Summary: It starts small. Harry invades Ramon's lab because... well, he needs to know how far he can safely push Reverb's doppelganger before the guy snaps. He knows how dangerous Reverb is and Ramon is surely no different.
Except that he is different. And he's pushing Harry's buttons too.
Metaphorical Pigtail Pulling
Harry doesn't particularly feel safe on the other Earth he traveled to at first. He learns enough about Team Flash to decide that teaming up with them might be his safest bet against Zoom, but he doesn't know them. He doesn't know who is going to be under that mask until after he's shot King Shark and made his pitch.
Barry Allen is a nobody on Harry's Earth. Or at least no one important enough for Harry to know about him, which means that Harry can't even begin to guess at the man's character based on his counterpart from Harry's Earth. The same cannot be said of Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow.
Caitlin Snow's counterpart is Killer Frost, a dangerous young woman who likes to kill with a kiss. She freezes her enemies solid and can't be touched without causing frost bite, which makes it convenient for her that her lover is Deathstorm, the man on fire. But Snow isn't a meta-human. Even if there is a killer beneath the surface level earnest doctor who wants to save lives, not end them... she was still just human and incapable of the horrific spectacles that Killer Frost was known for. So Harry can't say he's too worried about her.
Cisco Ramon is another story entirely. His counterpart is Reverb, a murderer with a god complex. His vibrations shatter bones and leave his victims with their internal organs scrambled. He can travel via intra-dimensional breaches and Harry can't rule out the possibility that the man can travel between one reality and the next as easily as breathing. And he claimed an ability that sounded very much like psychometry, though there's no way to confirm that unless Ramon has the same powers as his counterpart. Which he does. Ramon's a meta and when Harry pushes and pushes... the truth comes out.
The psychometry is real. And Ramon's got other powers waiting in the wings. What with Ramon hiding the psychic visions from his friends, who knows if Ramon is hiding his other powers too? Which makes Ramon a potential threat either way.
Reverb is a monster, so who's to say that Ramon won't go the same way?
It makes Harry nervous about Allen and Zoom, though. Allen surrounds himself with people who are criminals on Harry's Earth. And no one knows Zoom's face. What if Zoom and Barry Allen are one and the same? Where does that leave Harry?
He tries not to think about it, so naturally Harry can't think of anything else.
Ramon turns out to be the team's coolest thinker under pressure. Harry's a little ashamed to say he underestimated the other man, but he wasn't the only one.
Zoom turned his back to Cisco Ramon. Didn't think the young scientist was a threat as he dangled the injured Barry Allen in front of his team mates and taunted them. And Zoom paid for that with a dart full of speedster tranquilizer that was already visibly slowing him down even as he sped out of the building.
It's not a mistake Zoom will make twice. But that he made it at all is telling. Harry's not sure what it's telling, yet, but he knows it says something.
The problem is, Harry's getting attached now. He's starting to like Allen, Snow, and especially Ramon all on their own merits. And that's dangerous, for him and for them. Zoom has Jesse and Harry's got no choice but to put her first. Before his own well being and before Team Flash's well being.
As long as Zoom has his daughter, he could ask anything of Harry and there'd be no question of whether or not Harry would do it for him. He's a time bomb sitting in the middle of the one group of people with the slimmest chance of taking out Zoom and Harry's a liability to them so long as he stays.
So he decides to leave. They ask him to stay, which Harry expected. He says no. And then Snow gets kidnapped by a meta-gorilla. So Harry stays to help save her. And he tells himself its just one last collaboration before he goes, except then he watches Cisco Ramon conquer one of his greatest fears all for the sake of bringing Caitlin Snow home safe and sound and...
Harry stays.
It's both the best and the worst decision of his life.
The team grows on him more. He knew it would happen and that it's not safe and he lets it happen anyway. He shouldn't care about them at all and somewhere along the way they start looking kind of like... family.
But there's something particularly special about Cisco Ramon. Maybe it's because he spends the most time with Ramon, maybe because they're on the same wavelength when it comes to... everything practically, maybe because...
There's no maybe about it. Cisco Ramon is special to Harry Wells, end of story.
Yes, they annoy each other and push one another's buttons and Harry wouldn't have the frustrating younger man any other way. Cisco slurps too much and eats too much sugar and smiles too prettily and his hair is too gorgeous and he's beautifully sarcastic and... Harry tells himself it doesn't mean anything.
It can't mean anything. No once Zoom tells Harry that Jesse's life depends on betraying Team Flash. Literally dangles her in front of him, lets him see his daughter, hold her in his arms just to have her snatched from his embrace...
He'd warned them. He'd warned himself. Nothing good could come of having Harry stay and now they were all suffering the consequences.
And then Cisco's powers react negatively to the paradox created by imprisoning Eobard Thawne. His powers start killing him and Harry... Harry loses it. Just a little.
Harry's barely been holding things together over Jesse and now someone else he cares about - someone else he loves - is in danger because of a speedster and why is Allen so fucking slow on the uptake?
When Cisco wakes up, that stupid, pretty smile on his face... Harry wants to hold Cisco and never let go. So Harry grabs on to the first excuse he can think of and gets the hell out of STAR Labs because... he's not sure he can do this. He doesn't know if he can sacrifice these people - sacrifice Cisco - for Jesse. He's not sure he could live with himself either way.
He keeps going anyway, spiraling towards what he's quite certain is his own self-destruction, hands off the small amount of speed force connection he'd siphoned off of Allen to Zoom and... nearly throws up then and there as Zoom injects it into his veins.
Harry can't keep it up anymore. It's too much. Zoom asks for more - for all of Barry's speed - and it's too much to ask. Harry comes clean, throwing himself on his sword even as he knows he's dragging Jesse down with him.
And yet, despite everything he's done, they catch him. They forgive him.
Cisco forgives Harry.
And Harry's just... gone on these people. That's it. He'd do anything for them. Even if it was something he didn't want to do. He'd whine and bitch and drag his heels and do it anyway. Especially if Cisco Ramon is the one asking.
Ramon and Allen accompany Harry back to Earth-2 and Cisco's powers go on the fritz. He wasn't ready to deal with the differences in the two realities vibrational frequencies. But Ramon proves himself a better, braver, kinder man than his counterpart. And Cisco reaches whatever is left of Caitlin Snow within Killer Frost. They save Barry and Jesse because of Cisco's actions. Harry holds his daughter safe in his arms for the first time in months and... for a little while he can pretend that the nightmare is over.
Harry can never truly repay Cisco for granting him this miracle.
Jesse doesn't really know what to make of Team Flash. Or, more specifically, she doesn't know what to make of Cisco Ramon.
Maybe that's not the right way to phrase it either. She doesn't know what to think about how Cisco Ramon interacts with her father.
She notices it before they leave for another universe first, though what she's seeing doesn't totally register until later.
Her dad is comfortable with Cisco Ramon in a way that Jesse isn't used to seeing. And it really slams home when she sees them working together in their lab together. Because, first of all, Harrison Wells shares lab space with no one. Until Cisco Ramon.
Her dad lets the whole team call him Harry, which Jesse can't remember anyone doing since her mom died. When she asks about it, her dad says something about how they'd needed a way to differentiate him from this Earth's Harrison Wells. Ramon decided on Harry and everyone else went with it. Which is fine because he doesn't mind them calling him Harry. He says that last part while looking across the room at Cisco and Caitlin with a fond look that follows Ramon far more than Snow.
Her dad is not a touchy-feely person and yet... his hands are drawn to Cisco Ramon. He touches Ramon's shoulders, his back, hands him things with lingering touches, takes care with Cisco's drinks the way he would Jesse's...
Jesse briefly considers and then discards the idea that her dad sees Cisco as something like a son. She also discards the idea that her father sees Cisco as a student to mentor. It's the touching. There's something intimate about it, but not parental. Protective, but not...
Then there's the easy rhythm between them. Her dad tosses something and Cisco catches it with ease. Cisco throws something and her dad snatches it from the air. The way they finish each others thoughts when brainstorming science.
Hell, her dad teases Cisco while wearing mischievous grins that have gotten all too rare over the last few years. That he can wear them now, in the midst of dealing with Zoom, because of Cisco... that those smiles grow brighter when Cisco snarks back, giving as good as he gets with mischievous grins of his own...
Cisco Ramon is... a miracle.
He's nothing like Reverb, which is quickly obvious. And he's fond of Jesse's dad, which is also quickly obvious.
And then her dad is trying to get Cisco's attention one afternoon, but Cisco is in a hyper-focused zone where the only thing that registers is the work right in front of him - something she's seen her dad do a thousand times - and... her dad reaches over after the umpteenth calling of 'Ramon' and 'Cisco' fail to catch the engineer's attention. And... her dad tugs lightly on Cisco's hair.
If that were all that happened, Jesse might not have thought anything of it. But then Cisco looked at her dad and he looked at Cisco, both wearing this warm expression while, for a few moments, her dad stroke's Cisco's hair... and that's it. Jesse can't watch anymore. The wordless flirting going on is too much for her to bear witness to when it involves her father.
Jesse just... marches down to Caitlin's office where Caitlin, Barry, Iris, and Joe have all gathered to discuss dinner options - presumably excluding Harry and Cisco so that they won't vote for Big Belly Burger for the third night in a row - and demands, "do they flirt like that all the time?"
"What? Who?" Barry asks, looking bewildered.
"Harry and Cisco," Iris said, her tone of voice conveying 'who else' quite clearly.
"Yes," Caitlin added. "They don't even realize they're doing it. It's obnoxious, but I wish them only the best."
"Harry and Cisco?" Barry still sounded bewildered.
Joe patted his shoulder. "It's okay, Bar. Just think about their interactions a little and you'll get it."
Barry buried his face in his hands. "I'm too aspec for this nonsense."
Jesse sighs. "So you've all been going with a wait and see approach, except for Barry who is too oblivious for our allo nonsense."
Nods all around.
"Right, well, I'm giving them until Zoom's defeated or the end of the year and then I'm shoving them in a closet until they work things out. Someone else is gonna have to let them out, though. There are some things a child should never witness."