Title: Unmistakable
Rating: Teen
Relationships: Cisco/Eobard, Cisco & Harry.
A/N: This is an AU of 2x05: The Darkness And The Light in which I introduce a soulmate element. Note for past Cisco/Eobard relationship. Enjoy!
He hears him before he sees him, even if it's much easier to pretend that he doesn't. Still... A quick flick of his wrist lowers his music enough for conversation and Cisco seems to take that as his cue to actually enter the room.
"Come inside. Use my work room, use my computer. I don't care." Ramon says, the now-black letters of his soulmark flashing as he waves a hand around the room. The sarcasm is painfully obvious, dripping into the air between them in a way that he can't be bothered to care about.
"Thanks." He shoots back and he can almost hear the eye roll that follows.
"You and Wells Prime have very different musical tastes; his were better." It's petty and they both know it, but he lets it slide because his musical tastes are not what Cisco's here to talk about.
"This Harrison Wells and I are very different, but similar in some respects." He reminds him, not bothering to look up from his research into this Earth's Wells. "I see he made almost the same mistake that I did with the particle accelerator."
"He did a lot of terrible things." Cisco shoots back. "None of them were by mistake."
There it is, he thinks, and pushes back from the computer so that he can stand. That's why you're here.
"What did he do to you?" He asks and Cisco looks away as if that will keep him from digging. "I know he caused the singularity and killed Barry's mother. Blah, blah, blah." He's heard enough about that, but not about why this child skirts around him like a mouse would a particularly viscous cat.
"What did he do to you?" He repeats and picks up the nearest item to him; a bright red clamp, cold and heavy in his hand. Familiar in principle but not in practice. " You can barely look me in the eye." The flinch that he receives when the clamp slams into the bar between them isn't quite what he expects, but it's not an answer either, so he presses on. "Why is that? What did he do to you?"
"He shoved his hand through my chest." Is what he gets, angry and bitten off as Cisco glares up at him. "He told me that he loved me and stopped my heart."
There's something vulnerable behind that anger, something that he's not supposed to hear, but he laughs anyway, because: "Ouch. Okay, that would do it." A quick glance up and he knows that he still has his attention. "But you survived that..."
"Only because Barry erased that timeline." Cisco adds, which doesn't help in any way toward explaining why Cisco remembers, but he can certainly play along.
"I see. Barry traveled back in time." Even if he can't quite keep the smugness out of his tone.
"Twice." Not a fluke then, if he remembers both times.
He hums and sets the clamp aside so that he can cross his arms. "Here's how it is."
Cisco looks up from where he'd tracked the clamp's movement and shifts ever so slightly away. "What's the deal?."
"You don't like me." An understatement. "I don't like you," Not quite true, but then he doesn't not like him either. "But you have to work with me to stop Zoom and Doctor Light. Can you do that?"
There's no use wasting his time on him if he can't, but Cisco just looks away again and makes to leave. "I guess we'll see, won't we?" He says as he passes and Wells almost smiles in response, thumb flicking over the button on his watch to start it scanning.
"I guess we will." He tells him instead and lets him reach the doorway before reeling him back. "One more thing; you said you were going to retest the STAR Lab's satellite."
"To scan for solar emissions, yeah" A good lie if he hadn't checked to see if Cisco had kept his word ten minutes before the engineer had even shown up in the doorway. "We're up and running."
Turning back to the scaffold to check his watch, he notes that the clamp is gone and internally applauds Ramon's sense of self-preservation.
"I want to see your program-"
I want to see what you can do-
" -I want to see if it works."
-And how well you can do it.
"Don't worry," Cisco scoffs and drops the clamp onto the shelving by the door. "It'll work."
Once he's truly gone, Wells glances down at his watch and, sure enough, it's glowing an unmistakable red.
...
That should have been the end of it. He has what he wants and Cisco's none the wiser to being played.
That should have been the end of it, but his brain catches on to a detail of their conversation and won't let it go until he gives up on Harrison Wells' internet biography altogether.
He told me he loved me and stopped my heart. Said all broken and angry, but not angry at Wells. Or even Eobard, really.
"Oh, you idiot." He can't help but breathe once it clicks. "You can't look me in the eye because I'm not him." He's just different enough from Cisco's Wells to be a painful reminder of what's missing, but not different enough for him to forget being murdered by his own soulmate.
...
It's laughable how truly easy it is to find the security feed of when Cisco's soulmark changes color, even if it doesn't happen right away. It's a meet up, obviously planned to put Hartley Rathaway of all people at odds with Cisco, although the reason behind doing so is anyone's guess. A back up plan perhaps, or, given the words gracing his doppleganger's wrist, a way to usher in a new favorite in as clear a way as possible.
Wells isn't even done speaking before the engineer is shoving his fists into his pockets in what anyone would mistake for nervousness. Hr knows better, however, and pauses the surveillance feed long enough to read the words wrapping around Ramon's wrist.
One of the finest engineering minds I have ever seen.
It's just a snippet of conversation, not even their first words to each other, but it's a soulmark nonetheless. Stark and unmistakably in black instead of the dusty red it had been seconds before and Wells feel something dangerously close to pity curl up his stomach.
There's no way for him to ever see the timeline in which Cisco Ramon dies at the hands of his soul mate.
A part of him is grateful for that, but another infinitely more curious part wonders why.