Disclaimer: I do not own the DC characters of Hawk and Dove, whom I loosely based my main characters on.
AN: Second update in under a week, go me. I'd now like to inform everyone that I have surpassed 50,000 words, which makes this story novel length. Like. Wow. I am so very proud. Thank you everyone for your continued support on this story, you're all amazing.
"So not only are you pyrokinetic, but you're also a pyromaniac," Jim said, turning in his seat to look at Dan.
He moved his head so he could look at Jim instead of out the window. "Yep," he replied simply. He took that moment to also glance at the car's clock. 23:48.
Frowning, Jim leaned over and muttered something to Marzia in that foreign language they had. It wasn't Spanish, because Dan took a bit of Spanish in school and even if he couldn't speak it he could pride himself on the fact that he could at least recognize it. So he asked. "What is that you're speaking?"
Jim leaned away, not sparing a glance at Dan. Dan narrowed his eyes a bit. So the MI5 agent had helped him escape, but Dan could still tell that Jim didn't quite trust him. He spoke to Marzia like parents of a two-year-old spelled out words so the kid didn't understand. He carried himself like a trained agent on a mission instead of just a man passionate about his beliefs on mutants. And that fact alone made Dan feel a little skeptical about his "queen and country" line back at the labs.
"It's Italian," Marzia replied, "I came to England to be a scientist."
"What kind of scientist are you?" Dan asked, his gaze flickering to Jim before going back again.
"I'm a biochemist," she said.
"Then you are much smarter than I ever hope to be," Dan commented.
Jim let out a huff. "We need a plan," he said. Marzia pulled over suddenly, and then Dan heard the sirens. Fire trucks with their lights and horns on full blast streaked by, heading the way their car came from. Dan watched them until they were out of sight, and then he noticed that they weren't being tailed by MI5. Even through a small fire (which might have grown, considering the trucks) they should have at least seen Marzia's license plate. "Daniel," Jim barked, causing Dan to spin around, "We need a plan."
"Don't call me that," he snapped back, "Hawk will do. You've already taken to that one."
Jim sighed. "Fine. We need a-"
"Plan, I know. You said. If you haven't noticed, Agent Chapman, I was held in a lab for god knows how long either unconscious or getting tortured. So I don't think it's fair that everything be up to me," Dan stated, his arms folded. The insides of his elbows ached from the needles but he wasn't backing down.
"You were unconscious for a day and half," Marzia added, her voice quiet. Well shit.
Jim worked his jaw, looking irritated. "I know all about what you've been through, alright? The prime minister wasn't lying when he said he put some of us through the tests to make us bond with the mutations. I lost colleagues," he said and finally turned again in his seat to look at Dan, "I'm one of the lucky ones. After I went through that I could not watch anyone else go through the same."
Dan's expression softened ever so slightly. Even though they obviously still didn't trust each other, Dan and Jim had something in common. However, the one thing that made them different was age. Jim had been through years of training, and quite literally Dan was still a kid. And his curiosity got the best of him. "How did you survive the tests?" he asked Jim.
"I suppose the stolen blood and mine mixed well," he replied, "It made me invulnerable."
Dan's eyebrows went up. "Like, indestructible? Oh my god, the guard did shoot you earlier, didn't he? But the bullets couldn't pierce your skin!" he said.
Jim nodded. "Just because I can't be physically hurt doesn't mean I don't feel the pain," he muttered.
"Okay, I'm glad you two are talking it out, but I have an idea. For the plan," Marzia said, glancing away from the road for just a moment.
Right, they needed one of those. "What is it?" Dan said.
Marzia took a breath. "Right, well, I'm already half way there because I didn't know where else to go. It's a bit of a ways, but I might have a friend who can help you contact your team. He used to work with Jim-"
"Marzia, no," Jim interrupted, already a step ahead. Annoyance flashed through Dan's chest. "He was discharged. They'll look for us there."
"How else are we going to get Hawk back to his team, just drive there?" Marzia sassed.
"No, MI5 has your license plate number," Jim said. Ah ha, Dan was right.
"Exactly," she said, "And Felix can help! He was discharged only because he was hurt in the field, you know that, but he would have found a way to quit if that didn't happen. He would not have dealt with all this agent experimentation nonsense."
Jim visibly swallowed. "Fine. Take us to Felix, then. We'll have to ditch your car very soon," he said.
"Who's Felix?" Dan piped up confusedly. He didn't like being out of the loop. He had gotten unused to it.
Marzia glanced at him through the rearview mirror. "He was an MI6 agent, and a bloody good one. He and I were sort of partners-" Jim snorted. Dan ignored him. "-for a while, he always liked to bring anything he needed to me. He was on a mission in Italy a couple years ago and got injured, so badly he would never be in shape to fight again. So he got discharged. But he kept a lot of MI6 tech without them noticing. Like I said, a good agent."
"He might be able to contact your base," Jim added.
Dan lit up. "How will he do that?"
"Not sure," Marzia replied, "But if it can be done, Felix can do it. He was London's finest."
Apparently this Felix lived out of the city now, because they were in the car for over an hour before they got anywhere. In that meantime Jim kept looking behind them for any suspicious activity, mostly making sure they weren't being followed. Dan supposed there was too much traffic for anyone to keep an eye on a nondescript gray car anyway. Jim also ended up tossing away his mobile phone, along with Marzia's. They could be tracked, he said, as they were standard issue from MI5. There hadn't been time to give the two of them a thank you in this whole mess, but Dan felt a surge of gratitude as those phones went out the window. They went through all of this to help him and the others like him. They couldn't be the only two who believed this was wrong, and that gave Dan hope that there was a chance.
Felix lived in a white townhouse. The only thing separating a stretch of grass in front of each attached unit was a black fence equally spaced between them. It looked very horror movie to Dan, but he followed the other two up the stairs and to the door. Marzia knocked. Moments later a man answered door. He had a square-ish face and sandy blonde hair. He didn't even look surprised. "Felix," Marzia said, "This must look odd, but I-"
"I figured that madness at the Thames had something to do with you. All over the news," he replied with a small grin. His English was accented as well, but differently than hers was. "Can you be tracked?"
"Only by the license plate on my car. But it'll take some time before anyone knows to look for it," she said.
Felix nodded. His eyes fell on Dan then, and he gave him a once over. Dan immediately felt judged and out of place in his combat suit, which was now wrinkled from his squirming and rolling the sleeves up. "I was thinking about moving anyway. Come in," he said, nodding his head and stepping out of the way. Marzia went in first, then Dan, and then Jim.
"Chapman," Felix greeted breezily.
"Shellberg," Jim replied tersely.
Felix shut the door and showed them into a sitting room. Dan noticed that he had a considerably bad limp. Marzia perched on the sofa, as if ready to get up and go at a moment's notice, while Jim opted to just lean against a wall with his arms crossed. Dan wandered into the room and peered at things curiously as he did, trying to garner as much information as he could about their host. He had hooks on the wall with medals hanging from them, granting him things like honor and good services to England. Also, Dan had been thinking of his name wrong. It wasn't Shellberg, like it sounded, but Kjellberg. Like his accent suggested, Felix definitely wasn't English. Deciding to just put this question on hold, Dan sat on the sofa a distance away from Marzia, hoping not to get anything on Felix's furniture.
Felix sat in an armchair. "Right. So I'm assuming the fire was your doing?" he asked, directing his gaze at Dan.
He nodded. "Yes, that was me. I'm pyrokinetic," he said.
"Neat. Wish I could do something cool. I can kick a guy through a window but basic math eludes me. Ask Marzia about that one," he said, jabbing his finger in the doctor's direction.
Her cheeks turned pink. "It wasn't all that horrible," she muttered.
"Can we get to the point please?" Jim added snappily, "Dan's a mutant, part of a whole team of them stuck up in the hills somewhere. They've been doing a good job of keeping themselves away from MI5's experiments, because they're totally barbaric, and because of that Dan and two others came to try and throw a wrench in it. He was caught."
"Actually there were four others," Dan said, "Two with me, two others upstairs to put a virus in the computer system so we could control it remotely."
Felix looked impressed. "Wow. You're like your own little spy agency. Who's running that place?" he said.
Dan swallowed. "I am," he replied, "With my partner. Phil."
"Impressive," he commented.
Dan shrugged. "We need to put a stop to the mutant hunts and the experiments. They're killing us, and apparently MI5 agents as well. We thought we could at least slow it down by destroying their data and releasing the mutants they had in custody," he explained.
"And you were successful?" Felix asked, setting his chin on his hands, "Apart from them catching you, of course."
Dan looked down at his lap where his hands were shaking. "I don't know. I was kept asleep for a day and half with no contact with my team. No one's heard anything about them, so I can only assume they got back safely," he said.
"So that's why you're here. You need to contact them," Felix said.
Marzia shifted. "You're our only hope at this point. We can't drive to the base with my car, as it would give them away. And obviously we can't keep Dan here, he has a team to run, and Jim and I want to help however we can," she said.
There was a pause as Felix mulled it over. The entire time he didn't look any less than amused. "Alright, I can help," he replied simply. Dan brightened, a smile sliding onto his face. Marzia dissolved into thank yous, but Felix just shook his head. "Human experimentation is illegal, mutant or not. Not matter what MI5 thinks they're doing; their position is law enforcement. And they need to be put back in place," he continued, "I have all the equipment upstairs. I can trace any sort of radio waves out there until we find your frequency."
"How will we know?" Dan asked.
"The frequency will have an origin location. I'm assuming you know where your base is?" Felix asked him.
He pursed his lips and tried not to look like he was lying when he nodded. Even though Dan had now left the facility several times, he never actually asked exactly where it is. Hopefully he'll be able to figure it out, because this was his only hope and he didn't want to deter Felix from trying.
"Okay," said Felix with a decisive nod, "Let's-" He was cut off by a loud pounding at the door. Everyone froze for a split second before springing into action. Jim pulled a gun from who-knows-where and clicked the safety off. Dan jumped to his feet to stand between Marzia and the door, and Felix dove for the handle. He waved his hand at Dan, and he took that to mean he should shift out of view. He put his hand gently on Marzia's arm and walked backwards into the sitting room, where they joined Jim and waited. Felix opened the door.
Dan's heart leapt into his throat when he heard the safety of another gun clicking off. "Where's Dan Howell?" a voice demanded. A female voice, low and sort of gruff. It sounded sort of… fake? Jim spun around and shook his head, but Dan ignored him and skidded into view of the door. He wasn't about to let anyone get shot over him.
The woman was wearing sunglasses, and her hair was tied back. She had a handgun pointed at Felix's chest, whose hands were in the air. His expression was impassive as she glanced over his shoulder at Dan. Dan stole himself. The woman, assumedly an agent from the way she dressed, spoke again. "You're coming with me," she said.
"Like hell," Jim said, who was suddenly standing a few steps behind him. Dan turned around and held up his hand, telling Jim to stop. With his jaw tight, he lowered his gun and straightened from his ready position. Where this woman came from, Dan didn't know. He must not have been perceptive enough to notice someone following them. Honestly, now he was scared. He didn't want to go back alone after being so close to tasting freedom and getting back to Phil…well, getting back to everyone.
So Dan walked right over to her. She pocketed the gun and roughly took Dan's arm, yanking him out the door. Then she pulled it shut herself and tugged him down the stairs towards a black car parked behind Marzia's. The windows were tinted black.
"I hope you know this is stupid. I know I'm Page's favorite but there isn't much more data he can get from me," Dan snapped at the woman. He wondered what the other three were going to do about this- if they were going to do anything at all. The woman shoved him into the backseat and climbed in the driver's side. While Dan got his bearings, and sat up, the woman removed her sunglasses. She dropped them somewhere, bent over, and let out a shuttered sob.
Dan's eyes widened. "Um," he said loudly.
The woman waved her hand, which he now saw had cherry red nail polish. "I'm really happy you're okay, Dan, but I need a minute. I've been a massive ball of anxiety for two days," she wheezed through her tears.
His jaw fell open. She called him Dan at the door, her clothes didn't fit right, and now her hair was no longer up and it curled around her shoulders. "Zoe?"
When she turned, it was in fact Zoe Sugg. She gave Dan a watery smile. "Are you okay? This entire thing has been driving me crazy, I've been trying to get you out," she said.
Dan's mouth opened and closed like a fish for several moments. "Where did you come from? Why are you dressed like this?" he asked quickly.
"Bit of a long story, but here we go," Zoe said, turning properly in her seat to look at Dan, "Well, after you got caught, Phil nearly refused to leave. We told him he would be caught too and he just didn't care, Dan, he was like a whole other person when he couldn't hear you anymore. But we had to get Jack, Tanya, and Troye back to the base because they weren't doing well and that got Phil to leave. They're okay," she added at Dan's curious expression, "Dodie is too, and she's been a real trooper. Anyway, they needed some proper fluids and rest. Tanya needed a blood transfusion, but luckily Emma was a match. Marcus drove them all back, and I stayed. I just morphed into someone random in my head, probably an extra from a soap opera, to try and get you out. It's been nearly two days, and I had no idea how to find you or get you out. But it was all silly anyway, because you got yourself out! We should have had more faith in you."
"How's Phil?" Dan asked the first question on his mind, as he could update her on the situation at any moment. He just needed to know that Phil was all right.
Zoe pursed her lips. "Okay. He says he's okay. But he's been, pardon my word choice, very frosty since he had to leave you. He only really talks to PJ and Louise, and me, since I've been trying to get you back," she explained.
Dan's eyes once again got wide. Of course she still had a comm! "You have communication! We don't need Felix's equipment at all, this is brilliant!" he gushed, launching up and out of the car.
Zoe was right at his heels. "Dan, wait, where are you going? Didn't I just rescue you?" she asked, exasperation evident.
Dan turned halfway up the front walk. "No, no, you don't understand. They rescued me," he said, pointing over his shoulder at the house, "This place belongs to a former MI6 agent who's apparently a genius, but I haven't seen him do much. An MI5 agent and a scientist got me out of the labs, telling me that they don't agree with their orders. Oh, Zoe, I have so much to tell you." When Dan paused, he noticed she had gone white. "What?"
She simply pointed. Dan spun around and found two guns pointed at them, but they weren't the simple handguns like Jim carried. They were full on assault rifles. Jim and Felix stood in the doorway, Kevlar vests protecting their vital organs. Did Felix have an entire armory in his house? Dan immediately put up his hand between them, heat pooling in his palm on reflex, while the other arm stretched in front of Zoe protectively. "Whoa," he said.
"We went through hell to get you here, you're not leaving," Jim said, still poised on the spot and peering at them down the barrel of is gun.
"Okay, listen, this isn't what it looks like," Dan said, "This is Zoe, one of my teammates from the break-in. She's been trying to do what you did ever since, with obviously less resources. She has a failsafe way to talk to the others."
Jim lifted his head, but didn't lower his gun. He spared Felix a glance. "How do you know?" he asked slowly.
Dan dropped his hand, giving him an irritated look. "I think I'd know one of my best friends when I see her. Plus, I just saw her shape-shift. Now drop the guns and let us in so we can all catch up on the situation," he said firmly.
Another glance was exchanged between the agents. Then they simultaneously lowered their weapons and stepped out of the way. "Yes sir," Jim said, but Dan could hear the edge in his voice. He didn't know if Jim was just irritable because he didn't want to be bossed around or if he was mocking him. Either way, it worked.
Taking Zoe's hand, Dan led her up the stairs and into Felix's house. He walked right to the sitting room he had so quickly run out of, startling Marzia who was standing by the window. She must have been watching through the blinds. They both sat down on the sofa and Zoe turned to him sharply. "So they got you out of the labs? What were you doing there, were they experimenting on you?" she asked. Felix and Jim came into the room then, still wearing their vests but their guns were put away somewhere.
Dan only spared them a glance and nodded at Zoe. "Yes. I'll tell you everything, but I need to make sure these guys are in the loop. They have bigger guns than you," he said.
She nodded and whispered, "It isn't even loaded. I would never trust myself."
Dan cracked a smile. "Quickly. The blonde one is Agent Felix Kjellberg and the other one is Agent Jim Chapman. She's Dr. Marzia Bisognin," he clarified with a nod and then turned himself towards the others. "Listen. I appreciate everything that you could have done for me, Felix, but Zoe still has a comm. We can contact the team that way, and she's seemed to have commandeered a car," he said and turned to her, "By the way, where did you learn how to steal a car?"
Zoe shrugged. "You figure it out when you need to," she muttered.
"Change that 'we' to an 'us'," Jim added, "Where are we going to go, back to Page? No, we helped you escape, and we're going to get you back."
Dan gave him a look. "Why? 'Queen and country' isn't an answer, Chapman, I want your real answer. And yours," he added to Marzia, "You don't agree with the experiments. Yes, they're lethal and cruel. But these are amazing lengths. Like, assault rifles? What do you hope to accomplish?"
Marzia piped up. "Something better. If I discovered anything while working in those labs, it's that mutated blood is just that. Mutated from that of a human. Genetic anomalies that cause superhuman abilities are becoming less and less rare, and I'd like to find out more. But not in the way Page wanted to do it. That's dangerous."
"And I'm one of you now. Unnaturally," Jim said bitterly, "Plus, you broke into a government spy agency and managed to erase data and release test subjects. That takes guts and brains. If you and your team have guts, brains, and training to try and create a better life for mutants, then people are going to rally behind you. Because for every Prime Minister Page there's four of me. Or you. Or however you want to think of it."
Dan was speechless. For the first time he realized that saving those people –Jack, Tanya, and Troye Zoe called them- wasn't all they did. They inspired a following and a want for equality, which is exactly what happened with the resistance when all of this mayhem first started.
And suddenly Dan was feeling overwhelmed. He loved Zoe, but he needed his partner back. "Er," he piped up, glancing around, "Zoe and I are going to talk to the team now. Felix, can we use your kitchen?"
Felix nodded. "It's at the end of the hall on the left. Help yourself to the food, you must be starving," he said. Dan was about to reply, but then he realized that he was in fact starving. He supposed it must have been about two days since he's eaten properly. That's never happened before.
So Dan stood and took Zoe's hand, hauling them both from the sofa. They walked past the others and into the kitchen. Once there, Dan's stomach gave an uncomfortable growl. Zoe dropped his hand and stood on her toes to look through cupboard. She produced a box of crackers and handed it over to Dan. "We can eat something more substantial once we talk to the others," she said.
He reached into the box and broke open a package. He stuck a cracker in his mouth and nodded once. "Alright, let's get on with it," he said, waving in her general direction. He tried to sound nonchalant, but really he was busting at the seams with excitement thinking about hearing from everyone.
Zoe smiled at him knowingly. "I've been on radio silence since this morning. They're all going to freak out," she said. She reached up and pressed a finger to the comm in her ear. "Louise? I'm here- yes! I'm okay. Yeah, I have time, but hang on," she said. She waved her hand at Dan, who was still crunching on crackers, and he walked over to stand beside her. She pulled the comm from her ear and held it up in between them. Dan leaned his head in closer so he could try and hear. "Alright, go on," Zoe said.
"We have a problem. Dan's tracker went dead this afternoon around three, and it hasn't been online again since. He was still in the lab then, but since then he could have been moved and we would have no idea," Louise said. Dan could hear her just barely if he didn't eat anything at the same time.
Zoe looked up at him, confusion written on her face. He nodded. "Must have been the shock they gave me. Couldn't even tell that it was afternoon, I was awake for like an hour before they put me under again," he said.
"They shocked you?" Zoe asked.
"Yeah. Like I said, tell you later," he promised, looking and feeling oddly unconcerned.
"Wait!" Louise shrieked through the comm, "Is that Dan?"
"Yes! Louise, I have a lot to tell you," Zoe said, glancing up at Dan with a smile. He just stuck another cracker in his mouth.
Louise gasped. "Dan, we've been worried sick! You have to tell us where you are; we'll come get you right now!" she said quickly, and then there was shuffling on her line. Dan waited patiently for her to come back and ask more questions, because he knew she would, but another voice spoke that made his heart skip.
"Dan, are you there, are you okay?"
Dan nearly dropped the box of crackers in excitement. "Phil!"
"Oh, thank god," Phil said, sounding relieved. Dan could just picture his shoulders slumping with released tension. "I've been going mad without you, and it's only been two days! Are you okay, what did they do to you?"
"Phil, take a breath. I'm okay now. Once we get back I'll tell you all that happened and what I found out," Dan replied slowly.
There was a pause. "You have information?" asked Louise, who must have been shoved out of the way by Phil.
"Oh yeah," Dan drawled, "I'll explain everything. Bring up Zoe's tracker and come to get us as soon as you can."
"Will do. Look out for a car at your location in a few hours," Louise replied.
Zoe cleared her throat. "What about the car I stole from the Thames building?" she asked sheepishly.
Dan pursed his lips. They couldn't take it with them, who knew what kind of traceable tech was in there. "I'll ask Felix to take care of it. I'm sure he has a way," he said decidedly.
She nodded. "Thank you, Louise," Zoe sighed, looking one hundred percent better knowing she was going home. That's an odd idea, Dan thought suddenly. Home.
"See you soon," Phil added, his voice laced with excitement. Dan understood the sentiment.
"Yeah," said Dan, a small smile growing on his face, "See you soon."
Just like she promised, Louise had a car pick them up from Felix's in under four hours. And that was amazing. Dan had run outside, hoping it was Phil driving, but it turned out to be just Marcus inside. Zoe had thrown herself at him, saying how happy she was to see him. Dan said he was glad too, but that was mostly a mask to hide his disappointment that it wasn't Phil. He figured his friends picked up on that, but no matter. The original plan was to just take Dan and Zoe back, but Jim convinced them to let him come too. He used the argument that he was technically mutant now, and didn't they have a scientist who would want to ask questions? They did. Didn't they want to be trained by someone who actually knew a thing or two about combat? They did. They let him come. Marzia stayed behind with Felix, and they left Zoe's comm so they could contact her. She told them she and Felix could use their equipment to spy further on MI5 and follow up on their plans. The extra car would be taken of, somehow.
Not even fifteen minutes into the journey, Dan and Zoe fell asleep on each other. On top of being starving (Felix made them pasta in the four hour downtime and they had scarfed that down) they were also exhausted, Dan especially. He fell asleep to Jim and Marcus chatting, and after that it was weird. He was vaguely aware of being shaken awake and helped out of the car, up some stairs, and inside. When he woke up properly, he was lying in a hospital bed. Thoughts of the lab flooded his brain and he sat bolt upright. He didn't remember ever arriving back at the facility.
There was something attached to his forefinger and without thinking he ripped it off. It didn't hurt and there was no leaking. Thankfully there were no more needles; it was just a heart monitor. The machine started to beep like crazy at being unattached. When Dan could take in his surroundings, he could see that he was only in the infirmary.
"Dan!" He turned his head. Phil had shot up from his chair in the corner and moved to stand beside Dan's bed. He brightened instantly. He was home.
"Hey," Dan said, smiling.
Phil sat on the edge of the bed after he turned off the heart monitor so it would stop beeping so aggressively. Actually, he just unplugged it. "How are you feeling? You came in here pale as a ghost," he said, "Also, drink that water. Louise said I had to make you."
"I don't even remember getting here. I fell asleep on the way," Dan replied, picking up the bottle of water from his bedside table and downing half of it in one go, "Oh. And I'm fine. Better now."
He smiled and reached for Dan's hand, clasping it in both his own. Not even a puff of steam rose between them. "Good. Now I don't want to overwhelm you since you just woke up, but you really need to tell Louise and the team what happened to you. Oh, and you've been asleep for twelve hours," he said.
Dan's eyes widened. "Wow. Guess I needed that," he chuckled lightly, "But I will. Has she been talking to Jim? Have you met him?"
Phil nodded. "Yep. I sort of asked him all my questions first. Louise won't let him leave her side, but he's been begging to see Tanya," he said.
"Oh," comprehension dawned on Dan's face, "I should talk to her, and the other two. I have a lot of questions."
"They'll be happy to answer. Tanya and Troye still have to rest, but Jack is out and about. He's taken a liking to one of the trainees, it's quite funny," he said.
Dan smiled again, but even though he did look content, there was something in Phil's expression that told him he wasn't all that happy. "Phil, are you okay?" he asked cautiously.
Phil frowned and looked down, fidgeting slightly. "I'm okay, but…" he gulped and looked back at Dan, "Why did you do it?"
He knew immediately what Phil meant. "I had to do it, Phil. It was either me, or it was me and Jack, and I wasn't going to let that happen. Either way I was fucked," he said.
"You should have told me as soon as you realized what was going to happen. We could have gone through it together," Phil told him.
Dan shook his head, the thought of Phil going through any one of those lab tests made him feel sick. He pulled his hand out of Phil's grasp so he could push his greasy hair off his forehead. "And leave Dodie by herself with three rescues who were out of sorts? Absolutely not," he retorted.
"You promised me, Dan, that we would be a team. We should make every decision together-"
"I wasn't about to let you be experimented on," Dan interrupted firmly.
"I had to let it happen to you!" Phil countered, his voice rising, "Think about where that put me, Dan. I was forced to leave you in the hands of the enemy because there were people to save. That part I understood, but it killed me. And then here I was, alone, without knowing what they were doing to you or if I would ever even get to see you again! I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, because all I could think about was you." He paused, and Dan's mouth was agape. "I didn't sleep until we talked yesterday. That's why I wasn't there when you got picked up; they left me because I fell asleep. Since I finally could because I knew you were safe. And I knew you were coming back to me."
Dan just blinked at him, his mind swirling. Phil was right. He had been in the exact position that Dan wanted to avoid by getting caught. "Phil-"
He plowed on. "Why did you have to be so damn heroic, Dan? If you didn't make it, I don't know what I would have done! You have to promise me again that you won't leave me-"
"Jesus Christ," Dan muttered under Phil's voice. He grabbed the collar of Phil's shirt with both hands and yanked him in, pressing their mouths together and effectively cutting off the other's rambling. Phil was stunned for just a moment, then one of his hands slid up to rest gently on the back of Dan's neck.
He didn't know for how long they kissed, but too soon they had to come up for air. "I'm sorry," Dan whispered, his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against Phil's, "And I promise."