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When Harrison first meets the Cisco Ramon of another Earth, that man doesn't make a secret of his distrust of him. Ramon, and the others, recount all the ways another version of him has wronged them. Instead, ironically, it's Harrison who hides his feelings. Who pretends he doesn't care what they think of him, feigning indifference about that and about who they are here. He presents a resolute front, dedicated to his mission to stop Zoom, and secretly, to save Jesse. The words, the specifics of what his doppelganger has done, wash over him, but it's not meaningless in the way they might assume.
Each time he's around them, he sees their wary eyes following him, scrutinizing everything he says and does. As if they expect him to make a mistake and be caught out, to be proved the villain. It's irritating. A waste of their time. But he understands it. He hates it exactly because even on his Earth it isn't entirely untrue. He created metas there too – that it was by accident doesn't change the consequences. The meta crimewave. Zoom. His army of underlings. Jesse taken. Everyone looking to him for answers and for once in his life he wasn't prepared. Being a genius meant he could provide technology, advance their understanding of this brave new world they found themselves in after the particle accelerator incident, but technology wasn't a solution to everything else that changed. To the fear.
He understands this team's feelings well for another reason too. Because he constantly has to resist doing the same to one of them. Trying not to watch Ramon. Pushing down the curiosity of what would break him, make him into Reverb like he was on his Earth. The guilt that rose up inside him from time to time on Earth-2 he could dismiss if he just focused on making things right. He could forget about the lives he'd changed and the impact his supposed solution had wreaked too. The meta detector he'd designed was meant to help, keep people safe, but instead it focused the fear and in turn drove the discrimination of metas. Like with the Cisco Ramon of his Earth.
His world's Ramon had been an intern at STAR Labs one summer, but not cherry-picked out of college like personnel files show this Ramon was. He had worked part-time to support himself studying for a Ph.D. but there'd been a robbery at the shop he'd worked in. Adrenaline caused his powers to kick in for the first time and when the cops showed up there was enough confusion they'd tried to arrest him too, further fueling the panic. Things only went downhill from there. As with too many other metas, events forced him onto one of two paths – go underground or accept the protection of Zoom.
Harrison couldn't entirely blame any of them for turning to a life of crime when either way their lives could never be the same again. The rejects of society, only other metas as true allies. That was Harrison Wells' legacy on Earth-2, a legacy that was fast catching up with him here. Zoom forced him out of his comfort zone, had tied him now to this Earth. He's responsible for anything Zoom does here too.
This Ramon is still light, and his anger, when Harrison pushes his buttons, is bright and brief like a flare. It doesn't overshadow who he is the rest of the time. It's nothing like the simmering resentment he'd born witness to on his Earth. He hopes he never sees that look on another face, which is why he tells the team about Ramon's powers. This time Cisco won't go through that alone.
Harry never expected to spend so much time on this Earth. He also never expected to welcome hearing that nickname again. If anyone asked him, he'd pretend to be annoyed they needed him, that he had to make the gargantuan effort to cross the multiverse because they couldn't solve a trifling problem without his superior intellect. He'd pretend to be about as annoyed as Cisco acted whenever he helped him. In truth, it made a nice change being here, in a STAR Labs where he wasn't the boss. For one, people here didn't suck up to him.
Working with Cisco, and occasionally Barry, was... challenging. In the best way, as well as the frustrating sense. It was rare to find people who could keep up with him, but Barry often went off on an incomprehensible tangent, or jumped to the wrong conclusion, skipping over necessary steps. And there was so much explaining to do. For when his technology outstripped theirs. Or the inevitable exposition for the others on the team, breaking it down into bite-sized nuggets that were easier to comprehend. There was a good reason he hadn't become an academic, he wasn't good at finding the right level for his audience.
More importantly, coming here, they remind him of the very human cost of every decision made. In the rest of his life, he couldn't forget he ran a business first and foremost. People depended on him for their livelihood, but that was strangely detached from the reality of STAR Labs. In his mind, profit was a secondary consideration to the science, but it still mattered. There were whole departments of employees who would natter over the finer details he wished he could leave out of it.
But here, he could simply create. And in doing so, he could save lives. He could make technology that meant nothing to a million and one people, but everything to the few Barry would use it to save. Sometimes it just saved his friends. And a lot of the time that was enough meaning for him.
Harry watches Cisco staring at the board, too engrossed in the math problem to hear his approach. Cisco has one arm tensely holding the other at the elbow and his other hand, which holds the board marker, wavers closer to his face as if he is about to chew on it, unconsciously mistaking it for holding one of his lollipops. Harry ought to say something and stop that, if only because it would make the marker gross for when - if - he wanted to use it, but doing so would break the moment.
Harry selfishly wants a few seconds longer to stare at the board himself. He can feel the tension inside his mind, the hint of a different thread amongst his thoughts that if he could grasp perhaps he could unravel the problem like he once had been able to. But it slips away from him all too soon and once again the writing looks like nonsense. As Cisco's pen continues to gravitate towards his lips, Harry coughs, drawing attention away from that would-be mistake.
“Take a break, Ramon.”
Cisco turns on the spot and, at the sight of him, Harry spies the start of a genuine smile from Cisco before it's replaced with more of a fond scowl at the interruption.
“You should know better than anyone I can't just clock off in the middle of a crisis. I'm on a deadline that stops for no man, or meta. Besides, it's not like you made an appointment or I would have told you 'Hey, how about next Tuesday, when we're not busy saving the world'. So if you're not gonna help me...” Cisco spouts rapid-fire and pre-emptively turns back to the board.
Harry takes a deep breath and counts to ten, his patience severely tried because Cisco doesn't get what he's doing here. Trying to make the effort, trying to be a good friend. He can't swoop in and solve all their science problems anymore, but he still has a different perspective that can be of use. Wisdom. Life experience. An outsider's objectivity. Also, he knows how to push Cisco's buttons as he's often done more lightheartedly as part of their antagonistic friendship, which is how he knows when Cisco is okay and when he's not. Right now he's edging on pushing himself too far and that Harry can do something about. If Mr-I'm-Too-Busy-Saving-Everyone-Except-Myself would stop and listen to him.
“No. I mean yes. Yes. This is me helping, you. Stop what you're doing. Eat.”
He gets a candy bar out of his satchel and throws it at Cisco's back. Possibly ruining the bar is worth it for the satisfaction and for getting Cisco to pay attention to him.
“Wha- what did you... Stop throwing things at me! Wait, is that a Seven Up bar?” Cisco asks as he bends over to retrieve the offending food.
“Less talking, more eating.”
But Cisco is not doing as instructed, instead stalking over to him with a single-minded purpose that isn't evident until his hands are reaching for the satchel. “What else do you have in there?”
Harry tries to keep it away from Cisco and a short scuffle ensues. Cisco is surprisingly sprightly, quick to counter any of Harry's more awkward movements, and all it takes is one feint from Cisco for him to get a hand on the bag and then half the contents end up sprawled out across the floor of the workshop. Harry actually sighs this time, making his exasperation clear, but it's short-lived at seeing Cisco break out into the most marvelous grin at the spread.
“I haven't seen this since I was a kid. And this, I think they stopped making it before I was even born, it's like the holy grail of candy. Not that any original bars from here would be worth eating after a literal lifetime has passed.”
Harry stands there among the candy chaos as Cisco scrambles to pick up one of everyone he can find. Finally, when Cisco is done, holding an armful of his precious hoard, Harry allows himself a small wry smile. Cisco may have won their brief fight for the bag, but it hardly feels like a loss when it got Cisco out of his own head for a few minutes and thinking about what he wants, rather than what others want or need of him. Also, Cisco is still smiling his ridiculous smile, though his eyes now have that insufferable glint to them, as if he's figured something out and Harry is sure he'll find out what shortly.
“You know you don't have to buy our love, right?” Cisco half-asks. There's a paradoxical mix of confidence and softness to his words. He realizes it's because Cisco is so certain the action is unnecessary, that nothing is required from him to assure it, but that doubt to it is about him; about whether he knows it too. That's the reason why it is part question and the thought causes something in Harry to twist uncomfortably.
“Fine, I'll take them back then-” Harry reaches for the candy and Cisco steps back protectively, angling it away from his reach.
“Hey, hey, nuh-uh. I'm not about to turn down the holy grail of sweets. That was just...the right thing to say. Enjoy the ego boost, that we still love you no matter what, but no take-backs. These babies are mine, all mine. No telling Barry. This,” Cisco says, attempting to indicate to the scattered remnants but finding it hard to point effectively with his armful, “would be like a... a light snack to him. And he can get his own candy, at superspeed, anytime he wants.”
“Sure. Whatever. Eat something. Meanwhile, I'm going to best you in an alternative arena.”
Harry quirks his head towards the pinball machine in the corner. As far as games go, pinball is hardly his favorite, but STAR Labs has a long-standing league of Cisco versus anyone else willing to compete with him. And Harry's been practicing lately on Earth-2, getting nostalgic perhaps. It's hardly a useful pastime and so much of his life has been about utility, productiveness. Except he knows if he can beat Cisco's high score the man will be powerless to resist the call to try and win it back as soon as possible. He tells himself Cisco could do with any excuse to take a break and that's obviously why he has to do it. Harry doesn't need to win, but it would be something else – he imagines it as oddly gratifying - to prove himself good at the game. There's no reason why he can't do it for the both of them.