What's the most agonizing thing in the world for someone like Hartley Rathaway?
Not prison. Not exile. Not the particle accelerator taking his hearing, or his parents disowning him, or any of the grand, theatrical disasters that had shaped his adult life.
No. The most unbearable thing—for a mind like his, with ambitions like his, with a meticulously constructed revenge arc that he had been refining for the better part of a year—was for all of it to suddenly collapse into a boring Tuesday afternoon.
The problem was this: he had prepared for a war, and the enemy had simply declined to show up armed. Wells had confessed outright, offering no resistance, no deflection, as if the admission cost him absolutely nothing. And now, Jude was offering him a ride home like a parent collecting a sulky teenager from a birthday party that hadn't gone well. No containment cell. No dramatic confrontation. No acknowledgment, even, that he was a particularly dangerous threat.
It felt like throwing a perfect punch at a cloud.
"Let's get something straight," Hartley said, his voice going cold as they walked. He stopped and turned to face Jude directly. "The weapon I built destroyed over a dozen buildings."
"The glass," Jude replied, without breaking stride. "Yes. We're grateful, by the way, that you aimed at empty structures and kept debris from hitting anyone. The windows have all been replaced. City crews did a good job."
"I went easy on you." The words came out tighter than he intended. "Can you not see that? I was holding back! I could have leveled those buildings completely. I could have taken the airport apart beam by beam. Everything has a resonant frequency, everything—I could shake this entire city apart if I wanted to. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"Thank you again for not destroying the airport."
Hartley stared at him.
"Look." Jude exhaled, apparently giving the situation genuine, if unhurried, consideration. "I understand your frustration. But here's where we are: you technically don't have a criminal record, so holding you without charge would be illegal detention. And your parents have enough lawyers on retainer to make that unpleasant for everyone involved." He spread his hands. "There's no other play here."
Hartley's face was doing something interesting—color climbing visibly from his collar upward, the particular red of a man whose self-image is colliding at speed with an immovable reality. He had shaken the foundations of Central City's downtown. He had outmaneuvered Heat Wave. He had walked into S.T.A.R. Labs and made Harrison Wells admit to his crimes in front of witnesses.
And this ordinary, maddening, relentlessly unbothered person was sending him home because his parents might make a fuss.
"Are you out of your mind?" The composure finally cracked. "You're just... releasing me? Just like that? You're not worried I'll go after Wells again? You're not worried I'll come after the Flash? You're not concerned that I might feel the need to demonstrate, properly, what I can actually do to this city before you take me seriously?"
Jude turned and looked at him with what appeared to be genuine, mild surprise—as though he'd only just remembered that Hartley was, in fact, not a standard civilian.
What an exhausting person, his expression said, without quite saying it.
"Honestly? Not that worried," Jude said, resuming his walk. "While you're here, you're our problem. The moment you go home, you become your parents' problem. And I have a strong feeling they're going to be considerably more attentive than we are." He paused. "As for the Flash—I'll level with you: he's currently depowered. So that particular ambition is on hold regardless."
Hartley opened his mouth.
"And as for destroying S.T.A.R. Labs entirely—" Jude glanced back over his shoulder at Wells, who had gone very still, "—I mean, I don't actually work there, so my leverage is limited. Wells, Caitlin, and Cisco are friends of mine. I like them. Cisco in particular has an appetite that I am considering monetizing. I think a regular delivery contract with the lab could be a solid income stream." He seemed to reflect on this with real sincerity. "If you absolutely have to blow the place up, I'll do what I can. Sell you a meal plan, help the survivors rebuild, try to collect from your parents for the outstanding balance. Wish them all the best in the reconstruction effort."
"Hey—"
Jude raised a hand, stopping Hartley mid-sentence, and also neatly intercepting the look Wells was aiming at the back of his head. "High IQ. Maintain the tone."
He looked at Hartley with something that was almost—not sympathy, exactly, but a kind of tired recognition.
"If I were you, I would take the win. Go home, recuperate, and then do what every absurdly wealthy person with too much time and a grudge eventually does: live badly and expensively. You've got access to an obscene inheritance. A playboy lifestyle has a statistically better happiness index than a supervillain one. Just a thought."
Hartley's expression in response to this suggestion could have curdled milk. The idea of retreating into the vapid, unchallenging luxury of the Rathaway estate—inheriting the fortune, attending the dinners, becoming exactly the kind of gilded, purposeless figure his father had always wanted him to be—was apparently more offensive than anything else that had happened today.
Jude watched that expression and felt something close to respect for the stubbornness of it. Most supervillains were like this, when you got past the theatrics: driven, self-disciplined, oriented toward a goal with a focus that ordinary people couldn't sustain. It was almost admirable.
Personally, Jude thought, if he had Hartley's resources, he would never work another day in his life. He would take his food truck all the way back to Japan, park it near a quiet beach in Okinawa, and disappear into comfortable obscurity so fast it would leave a contrail.
But that was the difference between them.
The Rathaway estate received them with the particular temperature of a house where a family argument has recently occurred and nobody is ready to discuss it.
Mrs. Rathaway offered her thanks quietly, with the slightly formal warmth. Mr. Rathaway offered Jude a look that could charitably be described as neutral and uncharitably as contemptuous, and said nothing of substance. The gratitude came with a substantial check—made out, on Jude's direction, to S.T.A.R. Labs as a private investment contribution, because of course it did.
Not an employee. Not entitled to a percentage.
I should have negotiated a head chef title at minimum, Jude thought as he walked back down the front path to where Satsuki idled at the curb. Consulting fee. Hazard pay. Something.
He glanced back once. Through the tall front windows of the Rathaway house, he caught a brief glimpse of Hartley's expression as the door closed—that particular brand of despair unique to someone who has just been outmaneuvered by normalcy.
The double attentiveness of two very invested, very present, very concerned parents was already settling over him like a fog.
It won't kill you, Jude decided charitably. Probably.
He didn't go home. Instead, he drove the food truck across town to the bar, pulled up a stool, and found Snart already there. The thief was working through a basket of fries with the mechanical focus of a man eating simply because something needed to be done with his hands.
"Not bad fries," Jude offered, settling in across from him. "This place does okay."
"When I'm in a bad mood," Snart said, "everything tastes the same." He didn't look up. "The $43,000... I said I'd repay it, and I will. You didn't have to come all the way down here to collect."
Jude looked at him for a long moment.
"You're a really nice person, Snart."