Hello again! Here's another prompt fill for the Lauriver Week; this time the prompt was anything involving the Canary Cry. I hope you like what I did with it, and thanks for reading!

-RayWritesThings

It's a Meta!

Oliver shut off the kettle and poured the hot water into a mug, the tea bag floating to the top as it steeped. "I'm bringing this out now, but just give it a few minutes to cool," he called out to the sitting room.

"I remember how hot beverages work, Ollie. Haven't completely lost my mind yet," Laurel called back. He just caught the end of her rolling her eyes as he walked out with her tea and his coffee. But her smile was still fond.

"Sorry. I worry." He leaned in to peck her on the lips.

Laurel watched him set both mugs on the coffee table before taking the spot at the end of the couch by her feet. "You always have. Believe me, I knew it was going to go into hyper-drive the minute I said the words 'I'm pregnant'." She swung her legs off the couch to lean towards him, slightly hampered by her rounded belly. "And as many times as it frustrates me, I do love that about you."

"I know."

"Okay, remember that the next time I yell at you for being a mother hen."

He scoffed. "I'm not a hen. I'm just… a father." Every time he got to say those words, he felt a swell of happiness he didn't know if he could contain.

Oliver reached out, caressing the rounded curve of her stomach that spoke of the life they had created together. Laurel had only just started to really show in the last couple of weeks, and he couldn't get enough of looking at and feeling their little miracle.

"They should be here soon," she reminded him.

"Barry's always late."

Shrugging, Laurel obliged him by turning around to lean her back against his front as he rested his hands over her stomach. She picked up the mug and blew on the surface, taking a sip. "Ouch."

"I warned you."

The little of Laurel's face he could make out was pouting. He chuckled.

"You gonna kiss it to make it better or what?"

He'd just moved to do so when a breach opened up on the other side of the living room. Through it walked Cisco Ramon.

"Whoops, wasn't trying to interrupt something."

"That's okay, Cisco, we were just waiting for you." Laurel stood with a little of Oliver's help. "Where are the others?"

"At the labs. I came ahead because we figured out a way to tweak an ultrasound machine. It should answer your question for sure."

Oliver raised both eyebrows. "So we'll know if they have the metagene before they're even born?"

Cisco nodded. "That's the idea. Hopefully. I mean, we need you to test it out for sure," he added to Laurel.

"Okay." She looked back at him, clearly checking how he felt. As much as he didn't love the idea of Laurel being a guinea pig for whatever scientific development Team Flash had cooked up this time, it would help them figure out what they needed to prepare, or if they even needed to be preparing at all. So he nodded.

"Great. You can come back through with me."

They did so, leaving their tea and coffee behind and entering STAR Labs to find Caitlin, Barry and Iris all waiting. Iris walked forward with a big smile.

"Oh, look at you! How's it been going so far?"

"Well, I can still see my toes most days, so we've got a ways to go," Laurel answered as she returned Iris' hug. "I don't know how you managed it with twins."

"Don't remind me."

Oliver accepted his own hug from Barry. "You didn't both have to come out for this."

"It's no problem. Grandpa Joe wanted to babysit anyway," Barry told him with a grin.

"This, um, machine. It's safe?" Oliver asked in an undertone.

"Absolutely. Just a normal ultrasound with an added function."

"Laurel, if you want to get on this table, we can get started," Caitlin requested.

Soon enough, Caitlin was running the scan while Oliver sat at Laurel's side, holding her hand and watching the screen and the tiny form slowly growing and gaining shape within the safety of Laurel's womb.

"Everything seems to be normal. You both didn't want to know the gender?"

Oliver shook his head while Laurel answered, "Nope. We wanted a nice surprise for a change."

Caitlin nodded and shut off the machine. "Well, I can confirm the existence of an active metagene."

Laurel blew out a breath and Oliver squeezed her hand a little tighter. He didn't know what he'd been hoping for, honestly. Laurel's Cry had saved her and others from danger many times, so their baby having that kind of protection eased some of his fear. But it would be another difficulty to add to the already challenging job of parenting they were both truly living through for the first time.

"Guess you guys can have a meta reveal party?" Cisco remarked from the other end of the room.

Oliver rolled his eyes. After Caitlin helped Laurel clean the gel off her stomach, the group reconvened around a table in the cortex.

"So, they're going to be like me? My ability, I mean," Laurel clarified.

Iris nodded. "Judging by the twins, it's genetic, yeah. So you two are gonna have no trouble hearing a crying baby."

Oliver grimaced. "Guess we should take the baby monitor off the registry." He smirked when Laurel nudged his shoulder with her own. "So what are our options?"

"Well, there's inhibitors," Caitlin said. "When the baby is young, that might be the best option."

Laurel nodded, but he could tell by her troubled frown that she had a concern. He placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed it lightly, waiting for her to find the words she wanted. "What if we want them to still be able to use their powers? Just to explore them, learn about them. I totally get why that's risky with the twins," she added with a hand extended towards the West-Allens. "I guess I just worry about making it like this forbidden thing they're scared of or that they try to get around the restrictions to use on their own."

"Ooh like a teenage rebellion thing, yeah," Cisco agreed. "Well, the inhibitor is something we can make removable. It's not supposed to be permanent."

"There is still some danger with the Cry, of course," Caitlin cautioned. "If handled wrong, the baby or child could seriously hurt someone by accident."

"You'd want to designate a space for sure," said Barry. He snapped his fingers. "Maybe something made out of the pipeline materials to keep the Cry contained?"

"I'm not locking my kid up in the pipeline, Barry," Oliver stated flatly.

"Oh. Yeah, no. But maybe we could make something a little smaller for you guys to have in your house? You know, like a little space for them to just let it out. Like when you give a kid a pillow to hit if they're angry or upset or just need to vent some energy."

He looked to Laurel, each of them trying to decide how they felt about that idea. It was true that they generally liked the windows and other glassware in their home.

"We'll think about it," Oliver answered for them eventually.

"If we did go that route, I'd want it to be big enough to fit me, too," Laurel added. "We should teach them how to use it by example."

Oliver nodded. He couldn't help thinking, not for the first time, that she was going to make a wonderful mother. Of course, seeing how effectively she had taken Thea under her wing at times, that should have already been clear to him.

Cisco had started taking notes down on a pad of paper and nodded along with the suggestion, scratching something out and writing anew. "We've still got time, but I'll want to start looking at the dimensions and everything soon."

"Should it go in the house?" Caitlin wondered aloud. "I mean, it might be a bit hard to explain if you have guests over who aren't aware of, you know." She made a vague motion like pulling an arrow back on a string.

"The base might be better," Barry said. Though he tilted his head as Oliver frowned. "Why not?"

"I'm not exactly comfortable bringing a child down there." They still weren't child-proofed, after all.

"And we haven't really decided what's happening with all that," Laurel continued. Her own hands rested on her stomach. "I mean, I'm benched at least until this one's here and I've gotten back in shape. And it's just…"

"We don't have the kind of insurance you do, Barry," Oliver explained to their friends' shocked faces. "Getting out quickly, speed-healing. Going out there is a risk every time. I just don't know if we can take that risk when there's someone counting on us at home. Even if the city is counting on us, too."

It was a decision weighing heavily on them as their due date approached. For now, he was continuing to suit up in order to better transition their team in the event he did end up retiring along with Laurel, who still came to the base to run the comms. Both of them leaving the field at the same time would've been too sudden of a shift and left a power vacuum besides. But would their leaving for good do so anyway?

"We want our baby to grow up in a better home than was left to us," Laurel said. "But we also want them to grow up with us there for them. It's hard to know how best to balance that."

Caitlin and Iris both nodded in sympathy while Barry looked to be contemplating those two wants himself.

"You guys will figure it out," said Cisco, and for once the optimism wasn't something that bothered him. Maybe because he wanted to hear it. "And we'll all help, you know."

"This isn't goodbye," Oliver assured them. "We'll still be in the loop, still be there if the situation calls for it."

Barry seemed the most relieved to hear that. "Yeah, great. Hey, you never know. Baby Canary might want to be like Mom and Dad someday."

God, he hoped the world still didn't need heroes like this by the time their child was an adult. But that was probably a vain hope. He felt Laurel lean her head on his shoulder as a comfort, probably knowing just what he was thinking.

"We'll see."

"Thank you guys for helping us figure out what we're doing here," Laurel told them. "It's hard to know what we'd do otherwise. What other families might be struggling with."

"That is a thought. Heroes in our circle can't be the only metahumans reproducing at this point," Caitlin remarked, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment. "Maybe that's something to think about, because it could unintentionally cause a lot of chaos."

"You wanna run a metahuman daycare, Caitlin?" Cisco teased. She shook her head at him. "We can workshop it some other time. You guys ready to head back?"

"I think so."

Hugs were exchanged, and soon they were walking back through one of Cisco's breaches to their own place. It was honestly kind of insane, the abilities the people in his life all had. But he wouldn't trade his life now for the normalcy he'd had before.

"Do you think the baby will, I don't know, feel forced to do the kind of work we do? Because of this?" Laurel asked, one hand touching her throat.

"I think we'll tell them they have the choice to be whatever they want to be, whether that involves their powers or not," Oliver assured her. She nodded, seeming to feel better. At least until she walked over to their coffee table and picked up her abandoned mug.

"My tea's cold." She looked back at him with big eyes.

Oliver heaved a put-upon sigh as he walked over. "I'll make you another one."

"Thank you." Laurel set the mug back down and turned around to face him, slinging her arms loosely around his shoulders. "It's kind of the least you can do. I am carrying your baby."

"Yes, you are." He dipped his head down for a kiss, one that turned a little longer as he slowly swayed them over towards the couch. Laurel carefully lowered herself back down, and he followed, lying with his head resting in her lap and his hand rubbing one of her knees. With his ear pressed to her belly, he tried to listen for any kind of movement, but the baby seemed to be resting for the moment. That was okay, too.

"You're going to fall asleep," she told him.

"Maybe."

"I'm not getting my tea, am I?"

"You will, you will. Just… five more minutes."

Laurel scratched her nails lightly through his hair, and he hummed contentedly. Whatever decisions they had to make down the road, it would be worth it so long as they could find little moments like this for their family.