(A/N) This could be a Post-Crisis/Pre-Crisis time. You can decide.
Felicity was in Palmer technologies and was just leaving the office when someone else came in.
"Almost done here, Jerry," Felicity promised. "You should have gone home hours ago."
"Who's Jerry?" Caitlin asked as Felicity looked and saw Peter, Cisco, and Caitlin were there.
"This place is bigger than my apartment," Cisco commented as he looked around the room.
"What are you guys doing here?" Felicity wondered no idea that they would be coming to the city.
"You asked us to analyze the DNA off of the arrow that killed Sara." Caitlin reminded her.
"Yeah, I was gonna mail you the sample," Felicity stated.
"I was planning on coming alone to pick it up," Peter explained and looked at his friends. "But they decided to tag along."
"We had some vacation days coming." Caitlin shrugged.
"We want to see the Arrow Cave." Cisco finished.
"We don't call it that," Felicity informed Cisco.
Cisco then looked confused and looked at Peter. "I thought you said you called it that."
"Yeah, I called it that," Peter told his friend. "They do not."
"Well, they should. Dope name." Cisco stated and looked to Felicity as she walked past them to grab her purse.
"I stole it from Batman and myself," Peter muttered to himself.
"But we want to see the toys," Cisco explained. "I need to see the toys."
Felicity looked to the three and saw at least Peter had an apologetic look, but Caitlin and Cisco looked in phased by what they were asking.
"Do you guys have an Arrowmobile?" Cisco suddenly asked.
As she really didn't have a choice, she brought the three of them to the lair and introduced them to the Arrow team, now with Roy Harper.
"Sorry about this, man." Peter apologized to Oliver. "They were persistent, and I really can't say no to them."
"It's fine, man," Oliver said when he saw Cisco about to touch one of the arrows. "Don't touch that." Cisco stopped and moved to the next arrow. "Don't touch that. "It's a jettisoning arrow, used compressed CO2-"
"To jettison high tensile strength polymer cables." Cisco finished.
"Yeah." Oliver confirmed and looked to Peter, "mostly alright."
"Since when did we start selling admission to the Arrow cave?" Roy wondered.
"Ha!" Cisco cheered, seeing someone did call it that.
"You see what you've done?" Oliver asked Felicity, who just sat there at her computer.
"Incredible," Cisco said as he looked over Oliver's suit in its case. "I have so many ideas for improvements." Then he moved down to Roy's suit. "And this! Oh, man. This is the bomb. I mean, red is so much cooler than green."
"I am starting to like him," Roy commented with a smile, seeing he was just called cooler than Oliver.
"Hey, what's that for?" Caitlin asked, looking at the workout Oliver does in the front of the room.
"A distraction for me," Felicity muttered.
"So, where's Mr. Diggle?" Caitlin wondered.
"Running down a lead," Roy answered as Cisco was secretly messing with the arrows and pricked his finger.
It wasn't even a few minutes before they got a call from Diggle that their boomerang killer was at the ARGUS facility. Oliver for ready to go when Peter walked over to him.
"Hey, mind if I joined in?" Peter asked him.
"Sure." Oliver supposed, knowing Peter knows how to play in his city. "Remember."
"Yeah, yeah, your city, your rules," Peter assured him and ripped his shirt open to reveal his suit.
"You keep that thing on all the time?" Roy asked. "Doesn't it get hot?"
"Nah, during the summer, I carry it in a bag." Peter shrugged and the three started to walk out of the cave.
"It's gonna be over by the time they get there." Caitlin noticed, feeling a little worried about Peter going in alone. Knowing he's gone through a lot, she'd feel better if he had backup.
Making it to the facility, Peter, Oliver, and Roy were shocked the guy seems to have taken down everyone with a boomerang besides Diggle and Lyla.
A boomerang was sent flying through the room and immediately stopped by Oliver who shot it with an arrow and the three dropped down to meet the man behind it all.
"Oh, look at that. Another guy with a thing for boomerangs." Peter commented. "Were you cellmates with Frederick Myers? Because that'll explain a lot!"
The guy didn't seem to answer as he ducked for cover, and they all went to take him down before he gets away.
Peter shot several web nets at him, but he sent several boomerangs that were able to actually cut through his webbing and knock the bow out of Roy's hands.
"I thought your webs were indescribable," Roy told Peter.
"They're supposed to be," Peter confirmed in his confusion and went in to help Oliver fight him off hand to hand.
The three went in and ducked all the attacks so as to not get hit by the boomerangs. Peter did a flip and tried to kick him, but that ended with his leg being cut open by the boomerang, causing him to cry in agony. Oliver and Roy did their best to keep him away from Peter when he got a short distance away and used it as an excuse to toss some boomerangs at them.
But luckily, at the last possible second, Barry came speeding in and caught them. Boomerang Man then tossed a smoke boomerang and allowed him to get away.
"Looks like I made it just in time," Barry said as he walked over and helped Peter stand up.
"Gah, you could've been here a few minutes earlier," Peter stated as Barry tried to pick him up to get him to the lair. "What, you take the scenic route?"
Barry just laughed it up and sped them off to the lair.
Whilst Oliver and Roy were talking to Lyla about the situation, Caitlin was patching Peter up in the cave whilst Barry was giving Oliver's workout routine a try.
"How often does Oliver do this?" Caitlin asked as Felicity watched Barry speeding through the training like it was nothing.
"At least every Wednesday," Felicity said. "There's a lot of sweating."
Barry then stopped and handed the bar to Cisco. "Honestly, I don't see what's so hard about it."
Peter started to stand back up and groaned at the pain in his leg as Barry walked to Felicity and Caitlin. "I'm not sure she should have called you. Oliver doesn't play well with others."
"Well, if I didn't, Peter would be a dead man. So would Oliver." Barry defended, seeing he got there at the nick of time to save them.
"Sadly true," Peter admitted.
"Come on, Peter, Barry, and Oliver kicked ass last week," Cisco stated as he started to try and do the workout. "They were like...a league of their own."
"After we kicked your ass," Peter stated as he looked at Barry.
"Trying to make yourself feel better there, leg-foot?" Barry asked jokingly.
"Even with a limp leg, I can still take you down." Peter declared.
"Boys, don't start." Caitlin stopped the two before anything happened.
"Sorry." Barry and Peter apologized to her, sounding like two kids.
"And that was like...a one-time thing," Felicity informed them.
"The dude was tossing exploding boomerangs. And I need some dinner." Barry then sped off to get some as Oliver and company joined them in the bunker.
"Are you okay?" Felicity asked Lyla.
"You can't park for ARGUS without making a few enemies," Lyla said as Diggle pulled out a bag with a shattered boomerang.
"Great." Peter sighed as Barry sped back in and was sitting down, eating sushi, mask down.
"Hey!" Caitlin called out as Lyla wasn't aware of his identity. "Secret identity?"
"It's okay, they're married," Barry said and looked at Diggle and Lyla.
"We're not married." Lyla and Diggle told him.
"Together, whatever." Barry shrugged it off. "He told her about me." He then looked and noticed the look. "You didn't?"
"I keep secrets for a living, man," Diggle stated.
"We need a location on the man after Lyla," Oliver told the team. "His name is Digger Harkness."
"Well, the first thing is to work the evidence." Barry was saying when Oliver stopped him.
"Barry, Peter, can I speak with you two?" Oliver asked and dragged them off to the side, missing the fact that Cisco tried to take a photo of the three heroes together but was stopped by Caitlin. "I appreciate your help at the ARGUS facility, but we have this handled."
"What, you don't wanna team up again?" Barry asked.
"Things work differently here." Oliver tried to explain to him. "Starling City is meaner."
"I seem to remember that not only did I help you last year, but Peter also helped you out this year," Barry commented. "Come on, we can help."
Oliver sighed and knew that this wasn't gonna end well but looked to Peter for an answer. "Couldn't hurt, would it?"
"Fine." Oliver finally gave in.
"Okay, so what's our first move?" Barry asked as they walked back over to the others.
"We need to reassemble the evidence. It'll take time-" Oliver was saying when Barry just sped over and put it all together in seconds. "Great."
"Yeah, he does that a lot," Peter warned Oliver as they looked over the boomerangs.
"Rad," Cisco commented as he picked one up. "These look a bit more teched-out than the one you brought to us. 3D polymer with a circuitry weave."
"Some of his boomerangs exploded," Roy informed him.
"Yeah, those things look like they could hold a C4 charge," Peter commented as he picked one up himself.
"Maybe if we figure out where Harkness got the supply, we could use it to track him," Caitlin tells them.
"These weren't made by Ka-Boom-Boomerang," Cisco told them, trying out a nickname for him.
"Not your best, dude," Peter admitted.
"Really?" Cisco wondered, feeling it makes sense. "It makes perfect sense."
"If Harkness didn't make them, we need to find out who did," Oliver tells them.
"And who he made the buy off of," Diggle added.
"Markos," Cisco told them. "You see this collapsible node design? Dead giveaway. That's his signature."
"We need a location on Klaus Markos," Oliver tells Felicity who started to work on finding him.
"No home address or place of employment. But he was arrested last year by Lance." Felicity tells them and he saw that they need to talk to Lance.
When they made it to the Starling City to find out where to find their man and found Laurel and Lance together, which caused Peter to stop making direct eye contact.
"Hey, Laurel. Detective. Captain. Captain. Cap-Sorry." Oliver corrected himself.
"Don't worry about it," Lance assured him. "It's been a while."
"Is everything all right?" Laurel wondered, looking at Peter and shocked to see him. "Hey, Peter."
"Laurel." Peter greeted her with a smile.
"You two know each other already?" Barry asked Peter and Laurel.
"We used to date." Laurel and Peter said simultaneously.
Barry was shocked to hear that and looked for some more information. Peter sighed and didn't really like talking about the brief time he dated his friends' ex.
"It was during my time here," Peter explained to Barry. "We went on one date, it was nice, but I needed to go back to Central City for...May, and work."
"How is your aunt?" Laurel was curious to hear.
"Well, you know...still angry at me for not giving her any great-nieces and nephews," Peter commented with a chuckle before looking at Barry. "This is my friend, Barry."
"Right, Barry Allen." Quinten recognized him. "Didn't you get hit by a bus or something?"
"Lightning, yeah." Barry corrected him.
Laurel looked at her father, wondering how he knows Barry. "We worked on a case together last year."
"Huh, you never mentioned that," Peter stated as he looked at Barry.
"Barry and Peter are here with the Central City Police Department and I was hoping you could help them with..." Oliver was explaining but knew he wouldn't be able to explain and looked to the geniuses. "I'll let them explain."
"Sure." Quinten supposed.
"Oliver, can I talk to you for a moment?" Laurel asked and dragged him away, leaving the three.
"We're looking to track down a suspect you apprehended last year: Klaus Markos," Barry explains to Quinten.
"Any idea where he might be today?" Peter asks.
"Well, I don't keep up on the skels I busted walking the beat, you know?" Quinten was sorry to say. "I'm not sentimental like that."
"What did you arrest him for, any idea?" Peter wonders.
Quinten took a moment and remembers. "Identity theft. He was using some gizmo to steal credit card numbers for the Bratva. Russian mob."
"Hm. Dealt with them before." Peter said and noticed Quinten's look, causing him to remember he doesn't know about his second job. "In my city. Silver Sable Internationals. They...went to war with those guys. Hammerhead."
"The shark?" Quinten asked.
"The...mob boss," Peter explained and gestured to the door while taking a few steps back. "I'll wait in the car. Before I say anything else."
After that small encounter, Peter and Barry informed Oliver what they talked about and knew where they would find their guy.
Roy and Oliver knew where to find him and Barry sped over while Peter swings down to meet the three.
"I cannot believe you're a member of the Russian mob!" Barry was shocked to say.
"Former member, probably." Oliver corrected. "We had a falling out last year. This is where they run their cybercrime operation."
"Nice outfit, by the way." Barry complimented Roy.
"This place looks like a fortress," Roy commented as he looked around the area.
"Kalashnikovs everywhere," Diggle informed them.
Peter walked up to the walls and tapped his ear to activate his scanners to confirm heat signatures. "Yeah, there's a lot of them."
"Roy, rake the south corner. Barry, scout the perimeter." Oliver tells them. "Peter, you take the north."
"Rodger dodger." Peter saluted and walked off.
As they went through the facility, they met up in the middle where Barry had taken care of the men inside you knocking them out.
Peter looked and saw Oliver had an arrow ready to shoot and Pat him on the shoulder. "He takes the fun out of sneaking around sometimes."
"Still need to get used to it," Oliver said as he kept his arrow raised.
"I had eight seconds to kill." Barry defended himself. "Was that wrong?"
Oliver just kept going and Peter pats his friend on the shoulder. "No, it's just Ollie."
When they went through the facility, Oliver kicked in a door where someone was working and took off running when he saw the heroes.
Barry sped ahead of them and stopped him from escaping. "My friend wants to have a conversation with you."
Peter then shot webs at his back, pulling him over to the wall and trapping him there. "He's all yours." He said as he wiped his hands to get rid of the imaginary dust and looked at Oliver.
You made this for Digger Harkness." Oliver said as he showed the boomerang. "I want to know where he is."
"Go to hell." He tells Oliver, only for him to pull an arrow and embed it into his shoulder.
Barry jumped backward in shock at the action, but Peter just stood there and was used to Oliver's methods.
"The only thing that hurts worse than an arrow going in is an arrow coming out!" Oliver said as he started to pull the arrow out of his shoulder.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Barry asked, not okay with this.
"Getting information!" Oliver started and looked back at him. "Where is he?"
"I don't know!" He cried in pain.
"He said he doesn't know!" Barry told Oliver, wanting him to stop.
"Flash, let him do his thing," Peter asked of Barry, knowing he isn't used to seeing Oliver's methods.
"If you want to be able to raise your arm again, tell me where he is!" Oliver demanded him.
The man then finally gave up and pulled a phone out of his pocket. "Here! Harkness gave it to me. It's encrypted. I had an order ready for him. I called, he came. I don't know where he is, I swear."
Oliver then stopped, still leaving the arrow in him as he left. Barry was left shocked at this and Peter just walked off with Oliver.
Barry made a quick pit stop to drop off their guy with the police before meeting up with Oliver and Peter, who were talking while he was gone.
"Never seen anything like this before," Peter admitted. "We gotta get this to Felicity if we want to crack it."
"Well, let's hope we can use this to track down where Harkness is," Oliver replied.
"You tortured that guy." Barry got their attention.
Oliver knew Barry wasn't used to his tactics and sighed. "I interrogated him."
"When my friends said your tactics made you a criminal, I defended you because I thought you were supposed to be a hero," Barry stated. "I thought we were supposed to be better than them.
"Barry... you guys live in Central City." Oliver started off. "Where it's sunny all the time and your enemies get cute nicknames. You're not in Central City. I live in a city where my best friend was murdered. Where a woman that I loved was shot full of arrows and sent tumbling off a rooftop. Where my mother was murdered right in front of me. So before-"
"My mother was killed in front of me, too." Barry reminded Oliver as Peter stayed silent to let his friends talk. "But I don't use my personal tragedies as an excuse to just torture whoever pisses me off."
"Well, I'm sorry, Barry, I'm not as emotionally healthy as you are," Oliver stated and stormed off. "When we agreed you were staying, we decided it would be on my terms. If that's too difficult, you know your way back home."
That's when Peter watched him leave and decided to let his voice be heard. "He's right."
Barry was shocked to hear Peter agree with Oliver and looked over at him. "How could you be okay with that?"
Peter sighed and knew it was time for a small history lesson. "Barry, I've been at this since I was fifteen years old. I have seen things that would keep you up at night, things that still keep me up at night. I've been to Gotham, Metropolis, hell Washington DC, where I had to fight some assassin in the Pentagon." He then started to tear up at the reminder of the past. "My uncle was shot because of me. Because I refused to stop a man when I had the chance. My aunt could barely keep up with the bills to shelter the two of us. And when I took on Spider-Man, life got worse. Criminals trying to kill me, villains started to show up. Otto Octavius became Doc Ock because I helped him create the chip controlling the arms. Michael Morbius turned into a vampire because I gave him the idea for a cure. Curtis Connors is the Lizard because I gave him the formula. Scorpion was literally created by Jameson in order to kill me. Electro was just some guy who got handed a bad straw and ended up a freak. Rhino and Sandman wanted revenge for me putting them away." Then he tested up at the biggest failure of his life. "And then there was him."
"Him?" Barry asked, shocked he hasn't heard any of this from his friend before.
"His name was Norman Osborn...but I call him the Green Goblin." Peter fought the tears. "Those terrorist attacks from a few years ago? They weren't terrorist attacks. They were the work of the same company that created me."
"Oscorp." Barry understood.
"They created this formula. Globulin Green. It's a performance enhancer, that I learn my and Ronnie's friend, Harry was taking. But by the time we discovered what it was, it was too late. It corrupted his head, as well as Norman's." Peter gave his best to explain. "It ended with Norman, along with his son, being trapped in a factory exploding, while I was left in a coma-like state for three days. Ronnie found me near the wreckage before the cops showed up and took me to his place to hang back." He then chuckled as he remembered Ronnie's excuse. "He told everyone I was nursing a hangover."
Barry laughed at that, knowing neither of them could get drunk. Something that they envy other people for.
"My point is...we all cope in different ways, we all grow in different ways. We all become heroes in our own ways." Peter explained to him. "
Barry nodded, understanding where Peter was coming from. "Harry, huh? How come you guys don't talk about him?"
"I don't like to talk about those I lost," Peter explained. "And Harry was a good man. I don't want them to remember him as the phony Green Goblin."
After that, Barry had a new understanding of what Oliver does and why he does it. While they were going back and learning where Harkness was, he found his way to the Arrow cave and attacked them.
Lyla was hurt, but the three of them came together and knew they could still stop Harkness. Felicity gave them a location and the three of them headed for the train station.
Barry evacuated the area, leaving the four of them to fight without harming others.
"Get on the ground," Oliver demanded Harkness.
Harkness just laughed, even though he was outnumbered by the three of them. "And why would I want to do that?"
"You hurt a friend of mine. You think there's anywhere in the world we won't find you?" Oliver asked him.
"Probably not." Harkness guessed. "Which is why I have a contingency in place." He then showed a remote in his hand.c"five bombs, planted throughout Starling. Now you can stop me, or the bombs. You can't do b-"
Before he could finish his statement, Peter shot webbing while Oliver did the same with an arrow to stop Harkness. Barry sped off to deal with the bombs while they took him down.
Oliver shot two arrows, aiming around his throat so he couldn't move.
When Barry found the one bomb, they found all the bombs were linked and used themselves and their friends to deactivate all of the bombs.
Peter was at one bomb, Roy had another, Caitlin had one, Cisco took the other, and Barry had the last one.
Everyone fearing for their lives, they cut the wiring and they managed to do it without the city exploding.
With their villain finally taken care of, the three of them made it back to the cave. Everyone was saying their farewells and needed to get back to Central City. Also noticing that Oliver put a few manikins up for the two of them, next time they come by. Cisco even got Oliver a new suit and equipment for him.
"So, we got to get going, wish we could stay longer." Peter was sorry to say.
"It is slightly possible that dr. Wells didn't sign up on us leaving." Caitlin admitted.
"Do you guys like take the train?" Roy asked.
"Sure, if I feel like taking a nap." Barry guessed.
"I used to hitchhike," Peter admitted and gestured to Oliver. "The first time I met up with him."
"You thought I killed a man," Oliver added with a sigh.
"In my defense, Mysterio used your face, your bow, and an old arrow from a crime scene to make it convincing." Peter defended his actions two years ago. "Not to mention you thought I stole from a museum!"
"That weird Tablet thing?" Barry asks.
"Tablet of Chaos," Peter explained. "That...that's a different story on its own."
"Which he broke." Oliver pointed out.
"Mysterio used it as a shield. I went to attack him...broke it." Peter confesses with a sigh.
"I want to hear the rest of that story," Caitlin said as she gestured to the door. "On the way back."
"Fine." Peter sighed, knowing he's got a lot to explain as he headed out. "But fair warning, this story involves violence, gore, and a cartoon pig."