They were almost done with the last interview when Central City needed help from Jesse Quick. Giving her dad a bad excuse and a meaningful look, Jesse left the conference room and raced to save the day.
On her way back Jesse had a little time to think and it really sunk in that Moira was the only one of Jesse's friends who had even been offered a position. Jesse was pretty sure that only happened because he dad was unaware of her friendship with Moira, the likelihood that he would rescind the offer if he found out about their friendship was pretty high. She was still pissed about how he'd dismissed her other friends basically out of hand without even giving them a fair shake. Irina may have diffused their argument earlier, but she was determined to have it now. He had to at least give her friends a second look.
Stepping off the elevator, Jesse strode down the hall towards her father's office at a determined pace. She was going to have it out with him. As she came closer to the office she heard her dad's voice through the open door. He seemed to be talking to Irina. When she reached the doorway she paused, she was instantly reminded of the little scene she had witnessed between them earlier. Peering around the door frame, Jesse was careful not to be observed.
"She has no guts," Harry said, not mincing any words. He was standing in front of Irina, hands on his hips. "She's the opposite of the kind of person Jesse needs on her team."
"You're underestimating her, Harrison-"
"Don't call m-" Harry tried to interrupt.
"Moira's got more courage than you give her credit for," Irina continued smoothly as if she hadn't even heard Harry's objection. "That girl was terrified to even be in your presence today, yet she sat there and answered every single one of your questions because she has more guts than half the armies in the multiverse put together."
"Interns answer questions all the time, I don't see what's so special about that." Harry waved his hand in agitation. "That girl needs a pep talk every time she goes to order at Big Belly Burger, she doesn't have the right stuff to be on the team."
"For that girl, sitting in front of you and being grilled about scientific minutiae was as close to a near death experience as she's ever had. And to do so with the remarkable poise and clear-headedness that she displayed makes me absolutely certain that she's the one for Jesse's team. If you want someone with guts, she's the woman you're looking for."
Harry crossed his arms over his chest, he didn't look happy. "You're going to be on Jesse's side on this, aren't you?"
Irina took a step towards him, closing what little distance there was between them. "I told you I could find you the very best people for your daughter's team, and Jesse and I are on the same page when it comes to Moira. Now, who are you going to believe, your genius daughter and the best detective in the multiverse? Or that cranky, suspicious gut of yours?" To emphasize her point, Irina gave Harry's abdomen a gentle flick.
Jesse half expected her father to scowl deeper. Expected that he would swat Irina's hand away and grumble about how his gut was the only thing he trusted. Expected that he would double down on his objections and call up Moira to tell her she was off the team. What Jesse did not expect, however, was for her father to snort softly and the barest of smiles to twitch his lip.
"Maybe you're right," Harry assented, his tone of voice less cross. "But we're going to watch her carefully all the same."
Irina crooked her head to the side and smiled. "Watching people is one of my specialties.
Jesse decided she shouldn't watch any more of this, her planned argument would have to wait till later. Her mind was racing though, she was beginning to think that perhaps the impossible could happen after all. Slipping back down the passage she hurried out of STAR Labs.
Begrudgingly, Harry was starting to trust Irina. He had to admit she had a point about Moira, even if he would have preferred someone a bit more bold for Jesse's team. He still had reservations about this whole process. How could he make sure he really was getting the best there was for Jesse? Central City only had so many people, he wanted the best and brightest from around the world.
True, many of the brightest minds from across the globe had come to work for him at STAR Labs because of the groundbreaking science he and his teams were conducting, but were they the best possible people out of all possible people? He wasn't sure that they were. It bothered him. What if he picked the wrong people, what if they got Jesse into a situation they couldn't get her out of, what if Jesse got hurt?
The thought of Jesse getting hurt made him feel sick. He wasn't going to let that happen.
Sitting in his office, Harry put a hand in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the card Irina had left for him a few days ago. Right now, she was somewhere else in the building combing through files on various individuals trying to find a few more candidates to interview. Harry doubted she would find anything he hadn't in his own search, but she'd insisted and he'd sent her off with Henry. As he turned over the card and studied his handwriting on the front he wondered how late Irina was planning on staying tonight. Personally he was ready to get home.
Turning the card back over he looked at the cryptogram for what felt like the thousandth time. Elegant, precise, beautiful and complex. It was almost unbelievably good. Far better than anything he'd ever seen before. Irina was proving herself to be a very interesting woman. Wherever, or whenever, she was from, she knew how to get what she wanted.
What did she want, though? She said she wanted to do this job for the glory, but Harry didn't buy that completely. She had some ulterior motive, maybe not a sinister one, but ulterior all the same. Placing the card back in his pocket he rose from his desk and headed to the storage room to find Irina.
Irina opened drawer after drawer in the records department of STAR Labs. Thumbing over the spines of various tablets she looked for something to spark her interest. It seemed that on this earth Harrison kept all project files together in an individual tablet with a holographic display. Irina supposed this was fairly smart of him, a file couldn't be hacked this way and it wasn't as clumsy and inefficient as analog storage. Irina wasn't looking for personnel files, those were boring and generally full of lies. She was looking for reports on STAR Labs greatest achievements. As she was looking through the various reports, however, she was starting to think that scientific achievement might not be the most qualifying factor when it came to this team of Jesse's. Something else was going on that had nothing to do with advanced science.
"If you told me more specifically what you were looking for I could help you find it much faster." Henry Hewitt repeated for probably the third time.
Irina didn't know what it was about Earth-2 that made everyone here so repetitive all the time, but it was starting to wear a little thin. "I've told you, I want to see the files about the great accomplishments of STAR Labs. I want to see its most brilliant projects. That information seems to be scattered about, so my work is going to be a bit piecemeal." Irina didn't want to sound waspish, but there was a methodology to her madness.
"But if you told me what kind of achievements you mean," Henry pressed on, "I could help you speed up this whole process."
Irina figured that he must have been the only man unlucky enough to be in eyeshot when Harrison had been looking for someone to show her to the records room. She glanced at her watch. She deduced that Henry was running late for the night classes he must be taking in order to study engineering and work full time at STAR Labs. "I'll tell you what, I'll stay here and keep looking for things my way and you go on home or wherever and make a list of the top fifty STAR Labs achievements. Bright and early tomorrow morning I'll come by and we can talk about the projects on your list, what do you say?"
Henry sighed and ran a tired hand over his face. "I'm not supposed to leave you alone down here."
"Surely anything classified is kept in a separate area." Irina couldn't imagine a man like Harrison not taking that most basic precaution. "So what's the harm?"
"It's just against STAR Labs policy." Henry didn't seem to have much fight left in him. He must be running really late.
"Go on then, Henry, I'll see you in the morning." Irina was certain a little nudging was all he needed.
Henry sighed again. "And what do you think Dr. Wells will say when he finds out that I left you here unsupervised?"
"I'm not going to tell him, so I suppose he'll say nothing about it." Irina pulled a promising looking file from the drawer. "Now, go on, you shouldn't miss your class."
Henry sighed for the final time, defeated. "I hope you appreciate exactly how Dr. Wells can be when he's all worked up, it's not something anyone wants to see."
"On the contrary," said Irina, "I quite enjoy seeing Harrison worked up."
...
"Where's Henry?" Harrison's voice cut through the dimly lit room unexpectedly.
Irina jumped, dropping the file she was holding on the floor. The plastic encased tablet made a crunching sound as the corner of it struck the floor. "Oh, it's you," she said upon seeing him.
Harrison raised an eyebrow. "Expecting someone else?"
"Not exactly," Irina said as she bent to pick up the file and inspected the screen for damage. The file seemed to be made of good quality plastic though and was unharmed. "I thought it might be Jesse."
"Nah, she's left already." He glanced around at Irina's haphazard organization.
"Your daughter is a very bright young woman, you must be so proud of her."
Harrison smiled, looking at the floor. "I am, she's my whole world."
"You've done a good job raising her," Irina gave him an encouraging smile. She hadn't been sure about Jesse at first, she was an unknown quantity in her pursuit of true love, but Irina had found herself warming to the girl exceptionally fast.
Harrison shook his head. "No, credit for my Jesse Quick all goes to her mother." Changing the subject, he nodded towards the folder in her hand. "Whose profile do you have there?"
Irina noted the nickname Harrison had used and filed it away for later. She tapped the screen in her hand. "I was just reading about a very interesting place you have on this earth called Gorilla City. I've never heard of anything quite like it."
Harrison reflexively touched his side when she said the word gorilla. "Why are you looking into Gorilla City?"
"I stumbled onto it by accident, actually. I was hoping there might be some information that would prove useful for our search."
He walked over to the stack of thin tablets she had piled on top of one of the cabinets. Irina saw him run his finger over the labels. "None of these files have anything to do with staffing."
"That's right," Irina closed the readout on Gorilla City and added the tablet to another stack she had. "I'm not looking for a résumé, Harrison, I'm looking for the greatest projects on record here."
Irina saw that her train of thought finally clicked for him. "So you can see who's on the teams that have done the best things and recruit only from the pool of people who've been verified to do good work."
Irina noticed that he'd not even objected to her using his first name. "Yes, which is why I've compiled three categories of achievement from your archives." Irina waved to the various stacks of tablets in three piles.
Harrison glanced at the one nearest him again. "These are STAR Labs' award winning projects, inventions and discoveries in the last ten years."
"I call that, Category 1." Irina pointed to the next stack. Harrison went to inspect it.
"These are our records for all the major projects of merit in Central City." He looked to the last stack near Irina. "And I'm guessing those are any and all projects and discoveries throughout the whole of Earth-2."
Irina loved it when she could see his brain working. It made her feel almost giddy. "Exactly."
"You think this will help you find the rest of the team?" Harrison didn't exactly sound skeptical, but he didn't sound encouraging either.
"I think it will point us in the right direction."
He looked at his watch. "It's late, were you planning on working on this all night long?"
Irina had initially thought something along those lines, but looking at the piles of information before her which she would have to make notes on and cross-reference, she knew she wouldn't be able to get through it all in one night.
"Actually, I was going to go home and start fresh in the morning." Who knew, Henry might even come up with some spectacular projects she had missed. It would be worth the wait to see what he had on his list.
"Oh," Harrison said, looking around at the daunting stacks. Looking back at her he frowned. "Where do you live exactly?"
"I'm renting a charming little flat near the city center, you can walk me there if you'd like." It wasn't exactly an invitation, but if things went that way she'd be perfectly fine with that.
Harrison hesitated for a second.
"I'd also like to talk to you about your own list of the best projects to come out of STAR Labs. We can discuss it as we walk."
This seemed to put him more at ease. "Alright," he agreed, and the pair of them headed towards the door. As he opened the door to the hallway, another frown creased his face. "I didn't think being a private detective paid that well, where do you get the kind of money to afford an apartment in the city center?"
Irina smiled. "One word: alimony."
Leaning on the table at her favorite Big Belly Burger, Jesse sipped at her fizzy lemon drink while picking at her Flemish fries. Moira sat across from her, looking out the window to passersby on the street.
"Does your dad hate me?" Moira asked after some moments of reflection.
"What? No, of course not," Jesse tried to assure her. She didn't sound very convincing.
"Then why would he interview me for this secret team only to tell everyone that I don't have the guts?" Moira sounded annoyed. Jesse supposed she had a right to be.
"He's just really controlling, he doesn't think anyone is good enough when it comes to me." Jesse swirled one of her fries in the ketchup she'd poured on the wax paper her burger had been wrapped in. "Just last year he told my boyfriend he was dying of a terminal illness so I wouldn't move in with him. Dad has no shame when it comes to trying to control me."
Moira shook her head. "That is beyond awful." Picking up one of her own fries she dunked it in Jesse's ketchup. "What's going on with that by the way? Are you and Wally still together?"
"Yeah," said Jesse, then she paused. It had been a long time since she's been to Earth-1 to see Wally, and he hadn't come to see her either. Granted, who knows what her dad might say or do to get him to leave if he did try to visit. "I mean, I think so. It's been a while since we've seen each other."
"Long distance is hard." Moira sipped her drink thoughtfully. "My sister tried it a couple of times, but she could never make it work."
That's what everyone kept telling Jesse whenever she said she was in a long distance thing. It was starting to get discouraging. Only her father hasn't said anything about her and Wally not working long distance and she wasn't sure whether it was because he didn't want her to rebel against his advice and go and marry Wally on a whim, or if he was happy she was 'taken' by someone she couldn't be around so he didn't have to worry about her dating.
Jesse sighed heavily, glancing out the window like Moira was. Central City was beautiful any time of the day, but at night it looked amazing. Cheerful couples passed by on the sidewalk. Jesse's eyes traveled over a man and a woman strolling along at a leisurely pace. The man had his hands in the pockets of his jacket and was wearing a black baseball cap. The woman had her long hair loose over her shoulder and was toying with the ends. Momentarily, Jesse was jealous of the cute couple. She wished that could be her and Wally.
"Is that your dad?" Moira asked in a loud whisper.
Jesse looked at the man and the woman again and realized it was. He and Irina were the couple walking at the leisurely pace.
"Oh my god, it is." And they would be passing by this big window in a moment. If Harry saw her and Moira eating together he would know they were friends and probably kick Moira off the team. "Under the table, quick!"
Jesse dove under the table and Moira scrambled to the floor as well.
"Why are we hiding?"
"If he sees us together he might kick you off the team." Jesse's mind was racing, trying to figure out why she'd mistaken Irina and her dad as a couple.
"Why?"
"He doesn't like my friends, he thinks they're untrustworthy. As long as he doesn't know we know each other you're fine, but if he knows we're friends then he's not going to be happy." Jesse peered out from under the table. She just barely had a view of the window. She counted the moments while she waited for her dad to pass by the window of Big Belly Burger. She strained to hear if she could catch any part of his conversation with Irina through the glass as he passed by.
"Slow down, Harrison, I've got something in my shoe." Jesse could just make out Irina's voice.
She saw her dad stop. "Don't call-" he started.
Irina grabbed his arm for support as she balanced on one foot and pulled off her right shoe. "Would you prefer that I call you Harry?" Irina interrupted.
Harry seemed caught a little off guard. He was quiet a moment. "Yes," he finally said.
"Harrison is such a fine name, I'll never understand why you prefer anything else." Irina teetered on one foot as she shook her shoe vigorously to dislodge whatever foreign matter had taken up residence there.
Harry reached an arm around her waist to steady her. "Careful," he said.
Irina beamed at him as she replaced her shoe and stood on her own two feet once more. "Just keep your firm hands on me and I'll be fine." She gave Harry a roguish wink.
Jesse's eyes went big as she realized exactly what Irina was saying, she looked to see if Moira had picked up on it too. From the expression on her face, she had.
Harry laughed a bit awkwardly, dropping his hand off her waist. "Well," he said, moving his hand on the back of his neck, a gesture Jesse recognized as one of nervousness, "I'll see what I can do." The smile he gave as he said that, though, was genuine.
Jesse pinched herself just to check if she was dreaming or not. Though why she'd be dreaming about her dad flirting with someone she had no idea. She wasn't dreaming.
Irina looped her arm around Harry's and the pair set off walking again. "I think you'll find I'm quite the handful."
Jesse couldn't make out what her dad said next as the pair of them were too far away to hear them through the glass. Climbing out from under the table she cautiously peered after her dad and Irina. They were at the nearest crosswalk now, waiting for the light to change. For all the world looking like a couple.
"Are they dating?" Moira had also resurfaced from underneath the table. Her question echoed Jesse's thoughts exactly. She hadn't dared to say it out loud, but now it was out there. Was her dad really going to start dating again?
"I didn't think so," was all Jesse could say.