Chapter Text
Dean wakes up to static in his headset, the earpiece buzzing and popping. He takes stock of his injuries as the words crackling over the line slowly register to his addled brain.
“Soter, come in.” The voice is panicked, barely contained hysteria. “Please, please,” the voice whispers, misery in each word. “I can’t find your signal, I can’t find it…. You’re not on my maps, you’re not anywhere, please... Dean ,”
“Hey,” Dean coughs, blood drips down his chin. “Don’t call me that.”
“Fuck, fuck.” Helios practically sobs over the line, “Thank fuck, where are you? Why aren’t you showing up on my system? I…can’t track you, I can barely hear you.” The sound of his fingers flying over what Dean always assumes is a few hundred keyboards fills the earpiece.
“I... I don’t know. I don’t know where I am. I got… captured. I… I’m not healing. None of my powers are… Everything's muted.”
The silence that follows Dean’s statement is shocking. The line crackles over dead air and Dean can just picture Helios staring, unseeing, at the bay of monitors and hacked surveillance camera feeds that make up the command center of his little setup. At least, that’s what Dean’s picturing, he’s never actually met the guy, after all. No, he’s only had that beautiful voice to fuel his often, rather conflicting fantasies about the man who’s always watching out for him.
“What do you mean you’re not healing?” The momentary silence vanishes as Helios picks up clattering against the keys with renewed fervor.
“I… I’m just not,” Dean groans and the world blurs, pain whites out his vision and a memory surges to the surface. Helios’ voice asking how he feels, promising to find him, fades away under the breath of something darker, something more sinister.
“How does it feel?” The disembodied voice echoes around Dean’s head, bouncing; bouncing from one wall to the other and back again. He can almost envision the soundwaves, colliding mid-air, ripples distorting against one another until the words vibrate into dissonance. The resulting sound makes all the hair on Dean’s body stand on end. “How does it feel to be prey? Quite the change from the usual role you play as the Super in these sorts of scenarios. The Council certainly does love when their heroes make an entrance don’t they? But what happens after, hum? Where are they now? Who is looking out for the little Super caught up in something much larger than their powers can manage? So many wonderful questions, Soter, yet so many missing answers.”
Dean struggles against whatever strange binding is keeping him tied to the pole behind him but it burns. He can feel the grating sting through the special synthetic compounds of his suit: his wrists, ankles, around his neck and thighs; it’s hard to breathe. Dean’s not sure what this guy's motive is, but he seems to have some sort of vendetta against The Council. Dean can’t blame it, really. The council kinda sucks, a faceless bureaucratic conglomerate of individuals sending Supers out on missions, taking the credit for keeping the world ‘safe’ all from the sanctity of their desks. It works, sometimes. Supers save the day, The Council runs clean up and helps protect the Super’s identities. It’s a system, and it works, but nothing's perfect. Dean grits his teeth.
“There, there.” The voice coos and the distortion makes Dean’s eyes cross. Pain blossoms in his inner ear and he dips his chin, trying to bring his shoulders up to muffle some of the noise. The thing around his neck constricts, biting into his flesh and he jerks back gasping for air.
“Don't struggle, Soter,” the voice says. Closer than before, softer yet, but just as disorientating. “It will only make things worse in the long run.”
If Dean can get this guy monologuing, and he seems the type to enjoy the sound of his own voice—no matter the strange effect it seems to have on Dean’s senses—it might buy him enough time to break free.
“Oh yeah?” Dean croaks, his voice is raw and weak from whatever’s choking him, his arms flex but his super strength has no effect. The bonds around his wrists constrict, curling tighter. “How so?”
“I think it’s quite humorous you chose an alias that is, in all ways and means, supposed to be the personification of safety, preservation, deliverance from harm? That you named yourself after some ancient God?” The entity laughs, it’s a broken distorted thing that again triggers something in Dean’s memory. A fleeting feeling, he can’t hold onto it and it’s gone before Dean can make any sense of it. “Hardly. You are reckless. Thoughtless. And you are getting in my way. Just who are you saving, Soter? With your speed and strength, the healing and super senses? All these powers that you so cling to? Who are you helping? Certainly not me, not him...”
Okay, maybe this was a bad idea. Dean’s vision swims, the dimly lit warehouse he’s in blurs along its edges, his vision sways, doubling over itself and refuses to focus. Something is seriously wrong. He’s dizzy. His mouth floods with saliva as the urge to vomit comes upon him fast.
“But, as I said, those worries will all soon be a thing of the past. I’ve got to do this, to change the equation. It all has to happen in order, I’ve seen the end, the end of… well, everything. It’s beautiful, really, but not what I want. You see, I’m going to change it, and you’re the key to everything.”
Whatever this guy says next is lost under the sound of Dean’s last meal coming up and splattering all over the concrete. His boots are covered in what looks like chili, but Dean’s sure he had shawarma for lunch.
Helios is going to kill him—if this guy doesn’t do it first—he always gets so pissy when Dean’s suit comes back damaged. ‘ The suit can’t heal itself, Dean, not like you can. You need to be more careful! You’re not Han Solo, you can’t always shoot first!”
“Shhh, shhh. There we go, just breathe.” A hand cups his jaw and lifts Dean’s head, pulling him from his thoughts. “Stay with me now.” Dark void like eyes flash in the low light and Dean can’t look away. There is something about them, something familiar that pricks at the back of Dean’s mind.
“There you are. I need you to stay conscious, need your heart to keep going crazy, keep him looking for you….” The voice fades away and for a moment Dean can’t hear anything: not his commlink, not even his own thoughts. He strains to hear the familiar, comforting voice of Helios in his headset. Craves his soothing snark during times like these. But there’s nothing, and then there is only pain.
Dean gasps for breath, his eyes unfocused, head spinning. His hands spasm where they are tied above his head, reaching for and grasping at nothing. Pain lances through his ribs and blood gushes down his side, soaking him in sticky warmth. “It was easier than I thought to get you here, to capture you. The hard part was, well... The hard part is… you’ll see; if you survive. I hope you survive Soter. If he can save you he can save us all...”
Unable to move, Dean’s body sags, pain burns along his nerve endings and he realizes he’s really not healing. It’s never been like this before. He can anticipate danger, a sixth sense, tingling, in the back of his mind. A prickle along his skin, guiding him to where he needs to be, who he needs to help. Along with his super strength, speed, healing, and Helios watching his back, his eyes in the literal sky, Dean had thought… he hoped they were helping. That they are helping, but now….
“Stop. Stop,” He breaths, but he’s not actually sure any sound comes out of his mouth. The pain in his side becomes sharp and grating. He can feel his ribs jerking in his chest as the serrated edge of the blade drags back out of his body.
“I can’t, I am sorry. Things have to change. You have to know there are more dangerous monsters in the dark than me. I am just the beginning, you have to be ready. You both have to be ready.”
Behind his mask, Dean always thought he was safe; that these powers he’d been gifted meant he was different, better...that his life had a mission, a purpose.
“Pay attention Soter. I’m helping you.”
“C–coulda fooled me,” Dean grinds out passed his teeth. His mouth tastes like blood; tingy with copper and uncomfortably hot.
The voice sighs, tired and frustrated, like Dean’s the one not making sense. Like Dean’s the psycho who’s got him strung up and poked through like a pin-cushion. The blade glints in the light before it slashes across Dean’s face. The pain is fleeting compared to the wound in his side, which, much to Dean’s dismay, still isn’t healing.
“You could be so much more.” The blade bites into his bicep, across his right thigh, deep enough that his leg goes instantly numb. “You need to be more.”
Normally, Dean likes knives––he’s getting really good at throwing them, even if he believes in nonlethal interference in criminal activity. But right now, this knife, Dean hates it. “You are the answer, and he is holding you back. This is the only way. You must overcome your weaknesses. I’m going to help you do just that.”
“Really? You got a funny way of showing it.”
“This isn’t about you, Soter. It’s so much bigger.”
“Really? C–considering how you’ve got me trussed up so pretty here… I figured I–I was special.”
“Oh, but you are!” The voice ripples, dancing back and forth in short pulses, one word at a time crashing into Dean’s ears with a burst of sound so loud that it makes him nauseous. “You’ll see.”
Pain spreads up his spine and he pulls his eyes open long enough to scream up at the rafters. After that, there’s nothing.
“I’ll find you, I’ll find you.” Helios’ voice is back in his ear, more strained than ever. Dean grins before the pain has him sucking a breath through his teeth. That voice, back in his ear, right where it belongs. It soothes Dean, knowing Helios is out there, watching over for him. “I promise, Dean. Come back. Say something, please. Dean .”
“Hey,” Dean wheezes, the grin fighting its way back onto his face “I told you not to call me that,” He pants, “I… I’m not sure, where I am. I think…. I blacked out.” Dean tries to get to his feet but he’s dizzy and light headed. Moving hurts, like … a lot, so he decides against it for now.. “It might be from blood loss.”
“Blood loss?” Helios grunts in frustration and something begins to beep over the commlink. A sound like that would normally aggravate Dean’s hearing but this is no more than a minor annoyance. Something is very wrong with him.
“Yeah, got cut up pretty bad. Lost signal, couldn’t hear you.” Dean drags himself upright, from where he’s slumped on the floor. He pulls the frayed strands regular old rope from around his wrists and neck. Was this all that was restraining him? This basic piece of rope kept his strength in check? Dean puffs out a breath wincing as his side strains.
“I… I heard everything. Everything, you couldn’t hear me? Damn it.” Helios curses and Dean smiles. He doesn’t curse often. Usually, he’s really composed. Tonight must be special.
“Hey watch your mouth,” Dean jokes, but the effort it takes to laugh is just too much. His head hurts and gently he prods at the back of it, a bloody lump throbs along his crown.
“De–Soter…”
“Helios,” Dean says just as somberly. There is so much there between them, so much Dean doesn’t want to give up on just yet. It’s heavy, and even though they’ve never met face to face, Helios has been with Dean during his darkest time. He means so much more to Dean than what The Council has him listed as: Super Support and if this is his last moment, if he never gets out of this shitty warehouse Dean needs to tell him….
“I GOT YOU!”
Dean flinches at the loud sound and then hisses out in pain, a hand flying to cup the wound on his ribs. “You... You got me?” The edges of his vision are going fuzzy again, blurry and dark.
“I’m coming for you,” Helios says and Dean opens his mouth to argue. Helios never leaves his lab; he’s not a Super. He doesn’t have powers, he’s vulnerable.
Dean’s always feels torn whenever he pictured Helios, it’s really hard to control his fantasies when all he has to go on is that gravel rough, melted chocolate voice purring into his headset all the time. Dean’s tried to keep himself in check tried to remember that Helios is his Support, and it’s completely inappropriate for Dean to be having vivid sexy computer hacker-vigilante meets Q from James Bond, fantasies about him.
At this point he’s worked really hard to draw up the visage of an overweight cave dweller, hunched over a bay of glowing monitors, surrounded by empty energy drink cans and food scraps; isolated in some dark, dingy basement. It works, most days.
The only thing that keeps Dean from really believing the latter stereotype is Helios’ deep, beautiful voice, his unending snark and the way he holds Dean’s attention across any of the often long rambling topics they chat about on stakeouts.
“Hold on, Dean.”
“Hey…” Dean breathes as the world goes black.