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“So it’s true.”
Harrison recognizes Hartley Rathaway, of course, after all the fundraising dinners and such they’d both attended on his Earth. The Rathaways’ mousey, quiet boy, however, is rather different here- he stands defiant, glaring at Harrison with more rage than any of Barry Allen’s other acquaintances have been able to achieve, which is impressive, to say the least.
“Yes. I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m not the man who did whatever pissed you off so badly.” Harrison crosses his arms and glares in Hartley’s direction. He’s unsettled, though, by the way the boy quakes with not just anger, but something…darker.
“No,” Hartley says. “Cisco and friends gave me all the lurid details. The real Doctor Harrison Wells- just not of this world.” He huffs a laugh and musses his own hair in frustration. “Well, I guess Team Flash didn’t get their neat little resolution with the other Wells- I suppose it’s only fair that I didn’t either.”
Harrison has the distinct feeling his doppelgänger did something particularly awful to this boy. He’s not sure how he managed to outdo the mess he made of Barry’s life.
“Does it make you feel any better that he’s dead?” Harrison asks.
Hartley just shakes his head. “It doesn’t change anything, does it? He’s gone, and now there’s another man with his face where he stood.” He scoffs, a weak grin on his face. “It helps a bit that you lack his style.”
“I pack light for interdimensional travel,” Harrison says dryly. “I’ve a feeling you’re not going to tell me what he did to you.”
“What he did to me?” Hartley laughs. “God, it’s bizarre to hear that from your mouth. Doctor Wells only ever did anything for me.”
Harrison’s insides coil. This boy is only a few years older than Jesse.
“What did he do,” he says quietly. It’s less of a question, more of a demand for an answer.
“The same thing he did to everyone else,” Hartley snaps. “He betrayed someone who cared about him. What does it matter to you?”
“The same reason coming to see me matters to you.” He takes off his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose. Sighs heavily, and pins his stare on Rathaway. “You were far away from Central City, right? But you come all the way back here to see me because…what? You missed him?”
His tone is venomous and he knows it, and he’s prepared for Hartley trying to push him against the wall. He holds Hartley back with one arm- it seems this Earth’s Harrison Wells- Eobard Thawne -was never this physical with Rathaway. Not in this manner, at least.
“Fuck you,” Hartley spits. “You have no idea what he was like.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Yet everyone I’ve met here seems to expect me to be sorry about the actions of a man I don’t know a thing about.” He drops his arm and Hartley stumbles backwards before righting himself. “Does Cisco know? Caitlin?”
Hartley only scowls at him.
“No, didn’t think so. I don’t know what he did, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to explode if you don’t tell somebody. Take it from me.”
“Oh, really, take it from you. Aren’t you still a genius multimillionaire CEO on your Earth?”
Harrison laughs, short and sharp. “You don’t get to be my age without going through some real shit. Do you want to sit down and pretend to be civil adults?”
Hartley hesitantly takes a seat near the computers, and Harrison breathes a small sigh of relief. It’s incredible how different this boy is from what he’s seen of the Rathaways’ son on his Earth. That Hartley was always at his father’s side, quiet and perfectly, robotically polite at every function Harrison met him at. He’d offered the boy a job once, in secret, because the elder Rathaways had always unnerved him. In response, he’d received a suspiciously curt, formal email gently turning down his offer, and he found himself uninvited from the next several Rathaway private events.
Harrison can only wonder what happened on this Earth to break the family apart, and a part of him hopes it was gentle enough to wish it on the other Hartley Rathaway.
“Let me start by saying I don’t care if you lie to me.” Harrison takes a seat across from Hartley and crosses his arms. “I just want you to say what you feel like you have to say so you calm the hell down.”
Hartley leans back in his chair and lets out a quiet laugh. “God, you really are so little like him. That is nice to know.” His expression changes, and he looks at Harrison with grave seriousness. “I did tell the truth. I cared about him, and he betrayed me. It had very little to do with him being some kind of time-traveling supervillain.” When Harrison doesn’t say anything in response, he sighs. “For longer than I care to admit, I thought he…cared about me, too.”
He sounds so broken for his age. Harrison thinks of Jesse, even of Barry, Cisco, Iris- the thought of them feeling like this is enough to make him feel sick.
“He was your mentor,” Harrison says. He leaves the subtext alone for now, he’ll see if Rathaway is willing to bring it up himself.
“He was my friend.” Hartley looks truly miserable when he says it. “I was…I was ‘his guy’, he’d say. I thought it meant I was important to him. Turns out I was just his favorite pet until I got inconvenient, and someone newer and shinier showed up.” He cards his fingers through his hair and looks Harrison dead in the eyes. “He was the first man who ever fucked me. I trusted him, I thought I loved him, so I let him have me however he wanted. You can see how that turned out.”
Harrison wonders if Hartley’s trying to make him uncomfortable, to use the mention of sex- sex with a man with Harrison’s face -to make him back off. But it only confirms his fears, and he finds he doesn’t know how to react.
“My point is, I suppose,” Hartley continues, “is he didn’t have to be some kind of superpowered monster to hurt me. He threw me out when I realized he wasn’t the good man I thought he was, the man who cared about the city, the man who loved me. Any ordinary man can do that."
You didn’t know, Harrison wants to say. It wasn’t your fault. But the words ring hollow even in his mind. He can’t imagine there’s anything he can say that Hartley will believe.
“Do you still want to hit me?” he asks instead.
Hartley raises his eyebrows at that. “A bit. But I’m an adult, I know how to live my life without punching everyone who pisses me off.”
“That’s more than I can say for myself, so good for you.” Harrison shrugs and gestures vaguely with his open hands. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you, and I am truly sorry for that, Mr. Rathaway. I can’t offer you closure.”
Hartley looks at him curiously, then gives him a small hint of a smile. “No, I’m afraid you can’t. But…I suppose it is nice to know that the real Harrison Wells isn’t an evil bastard.”
“Only a bastard,” Harrison says. “Hopefully not evil.”
Hartley stands and extends a hand. “It could’ve been great, in a different life. We could’ve been phenomenal.”
“I hope that world’s doing better than this one.” He shakes Hartley’s hand and watches him leave the lab, down the elevator, and he’s alone again.
He hopes that other world has been kind to Hartley Rathaway.