Something's Gotta Give
Rating: 'T'
Characters (In order of appearance): Tommy Merlyn, Laurel Lance, Thea Queen, Oliver Queen, Kara Danvers, Barry Allen and Iris West.
Summary: Oliver and Tommy learn the hard way that lying to their wives is never a smart idea...
Authors Note: Because some senseless Karaliver and Merlance was in order.
00:30AM
That's what the clock, which sat on the bedside table in Tommy Merlyn and Laurel Lance's usual room in the Queen Manor, read when the CEO of Merlyn Global was wrenched suddenly from his deep slumber by an almost violent tugging on his left arm. Reaching across to switch on the lamp that sat on the wooden desk beside the bed, Tommy let his eyes adjust to the light. Realizing quickly who it had been to wake him. Standing at his bedside was his 8-year-old daughter Rebecca (or Becky as she now insisted on being called), and his 7-and-a-half-year-old nephew Connor. Tommy may not have had any blood relation to the young boy, but he would always unnecessarily remind people, Tommy Merlyn and Oliver Queen had always been brothers in all-but blood.
The two children stood in silence, staring at Tommy with fearful eyes. Immediately, his fatherly instincts kicked in and Tommy shot upright in bed, turning to face the two children as he shook his wife awake. As Laurel woke, Tommy pulled the shirt that had been discarded on the floor over his head, the two children silently scrambling into bed between the couple.
Laurel's parental instincts were on as high alert as Tommy's, but before either of them could question the two children, a figure burst through the double-doors to the bedroom, pushing them shut swiftly behind and locking them in one fluid motion.
"Thea!" Tommy gasped at his half-sister. "What the hell is going on?"
With wide eyes, Thea simply shook her head. Given the life Oliver and so many others in their family chose to live, Tommy was forced to assume the worse; they were under attack. Glancing across to his wife, the look Tommy saw in her eyes made it clear she thought the same thing. The brunette then turned to address the two children.
"What happened?" Laurel asked, placing a comforting hand on their shoulders.
Connor simply shook his head, looking as equally afraid as Thea and then, after looking at his fear, Becky turned to her mother.
"It's Uncle Ollie and Aunt Kara." The young girl spoke, a faint hint of tears in her eyes.
Laurel quickly looked up to meet Tommy's eyes, and the two shared a look of fear, things went wrong in their family far too often for them to take the situation lightly. Trusting the two children to his wife, Tommy leapt from the bed and crossed the room to his half-sister, grabbing her shoulders and looking straight into her eyes.
"Thea, come on! What's happening?" Tommy all-but begged.
After squeezing her eyes tightly for a moment, Thea met Tommy's stare. "It's Kara." The petite brunette answered.
Tommy's eyes went a little wider at the fearful tone of Thea's voice. "Is she okay?"
"She's not hurt but..." Thea trailed off. "Well...she's..."
It was then that Connor finally broke his silence in teary, fearful, and barely audible mutter. "Mommy is going to kill daddy."
"What!" Laurel exclaimed from her position on the bed. "Thea, what's happening?"
The younger girl bit her lip for a moment before answering. "They're having a domestic."
"A domestic?" Tommy questioned with a raised eyebrow, his fear being replaced with a mild amusement, Oliver always did have tenacity for angering his insanely powerful, incredibly alien, wife.
Thea paused as if to consider Tommy's words for a moment then shook her head. "That might not be the way to describe it. I was headed back to my room, and had to walk past Ollie and Kara's, it was pretty hard to miss the shouting, so I went to check it out. I figured they were just bickering like always but then the bedroom doors got blasted off by Kara's heat-vision, and Oliver hightailed it out of there, so I… I mean we, ran."
Tommy's eyebrows furrowed a little in confusion. "And where was Kara?"
"Levitating behind him with that terrifyingly evil glow-eye thing she does when she's mad." Thea answered quickly.
"And you ran?" Tommy asked admonished, he knew his half-sister so well he'd have thought that impossible. "Thea, you're the daughter of the head of the League of Assassins, the brother of the Green Arrow, the second in line to not one but two Fortune 500 companies, and a badass vigilante."
Thea's lips seemed to tease a smile for a moment before her expression turned serious. "All that means nothing when you're faced with a seriously pissed of Kryptonian." His half-sister wisely chose to whisper the last few words so the young children couldn't hear it.
Tommy couldn't disagree with that, he'd only ever seen Kara go full-on Kryptonian warrior woman on Oliver once before, and it had been the single most terrifying experience of his life. If he recalled, and he did perfectly because fear had a way of helping to crystallize his memories that Tommy resented with a righteous fury, he'd been unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle of a disagreement that somehow involved both wedding planning and vigilante politics. Thankfully, the Girl of Steel had been so pre-occupied with her then-fiancé that Tommy had gone completely under her radar, but regardless he fully understood why Thea had elected to run.
"Why weren't the kids in bed?" Laurel questioned, Tommy had almost forgotten his wife's presence, she had been so quiet during the last few moments.
"Well," Thea began, looking down as she spoke. "Connor said they heard shouting and I happen to see what was happening, I saw them, and they dragged me here while we were running." The brunette paused, looking up at her half-brother with nervousness in her eyes. "I'm pretty sure that the kids are the reason Kara's throwing Ollie around like a rag doll."
"What'd you mean?" Laurel asked, getting up from the bed and crossing the room to the siblings, while the two children continued to cower half-under the covers. "What did the kids do?"
"It's not anything they did per say…" Laurel didn't miss the way Thea glanced at her half-brother out of the corner of her eye before she turned back to the older woman. "They may have mentioned to Kara how Ollie allegedly let them join him at the bar yesterday."
There was a moment of eerie silence, the two siblings throwing each other a terrified look while a visible redness grew in Laurel's cheeks, Tommy was almost surprised at the lack of steam coming from her ears.
"OLIVER DID WHAT?!" Laurel cried out at her sister-in-law.
Thea took a tentative step back from Laurel, towards the door, while Tommy swallowed audibly, making a point of looking anywhere but at his wife.
"We just let them have a small sip. I mean, mom was letting me, and Ollie have a glass of champagne at galas and stuff at their age, and I know Malcom was the same with Tommy."
Laurel didn't calm at Thea's words, if anything they only inspired more anger in her. "HE LET THEM..." She trailed off for a moment, a more reserved anger coming over her features, which was even more terrifying if anyone asked Tommy's opinion (which they never did). "What do you mean we?"
"I…well, I…" Thea clearly didn't have a convenient answer and the looks she kept giving Tommy, silently asking for help, weren't paying off.
"Mommy?" A timid voice came from the bed, the trio turned their heads to see Becky sat on her knees and looking at the adults with wide eyes.
The anger immediately faded from Laurel's features as she faced her daughter. "What is it, darling?" Laurel asked sweetly.
"Is Aunt Kara mad because daddy, Uncle Ollie and Aunt Thea took us to Verdant yesterday?" The young girl asked slowly.
Thea and Tommy let out identical whines of fear as Laurel span on her heel to face them, a murderous look written on her face.
"Thomas Merlyn," Laurel began. "WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?"
"Sweetie, it is not what you think." Tommy tried, taking a few steps back and raising his hands in surrender.
Laurel seemingly refused to let Tommy put any distance between them, taking long strides towards him to match his retreat. Thea took advantage of Laurel moving towards her half-brother, knowing that she was out of the other woman's field of vision Thea backed up swiftly, doing her best to become one with the wall.
"Don't you dare try and give me excuses, Merlyn." Laurel spoke menacingly, employing a tone of voice dangerously close to the one she'd used so often in her days as the Black Canary.
"I'm sorry!" Tommy blurred out. "It wasn't even my idea."
Laurel's anger seemingly doubled at that, clearly, she didn't believe him. Thea couldn't blame her, if she hadn't known whose idea it had been she probably would've blamed Tommy. If she had not been so terrified, Thea would have been pretty amused by the whole situation, seeing Tommy cowering from his wife with his back pressed up against a wall was an entertaining sight. The most concerning thing was that Thea could see Laurel's right-hand clenching and unclenching, as if she was searching for the tonfa that had been her favourite weapon in her vigilante days. Thea knew full well that if Laurel had one of those weapons in reach, Tommy (and possibly Thea herself too) would almost definitely be suffering from a concussion already.
Taking a few more steps back away from the couple, Thea placed a hand on the door handle, planning on making a quick escape. Before she could even open the door, Laurel whirled around to glare at the younger woman.
"Don't even think about it." Laurel bit out, seething with anger. "I'll deal with you later."
Before Thea could give Laurel an audible answer, the older woman had wheeled around and reached out to grab at Tommy's collar. The elder Merlyn had clearly been expecting the attack and managed to avoid his wife's grasp by ducking under her arm and moving back towards the bed. Laurel continued to follow him, and, in his fear, Tommy managed to lose his footing and fell awkwardly to the floor, his back resting against the frame of the bed and he sat on the floor.
"What the hell were you thinking, Tommy!" Laurel half-shouted at her husband.
"We only took the kids because they asked!" Tommy's words sounded almost like a plea.
Laurel's fists clenched again as she towered over her husband. "You, Tommy Merlyn, are the owner of a Fortune 500 company and the co-owner of the most successful club in the city. You do not get to blame this on your daughter and nephew!"
Tommy tried to stammer out some semblance of a response, but he was interrupted by a loud crash as Oliver Queen, quite literally, flew into the room. Laurel turned around just in time to see her friend break through the wooden doors to the room and come to a stop when his back slammed into the wall at the opposite side of the room.
"Ollie?!" Tommy called to his best-friend.
"Tommy?!" Oliver called back.
"THEY KNOW?!" The duo called out simultaneously.
A moment later, Kara entered the room, levitating a foot or two off the ground, her eyes glowing an almost blinding blue. If the woman had been blessed with anything less than saintly levels of self-control, then the odds of Oliver having already been lobotomised were pretty high. The blonde crossed the room, her muscles visibly tensing as she approached her husband and his best friend, briefly acknowledging Laurel as she did.
"Mommy?" A small voice sounded out in the relative silence of the room.
Kara immediately dropped to the floor with a surprising grace, the power fading instantly from her eyes as she turned to her son.
"Hi, honey!" Kara spoke softly to the young boy, taking a few gentle steps towards the young boy. Offering her son a warm smile, Kara turned her head to face her sister-in-law. "Thea, would you be a dear and take the kids outside for a few minutes?" The Kryptonian asked in a sickeningly sweet voice, all while glaring daggers at the other woman.
Thea merely swallowed hard and nodded, quickly crossing the room and taking the hands of the two small children, leading them from the room as swiftly as she could. "Come on kids, I think your parents need some alone time."
As she left the room, Thea pulled the double doors shut, knowing better than to leave them open for her niece and nephew to hear the rest of the ensuing argument.
"OLIVER. JONAS. QUEEN." Kara bit out as soon as the doors were closed, seething with anger as the fiery glow returned to her eyes. "You are a dead man."
With a glance at his best friend, confirming that Laurel had issued similar threats, Oliver stood to his feet.
"Kara, honey, I know you're…upset…"
"Upset?!" Kara exploded, using her super speed to close the short distance between her husband and herself, levitating to match his height. "I am not upset. I am in a murderous rage, and if I wasn't concerned about our son growing up without his father I'd have thrown you in the Phantom Zone already BECAUSE YOU…" Kara paused to jab a finger into her husband's chest. "My idiot sister-in-law, and that buffoon," The Kryptonian pointed an accusing finger in Tommy's direction at that comment. "Took our son and niece to the bar AND LET THEM DRINK!"
"They barely drunk anything." Tommy spoke, getting to his feet alongside Oliver.
"Nothing more than we were drinking at their age, it was a tiny sip of beer." Oliver finished for his friend.
With what should have been nothing more than an angry exhale of breath from Kara, the two men were hit with a violent wind and fell back to the floor, their wives towering over them. The two women seeming even more outraged at the defiance their husbands showed.
"I don't care how much they drank!" It was Laurel who spoke up that time. "You could go to the cinema, teach them to cook…hell you could've taught the kids how to use a damned bow and arrow but YOU TWO," Laurel pointed aggressively at the two men. "Decided that you just had to take the kids to a bar."
"Couldn't've said it better." Kara acknowledged, the two women sharing a look of pride at their joint scolding of their husbands.
Tommy and Oliver looked to each other for a moment, a defiant stare in their eyes. They paused for a moment, then stood to face their wives…
XXX
Thea had decided to take her niece and nephew to their respective rooms after their timely escape from Tommy and Laurel's bedroom. Thankfully, the two young children had agreed after Thea had firmly reassured them that their parents were not going to kill each other (even if she was not wholly convinced of that fact herself). After that though, she had elected not to return to her own room at the manor, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Which is why she was stood a few feet away from the door to Tommy's room, close enough to hear the half-shouts and occasional screams coming from within, but far enough away that she would have a good head-start should Laurel and Kara turn their anger against her. It also meant she was fortunate enough to see Tommy and Oliver burst through the doors, the duo wearing matching expressions of fear, and running straight in her direction.
Right behind her two brothers come Kara and Laurel, the two women practically boiling in rage, the latter still levitating. Before Thea even had a real chance to register what was happening, a bolt of blue light zipped down the corridor, only narrowly missing bother herself and Tommy. That was when the two men reached Thea, with Tommy grabbing her arm and dragging her into a run with them.
"What the hell did you say?!" Thea shouts at her brothers as they run down the twisting corridors of the Queen Mansion, the trio continuing to dodge the rays of Kara's heat vision.
"Nothing!" Tommy shouts back in a higher pitch than usual.
"But we are getting to the bunker and locking ourselves in until our wives calm down." Oliver cut in, his voice equally higher than usual.
"They've both gone crazy!" Tommy spoke again.
"CRAZY?!" A voice came from behind them, the trio not daring to look back to figure out which of the two women had shouted at them. "I'll show you crazy!"
At that, another bolt of blue shot at them, again missing its mark.
"Is Kara trying to kill us?" Thea shot at Oliver as they rounded the final corner before reaching the stairs to the manor's entrance.
"I doubt it, she hits me with her heat vison all the time when she sets mad, it's nothing more than a weak sun burn if she wants it to be. Still hurts though."
Just as they reached the top of the stairs, Tommy let out a shout of pain, falling over his feet and dropping to the ground with a resounding thud. Thea and Oliver both stopped and turn in time to see Tommy clutching his shoulder and a faint wisp of smoke coming from his shirt, one of Kara's shots had finally found its mark.
The siblings didn't have much time to think more than that, as Kara and Laurel literally ran into them, either not having enough time, or choosing not to, stop. The five were all on the ground a moment later, shouting, issuing death threats, and with all manner of physical violence. How long they were like that for, none of them could tell, the fight only ending when they were all separated in a haze of yellow light.
The quintet all turned to realize that the lights had been switched on and Barry Allen stood a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest while giving them his best glare.
"What is wrong with you?" The speedster scolded. "I'm pretty sure you're all supposed to be adults, not to mention CEO's, Lawyers, Reporters and…collage drop outs…" Barry stumbled, not quite understanding how Thea had got caught up in the couple's arguments. "Have you all gone crazy?"
Tommy let out a faint snort at that. "I'm pretty sure our wives have."
"You…" Laurel went to make another dive and her husband but Barry swiftly separated the couples even further before any of them (apart from Kara) could realize what was happening.
With an exaggerated sigh, Barry addressed the group again. "What happened?"
Before Oliver, Thea, or Tommy could react, Kara and Laurel jumped into telling an over-dramatic version of the events leading up to that moment, with the three guilty members of the group simply staring at the ground in defeat. Despite that fight that had been going on, all five of them knew things had gotten out of hand when Barry was the one scolding them for being childish.
When the two women were done explaining the story, Barry turned to the other three.
"And what do you three have to say for yourselves?"
Without a moment of hesitation Tommy spoke up. "I'm sorry for letting Ollie and Thea drag me to the bar."
The other five people in the room gave the eldest Merlyn an incredulous look, none of them believing that the idea wasn't at least in part Tommy's.
"Look, it doesn't matter whose idea it was, or what actually happened because it's already done." Barry responded. "Kara, Laurel, there isn't anything you can do about the fact that these three are the kind of people who would take their kids to a bar and let them drink, and as much as I don't agree with what they did, I understand why they did."
Kara and Laurel gave the speedster matching looks of confusion as they could not understand how anyone, but their husbands and sister-in-law, could justify what happened. The other three were also giving Barry some befuddled looks.
"It's about their fathers." Barry said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "They might not have lost their fathers like I did, but none of them got to spend much time with their fathers growing up, if they did it was mostly about keeping up appearances for the sake of the company, its one of the problems with being in the public eye so much. While they might have a pretty messed up idea about how to bond with their kids, its only because they didn't have the best model of family life growing up."
The two wives shared a look at that, Kara more than Laurel appreciating Barry's words. They both knew the reality of what the speedster had said, and they really couldn't blame their husbands or Thea for what had happened. Well…they could, but after that they felt guilty for so much as wanting to.
From the silence that had befallen the group, Barry was confident to say that his words had resonated.
"So, no more murder fights?" The speedster asked.
The quintet just shook their heads.
"Good, then we're all going back to bed."
Barry stayed exactly where he was until all five had gone back to their rooms and silence fell over the Queen Mansion again. With a heavy sigh he padded back to the room he was currently sharing with Iris, which was the first room after the landing, hence he had heard the fight.
As he entered the room and pushed shut the door, Barry saw his wife, sat on the bed and giving him a look of pride and a little sadness too.
"What you said to them…about fathers…" Iris began.
Barry smiled, he should've known she'd be listening in, and suddenly understood that hint of sadness in her eye. Crossing to the bed, Barry took a seat next to his wife and let out a chuckle.
"It was absolute crap, Iris." Barry grinned. "It was just the best excuse I could come up with to stop Kara and Laurel killing them. Honestly, I think they're just idiots."