Chapter Text
They’re three levels down in the hulking steel prison-like facility when a furious voice rings out over the intercom system, echoing through every empty cell they’ve already freed the prisoners from, and making Yoongi’s mouth curl into a dark smirk. The “warden” sounds enraged and entitled and exactly what they’d expect from someone who would abduct and imprison and sell powered people like them to the illegal labs that tear them apart in the name of science, trying desperately to replicate the special abilities they have no way to explain.
Hoseok has already flown the last of the captives out, and Jin has carried them out three or four people at a time to load them onto the trucks that are already rounding the distant gates of the facility that Jimin had so easily frozen and smashed through. Namjoon has telekinetically torn apart the cells to ensure they can’t be used ever again, and has downloaded enough incriminating evidence from the offices to lock every single guard involved away for life. They’re triple checking the lower levels for any other cells they might have missed before they call for an evacuation and let Yoongi burn the entire facility to the ground.
The warden sounds like he’s spitting through gritted teeth over the intercom when he requests a meeting in the cafeteria, promising to hand over the final remaining prisoner he claims was in testing when they freed the rest. Hoseok narrows his eyes suspiciously when the warden insists the only thing he requests in exchange is the safe release of the staff and guards. It reeks of a trap, but if there’s even a chance he’s telling the truth about the last prisoner, they don’t leave anyone behind, ever. And they’d planned to let the staff out, had never planned to harm the guards even as disgusting as their actions were, particularly since they’d already downloaded their registry and would have them all arrested by the end of the next day for the ones that didn’t go into hiding.
Even with every guard in the facility, there isn’t much the warden can do against even two or three of them, much less all six. Taehyung teleports to the hallway beside the cafeteria just as Hoseok soars down the hall with Namjoon, and Yoongi and Jimin arrive with Jin right after, tense but eyes blazing with satisfaction, with victory. They’d freed hundreds, they’d broken open the final illegal facility, the last disgusting source of the disappearances of people like them, and without any losses or casualties. And if there was even one single other person like them trapped here, they were going to free them, and then they were going to destroy the entire facility behind them.
When they square their shoulders and enter the cafeteria, Namjoon silently notes the lack of windows or other exits, the reinforced steel of the walls, the roughly sixty guards lining the room. If it comes to an altercation, Taehyung will teleport them out, but sixty guards couldn’t take them in a fight, even with their gleaming guns. Jin scoffs when the warden insists they put on power dampening bracelets before he’ll speak to them, but Namjoon nods at them meaningfully and they slip them on, tensing at the uncomfortable chill of them. And power dampeners aren’t effective, nothing can take powers away or even block them, and Yoongi can still burn the entire room down even with the dampener on so there isn’t a point, but they consent to the slight buzz of it and gesture for the warden to speak.
Hoseok sneers at the man’s obvious fear of them, at the insulting disdain in his gaze as he mutters to them that the guards have started evacuating and that he “requests” that they stay here until the guards are safely off the grounds. His voice is oily and fake when he assures them there are guards bringing the remaining prisoner here, but it’s hardly a moment of tense stand-off later when the doors behind them are shoved open and two guards enter dragging a fiercely struggling figure between them.
It’s alarming, the way the warden’s face transforms, his nerves and fear so smoothly turning smug and assured and arrogant, and Jimin and Taehyung drift closer together, wary, as Namjoon scans the guards that have entered, assessing. The figure between them is still struggling wildly, and one of them winds back and strikes him hard, Jin growling as the captive cries out and falls limp and they yank him upright between them. He’s young, not more than a few years younger than the six of them, and his terrified eyes have the gleaming shimmer of someone powered, his hands chained tightly together in front of him and dressed in the drab navy blue jumpsuit all the captives wore. It’s almost startling that the warden hadn’t lied about there being one more, but Hoseok and Yoongi watch uneasily as the guards immediately begin to file out of the room, the warden watching the six much too unconcerned and relaxed now. When there are only ten guards left of the original fifty, the warden clears his throat, and his eyes darken with anger.
“Now that I can speak freely.” The warden snarls, “I had buyers lined up, I had money already paid, and you’ve just cost me that.” His slow grin is ugly and menacing. “I’ll have to sell every one of you for double or triple to even try to make up the cost difference.”
“Sell us? You thought this would stop us from bringing all of this down around you?” Yoongi growls, baring his teeth. The warden’s guards shuffle around him with their hands on their guns, but he doesn’t back down even as Yoongi rips off the useless dampener and hurls it to the ground. “We could blow this place to the ground with six dampeners on each.”
Namjoon’s neck prickles with unease and Taehyung shifts uncomfortably beside him at the discomforting disregard on the warden’s face, the smugness stretching across his grin when he calls, “So do it.”
The powered captive straightens between the guards still holding him upright between them, and the shine in his eyes is terrified. Yoongi leaps forward, raising an arm to send a searing flame in the direction of the guards surrounding the malevolent man. He stills completely, eyes wide, breath catching in his throat. There’s no flame on his arm, no flame in his chest, no ever-flickering flame at his core. It’s gone, it’s just gone, and it can’t be, but it is. He whirls around, hearing the clatter as all five fling their dampening bracelets across the gleaming tile at their feet. Jimin is staring at his hands in shock, Namjoon’s eyes are closed tightly, and Hoseok looks ill, Taehyung pressed against him, expression frantic.
“What have you done?” Jin demands, squaring his broad shoulders, and the warden’s arrogance radiates in his tone as he stands up straighter, the powered captive shrinking beside him, chained hands rattling together.
“It’s not me you should be asking that.”
They all leap forward then halt sharply, glaring furiously, when the guards raise their guns. With their powers impossibly offline somehow, a gunshot could be fatal, and they can’t afford injuries when they’re like this, when they can't teleport or fly or smash their way out, when they can't fight. The warden saunters to the door so nonchalantly, it makes Hoseok’s fists clench and Namjoon grit his teeth, and the guards wave their guns threateningly when they lean past them to pick up the dampening bracelets and carry them out, as they back towards the door, eyes glinting maliciously. No doors, no windows, no alternate exits, just an enormous concrete room and polished tiling.
“I said I’d hand over the last one, and I’m a man of my word.” The warden calls from beside the door, where the final guard has dragged the chained boy who desperately avoids eye contact with any of them, but whose head darts up at this, big eyes widening with fear. The warden just grins at him, shoving him away from the guard and further into the room before he backs away to the door, the boy urgently hurrying forward to follow and freezing at the barrel of a gun. The warden's sneer is disgusting and terrible, and the boy's cry is worse, as he presses himself against the door before they’ve even slammed it closed, and frantically hammering on it while the lock is still turning, not looking back at the six at all until the warden calls nastily through the small port in the door, “I can’t risky any stupid moves, so Jungkook’s all yours until I sell the first few. Play nicely.”
They glare at the door as the port slams open, and Jimin heaves a sigh when they’re alone again, Taehyung sagging against him with relief and the six of them turning to the other in the room, hands still bound in front of him and not having moved from the door, probably feeling relieved like them to be away from the guards and the warden. But the chained boy, Jungkook, looks horrified, and immediately throws himself against the door, voice frantic and pleading.
"No, no, you can't! They'll kill me, you have to let me out!"
They exchange bewildered glances, and Namjoon stares, confused.
“Hey, hey, what-” Jin steps towards him, voice pitched low and gentle, but he freezes when Jungkook immediately crumples to the ground with a cry, cuffed hands desperately held up defensively, his voice warbling and breaking with terror.
“No, please! Please, please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I can’t control it, I’m sorry!”
Namjoon tugs Jin back, alarmed, and Jin holds his hands up at his sides to assure him they mean no harm as the rest look on in shock, not approaching. Jungkook’s wrists are scraped raw and scarred around the cuffs, and Hoseok keeps his voice soft and even.
“None of us are going to hurt you, Jungkook.”
Jungkook shakes his head fervently, pressing himself back against the wall beside the door, eyes screwed up and voice frightened. “You will, you w-will, I’m sorry, please, please.”
“We’re on the same side.” Taehyung tries, but Jungkook shakes his head vehemently.
“Let me out!” Jungkook turns to bang on the doors again, and his cry is plaintive and raw. “Let me out, you have to let me out, p-please, they’ll kill me, please!”
“Why would we hurt you?” Jimin asks, disturbed, but Jungkook just pounds at the door, pleading, and Yoongi turns to the others, eyebrows furrowed.
“My fire is just… gone. I’ve never felt anything like it before. We thought it was a drug, with the others, but… a drug in the air? We inhaled it, or… nothing can stop powers.”
“This facility held more people than any of the others.” Namjoon says grimly, looking around at them. “Now we know how.” He glances back at the door again, and Jungkook startles and slams himself back against the wall again, big eyes wide with fear.
“Well, we don’t need to stay here to find out how, we just need a way out.” Taehyung presses, and Hoseok nods beside him, then lowers his voice.
“We need to ask him. He must know more than us, even if his power is blocked too.” They carefully don’t glance back at the trembling figure behind them as they nod meaningfully. “In the meantime, if something was interfering with our powers, maybe we just have to try to settle back into them, to switch them back on. Let’s just… try. It can’t hurt.”
Jin looks doubtful and tense, but he strides back and forth past the same stretch of wall, pushing at it occasionally with his fingertips and frowning at the lack of give in the steel. Taehyung sinks to the ground to close his eyes, to take settling breaths, to tug at the flitting in his corner that’s never not there, the one he draws upon to jump from place to place, the one he’s always drawn upon that can't be gone but it is. Beside him, Jimin and Yoongi are staring intensely at their hands, and Hoseok has his eyes squeezed shut, shoulders shaking with strain. Namjoon leans back against the wall to count his breathing, to focus his mind, to search inside him for the bubbling well of his power that can’t run dry but it has, somehow. It's hardly half an hour later that Yoongi tenses and whirls around at the sound of a throat being cleared, and the warden is sneering through the sliding port in the door, leering at them.
“Well, well.” The smugness in his tone is infuriating, and Jimin quietly places a hand on Jin’s arm to prevent him from an outburst as the warden scans the room, eyes narrowing when he spots Jungkook still hunched over beside the door. When he looks up at them, his laugh is mocking and incredulous. “I knew you’d be too weak to kill him, but you didn’t even take it out on him?” He spits through the slot, and his eyes gleam cruelly. “Pathetic.”
“We wouldn’t hurt one of our own.” Yoongi snarls, and the warden scoffs in disdain.
“You’d choose one of your own over escaping? You’re even-” He goes silent, eyes widening in realization. “Wait, you don’t know?” The warden’s tone is filled with a terrible glee that makes Namjoon and Hoseok cringe, and when the warden turns to leer at Jungkook, Jimin takes a protective step forward instinctively, held back by a warning look from Yoongi.
“This is rich, none of you even realized?” The warden laughs again, cold and ugly. Jungkook is shaking his head vehemently and pleadingly, terrified, and the warden looks sickeningly amused. “You don’t want to tell them, Jungkook?”
Jungkook is shaking harder than his head, tears bright in his eyes, voice unsteady. “Please don’t, p-please.”
“He’s the reason you’re stuck here!” The warden grins viciously at the way Jungkook flinches and presses himself even harder against the wall, frightened breaths gasping out of him. “He’s canceling your powers, why do you think we tossed him in with you?”
Jungkook is shuddering, his eyes squeezed shut, entire body braced as the others spin to face each other in shock. Power cancellation as a power? Not only have they not come across it, they've never heard of it, and for this man who abducts and imprisons and sells people like them to have someone like this… the implications are gruesome.
The warden's grin is cruel, tone mocking. "How's it feel being too weak to kill a chained up freak to get free?" Jimin growls low, and the warden's eyes snap to him and narrow, a sneer. "Make sure you take care of blue hair there, I've had a lab asking for ice powers for ages, none of the ones I've sent them lasted long enough for them." They tense, tightening their loose formation around Jimin as the warden's grin widens. "They're going to pay good money for him."
The warden winks at Jungkook before he slams the port closed again, the silence ringing around them as Jungkook gasps and trembles and holds his bound hands up in front of him, still pressed against the wall across the room from them.
"I can't turn it off, I p-promise." Jungkook’s choked whisper sounds so frightened it twists somewhere in Jin's heart and makes Hoseok's mouth turn down. "I don't control it, I - I swear I'm telling the truth, please, p-please don't hurt me, I can't make it stop, it won't s-stop if you hurt me, I swear, p-please I'm-"
"Hey, hey," Jimin soothes urgently, holding his hands up to mirror Jungkook's chained ones. "We aren't going to hurt you, we wouldn't hurt you."
"You're safe with us." Jin says firmly, stepping back to lean against the wall, emphasizing the lack of any threat.
"This isn't your fault." Taehyung presses, swallowing hard, and Jungkook jerks at that, his eyes dimming until he buries his face in his hands. They startle at the hollowness in his quiet voice.
"It is my fault, I know it’s my… everyone they captured, you freed them but I - I was the reason you needed to, I…" Jungkook doesn't look up, but his shoulders shake as he wraps his bound arms around his knees. "Please, I'm sorry. Please don't, I can't - I can't control it, please."
He doesn't respond after that, when they quietly call reassurances out to him, and Namjoon finally tugs them back and murmurs that they can ask him more tomorrow, that the best thing they can do right now is to sleep, just for a bit, get their rest and be ready to gather information and make their escape. Jin sits sentry for their first watch as the others curl up around and over him to sleep, their warmth steadying as he counts the minutes and hours away and watches Jungkook shiver and tremble against the door, as far as he can possibly be from them without leaving the room, chained hands under his head and young features drawn with fear, even in his sleep.