Chapter Text
Harrison is as good at taking hints as anyone else, which is to say that sometimes he can do it and other times he misses the hints entirely. However, considering his bag is where he hid the materials to make the patches that cover his soulmark, and Barry had brought it to him before fleeing? He can take that hint. Even if he's not sure if Barry knew he'd put the stuff there, or took an educated guess based on the fact that he had to have supplies but never left them lying around.
The short of it is, he takes the hint to continue covering his mark.
It stings, in the part of his heart that actually cares about this whole mess despite him firmly wanting to not care any more. Though, realistically, he hadn't expected the… conversation, about them being soulmates, to go half as well as it did. (And what did it say about his expectations that an argument where Barry subtly accused him of being Eobard Thawne whilst he was recovering from being shot was one he felt went surprisingly well?)
(It said that he'd fully expected to be unceremoniously tossed back through the breach at best, or locked in the Pipeline at worst. That's what it said.)
But it also makes sense. By now, everyone else has seen his bare forearm, and that had been a barrel of laughs. Barry hadn't been lying when he'd told Harrison the views of people lacking soulmarks on this world, which were exactly the same as those on his Earth.
Not that they hadn't moved past it, for the most part. Detective West still seemed wary of him, but that could also be attributed to how he nearly got Barry killed. And Garrick… well, he didn't really care what Garrick thought of him anyways.
The point was, if he suddenly had Barry's words on his arm now, no doubt the rest of the team would become extremely suspicious, and then he'd end up locked away for crimes he hadn't even committed. No matter that the words had to be different than when Barry met the presumed Dr Wells of this world. They'd justify it somehow.
There were seemingly a million reasons to keep it secret… and the only real reason he had for not wanting to was so he could try to force Barry to stop avoiding reality.
(At least, that was the lie he told himself, when he refused to anymore acknowledge that he'd had a change of heart.)
He's trying to work some calculations out on the computer, trying to figure out why the speed-dampener that clearly worked on Barry did not do much beyond piss Zoom off. The problem, of course, is that Cisco has decided that since this is technically still his workroom, that he is going to keep him company. Harrison wouldn't mind so much, except the boy is eating a lollipop at a just noticeable volume, and spinning back and forth in the one chair.
He really should not have gotten up to get some notes he'd made earlier.
And if that weren't bad enough, he's talking about soulmarks. Harrison had hoped that even if Barry were avoiding him now, distant when they had to interact, that at least the one shining spot of good would be that he'd never have to hear about soulmarks again.
Never has he been so wrong.
"It's weird, ya know?" Cisco muses. "He was obsessed with that thing for a while, and now he's back to pretending it doesn't exist."
Harrison sighs, because he's clearly going to have to keep listening to this unless he cuts Cisco off. "Maybe, he finally met his soulmate again and found them wanting."
He resists the urge to touch the patch on his arm. Smothers the faint hurt that wells up at that thought.
"Dude, no offense, but this is Barry we're talking about. Same guy who was willing to give you a chance despite having been soulmates with your creepy doppelgänger? There's no way he'd refuse to give this new person a chance."
Harrison bites back the snarky comment that he wouldn't call a man who stole his counterpart's body his doppelgänger, if only because it would do absolutely no good. "Wasn't he ignoring it at first anyways?" he asks instead.
"Up until it turned that really odd indigo, yeah. Which is even weirder, because one, I've never seen one that dark before, and two, I would have thought it'd be red again," Cisco muses with another slurp on his lollipop.
That catches his attention, and he abandons math for a moment to actually look at Cisco, brows knitting together in confusion. "Red? No, no, that's impossible. His soul is yellow; there's no way his soulmate ever could be red."
"Uhhh… not sure what that has to do with anything," Cisco says, "Because, look, I know what I saw, and there is photographic evidence somewhere, but Eobard Thawne? His words were definitely red."
Harrison pushes his glasses up, frown deepening. "That shouldn't have happened."
"…Care to explain?" Cisco asks, eyebrows going up, "Or are you getting some kinda sadistic pleasure out of confusing me?"
He sighs, crosses his arms, glances over at his calculations for a moment. "I studied this stuff. Back when I was your age. Soulmates are always perfect complements, which means their souls are complementary colours. Barry is yellow, so his soulmate should be in the indigo to purple range. Maybe turquoise or magenta at the outlying ends, if we want to absolutely push it- but red? Out of the question. Red and yellow never match as a pair."
"Yeah, well, maybe it works differently here, because I know what I saw," Cisco says. "And you can ask anyone else who saw his mark before. Definitely. Red."
Harrison hums, then turns back to his calculations, mulling the matter over. From what he knows of this universe otherwise, it seems like that ought to be the same as his, but he's honestly not seen enough living marks here to know for sure. There really is no reason Barry should have been matched to Eobard if the latter was red, unless somehow Eobard stealing his counterpart's life had some play in the matter. Which then makes him wonder how much it really relies on the soul…
His thoughts are interrupted yet again by Cisco, who this time is frowning at him in confusion. "Wait, how did you know Barry is yellow?"
Shit.
He thinks quickly, giving Cisco a bland look as he scrambles internally for an answer. "His soulmate is indigo. I assumed that things worked the same way here, so yellow was the most likely answer."
Which wouldn't have been a lie but for the golden yellow words hiding on his skin.
He runs.
The sound of his footsteps pounding down the hall is outmatched, not by his heart drumming fear-panic-fight in his ears, but by the hiss and crackle of electricity from his pursuer.
He doesn't understand. Doesn't understand why Zoom doesn't just catch him, kill him. It's like he's being played with, the mouse in the clutches of a sadistic cat. But Harrison is going to take the opportunity this grants him.
He darts into his lab, snatches the gun up and drops onto his back. The fall jars him, sending lances of pain through the still tender scar tissue in his chest, but he ignores it. He fires, aiming at a spot that would be, if he were dealing with a normal man, ahead of Zoom's path.
Slow. Too slow.
The weapon is removed from his hands and he is hauled up by his throat. His only thought is of Jesse, in that moment. Let her live, let her live!
"Say something!" he finally gets out, because Zoom is just staring at him with those cruel black eyes.
"Merry Christmas," Zoom replies. And never have those words been so chilling.
He's lowered to the ground, but not released. The claws around his throat are as tight as ever. Harrison struggles to pry them back, fights to at least breathe properly even if escape is impossible.
"I'm here to offer you a deal, Dr Wells," Zoom hisses. "Think of it as an early Christmas present."
A deal? He wants to snap that he does not make deals with villains, but the truth of it is? Depending on the terms of that deal, he'd take it. All he wants at this point is to make sure everyone he cares about, everyone he loves, is safe. Zoom can run rampant over both worlds if he likes, but so long as he leaves Jesse out of it, doesn't kill Barry? Fine.
"What's the deal?" he rasps out.
"You are going to help me against this world's Flash, help me destroy him, and in exchange, I'll spare your darling daughter's life. Return her to you safe and sound," Zoom says, and it sounds almost like he's smiling behind that monstrous mask.
He mostly supresses the slight terror he feels. Mostly. What Zoom is asking for… even if Barry does not want him around, Harrison has grown fond of the brat. He's not sure he can do that. "And if I refuse?" he asks.
Zoom tilts his head, looking for all the world like he expected that answer. "I don't think you will."
His heart pounds in his chest. "I… no…"
"No? You surprise me." The claws begin to tighten, digging into his skin.
He needs time, needs time to think of a way to save his daughter without betraying the team he's found on this earth. His eyes dart nervously across Zoom's face, wishing he could see the man under the mask, see if there's any humanity left at all that might betray a bluff. "…Give me time," Harrison begs, "Just… I can't… I can't decide now."
"I think you can." The claws tighten even more.
"No! I… I… please." Begging is the only thing he can think of, because he can't reveal to this monster that he needs time to decide who is worth more to him, his daughter or his soulmate. Even if he thinks he already knows the answer.
He can definitely hear the smirk in Zoom's voice as he responds. "Very well. You have two days. You will be at the breach at four."
The next thing he knows, he's been released and Zoom is nowhere to be seen. Harrison sinks to his knees, holding his throat like it will ease the pain from being choked, wishing that this was just a terrible nightmare he could wake up from.
After their argument the day he'd returned from Star City, Barry had tried to put all thoughts of Harrison Wells out of his mind. But it was hard, when the man was being strangely considerate. Like, when Caitlin had returned to S.T.A.R., and had been beginning to lay into him for leaving Harry unattended when he was still so recently wounded.
Harry's voice had echoed into the Cortex, snapping and impatient, saying he did not need to be mother henned and if Caitlin tried that too, he'd throw her out just as fast.
So, that had been nice. Being rescued from Caitlin's ire. Even though he'd had no reason to do that, no reason to take the blame on himself. But then… Barry knew he was a bad liar, so there was no way he could have come up with a convincing lie in time, and he really… he didn't want to reveal the truth about the word on his wrist.
And it had nothing to do with the fact that everyone else would probably use it as a reason to think Harry was Eobard Thawne. Really.
After that, after he'd recovered, Harry had given him his space. Sure, the guy seemed to hover on his periphery a lot, like an electron caught in an energy shell, but he was quick to back off, swift to avoid being alone together. Barry, in a way, hoped it was that Harry thought he needed time to process this without being forced, and not because the guy was avoiding him now that he knew he didn't have a chance.
He had no idea why he hoped that, because the last person he wanted as a soulmate was Harrison, but he did. Maybe it was because they had actually had a sort of friendship forming, before Barry found out about this. Though a bitter part of him wondered if it wasn't some plot. That Harry had been trying to lure him in close, wait until they were solidly friends and not just allies, before revealing the truth. That was something the Dr Wells of their world would have done. And even if that man had been someone else in the end, it was hard to separate the two, which made it hard to look at Harry and not see echoes of Eobard.
Either way, the guy had been really nice about the matter, in his own way. And he'd seemed to thaw a bit towards everyone else. Which was what made his sudden terse attitude absolutely jarring, the way he sounded almost dead every time he said he was fine.
Then again… it was Christmas. And Zoom did still have his daughter. Barry couldn't blame him for not being happy. It wasn't the first time he wished he was faster, fast enough to stop Zoom for good… But it was probably the first time that he wished, if he couldn't get that fast, that there was at least some way he could not just rescue Jesse, but make sure Zoom never found her again.
And that had nothing to do with Harry being his soulmate, nothing to do with the fact that he sometimes missed the warmth that had developed between them. It was because he was the hero, and that's what heroes did. They rescued innocents and kept them safe.
(At least, that was the lie he told himself, because he refused to consider that he might be having a change of heart.)
Sometimes he wondered if his life hadn't become some kind of action movie. Between the being thrown around by giant gorillas, being shot at by the police, and now bearing witness to the kind of image enhancement he'd always scoffed at when he'd seen it done on tv? Yeah. Not exactly the life he signed up for when he'd decided to rescue his daughter, but he was the only man he knew who had all but one of the skills necessary for such an endeavour.
It was interesting to note that even children's toys seemed to be the same between these two earths. Which made him more and more certain that bigger, more fundamental things also had to be the same. Like the impossibility of a yellow soul ever being bonded to a red one.
Not that he hadn't combed through the security feeds at S.T.A.R., until he found one that showed what he was looking for. Barry, right arm bare to the world, and scarlet written up his forearm. Which showed him all he needed to see, and raised a very interesting question indeed.
Namely, how had Eobard Thawne managed to break things so badly?
He didn't really have time to consider it, though. The Trickster and Mardon were still at large; neither of them had been at the shipping facility when Barry had gone last night. Just a lot of C-4 dreidels, and Harrison had not resisted the overwhelming urge to smack his palm into his forehead when he'd heard how Barry had gotten himself and Detective Spivot out of that situation.
"So, yeah, I just made wind vortexes-"
"Vortices," he corrected absently.
Barry shot him a look, one that he studiously ignored because it reminded him all too much of how Tess would look at him when she felt he was more interested in being correct than in anything else, even the truth. "Okay, fine, wind vortices, by spinning my arms and kind of… flew us out of there."
He had expected to hear that he'd just cleared a path, which would have been a little dumb, but reasonable. But that? That was when Harrison introduced his face to his palm.
"What?" Barry had snapped, offended. "You think you would've had a better idea?"
"Yes," he replied in a long-suffering tone. Harrison slid his hand down the side of his face as he looked up at the rest of the group. "I would have walked out of there a lot sooner. C-4 doesn't detonate except under very specific circumstances: a combination of extreme heat and a shockwave. You can drop it, set it on fire, irradiate it, shoot it with a rifle. Doesn't matter. The only way any of those dreidels would have gone off before the Trickster detonated them is potentially if you'd sped out of there. Potentially."
He got those looks again, the ones that asked how a scientist and a businessman knows so much about weaponry. He ignored them, in favour of quirking an eyebrow at a -pardon the pun- shell-shocked looking Barry.
"…Oh."
Oh, indeed. He still has a strong urge to take Barry under his proverbial wing and teach him everything he knows about weapons.
Though Barry would probably be late for lessons if he did teach him, and Harrison is beginning to wonder if that is just an ironic trait all speedsters share, because his watch says it's 16:05 and there's still no sign of Zoom. He is half-tempted to leave, but he is afraid Zoom would take his lack of presence as a flat "No". Which was not acceptable, because he still had not decided.
The breach bubbles and expands, and Zoom lands in front of him.
Harrison can feel his heart beating faster, no matter how hard he tries to remain calm and collected.
"Have you decided?" Zoom asks.
He braces himself. "I need more time."
Zoom laughs at him, mockingly. "Don't we all. Decide."
Harrison shakes his head firmly. "I need more time."
The speed-demon looks at him, thoughtful in a way, before he replies. "Maybe if I go up there and kill a few of your new friends…" he muses.
"No!" Harrison can't help the fear that colours his tone.
"Or that speedster soulmate of yours. The last time we met he looked a little worse for the wear; maybe I should put him out of his misery."
He presses down on the panic welling up within him, because how could Zoom know that? "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a soulmate, never have."
Harrison crosses his arms over his chest, trying desperately to keep from quivering.
"Don't toy with me, Wells. Your awful penmanship is unmistakeable."
That's his excuse? Harrison is almost certain it's something else, so he scoffs, ready to retort. "It's two letters. I fail to s-" his words end in a choked noise, because Zoom is no longer in front of him, Zoom is behind him, arm around his throat.
He grabs for Zoom's arm, trying to pull it down enough that he can tuck his chin under and break the chokehold. There are clawed fingers on his right arm, yanking his sleeve down, revealing the false blankness of his arm. Not that Harrison really has time to applaud his own cleverness, not when a blink of an eye has the sharp pain of the latex being ripped free. Not when his arm is being yanked back, almost wrenched from the socket, joints popping with the strain.
He struggles, uselessly, knowing Zoom is reading the words he'd so carefully hidden. And if Zoom knows enough to send doppelgängers from Barry's life after him, then he doubtless knows enough to tell these are Barry's words, if only because they are speed force yellow.
Laughter rings cold and merciless in his ear.
"I will grant you one more day, but know this, Wells," Zoom whispers harshly against his ear, and he can't even really feel the air from it. Rationally, he knows it's the mask. Irrationally, it makes Zoom seem even less human. He can't help the shiver that crawls down his spine. "Regardless of what you choose, I will see to it that everything you love is destroyed. In one form or another."
He's pushed to the ground, and Zoom casually walks back towards the portal. He glances over his shoulder. "I'll tell your daughter you said, 'Hello.'"
Then he's gone, in blue lightning and the burble of gravitational distortion. Harrison clutches his shoulder, trying to focus on the pain from strained ligaments, the agony of where his still-healing bullet wound was stretched too far. Anything to not think of the possible reasons for Zoom's vendetta, the fear he has for Jesse, and the growing concern for the fate of Barry Allen.
The only reason he gives Wells more time is because he knows what his answer will be in the end. No matter what else he has promised, he's offered to return dear little Jesse, safe and sound. And if he knows anything about his enemy, he knows that man won't give up the chance to save his daughter. After all, Wells has shown time and time again that he doesn't really care about people. Much less that soulmate of his, given how he'd seemingly immediately pushed the Flash into trying to take him down.
Zoom thinks they could work well together, if Wells would just shed those last few pesky morals of his. He's certainly vicious enough.
He'd lied, a little, about how he knew that Wells had become bonded to the Flash of so-called Earth-1. He'd had his suspicions before, when he'd first started investigating the young speedster, looked for ways to make him easy pickings. Finding out that he'd been bonded to the other Harrison Wells, finding out his soulmark had disappeared without a trace after the singularity that had joined their worlds together.
The other universe is a fragile, broken thing, limping along because it hadn't been allowed to die. If Harrison Wells had once been Allen's soulmate, had been killed in a way that erased him completely from existence… A world struggling to continue to exist, despite the paradoxes that twisted time around him in a painful way whenever he crossed over into it, would have eagerly latched onto anything that would help it heal, even to a small degree.
Even if it meant tangling up a man from another universe in its tortured snares.
Seeing those two letters in impossibly dark indigo on Barry Allen's wrist had lent strong weight to his theory about how this universe was trying to correct the holes ripped in it.
Though it hadn't been the handwriting that had given Wells away; his hand wasn't that distinct. It had been the colour.
There was the most curious thing that happened when you observed the world at certain speeds, certain frequencies, and it was that even the motions of ordinary people were accompanied by a blur of energy. A blur that always echoed the colours of their souls.
Appear in the right place, at the right time, at the right speed and frequency, and one could see a rainbow of movement. A multitude of hues, vibrant, pale, umbered, varying degrees of saturation. Distinct, always distinct, no matter how the lines of motion intercepted, except when soulmates touched. That was when you saw the interesting colours.
Sometimes they pushed white -something he had never seen before-, sometimes they blurred into grey -not quite the cool grey of a pair that hadn't met, but something warmer-, and rarely they fell towards black -never quite there, but always far darker than any individual soul he had ever seen. He doesn't know what the different blendings mean, but he knows they're important.
And if you just slowed down and looked as the rest of the world raced past, you could watch that rainbow sea part before you, to reveal the most impossible darkness following the movements of a single person.
Seeing words written in speed force gold along the length of Wells' forearm had really only confirmed what he already thought he knew.
When all was said and done, when Mardon and Jes- the Trickster were locked away once more, Barry finds himself mostly alone in S.T.A.R. Labs, entirely by his own design. He has a lot to think about, a lot to consider, and maybe tonight isn't the best night to do it -it's the West family Christmas party, and of course he has to be there-, but he's not sure when he'll be willing to consider some of these thoughts again.
Hearing about what happened to Patty's father made him think about his own life, how his mother had been murdered and he'd been willing to do whatever it took to fix that. And when he'd been convinced by his alternate self to not intervene, he'd taken the resulting helpless rage out on a man he'd had no hope of beating.
Maybe it hadn't ended up with him in prison, but it had ruined a lot of things, following that vengeful impulse.
Barry watches Harry through the glass as he considers this. It's kind of surprising that he hasn't been noticed yet, but Harry's back is to him, and that's probably why.
What he does know, is that he can't keep looking at Harry and see Eobard Thawne. He can't look at Wells' face and see the enemy. For all the evil Thawne had done, a lot of good had come from it too, and… there had been something between them, something that he'd be an idiot to try to deny. If he thought only about before discovering the truth… he couldn't help but still like the man he thought he'd known.
Which said something about him that he maybe wasn't going to analyse ever.
He exhales slowly, and just tries to let go of all that anger and hate he still feels for the last man he knew with piercing blue eyes and a desperate drive to do whatever it took to get back to the home he knew. He speaks aloud for his own benefit, because the man he needs to say the words to no longer exists.
He's not sure how well he succeeds until Harry turns around, notices his presence, and all he feels is a lingering sort of sadness. No anger because of his face, no slight urge to punch him for crimes he didn't commit. Though there's still the anger of being lied to, the urge to hit him for hiding how they were connected, but he can't even blame him any more, not when they both had made it clear to each other from day one that neither of them wanted this.
And he tries to ignore the hurt that wells up when Harry turns down his invitation.
He would have rather been at the West family Christmas party that night, but he couldn't. Even if he can't bring himself to celebrate, not with his daughter kidnapped, being surrounded by happy people isn't so bad a place to be. Of course, there's Barry's trigger happy girlfriend to consider, but he's pretty sure he wouldn't end up dead from encountering her again, so long as Barry was there.
Except, no, he couldn't, and not because of his own personal tragedies, but because he had to meet Zoom.
Harrison laid, sprawled on his back on his cot, and stared at the ceiling, a grim smile twisting the corners of his mouth despite having no reason to smile. This was just further proof for his thoughts that he wasn't allowed to have anything that he loved, that whatever good things he had would eventually be taken from him, ripped from his grasp cruelly and quickly.
It was self-pitying to the highest degree, and ordinarily he didn't indulge in such behaviour. After all, things could be worse. On this Earth, Harrison Wells' reputation had been destroyed by 'his' failure with the particle accelerator. He had that much, at least, that his company was still around and successful, his public reputation intact.
Though that hardly seemed to matter with a dead wife, a kidnapped daughter, and a soulmate he had just agreed to work against. What choice did he have, though? Zoom would have killed his daughter, probably killed him if he refused, and then where would that leave Barry. Where would that leave his team. At least this way he thought he might be able to come up with some way to keep everyone alive.
Which was a cold comfort indeed, but the only one he had.