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Joe is quick to make his move back to STAR labs. He bypasses Caitlin and Cisco when they ask if he knows why Barry’s run out to some abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Wells sees his purposeful stride and inclines his head then wheels toward the treadmill room.
He follows, but turns back briefly to instruct, “When Barry gets here, tell him we need to speak to him.”
Caitlin nods, though her eyes are wide, and Cisco’s mouth forms a little ‘o’. It’s not lost on them that this isn’t going to be some light conversation.
“Well then, Detective West, perhaps you can explain Barry’s mysterious detour. He’s turned off his com. I’m not anticipating trouble, but—”
“Oh, we got trouble, alright.” Wells looks up at him sharply. Joe’s made the ‘we’ in that purposefully. He’s had his suspicions of Wells in the past, certainly, and he doesn’t always like the man. But it’s clear he’s going to need backup and he’s hoping if there’s one man out there—Henry Allen not being an option—Barry respects and looks up to more than the Arrow, it’s Harrison Wells. So he tells him, “We got a visitor. From Starling.”
“Ms. Smoak?” The wheelchair bound man inquires. Joe’s vaguely aware of that name, remembering Iris coming home a few weeks ago bubbling with excitement about Barry’s out-of-town friend she was convinced he wanted to date. But Wells doesn’t wait for a reply, instead reading something in the stern set of his features. The scientist removes his spectacles, the barest of a twitch of his lips. “Ah, her vigilante friend. I can assume that’s who Barry’s with at the moment?”
“He just showed up, out of nowhere,” Joe recounts, taking a few more steps into the room. “We’d caught up with a robber, but one of my officers went berserk. Barry was getting people out of the way, but the officer was going to fire on the two of us. Then like that,” he snaps in demonstration, “he’s got two arrows in him.”
Wells has replaced his glasses by the time he looks back. “And he and Barry both left after?” It’s a logical assumption; if he had super speed he’d sure as hell be chasing down the nut job who just put two arrows in one of Central City’s finest. But Joe needs to make it clear.
“Well yeah, but…I think they know each other. I don’t know how—Barry’s only ever been to Starling once in his life, right before the accelerator blew.” He thinks, Barry stayed there a good few days even after Captain Singh’s demand to return. How was that enough time for his kid to get mixed up with that kind of lunatic? “We got to talk to him.”
“I agree,” Wells is quick to reply, and Joe’s quite relieved to see the other man gets exactly what he means. The scientist must pick up on that, for he adds, “I’ve told you, Joe, everything we do here is for Barry’s benefit and safety. If you think I’m going to, shall we say, sit by and watch him fall for that kind of dangerous association,” he shakes his head with something of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth “you’d be mistaken.”
And he considers, for the briefest of moments, should he tell him? Just how far he thinks Barry’s already falling? But no. Allies they may be in this instance, Barry is still his kid above all else, and he’d be damned if he shared something that private, intimate, without it being absolutely necessary. And without any solid proof.
So he sits on the treadmill’s edge, placing himself on Wells’ level, presenting a united front. Their wait is not long; he can hear the voices of the younger half of their strange little team, though one unfamiliar from the rest. Barry’s soon to appear in the doorway himself, though he’s walked it rather than zipping in to see them, and he’s already wary.
The kid does his best to disguise that, remarking, “Why do I feel like I just got called into the principal’s office?” There’s something of a laugh on the end.
Joe’s not laughing. “The Starling City vigilante,” is his opening statement.
“He calls himself the Arrow now,” Barry’s quick to correct, already on the man’s defense. This clearly goes deep like he feared, and he wants to hit himself for not keeping a closer eye on Barry’s fascination with the Hood, or the Arrow. Make it clear from the start why there’s nothing to be fascinated about. Not in any admiring way.
“Oh does he? Flash?”
Barry’s eyes flick from him to Wells, then his head tilts and he asks, “Wait what’s the problem?”
It’s Wells who speaks up then, articulating so perfectly Joe’s particular grievance. “We don’t trust him.” No he most certainly does not trust that green-wearing, bow-and-arrow-wielding, hooded crazy.
“You guys don’t even know him.” And intentional or not, there’s a message there: Barry thinks he does. Like most misguided young people think they know their punk boyfriends; Joe’s met his fair share on the job to know it when he sees it.
Time for the tough love. “I know he was wanted for murder in at least twelve different cases dating back three years.” His son is crossing his arms, looking away, his mouth opening and closing. Not wanting to listen.
Wells picks right up from there. “I know there have been two major terrorist attacks in Starling since he became active.”
“Alright, the cops there are cool with him now. He doesn’t kill people, not anymore.” It’s that excusing tone that worries him most. Barry’s a good kid, a truly wholesome individual despite all odds. The kind that feels guilt for every life he can’t save, good or bad. That he’s willing to overlook the exact opposite attitude in someone else leaves him a little scared, and a whole lot indignant. What has this Arrow done that makes him innocent in Barry’s eyes?
“And what about all the criminals that he put arrows through. Those, what, don’t count?” He reminds.
But Barry remains firm. “He’s a hero, Joe.”
“You’re a hero, Barry,” Wells counters, making the distinction apparent. “You offer protection. Hope. Light. What that man does is carry out a dark reckoning for his city. It is a brutal, violent vision of justice. One we do not share,” he adds with an affirming glance to Joe. “If you truly think he’s a hero, fine, so be it. But he’s not the kind you should be looking up to.”
And yeah, Wells might just be seeing what Joe’s seeing if that tone is anything to go by. Whatever Barry wants to say in response—though it looks like further arguing—is interrupted by a crash and a scream from the cortex that sends him and Joe running.
Caitlin is being chased by what looks like a widely careening boomerang of all things, which embeds itself in a pipe. “That’s my bad! That’s on me,” Cisco claims, hand raised in the air, but Joe sees the young woman, Ms. Smoak he presumes, staring at the destruction with wide, slightly guilty eyes and he knows this isn’t one of STAR’s inventions for once.
“I want that Arrow out of my city,” he finally commands. “Tonight.” But from the way Barry turns his head, a frown still set on his face, he doubts it will be followed.
---
It turns out, he’s glad for it.
Joe wonders how much the comparison—the way he and Wells had set it up as a ‘Flash vs. Arrow’ problem and not a ‘the Arrow is a bad influence on anyone, period’ problem—drives Barry to go after Bivolo alone. If they hadn’t said anything whether Barry might have been willing to wait for backup, even if it came in the form of someone Joe didn’t quite trust. He would have been more than willing to consider it, if he’d known what was going to happen.
And he realizes his mistake in not understanding Barry’s acceptance of the Starling vigilante’s flaws along with his triumphs when the words, “Get my dad out of prison. You helped put him there, didn’t you?” are flung in his face. The Arrow is hardly the first role model to disappoint.
In the end, they’re forced to call on the Arrow anyway—and the shock of it being the former billionaire Oliver Queen is going to hit him one of these days, Joe just knows it—as his son spirals into an out-of-control rage. The plan is simple: the Arrow subdues Barry long enough to force him to look at the sequence of lights STAR labs has determined will fix the damage Bivolo did. Joe finds himself speeding to the scene of the fight in a van with Wells; he’s never been scared of what Barry can do, but right now he thinks Queen must either be ridiculously confident or extremely dedicated to what he does.
It speaks to the upside-down nature his life has taken on that he’s glad to see someone’s put his son into a chokehold when he rounds the corner, turns the van sharply to its side, and presses the control to fling the doors open. As the blinding lights blink on and off in their designed pattern, the Arrow lets Barry go and he staggers forward a step. When the lights finally die down the hooded man gets Barry to turn back around.
Joe waits for a tense moment as he checks the younger man over, seems to be asking if he’s alright. Whatever Barry’s reply is, Joe doesn’t hear it, but it causes the Arrow—infamous Starling vigilante—to laugh, broad and warm and unspeakably fond.
He reminds himself he should be glad they’ve got his kid back as the two stagger off to take down Bivolo, an arm each slung comfortably over the other’s shoulders, their own united front. He’s not surprised when they win.
And he’s forced to eat his own words, consider going for pro ball, and walk right up to Oliver Queen for a firm handshake and the admission, “I may not agree with your methods, but thank you.”
The other man holds his gaze with a steady, “You’re welcome.”
And he’s happy to keep that the extent of their interactions. So what if he’s been made to give up almost all his ground in this argument about what’s good for his son? So what if Iris comes home that evening gushing about how, “Oliver Queen stopped in for coffee and to say bye to Barry, isn’t that just sweet of him? The tabloids are all wrong, but I swear I don’t know where Barry meets these people.” So what if Barry’s had the opportunity to grow even closer, have more reason to feel attached to the other man? After all, Queen’s clearly eager to return to six-hundred-miles-away Starling. Like before, Joe’s got plenty of closer problems.
Until Barry reminds him only a week later just how close a distance six-hundred miles can be for the Flash, following after Caitlin and Cisco—and here at last they’re discovering the generational divide on this team—on an unauthorized trip to Starling. All Joe gets is a post-it note on his desk reading, Emergency, be back soon. When soon arrives Dr. Wells means to take his employees to task for their impulsive actions, so it’s Joe’s job to address Barry’s. He comes armed with pizza and finds the young man in his crime lab, checking his inbox. “Glad to see you back.”
Barry looks up and over, takes in the food but also the tone, and his response is careful, guarded. “Good to see you, too. Everything ok?”
Joe shrugs, sets down the three boxes and leans back on the corner of Barry’s desk. “Guess I’m just wondering if this is going to be a regular thing. Him here, you there.” He wants to ask what happened, what really was the big emergency and why did it take so long to resolve. And most importantly, what went on in those hours after? Caitlin and Cisco came home by train and arrived at the same time as Barry running—he thinks by design on the part of the three of them—meaning even they weren’t around to keep an eye on things.
“Maybe,” his son gives a shrug of his own, something of a grin unable to keep from taking residence on his face. He’s thinking of something else, Joe can tell. “I mean, I’m welcome there and Oliver’s welcome here, now.”
He understands that’s his cue to give a nod. “Sure.”
“You know, Oliver does think about it,” Barry unexpectedly says. “The kind of stuff you and Dr. Wells said. He thinks about it a lot. So much that he- he doubts himself, starts to forget all the good he’s done. And that’s the worst part, Joe, because there’s so much good that he’s done—that’s in him—and he’s the one who can’t see it the most.” And Joe can see the truth of it in Barry’s eyes, hear it in his voice how it’s the heartbreaking worst. “But he keeps trying. That’s the kind of hero I look up to.”
Joe sighs, opens up the first pizza box and reaches for a slice. “The Arrow?” He checks one more time with a pleading note in his voice. Because truces and thank yous aside, he’s not going to just stop worrying for his son.
But that worry lifts at the shake of Barry’s head. “Oliver.”
He thinks of that first, wide smile from his son in the warehouse; the fullness of the other man’s laugh when they’d gotten Barry back from his whammied state. Their fight a draw, but the resulting team-up against Bivolo making the other meta no match for the two injured heroes, partners, equals.
“Well,” he says at last, “I suppose I still ‘don’t even know him’.” Barry tilts his head and smirks at the reminder of their first debate. “But I think he looks up to you too.” The grateful, brilliant smile he earns for it feels far better than the past week of consoling himself that he’s been looking out for Barry. His kid finally dives into the pizzas, in between filling him in on his trip and the fight against whom Cisco has dubbed Captain Boomerang.
And if, when the subject of Oliver Queen comes up and Barry turns just a little pink in the cheeks, his smile and the light in his eyes growing just a little brighter, Joe’s willing not to mention it. Not like he hasn’t done it before.