Chapter Text
“The milk is gone.” Those were the words that would mark the beginning of a series of events. It had been a slow Tuesday, one filled with the usual morning sounds of four people starting their day bright, but not early. At least, not for all of them. Daniel Atlas was an early riser. Lula was convinced he only needed, and was, in fact, in the habit of getting only two hours of sleep. Daniel neither denied nor confirmed her theory on his sleeping schedule. What he wouldn’t admit for the sake of his own amusement rather than pride, was that he had as normal a schedule as one could expect from someone whose mind naturally ran at top speed.
However. His sleeping schedule held no importance right then. The milk did.
“Milk doesn’t just disappear.” Merritt answered. Merritt valued his 40 winks. He, much like Jack, enjoyed sleeping in. Breakfast could be as late as 2pm, despite Daniel’s insistence of it not technically being breakfast anymore. Especially if your breakfast consisted of leftover dinner from last night. Or the night two days ago. They would both claim that it was their first meal of the day, and therefore it was still called breakfast. They were not wrong in terms of the meaning of the word.
“It does when you drink it.” Daniel grit his teeth and took a measuring breath to calm down. Living alone had been easier. He’d known when the milk ran out.
“You know as well as I do that I don’t drink milk, Danny-boy.” Merritt countered. Merritt preferred his coffee black and without sugar. He claimed it woke him right up and was the second best thing besides aiming for the bottom of a bottle.
“I wasn’t referring to you specifically, was I?” Daniel slammed the fridge shut and cleared the counter of what would once have been a very welcome coffee, indeed.
“You definitely made it sound like you were.” Merritt grinned, always up to antagonising him in one way or another. Today, Daniel wasn’t rising to the bait and pulled up his hood over his head.
“I’m getting milk.” He felt his pockets until he hit the familiar shape of his keys.
“Just milk? We ran out of Tw-“
“I’m not buying Twinkies, Merritt. Get them yourself.” Daniel left the kitchen to the moping mentalist, passing Jack and Lula on his way to the front door.
“You going out?” Lula asked before he could reach for the doorknob.
“Just for some milk.” Daniel said, glancing between the two.
“Oh,” Lula’s face lit up, detached herself from Jack’s side to get in Daniel’s face, “I need tampons.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A fact.
“Yeah, sure. Jack?” One would assume, being who he was and based on his earlier reaction towards Merritt, Daniel would be an asshole about receiving or even asking for a shopping list. But he knew, every trip out and into a city like New York meant whoever did the shopping got the essentials they needed for at least another week. Getting spotted and potentially arrested was the last thing they needed. Disappearing didn’t mean their physical needs also disappeared.
“Nah, I’m good. Just the milk. Last night’s cereal really hit the spot, man.” Jack’s smile was all teeth and no shame. There was also no teasing, just honesty and an innocence of someone who didn’t realise he had inconvenienced Daniel that morning.
“Unbelievable.” Daniel muttered to himself as he left their larger-than-average apartment. They were on the outskirts of the city, but still within range of all the essential areas. But also the more shady parts. The nearest convenience store was two blocks away and it had him darting shadow to shadow. Not an easy feed, considering it was approaching noon and the sun was doing him absolutely no favours. He decided, absently, that maybe it should have been raining.
He only had one bag on the return trip. Two bottles of milk, tampons and pads and a generous amount of Twinkies later and Daniel found himself walking briskly down the street. As he was nearing the first intersection, someone bumped into him,
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” Daniel called out. He was a New Yorker and even staying underground couldn’t stop him from reacting. Before he could turn back around, hands grabbed on to his shoulders and he was pulled back into a small alley. With only one hand free, his movements were clumsy as he tried to wrestle himself free without dropping the bag. If someone were to ask him why he didn’t just let go of the bag, Daniel would have shrugged and answered, “We needed the milk.” In reality, he wasn’t really thinking about the milk specifically. Or the bag in general. It happened too quickly for him to process what was going on. There was no warning, no sound to indicate what would happen next, no words spoken or a hint of hesitation as his assailant pulled him deeper into the alleyway and he was roughly pushed against someone’s chest. Another pair of arms wrapped around him and covered his mouth and nose with something foul smelling.
He let go of the bag then. Pulling frantically at the hands that surrounded him, kicking his feet back and hoping to do as much damage as possible. There were hands steadying his head while his attempts at shaking them off remained futile. The world was taking on a darker hue, his vision was starting to lag and it had him slow down for a fraction before he closed his eyes and tried again to free himself. His limbs were starting to grow heavy, his head foggy and when he opened his eyes again, he found it nearly impossible to keep them open. Finally, he had one last thought before he felt his body go limp,
He was glad it wasn’t raining after all.
Consciousness slipped out of reach and he dreamt of nothing.
Returning to consciousness wasn’t a graceful process when losing it had been anything but natural. His mind felt foggy, heavy with half formed thoughts that were refusing to stick. There was a sound, a clearing of a throat, a shuffle of a shoe against a gritty floor. Daniel lifted his head, finding he was sitting upright, tied to a chair by hands and probably also by feet. He couldn’t quite feel them right then, but he was sure his captors weren’t taking any risks.
“Welcome back.” A low baritone voice that would have been soothing under different circumstances, filled the space.
“Hng,” Daniel couldn’t quite work his tongue yet. He realised he was blindfolded and frowned against the feeling of the cloth around his eyes.
“You were under for quite some time, my friend.” The same voice said, sounding awfully joyful for someone who was in the business of kidnapping people off the street in broad daylight.
“Wha-“ Daniel swallowed, “Why?” He asked.
“Because I reckon the one and only J. Daniel Atlas is capable of pulling off this little game I have set up!” He was excited. Daniel didn’t understand what was going on, but he had a feeling an explanation wasn't far off.
“I appreciate your confidence in me, but you didn’t have to. Really.” Daniel mumbled, words were getting easier, his mind was already working on an escape.
“You’re funny!” He really wasn’t.
“What do you want?” Daniel asked when no explanation seemed to be forthcoming.
“Straight to the point, I like that.” His captor amended, “Currently, we have you hooked up to a biometric data device.” Daniel clenched his jaw. “You vitals will be monitored as soon as we hit this button,” There was a click.
“What do you want?” Daniel repeated, voice strained with unvoiced frustration.
“There is an encrypted archive. We need it. Fast.” The joy was gone, the excitement from earlier was replaced by something darker. “To prevent you from slacking and for us to get what we need faster, the device you’re hooked up to will remind you not to lose consciousness. Again.” Daniel could hear the smile in his captor’s voice at that last word,
“Though last time was on us.” He was definitely smiling. “You’ll find the device has a trigger. You can’t take it off.”
“What happens if I trigger it?” Daniel asked more out of curiosity than the implications of it having dire consequences. He would fix this. He was good at fixing things. If this device somehow killed him, he wouldn’t even be that devastated. After all, he wouldn’t be feeling much of anything if he was dead.
“There is a young girl in London,” And with those words, Daniel’s heart sank. This wasn’t just his life at stake. “Her fate is currently unknown. But her status is live. If you catch my drift.” He did.
“What archive am I after?” Daniel grit out. Once they let him go, he would have to call someone who was familiar with technology. Someone like Henley. God forbid he had to ask her for help, but he wasn’t prepared to call on Dylan to admit he walked straight into the arms of a thug. At not even noon, at that.
“I knew you’d come around!” His captor said, “Assent. That’s all you need to know, really.” Assent was a company that had been involved in plenty of controversial scandals over the years. But it also had one of the biggest archives on data collection and one of the tightest security systems that was available on the market. Or so they claimed. Daniel hadn’t intended to ever find out, but here he was.
“You’ll find a phone in your pocket. Keep it on you.”
And with that, the rope that bound his wrists to the chair loosened and he scrambled to take the blindfold off. He was in a warehouse, his captors gone as if they practiced some kind of magic themselves. Or had it only been one person? No. He’d felt more than one set of hands grab him. It didn’t matter.
Daniel checked his pockets and found his keys and two phones. One was his own, it was switched off. The other phone was unfamiliar to him and there was a notification on it. A text message that read,
“Remember. The faster this is over, the sooner you get to rest. This is who you’re doing it for.” ⧈.jpg
Attached to the message was the image of a girl, makeup having ran out over her face. She’d clearly been crying. She was gagged and her arms were pulled behind her back, her eyes pleading with the phone’s camera, or the person taking the picture.
Daniel cursed under his breath and ran a hand across his face, taking a moment to collect himself before bending over to untie his feet from the chair. He was reminded of the other device as he straightened up. Weighing down his inner pocket, there was a bulky rectangle that almost resembled a power bank, if it wasn’t for the cord that the outer case had been cast around, there was nothing else that indicated this thing was a working machine. The cord was attached to electrodes that he could feel itching against his chest. He didn’t bother checking what they looked like. There was nothing he could do.
Running his fingers over the sides of the device, he found a panel that slid open, likely to protect the small number pad underneath from accidental presses. So he needed a code.
Then the lights went out and Daniel looked up into the darkness. Shit. He needed to move. He switched on his phone and used the logo that popped up on his screen to start finding his way out. He spotted a white plastic bag and suppressed the urge to snort at the absurdness of it all. As soon as he spotted the door, he rushed forward, bag in hand and phone in the other. It was dark when he left the warehouse, but he paid it no mind. He had to get home. His phone buzzed in his hand, telling him he could enter his pin.
Daniel rushed out into the busy streets of New York and for the first time allowed himself to breathe. He pressed his back against a building and entered his pin into his phone. For a moment, nothing happened, until a rush of notifications popped up. All from the other Horsemen, asking him where he was. There were also messages from Dylan and even Henley. Henley wasn’t even a horseman anymore.
He pressed her contact information and hit the call button. Henley was great with computers.
“Daniel! Where have you been?!” She screamed into his ear immediately.
“Good, um,” Daniel trailed off. What time of day was it even? The darkened sky suggested evening, but you couldn’t really trust the sky during the winter months.
“Are you home? Dylan called me,” She started but Daniel cut her off,
“No, listen Henley, I need your help.” Daniel said, heart racing as he looked around for anyone who might be listening in.
“What’s going on, Daniel? Are you in trouble? Where are you?” She asked, worried and clearly needing more information than he was comfortable providing.
“You can’t tell the others,” He started, “I was knocked out and taken to a warehouse, they want-“
“You were kidnapped?!” Henley interrupted.
“Henley, please!” Daniel was getting frustrated. His day had already been ruined and time wasn’t on his side, right now.
“You need to tell Dylan! The Eye will have people who can go after them. Unless you-“ Henley let the remainder of that phrase hang in the air,
“I didn’t do anything! They let me go.”
“They let you go?” Henley repeated.
“Can you let me finish?” Daniel gritted his teeth and bounced the back of his head against the wall behind him. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make him feel something other than irritation and sheer anger. Not anger at Henley, but at his situation. He felt stupid. He’d let himself be taken. He’d fought, but he hadn’t stood a chance against his attackers’ strength. They’d had the element of surprise while he hadn’t been aware he’d been targeted in the first place.
“I’m sorry, but this is a lot to take in. Are you okay?” She asked and he bit back a bitter retort.
“Yes.” He answered, not sure if the lie landed convincingly at all.
“Daniel-“
“Henley, there is a girl who depends on me right now. They have her. They have me hooked up to a device and if I don’t get them what they want, they’re going to kill her.” Daniel finally told her, ignoring the gasp.
“What device?” She asked, as if that was the most important part. And maybe it was.
“It keeps track of my vitals. I can’t slack off or it’ll ping them.” Daniel explained.
“What does “slack off” mean in this context?” She asked, sounding a lot more serious than she had been before.
“I can’t fall asleep.” Daniel smiled bitterly at the irony as the words left his mouth. They couldn’t have picked a better person for this. He had a tendency to fixate on blueprints and plans for longer than was decidedly healthy, but other than that, he valued sleeping as much as the next person.
“Tell Dylan.” Henley said again, her voice holding no room for argument. Daniel, being who he was, always found room.
“No.”
“Did they tell you, you couldn’t ask for help?” She argued back.
“No, but he doesn’t have to know I’m a liability if I’m getting snatched off the street right, left and centre!" He was shouting in hushed tones, trying not to bring too much attention to himself, but also unwilling to start moving in the direction of the apartment for fear of being too distracted by this call. “Look, I’ll send you a picture of the device. See if you know how to unhook me without triggering it.” Daniel said.
“I can’t do anything from here, Daniel.” She sighed into the mic, an awful grating sound that made Daniel wince.
“I’ll book you a hotel.” He told her immediately.
“I can book my own damn hotel, Atlas.” She said sternly, always the independent woman.
“Of course you can. Tell me where and I’ll meet you there. I’m going to look into Assent in the meantime.” Daniel’s mind was running away from him, theories, half formed plans, contingencies, all of it was floating around like a puzzle waiting to come together.
“Assent?” Henley asked. “Danny-“
“I know.” Daniel snapped back and surveyed the area again. “Alright, I’m going home now. I’ll talk to you later, keep me updated, okay?” She gave him the affirmative and they ended the call.
A quick glance through his notifications confirmed he still had a home and they hadn’t decided he wasn’t welcome anymore after, he checked the time, shit. Was it really that late already? He swallowed thickly. Had he really been out that long?