Notes: So chapter one was written in 2019. It's now 2021 and I'm finishing this up for Hartmon Finish Your WiP day and I've... adjusted the story a bit.

First, it's not two or three chapters like silly 2019!Me thought it would be. It's five chapters. I cut the Reverse Flash plans I had for this story because I honestly just don't remember where I was going with that. Which is fine, because it let me expand on my ideas for Ronnie and the Steins and have Tina hand Hartley a minor crises about his future. I think it ultimately works pretty well this way and it gets me past the writers block I've had on this story when I... *blushes* even remembered it existed.

This one definitely fell by the wayside, the poor thing. But, hey, it's finally done. And by the end of the story, Hartley's even three plushie rats richer. :D

Chapter 2

Cisco wasn't exactly sure this was a good idea. He hadn't run this past Joe, for starters, and there was a good chance the Detective was going to be pissed when Cisco showed up with Hartley in tow.

But... Cisco hated the idea of leaving Hartley alone in the locker room all day. So Joe was just going to have to deal with it. Besides, there really was a good reason to bring Hartley along on this trip, assuming Cisco had been reading Hartley right.

Knocking on the locker room door, Cisco unlocked it and popped it open enough that he could hear Hartley respond. "You awake in there?"

"Yeah, come on in," Hartley responded.

When the door opened fully, it was to the sight of Hartley stretching his arms while sitting on the bed. He looked tired, but he got up quickly, adjusting where his shirt had ridden up as he stretched. Cisco determinedly did not look at the skin exposed before the fabric was dragged back down.

"Ready to go? We're gonna pick up breakfast on the way. Coffee and pastries sound good?" Cisco grinned when Hartley met his eyes.

Hartley smiled in response and nodded. "Yeah. I'm starving."

They made a Jitters run and then joined Joe at Barry's childhood home. As Cisco had predicted, Joe did not look pleased to see Hartley there.

Cisco sent Hartley - who looked amused to see Joe glowering at Cisco - in the house ahead of them with the holographic imaging device Cisco was mostly certain would be able to read any potential images captured by the old mirror.

"So, before you yell at me, try to remember that if anyone is going to believe your theory that Dr. Wells is involved in the death of Barry's mother, it's Hartley. And I could not justify leaving him alone at STAR Labs all day." Cisco crossed his arms and did his best to return Joe's glare with a steady look of his own.

"I don't like it," Joe insisted. "He only cares about getting his revenge; justice for Nora Allen isn't going to matter to him."

"He feels guilty because he couldn't stop Dr. Wells from turning on the accelerator," Cisco countered. "That's why he worked so hard to help us save Ronnie last night. Also, you should remember that he can still hear us right now." Which was why Cisco wasn't about to make his real argument.

Odds were, Hartley didn't really know what he wanted anymore. He'd always been the sort to become quiet and contemplative after his anger ran out; that had always been the best time to approach him with new ideas when they'd worked together before. Admittedly, Cisco was usually the one egging on Hartley's temper and Ronnie would be the one to approach him afterwards, but Cisco had learned the pattern anyway. While Cisco had no doubt that Hartley's rage towards Wells was still simmering beneath the surface, his anger had cooled nevertheless. Cisco had seen the guilt showing up again and again on Hartley's face. Guilt over not caring who got hurt by his plans, guilt over Ronnie and Professor Stein's condition as FIRESTORM, guilt over Caitlin's grief...

Joe sighed. "Fine. But you brought him, you explain what's going on. And make sure he knows not to mention any of this to Wells, not even as one of his pithy little Latin 'chess moves'."

Cisco nodded and then held out the third coffee from Jitters, which Joe took with a smile.

"Thanks."

"There are pastries in the car if you want one," Cisco offered.

Hartley couldn't help eavesdropping on people these days. He could try not to, but it didn't really work. So, as Cisco had clearly assumed, Hartley could hear every word of the terse conversation between the mechanical engineer and detective outside.

Barry Allen's mother had been murdered and Joe West believed Harrison was somehow involved. That was... that was big.

For all that Hartley hated Harrison these days, his knee-jerk response was that it wasn't possible. Harrison wasn't a murderer. Or at least, not an intentional murderer. An arrogant ass who would rather let people die and screw Hartley's career rather than admit his design was flawed, but...

He couldn't seem to wrap his brain around the concept.

Setting up the holographic imager by the mirror Cisco had told him about, Hartley waited for the other two men to join him inside. "What does Harrison have to do with Nora Allen's murder?" Hartley demanded when Cisco came over to him to start hooking up the mirror the to imager.

"Nothing, I hope," Cisco responded absently. "Nora Allen was murdered by the Reverse Flash. The Reverse Flash is a speedster from the future who came back in time for reasons that he hasn't disclosed to us probably because they're shitty reasons that don't hold up to any sort of real scrutiny." Carefully he finished setting up the device and started up the scanning function. "He wants to kill Barry and killed Nora Allen in the past as revenge for things Barry hasn't even done yet."

"And Detective West thinks what? That Harrison is somehow the Reverse Flash?" Hartley thought, for a moment, about the sight of Harrison standing clear of the debris after Hartley blew his skylights. The chair in the midst of the mess and Harrison safe off to the side. Presumably Harrison had still been caught in some of that, rushing for safety, but...

Speedsters could heal faster than normal people; could they heal nerve damage normal humans couldn't? It would explain things... and open up a whole new can of worms because...

"When did she die?" Hartley asked quietly.

"Fifteen years ago. March 2000," Cisco responded, equally quiet.

Hartley sighed, discarding the theory that Harrison was the Reverse Flash regretfully. "That's the year, and month, Tess Morgan died."

"Who... that name sounds familiar." Cisco frowned, eyes narrowing in thought. "Why is that name familiar?"

"She was Harrison's fiancé. Died in a car crash. Harrison was driving. It was right after that his friendship with Tina McGee fell apart." Things once confided in him as a friend over a glass of wine after work. Reasons why Hartley had believed Harrison to be a good person once.

For a moment, Hartley missed that friendship hard.

"Unless the Reverse Flash is a future version of Harrison, it just doesn't fit that they're the same person. But it doesn't rule out them colluding now." Future tech from a malevolent speedster could explain Harrison being able to walk and made far too much sense.

Cisco shrugged. "I'm really hoping that isn't the case either, but.. I would never have thought he'd deliberately cover up flaws in the accelerator. I would never have believed he'd tank your career either. Dr. Wells has done a lot of things I'd never believed he'd do and now..."

"There's no telling what he really is capable of," Hartley finished when Cisco trailed off.

"Pretty much, yeah." They finished setting up the mirror in contemplative silence. Then, once it was ready and Cisco had calibrated things, he switched it on.

A laser slowly swept across the mirror's surface and Hartley wondered if this was going to work out the way Cisco thought it would. While it was possible there were images from that night etched into the mirror's antique backing, it would be the worst over-exposed image ever filmed. What were the odds that, even with Cisco's improved algorithms, those images could be rendered with any sort of accuracy?

But Cisco didn't seem to share Hartley's internal pessimism because he beamed cheerfully as the laser finished its work. "Alright, Joe, I'm going to start projecting a holographic representation of what just got scanned in. It's gonna look like a mess at first, but with a little manual adjustment we should be able to see at least some of what happened that night."

"Go for it."

The holographic generator turned on with a whine that made Hartley flinch, but then he found himself captivated despite himself by the images that glowed in the room now. A red and yellow blur circled the room, entwined with each other. A yellow figure stood in the back near the stairs while a blur of red with yellow lightning was streaking towards the door on either side of him. A woman knelt in the middle of it all, her face too fuzzy to read any sort of expression while the same yellow figure by the stairs also stood by her, poised to strike.

Hartley couldn't help his first thought. That woman was going to die. Then he had to correct himself because... she was already dead. She'd died here years ago. And there stood her killer, presumably the Reverse Flash.

"Oh my god," Joe murmured. "I wish this was admissible in court."

"There are two," Hartley said quietly.

"Two what?" Cisco asked absently as he fiddled with the output settings.

"Two speedsters. There's the Reverse Flash dressed in yellow with red lightning trails. But there's another one, presumably dressed in red with... yellow lightning. The Flash was here that night." Hartley stood up as he spoke, moving to gesture to the blur that streaked towards the door. "So why did he leave? He had to know his mother would die if he left, so why..."

"He saved himself. Barry... he came down from his room that night. Because he heard what was going on. He saw his mother, surrounded by the lightning, and then he was suddenly a few blocks away. Took him a while to run home." Joe sounded suddenly very tired and worn. "The Reverse Flash must've threatened that version of Barry. And he saved himself."

Good mothers wouldn't want their child to choose her life over their own. Hartley's mother was not a good mother. He wondered if Nora Allen had been one. He hoped so. That Barry's safety had been some measure of comfort as she died.

"Well, the Reverse Flash looks slightly too tall to be Harrison, but that could be distortion from the mirror or lifts in his shoes," Hartley said, turning to face the yellow silhouette.

"How tall is Wells, anyway?"

"Six foot," Hartley responded promptly at the same moment Cisco said, "about six feet tall."

"Dr. Wells used to really loom over us when he was pissed off at our arguing," Cisco reminisced, his tone weirdly nostalgic.

"Yeah, it was annoying," Hartley agreed.

The holographic display flickered and then grew crisper. The Reverse Flash managed to look even creepier like this, with glowing red lightning sparking in his eyes. The silhouette did shrink a little, now maybe about six foot after all. Probably more like six foot one. Which Hartley dutifully commented on.

"Yeah, I'm not great at guesstimating height. If you think he looks six foot one, he probably is," Cisco allowed. "Okay, I'm going to try something else now."

The holograms in front of Hartley vanished, so he spun around to see... Nora Allen, frightened as she was circled by two fighting speedsters. What looked possibly like blood flickered on one of the walls.

"I've separated out... three-ish frames," Cisco said. "This is the first one. Number two..." the scene shifted and now the Reverse Flash was back by the stairs again. This time Hartley could see a hand and part of the leg of a kid peeking out from behind the speedster. The rest of what must have been Barry Allen as a child was obscured from the mirror's ability to capture light by the speedster in yellow.

The Flash was running towards the other speedster and the endangered child.

"And the third."

The Reverse Flash was repositioned to loom over Nora Allen, eyes glowing red and kitchen knife in hand.

Joe directed Cisco back to the first frame and they went to check for lingering blood evidence behind the wallpaper. Hartley went and sat on the bottom of the stairs. This was so much bigger than him. So much bigger than his revenge on Wells.

What the hell was he supposed to do? Things were supposed to be clear cut and simple. And now he's watching the footage from an old mirror of a woman being murdered because of who her son would grow up to be. And Harrison might very well be helping that poor woman's murderer. The question was... why?

"Tess Morgan died not long after this," Hartley said slowly, thinking out loud. "And the Reverse Flash can time travel. What if he promised Harrison his fiancé back? If Tess Morgan never dies, then this whole timeline gets rewritten." And would that put Hartley back at STAR Labs, friends with some other version of Harrison? Never knowing how easy the other man had found it to betray one person he cared about for another? But then, Hartley'd always known their friendship meant more to him than to Harrison...

"We don't know for sure that he's working with the Reverse Flash," Cisco cautioned, but West sent Hartley an appraising look.

"Can you save the data from the mirror?" Joe asked, turning back to Cisco.

"Yeah. I'll send it all to you once I've uploaded it all." Cisco turned off the holo-imager. "Hartley, give me a hand with this?"

Numbly, Hartley nodded and stood, heading over to do as asked.

He felt like he was missing something important. Something that, though it might not be a snake, was definitely poised to bite him on the ass anyway.

Cisco had expected things with Joe to take longer than they did, but the holo-imager had barely needed any tuning to work once the mirror was hooked up. And he'd been able to create three 'composite' images, as it were. Which was two more than Cisco thought he'd manage. And they were clearer too.

He wished he knew what was going on inside Hartley's head. The guy had been really quiet - subdued - the whole drive back to STAR Labs, and it wasn't because he thought he was headed back to the locker room for the rest of the day, either. Cisco had wanted Hartley to see Barry as more than Dr. Wells' latest favorite. Wanted him to see that the situation they were tangled in - that Hartley's quest for vengeance had caused him to become a part of too - was a lot bigger than he'd realized. And, well... Hartley did ask who the Reverse Flash was.

Seeing the image of the Reverse Flash poised to murder a woman for no reason other than he'd been deprived the chance to murder her son instead... that right there said a lot about who the Reverse Flash was and the sort of response he had to not getting his way.

It didn't take them long to upload the data off the imager onto the STAR Labs computers. And then Cisco forwarded it all to Joe, while Hartley borrowed Caitlin's equipment to run the blood samples. At least some of it was, no doubt, Barry's. Because the Flash had been there the night his mother died. Wasn't that just so trippy?

"Alright, I'm done. What about you?" Cisco grinned over at Hartley, who shrugged.

"For now anyway. Analysis should be completed in a couple of hours."

"Then it's lunch time. Where do you want to go?" When Cisco saw Hartley hesitate, he added, "there's an Italian street food place that went in a few blocks from here that I've been meaning to try out. Sound okay, or would you rather go somewhere else."

"No, that... that's sounds great. But I'm just... surprised you're gonna take me with you." Hartley shrugged, reaching for his hoodie again.

"I..." Cisco's response was cut off by the sound of an alert going off. Only it's not the meta alert for a change. It's the alarm from the phone app Cisco had come up with after Captain Cold and Heatwave kidnapped Caitlin. "Oh shit." Cisco hurried over the comms, flipping them on while he tracked down where the alarm was coming from.

Point of origin was Caitlin's phone and GPS put her...

"Cisco, you there?" Barry asked over the comms.

"Yeah, Caitlin and Ronnie are in trouble, though. They're at Jitters."

Barry's response of, "I'll be right there," made Cisco sigh in relief. Until Barry screamed in pain.

Hartley was suddenly beside Cisco, turning up the volume on the comm's output, but why would he... and then Cisco could hear someone else saying, "Firestorm, but you? You're a bonus I wasn't about to let pass me by."

"That's General Eiling," Hartley said. "Barry and Ronnie are in trouble. How fast can you get us to Jitters?"

Cisco looked down and somehow unsurprised to see the Piper gloves held in Hartley's hands. And, in a heartbeat, Cisco made a decision. He grabbed Hartley's wrists to deactivate the cuffs. "Five minutes if I run the lights. If you're really going to do this... you're going to need a mask this time."