Title: Best Laid Plans
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: SVU
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law&Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Jack, Benji and Emmy have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: Olivia Benson and Brian Cassidy continue to work at regrouping from the trauma and challenges of their year by taking some time away from New York City. They take their kids on a family vacation to visit Cragen and Eileen in Florida. The story is set in the Hello Goodbye, Welcome Home and Facing Forward AU.
***5 CHAPTERS PRIOR TO THIS — CHAPTER 5, 6, 7 and 8— WERE POSTED IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS. SO IT WON'T HAVE BUMPED AND MIGHT NOT HAVE ALERTED. PLEASE GO BACK AND READ IT IF YOU MISSED THEM.****
Getting out of the gift shop – definitely a good idea. Diverting and distracting everyone's attention with heading for the Ant-Man: Nano Battle line? That'd been a less spectacular idea. But, for Cassidy, he knew it'd end up there on the list of memories he'd think back-on when it was all-said-and-done. Not so much with the kids – or because of the kids. Because of Liv.
Cassidy wasn't sure how much the kids thought of Ant-Man as one of the Marvel super heroes. Though, supposed the last couple Avengers movies might've shifted that. But Ant-Man wasn't high on the list of Sunday afternoon movie picks in their house. He wasn't even sure if the kids really thought of him as a 'super hero'.
"Did they really need a ride for this?" Liv muttered as they got into the queue.
Brian thought she probably just wanted to focus on ticking off their other priorities. Leave this as an after-thought. Take it or leave it. But, Cassidy sort of figured, they might as well round out their whole Super Hero Island experience since they were there. And – they needed to put in some time until they could hit up the other top priorities. Since they'd fucked up the scheduling.
Liv always said they sucked a 'family planning'. That was likely an understatement. They'd definitely had adventures and missteps and a whole lot of challenges in the whole putting together their mishmash family unit. But the rest of it – 'family planning' – was just a whole lot of them spending a chunk of their adult lives so job focused that they both still struggled to pull back down. They were always on-call – even when they weren't. So it made it hard to 'plan' much of anything. Harder now with Ben's condition and how fucking unpredictable it felt like it could be. That was its own fucking rollercoaster. Sometimes an hour was a fucking rollercoaster with him. Let alone trying to have some sort of day-trip with the kids. Or weekend getaway. Or vacation.
So they didn't really plan. They played shit by ear. They rode by the seat of their pants. They just figured it out and worked it out. And, generally, shit worked out.
He was going to trust that things were still going to work out that day with getting the rest of the super hero activities in. And who the fuck cared if they didn't? They had the five-day tickets. They had a whole lot of leeway to make this shit work.
And Cassidy would much rather put in the time waiting for those headline items for the kids on another ride than looking at more gift shops or listening to people scream on the Hulk or the kids realizing there was junk food all around them that might look as enticing as a fucking ugly plush Spiderman.
The ride didn't sound that enticing but the kids were pretty stoked to get to go into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Laboratory. Because – science. It was another tour gone horribly wrong shtick. Cassidy had the feeling they'd be encountering a whole lot of that for any rides they got on beyond Super Hero Island. A little lame.
But the kids were liking it. They got to move through the Secure Storage Vault that contained a ton of weaponry and high tech artifacts' from the Marvel universe. It was fun to look at. Movie-prop quality even if it wasn't the 'real' thing.
The kids were expected to go through the lab rooms where 'real scientists' worked. Them saying that was likely a sign that they needed to get them somewhere that 'real scientists' actually worked on that trip. Like an aquarium or the Kennedy Space Center or something that wasn't a fucking theme park.
One of Ant-Man's damaged helmets was on display like it was being refribuished at one of the work stations. But all the equipment hooked up and taking readings from the treasures from Asgard and Captian America's shield were the biggest hits. But there were weapons – including their high-tech suits – used by Hawkeye and Black Widow and Vision too. Though, the kids were more taken with spotting the little hints about Bruce Banner and Tony Stark's visits and potential work in the building.
Panels and screens were everywhere showing off the science and research and experiments supposedly being conducted in the lab. The one room had a panel showing times all around the world and across the Marvel Universe – including Wakanda. Em spotted that one all on her own.
Fuck. Her reading and phonetics and vocabulary were getting good. Brian would admit sometimes it real fucking intimidated him. Like figuring out how to be a dad and a dad to a daughter and a dad to a sick kid and a dad to kids coming from trauma wasn't hard enough. He had to be a dad to this kid who he was pretty fucking sure would be smarter than him by the time she was about twelve years old. He had no doubt that that fall she'd be hoarding the bedtime novels away so she could read ahead of the rest of them. And how do you parent that?
Was about the next room that they started catching glimpses of Ant-Man and the Wasp. And they didn't come bearing good news. Apparently Hydra was moving in to attack the city to attack the Arc Reactor at Stark Tower. Ant-Man and the Wasp needed to protect it all from the evil artificial intelligence Armin Zola, which has sent an army of Swarmbots in an attempt to steal the Data Core. And Ant-Man – shockingly – needs their help.
"I think I slept through this movie," Liv leaned in to whisper as they listened to the spiel on the screen. "The only words I've recognized so far are Stark Tower."
He gave her a smile. "Going to sleep through the ride? Or just talk through it?"
She just nudged her shoulder against his for that quip.
"This is very important information," he told her. "About our mission."
Liv rolled her eyes. But she did manage to smile as the kids lit up realizing that it was a high-tech shoot-em up ride. Or maybe because the kids fought over who got to ride with Mommy in the two-seater 'DAG-R combat vehicles'.
It eventually ended up Liv and Ben in one and him and Em in the next. That was usually their pretty standard grouping in their divide-and-conquer outings with the kids.
Em was already pulling at the trigger of the EMP Blaster in their vehicle before they even out of the loading area. And she even more quickly discovered the joystick to twist and turn and spin the vehicle around. Fantastic. They ended up facing Liv and Ben before they even got beyond the moving side walk and onto the ride track.
"Hello," Liv allowed as they jerked around to face each other.
Ben grinned and held up the laser – pointing it in there direction. "Say hello to my little friend," he in-toned (from a movie he'd never seen).
He was so his mom with his humor and one-liners. The little quips. Liv had more than rubbed off on that kid. There was so much of her in him. Drove him crazy that way.
And worked at doing it right then too. Big Man went and fired his laser their way teasingly.
"BEN-GEE!" Ducky chastised. "You NEVER-EVER-EVER point guns at pep-peel! 'Specially Daddy! He a cop! And he's been shot dead!"
Ben didn't give a shit. He fired away. And he must've struck something on their vehicle – an alarm went off and it jerked side to side and then spun around. Only for a moment – because Em manoeuvred them right back to facing her mom and brother before their violent spin had even stopped.
"BEN-GEE!" his sister shrieked at him.
"Gotcha!" Ben smiled big time.
"BEN-GEE!" Ducky said so angrily and condescendingly all the same time. Sometimes Little Duck could be a real mother hen. "It not funny!"
Liv looked a lot happier about the ride at that point too. And pretty comfortable and confident with the blaster in her hand. "But this is," she said and fired off some more laser beams in their direction. Sirens blared and their cart whirled like a tornado - Em doing a real scream whine of 'Mooooooommmmieee!' all the way around - until they were staring each other in the face again. Brian in a pretty wide-mouthed gape - because he thought he might hurl.
"You're in trouble," she mouthed. Over-competitive much.
"We just got a lot of points for that," Ben provided way too cheerily. And then shot right at them again – sending them spinning around again.
"Daddy," Em gaped at him. "Youz got shot again! They shooting you!"
"Just what I need," Brian agreed, stroking at her hair. "More hits to my heart from the ones I love most."
"I love you mostest, Daddy," she said.
"Then you better help me fight back," he nodded at her. "Mommy and Big Man can't win. OK?"
It'd been worth the try. But it didn't help. Well it helped briefly. They must've been in a holding pattern as they got jettisoned into the first section of the ride. Em wasn't immediately able to spin them back around – not for lack of trying.
"Fire your laser gun, Ducky," Brian tried to encourage her. Because the look on Liz's face – the smugness – had said it all before they'd spun out – she was in competition mode. And so was Ben. Bragging rights were on the line for this.
But the ride itself wasn't exactly anything that special after having just got off Spiderman.
It was a dark ride on a track. The general gist of it was that you'd been shrunk down to help Ant-Man and the Wasp kill off the Swarmbots. Hence the laser blasters. But you were basically just slowly creeping through what looked like some sort of soldered motherboard. More likely a nano-chip – hence the ride's name.
It wasn't bad themeing. It just wasn't 4K Ultra High Def IMAX screens towering around you on all sides. It really felt like Universal had like retro fit some track and vehicles they had kicking around from some other ride just to get something else in the area to cash in on the super hero bandwagon and the cash cow that was pulling it.
The real fun of the ride was more wrapped up in spotting the Swarmbots in the scenery and blasting at them to deactive them – and to collect points. Only that's more than a bit of a challenge when you're riding with a six-year-old who was way more interested in treating the ride like a liner version of teacups than target practice. They were jerking from side-to-side and around constantly.
Cassidy was finding it hard to keep his weapon aimed at any of the targets long enough to be able to kill off the Swarmbots. They weren't one-hit wonders. You had to hit those fucker multiple times to get them to die-off.
"Em, you've gotta keep us pointed at the Swarmbots," he tried again, pointing at them and grabbing at her gun to point its laser beam for her in the right direction. But she was preoccupied. She was all about being the driver. That pretty much was their daily family life too. Their boss, strong-willed little girl. Always doing it her way.
And her way for the Nano Battle seemed to be to steer them them right back around to face Liv and Big Man over and over again.
"There's Swarmbots on your ride," Ben would say and fire at them. Him and Liv both. Until they did hit and kill-off the things. And then it would sent his and Em's cart just lurching and twirling. Emmy was loving that – shrieking with glee and working to navigate the vehicle to get turned right back around so they could go for a ride again. Cassidy, meanwhile, was starting to feel pretty motion sick – AGAIN.
"Looking a little green around the gills, Bri," Liv deadpanned at him.
"Wonder why," he said.
"Likely swallowed a Swarmbot," Ben provided.
"Uh-oh," Liv said giving Ben a look. She'd like his joke. Peas in a pod there.
"And Hydra's got his tongue," Ben teased. And the joint firing squad started up again.
Brian tried to get squared up with the Swarmbot swarm above her and Ben's heads. But he was pretty sure it was a two-person job to get the targets on the ride vehicles to deactivate and Em wasn't being much help.
If that wasn't bad enough, some of Hydra's army kept getting the better of them too and were sending their cart in a full-on twirl. That was really way too close to teacups for Brian's liking. It was almost worse in the dark with the multi-colored lights – and nothing much else to focus on – swirling around him.
They finally got to the CPU – admitting a whole lot of heat, just as you'd expect from a computer - and Ant-Man gazed down at them from a grate.
"You got your EMPs to full power," he said. Brian really doubted him and Em had achieved that. "You've got to destroy the core before it's too late."
"Fire there, Ducky," Brian encouraged, pointing at the giant – nearly unmissable – structure in front of them. All the carts were being directed toward the thing in a team effort.
Yea. That did a whole lot of good. She still spun them – giggling all the way. When they jerked back around, he helped her get her laser aimed.
"Hold the trigger," he encouraged.
"Daddy, spinning is funner," she said.
"We need to help Ant-Man," he tried.
She huffed a little – but apparently helping Ant-Man was way more motivating than helping him on any of the ride up to that point. Or maybe she was a little pissed off that he'd grabbed her laser gun and was double-fisting it to try to get them some damn points. He didn't want to think about what Liv and Big Man must have. The number on their screen was sort of ridiculous when he was sure they were hitting next to nothing. He was pretty sure that Liv and Ben were hitting - oh, pretty much everything. And had from the sounds going off behind them - he was also pretty sure they were finding some bonus points and power-ups. Em tugged the blaster back from him and started aimlessly directing it all over the damn room. About everywhere but the GIANT CPU Data Core that was taking up the entire center of it.
"That's it!" Ant-Man called from above them. "Now press the Subatomic Themonuclear Detonator!"
And a giant red button – that had been unseen up to that point – lit up in front of them.
"BUTT-IN!" Em cheered. Finally something she wanted to do that wasn't vomit inducing.
Her hand smacked down on it. And that only worked so well because that whole radiant heat feeling in the room suddenly upped to full-on explosion – with the thunderous sound and theatric smoke to go with it. And their cart – and everyone else's around them – spun completely out of control.
They emerged from the smoke to find Ant-Man greeting them. Him and Emmy got told: "That was Cosmically Average for you to think you want to suit up for the Avengers. You better get in some more practice before you putting in your application at SHIELD." Not that Em cared but he could hear that Liv and Big Man got: "There's our new Galactic Defenders. I knew we didn't have to call in Star Lord. Come back on Wednesday, we'll get you suited up."
"What'd you get?" was the first thing Ben said to him as he trotted down the moving sidewalk in the deboarding area.
"Like a billion," Emmy provided on their behalf. "It was sooooo fun!"
But Liv took the opportunity to glance at the panel in their car as she caught up to him. She nudged his shoulder with hers.
"Twenty-four thousand, Bri?"
Ben gave him a look. "We got ninety."
He gave Liv a look. "There was a problem with our driver."
She allowed an amused noise. "Really? That was the problem?"
And he gave her a firmer look. "Alright, Hot Shot – you want to go again?"
Liv grinned and shrugged as they walked around. "Any place. Any time."
"NOW?!" Emmy suggested. "Ant-Man's ride way better then Storm's ride!"
"Oh, we're definitely doing it again," Liv teased, looking right at him. There was some defiance and a challenge to it. They both knew Liv was a better shot than him.
But he just shrugged at her. "We're switching drivers," he said and looped right back to get into the line again.
AUTHOR NOTE:
Still looks like the majority of you missed chapter 6 and chapter 7. You might want to check.
Thanks for reading. And reviewing.