Summary: Hartley's absolutely certain that if Cisco could remember their shared past then he wouldn't be flirting so outrageously. Cisco's equally certain that even when he gets his memories back he'll want to shove Hartley against the nearest hard surface and kiss Hartley until his brain reboots.

(For Hartmonfest June 29 - Identity)

Notes: Admittedly, this would have worked for the memory prompt too, but the focus is really on Cisco's strong sense of self even with his memories gone AWOL and Cisco realizing that Hartley's a bit of an unreliable narrator when it comes to himself due to self-esteem issues. (Basically, Cisco's got a better grasp of who he is right now, while Hartley's sense of self is a little bit on the warped side.)

To Know Oneself

Hartley oversleeps his alarm that morning. Which almost never happens anymore, but apparently he'd hit the alarm off button instead of the snooze when it went off the first time at six-thirty and proceeded to sleep until ten-fifteen.

There were a few texts on his phone from Cisco that start off amused, quickly moved to irate, and then into vaguely worried territory that stopped coming in at ten o'clock. Hartley had texted a hurried apology for being late in response, showered, and hurried to dress so that he could be in his car and on his way to work by ten-fifty. Hartley's never going to live this down, but he hasn't felt this rested in a while so maybe it'll be worth it.

Probably not.

Hartley arrives at STAR Labs at eleven-twenty-two and walks into the Cortex to find the rest of the team already there. "Sorry I'm late," he said, offering a tentative smile.

"You know who we are?" Caitlin asked which was...

Oh that was a bad sign.

"Yes..." Hartley fidgeted nervously under the sudden, intense stares from Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry. "None of you know who you are?" he guessed, hoping he was wrong. Maybe this was just a... bizarre joke.

"Nope. Sorry," Barry apologized, shrugging sheepishly. "We all just woke up on the floor a few minutes ago. Not a clue what are names are or how we got here."

Cisco's watching Hartley with an unreadable expression, but whatever's going on in his head his stare is intense. Makes Hartley flush a little to be the focus of it. "So," Cisco drawled, a slow smirk spreading across his lips, "how about you introduce yourself, hot stuff, and then tell us who we are?"

Hartley choked. "Hot stuff?"

If anything, Cisco's smirk got a little bigger. "Calling it like I see it."

"Oh... you're going to be so embarrassed when you get your memories back," Hartley sighed. This could still be some weird joke at his expense, though Hartley doubts it. "I'm Hartley Rathaway." Then, gesturing to Caitlin, Cisco, and Barry in turn, he continued with, "you're Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, and Barry Allen. We all work here." Well, it was more complicated with Barry, but Hartley was hoping to untangle this mess before explaining that became necessary.

Pulling out his phone, Hartley texted Joe and Iris with 'Flash Emergency Meeting STAR' and then put his phone away. "Let's pull up the CCTV records and see what happened to you three, okay?"

Cisco is sitting backwards on the chair beside Hartley, the backrest flipped horizontally so that he could use it as an arm rest as he propped up his chin with one hand and twirling his hair with the other. All while grinning flirtatiously at Hartley.

It's distracting. It's so, so distracting.

Hartley has a hard time resisting the urge to throw caution to the wind and kiss Cisco every time they argue over science as it is. But now here's a version of Cisco who is actively coming on to Hartley and that's...

It's hot. It's everything Hartley's been wanting for a while now and everything he can't let himself have. Because if he did, then Cisco would never forgive him once he remembered all the reasons he had to dislike Hartley Rathaway.

Such a temptation. But Hartley is resisting. For now anyway. He hopes it'll be easier with Joe and Iris there to be all judgmental if Hartley screws this up.

On the screen, Hartley pulls up the cortex camera recording and plays it backwards. It's worrying watching Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry passed out on the floor but eventually Hartley gets to see what got them there. At about ten o'clock that morning, Caitlin brought a teenaged girl in to the Cortex. She's maybe sixteen years old and looks nervous - Caitlin's been volunteering at a youth center lately to help her deal with her feelings of loss over Ronnie. She's been telling them about a girl there who'd been hinting at being a meta and this had to be her.

The three of them talk with the girl for a while, but she gets visibly anxious about something.

Cisco checks his phone for texts at one point and visibly relaxes. Hartley wonders if Cisco had really been that worried about him or if it was something else that put his mind at ease. Probably something else; Hartley's not that lucky in love.

Eventually the girl shouted at them and turned and ran out of the room, apparently not noticing the three adults collapsing to the floor behind her.

Not great, but Hartley could work with that.

He rewinds the time code to a few minutes earlier where there's a good view of the girl's face and prints out copies. It's not a great starting point, but surely with a photo and knowing where Caitlin met the girl, Iris and Joe can track her down and acquire her help. Preferably without accidentally getting whammied themselves.

"Oh, uh, hi?"

Hartley spun around in his chair to see Iris and Joe walk in, Barry blushing bashfully even as he smiled brightly at Iris. "Meta whammied them and their memories are... missing," Hartley said quickly. "Pretty sure it was an accident, but I need you two to put your investigative skills together to find this girl." He snapped up the photo from the printer and handed it over. "She's likely the girl Caitlin's been talking about from her volunteer work. Katie something, about fifteen or sixteen years old. Hopefully she'll be able to reverse whatever she did and this'll be just another funny story."

"So you don't know who we are, Barry?" Iris sounded sad and that made Barry's expression turn puppy-ish.

"Sorry, no." Barry's tone was guilty.

"I'm Joe West. Your foster father." Joe introduced himself first.

"And I'm Iris West..."

Hartley tuned out their introductions, distracted by Cisco tapping his shoulder. "If those two are out trying to find the girl who did this to us, what'll you be doing?"

"Staying here with you three and making sure you don't get into trouble, I guess. STAR Labs can be a little dangerous if you don't know your way around it. And both you and Barry are also metas too and since you two don't remember how to use your powers..."

"We might use them in public and get ourselves in trouble," Cisco filled in, nodding in agreement.

"Actually, I'd like to go with you two, if that's alright," Caitlin said to Joe and Iris. "If this girl really does know me, then maybe she'd be more likely to come with us if I'm there to help explain the problem?"

Joe and Iris exchanged a look and nodded. Then Joe looked over at Hartley. "Rathaway, got a min?"

Hartley nodded and followed Joe out into the hall, giving Cisco a look when the amnesiac engineer made as though to follow along. Once they were in a relatively private spot, Hartley braced himself for whatever Joe was about to say. He knew the detective still didn't like him and he knew he should have been there with the others when this happened. And while, rationally, Hartley knew there wasn't anything he could have done to stop this if he had been there - that he'd be suffering from the same memory and identity issues the others were dealing with - it doesn't matter because he feels guilty anyway. So he wouldn't blame Joe for thinking Hartley'd screwed this up.

"I'm glad at least one of you got missed by that meta," Joe said, easing some tension Hartley hadn't even noticed weighing him down. "Who knows how long it would've taken the rest of us to find out something was wrong otherwise." He gave Hartley a concerned look. "Are you okay? I know this is a lot and Barry said you haven't been sleeping well lately..."

Oh... maybe Joe didn't dislike Hartley after all. Maybe he was just... parents didn't tend to like Hartley, so maybe he'd just assumed. Then again, Hartley'd tried to hurt Barry at one point, so maybe this was just a recent thaw. Either way, Hartley felt very, very confused.

He shoved his confusion away. "My new neighbors are extra noisy and my aids aren't quite up to the task when they have a party. They're not... no one else would think they're being loud, but then no one else has enhanced hearing either. I'm working on some total sound deafeners," and he'd need to look into getting a new kind of alarm clock that didn't depend on sound cues to wake him, "but until then I'm kind of stuck with sleep not really coming easy. I, uh... actually managed to oversleep my alarm today."

Joe snorted in amusement. "Lucky you did. I'm sure Barry and Cisco won't cause you too much trouble like this, but if you need anything don't hesitate to call."

Hartley nodded slowly. "Uh, sure."

Five minutes later it was just Hartley left in the cortex with Barry and Cisco. The latter of whom was giving Hartley a look that was downright predatory. Like he wanted to eat Hartley in all the best ways.

Hartley swallowed hard because... he wanted and he shouldn't. "So, Barry," Hartley said, desperately trying to ignore the way Cisco's stare was doing things to him, "wanna try out your powers? We've got a speed lab setup where you can run in. And you can run ridiculously fast."

"That sounds awesome!" Barry chirped, bouncing cheerfully. "Hey, um, so is Iris seeing anyone or is she, uh... is she single?"

"Single, but her fiancé died a few months ago." Hartley's sorry to see the bright smile fall off Barry's face.

"That's awful." Barry sighed. "Must have been a really special person for Iris to love them so much."

"He was. Eddie was your friend too." Hartley wasn't really sure what else to say - he hadn't known Eddie Thawne particularly well himself, though the guy had seemed nice enough. It left him scrambling for something to say that would make the walk to the speed lab not awkward. Should he tell Barry he was a super hero or...

"What kind of powers do I have?" Cisco asked.

Oh thank god, that worked. "We're actually still figuring that out. You've had visions of alternate timelines," Hartley decided not to mention the whole watching them both dying at EoWells' vibrating hands thing, "and from what we've been able to tell you should also be able to view the past and potential futures. You tune into the vibrational constant of the universe and if you can find a way to manipulate it you could probably do a lot more than have visions. But... what that something more is, we're still just guessing."

"That sounds pretty awesome," Barry said with a grin.

"That's because I'm pretty awesome," Cisco replied smirking.

They settled into asking more questions about Barry's powers from there as the three of them headed for the speed lab. And it wasn't until Barry sped up into the loop and let out a whoop of joy over the comms that Hartley realized he's just effectively arranged to be alone with a version of Cisco who was not only doing things to Hartley's libido, but clearly wanted to be doing those things.

That was... that was not what Hartley'd intended.

Whoops.

"So," Cisco grinned impishly and leaned against the railing that separated the computers from the rest of the room where the sensors were located. "I suppose now would be a good time to play twenty questions, try and learn more about myself."

"Uh, yeah, sure." Hartley wondered if this was about to turn into a train wreck.

"So, what do I do here, exactly? What's my job?"

Well that was an easy enough question to answer. "You're a mechanical engineer. You did a double major getting your bachelors so you've got degrees in both physics and mechanical engineering on that level and then a masters degree in the latter. You and I do a lot of work together these days, designing and building tech together."

"How'd I get my powers? That's... not exactly a normal thing for people to have, is it." Cisco looked a bit pensive as he asked that one.

"There was... and explosion, here at STAR Labs. There's a particle accelerator in the basement and it ended up flooding the city with dark energy. A lot of people were effected, though not everyone who was has developed powers yet. Sometimes it takes an additional trigger. My enhanced hearing started almost immediately that night and I think Barry's was too, though the damage he took from being struck by lightning meant he spent time in a coma while his powers grew to the point they'd healed him enough he could wake up. Now he uses his abilities as a sort of super hero." Hartley hesitated a bit and then decided to leave EoWells out of things for now. No reason to re-traumatize Cisco when he still might get his memories back. "Yours didn't activate until about a year later when Barry accidentally reset time by a day. You started having visions of the erased version of that day, though it took a while for you to realize they were real and not weird dreams."

"Am I dating anyone?"

Hartley shook his head. "Nope."

"What about you?" Cisco's eyes gave Hartley an obvious once over.

"I thought you were asking about yourself?" Hartley protested, blushing.

"About myself, for myself..." Cisco stood away from the rail and crossed the small distance between them, hips giving a little sway as he leaned into Hartley's space a little and Hartley could only imagine how nice that little sashay had made his butt look. "Hot guy walks in with all the answers to life and I gotta know if I have a chance of taking him on a date."

"I do not have all the answers to life. Most definitely not," Hartley objected.

"But you do know who I am when all I really know is that I'm super queer for you." Cisco reached out and took one of Hartley's hands in his, raising it up to his lips for a kiss that stole Hartley's breath away. "So... are you single or am I exhibiting the terribly bad taste of hitting on someone who's already in a relationship."

"I'm single," Hartley said, words coming out as a sigh. "But this is a terrible idea, Cisco. We generally don't get along well and you don't particularly like me much. When you get your memories back... the last thing I want for you to think is that I was taking advantage of you while you were vulnerable."

"Considering I'm the one who is trying to seduce you - and doing so rather clumsily, but hey I'm trying - I really doubt the me before the amnesia felt all that different," Cisco insisted, hand reaching out to caress Hartley's shoulder.

Hartley's mouth went dry. He was parched and Cisco was the tall drink of water he desperately needed.

"Uh..." His mind went blank as Cisco leaned in, telegraphing his intention to kiss Hartley. Who should absolutely move away, only he didn't want to... what if this was his only chance to know what kissing Cisco was like?

"Oh shit!" Barry's voice came over the comm, along with a crash that firmly broke the mood, jolting Hartley out of his dazed trance.

Hartley darted over to the microphone, flipping it on. "You okay? Barry?"

"Tripped and fell. Think I twisted my ankle," Barry huffed in pain. "Shit..."

"The bright side is, you heal fast," Hartley told him. "The downside is also that you heal fast because if your ankle is broken and not twisted it'll be agony if it sets wrong and has to get rebroken."

"You really know how to break bad news gently, Hartley," Barry drawled through clenched teeth.

"Cisco and I are gonna go up through the access hatch and look you over. Then we'll help you over to the access ramp and slide down together. Broken or sprained, we should get you to the infirmary and do a scan to be sure. And then ice packs." Hartley gestured to one of the access ramps, the one that was closest to where he could here Barry's voice coming from - his actual voice, not the reproduction coming over the speakers.

Cisco went over and opened the door to reveal a ladder going up.

"Right," Barry said, "see you two in a minute, then."

"Be right up," Hartley confirmed before joining Cisco at the ladder. He went up first, inputting the access code that had the top part of the access hatch sliding smoothly out of his way. Barry was just a few feet away and he relaxed a bit at the sight of Hartley, and then Cisco, climbing up and into the speedway.

Cisco distracted Barry with chatter, getting the speedster to concentrate on describing how the speed force felt while Hartley did his best to gently probe Barry's ankle. It didn't feel broken, but then Hartley wasn't exactly this kind of Doctor.

"Alright, I think with assistance you'll be fine to hobble to the infirmary," Hartley declared. He stood up and then offered Barry his hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

Scans showed a sprain - already healing and Barry said it didn't hurt so much anymore. It was still swollen, though, so Hartley packed it with ice and gave Barry Tylenol with the warning that with his metabolism the pain medication was more of a placebo than anything. Barry took it anyway and decided to get out his phone to look through his Kindle app, having decided to stay still and quiet and read for a little while.

Hartley and Cisco left him propped up on a couch in the break room nearest the cortex, plenty of water, snacks, and blankets to occupy him with while they retreated to the cortex to give Barry the space he currently craved. Hartley can't say he's surprised Barry wanted to be alone, it was sort of his thing to retreat into himself and lick his wounds - metaphorically speaking - when physically, or emotionally, injured.

"He's going to be okay, right?" Cisco asked quietly.

"Yeah. Give him an hour and not only will the swelling be gone but the strained tendons will be completely healed. Good as new." Hartley made sure to put some distance between himself and Cisco. No repeat of almost-kiss from the speed lab.

Cisco will thank him later. Or, more likely, ask him to pretend it never happened. And that thought hurts, like a knife to the chest.

"Are you not interested in me?" Cisco asked. "I mean, I've looked in a mirror since waking up. I know I'm attractive -"

"And humble too," Hartley teased automatically.

Cisco stuck his tongue out at Hartley playfully. "I'm pretty. My hair is a twenty on a scale of one to ten. But if you're not interested, then that's fair. I'll back off. I just... I really think you're wrong about me disliking you when I've got my memories. I mean... sure, maybe it was true once. You were a dick, I was a dick, we were dicks together in un-fun ways."

Hartley choked. "Oh that's terrible."

"Thank you," Cisco preened. "I was aiming for terrible. But, Hartley, time changes people. Including us. I may not remember my life, but I know my own mind. I'm sure of it. And I'm absolutely sure of how I feel for you."

"You are really attractive," Hartley allowed. "And I am interested. But as certain as you are that you're attracted to me... I know for certain you aren't. Not normally. Not when you remember how much of an asshole I am or the many different ways I've screwed things up."

Cisco frowned and gave Hartley a concerned look. "Have you considered," Cisco asked carefully, "that maybe the reason you think I'm not attracted to you, even though I very much am, is because you're struggling to like yourself? Thing is, you don't have to like yourself for other people to find you worthy of love. But it does make it easier to accept that others care about you if you could learn to like yourself a little better."

Oddly, Hartley's thoughts slid to Joe, who'd... seemed worried about Hartley earlier. Who'd seemed to actually care about Hartley when he could've sworn before that wasn't the case.

Maybe Cisco had a point.

"Tell me that again when you can remember how much of a jerkass I was on your first day of work," Hartley finally said.

Cisco walked over and pressed a kiss to Hartley's cheek. "Okay. And then I get to take you on a nice date, kiss you good night... and maybe good morning too, if you're interested in staying the night. I rather suspect I'm an easy date when it comes to sex."

Hartley swallowed hard and blushed. "I like Thai food," he offered, even though he shouldn't get his hopes up. Letting himself have hope always made things worse when it got snuffed out.

"Then we'll find a nice Thai place nearby. Bet you've got a favorite," Cisco mused. Then he took a step back. "So, do we have our own development lab here? You said we made the tech..."

"Yeah, it's, uh... it's just down the hall."

"Show me?"

Iris, Joe, and Caitlin return triumphant - Caitlin's memories already restored - with a sheepish Katie. The teen apologized profusely to both Cisco and Barry and restored their memories too.

"I came here for help getting rid of my powers and got upset when all you could offer were ways to restrain my powers instead. I should have realized my powers activated when I left, but..." she sighed. "I'm sorry. I just really want my powers gone. My parents are scared of me and my friends only care about what my powers can do for them, erasing arguments with their boyfriends or making their parents forget they're grounded. I just... want to be normal again."

"I promise you, when we do have a safe method for removing powers, it'll be your choice," Cisco told her. "But for now these?" He held up a pair of bracelets and stylized tree of knowledge necklace, "these will stop your powers in their tracks. No more accidental memory erasure. As long as you're wearing one of them and they're turned on, you'll be safe as houses. Uses standard micro-usb cables to charge and has an on-off switch on the sides. The bracelets also work as anklets if they're too big on your wrist, though if you're not used to anklets it'll feel weird at first."

Katie nodded, testing the bracelet on her wrist. "Yeah, I've got scrawny wrists. Let's see..." she snapped the bracelet around her ankle and lit it up. "That is weird, but I like knowing I'm safe to be around. I'm really, really sorry," she repeated.

"All's well than ends well," Caitlin promised her, offering a hug that was eagerly accepted.

Barry also offered forgiveness and then Iris offered to drive Katie home.

All the while Hartley lingered awkwardly in the background, waiting for the inevitable gentle let down from Cisco.

For a little while, Hartley had gotten to see what it'd be like if Cisco... but that was a fairy tale. It wasn't reality.

Everyone Hartley'd ever loved had made it clear he wasn't worthy of being loved in return. Cisco would be no different because he, more than anyone, was too good for Hartley. But he'd be kind about it, or try to be, where everyone else was cruel. At least there was that.

"Hartley?" Cisco looked nervous, but determined. "Come on. We should talk."

And, oh, the words 'we should talk' were never a good sign.

Hartley nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed Cisco back to their shared lab.

"So the funny thing is, I knew myself better with amnesia than you know yourself right now," Cisco said, shutting the door behind them.

The expression on Hartley's face was probably best described as a combination of a deer in the headlights and massive confusion. "I'm sorry, what now?"

"You think you're unforgivable because you don't know how to forgive yourself." Cisco took Hartley's hands in his, squeezing gently. "And you think you're unlovable because of at least three assholes that I know of, but probably more. And I'm referring to your parents and Harribard and I'd like nothing more to punch each one of them in the face for hurting you like they did. Or at least say something witty and cutting that makes them feel ashamed of themselves and devastated."

"Cisco..." Hartley's voice choked off.

"I've been trying to figure out for weeks now if I stood a chance with you at all," Cisco continued, pressing a kiss to Hartley's knuckles and then tucking their hands together against his chest.

Hartley could feel Cisco's heartbeat now, not just hear it. The sincerity of his words echoing within that steady pulse.

"I want to take you to dinner, like we talked about. I want to take you home with me and be the last thing you see tonight and the first you see tomorrow morning. Sex or no sex, though I was totally right about being easy where that's concerned." Cisco grinned when Hartley snorted with amusement at that despite the tears that were definitely going down his cheeks.

Releasing one of Hartley's hands, Cisco reached up to wipe those tears away. "We both changed from who we were when we were competing for the attention of Harrison Wells. We're better and kinder and stronger in spite of everything he put us through. And I want to show you just how deserving of being loved you truly are."

Hartley thought he was going to start crying in earnest if Cisco said even one more sappy, sentimental, honest word.

"May I have that honor?"

Well, that was it. Hartley burst into tears and threw his arms around Cisco's shoulders while burying his face against Cisco's hair and the crook of his neck.

"Oh, shit, please don't cry, Hartley," Cisco wrapped his arms around Hartley's waist. "Hey, sweetheart, are these happy tears or sad tears? I didn't just completely screw up, did I?"

"You didn't screw up," Hartley snuffled. "I'd like all of that." He didn't dare pull away, knowing how blotchy and awful his face must look. But Cisco gently guided Hartley's face up so he could look at him.

And then Cisco kissed him on the mouth. It's a chaste kiss, testing the waters as it were, but it's real. Hartley's very own fairy tale come true.

"I think we should call it a day early," Cisco decided. "Have lunch, go home, curl up and marathon something on Netflix, and get that Thai food as carry out for dinner. Sound good?"

Hartley nodded and smiled, burying his face against Cisco's chest and feeling maybe, just a little, overwhelmed. But it was a good sort of overwhelmed.

It was an... 'I could get used to being cared for' kind of overwhelmed.

Notes: The amnesia totally gave Cisco the confidence boost he needed to finally just tell Hartley how he feels. :D