Hartley Rathaway (Arrowverse)

Hartley Rathaway is an expert in psychoacoustics and sonic vibrations who used to work for S.T.A.R. Labs. He was fired by "Harrison Wells" for trying to stop him from activating the Particle Accelerator, and came back as the Pied Piper seeking revenge, wanting to kill The Flash for believing that Wells replaced him with the new pupil.

History

Pre-Crisis

Wells' Favorite Protege

A child prodigy and the son of the wealthy Rachel and Osgood Rathaway, he was set to claim his family business, Rathaway Industries, but misfortune first struck him after his parents rejected his homosexuality and kicked him out, which led him to met "Harrison Wells", who hired him at S.T.A.R. Labs, becoming his mentor and himself becoming the favored protege. Good with his mentor, but condescending towards co-workers, creating very few if any friends, alienating Cisco Ramon for his Star Wars T-shirt and Wells' favor of him.

Becoming the Pied Piper

Realizing the particle accelerator they'd been working on could explode, Wells didn't listen and fired him to avoid interference and blackmailed him to silence. His prediction came to fruition, just like Wells planned, which augmented his hearing to superhuman levels, which also gave him overwhelming pain, requiring medical implants to deaden the noise. He created gauntlets that allowed him to fire blasts of concentrated sound and attacked his family's building. As he had planned, he was captured and taken to S.T.A.R. Labs by The Flash.

Rathaway used explosives in his hearing aids to escape his cell and attacked Team Flash but was overpowered and re-imprisoned. He later tricked Cisco into freeing him by promising to reveal details of what happened to Ronnie Raymond.

A year later, Barry Allen travelled back in time to the day Hartley was captured in order to ask Harrison Wells' advice on how to increase his speed. This future version of Barry knew about the explosives and removed Hartley's hearing aids. As such he was still trapped in his cell when S.T.A.R. Labs was attacked by a time wraith hunting the future Barry and was forced to help Team Flash fight off the wraith. This changed the timeline such that he became a friend and ally of Team Flash. When Barry returned to the future, Hartley was waiting with Cisco and Caitlin Snow to stop the wraith. Hartley destroyed the wraith with low frequency, high intensity sound and then left for a reconciliation dinner with his parents, telling Team Flash that, as always, it had been a pleasure to work with them.

Post-Crisis

Hurting a Lover

Hartley Rathaway and Roderick Smith 001 — Hartley with his boyfriend Roderick Smith

Years in the past, The Flash used his lightning bolt to hit the Pied Piper's Band of Merry Men during one of the clashes between him and Pied Piper but harmed Roderick Smith, his right-hand, instead of him. Roderick was being held in an energy containment unit in Mercury Labs-- it was the only thing keeping him from completely disintegrating as an effect of the shock between Flash's lightning and the vibrational force of his weapon, the result was a thermogenic blast capable of rendering him unstable at a molecular level. That was why Hartley hated Flash so much in this new timeline, but he blamed himself more than anyone for putting the weapon in Roderick's hands.

Reconciling with The Flash

At the present time, Team Flash swore to solve Roderick's problem so Pied Pier assisted them in defeating Godspeed, discovering in the clash the way to save Roderick. Among attempts to cure Roderick's condition, Barry realized that he was not only Hartley's right-hand man, but also the love of his life.^[1]

Joining the Rogue Squad

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Powers and Abilities

Powers

Metahuman Physiology: After Hartley was struck by the dark matter energy from the S.T.A.R. Labs' particle accelerator explosion, his DNA was altered. This supercharged his cells, augmenting his physiology to access his new sound-like abilities.
- Enhanced Hearing: Hartley's metahuman physiology grants him enhanced hearing.^[2]
- Sonic Scream: (Post-Crisis) Hartley's meta-gene allows him to project a powerful sonic blast when he screams. This ability is powerful enough to destroy a Consciousness Resurrection Chamber, and also allows him to fly.^[3]^[4]
  - Flight^[3]

Abilities

Genius Level Intellect
- Tactical Analysis
- Science
  - Physics
- Gadgetry
- Multilingualism: Hartley is fluent in Spanish, French, Latin, and Japanese beyond his native English and one other language.
Deception
Leadership
Thievery
Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic)
Music^[4]
Business Management^[4]

Other Characteristics

Oversensitive Hearing: After the Particle Accelerator explosion, Rathaway didn't become a metahuman but, instead, gained a hypersensitivity to the noise around him, always hearing a high pitched shriek. However, he can also distinguish radio frequencies.
- Technological Reliability: Rathaway developed a pair of hearing aids that allowed him to hear normally, but removing the gear would immediately bring the ringing back, almost incapacitating him from the pain.

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Sonic Gloves: As the Pied Piper, Hartley has a set of dark gloves with green lights that he manipulates like the keys of a flute and can emit sonic waves that are able to break glass or even destroy an entire office building.
- Sound Manipulation

Notes

This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the television series The Flash and is an adaptation of Pied Piper. The original character was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino and first appeared in The Flash #106.
Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper was portrayed by Andy Mientus.