Speaking of cake, you'd better eat some of this, quickly, before Mas y Menos get wind of it being here. With any luck they've tied themselves in knots with the ribbons and sellotape and won't free themselves until we've had a chance to eat our share."

At 6am, when the world was dark, Speedy hit his alarm clock and stared blearily at the numbers. 6am on Christmas Eve was not meant to be seen by anybody. Staggering out of bed, he dragged on a fresh uniform, offered up only a few minutes to his diligent hair-care routine, then sidled from his room and along the corridor towards the kitchen.

Finding it empty but the coffeepot hot enough to burn his fingers, he checked the hangar doors on the security system. They were shut and locked, and had been all night, which left only one other means of egress. The light for the door to the roof blinked accusingly and he hurried upstairs to see whether he was too late.

He was. Bumblebee was a tiny speck in the distant sky. As he watched she dipped and dived towards the metropolitan borough of Steel City, eventually vanishing behind a skyscraper.

"You weren't early enough."

Speedy whirled. "And you were?"

Aqualad stepped from the lee of the giant air vent, arms folded and an insufferable smile on his face. "Obviously." He waved another fridge note in the air. "'I'll be back tonight, don't worry about me, and you're all pigs for not leaving me any cake.' I left a slice of cake on a plate in the fridge for her. Any idea what happened to it?"

Speedy coughed and changed the subject. "So you were worried enough to get up early and … what, wave her goodbye?"

"Better than you."

"I wasn't worried! I'm just pissed and want to know what she's hiding and why she keeps ditching us."

"So clueless." Aqualad sighed. "Whatever. Actually I got up early so I could plant a bug on her. I'm concerned that she's involved in something dangerous and feels like she can't tell us about it for some reason. She may need our support, even if she thinks she doesn't – or can't ask for it."

"Excuse me?"

"Think about it." Aqualad checked things off on his fingers. "She's constantly running off the places unknown; she won't tell us where she's going, what she's up to, or who she's with; she leaves really early so she doesn't have to give anything away; she's obviously exhausted; she's getting forgetful, which is really weird for her as she's the most organised person I've ever met. Now she's started coming home injured and has less Christmas spirit than an orthopaedic shoe."

Speedy waited a second before answering. "You don't believe it was a shopping cart either, huh?"

"No, I don't."

"So you put a bug on the bug-girl. Where the heck did you get a bug from, anyhow?"

"I'm not just a pretty face, you know." At Speedy's look he raised his eyes skywards. "Okay, okay, it's from Tramm. He said it's come combination of technology and plankton she won't be able to detect or detach without feeding it."

"Feeding it?"

"Only he knows what food will make it release its hold. It works. Trust me."

Speedy grimaced. "Plankton?"

"It works. Telepathic with sea creatures, remember?" Aqualad tapped the side of his temple. "Inbuilt tracking system. Now we can find out where she's gone."

"Dude, you can talk to plankton?"

"Zooplankton, to be precise. Small crustaceans. Mostly it's just feelings and sensations rather than actual thought-speak, but the technology Tramm wired into this one's carapace means I can pinpoint its location and follow it."

"So we need to go out in order to see where she's gone."

"Yeah."

A short silence stretched between them.

"The Chum Bucket, maybe?"

"Oh, dry up."

"¿Adónde vamos¿Estamos allí todavía? Tengo hambre."

Speedy gritted his teeth. "Whose bright idea was it to bring the gruesome twosome?"

Aqualad didn't look at him. "They're as much a part of this team as you or I."

"¿No vamos las compras de Navidad otra vez?"

"Yeah, but we don't keep asking dumb questions and annoying everyone."

Aqualad bit his lip.

Speedy turned to Mas y Menos. "No, we're not going Christmas shopping today; we're going to check up on Bumblebi-ee."

Aqualad shook his head. "And you said I'm the mom."

"Don't make me turn his car around, dude."

"Bumblebee?" Mas leaned over the back of Speedy's chair, pressing his chin into the headrest. They would've been faster on foot, but their search had led hem into a rougher part of town – insofar as Steel had demarcations between 'rough' and 'nice' – and Cyborg's T-Car II provided armoured plating and automated weapons systems. "¿Por qué estamos espiando en ella?"

"What did they say?"

"They asked if we're spying on Bumblebee," Aqualad translated.

"We're not spying on her. We're just checking to make sure she's okay."

"Y espiando en ella."

"Not spying. Checking up. Ensuring the safety of. Making sure she's okay. Pick one."

Mas exchanged a few words with his brother, who nodded. "Estamos espiando en ella."

Speedy gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles blanched.

Eventually they turned out of the rough district, but only so they could enter a district better described as 'underprivileged'. Tenements leaned inwards as though they were old men missing their canes, their brickwork crumbling and their windows either smashed or boarded up. Streetlamps stood twisted and broken where the city council had yet to fix them, and the only suggestions of Christmas were a few strands of tinsel and a forlorn tree the other side of one intact window. The further they went, the more indications of real poverty they saw.

Speedy peered through the windshield. "You're sure this is where we're meant to be?"

"You just keep your eyes on the road and let me worry about directions." Aqualad didn't sound convinced either, but put his faith in Tramm's technology.

"It's not like there are any other cars to avoid," Speedy grumbled, but nonetheless kept both hands on the wheel and both eyes directed at the uneven asphalt like a good little motorist.

"¿Dónde está Navidad?" Menos asked quietly, watching a small group of children stare open-mouthed at the passing T-Car. The children's eyes were hungry as they followed all the way to the end of the street, then watched them all the way to the end of the next. "¿Bumblebee está colgando alrededor de esta parte de la ciudad?"

"Esto es espeluznante," Mas seconded.

"¡Este lugar es feo!"

"¿Por qué ella sería aquí cuando es tan tremendo?"

"I don't know why she's around here," said Aqualad. "I'm being a Sat-Nav, not a profiler. Speedy, turn here. I don't think it's too much further."

"Can you think of any enemies of ours who would be staying in a burg like this?" Speedy hissed out one side of his mouth. Mas y Menos marvelled at the decline of even what meagre festive cheer there had been with every building that ground by. "They'd have to have fallen on really hard times."

"All our villains are either cryogenically frozen in a government compound, stashed away in a secret penitentiary for criminally insane, or locked in a cell at Steel City Police Station yelling at the officers about animal rights. Mind that pothole."

"Let me drive." The car bumped and dunked the front and rear left wheels in a rut roughly the size of the Grand Canyon. "Not one word. So why do you reckon Bumblebitch would be here? You're closer to her than I am – does she have any old enemies from before she joined Titans East who might be blackmailing her? Nobody would ever think to look for someone who didn't want to be found in a place like this." Speedy glanced up at the disintegrating rooftops. "This is a place where hope goes to die. I used to live somewhere like this before Green Arrow took me in. It sucked the soul right out of anyone who lived there." He shook his head, although it seemed more like a shiver to the untrained eye.

"I'm closer to her?" Aqualad repeated, but glossed over the question mark before it even had time to curl into the air. "Bee was a genuine villain before she became a Titan. Anybody in HIVE who didn't want the Academy destroyed would have issues with her, but I doubt any of them would be here. Same deal as the rest of our rogues gallery – or they just have too much self-pride to be seen dead in the dumpiest part of a dump like Steel City. I've patrolled around here before, but mostly at night. It looks so different in daylight."

"Sadder." Speedy coughed into his shirt and hastily changed the subject. "How close are we?"

Aqualad closed his eyes to concentrate. "Very. Turn right … here."

Speedy yanked on the wheel. The T-Car, though not going exceptionally fast, still managed to screech around a corner and fishtail a little across the junction. Mas and Menos squealed in both delight and shock, and began babbling wildly to the back of Speedy's head.

"Shut up. You're wearing your seatbelts, aren't you? Why else do you think celebrities and superheroes champion the Safety First Scheme? It's so little screwballs like you don't end up as paste across someone's windshield – from the inside!"

"Speedy, brake!" Aqualad barked sharply.

The kickback from Speedy standing on the brake pedal made his corner-turn look like a perfect score on a driving test. When everyone had picked themselves up and shaken their brains back into place Speedy rounded on his teammate.

"What the hell was that for?"

"I know where Bumblebee is."

That pulled him up short. "What? Where?"

"I thought I recognised this area. If I'm right … Come on, I think we'd better go on foot from here. Don't worry about bringing your weapons; I don't think we'll be needing them."

"¿Adónde vamos?"

In answer, Aqualad got out and waited for them to follow. Speedy did so reluctantly, blipping the T-Car's alarm from the key-ring Cyborg had so reverently left with Titans East (alongside a promise to take better care of the car than they did themselves).

"Speedy, it'll be perfectly safe. It's a T-Car. Like anybody's going to come along and try to boost its tires?"

"I guess…"

"¿Adónde vamos?" Mas and Menos said again, more insistently this time.

"Where are we going?" Aqualad started walking. "You'll see."

He led them to a tiny alleyway that stank of stale urine and other implacable scents. They followed him down it to where it opened out into a small courtyard lined on all sides by walls topped with broken glass shards and barbed wire. Despite the early hour, the building across from them had a long line that stretched out the door and twisted in on itself like the concentric coils of a snake.

"¿Cuál es éste?" asked Mas.

"¿Está Bumblebee aquí?"

"Aqualad?" The seeds of an idea were turning over in Speedy's mind and he voiced it just by speaking the other boy's name.

For his part, Aqualad just nodded and made for the door, eschewing the queue and the people in it. They radiated poverty the way a fire radiated heat, though their clothes were still quite clean despite being threadbare. They moved aside for him and the other three boys like they were VIPs, despite being younger than most of those present. One or two whispered as they passed and there was a great deal of nudging and pointing in their wake.

Mas and Menos trailed, looking up at the gathered faces as though they were aliens who'd never before seen humans up close. After nearly leaving them behind on the fringes Speedy rolled his eyes, grabbed each of their hands and dragged them in with him. He was not a parent, damn it, but he couldn't help answering responsibility's call once in a while.

"¿Speedy, cuál es este lugar¿Quiénes son esta gente?"

Inside was an even tighter crush than outside, but well-ordered despite this and it was easy to cut through to the front.

If Speedy hadn't known it was Bumblebee he never would've guessed. Gone were the tight pants, tank top, and even her striped sweater. Everything that made her recognisable was banished beneath the masquerade of obviously-borrowed jeans and a baggy pullover that covered both her wings and her curves. Over that was an apron liberally splattered with baked bean sauce, coffee, ketchup and what could've been mashed up egg. The buns in her hair had been let down, instead pulled back into a small tight braid under a yellow bandana that completely altered the shape of her face. She was behind an old-fashioned flip-top counter, bent over a griddle of sputtering bacon rashers and fried eggs.

She looked at the ruckus and her eyes went round as soup plates. "Guys! You're … here?"

"Hey, Bee," said Aqualad.

"How did you-?"

"Don't ask," Speedy cut in. "It involved plankton and potholes."

If possible, her eyes became even wider. She glanced around, taking in the murmurs their arrival had produced. "Damn. I was kind of incognito up to now."

"Are you Bumblebee of the Teen Titans?" asked a man in a Babe Ruth baseball cap.

"You're that Bumblebee?" echoed a tweedy woman whose grey hair reminded Speedy of the sky outside. "Ohmygosh! My daughter is such a fan of yours. I never realised – you never said. I've been coming here for a week now and I never knew. If I told her I could get her your autograph maybe she'd let me move back in even though I'm not clean yet…"

"Bee, why didn't you tell us?" Aqualad asked. "Did you think we'd laugh or something?"

"Hey," Babe Ruth called over his shoulder, "guess what – little Shanice in here, she's only Bumblebee from the Titan East!"

"Really?"

"Cool!"

"Wow!"

"Oh man, is my hair all right?"

"What the hell is someone like her doing in a fleapit like this?"

"Is this some publicity stunt? I'm outta here if it is. I don't need my parents spotting me on the nine o'clock news."

Bumblebee glanced left and right, and gestured the four boys behind the counter. "Go through to the back room. I'll get Shirley to relieve me for a minute. Don't touch or break anything or I'll break you."

"¿Hicimos algo mal?" Mas and Menos looked back at Bumblebee as she talked with a portly Hispanic woman in ill-fitting jeans.

The woman's muffin-top turned Speedy's stomach, though her face and posture were those of someone totally at ease with themselves. She nodded and smiled at Bumblebee, patting her shoulder and rubbing her hands as she turned to face the crowd alone, armed only with a line of tureens and ladles. Speedy found himself reminded of Heike, his old nursemaid while he was growing up – if Heike had worn anything but her maid's outfit, that was.

"We've been really worried about you," Aqualad started when they'd sat down in the box-room beyond the main one. It was warm and covered in bright posters for charity drives and sponsored walks, though it smelled vaguely of cabbage and cheap instant coffee.

"We thought you were being blackmailed by an old enemy," said Speedy.

Bumblebee boggled. "Really?"

"Really," Aqualad assented. "And instead here you are, playing pretend in a … a …" He spiralled one hand at the wrist. "In Atlantis we called them Give-Outs, but I know that's not right. What's the term up here?"

"It's a Soup Kitchen." Bumblebee drew her feet under her chair and sighed. "I've been coming here all week. They don't know I'm really a Titan – or they didn't until today."

"Yeah, about that – Shanice?" Speedy said.

"It's my middle name."

"Why all the subterfuge?"

"I'm not doing it to get attention or for publicity. I just wanted to do something worthwhile for the holidays. There aren't enough funds to keep this place going after January, so I figured I'd help out over the holidays while they were short-staffed. Nobody comes this far into this burg because it means coming through the Badlands. You came in the T-Car, right? That's about the only way to get here over land without wearing your kidneys on the outside."

"Very noble." The comment was meant to be sarcastic, but an irrefutable chunk of Speedy actually meant it. He coughed and leaned forward. "It doesn't explain why you never told uswhat you were up to."

"I tried, several times, but something always got in the way. Like your fat head."

"Great, follow you into possible danger and get insulted. I wish I'd never bothered worrying about you."

"You were worried about me?"

"¡Por supuesto fuimos preocupados de usted!" cried Menos, inadvertently rescuing Speedy from an admission he'd rather not make.

"¡Usted es nuestro amigo!" added his brother.

"Of course we were worried," said Aqualad. "You're our friend, and you were acting really suspiciously. You came home hurt. We thought something was really wrong. It wouldn't be the first time you lied to us 'in our own best interests'."

Bumblebee thought about this for a moment. "I guess it did look pretty hinky, me sneaking about and not telling you guys what I was up to. I just wanted to get here early in the mornings so nobody would see me arrive by air. The injuries came from a fight yesterday when Old Chester came in drunk and had to be escorted out. Shirley, the lady the charity appointed to run this place each year, she has a pretty strict policy about how people have to conduct themselves if they want to eat here. Usually everyone sticks to the rules. They're a nice bunch, actually. The last thing they need is a load of reporters looking for a human interest story to pad out their holiday newscasts, making them all out to be heroin addicts and the cause of their own problems. They may be homeless and needy, but you'd be amazed at how much dignity they all still have. Some of their stories would make even you cry, Sassafras, but they never make a big deal of it. It's pretty amazing."

Mas y Menos blinked. "Hinky?"

"Did you think we'd make fun of you?" Speedy asked.

"No! I may have a low opinion of you, Sassafras, but not that low. You guys were just having such a great time getting ready for Christmas, being a family together and enjoying the season that I didn't want to interrupt or make you feel guilt-tripped into coming along with me. This is our first Christmas as a team. I just wanted you guys to be able to enjoy it with all the trimmings."

"Because it's great to enjoy things as a team while our leader's gone off to parts unknown without us," Speedy sniped.

Bumblebee opened her mouth … and then closed it again. "I didn't think of it that way."

Speedy folded his arms. "Man, sometimes you can be so clueless."

"Look who's talking," Aqualad muttered and stood up. "Okay, where are they?"

Bumblebee stared up at him. "Where are what?"

"Those ugly aprons you're wearing."

"Water-boy, no, you don't have to-"

"I think you'd be better off letting me make that decision for myself. We've been so caught up in the trimmings of Christmas we forgot what really matters at this time of year. It's not turkey or tinsel, fairy lights or presents – or even non-burned hands. It's peace on Earth and goodwill to all men. And metahumans. We've got a lot of lost time to make up and judging by the crowd out there," he jerked a thumb at the door, "you and that lady-"

"Shirley."

"-Look like you could use a hand or eight."

"Look, you should all just go home now. If you hurry you can catch the Burl Ives Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon on TV-"

Menos jumped to his feet. "¡Por favor permanezcamos!"

"¡Deseamos ayudar!" Mas copied him.

"Out of the mouths of babes, Bee. Now, aprons?"

Bumblebee looked like she might argue more, but sighed and waved a hand at a cupboard in the corner. "Help yourselves. I'll have to clear you with Shirley, though. And you gotta change out of your uniforms. You can use something from the lost property box, same as me. And you gotta tie your hair back – probably a hairnet for you, Water-boy, since you got such long hair and all. Nobody wants to find hair in their Christmas dinner."

Aqualad's smile was frozen in place. "Sure thing. Speedy?"

Speedy glared up at him. "You are such a cornball. Did you learn that speech from Hallmark or the back of a Twinkie box? 'It's not turkey or tinsel, fairy lights or presents' – phooey."

Bumblebee scowled at him, the expression settling easily across her features. "I should've known your Christmas is all about commercialism, Sassafras-"

"Hey, I never said I didn't agree with him, I just have issues with being part of some cheesy movie-of-the-week. Any movie I'm in has got to have better dialogue than that." He got to his feet and smoothed back his hair. "No hairnet for me, right? Because I don't do that ugly lunch lady look."

Those who didn't know Bumblebee had converted to the side of good would have said her smile was evil.

That evening, when all the patrons had gone home, the pots were scrubbed, chairs put on tables and floors swept ready for the morning, five teenage superheroes and one charity worker settled back to enjoy cups of coffee and hot cocoa and contemplate a job well done.

Shirley made the best cocoa any of them had ever tasted. The trick, she said, was melting real chocolate and mixing it with hot milk rather than just boiling water to pour over instant stuff. Eventually only she nursed a cup of regular Joe, though at Bumblebee and Speedy's request she made two mugs of Red Eye – cocoa with a shot of coffee in it.

"My feet ache," Speedy complained, then yelped as Bumblebee smacked the top of his head. "Yowch!"

"Took your mind off your feet, didn't it?"

"Bi-"He eyed the assembled company. "Uh, troll. Girl. Troll-girl."

"Put a sock in it, Sassafras. You're too tired to even come up with a good insult and I'm too tired to fight with you right now." Bumblebee sipped her mug and wiggled her toes. She'd taken her shoes off to get maximum flex from her poor feet and sighed with such contentment it made Speedy pause and look at her oddly.

Aqualad shook his head. So clueless.

"I really appreciate you kids coming to my rescue," said Shirley. She spoke with an accent and absent stroked Mas's hair with one hand. He was almost purring. "We've never been so busy as we have this year. I wasn't sure I could cope after my regular staff left – they're all sick or moved away over the past twelve months and never told me. You five saved my bacon and made a genuine difference to all those people today. Since we won't be open tomorrow, you really made their Christmas."

"We were happy to do it," Aqualad assured her. Full of cocoa (and having thrown away that hatefully itchy hairnet) he was feeling as magnanimous as he had when making the initial offer to help out – before hordes of smudge-faced fangirls heard he was there and crept from their tenements to peep around the door until they were invited to share the dinners he and his teammates were serving. The Soup Kitchen didn't only cater to homeless people, but to those too poor to make Christmas much different than any other day of the year except in name.

"Tengo más melcochas que usted," Menos told Mas, pointing at the number of marshmallows floating in his cocoa compared to his brother's. He was just trying to score points because Mas had snuggled up to Shirley before he could. She reminded them of their mother, save for the act she was more, well, motherly. She actually remembered they were children and not trigonometry equations made flesh.

The ruse worked. "Usted no¡Dígale que tenemos el mismo número de melcochas!" Mas cried. "¡Shirley, le dice que usted ponga el mismo número en ambos!"

"I put the same number of marshmallows in all your mugs. Just don't come to me when you two hit your sugar slump."

Bumblebee rolled her eyes and Aqualad grinned. Mas and Menos had shown a surprising maturity today, doing all they were told and doing it well, responsibly, and with minimum infighting or playing around. They used their super-speed only once, to jet off and rescue a cat dangling from a flagpole on a nearby building. Upon their return they'd been treated like heroes by the crowd and given centre stage (standing on a table) to entertain everyone by pantomiming Titans East's past battles with their nemeses. At least, that was he idea at first. The image of Mas pretending to be Speedy falling off a ladder while stringing Christmas lights, or Menos mimicking him being bitten by a parakeet would keep Aqualad chuckling until New Year's.

Shirley departed to the kitchen to wash up the mugs, declining all offers of help and leaving Titans East huddled around the two-bar heater that easily warmed the back room.

"You know something?" Bumblebee said suddenly. "When I was little, Christmas with my mom was my most favourite time of year."

The boys fell silent to listen. Bumblebee rarely talked about her family. From what they could gather, her father died when she was very young and her mother passed on not long before she enrolled at HIVE Academy. Unlike Speedy, who seldom mentioned his past with Green Arrow but got verbose when he did, she played her cards close to her chest and it was obviously a painful subject, so nobody pushed her to elaborate – not even Speedy.

Bumblebee played the frayed sleeve of her pullover. "My mom used to make cocoa on Christmas Eve, too, but she'd make it lukewarm. Then she'd throw marshmallows and I'd try to catch them in my mug without spilling. I usually ended up wearing more than I drank. We didn't have much money, so to make the magic of Christmas morning last longer my gifts would be hidden around the house and I'd have to find them all before I could open any." She smiled sadly. "After she … after Brother Blood and HIVE and all that junk I thought it wouldn't ever be the same without her. I didn't think I'd be able to enjoy the holidays the same way, or to the same degree again."

"But you do now?" Aqualad gently prompted.

She shook her head. "This is different. It's better in some ways, not as good in others. I'll always miss my mom, but it's been … fun with you guys. Honestly. Don't give me that look, Sassafras, or I'll smack the tartar off your teeth. I'll admit, part of the reason I didn't tell you four about working at the Soup Kitchen was because I didn't want to get dragged into all your Christmas preparations. Christmas at HIVE was horrible and I didn't want to be reminded of all the things and people who aren't around to share the holidays with anymore. This was a way of keeping out of it without feeling like a total killjoy. It was like, if I couldn't do stuff the way my mom and me used to do it, I didn't want to do it at all. I'm … sorry. That wasn't fair on you guys. I really appreciate you coming to find me today – and sticking around afterwards. I also appreciate you not being mad at me for keeping stuff from you."

Aqualad shrugged. "We're just sorry for getting so bogged down in frills we couldn't figure out for ourselves what you were up to. Blackmailed by an old enemy – how ridiculous was that idea?"

"Not so ridiculous," said Speedy.

Bumblebee eyeballed him. "You still hung up about gold giftwrap versus silver?"

He shrugged. "Anything I say at this point is going to sound cheesier than mozzarella, so I'm not going to say anything except this wasn't as lousy as I was expecting it to be. Hard work, but not lousy work – and not thankless like shopping, either."

Mas and Menos exchanged knowing looks. "Usted suena tan caseoso. Stilton, mozzarella, gouda, edam, feta, emmental, gruyere-"

Speedy threw his balled up hairnet at them. "Oh, dry up."

'Tis the night before Christmas and all through Steel City,

The T-Car drives on past decorations so pretty.

The Titans are yawning, tired out of their heads,

Obsessed with their home and their nice snuggly beds.

Aqualad sits in the back of the car,

Next to Mas and to Menos, the pair who by far

Look cutest, their faces all waffled and squashed,

Their hair all mussed up and their wee noses moshed.

Speedy by contrast looks like hell warmed up,

His eyes on the road and java in the cup

Bumblebee holds for him in the passenger seat,

Exhausted from days of hard work, but still sweet –

Though Speedy would die before he'd admit this;

It wouldn't look good, so he shuts up and grits his

Teeth tight, fingers tighter around the car's wheel,

And thinks of tomorrow and their slap-up meal,

While beside him Bee wilts, sags, jolts and wakes up,

And steals a huge slug from his hot coffee cup.

'Tis the night before Christmas; and for five pooped kids

Midnight is approaching as they fight their eyelids.

They climb the steep stairs leading to their bedrooms

And feel sort of great, freed from dooms and from glooms;

For they've leaned a meaning of Christmas that's true:

It's not what you get, it's the things that you do.

These five spend the year fighting bad guys aplenty,

So we all know their stockings won't end up empty,

But truthfully they wouldn't care if they are

For this Christmas turned out the best one by far.

They're weary and blistered; they're rumpled and sore,

Their clothes all messed up and their fingers red-raw,

But they wouldn't change this year's Christmas Eve, no.

Not even for presents. Not even for snow.

For they spent it together, united at last

Making memories much better than those of years past.

They helped other people, they shared their goodwill;

Of festive delight they've had more than their fill.

And so now we leave them, wrapped up in their beds,

To await Christmas Day, comfort filling heads.

(Though I must mention this bit before I depart,

It's a bit that warms every scrap of my heart.

Downstairs is a spot where two Titans will meet

A spot by the coffeepot where they will greet

Each other with a scowl, with a snipe, with a glare,

A fight for the best of the coffee they share.

They'll look up, aghast, for customs must be met

If this is to be the best Christmas Day yet.

For over the coffee, where two Titans will go,

Is a sprig of the finest, greenest … mistletoe!)

Fin.

Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs

The Tower had many basements, and many sub-basements to those … Everybody hated going into the deeper sub-basements if they could help it.

-- The sub-basements are a side-fling to InterNutter's X-Men: Evolution fanfiction, wherein everything the X-Men ever needed, didn't need, and would ever need was stored somewhere below the mansion in a dumping ground homage to the Professor's packrat tendencies. InterNutter was the first fan author I ever really followed beyond one fic, and played a huge role in getting me into fandom as more than a passing hobby. I owe here (and XME) a debt of gratitude to this day.

… Steaming bags of Chicken Korma, Makki ki Roti, Sarso ka Saag and Rasogolla …

-- The korma is a type of mild curry dish that originated in India and is often made with yoghurt sauce, cream, or nuts. Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian kormas exist. Makki Ki Roti is a traditional north Indian bread served straight off the griddle topped with a dollop of butter alongside the side dish Sarso ka Saag. Makki ki Roti and Sarso ka Saag are two of the most popular dishes in Punjab. Rasogolla is a popular Indian milk based sweet usually prepared from cow milk, stored and served in sugar syrup. It is given the shape of small spheres, 30mm of diameter, with a typical spongy body and smooth texture.

"Seriously, two days before Christmas you want us to order our entire food supply off the internet? We'd probably end up with toilet paper instead of turkey and gravel instead of gravy."

-- If a supermarket doesn't have what you actually want in an online order it tries to replace the item with the closest alternative unfortunately sometimes it's the closest in spelling, not closest in nature, which is how once ended up with bleach instead of toilet paper. That'd sting just a tad, methinks.

"I'm not the mom!"

-- Side-fling to Robin and Superboy's conversation about Impulse in Young Justice #1.

"His fangirls chased us to 34th Street," Aqualad said dryly.

-- Reference to Miracle on 34th Street, one of the best Christmas movies of all time (as long as it's the original black and white version).

"We got a call at lunchtime that Madame Pooch was trying to free all the animals at the shelter from their 'human oppressors'."

-- A riff off Madam Hooch of the Harry Potter books.

"The Chum Bucket, maybe?"

-- Reference to the character of Plankton in Spongebob Squarepants.

Menos jumped to his feet. "¡Por favor permanezcamos!"

"¡Deseamos ayudar!" Mas copied him.

-- Babelfish-Spanish for "Please let us stay!" and "We want to help!"

'Tis the night before Christmas and all through Steel City…

-- A very obvious rip-off of the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (also called A Visit from St. Nicholas) written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1822.