It turned out that Hartley had the knowledge to completely dismantle Mick Rory.
When the flamethrower detonated in his grip—seemingly out of nowhere—Mick's eyes bulged, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief. He instinctively patted the weapon. Hairline fractures ran stem to stern across the casing. One more pull of the trigger wouldn't burn through Hartley. It would cook Mick alive—or simply blast his hands off.
"Your weapon uses high-temperature resistant composites in several key components," Hartley said. He pinched a small flame off his sleeve, then prodded his slightly singed eyebrows with a wince. "I don't need to target the whole thing. I just find the resonant frequency of those materials and let the sound waves do the rest. I spent considerable time in the lab studying next-generation thermal alloys." He exhaled a long, heavy breath. "I hate arsonists."
Mick's upper lip curled, baring his teeth. He shoved the useless flamethrower back into his waistband, cracked his knuckles, and closed the distance. He dropped his center of gravity and rolled his massive shoulders, preparing to beat Hartley into the marble the old-fashioned way.
Snart, standing to one side, ignored them both. He scanned the perimeter, counting the seconds. The conclusion crystallized: the Flash wasn't coming. Not tonight.
"Mick. We're leaving."
"What?!" Mick spun around, veins bulging in his neck. "You're running from this guy?"
"We have the painting. The Flash is a no-show. There's no reason to keep playing with this rich kid—and if we wait much longer, the police are going to remember they have guns." Snart kept his voice a low, flat drone. "We won't even be able to carry the painting out."
He was right, and Mick knew it. Without the flamethrower, Snart's cold gun wasn't enough to hold back the shield line outside. Hartley was an unexpected variable. The math didn't add up.
"You think you're just going to walk out of here?" Hartley raised his gauntlets.
Snart didn't blink. "Mr. Rathaway. I advise you to reconsider. You're not exactly clean tonight. Those officers outside aren't going to roll out a welcome mat for you, either. And we have a few friends still watching." He shifted his gaze directly toward Joe and Cisco, who had just hauled Shawna free from the ice.
Hartley followed his line of sight. The teleporting metahuman presented a genuine threat, especially if she coordinated with Mick. Hartley evaluated the distance, angles, and numbers in a fraction of a second. He raised his gauntlets anyway.
"You're not taking that painting."
Snart's jaw locked. He dropped into a controlled forward roll, dodging the invisible lance of sound that warped the air where his head had just been. He came up on one knee, firing a wide beam from the cold gun.
"What are you waiting for?" Snart barked, keeping the beam focused on Hartley. "Help me deal with him!"
"Huh," Jude murmured, tilting his head. "Why exactly would I do that? Did you pay me?"
"Oh my God." Cisco slapped a hand over his own mouth. "You can't just—we're law-abiding citizens, man, you cannot say things like that out loud."
Snart ground his teeth. He didn't know much about the others, but he'd spent enough time around Jude to understand exactly how this transaction worked. He pivoted.
"Jude. I will repay everything you've done for me." He hit the word repay hard, letting it hang over the chaotic museum floor as a binding contract. He added, "You'd have helped him already if you were going to. He's not your ally. Is he?"
The three of them went quiet. Snart was right. Hartley had actively hunted Dr. Wells. The hostility between him and S.T.A.R. Labs wasn't a secret—Cisco had spent the last five minutes debating whether he should actively root for Snart.
Hartley moved. Blocking Snart's ice beam with one gauntlet, he snapped his free hand toward Cisco's group. "Stay out of it!"
"Shawna—now!" Jude shouted over the blast of the cold gun.
In a blur of displaced air, Jude and Cisco materialized directly behind Hartley.
The teleport had been Shawna's calculation. She recognized that retreating to safety offered zero tactical advantage compared to dropping her allies right in the enemy's blind spot.
Hartley's back was completely exposed. With both hands occupied, he couldn't adjust his stance in time. Shawna's tranquilizer dart pierced the skin just below his jawline before he could even turn his head. Jude and Cisco slammed into his elbows, driving his arms down and neutralizing the sonic gauntlets.
Hartley's muscles went slack. Shawna depressed the plunger, the injector giving a sharp mechanical click. Hartley slumped backward, his limbs folding under him. He hit the floor unconscious, his chest settling into deep, rhythmic breathing.
As his head struck the marble, a small metallic device dislodged from his ear and skittered across the floor. Cisco crouched, scooped it up, and turned it over under the museum lights.
"This is... a homemade hearing aid? Looks custom-fabricated."
Jude pressed his earpiece. "Dr. Wells. Was Hartley hospitalized after the accelerator explosion?"
"Let me check." The comm channel went dead for several long seconds.
"Doctor?"
"...Yes." Wells's breathing hitched slightly over the comms, a deliberate pause stretching before he forced the words out flat and level. "Hartley was admitted the day of the explosion. The blast destroyed the hearing in both ears. Almost total loss."
The heavy silence that followed smothered the remaining tension in the room.
"I suddenly feel kind of terrible," Cisco said, staring down at Hartley's limp form.
"Don't." Jude knelt, pulled a sobering stone from his pocket, and waved it under Hartley's nose while simultaneously stripping the sonic gauntlets from the unconscious man's hands. "You remember my wine? The one that heals wounds?" He paused, letting them process the implication. "His hearing loss has been cured."
Hartley's eyelids twitched and opened as Jude stood up.
"Shawna," Jude called out, tossing the heavy tech to her. "Hold those. Don't let him near them."
Before anyone could react further, the Rathaways stepped out from the shadows of the exhibits. They had kept to the perimeter, silent during the firefight. But seeing their son pinned to the floor broke their paralysis. Mr. Rathaway marched forward, his wife trailing a step behind. His eyes darted across Hartley's bruised face, his posture rigid, chest heaving.
"Hartley, you—"
Hartley blinked, focusing on his father. He pushed himself onto his elbows. "Father. I still prefer men."
Absolute stillness returned, suffocating and thick.
The tentative relief that had been forming in Mr. Rathaway's face—the brief flicker of a parent witnessing their child survive a battle—evaporated. His jaw clenched tight. The muscles in his neck strained as his face flushed dark red.