Red Tornado could not explain why he liked the team so much; not just as a concept, he liked the individuals on the team. There was something so fascinating about working with adolescents that he'd never regarded in fully developed Adults. The teenagers were creative and clever, but also naive and reckless, both carefree and in need of constant comfort.
They made no logical sense and they should be impossible, yet here they were, six of them, and they made themselves very present.
"Red!!" M'gann skipped after the android. "I need help with math again, I don't understand anything, we don't do this kind of math on Mars... they use different words"
"What topic do you need my assistance with?" Red Tornado asked; M'gann needed a lot of help in school, most things that normal adolescents were taught since young childhood were things she had no knowledge of; mathematics, scientific discoveries, critical thinking, grammar, and literature are just some of the topics that overwhelmed her.
M'gann whipped out a leaf of papers. "Surface Area and Volume." She lead the way to the kitchen table. "I'm supposed to find the area of an equi— eq— equila—"
"I believe the word you are trying to read is Equilateral."
"Thank you." She said. "It says: Find the surface area of an e-quil-at-er-al triangle with a side length of 8cm."
Red tornado knew the answer immediately. "The triangle has a net surface area of—"
"Don't say it!" M'gann covered their ears. "I need to figure it out, Don't tell me, just... help me remember the formulas..."
Red Tornado could never quite figure out teenagers. They seemed to enjoy problems; they asked for help with their difficulties, but got upset when they were given the answers they wanted. Of course, the few times they did want direct answers, it was to wholly objective questions.
Still, as per the child's request, he did his best to instruct her.
"So... Area=1/2hb?" M'gann asked. "That's what the note says, but I don't really know what that means."
"The net area of an equilateral triangle is the base multiplied by the height, divided."
M'gann stared back blankly, her heartbeat spiking very slightly. "What?"
"The net area of an equilateral triangle is the base multiplied by the height, divided."
"I don't understand what you're saying..."
Red Tornado thought about how to rephrase this, he did not understand what the issue was, but if it would assist Ms Martian, he would find other synonyms for her. "The complete area of an equilateral triangle is reached by multiplying the base of the triangle from the height of the triangle, divided in half." M'gann stared back, her flat face unchanged. "Do you understand?"
The martian stared in silence for a few seconds, her face began contorting, as if in pain. In seconds, droplets began racing down her face. M'gann struggled to inhale and turned away, wiping her face on her forearm, though it did not dry much.
"I'm— I'm sorry!" Her voice cracked and shook as if she was severely ill, but aside from her increased heart rate and overheating face, she seemed of health. She hid from him in her sleeves, though Red Tornado could not fathom why the area of an equilateral triangle would urge such a response.
"I'm just stupid! I'm sorry!"
"Ms Martian, to say that you are devoid of intelligence because no one has taught you something is a completely irrational conclusion."
She sniffled a little, glancing up despite their hair. "What?" They immediately looked away.
"To say that you are devoid of intelligence because no one has taught you something is a completely irrational conclusion." Red Tornado repeated patiently,
"I still don't know how to do it..." They said.
"The base of the equilateral triangle is 8units, if you devide that in half, you have four units twice."
"Yeah?" The martian frowned.
"This gives you two right triangles with a length of four units and a height of eight units."
"Like Python theorem?
"Not quite." Red Tornado wondered if she was referring to the Pythagoras theorem, but either way it was not the correct answer. He continued to encourage them as cautiously as possible. "These two triangles, rearranged, can create a rectangle. We will use the rectangle to derive the area."
Ms Martian fumbled her pencil, drawing a very small rectangle. "With four and eight?"
"The horizontal values are four, the vertical values are eight. Here we may apply the pythagoras theorem." He seperated the rectangle diagonally and inspected Ms Martian's face. "Do you understand?"
She nodded a little. "Can you stay? Please? To be careful. incase I forget again?"
Of course, he could.
------------------------------------------ South Peir Mall, Happy Harbour -----------------------------------------------------
"You're really cute, y'know."
"Okay."
Both the girls laughed at that, the first one's hand dropping down to brush his arm. "You're from here, right? Like, you're from Happy Harbour?"
"I live here."
"How have we never seen you around?" The second girl asked, swirling around her paper coffee cup. "Cause Happy Harbour isn't that big."
"I...." Conner's mouth hovered open, trying to find something to say.
"We have some friends who are gonna be, like, seshing later tonight. you should come!"
The first girl nodded. "Yeah, totally! you should come!"
Conner finally found something worthwhile to ask: "What's seshing?"
The girls laughed again. Again, he didn't know why.
"you're pretty sheltered, aren't you? You from the first bay area?"
"Hey! Hey!" They all turned, and Superboy saw Black Canary, in her "non-work clothes", storming over, a shopping bag draped off one arm. she loomed next to Superboy. "And what the hell is going on here?"
"Uh, nothing?" The first girl said, sipping her drink.
"We were just inviting him out." The second said. "Is that a crime?"
Black Canary put a hand on Conner's shoulder. "He's a kid for christ sake! He's not even sixteen! Honestly! You should know better!" She dragged him away as quickly as possible, cursing under her breath. She wished she could do more than keeping him on a tight leash.
"Those girls were talking to me."
"Girls! They were well in their early twenties, they were hardly girls!" She steered him towards the food court.
"They were being nice."
"They were just playing around with you because you're a teenager." She sighed. "I've been in college and heard people brag about leading on a highschool-aged boyfriend or girlfriend just for kicks. Its predatory and unfair and-- just, remind me we need to have a stranger danger talk."
She stopped dragging him and let him sit at a small two person table next to the New York Fries.
"Don'r grab me." Superboy said.
"Sorry." She relented. Conner wasn't a big fan of touch and she knew that.
"They were touching me too." He said. "But when we left you said I wasn't allowed to hit anyone."
"Thats true, but you shouldn't let strangers touch any part of your body if you're uncomfortable." She quickly corrected herself, "You shouldn't let anyone touch your body if you're uncomfortable."
"I shouldn't let them touch me, but I also shouldn't hit them?"
"Hitting people out of costume shouldnalways be a last resort." She explained. "Remember at school?"
"No one told me! I wouldn't hav3 hit him if he didn't make me angry!" Conner scowled. "It isn't fair!"
"I know." She sighed. "I know... lets get some lunch and get you some new shirts, huh?"
"Fine."