Disclaimer: I do not own the DC heroes of Hawk and Dove, whom I loosely based my main characters on.
Dan's head felt heavy. His eyelids were even heavier, but he managed to get them open just a bit. He could see through his heavy lids that there was a person in front of him, and their touch was light over his body. "Phil?"
When their eyes lifted, they were blue and icy and definitely Phil. Dan's heart started to hammer. "Well, hi there," said Phil, his hands ghosting down from Dan's temples to his neck, "I thought you would never wake up."
Goosebumps exploded all over Dan's flesh. He never got goosebumps; his body temperature never fluctuated. Phil's hands felt warm to the touch, just like it was anyone else touching him, instead of cool like usual. And for some reason, Dan couldn't reach up and touch him too. He wanted to, especially when Phil's fingers wandered down his arms. "What… what happened?" Dan whispered. He still couldn't get his eyes all the way open.
Before Phil replied there was a pinching sensation in the crook of his elbow. Dan gasped, and his eyes shot open, and everything came into focus. He was in a lab. He couldn't reach up and touch Phil because he was strapped down. And the person touching him wasn't Phil at all; in fact it was a woman. The pinching sensation was her sticking a needle into his vein. She didn't even look anything like Phil, save for the glasses. Her hair was brown and her eyes were brown. Another quick body check of him found that she wasn't just touching him for the sake of touching. He had things taped to him: one on each temple and either side of his throat.
"I'm sorry," the woman whispered as she walked around to his other side, "This will hurt too." Then she stuck another needle in his other arm and Dan grimaced, sucking air in through his teeth. She looked up at him with an apologetic look and suddenly a loud sound boomed in the room, as if someone was tapping a microphone. The woman cringed.
"Don't be so easy on him, Dr. Bisognin," said a disembodied voice. Wait, Dan recognized that voice. "We probably won't end up keeping this one. He's already got his powers."
Dr. Bisognin nodded once and walked around behind Dan's head. He couldn't bend enough to see what was going on, but it wasn't hard to assess the situation. He got trapped and gassed, and this was the result. Now he was the lab rat, and that wasn't even the worse thing. The worse thing was that he had no idea what happened to Phil and the others. Well, he supposed it was a good thing that besides the scientist, he was alone in this room. It was very similar to the one they rescued those people from.
The machinery behind Dan's head started to whir. Something else started to drip, and Dan assumed one of the catheters in his arms was an IV. The question of what the thing dripping is that worried him the most.
"Tilt him up, doctor. Hawk and I need to have a chat," said the voice again. Dan's heart lurched uncomfortably and a machine started to beep louder. A heart monitor. Soon Dan's table began to tilt up so he could see himself in a mirror across from him. Dr. Bisognin rounded him and disappeared into an open door in the corner of the room. The mirror blinked, like a phone screen, and it wasn't a mirror at all. It was a window.
Dan narrowed his eyes. There were two men in the room behind the window: one in a black suit, and Prime Minister Page. That's why Dan recognized the voice. It basically was the bane of his existence. Dr. Bisognin stood to the far right, looking worriedly between Dan and Page.
"Hello, Hawk," he said with a tiny grin.
Dan trained his expression and deadpanned back, "Hello, Satan."
Page chuckled. "Glad to see you're not out of it anymore," he said, "These procedures aren't very useful if you're not conscious."
"What the actual fuck is happening here?" Dan said, having to get all his emotions out in his facial expression, as he couldn't use his hands for emphasis.
Page picked up something in his hand, and it was a clipboard. "As soon as the alarm went off, we knew you were here. We would have caught all of you if someone hadn't been scrambling the system at the same time. Clever, your little team was. But, we still got the camera recordings of your break-in. And, let's see. Well, since you depleted our stores of the mutant enzyme, deleted our data, and released our test subjects, we have to start from scratch," he said, "Glad we nabbed you. Even though this will only cover one half of our research. Your powers are obviously well developed-"
"What are you even talking about?" Dan interrupted loudly. He felt a swell of pride when Page mentioned all the things his team accomplished, and that made him think that they did get away. He didn't know how long ago all that was, but he hoped by now they were figuring out a way to get Dan back. Because so far this was not going well for him.
The prime minister sighed. "You're aware that the enzyme reacts with mutant blood. We used it for just that reason, to find them, and then we picked a few from a lineup to use for the tests. Usually we pick ones who are unaware of their abilities, or haven't gotten a grasp on them yet. The tests make their mutations apparent enough to study. You probably want to know what the tests are?" he asked Dan. Dan didn't reply, so he simply gestured to Dr. Bisognin. "Tell him," he said.
She cleared her throat. "The tests include watching subject's reactions to different stages of stress and seeing if their mutation adapts at all to relieve said stress. Blood is also drawn so the mutated gene can be carefully studied," she said. That was the most Dan had heard her talk, and she had a lilted accent. Spanish?
"Why do you study the mutations?" Dan asked.
The doctor glanced at Page and he gave a nod. "Might as well tell him. Like I said, we're not keeping him," he said.
She continued. "We are trying to emulate the mutated gene," she said quietly, as if ashamed of the information, "And by increasing the stress in each consecutive test, we are hopeful that mutations will further change and result in evolution."
Dan stared at her. "Evolution? You're… torturing people to try and make them mutate further," he said, talking out loud to get his thoughts together. Without Phil, he had no one to bounce his ideas off of and help him fill in the blanks. "And replicating mutated genes… why?"
Page simply reached his hand over, in front of the doctor, and pressed a button. Without warning a shock shot through the electrodes on Dan's neck and temples, making his entire body feel on fire and not in the good way. A cry escaped his mouth and he tried to cringe away from the shock, but there was nowhere to go. Without his prompting or focus, flames lit in Dan's palms and swallowed his hands. The next second the shock was gone and so was the fire, only a puff of flame remained for a split second. When it was over, Dan stared at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. That was something no one should ever be forced to feel: their own body betraying them.
"That's why," Page continued, a grin on his face that could be described as almost mad, "With just a simple electric shock combined with a little IV drip of saline solution, your power manifests without you having to even think about it. Britain would be the most powerful nation in the world if we could use that, even more so than America. They treat their mutants like heroes who can do as they wish. They're missing out on the bigger picture. These discoveries are breakthroughs that only we have the ability to make."
Dan was breathing hard, the shock still wearing off even though it was only on for less than a minute. "You want to weaponize us?" he said breathlessly.
"No, not you," Page said, rolling his eyes, "You and yours are just the first generation, the guinea pigs. Your powers are obviously already under control. We want to weaponize your genes. By taking your mutations and injecting them into people like our Agent Chapman here," he pointed behind him at the man in the suit, "Combined with the stress, the mutated genes and the genes of the subject will fuse to create, well, a test tube mutant. Like super soldiers. Imagine an entire army of them! We would be unstoppable."
So there were four things that Dan was sure of now. One, they weren't just capturing mutants because they were afraid of them. They were capturing them to take their blood and see how they react to different levels of stress. Two, that was human experimentation. They were injecting mutated blood into trained MI5 agents and torturing them until their bodies were forced to adapt to handle the stress. Three, this was all very, very illegal. Four, Prime Minister Page seriously believed that all of this was for the better of science, for the better of the country.
"You keep saying that you're not keeping me," Dan prompted, "What does that mean?"
Page looked at Dr. Bisognin. She swallowed. "Often the test subjects do not survive the tests as they get harder," she said in a small voice.
Dan's anger flared. They were killing mutants. Louise had been right; she was nowhere near protecting them all. He wondered how close to death those three he got out last night were. Thinking about that kid strapped to a table like he was made Dan sick.
"Let's get on with it, shall we? Start the recording, " Page prompted. The doctor pressed another button before her and a red light appeared in their observation room. "Subject: Daniel James Howell, nineteen-years-old. Mutations include production of fire, unnaturally high body temperature, and resistance to heat. Administering shock test number one and drawing first blood sample," he continued.
Dan didn't know how long this shock lasted. It felt as though the electrodes were burning his skin, which was a terrible feeling because he had never been burned before. This time, however, he was at least a little prepared and did his best to keep his own heat from mingling with that of the shock. It worked for a bit; there were no flames, but it got so hot that the air shimmered like he was sitting on a blacktop in the summertime.
When the shock ended, Dan could breath again. He hadn't noticed that he had been alternating between trying to take a deep breath and, well, screaming. Dan's right arm ached. That must have been the one they took blood from, which he hadn't had enough brainpower to notice through the shock. When Dan's eyes focused, Page looked annoyed. Agent Chapman, the man in the suit, was standing closer to him now. His head was bent inward, his face turned away from Dan, but from Page's expression they were chatting about something important.
"Chapman has pointed out the opportunity to garner information from you, Hawk," said the prime minister, "You are proof that someone out there is intercepting mutants before we can get to them and then training them up. Who is it?" Dan remained silent, his expression hard. Did this bloke actually think Dan was going to tell him anything? If he did, he was really barmy. "Alright, then, I thought it was going to go this way. Let's sweeten the deal. If you talk, no more tests will be performed on you," Page continued.
Dan gave him a look. "If you think I've done any of this for the benefit of myself, than you're mad," he hissed.
Chuckling, the prime minister shook his head. "Oh, of course. The essence of heroism, giving up your own life for someone else's. You're much too noble, Hawk. The suit, the name, the team. You're basically straight out of a comic book," he said, "Fine. Then you'll be subject to more tests, which is no skin off my back. We might even get more data from you yet. Maybe this will give you an incentive. We collected some information while you were asleep, you know. Dr. Bisognin, who else do we have a file on?"
She cleared her throat, as if surprised to be called upon. "Dodie Clark and Philip Lester, sir," she replied.
At the mention of Phil's name, Dan's heart quickened and he struggled against his restraints. If only Dan could get his hands around his neck, Page would wish he were never born. "Ah, there it is," he said venomously, "The Dove to your Hawk, yes? The one with the ice powers. Well, your boyfriend should be more careful, his fingerprints were all over the lab you managed to break into. The girl's too. You were smart enough to smash the only thing we could use to track your origin, but not smart enough to wear gloves? Amateurs."
So that must be why he was asked to smash the comm. Well then, technically it was PJ who was smart enough. But it was a good thing he was, because then everyone would have been screwed. "What does he have to do with anything?" Dan demanded.
Page cleared his throat. "Phillip Michael Lester, born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire on the 30th of January. Parents still live in the same spot," he said after he flipped a page on his clipboard, "If you don't talk, and we find him, he will suffer a much worse fate than you."
Dan clenched his jaw. His fists followed suit. No one would want him to talk. Phil would sacrifice himself for the sake of everyone on the team in a heartbeat. "I'm not talking. And you won't find him," he growled.
Looking positively irritated, Page stepped away from his controls. The red light turned off and Dan watched as he walked closed to Dr. Bisognin. He said something to her, and she looked horrified for a few moments before she replied. By the looks of it, Page wasn't very impressed by her answer, because he looked more annoyed still as he spoke. The doctor looked down, visibly swallowed, and then nodded. She walked around the prime minister and back into the room to join Dan. She passed his table and picked up something from behind him –something metal, it sounded like- and then came back to stand in front of him. He looked down and saw that a tank and a gas mask were in her hands. He grimaced and started to pull on his restraints, hoping that any sort of resistance would get him out or do something.
Dr. Bisognin gave him a resigned look and turned the dial on the top of the tank, then put the mask over Dan's mouth and nose. He held his breath for as long as he could, but even if he passed out he would start breathing again, so once his lungs burned from lack of air he was forced to take a gulp of the gas. Within moments, he was unconscious again.
The next time Dan opened his eyes he was laying down again. However this time he wasn't restrained, and he was in one of those tanks like the ones they got Jack and the others out of. He opened it all by himself last time… he pushed on the lid. It didn't budge, and the effort made him dizzy. He was definitely nowhere near full strength. How much blood did they take? Through the red tint of the glass, Prime Minister Page and the doctor were standing in the room. Wires and tubes led from the bottom of Dan's tank to a machine that stood between them. Dan's breath shuttered, and Page looked over when he noticed that Dan was awake.
"Ah, welcome back," he said in a teasing tone.
"If you keep gassing me," Dan said breathlessly, "I'm going to go brain dead."
Page shrugged. "We've no doubt killed some brain cells already. No matter, this will work even if you couldn't remember your own name," he said. He put his hand on top of the machine. "This machine is hooked up to the air system in your tank. This test is one of the harder ones, which we figured would give us more data, as you're already so experienced with your mutation. The test is simple. Tell me, Hawk, what does fire need to thrive?"
"Something to burn," he replied testily.
Page tsked. "Wrong. It needs oxygen. By depleting the oxygen in your tank, little by little, we're hoping for one of two things. One, your mutation takes over and evolves so that you won't need oxygen and you'll survive. Then, your blood sample will be highly valuable, and you deny everything, forget the laws of physics," he said, "Second option, you die. You'll be out of my hair forever. I don't know which option I like more."
Dan could hardly believe it. Was this guy human? He didn't think of Dan as anymore than bacteria in a petri dish. Or maybe a lab rat, like the others. Also… Dan had the distinct feeling that he might die today. Page waved his hand at Dr. Bisognin. Without looking at Dan, she flipped a couple switches on the machine. The prime minister waved teasingly and walked out of the room. The doctor stayed; she probably had to take notes.
And it was all quite terrifying after that. Of the things Page said, it was true that fire needed oxygen. As his breath became more labored in his struggles to get air, it was like Dan could feel his temperature dropping. But that might have been his brain playing tricks on him while it was in the process of suffocating. These people thought of Dan and other mutants as a completely different species all together, when in reality they were just mutated humans. And humans needed oxygen whether they had fire powers or not.
Soon, when there was absolutely no oxygen left and Dan was hopelessly sucking in nothing, the tunnel vision started. He slumped forward, his forehead pressing against the glass as he slowly started to become numb. Then his eyes closed and everything was gone, but it only felt that way for a second. It was seemingly the next instant when the door to his tank was opening. Dan's body came back to life almost instantly, heat and all, as he sucked in a huge gulp of air and came up coughing. He spilled out of the tank and right onto someone.
It was a woman, and she was speaking very quickly in a language Dan didn't understand. Was he just out of it? No, it was definitely a different language, because a male voice replied in the same one. Then, in English, "Is he awake?"
Dan felt some gentle tapping against his cheek. He took another breath to try and find the energy to open his eyes. "Daniel? Can you hear me, please wake up," the woman said. The accent was familiar… Dr. Bisognin.
"Well, smack him if he doesn't come to!" said the male voice, "We don't have a lot of time."
No. "No," Dan said breathlessly, lifting his head, "I'm… here. I'm awake."
When he opened his eyes, he met the gaze of Dr. Bisognin. Her eyes were much warmer then they were the last time he saw her, but she still looked very troubled. "Oh, good. Can you walk?" she said.
Dan nodded and put his weight on his shaky legs. He probably couldn't walk very fast, because he felt so fucking weak, but if she and whoever the guy in the room was were helping him out of here than damn if he wasn't going to make himself move. "What's going on?" he asked, lifting his head a bit more.
The man, who was standing in the open door, replied. "We're getting you out of here, hopefully before anyone notices," he replied. It was Agent Chapman, from before. He wasn't complaining, but Dan was confused. They were just standing with Page and torturing him.
As if reading his mind, Dr. Bisognin piped up. "Not all of us agree with the laws, Daniel," she explained, "But it's hard to get out of MI5 because it's so secretive. Jim and I have been watching and helping the tests for months, but we just can't take it anymore. Even though it really is fascinating, it's torture! Jim's been through some of them-"
"More of the life story later, Marzia, the patrol is coming," Agent Chapman –Jim, Dan guessed— interrupted and waved them forward.
She gave Dan a little smile and hauled him forward towards Jim. He stumbled, but otherwise his knees didn't give out. "Listen, you need to know, you and your friends are heroes. The fact that you successfully broke in here and got those people out, that's amazing. You've inspired a number of agents to rebel," she continued.
Jim was in the front, leading them through an identical corridor to the one Dan got caught in. Hell, it might even be the same one. "If anyone found out, we'd be marked traitors," Jim added.
Dan frowned and pulled his strength together to stand up straight. Marzia's arm was still around him, and he left it there just in case he stumbled, but he was taller than as per usual. His legs still felt remarkably like jelly. "I get disagreeing on principle, but… why are you doing this if it's such a big risk?" he asked.
Jim looked over his shoulder and shrugged, grinning a little. "Queen and country?" he said. When they neared the end of the hall, he simply pulled an ID card from the hook on his belt and slid it through the scanner. He pushed the door open and they picked up the pace as they went up the stairs. With each step Dan's breathing became more normal, and by the time they got to the top of the stairs outside most of his strength was back. He took a deep breath of the cool air. It was dark, and that fucked him up a little. His internal clock was all over the place.
Dan quickly focused on his surroundings. They were in the parking lot, so originally they must have been in a different lab than Louise had him break into. Marzia pulled out a set of car keys and pressed the panic button. A grey car a few rows away beeped very loudly before she shut it off.
"That probably wasn't the best idea," Jim mumbled as they made their way towards the car.
"Sorry, habit," Marzia replied sheepishly and rushed over to the car and pulled open the driver's door.
Dan didn't know why he should trust these two, but for some reason he found himself getting into the back seat of Marzia's car anyway. He had two thoughts while the engine turned over. "Where are we going?" and, "We have to contact my team."
Jim's door was still open, and he was frozen. "It doesn't look like we're going anywhere," he said.
Dan turned to look out the back windshield, and saw that the guard at the gate was out of his hut. He was waving with both arms, and Dan could vaguely hear him shouting stop at them. The panic alarm on Marzia's car must have caught his attention, and it was obvious they were helping Dan escape. The guard looked troubled and he dove back into the hut, and then Jim appeared in Dan's periphery to chase him down. Dan didn't know what was happening but then there was an alarm blaring across the lot. They were caught, again.
Marzia whispered "Oh no," just as Dan climbed out of the car. If he wasn't at full strength by now, he would find out. Jim couldn't take down security by himself. But, Dan thought quickly, they probably didn't have to fight them at all.
Dan leaned into the open passenger's side door. "Drive towards the gate," he told Marzia. He cringed when he heard two gunshots over the blaring alarm. He ignored Marzia's confused and panicked expression, and ran to Jim, where the agent had knocked the guard unconscious. Dan wondered how he had gotten so close without being shot. "What do we do?" he asked, since he still wasn't really sure what going to happen now.
"I didn't catch him before he hit the alarm," Jim replied, and nodded towards the unconscious man on the floor, "It's generic, so no one will know exactly what it's for. But, the security office will have the source and they'll send some guards here at any moment."
Dan blinked. "Okay, great. So what do we do? We need to get out of the lot, can you lower the gate?" he asked quickly.
Jim went over to the computer. "The security system will have locked all of the external exits, but I can override it, I just need time," he said.
"Okay," Dan said, a grin growing on his face, "Buying time I can do."
Jim looked over his shoulder at Dan, his expression concerned. Dan simply winked and hopped out of the hut, then paused beside the gray car. Marzia had done what she was told and was waiting before the gate. Dan gave her thumbs up and went to stand between the car and the rest of the lot, wiggling his fingers as he concentrated his warmth. Doors on the side of the building burst open, and only three guards in shirts and ties hurried onto the scene; two women and a man, each with a gun.
Dan took a breath, felt heat crackling through his fingertips, and raised his arms as if he were surrendering. Only one of the female guards lowered her gun just a bit, but they all had a mixture of confusion on their faces. With another breath and tiny, candle-like flames igniting over his fingers Dan shifted his focus to the concrete they were standing on. He searched for ideas, because even though he said he could cover the distraction, he had no idea what to do.
Wait. There was a strip of asphalt snaking between Dan and the guards, no doubt covering a crack in the pavement. Concrete wasn't flammable, but asphalt totally was. He quickly weighed the options, ignoring the guards as they yelled at Dan to put his hands in the air. If he set it on fire, the fumes were pretty harmful and probably full of things that would cause health problems. But if he didn't, then he would be caught or shot and so would Jim and Marzia. Plus, with the shit that these people have already done to him, it will probably just even out their karma.
So. Fire it is.
Dan dropped to his knees, the barrels of the guards' guns following his move, and he lined up his palms on the asphalt. With another breath he lit up his hands, and then in moments the fire spread down the strip of black, just like when he cooked the enzyme. He couldn't quite make out what the guards were shouting, but soon Dan's flames were blocking most of their visage. It would be too dangerous to shoot blindly. He got back to his feet and tilted his head, watching the flames as black smoke filtered out of his nostrils. However he only dawdled for a second, because if this has proved anything it's that Dan is still human and inhaling asphalt fumes wasn't a good idea.
He turned back around to see how his compatriots were doing, and at the same time Jim came tumbling out of the guard's hut. There wasn't anything to run from, he just looked a little too out of control of his limbs while he hurried around. The gate was also open. "Come on, Hawk, we need to get out of here," he said.
Dan jogged over and climbed into the back seat while Jim slid into the front. As soon as both doors were shut Marzia pressed on the gas and sped them both out of the parking lot. And then, with a number of sirens blaring and the Thames building shrinking in the background, it felt like Dan could finally breath.