The Flash - A Matter of Time (Hartmon oneshot)

A Matter of Time

A/N: Written for Amber_Flicker as part of the Hartmon Fanworks Exchange 2020 and the prompt "Hartley or Cisco (doesn't matter which, up to you!) stuck in a time loop trying to save the other." It came out rather whumpy, and with a hefty dose of angst too, but I figured that was par for the course with timeloop fics so I hope that's okay.

There's a brief mention of past Cisco/Cynthia and of Barry/Iris.

Warnings for temporary character deaths too.

Many thanks to noreasonatall for their help betareading this and showing me how I could improve/add to it significantly.

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A Matter of Time

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Bad days for Team Flash tend to be relative to whatever big bad is lurking around the corner. For Hartley Rathaway, bad days historically have come in two major strains, the first being increasing annoyances that build until he finds it necessary to retreat from the world for the remainder of the day lest he say something he'll regret. Or, the second type, life-changing betrayals. Now, he can add a new strain to his repertoire, one adopted from Team Flash: death-defying encounters.

Hartley swings his legs around to sit up on the side of the bed, his bare feet landing on the plush carpet, toes digging into the pile, the sensation is a small comfort to him. His heart is still hammering in his chest; he feels it more than he hears it, the thumping unsettling. He can't hear it because he still has his meta-dampening earbuds in and no hearing aids on. He lifts his hand to find it steady enough, though he turns his palms up to reassure himself. They're clean, unsullied. He still has the urge to cough dust out of his lungs even though he barely remembers why.

What he wants to do is ring Cisco and hear his voice. That's not exactly unusual, but the urge is disconcertingly strong today. Seeing him would be better, more reassuring, but of what Hartley can't quite pin down. As he gets dressed, he feels sillier and sillier about his shakiness. It was just a bad dream. Unless they've somehow unknowingly swapped powers, Cisco is the only one who has prophetic visions.

According to the clock, it's 7:40 a.m.; Cisco might not be awake yet. He brings up Cisco's contact anyway, fingers itching to press dial. The call history shows plenty of evidence of their late-night chats; they practically take turns to ring each other on the days they don't work together. Sometimes they merely use each other as a sounding board for ideas, but venting after a bad day isn't uncommon for them nowadays. Sometimes it's more about taking some time out to talk about something other than their day (and night) jobs.

That call history doesn't, however, show much in the way of morning calls, and it really doesn't make sense to call Cisco at an unreasonable hour just because he wants to. That would certainly invite questions he can neither answer nor adequately lie about to avoid further suspicion. Hartley eventually settles for sending a message. Everything set for the hardware test at noon? He doesn't want to think any more about the carnage of his nightmare, and for a while, he gets his wish.

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"Meta alert at the Opera House. Just a minute," Iris says, pulling up the map on another screen. "That's at—"

"—on Gabler Street," Hartley finishes for her as a cold dread creeps up on him. He resists the urge to shudder as déjà vu overcomes him.

"Figures you'd know where it is," Cisco quips, though it doesn't have the bite his comments used to have now that Hartley's made up for his past slights. But Cisco isn't wrong. Hartley did frequent the Opera House when he was younger, until he cut everything associated with his parents out of his life. But the reminder of his parents is not why he suddenly feels sick.