It is, bar none, the worst decision Joe has ever made.
The logic is sound: Joe can see how stressed – how distressed – Barry is. He knows that Barry is a flight risk because an emotionally unstable Barry will run. Ever since the lightning bolt, that direction has tended to be towards danger. Their hearts are in the right place; everyone agrees that they can't let Barry get himself killed.
It's the execution that bothers Joe.
The decision to tranquilize Barry – if it comes to that, Joe tells himself, like he can possibly know that it won't escalate – sits uneasily in his chest. He volunteers to talk Barry down, to make sure it doesn't come to that. Wells accompanies him, tranquilizing gun in hand, and Joe can't shake the image of confronting a dangerous animal from his mind.
Barry prowls restlessly outside the particle accelerator, exactly where the surveillance footage said he would be. It starts off promising – Barry is calm enough to talk, rational enough that Joe's points seem to be heard out, if not accepted. Joe dares to think it might work. Until he starts making little, subtle mistakes, and finally trips the wire: You really wanna kill this guy, don't you?
The twig of Barry's patience snaps.
"Of course I wanna kill him, Joe," Barry snarls, closing the distance between them, sharp and volatile. "I wanna do a hell of a lot more than kill him. I want him to suffer for what he's done."
Joe can see it, too, and he puts up his hands in a soothing gesture. Slow down, Bar. Barry's too wired and angry to hear him. He can almost see Barry's distraction, a twisted fantasy of being able to inflict damage on Zolomon like Barry so desperately wants to. You don't want that, Joe thinks, but he can see the argument deteriorate. "I can't talk you out of it?" he says at last, throwing a line into the churning sea.
Barry looks at the life raft and shakes his head. "Not this time," he says.
It hurts. "Then I'm sorry, too," Joe says, and the dart punches into Barry's shoulder. He staggers, and Joe thinks, Go down. He doesn't want to see it, can't look away, Barry's thin little whines of pain and panic twisting a knife deep in his gut. Barry braces his hands on the wall to support himself and falls to a knee. Just let it happen, Joe tries to say, but nothing comes out.
Then, Flash, there's a streak of yellow light and Barry's gone.
No, Joe thinks, echoed by Wells' curses as he races up the corridor after Barry, already far too late.
It doesn't take long to get to the cortex, but the kids already have a location on the suit's tracker locked down. Joe recognizes the scarcely populated region immediately and says in a low, warning tone, "I'll get him."
No one argues.
. o .
Heavy, panicked breathing is the first hint that he's in the right place.
Heart in his throat, Joe steps as carefully as he can across the long wooden planks of the barn. They still creak underfoot, but he doesn't scare the speedster out of the shed. Joe is just quiet enough that he can fool himself into believing Barry doesn't hear him.
When he rounds the corner and finds him, huddled against the haystacks, curled up small enough that Joe could almost miss him, Joe's heart breaks.
"Bar," he breathes. Barry flinches and curls up tighter, hugging his legs to his chest. He's shaking as Joe approaches, dropping to his knees in front of him. With a twisted, hurting sound, Barry presses back against the hay, whining under his breath when he can go no farther. The dart is still tucked into the suit, like he doesn't have the strength to take it out, and Joe reaches over and Barry utters a soft little please.
Joe rests his hand on Barry's opposite shoulder because he knows the rest of that sentence isn't help. It's don't hurt me.
Joe rubs his shoulder through the suit and says, "Like a bandaid, Bar." He waits until Barry tenses, realization breaking through the fog of sedation. Before Barry can flee, Joe reaches over and in one quick tug, he yanks the dart out of Barry's shoulder, dropping it aside.
He isn't expecting Barry to sway forward, head planting against Joe's shoulder. He's shaking, and Joe gives him the tiniest push back so he can get his own jacket off and slide it over Barry's back and arms. The shaking doesn't stop, but he feels a little of the tension bleed out of Barry as Barry leans against him, deflated.
Curling his arms around Barry's back, Joe sits on his haunches and holds on. "I'm sorry," he says, on the team's behalf, on his own. I'm sorry.
He doesn't know nor care how much time he spends there, knees and back aching, holding up most of Barry's weight. Barry never relaxes, even though Joe is certain he passes out. At some point, Joe's phone rings, and Barry groans. Lifting his head is apparently too much effort, because he shifts but does not sit up.
Joe digs his phone out of his pant pocket and answers it. "I've got him," is all he says, hanging up. He shifts and his legs, asleep, go off the fritz about it. Grimacing, he adjusts Barry so he's leaning against a haystack instead and climbs laboriously to his feet. It takes about eight steps to renormalize, his ninth bringing him back to a crouch at Barry's side. "C'mon," he says, getting a solid hold under Barry's shoulders. "I've got you. C'mon, Bar."
He has to do most of the work, but Barry seems a little more awake on his feet. Pulling away, he stands on his own power, and for a moment Joe thinks he'll take off and run somewhere Joe can't catch him. He can see the idea Flash behind Barry's eyes, a momentary glimpse of lightning, but then it's gone and Barry sags, and Joe puts an arm around his back. Barry does not resist him.
The cruiser isn't far, but it's still far enough that Barry's legs are shaking by the time Joe gets the backdoor open. Without a word, Barry collapses across the backseat. After reflexively checking for a pulse – and he's still cold, a lot more than usual – Joe shuts the door and climbs in the driver's seat, putting the heat on high.
It's a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar to see Barry lying across the backseat in his coat, his red jacket still plainly visible underneath it. The legs of the suit aren't even covered, and Joe is glad that it's late enough he doesn't encounter traffic or curious passerby who might look within and see The Flash passed out in the back of a police cruiser. Even though he could always play it off as some drunk kid, it's still risky.
He should get back to STAR, let everybody reassure themselves that Barry's okay, but he looks in the rearview mirror at a red light and sees Barry asleep. He chooses against it.
Instead he drives interminably around the city, ostensibly on patrol. He dares to take a call from Singh, speaking at normal volume but consistently, evenly, and Barry doesn't stir. Joe can feel the tension relax between them, an ordinary life intruding into the extraordinary. When he pulls up to STAR, he keeps the car running until with a soft huff Barry reels himself back to consciousness.
"Never again," he says seriously, immediately.
Barry looks at him, eyes at half-mast and glowing gold. "Yeah?" He sounds tired, and not in a way sleep can cure. With obvious effort, he sits up. Rallying, he says in a low voice, "Until you have to."
"Bar—"
Barry reaches over and pushes the door open. "I don't wanna talk about it," he grunts, and the bite is back, cranky and tired and hurting. Joe gives him that, half-expects Barry to rush inside and start whaling on his buddies, but Barry waits for him. He passes the jacket back to Joe with stiff civility, and he walks with nauseous slowness under his own power.
They reach the cortex and all conversation ceases.
Barry sinks into a chair, a pointed gesture, and asks in a dangerously quiet tone, "Why?"
"You're a flight risk," Wells says at once. Joe could smack him, if he had a newspaper handy. Wells doesn't notice, just plows ahead. "You were going to get yourself – and by extension, everyone else – killed."
Barry's jaw tenses.
"We weren't – it was just a temporary – precaution," Cisco flounders.
Caitlin steps forward, looking tempted ager to check him over. Barry's flat glare halts her in her tracks.
"Barry, we can't stop you," Jesse chimes in, blunt and to the point. Barry looks at her and says nothing, no rebuke, no argument. It hurts Joe more than if he tried to defend himself against it, an admission none of them wanted.
It's worse when Barry says, "You never could." Then, rising slowly, he holds out his arms. He entreats, "Try."
Wells, never far from his gun, raises it.
Iris walks over silently and puts herself in front of Barry. "Enough," she says, very firmly. Then, turning to Barry, she repeats it, and he looks ready to snarl, but swallows it, tilting his head down slightly. Acknowledgment. Concession. She reaches out and puts a hand on his arm, and he stares at it for a long moment, and everyone in the room is aware that he could break it before any of them could react.
Instead he takes her hand gently in both of his gloved ones and holds it, dropping his shoulders. I'm not an animal, his body language pleads, submissive and sore, like a cornered coyote. I'm not. He squeezes her hand and lets it go, looking at them each with resigned interest.
It's the for-your-own-good attitude, Joe thinks, that can't be expressed in words, that can't be articulated. That left him feeling so uneasy in the first place. Is it? he challenges now, looking at Barry-against-them-all, standing in the center of the room.
And that's when it clicks. They have to do this.
They. Not excluding Barry.
And, he knows, that means they have to trust Barry, as he trusts them, standing in their midst unarmed, showing that he's not going to hurt them.
Or himself, Joe has to hope.
"Never again," Joe says out loud, and it's a promise he never breaks.
Barry meets his eyes and something soft and gold burns in them, a mix of pain and relief. I don't know how to trust you yet, it says. But someday.
Someday, Joe agrees with a nod, and hopes it's someday soon.