Torture Tactics

[run_barry]

[Sushi break]

Starling City is definitely a much different setting than Central City, and while the criminals in Central City do like their abandoned warehouses as much as the next bad guy, the warehouse Barry, Oliver, Roy and Diggle are outside of right now is about the sketchiest Barry has ever seen.

Suited up, Team Arrow and the Flash are following up on the Bratva lead they got earlier, trailing Klaus Markos, the man they suspect was supplying their boomerang bad guy with his arsenal.

"I cannot believe you're a member of the Russian mob!" Barry says to Oliver, still astounded by that info ever since Oliver shared it.

"Former member, probably. We had a falling out last year," Oliver replies, the uncertainty of his current mob status making Barry wonder, but Oliver skips straight to business.

"This is where they run their cyber crime operation," Oliver informs the group, this time there's no doubt in his words.

"This place looks like a fortress," Roy comments, and he's not wrong. There are armed men everywhere.

Undaunted by that fact, Oliver hands out assignments, sending Roy in one direction and Barry to scan the perimeter while Oliver talks to Diggle.

It doesn't take Barry long to sweep the area, twice, and still he's ahead of Oliver heading into the warehouse.

With time on his hands and all of the bad guys unaware, Barry makes quick work of knocking out the group of mob guys he comes across, leaving them zip-tied and unconscious in their seats when Oliver comes in.

"I had eight seconds to kill," Barry cheerfully brags.

The look Oliver gives him isn't quite the impressed one Barry was hoping for. In fact, the man looks irritated.

"Was that wrong?" Barry asks.

Oliver doesn't reply and instead continues the hunt.

They find Markos in what appears to be his workshop and when he runs Barry is right there to catch him.

"My friend wants to have a conversation with you," Barry tells the stunned man, then grabs him and zips him over to where Oliver is waiting.

It's a natural setup for 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' and Barry holds Markos in place while Oliver bad cops it up.

"You made this for Digger Harkness," Oliver says to Markos, holding up one of the boomerangs Harkness used at A.R.G.U.S. "I want to know where he is."

Markos isn't intimidated and throws back, "Go to hell."

The next thing Barry knows, Oliver is drawing an arrow and firing, hitting Markos in the right shoulder.

In shock and surprise, Barry lets go of Markos and backs away quickly, watching as Oliver strides across the space and grabs hold of the arrow he's just shot Markos with, cruelly twisting it in the wound, causing Markos to cry out.

"The only thing that hurts worse than an arrow going in is an arrow coming out!" Oliver growls, menace in his voice.

Stunned and not sure what he's watching, Barry speaks up, "Whoa, hey, what are you doing?"

"Getting information!" Oliver replies, applying more pressure to the arrow and drawing another shout of pain from Markos.

"Where is he?!" Oliver roars.

"I don't know!" Markos yells, twisting and grimacing in anguish.

Wide-eyed and frantic, Barry pleads with Oliver to stop with a plaintive, "He said he doesn't know!"

Oliver is unmoved, and Barry can hear the sound the arrow makes as Oliver twists it around further in Markos's shoulder.

"He's lying," Oliver declares, then to Markos he threatens, "If you want to be able to raise your arm again, tell me where he is!"

"Here!" Markos gasps, digging a cell phone out of his pocket and holding it up. "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!"

For an anxious moment Barry isn't sure if that's going to be enough to appease Oliver, but eventually Oliver lets go of the arrow shaft and takes the phone away from Markos.

With Markos wounded and bleeding, and wanted by the law, Barry waits until Oliver walks away and then swoops up Markos and speeds him across town, leaving him with SCPD before returning to Oliver.

When Barry returns, Oliver seems absolutely unfazed by what just happened, focused on the phone instead.

"Felicity can crack the encryption, use this to track down Harkness," Oliver tells Barry, back on the case as if everything is just fine.

Barry knows that finding Harkness is obviously important, but not more important than what just happened right now.

"You tortured that guy," Barry accuses Oliver.

Oliver remains impassive, "I interrogated him."

This is way different than hardcore training methods and Barry is struggling with what just transpired and what it says about Oliver.

"When my friend said your tactics made you a criminal, I defended you because I thought you were supposed to be a hero," Barry says, having stood up to Dr. Wells in Oliver's defense, and Joe. "I thought we were supposed to be better than them."

"Barry, you live in Central City, where it's sunny all the time and your enemies get cute nicknames. You're not in Central City," Oliver responds, his tone mocking at first and steadily growing sterner. "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 of a rooftop. Where my mother was murdered right in front of me. So before you-- "

By the end there is anger in Oliver's voice and he's bearing down on Barry, but Barry doesn't let that stop him from interrupting.

"My mother was murdered in front of me, too," Barry cuts in, voice even while he meets Oliver's stony gaze. "But I don't use my personal tragedies as an excuse to just torture whoever pisses me off."

Barry doesn't hide his upset feelings or his disapproval, but if Oliver registers them at all he doesn't react.

Instead he blows Barry off with his response.

"Well, I'm sorry, Barry, I'm not as emotionally healthy as you are."

Oliver brushes past Barry and starts to leave and Barry turns around, demanding, "What's wrong with you?"

Rather than give an answer to that, Oliver delivers an ultimatum.

"When we agreed that you were staying, we decided that it would be on my terms," Oliver says. "If that is proving too difficult for you, you know your way back to Central City."

As Oliver walks away, Barry is at a loss.


[ooc: dialogue taken from Arrow 3.8: The Brave and the Bold]