Work Text:
To be honest, Winn had always anticipated this to happen to him someday (even if his friends had laughed at him for being paranoid).
But, he had always imagined being taken hostage at work with his fellow DEO agents by some crazy alien super villain, or that his dangerous connections to Supergirl, Guardian or Toyman would be his downfall when he would get roped into some dangerous bribing situation. (“Do as I say or I’ll kill your best friend”…or son…or –whatever he was to James).
Never in his life had Winn gotten the idea that someone would kidnap him off the street, like some mere mortal citizen, while he was waiting for his take out to be ready with James.
They had grabbed him first, then James, who had put up a decent fight against the attackers, but they got him back after he had tried getting Winn instead of running away (Idiot).
Now they both were sitting in the back of a van with some sort of crazy scientist, who was mustering them like he was about to eat them.
Winn kept sneaking anxious glances at James, who seemed a bit dazed after he had gotten a decent hit on the head.
He jolted upright when the van suddenly stopped and the backdoors were yanked open.
He looked over with concern in his eyes to Winn, who was currently regretting wasting his time with musing about different ways to get kidnapped instead of thinking of an escape plan.
He didn’t even have any idea why he was here.
While they were being lead through an empty parking garage to a staircase and through multiple highly secured doors, the pair didn’t break eye contact.
Winn caught himself being less scared just by looking into James’ eyes while also wanting to swear to protect his friend, no matter what.
Before he could wonder about all these emotion in face of clear danger, they entered a somewhat more civil looking area, which reminded Winn of his dentist’s office.
They entered a bright room, with white walls and blinding ceiling lamps where a team of three men in similar outfits to the one who they’d already met in the van were waiting for them.
One of the scientists, judging by their white coats, stood up when he saw them coming in. He nodded a thank you to the masked guards who brought them in and they left promply.
“Welcome, test objects”, he started addressing James and Winn, “You are very lucky as we selected you to be subjected to our newest technology, never seen before and unknown to the world”
Winn, who didn’t feel lucky at all, felt his heart drop. Whatever the technology was, it couldn’t be safe or pleasant, considering the way they were brought here.
The scientist pointed towards a door in the other corner of the room.
“Bring in the machine”
As two of his colleagues walked out, he kept explaining. “This technology, which we are going to use on you in two separate rooms, is our strongest hallucination-inducing method yet.”
“This machine”, He pointed to a frightening-looking chair with a metal helmet installed, “can make you see and live through the scenario you are most afraid of. It makes parents see their children be tortured, rich see their money burned, lovers see each other die a painful death…” He made a gesture as to say “You get the idea”
James already was being dragged out and Winn was terrified. There were many things he was afraid of, and if the technology was really that advanced he would soon see his worst fear play out as if it was real, whatever that was going to be.
He shared one last look with James until he felt himself getting pulled towards the chair.
Winn really hated thinking of James having to go through a similar more so than he was dreading getting the treatment himself. His friend meant so much to him, he never wanted anything bad to happen to him, wanted to protect him from everything…
The helmet was lowered onto Winn’s head and his train of thought got cut off.
In front of his eyes he saw a string of different scenes like a fast forward film: His father, him getting attacked by a robber with a gun, Kara falling off a building and never stopping, a spider as big as his head crawling towards him and finally it settled on James’ face before everything faded out to black.
-
Winn could feel he was waking up and opened his eyes. He only distinctly remembered a weird dream he had about technology and science experiments but he lost the memory as soon as he tried to focus on it.
Instead what came to mind were memories of the past few hours. Something about kidnapping…and James being in danger. Slowly, Winn began recalling what had happened.
They were out on guardian business and had been ambushed by an entire gang of robbers they had stopped a few nights before but couldn’t catch as they were too many.
Winn had been knocked out and now he was lying on a cold and dirty floor, tied to something behind him.
His head snapped up and he registered James sitting in a chair without his protective helmet a few feet away from him. One of the robbers had a knife, holding it to the throat of his victim, where a small cut was already visible.
James was struggling in his chair as Winn saw another man coming into his vision with a Brick raised in his hand.
“As a little thank you, for messing up our coup”, he said and started beating into the helpless guy in front of him.
Winn had to close his eyes but he could still hear what was going on. He wanted to scream but his throat was closed up and dry like sandpaper.
What if they’d kill James? Oh God, what if James wouldn’t survive?
Winn felt like throwing up. Sure, he never wanted to witness anyone dying, and if he’d heard about any of his friends dying, it would feel like his whole world would be crumbling but this? This was an entirely different feeling.
He opened his eyes again to meet those of James, who tried to send him a reassuring glance while the man had paused his beating but all he could muster was a pained expression.
Winn felt like a part of himself was being taken away and tortured while he still could feel the pain.
He tried to convey with his eyes what his words couldn’t say “I love you, James, stay strong, don’t die”
Because that was the truth wasn’t it? Somehow, along the way, without him noticing, Winn had fallen in love. And now that he was realizing the whole extend of his feelings, James was being ripped away from him.
With a surge of rage, the man with the knife came up behind James again and cut his throat as a final blow.
Winn had to watch the life leave James’ eyes and now his voice came back and all he could do was scream until his vision went black again.
-
With a cough, Winn woke again in his chair with the scientists staring at him while making notes on their clipboards.
His head was spinning and for a moment he didn’t know what was real and what a hallucination.
He was manoeuvred out of the chair while still feeling paralyzed. The shock from what he had seen sat deep in his bones.
One of the scientists still had him pulled up by his arm so he wouldn’t collapse on the floor.
They all looked very satisfied, which made Winn feel sick.
He felt like he needed to get to James, if not to tell him what he felt, before this nightmare he just had to live through became reality then to verify that he was okay and breathing.
The man who had instructed everything earlier finished his notes and looked up.
“We are going to test your – friend – now in the room next door.”
Winn, who still felt paralyzed, was being dragged out of the room by his arms pulled behind his back.
The men behind him kept talking but all he could hear was distant mumbles.
When they entered the next room, Winn croaked out a desperate “James!”, seeing his friend already sitting in the same setup he had been minutes ago, with his eyes closed and a death grip on the sides of the seat.
Nobody seemed to hear him and after two guards were placed next to him the scientist gathered around James and pulled up their notes again.
Winn had a vague thought in the back of his head about how this was weirdly like a dramatic romance novel in real life while he focused on James’ face.
He almost couldn’t handle the pull he felt to rush towards him and rip that helmet off, paired with the intense relief of seeing James again after HAVING TO WATCH HIM DIE.
His friend’s face was tense and he seemed to be fighting the mind control better than Winn had been just a few minutes before.
If he hadn’t been sure after getting revealed to himself that his worst fear was losing James, watching the scenario in front of him unfold would have been confirmation enough that all Winn wanted was to hold that guy and save him from the things he had to endure.
The scientist around them were clutching their notes in anticipation, narrowing their eyes at James, who was now shaking his head slightly, still trying to fight.
Winn knew what was going to happen to him every second now. The fast flicker of fear inducing scenes while the machine searched for whatever scenario it was that pulled the most panic and emotions to the surface.
Briefly, Winn wondered if there was a possibility that James was afraid of nothing but he snapped out of it when he saw his friend collapsing in his position. The scientists started taking notes.
After a while, James’ eyes began to move around under his closed eyelids and a few minutes later he started whispering in his trance.
Winn couldn’t help but feel sick again
when he realized that all he had said during the hallucination must have been audible to hear for everyone around him. He tried not to listen to give James at least that bit of privacy but he couldn’t help noticing that suddenly he could hear his name being muttered over and over.
“Winn, no, no, no, please, no!”
What on earth was James seeing-
“No, Winn please. Stay awake for me, come on. I love you, don’t die, please don’t die!”
Winn’s jaw was dropping, in complete shock at the desperation in James’ voice. His brain wasn’t quite done processing the revelation when his friend opened his eyes with a gasp and two people rushed to pull off the helmet when he started to trash around.
With a flicker of his wrist, the leader of the group finished off whatever he was writing and looked at his colleagues with a nod.
James was pulled out of the machine and another set of guards came in to keep to his sides. Winn watched him shake his head and blink excessively.
The head scientist stood in front of them, all the other people with their notes pooling around them.
“Good work, my friends. It was quite interesting what we could record for our files today and –“, he paused and set his eyes on James with a heavy, mocking glance “other observations we could make for a bit of workplace entertainment”
James’ eyes widened and turned halfway to his side.
“Winn, I’m sorry”
But before he could even start to listen to what Winn needed to tell him, both of them were slapped upside the head from their guards.
“No talking!”
While they were being pushed back towards the van, they finally were answered another pressing question: What would happen to them now? (Winn couldn’t shake the fear that they would be killed, now that the experiment was done)
“We’re invested in science, not murder.” The guy started explaining in a manner that very much sounded like what a crazy mass murderer would sound like, at the beginning of a speech about world domination. “We are going to let you go. But with a warning: We have people in high position. Don’t call the police. Besides, no one would believe you anyway”
Winn and James exchanged a glance that said “They still don’t know who we are”. In James eyes, Winn could also still see remorse but he had to hold himself back until after they were tossed in the back of the van and they started leaving that nightmare-ish location.
They sat next to each other and when Winn intertwined their shaking hands, James looked down at him in disbelief.
In a soft voice, Winn repeated what he had seen while under the control of the device, stuttering and filled with emotions, for James, and he still looked like he couldn’t believe it.
Winn felt so tired, almost too tired for the soft kiss he shared with James after his confession. Just almost.
They rested their heads against each other and didn’t let go of each other’s hands, even when they were standing in the DEO building much later, telling everyone about the project they had seen, in the safety of J’onn’s protection and with Supergirl and Alex by their sides with blazing eyes ready to fight whatever it was that had come for their friends.