Kara was having a work from home day- curled up under a blanket on her couch, dressed in her softest, most comfortable pajamas, her notes and the relevant documents for the article she was currently working on spread out on the coffee table in front of her while she typed away at her laptop, compiling them into a concise, readable story, pausing occasionally to take a sip from the mug of coffee set on the couch cushion beside her- when her phone, which was balanced on the arm of the couch, lit up with a text message. She reached over to look at it and saw that the text was from Barry, asking her to meet him at Jitters. She sighed. She didn't mind meeting up with him- she rather enjoyed the prospect, in fact- but it meant that she'd have to put on real clothes. Since she wasn't going to the office, she decided to forgo her more formal attire, opting instead for jeans with holes worn in their knees, a comfortably oversized t-shirt, sneakers, and of course her mother's necklace, which she never took off.
Kara arrived at Jitters before Barry. She glanced around to make sure that he was in fact not there yet and she hadn't just missed him, then put in her coffee order with Iris, who was manning the counter, and found a good spot to settle in and wait for him. Shortly after she'd done so, in came Felicity, accompanied by Oliver Queen, who Kara had never seen in person before. Just as Kara herself had done a few minutes before, they put in their coffee order with Iris and took a seat at the table in front of hers, the one nearest to the door. Neither of them spoke to each other. They seemed to be waiting for something- or someone- though, thanks to her tendency to people watch when she was out in public by herself, Kara couldn't help but notice that while Oliver was watching the door, Felicity was watching him.
A few minutes later, Barry walked through the door, making it suddenly clear who Oliver and Felicity were waiting for. Evidently, Kara wasn't the only person meeting him here today.
"The bad guy that you're after," Kara heard Oliver say when Barry approached the table where he was sitting, "the one who robbed the bank, his name is Roy G. Bivolo."
"Thanks," Barry replied. "How did you find that out?" Oliver didn't answer.
"The guy's still alive, right?" Barry asked, concern in his voice. Oliver just looked at him, and Kara thought of how odd that question would have seemed if she hadn't already figured out on her own that Oliver Queen and the Arrow were one and the same.
"I'm just asking," Barry muttered defensively, shifting uncomfortably under Oliver's glare. "I thought you didn't want to help."
"I'm not," Oliver said, shaking his head. "It's just a name."
"Alright," Barry replied, apparently seeing the wisdom of not pursuing an argument about it.
At that moment, Kara was distracted by Iris bringing her her usual- a caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso and a sticky bun- and she stopped listening to the conversation going on at the next table. The next thing she knew, Barry and Iris were passing by her table, in mid conversation.
"- and his arms are like twice the size of yours," Iris was saying as they drew near, making the requisite gesture to demonstrate, and then they were past and Kara didn't hear the rest of their conversation. When she sensed it was over, she beckoned Barry over to her table.
"Hey," he said when he reached it. "I see you got my text." Instead of answering, Kara reached over and punched him in the shoulder. Hard.
"Ow!" Barry exclaimed. "Why do people keep hitting me today?"
"When were you going to tell me that you went after a bad guy by yourself?" Kara demanded.
"Wait, you heard that?" Barry asked, glancing over at the next table, where Oliver and Felicity were discussing something in low voices. "How?" Kara just looked at him.
"Super hearing," he said, tapping the top of his ear. "Right."
"Barry, the whole point of me joining your hero crusade was so that you wouldn't go running off after bad guys yourself," Kara said irritably.
"It's just a bank robber," Barry insisted, omitting- deliberately or not- the fact that said bank robber was apparently a metahuman. "I can handle it." Kara saw him glance surreptitiously toward Oliver, whether because he was wondering how the fact that he hadn't been able to convince him to help was going to affect things or because he didn't know that she knew he was the Arrow, she didn't know.
"Promise me you'll call me if you even think you might be getting in over your head," she said.
"I won't get in over my-" Barry started to protest.
"Barry," Kara interjected sharply. "Promise me."
"Alright, I promise," Barry said. "Happy?" Kara opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by Oliver coming over to their table suddenly and saying, "Okay."
"Okay what?" Barry asked, bewildered.
"Okay, we'll help you catch your bad guy," Oliver replied. He sounded reluctant, and Kara wondered if Felicity had had anything to do with his sudden change of heart.
"Great," Barry said, brightening. "Metahuman."
"I'm not calling him that, Barry," Oliver said.
"Partners?" Barry asked, holding out his hand.
"Partners," Oliver agreed. They shook hands, and Kara couldn't help but wonder exactly how well this new partnership was going to work out in the long run.
Later that day, when Kara had long since returned home and to work, she got a text from Cisco.
We need you at STAR Labs, it read. Kara got the sinking feeling that Barry hadn't kept his promise, and she raced to STAR Labs as fast as she could, which, while not as fast as Barry, was still plenty fast.
Felicity was on the phone when Kara entered the Cortex.
"That was the Arrow," she said, hanging up. "He says that Barry is acting strangely."
"Strangely how?" Wells asked.
"He's been whammied," Joe's voice answered, and they all turned to see him in the doorway. "He was acting angry. It was scary. And his eyes, they glowed."
"It's possible that his body is fighting off the effects so it's hitting him slower," Caitlin spoke up.
"When it comes to rage, that is not a good thing," Wells said gravely. "The longer you suppress your emotions-"
"The bigger the explosion," Felicity cut in.
"Considering what he can do, how do we even stop him?" Joe asked.
"A cold gun would come in real handy right about now," Cisco muttered.
"Hey!" Joe exclaimed.
"I'm just saying," Cisco said defensively. Joe turned to Kara, asking her a silent question.
"I can't stop him," she said, feeling her stomach twist with fear at the thought. "He's too fast, and I'd be too afraid of hurting him."
"None of us can stop Barry," Wells put in. "Fortunately, Felicity knows someone who can." Turning to her, he said, "I think you'd better call back Oliver Queen. We're gonna need the Arrow's help." Everyone in the room- excepting Kara, who already knew- turned to stare at her, and Kara couldn't help but feel for her in that moment, because she looked utterly terrified. She pulled out her phone and started frantically texting, and about twenty minutes later a man who introduced himself as John Diggle- or Dig, if they preferred- arrived at STAR Labs. His reason for being there was quickly explained- he, like Felicity, was involved in Oliver's crusade, and her instinctive reaction to having Oliver so suddenly and unexpectedly outed was to insist that they close ranks.
"Oooh, see, I knew the Arrow was Oliver Queen," Cisco told him excitedly. "I mean, I had it narrowed down to a list of like 150 people, but he was definitely on that list."
"Do you have a way to stop Barry's rage fest?" Dig asked, turning to Wells. He sounded fearful, and Kara realized that, for all his projected confidence, he was worried that Barry might hurt Oliver.
"I have an idea of how to do that," Wells replied, surprisingly calmly given the situation. "Joe, I'm gonna need your help."
"We need to find him first," Joe said. "Before he hurts somebody."
"I have him," Felicity spoke up from where she was sitting alone in front of one of the monitors. "Facial recognition picked him up on a traffic camera downtown." She watched whatever it was from the camera feed that was on the monitor in silence for a moment, and muttered, "Oh God." She sounded horrified, and Kara moved to stand behind her, watching the monitor over her shoulder. On it, she could see Barry throwing Eddie around on the pavement while Iris- soundlessly, since the camera feed didn't have audio- pleaded with him to stop.
The sound of retreating footsteps made Kara glance back for a moment, in time to see Wells and Joe on their way out. She only hoped that whatever it was they were planning on doing to stop this, they did it fast.
"I just hope they can change Barry back before he kills Oliver," Caitlin said when they had gone.
"Me, I'd be more worried about what Oliver might have to do to Barry," Dig replied with more of that false confidence. It took Kara a moment to realize that they were watching the same footage that she and Felicity were on the bank of monitors on the table in front of them.
"Barry has superpowers, Oliver has a bow and arrow," Caitlin said skeptically.
"Do you have any idea how many people Oliver has killed with that bow and arrow?" Dig asked, turning to her.
"Recurve bow arrows can travel up to 300 feet per second, so like 200 miles per hour," Cisco put in. "Barry can run three times that fast."
"Whatever," Dig said stubbornly. "Oliver's been doing this a lot longer. My money's on experience."
"My money's on speed," Cisco shot back.
"Please tell me you're not actually having this conversation right now," Felicity said in a horrified tone of voice. Kara was inclined to agree with her. Oliver and Barry were fighting each other, and they were taking bets on which one of them would win. Clearly, their priorities were skewed. Felicity's words seemed to have cowed them, however, as after that they didn't speak again, and they all watched the tableau unfolding before them in silence.
"Oliver, get up!" Felicity cried suddenly as Oliver was knocked to the ground by an invisible flurry of blows from the red blur that was Barry, leaning forward toward the monitor as if she intended to throw herself through it to where Oliver was. Kara couldn't tell if Oliver had his comm on or if Felicity had just been making a plea to the universe hoping that somehow he would hear it. She fidgeted worriedly with her necklace as she watched him struggle to his feet, and Kara realized something- whatever was between them was more than just partnership, more than even just friendship. She was obviously- to Kara, at least- in love with him, but she hadn't seen the two of them together enough to know if the feeling was mutual. Not that it mattered right now. There were much more important things regarding Oliver to worry about right now, namely whether or not Wells and Joe would be able to reverse the effects of Bivolo's powers on Barry before the latter wound up seriously injuring the former. To that end, Kara returned her attention to the camera footage on the monitor, up until the point where it became clear, from what little was in the camera's view, that Wells and Joe had arrived and fixed Barry and the fight was over.
Later, after Barry and Oliver had brought Bivolo to STAR Labs and locked him up in the pipeline, and Team Arrow was on their way back home to Starling City, Kara confronted Barry about what had gone down.
"You promised you'd call me if you got in over your head," she reminded him. "You didn't keep that promise."
"I know," Barry said, sounding utterly uncontrite about it. "But everything turned out fine. We got the bad guy. And I didn't need your help. I had Oliver."
"Oliver didn't even want to help," Kara pointed out. "He only did it because Felicity made him." This last was conjecture, but she suspected no less true for being that.
"He really can't say no to her, can he?" Barry said with an amused smile.
"And there's no guarantee that he'll be there to help you next time," Kara went on as if he hadn't spoken. "Just… don't go after bad guys without me anymore, okay?"
"Okay," Barry replied.
"Good," Kara said. "Because I don't ever want to go through something like this ever again."