The booming music flooded throughout the room as flashing lights made faces unrecognizable. A young woman sat in a red dress, nursing her drink and nodding her head along to the beat. She took a sip just as a young man sat beside her. They engaged in quiet conversation and seemed to get along quite well. After a while the young man stood and led her away into the night.

The next day, her roommate reported her missing. 

When Oliver first got the case file he’d naturally assumed the young couple must’ve spent the night together and the girl was just running a bit late to get home. He thought it’d been an easily cleared up misunderstanding, but when no trace of the girl was found for three days he started suspecting the worst. He sighed as he sat next to his partner and opened the file turning it towards the young man he was currently questioning. 

“Tell me David, do you recognize this woman?”

The boy looked nervously from the picture back to Oliver, his eyes flickering back and forth between his own. 

“Y-yeah. She- she’s a friend of mine.”

“I’d say you were more than friends,” Ashley, his partner, interjected, “you were seen leaving the club with her three days ago, the night she went missing. You wanna explain what happened?”

“She- I… I mean, she was gone by the time I woke up but I thought- I had thought she’d just gone home…”

“And what made you second guess that thought?”

“What? I-I mean, well. My- my dad hadn’t been home that night and when I went downstairs he still wasn’t there. Or, or I had thought he still hadn’t arrived but he said he gave “the young girl” a ride home. And then he gave me a lecture and-”

“Does your father usually spend all night outside of the house?” Oliver leaned forward as he asked his question and Ashley opened her notebook to take notes.

“Yeah, he uh… he travels a lot… for work. What does this have to do with Claire missing? I mean you don’t think my dad had anything to do with this do you?”

Oliver and Ashley shared a glance and she exhaled before giving the boy an answer. “Right now, you’re our number one suspect, so if I were you I’d start looking for a lawyer.” She snapped her small notebook shut and stuffed it in her pocket, closing the file and placing her pen into the bend of it. Oliver moved to stand with her in sync and she walked out first with Oliver letting David know that he was free to go for the moment but that he should cancel any plans he’d had this summer that included leaving the state. 

Oliver caught up with her quickly and they made their way to the break room area. Ashley sighed. “This is the third missing girl we’ve had this month, all of them from the same area. You think they’re connected somehow?” She asked without looking at him because she was pouring herself some coffee and looking for some creamer in the fridge. Oliver crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “They could be. Maybe if we can finally solve one it’ll lead to us solving the rest. What do you think about the father?”

“Well, he didn’t seem to be very involved. It could be David’s trying to shift the blame, or maybe it was the dad and David honestly just has no idea what happened. It would be easier if he were here so we could ask but conveniently, he had a job in another state.” She turned and sipped her coffee. “Man, I hate rich people. They think that they can just do whatever the hell they want and the law has to wait ‘till when they “have the time.””

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Oliver chuckled and grabbed a water bottle from the counter top, moving to stand next to her. “Yeah, not everyone knows to respect authority, they act as if we’re not here to keep them safe. We have to keep everybody in check and following the rules, otherwise we risk some people not having a future.” He had a thoughtful look on his face and then he suddenly smiled and turned to look at Ashley, “Speaking of which, how was it?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“That bad, huh?” 

“They want us to get married.” 

Oliver spit out the water he’d been trying to drink.

“Oh. And… you don’t?”

“No. And I know Robin doesn’t either. I mean, he feels like we owe them because yeah, they kinda raised our son for us, but… if this is them trying to tell us to take him back, we’ll do it. They just think that Elliot deserves a stable household. And I agree, but he’s had that with them hasn’t he? I just think it’s a little late, don’t you?”

She turned to look up at him, waiting for an answer.

The conversation was interrupted when her phone suddenly rang. She picked it up and held it to her ear, preparing to recite the usual, “Hi, this is Ashley Blanche speaking, how may I help you?” She must’ve still been in work mode, as she didn’t realize this was her personal phone. 

“Ashley! Thank goodness! I can’t- I mean, could you… help me? With something?”

“What did you do this time?”

“Why are you asking it like that?? I don’t- you know what? Nevermind. I just need to know what I should do on the off chance that I happen to… you know, accidentally… break…  the microwave??”

“…”

“Okay. I may have forgotten to double check the bowl was microwave safe.”

“…”

“Ashley?”

“Call Robin. It’s neither my turn nor my microwave.”

“No, wai-!”

Beep beep beep

Oliver looked at her and asked with a small smile, 

“What happened?”

She looked down in thought for a moment and then smiled brightly up at him. “Apparently Robin asked Ben to help babysit, and now we all get to deal with the consequences.”

“Wait, Robin’s babysitting?”

“Elliot. We take turns taking care of him the first three days of the month. My mom and dad take twelve three day vacations a year, to give us a chance at being parents. They suggested we do it together, but we’d each prefer individually, so we decided to take turns.” She shrugged and laughed, “Lately, these last two times that it was his turn, Robin’s asked Ben to help him, which I find hilarious because imagining the two of them struggling with a four year old is by far the funniest thing I can imagine. Well, maybe the third funniest.”

“Blanchet! Delaney! I got another for you.”

They both turned and walk towards their director as he hands Oliver another file. “This one’s a twelve year old girl. Whoever this guy is, we need to find him.”

Oliver handed the file over to Ashley, for her to have a look too, “Shouldn't we tell the FBI about this? I mean they’ve-“

“Do you really think they’ll help? They’ll say this case is beneath them. They’ve gotten greedy. They only take orders from the higher-ups, and only like doing jobs that are confidential, cuz they think they’re all high and mighty or some shit. And we asked for their help last time.”

“Because it’s their job-“

“No! No, it’s not their job, it’s my job! It’s your job. They sai- if we’re too incompetent they’ll have no use for us. They won’t care about the little guys anymore. Think about it. Do not disappoint me, Delaney. We need this case.”

He pointed an angry finger at them both. “I’m counting on the both of you to do your job, so we can all keep ours.”

He turned and walked off to the part of the building where his office resided, leaving the two private detectives to their investigation. 

*

_*

Meanwhile, some twenty minutes down the road, in an unassuming two bed apartment, the portable microwave was seeing the last of his days, struggling and spewing out smoke and strange noises. 

“Shii- oooot.” Ben looked down the hallway at Elliot who was playing with Ironman and Spider-Man action figures on the couch in the other room. Ashley had just hung up on him and abandoned him to deal with his problems on his own. What was Robin gonna say when he came back? Or Barry, who bought this microwave?? At least the fire alarm didn’t go off. He went to the living room area and passed Elliot to prop open the window. 

There was a window in the kitchen too, but that was for decorative purposes only. 

Elliot looked up from his toys and watched him just stand there for a second. He looked out the window, then glanced at the kitchen down the hall, and finally looked at Elliot. 

He then nodded at him as if they’d come to the same conclusion, and ran off to Robin’s bedroom. 

Elliot put his toys down and ran to follow him, giggling. When he arrived at his daddy’s room, he ran to the bed and struggled to lift himself onto it. 

“Oh hey, Elliot. I’m sorry we can’t play right now. I need to fix a small problem before daddy gets home so that he’ll allow me to play with you again, you see. Because if he finds out I broke the microwave- *gasp*”- he suddenly turns around from where he was trying to disconnect the fan from the wall behind the desk, and gets up, hitting his head. 

Elliot laughs at him. “But why did you break the microwave?? We need that to make s’mores.”

Ben sighed, and sat down next to him on Robin’s bed. “I know. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I wasn’t very careful when I was making that popcorn for us.” 

“Your daddy’s gonna be upset with me if he finds out I did it.” He pouts, and closes his eyes in dramatic sadness, and opens one eye to peak at Elliot who looks down in deep thought and concentration.

“I don’t like when daddy’s mad at you. We can tell him I did it! He never gets mad at me.”

“Really??” Ben gets up and k reels in the floor in front of him, “You’d do that for me??”

“Yes, Benny, I can tell him I made you break the microwave and that we both blame me!”

“Ummm, no actually, that’s not a good idea. It’s not your fault, I should’ve been more careful.”

“I understand, he’ll understand too. Can we have popcorn?? I’m hungry. I want daddy back.”

“I know, kiddo. I miss him too.” He ruffles his hair and goes back to disconnecting the fan. “He should be back soon with the marshmallows. We can watch a movie when he gets back.”

Elliot screeches and throws himself off the bed. He smacks into Ben’s legs in lieu of a hug and runs off down the hall screaming, “S’mores!!!”

Ben snorts out a laugh. He finally manages to bring the fan over to the kitchen and turn it on facing the propped open window.