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“Miss Grant?”
The voice was low, breathless, barely audible over the commotion in the background. Cat’s stomach, already in knots, dropped to the floor.
“We lost him.”
She found the urge to scream and hang up. That wasn’t going to do her—or Winn—any good.
“What do you mean, you lost him?” she asked thinly.
“My men missed their check-in. They were ambushed outside of Kara’s,” Kevin, the head of security she’d hired to subtly watch Winn once his father’s escape had exploded over the news, explained. “His anklet went dark an hour ago. His phone has been turned off. His car is still in her parking lot. He’s nowhere to be found.”
Cat pressed a hand to her mouth for a brief moment in an attempt to calm herself. She needed Kevin. She couldn’t do this alone. “You swore to me this wouldn’t happen.”
“No, I promised you we’d do our best. James and Christian were our best.”
“Were?” Cat asked, even though she felt like she didn’t want to know the answer.
“Unfortunately, ma’am.” After a pause, Kevin added, “If this really is Toyman, he’s not holding back.”
“Well, then, you need to find my s—Winn. Right now!”
“We’re trying, ma’am. I’ll spare you the details but the whole department is hard at work, tracking him down.”
“Keep me updated.”
Cat ended the call, then immediately stepped onto her second-floor balcony, pulling her robe tight around her.
“Supergirl!” she called, hoping the rumors about the hero’s enhanced hearing were true.
Winn came to with a jolt. His head was spinning, his thoughts disjoint and unrelated. Oh, and thinking hurt. Like someone was stabbing an ice pick through his temple… And he was nauseous.
The hell?
He remembered Kara checking out the Slingschott Factory, him going to her apartment to check on her, her comforting him, and… he groaned aloud. The kiss. He’d been so stupid. Let himself go, given into his wants.
And look what happened.
Winn let his head fall against his chest. Wait, fall? He quickly took stock of his situation around his pounding head. He was sitting upright, in a wood chair (splinters were digging into his forearms), wrists tied behind his back (fingers going numb).
“Don’t be scared.”
Winn snapped upright. His vision was blurry, but he was still able to lock onto a familiar shape in front of him.
“Nonononono,” he gasped, tugging at his bonds and only succeeding in driving the splinters further into his arm and nearly wrenching his shoulders from their sockets. The movement kicked his nausea into high gear and he almost found himself staring at his… what was it, yesterday’s lunch? He couldn’t remember eating dinner last night… tonight? How long had he been out?
Against his better judgement, he stilled, pleading for his last meal to stay down. And it did, until a hand grasped his chin and jerked his head upward.
It felt like marbles were rolling around in his head, pulling his stomach with them, and Winn only barely got his face out of his dad’s grasp before he retched over the side of the chair. A small part of him wondered why he did that—moved so he wouldn’t vomit on his dad—but he couldn’t spare it much time before he was heaving again… and again.
“The hell di’ you do to me?” he gasped between bouts.
“It’s just chloroform. It’ll wear off.”
A hand was on his back, rubbing circles. Winn jerked away from that as well. Vomited again.
The hand returned, gripping tighter, not comforting in the slightest bit.
“Winn, breathe.”
He didn’t want to, just to be contrary, but he had to.
Eventually, his breaths got less and less shaky but his father’s hand didn’t loosen in the slightest. A bottle of water was put by his lips. He didn’t want to drink that either, but pressure forced water up the neck, into his mouth, and he was forced to drink some to avoid suffocating. He was maybe only 45% successful.
He choked, coughed, which was horrendous to do in his current situation. The bottle disappeared, the hand still didn’t. It beat lightly on his back, not doing any good but not making it worse either, until Winn managed to catch a breath.
“Better?” his father asked.
“No,” Winn ground out. Good news, his nausea had subsided. Bad news, his throat was utterly destroyed by the trauma it had just been through, and talking felt like knives scraping along it. Still, he forced out a gravelly, “What do you want?”
“What I’ve wanted to for over a decade. To be your father again.”
“Too late.”
His father didn’t seem to listen. He pulled away from Winn and began pacing the room.
“He took everything from me. And now it’s time to make him pay.”
“Make who pay?”
“Chester Dunholtz.”
It took Winn’s addled brain a minute to place the name. “Your old boss?” Anger coursed through his veins and he yanked again at his bonds. “This is what all this is about?”
None of this was about him, not really, and he couldn’t explain why but that disappointed him more than it had any right to. Just when he thought he was over it—wanting his dad’s approval, trying to understand what he’d done wrong as a kid to play into this, what most of his foster families had been worried he’d turn into, except Cat, before she’d given him up—his dad could cut him back down with just a few simple words.
“It’s about making him pay for what he took from us.”
“They’re just some dumb toy designs, dad. It wasn’t worth murdering seven people.”
“He took way more than just that, son. With that money, we could have had the life your mother and I always wanted for you. Big house, nice yard, real vacations, not both of us working long into the night. Missing your plays and games.”
No, no, no, no, no. This was not happening. Not now. His dad couldn’t be believed. He was crazy. He didn’t mean any of it.
“Stop.”
“I can’t, Winn. The worst thing he stole from me was your childhood, my chance to watch you grow up. And for that, he dies.”
“Dad, stop.”
“I can’t. The gears are already in motion. We are going to be together again, Winn. I’m not going to miss another minute of your life.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re going to kill Chester Dunholtz.”
Winn found himself unable to breathe. “I would never,” he spat out, tugging again at his bonds. Heat seared through his shoulder, but he kept going, only then wondering if he should reach out to Kara.
He didn’t want to put her in danger. His dad had stopped her at the lab by pretending to harm a child. Who knows what he’d do here… No, Winn did know. His dad had probably seen how Supergirl had rescued him at the arcade. How she had shown up to Slingschott. He might not have figured out who Supergirl is, but it was pretty obvious Winn was someone she cared about. He’d be the leverage. Maybe to make Supergirl kill Dunholtz.
What would Kara do if that was her choice? Winn would like to think she’d choose him, but he knew in his heart of hearts he wouldn’t want that. Dunholtz was a crook, but he didn’t deserve death. Not as far as Winn was concerned anyway.
Would she even come for him after what had happened? After their kiss? She hadn’t yet, and he’d been abducted in her hallway. Wasn’t very far for her superhearing to travel.
And it wasn’t like he wanted to die. He was happy at Catco. Even with his probation, he was helping people—really helping people, in more ways than his 9-5 IT job ever did. And he liked it. It was just another way he differentiated himself from his father, from his legacy. He had friends now, who had stuck around long past what Winn would have expected, and another shot at happiness as part of Cat’s family. He was finally, finally turning things around—
The hand was back on his chin, forcing his head upward again, and the nausea churned more intensely at the bottom of Winn’s gut. “You will, because I’ve placed ten different bombs at the convention center and will set them off if you don’t. Hundreds of lives,” he held up one hand, “or Dunholtz’s.” His father held up the other, pretended to weigh them. “The choice is yours.”
Winn gaped at his father, who backed away, grinning widely. Even last year when Winn had “rigged” Catco to blow, no one had never been in any danger. It was all black boxes and flashing blue lights, meant to scare and intimidate Cat into revealing the truth. He would have never actually hurt any of his coworkers. He didn’t actually know if he could do this, even if it meant saving lives.
It was embarrassing to admit, but it was only then that Winn realized the tracking anklet that had been a condition of his parole was gone. His dad had probably removed it. But that also meant Alex wouldn’t be able to locate him.
So it was up to him to get himself out of this. Which was fine. He’d only had himself to rely on for two decades. This wouldn’t be anything different.
All he had to do was stall ‘til tomorrow and then somehow get everyone out of the convention center. Maybe he could call Kara then, once he was out of his dad’s direct eyeline.
His father was right. He didn’t have a choice.
“Okay,” Winn said, letting his head fall against his chest. “I’ll do it.”
“No tricks,” his father leaned in and wagged his finger in front of Winn’s downturned face, “or I blow the bombs anyway. No calling Supergirl—” well there went that plan “—no calling the cops or that agent you were released under. You do this plain and simple. Neat and clean. And then we go away together.”
Winn felt his rage surge back again. “Do you understand what you’re asking me to do? You’re asking me to commit cold-blooded murder. How do you expect me to live with that?”
His father blinked at him. “Because we’ll be reunited. You always said I was your favorite. I thought this would be what you wanted.”
“Never. The minute you killed those people, you stopped being my dad.”
Too late, Winn realized he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing his father, but the damage had been done.
Senior’s face shut down. “Look at it however you want. I have the rest of your life to make you change your mind.” With that, he turned and walked out the door—large, metal, heavy—leaving Winn alone.
“What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Cat snapped.
“I mean what I said, Miss Grant,” Kara said, feeling as heartbroken as Cat looked. “I followed the van from Kara’s apartment, but it and its passengers disappeared down by the docks.” She’d flown in circles, around the whole city multiple times, just listening, and she hadn’t heard one peep from either her friend or his homicidal father.
“And about his…” Cat kicked out one leg, jiggled her ankle.
“That was the last place it beeped. Wherever they are, Toyman just have built some sort of signal blocker.”
“So find the area that isn’t producing any signals at all.”
Kara blinked. She hadn’t thought of that.
To her credit, Cat didn’t lord it over her. “Go, Supergirl! Go!”
“It’s time,” Winn’s father said, entering the room again.
Winn slowly picked his head up, staring listlessly at his father. He had been wracking his brain for hours about how to keep anyone from dying today, without alerting Kara or Alex, and had come up empty. He needed blueprints, his computer, a plan, data. Him, in person, was way less imposing a figure.
His father brandished a knife. “I’m going to cut you free. You know what happens if you deviate from our plan. And to keep you from attacking me, they’re rigged to explode if I don’t punch in a code every hour.”
Winn nodded, and couldn’t help but flinch as the knife passed by his face, en route to the ties around his wrists. The second his hands were free, he pulled them close. He wiggled his fingers, his moneymakers, and felt sensation begin to return. His right shoulder however, was refusing to really move at all, almost like it wasn’t quite in its socket.
His dad paid that no mind and shoved him forward, using that exact shoulder for leverage. Winn yelped as pain shot down his arm, up into his neck, and his knees were dangerously close to buckling.
None of that stopped his father, who just grabbed the back of Winn’s shirt and hauled him out of the room.
Cat couldn’t remember the last time she took a sick day, but today, she called Kara, who was apparently also sick, before just informing the rest of the C-suite of her plans. To her surprise, they didn’t seem very surprised and just encouraged her to enjoy her day off.
She didn’t have time to form any good insults because she received a video message from James, showing the FBI paging through Winn’s desk, knocking over the little figures she didn’t understand but that Winn loved.
“Supergirl!” Cat shouted, but minutes later, there was no answer.
Hopefully she was working the case. Cat then settled down on the couch and made a call to Alex Danvers, Kara’s sister and somehow the FBI agent Winn was assigned to work under for the remainder of his parole, hoping she’d have more answers.
Winn stumbled up the steps to the convention center. The chloroform should have long cleared itself from his system, but he was having trouble getting his limbs to follow his brain’s orders. Maybe that was from the lack of food and water the past… however many hours.
His shoulder was well and truly messed up, probably partially dislocated if he had to guess (not that he had a lot of experience with that specific injury, just injuries in general). He wasn’t able to lift it past his lower ribs and his fingers were tingling like a live wire. He could barely hold the toy gun his dad had rigged to fire real, plastic, fragmenting bullets, but was so brightly colored and metal-free that it wouldn’t be out of place in a convention like this.
He needed a plan—he couldn’t think of a plan. He couldn’t call anyone… When had his first thought become calling someone else, instead of handling it himself?
He didn’t recognize anyone on the way in, as he passed through the metal detector without setting it off. No Alex, no Bri, no Demos, none of the other DEO agents he’d updated gear for the past six months.
Part of him knew they couldn’t risk being identified, but damn, he was hoping at least someone from that department would care what happened to him, even if it was just for selfish reasons like they wouldn’t get another fix for their tech so quickly.
He shuffled through the crowd, to the stage, breathing hard, sweating profusely.
“Hey, watch it!” someone shouted.
He ignored them.
There was no guard on stage. Why would there be? This was a toy convention.
He was all the way on-stage before someone noticed, had the gun out before Dunholtz had turned.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have a choice.”
Like it mattered to Dunholtz, who was staring at him in shock, eyes open, mouth slack, his scared image burned into Winn’s retinas.
It’s now or never, he said, pulling up at the last minute and firing into the ceiling.
“Run!” he shouted. Needlessly. The crowd was already on the move.
Winn was aware of every second that was ticking past. Had he made the wrong decision? Should he have just sacrificed himself to save everyone? Either way, it was a decision he’d have to live with the rest of his life.
Then, he heard the breaking of glass from above and Kara, blessed sweet Kara, was there.
“There’s ten bombs,” he said through a dry mouth. “He was going to set them off if I didn’t—”
And then they were moving, flying through the air. And then Kara dropped him—from like three feet—but he hadn’t been expecting it, so he took full impact with the right side of his body.
Pain shorted out his thoughts, which only got worse when someone drove their foot into his stomach and started screaming at him.
Darkness followed a split second later.
Winn jerked awake, trying to throw up his hands to protect himself from his attacker. Neither moved. There was a split second of confusion, him not even fully aware enough yet to understand what was happening, before the pain set in.
His left wrist was raw, screaming at him. It was surrounded by a tight metal cuff…with some padding??… which chained him to the bed… a hospital bed. Even in his half-aware state, he recognized one… And the IV in his elbow.
Winn groaned, then checked out his right arm, which was in a sling strapped tightly to his chest.
He groaned again, and let his aching head flop back.
The door burst open and Winn instinctively went to throw up his hands again. Same result.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t do that,” he heard over the pounding in his ears. He recognized that voice. That was Alex—oh, thank God, Alex!
She was at his side in a second. “You’re okay, Supergirl is okay, everyone is okay. Your dad’s back in prison. Just calm down before you hurt yourself.”
Once he was able to breathe again, Winn shot her what he hoped was a scathing glare. She just snorted and dropped into the seat beside him.
“I tried to stop them from this,” she rested her finger beneath the handcuff chain in a manner that could only be described as disdainful. “Explained it all to everyone who would listen that you weren’t the real threat, but they refused. Bunch of assholes.”
“However…” Smirking widely, Alex reached over and a split second later, the hasp fell open. “You don’t know who did that,” she said as she straightened back up in her seat.
“Cameras,” Winn said, pulling his wrist in toward his chest protectively. The padding had protected him from an open wound, but the skin was still red and aggravated from all his thrashing.
Alex shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to delete the footage when you’re well again.”
She was awfully calm about all of this, which was confusing Winn more than he’d cared to admit. Had his dad not just tried to get him to murder Dunholtz and put a hundred other lives in danger? He had the injuries, but maybe he’d lost it and imagined the whole thing.
“The toy convention thing. It did happen, right?”
Alex nodded. “Why?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way and murder me with your pinky, but you don’t seem upset—”
“Upset?” Alex’s calm disappeared in a split second, leaving a film of barely masked rage in its wake. “Winn, of course I’m upset. What your dad wanted you to do, that’s horrific in the kindest of sense of the word. And I’m sorry we weren’t there when you needed us. We had eyes on you, but we were ambushed. And then Cat—”
Winn shot upright, but more carefully this time.
“Cat. Oh God. Is she here? Did someone tell her I’m okay?” He’d spent many months watching his former foster mom obsess over the smallest of things, and he’d felt how close they’d grown since he’d revealed himself. Using his trial and sentencing as reference, he could only imagine how she was feeling now.
“NCPD won’t let her in.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to hurt—”
“They’re worried she’s going to disappear with you.”
…That was probably fair.
“But I do get to see her eventually. Right?”
Alex gently rested her hand on Winn’s forearm. “I’m working on it, okay?”
He believed her.
His ribs took that very second to complain and he shifted uncomfortably in bed to relieve the ache. Wait… he didn’t remember hurting his ribs. Unless it was during the fall…
“What happened at the convention center?”
Alex’s eyes widened. “You don’t remember?”
“I want to hear it from you,” he countered.
“Supergirl saved everyone from the bombs by building a wall of ice to contain them, before pulling some psycho woman off you. She broke your ribs, by the way, so you could press charges if you want.”
“Against Kara?” Winn laughed humorlessly. “Nah, she saved the day. Like, literally. A few bumps and bruises—”
“No, against the woman. Anita Dunholtz.”
“Oh. Well, still no then. I did try to murder her husband.” He shot Alex a weak smile, heartbeat increasing as he was thrown back to just that moment, where even he wasn’t sure what the best play was going to be.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, I did hold him at gunpoint. So yeah, she had every right to be scared. And if I was the actual bad guy, she’d have saved the day.”
“So we should release her from custody?”
“Yes, Alex. Immediately.”
Her expression not changing, Alex pulled out her phone and fired off a text.
When she looked back up at him, Winn swallowed hard then asked, “You said my dad’s back in prison?”
“After pulling Anita off you, Supergirl was able to track down where your dad…Toyman?” She looked over at Winn, who shrugged his indifference at what she chose to call him. “Was holed up. He’s back in maximum security. No chance of parole for the rest of his life.”
“Are you sure?”
“You remember Magneto’s set-up? It’s something like that. I helped escort him there once I was sure you were okay. Just got back actually.”
“Well, make sure Anita Dunholtz is released, and then get me a computer. I need to make sure he can’t ever escape again.”
“Winn…” Alex’s hand was on his arm again, applying more pressure.
“No!” He ripped his arm from her grip then grunted as the motion lit up his broken ribs. “He can’t, Alex. We got lucky this time. But next time? He knows Kara’s weakness, helping people. She’s always going to pick that over capturing him.”
His chest was heaving now, dark spots tinging at the sides of his vision.
“I have to make sure. I have to be sure.”
Alex’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him flat in the bed. Then her hands clasped around his left one, pulling it to her chest. “Breathe with me, Winn,” she shouted.
That seemed excessive, until the screaming of the heartrate monitor pierced Winn’s fog.
Shiiiittttttt.
He had to calm down. He could do this. He had lots of practice in horrible, terrifying, panic-inducing situations like this.
A few pointed inhales and some really frickin’ pointed identifying of things in his otherwise plain hospital room later, and he had settled back down.
Alex shoved straw in his mouth, not removing it until he’d drunk half a glass of cool water.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again?”
“Have a panic attack or get kidnapped by my homicidal father?”
“Both.”
Winn snorted, then winced as the pounding in his head worsened. “Copy that.”
They sat in silence for a while until a nurse sauntered in. Alex immediately rose to leave, only hesitating when the nurse eyed the open handcuff.
“All our evidence has proven Winn is not a threat. He was coerced into what he did by Toyman threatening the lives of everyone else at the convention center,” Alex said, planting herself firmly in the doorway.
The nurse looked Winn up and down briefly then nodded. He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or offended by her quick assessment.
“Uh, Alex,” Winn said as the nurse approached, stethoscope in hand. “I know you said she hadn’t been allowed, but now that I’m awake…” It wasn’t that Alex’s company wasn’t great, and she trusted him enough to stick her neck out for him at the DEO, bringing him on as a consultant to work off his probation, but at the end of the day, she was his boss. And Kara… well who knows where they stood. There was an ache deep inside him yearning for a friendly face, and on that extremely short list was Cat. Their relationship was still tentative, Winn working on getting past the years of resentment he had built up, and now that he was an adult, it tended more toward friends than mother/former foster son, which made a lot of things easier.
This, hopefully, was one of them.
Alex smiled her understanding. “I’m on it.”
Despite their differences, Alex kept her word—about Cat, not the computer. He wasn’t allowed to have one of those for two days until his brain stopped swirling around in his skull. Exactly four hours later, though, Cat stepped cautiously into Winn’s hospital room.
“I tried to get here sooner, but they wouldn’t let me in. Bastards.”
“I know. Alex said.”
Cat nodded. “Are you alright?” she then asked, her voice surprisingly neutral. And Winn instantly second-guessed his decision to have her there. Maybe their relationship wasn’t as mended as he’d thought.
But then the door closed, a chair moved under the handle, and Cat’s face softened. “I was so worried about you.”
She was next to him in an instant, wrapping him in a quick and perfunctory hug. But a hug nonetheless. And Winn was sorry when it ended.
“I won’t apologize for it, but I had you followed when I heard about your father. And when your tracker went off-grid, Winn, it was one of the worst days of my life. I was so worried… and helpless.”
Winn nodded, biting on his bottom lip to keep back the tears that pricked at the corner of his eyes.
“Did you know about my dad? When you took me in?”
“Only what the agency had managed to glean from you in the group home, which wasn’t a whole lot.” She smiled with one side of her mouth. “You didn’t talk much back then.”
“Didn’t have much to talk about.” He swallowed hard then asked the main question, the one that had been eating at him for days—and nights—now. “Were you ever worried I’d turn into him?”
Cat shook her head. “Not for one instant. Daniel and I, we saw how hurt you were, how lost. You could have fought back against those kids who’d stolen your stuff, I know you could have. But you chose not to. And that told us everything we needed to know.”
“I… I just…” Winn didn’t know why he was talking about all this now, but it had bubbled up over the past few days and now, even though he’d spoken to Kara about it, he needed to hear it from someone else. Someone else who was logical and rational and pragmatic and didn’t always see the world with rose-colored glasses. “I just worry about that. Like, a lot. That one day I’m gonna snap and do what he did.”
Cat perched on the side of his bed, scowled at the handcuffs, and gently rested her hand on Winn’s. “You won’t, Winn. You’re different than he is. His actions shaped you, not in the way you wanted, but they changed your life nonetheless. You couldn’t ever do what he did, because you just don’t have in it you.”
“But what about like today? When he made me choose?”
“You didn’t have a choice. And when you did, you chose not to pull the trigger.”
“I could have killed everyone in the convention center.”
“Supergirl would have never let that happen.”
After what they had gone through, last night…two nights ago?... whenever it was… Winn wasn’t so sure. Not that Kara would let something bad happen to him. Just that she definitely wouldn’t be as tuned in as she might have before their kiss.
Yet, Cat spoke with complete confidence. And knowing how much Kara idolized Cat, he felt himself slightly reassured. It wasn’t logical, and that irritated him, but it was happening nonetheless.
The grip around his wrist tightened. “I’m just really glad you’re alright.”
“Me too.”
He flipped his hand over and Cat moved hers down so they were resting against each other. Her thumb began moving against the side of his hand, in what was definitely a comforting motion after the insanity of the past however-many hours.
“It was selfish,” Cat said after a moment, “but I was worried we weren’t going to get more of this. That I wouldn’t continue to get to know you as an adult.”
“Me too,” Winn repeated.
The silence was comfortable, easy, so they sat like that, until it was time for Winn to order dinner, at which point, Cat went on a tear about the quality of hospital food and phoned Kara to pick up Noonan’s for three.
“Three?” Winn parroted.
“You’re right. Four. I’m sure your FBI agent will be back. And Kara, well Winn, the whole office can see you mooning over her.”
“Are you… are you trying to set me up?”
Cat smiled warmly. “Only if you want me to. But after what you just went through, I figured you’d want a friend.”
She wasn’t wrong. And Kara had saved his life. Maybe they could forget about the kiss. Just for now. Until he was better. Until he could have a conversation without his brain exploding.
If she was okay with it, that is. He didn’t want to impose on her any more than he already had.
Nervous now, he sat back, tapping the fingers of his working arm against the sheets while Cat placed the order, waiting to see how Kara’s arrival was going to play out.