Author's Note: Okay so this wasn't a request. Admittedly I sat down to do a request and this just came out instead. If you have kids, or have ever been around them long enough this should seem somewhat familiar to you. Thankfully, it usually is rare. Enjoy!

A Tantrum

Tantrums were, thankfully, a rare occurrence. However, that didn't mean they were completely unheard of around the Toretto household. Any home with a three year old child was bound to have to deal with them now and then.

Usually it was because the young child had been forbidden from something, though every now and then there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the child's breakdown and her parents ensuing confusion and frustration would usually only make things worse.

Mia's advice was usually to ignore it until it passed. "Trust me," she said. "She'll get over it faster than you realize."

Of course, it was easier said than done.

It had been a particularly long day at the garage, and it was nearing 9 pm when they finally closed for the night. Mia and Brian went home first while Dom dealt with the last of the paperwork and Letty cleaned up, tucking tools away where they belonged. She side-stepped a complaining three-year old who was getting underfoot with a tired sigh.

"Mami I hungwyyyyyyyy," the child whined, clutching the empty apple juice box she'd been given earlier.

"We're going home soon, mija," Letty said with more patience than she felt, sliding a pair of wrenches into the drawer of a tool chest.

She turned to find her daughter right in front of her, and backed up so she wouldn't trip over her, knocking back into the chest with a clatter. Pressing her lips together to avoid the curse she wanted to utter she grabbed the little girl by the arm.

"You have to sit down and wait for Mami and Papi to finish up. When you get in the way it only makes it take longer."

"But I hungwy," the girl complained, dragging her sneakered feet across the concrete.

"I don't have any more snacks to give you. So you're just going to have to wait. Sit down and behave."

Letty turned back to cleaning the garage, piling up some damaged parts to be recycled the next day. She was so focused on her work she almost missed the pathetic little sniffling from the other side of the garage. Sighing, she dropped her head and turned to look over at her daughter. The three-year old was sitting sprawled on the floor where she'd left her, eyes squeezed shut and huge tears rolling down her round face. Then the girl opened her mouth wide and began to wail loudly, her cries echoing through the garage as she repeated how hungry she was over and over. Letty closed her eyes, praying briefly for patience as she finished up her work.

Dom walked out of the office. "What the hell happened?" he demanded.

"She wants food, she skipped her nap this afternoon and we're still stuck at the garage," Letty replied, exasperation in her voice. "So it's tantrum time, apparently."

The girl had heaved her empty juice box angrily at the floor and was now sort of rolling around, flailing her limbs as she screamed.

"She does not get this from me," Dom said, staring in horror at his child.

"Whatever Dominic, I do not have the patience to play the blame game. Finish up the paperwork so we can go home and appease the monster."

He muttered something about emotional females that had her staring after him with murder in her gaze as he went back into the office. Letty's ears were aching from the screaming of her daughter and she really had to say that Mia's 'Just ignore it' advice was not cutting it. She threw a few more parts into one of the toolboxes and rounded on her daughter, snapping her name sharply. The girl's wails ceased and she stared at her mother with wide, dark eyes.

"That. Is. Enough." Letty said slowly. "We are all hungry. Crying about it is not going to get you your food any faster."

For a long moment the girl blinked up at her, sniffling, and Letty almost thought it had worked, until she started crying again, this time about how 'mean Mami was'. She half walked, half crawled her way to the office, hugging at Dom's leg with her little arms and pressing her teary, snotty face against his pant leg as he attempted to finish up the phone call with a client and explain about the crying child.

He hung up, rubbing a hand over his face, now equally as exasperated as his wife. Shutting off the computer he picked up his daughter with one arm, reaching for a tissue to wipe at her face. Unfortunately she only kept on crying, her little voice getting scratchy from the effort.

"Stop crying. You're going to make yourself sick," he told her, carrying her out of the office. "Come on, Let, time to go home."

Together they walked back to Dom's car, doing their best to ignore their fussing daughter. She'd quieted some, but now was squirming around in Dom's arms, limbs flailing. One little hand whapped him in the face and he turned his head, tucking her under his arm as he unlocked the car and then wrestled her into her car seat. She struggled, fighting for freedom as he strapped her down. Dom quickly backed away before he took a tiny fist to the nose, and turned to look at Letty watching them.

"She definitely gets that from you," he said, closing the door on the screaming child. Letty only raised a brow at him before getting into the passenger's seat.

By the time Dom had gotten into the car the child's wailing had lessened to moans and sniffles randomly punctuated by 'Mami'. He turned to pull out of the lot and onto the road, glancing at his wife who looked back at him.

"Sometimes I have no idea why you wanted children," she muttered, then yelped when he reached over to pinch her thigh.

"Thankfully this isn't a common occurrence," he replied, glancing into the back seat where their daughter was kicking her feet and straining against her car seat, though her cries had quieted to sniffles and the occasional whine. "I think she's going to wear herself out before we even get home and make her something to eat."

"That only means she'll be up in the middle of the night grumpy and starving," Letty said. "Just swing by In-N-Out on the way home."

Dom and Letty could hardly be considered proponents of healthy living, but at home they usually always made their own meals. It also worked out well because they had so rarely given their daughter things like French fries and chicken nuggets that she didn't even seem to be aware of what McDonald's was and would eat almost anything that was put in front of her.

Of course there were certainly times when it was convenient to go to a drive thru, especially after pulling a late day at the garage. While some parents might have balked at the idea of letting their kids have even one fast food meal a month they certainly didn't see anything wrong with it.

After a trip through the drive-thru the toddler was silenced with a half a cheese burger fed to her in small bites by her mother over the back of the seat. She contentedly munched on fries, ketchup streaking her cheeks which were still dirty with dried tears. Mid-chew she dozed off, head hanging forward, still holding a fistful of fries that were squished between little fingers.

When they arrived home Letty lifted her daughter out of the car seat while Dom muttered about the state of his car. She left him to wipe down the seats as she carried the little girl inside and up to her bedroom. She used baby wipes to clean her of the worst of her dinner, changing her into her little ninja turtles pajamas. The child slept through it all, worn out from missing her nap and from her exhausting tantrum. She was almost looking like a little angel when Letty finally tucked her in beneath her Toy Story bed sheets. She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing dark curls away from her forehead.

She leaned down to press a kiss over her cheek. "Let's try not skipping our nap tomorrow, monster," she murmured, then looked up to see Dom in the doorway.

He was smiling and she crossed to him, slipping her arms around him and leaning in. He dropped a kiss against the top of her head as they watched their child sleep.

"So I guess there's also times when you understand exactly why I wanted to have kids, huh?"

She laughed softly, taking his hand to tug him out of the bedroom, not wanting to wake their sleeping daughter. "Yeah, I guess so," she agreed.