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Artwork by Lademonessa
It was the first day of school in the Merlyn-Queen-Smoak household and it was all hands on deck. Felicity and Tommy were putting the finishing touches on four lunches and Oliver was preparing breakfast for the troops. Bobby was seated at the kitchen table wearing headphones and reading something on his tablet. The soon to be twelve-year-old was about to start his senior year of high school. It was also the first day of kindergarten for the twins and the paparazzi had descended on their Cobble Hill residence like a new King of England was about to be coronated.
Tess barked as the front door opened and closed. The shouts of the paparazzi flooded their home. The black dog ran down the corridor to greet their visitors. William entered the kitchen carrying Tess in his arms like the sixty-pound mutt weighed nothing. “Good morning, family,” William exclaimed cheerfully.
“You realize that, because of you, she expects all of us to carry her around like that,” Felicity pointed out as she placed a kiss on her step-son’s cheek.
“He loves that dog more than me,” Emma teased as she entered the kitchen. “There have to be over a hundred cameras out front and at least ten networks. I don’t remember them being this crazy when Beck’s started kindergarten.”
“The power of the wonder twins,” Bobby said from his seat at the table.
William put Tess down, “You’re sure they’re all going to follow you with the twins?”
“We hope so,” Tommy said as he poured coffee for their new arrivals.
“If they don’t, Beck’s is going to have a panic attack,” William cautioned quietly.
“Use your judgment, if they’re not all gone, don’t leave the house,” Oliver told his eldest.
“They’re going to follow the twins,” Bobby declared without looking up from his tablet. “It’s day one hundred and seven,” he held up his tablet that showed a picture of the twins and Felicity that had been taken the day before.
“Are you going to be okay with taking Bobby on your own?” Oliver asked Emma as he took the tablet away from Bobby and held out his hands for the wireless headphones. Bobby reluctantly handed them over.
Emma winked at Bobby, “Bobby and I are old pros with the paps.”
“Try not to punch anyone this year,” Tommy gently elbowed her side on his way to the sink.
“You punch a guy, one time, and they never let you forget it,” Emma winked at Bobby who wore a grin from ear to ear.
“That’s when we knew you were a keeper,” Felicity teased the young woman who’d gone from Bobby’s student aid to an honorary member of the family. Her seventh month on the job, a paparazzi touched six-year-old Bobby and the nineteen-year-old had dropped the cameraman to the ground with one punch.
“She made him cry,” Bobby beamed with pride.
“Emma,” Becca squealed as she threw her arms around the young woman.
“That’s a pretty outfit,” Emma complemented Becca as she twirled her across the kitchen towards the table.
“Gram, picked it out with me,” Becca said with a huge smile.
“Less twirling,” Tommy said carrying two plates, “more eating.”
Becca dropped into her usual seat and looked at her parents, “He’s wearing them.”
“We know,” Oliver said curtly.
“You’re not seriously letting him go to school like that?” Becca questioned her parents.
“Becca,” Tommy said tapping her plate, “eat your breakfast. Let us worry about Nate.”
“They’re all going to make fun of him. It’s going to be online - again,” Becca continued, ignoring her dads’ instructions to leave the issue go.
“He’s five. It’s adorable,” Felicity said, hoping that she and her husbands were making the right call.
Tess started barking when the front door opened and closed again.
“Where are my precious babies?” Donna called from the foyer, her high heels audible crossing the floor.
“No,” Felicity snapped when Becca moved to get out of her seat, “eat your breakfast.”
Quentin and Walter entered the kitchen together. Becca and Bobby’s eyes lit up and at the same time they both cried, “Grandpa Walt.”
“Surprise,” Walter said with a grin as both children forgot their mother’s admonition to eat their breakfasts and they threw their arms around him.
“You said you were in London when you called last night,” Becca reminded her grandfather.
“It was a fib. I was at your Auntie Thea’s last night so I could surprise you today,” he said to his granddaughter.
“Are you taking me to school?” she asked hopefully.
“I came all the way from London to do just that,” he smiled, “but only if you eat your breakfast.”
“What am I? Chopped liver?” Quentin grumbled.
Becca smiled and then hugged him, “Gramps, I see you almost every day.”
Quentin kissed the top of her head, “I know, I’m a lucky man.”
Felicity clapped her hands, “Yes, everyone is very lucky. Robert. Rebecca. Eat. We’re on the clock today.”
“Look who I found,” Donna gushed as she entered the kitchen holding each twin by the hand, “our brand new kindergarteners.”
Everyone in the kitchen started clapping and the twins both grinned. Felicity took pictures of them in their first day of school outfits. It was the one hundred and seventh day that Nate was wearing the pair of cheetah ears that Quentin had bought for him when he took the twins to the zoo back in May. Nate only removed the ears to bathe, otherwise he wore them twenty-four hours a day. At first, everyone thought it was precious, but after two weeks and a complete meltdown when Oliver asked him not to wear them to bed, they began to worry that it had become a strange compulsion. When they asked him why he wanted to wear the ears he simply said, “Cheetahs are fast.” Felicity thought Nate was adorable. Tommy thought Nate’s reasoning was sound. Oliver obsessively worried that Nate had developed an anxiety disorder because of Prue’s recent hospitalizations. They consulted a therapist after sixty days had passed. She told them not to worry about it and that Nate was merely exhibiting an active imagination. At ninety days, Felicity secretly went to the zoo to get a replacement pair of ears, just in case. At this point, no one in the family really noticed the ears anymore. Nate wore glasses and cheetah ears, it was his thing. At kindergarten orientation, Nate’s parents told his teacher what was happening and she just smiled kindly and said, “How sweet.” Only Becca seemed at all worried that her brother was going to be ridiculed for wearing his ears.
Tommy took Prue by the hand and led her back towards the stairs. Felicity followed after them. He knelt before his daughter and grinned, “Nice bunny ears.”
She grabbed the hem of her dress and swayed from side to side, “Becca said that the other kids will make fun of Nate for his ears. I don’t want him to be the only one wearing ears.”
“That’s very nice of you sweet pea, but you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to,” Tommy said gently.
“I want to wear them,” she told him with a smile.
“They are lovely ears,” he stood up. “Time for you to eat. Your daddy has apple sauce and toast all ready for you.”
“You’re a very good sister,” Felicity said, trying not to cry at Prue’s kindness and devotion to her twin.
Prue pulled on Tommy’s shirt and touched her belly. Tommy grinned and kissed her over her most recent surgical scar. She ran back into the kitchen and her parents followed, hand in hand.
The table was crowded as the family gathered to eat their breakfast. The noise was deafening as the children talked over one another as they ate.
“Time to go, Bobby,” Emma said rising from her chair.
Bobby immediately rose from his chair and carried his dishes to the kitchen sink. Oliver handed him his backpack and Felicity zipped his lunch bag inside. He squeezed Felicity’s hand, “Don’t cry, mom.”
“I’m not crying,” Felicity lied as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m just very proud of you.”
“It’s just school,” he shrugged.
She laughed, “I know, but I’m still proud of you.”
“We all are,” Oliver said as he pulled his son in for a hug.
Bobby sighed heavily, but he allowed all three of his parents to hug him, “You’re all so embarrassing.”
“We are,” Tommy agreed, “but, you are stuck with us. Have a good day at school.”
Bobby waved to everyone at the table. Prue got up from the table and gave her big brother a hug, “You’ll be here when we get home, right?”
“Yep. Now I’ll be the one waiting for you to come home,” he pulled gently on one of her braids. “Have fun today.”
Oliver put one arm around Bobby and one around Emma, “Ignore them. Just keep looking ahead and don’t respond to them. Don’t worry about hitting them with the car. They’ll move, just drive slowly and they’ll get out of your way. We’re insured if they don’t.”
“Oliver,” Felicity smacked her husband’s arm. “Emma, we really appreciate you doing this for us today.”
“I’m happy to.” Emma playfully shoved Bobby towards the door, “Come on, once more into the breach.”
Oliver opened the door and the roar of the press poured into the house. The flash of the cameras was blinding, but Emma and Bobby braved the hoard and quickly walked towards Emma’s car. All three parents followed him out. Oliver stood on the front steps and stared at the press with a glare that dared them to go near his child. They ignored all of the questions being shouted at them and just waved when Bobby waved at them from inside the car. Once Emma’s car made it to the end of the street, they returned inside.
Becca was white as a sheet and stood at the bottom of the stairs shaking. “Baby, are you okay?” Felicity asked as she stood in front of her daughter.
“Sit down,” Oliver told his daughter gently. Once she was seated on the third step he lowered her head between her knees and began to rub her back, “Take deep breaths for me, sweetheart. Everything is okay. You’re safe.”
Tommy sat on the step next to her and took her hand, “William, your Grandma and your Grandpas are going to take you to school. Your mommy, daddy and I are going to take the twins before you leave. The press is going to be gone before you leave the house.”
“What if they’re not?” she asked weakly. “Do I have to go to school?”
“Rebecca,” Oliver helped her to sit up, “if they don’t leave, I will come back for you and I will take you to school. Okay?”
Becca eyed the front door nervously, “Will Will carry me?”
“The only reason I work out,” William said from where he leaned against the kitchen doorway, “is so I can carry you monkeys around.”
“I grew two inches over the summer,” she informed him with concern.
The young Green Arrow held out his arms, “Want to test my strength now?”
Becca rolled her eyes, but she got off of her step and held out her arms.
He put his hands under her arms and, in a dead lift, he hoisted her straight over his head, earning peals of laughter from his sister. He lowered her so she could wrap her arms around his neck, “You’re as light as a feather.”
Becca pressed a kiss to his cheek, “Okay.”
“I passed your test?” he tickled her sides.
“Yes,” she giggled and then pointed to the kitchen. “I want to finish my breakfast.”
William carried his sister into the kitchen, leaving Oliver, Felicity and Tommy alone.
“She’ll be fine,” Felicity said to reassure herself as much as her husbands. They’d agonized over the logistics of this day for weeks. Even being a family of three parents, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. They knew that it would be disastrous if they brought Becca to school with the twins. Her anxiety attacks from the paparazzi were getting worse, but she insisted that she didn’t want to go back to Westminster. Oliver had wanted to take Becca to school, but Felicity didn’t want Oliver to miss the last first day of kindergarten they’d ever have. William was the next best thing to Oliver when it came to physical intimidation of the press, so they’d asked him to be her escort. The grandparent brigade had been Donna’s idea and Walter had said yes before Oliver had even finished asking the question. Felicity was grateful for her entire family. They truly couldn’t do this alone.
“Are you all right?” Oliver asked with concern. “Felicity’s right, she’s going to be okay.”
Felicity turned to find Tommy still sitting on the step but his head was between his hands. She ran her fingers through his hair, “Tommy?”
He looked up at his husband and wife with tears in his eyes and shook his head. Tommy walked past them and into the living room. Felicity and Oliver followed after him and closed the pocket doors behind them. He wiped his eyes, “I just need a minute.”
“Tommy?” Oliver hugged his husband and then held out an arm to pull Felicity into their embrace.
“I know today is tough for you too, but for almost twelve years I’ve had at least one of them home with me. I can’t believe our babies are going to kindergarten. Are we sending them too soon?” Tommy asked through his tears. “They’re both so tiny and Prue’s only been out of the hospital for a month. Maybe Nate’s ears are a sign that he’s not ready for school.”
Felicity blinked back her own tears. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry until after they dropped the twins off. She knew that a part of Tommy had been dreading this day more than her. The twins starting school was going to be a huge adjustment for her husband, “Tommy, they’re going to be fine and so are you.”
Before he could respond, the doors opened and Nate and Prue ran into the room. “Prue finished her breakfast,” Nate announced proudly.
Tommy turned his back on his children and wiped his eyes.
“How about you, monkey?” Felicity asked Nate. “Did you eat your breakfast?”
Nate ignored his mom and walked up to Tommy. He pulled on his dad’s pant leg, “Are you sad, da?”
Tommy lifted Nate in his arms, “No, bud. I’m not sad.”
Nate wiped at the tears on Tommy’s face, “Why are you crying? Do you have a tummy ache?”
“No,” Tommy kissed his son, “I don’t have a tummy ache. I’m just happy that you and Prue are going to go to school. You’re going to have so much fun.”
Nate wrinkled his nose as he studied his dad’s face. He wrapped his arms around Tommy’s neck, “It’s okay, da. We’ll miss you too.”
“When did you get to be so smart?” Tommy asked as he hugged Nate tighter.
“I was just born that way,” Nate informed his dad.
“Yes, you were,” Tommy put Nate down. “Let’s get ready for your first day of school.”
Twenty minutes later, the twins were escorted outside by their parents and Quentin. Oliver held Nate’s hand and Tommy held Prue’s. Unlike Becca, the twins showed little concern with the attention from all of the shouting strangers. Both children wore huge smiles and waved to the cameras. Felicity was constantly amazed by how zen they were with the cameras. Even though they weren’t biologically Tommy’s, she thought that it was a trait that they’d somehow managed to inherit from him. The children were asked about their animal ears and Prue was asked about how she was feeling, but neither child said a word. Tommy remained silent as he was asked about the press release announcing his return to work at the Rebecca Foundation now that the twins were starting school. The family loaded into the minivan and Oliver had them pulling down the street and parting the sea of cameras within two minutes of walking out the front door.
“It looks like the swarm is going to follow us,” Felicity said with relief as she texted William to wait ten minutes before venturing out with Becca. He texted back to say that Quentin and Walter were going to walk around the block to make sure there weren’t any lurkers.
“Da?” Prue asked as she watched the chaos on the street.
“Yes, sweet pea?” he turned in the front passenger seat to see her.
“Are you going to work today?” she asked with concern.
“Not today. I’m going into the office tomorrow. Do you want me to go to work?”
She shook her head and shifted in her seat to look at Oliver in the rearview mirror, “Daddy?”
“Yes, Prue,” Oliver asked without taking his eyes from the road.
“Tell da he doesn’t need a job,” Prue pulled on the hem of her dress. “You and mommy work so da can take care of us.”
“Hey, I’m always going to take care of you guys, even when I work at an office,” Tommy tried to reassure her. “You won’t even know that I’m gone because every day I’ll be home by the time you get home from school.”
“What if I get a tummy ache?” she asked with a frown.
“If you get a tummy ache, you’ll tell the teacher and she’ll call me,” Tommy told her.
“And you’ll come?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’ll come.” He turned further in his seat and reached to place a hand on her leg, “I will always come for you. You never need to worry about that.”
Prue visibly relaxed, “Okay.”
“I think da should get a job at the Creamery,” Nate said looking out the window.
All three adults laughed. “Why’s that, bud?” Tommy asked already knowing the answer. Grace worked at the Creamery over the summer and Nate was a frequent visitor when Prue was in the hospital. Nate was in love with Grace even before she worked at the ice cream parlor. With unlimited ice cream at her disposal, Grace had become Nate’s ideal for womanhood.
“If you work there, we get free ice cream,” Nate said predictably. “Grace isn’t going to work there now that she went away to school.”
“It’s rough losing your supplier,” Tommy teased.
Nate sighed, “I’ll still see Grace, she just won’t have any ice cream.”
“Grace likes William,” Prue said absently as she traced designs on her window.
Felicity smiled and smoothed down Prue’s hair. Grace definitely had a crush on William, but so did most women in Starling aged twelve to one hundred. He was as handsome as Oliver was at that age and had all of his dad’s charm with a lot less scowl and public intoxication. The media adored him. “Everybody likes William,” she responded to her daughter. She didn’t want the children teasing Grace about her teenaged crush.
“The Crowned Prince of Handsome,” Prue grinned.
“Where’d you hear that?” Oliver asked with surprise.
It was the moniker that the press had given William when he started college in Starling, but Felicity didn’t think the twins knew about it.
“That’s what Emma calls Will when she’s mad at him,” Prue told them. “It makes his ears turn red.”
“The King of Handsome’s ears turn red too,” Felicity teased. Emma wasn’t the only one who liked to have fun with the media’s nicknames.
“Daddy, your ears are turning red,” Nate laughed.
“Hey, no picking on the driver,” Oliver pretended to pout.
“Oh, wow,” Felicity said as they approached a police checkpoint at the top of the elementary school’s street.
Oliver rolled down his window, “Is everything okay, officer?”
“Good morning, Mr. Queen. Commissioner Lance didn’t want the press close to the school today so he put us out here,” the officer informed them.
If Quentin had been in the car, Felicity would’ve given him a hug that would’ve made him grumble. She was unsurprised that he hadn’t told him what he was doing. They always objected when he used police resources to give them special treatment. “Your gramps loves you kids a whole lot,” Felicity squeezed the twins’ hands.
Oliver easily parked their car and they were able to walk to the school without hundreds of cameras inches from their faces. Felicity held the twins’ hands with Tommy and Oliver following behind as they walked through the school to the twins’ kindergarten class. There had been some debate about whether they should be separated and placed in different classrooms, but Tommy had been insistent on keeping them together.
The classroom was crowded with parents and children. Their teacher, Mrs. Rowan was asking the children to hang up their coats and bookbags in their cubby. The twins found the cubbies with their names on them and they hung up their coats and bags without any assistance from their parents. When Mrs. Rowan announced it was time for the children to take their seats and for the parents to say goodbye, Tommy, Felicity and Oliver knelt in front of their kids.
“Are you excited?” Felicity asked them with a huge smile on her face. Both children nodded. “I can’t wait to hear all about your day when you get home.”
“Be good,” Oliver held their hands. “Listen to Mrs. Rowan.”
Tommy tapped them each on the nose, “Have fun and be kind. I’ll be out front at the end of the day waiting for you.”
The children hugged each of their parents and then walked to the desks with their names on them. Tommy, Felicity and Oliver were almost out the door when Nate called out, “Da, wait.”
The little boy ran across the room and gestured for Tommy to lean forward. “Yeah, bud?” Tommy asked quietly.
Nate took off his cheetah ears and placed them on Tommy’s head, “So you won’t miss me.”
“Thanks, Nate,” Tommy smiled.
Nate grinned and then ran back to his desk.
Tommy let out a shaky breath as soon as they exited the classroom. None of the other parents paid them any attention as they were too busy with their own separations to worry about the most famous parents in the city. Felicity removed her glasses and stepped into Oliver’s opened arms. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Felicity let go of Oliver to give Tommy a hug, but the sight of him in Nate’s cheetah ears made her laugh.
“How do I look?” he grinned.
“Adorable,” she smiled.
Tommy frowned, “Really? I don’t feel adorable.”
Oliver laughed, “How do you feel?”
“Cheetah fast,” he said seriously which caused his spouses to laugh.
“I can’t believe he took them off,” Felicity said as she walked down the hallway between her husbands. She had an arm around each of their waists and their arms were draped across her shoulders.
They stepped into the sunlight to find William, Donna, Quentin and Walter waiting for them.
“How’d it go?” Oliver asked them.
“You guys were right,” William said. “They all followed you.”
“Rebecca was all smiles the entire way here,” Walter reassured them.
“Thank you for the police barricade,” Tommy hugged Quentin.
“Nice ears,” Quentin said drolly.
“He took them off?” Donna asked with surprise.
“He took them off and put them on Tommy,” Felicity linked her arm through her mom’s.
“Why?” Donna asked.
“So I wouldn’t miss him,” Tommy said with pride.
Donna’s eyes welled with tears and she began to cry, “I have the most beautiful grandbabies.”
“Come on sweetheart,” Quentin wrapped an arm around Donna and started walking towards the car, “let’s drop Walter and William at QC and then you can talk about the kids all the way home.”
Walter put his hand on William’s shoulder and they followed Quentin and Donna.
Oliver removed the ears from Tommy’s head, “Are you okay?”
Tommy smiled, “I prayed for this day since Felicity collapsed at QC and we thought there was a chance we would lose them. It’s a happy day. It’s just going to be an adjustment. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, we could always have another,” Felicity teased. At the look on their faces, she quickly added, “Relax guys, it’s a joke.”
“Diapers, midnight feedings, sleep deprivation,” Tommy began to list.
“You loved every minute of it,” Oliver bumped his shoulder into Tommy’s.
“I did, but it doesn’t mean I want to do infants again,” he said, “but, being a dad is the only thing I’ve ever been really good at.”
Felicity held up a finger, “First, you’re still a dad. Second, you are really good at being our husband. Third, you ran a successful club before you turned it over to my mom. Fourth, the Rebecca Foundation has made a real difference in the lives of the people of this city and that is because of your vision.”
“You know what I just realized?” Oliver had a faraway look on his face.
Felicity and Tommy both waited expectantly for his revelation.
Oliver waggled his eyebrows, “For the first time in twelve years, our home is completely empty of children.”
“We did take the day off,” Felicity beamed widely.
“It would be a shame to let an empty house go to waste,” Tommy agreed.
Oliver looked at his watch, “Bobby will be home in five hours.”
Tommy grinned, “Then why are we still standing here?”