Joe's response to Barry's urgent warning was a long, slow exhale through his nose.
"Barry." He set down his pen. "You're a crime scene investigator. I know case files aren't really your world. But you still work for this department." He gestured at the stacks on his desk. "If you'd sat at your actual desk for one full day this week, you'd already know — Stagg's files went under review yesterday. Not counting the older mess, he's got more than twenty active lawsuits. Someone wanting to kill him isn't a surprise. Someone wanting to level his building wouldn't be a surprise."
"Then why aren't we—"
"There are over thirty known suspects right now. If we go back through the closed cases, that number at least doubles." Joe's voice was patient in the way that meant he was tired. "No casualties. No property damage. Barely any witnesses. The higher-ups have already made the call — we're not opening a formal investigation. It's not worth the manpower, the budget, or the time."
Barry opened his mouth.
"And Stagg himself isn't cooperating. He told us he trusts his private security team and doesn't need our warnings." Joe shook his head. "Forget it. Let it go."
A beat of silence.
"And Barry — you should think about cutting back on the time you spend at S.T.A.R. Labs. You're a CSI, not a patrol cop. Stop putting yourself in the middle of dangerous situations."
"You know I need the lab," Barry said. "My condition — they're the only ones who can help me manage it. And there are metas out there, Joe. How is the department supposed to handle someone with abilities like Danton Black without—"
"I'm a cop." Joe's voice was quieter now, which was somehow worse than when it was firm. "I know exactly how dangerous this job is. You're my son. You and Iris — I don't want either of you anywhere near this."
Barry looked at him for a moment, then looked away.
There was a lot he could have said. That he wasn't afraid of danger. That he couldn't just watch and do nothing when he had abilities that could help people. That the hardest part of the conversation wasn't Joe's concern for him — it was standing here knowing about Iris and Eddie and having to keep that particular secret from the man who trusted him completely.
"I'm sorry, Joe." He said it quietly. "This is what I want to do. I'm not going to stop."
The silence that followed had a weight to it.
"Joe." Eddie appeared at the edge of the bullpen, breaking the moment with the particular timing of a man who had good instincts for awkward silences. "You still have the Stagg files out?"
Joe turned, the displeasure on his face shifting targets smoothly. "I'm right here. What do you need them for?"
"Don't put them back yet." Eddie's eyes had a brightness to them that meant he'd caught the scent of something. "A group of plaintiffs are filing a joint lawsuit against Stagg Industries. New batch of evidence coming through the prosecutor's office — I want to know which cases are going to get reopened."
"They have their own files."
"I know. I want to look at ours." He paused. "I've been trying to nail Stagg for two years. I'm not missing this window."
Barry exhaled quietly. He owed Eddie a drink.
He stayed late at the precinct — not unusually, and not at his desk. The evidence lab in the basement of Central City PD was, in most practical senses, his actual office: a small, self-contained world of manila folders and push-pinned photographs and incident reports going back years. Nobody else came down here much. Nobody else had reason to.
The board on the far wall hadn't changed. His mother's case. The yellow-and-red blur. The impossible thing that had happened in that house when he was eleven years old, that no one believed, that he'd never been able to stop chasing.
He stood in front of it for a while without really seeing it.
I should talk to the doctor.
It surprised him a little, how naturally the thought came. He'd grown into the rhythm of the lab — the team, the chaos, the particular sense that someone older and steadier had things under control. When he felt adrift, Wells had a way of reorienting him that Joe, for all his love and good intentions, couldn't quite replicate.
He was still thinking about this when he stepped out of the precinct entrance and heard, from across the street, a voice he recognized immediately.
"Remarkable. I've genuinely never encountered anything like this."
Barry stopped walking.
He looked across the street.
Dr. Harrison Wells — in his wheelchair, on a public sidewalk, at eight o'clock in the evening — was parked in front of Jude's cart, holding a piece of chocolate up to the light with the focused attention of a man conducting field research.
Barry stared for a full ten seconds to confirm he was not hallucinating.
He crossed the street.
"Dr. Wells. Jude." He looked between them. "What—"
"Ah, Barry." Jude's smile was cheerful and completely opaque. "Is this a doctor? I didn't realize. I'll do delivery next time."
Wells glanced over at Barry with the particular expression he wore when he was quietly amused at someone's expense. "Mr. Jude and I have been having a very interesting conversation. I didn't expect to find a pastry chef who'd also taught himself enough mechanics to have opinions about wheelchair suspension geometry." He tilted his head slightly. "Finished for the day?"
"Doctor, you shouldn't be out here in the chair," Barry said. "It's not safe."
"And yet, here I am, unharmed." Wells spread his hands. "The chocolate analysis was interesting enough that I wanted to meet the source in person. Is that so unusual?" He produced a second piece from the bag on his lap and tossed it to Barry. "You haven't eaten. Have something. The test results were genuinely remarkable."
Barry caught it without thinking.
Wells, meanwhile, had already glanced away — back toward the cart, a brief sweep that took in Jude's setup, his hands, his expression, the casual ease with which he moved. The assessment lasted perhaps two seconds and was entirely invisible unless you knew what to look for.
He had not eaten anything from the cart himself. He had no intention of doing so.
No obvious vectors, he noted internally. If there's something there, it isn't being delivered through the food.
Jude, for his part, kept his hands moving and his expression pleasantly neutral. The old man's instincts were precisely as sharp as advertised.
No point trying anything cute, Jude thought. Just be boring. Be an NPC. Smile and sell snacks and be extremely uninteresting.
They parted warmly, with the particular civility of two people who understood each other exactly well enough to be careful.
Barry pushed the wheelchair through the evening streets while he finished the chocolate, the familiar warmth of restored energy settling through him steadily.
"Joe wants me to pull back from the lab," he said. "He thinks I should stick to CSI work. Not get involved in the field stuff."
"He loves you," Wells said simply. "That's what that is. But he can't stop you — what's in you doesn't switch off because someone asks it to. I'll speak with him if it would help." He paused. "Now. The Stagg situation. Any movement on the investigation?"
Barry shook his head. "They dropped it. No casualties, no property damage, not enough witnesses to push for resources. It's shelved."
"I see." Wells was quiet for a moment. "And the suspect pool?"
"That's the thing — apparently if you go back through just the active lawsuits, you're already looking at over thirty people with motive. If they reopen the older closed cases, it doubles, minimum."
A pause.
"Hundreds of suspects," Wells said.
Not a question. Barry glanced down at him.
The expression on Wells's face was one Barry couldn't quite read — surprise, yes, but something running underneath it. Something that looked almost like recalculation.