Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Cisco."

Dr. Wells' smile was placating, like a parent who'd caught their child with their hand in the cookie jar. Cisco was too distracted by his discovery to notice.

"Dr- oh my god, Dr. Wells! I need to show you- this is so dangerous, I can't believe we caught it in time, come look!" Cisco rambled, running to the top of the ramp into the accelerator and gesturing for Dr. Wells to follow. He didn't.

"What were you doing in my accelerator?" Dr. Wells asked and Cisco's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Hartley was running some calculations and they didn't look right so I thought I'd-" Cisco started and Dr. Wells let out a soft chuckle.

"I know you and Hartley have your differences, Cisco, but that is no excuse to sabotage his work on the accelerator."

Cisco froze. Sabotage? He would never- didn't Dr. Wells know how much this job meant to him? "What? No, Dr. Wells, I wouldn't-"

"I can't have you on my team if I can't trust you. This project demands loyalty and professionalism. Perhaps Hartley's concerns were warranted."

Dr. Wells' statement felt like a punch to the gut and Cisco felt like the world had turned suddenly on its axis. Any explanation he might give would only make things worse. Dr. Wells was immovable, a stone wall where Cisco had hoped to find understanding. The moment the security team's heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, Cisco's stomach dropped; he hadn't meant for this to happen, hadn't meant to challenge Dr. Wells so directly. But there was no room for miscalculation with the particle accelerator; the margin for error was far too slim and the repercussions too great, too dangerous. And, like everything Cisco did, he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into it. He felt sick as he tried to understand how his career had been dismantled within minutes.

"Dr. Wells, please...I don't understand." His voice wavered, feeling small in the vastness of the lab that had so very briefly felt like his home. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, echoing in his ears, nearly drowning out whatever Dr. Wells was saying.

"I'm afraid your position at S.T.A.R. Labs has been terminated, Mr. Ramon." Dr. Wells said with that same infuriatingly placid smile as four large security guards entered behind him. "You've disrupted my team's work enough."

"I was only trying to help. I didn't mean to-"

But Dr. Wells' gaze was cold, the warmth that had once colored his interactions with the team nowhere to be found. As the guards gripped Cisco's arms and began to lead him away, he thought of his brother Dante, effortlessly successful, and how his family would see this as yet another failure, another blemish Cisco could never wash away. This wasn't just a setback; this was ruin and there'd be no recovering from it.

Chapter Text

Hartley stared at the closed door where Cisco had disappeared, flanked by security, and while satisfaction bloomed in his chest, it mixed with something dangerously close to guilt. For weeks he'd held his tongue, his composure, played his part, bid his time as the man-child's enthusiasm and audaciousness wore on his patience. And now, with him gone, the lab was quieter, their team smaller, but the lab felt more...his. And he'd been right, Harrison had said so himself, Ramon was a liability. Still, that damned guilty conscience of his...

"Indulging in a bit of schadenfreude, Hartley?" Harrison asked, settling into the chair across from him.

"I didn't think you'd fire him-" Hartley started to explain as he set up the chess board between them but Harrison interrupted him.

"Didn't you?" Harrison's tone held a subtle challenge. "Don't apologize for achieving exactly what you wanted, Hartley. It's unbecoming."

Hartley bit back a smile, focusing on setting the white pieces up in front of Harrison. Dr. Snow was irritated with him for the firing - she and Ramon had become fast friends for reasons beyond Hartley's understanding - but Harrison, at least, didn't seem bothered. Good, that meant Harrison didn't know the full extent of his participation.

He wasn't foolish enough to think that Harrison was entirely oblivious to his part in Ramon's downfall. No, Harrison knew, or at least, he suspected. It was, after all, Hartley that he had allegedly tried to sabotage - he wasn't stupid, Ramon wasn't manipulative enough to try and sabotage anyone, and it was Hartley's calculations he'd looked over before disappearing downstairs. Hartley knew exactly what he'd been doing down there.

"You two seemed to be getting close," Hartley commented as though it hadn't driven him insane. "I almost thought you were friends."

"There was never any risk of friendship between us," Harrison replied easily, reaching for a piece and setting the game into motion. "Not unless you're redefining the term."

Hartley's mouth twitched upward into an amused smirk. That was one of the things he'd come to appreciate, even admire, about Harrison - he never felt the need to soften the truth, to bury it beneath niceties.

"Nomen amicitiae sic, quatenus expedit, haeret." Hartley countered as he studied the board.

For a moment, silence settled between them, punctuated only by the soft click of chess pieces. Harrison's gaze, however, lingered a little too long on Hartley's face, as if sifting through layers of veneer to find the truth beneath.

"I’m impressed," Harrison finally murmured, his voice low. "You've grown into quite the strategist."

Hartley allowed himself a small, smug smile. "Thank you, but I'm simply following your example. After all, I am nothing if not observant."

Harrison's lips tilted upward in a smirk, one that Hartley couldn't decide was genuine approval or something far more foreboding. "Would that we all had your diligence, Hartley."

Hartley glanced through the glass windows at the team across the hall, considering his next move. Harrison knew, so that meant he knew of the anomaly too. Hartley didn't have to inform him of that and he assumed, prideful though he was, that Harrison would deal with it privately.

Months later, he wished he hadn't.

Hartley hadn't expected this. He'd thought- he'd trusted Harrison to fix it before- trusted that the anomaly he'd spotted had been caught in time. That had been the whole point of setting Ramon up - or, most of it, anyway. If Harrison had seen it as an excuse to fire him, so be it, at least he knew. Hartley had never imagined Harrison would simply ignore the warning.

Harrison had never intended to stop this.

The anxiety pressed on his temples. As the minutes stretched and the readings edged far past dangerous territory, his own confidence wavered. Watching the door shut behind Ronnie, Hartley felt a pang - maybe even something like guilt.

"Just shut it down, Raymond," he muttered under his breath, a knot forming in the pit of his stomach.

Harrison wasn't the kind to make mistakes. He was calculating, sometimes ruthless, but never careless - never this careless. The disbelief burned in his chest like acid.

He didn't have time to dwell. The lights flickered and a deep tremor shuddered through the floor beneath him. And then the world exploded.

The next thing Hartley was conscious of was blinding pain holding his entire head in a vice; piercing through his ears, and what sounded like syncopated gunshots - sharp, crackling bursts that sent fresh waves of pain through his throbbing skull. He pressed his face into the grit-coated floor, gripping the sides of his head as he tried to orient himself. His glasses were broken on the floor in front of him but it didn't matter, he could hardly see for pain, smoke, and debris anyway. The worst had happened. He needed to get up. He had to get out. There was nothing he could do now.

He couldn't make himself move.

Hartley took a shaky breath and then another before finally managing to lift a hand, fingers brushing the smooth wall - nearly hot enough to the touch to burn him, grounding himself in the painful reality he so desperately wanted to avoid. This had been intentional, and Hartley was a goddamn coward.

Somewhere close, the crackling grew louder along with a relentless, high-pitched whine - A5 or maybe A6 he thought dimly. Each step was a battle against his own body, against the spinning and roaring that drowned his senses. Distantly, he was aware of people shouting, Caitlin's frantic voice mingling with another but he could barely hear it over the cacophony. He tried to stand straight and a wave of pain and nausea hit him so violently his shoulder slammed against the wall as he nearly collapsed.

"Over here!"

An unfamiliar voice broke through, far too loud, and Hartley groaned, slumping down the wall. The ringing in his ears grew worse, drowning out every coherent thought with a blinding screech, no longer a recognizable note. All he could think of, amidst the noise, was that Harrison hadn't even tried to fix it.

The moment fire and rescue found him, Hartley lost consciousness.