Summary: Cisco finds Hartley sitting on the STAR Labs roof contemplating his life choices and where things go from here.
Hartmon Fest 2019 – Feb 23rd - canon
Little Farewells
Hartley isn't in any of the usual places when Cisco goes looking for him.
His current lab space is empty, his old office is dark with the door not just shut but also locked, the server room is filled only with noise, and none of the break rooms show any signs of a tea-drinking physicist. No Hartley hanging around in the cortex either, nor 'borrowing' things from Cisco's work-space. Nobody using the exercise area or the locker room either.
Its weird, actually, how used Cisco became to having Hartley around again. He'd been so preoccupied with everything else going on, that he hadn't noticed how Hartley's dry wit and cutting sarcasm had become a normal part of his workday again. But now that Hartley was nowhere to find, Cisco found himself uncomfortable with that absence.
Eventually, though, Cisco remembered that Hartley used to have a penchant for going up on to the roof during his lunch break. And, lo and behold, in the last place Cisco looked there was a Hartley Rathaway.
"What brings you up here, Cisco?" Hartley asked. He was leaning against the side of the roof access wall, gazing pensively out at the city.
"Looking for you, actually. I was hoping we could get back to work on the Patro-no now that things have at least temporarily calmed down with... do we call him Wells still or is that insulting to the guy he murdered?" Cisco thought it might be insulting, actually, but after years of thinking of that man as Dr. Harrison Wells it was difficult to start connecting that face with the name Eobard Thawne.
"I think we call him what we're comfortable with and let the dead rest," Hartley replied.
"What about you, then? What brought you up here?"
"The view. I always think better up here."
"Thinking about what?"
"How much I'll miss this place."
Cisco blinked slowly, wishing he'd misheard. "You're leaving then?"
"I... well, you know I've been sending out my resume to the local labs. Dr. McGee called me. Said she had a project starting at Mercury Labs soon and she wanted me to run it. The salary is... it's really good, better than my resume merits, honestly, with my unexplained unemployment and..." Hartley slid down until he was sitting, arms hooked loosely around his knees. "It sounds interesting. And a lot safer than this place. Relatively safer anyway."
"When do you start?" Cisco asked, coming over to sit down beside him, mimicking Hartley's position somewhat.
"Two weeks. I was going to tell you, Caitlin, and Barry together this afternoon." Hartley sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the wall. "Honestly, I don't know how you do it. How you walk around this place every day and keep smiling. After the way Wells set us up and used us to create a machine specifically designed to cause harm to the city... especially now that you know the truth about him. I can't get it out of my head. Every chess game we had, him teaching me Latin... it all feels ruined."
"I'm sorry you feel that way." Cisco shrugged after a moment. "Honestly, I'm not taking things as well as it seems. I guess I'm kind of good at the whole Stepford smiler thing. In high school I'd come home after a bad day and try to explain whatever went wrong with the computer I was working with or the program I was writing or a D&D campaign my friends were running and... blank stares. My parents would ask what was wrong but either they didn't actually care or they just didn't understand my answers but... eventually I just got really good at smiling even when I was really pissed off about something. That way no one asked what was wrong and I didn't get blank stares or feel like I was speaking Klingon or something."
"I can actually speak Klingon," Hartley volunteered.
"Of course you can."
"Sov tlhap SoH DoH." Hartley grinned when Cisco laughed.
"Okay, what does that mean."
"Roughly translates to 'you take this knowledge to the grave'. More poetic in English, more menacing in Klingon."
"More nerdy in Klingon," Cisco corrected.
"That too," Hartley allowed. Then they both went quiet for a moment, staring out at the city again.
"So, what will you miss about this place?"
"This view, for starters. You and Caitlin. Barry's..." Hartley held out a hand and made a so-so motion. "He's kinda preachy sometimes. But you and Caitlin have grown on me. And... I'd like to think that despite how much of a massive asshole I've been to you two in the past, you two will miss me too."
"Yeah. I think I really will miss you. We could still hang out sometimes, you know?"
Hartley smiled. "I'd like that." He hummed thoughtfully under his breath and then said, "there's this beat up piano in one of the break rooms. I don't remember who got it or why, but it showed up while I was still an intern and I'd just sit and play it on the weekends when I'd sneak in to use the break rooms for studying. My roommate would listen to this really loud, obnoxious, music with more screaming than singing and he'd never use headphones. Probably purposefully drove me out of our room to have sex with his girlfriend, but whatever. It was a better atmosphere studying here. Wells... Wells caught me doing it a couple of times, but never said anything."
"I was always surprised the piano sounded so good, considering how burned it looks," Cisco offered. He'd played it a few times himself.
"Literal fire sale."
Cisco snickered. "You know those emails some places send out with coupons and advertisements? Sometimes the subject line says its a Flash Sale and I just can't take those seriously anymore."
"Clearly false advertising. Only way the Flash would be for sale is if someone puts him up for one of those fundraising date auctions."
"You'd bid on him, wouldn't you."
"Maybe. I mean, his ass looks amazing in that suit. You did an excellent job of taking my initial designs and turning them into something actually functional and that clings just right..."
"Dude, please, it was my gift to mankind."
They exchanged amused looks and burst out giggling near simultaneously.
"I'll miss the air hockey table hidden in that teeny tiny little room behind the server room. It tilts just slightly to the back right corner and you have no idea how many times I kicked Ronnie's ass at that and he never once realized what was really going on."
"Thanks for the tip, now I too shall reign supreme at air hockey." Cisco fist pumped.
"As much as hearing about all the new metas makes me feel guilty because regardless of how they use their powers, they're still victims too... I'm also going to miss hearing about all the weird powers out there now. Because..."
"Because trying to figure out how to explain those powers with science is kind of exhilarating?"
"Yes. It really is." Hartley yawned, covering his mouth with a hand. "Won't miss the way too common all nighters helping Barry fight crime, though. I have enough insomnia issues as it is; I don't need this kind of no-sleeping encouragement."
Cisco grimaced. "Yeah, I take way more morning naps than I ever did in college. Seven-thirty and eight-forty five classes. Then nap until lunch then afternoon classes then study. But then Tuesday/Thursday I only had one afternoon class and could just sleep all morning if I needed to. But after two semesters in a row of that scheduling I was starting to combust. Ended up with a more even class split from there on out. Still napped a lot of morning away, though."
"Ugh, napping. I miss being able to nap. I can't really do it anymore. I just wind up laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to get my brain to stop whirring." Hartley yawned again. "I'm sorry."
"For... what?" Cisco asked in genuine puzzlement.
"That I was such an awful dick to you when we first met. That I kept being a jerk for so long. You deserved to be treated a lot better. And as much as I'd like to blame Harrison for encouraging my worst traits, I'm the one who made the choice to act that way and I'm really sorry about it."
"It's already forgiven, Hartley."
"Thank you."
They sat there for another long stretch of silence before Cisco admitted, "I wish you weren't going."
"I'd wind up gone one way or another, Cisco. If not me taking a new job then because Caitlin was finally driven to homicide by my random Latin phrases."
"She really hates it when you do that."
"Which is why I do it."
"You just like causing trouble," Cisco accused. Hartley just smiled with a sort of 'you got me there' expression and shrugged. "While I'm sure everything will work out for you at Mercury Labs, I hope you know you've always got a place here at STAR with Team Flash."
Hartley ducked his head a little. "Thanks." He paused and then added, "I still want to be here whenever Barry finally travels back in time to the day I attacked Rathaway Industries. Just in case the Patro-no doesn't work out like we think it will, it'd be a good idea to have my gloves handy and I'm the only one who can hear the frequencies to make any necessary adjustments. I really feel like we're missing something about the intensity levels."
"Not this again," Cisco sighed and stood, stretching. "It's gonna work. But, yeah, I promise to make sure you're there as back up against the Time Wraith just in case the Patro-no is somehow ineffective."
"Good."
"Speaking of the Patro-no, we do still need to finish it, so..."
"Yeah, yeah," Hartley grumbled, standing and stretching as well. "Let's go do science."