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Joe’s made a huge mistake letting Barry pick the channel on a night when some game isn’t on. He can feel himself being put to sleep on his couch while Star Trek something-or-other plays out across the screen. He thinks he spots a man, once or twice, whom a younger Barry and Iris would exclusively refer to as ‘the Reading Rainbow guy’. Every so often he takes a sip of his beer, whether or not it will really help him stay awake. Barry’s forgone one himself this time and sits with his legs crisscrossed on the other end of the couch.
Between them rests a makeup bag, discovered by Joe in the downstairs bathroom, and they had a lively debate as to who it belonged to: Caitlin or Iris. The former, Barry pointed out, had only just packed her things and pulled out of the driveway after her and Ronnie Raymond’s brief stay. The latter, countered Joe, had recently been over as well for dinner and he distinctly recalled his daughter mentioning something about needing to remove her ‘work face’. They haven’t bothered to look inside the bag for further clues; that’s a new territory neither man is willing to boldly go. The decision’s been made unanimously to instead wait for one of the two to call.
But it’s a knock on the front door that interrupts just as somebody’s getting beamed up on the screen, and Barry’s able to tear himself away from that faster than Joe’s able to start getting up.
“Like I said,” the kid is smug as he walks backward to the door, the bag swinging loosely in the crook of his arm. “She probably realized she forgot it and turned around. Hey Cait—”
But Barry never finishes the greeting once he pulls open the door. He simply falls silent, and there’s enough of a pause for Joe to grab up the remote and mute the television. Just in time to hear a voice he doesn’t know how he can possibly be recognizing.
“I thought you might be here. Gave up your lease?”
The bag slips from Barry’s arm and falls with a thunk Joe thinks goes unnoticed by the young man. In the next instant there’s a deafening bang—his son has slammed the door before he can crane his neck far enough to see who’s been left standing on the doorstep.
Barry’s breathing hard, hands pressed flat against the wood, but eyes fixed on Joe and if he’s reading that expression on his face right it’s some combination of shock, awe, denial, and complete terror. His son’s usually the furthest thing from quiet, but he makes not a sound as he rises on tiptoe to peer out the glass panes in the door, ducks back down with that same helpless look to Joe, and then is gone. He tracks the sound of various things being knocked over to the kid’s room.
Joe heaves a sigh, and there’s a brief decision to be made in his head; go drag his hopeless son back down here or properly answer the door. He opts for the latter, considering it’d be all too cruel for him to get Barry back down the stairs only to find the completely unexpected visitor already gone. And he just has to see this for himself.
Upon reopening the front door, he discovers his ears aren’t yet going; it really is Oliver Queen on his doorstep. The other man hasn’t yet contemplated returning to that bike parked in front of his house, it seems, as he’s still standing there expectantly. “Detective West,” he greets, holding out his hand.
Joe reaches out to shake it once, and remarks, “Little surprised to see you here. Suppose you’re not going to tell me how that’s possible.”
Oliver seems briefly humored by his blunt words, and inclines his head. “I was hoping to speak with Barry, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, about that…” A quick look at the steps reveals an eavesdropper, but Barry is gone in an eye blink before he can call him down. “I don’t know—”
“It’s by far not the worst reaction I’ve gotten,” Oliver assures, undaunted, so with a shrug Joe steps back to let the man in. “One of the more interesting, though.”
“That’s Barry for you.”
That’s met with a smirk, though the Starling native’s tone is apologetic when he replies, “I would have called, but it seemed a bit—there are things I need to say face-to-face.”
Joe raises a brow but stops part-way through leading the other into the living room when there’s a slight breeze through the room. “Will you cut that out?” He snaps, though it looks as if to no one in particular. Oliver fortunately takes no offence, but his eyes lock immediately onto Barry when the younger man seemingly materializes from nowhere.
“Sorry,” his kid mutters sheepishly to the floor, but then his eyes, wide and displaying a whole panorama of emotions, fix onto Oliver in return. “I just couldn’t believe—I mean, you were just standing there and I thought I was going crazy but—” He’s suddenly right in front of their guest, who hides any shock from it best he can, only giving a blink. “You’re alive.”
Joe knows when he no longer exists in a room, and right now definitely qualifies. So he grabs up the remote from the couch to clear the space and makes a retreat into the kitchen, far enough away to grant some measure of privacy but still be able to keep an eye on things. For one, he still has no idea what sort of things Oliver Queen came here to say, and for another his son is vulnerable right now. He can practically see Barry’s incredibly fast heart beating right out of his chest and, dear Lord, if he’d known the infamous Arrow would be dropping into see them at all he might’ve put off that discussion about Barry’s recent difficulties in dating. The poor kid doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
“How- how did you—what happened?”
It only takes the slight tilt of the other man’s head and a guiding hand on Barry’s elbow to get him seated back on the couch. Oliver seems to consider for the barest of seconds before taking the spot next to him. They’re both cheated in towards each other, knees bumping once before Barry jumps back like it’s sent a shock through him. This is almost painful to watch.
Oliver seems bemused so far by Barry’s behavior tonight, though Joe thinks he can see past the crooked smile directed at his son to the mind that’s working furiously trying to figure out the reason for it.
In the meantime, though, he calmly answers, “Some old friends of mine who are now members of the League found me and gave me a place to recover.”
Barry nods, and it seems giving him something to focus on, some factual explanation for the man sitting before him who should otherwise be dead, helps his nerves. He swallows, and though it’s shaky, teases, “So that brings the count up to how many people on that island?” Oliver shakes his head, though he’s smiling even at a weak attempt at humor from Barry. But then his kid sobers as he asks, “How long have you been back? Here, I mean, or Starling.”
There’s something of a grimace on the other man’s face. “Longer than I intended to go once I heard you’d found out.” A flicker of hurt crosses his face when Barry shifts further away on the couch. The other vigilante tries to excuse, “But I needed to start training Thea. She’s in danger from the League as long as this goes on.” Barry nods as if to acknowledge this, but he’s facing out with hunched shoulders and his arms braced on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.
Oliver seems to realize he’s fouled up somewhere and reaches a hesitant arm out, pulling it back before it can ever touch down on anything. “Barry?”
“When I found out,” his son echoes, and then his gaze is cutting as he looks back to Oliver, “Because what, was I not supposed to notice?” Joe never thought he’d see the Arrow at a loss for words, but it’s happening on his living room couch. Barry laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You were dead, or gone, Oliver! And you knew that was a possibility when you went to that fight. Did you really think I didn’t need to know what was going on? That I wouldn’t want to know, that I wouldn’t care? I mean, what was all that ‘next time I’m in town’ stuff even for?”
“Not for you to get involved with the League,” the older man says, posture rigid and tone firm, taking that idea completely off the table. Fortunate for Joe’s blood pressure, when he knows from Caitlin that ‘the League’ is shorthand for the League of Assassins and any thought of Barry getting mixed up in that has him wanting to shove this clearly marked man out the door, no matter what his son might feel for him.
Barry seems to be doing a good enough job of it on his own, however, as he replies heatedly, “Visiting me seems pretty counterproductive to that plan, though I guess I ought to be glad you bothered. Why are you even here?”
“Well maybe because on my way home with Thea I saw a story in the news about a nuclear explosion just outside of Central City,” the other man replies, a little terse.
Barry rolls his eyes and turns his head away again. He was waiting for a different answer, a better one, and has been terribly let down. His voice wavering slightly as he surmises, “Right, so you just had to make a personal trip to let me know what a bad job I’m doing.”
“No.”
But his kid just keeps going, the frown he wears one of the stubborn kind; part of Joe wants to be glad he’s so determined to distance himself from someone so obviously dangerous right now, and yet part of him knows Barry is only trying to push Oliver Queen away because he thinks it’ll protect his heart. “If you’d read up on it further, you’d already know there was no radiation, or fallout, and saved yourself some trouble.”
“Trouble? That’s what you think I see you as? Barry,” Oliver says, an unspoken command to look at him evident when the older man reaches for his son’s hands. He waits until Barry does glance at him before speaking again. “I’m not checking on Central or how the Flash handles being a vigilante. That’s not why I’m here. I saw that story in the news and all I could think was that you must have been there and I—I had to see you were ok. I couldn’t even think of calling, much less waiting for news updates. And I wanted you to know I was alive, even if it makes you angry with me.”
“I’m not—who’s mad at someone for being alive?” Barry asks incredulously. Then he sighs, freeing one hand from Oliver’s hold to rake it through his hair. “I mean I just don’t see how you get to be all worried cause I’m near a nuclear blast—” Oliver’s snort successfully covers Joe’s own at Barry’s casual reference to such an event “—when you won’t even tell me things like you’re going off to some duel to the death. You said I could tell you anything, and I thought…I thought that went both ways. I felt like you weren’t just putting up a mask or only showing me what you wanted me to see. But then I call you, get your voicemail, and have to hear it from Felicity that it’s cause you’re dead. And it hurt, Oliver, it hurt so much losing you, but I didn’t have to wonder if any of that was real before until now.”
“I didn’t mean to make it seem like I thought you didn’t care,” the other man finally finds what would have been better at pacifying his son than what he said about five minutes ago. “Or that our partnership didn’t mean anything to me. I’ve been lucky to have someone like you in my life, because the way you care for people is…it changes them. At least, it’s done so for me.”
Barry shakes his head, though there’s something of a disbelieving smile playing on his lips. “Ok, you don’t have to lay it on that thick. I’m over the coming-back-to-life freak out.”
“Yes, but you need to know, I very nearly didn’t,” Oliver confesses. “I didn’t want to die, but I was so cold and broken, worse than I’d ever been…then I kept thinking about how I’d survived all that and come out of it a hero. Or so it’s been said.” His voice is softer now to match the smile he wears, and Barry’s back to staring with wide eyes at the man.
“You were thinking about me?”
“I couldn’t stop,” Oliver answers. Barry licks his lips, and both he and Joe notice how the other man’s eyes follow the movement.
Barry slides a little closer on the couch. “Oliver…what you came here to say…um, I kind of think I’d like to hear it.”
“I won’t lie, Barry. Things are not exactly ideal with my situation. And when it comes to people, I tend to hurt them. Usually by not being honest about how I feel. It’s cost me so much in the past, and I used to think that was something I just had to accept, but the thought of it costing me you is…” There’s one final pause, one hesitation, in their visitor. Then the hand that was holding onto Barry’s—who’s holding his breath hanging onto each and every word—skates up to cup his cheek as he says, “so I am telling you now that you are what kept me going, your belief in me when I doubted myself, and I am tired of doubt.”
Joe lingers just long enough to watch the two meet with their lips in the middle before shuffling further back into the kitchen. He doesn’t think Barry’s going to want his intervention at this stage of the evening, and he has to marvel at how the pair had managed to run the whole gambit of emotions and come out of it alright. Better than alright.
But is it really? Joe’s had enough life-changing, and usually life-threatening experiences to know how they can affect a person’s thinking for a good long while afterward. But that tends to last only so long. What if Oliver Queen’s conviction that he wants to try something with his son only lasts so long as well? It’s been easy enough for Joe to listen to Barry speak about the other man and realize he’s enamored with him, but he is not learned on the man beneath the Arrow’s hood’s tells, can’t know for sure just how deeply and sincerely he’s meant what he’s said.
And even if he does, this whole League business sounds complicated and nasty and, most importantly, not over. The Starling vigilante was almost killed once; who’s to say, grim as the thought is, whether he’ll survive another encounter?
In either scenario, Barry ends up hurt, and that’s something Joe doesn’t stand for. But until either scenario happens, he knows that there’s nothing he can possibly do to convince Barry to put an end to it. The boy’s in love, one that’s at this moment being returned in a kiss, and Joe also can’t stand to try and take that from him. For now, this is what’s best for Barry; he’ll simply have to find a way to ascertain if it will continue to be best for him.
He settles by the counters with his second beer of the night. He’ll give it till he’s finished before looking back in on the pair, though a muffled moan that sounds like Oliver’s name momentarily shakes his resolve.
If there are hands or anything else where they shouldn’t be when he checks, well, he’s still got the TV remote with his thumb resting over the unmute button. Joe thinks a dry reading from the Enterprise’s Captain’s Log will put a stop to any of that.