He couldn't hold off the talk for much longer, Barry knew. Iris had been giving him those looks. Eddie had come to the lab and dropped not just evidence but also quite blatant hints. In the end he had told Barry to talk to Joe West because it was getting ridiculous.

So he finally did talk.

"Snart? Leonard Snart?!"

Barry ducked his head, staring at the ground, feeling like he was a child again, caught by his father for sneaking out for a smoke or something. Not that he had ever done that. He had done a lot of other stuff Joe had grown gray hair over, so maybe it was more along the lines of trying to get a lawyer to take a look at his father's case again. Behind Joe's back.

He had been thirteen back then, had scraped together some money and offered it to a friend of Joe's who happened to be a lawyer.

Yeah, it felt like that time.

"Snart, Barry?" Joe ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. "Why?"

"I don't think I can give you any explanation you might be satisfied with," he said quietly.

He spread his arms. "Try me! I've seen enough shit in the past years."

The older man was wide-eyed and clearly trying to wrap his head around what his foster son had just revealed to him. Barry could read confusion, some distress and a whole lot of anger in there.

"He's a known criminal, Barry! He is Captain Cold! He iced you! He went at you at every turn! He pressured Cisco into revealing your identity! He's a burglar, a thief, a kidnapper and a murderer!"

Barry winced. "I know. I was there for a lot of it."

"Then what the hell, Barry?!"

"I'm a Sentinel."

Joe stared at him, clearly caught off guard by that sentence. "Yes?"

"He's… kind of connected to me."

The stare grew harder, colder. "He's not a fricking Guide! And you are self-contained! You don't bond!"

Barry glanced around the room, around the cortex. He was alone with Joe, everyone having scattered to be anywhere but where the confrontation was taking place. There were only a dozen screens and computer walls, and him and Joe.

"No, I don't. The Sentinel doesn't."

"Don't tell me you suddenly went head over heels for Snart!"

He gave a rueful chuckle. "Not suddenly. Not head over heels."

Joe's eyes narrowed. "How long has this been going on?"

Another sigh. Barry ran a hand through his tousled hair, aware he was making even more of a mess. The decision to talk to his foster father hadn't been easy, but he wanted his family to know. He needed everyone he trusted and cared about to know.

"It started a bit after we had our first… encounter. He found out about me, we made a deal, and he kept to it. He went away for a while. Not to prison."

"Hard to believe," the detective muttered.

"Actually, he became sort of a good guy."

"Even harder to believe."

"Joe, listen… what I said about the Sentinel… I know I can't bond. To anyone. But I'm not just the Sentinel anymore. That was something I handled since I was eleven. I became a metahuman, a meta Sentinel."

"And he's what? A meta Guide?"

"No. No Guide. Dr. Wells calls him a conduit. A shield and anchor on top of that. He… he's helped me, Joe. For a while now. Quite a while. With little things. I didn't know it was him. Not really. It just felt good to be around Len. He… helped me deal with the meta stuff."

Joe sank onto one of the chairs, looking a bit grayer, a bit older, and very tired. "Barry…"

Barry buried his face in his hands, then finally straightened, shoulders squared. "He's my anchor, Joe. My shield. And primarily he's the guy who works as a conduit to siphon off the pressure the Speed Force puts on the meta Sentinel side."

"You… bonded."

He shook his head. "No. Not like you think. There's no Sentinel-Guide bond."

"It's not the conventional Sentinel-Guide bond anyway, seeing that the two parties involved are neither," a new voice told him.

Joe looked past Barry at where Harrison Wells had strode in.

"It's actually a very unconventional connection that links Mr. Snart's unique abilities to that of this rather unique Sentinel," he continued. "His influence is on a meta plane only. There is no empathic connection, they don't feel each other's pain, presence or thoughts, though they do work like a seasoned team together. The connection shaped through time, proximity and something that shouldn't be disregarded: the sexual aspect."

Joe's mouth dropped open and he made a wheezing sound. The sound of a parent who had just been handed too much information about their child's sex life.

"Harrison!" Barry hissed, drawn between severe embarrassment and mortification.

Harrison's expression was unrepentant. "I believe Detective West was quite aware of a possibly more… intimate relationship between you from the moment you told him about your partnership with the infamous Mr. Snart, Barry. And an attraction was always a factor in a Sentinel-Guide pairing. Without at least some of that, the bond won't take, which is why Guides can render first-aid help to a lot of Sentinels, even when bonded."

"Uhm." Barry turned back to Joe. "Joe?"

His foster father was clearly working through all the new facts and life-altering explanations handed to him in a short amount of time.

"I want to hear the whole story," he finally said firmly, arms crossed, the stance that of a man who wouldn't leave until he had that full story. "All of it. You don't leave anything out, you don't gloss anything over. After that, I think I'll need a beer. Preferably two. And if this is really going the way I believe it is, you owe me a steak."

Barry smiled. "For a week."

"With this little bomb you dropped?" Joe asked with exasperation. "For a year!"

It took a while to explain the past year, how it had all started. Actually, Barry went all the way back to his deal with Snart back when the other man had discovered his identity. He mentioned Snart's involvement with the Legends, staying a little vague on some stuff.

Joe's expression of disbelief said it all.

Barry told his foster father about Scattershot, about Cold coming to his rescue, saving him, taking care of an unconscious Flash, and everything after that. Like decompressing with Len, how they had grown closer on a more personal level, had opened up. How Len had shared private things with Barry that he wouldn't tell anyone else. How he had challenged The Flash to get better at using his senses together with his speed, how they had trained, and how he had learned.

And how the disruptor incident had broken down the last walls.

Joe listened, never interrupting, emotions clear on his face. He finally leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. He ran a hand over his head.

"Geez, Barry…"

"As you can see, Mr. Snart has had ample time and opportunity to betray Barry's trust in him, Detective," Harrison said, voice so very serious now. "He hasn't. He has, in effect, been very helpful with a lot of things. He has saved your son's life, enabling him to heal from being hit with the disruptor. He didn't have to do it. He could have let Barry die, but he hasn't."

Now Joe looked really gray.

"He was essential in pulling the fragments back together, holding Barry's very life in his hands, and he did just that. He saved him, Joe. And let me tell you, Barry didn't make it easy. Calling him combative is an understatement."

"It's still Snart…"

"I know," Barry said softly. "Don't think I never considered all of that. If I was a normal Sentinel and he was a Guide who clicked with me, no one would bat an eye. Match made. But he's… there's more… so much more…"

His shield. His protection and his strength. There were a lot of feelings involved, and none came from the fact that Leonard Snart was useful to keep the Speed Force from pressing down on him until Barry broke apart. He knew the emotions involved were complicated, but he wanted them. He liked them, liked Len, liked them together.

"This isn't a Sentinel wanting a Guide to be his. This is me. I've had a lot of time to look at what I'm feeling, what I'm doing, what I want. I gave both of us time and I gave him more than one out. This has been going on for close to a year now, Joe."

Joe closed his eyes, shaking his head. He finally looked at him again. "I'm not sure I understand all of it just yet. The cop in me is screaming that my son is involved with a criminal mastermind. Yes, he has no history with law enforcement anymore, but we both know who he was and still is. The father in me wants to protect you, even knowing that you are quite capable of doing so yourself. You are The Flash. You are a Sentinel. And the guy who has seen so much weird shit in the past three years is trying to wrap his head around a self-contained meta Sentinel finding someone so rare and special."

Barry gave him a tentative smile.

Joe met Wells' calm, serious eyes. "It's as good as a Sentinel-Guide bond?" he demanded.

"Not just as good. Better. Mr. Snart's abilities may not follow your norm of being a Guide, but he is a shield. That alone entails a protectiveness that rivals that of a Sentinel. He cannot and will never betray his Sentinel. He is the conduit for the Speed Force, bound to it just like he is connected to Barry." Harrison cocked his head a little. "We are talking about an endless void of time and energy, Detective West. Something we do not understand, something that is an inter-dimensional source of dark matter."

Joe was silent again, then nodded slowly. He got up, straightening his jacket. "I'll take that beer now. And we are going to talk about this some more, because there sure as hell will be more questions."

"Uhm, sure."

Joe sighed and closed the distance between his foster son and himself. He wrapped Barry in a hug.

"Give me time, kid," he said calmly. "I'm not going to lie to you: I'm not jumping with joy. I also know I need to look at this differently than, well, Eddie and Iris."

"Joe…?"

"Beer." He pointed a finger at him, eyebrows rising. "And you owe me a steak. You're not getting out of that one, kid."

He gave his foster father a quirk of a smile. "Sure."

Barry watched him stride out of the cortex. He turned to look at Wells. "That… went rather well…?"

"You know he's going to find Mr. Snart and interrogate him on his intentions," Harrison said conversationally.

"He… no way," Barry decided, shaking his head.

"Tell me, since I wasn't around at the time, how did Detective West react when he found out about his daughter and Detective Thawne?"

Barry's eyes widened.

"Parents are very protective, too. Not just Sentinels."

"But…"

"You are his son. He has raised you since you were eleven, has been your father figure for sixteen years now." Harrison's smile was almost gentle. "He will find Mr. Snart and he will talk to him."

Barry remembered Joe's reaction from when he had been told about Eddie and Iris, and that had been his police detective partner. Len was… definitely not in that league.

"Oh gawd…" he groaned.

Wells smirked. "I doubt he will shoot him on sight."

"Oh gawd!"

"And if I were in your shoes, Barry, I would let them talk it out."

"But…"

"Do you really think Joe would hurt you by hurting him?"

"No, but…"

Harrison shook his head. "Let him talk to your shield, Sentinel. Let him see and hear. And ease him into everything else."

"What else is there? You already more or less told him we are sleeping together!" he snapped.

The older man grinned. "Oh, right. I did. No need to thank me."