Being a career criminal meant getting used to long periods of inaction. Of having to stay hidden, having to take time to let the heat die down. Eventually another criminal would come along and the cops would have to focus on them. Eventually some greater threat to public safety would be identified, then you could return to some semblance of your normal routine.
Eventually people would forget your face. Forget your bank robbery, in lieu of some greater story.
None of them had ever been in a situation where the heat was never going to die down. Where there was no amount of time that could pass where the cops might just forget what they looked like. Where the general public would move on to the next salacious crime, and you would fade from their consciousness.
It had been three weeks since they arrived at the cabin. The first week had been little more than recovering. Eating whatever food was first available, then going back to sleep. Attempting to stay awake for extended periods of time often ended in the need for a nap later in the day. Roy assumed this must be what it felt like to live in an old folks home. Falling asleep at the drop of a hat, no matter where they were. Everyone with aching bones and joints, shuffling from the couch to a chair to a bed and back again, attempting to find a position that doesn't cause more pain.
It was only as the days continued to pass that the frustrations with the situation began to build.
They were all becoming more and more agitated. Unable to find anything to relieve the boredom and repetition they were currently trapped in. Unable to even function as they normally would due to the extent of their injuries.
And the nature of their circumstances.
Even Roy found himself in that category. And it was becoming increasingly obvious that it had nothing to do with having no paints at his disposal.
It was true that he didn't have his normal outlet. His usual method of dealing with the building emotions.
Emotions…
He hadn't mentioned it to the others, but he still hadn't quite managed to get his powers to work.
There were more important things to worry about. Like food runs to the nearest town. A two and a half hour journey each way. During which the members left behind tried, rather unsuccessfully, to hide their nervousness. And their eventual relief when the person who went for the food returned.
Digger was still recovering from his injuries. Mick was still recovering from his injuries. They were all sporting bruises and scrapes and stab wounds. All feeling the itch to just be able to be fully functioning again, let alone be able to do anything about their current situation.
If Roy had any interest in painting landscapes, he supposed he would be hard pressed to find a more inspiring setting. There were snow capped mountains in the distance, pine trees dotting the horizon. A stream slowly meandering nearby. Apparently the cabin was just outside a National Forest, renowned for it's majestic beauty.
Axel swore he saw a moose yesterday.
Considering how little the kid knew about nature, it could have been a deer.
Or a raccoon.
"Dude I know what a trash panda is. I'm telling you, this was a freaking moose. With the big thingys and everything!"
Axel had been insistent. He had instinctively pulled out his cell phone to Google a photo of what he had seen. Only to shove it back into his pocket after remembering there was still no internet. He sulked for the rest of the day. Roy had thought about offering to draw a picture of one, only to also remember that they didn't have any spare blank paper.
Roy sat on the small log just outside the cabin and watched the sun begin to rise. He wasn't normally one to be awake so early if there wasn't a heist to be planned or if he had simply forgotten to fall asleep while painting.
He hadn't been able to sleep last night.
He couldn't pinpoint what it was exactly that had kept him up. He had gotten used to Digger's snoring. To Axel waking up to pee at least three times during the night. To Shawna rolling over and her hair smacking him in the face.
There were few options for sleeping in the cabin. Mick still had a room to himself, though his injuries were becoming less and less the reason. Lisa had commandeered the bedroom Snart had been sleeping in when they first arrived.
Snart had a tendency to sleep in the backseat of one of the cars.
Roy had briefly considered doing that with the other car. But found he didn't mind sleeping on the floor, sharing a pillow and blanket with Shawna. He could suffer the extra discomfort of the wooden floor. Lisa had bought a bunch of blankets and pillows the last time she was in town, so at least there was some bit of padding now. It wasn't the worst place to sleep, all things considered.
It was the inaction that was getting to most of them.
Generally when you go to ground, you still have ways to occupy your time. Money to count, police scanners to listen to, underground contacts to speak with.
At least there was usually a TV or even books to read.
Something to keep your mind working. To keep you from thinking about how quickly everything could turn. How fast the cops could find you. Could be knocking at your door.
There was nothing out here to distract them from just how screwed they were.
They couldn't run the risk of anyone noticing them. Couldn't steal from campgrounds or houses in case someone reported it. Couldn't go together into town to grab some books or take a TV. They barely had enough money to keep them in food for the next few weeks. The money Mick had stored here was all they had on them.
Lisa had gone into town several times already. Dressed in her trucker gear, she had bought as many supplies from each store as she could without it being suspicious. She had even raided the local gas station. There wasn't a Walmart or any kind of large chain. Somewhere where the sales clerks didn't pay attention, didn't notice one of a thousand people who came in each day. There were just mom and pop grocery stores out here, where the cashiers were annoyingly helpful. Where they remembered what you looked like. Where they asked you about your day and actually remembered what you told them.
Mark had gone yesterday, Lisa had started to be too familiar to the people in town. They had no choice but to switch it up. Change who went into town, in an effort to mask how many of them there were. All of the news reports and APBs stated that the Rogues traveled together.
The sun was just cresting the landscape now. A girlfriend of his from college had once spent hours trying to describe the beauty of it to him. How the different colors mixed and melded together.
How it was breathtaking. True beauty.
Roy had broken up with her not too long after that. It didn't have anything to do with the sunrise. More with the fact that he had a tendency to ignore her when he started painting. She had been of the mind, that as her boyfriend, he should always be focused on her.
It had been a rather doomed relationship from the start.
But he hadn't really cared, he had been young and she…
The door behind him swings open. He turns and is only slightly surprised to see Mick standing there.
Mick glances at Roy, nods, then walks towards the woods. Roy didn't say anything in response, just walked as Mick disappeared through the early morning mist.
Mick had been doing that lately. Just heading out into the woods and reappearing a few hours later.
None of them mentioned anything about it.
Especially since it seemed to cut down on the amount of fighting that was going on between Snart and Mick.
And Mick and Mardon.
And Mick and Digger.
And Mick and Axel.
And Mick and Shawna.
And Mick and Lisa.
Even Roy had found himself on the receiving end of Mick's frustrations from time to time.
Roy didn't begrudge the man his anger. Mick didn't have his normal outlets. At best, they could let him light the fire in the fireplace. A small pittance considering the fires the man usually started. Whether it was helping or not, Roy couldn't tell. A few days ago, Mick had sat and watched the fire for five hours straight. Just staring, unmoving, at the flames. He didn't seem to notice any of the others.
Mick wasn't built for inaction.
Especially forced inaction.
Snart had made an offhand comment to Mick the other day. When Mick was about to head out into the woods again.
"We can't be doing anything that might lead them to us Mick."
"You think I'm going out there and starting fires is that it? How the hell would I do that Snart?"
Mick had waved his still bandaged hands in Snart's face. The silence had been incredibly thick.
"You really think I'm that stupid? Is that it?"
"Mick, I was just…"
"Oh, I know exactly what you meant."
Mick had disappeared into the woods and Snart had retreated into Lisa's bedroom.
At least that one hadn't ended with Snart on the ground.
Which was increasingly becoming the way their fights would end.
The most disconcerting part was how unwilling Snart seemed to be to defend himself.
Roy turned back to the sunrise.
The sun was almost half way past the horizon now.
He wasn't sure he had ever willingly sat and watched a sunrise on his own before. It just didn't have any appeal to him. It was just a bright circle rising up out of shades of gray.
Maybe in color it was something else entirely. Maybe it truly was as majestic as Genevieve had told him it was. When he broke up with her, she had made a comment about how he had no passion. That his inability to see color wasn't the only way in which he was blind to the world around him.
He had called her an entitled, immature little girl and they never spoke again.
Which was fine. He hadn't thought about her again until just now. Forcing himself to sit here and watch the sunrise, not out of any aesthetic reason, but because he simply didn't have anywhere else to go.
Roy briefly thought about Hartley. About how the kid had been trying to make him glasses so that he could see in color. As smart as the kid was, there was a chance he might have actually been able to do it. As good of a friend as he had been, Roy doubted Hartley ever would have given up.
And that was what Hartley had been. A good friend.
It was easier to remember that now, when they were safe in the cabin, than it had been when Hartley had used his sonic gauntlets to knock their car off the road in Arizona.
Roy rubbed his knee slightly. That had been a particularly violent crash.
After finally getting some sleep, his mind had begun to clear. He was able to remember when and where things had happened. How he got some of his injuries, how they had escaped certain states, when he had to use his powers.
The Flash had been surprisingly absent from the pursuit of the Rogues. Lisa had thought it had something to do with Luthor. The man was putting the blame for Metropolis on every metahuman. No meta was excluded from his rants and rousing speeches.
Not even the heroic ones.
Apparently the Flash had let the Rogues slip through his fingers too many times for it to be a coincidence. Clearly the Flash must have been working with the Rogues on some of their heists. They were in "cahoots".
Which was insulting.
The Rogues had escaped those heists fair and square.
Well, more like underhanded and completely sideways but the thought was the same.
Roy could remember the signs now. The graffiti on the sides of buildings. The headlines of the newspapers. The radio station DJs all saying the same things.
Metahumans were a threat. They needed to be reported.
Contained.
Taken care of.
The Rogues hadn't had the time to figure out what was happening to everyone else out there. The other metahumans. Too worried about saving themselves. If even the Flash was having to lay low, Roy couldn't imagine how the rest of the metas were faring. Or what was happening to those who had been caught.
He would have asked Hartley about it, if the kid hadn't been trying so hard to…contain them in Arizona.
Roy, Digger, Snart and Shawna were in one car, they had just evaded a checkpoint. The others had split off into the other car, drawing some of the cops away. They had managed to pull ahead, the sirens and lights starting to fade behind them.
Snart had realized just a few seconds too late that they weren't escaping. They were being herded.
Hartley had been standing in the middle of the road. Roy remembered seeing Piper through the windshield, his cape moving slowly in the wind. Raising his hands as if motioning them to stop.
The sonic waves from his gauntlets had shattered the windows. Roy remembered grabbing his ears, barely able to hear the sounds of the van crunching around them. Hartley didn't move from the middle of the road. Digger had hit the brakes, causing the van to skid and turn.
Once the side of the van was facing him, Hartley hit it with another wave. The van flipped and rolled, only finally coming to a stop after sliding down a ditch.
The front of the van had been crushed in their descent. The dashboard had crumpled like paper and a jagged piece of metal had pierced his knee. He remembered staring down at the hole in his leg. Almost transfixed by the jaggedness of the metal and how it disappeared into his flesh. Then Digger pulled the metal out of his leg and his vision had grayed out a bit at the edges.
Digger pulled him out of his chair, looping his hands under Roy. Snart and Shawna were already out, Snart's wrist had been broken. Shawna had a head wound, which had been bleeding profusely onto her shirt. Digger had readjusted his hold on Roy and grabbed Shawna's hand, while Snart held her shoulder.
Nothing had happened.
"My powers…"
Hartley had walked up behind them, one of his gauntlets raised and pointed directly at them. He held a small device in the other hand.
"Portable anti-meta field generator. I had the cops link it into the power grid. Gives me a few extra blocks of radius. None of you can use your powers. "
Digger had put his hands up, propping Roy up against the overturned van. He took a slow step towards Hartley.
"Hart, listen mate…"
Hartley shot a sonic blast just past Digger's ear, causing the man to recoil, clutching his left ear in pain.
"You are all under arrest."
"Rathaway listen, we can explain if you would just hear…"
"You expect me to believe anything you say Leonard? You murdered all those people from the videos."
"You know about the clones, about Cadmus kidnapping…"
"That doesn't give you the right to murder innocent people. I can't believe I was so blind before. That I didn't see all the things you were doing around me. I ignored all the signs. I was so desperate to belong, that I didn't realize the kind of people you really were." Hartley had straightened up. The emotion in his voice now completely gone. "You're terrorists and murderers. Monsters who deserve to be taken off the street. And I won't stop until all of the Rogues are capture and rotting in cells."
The sirens had been getting louder and louder. Roy found himself leaning more heavily against the van. He remembered thinking that this was it. They had finally been caught. There was no way they could get out of this one.
"Don't even think about it Harkness. Reach for a boomerang and I will blow out your eardrums, permanently. That would be a real problem for you, seeing how much you like the sound of your own voice."
Digger had put his hands up in the air.
"Course mate, you're the boss here. Got us all right, fair and square."
Hartley narrowed his eyes.
"What did you do?"
"What? Me? Nothing. Got me hands up and everything. You've got us. Well and truly caught we are."
A shadow over Hartley's head caused him to turn, putting his hands up to defend himself. No doubt thinking that Digger had somehow managed to throw a boomerang right after the car crashed. That he had been distracting Hartley, waiting for the return flight.
The shadow had been nothing more than a bird flying overhead.
The momentary distraction was all it took for Digger to leap forward. Tackling Hartley to the ground.
He punched the kid a few times in the face.
"Sorry mate. But didn't seem like you was in the mood to listen."
Digger ripped off Hartley's gauntlets and threw them as far as he could.
Shawna was helping Snart stand, the crash breaking a few of the man's ribs in addition to his wrist. Digger walked over and put an arm around Roy, pulling him up. Roy hadn't even realized that he had been slowly starting to slide down the side of the van.
He looked down to see blood seeping through his left pant leg. He kept getting distracted by how much of it there seemed to be.
"Yea, what's we say we get the hell out of here?"
The cops had been in sight by then. Hartley had already been struggling to his feet.
"You won't get away with this. You'll pay for what you've done."
Roy wasn't entirely certain that Hartley had been talking about Metropolis.
The hatred in the kid's eyes…
That had been personal.
Roy hadn't had time to say anything. To attempt to get Hartley to listen to them. If anyone would have been able to help them, to hack into Luthor's files, and find the information they needed to prove they had been set up, it would have been Hartley.
But Hartley wasn't going to listen. Hartley wasn't going to believe a word they said.
Roy wondered how much of that was his fault. If he had just told Hartley the truth. If he had gotten the kid to come back to the Rogues…
Then he would be stuck in the same situation as the rest of them.
Branded a terrorist.
Running for his life.
Roy couldn't find it in him to hate Hartley for trying to capture them. He was certain Hartley was why they had almost been caught in Utah as well. Able to find them using satellites and all that.
There was this small part of him that was secretly glad Hartley was nowhere near any of this. That somehow the boy had managed to find himself back on the right side of the law. That he wouldn't be targeted by Luthor.
There was no video of Hartley killing anyone, because the kid had never killed. He wasn't a part of the Rogues when Cold had threatened the city, when Evergreen Acres happened.
Hartley had gotten out just in time.
He wondered if the kid had managed to reconnect with his parents. Hartley had once confessed to Roy, in a rare state of drunkenness, that if they ever reached out he would be inclined to tell them to go shove it.
Roy smiled a little at the memory.
Hartley had been celebrating something. Roy later found out it had been the kid's birthday.
Hartley had stolen a few bottles of bourbon. Four to be exact.
Roy remembered coming into the kitchen of the safe house to see Hartley had already drank half a bottle himself.
"Roy! Come! Take a bottle."
Roy had never really cared for whiskey. He knew Hartley cared about it even less. So Roy pushed past his initial surprise and took a bottle from Hartley. There was some kind of Japanese writing on the front.
"Yamazaki. 35 years old. Supposed to be the finest whiskey in the world. I'm surprised they didn't spring for the 50 year old. Must have been trying to cut back."
Roy had just raised an eyebrow. Mainly at the kid slightly slurring his words.
He honestly didn't think he had ever seen the kid drunk before.
"They?"
"Yes. They, as in them. As in the nominative plural form of he and she. As in the people I stole it from…." Roy didn't know exactly what Hartley said next. Mainly because the boy slipped into speaking in a different language. Roy was able to ascertain that it was most likely Latin.
Only Hartley would get drunk and start speaking Latin without realizing it.
"Any particular reason for this theft?"
"To drink it!"
"Ah of course. I think you've been spending too much time around Digger."
Hartley had looked incredibly offended at that.
"This has nothing to do with that….oaf."
Roy had smiled at the kid's put upon look
"Oaf."
"I'll cultivate a better insult when I'm sober. No. He wasn't the one who gave me the idea."
"You just felt like stealing some whiskey and getting drunk in the kitchen."
"I was going to give a bottle to Snart. He would be the only one to appreciate something like this I think. Lisa too perhaps. The rest of you aren't refined enough."
Roy had snorted at that.
"We weren't all born in mansions."
"I'm aware of that. Tragically, I somehow make due in dealing with you heathens on a daily basis."
It was rare for Hartley to get drunk. It was even rarer for him to mention his wealthy upbringing in any kind of joking manner.
Hartley didn't talk about his parents. About his childhood. None of them did really of course. But Hartley took great pains to distance himself from it. To be as far removed from those people as possible. As if becoming a supervillain hadn't been enough.
Roy had taken a swig of the proffered bottle.
"Hm."
Tasted like whiskey.
"Hm? That's all you've got is hm? That's a thirty thousand dollar bottle of whiskey."
Roy had almost dropped the damn bottle.
"Bullshit."
"The 50 year old is over 100 thousand."
Roy looked intently at Hartley now.
"Are you insane? You stole over 120 thousand dollars worth of bourbon without…"
Hartley waved off Roy's words.
"I didn't pull a heist. I simply…"
Hartley didn't look at Roy, just took another drink. Hartley apparently found the edge of the kitchen table very interesting.
It clicked in Roy's head rather suddenly.
"You stole this from your parents didn't you?"
Hartley looked embarrassed for a moment. Then had stuck out his chin and looked defiantly at Roy.
"It's hardly stealing if they don't even think to change the codes to the security system. Besides they are in Paris, they won't even notice the bottles are missing. My father only bought them for the status of it."
Roy took another drink then handed the bottle back. He decided to let that little detail about stealing from his family slide.
"I guess I'm just not refined enough. My palate lacks the breeding to taste the difference between a fifty dollar and a thirty thousand dollar bottle of whiskey."
"You spent fifty dollars on a bottle of whiskey? Easy big spender."
"It had been for a party in art school. Several of the other students were throwing a party and I had been…advised not to show up with anything cheap."
"How did that go?"
"Still the cheapest thing there. No one drank it but me."
"Sounds like you went to school with a bunch of rich assholes."
Roy laughed.
"I did. But at least I wasn't raised by them."
"Hear, hear."
They clinked together two ridiculously expensive bottles of alcohol and proceeded to drink them both.
Roy remembers how at ease Hartley had seemed. Just the two of them. Sharing stories about rich bastards who had made their lives hell. Hartley had considerably more stories than Roy of course. Roy couldn't imagine having to attend as many social functions as Hartley had been forced to endure growing up.
Roy's father had all but had to bribe Roy to go to anything even remotely resembling a social gathering. He always got a new set of paints out of going to family reunions.
"You never talk about what happened to your parents? They're dead right?"
Hartley had said it in that blunt tone of his. Slurring his words only slightly. Only barely pulling off the tone that said he didn't already know the answer to the question.
He knew Hartley had looked into all of their lives before joining the Rogues. He must have seen the files on Roy's parents.
Roy didn't like to think about their deaths. And even as drunk as he had been, hadn't been willing to talk about it.
"What about you? You break into their house when they aren't there, steal something they won't notice is missing? You want to reconnect with them or piss them off more?"
Hartley had waved the bottle around as he spoke, using it to punctuate his point. But when talking about his parents, he had adopted a more serious tone. He rolled the bottle between his hands.
"I…I don't know Roy. Do you ever wonder…just what we are? And how much of it is because of them? Am I me, in spite of them or because of them?"
Roy knew that the philosophical musings stage of drunkenness was usually immediately followed by the throwing up stage. So he had staggered over to the sink and managed to pour them both a glass of water.
It had done nothing for the massive hangovers they both had the next day, but Roy likes to think he had at least been attempting to be responsible.
Hartley had stared at the water for a moment, then finished off the last of the bottle.
"I hate them Roy. I hate how easy it was for them to throw me away. And I'm still here…Stealing their goddamn whiskey."
Roy had helped Hartley stagger back to his room not too long after that. The atmosphere becoming unbearably morose. Although they then had had to immediately stagger back to the kitchen, Hartley not trusting that the other two bottles would still be there in the morning if he left out where Digger might find them.
"Heathen wouldn't even know what he was drinking."
Hartley had all but fallen into bed, his Pied Piper outfit still on. He tucked the two remaining bottles under the other pillow, patting the pillow gently.
It was probably the only time Roy can remember Hartley acting even remotely like someone his age.
"We'll finish these later. You can tell me more about that Ian prick. Maybe I can find out where he is now. Delete his bank accounts, ruin his credit history, put a couple fake charges in his police file."
"That's sweet of you Hartley."
"Course. That's what we do for us…for each other…you know…"
Hartley had passed out relatively quickly and Roy had somehow managed to stumble back to his own bed.
Thankfully they had been in between jobs at the time. Most of the Rogues had been out. Probably drinking somewhere nearby, or doing…whatever it was they all used to do. Roy could barely remember what their free time had been like back then.
There were still two unopened bottles of bourbon out there somewhere. Roy vaguely wondered what happened to them. Were they still at the safe house? Had Hartley gone back to all their old stashes and taken anything that was his?
Or would he have turned it all over to the cops? A show of good faith, by showing them all of their store houses….
Did Hartley know about the storage locker where Roy kept his paintings? He must have. The kid knew where all their goods where stored. There would be no reason for the cops to search there though.
Except for the extra cash he used to store there as well.
Roy tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach, the one that said that his paintings were all gone.
He had caught glimpses of what people were doing to the Rogues merchandise. Bonfires of all their action figures.
Axel had made a joke about how collectible this was going to make them one day. They might end up stealing their own figures out of a museum.
No one had really had the energy to laugh.
If someone other than the cops found his paintings…
"You're up early."
Roy didn't turn as Lisa sat down next to him on the log. The sun had cleared the horizon and was starting its way up into the sky.
"Couldn't sleep."
"Well, that is a problem we are lucky to have now. Thinking about anything in particular?"
Roy doubted that mentioning he was thinking fondly of memories of Hartley would be met with anything other than disdain by Lisa.
The Snarts were good at a great many things. Admitting they were wrong was not one of them.
If she hadn't considered Hartley a traitor before, she definitely did after Arizona.
Not being there when they needed him was one thing.
Actively knocking a car her brother was in off the road was another.
"My paintings."
"I'm sure they're safe. You stored them at the same place Mick stashed a lot of his stuff right?"
"Yea."
"Well there you go. I'm sure the cops are too busy looking at all the stolen money and art we lifted from other people to worry about your originals. It's not like it's illegal to paint."
Roy thought about his paintings about how some of them might be considered confessions if interpreted correctly.
"Mick's already headed out."
Lisa gave a small sigh.
"Getting an early start today."
"Any idea what he's going out there?"
"I have a few thoughts."
Lisa's tone implied that she had no intention of sharing those thoughts with him.
Roy looked back at the sun.
"There's something wrong with you isn't there?"
"You are not the first woman to say that to me."
She slapped him lightly on the shoulder.
"You know what I mean. Something to do with your powers?"
"I'm not really sure."
"I know we've all been…caught up in our own miserable little worlds lately. Focusing on our own problems but if there is something…"
"It's nothing. They're just weak from overuse is all."
Lisa nodded, the look she gave him implying that she didn't quite believe him.
"Next time someone makes a run to town we can have them pick up at least some pens and paper. So you can sketch. Think that will help?"
He honestly didn't know.
He had the desire to paint, to create, to get his emotions out in the only way he had ever been comfortable doing it.
But he felt so…apathetic about it at the same time. He knew, with absolute certainty, that if there was a canvas in front of him, he wouldn't be able to paint anything.
He couldn't really explain it.
"I'm sure it will."
Lisa smiled slightly.
"Any idea on what we're doing from here?"
"Still working on it."
"We can't stay here much longer. I think Axel is starting to get cabin fever. I saw him attempting to make a radio out of a potato yesterday."
"You can do that?"
"Apparently."
"Well, the things you learn."
They sat in silence a few more minutes. Finally Lisa pushed a few strands of hair out of her face and turned to Roy.
"The newspapers in town were still plastered with talks of the manhunt. We can't even attempt to move until it slows down a little. And then we would need to find somewhere with electricity that no one knows about, where we could find a way to fight back against Luthor without literally anyone on the planet knowing where we are. Eventually the speedsters might just start running around every place on earth, then we will be screwed regardless."
"What does Cold think?"
Roy asked out of habit. He knew that it was far more likely that Cold hadn't given it a single thought. From the look of frustration on her face, Roy could tell Lisa was getting fed up with her brother's recent turn towards pacifism.
"Lenny's still working through his own issues. I'm going to have to kick his ass soon if he doesn't get his head out of his ass."
A loss of control as monumental as Snart experienced was going to take a long time to get through. It was one thing to be mind controlled. To be blackmailed. To be forced to do something you didn't want to do.
It was another to know that at any moment you might explode. Killing every single person around you. That somewhere out there was a sociopath with his finger on the button that could kill your family.
And there was nothing you could do to stop it.
Hartley had never been one for rash displays of anger. He found that it was usually much easier to hurt someone with a well placed word than with a fist. Whenever a problem would arise that he couldn't figure out, as rare as that may be, he was usually able to walk away from it. Do something else. Then come back and see a solution he hadn't seen before.
He picked up his laptop and threw it across the room. It didn't make a loud crash. More like a dull thunk, followed by the sound of several keys scattering across the floor.
Wholly unsatisfying.
It did nothing to soothe his frustration. He stalked over to his workbench and began tweaking one of his gauntlets. He ignored everything else around him. Including, apparently, the sound of his door opening.
"Guessing it's not a good day huh?"
Hartley took a deep breath, trying to ignore the voice that had intruded upon his solitude. It didn't help. His irritation with the entire situation that is his current life, causes him to snap.
"You're a master of observation. No doubt you would have been the top of your class if you hadn't decided to drop out of college to pursue a career in running around really fast. Like there aren't a dozen other speedsters now making you completely secondary and useless."
"Yea well. You know me, if I'm going to be useless at least I'll look good doing it."
Hartley had tried repeatedly to hate Wally West over the last few weeks.
It was apparently impossible.
He wasn't going to apologize for his comment, but he did try to soften his tone a bit.
"Was there something you wanted?"
"Nah. Just found a space bar in the hallway, thought you might want it back. Didn't you just get that laptop?"
Hartley ignored the question.
He had just gotten the laptop.
More, his parents had just gotten him that one.
They kept sending him things. Now that he was back on the right side of the law. Now that Luthor kept standing up and saying how amazing it was that Hartley had reformed, that he had been able to shake off the influence of the Rogues.
Now his parents wanted to talk to him.
Now they reached out to him in the only way they knew how. By spending money.
His first instinct had been to send it back. To send a note stating that he wanted nothing from them. That their gifts would never work.
But then practicality had set it. He needed a laptop, a personal one, that wasn't connected to Luthor's servers. Just because he was trying to capture the Rogues, didn't mean he trusted Luthor. The man was shady, and once the Rogues were neutralized, Hartley fully intended to look more into Luthor and his connection to Cadmus.
But the Rogues had to come first. They were the more immediate threat. They were the ones out there killing innocent people.
"I'll get another one."
"You mean buy another one right? Cause I'd hate for the Malevolent Musician of Central City to get caught stealing."
Hartley actually turned away from his work at that, facing Wally for the first time.
"My god that is terrible. Did Cisco come up with that?"
Wally looked slightly embarrassed. It almost made Hartley smile.
"How long did it take you to come up with that?"
"Not…that long. Anyway man, come on you've been in here for weeks. You gotta get out. Let's go get something to eat. I'm paying…as long as we eat somewhere cheap and don't spend more than ten dollars. Being a superhero college drop out doesn't pay very well."
Hartley had been resistant to the idea of living with Wally at first. For one thing he barely knew the guy. He had only met him a few times when he had been working with the STAR labs team after his attempted kidnapping. Then Wally had somehow developed super speed.
To be honest, Hartley hadn't paid too much attention to how it happened. Something to do with a magic rock if Cisco was to be believed.
Hartley had spent most of his time in the past few weeks holed up in his small apartment, watching the meager amount of money still in his possession begin to dwindle away. One of the tenets of him not being charged, was that he help recover as much stolen money as possible. Including everything in his own personal accounts.
He may have accidentally forgotten to mention one of his accounts in the Caiman Islands. But that was for emergencies only, and most of that money he had acquired prior to becoming a criminal.
Mostly.
Some of it anyway.
Then two weeks ago, Barry had showed up and asked if Wally could stay with Hartley for a little while. Barry was dealing with all kinds of fallout from Metropolis as well.
Hartley knew that if he had been a metahuman, there would be no amount of charity work or contrition that would have saved him. He would be rotting in a cell.
Like so many other metahumans that were waiting for their processing. Waiting for their powers to be removed by Luthor's technology.
This was all the Rogues' fault.
"I have to work on this."
"You're working yourself to death man. You gotta…"
"What? I gotta what? Relax? Take a step back? Breathe? You didn't mention that you took a Psych 101 class, must really have been worth all that money of you wasted on your failed education. I'm sure your cop father really appreciates the money he had to take out of his pension to pay for you to be able to extend such insightful words of wisdom."
Wally was a lot to things. Bullheaded. Stubborn. Quick to jump into a fight.
"It's not your fault they got away. You're not responsible."
Unflinchingly kind.
If Hartley could just hate this bastard it would be so much easier to push him away.
"I know that."
Wally sat down on the stool next to Hartley.
He didn't speak. Just sat there with those big stupid understanding eyes. Finally Hartley felt his resolve crack.
"I promised myself I would never be that stupid again."
"Again?"
"When I…when I finally came out to my parents. I convinced myself it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. They were my parents. They might not have ever been able to show it the way normal people did, but they had to love me. At least, they had to feel something like that towards me. And then they just cut me off. Kicked me out."
"Then I got the job at STAR labs. And Harrison Wells had taken a personal interest in me. And I…I believed in everything he said. Believed that he saw me for who I was and accepted it. And we all know how that turned out."
"I told myself that I would never do that again. I would never let something as ridiculous as a concept like family completely destroy my life. That families were only people who knew how to hurt you the worst. I…I told myself I wouldn't. And then I just fell for every single lie they told me."
"You can't just give up on people."
"Madness is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
"Look. I know I wasn't around for like literally any of it. But Barry said that the Rogues were different. That they all looked out for each other. I mean, I'm not saying they don't need to be caught for what they did. But it doesn't mean they didn't actually care about you."
"They didn't Wally. I was useful, and nothing more."
"Come on man, it couldn't have all been bad right?"
Hartley had a brief memory of sitting in the safe house, watching Roy paint, listening to Mick and Digger yell at the hockey game, playing a game of chess with Snart, and feeling so…ridiculously content.
Like he finally knew what it was like to have a real family.
And it had all been bullshit.
"It wasn't all bad. That's what makes my humiliation worse. I actually believed them."
Clearly there was something wrong with him. Something in him that couldn't judge what a person was truly thinking.
Had they laughed about it behind his back?
Did the other Rogues think it was funny how they had convinced Hartley that he was one of them? Only to reveal what they really thought when the chips were down.
Even Roy had turned on him.
And Hartley hadn't just trusted Roy. He had cared about him. He had genuinely believed that the man was his friend. That he could finally imagine what it was like to have a brother, someone he could count on. No matter what.
But Roy had turned his back on Hartley just as quickly as the others.
"Alright, fine. I'll buy you a combo number six and a chocolate milkshake. Final offer. Nobody can resist that."
Hartley raised an eyebrow.
"It's forty degrees outside, why would I want a milkshake?"
"For your fries."
"What does that even mean?"
"Dude? What? Ok that's it, now you have to come with me. I'll kidnap you if I have to. There's no way I can let you sit here and have lived your whole life without having dipped your Big Belly Burger fries in your chocolate milkshake. It is seriously the best thing you will ever eat."
"I had a French chef prepare my meals for me growing up."
"Well that dude clearly didn't know what he was doing. Because this, will blow all of that out of the water. Come on, it's going to be real embarrassing if I have to carry you there at super speed."
There was little doubt in Hartley's mind that Wally wouldn't do exactly that. The man was almost buzzing with energy at the moment.
Never again.
It had been repeating in his mind over and over since he saw the footage from Metropolis. Since he saw how many people the Rogues had murdered over the months leading up to it.
Never again would he let anyone in.
Everyone just wanted something from him. Once he captured the Rogues, the cops would have no use for him. They wouldn't have him helping out with metahuman tracking anymore. He wouldn't be able to get a job because of his felony convictions.
The Flash, Cisco, Caitlin they all had more important things in their own lives than to worry about some asshole genius they never really liked, but were forced to work with. It was his experience in how the Rogues operated that had kept him around this long.
He would never let himself be tricked into thinking that someone might actually care about him. That he could find people who accepted him as he was.
He wouldn't fall for it.
Some people…just weren't meant to have a family.
He didn't need a family.
He didn't need friends.
They would just betray him in the end.
He would pick up that scanning program he created again. Figure out what happened after the trail went dead in Canada. The Rogues couldn't have gone very far. The rumors of them heading for Russia was an obvious lie, but they should have appeared on camera somewhere since then.
They had to be in a dead zone of some kind. There were plenty of them in Montana, and the Dakotas. The Rogues could have doubled back, hiding in some forested area in one of those states.
But those states were so sparsely populated it could take years to search every backwoods. Even with two speedsters to help, they had no idea where to start looking. And Barry and Wally spent so much time dealing with metahumans who were resisting Luthor's attempts to de-power them they couldn't exactly run off to search millions of acres on a hunch.
Hell, just last week several metahumans had escaped from Iron Heights. Most had been recaptured but two of them were still on the loose and…
"Earth to Hartley. You going to change or are you wanting to be seen in public wearing last weeks dirty laundry? Figure the smell will keep people back?"
Hartley looked down at the sweater he was wearing.
He had just grabbed it out of the pile on the floor. They hadn't turned the heat on in the apartment yet. Saving money and all that nonsense. So he kept just covering up in blankets. They would turn it on when hypothermia might be an actual concern.
He had been wearing this for a day or two now. He could…
Lisa bought him this sweater.
Just…randomly bought it for him.
She just dropped it in his room while he was working on something. When he was still recovering from being stabbed by Digger.
Said it would bring out the color of his eyes, and no boy would be able to resist.
"I'm sure my criminal record will overrule any interest in my eyes."
"Please. Boys like a bit of mystery. You're an international thief Hart. You'd be surprised at how many boys are into that kind of thing. Once you're better, you and I are going to go out on the town."
They hadn't ended up going out.
Lisa had disappeared to Paris for awhile. Hartley was supposed to join her in Monte Carlo, but he had wanted to attend the conference in Starling first and then…
He pulled the sweater off slowly. And threw it back on the ground. He wasn't going to throw it away. He still needed it. When he got more money he could replace it with something better. Something that wasn't tainted.
It was like the laptop from his parents.
Beggars couldn't be choosers.
He could stick the keys back on and fix the screen if it shattered. Push down all the memories attached to the object and just use it.
He finally stood up from his workbench.
"Yes! You will not regret this Hartley I promise."
Hartley just nodded slowly. He picked up another sweater, this one looked slightly cleaner.
He had bought this one himself. Years ago. After his parents, but before the Rogues.
He pulled it on and made a half aborted attempt to smooth out some of the wrinkles.
He pointedly ignored the small bit of black paint on the cuff of the left sleeve.
He ran a tired hand through his hair. He really should get it cut soon. It was becoming a bit unruly.
"You look fine man."
"I look like a hobo."
"But like…a cool hobo. Like you're riding trains around the country and telling stories about the war to the new kids."
A small smile finally broke Hartley's face.
"You're an idiot."
"We'll see who's the idiot when you are experiencing the greatest food combination ever created by man."
"You're really building up a lot of hype for this."
"And you will understand why once you've tried it. Let's go, I'll drive."
"Be safer for you run us there at super speed." Hartley muttered under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Yea that's what I thought."
Hartley followed Wally out to the car. He was halfway there when he realized he was still smiling.
A small voice in the back of his head started screaming at him.
Never again.
You can't let yourself fall for this same trick again.
They don't care about you. You're just useful to them
Wally just needed a place to stay since Barry is living with Iris and Joe is under investigation. Can't have a speedster running in and out of a house that is under surveillance from the FBI, the CIA, and whoever else Luthor was paying. Hartley had measures in place around his apartment that prevented surveillance. That was the only reason Wally was there.
That's all this is.
He doesn't care about you.
You're just useful.
"Man did you see my fight against that meta yesterday? The guy was freaking flying all over the place. I had to…"
Axel had jumped on Mardon's back every chance he got. Attempting to get the man to fly him around. Although after Mardon had deliberately dumped the kid in a fountain after Axel did it during a heist, he had been more cautious about it.
Well. As cautious as Axel could be about anything. Which meant he had come to Hartley the next day asking for his opinion on some sketches he had done.
Flying shoes.
With little rockets coming off the back. The designs had seemed like gibberish.
Hartley had said as much. But then he had said it about almost everything Axel showed him.
Never stopped Axel from actually going out and creating the damn things anyway.
He wondered if the shoes ever made it out of the planning stages.
Hartley sat down in the front seat of the car.
Seatbelts.
Snart had always been such a stickler for seatbelts.
Makes sense when your mother dies in a car crash he supposes. Hartley had never really told any of them how much he knew about their pasts. The information on Snart had been particularly difficult to obtain, especially since Barry had destroyed so much of it.
An old two-paragraph newspaper article on microfilm detailing the death had been his only source of information.
He started to pick at the dried paint on his sleeve. It suddenly seemed of the utmost importance that he remove it from his clothes.
"What the hell…"
Hartley looked up from his clothing, one of the roads up ahead was blocked. Hundreds of people were walking, carrying signs, chanting.
Another anti-meta protest.
That was another thing keeping Barry and Wally busy. All the fights and riots that kept happening. Every time a metahuman, or someone who was accused of being a metahuman, was found, people reacted. Usually violently.
And having a metahuman speedster show up to stop the violence had a tendency to exacerbate the problem.
"Guess we will go to the one on 12th."
Hartley leaned back in the seat, resting his head against the headrest.
Hartley's gaze fell towards the people walking down the street. So far he hadn't been the target of any of the backlash. That he had been working with the Flash prior to the Rogues attacking Metropolis, that he hadn't known anything about it, had been the only saving grace.
After he caught the Rogues and had them all locked up, he would have to thank Lisa for kicking him out when she did.
He ignored the small stupid part of himself that still felt the need to help them. To figure out why they had attacked that subdivision. That was telling him to look closer at the evidence…
He closed his eyes for a moment. Pushing down all the thoughts of helping them. They had betrayed him. They were murderers. They used him.
They never gave a shit about him.
"You feeling ok?"
Roy had a sudden urge to tell Wally what he was thinking. To tell him about his doubts about the guilt of the Rogues. About how inconsistent it was with what he knew, or thought he knew, about them. He just needed someone to rely on for a moment. Someone who would listen to his concerns without judgment, so he could work through all the chaos in his head.
Someone he could trust.
"It's nothing. I'm fine."
A/N: I'm just going to pick and choose what I want from Season 3. Basically I just needed Wally to be a speedster.