Summary: Hartley Rathaway finds himself at the heart of yet another scandal when he uncovers embezzlement and intellectual thefts happening at Mercury Labs that places his life in danger. Though at least this time his employer actually has his back.
Unfortunately, the Flash disappeared into a lightning storm earlier that month and the remaining members of Team Flash are still trying to figure out how to make things work without Barry there. If they're going to be able to protect Hartley, then Cisco is going to have to step up and learn how to lead the team.
Notes: For the Hartmon Bingo prompt G2 - Oaths/Promises
Keep You Safe (With Me)
Chapter 1
Hartley still isn't sure how he gets into these situations.
Too observant for his own good is the conclusion Hartley eventually reaches. Too detail oriented. He saw the inconsistencies in the pipeline and couldn't let them go. Ruined his career over them. And it was happening all over again.
There'd been inconsistencies again. Budgets that didn't add up and money going where it didn't belong. And when he looked harder, he saw something else going on too. Clandestine meetings with people who tracked back to rival labs. It's a mess. It's an awful mess.
Hartley closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, clutching the files of evidence of what he's found close to his chest. He has a meeting in a few minutes with Dr. McGee to show her what he's found and he's terrified. It's a completely different situation - completely different people involved - but the last time he found a problem at work it nearly destroyed him. It lost him his ability to have faith in authority figures. So while rationally he knows that Dr. McGee isn't going to shoot the messenger...
He's still nervous and scared. He can't deal with having his career ruined again. It'd break him permanently. Hartley pulled back from the edge once when he was inches from rock bottom, brought back by Cisco's desperate decision to trust Hartley to stop the Time Wraith chasing Cisco and Caitlin. He's not sure he could do that again; give up his anger at being punished for doing the right thing.
His cell phone trills with the meeting reminder and Hartley takes a deep breath before heading to McGee's office.
It'll all be okay, he tells himself. It'll all be okay.
Tina's head drops into her hands once Hartley exited the room. Embezzlement and what was likely the sale of company secrets. And then there was Hartley's clear fear that he was going to get in trouble for bringing this forward.
She'd wanted to hire Rathaway straight of out college, but Harrison snapped that poor kid up and... she'd known Harrison would cause irreparable damage. He always did, one way or another.
Sighing, Tina picked up the phone. Dialed the number for Captain David Singh. And flipped through the evidence Hartley had brought her again. At least two cases of embezzlement and another scientist selling secrets... all right there under her nose. It didn't make the lab look good, that was for sure.
She was going to have to do a full budgetary audit of all projects and hire an outside investigator to look for any other leaks. It was going to be a mess. But hopefully... hopefully what Hartley had found would prove to be the end of it and maybe she could restore just a little Hartley's faith in other people in the process.
"Captain Singh," came from her phone's speaker.
"Captain, this is Dr. McGee from Mercury Labs. I wish I was calling under better circumstances, but I'm going to need a few of your detectives..."
Cisco groaned softly and rubbed at his eyes. They were scratchy and his head hurt. He'd been staring at a screen for way too long and missed dinner. Which meant he was going to wind up having take out again.
Caitlin would be pissed at him. She used to...
It didn't matter. She wasn't here. She was off... finding herself. And she deserved to get away from all of this.
Cisco had no right to be angry with her.
The meta alert went off and Cisco resisted the urge to cover his ears and made a distressed noise instead, even as he got up and slapped the button to disable the alarm on his way out of his lab towards the cortex. He pulled up the alert data as soon as he reached the big screens and muttered under his breath as he saw it was centered on an apartment complex. The address looked familiar, but Cisco's head was pounding too much for him to focus on why. He dialed Wally.
"There's a fire at an apartment complex," Cisco reported when Wally picked up the phone. "I need you to meet me there. Report to the firefighter in charge to find out where they need you most, okay?"
"Got it," Wally responded, before shutting off the call. He was on comms in moments while Cisco put his comm on too, headed to where he kept his Vibe suit.
Cisco suited up fast, listening while Wally got the lay of the land from the firefighters. Then he breached over to join them, getting the locations of people trapped in the upper floors while Wally was sent to put out the worst of the blaze.
Another breach and Cisco was standing in a smoke filled hallway. There were several residents clustered together near a large window. He called them over, sending them through the open breach. He counted in his head and caught the attention of one the survivors. "I was told there were still seventeen people up here, but this is only twelve. Do you know where the remaining five people are?"
"Could be Doreen - she's old and wasn't answering when we banged on her door," the man said, gesturing to a door labeled 233. "James and his kids are out on vacation, so they may have been counted even though they're not actually here. Everyone else answered their doors when I banged on the door... except Rathaway. He works late sometimes..."
"Which apartment is his?" Cisco asked, chest tightening with worry. No wonder he'd recognized the address. This was where Hartley had moved after starting at Mercury Labs.
Cisco closed the breach behind the last of the twelve in the hallway and leans into his powers, checking on the door indicated to be where James and his two kids lived. He got a flash of laughter and a sunset on a beach somewhere. They were fine. He breached into Doreen's apartment next.
She was out cold in bedroom, likely injured falling when she'd been startled by the fire alarm. She was breathing shallowly and Cisco wasn't sure he should move her on his own. Another breach, and he went through to get paramedics, letting them get Doreen while Cisco handed one of them a breach device so that they could get out while he checked on Hartley's apartment.
Another unconscious body greeted Cisco, though Hartley startled awake woozily when Cisco touched his shoulder.
"'Sco," Hartley said, voice scratchy from too much smoke. There was a gash on his forehead that was bleeding sluggishly. "What... what's going on?"
"The building is on fire and..." Cisco opened up another breach to outside the building. "I really need to get you out of here, okay Hartley?" And then maybe Cisco could get some answers because... it looked like someone had attacked Hartley and left him there to die in the fire.
Hartley's still kind of fuzzy when Cisco takes him through the breach and hands him off to paramedics. He has to make an effort to remember to call Cisco 'Vibe' while he's in costume, but he doesn't have to worry about that for long before EMTs are bandaging his head and flashing lights in his eyes and then whisking him away in an ambulance out of concern that he might have a concussion on top of the smoke inhalation.
He's doing better by the time his parents show up, his mother wringing her hands in worry while his father talks to the doctors, hearing from them the same thing Hartley already has. He's been given a prescription for an emergency inhaler to take the place of the one that was still in his apartment. No concussion, thankfully, but there was concern about his lungs due to his asthma. There was also a prescription for antibiotics as a preventative and he was supposed to come back for a checkup at their general clinic in a few days to check on how his lungs were recovering. Hartley'd given the okay to have his parents updated, knowing that his father would probably throw a fit if he couldn't get answers from the doctor's directly.
Hartley was allowed to walk out of the hospital under his own power, collapsing gratefully into the back seat of his parents car.
He hadn't stayed the night in his parents house since before he'd come out and been disowned, so that was going to be awkward. And worse... well, Hartley wasn't sure he'd be safe there. But he wasn't prepared to tell his parents why that was.
He didn't have his wallet or his keys or his phone... and Hartley really wanted his phone right now.
"I need to..." Hartley stopped and coughed, rubbing his throat and upper chest, both of which felt uncomfortably raw. Tea and hot showers were both apparently both right out for now, as the heat of the former and the humidity of the latter might irritate his lungs. Though he did need to take at least a... warm, if not hot, shower in order to wash off the smell of the smoke on him.
He didn't have any clean clothes, so that went on the list of things he needed his parents to pick up for him...
"I need to borrow one of your phones so I can let Dr. McGee know I won't be in to work tomorrow. And let my friends know I'm safe," Hartley tried again, this time managing to get out complete sentences without interrupting himself with more coughing.
He really needed some cough drops.
"Of course," his mother held out her own phone. "I'm sure you'll want to wait until you have some privacy, but I'll be heading out to pick up some necessities for you once we get home." She handed him a pen and pad of paper. "Clothing sizes and whatever else you'd like me to pick up."
Just a few years ago, Hartley wouldn't have been able to count on his parents to do anything other than deny his existence. And yet here they were now, picking him up from the hospital, offering to buy him things, giving him a place to stay...
"Thank you," he said, accepting the paper and feeling choked up for reasons other than smoke damage.
Once at the house, his mother gave him a hug before driving off with his list while his father took him to one of the guest rooms with a jack-and-jill bathroom attached to it. With reluctance, Osgood left Hartley alone in the room, promising to drop off some clean clothes to wear while he showered.
Hartley unlocked his mother's phone and called Dr. McGee first.
"Are you alright?" she asked immediately upon hearing Hartley's voice. "The fire is all over the news..."
"Vibe got me out," he said, well aware she knew Vibe was Cisco. "I'm fine. A little smoke inhalation issues, but... I'm probably going to just sleep all day tomorrow. So I won't be in to the office."
"Of course not. Take the rest of the week off and get some rest."
Hartley had an asthma attack at work once back at STAR Labs. Harrison had only given Hartley the day off with reluctance. Because it was so hard to do without Hartley, of course. He was indispensable. And easily flattered, at the time. Hartley had come so close to being manipulated into putting work before his health concerns...
"Thank you," Hartley rasped out, feeling something lift off his shoulders.
"Is there anything I can do to help? Do you have somewhere you can stay?"
"My parents are letting me stay with them," Hartley told her. "It's... weird but okay for now." She was aware that though he was on relatively good terms with his parents now, that they'd once disowned him.
"Alright," Tina said. "But if you need anything, just call."
"I will," he promised.
The next call he needed to make was to Cisco, but... that could wait.
Hartley left the phone on the bed and went to shower, the temperature cooler than he normally liked but not too cold either. He felt significantly better afterwards... if also significantly sleepier too. Thankfully there were indeed clean clothes waiting for him on the bed by the phone when he padded back into the bedroom, having left his smokey clothes behind on the bathroom floor. He could clean those up tomorrow. He slipped into a pair of sweatpants that Hartley was surprised his father even owned and an over sized sweatshirt that Hartley had to kind of... stare at for a long moment. Because it was his sweatshirt. While most of his college clothes wouldn't fit him anymore, this... he'd bought this his first year of college. Deliberately got a size far too large from his college's campus store... it was his favorite to wear on weekends or days when weather led to canceled classes. He'd thought he'd lost it. Thought for sure his parents must've thrown it out with all this things.
But here it was... an unexpected comfort on a very bad night.
Hartley slipped on the sweater and snuggled into it. The sweater wasn't quite as big on him as it used to be, but still a larger size than he normally wore. And it smelled freshly laundered too. He rubbed at his face, wiping away tears and careful not to scratch at the stitches on his forehead. Then he clambered into the bed, buried himself in blankets, and dialed Cisco's phone number from memory.
"Hello?" Cisco greeted.
"Hey Cisco," Hartley responded. "It's Hartley."
"How are you? Doing better? I mean, obviously, you're on the phone..."
"Slow down, Cisco. I'm on my mother's phone since everything is in my apartment. Do you know if the fire reached my floor?"
Cisco took a shaky breath. "Uh, no, it... um... smoke everywhere from the stair wells, but the fire only made it as far as the floor beneath yours. Hartley what happened to you? I was hoping you were working late or something, which is why I checked on your neighbor Doreen first, but then you were on the floor and your head was bleeding..."
"I'm glad you got Doreen out okay," Hartley interrupted again, a little amused despite himself. "She is okay, right?"
"She broke her hip when she fell to the floor." Odds were that Doreen wouldn't be coming back, then. Her family had been trying to get her to move to an assisted living facility and this was probably the event that would win them the argument. "I loaned the paramedics a breach device so they could get her out while I went for you. Wally got it back for me." Cisco made a pained sound.
"Are you okay?"
"Headache. Too much time staring at a screen followed by too many breaches and using my visions. And minor smoke inhalation issues." Cisco sighed softly. "I'm fine."
"Caitlin checked you over?"
Cisco went silent save for his breathing.
"Is something wrong with Caitlin?"
"She's not here right now. I'm not even sure she's in Central. She needed... she needed some time. To figure things out with her alter ego. So... it's just me and Wally right now." Cisco sounded rough.
Hartley rubbed at his forehead. "Please tell me you at least used the medical equipment to check yourself over?"
"Yeah. I did. Well I scanned Wally and he scanned me and we're both fine." Cisco's response was less than reassuring. "But, seriously, what happened to lay you out like that?"
"There was someone in my apartment when I got home. Snooping through my stuff, I don't know what for... unless..." Hartley let out a shaky breath of his own. "I found evidence of embezzlement and industrial espionage. I took to Dr. McGee and she's acting on it, reached out to the CCPD and is conducting a full audit of Mercury Labs finances. So... the fire might be my fault."
"The fire isn't your fault, Hartley," Cisco refuted.
"Aside from Doreen and I, who else was hurt?"
"Minor smoke damage. Most people got out when the fire alarms went off."
"The alarms weren't running when I woke up," Hartley recalled dimly. "That should've woken me up. Something so loud and painful..."
"Unless it was causing you enough pain that it kept you unconscious instead," Cisco posited. "You woke up when I got there. I'm just glad you're going to be okay." There was a bit of a pause. "Do you mind if I come by tomorrow? Just to... to see for myself you're okay? I can bring Joe with me and you can give a statement about the intruder in your apartment..."
"Yeah. Sure. Cisco, if I'm right and I was assaulted because of what's happening at my workplace... I'm concerned staying with my parents will put them at risk."
"Do you think you'll be fine for tonight?"
"Yeah. God... all my stuff is gonna smell like smoke," Hartley groaned and leaned back into his pillows.
"If you need help getting everything cleaned up and aired out, just call. I need reasons to get out of STAR Labs anyway. I think I'm going stir crazy in this place."
"Go home, Cisco. Go to sleep." Hartley smiled when he heard a noise of assent. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Cisco does as Hartley tells him. He goes home. He goes to sleep.
In the morning, he goes to see Dr. McGee. He doesn't have an appointment, which annoys her the lobby secretary, but he doesn't have to wait more than a few minutes before Tina shows up to talk to him. They go for a walk around the block and she fills Cisco in on what Hartley'd found and a general status on the investigations.
"Hartley may have uncovered more than either of you realized," Cisco observed quietly. "Someone broke into his apartment before the fire; they were looking for something. Hartley thinks its connected to what discovered." He shook his head. "After what happened with the accelerator, it's not fair this is happening to him now..."
"I'm glad he has you looking after him," McGee tells him and Cisco smiles hollowly in response.
His track record at looking after people wasn't so great. Ronnie, Dr. Wells, Jay, Dante, Caitlin, HR... his own name could go on that list. It was only luck that neither Cisco nor Caitlin's deaths had been permanent. Well... luck on Cisco's behalf. Caitlin was only alive because Julian had ignored her stated wishes regarding her powers and Cisco had failed to stop him.
And of course there was Barry. Barry who was stuck in the speed force, depending on Cisco to find him a way out. Barry... who they were all mourning like he was dead.
What good was Cisco to Hartley in the midst of all this?
But he thanked Dr. McGee for talking to him and went to meet Joe for lunch.
Lunch wasn't as stilted as Cisco had been afraid it would be. Joe was his best friend's dad and since Cisco couldn't figure out how to bring said friend back home, well... it was nice of Joe not to blame Cisco for that. After lunch they headed to the Rathaway residence and Cisco found himself regretting that he didn't have the sort of relationship with Hartley where he could just hug the guy.
The last time Cisco had seen him, Hartley had looked awful. Pale and coughing and blood on his face. He was still pale and his voice was rough, but he looked a lot better. New clothes probably, considering all his stuff was still in his apartment and smelled of smoke.
Osgood Rathaway was at work, but Rachel Rathaway was home, which made for an awkward moment when Hartley had to tell his mother that his apartment had been broken into before the fire. He didn't mention the part about being knocked out. Probably for the best given how worried just the break in made her.
"You don't think the fire was related to the break in, do you?" She asked nervously.
"While we'll have to wait for the arson investigation to conclude, the fire started on a lower floor and given the way it spread, was most likely an electrical fire. I hear there's already talk about suing the electrician who updated one of the apartments recently," Joe told her. "It's most likely an unfortunate coincidence."
"Mother..." Hartley gave her a searching look. "Could you maybe... take Cisco to get something to drink?" He sent Cisco an apologetic look, but it was fine. Whatever he told Joe, he could just Cisco later. Or have Joe fill him in if necessary.
"I am really thirsty. I don't suppose you have any iced tea?" he asked innocently.
"Of course. Please, come with me." She led him off to the kitchen where there was, indeed, a pitcher of iced tea. Way too sweet, though. It brought to mind a joke Cisco had heard from Armando after he moved into the southern states about sweet tea being for people who liked some sugar in their tea and sweet tea - said with the most over the top faux-southern accent Armando could manage - that was for people who liked some tea with their sugar. Cisco was pretty sure this tea fell into the latter category. Or at least bordered it heavily.
"There's something he's not telling me, isn't there?" Rachel asked quietly.
Cisco raised an eyebrow and wondered if it'd be rude to swap his drink for water. "If there is, I'm really not the one you should be asking."
"I know. I just... I suppose I'm afraid that the reason he isn't telling me isn't because he doesn't want me to worry but because... history has proven to him that he can't trust me." She shook her head. "If confides in you... please be there for him."
"I will," Cisco said. "I promise."
It's unfortunate that Hartley doesn't remember much about the intruder in his apartment.
He let himself into the apartment, locked the door, turned around... and was immediately thwacked in the head. What's most interesting is that Hartley didn't hear the intruder at all. Not even when he was inside the apartment itself. So while he remembers the brief outline of a man with dark hair and a mask over the lower half of his face... that's it.
"I should have been able to hear him by the time I was getting out of the elevator. But while I could hear Doreen watching her old sitcom reruns and all my other neighbors - the ones not out of town on vacation anyway - my apartment was silent. Except for the white noise generator I always leave running, and I always listen for that because it gives me something to focus on for bad days." Hartley gave Joe an unsettled look. "It didn't occur to me last night and maybe that's because I was in shock? I don't know... but. I should have been able to hear them coming a mile away and I didn't."
"That suggests your attacker was either a meta themselves with some ability to dampen or otherwise hide their own sound... or they had tech specially meant to do so." Joe clearly didn't like either option any more than Hartley did. "How well known is it that you're a meta?"
Hartley shrugged. "I don't make a secret of it. Or what my powers are. I don't keep anything worth stealing in my apartment. At least, nothing worth going up five flights of stairs for when there are easier targets on the ground floor. Unless they were after something work related on my laptop... shit. I don't know if they took my work laptop or not. It was in my messenger bag when I was knocked out, but I wasn't wearing it when Cisco woke me up. They must've taken it." Hartley ran a hand through his hair. "Dammit. I need to let Dr. McGee know." He'd have to report a data breach and that meant he'd have to go into work this week anyway because, without his laptop, the report would have to be made in person to... he didn't even know who, the breach reporting system was nearly fully automated.
No use freaking out about it now, though.
Hartley went over the events a few more times, trying not to get frustrated when Joe asked the same questions in different ways. The questions weren't meant to cast doubt on what Hartley'd already said but to try and jar loose as many details from Hartley's recollections as possible. But it was still annoying and frustrating and Hartley was relieved when he finally was able to sign off on his statement.
After Joe leaves, Hartley finds his mother and Cisco still in the kitchen drinking the awful, overly sweet tea his mother loves so much. Her southern roots showing through, she'd always say when Hartley or Osgood would complain to her about the drink. Hartley is definitely a northern city boy because he just can't stand it. And judging by how full Cisco's glass is, odds are Cisco isn't too fond of it either but is too polite to say anything.
"The Detective headed back to the station," Hartley said, accepting - if a bit stiffly - a hug from his mother. Sometimes he worried he'd never be able to get used to receiving affection from his parents again. Even now the gestures still startled and bewildered him a little. But he wouldn't ever take them for granted, either.
"I'll give you two some space, then. Thank you for the conversation, Cisco," Rachel said with a smile, excusing herself from the room.
Hartley slumped into the chair his mother vacated and shoved the nearly empty glass of tea out of his way. "I don't suppose you saw my messenger bag on me when you were rescuing me last night?"
Cisco shook his head. "No messenger bag, sorry."
"Shit. It really must've been stolen then. I won't know for sure until I can actually get back into my apartment, but... my work laptop was probably stolen. So, if nothing else, I'm pretty sure the break in is related to what's happening at work." Hartley sighed and folded his arms over the table top and laid his face down against his forearms while considering the pros and cons of having yet another cough drop. The pros won and he sat up enough to pull a drop from his pocket to unwrap.
"So how are things going at STAR Labs?" Hartley asked. "Iris still constantly looking over your shoulder at your research?"
Cisco shook his head. "I convinced her to take a short vacation to visit a friend of ours on Earth-38. She's a reporter like Iris and hopefully some journalist solidarity will help Iris find herself again. I love having her run comms for Wally, and for me, but I've been kind of concerned that she's basically putting her career and her life on hold and Barry wouldn't want her to give up what she loves to become the Team Flash comm-person twenty-four seven. Though she's way better at keeping Wally focused when he's running than I am." Cisco grimaced. "I think Wally's more interested in his powers than in super-heroing, which is valid... but he thinks he has to step into Barry's shoes which means that it's becoming something less fun for him and more of a chore and that's..."
"Not everyone with super powers who can be a hero should be a hero or should feel like they have to be a hero first and foremost?" Hartley filled in when Cisco faltered.
"Basically." Cisco shrugged, fiddling with his glass of liquid sugar.
"My mother's tea is awful. Want something that isn't basically flavored sugar to drink?" Hartley's throat felt better with the lozenge to suck on but a glass of water wouldn't go amiss at the moment.
"Yes, definitely, thank you." Cisco shoved his own glass away from himself with an air of relief that made Hartley laugh. And then cough a little, but mostly laugh.
"So, correct me if I'm wrong of course," Hartley said, fetching two new glasses and heading the fridge's water dispenser, "but it sounds like Iris has been trying so hard to connect to the part of Barry that was the hero - the part that led him to getting trapped in the speed force in the first place - that she's thrown herself into Team Flash work at what may end up being the expense of her own wants and dreams. Wally is trying so hard to do his missing brother proud that he's not seeing himself as a person outside of what connects him to Barry either. And you're so tied up in bringing your friend home that you've been neglecting your own self care too. Don't deny that last part, Cisco. You look awful and it's clearly not just because you breached into a burning building last night."
"You're annoying when you're right," Cisco muttered petulantly, though at least he seemed to be acknowledging he was making the same sort of mistakes that Iris and Wally were.
"Look." Hartley set down the two glasses of water and settled back in his chair. "Barry's gone. Caitlin's gone too, apparently, and I wish you'd told me that sooner. Their absences are going to massively shift the team dynamic you've got going on and trying to fill the gaps won't bring back that old dynamic. Even when they come back home, things have changed and... well, they'll change again but they won't change back. You need to find a new team dynamic that works with the resources you've got now. Maybe that means reaching out to people for more than just scientific consults. Like... I'd run comms for you, Cisco. And, unlike Iris, I have experience with computer hacking so I won't have to learn a whole new skill in order to access building plans, closed camera systems, or whatever else you'd need on the fly. That'd also open Iris up to do more investigative work both for her actual job and for Team Flash, which I would imagine overlap a great deal anyway. She's good at the investigative work already and that's more in line with what Barry did outside of running really fast. I think I'd need to actually meet Wally to give you any advice on him and it still leaves the team short someone who can act as physician when someone's hurt, but..."
Cisco nodded, looking grateful. "I'd really appreciate that help, Hartley. But you've got your own job and... being part of Team Flash can be a full time job itself some days. Like... having jobs outside of STAR Labs only works for Iris and Joe and... and Barry because they overlap so much. But you have to be at Mercury for your nine-to-five and there's a forty-hour work week right there... There's just so much of a time commitment that I just... I don't feel comfortable asking more of people than what they're already giving."
"The perks of being a whistle blower who just kicked off an investigation and company wide audit is that my sudden and stunning lack of popularity with my peers means Dr. McGee would probably happily assign me to some joint project with STAR Labs that would require me to work out of STAR Labs for as long as you need me." Hartley's tone was flippant, but... he wasn't the most friendly or socially open employee at Mercury Labs to begin with. Even if rationally everyone knew he'd done the right thing coming forward with what he'd found... the three people who'd been fired were more popular than he'd ever been. And now there was a criminal investigation, a civil investigation, and a budgetary audit happening all at once because of his actions. So... he was getting a lot of dirty looks lately.
Having his laptop stolen would only make it worse, Hartley had no doubt.
"Do you really think she'd go for that?"
Hartley shrugged. "I couldn't hear the intruder in my apartment last night."
Cisco stared at him. "What? What do you mean... you hear everything."
"I know. But I couldn't hear him."
"Meta or tech," Cisco muttered, eyes loosing focus as he got lost in thought. "I need to vibe your apartment, see what happened there last night."
"Once the building is confirmed to be structurally sound enough to let people back inside, I'm sure Detective West'll want to take you along to check out my apartment. I'm not looking forward to verifying what's been disturbed or taken and I'm really not looking forward to having a CSI tech who isn't Barry poking around my things."
"Julian's not so bad and he should be back in town tomorrow," Cisco said absently. "He went back to London to visit family... I don't think you've actually met him yet?"
"Nope. From what you and Caitlin said, though, he's kind of like me except British and not gay?" Hartley grinned impishly. "Caitlin said he was hot. I look forward to confirming this for myself."
Cisco grimaced. "I just remembered. Barry and I swore to never let the two of you meet."
Hartley laughed (and coughed and fished out yet another lozenge). "Sounds fun."
Tina would've preferred that Hartley take the rest of the week off like she'd told him to, but the revelation that his work laptop had, most likely, been stolen before the fire meant that he needed to report the data breach in person. The downside to having the laptop stolen as opposed to a hacked email. They were able to disable the laptop's access to Hartley's login which would automatically lock the only user access on the laptop. It wouldn't stop any data on the laptop itself from being accessed by a determined hacker, but it should prevent the laptop from being used to access Mercury Labs' private VPN or various servers. Hartley'd have to be issued a new laptop which wouldn't arrive until the following week and then he'd still wind up losing at least half a day of work imaging the laptop with a backup of his data from the stolen one.
If they were lucky, the IT department would be able to track down the missing laptop once it came back online somewhere, but Tina wasn't about to hold her breath.
Still, Tina took care of as much of it as she could for Hartley, given he was still exhausted and coughing from the smoke inhalation two days after the apartment fire.
That was when Hartley brought up the idea of him maybe getting out of the public eye, as it were, at work. Namely, by spending time on some joint project with STAR Labs. Surely there was some pretext they could come up with that would let him help lighten the load on Team Flash - not that he outright said it was for Team Flash, but Tina was good at reading through the lines and they both enjoyed being talking over and around the subject, if the light in Hartley's eyes was any indication - but also would put Hartley somewhere a little safer - otherwise known as working next to Vibe all day. (If Cisco Ramon didn't think Tina knew he was Vibe then she looked forward to the look on his face when she sprung that one on him, much like when she'd sprung on him and the others that she knew quite well who the Flash really was. She'd treasure the memory of the looks on their faces for quite some time indeed.)
"It's a good plan," she allowed, mentally reviewing projects at Mercury Labs and projects she knew about from STAR, trying to consider what the best options would be. Something that amounted to busy work, giving Hartley an intellectual challenge that wouldn't necessarily wind up interfering with time spent on Team Flash business. She knew Hartley, like herself, had already done some consulting on Cisco's efforts to retrieve Barry Allen from his current place of captivity and perhaps she could capitalize on that somehow... "I'll have to contact Mr. Ramon and put together something official on Monday. How are you holding up, though? I did try to keep it quiet that you were the one who came forward, but..." Tina suspected her secretary's penchant for gossip had let something slip and it snowballed across the building.
"Thank you, Dr. McGee," Hartley said, looking very relieved. "This whole thing has turned into such a mess." He gave a wry laugh. "You think I'd be used to good deeds blowing up in my face at this point."
"I'm lucky to have you here at Mercury Labs," Tina countered, giving him a fond look. Hartley looked like he might object for a moment before ducking his head and staying silent.
She gets it. Working for Harrison left Hartley scars and only time would tell how much they'd heal.
"I'd better not lose you back to STAR Labs permanently," Tina added teasingly. "Bad enough Caitlin went back."
"She's not there right now, which is part of Cisco's problem. He's overworked and too often alone." Hartley shrugged when Tina raised an eyebrow at him. "You saw him, what, yesterday... right?"
Tina nodded.
"So did I. And he looks about as exhausted as I feel."
Cisco had looked like he hadn't slept enough the night before, but Tina had attributed it to the fire. Now she wasn't so sure. Hartley did know the other man better than she did, after all.
"How's the investigation looking?" Hartley asked, neatly shifting the subject.
For now, Tina let him. At STAR Labs, those kids were doing so much for the city. As one of the few to know... she felt like she needed to do more to help. There had to be more she could do to lend them Hartley, especially when that was as much for his safety as it was for helping lessen Cisco's stress levels...
Cisco met Julian at the airport baggage claim.
"Welcome back to Central City," Cisco chirped brightly. "Land of the weird."
Julian laughed. "Glad to be back. You know, I actually missed this place while I was gone? Anything changed?"
"Finally got Iris to go visit Kara," Cisco said. "You want me to carry anything? I'm volunteering."
"No, I've got it." Julian snagged a suitcase off the baggage carousel. "This is my only suitcase. A little heavier than when I left, admittedly. It was carry on then. Mum and Dad had me take some of my old stuff with me. Which is fair enough, I suppose."
"I hate to say this, but I kind of need you to be back at work tomorrow." Cisco saw Julian's eyebrow go up and he tried not to cringe. This was important and... he had to step up and be team leader. Someone had to and Cisco was the only one left. The only OG member of Team Flash still on the team. Hartley was right. The team dynamic had to change. And it would never change back.
He could do this. If he was going to help Hartley, he had to do this.
"There was a fire at an apartment complex two nights ago. Right after Hartley Rathaway's apartment was broken into and Hartley was knocked out and left for dead, his laptop most likely stolen. We won't know for sure about the laptop until the arson investigation finishes and Joe can go with Hartley to confirm the theft and start investigating. Hartley's fine, for the most part. Stitches on his forehead and he's still coughing from the smoke damage to his lungs. But the thing is... Hartley is a meta. Enhanced hearing. But he never heard his attacker."
"Meaning his attacker might be a meta too," Julian surmised.
"That's right. The building has already been confirmed to be structurally sound and the arson investigation will be clearing most of the building for people to return for their things tomorrow morning. It looks like it was an electrical fire unrelated to the break in at Hartley's apartment. Started on a different floor entirely. But I'm going to see if I can confirm that and maybe see what Hartley's attacker looked like."
"And you want to make sure I'm the CSI on the case, so no one outside the loop sees you do your thing," Julian guessed, following Cisco out of the building towards the parking lot where he'd left a STAR Labs van parked.
"Yeah."
"I remember you mentioning Rathaway before," Julian observed. "Used to work at STAR Labs, right? You said I reminded you of him."
"Yeah. He and I made each other's lives hell for a while, but an evil speedster made us bury the hatchet." Cisco snickered when Julian snorted in amusement.
"That does sound like a familiar story."
"You'll either grate on each other's nerves something awful or get along... way too well," Cisco guessed, barely avoiding the words 'like a house on fire'. After the other day... it was too soon.
"So you said his work laptop was likely stolen?" Julian asked, already curious about the mystery despite himself.
"Yeah. Hartley said it was in his messenger bag when he got home from work and he was still wearing the bag when he got knocked out after closing the door. But it wasn't there when I breached into his apartment to get him out of there during the fire. At least... it wasn't on him. I wasn't exactly looking around for it."
"I'll give the Captain a call once I get settled and go into work tomorrow."
They were quiet the rest of the way to the van, but after putting his suitcase and backpack in the back, Julian's expression turned a bit fixed. "Have you heard anything from Caitlin?"
"She uh... she texted the other day." The anniversary of Dante's death. "She said she's doing okay and not to go looking for her. Vibed just enough to get the impression she's really is okay." But not her location. He was trying to walk the narrow line between watching her back and respecting her privacy. So he'd only used his powers to get an impression, not a full on vision. He still worried he'd gone too far.
If he ever saw her... When he saw her again, he'd have to apologize.
"Good. I'm glad she's... I'm glad she's okay." Julian sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Do you think she'll forgive me?"
It took Cisco a moment for his mind to connect the question to Julian removing the power dampener... saving Caitlin's life, but disregarding Caitlin's stated wishes and giving Killer Frost the final push to fully manifest in the process.
"Yeah, I think she will." He wonders if Julian will try to pursue a romantic relationship with Caitlin again. But something tells Cisco that ship had sailed. And if he's being honest, he doesn't think Caitlin had ever really been interested in Julian that way in the first place.
"So how'd your date with Cynthia go?" Julian asked, changing the subject.
Cisco grimaced. "Well... you know I postponed the date at first."
"I thought she was okay with that." Julian sounded startled.
"She was. But when we tried to have our date... she got called away by work. So we rescheduled, tried again. I got called away to spend several hours chasing after Shawna Baez with Wally. I hate teleporters," he muttered the last part under his breath, but Julian clearly heard, given the snort of amusement that reached Cisco's ears. "Anyway, we rescheduled again. Then we finally had our date for real and... we had nothing to talk about. We just kind of... fizzled." Cisco sighed regretfully. "Apparently finding each other hot and having the same powers isn't the greatest basis for a relationship."
"Sorry to hear that," Julian patted him on the arm. "Better luck next time, mate. For both of us."