Summary: The search for a new Wells to join Team Flash winds up moving in an entirely new direction when their best candidate for the job points out that they don't really need extra genius right now, but they do need a new business manager.
(Or the story of HR Wells being hired on his own merit and getting that fresh start he's been wanting so badly.)
Series: Coffee, Drumsticks, and Social Revolutions Part 2, follows after "The Audition"
Series Notes: HR sent a very different audition tape, in hopes that Earth 1 will give him a chance to figure out who he is without having to pretend to be something he isn't. His friendship with Randolf Morgan has soured significantly over the years and he's eager to get away from Earth 19, regardless of the consequences. Endgame Harry/Cisco and HR/Tracey with background Jesse/Wally and Barry/Iris; eventually to include Cynthia Reynolds spearheading a social revolution over on the rather dystopic Earth 19. (HR swears this isn't his fault.) There's no Savitar here in this season 3 AU. (Savitar? What Savitar?)
The Manager
"Pass."
Cisco gave Harry an amused glance. "What was wrong with that one?"
"He said it himself," Harry grumbled, "he wasn't interviewing for the position available. He was trying to make up an entirely new position for himself whole cloth."
"Well, he made a lot of good points." Cisco shrugged and grinned when Harry made a frustrated noise that he'd never admit to finding rather charming and adorable. "STAR Labs is coasting by on patent licensing, past inventions, and stocks. And while Gideon managing our stock portfolio is probably cheating given her future knowledge, it'd be nice to be able to be able to start marketing the things we've invented over the last few years. The only one of us on the team that has any business management experience is you, Harry. And I don't know about Caitlin or Barry, but I didn't even so much as minor in business in college. So we do need someone to handle that aspect of STAR Labs at some point."
"And he had a point about us being your family now," Caitlin chimed in with a bright smile of her own. "You came to us for help with Jesse's training and you wouldn't do that if you didn't trust us."
Another adorable grumbly noise.
"You're just annoyed that he's got you pegged," Cisco teased. "You love us. You miss us when you're away."
"Shut up, Ramon." Harry was absolutely pouting now.
There were two blurs of light and suddenly Barry and Jesse were in the room too. "Sorry we're late," Jesse chirped happily. "We got distracted on the way back helping this kid find his missing dog and then had to run a number of strays over to the city shelter..."
Barry was grinning, "what would you guys think about getting a golden retriever as the team's mascot?"
"I'm allergic," Cisco said, trying to keep his sudden irritation in check. It's not like he'd ever told Barry about his allergies before, so there's no way he'd know and it wasn't like Barry was being serious anyway. "Which sucks because I do love dogs."
"It's also unhygienic to have a dog around while I'm treating your injuries," Caitlin added.
"Oh well," Barry sighed dramatically, though his expression said that he'd been expecting to be told no in the first place.
Cisco sighed and looked away from his friend. "We started the audition review without you guys."
"That's fine." Barry took a seat on the opposite side of Caitlin from Cisco while Jesse settled beside her dad. "Any promising candidates so far?"
"Well there was a mime," Caitlin said.
"Pass," Cisco and Harry chorused.
Jesse giggled. "Oh, I want to see that."
"You don't," Harry insisted.
Cisco nodded. "It was disturbing. What if we're all mime's there? I don't even want to think about it."
Caitlin snickered. "Cowboy Wells didn't seem too bad."
"Pass," Cisco and Harry chorused again.
"But the only one that was genuinely interesting is the one we just watched." Caitlin checked the CV she'd bought up on her tablet. "He was the only one to send a written resume along with the holographic recording. HR Wells of Earth 19. He thinks we don't need another genius scientist, but a new business manager." She nodded to Cisco and he replayed the recording for everyone to watch.
"I wonder why he wants to come to our Earth," Barry mused, looking over Caitlin's shoulder at the CV. "Looks like he's got PhDs in Physics and Math, so he's not exactly shabby on the science side of things."
"But he hasn't actually listed any scientific achievements," Harry countered. "It's all business, no science."
"Well, we are fairly set on the science side of things for general day to day operations," Cisco mused. "And if we really did need your help on something, Harry..."
Harry sighed. "Of course I'd come help. If you actually needed me."
"Eh, it's less about needing you here and more about wanting you here," Cisco said. "I can admit, it's more fun with you around. And you like it better here too, don't you?"
"Well..." Harry hedged, turning towards Cisco and leaning towards him... just a little.
"Practically everything you've had to say about work since we got back has been some variation of Cisco or Caitlin or Barry could have done something better or smarter or faster," Jesse teased. "Just fess up, dad. You miss it here."
"Fine. Fine. I... missed everyone on this Earth after going home. Happy now?" Harry ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. But there was still a little smile that just Cisco was at the right angle to see. Fond and pleased.
"We missed you too, Harry," Cisco said as Caitlin and Barry echoed the sentiment along with him.
"Well, since I'm going to be over here on weekends a lot, getting training from Barry... maybe you should just come with me. Spend time here and decompress after Heywood screws up another project because he's too busy trying to impress his lady coworkers again," Jesse teased.
"I swear to god I'm going to fire him," Harry muttered.
Cisco chuckled. "So this HR dude was right. We don't really have the vacancy on our team that we thought we did."
"But he's also right about how we could do with a better cover for our activities," Barry added. "And having to depend less on Gideon's future knowledge for keeping STAR Labs afloat financially would be a good thing."
"Do we have any other audition tapes left?" Caitlin asked.
"No, HR Wells is our last contender. So I guess now the question is... do we want to bring HR in for a trial run to help us figure out what we even want to do with STAR Labs from a business perspective?" Cisco glanced around.
Harry huffed in irritation, but shrugged.
Caitlin hummed thoughtfully. "The museum idea is kind of interesting. There's a lot of negative press around being a meta human and that could be one way we combat it. Help people accept that having unusual abilities isn't a bad thing."
"And it'd be interesting to try and get some fresh research going in one of the other wings of the building," Cisco added. "We were planning on doing that with Professor Stein until he and Jax ditched us for time traveling adventures instead. But I don't know that I'd want to be the one directly in charge of that research, what with everything I already do for Team Flash."
Barry nodded slowly, "so just... throwing this out there, but what about Hartley? He's been doing consulting for us an a few other labs... if we were trying to make a go at getting STAR Labs back into research do you think he'd be interested in rejoining us full time? And would you guys be okay working with him in that capacity?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." Cisco shrugged, "he's less of an asshole than he used to be and I know he's been wanting to take a more stable job soon. The consulting work has been more to get his resume built back up so that the effects of Thawne trying to tank his career have been minimized."
"Let's break for lunch and discuss it some more afterwards," Caitlin said, her voice light but... deliberately so. There's tension lines around her eyes that Cisco finds himself worrying about anyway.
None of them are really at their best right now. Except maybe Jesse.
Barry was putting up a good front but he was still grieving for his father and his time traveling fuck up had dragged his trauma regarding his mother's death back to front and center. And there's a three month gap in his knowledge about the current timeline as a result, wrong footing him about his new coworker, Julian Albert, and the latest spat between Joe and Iris and Cisco's own grief over Dante's death in a hit in run two months ago.
And while Cisco's still angry that Barry wouldn't save Dante with time travel too, he's also recognized he's really angry with himself for his own powers not alerting him to the event beforehand and Dante for jaywalking at two in the morning and the unidentified driver for not stopping. And it helped that, though Barry hasn't talked about it with Cisco, he'd vibed Jay taking Barry to task when he had almost gone back in time to save Dante after all.
Jay had a point about them living with the timeline they were dealt and not using their powers to play god. Getting that lecture, even second hand, had been a rather sobering experience. And for Barry to have heard that coming from someone who looked just like his dad... well, there was a reason Cisco had decided not to bring that up.
But that leaves two members of the team struggling with their grief. And Caitlin's been keeping something secret. Cisco's a little worried that she's been hallucinating Zoom again. Or at the very least not handling her PTSD from his abduction of her that spring particularly well. But the few times he's tried to broach the subject, Caitlin shut the conversation down fast. So he could be completely wrong and something else is bothering her entirely. For all he knows, she wants to leave Team Flash and is hesitant to admit it.
And then there is Harry. Harry who feels intensely guilty and responsible for Zoom and, honestly, he should. He screwed up and then pretended he bore no responsibility and it bit him on the ass. Cisco's proud of the work Harry's been doing to try and help his Earth's Central City to rebuild. But Harry's their family now and, selfishly perhaps, Cisco wants Harry to be able to stay here on their Earth. And Harry clearly wants that too. He's lonely on Earth-2 in a way he wasn't before, for all that he doesn't want to admit to it. And his feelings were more fragile than he liked to let on. For all that Harry had clearly enjoyed putting the puzzle for the multi-verse's Wells together, now that they were doing actual interviews...
If Harry wasn't afraid of being replaced, Cisco would... well, not cut his hair off or anything that drastic, but if he were a betting man then Cisco would totally have money down on Harry being afraid of losing his place in their Team Flash Family to some other version of Harrison Wells. Someone less grumpy.
And while Cisco doesn't know how to deal with Barry right now without shoving all his grief and anger in a box and pretending to be okay and he doesn't know how to make Caitlin feel safe enough to confide in him... Cisco does know how to talk to Harry.
Harry finds himself sitting across the table from just Cisco for lunch. He's not entirely sure how that happened.
Caitlin disappeared almost the instant they all agreed to break for lunch. Jesse wanted to meet up with Wally, Harry wanted to chaperone so he could glare daggers at Wally the entire time. Somehow that got vetoed in favor of Barry chaperoning. Likely because Cisco was being all reasonable and also specifically asked Harry to join him for some Big Belly Burger. Which... Harry can't say no to that kind of request.
It's because Earth-1's Big Belly Burger tastes better than his Earth's, ever so slightly. And nothing at all to do with the company.
Cisco grinned at Harry and something tense in his shoulders unwound a little. (Okay, so it might have something to do with the company.)
"What?" Harry asked when Cisco just kept watching him with that amused gaze that seemed to just... see too much.
It worried Harry, sometimes, wondering just what Cisco saw when he looked at him.
"We're not replacing you, Harry."
Apparently all Harry's insecurities were just... written on his face. "Of course you're not."
"I'm serious. Getting another Wells on the team was just sort of a joke... but then we actually worked on that puzzle which was fun because it was something for us to do together. And now we've got actual applicants and suddenly it's not really a joke anymore." Cisco hesitated. "If you're not comfortable with having one of your doppelgangers around then I'll veto hiring this HR guy. And we'll see about finding someone else to help us get STAR Labs running as a business again."
"I could do that," Harry muttered grumpily.
"You already run your own STAR Labs. You don't need to be running two." Did Cisco have to be so reasonable? "And even if you did join us over here on a more permanent basis instead of visiting when you've got time, we'd want you doing science with us as your focus and not the boring business stuff."
"It's not always boring," Harry protested, but there was a smile pulling at his lips now anyway. "But I'd rather be doing science with the rest of you."
"Exactly." The smile on Cisco's face was fond.
That was when their food orders got delivered to their table and conversation halted for a bit as they both dug in. It also gave Harry some time to think about what had already been said.
It was... gratifying to know that Cisco - and the others - would rather just have Harry around full time. It was what Harry would prefer too and he'd been working on delegating more of his work on his Earth in hopes that a heavily pruned schedule would afford him more time to spend on Earth-1. He wasn't exactly ready to declare retirement over on his Earth and hand STAR Labs completely off to someone else to run, but... while he'd learned STAR Labs could survive without him running things, he'd also learned that those he'd delegated to weren't quite as... interested in the direction Harry wanted the company to move in as he'd prefer.
Greater accountability for starters. If he'd been held to higher standards of accountability...
Suffice it to say, there was a lot of restructuring that needed to happen before Harry could even consider stepping down permanently, never mind part-time. And what little free time he had was now to be taken up by helping Jesse put together a team for herself because... she wanted to be like Barry. Jesse wanted to be a hero. And they still had their fair share of meta criminals on his Earth. Even non-metas who posed unprecedented technological threats.
And for all that Harry desperately wanted her talked out of the heroics she longed for, he was also ridiculously proud of his Jesse Quick for seeing how she could help with her new powers and wanting to step up. If she had a team like Team Flash to back her up, though... maybe Harry could manage to live with the knowledge his baby girl would be risking her life out there.
It's just, he remembers the first time he held her, this tiny little screaming burrito of a baby. Harry'd been so afraid that he'd be a bad father. He'd never been interested in having kids, but when Tess said she wanted at least one Harry'd gone along with it because it was what Tess wanted. But the instant that tiny little shrieking newborn was handed to Harry and went quiet in the safety of his arms... Harry'd never loved anyone more.
Jesse might be almost twenty now, but Harry still loved her every bit as fiercely. Wanted to protect her from the world - the multiverse - as strongly now as he did on the day she was born. And acknowledging that he had to step back and let her learn to protect herself... to take risks with herself that felt unacceptable to him because she was his little girl... it was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to task himself with.
And at the same time Jesse was proving she didn't need him in the same ways she used to, here was Team Flash considering asking some other Harrison Wells to join their team. And if that version of Harrison Wells had a more amiable personality...
Much as Harry hated to be introspective, he could take a step back when necessary and recognize the source of his more irrational feelings.
"It's in the team's best interests to have a business manager who can be in on company secrets from the start instead of there being no guarantees for a maybe down the road," Harry finally said, toying with one of his fries. "And not only would hiring an alternate version of me work out in that regard, but it would give him a vested interest in keeping that secret for his own sake as well. There might be a way to use holographic imaging to camouflage a person's face to keep people from asking questions about why STAR Labs new business manager looks like the old CEO... maybe that's something we could work on together?"
Cisco lit up. "Absolutely. That sounds perfect, Harry."
Warmth bloomed in Harry's chest at the sight of that smile, like he was basking in pure sunlight. It was entirely possible that Harry might be willing to do just about anything to keep having that smile directed his way.
HR has to reread the response three times. The first time because the words jumble up when he gets excited to realize that they took his advice. The second time because he can't quite believe his eyes that they want to give him a trial run as their business manager. The third time because he figures he should probably take in the actual details of when they'll be opening the breach to bring him over to their Earth, assuming he's still interested.
Which he is. So very, very interested.
He lets out a whoop of joy that brings Randolf running into the office from down the hall.
"They picked me." HR bounced up from his chair and over to Randolf, sweeping the other man into a hug before handing him the communique and wandering the office to see if there's anything in there he wants to take with him. A few sentimental knick knacks maybe. A photo from the early days of STAR Labs, before Randolf started to resent HR and HR... started to resent Randolf too, if he's being perfectly honest.
Everything else can stay.
"That's... HR, you can't go." Randolf sounded... scared.
Frowning, HR looked over at him. "What do you mean, I can't go? Of course I'm going, they've hired me. If it's about running STAR Labs here, then fine. I quit. That'll make salvaging the lab's reputation easier for you, if you'll actually go do the press conferences PR has been begging you to do since shit hit the fan."
"It's not about STAR Labs," Randolf snapped. Angry. "It's about your life, HR. If the Collectors learn you've jumped realities, they'll hunt you down and kill you."
"Yeah, right." HR rolled his eyes. "At worst they'll bring me back for a trial, hang the threat of execution over my head, and then sentence me to life in a minimum security prison somewhere. Because if you'd bothered to check the statistics on what actually happens to breachers who get caught - which is, like, maybe forty percent of them anyway - you'd know that only about point-five percent get a death sentence and that's always due to a prior record. Honestly, Randolf, which one of us is the genius again?"
"And you'd be fine living out your life in prison?"
"I'd have plenty of time for my writing," HR deadpanned. He picked up the drumsticks on the bookshelf next to him and waved one at Randolf carelessly. "Where was all this concern when I was sending them my resume?"
"I... didn't think you'd actually impress them." And there it was. When was the last time Randolf thought HR was capable of anything worthwhile.
STAR Labs would have crashed and burned years ago without HR at the business helm, but all Randolf thought was important was the science. But what good were scientific breakthroughs if you didn't know how to market them? HR supposed Randolf would be finding that out the hard way without him.
"Because I'm not a genius and that's what they want?" HR asked.
"Yes." Randolf hesitated, then added, "I'm not trying to be an asshole -"
"Yet you're succeeding at it so well," HR muttered.
"- just realistic. HR, what happens when they find out you're a fraud? You won't have the friends and resources you have here. What if they aren't the good people they represent themselves as?"
"Then it'll suck to be me, won't it?" HR shook his head. "But it turns out I had a persuasive argument that they want a businessman, not a genius. So if they haven't realized that's what they're getting with me..." HR shrugged. "Then at least I won't still be here."
Randolf jerked back as though struck, despite how mildly HR delivered the words. He stared at HR in stunned silence while HR gathered the handful of belongs from the office that felt more like a strangers than his own. He'd been playing the part of a sort of... playboy, philanthropist, genius for so long that very little seemed to be recognizably his.
"I'm going to go pack some things at my house and I'll be back here in time for them to open a breach to bring me over to their Earth. And then I won't be your problem anymore, Randolf."
"Is that all you think you are to me? A problem?" Randolf sounded tired.
There were a lot of things HR could have said to that, though it all boiled down to a simple yes. He was a problem of Randolf's own making and that, if anything, probably made Randolf resent him all the more. But there were no right words for any of this. So HR just smiled tightly, dropped his small collection of items into a box, and walked out of the room with it in hand.
But once HR is back at his apartment, he looks at it - really looks at it - and just... none of it feels any more like him than his office. The living room is a show room with a ridiculously large tv that he barely uses, the kitchen is full of equipment that stopped having time to use years ago, his bedroom has all the personality of a hotel room... the only room that feels like home is the little office he used for his writing.
HR packs up his clothes first. As much as he can fit into his big suitcase. His bathroom is next, fitting in toiletries and the like so he can put off buying new ones for a bit. When the big suitcase has been packed up to near bursting with necessities, HR turns next to the things that would be nice to have. He reluctantly leaves his typewriter behind, but packs the first editions of his novels in a duffle bag. Then went in his unpublished writings. And wedged into the bottom of his bookcase is the unpublished copy of the first book he'd attempted to sell. Technically he did sell it, but only after having it so completely re-written as to be unrecognizable. And for all that it still sold as 'historical fiction', it was so completely distorted from reality that HR had nearly gone off the idea of being a novelist altogether.
But this book... if anyone knew HR still had this copy - if Josh knew, after all he'd done to bury it 'for HR's sake' - he'd likely be in a great deal of trouble. It didn't paint their current government in a flattering light over the events of was known, colloquially, as World War M. The version that sold painted the events leading up to the final showdown between metas as the patriotic good metas versus the traitorous bad metas that ended in a spectacular showdown that would have put the cinematography of the vastly underrated movie Sweaty Men to shame. (It didn't help that the title was so awful; HR had sort of expected it to be a gay porno and not, well... a gladiator movie when he'd rented it on a whim.)
The actual events, as the original version ever so closely depicted, were far more morally gray than all that. Meta-humans weren't exactly a new category of people on their Earth. Boom tubes linked their reality closely to several others, though only breachers could directly access them. And breachers had been around for several generations. They were the first meta-humans to develop from the dark energy that leaked through the boom tubes. A few others apparently showed up here and there, but mostly it was just breachers.
But during the Invasion War, there was a... population boom for meta-humans, of a sorts. Soldiers with the potential in their genetics were intentionally exposed to dark energy by taking advantage of the flawed accelerator design that Randolf had originally intended as a source of clean energy to improve the war effort. But after the war, many of these people were in possession of dangerous powers and less than stellar control due to the traumas they suffered fighting on the front lines. The whole thing turned into a mess and writing the novel had been HR's attempt to atone for the part he'd played.
Except the heavily edited book on the shelves of readers and bookstores across the globe was just another failure he had to live with.
The original book went into HR's duffle. He might not be able to tell the truth, but he'd never let himself forget it either.
The breach closed behind the newcomer and Jesse watched curiously as a man who looked just like her dad, but had lived an entirely different life from him, straightened up. He'd jumped through to this Earth with two pieces of baggage, so clearly ready for the long haul.
"Greetings, Earthlings," he intoned in a gravely voice and then, after a beat, cracked up. "Sorry, sorry," his voice normal and... conveying a lighthearted tone that was all too rare from her own dad. "I don't actually talk like that, I just always wanted to say it. You know, that and the other greatest of sci-fi lines, 'take me to your leader.'"
"Harrison Wells with a sense of humor," Caitlin spoke up, "that's new."
Jesse would have objected but, well, her dad's sense of humor was a more... acquired taste. Cisco'd clearly picked up on it, but the rest of the team took him very seriously which was, admittedly, what her father preferred.
"Please, call me HR. You'd be the lovely Dr. Snow. Mr. Allen, also known as the Flash, and Mr. Ramon, your resident Viber. And this handsome sharpshooter here'd be Dr. Harry Wells... but I don't recognize either of you from the posting call..." HR smiled politely at her and Wally.
"Jesse Wells," she said and watched his eyebrows go up in surprise. Which meant he didn't have a daughter - that he knew of anyway. No Jesse Wells of Earth 19.
A sad thought. Jesse wondered if HR was lonely.
"My daughter," her dad clarified with a step towards her. "I take it you don't have a daughter."
"No, I... have a goddaughter, but I was never blessed with a daughter of my own." HR smiled.
"And this is Wally West," Barry said, finishing out the introductions.
HR cheerfully shook everyone's hands at that point - including hers, which Jesse ensured despite her father's overprotective mutterings. "It's nice to meet you HR," she said politely.
"Welcome to Earth 1," Barry added, grinning as HR added a little extra clap to their handshake.
"Thank you."
"Well, no need to stand on ceremony," her dad chirped. "It's not like Jesse or I will be gone for that long, anyway."
Caitlin looked amused. "Bye Harry," then she hugged Jesse. "You too Jesse. See you both soon. Come on HR, I'll show you where you'll be staying for now."
Barry nodded at Caitlin and HR. "I'll go with them but I'm glad you two are gonna be around more after all."
"Me too," her dad admitted with a fond smile.
Jesse buried herself in a hug with Wally, but she heard her dad and Cisco's quiet teasing. And reassurances, on Cisco's side anyway. "Don't worry about that guy, okay? There's only one Harry."
"I know you'll be back next weekend, but I'm really gonna miss you," Wally told Jesse.
"I'm gonna miss you too. We'll have to figure out something so you can take time visiting my Earth too." She grinned when he beamed at her.
"I'd love that. Cisco and Barry said what they saw of it was really cool."
Stepping back, Jesse rocked on her heels and waited for her dad and Cisco's hug to come to an end. Though she did wonder at the confused expression on Cisco's face. But there was no time to ask because Cisco was putting his Vibe glasses back on.
The breach opened and Jesse moved to stand by her dad, smiling when he took her hand. "You ready?"
"Yeah." She grinned and, before her dad could find a 'one last thing' to say - because, honestly, they'd were going to be back, he didn't need to be so melodramatic about it, with that yearning stare he kept sending Cisco...
With a laugh, Jesse leaned into the speed force and took herself - and her dad - back home. Though, once they were standing alone back in their Earth's STAR Labs... Jesse wondered if it wasn't really Earth 1 that was their home these days.
