Little fun, everyone - match the song to which pair would sing it! "Born To Be Wild" and "Viva La Vida," Barry and Sara, Barry and Kara. I'm in the classic rock mood, and the punny title isn't helping any.

The D.E.O. isn't in Kansas, James and Felicity have words of wisdom for Winn (I apologize if I got any of Felicity's story wrong, I don't know much backstory for her except for what I find on wikis), and Alex discovers something about M'yrnn.

***

The swarm of monkeys flew through the open space leading to the D.E.O. balcony, but also crashed through the glass window above it, leading Kara to cover James, Oliver and Slade shielding their heads as glass rained down on them. The monkeys flew into the D.E.O., and Slade growled, looking up. "Of course when we could use the wizard's archery, he's not here!"

"I feel the need to say this on behalf of my father," Thea poked her head over one of the desks. "Magician!"

"We'll handle the small ones!" Oliver shouted to Kara. "Get that one!"

Kara nodded, seeing the large monkey Oliver pointed at, then flew into the sky. "I am so happy I don't work here," James decided.

"Never a boring day, that's for sure," Oliver muttered, grabbing onto the stair rail and flipping over it, kicking one of the monkeys down in the process.

Thea looked around, and when she noticed one agent unconscious on the ground, she slid across the floor, grabbing his gun. She clicked the safety off, aiming at one of the monkeys flying towards Winn and Mary. Winn instinctively ducked, then heard the monkey shriek when Thea's shot connected. "Quickly!" he grabbed Mary's arm. "Under the desks!"

"Come on!" Felicity gestured wildly, even as she worked rapidly on a tablet to see if she could hack the monkeys.

"What are you doing?!" Mary gawked at him, even as she followed him. "We've gotta stay down!"

"This is my job, Mom!" Winn snapped.

One of the monkeys smacked into Mary, knocking her away from Winn, and another grabbed Winn, throwing him over the center console. "Winn!" Felicity cried.

Winn grimaced, trying to sit up, then froze when three monkeys hovered in front of him. "Oh," he said weakly. "You came for me."

Two green flechettes embedded in the eye sockets of one of the monkeys, causing it to screech and short out, knocking into the other monkey nearby. Thea quickly aimed and shot the third, running over to grab Winn and get him to safety. "Speedy!" Oliver held up another gauntlet of the short, dart-like arrows. Thea held up her hand, and Oliver tossed the gauntlet to her. "You OK?" he asked Winn.

"Yeah," he nodded rapidly. "I'm – "

"Look out!" Felicity shrieked.

Winn turned to see another monkey fly forward, then Mary lunged and grabbed its ankle, stopping it from flying further. "Get away from him, you nightmare!" she spat.

The monkey was destroyed by heat vision, and Oliver and Thea exchanged looks before running to join the fight on the main floor. Slade and James were joined by Kara, who was wielding what looked like an electric pole like a staff. For every one monkey the two humans destroyed, she destroyed two more, whether by using the pole or by using her heat vision. She ended the fight quickly by flying into the air and whirling around in a circle, shattering the monkeys with the force she used. She impaled the last one with the pole, then slammed it into the ground, panting and watching it spark.

Slade glowered at the last monkey he had skewered, pulling his combat knife out of its neck. "Bloody monkeys," he grumbled.

"I agree," James nodded, looking around at the carnage.

"You guys all right?" Oliver looked back towards the command area.

"Yeah!" Felicity scrambled out from under the table, yelping and jumping away from a sparking monkey. "Fine!"

"This is your job?" Mary looked around incredulously. "This is?!"

"In his defense, there usually aren't attacks by flying monkeys," Thea held up a finger, then paused and looked at Kara. "There usually aren't attacks by flying monkeys . . . are there?"

"Not unless we suddenly moved to Kansas," Oliver muttered.

***

"OK," Alex nodded as she listened to Kara's call. "Well, keep me posted."

"Problem?" J'onn asked as Alex returned to the table.

"Oh, there was a minor kerfuffle, but no one was hurt, and Kara's got it handled, so you just keep relaxing," Alex patted J'onn on the shoulder, who chuckled as she sat down. "So, some of that old time rock 'n' roll, huh?" she smiled, causing J'onn to laugh. "That was an epic karaoke performance."

"Indeed," M'yrnn grinned as both Alex and J'onn applauded him. "But a problematic genre."

"Been on the Internet?" Alex guessed.

"Yes," he nodded. "Many of the pioneers of rock 'n' roll were humans of color who did not receive the fame or fortune their white counterparts did."

"Have you faced many challenges in your human form since you've been here?" Alex asked in concern.

"No," M'yrnn shook his head. "My relative isolation has its silver linings. My son has found goodhearted friends in his time on this planet. You all treat me like family."

Alex smiled fondly. J'onn was family to them, so of course J'onn's family was family to them . . . though that did bring up something she wanted to ask. "You've chosen to live as a black man in America, which is a harder existence in and of itself," she looked at J'onn. "Why?"

"You know, I was forced to become Hank Henshaw out of desperation, but now I choose this face," J'onn answered. "I like it. And I wouldn't want to live in a world where I need to change the color of my skin to feel safe, to feel seen, to feel like I'm not a target. I'd rather change the world."

"And whatever my son's fight may be, I choose it as well," M'yrnn nodded.

"And I have your backs," Alex smiled, raising her wine glass in acknowledgment.

"Let's drink to that," J'onn grinned, lifting his wine glass.

Alex chuckled as M'yrnn raised his as well, the three of them clinking their glasses together. "Cheers."

When they finished drinking, M'yrnn eyed Alex's glass. "Alex, you need more . . . "

Alex looked up when M'yrnn didn't finish the sentence, and she raised an eyebrow, seeing him appear to struggle with the next word. "Wine, Dad," J'onn supplied for him. "Your English is fantastic, don't worry about the occasional slip-up." Both Martians chuckled, J'onn patting his father on the shoulder as he stood up. "I'll go get some more wine."

"I hope you still have room," M'yrnn smiled at Alex. "J'onn has made chocolate pie for dessert."

Alex nodded, a distracted smile on her face.

***

"Well, your mom's right," James sighed, following Winn as he hauled monkey parts over to the main console. "Someone is definitely helping your dad out."

"I just honestly wish she would leave," Winn sighed, putting a large hunk of monkey on the console, making Felicity look up from where she was arranging all the pieces. "Like, who the hell does she think she is anyway, huh? Like, she just doesn't get to walk back into my life after twenty years. I did not get a say in her walking out, I definitely get a say in her walking back in."

"It's a fair point," James nodded.

"Yeah," Winn nodded, then paused when his friend didn't say anything else. "You think that I should?"

"Well," Felicity trailed off, wincing.

"No!" Winn shook his head. "No! Don't think that I should!"

"Brother, it doesn't matter what we think," James shook his head. "It matters what you need."

"You know what?" Winn growled. "Even if – even if my dad threatened to kill me, she could have done a thousand other things. Gone to the police, the FBI. No, instead, she decided to abandon me. And you know what? She has to deal with the consequences." He huffed. "You know, if she'd have stayed, then maybe, you know, we could have had a . . . you know, a great relationship."

"Ah ah ah," Felicity held up her hands. "You keep thinking that, it's just going to keep pissing you off."

"Not a good idea," James agreed with her. "When my dad died, my mom did everything for me and my sister. She worked night and day, she busted her ass, and I still blamed her, because she was the only one there. And that was rough. We got over it, though. You know, took a long time, and a lot of forgiveness and me taking responsibility for my part in that. You can't change what happened, but she's here now. It's up to you what you wanna do with that."

"Yeah, similar with me, but my dad was a super cybervillain," Felicity nodded. "I never knew the full story about why he left until later, and it was just me and my mom for a long time. She had to do it all, and because my dad wasn't there, I felt abandoned and had a lot of insecurities. And because my mom worked as a cocktail waitress, working so many hours to try and raise me herself, I feared I would become like her, which made our relationship worse. It wasn't until years later that I was able to fully understand what happened at all, and I'm thankful I still had a chance to make things up with my mom." She scooted closer and put her hand on top of Winn's stopping him from working for a few seconds. "What we have in common is that our dads were supervillains and our moms were affected by it," she told him. "I'd give her a chance."

Winn said nothing; he just nodded thoughtfully, looking down at the monkey parts.

***

"No, they were robots, but yes, they were flying monkeys," Oliver said into his phone as he walked out of the conference room. "We're OK, just hang tight. We'll be back soon." He hung up and walked up to where Mary was leaning on the railing, watching Winn work with Felicity and James. "Are you doing OK?" he asked.

"Mmm?" Mary looked up. "Oh, yes, I'm fine," she nodded quickly, returning to look back down at Winn. "I'm just worried about Winn."

Oliver nodded, leaning next to her. "I feel that way every time a family member is caught in something like this."

"We all do," Kara said softly, walking up on Mary's other side.

Mary sighed. "I always knew he was brilliant and capable, but I worried when I left that he'd go the same way his dad did."

"He worried about that, too," Kara nodded sadly.

"I should have been here to tell him that he and his father were worlds apart," Mary muttered bitterly, then looked up. "Did his friends tell him?"

"We did," Kara assured her.

"Thank you for that," Mary sighed in relief.

"Well, it was easy," Kara shrugged. "He doesn't always get the credit, but he keeps us going around here. He's always the one with some crazy idea that no one else would possibly dream of."

"He has a positive vibe that some of us can rarely match," Oliver added. "We need that around here." He sighed. "Especially in Star City nowadays."

Mary nodded. "My son works with Supergirl," she thought out loud, grinning. "It's just such a relief. He saves lives." The smile faded from her face. "I just wish he'd let me tell him how proud I am of him."

"I think he will," Kara told her. "Eventually."

Mary nodded, then snorted softly, gesturing to the rubbish the D.E.O. was still cleaning up. "Sorry about the mess."

Oliver snorted loudly. "Oh, this?" Kara grinned as Oliver chuckled. "This is – that's not your fault."

"This is nothing," Oliver agreed.

"Can I ask?" Mary bit her lip. "Uh . . . when it comes to your day-to-day, on a scale of one to ten, how big of a pain in the ass are flying monkeys?"

Oliver tilted his head, thinking. "Three?" he guessed.

"I was thinking maybe a two," Kara told him.

"Two to three," he nodded in agreement.

"Oh," Mary blinked, relaxing a bit.

"Does that make you feel better?" Kara grinned.

"Yes," Mary nodded. "Very much so."

"Good," Kara giggled.

***

"Pie in three minutes!" J'onn called from the kitchen.

"OK!" Alex called back, and as M'yrnn stood and walked over to a record player, she stood up to join him. "Well, thank you for having me tonight. The place looks wonderful."

"Oh, the pleasure was mine," M'yrnn smiled warmly. "You mean a great deal to J'onn."

"Well, he's very important to me, too," Alex told him.

"I know we are new friends, but I hope, in time, that we can be the kind of family you and J'onn have become," M'yrnn told her.

"That would be lovely," Alex smiled widely.

M'yrnn smiled fondly back. "I have always wanted a granddaughter."

Alex froze, thinking that over. "You mean besides K'hym and T'ania?"

M'yrnn looked at her blankly. "Who?"

"Your granddaughters," Alex answered. M'yrnn stared at her for a few seconds, then turned away. Alex took a deep breath, trying to decide how to approach this. "My grandmother was a music lover as well," she finally said. "Especially later in her life. It just seemed to always give her that extra spark . . . even when she started forgetting things. Like, little things at first. It was just words, you know, why she'd walk into a room . . . and eventually, people. I think you might be exhibiting similar symptoms."

"Please don't tell him," M'yrnn told her.

Alex blinked. "You already knew?"

"On Mars, we called it Za-alet," M'yrnn said. "Translated roughly, it means 'decay of memory.'"

"Dementia," Alex whispered.

"I am losing myself," M'yrnn nodded.

"As it progresses, you're gonna need help," Alex told him.

"He has helped me enough," M'yrnn shook his head.

"No, you're gonna need more than that, because you could hurt yourself or others," Alex argued. "You have to tell him!"

"He just got me back, I can't ask him to watch me disappear inch by inch," M'yrnn argued right back. "It's too cruel."

"Well, that could happen no matter what," Alex countered. "So the sooner you tell him, the sooner he can get help. I'm sorry, M'yrnn, but if he asks me . . . I mean, I don't think I could lie to him."

"You will say nothing!" M'yrnn growled and took a threatening step forward, making Alex take an unconscious step back. "He is my son, and I choose how best to protect him, not you."

"I'm sorry," Alex swallowed. "I didn't mean – "

"Get out," M'yrnn ordered angrily. "Get out of my house!"

Alex quickly stepped past him, hearing J'onn call from the kitchen just before she shut the door behind her. "Dad, everything OK out there?"

***

Winn yelped when the monkey he was working on sparked, and he backed away, wringing his hand out. "That is an angry monkey corpse," Mary remarked as she walked into the lab.

"I was hoping to access this thing's inner workings, but it's like a game of Operation," Winn grumbled. "Every time I get close to cracking it, it just zaps me."

"Can I try?" Mary asked, walking forward to join him. "I love Operation."

Winn blinked, watching her get a few tools to work with. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's, like, a top-secret government facility in here."

"Oh, nobody cares," Mary scoffed. "Are you paid enough to care?" she asked someone walking by. "No, of course not. You should unionize, by the way."

"Mom, that's," Winn began.

"Did I ever tell you I was once your father's apprentice?" Mary interrupted, coming back to the monkey.

Winn looked at her in surprise. "I thought you two met in Ivy Town."

"Uh, we were both students, yes, but that's not where we met," Mary told him, starting to work on the monkey. "I kept the books at the local toy store and your father was the genius stock boy, and he taught me about the math in the machine. One and one is two. It's simple, it's elegant . . . " She lifted the chestpiece off the monkey. "It's clean, just like a wind-up toy. Your father's mind was a wind-up toy. I know what made it tick."

Winn frowned. "So then you knew how to stop him from going crazy and killing a bunch of people."

Mary froze, then bit her lip. "Um . . . do you remember when I took you to Disneyland when you were nine?"

"Do I remember?" Winn grumbled. "Yeah, we drove overnight 'cause you wanted to be there the second it opened, and then we get into a car accident at two a.m. in the morning, and Dad has to come and pick us up and takes us home. We never actually went to Disneyland."

"No," Mary nodded. "We were never going there. We were going to a domestic abuse shelter, and he ran us off the road." Winn blanched as his mother continued. "Stole a car, sped down the highway, ran us into a ditch. You sat dazed in the backseat with a concussion, and he and I had it out on the shoulder of the interstate. That's the night that he threatened to kill you, his only son, just to hurt me. Your father didn't just go to bed normal and wake up the next morning a monster. He was paranoid, he was controlling, he – he was mean."

Winn swallowed hard. "I never saw it."

"I didn't want you to," Mary said simply. "And I'm sorry, Winn. I'm sorry that I couldn't get us out from under his shadow, that I couldn't save you."

"That's not on you," Winn shook his head.

"Maybe not," Mary conceded. "But the last twenty years? Those were, and you were right about that. But I just wanted you to understand why."

***

"Alex!" J'onn called, hurrying to catch up with the woman in black at the D.E.O. "What happened?"

"What do you mean?" Alex asked, pretending she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Did he, um . . . " J'onn fidgeted. "Offend you? Say something?"

"No!" Alex hastened to assure him. "Of course not. No, your father is wonderful."

"So then, what went so wrong?" J'onn asked. "You know, we were having such a lovely time, and now my father has completely closed himself off for some reason. Why?"

Alex bit her lip. "You're gonna have to talk to him about it," she answered. "It's not my place. I'm sorry. But, for the record, I had a lovely time, too."

***

James snorted, hanging up his phone as he walked towards the labs. "Funny."

"What is?" Thea asked, jogging to catch up to him.

"Oh, I was just telling Lucy what was going on," James answered, rolling his eyes. "The first thing she said was 'well, you're definitely not in Kansas.'"

Thea snorted. "I need to meet her."

"Oh, you'd get along like peas in a pod," James snorted as well as they walked into the lab Winn and Mary were working in. "Any luck on figuring out who's behind the Toyman attacks?"

"No, but we've discovered a thousand ways how not to make a flying monkey," Mary responded.

"And also a few ways to make better flying monkeys," Winn added.

"Oh, the wiring on these is amateurish at best," Mary agreed.

"Alas, we are no closer to finding out who actually built them," Winn sighed, rummaging through a few tools.

Mary suddenly cleared her throat, and Thea looked over to see her smile tightly. "I could use a break," she said. "I'm gonna head downstairs, rest for a little bit."

The trio watched Mary leave, then Winn shrugged and went back to rummaging through tools. Thea bit her lip, then pulled out her phone, sending out a quick text. I think Mary may know something.

She had to wait a few seconds, then Oliver responded. I'll see if I can find her.

***

"I can't find her," Oliver said when Thea returned to the main floor.

"What?" Thea blinked.

"She's not here," Slade answered.

"Who's not here?" Mon-El asked.

"My mom," Winn answered as he hurried into view.

"I thought you two were putting Humpty Dumpty together again," Mon-El blinked.

"Or did he have another great fall?" Felicity asked.

"No, she's not here," Oliver shook his head.

"And neither is the side panel from the monkey's gear chamber," Winn added.

Electronics whirred, and Felicity stood up from her chair. "Guys, look at this."

The team turned as a video message popped up on the main screen. "I have your mother, but you can trade your life for hers," a female voice said, and Winn balked when he saw his mother in a huge claw similar to those in games where toys were grabbed. "She's hanging around at the old Wiggins Game Company factory. But hurry, Junior . . . the pressure is on."

"Winn, don't come here!" Mary shouted just before the transmission cut out.

"I'll go," Kara instantly volunteered.

"And me," Oliver nodded.

"Agreed," Slade added.

"Me, four," Mon-El said.

"Make it five," Thea pulled out the gun she had kept.

"Make it six," Winn growled.

"That's exactly what she wants," James frowned.

"I've spent my entire life trying to fight off the part of me that's like my dad," Winn scowled. "But now . . . now I can use it. Let's go!"

"I'll man comms!" Felicity called as the seven hurried off.

***

Well, I'm most likely going to have this done before the weekend ends. And hoo boy, is it going to be a wild ride for a good few episodes after this.