Disclaimer: I do not own the Flash, neither the characters as seen in the comics nor the new characters and concept introduced in the television series.
Mentors – Takes Place During/After The End of Ep:08 – Flash vs. Arrow
So, this was Oliver Queen. In retrospect, Eobard should have expected to meet him even sooner. He always was like the feeble shadow to Barry's brilliant light – it was foolish not to expect the same to be the case here.
And yet, even if he hadn't had a reservoir of future Justice League records to call from, it would have been almost insultingly easy to learn the Green Arrow's secret identity - or was it "The Arrow" at this point in time? It was actually rather surprising that he hadn't figured it out already, but then again despite being a hotspot for those studying metahuman history, Star City (or Starling City as they called it now) had never held Eobard's interest as a boy. Not when he had legends of Central City to pore over day and night. Even after becoming the Reverse Flash, he had never been so inclined to look.
And yet, even without Gideon Eobard was certain that all he would've had to do was apply his mind and resources. It's rather hard to keep such secrets from someone with future perspective. It was almost laughable to try.
Literally, when Oliver had started going on about how important his secret identity was to him Eobard had almost burst into laughter, which would've been very uncharacteristic for Wells.
He was used to it, anyway. Over the years there had been so many moments where he might have killed for the chance to laugh in the face of the primitives around him while pointing out all their petty fates and archaic histories, the timestream be damned. As far as he was concerned the fact that he had never fallen to the temptation spoke volumes about his self-control. He was quite proud of it.
Rule number one for being Harrison Wells: he had to remain silent. Sometimes all he had was his own thoughts and memories to keep him company.
He remembered Green Arrow, of course. In the original timeline, he and his "family" of archers had been active for years before the Flash came into being. They were the first so-called "superheroes," or at least the first to be truly organized. By the time Eobard came around, they were the experienced set – teaching the new blood how live the life and guiding new metahumans into "positive" lifestyles (all rather disgusting and unnecessary endeavors, as Eobard saw it).
Age would clearly mellow Queen out some in time, which Eobard thought was very amusing, but seeing him here was more like looking into the future and almost everyone except Barry. There was that same jaded worldview. The same pretentious holier-than-thou attitude. That sharp mind and cold determination that would keep him alive in the future.
They had fought on occasion, of course. When Barry had believed he needed help, or on those rare occasions Eobard actually went along with the "team-up" plans of some other so-called "super-criminal" (in his defense, Vandal Savage could be quite persuasive when he wanted to be). Queen wasn't important, of course. Not like The Flash. But Eobard did allow himself a bit of begrudging respect for a marksman who could reliably hit a blur travelling at the speed of sound or faster. Or at least he thought that killing him would have at least been worth some recognition.
Truly, it was another testament to his growth in perspective that Eobard now realized keeping other "heroes" around was almost as worthwhile and useful as getting them out of the way, for now at least.
Still, it just figured that even in a brand new timeline, Barry and Oliver Queen still gravitated towards each other. Even before the Accelerator exploded, the two had managed to meet. Eobard had no illusions about who Barry had met in Starling those few days before the big moment, or why he seemed to already know and have in-depth knowledge about the Arrow. It was typical, really, that thanks to the new timestream the two superheroes would come to know each other even before Barry's destiny began. It was also highly inconvenient, but Eobard was willing to look at it from an academic perspective every once in a while if it meant not driving himself to frustration.
It was very important to the plan that Barry primarily trust Wells – not just see him as a mentor, but also see his input above all else as being the lynchpin of his evolving destiny as the Flash. Not only would this help Eobard bring Barry to the correct level of speed faster, but it would also ensure Barry reacted correctly once it came time for him to learn the truth.
It was a calculated reaction – Barry would need to feel "Wells" betrayal as much as possible in order to want to reverse it, but would also still need to trust his word enough deep down that once Eobard told him what he needed to do, Barry would accept it with only a token would take a while to get there, but Barry would know to do the right thing as long as he knew what he was supposed to know beforehand: for this to work, Barry would need to have exactly the right amount of dependence on him.
Barry was growing nicely – not as fast as Eobard could have hoped, but it was still fine work. There were distractions, but he had always expecting there to be things that would need to be worked: Joe West as a significant problem, but getting rid of him was unfortunately impossible. The loss of one of Barry's parental figures had nearly kept him from becoming the Flash once. It would probably work again. The meant the same applied to Henry Allen, should he become as troublesome as the detective.
Even having to make do with such distractions, Barry's Flash's speed was growing steadily. Regrettable as his quick adoption of a "heroic" career was, the challenge of metahumans was deepening their bond and making Barry think about his speed in new and evolving ways. Slowly and steadily this Barry was becoming a truly formidable subject, just as he needed to be.
Eobard could vividly remember the first moment he looked upon Barry – this Barry – with what felt like pride. It wasn't that long ago, but it was impressive nonetheless: that moment when, despite his lapse of trust in Wells and his loss of confidence, he was able to reach into the speed force and regain his abilities, reaching a whole new level all at once. And for the first time, Eobard had been able to look at the man he created and know that he had done a good job. While it would never be the same – this Barry was far less easy to but abhor, for one – Eobard was glad to see how close the man he was becoming came to being an adequate replacement for the enemy he left behind.
This odd fondness he felt was another thing that Eobard was starting to enjoy about his own personal growth. Once upon a time, he wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to drive his fist through a Barry's head on sight. But now here he was on the other side of the fence – the head of the Flash "family," even – inspiring Barry to do what it is he always despised. It was ironic, and yet he was almost content – not enough to actually entertain staying in this barbaric time, but enough to suppress the rage he felt at being stuck here and again. It was strange to think about.
But the Arrow presented a problem that could ruin all of that hard work. If Barry were to start internalizing the Arrow's mentorship, if he started thinking like the Queen, if his naïve mind became too sharp… then things could turn catastrophic much sooner down the line than acceptable.
Not to mention the differences in ideology. Barry was much younger and more innocent (truly, it was strange to see him like this) than when they first met in the original timeline, and Oliver's tactical mind was clouded with a brutality and ruthlessness that had faded somewhat in the time Eobard knew him. Too much association could bring the distasteful result of some of that cold-heartedness rubbing off.
He supposed he was being ridiculous. If all went according to plan this timeline was fated to disappear in favor of the true history anyway, so who cared if this Flash turned out to be some sort of brooding anti-hero. But at the same time… the Flash was his, not Queen's. Eobard Thawne made this Barry, and he preferred him to stay a certain way. The hate he had given to the old Barry Allen was well earned, and it seemed a disservice to his own fixations to allow this Flash to become any different or lose those qualities that had made him so deserving of Eobard's loathing.
And whatever his reasoning, the course of this history was his domain. If he wanted to stop the partnership, it was certainly his right to. At one point he even considered making Queen disappear – it would be easy (he wondered, briefly, if he would have done so years before had he known) and would fix the problem post haste, but he quickly decided the clean up would be too much work. Stagg aside, making visits as the Reverse Flash would only have to be a last resort.
And circumstances fell to his favor anyway: Queen and Barry were on the outs. It was mostly Bivolo of course, and he knew he would have to clean up behind Barry and fix this as usual, but it still brought a smile to his face. He missed most of the fight between Barry and Queen (how disappointing that the Scarlet Speedster couldn't muster the gumption to kill even when forced), and the fact that Barry and Queen were back to being partners almost as soon as it was over was annoying, but he had still learned something important from this: there were pronounced differences that would always make Barry a different man from the Arrow.
The things about him that would enable Eobard's plan to succeed – it was possible those things would never go away, not even after torturous experiences or being driven insane by metahumans. It was a testament, Eobard felt, to the job he did molding Barry into the man he was today.
So he let the partnership continue as it was. He bid a polite farewell to Queen when the time came, and did the usual song and dance reassuring his supposed "allies" in Starling City without worry. He was well aware that Queen was suspicious of him, even moreso than he suspected everyone else, but no one in this time had any conceivable way of figuring out what his true nature was until he actually let them, so he wasn't particularly worried. He smiled, nodded, and let them wonder and scheme. No matter how much they suspected and investigated, it would have no effect on him. Now that he knew how lacking the threat to his control over Barry was, it didn't matter. While The Arrow tried to understand things far past his time Eobard could safely ignore him in favor focusing on the things in this time that were actually important.
Namely, Barry Allen. And continuing to be the man Barry would need to look up to up to, until the time came…
Author's Note: Went looking for a fic about events from Eobard's point of view. Didn't find one, so I decided to put this together in honor of the new season (can't wait!). There are three more of these that I think I'm going to churn out over the next week or so, each either during or after a moment in the first season.
Eobard's situation makes rewatching older episodes very interesting. Once, he was The Flash's worst, most hated enemy (though to clarify, Eobard was obsessed with Barry before he ever donned the Yellow Suit). The Eobard we meet is the one on the tail end of the archenemy relationship we see in other media: I figure way back when he had the same personality wise as we see in the comics or stuff like the Flashpoint movie. The Eobard of the "present" believes he's become a better person over the years, largely to satisfy his ego, but though he is different in certain ways he hasn't changed that much. He's still a terrible, murderous person who cares little for other human beings, but now he's willing to invest in helping others (even if it's all a lie) in order to help himself. His perspective, especially when it comes to his memory of the past/future, is very intriguing.
Note that everything here is from Eobard's point of view - particularly his opinion about the Arrow, which I figure is pretty nasty. I might've gone even more with Eobard's appalling lack of empathy, but I wanted to focus on how Eobard feels about Barry: I do believe he cares about Barry, Cisco and Caitlin, but his pride and love is incredibly self centered. He cares about them because he feels he created them, and sees their lives as having whatever value they do because it was him who set them down that path - and likewise, he feels he has the right to take away those lives if it becomes inconvenient to him. So when he says he loves them at the end of the season, he believes he's being truthful to love as he understands it, but he doesn't really (more on that in later chapters).
I also put a bit of possessiveness in there. Eobard hates Barry, but he's internalized that hate so much and is so vain that he thinks it's justified just because he has it. If Barry becomes different from the idealized image of the Flash that he despises, I figure that might bother him even more than watching Barry become more and more like the man he hates every day, because then he won't have anything to justify his presence.
To clarify a couple more things, I'm largely interpreting the timeline Eobard came from as being mostly like the comics except for in regards to stuff that Eobard didn't or couldn't have changed when going back (that is, everything Arrow related), which will be more relevant in the next few chapters. The next one should take place during Fallout (these are in chronological order). Thanks for reading!