Day three: Rescue
Written for ScholsenWeek2017 and for @starklinqs
Pairing: James Olsen x Winn Schott Jr.
Summary: Being the ally of a superhero is dangerous. Winn already knew that, but his forward preparedness and planning isn’t much help when he is taken as bait for Guardian.
There were times that Winn missed the little headquarters he’d set up in an unused CatCo office, back when he, James, and Kara had been more of team. It hadn’t started out as much, but a spruced up coffee pot that had been tossed because it was “broken” and a couple computers, some more comfortable chairs and a few of James’s prints on the wall had fixed that. Heck, it had been nicer in some respects than his apartment, even without things like windows. And the whole “technically we’re not supposed to be using this we could all get arrested” thing. But he missed it, not just for the camaraderie, but because it was a lot bigger than the van he was currently sitting in, keeping an eye on security cameras and hitting buttons in hopes of fixing whatever had caused the comlink to fizzle out as soon as James--Guardian--had gotten a couple hundred yards away. Probably interference from the buildings, but still, not terribly comforting.
Static hummed and fussed, and Winn was just this side of leaving the van--the one thing he’d sworn never to do again--to call him back. Just because there was nothing on the cameras didn’t mean James didn’t need backup. They’d learned that the hard way the very first time they’d teamed up, and Maxwell Lord’s goons had gotten the drop on James. Granted, they’d had practice since then, but still.
Unfortunately, that was when the van gave a shudder, and the door was yanked open from the outside. Winn didn’t even have time to try to remember if he’d locked it before the intruder rushed him, jabbing the prongs of a taser into his neck.
Winn woke, cramped and aching. He supposed that was better than waking up dead. If you could wake up dead. He really wasn’t sure how that worked and, now more than ever, was determined to not find out any time soon. As he tried to take stock of himself without opening his eyes--his eyelids felt so heavy--he told the little sing song voice in his head that he’d count his damn blessings if he hadn’t been tased and kidnapped. It sounded like Kara on a sugar high, and he was in no mood for lectures on gratitude from his subconscious. As he became more awake, everything hurt even worse.
Opening his eyes did prove more productive than stretching or asking where he was. As he came to full awareness (faster than most mornings, but that was what being abducted instead of waking up in his own cozy bed did) he found that he was sitting, which explained part of the ache in his neck, and his hands had been bound behind him. It felt like tape, which was just plain rude. Alex and James, plus the internet, had been teaching him how to pick locks and he could get most handcuffs now, and Zipties were easier. Layers and layers of tape were significantly more pesky, especially since his captors hadn’t left him his keys, or his multi-tool, or anything else he could use. The safety pin he kept as a lockpick in his shirtsleeve was not likely to help, all that forward planning for nothing.
He hadn’t been gagged, but as the facade of control slipped away, Winn felt like he couldn’t get enough air, panting hard and trying to calm down. The room was dim, not dark, but not well lit. He was alone, and he was scared. Kidnapped is better than dead kidnapped is better than dead calm--. His eyes adjusted quickly, he’d always been good with that. Probably all the late night videogames, which see they did give me Useful Life Skills after all take that Mr. Christophe. It was almost a comforting thought. The triumph only lasted a few seconds. There really wasn’t much too see. Concrete walls, stained with that he thought was probably--hopefully--mold. A pile of half-broken furniture, wooden desks and chairs, some metal in there too. It seemed likely his chair had been yanked from the pile. Cautiously he wobbled it, and yeah, one leg was much shorter than the others. He could use that. If he could break the chair, he could make a run for it. He couldn’t see the door, he guessed it was behind him. No windows, just the single humming fluorescent light behind him. Maybe a window, he couldn’t tell.
The floor was cold, seeping through his socks because the jerk with the taser or someone helping him had taken his sneakers. Rude. Winn shuffled and scooted and wobbled, suddenly dizzy, until he could get the chair turned around more. There was the door, beside a stack of cardboard boxes that sagged with age.
Breathe in--one--two--three--four--out--two--three-four--in-in-two--three---four. Winn had thought a lot about situations like this after the cluster with his dad, and then throwing in his lot with the DEO and honestly just being friends with superheroes was trouble, so he’d tried to prepare. Staying calm was important. Escaping was next, though he wasn’t sure where he was, exactly. Or who’d taken him. Or why. All important things.
“Ok,” he said to himself in a whisper, his voice strangely flat in his ears. “You got this.” Maybe if he could rock onto his feet, he could slam the chair into the wall? Hopefully without damaging his hands too much. Scooting was one thing. Actually lifting the chair was not nearly as easy as movies and video games made it look.
“If I get out of this, I’m going to the gym,” he muttered, then shook his head. “When. When, Winn.” Even if he couldn’t escape by himself, he’d be fine. Kara would--wait. Supergirl was on another earth dealing with ...something. But she’d be back soon, and there was still the DEO. And James. He’d been fine. Having any of them in his corner was enough to ease his breathing.
At least, it was until the door swung open. The two people who entered looked human, which didn’t exactly mean they were, but it. Winn fervently hoped that was the case. People tended to just have weapons. There was no telling when it came to aliens, and he really wasn’t in the mood to be poisoned or stabbed with shape-shifty-stabbies or anything else his tired and overexcited brain could come up with.
“Mr. Scott,” one of them, who looked like he had half a foot and a hundred pounds on Winn, was holding Winn’s wallet.
“Schott,” he corrected out of habit, then clamped his mouth shut so quickly he almost bit his tongue. Rule one was to not give these people any information. No matter what they were after, no matter how benign.
“Mr. Schott.” the other was, if possible, even taller, and loomed even more menacingly than J’onn did. “We’ve got some...questions for you.”
Winn swallowed hard, wincing at the soreness in his throat. “About what? I don’t think I can help unless you want to know cheat codes for the newest Grand Theft Mario Kart, but you can find those online without kidnap--” he saw the blow coming, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Your friend,” Kidnapper #1 said. Winn blinked. He should have guessed, it was only a matter of time before someone made a grab for him to get information about Supergirl. Especially since she had rather publicly saved him back in January. He was pretty surprised it had taken so long, all things being what they were.
Stay calm, stay calm, he shook his head. “Friend? You--you have a problem with...some nerd on the internet? I mean I know fandoms and stuff can get intense but this is a little--”
He didn’t see that blow.
“Your friend,” Kidnapper 2 continued. “Guardian.”
Winn actually let out a laugh at that, more breathless than he would have prefered, more shocked than anything else. “What? Look, I think you’ve made some kind of mistake. For one thing, I don’t think vigilantes have friends. And if they did...not me.” Kara and James, in that order, had been his first in-real-life friends in quite literally years. How hard could it be to play the part that had been reality all through high school and college? “I’m not so good at friends.”
The first man, still holding his wallet, shook his head. “We’ve been watching. You know who he is.”
“Nope,” Winn was a better liar than Kara, but not by too large a margin.
“I will ask again. Answer me, and maybe you keep all your fingers.” the thug nodded to his partner, who pulled an alarmingly large knife from his belt. Winn felt the blood drain from his face.
“Who is the man who calls himself Guardian?”
College improv don’t fail me now. “ I don’t know, I’m trying to find out. I used to work for CatCo, ok? Up till the regime change and all, and I figured if I could get a really big scoop I could get my job back, but nothing, I swear. Can’t even get him to talk to me for ten seconds.” Behind him, he squeezed his hands into fists, terrified.
The man in front of him blew air out his nose loud enough that Winn could hear it. “Check into it,” he ordered the other, and Winn felt the presence at his back move off as the man went circled him, heading for the stairs. His heart-rate did not calm down.
“If what you say is true,” the remaining kidnapper said, “then you will have no problem with us looking through your phone, hmm?” he pulled it from his pocket, and Winn jolted. He was so close. Two seconds with it and he could alert Alex. Maybe it was a misappropriation of DEO resources, but he didn’t particularly care about that.
The man didn’t hand it over to be unlocked. “Neat little coding here. Why go back to CatCo, you could make a killing with this kind of thing. I know people would could use something like this.”
“Generally people at CatCo don’t threaten to kill me,” Winn said without thinking. The man only laughed.
“True enough. I’m glad you understand the severity of your situation. If you’ve lied to us, my partner and I will not be pleased. What’s the passcode?”
Winn hesitated for a heartbeat, then wet his lips. “If I haven’t lied...you’re not going to let me go.”
“Not here, not now. Can’t have a newsman warning National City’s newest cape, giving the whole city our faces. But no point in killing you. Murder’s more time than kidnapping. Once we’re done, you’ll be free.”
Not only was that not comforting, he also didn’t miss the emphasis on ‘you.’ They were going to kill James if they found him, or they were going to try. With a hostage, they’d fare a lot better. Rock and a hard place.
“The passcode, Mr. Scott.”
“1405dcw64, and then the N with the little squiggle over it.” Winn said, looking at his lap. And James said it was overkill, having a backup password that only unlocked the phone and messages. At least his kidnappers would only get the bland basics, and not the little programs he’d been working on for the DEO. Not that he ever took classified information home...more than once or twice. The downside was that the panic button, while accessable, was still out of his reach.
“You weren’t lying,” the man commented, scrolling through something Winn couldn’t see. “You really do suck at friends.”
Winn made a noncommittal noise. “If you’re looking for secret text messages from Guardian, you won’t find them, there aren’t any.” Because James still didn’t have a phone for that, he left it all to his man-in-the-van and earpiece.
“See, the problem with that is that we’ve got witnesses who will swear that your cute little van is always waiting not far from where he shows up. You must have some way of knowing where he is. An informant? Tech?“
Winn was about to shake his head when his phone rang.
“James,” the thug read off. “Who’s that, I wonder? Friend...boyfriend? Little late for a date.”
Winn flushed a little. It wasn’t that he’d never day-dreamed, but what with Lucy, and Kara, and his never-a-thing with Kara, and Siobhan and--no, their lives were way too chaotic as it was, and--
The ringing stopped, then started again. “Persistent.” The man paused, as if thinking. “If he’s not your boyfriend, then he’s your informant. And if he is your boyfriend…” he slugged Winn in the gut, knocking the wind from him, and answered the call. James’s voice echoed in the tiny room, even without speakerphone on.
“Winn? Winn, where are you?” he sounded worried. Panicked, even.
“Mr. Schott’s a little busy right now, but tell you what, do me a little favor and I’ll make sure he gets home in one piece.”
“Who the hell are you? Where’s Winn?”
“Who I am really doesn’t matter, James. What I want, on the other hand…”
Winn wheezed for breath. He’d never heard James sound quite this angry. Maybe once or twice. James. James could tell Alex and J’onn and Vasquez.
“What do you want?” James demanded, voice still loud enough to be heard. “And I want to talk to him.”
“I want Guardian. Find him for me, I don’t care how.”
Whatever he said next was low enough Winn couldn’t make it out, but after a moment the man nodded uselessly and moved closer. “Describe anything you’ve seen, and you’ll regret it,” he said, jamming the phone against Winn’s ear.
“James?” he coughed, still trying to get his lungs working again.
“How badly are you hurt?” James asked, skipping the part where he assumed Winn was fine.
“Got all my fingers,” Winn offered.
“Sit tight, alright?”
Winn couldn’t. “They want to kill Guar--”
The phone was wrenched away.
“You’ve got until noon tomorrow. Or should I say today. Warn him, or call the cops or the feds or anybody, and Winn here never sees the light of day again.” Kidnapper #1 ended the call as Kidnapper #2 finally re-entered the room.
“Buddy here told the truth. Worked for CatCo till about 4 months ago. Currently unemployed.”
“Better news,” his partner held up the phone, turning it off and tossing it to Mr. Knife. “We’ve got his informant--or one very highly motivated boyfriend--finding Guardian for us. Get that out of here. Just in case he’s an idiot and the cops try to trace it. I already got the number.”
Winn hoped James had understood what he’d said, it wasn’t exactly subtle. Go to the DEO, get backup.
“You just sit tight,” the guy with the knife gave Winn a smirk that was not at all reassuring, then tramped back up the stairs. His partner paused, reaching for a roll of tape and winding it around Winn’s head to gag him, Winn tried to jerk away, unsuccessfully. Satisfied, the man followed the other up the stairs, flicking off the light as he did.
“I’m all for conserving energy,” Winn muttered against the gag, save the trees and shit but c’mon.
There was no response. Winn blinked against the dark. It would be ok. It had to be. James would ignore the stupid ‘don’t tell anyone’ threat and get the help and everything would be fine. Of course if these guys spotted the DEO agents or whoever could be spared to come to his rescue on short notice, well… medical benefits, on of the perks of the secret government agency. They could probably reattach his fingers. That was totally a thing. He was pretty sure. He tried desperately to keep his breathing even, but the tape made it difficult. Even with his nose clear, he felt like he was suffocating.
Time passed, he wasn’t sure exactly how much. He’d never needed to rely on an internal clock, with his whole “never be more than two feet from tech” schtick. His head pounded, and his worry grew. His lungs didn’t want to work right. What if they tracked down James some other way? What if they figured it out? What if--
Overhead, there was a heavy crash, muffled shouting. Winn tensed. That did not sound like a squad or two of DEO agents. It didn’t even sound like a couple cops convinced to check into a report. There was a gunshot, then two more in quick succession, sounds Winn had been perfectly happy not hearing in real life. He couldn’t hear what was going on, but doubted it was anything good. A man screamed in pain, following the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood. Another gunshot, and then directly overhead, a reverberating thud.
Sparks lit the darkness in front of Winn’s eyes, panic melding with not enough oxygen, though he remained conscious. There were heavy footsteps on the stairs, but strangely familiar. The light overhead was nearly blinding when it burst to life.
Guardian’s dark armor, dented in a few places, fairly glowed as he cast aside the shield and hurried to Winn’s side.
“Winn, it’s ok. I got you.” he found the end of the tape, unwinding it as gently as he could, though Winn still winced. “I got you, they can’t hurt you.” James continued, using a multitool to free Winn’s hands. “Think you can stand?”
“I--” Winn tried, his knees giving out on him. James shifted until he could offer better support, helping him to his feet. Even with the mask on, worry and relief radiated from his eyes. “What--”
“I traced the phone call as soon as that dick answered. I’m sorry it took so long, I didn’t want them to see me coming, I’m so sorry, Winn.”
“It’s not your fault. Thank yo--wait. You came alone? But--” Winn swallowed, throat burning. “I tried to warn you, they wanted to kill you, they could have--”
“I couldn’t go to J’onn, and take the risk they’d kill you. I couldn’t.” James said firmly. “Let’s get out of here.”
Winn’s legs were steadier, now, through as they moved it became clear that however the fight had gone upstairs, James had not come out totally unscathed.
“You’re hurt,” he managed, which was not creative but he was tired.
“It’s nothing,” James insisted as they avoided the absolute wreckage of the ground floor--some kind of old factory storehouse.
“It’s something,” Winn insisted, finally breathing clear when the reached the outside. The sky was light-tinted. Early morning. “My hero.” Oh, wow, cheesy much? Blame it on the headwound blame it on the trauma, play it cool, c’mon.
“Well, you made me this shining armor. Had to put it to good use. Saving you’s the best thing--” James stopped short. Winn tilted his head, trying to get a look at James’s face, still obscured by the helmet. He could hear the smile in his voice, and smiled back.
“Thank you,” Winn said again, trembling some, as the adrenaline that had flooded him to keep him alert faded.
“Always, Winn. Let’s get you to the Medbay,” James said as they reached a side street and the motorcycle. “And then maybe...dinner, sometime?”
“Are you asking me on a date?” Winn blinked. “And does breakfast work, instead?”
“Absolutely. And yes. Medbay first, though. Here, helmet.”
Winn nodded, fingers fumbling with the helmet straps until it was on, then managed to scramble on to the back of the bike, clinging to James. Somehow, he had never felt safer than flying down the street at way over the speed limit. He was with James, they were both alive, and that was all he needed.
