Summary: Hartley's gotten into more than his fair share of trouble of the last few years, but his latest misadventure has put him on the FBI's radar and the only way to get out of trouble is to go undercover at STAR Labs to investigate whatever it is wrong with the accelerator that's getting former employees killed to shut them up.
This'd probably be easier if one of Hartley's new coworkers wasn't the single most distractingly sexy person Hartley's ever met.
(For Hartmon Fest June 28th - Undercover)
Undercover
Hartley taps his fingers along the edge of his new desk. Specifically, his new desk in his new office at his new job. Dr. Wells had just given him the tour but his computer hasn't quite finished the setup process yet, so Harrison – and the older scientist had insisted, benevolent smile on his face that Hartley probably would have trusted a few weeks ago – had gone to fetch his own laptop in order to give Hartley a look at the project he'll be heading.
It's a nice office, which Hartley's got free reign to decorate. And he's got a small team to run, which he'll be introduced to after lunch – they're mostly freed from their previous projects, but they'll all officially report to Hartley come next Monday. Apparently they'll be completing some of the final sensors for the accelerator, a project previously intended to be run by a long time STAR Labs employee who'd abruptly parted ways with the company a few months ago.
The former employee had turned up dead in Opal City three weeks ago. And he's not the first. STAR Labs has a history of employees being fired, reporting all kinds of safety violations to anyone who'd listen, and then showing up dead anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after being let go. And of course, there was never any evidence to corroborate their claims once they were dead nor anything tying their deaths back to STAR Labs. It was all very neat and tidy.
But the pattern was fairly obvious once someone started looking for it.
It's the whole reason Hartley's there. He has a genuine PhD in physics, but he's also perhaps gotten into a little too much trouble with the law after sabotaging a fracking setup that was, itself, operating illegally. He'd been informed by the FBI very firmly that 'two wrongs don't make a right' and then offered a chance to redeem himself and have his charges dismissed and his record cleaned if he'd go undercover at STAR Labs to find out just what was going on there.
Dangerous? Very. But Hartley was more interested in exposing Dr. Wells for whatever it was he was covering up that was getting former employees killed than in the clean record. That was just a bonus.
Of course, the whole thing was contingent upon Hartley being hired by Wells. An interview Hartley'd gone into with confidence he didn't feel and came out of having spent most of the time trading off asking and answering questions over a chess board. And the assurance that he was hired.
Hartley really does have both the lab and managerial experience for the job, so he didn't even need his resume padded by fake FBI contacts. It's just a shame that under normal circumstances this would be his dream job, working with Dr. Harrison Wells.
(While not his gay awakening, Wells was Hartley's physic's awakening as it was a TED talk he did that made Hartley sit up and go 'that's what I wanna do with my life.' Though he'd also been strongly reminded of how gay he was as he'd admired how extremely handsome and pretty Dr. Harrison Wells was as he'd watched the YouTube video…)
There's a knock at the door, pulling Hartley out of his thoughts and back into new hire mode.
He goes to open the door and standing there is quite possibly the single most attractive man Hartley's ever seen. Like… his fashion sense could use a little work, but his face was gorgeous and his hair… oh, his hair. It went down just barely past his shoulders and looked better on him than long hair did on any of actors in a Lord of the Rings movie. (And that had been the movie series that had made Hartley realize he had a thing for men with long hair, so kudos to this guy.)
"Uh, hi," Hartley greeted and hoped that the expression on his face was not off putting. Because he was absolutely struggling not to let his eyes rove over the guy.
"Hi, I'm Cisco Ramon. You're Dr. Rathaway, right?"
His voice was pretty too. Hartley was totally about to swoon. "Yeah, that's me." He cringed internally. "Just call me Hartley, though." He managed to grab onto his composure enough to hold out a hand for a polite shake. And nearly lost it again at the combination of soft skin and interesting callouses.
If Cisco didn't pay the guitar, Hartley would eat his diploma.
"I'm going to be on your team, starting next week, so I figured I'd drop by and say hi while I had a free minute." Cisco beamed. "And, uh, you can call me Cisco."
In the back of his mind, Hartley's inner monologue was chanting 'no innuendo, no double entendres, no flirting with your minion, it's inappropriate workplace harassment'. Which was quite possibly the only thing stopping Hartley from making an ass of himself.
Clearly it had been too long since he'd last gotten laid if he was this thirsty for someone he'd literally just met. And what happened when the guy turned out to be a competent, if not genius, scientist in his own right? Hartley had a thing for brainy guys.
He was gonna die on this job and it wasn't going to have anything to do with whatever the hell was happening with the accelerator.
"Also, there's a group of us going for drinks and dinner after work and I thought maybe you'd like to join us?" Cisco added.
"I'd love to. Are we meeting up somewhere in the building first before heading over, or…"
"Yup, in the atrium at six. And then we'll be headed over to a brew pub just down the street." Cisco licked his lips and Hartley just… could not stop his eyes from following the motion.
They both blushed.
Dr. Wells appeared behind Cisco with a laptop in hand. "Ah, Mr. Ramon. Getting a head start on meeting Hartley?"
"Yup. Though…" Cisco's phone started beeping and he pulled it from his back pocket to silence it. "I gotta head to a meeting now, but it was great meeting you, Hartley."
"You too," Hartley smiled as Cisco made his polite goodbyes and turned to hurry off.
Hartley couldn't resist checking out the man's butt as he strode off and, damn, was there anything about this guy that wasn't exactly Hartley's type?
"I'm glad you're making friends with your team already," Wells said.
"I think I'm really going to like it here," Hartley said, letting Wells back into the office.
"That's good to hear."
Hartley let his eyes flicker back to Cisco as he disappeared around the corner and then shut the door. Hopefully Cisco 'hottest man alive' Ramon wasn't in on whatever Dr. Wells was up to.
Maybe Hartley should investigate Cisco a little closer… just to be sure. After all, being friendly – extra friendly, even – never hurt anyone.
… wow did he have it bad already. His FBI handler was either going to find this hilarious or an extremely unnecessary distraction...