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long were the nights when my days once revolved around you
“How did you get in here?”
Barry sat up, knocking his head against the wall. Trying to figure out the answer to that question himself as he stood, spinning around to locate the source of the voice—he was pretty sure it was Hartley, though he didn’t think they’d called him for this particular mission, so what was he doing at S.T.A.R., and why was he the one asking… oh.
As Barry’s senses came back to him, so did the realization that this- this was S.T.A.R., but not the S.T.A.R. he knew. And this was Hartley. But not the Hartley he knew.
Not… the Hartley from the time he knew him, at least.
Fuck.
“I… uh…” accidentally ran backwards in time again? Probably shouldn’t say that.
Hartley sighed, though it wasn’t as long and drawn out as Hartley’s usual sighs were; the exaggerated, exhausted ones Barry was used to. “You’re one of the new interns, aren’t you?”
Barry blinked. He felt like Hartley should be one of the new interns (then again, he didn’t know what year it was, or how old Hartley was, or even how long he’d worked at S.T.A.R., considering Hartley never talked about that, and Barry had never asked). But… judging by the way he looked, the way he carried himself, he almost looked like he was still a teenager. Definitely not old enough to be employed full time at a research facility like this. “I-“ he started, belatedly, but Hartley waved away his response.
“If you wanted to go exploring, you could’ve asked.” He jutted his head to the side. “Come on. I’ll show you the actually interesting labs. There’s nothing particularly fun in here, anyway.”
Barry scrambled to follow him, because there was nothing else to do at this point. “Um, Hartley-“ Barry paused, shaking his head a little, “Mr. Rathaway,” he corrected, and Hartley stopped him with a quick shake of his head and a gentle smile.
“Please. Mr. Rathaway was my father. And I hate my father. Hartley is fine.” There was an underlying bitterness to those words, and again, Barry made the comparison to the Hartley he knew. If he’d made a joke like that, it would not be casual with a hint of underlying bitterness. It would be a biting comment filled with derision meant to make you apologize profusely for calling him that. Instead, Hartley was still smiling lightly.
Barry matched his smile, because it felt weird not to. Whenever this was, it had to have been long before Cisco started, and something bad must’ve happened to Hartley, because Barry would not qualify this kid as either a jerk, or a dick. “Right. Uh. Hartley,” he said, “I’m sorry, this is a stupid question, but what day is it?”
Hartley paused, turning to look at him for a second, before continuing on. “Tuesday.”
Barry grit his teeth, saying nothing for a couple seconds as he tried to approach this as best he could. “Right. Tuesday. But I meant… uh, the date.”
“The date,” Hartley repeated. “March seventeenth?”
“And… the year?”
Now Hartley was squinting at him and frowning, having fully stopped in the hallway. “2007?”
“Ah.”
Hartley’s squinting grew even more suspicious. “Why… were you expecting a different year?”
“What? I wasn’t!”
Hartley tilted his head. “Can I see your ID badge?”
Well, the jig was up. “I don’t… have an ID badge.”
“Right.” Hartley stepped closer to him, somehow intimidating despite being nearly half a foot shorter and still looking like a teenager. “So you’ll tell me what you’re doing here.”
It wasn’t a question, and Barry wondered if there was a way to get himself out of this situation. He couldn’t run, if he could run, he would’ve gotten himself out of this before it had even happened, but he couldn’t, so he had to… “I’m a time traveler, and I ended up here on accident. I need your help getting back.”
Hartley said nothing for several long seconds, biting his bottom lip. “Prove it.”
Not the typical response, but Hartley was smart. Something Barry always forgot about him, that bit him in the ass when he least expected it. “Um.” Barry reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and phone. “Here.” He handed them both to Hartley, who narrowed his eyes before taking them. He looked through the wallet first, pulling out the cards, Barry’s ID, and then putting everything back, before turning his attention to the cellphone. He pulled the case off and frowned at the logo on the back.
“This is an iPhone. These…” he frowned, pressing the power button. “These came out this year. This is-“
“Uh, if you hold it up to my face, it’ll unlock.”
“It has facial recognition?” Hartley unlocked the phone and began going through things, finding the settings and messing around for nearly a minute before tossing it back with no warning. “Yeah, alright, you’re a time traveler. What are you doing here?”
Barry shrugged. “Billion dollar research facility. I thought… you guys could help me,” he lied quickly.
“We aren’t… worth a billion dollars,” Hartley said carefully, and Barry cringed.
“Right. Forget I said that.”
“But…” Hartley said. “Dr. Wells can help you. He’s brilliant.”
“Oh! No! No, no, no. Not Dr. Wells,” Barry said, stepping forward quickly enough that it made Hartley flinch back. “Sorry. Not Dr. Wells, though.”
“Why… not?”
“I can’t. Tell you that,” Barry said slowly. “But he can’t see me.”
Hartley didn’t look like he was particularly willing to accept that, but apparently he decided not to argue. “Fine. No Dr. Wells. But someone-“
“You can, Hartley. You can help me.”
Hartley blinked at him, his mouth opening and then closing for several seconds. “So… you’re a time traveler. But you know my name.”
Fuck. He was really out of practice with this. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Why?”
“You know I-“
“Can’t tell me. Right.” Hartley swallowed. “You think I can help you.”
“Yes. I do.”
“… How?”
“Uh, first thing’s first, do you have a- uh, biolab?” Barry asked, trying to sound like he didn’t know the answer.
“A biolab,” Hartley repeated. “We don’t… call it that. But. Sure. I guess. Follow me.” Hartley led him down the halls of S.T.A.R., making sure not to let anyone see him, and silently ushered him in. “It’s late,” he said. “Not many people still here, so we should be alone.” He spun around to look at him. “So. What do you need.”
“I’ll… know it when I see it.”
you paint me a blue sky, then go back and turn it to rain
Their search was interrupted by footsteps. Footsteps that stopped right outside the door. Hartley looked at the shadowed figure, eyes widened, and turned, frantically gesturing for Barry to hide somewhere before the door opened and the figure stepped in from the hallway. Hartley sucked in a sharp breath, twisting his hands around the edge of his sleeves. “Dr. Wells.”
Thawne stepped further inside the lab, making himself visible, and paused, tilting his head, and looked around the room, eyes falling on the supply closet Barry had hid himself in for maybe a millisecond too long, before he looked back at Hartley, eyebrows raised, and whatever he conveyed with that silent look, Hartley seemed to get. Hartley turned away, clearing his throat before speaking again. “Harrison,” he said, or maybe corrected himself, “I- um- what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.” He frowned. “Are you hurt?”
“No, no, I- I-” Hartley cleared his throat again, almost like it was a compulsion. “I’ve been fighting a migraine all day, so I came here to get-“ he broke off, as Thawne reached into a drawer next to him and pulled out a pill bottle, offering it out to him, “… thank you.” He took it with shaky fingers that he seemed to be trying his best to still, opening the bottle slowly and shoving two pills in his mouth, swallowing them dry.
Thawne’s hand went to Hartley’s shoulder, and he took a step closer, taking the bottle back and setting it carelessly behind him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Harrison.” He glanced at the supply closet, then very quickly looked away again.
“You seem tense.” He reached out with his other hand, petting through Hartley’s hair, which only served to make him tense further.
Barry watched, trying to reconcile what was happening in front of him with his perception of reality, of Hartley, even of Thawne, and hoping, very much, that the conclusion his brain was telling him to get to wasn’t the correct one.
“What’s wrong, Hartley?” He leaned in close, hand traveling to rest against the back of Hartley’s neck, tugging him in a little. “You know you can tell me anything. You’re my guy.” The last sentence, he spoke practically right into Hartley’s ear, and Hartley’s entire body seemed to shudder at the words.
“Nothing. Really. Just a headache.”
Thawne didn’t believe it, if anything, he seemed even more suspicious, and Hartley seemed to weigh his options for a moment; Barry recognized the look on him, could practically see the gears turning in his head, coming up with the best way to ease Thawne’s suspicions, before he seemed to come to a decision.
He leaned forward, reaching up and tangling his hands in Thawne’s hair, pulling him down and kissing him. Barry should probably close his eyes (he did not, he chalked up the reason as being in pure shock). The kiss went on for far too long, and when Hartley pulled away, Thawne pulled him back in again, the fingers on the back of his neck curling possessively.
Hartley broke away again after a few seconds, his face flushed, and looked up at Thawne, smiling softly. The look in his eyes… he looked so trusting, so open. So very not the Hartley that Barry knew. “You don’t have to worry about me. There are more important things.”
“Right now, you are the most important thing, Hartley.” His voice was still low, growling, and Hartley’s flush grew, spreading down his neck, and his eyes flicked down for a second.
His response was another kiss, this one soft, unhurried, and when Hartley broke the kiss, he stayed close to Thawne, standing on his toes as Thawne straightened up. “You have a meeting in five minutes,” he murmured against his lips.
He sighed, sparing a glance at the clock across the wall, and pulled away from Hartley almost reluctantly. “So I do.” He pressed a kiss to Hartley’s forehead, smoothing out his hair. “We’ll finish this conversation later. Tonight?”
Hartley hesitated for a second, before he nodded. “Tonight.”
“I’ll have a car pick you up. Around ten?”
Hartley nodded again, and watched Thawne leave, arms wrapped around himself, and he didn’t move for nearly a full minute, before he finally shook himself a little, stepped over to the supply closet, and threw the door open, staring at Barry with eyes that were a little too wide, a little too scared, like- honestly, he looked a bit like a feral animal. Half terrified, half ready to tear out someone’s throat.
“If you. Tell anyone,” he started, and his words were sharp, sharp enough that Barry nearly flinched back, before he remembered this was a five foot eight, underfed, overworked, maybe-twenty year old kid, and Barry cut him off, recognizing where he was going with this and waving away his fears, as well as he could with the shock and mild (extreme) horror still coursing through him at this revelation to Thawne and Hartley’s relationship.
“Who am I going to tell? Time traveler, remember? Future person here. No one where I’m from is gonna care.” A complete lie, but Hartley didn’t need to know that. And Barry wouldn’t tell anyone, anyway, now that Thawne was gone. Dredging up inappropriate workplace relationships with him wouldn’t do any good.
Except… right. Hartley. Hartley would remember.
Oh, god, future (present?) Hartley might actually kill him to ensure he’d keep that secret. Or maybe when Barry got back, he’d simply refuse to acknowledge it.
Had Hartley recognized him the moment he’d first met Barry? Had he been remembering this day, this moment, for years? Or would he only remember it when Barry came back?
He wasn’t sure which option was the better one.
Hartley looked at him for a few seconds, clearly still untrusting, but there wasn’t much either of them could do about that, so he finally nodded, wiped his mouth and straightened his hair and jacket compulsively, before he turned away.
Barry didn’t bring it up again, except to say, tentatively, before he left, “Hartley… be careful. With Dr. Wells.” And he knew he shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have said anything, but he couldn’t just leave it.
and i’ll look back and regret how i ignored when they said, “run as fast as you can”
“Right on time, Allen,” Hartley’s tired voice over the intercom spoke, before he sighed and buzzed Barry up.
The apartment door was cracked open when Barry stepped inside the building, but he knocked anyway, before taking a couple hesitant steps inside.
“Right on time for what?” Barry asked, squinting in the low light, locating Hartley sitting at his kitchen table with a half-empty bottle of scotch and a couple glasses.
Hartley didn’t look at him, instead picked up one of the empty glasses and stared at it intently as he spoke. “Get a little stuck in time today?”
Barry stared. “Hartley- I- have you known the whole time?”
“The whole time?” Hartley repeated. “What have I known the whole time?”
“That it was me. Have you known since we first met? Did you recognize me?”
When Barry rounded the table so he could actually see Hartley’s face, his expression was guarded, like usual, for this year, this time, at least, and so different from the open vulnerability in the Hartley of so many years ago. And it was impossible to appreciate (well, appreciate was the wrong word… understand? Acknowledge?) exactly what Eobard Thawne had done to Hartley without having seen it first hand, the visceral difference between Hartley then and Hartley now.
There had been a time Hartley Rathaway had been open, honest, allowed himself to smile for longer than a second, who trusted without a second thought.
The Hartley of now would never have helped him, or anyone, for that matter, the way past Hartley had. He never would have smiled like that, never would have allowed himself to be vulnerable.
Hartley’s eyes narrowed, like he knew exactly what Barry was thinking. “Don’t,” he said, and poured himself and Barry a glass, indicating for him to sit down. “I’m going to tell you how this conversation is going to go, and if you say any of the things I’m telling you not to say, I will kick you out. Understood?”
Barry hesitated, but sat down and nodded.
“I don’t want pity. I don’t want worry. Harrison and I…” Hartley swallowed.
It was telling, that he’d had years, years since the first time he’d met Barry and realized he was the time traveling not-intern he’d met over a decade ago, and he was still struggling with how to talk about it.
“Hartley-“ he started, and he cut him off.
“No. Do not.” Hartley took a deep breath. “Harrison and I were together.” He took a slow sip of his drink, seeming to savor it. “And what’s the point in keeping secrets, anyway? Whose memory am I protecting?”
“Your own?” Barry offered, and Hartley paused, closing his eyes for a few seconds.
“No one else knows, Allen,” he murmured, and Barry took a second to realize what that meant.
“Not even…” he started, and Hartley shook his head once, slowly.
“Tell him, and you’re dead.”
Barry swallowed. “Yeah. Okay. No telling. Not my secret. Got it.” He took a long drink, wishing very much he could get drunk at this exact second. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“We are talking about it,” Hartley muttered.
“I mean, like… actually talk about it.”
“Oh, one of those. A hallway talk.”
“We’re not… in a hallway,” Barry said, squinting at him. “Look, I… do you think that’s a good idea, to keep something that big a secret for so long?” He wanted to add especially to someone you’ve been dating for two years but he was a little afraid Hartley would kick him out for that.
Hartley laughed without any humor to it. “You’re hardly one to talk about secrets, Allen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hartley bit his lip, leaning back, and didn’t say anything for a second. When he spoke, he didn’t look at Barry, and his tone was guarded, like he was holding himself back. “I was nineteen,” he said simply, and that was all he needed to say, really.
Barry swallowed, looking down at his lap.
“And you fucking left me with him.”
What was the right response to that? There was no fixing the way Hartley hurt. “What was I supposed to do? The timeline-“
“Fuck the timeline, Barry!” Hartley slammed his glass down and Barry flinched. “Fuck your fucking timeline! He already fucked it! And he fucked me, too! And you just let it happen!”
Barry took a deep breath, trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t make Hartley angrier. “I’m sorry.”
He scoffed. “You’re sorry? Tell that to the decade of mental and physical abuse he put me through.”
“Hartley…”
“You knew what he was capable of. Sorry isn’t going to do shit.”
“I know.”
Hartley shook his head. “And you know what the worst part is, Allen?”
Barry was pretty sure the worst part was Hartley being manipulated by a time traveling murderer for most of his adult life, and the fact that Barry hadn’t tried to help him get out of it. “What?”
“I’m glad you didn’t try harder. Because despite everything…” he laughed softly, “he gave me everything. I would be nothing without him.”
“I don’t think that’s-”
“Not in the way you think that means. I’m not pathetic. And I told you I don’t want pity.” Hartley twisted his fingers together, clasping and unclasping his hands. “My… anger. The comfort that I can take in knowing I could never let that happen again. Who I am, now. I wouldn’t be that without him. I needed him to break me. I needed that. So I couldn’t be broken again.”
Barry was pretty sure that wasn’t a lesson to learn from anything, ever. But Hartley did not want someone to argue with him, so he didn’t, and they drank in silence.
don’t you think nineteen’s too young to be played by your dark, twisted games?