Wonder Waffle Wednesday: The Wevenge

April 25, 2018:

Or is it Cyborg Croissant Crednesday?

Common Room and Kitchen, Titans Tower

A swanky and comfortable common area for the Titans, with a kitchen up to the task of feeding a crowd of rowdy young metas.

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: The Winter Soldier, Batman, The General, The Hulk, Tony Stark

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

The residents of Titans Tower finds itself once more subjected to the event commonly known as 'Wonder Waffle Wednesday', created by none other than Wonder Girl herself! It's an event that's had it's ups and downs: Ups when Fairchild is helping her prepare, downs when she attempts to do it herself. The first time she flew solo it didn't work out so well but this time she's put a lot of thought into things and has come up with a new approach.

Good luck, everyone.

The table is already set, plates, utensils and glasses placed with care, and at the very center of the table lay pitches or milk or orange juice, as well as several plates of stacked waffles all with a familiar 'WW' shape in the center. However surrounding them are croissants. Lots of croissants. Tons of them actually, and with the lack of plates of sausages, eggs, hashbrowns and bacon around once could take a guess where they all went. The idea is that the flakey bread would offset the taste of every single one of those things that she managed to burn. Good luck!

"Rise and shine, everyone! Breakfast is ready!" Cassie's voice can be heard over the intercom. And now… We wait. She's expecting gold stars from everyone.

There is someone who is, at the very least, already awake when Cassie Sandsmark calls everyone down for breakfast.

….in a matter of speaking.

Sweat-drenched and clad in a long-sleeved workout hoodie and a pair of yoga pants, the young woman formerly known as Zatanna Zatara is lying facedown in the main living area of the Titans Tower that opens right up into the kitchen, one sneakered foot angled and draped limply off the frame and one leg and an arm dangling off the cushions. She is recognizable only because of her mass of damp, black curls and the water bottle in her hand that has Z.Z. emblazoned across the temperature-controlled cozy that is wrapped around it.

She doesn't move. Not even for the scent of waffles. With workout clothes prominent and the fact that she is making her very best impression of a limp noodle makes it deliberately apparent, even without a Batling's prodigious detective skills, that the young woman has managed to somehow return from her morning run before all strength has left her.

….just don't ask her how far she actually got.

Oh well, it could be worse. At least she wasn't asked to by the Winter Soldier. There have been times in the dead of night when she had woken with a start, dreaming of a towering James Buchanan Barnes dressed in his training fatigues, loudspeaker in hand and telling her to run before he was forced to make a casualty out of a tub of Rocky Road in his hand. After all, it is just a nightmare, and nightmares as ridiculous as that have no chance of coming true whatsoever.

Right?

Right.

Spider-Man has never been here before for Wonder Waffle Wednesdays.

It's one of the simple realities of the fact that his life is a chaotic jumble of many different conflicting obligations and also sometimes just faceplanting somewhere randomly for a few hours when the need for sleep finally catches up to him. It's tough being New York's most despised superhero. The point being, despite his attempts to be around as much as possible, the webbed vigilante's time around the Tower is often sparing at best. And this leads to the simple, inescapable fact that he has never known the joys (??) of the WWW.

"Oh wow, they're even shaped like Ws!"

And thus really has no earthly idea what he's in for.

"Two Ws!!"

This is the webslinger's startled pronouncement as he drops in on the Tower's habitation level - literally. Hitting ground from the ceiling in a fluid twist of his red-and-blue-clad body, Spider-Man's white lenses whir into a larger shape as if widened by shock as he takes in the setting. W waffles! For wonderful! And waffles! Isn't that wonderful! Except, then a second passes. And slowly, those lenses thin down into two, diminutive slits of a squint.

"Uhhh… that's… a lotta croissants." A second passes.

"Like, I'm struggling to find a way to quantify the cornucopia of crusty croissants I'm seeing here. What am I seeing here? Is this like, also Cyborg's Croissant… Crednesday…? … hm no, that doesn't have the alliteration going fooohhhhh my god is Zee dead?!"

And this is the sound of Spider-Man's startled gasp as he stands over Zatanna Zatarra's fallen body, be-hoodied and lifeless. He reaches forward. He pokes. Tentatively.

"Zatanna," he whispers, confidentially "are you dead? What killed you?? Groan like a zombie if it was the waffles that killed you. I need to know."

TITANS TOWER FACT: The Tower is equipped with an extremely advanced fire detection and suppression system, run by the same virtual intelligence that controls all of the Tower's functions. It has, in the way of such hyper-advanced computer technology, 'learned' to pay close attention whenever Cassie is cooking.

Fortunately, nothing has burned down yet. The biggest unintended fire incident in the Tower remains that time the forensics lab blew up a few weeks ago.

Also awake is, of course, Red Robin. Sleeping on average 3 to 4 hours a night doesn't just mean staying up incredibly late: It also means getting up ridiculously early. Also to exercise. Not having been blessed with any sort of superhuman athletic abilities, the detective needs to do things the old fashioned way (often in extremely old fashioned ways) which means hard work.

Though he's far more lively than Zatanna.

Naturally.

"That's a lot of croissants," the Red Knight remarks from the other side of the kitchen, because oh no he's made up a bunch of breakfast smoothies. It can't hurt everyone else to experience a little of the Batman Diet, after all - or can it? - and since he went to all the trouble of getting a restaurant-grade blender… "You might have to rename it 'Cassie Croissant Wednesday'," the young man in the domino mask suggests, although Spider-Man sagely offers up Cyborg for the name of the day, setting a glass of smoothie down in front of Wonder Girl. It's green. Not, like, the bold green of grass on a summer's day or something. Just kinda… Green. He's already moving into the main sprawl of the common room while the webslinger pokes and whispers at the magician.

"I hope she's not dead, 'cause I made her a smoothie," he says, crouching down beside the defeated husk of Zatanna Zatara and offering a glass full of green.

…Did it just bubble a little…?

"BOOYAH!"

That can probably be heard throughout the entire Tower of Titans. Whether it is from the Intercom or just the loudness that there can be when someone like Cyborg has decided to make his presence as known as possible.

The Booyah! is followed by loud footsteps as Cyborg makes his way down as many stairs as possible, leaving his room and running off in the direction of the kitchen. He wastes no time in making sure that whomever he passes by during his run to the kitchen he lets them know what's going on, "Wonder Waffle Wednesday! WONDER! WAFFLE! WEDNESDAY!"

Cyborg slides into the kitchen and immediately reaches out for a jug of orange juice. He's pretty much going to just drink as much orange juice as cyberhumanly possible. Also:

"Dibs on Chocolate Chip!" Just in case anyone wants to try and take his second favorite kind of waffles. He's not about to let anyone just take his waffles. That is not happening.

"I'm picking the music! I don't know who picked it last time but, seriously, Moby? Nobody listens to Techno." Cyborg doesn't even have to mess with the radio before he's putting some serious hacking skills into the intercom system to start pumping out some Kendrick Lamar.

"HEY! Don't you slander me, she was like that when I got here!" Wonder Girl immedietly yells at Spider Man. Geez, just when she was in the middle of basking in glory that was his reaction to seeing her amazing work since she has mastered the art of the waffle iron. As for the croissant mentions in stereo, she supposes she should have seen that coming since she wasn't very subtle with the presentation, "O- Oh, well.. Yeah, see I just figured-"

BOOYAH!

Cassie nearly jumps out of her sneakers- The battlecry always startles her but it also brings a big smile on her face, count on him to make an already swell morning even better! "Hey good morning!" she pipes back, before she returns to her explanation. "But yeah, that's because I made a whole bunch of different kinds of croissant sandwiches; there's sausage and egg on the left plates, bacon and egg on the right, and just egg in the center." Beat. "I.. might have made too many eggs? Anyhow we've got lots of syrup flavors, all warmed up too so help yourselves!"

Slowly, the sleeping, sweat-drenched beast rises - and by rises, it means that her head tilts a millimeter towards the person talking to her in a limp shuffle. A single, ice-blue eye opens to stare at the webslinger from underneath heavy lashes. A pained whisper parts her lips:

"Spidey…" Oh god, her last words! "….wake me up….on Taco Thursday…"

Because as we have learned in the last Titans issue (scene), Taco Tuesday is now officially a lie.

But after another pause, she continues. "Honestly…? I don't even remember the last time I've had a waffle…."

This is when a green - good god what is that? - concoction is offered to her and she finds a familiar face in a domino mask crowding the one side of the webslinger's full cowl (another mystery altogether, how those eyeholes manage to change shape to reflect Spider-man's moods, as if making up for the fact that one can't exactly see his face). There's a skeptical look at the way the glass just bubbles, but remarkably, she doesn't ask what's in it. Because in the name of friendship, she's not about to reject something one of her best friends has made for her, and something tells her that she might not if she's given the ingredients list.

More sleep, however, is not to be, when Cyborg enters the living area and puts on the tunes. She lets out a squeaky little groan before trembling arms shift, flattening her palms on the cushions and forcing herself up slowly inch by trying inch.

….once she's risen high enough to lift her head, at least, she reaches out to poke a finger on the glass Tim holds, magic conspiring to clone the receptacle's molecules and fashions a straw out of it. And while she lets Red Robin hold the thing for her like her personal sippy cup, she takes a deep breath, puts on a brave and determined expression, and captures the straw in her mouth to take several deep swallows without actually tasting it.

It doesn't work.

She doesn't even finish it when she drops back down on the couch, coughing - because it tastes terrible and this doesn't really eradicate her suspicions that Bruce Wayne is a high-functioning sociopath - and groaning. "Oh god," she whimpers. "Just let me die. Run, Spidey. Save yourself."

She should probably eat a waffle, regardless, if not just to let it soak whatever poison Tim just put in her system.

"I didn't say anything about how your waffles killed her!" is Spider-Man's immediate and not-at-all-suspicious cry upon Wonder Girl's accusation. Hands go up, palms forward. The very symbol of innocence in spider-form.

"… I mean, that's for her to tell us. If she's not, like. Dead."

Smooth, Peter Parker.

"… Though maybe we could summon her ghost to get her to tell us what happened… does anyone know anyone who's good at magi—"

Long, pensive pause to stare at Zatanna's lifeless form goes… here.

"Oh. … Oh. Uh."

And it is here that the webslinger rubs the back of his head, for at least an awkwardly long enough time for Zatanna to rouse — just enough — to give her final words.

"AH! ZOMBIE GROAN! WAFFLE MURDER!"

That are woefully misinterpreted.

His throat clears, a moment later. "… Uh. I mean, I could wake you up, but like, I don't think I inherited necromancer powers proportional to that of a spider's. Sooooooooooooo. I don't think that day'll ever come." There. That ought to cover it.

And so as Tim offers up a drink to Zatanna that looks suspiciously like the toxic sludge that created Daredevil and the Ninja Turtles, Spider-Man offers a very brave, very resolute, "Yyyyep yep yep see ya later," to Zatanna's really final words and just sort of — slowly backsteps away from Red Robin and Zatanna, lest that obviously radioactive drink somehow resonate with him. I mean. Look at that thing.

And so, the webbed vigilante takes his place at the dining table, just kinda… crouching on one of the chairs as he scratches the side of his head, looking over the vast array of croissants with a scrutinizing squint.

"It's Croissant Crednesday now," he asides to Cyborg, seconds before he goes straight for the waffles. One waffle. Two. Three. Four five six someone should probably seven stop him eight.

Red Robin being Red Robin, he just sits there, crouched on his heels with his weight balanced on his toes as though it were the most normal thing in the world. He might not be the equal of Nightwing, let alone Spider-Man when it comes to that sort of thing, but that still leaves 7-odd billion people below him.

"It's good for you," the Gotham vigilante says with complete confidence that should reassure nobody about the taste at all. "It'll help replace nutrients lost through exercise, and give you more energy through the day." You don't want to know what's in it. There's several plants that most people probably have never even heard of, and certainly couldn't pronounce correctly. "I made plenty for everybody," he adds, ominously.

It's there in the kitchen, waiting.

Lurking.

Red Robin even holds the cup for Zatanna while she magics up a straw and uses that to drink, keeping it perfectly steady for her. It tastes kind of like somebody mixed spinach with some extremely bitter greek yogurt. The truth is so much worse than that.

"You should probably get some waffles before Wonder Girl decides you need looking after," he confides to Zatanna. "She can be kind of overbearing when it comes to taking care of people." Said without anything even resembling irony. "Just, uh, avoid the croissants, I'm pretty sure they're full of meat."

All that poor, burned bacon.

Maybe Cyborg's too busy dancing around to the tunes he's bumping through the entire Titans Tower. He's only somewhat paying attention while he's stacking up a bunch of everything on one of the plates. He's reaching out for syrup, popping the top and drowning his pile of food in it. Everything. The bacon, the eggs, the croissants, the waffles… it's all getting the syrup treatment this time around.

What? Footballers do that.

"Croissant Crednesday?" Cyborg raises an eyebrow on the flesh half of his face and just shakes his head. "We gotta' work on your alliteration skills, Webhead." Cyborg keeps it moving and slides over to drop down into a seat. It's almost down to chow all the way down.

"By the way, I scanned the Bat Juice. It's mostly harmless. Probably tastes like Battery Acid. But it'll do the trick." Cyborg doesn't even know what the trick is because he's focused on the food right now. "I'm good though." Cyborg holds up the jug of orange juice he's claimed in his rabid levels of hunger.

More syrup. And the chow time begins…

"OHhhhMYGOSH IthoughtIwasgonnamissanotherone!!"

There's another person by the table despite such not being the case but a moment ago. The door behind him is still in the process of closing as Impulse hovers around the extravagant breakfast spread with a plate that he's already begun to load up.

"What's with all the croissants? What's a Crednesday? Oh hey Spider-guy. Cyborg. Double-Zee, R-squared— gross, what's that sludge?!— aaaand the Wonder Waffle Queen!" Beaming at each in turn, Impulse is setting one more food item to his plate with each name recited.

"When are we having donut day? I'm all for donut day," he says as he plops into a chair and makes grabby hands at Cyborg for the syrup. Just imagine him with all that sugar. Oh wait.

Cassie's brows raise at Zatanna's initial reaction, which gradually shifts to a grin. She's starting the group needs to start a web series or somethin- Wait.. That just might be crazy enough to work! But before she can present her idea, she finds herself yelling at Red Robin now, "Excuse me!! My bedside manner is perfectly fine, thank you very much." she then turns to slam her hand on the table, making the dishes rattles as he takes the seventh waffle. She was going to let it slide until Cyborg commented as well and so she yells- That is, aggressively corrects, the both of them, "It is *NOT* Croissant Crednesday!"

A pause.

She clears her throat, "What I meant to say is 'Thank you, Red'. I'll give it a try." So before she goes on her way to do just that she gets cut off by Impulse who is actually… Last? Funny how that works. Her mood, predictably, skyrockets again following the title Bart gives her and she claps her hands together under her chin. "As far as I'm concerned, we can have a Donut Day whenever you want~."

"Spidey," said with all of the tired affection she can muster. "Believe me, if I turn into a zombie, your brain is gonna be the first one I'll be after."

She would elaborate, but Spider-man, demonstrating the sort of efficient survival instincts that are typically beyond him whenever he dons the costume, makes for a quick retreat away from the green sludge that Red Robin feeds Zatanna, and the following explanation from the evil genius who made it only generates a more emphatic groan muffled by the pillow pressed on her cheek.

It's good for you.

"One day, Red, I'm gonna take you to a legitimate vegetarian restaurant that'll make you believe in a heaven that exists outside of the road to perdition you managed to build inside of the community blender." Though there might be something to what he says about the mystery hell-concoction when Zatanna can miraculously talk in straight sentences again after a few swallows. But she seems eager to take the young man's advice, regardless, pushing her body off the cushions and swinging long legs to the side of the sofa, pushing her tangled hair out of her face.

But not one to let Red get away with not practicing what he preaches, she reaches out with a finger to push the straw into the vigilante's mouth, squinting at him all the while.

With Bart's arrival, there's a pause when he makes grabby hands for the syrup in Cyborg's hands. Were she a more athletic individual, she'd be screaming 'NOOOOO' in slow motion, moving to tackle the former footballer (as hilarious as the image would be, considering he probably outweighs her by a lot) before he doomed them all

….but she also kind of wants to see what happens when Bart's on a carb-and-sugar rush, so she lets it happen, a willing accomplice to their inevitable destruction.

"No word on Ulysses?" she murmurs towards Tim as she ventures back to the kitchen with him. To Cassie, she grins. "Smells good, Cassie. I think Red's just being sweet, making us all our own doses of spinach sludge so we'd appreciate your waffles more." She punctuates this by pinching Tim's cheek lightly, like the Italian grandmother she's perhaps destined to be, in front of all of his other friends and outing his good intentions in the same breath. What a traitor.

"Look," begins Spider-Man in what is clearly the beginning of a truly eloquent rebuttal for Cyborg,

"… … shut up."

Yeah.

"The point is, it's gotta be Crednesday, because there's nothing else that works. What else are you going to call it? Wafer Wednesday? That's just insane-" At which point Cassie slams that hand down and Lays Down The Law; Spider-Man practically hops in his seat, causing it to rattle about just a bit as those lenses snap wide. "… uh. Right. Not Croissant Crednesday. Got it. One hundred percent." Silence. "… We'll brainstorm a better name later." Slow thumbs up goes………. here.

A second passes by in silence after this, as Spider-Man tugs his mask halfway up to expose lips tugged into a thoughtful frown, lenses squinting pensively. "… … man, now I really want some Vanilla Wafers. Do any of these croissants have Vanilla Wafers in them? No, wait, that'd be gross, nevermind."

And with that, the masked menace begins the early morning rituals of 'Breakfast for Superheroes With High Metabolic Needs But Not Enough Money to Normally Address Them' by gracefully shoveling almost an entire syrup-caked W-shaped into his mouth until half of it is just kind of… sticking out there. Look. Normally he has good table manners. Exceptionally good. He needs this. Don't judge.

"Yah dhish ahh tayshds ekhshellend," comes his barely audible compliment past a mouthful of waffles as he munches it into a fine oblivion. "If Zatanna ends up eating my brains, at least I'll have a full stomach as consolation." Enter: Bart.

"Crednesday is a day we no longer talk about," he explains to the speedster, with all due gravity, as he swallows down the rest of those waffles. "So, uh. This is great and all, thanks a lot, but why do some of these croissants smell like burning?" Silence follows.

"… … I mean, y'know. The uh. Good kind of burning."

gross, what's that sludge?!

"It's good for you!" Red Robin calls back without even looking up. After all these years he knows that trying to get Impulse to eat healthy is both nearly impossible and possibly unnecessary, blessed as he is with that Speed Force-enhanced metabolism. Really, it's probably not much of a necessity for Wonder Girl either, nor Spider-Man, nor even Cyborg… But, you know, no reason not to try. Plus, he doesn't even want to imagine how Zatanna, or even Iso, would react to seeing how the demigoddess can pack away the calories without putting on weight.

There'd be torches, pitchforks. Blood in the streets.

"Is that a threat, or a promise?" the Red Knight wonders when the witch brings up taking him to a 'legitimate vegetarian restaurant', perhaps feeling a bit sassy with all the completely unfounded slagging being done of his nutritious breakfast smoothies. Indeed, when Zatanna puts her drink's straw in his mouth, the vigilante drinks, his inscrutable gaze turning towards the kitchen as she moves.

When Red Robin joins the rest in the kitchen - he has to rinse out Zatanna's glass, because the contents of the smoothie will set if left too long, like concrete - he flashes Cassie a cheeky grin in response to her mild outrage and ensuing not particularly sincere thanks. And then he gets Zatanna'd, quietly asking him a serious question that prompts a very slight shake of his head, and then pinching his cheek as she suggests he just made smoothies that taste gross so the waffles will taste better.

"They'll also improve digestion," the Red Knight adds, rubbing his cheek where he was pinched. And then he considers more. "Uh. You know, so you can have more Wonder Waffles."

Smooth, smooth. Good save, Drake.

Cyborg's been chowing down this entire time. And doing his best to try and keep they syrup away from Bart. Yeah, definitely not trying to give the already insane one any more reason to be bouncing off the walls. Don't need that happening all in their lives. Some of the most hungover(?) Titans would never forgive him.

"Don't listen to 'em, Wondy. You're gettin' better with every waffle!" Cyborg make sure to raise a forkful of his pile of edibles in solidarity before he's back to digging in.

Since he's busy with the chewing right now, he kicks in his holoprojection, just as he's done dozens of times before and lets it hang in the air with a bit of a neon backlight to get people's attention. It's a holographic To Do List that's waiting to be filled in. He's not above multi-tasking while in Munch Mode.

He makes the holoprojection tangible enough to be messed with by those hanging around in here when he chomps on a particularly too burnt piece of foodpile and his one eye goes wide. Almost immediately, he's popping the top off his orange juice jug and guzzling. Fix it, fix it, fix it!

Cooking Class appears on the holoprojection with Cassie's name next to it. And a priority label. A red one.

Perhaps as to be expected, Impulse makes a face in Red-Rob's direction. Yeah, he's not buying that. And if even Zee questions said sludge concoction?

Meanwhile, here's more syrup. It was a noble effort, Cyborg.

Hopefully no one wanted any for their waffles, or in the Speedster's case, seeping around the carefully balanced croissants as well.

"Donut Day every day," he decides, since Cassie's made the mistake of indulging him. He rights the syrup as though just recalling what he'd been doing with it, setting it down on the table and seeming in no way bothered by the lake and gloppy waterfalls that ooze down his waffle and croissant pile. In fact he looks downright eager to consume this sugar and carb nightmare as he picks up a fork and knife.

"A little carbon with your carbs is good for ya!" he tells their Spider-buddy. He has no idea whether this is true or not. He just made it up. Sawing wedges of his waffle stack before he stabs it through with his fork, Impulse eyes Robin at the addendum. "…yeah. Pass."

A slow, but approving nod is given to Spider-Man. Yes, she is a bit embarrassed about losing her cool there, and maybe she shouldn't take the title of 'Wonder Waffle Wednesday' so seriously- But given the Woman being honored, that is incredibly difficult to do. Maybe even impossibe. "Thank you so much!" Cassie replies to Cyborg, Zatanna and Peter (who instantly won her back with his compliment), followed with a more apologetic smile to Z in particular, ".. By the way, I'm sorry that I haven't quite gotten the vegetarian dishes down just yet. Maybe you could teach me sometime? I'm seriously willing to learn."

Tim's cheek pinch? Cassie isn't really sure how to take that, but it's about time she learned to share, isn't it? Not that she's ever pinched his cheek, but she did pride herself in being the closest to him in her not-so-humble opinion. .. Actually now that she thinks about it, it is a little weird that it bothers her and so upon realizing that shakes her head to brush it off. As for something about burning? "… I think your spider-nose is too sensitive. It's 'well done'." she says as she scritches her cheek, only to then actually give Bart a slightly surprised look. She walked right into that one, didn't she? "… We'll have to work on meeting halfway on that later. That said, I'm going to go give the drink a shot, be right back!" and so she heads off. She probably doesn't come back.

Yes. Torches and pitchforks, because the only witch in the crew has to work to have the body she does have, and it isn't exactly superhero-cut either. And she likes her ice cream way too much to subscribe to Batman's Guide To Eating Unfortunate Food Combinations Without Bursting Into Tears.

Is that a threat or a promise?

"Depends. You the kind of guy that can't get through a week without eating red meat?"

For as well as she knows him, Zatanna doesn't actually know the answer to that question, so it ends up being both a quip and a sincere inquiry into his eating habits. There's a bit of a frown at the silent, negative response to her question about the General, before picking up a plate and putting two waffles on it, and takes the syrup before Bart goes too crazy with it, dumping a generous helping of it on top of the griddle cakes, because she, too, likes sugar. There's a slightly goggle-eyed moment when Spider-man tries to fit an entire waffle in his mouth underneath his full mask, leaving half the syrupy disk sticking out from underneath.

With Cyborg dancing to the tunes he's put on the speakers, she follows along as she attempts to make herself a spot on the table, though she might prefer to stand, hip bumping with the football player along the way, having the privilege of being the only other person in the room outside of herself and Cassie who can actually dance.

Maybe. Bart usually moves too fast for her to be able to tell.

With Cassie's request, she grins. "You don't gotta worry about me, Cass, but if you wanna, sure. Doesn't have to be complicated for it to be good." She moves to the holographic to-do list that Cyborg puts up. Using her finger, she starts to fill in some of the bulletpoints:

Check Tower systems to make sure no more Janevirus - Cyborg
Kitchen Clean-Up - Impulse, ZZ
Assignment Hand-Out - Red Robin
SAVE THE WORLD - EVERYONE (with a .gif of Gary Oldman from The Professional)

Really, the last entry is a default setting anyway. She wasn't even the one who put it there, though the .gif was definitely her doing.

Finally, she takes a bite of the waffle. "Oh my god, this is good. Anyway, if any of you are going on patrol this week, you know the drill, if you see something weird….like my kind of weird, tell me, okay? I'm keeping track."

They'll also improve digestion.

"They'll improve your digestion by turning you into the Incredible Hulk," asides Spider-Man, with a particularly grim certainty. "Like, seriously. The Hulk's probably got like, the world's strongest digestive system, because I'm pretty sure I remember him eatin a mountain once," no he doesn't, "and plus also just look at that stuff. I'm pretty sure I saw it glow. I'm pretty sure I saw Zee glowing. Do you really want a giant green magical Hulk roaring 'KLUH HSAMS!' Because that's how you get a giant green magical Hulk roaring 'KLUH HSAMS!'."

And here, the webslinger shakes his head, and funnels more food into his grave gullet.

"'Kluh' is a really terrible name too. Who would call something Kluh? Seriously!"

And so, one waffle done, Spider-Man goes back to sniffing croissants incredulously; behind his mask, his gaze turns sidelong at the quiet exchange between Tim and Zatanna on Ulysses — but he studiously remains quiet, instead letting those lenses whirl into a suspicious squint as Bart offers his words of wisdom.

"… Uh. Like. Not to rain on your science parade but I'm… pretty sure it's the opposite of that. Always. Forever. Maybe robots like carbon. I've never asked. Or the Hulk. Maybe we can ask Zee once she hulks out." Because he's PRETTY SURE that's just an inevitability now.

And so, he returns to his food, setting one of those croissanwiches aside and checking another as he eyes that to-do list. "Yep, I'm still keeping my eye out. I mean. Both eyes. I'm all in. All my eyes. Yeah." And with -that- bit of encouragement for Zatanna's request he waits, studiously, until Cassie is gone, because he is a gentleman, before he mentions:

"Could you, um… underline that one a few times… here let me," he suggests, before just leaning in and underlining 'COOKING LESSONS' once. Twice. Three times. "… No reason."

Well. The waffles are really good though!!

Also, Spider-Man has dance moves proportionate to that of a spider. And that's a fact.

That is vile slander, Red Robin can dance.

He's quite thoroughly trained in all sorts of ballroom dancing.

"I can absolutely go a week without eating red meat," the vigilante says, a bit defensively. "Believe me, it took a while to get used to some of the stuff that happens in Gotham. Used to put me off my appetite all the time." Not anymore, though. It's been years since it has; sometimes he thinks that should bother him more than it does. "Plus, Rahul Lama had some really, uh, strict ideas about proper diet, it was mostly rice and fish."

Fortunately, the Dark Knight wasn't quite that ridiculous when it came to crafting his precisely calibrated diet that he then passed on to his followers and associates with varying levels of success. Red Robin was probably the only one of them that kept almost entirely teetotal.

Like the others, he dishes himself up some waffles - he even dares a croissant - and of course he gets himself a glass of delicious(?) smoothie.

"You shouldn't bully the Elbidrecni Kluh like that," he notes towards Spider-Man, deciding to play along even though everyone's being awful about his attempt to ensure they get proper nutrition and stay regular. "You wouldn't like her when she's angry."

Wonder Girl's hurried departure - hopefully the smoothie doesn't interact weirdly with Olympian physiology and she wakes up from a blackout in Themyscira two weeks later - clears the room for the insistence of cooking lessons.

"Man if she sees that… You know she can fly, right?"

Cyborg lets as much stuff get added to the To Do List as possible and then swipes it away without doing anything. In less than a moment or two everyone's communicators will get that cool and annoying Notification message. And at the same time he's managed to finish up his plate of food and that orange juice. It's pretty much a done deal.

With all the dancing going on, it's a good thing that Cyborg has all that processing speed because he's managing to do all of these things at once. "I'll do a citywide surveillance scan for Weird Magical Shit. See what comes up." Y'know, just to add a little bit more to his list. He's always finished so quickly. He gets bored.

"I was thinking about making the Tower into a giant robot. Any objections?" Communicators get another ding and a file of downloaded: TowerTron.jpg shows off a few designs for his ideas.

"I'll settle for every other day as Donut Day," Impulse concedes, even if that's not quite what Cassie had meant. Syrup leaks out of the waffles as he runs them through with his fork, shoving a good 4x1 wedge stack into his mouth. At least he's left some syrup for everyone else, although the level has depleted considerably between Cyborg's and his own helping.

"Ivn't daf normaw?" he asks Zee around chewing his waffle and syrup wad. Bart, dance? He probably doesn't, but give him a few minutes and enough videos and he might have a fair repertoire by the end of the day.

"Era ew gniklat sdrawkcab won?"

Rolling his eyes at Spider-Man, he picks up a croissant with a decidedly charred bit of…that might be bacon?- between it and takes a giant bite. "Hmm," he blinks after swallowing it down. "I think she's getting better at this. I could actually taste the bacony part that time."

Impulse is in the middle of stuffing the remaining bit of his first waffle helping into his mouth when Cyborg asks that question. He's practically bouncing in his seat, no sugar needed. "None here!" he voices.

It's accidental slander, Red told her he doesn't know how to dance! And so Zatanna is none the wiser.

To his slightly defensive tone about the red meat comment, she lifts up her hands in mock surrender, though by the way her eyes glint mischievously, he'd know she's just ribbing him the way she always does.

There's a dreamy expression on her face, though, as Spider-man talks; not because he suddenly transformed into Thor before her very eyes, but because she's busily fantasizing about being gigantic, green and angry, smashing her way through a city and venting an entire teenaged lifespan's worth of frustrations towards her missing father (and the occasional bout of really bad PMS). The look on her expression is apparent, on some level, she thinks it's awesome. The rest of the world? Probably not so much.

"Oh, come on," she finally says, as Magical Hulk Zatanna gnaws on the top of the Empire State Building in her mind's eye. "What's the worst that could happen? Other than my rage intensifying while my clothes rip apart when I hulk out. Does the Hulk freak out when he realizes he's suddenly mostly naked?" She pauses. "….probably not, but I'm pretty sure I would if that happened to me."

But she's not hulking out yet. Wait until she steps on the weighing scale in the bathroom, though. They'll be hearing it plenty then.

When Spider-man confirms he's keeping both eyes open, she grins and flashes him a thumbs-up. "Thanks, Spidey." And makes room for him by the holographic to-do list when he underlines cooking lessons for Cassie several times.

Though Red Robin does join in ribbing her for not just her inevitable hulking out, but also her backwards-speech…and Bart, too. Someone more sensitive would probably take umbrage, but she looks somewhat touched instead, grinning broadly enough that the brilliance of that smile puts the sun outside to shame. "Wow, I'm actually kind of impressed you guys just blurted all of that out on the spot." Because talking backwards? Not easy in casual conversation, though she makes it seem like it is. She sits on her bed every night with flashcards to keep herself 'current'. "I better watch it, before I'm out of a job."

With Cyborg pledging his technological expertise to the endeavour, she positively beams at him. "You can do that?" she wonders; she doesn't know the former footballer very well, but his offer ingratiates him to her almost immediately. "Thanks, Cyborg! Yeah, that would be great, takes a load off on me and the rest also. It's kind of important, I'll send the files over to you - save the world stuff and all of that."

And then he talks about turning the Tower into a giant robot. She gestures to Red immediately. "I'll defer to our fearless leader on that one, but I happen to know he likes…uh….Gun Damns."

She means Gundam, and she even sounds somewhat proud of herself because she remembers. How could she not? She spent an entire evening with Tim once on his couch, watching the most recent ones.

"I meannnnn, yeah, but like — wouldn't it be yrgna, though??"

Deep Thoughts during Waffle Wednesday.

This is delivered as Spider-Man pensively scratches his cheek. "I always kinda wondered about that. Like. Isn't that dude an Avenger, or Justice Leaguer, or Justicevenger (also, why though? Also also, don't tell him I asked that)," punctuates Spider-Man in his effortless (?) segue before returning to something resembling a point, "I mean, don't they have uniforms and stuff that… stretch? Like, how Mr. Fantastic does it? Or Martian Manhunter? Or, like, any of the gazillion other heroes who change size and shape? Shouldn't his clothes not rip and tear?" His hands lift, palms up.

"I'm just saying! It raises a lot of troubling implications that I don't wanna think about if I can't force other people to acknowledge them too!"

He's absolutely not apologizing for raising the idea that the Incredible Hulk might be some kind of exhibitionist. Nope. He just rubs the back of his head after, tilting backwards just slightly in his crouched position as he listens to the others. "We're probably learning it, like, through osmosis. So thank you for that, Madame Magic." He considers for a moment. "… Mystic Mistress? … that one sounds kinda weird though."

Not letting the codename thing go, either.

But as Red Robin brings up a very salient point about Cassie's ability to fly, those lenses shutter in a slow blink of realization. A second passes. "Uhhh yeah right lemme jussssst-" And just as he reaches out to try to undo those underlines, the to-do list vanishes away and the notification sounds off. He stays there, frozen, like a statue.

"… crap."

"You're all complicit."

He's taking everyone down with him. Which is maybe why —

"Oh my god, really?? Awesome! I mean, like, that sounds great, a giant robot ought to be able to handle weird magic stuff too, right? Magic and science just kinda cancels each other out, you know." No it doesn't. "Except when it doesn't and they work together to create some sort of horrible magitech abomination obviously." Except for that.

"… anyway, I got some really cool designs for webbing cannons lying around somewhere I can upscale for a giant robot…"

It's not hard for someone who knows the Princess of Prestidigitation to imagine exactly what she's thinking about when she gets that dreamy, faraway look in her eyes. Especially since it clearly comes as a result of Spider-Man's assertion that Red Robin's completely harmless and extremely healthy - maybe TOO healthy - breakfast smoothies are going to cause her to 'Hulk out'. No, it's clear that she's imagining herself as the Zensational Zee-Hulk, wreaking terrible vengeance on the world.

It's even easier to imagine she's thinking about that since she then proceeds to talk about it.

By the time she talks about her clothes ripping, the Red Knight is squinting at her from behind the featureless white lenses of his domino mask. Once she and Spider-Man both get into the natural consequences of the Hulk's clothing getting torn up, and the 'troubling implications' thereof, he's instead resting his face in the palms of both gloved hands.

"I can't wait for our Sunday dinner conversation about whether or not Iron Man goes to the bathroom in his suit," the Titans' leader decides. "Anyway, Zee was the one who saw Hulk transform under Stark Tower, so she'd know more about any Green Giants than the rest of us."

And yet, there are some secrets that perhaps Zatanna Zatara should take to her grave.

"S'ti dnik fo nuf," he answers Impulse, and fortunately none of their backwards talking has proven to be as effective as Zatanna's. "Edoc maet a sa ti esu dluoc ew."

They really shouldn't though. Who know what havoc Zatanna would cause by accident if they did.

The idea of the Tower as a 'giant robot' gets what's probably a flat look from Red Robin, but it's hard to tell because of the mask. It gets flatter when Zatanna mentions 'Gun Damns'.

"I already got enough guff from Spider-Man about the Tower being unsafe," he says. "Plus wouldn't the arms be everyone's bedrooms…?"

"Web Cannons? /Nice/."

Cyborg's already making some changes to the plans and designs that he has in his files somewhere. He's pretty focused on trying to make sure that he's got everything squared away.

"Maybe. I have a design that puts the rooms down the back and there's wings involved." Cyborg's taking this whole thing seriously. Hey, never know when they may have to fight some giant terror beast or something. Not that he's pissed off any creatures of that magnitude lately. Or anything. "I'll have to tinker with some Gundam designs as well. Maybe incoporate some of those features. Hm." Cyborg's crafting and talking at the same time. "Good idea."

Cyborg doesn't want to brag, well, that's a lie so he goes back to a previous topic of conversation. "I can do a lot of things with this city's infrastructure. The security on most cameras around the city is a joke." Cyborg stares off into the distance for just a moment. "… I've seen things." Shuddering himself back to normal, Cyborg looks around at everyone. "We're gonna' need a weapon. The web cannons'll be nice but we're going to need something significant. Like a sword. Or a gatling gun. I could go for a gatling gun." A fist is held out to Bart because he knows the speedy one'll be on board for whatever.

Congratulations, Zee. You've reached Bart-levels of imagination. Except that by the time Zatanna is pulled out of her reverie Bart would have had sequels and spin-offs or gotten bored and imagined Titan Tower transforming in new-fandangled robotic glory with each of them piloting and properly color-coded.

Grinning, the Speedster polishes off the last of his croissants, his eyes already roving over what's left of the breakfast spread for seconds, or is it thirds? He helps himself to some juice, his free hand already loading up his plate with croissant spill-off while he chugs down his OJ.

—which is kind of a bad thing to do when the conversation goes towards overly ripped clothing, and Red Robin doesn't help at all with his Iron Man comment. It's hard to tell if Impulse is laughing or coughing. Okay, he's definitely choking a bit but even as he sputters he looks like he's cracking up. It's like he's six or something. Oh wait, he kind of technically is. Thankfully he doesn't spit all over the place.

"I will willingly sacrifice my room for the greater good that is a giant robot," he proclaims with a raised hand once he's caught his breath. "Ooh, ooh- how about a sword-gun!! Gatling sword? Would that even work…?" With what he's picturing in his head right now? Probably not. Still, he's not about to leave Cyborg hanging as he practically hops out of his seat to complete that brofist. Aw yeah.

I'm just saying! It raises a lot of troubling implications that I don't wanna think about if I can't force other people to acknowledge them too!

"It's probably the size of a bus," Zatanna tells Spider-man, almost immediately, with a deadpanned expression, speaking of troubling implications that Peter doesn't want to think about - because now she's thinking about it and the comment comes out of her mouth as a form of petty vengeance. Sure, she opened the door to the abyss, but he shoved her down inside of it!

And then he calls her Madame Magic. "Hey! I'm not old enough to be anyone's madame!" she says with a laugh, winging a wadded up napkin at the webslingeer. "Mystic Mistress is a little better, but only a little! Anyway, maybe my job security here's a little stronger than I thought, if you guys are learning how to talk backwards through osmosis. I mean, it might be able to help later when things get really weird."

It's been months since she joined, and she hasn't settled on a codename yet. Maybe it's a fruitless endeavour now, or maybe she's just being needlessly picky.

With Tim revealing the extent of her role with the Stark Tower debacle, she coughs into a fist. "Honestly, I didn't see much of anything there was too much light," she confesses, scuffing her sneakered toe into the floor and looking sheepish. Not because she didn't get much of a peek, but because she had been forced to uncap the limitless well of magic within her for just a moment or two in order to purge the darkness that had been pervading Tony Stark's building at the time. Though the Sunday dinner remark earns Tim a laugh, too.

"Don't be silly," she tells him. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we all know that he probably does, so we'd be talking about something less obvious."

Though she is way out of her depth when the young men start talking about the logistics of turning a functional building into a giant robot. The fact that Peter has designs for giant robot cannons doesn't surprise her at all; what's actually surprising is Tim's flat expression when the very look neatly vetoes the idea almost immediately.

"I bet he's only saying no because he already knows what's going to happen. People fighting over the pilot's chair and everyone else being unable to resist screaming out attack names."

Well, she wouldn't be able to resist it anyway.

Already, Red Robin is haunted by the idea of having to explain just why the Tower turned into a giant robot. Is the City of New York really going to stand for that? They've already been in kind of hot water as it is, with the mysterious explosions and the current upswing in bad press towards metahumans - none of the Titans might be mutants, so far as anyone knows, but if people start getting hysterical is that going to make a difference? Especially after what happened to Tony Stark's building?

"How about we start with a smaller giant robot first," the Red Knight suggests, while Cyborg and Impulse fistbump in solidarity. Cyborg was supposed to be a moderating influence, the vigilante reminds himself. One of the original Titans! He's older than Red Robin! But… "One that doesn't have anyone's bedrooms in it. There's plenty of space down in the hangar. Maybe one that turns into a T-Jet."

He hadn't gotten around to showing Zatanna any Macross yet. But he would. Oh yes, he would.

Although her piloting any giant robot is bound to be even more dangerous than when she was behind the wheel of something so mundane as a car.

The very idea is going to haunt his nightmares.

"You're right though, the cybersecurity in the city is terrible. When I hooked our comms into emergency dispatch and the NYPD they were dragging their feet on giving us permission, so I just kinda… Did it…" Classic Red Robin. If you can't get permission fast enough, just do it anyway. Nobody'll notice.

"Anyway, that was a good breakfast. Now Zee's got plenty of energy for her hand to hand combat lessons," he says cheerily, standing up from his seat, avoiding thinking about the Hulk's junk or how Tony Stark probably poops in his armor. "No rest for the wicked, you know?"

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