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I thought I'd take a small break from Harry & Cisco to try Harry &/ Joe instead. Not sure how well that went -_-; Set between 2x22 "Invincible" and 2x23 "The Race of his Life".
Title: Circling the Wagons
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Flash (2014)
Characters/Pairings: Joe West, Earth-2 Harrison Wells, mention of Barry, Iris, Cisco, Caitlin, Wally, Jesse and Henry. Joe /& Harry, background Barry/Iris, Cisco & Caitlin, Wally & Jesse, team-as-family
Summary: The night after Zoom takes Barry to the Allen house, after Joe pulls Barry back out, the whole team stays at Joe's. Circling the wagons, looking out for each other, trying to keep each other safe. Standing guard, Harry and Joe find a moment together. Everybody's curled up protectively around everyone else. Comes down to it, why not them as well?
Wordcount: 4698
Warnings/Notes: Episode related, spoilers, canonical character death. Aftermath, shock, grief, team, team-as-family, sleeping together, sharing beds, loneliness, trust, survival, comrades in arms, fatherhood, friendship/love
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Circling the Wagons
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Flash (2014)
Characters/Pairings: Joe West, Earth-2 Harrison Wells, mention of Barry, Iris, Cisco, Caitlin, Wally, Jesse and Henry. Joe /& Harry, background Barry/Iris, Cisco & Caitlin, Wally & Jesse, team-as-family
Summary: The night after Zoom takes Barry to the Allen house, after Joe pulls Barry back out, the whole team stays at Joe's. Circling the wagons, looking out for each other, trying to keep each other safe. Standing guard, Harry and Joe find a moment together. Everybody's curled up protectively around everyone else. Comes down to it, why not them as well?
Wordcount: 4698
Warnings/Notes: Episode related, spoilers, canonical character death. Aftermath, shock, grief, team, team-as-family, sleeping together, sharing beds, loneliness, trust, survival, comrades in arms, fatherhood, friendship/love
Disclaimer: Not mine
Circling the Wagons
Sometime around two in the morning, Joe made it out onto the porch. He left the door open, left it so he’d be able to hear if anything happened inside, but he just needed a little bit of air. He just needed ten minutes, just a couple of minutes to himself.
To say they were shellshocked was a bit of an understatement. Henry … God, Henry. And Barry, Barry was in pieces. He’d watched. The son of a bitch had made him watch. Joe wasn’t going to blame the kid for being barely able to string a sentence together. Joe had pulled him out of that house. Again. He’d pulled him out and brought him home, let the department take care of Henry, and he wasn’t going to blame Barry for being damn near catatonic afterwards. None of them were. The kid was sleeping now, at least. They’d deal with the rest in the morning.
None of them had gone home. Not a one, save Tina. Circling the wagons, maybe, everybody too afraid and too upset to want to be left on their own. So they’d all stayed here. Even Harry. He’d come tearing over the second he’d heard, in a panic for his daughter. Not that Joe exactly blamed him for that. The man had helped afterwards. He’d held the fort while Joe and Iris had gone to … to get Barry, to bring him home. That earned him the couch for the night, at least. Hell. Probably should have earned Joe the same. They were a little short of beds.
That had been a complicated negotiation, too. They’d all paired up automatically in their shock, all clustered together based on who needed each other most, but it wasn’t like they could sleep like that. Barry and Iris, Cisco and Caitlin, then Jesse and Wally stuck out on their own, two panicked outsiders to someone else’s tragedy. It wasn’t like Joe was a prude or anything, and Barry and Iris … but there were only three beds and some parental part of him just … could not handle that right now. Wally and Jesse alone would have ended in death, Harry being no better than him, and given everything that had happened tonight Joe just couldn’t face it.
Wally’d offered to share with Cisco in the end, Barry in on his own, and Iris and Jesse had had a brief fight over which of them should sleep on the floor in the girl’s room. Iris had argued it should be her, as the host, and Jesse had argued that she’d spent months sleeping in a cage and then on a cot in Star Labs, it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to worse. She’d fumbled to a halt when she caught sight of her father’s face, the sheer pain in it at the reminder, and Iris had gently and firmly taken over again in the aftermath. She’d take the floor, there were three sleeping bags in the house, she’d be fine. Done and dusted.
Joe had tried offering his bed as well, saying he could sleep down in the recliner while Harry took the couch, but every guest in the house had promptly looked scandalised at him and Iris had point blank refused. Part of Joe wondered if it wasn't because she was planning to look in on Barry later, curl up around him and make sure he was okay, and she didn't want to feel guilty about an empty bed and two men camped downstairs if that happened. He didn't think he could do anything about it if she was. He didn't really think he should, either. He was half sure Cisco was sharing with Wally instead of Barry just to allow it. They could all use some company tonight. Barry most of all.
So they’d all settled out in the end. Cisco had guided Barry upstairs, Caitlin going with them at least for a little while. She wasn’t doing so well herself. Three people in this house now had been taken by Zoom at one point or another, and he’d just killed his latest target. None of them were doing very well, but it was fresh for Caitlin. She’d gone up with Barry and Cisco, the three of them sticking together in solidarity. Iris had stayed downstairs, let them have that for a while. She’d gone up afterwards to sit with Barry for a bit, when the other two came back down again. People had only been going to bed in fits and starts. No one was much able for sleep.
It was quiet now, though. More or less. They’d all gone up. Jesse’d been one of the last, hanging on with her father for a while, and Wally too. Outsiders, both of them, or they’d felt that way at least. They hadn’t wanted to head up, but after that much strain there was only so long a body could stay awake.
Joe half wished he had let them in together, those two. It wasn’t like they’d have been thinking about anything but sleep. Probably. They’d been taken too, maybe they could have used each other’s company. He’d seen Harry thinking it too, wondering at it a little bit, but …
But times of trauma had a way of causing things, making things seem reasonable, and right now they needed to keep complications to a minimum. So. No. No sharing beds. Let’s keep this on the level.
He sighed heavily, leaning on the porch railing and reaching up to rub tiredly at the back of his neck. He was trying not to think about it, he knew. He was trying not to think about that house. About Henry. About Barry on the floor, holding his dead parent yet again. About … about Henry’s life, about how he’d just gotten it back, about how he’d just promised to stay and be part of his son’s life again. About Barry’s face, in that goddamned room where two separate sons of bitches had murdered his family in front of him. About picking him up off that floor, pulling him away from that again, about calling in some favours and seeing the looks on the guy’s faces as they realised what his son had just gone through all over again.
That son of a bitch. That goddamned son of a bitch. Three people, three children in this house taken and imprisoned and tortured, one good man taken and murdered, and Barry … And Barry. Goddamn it. Goddamn it. That son of a bitch needed killing. Right here, right now. That bastard needed to be dead.
They couldn’t think like that, though. They couldn’t, they couldn’t afford it, Joe knew that. Barry was going to be bad enough. Someone had to keep a clear head. Zoom kept blindsiding them at every turn, hitting them over and over again while they were down. They had to stay focused, keep him clear, or all they were going to do was get someone else killed as well. Barry, most likely, and fuck that. Or one of the kids, any of the kids, and fuck that as well. They’d lost too many, they’d been hurt too much. Joe wasn’t letting anything happen to any of them again. Somehow or other he was going to stop that. He was promising that right now.
“… Thinking about sitting out here with a shotgun for the night?” a voice asked quietly, as tired and ragged-sounding as Joe felt, and he looked up to see Harry standing just inside the front door. The man looked wry and exhausted and vaguely sheepish, probably not least because he actually did have his pulse rifle with him. He’d had it coming running over here, and he had it now, slung carefully over one shoulder while he braced himself in the doorway to look at Joe. As though Zoom might run up at any second and snatch one of them. As though Harry intended to at least try and shoot the bastard if he did. Joe felt a surge of something at that. A desperate, exhausted sort of fondness, a bone-deep solidarity with the man.
“… Looks like you already beat me to that,” he said gently, looking pointedly down at the rifle. “There a reason you picked it up to come out here after me?”
Harry looked at him for a second, then shrugged, a halfway sort of smile on his face. “Paranoia?” he offered wryly. “Every time I turn around these days, the bastard has taken someone else. You shouldn’t be alone. None of us should. I know you needed a minute. I tried to hang back for a bit. I’d just ... I'd prefer if you were still inside my line of sight.”
Joe raised his eyebrows. “And your line of fire?” he asked, but he was smiling faintly himself. He shook his head, levered himself off the railing and over towards the man. Harry watched him come, the rifle still cradled gently in one hand. He lifted it up in a shrug as Joe came abreast.
“I know it probably won’t do much good,” the scientist said softly. “It never has. He’s too fast. I’ve never been able to save anyone from him with this thing, not even myself. I guess … I guess I just can’t help trying. A security blanket, is that what they call it? It just helps to feel like I’m not completely helpless.”
Joe looked down at that. Bit his lip, leaned against the wall beside the man. He knew that feeling. Oh, he knew it well. At least Harry was useful sometimes. Harry and Cisco, those two could do a hell of a lot of damage without ever bringing guns into it. They could knock out a whole army together when pushed. Joe couldn’t do that. He couldn’t fight, not against something like Zoom. He couldn’t keep his sons from being taken, couldn’t keep them from being hurt. He wished he could. He wished it so goddamn much.
He'd wondered about it sometimes. When Wally had been taken, when Barry damn near killed himself to get him back. He wondered what it would have been like to have been Harry, to have had that happen when he was alone, when he had no one, where there was no Flash and no one to turn to and that madman had his child. What would he have done. Barry had said it, when Harry had admitted to taking his speed. Barry had pointed it out and Joe had been thinking about it on and off ever since. Would he throw himself into a whole other world and trust himself to strangers just for half a chance to get Wally or Barry or Iris back?
Well, yeah. Yes, of course he would. In a heartbeat, if he thought it would help. That wasn’t really the question. The question was, could he have done the other thing Harry did. Could he have cared enough about those strangers to risk sacrificing his children for their sake. Could he have given up the only power and leverage he had left, and trusted to someone else to save his child. Could he have trusted Harry like that, the way Harry had trusted them?
He thought he could have, now. Henry, god rest him, couldn’t, hadn’t, he hadn’t known Harry long enough to trust his child to the man’s hands. Henry had never had that chance. Joe had. The first time he’d seen this man he’d fired three bullets at him, the first time Harry had risked Barry’s life Joe had slammed him up against a wall, when Harry had betrayed them Joe had punched him in the face and thrown him in a cell just to keep from killing him. But things had changed since then. Joe had seen Harry risk everything he had, risk his only chance to save his daughter, to try and keep Barry safe, to make it at least so Harry hadn’t been the one to betray him. Joe had seen the man fight for them every step of the way, argue and bully and claw his way to fighting, snarl and growl and pull his hair out trying to keep them all alive. Even when he couldn’t do anything. Even when he was helpless. Even when all the pulse rifles in the world wouldn’t do a damned thing.
He trusted this man, Joe realised quietly. Looking up over him, looking at Harry standing there all rumpled and tired, gun in his hand where he’d come to guard Joe against the night out of habit and paranoia and a desire to keep the rest of them safe. Joe trusted him. He trusted Harry with his life and his children’s lives, trusted the man to give everything he had to keep them safe. Henry hadn’t. Henry couldn’t, not yet, had only been just beginning to. Now Henry was gone, and Harry and Joe were the last parents standing. They were the last two left to stand between their children and the world. Those kids sleeping upstairs, all six of them, battered and wounded to a body, and only Harry and Joe left to keep them safe.
In which case they were all likely screwed, all things considered, but just then Joe didn’t know if he gave a crap. He could feel something inside of him, something more than fondness for the sight of the man, something deeper maybe even than friendship. He’d trust this man with his children’s lives. How much deeper a thing could there be? Joe had been on his own a long time. Francine had never … He’d never trusted her like that, not really. After Henry and Nora, what had happened to them, after Barry had come to them, he didn’t know if he’d ever trusted anyone. Not with his kids. He’d wanted to, he’d wanted to be able to, but he’d seen so many things on this job. So many betrayals. He hadn’t had it in him to ever fully trust someone with something that meant so much.
And then … then this asshole. Then this stupid, idiot scientist from another world. A man who would, whatever else you could say about him, do anything on the face of the earth to protect his child. A man who had damn near killed himself to protect Joe’s children too. A man Joe very strongly suspected was planning on sitting up for the night with a pulse rifle in his hands, standing guard on a house full of battered children.
Sitting outside with a shotgun. He’d said it, not Joe. Harry had the couch tonight. He’d come out here pulse rifle already in hand. The man wasn’t subtle, most of the time. It was never particularly hard to tell what Harry was thinking.
Joe wasn't able for that either. Not tonight. Just ... not tonight.
“… Let’s leave it for tonight, huh?” Joe said softly. Harry startled at him, a little bit. Joe had been silent for a while, lost in his own head, and Harry had left him to it, scanning the street behind him instead. Keeping guard, watching Joe’s back. Joe shook his head. He stood up and took the man by the arm and steered him gently back inside. Harry stumbled in bewilderment ahead of him. Joe set him right, said the next bit gently to his face. “You know what? Let's just go to bed, you and me. The bastard ain’t gonna do anything tonight. He likes to savour. He likes to watch people be hurt first before he hits ‘em again. He’s not coming tonight, we both know it. So why don’t you and me get some sleep instead, huh? We’ve got a lot of kids to try and put back together again in the morning.”
Harry stood there helplessly in the hall. Looking at him, watching Joe as he turned to lock and bolt the front door behind them. Nothing that would stop a speedster, nothing that would stop Zoom, but they all had their security blankets. They all needed them at times. Harry gripped his rifle tightly. He didn’t look like he remembered how to let it go.
“… I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” the scientist admitted quietly. “I know it’s pointless. I know I wouldn’t be able to do anything even if he did come. I just …”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Yeah, I know.” He did. He knew full well. He ‘just’ a little himself. But there was nothing for it now. There was nothing to be done. And Joe didn’t want to go to bed and think about this man sitting down here all alone, trying helplessly and uselessly to protect them.
He had a whole bed to himself upstairs. His children had seen to that, the lot of them determined to be gentle and self-sacrificing and look out for other people in the midst of their own pain. Harry’s kid too. Hell, all their kids, by birth or adoption or otherwise, since they were more or less mutual anyway by now. They’d all been fighting to look after everyone else ahead of themselves, the ones that hadn’t been too catatonic to manage it. Everybody need looking after tonight, and everybody was determined to look after everyone else. Maybe that wasn't such a bad example to follow.
And he knew ... he knew what he was doing. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to look Wally in the face tomorrow, or Jesse either. Hell of a hypocrite he was turning out to be here. Trauma had a way of making things seem reasonable. He was supposed to be keeping complications to a minimum.
Wasn't going to be anything funny, though. He didn't think either of them could think like that tonight, regardless of whether they would or not in the normal run of things. He just didn't want to leave the man down here alone. That was it. That was all it was.
And let's be honest here, Joe had made up his mind five minutes ago when he'd first pulled the man back in through the door.
"... Come upstairs with me," he said at last. He shook his head at the startled shock on Harry's face. "Don't look at me like that. Everybody's sharing beds tonight anyway, and I've got a whole one to myself up there. I don't want you down here on your own. Zoom ain't just sticking to our kids these days. Call me paranoid, call it wanting you in my line of sight. Call it whatever. Just come up with me and let's both of us get some sleep."
Harry stared at him, open-mouthed. Completely pole-axed, which Joe was selfishly gonna admit was a good look on the sometimes smug asshole. Harry shook his head, looking Joe up and down like he could somehow figure out ... what was going on, what Joe meant by it, where the catch was. Joe could see him at it. He could see the man running scenarios in his head, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He felt a twinge inside him. Yeah, okay. That was more stress than he'd wanted to cause the man. Particularly tonight. He took pity on him.
"It's okay, man," he said. "Nothing funny. For a start, I'd never be able to look either of our kids in the face, after all the fuss about them not staying together. I just ... I don't want any of us out on their own. I know for a fact Iris is going to look in on Barry, if she hasn't already. I'm trying not to think about anybody else moving around in the night. That couch is shit for sleeping on, and neither of us are getting any younger. We just ... we might as well go with the flow, you know? Stay in the line of sight, try and get some proper rest."
Harry started to look sceptical at that, ended up looking mostly confused. And also ... also a bit tempted. Whether by company or by a real bed or what, Joe wasn't sure, but the man was definitely tempted. He looked skittish and half-dead and just ... like he really, really could use some rest. Like the rest of them. The man looked tired enough just to go along with it.
"... If anyone asks about this, I'm pointing them at you," Harry said, after a very long second. He shuffled uneasily, his rifle still in his hand, but he turned a bit to glance up along the stairs. "Wally, Jesse, Cisco, anyone. Anyone asks, you get to answer."
Joe shook his head, a smile creeping across his face. "Sure thing," he agreed, reaching to clap the man gently on the shoulder, get ready to steer him up the stairs. "I don't know how much anyone's gonna care. We're gonna have ... we're all going to have a lot of other things to deal with in morning. But don't worry. Anyone asks why your skinny ass is in bed with me, I'll be happy to let them know it was pure pity on my part."
Harry squinted at him side-eyed. "There's a reason you haven't had a date in years, isn't there?" he opinioned mildly. Joe snorted at him.
"Yeah," he said. "It's called a job and two kids, then an extra job babysitting superheroes, then about four other kids and miscellaneous idiot adults as well. These days I'm lucky if I've got time to go to sleep, let alone try to go out on a date with anyone. Not to mention that if I did, I'd have to figure out how to explain all of this to them, and that hasn't gone well with my actual family, never mind some random stranger."
Harry smiled lopsidedly, glanced away. "You say that as though you'd trust it to a stranger," he noted quietly, and Joe paused a little bit. Not just at the nail on the head, the echo of his earlier thoughts. At the tiredness of it. The way the man sounded like he understood.
"... Yeah, that too," Joe said, equally quiet, and squeezed the man's shoulder. He shouldn't say this. He'd already promised nothing funny. But life was fragile around now. Maybe it wouldn't do any harm just to say some things up front. "Don't have a lot of trust left these days. Can't say there haven't been days when I've just ... wished for someone proven, you know? Somebody I already know can handle all of this. Someone I know would live and die for my kids the way I hope I'd do for theirs."
And yeah, that was putting it out there a little strong, and yeah, judging by Harry's face he'd got that too. The man's eyes went wide, his lips parting in shock and Joe guessed some confusion. There wasn't any ... there was no horror, though. No panic, no disgust. Just ... just something startled, and after that something tired and raw and grateful.
"... You don't have to hope," the man said at last. Soft, uneasy. Deeply, exhaustedly sincere. "Anyone who's known you for more than a day, Detective, knows you'd die for anyone's kid if they needed you to. I know that. You don't ... you don't have to doubt it."
Joe ... Joe felt his eyes prickle at that, felt them want to flood. Just ... Wally, and Barry, and ... It'd been him and Iris once, it'd just been him and his girl, and then there'd been all these kids, and all of 'em kept getting hurt, and goddamn it all of them were his, they were his family now, every one of 'em, and he just ... He didn't want it to be him alone. He tried to imagine being in another world, having nothing left but his girl, having no one to turn to when something threatened her. He tried to imagine all his kids, all of them, and first no Henry and then no Harry, nobody left, just him trying to hold them together. He didn't want that anymore. Hell, maybe he never had. He wanted ... someone to lean on. Someone to hold up in his turn. Someone to just ... to bring upstairs and keep beside him and make sure was safe from monsters throughout the night.
And when he looked at Harry, when he looked at the man's face, maybe there was a part of that that Harry wanted too. Maybe it was just ... grief, loneliness, maybe it was trauma making things seem reasonable and complications seem worth it, maybe Joe'd wake up in the morning and be unable to look either Harry or his kids in the eye.
But you know, he didn't think so. He really didn't. He knew this man now. He knew him, he trusted him, he'd put his kids' lives in his hands. He wanted to help him, wanted to keep him safe, wanted to be kept safe in his turn. There wasn't anything in that to be ashamed of come tomorrow. There was ... more in that than Joe had ever had with anyone. Even if all they had was just tonight, even if all they did was snore in each other's ear until Iris or Cisco woke them tomorrow, there wasn't anything here that Joe thought that he'd regret.
So he wasn't gonna. He was deciding that now. Whatever happened, whatever didn't happen, right this second he was promising no regrets.
"... Come on, you," he said, wrapping his arm around Harry's shoulder, pulling the man carefully in against his side. "I'm too emotional for this shit right now. I need some sleep. Let's go to bed, huh? Let's just get some sleep and sort the rest out in the morning. That sound okay to you?"
Harry laughed slightly, just a little huff, and let his pulse rifle slip gently down by his side. Let it hang by its strap, let it ease carefully out of his hand. He brought the other hand up, gripped Joe's gently where it rested on his shoulder. He looked over at Joe tiredly, a whole world of things in his eyes and in his face. He nodded silently. He dipped his head around his smile.
"You better not hog the covers, Detective," he said, so that Joe had to laugh at him and impulsively hug him tight. "I haven't shared a bed with anyone in years. You end up on the floor, it's nobody's fault but your own."
"Yeah, we'll see who ends up on what floor," Joe shot back at him, still holding him tight. He had to pause to look at him for a second. Just to wonder, to be amazed that this ... this idiot asshole was even here right now. Of all the people Joe had ever figured on ... on anything, Harrison Wells hadn't even been in the ballpark. Any Harrison Wells. Yet here the man was. Here they both were. Last parents standing. Two idiots well after midnight trying to hold each other up.
"... You know, you're a good man, Harry," he found himself saying. Meaning it, meaning it so seriously and so much. "You're a good father, you're a good man, no matter how bad you might come off at first. Don't forget it, huh?"
Harry blinked at him, long and startled for a second. Then he looked away. Down and away, that little half smile curled on his face. "Likewise, Detective," he said quietly. "Joe. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'd really like to get to bed ...?"
Joe laughed, and shook his head. "Yeah," he said, pulling his arm out from around the man's shoulders, letting Harry loose to follow him up the stairs. "Yeah, all right. Gonna wake the house up at this rate. Come on, then. I'll fish you out a pillow from somewhere."
"So generous," Harry said wryly, gesturing for Joe to precede him up the stairs. "You know, it's something I've always admired about this Earth."
And there was only one answer to that, only one word for this man and everything about him. Joe said it happily. He let it carry the both of them up the stairs.
"Shut up, smartass, and let's go to bed."
Sometime around two in the morning, Joe made it out onto the porch. He left the door open, left it so he’d be able to hear if anything happened inside, but he just needed a little bit of air. He just needed ten minutes, just a couple of minutes to himself.
To say they were shellshocked was a bit of an understatement. Henry … God, Henry. And Barry, Barry was in pieces. He’d watched. The son of a bitch had made him watch. Joe wasn’t going to blame the kid for being barely able to string a sentence together. Joe had pulled him out of that house. Again. He’d pulled him out and brought him home, let the department take care of Henry, and he wasn’t going to blame Barry for being damn near catatonic afterwards. None of them were. The kid was sleeping now, at least. They’d deal with the rest in the morning.
None of them had gone home. Not a one, save Tina. Circling the wagons, maybe, everybody too afraid and too upset to want to be left on their own. So they’d all stayed here. Even Harry. He’d come tearing over the second he’d heard, in a panic for his daughter. Not that Joe exactly blamed him for that. The man had helped afterwards. He’d held the fort while Joe and Iris had gone to … to get Barry, to bring him home. That earned him the couch for the night, at least. Hell. Probably should have earned Joe the same. They were a little short of beds.
That had been a complicated negotiation, too. They’d all paired up automatically in their shock, all clustered together based on who needed each other most, but it wasn’t like they could sleep like that. Barry and Iris, Cisco and Caitlin, then Jesse and Wally stuck out on their own, two panicked outsiders to someone else’s tragedy. It wasn’t like Joe was a prude or anything, and Barry and Iris … but there were only three beds and some parental part of him just … could not handle that right now. Wally and Jesse alone would have ended in death, Harry being no better than him, and given everything that had happened tonight Joe just couldn’t face it.
Wally’d offered to share with Cisco in the end, Barry in on his own, and Iris and Jesse had had a brief fight over which of them should sleep on the floor in the girl’s room. Iris had argued it should be her, as the host, and Jesse had argued that she’d spent months sleeping in a cage and then on a cot in Star Labs, it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to worse. She’d fumbled to a halt when she caught sight of her father’s face, the sheer pain in it at the reminder, and Iris had gently and firmly taken over again in the aftermath. She’d take the floor, there were three sleeping bags in the house, she’d be fine. Done and dusted.
Joe had tried offering his bed as well, saying he could sleep down in the recliner while Harry took the couch, but every guest in the house had promptly looked scandalised at him and Iris had point blank refused. Part of Joe wondered if it wasn't because she was planning to look in on Barry later, curl up around him and make sure he was okay, and she didn't want to feel guilty about an empty bed and two men camped downstairs if that happened. He didn't think he could do anything about it if she was. He didn't really think he should, either. He was half sure Cisco was sharing with Wally instead of Barry just to allow it. They could all use some company tonight. Barry most of all.
So they’d all settled out in the end. Cisco had guided Barry upstairs, Caitlin going with them at least for a little while. She wasn’t doing so well herself. Three people in this house now had been taken by Zoom at one point or another, and he’d just killed his latest target. None of them were doing very well, but it was fresh for Caitlin. She’d gone up with Barry and Cisco, the three of them sticking together in solidarity. Iris had stayed downstairs, let them have that for a while. She’d gone up afterwards to sit with Barry for a bit, when the other two came back down again. People had only been going to bed in fits and starts. No one was much able for sleep.
It was quiet now, though. More or less. They’d all gone up. Jesse’d been one of the last, hanging on with her father for a while, and Wally too. Outsiders, both of them, or they’d felt that way at least. They hadn’t wanted to head up, but after that much strain there was only so long a body could stay awake.
Joe half wished he had let them in together, those two. It wasn’t like they’d have been thinking about anything but sleep. Probably. They’d been taken too, maybe they could have used each other’s company. He’d seen Harry thinking it too, wondering at it a little bit, but …
But times of trauma had a way of causing things, making things seem reasonable, and right now they needed to keep complications to a minimum. So. No. No sharing beds. Let’s keep this on the level.
He sighed heavily, leaning on the porch railing and reaching up to rub tiredly at the back of his neck. He was trying not to think about it, he knew. He was trying not to think about that house. About Henry. About Barry on the floor, holding his dead parent yet again. About … about Henry’s life, about how he’d just gotten it back, about how he’d just promised to stay and be part of his son’s life again. About Barry’s face, in that goddamned room where two separate sons of bitches had murdered his family in front of him. About picking him up off that floor, pulling him away from that again, about calling in some favours and seeing the looks on the guy’s faces as they realised what his son had just gone through all over again.
That son of a bitch. That goddamned son of a bitch. Three people, three children in this house taken and imprisoned and tortured, one good man taken and murdered, and Barry … And Barry. Goddamn it. Goddamn it. That son of a bitch needed killing. Right here, right now. That bastard needed to be dead.
They couldn’t think like that, though. They couldn’t, they couldn’t afford it, Joe knew that. Barry was going to be bad enough. Someone had to keep a clear head. Zoom kept blindsiding them at every turn, hitting them over and over again while they were down. They had to stay focused, keep him clear, or all they were going to do was get someone else killed as well. Barry, most likely, and fuck that. Or one of the kids, any of the kids, and fuck that as well. They’d lost too many, they’d been hurt too much. Joe wasn’t letting anything happen to any of them again. Somehow or other he was going to stop that. He was promising that right now.
“… Thinking about sitting out here with a shotgun for the night?” a voice asked quietly, as tired and ragged-sounding as Joe felt, and he looked up to see Harry standing just inside the front door. The man looked wry and exhausted and vaguely sheepish, probably not least because he actually did have his pulse rifle with him. He’d had it coming running over here, and he had it now, slung carefully over one shoulder while he braced himself in the doorway to look at Joe. As though Zoom might run up at any second and snatch one of them. As though Harry intended to at least try and shoot the bastard if he did. Joe felt a surge of something at that. A desperate, exhausted sort of fondness, a bone-deep solidarity with the man.
“… Looks like you already beat me to that,” he said gently, looking pointedly down at the rifle. “There a reason you picked it up to come out here after me?”
Harry looked at him for a second, then shrugged, a halfway sort of smile on his face. “Paranoia?” he offered wryly. “Every time I turn around these days, the bastard has taken someone else. You shouldn’t be alone. None of us should. I know you needed a minute. I tried to hang back for a bit. I’d just ... I'd prefer if you were still inside my line of sight.”
Joe raised his eyebrows. “And your line of fire?” he asked, but he was smiling faintly himself. He shook his head, levered himself off the railing and over towards the man. Harry watched him come, the rifle still cradled gently in one hand. He lifted it up in a shrug as Joe came abreast.
“I know it probably won’t do much good,” the scientist said softly. “It never has. He’s too fast. I’ve never been able to save anyone from him with this thing, not even myself. I guess … I guess I just can’t help trying. A security blanket, is that what they call it? It just helps to feel like I’m not completely helpless.”
Joe looked down at that. Bit his lip, leaned against the wall beside the man. He knew that feeling. Oh, he knew it well. At least Harry was useful sometimes. Harry and Cisco, those two could do a hell of a lot of damage without ever bringing guns into it. They could knock out a whole army together when pushed. Joe couldn’t do that. He couldn’t fight, not against something like Zoom. He couldn’t keep his sons from being taken, couldn’t keep them from being hurt. He wished he could. He wished it so goddamn much.
He'd wondered about it sometimes. When Wally had been taken, when Barry damn near killed himself to get him back. He wondered what it would have been like to have been Harry, to have had that happen when he was alone, when he had no one, where there was no Flash and no one to turn to and that madman had his child. What would he have done. Barry had said it, when Harry had admitted to taking his speed. Barry had pointed it out and Joe had been thinking about it on and off ever since. Would he throw himself into a whole other world and trust himself to strangers just for half a chance to get Wally or Barry or Iris back?
Well, yeah. Yes, of course he would. In a heartbeat, if he thought it would help. That wasn’t really the question. The question was, could he have done the other thing Harry did. Could he have cared enough about those strangers to risk sacrificing his children for their sake. Could he have given up the only power and leverage he had left, and trusted to someone else to save his child. Could he have trusted Harry like that, the way Harry had trusted them?
He thought he could have, now. Henry, god rest him, couldn’t, hadn’t, he hadn’t known Harry long enough to trust his child to the man’s hands. Henry had never had that chance. Joe had. The first time he’d seen this man he’d fired three bullets at him, the first time Harry had risked Barry’s life Joe had slammed him up against a wall, when Harry had betrayed them Joe had punched him in the face and thrown him in a cell just to keep from killing him. But things had changed since then. Joe had seen Harry risk everything he had, risk his only chance to save his daughter, to try and keep Barry safe, to make it at least so Harry hadn’t been the one to betray him. Joe had seen the man fight for them every step of the way, argue and bully and claw his way to fighting, snarl and growl and pull his hair out trying to keep them all alive. Even when he couldn’t do anything. Even when he was helpless. Even when all the pulse rifles in the world wouldn’t do a damned thing.
He trusted this man, Joe realised quietly. Looking up over him, looking at Harry standing there all rumpled and tired, gun in his hand where he’d come to guard Joe against the night out of habit and paranoia and a desire to keep the rest of them safe. Joe trusted him. He trusted Harry with his life and his children’s lives, trusted the man to give everything he had to keep them safe. Henry hadn’t. Henry couldn’t, not yet, had only been just beginning to. Now Henry was gone, and Harry and Joe were the last parents standing. They were the last two left to stand between their children and the world. Those kids sleeping upstairs, all six of them, battered and wounded to a body, and only Harry and Joe left to keep them safe.
In which case they were all likely screwed, all things considered, but just then Joe didn’t know if he gave a crap. He could feel something inside of him, something more than fondness for the sight of the man, something deeper maybe even than friendship. He’d trust this man with his children’s lives. How much deeper a thing could there be? Joe had been on his own a long time. Francine had never … He’d never trusted her like that, not really. After Henry and Nora, what had happened to them, after Barry had come to them, he didn’t know if he’d ever trusted anyone. Not with his kids. He’d wanted to, he’d wanted to be able to, but he’d seen so many things on this job. So many betrayals. He hadn’t had it in him to ever fully trust someone with something that meant so much.
And then … then this asshole. Then this stupid, idiot scientist from another world. A man who would, whatever else you could say about him, do anything on the face of the earth to protect his child. A man who had damn near killed himself to protect Joe’s children too. A man Joe very strongly suspected was planning on sitting up for the night with a pulse rifle in his hands, standing guard on a house full of battered children.
Sitting outside with a shotgun. He’d said it, not Joe. Harry had the couch tonight. He’d come out here pulse rifle already in hand. The man wasn’t subtle, most of the time. It was never particularly hard to tell what Harry was thinking.
Joe wasn't able for that either. Not tonight. Just ... not tonight.
“… Let’s leave it for tonight, huh?” Joe said softly. Harry startled at him, a little bit. Joe had been silent for a while, lost in his own head, and Harry had left him to it, scanning the street behind him instead. Keeping guard, watching Joe’s back. Joe shook his head. He stood up and took the man by the arm and steered him gently back inside. Harry stumbled in bewilderment ahead of him. Joe set him right, said the next bit gently to his face. “You know what? Let's just go to bed, you and me. The bastard ain’t gonna do anything tonight. He likes to savour. He likes to watch people be hurt first before he hits ‘em again. He’s not coming tonight, we both know it. So why don’t you and me get some sleep instead, huh? We’ve got a lot of kids to try and put back together again in the morning.”
Harry stood there helplessly in the hall. Looking at him, watching Joe as he turned to lock and bolt the front door behind them. Nothing that would stop a speedster, nothing that would stop Zoom, but they all had their security blankets. They all needed them at times. Harry gripped his rifle tightly. He didn’t look like he remembered how to let it go.
“… I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” the scientist admitted quietly. “I know it’s pointless. I know I wouldn’t be able to do anything even if he did come. I just …”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Yeah, I know.” He did. He knew full well. He ‘just’ a little himself. But there was nothing for it now. There was nothing to be done. And Joe didn’t want to go to bed and think about this man sitting down here all alone, trying helplessly and uselessly to protect them.
He had a whole bed to himself upstairs. His children had seen to that, the lot of them determined to be gentle and self-sacrificing and look out for other people in the midst of their own pain. Harry’s kid too. Hell, all their kids, by birth or adoption or otherwise, since they were more or less mutual anyway by now. They’d all been fighting to look after everyone else ahead of themselves, the ones that hadn’t been too catatonic to manage it. Everybody need looking after tonight, and everybody was determined to look after everyone else. Maybe that wasn't such a bad example to follow.
And he knew ... he knew what he was doing. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to look Wally in the face tomorrow, or Jesse either. Hell of a hypocrite he was turning out to be here. Trauma had a way of making things seem reasonable. He was supposed to be keeping complications to a minimum.
Wasn't going to be anything funny, though. He didn't think either of them could think like that tonight, regardless of whether they would or not in the normal run of things. He just didn't want to leave the man down here alone. That was it. That was all it was.
And let's be honest here, Joe had made up his mind five minutes ago when he'd first pulled the man back in through the door.
"... Come upstairs with me," he said at last. He shook his head at the startled shock on Harry's face. "Don't look at me like that. Everybody's sharing beds tonight anyway, and I've got a whole one to myself up there. I don't want you down here on your own. Zoom ain't just sticking to our kids these days. Call me paranoid, call it wanting you in my line of sight. Call it whatever. Just come up with me and let's both of us get some sleep."
Harry stared at him, open-mouthed. Completely pole-axed, which Joe was selfishly gonna admit was a good look on the sometimes smug asshole. Harry shook his head, looking Joe up and down like he could somehow figure out ... what was going on, what Joe meant by it, where the catch was. Joe could see him at it. He could see the man running scenarios in his head, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He felt a twinge inside him. Yeah, okay. That was more stress than he'd wanted to cause the man. Particularly tonight. He took pity on him.
"It's okay, man," he said. "Nothing funny. For a start, I'd never be able to look either of our kids in the face, after all the fuss about them not staying together. I just ... I don't want any of us out on their own. I know for a fact Iris is going to look in on Barry, if she hasn't already. I'm trying not to think about anybody else moving around in the night. That couch is shit for sleeping on, and neither of us are getting any younger. We just ... we might as well go with the flow, you know? Stay in the line of sight, try and get some proper rest."
Harry started to look sceptical at that, ended up looking mostly confused. And also ... also a bit tempted. Whether by company or by a real bed or what, Joe wasn't sure, but the man was definitely tempted. He looked skittish and half-dead and just ... like he really, really could use some rest. Like the rest of them. The man looked tired enough just to go along with it.
"... If anyone asks about this, I'm pointing them at you," Harry said, after a very long second. He shuffled uneasily, his rifle still in his hand, but he turned a bit to glance up along the stairs. "Wally, Jesse, Cisco, anyone. Anyone asks, you get to answer."
Joe shook his head, a smile creeping across his face. "Sure thing," he agreed, reaching to clap the man gently on the shoulder, get ready to steer him up the stairs. "I don't know how much anyone's gonna care. We're gonna have ... we're all going to have a lot of other things to deal with in morning. But don't worry. Anyone asks why your skinny ass is in bed with me, I'll be happy to let them know it was pure pity on my part."
Harry squinted at him side-eyed. "There's a reason you haven't had a date in years, isn't there?" he opinioned mildly. Joe snorted at him.
"Yeah," he said. "It's called a job and two kids, then an extra job babysitting superheroes, then about four other kids and miscellaneous idiot adults as well. These days I'm lucky if I've got time to go to sleep, let alone try to go out on a date with anyone. Not to mention that if I did, I'd have to figure out how to explain all of this to them, and that hasn't gone well with my actual family, never mind some random stranger."
Harry smiled lopsidedly, glanced away. "You say that as though you'd trust it to a stranger," he noted quietly, and Joe paused a little bit. Not just at the nail on the head, the echo of his earlier thoughts. At the tiredness of it. The way the man sounded like he understood.
"... Yeah, that too," Joe said, equally quiet, and squeezed the man's shoulder. He shouldn't say this. He'd already promised nothing funny. But life was fragile around now. Maybe it wouldn't do any harm just to say some things up front. "Don't have a lot of trust left these days. Can't say there haven't been days when I've just ... wished for someone proven, you know? Somebody I already know can handle all of this. Someone I know would live and die for my kids the way I hope I'd do for theirs."
And yeah, that was putting it out there a little strong, and yeah, judging by Harry's face he'd got that too. The man's eyes went wide, his lips parting in shock and Joe guessed some confusion. There wasn't any ... there was no horror, though. No panic, no disgust. Just ... just something startled, and after that something tired and raw and grateful.
"... You don't have to hope," the man said at last. Soft, uneasy. Deeply, exhaustedly sincere. "Anyone who's known you for more than a day, Detective, knows you'd die for anyone's kid if they needed you to. I know that. You don't ... you don't have to doubt it."
Joe ... Joe felt his eyes prickle at that, felt them want to flood. Just ... Wally, and Barry, and ... It'd been him and Iris once, it'd just been him and his girl, and then there'd been all these kids, and all of 'em kept getting hurt, and goddamn it all of them were his, they were his family now, every one of 'em, and he just ... He didn't want it to be him alone. He tried to imagine being in another world, having nothing left but his girl, having no one to turn to when something threatened her. He tried to imagine all his kids, all of them, and first no Henry and then no Harry, nobody left, just him trying to hold them together. He didn't want that anymore. Hell, maybe he never had. He wanted ... someone to lean on. Someone to hold up in his turn. Someone to just ... to bring upstairs and keep beside him and make sure was safe from monsters throughout the night.
And when he looked at Harry, when he looked at the man's face, maybe there was a part of that that Harry wanted too. Maybe it was just ... grief, loneliness, maybe it was trauma making things seem reasonable and complications seem worth it, maybe Joe'd wake up in the morning and be unable to look either Harry or his kids in the eye.
But you know, he didn't think so. He really didn't. He knew this man now. He knew him, he trusted him, he'd put his kids' lives in his hands. He wanted to help him, wanted to keep him safe, wanted to be kept safe in his turn. There wasn't anything in that to be ashamed of come tomorrow. There was ... more in that than Joe had ever had with anyone. Even if all they had was just tonight, even if all they did was snore in each other's ear until Iris or Cisco woke them tomorrow, there wasn't anything here that Joe thought that he'd regret.
So he wasn't gonna. He was deciding that now. Whatever happened, whatever didn't happen, right this second he was promising no regrets.
"... Come on, you," he said, wrapping his arm around Harry's shoulder, pulling the man carefully in against his side. "I'm too emotional for this shit right now. I need some sleep. Let's go to bed, huh? Let's just get some sleep and sort the rest out in the morning. That sound okay to you?"
Harry laughed slightly, just a little huff, and let his pulse rifle slip gently down by his side. Let it hang by its strap, let it ease carefully out of his hand. He brought the other hand up, gripped Joe's gently where it rested on his shoulder. He looked over at Joe tiredly, a whole world of things in his eyes and in his face. He nodded silently. He dipped his head around his smile.
"You better not hog the covers, Detective," he said, so that Joe had to laugh at him and impulsively hug him tight. "I haven't shared a bed with anyone in years. You end up on the floor, it's nobody's fault but your own."
"Yeah, we'll see who ends up on what floor," Joe shot back at him, still holding him tight. He had to pause to look at him for a second. Just to wonder, to be amazed that this ... this idiot asshole was even here right now. Of all the people Joe had ever figured on ... on anything, Harrison Wells hadn't even been in the ballpark. Any Harrison Wells. Yet here the man was. Here they both were. Last parents standing. Two idiots well after midnight trying to hold each other up.
"... You know, you're a good man, Harry," he found himself saying. Meaning it, meaning it so seriously and so much. "You're a good father, you're a good man, no matter how bad you might come off at first. Don't forget it, huh?"
Harry blinked at him, long and startled for a second. Then he looked away. Down and away, that little half smile curled on his face. "Likewise, Detective," he said quietly. "Joe. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'd really like to get to bed ...?"
Joe laughed, and shook his head. "Yeah," he said, pulling his arm out from around the man's shoulders, letting Harry loose to follow him up the stairs. "Yeah, all right. Gonna wake the house up at this rate. Come on, then. I'll fish you out a pillow from somewhere."
"So generous," Harry said wryly, gesturing for Joe to precede him up the stairs. "You know, it's something I've always admired about this Earth."
And there was only one answer to that, only one word for this man and everything about him. Joe said it happily. He let it carry the both of them up the stairs.
"Shut up, smartass, and let's go to bed."
