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It would have been a lie to say that it was common to not have a soulmate. In fact, it was almost unheard of. There were enough cases that people knew it could happen, but it was something the vast majority of people only heard about distantly. A friend's cousin's aunt's ex-roomate's boyfriend. Five degrees or more of separation. The sort of thing that was honestly more common in works of fiction, as a plot point about just how desperately evil the villain was -that he was either soulless or so morally corrupt no other soul could bond with his-, or as proof of sussing out an inhuman character disguised as a human.
For young people who lacked the grey script of their soulmate's first words on their forearms, the accepted truth was that their soulmate hadn't been born yet. And, indeed, generally by the time one reached their fifteenth birthday (although more often well before then, and only exceedingly rarely after), the words appeared. Heralded by a spreading itch as the letters were written across their skin.
And then, there was Harrison Wells.
He'd already entered his fifth decade, and still. Still no itch, no crawling sensation, no words tattooed on his skin from his very soul. Not that he hadn't had a very successful life, not that he hadn't married and had a child. But his wife had been another woman's soulmate, and he'd all but collapsed with relief the day unmet-grey wrote itself on Jesse's skin.
Because, truly, he wouldn't have wished not having a soulmate on anyone.
He wore long sleeves in public, always dark colours because light ones risked revealing his lack of soulmark. Never rolled his cuffs, no matter how oppressively hot the day was. When Tess had been alive, when people had seen how her mark was a brilliant electric blue, they'd simply assumed. They'd assumed that he was her soulmate, and she his, and that it was his soul that coloured her skin so starkly. (And bless Tina, bless her for letting everyone think that, for not announcing to the world that whilst Tess Chambers might have been Harrison's wife, she was Tina McGee's soulmate.)
Before her? Well. It had not been pleasant, as he'd grown older and saw his contemporaries gain their marks, whilst his arm remained stubbornly bare. Given the popular mythos, combined with his own prickly personality, he'd suffered the brunt of a lot of scorn by the time he'd graduated high school and still no mark. Leaving home, going to college, that had been a relief in so many ways. Because there he was better able to hide what he lacked. With no one to out him, it was as simple as a secretive smile and saying he felt some things were best kept private.
But still. It was unpleasant, especially to hear what people said about unmarked adults. How once on the news a criminal had been arrested, an utter sociopath who took delight in killing in new and inventive ways, and he had no soulmark. The weeks of discussion about that had led to Harrison shutting himself in his office on the guise of being too busy to care about petty gossip. When really he wanted to yell that not having a soulmate didn't mean you were insane, a murderer, broken.
He wasn't broken. If anything, he'd decided, it was that it was everyone else who was broken. Souls split in half between two bodies, doomed to find each other whether they wanted to or not. Even though it was more than possible for soulmates to be platonic in nature (see: Tess and Tina), more than once he'd seen perfectly happy relationships broken up by someone's mark appearing or -as he got older- changing colour. Privately, Harrison felt that if you weren't going to stay with someone over some silly words said by someone else, words that might not have led to romance but friendship, you shouldn't even date to begin with. But people were people, and people did not like to be alone, and he knew that more than anyone. People needed someone to love.
It was love, in fact, that took him through the breach. Love of his daughter, love strong enough that he happily risked everything to find a way to bring her home safe. Because even if he wasn't marked, he had a heart, had a soul. And it would not let him rest so long as his Jesse suffered the consequences of his failures.
He straightened up as he exited the breach, determination glinting in his eyes. Straightened up and rubbed at his right forearm, because for some damn reason it felt like a swarm of mosquitos were crawling and biting there. It itched.
It.
Itched?
He waited until he was out of this world's S.T.A.R. Labs, away from any security cameras or prying eyes, to tug off his jacket and yank his sleeve up.
"This is not happening to me."
From the day he'd been born, his arm had been bare. Almost twenty-five years ago, he'd accepted that it would most likely remain empty forever. And over the intervening years, he'd grown more and more sure in that belief.
Harrison Wells was fifty-two years old, and for the first time in his life, there were words on his arm, written in a hurried hand that straddled the line between the kind of orderliness mandated by maybe some kind of government agency and the sloppiness of someone writing so fast they probably wouldn't notice if their pen ran dry until two sentences later.
He really rather wanted to hit his head against a wall a few times. Because, no, he did not have time for this. He did not have time to deal with soulmates or whatever expectations might be had by whomever had doubtless also been waiting decades on this side of the universe for their other half to exist. He was on a mission. One that would not be interrupted just because he had to meet his soulmate now that their words were on his skin.
Annoyingly, it wasn't as if he could just brush off whomever they were. If it had been a short, simple phrase -"Hi" or one of its variants was unsurprisingly common, and he vaguely wondered how anyone with that mark knew when they met the one-, then he knew it would have been as simple as ignoring them like they were any other nobody.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though nothing in his life was ever simple or easy, because these words told him that not only would his supposed soulmate see him, the other person would actually confront him.
He ran his finger lightly over the words, and huffed out a quiet laugh.
'Who the Hell are you?' indeed. He had very much the same question spinning in his mind.
It had been such a relief when he'd looked down at his arm to see it blank. It had been such a relief. The words before had been a striking red, brighter than blood, bright as cadmium pigment, scratched into his skin like they'd been written in lightning. And, in a way, they had.
Because the day after his mom had been murdered, he'd woken up to see 'Welcome back, Mr Allen.' written on his arm in the soft dove grey that meant he had yet to meet his soulmate.
When he'd heard those words, heard them from the lips of a man he'd admired, had practically worshipped since his childhood? Looked down to see the letters filled in red? He had thought he couldn't have been happier, even if it hadn't quite made sense when everyone had spoken of Dr Wells and Tess Morgan as the prototypical soulmate pair. But no one knew for sure that the average person couldn't have another soulmate. Twins, for instance, generally had two -though that was their twin and another person. And no one had ever specifically said that Dr Morgan had been Dr Wells' soulmate. And Dr Wells had shown him, once, the golden lightning words written in Barry's handwriting on his arm. 'It's hard to believe I'm here.'
But then everything had gone wrong. Terribly, unspeakably wrong. And it hadn't made sense, how his soul could possibly have been completed by that of the man who murdered his mom. Even though he knew that soulbonds didn't have to be romantic, could easily be platonic, was it really possible for one to be adversarial? But Wells, no, Thawne, no, Eobard, -because Eddie didn't deserve to have his name tainted by that asshole- had merely laughed and smiled in that frustratingly inscrutable way and pointed out that they did complement each other so well. Like the opposite sides of a coin.
So after the singularity. After all the deaths and heartache and destruction. After what felt like both the longest and shortest sleep of his life, when Barry opened his eyes and cringed because none of the past day had been a nightmare. He'd gotten up, he'd showered, and he'd stopped dead under the water when his brain finally registered what his eyes had shown it.
Bare skin. No words written in reverse red. Completely erased, not blacked out like the sentence of a dead soulmate. If only the rest of the past fifteen years could have been corrected so easily. (They could have been, his traitorous mind reminded him, But you didn't intervene. You didn't have to listen to your other self.)
Amidst all the pain and confusion, it was genuinely relieving to know that, even if erasing Eobard Thawne from existence hadn't erased the evil he'd done, it had at least erased the mark of his soul from Barry's. And if it meant he never had a soulmate again?
Honestly, after the last one, he was pretty sure no one would blame him if he wanted to give up on the whole thing.
Which was why one day, over half a year after the singularity had torn a hole in the sky over Central City, had torn holes in the very fabric of reality itself, when he felt a not-unfamiliar sensation on his arm, Barry froze. It was prickly, scratchy, like wool and sweat and static dancing over his skin. And the last time he felt it had been almost sixteen years ago, when his mom had been killed.
"Oh no. Oh no no no," he breathed as he tugged off his sweatshirt. "This can't be happening."
Cisco was there to help him sit down before he fell down, and Caitlin was there to soothe him about how this didn't necessarily mean anything bad, but she'd see if there were any tests she could run to ease his mind just in case. But none of that really eased the sheer dread and terror inspired by that one simple word. One word, and he wouldn't even know who they were because it was so common. Not unless he felt like checking his arm every time he met someone new.
Which he didn't.
Not when he had no desire to meet whomever the universe felt was an appropriate replacement for Eobard Thawne. (Because Barry had no illusions, by now, that his soulmate could be anyone he'd want to meet.)
He felt a lollipop get pressed into his hand, already unwrapped, so he stuck it in his mouth to try to focus on something other than that one ominous word, written in blocky engineer's hand, but so short that he had no way of divining anything about its writer from how they wrote.
'Hi.'
Even if he hadn't been well aware of how easily he would have been caught had he tried to flee, Harrison was compelled to stop regardless by what the young man had said to him.
The words chilled him, sent ice through his veins that made his final step sluggish, like his limbs had been weighed down with lead and he'd been cast into the north Atlantic to flounder and drown.
"Who the Hell are you?"
Oh no.
Oh Hell no.
He took a deep breath, considered his options, then slowly turned as he drew his hood down off his head. The look of abject horror he received was almost gratifying, considering how Harrison himself felt about this entire situation, but it was tinged with something that he couldn't put a name to. Something… darker.
Good thing for this… this kid, then, that he'd decided, almost as soon as the reality of his situation had sunk in, exactly what he'd say to whomever said those five words to him. (Because Harrison had decided not to initiate conversations, which was easier than one might expect, especially as he'd laid low, unsure of whether he had a counterpart at first.)
"Hi."
Ever since the word had appeared on his arm, Barry had wrapped a bandage around it and did his best to pretend it wasn't there. He didn't want another soulmate, had no desire to know who they were or anything about them. When he had to change the bandage, to shower or because it had gotten dirty, he'd done it at superspeed. Even with his own skewed perceptions, it was simple enough to unwrap and rewrap that spot without even looking, finishing in the blink of an eye.
It had gotten to the point where he'd almost forgotten about it, beyond the slight annoyance of changing the wrap. Besides, he'd ended up with bigger concerns. Zoom, for one. The continued fights against metahumans from beyond the breaches.
Harrison Wells.
It was irrational, perfectly irrational, the level of hate he felt for that man. Because it wasn't him he hated. It was another man who'd stolen their Harrison Wells' life. But looking at his face, hearing his voice, watching him do something as simple as walk… All that reminded him of Eobard Thawne.
He honestly wanted to strangle Wells sometimes, and he kind of hated himself for it, because this Wells -whatever his reasons for being here- really didn't deserve that kind of hate.
The problem was, as easy as it was to hate him, it was just as easy to trust him, and it all went back to Eobard. Even though he wanted to kill Wells sometimes, felt the briefest of murderous urges when the man did something that was just too much like Eobard, he'd still caught bullets to keep the other man alive. And, okay, maybe that was just his moral compass speaking, pointing out that it was wrong to punish this guy for someone else's sins when they had no way of proving he wasn't who he claimed to be, but.
It just seemed a little hypocritical of him, okay?
So after he'd admitted to Joe how he felt, Barry had done his best to push those feelings from his mind. He was going to trust Wells. He had to, if only to prove in some small way that he wasn't going to let Eobard Thawne's spectre rule his life.
And part of trusting someone was being willing to talk to them, right?
Which was why, when everyone else was staunchly avoiding Cisco's lab after they'd hauled Dr Light in, Barry found himself lingering against the wall next to the doorway, steeling himself to talk to the man who looked like his mom's killer. He took a deep breath, turned, and-
Almost ran smack into Wells as the other man was trying to leave.
"Oops! Sorry! Sorry."
Wells just raised an eyebrow at him, and wow was it weird both being able to look him in the eye without looking down, and seeing that face without glasses.
"Well, at least you aren't Ramon," Wells remarked drily. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"No. Yes. Wait, why are you glad I'm not Cisco?" Wow, could he maybe string together a coherent thought before speaking?
Wells stepped backwards into the lab, then turned away to return to his commandeered desk. He let out a noise that was more of a huff than a laugh, though Barry swore he heard some amusement in it. "Oh, several reasons. For one, I'm tired of hearing him complain that I've stolen his workspace. For two, I'm tired of having my taste in music compared to that other man's."
Barry chuckled despite himself. "Well, it is his lab… Can't take a side on the music debate, though."
"Hm." Before he could read too much into that hum, Wells clicked something on the computer, and loud music filled the room.
"…Linda Ronstadt?"
"Got it in one."
"Huh." Barry considered it for a moment. "You win on music. Can't say I really like opera."
Were it not for how the speed force changed his perception of time, Barry was fairly certain he'd have missed the brief smile that tugged at the corners of Wells' mouth. Which would have been a shame, because it was that smile which tipped his brain over to budding acceptance that this man was not his enemy. It was too… genuine. Not meant to charm, nothing hidden behind it. And even when Wells looked over from the computer, face blank once more, he could still see the lingering traces of that smile in his eyes.
Hindsight being perfect, Barry could never recall one of Eobard's smiles reaching his eyes. One of the many things he had missed back when he'd been too caught up in his new powers, the rush of being a hero, having a soulmate…
He sighed and unconsciously rubbed at his arm, where the bandage was hidden under his sleeve. Nope, definitely did not want one of those again.
"Anyways, I doubt you're here to discuss my taste in music. So either you're going to evict me, or you need something else."
"Um, well, I'm not gonna kick you out," Barry rubbed the back of his head as he spoke, "even though I know Cisco would love it if I did…"
"Then?" Wells rolled up his sleeves, shoving the gathered fabric over his elbows to keep them out of his way. Barry found his eyes instantly drawn to the spot on Wells' right arm where his soulmark-
Should have been.
"You don't have a soulmate?!"
Which was not what he'd intended to say. Maybe on Earth-2 they didn't have soulmarks? Oh man, he'd really put his foot in his mouth if that was the case.
Wells blinked at him, then looked down at his arm, touched the blank skin lightly with the fingers of his left hand. Then he sighed and looked back up at Barry, a wry grimace twisting his mouth. "So that ridiculous concept exists here, too."
Ridiculous concept? He opened his mouth to… argue? agree? but was cut off.
"I should think the answer is obvious."
"I… um. Wow. I'm sorry?" Though. Wells had said he thought the whole thing was ridiculous. So maybe that was the wrong thing to say?
Wells shrugged. "Don't be. I've had plenty of time to accept it. Honestly, the only thing that bothers me anymore is what people tend to think when they find out you don't have one."
Barry couldn't help but grin. "Lemme guess: Cold-hearted sociopath? Possibly with murderous tendencies? Definitely a villain?"
"Either that or immortal supernatural being, but most people go with the former." Wells paused then, a strangely nervous expression taking root on his face. He fidgeted with his watch, then glanced over at Barry.
Why was he-
Oh.
Oh.
"Well, if it's any consolation? Last sociopathic murderous villain I met definitely had a soulmate. So."
That made Wells laugh. It was soft, rasping in a way, but utterly genuine. "Did he now."
"Yeah…" Barry shrugged, looked away. All this talk of soulmates made him want to peek under the bandage, see if his new one had shown their face to him at some point. But. No. That was a can of worms he was not opening.
"What about you?"
"Huh?"
"What about you? Have you met your soulmate?" Wells gestured towards where Barry was fussing with his sleeve.
Barry quickly dropped his hand. "Ah. Sort… of?"
"Sort of."
"Yeah. Sort of. Um. See, my soulmate… hah… this is kinda hard to believe, but my soulmate was the guy who killed my mom." And why was he even telling this guy that?
But instead of being biting or cruel like he'd been to everyone else over their traumas, Wells… just nodded, almost sympathetically. "Your Reverse-Flash, as you put it? In a way, I'm not surprised."
"Why?" His brows furrowed in confusion.
"Well, your soulmate is supposed to be your perfect complement, right? I'm not entirely sure how it works, of course, but that's the theory as I understand it." Wells waved his hand dismissively during his second sentence. "So if he was your opposite… well, it's the same as a coin. Heads or tails."
Barry felt his blood run a bit cold at the analogy Wells chose, but he took a deep breath and banished that darkness. It was just the most common way to explain opposites. There was nothing sinister about it.
"Yeah. That's… that's about what he said."
"Mm. You'll have to enlighten me on why you only sort of have a soulmate, however."
"About that. Um," Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "He… kinda got erased from existence? So the mark went away. But then a new one showed up. So. I guess somewhere out there I have a new soulmate?"
"And you don't want to meet them?"
Barry shrugged. "If you had a mark show up on your arm now, would you want to meet your soulmate?"
Wells paused, mouth slightly open. He inhaled sharply, touched his arm, and then tugged his sleeves back down in a violent motion, as though speaking of soulmarks might make one appear. "No. No, I'd have no desire to. Nothing against this hypothetical person, of course, but. I have other concerns. And I'm a bit old."
That made Barry chuckle and nod, glancing down at his shoes. He scuffed his toe against the floor. "Yeah. Kinda in the same boat. With the other things on my plate, not the age thing. That, and… I mean, given who my last soulmate was? Kinda don't wanna see who else the universe has in mind for me."
The next thing he knew, he was staring down at black boots across from his own sneakers. He looked up, straight into Wells' eyes, and the man looked as serious as he'd ever been. Barry resisted the urge to step back, fought down the momentary surge of panic at how quickly Wells had moved with the logic that he'd been lost in his own head for a bit, and there'd been no rush of air displacement that announced use of super speed.
"Not that I'm one to talk, but. I think… even if you aren't willing to find out who they are, you should at least not condemn them in your mind. For all you know, your new soulmate," Wells tapped Barry's arm once, roughly where the mark was, "could very well be the opposite of your last."
Barry swallowed nervously. Or tried to, at any rate, because his mouth had gone absolutely dry. He really, truly, irrationally hated it when Wells spoke about opposites and reverses. Completely irrational. Didn't matter. Just reminded him too much of Eobard Thawne.
"Y-yeah. You're… probably right."
Wells shrugged and moved out of his personal space once more. "Just a thought, honestly."
"I… think I should go." Before Wells could respond, Barry bolted from the lab, with trails of golden lightning in his wake.
If he hadn't fled so fast, he might have noticed the slightly despairing look Wells sent after him, that quickly solidified into something cold, closed off.
Harrison scowled as he settled into the one corner of the room where the security cameras didn't quite see. He tugged his sleeve back up, dug slightly into the skin of his forearm with his thumb nail, and scraped until a few letters revealed themselves. Still there, stubborn and proud as ever, brilliant yellow stark against his skin.
Yes, he thought, he'd been right to hide this.
Of course, of fucking course Barry had been connected to his false doppelgänger. Because nothing ever went easily for him. Though, that wasn't really fair, for a great many reasons. It was one thing, really, to spend your whole life without a soulmate, then meet them because you willingly travelled to another universe. It was another thing entirely to meet your soulmate and find out that they murdered your mother when you were a child.
If either of them truly had it hard here, it was Barry.
Logic didn't quite silence that small, self-pitying part of himself, but he tuned it out anyways. He'd been intent on hiding this from the get-go. So he wasn't sure why it bothered him now.
Possibly, possibly because he felt like he didn't have a choice now.
It seemed like at every turn, these children were watching, waiting for him to slip up and reveal himself to be a man he absolutely wasn't. And it seemed as if he kept inadvertently giving them proof, if the wary looks, the cautious stares, meant anything.
So now, where before it had been his decision to ignore this whole soulmate nonsense, it was a matter of necessity. Because they would just see this as further proof that he wasn't himself. And he could not abide by that.
The worst thing was, he actually found he was already beginning to like Barry despite himself. And Barry seemed, out of all of them, to trust him the most, despite having perhaps the most reason to not.
He didn't want to break that fragile trust.
He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through barely parted lips. As though he could just breathe the mark from his arm. When he opened his eyes and saw it still defiantly in place, he didn't even sigh. He just pulled his sleeve down and went for his bag. Leaving even a small fraction of it uncovered would only cause problems if he forgot himself and pushed his sleeves up again.