Chapter Text
“Repeat it. You’re still leaving your left side open when you step back,” Quill says, arms folded across his chest as he watches an amateur villain run through the motions against a training dummy.
He narrows his eyes, letting one hand casually slip down into his pocket. In his peripheral vision, the young upstart Flytrap mirrors the movement on a nearby bench. They don’t say anything, so Quill ignores them.
“Adjusting your left does not mean your right side is free game!”
The woman on the mats hurriedly fixes her posture. There are still two eyes boring into the side of his skull from the other side of the room. Quill tries to focus on pair of villains grabbing dull blades to spar with.
He closes his eyes. Pinches his temples. “What,” he grits out.
“Boss man!” Flytrap chirps, jumping to their feet almost instantly with a grin.
“Flytrap,” he says flatly. “What do you want?”
“Nothing, sir! Just wishing to inquire about your day,” they say with faux innocence.
Quill represses a sigh. He misses when the annoying little shit was still terrified of him.
Valeria’s muscles spasm hard as another shock rips through her body, but she stubbornly keeps her eyes tight shut, straining against the chain with all that remains of her strength. She thrashes hard, and feels the collar dig into her neck, splitting the skin at its edges.
Blood drips against the ground and sizzles against the electrodes.
Eyes shut. This ends here. One way or another.
Either she’d overheat the collar and get it to stop shocking her, or she’d choke herself pulling against it, in which case she’d be well past caring about the fucking thing anyway.
Her ears prick up, able to hear the approaching footsteps even despite the blood roaring and her heart pounding. She convulses at another wave of electricity, her whole body trembling from the effects of the shocks.
Suddenly there’s a voice right outside her cell.
“Again, Valeria?”
She grinds her teeth, and ignores him.
Of course she’s managed to hurt herself with the collar. Even after the precaution of the mitts to prevent her from picking at her wounds, she finds a way.
He’s blaming Flytrap for making him want to go down here. They were blathering on and on earlier, asking him if he was lonely and other stupid questions.
“Hey, boss, you seem a little tense. When was the last time you got laid?”
Quill scowls. He’s not reading into why his first instinct was to check on his prisoner when he got annoyed with the villain. Instead, he throws open the door, undoes the shock collar, and throws it across the room. His anger is palpable.
“Are you insane?”
She’s breathing raggedly.
“You - hhhff- really have to a-ask?” she sneers weakly.
“I thought I made it clear I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Quill snaps, manhandling her into an upright position to check for scarring. He meant for her to hurt a bit, perhaps grow sleep-deprived and submit, not for her to overdo it on purpose.
“And I thought I m-made it clear,” she pants, not resisting as he examines the gouges in her skin and the deep burn on her windpipe. “I don’t listen when people tell me what to do.”
“Your teachers must’ve loved you,” Quill says sardonically. He decides that her wounds aren’t fatal and are mostly pain-inducing on a surface level, which he almost scoffs at. The girl has only made things worse in the least effective way, and for what? To get his attention?
He won’t admit that it worked.
He pauses with her shoulder and chin still in his hand, pretending to be deeply observing a scratch while he considers his options. His initial response is to punish her like he might’ve Calix—threaten someone she cares about, beat her, tie her into a stress position. But the first choice wasn’t applicable, physical pain had proven to be futile, and although the stress position sounded like a fun choice in the future, it wasn’t ideal for this particular situation.
She wasn’t Calix. The same tricks wouldn’t work on her. Perhaps instead of forcing her to submit through torture and causing her to harm herself more…
Quill mentally sighs. Sometimes Valeria is more work than his own missions.
“Alright. Get up. Time for a little field trip.”
She hisses at him, ears lying back as she glares at him.
He ignores her and forces her head back. The thin silver link is still there as it’s always been. Grabbing a tool from the depths of his long black coat, he molds the metal into a chain with a clip and connects it to the band around her neck.
“I’m going to take you for a walk. Behave,” he adds sharply.
Valeria, of course, ignores the command, and gives one last warning hiss to the Supervillain, digging her heels in and refusing to move.
“Oh, so we’re pretending to be a stubborn mutt, are we?” Quill says, unimpressed as he stares down at her. “This isn’t a game. I won’t ask again.” He yanks the chain harder, forcing her forward a step or two.
“You should really learn the difference between a dog and a cat, dickhead,” Valeria growls, hand darting out in a blur, and landing a sharp blow against the wound she’d inflicted during her escape attempt. She remembered where she’d cut him.
Quill lurches away, hand still gripping the chain tightly as his lips curl into a snarl. He’s overcome with blind rage for a moment, cursing her name and moving towards her with the intention to strike—
Self-mastery, he reminds himself. Breathe.
He’s got a plan. Don’t unravel it because of a bit of immature nagging.
Instead, he tugs on the chain, pulling her closer to him as he collects the length of it, stopping only when their faces are inches from one another. It’s a familiar position from more than one situation, almost always accompanied by fighting.
“You’re going to shut up,” he says lowly, eyes glinting dangerously, “and follow me. No more of this. You’re at the end of the leash and I am holding the lead.”
“Or what, big boy?” She sneers at him, lip curling. “Calix got away, and I don’t care if you hurt me.” She doesn’t struggle, instead waiting like she wants to see his reaction, if his eyes will narrow the way they always do when she strikes a nerve.
He doesn’t give her the satisfaction. “Maybe not, but I don’t plan on hurting you,” he says, and it’s evident in the way her own eyes harden that she doesn’t believe him. That’s alright. He’s telling the truth, anyway—pain doesn’t make her obey the way it did for Calix. She’s just going to keep picking at her scabs until she bleeds out if he keeps going with the physical torture.
Humiliation, however, has almost always gotten a reaction from her. It’s just a bonus to sweeten the pot of his real plan.
All in due time.
Valeria sits down, stubbornly refusing to budge.
“You had a shock collar on me for sleep deprivation, you really think I have the energy to get up and walk for whatever petty torment you have waiting?” she asks.
“Don’t be so uptight,” Quill says, chuckling. He looks down at her like she’s some amusing toy to him. “Come along. I’ll drag you if I must.”
When he turns, pulling on the chain with a firm enough grip that she realizes he’s strong enough to do just that, she stubbornly goes limp and lets it happen.
“Alright, I’ll consider this comfortable enough,” she tells him, though the collar cuts her breath off.
Quill doesn’t turn around to respond, but she hears him scoff anyway. “It’s cute how you must make everything so difficult for yourself.”
“So long as it inconveniences you, I’m quite willing to suffer,” she says with faux cheeriness, wondering if she’ll pass out if the collar chokes her enough. When they get to the stairs, Valeria braces herself for the pain of her burned back to be dragged over each edge, but she grits her teeth, determined to take the pain rather than submit to Silvercrow.
She stifles a hiss of pain at the first step, but she doesn’t try to stand.
As long as it’s an inconvenience to him as well, having to drag her this way.
“Seriously?” Quill says then, sounding for once incredibly informal and annoyed, but also completely baffled. She almost laughs at the complete unexpectedness of the response.
“Mhm,” Valeria manages. “Keep going, this is just… getting interesting.” She’s running out of breath, but that’s not going to stop her.
Clicking his tongue in exasperation, Quill descends the few steps, puts his hands under her arms, and heaves her onto her feet with ease.
Valeria remains limp in his grasp, the pettiness of the action almost cheers her up, despite everything. He’s having to accept that she’s going to make this journey as difficult as possible.
Quill carries her up the stairs and dumps her on the ground at the top, resuming their journey. Each room they approach has her heart sink further, memories of chains and a glass-embedded whip plaguing her mind.
It’s almost like she can smell the sharpness of the electricity that nearly always followed.
Her mother was much better at this than Quill, and Valeria would not have dared be so petty and defiant with Flashflood. But Silvercrow isn’t that creative, nor does he strike fear into the same way her own mother could with a single look.
I’d have stopped being so difficult long ago, if she were here. She wouldn’t let me get away with this.
She didn’t completely understand why Quill did.
As more doors that they don’t go through pass by, they finally approach a fogged-glass pair of double doors, and Quill looks suspiciously focused—eager?—as he throws them open with both hands.
Valeria braces herself, expecting blood and concrete walls and hanging instruments, and instead is blinded by…sunlight? She squints, pupils constricting against the sudden, painful glare. There’s a slight breeze blowing through.
She doesn’t get a chance to absorb the open courtyard or the people fighting in one area as she’s tugged in the direction of what looks like a greenhouse. It’s not as enclosed, but a dome of glass covers it, sending pretty shadows on the ground and amplifying the heat.
The warmth is foreign compared to the chilling corridors and the bone-numbing cold of the cells.
She refuses to show her confusion, instead closing her eyes again, until Quill stops walking, and she’s lying still on the ground once more.
There’s a bench. It’s untouched, like everyone knows it belongs to Quill and is afraid to touch it, but it’s simple. It’s nothing grand like his seat in the cafeteria or impressive the way he demands things to be. It’s just a bench.
Quill sits down without saying anything. His gaze drifts to the glass dome, which she’s only now realizing covers a garden with blooming flowers and unripe vegetables sprouting from plots of soil.
She almost feels like she’s intruding for a second before Quill snaps out of it.
“Well? Sit down.”
She cautiously does so, standing up to sit down next to him, though she isn’t sure why she complies.
“Not quite the dungeon I was waiting for,” she says bluntly. “So why did you bring me here?”
“On the ground,” Quill says flatly, brushing off her question.
Valeria scoffs, standing up and moving as far as the chain will allow her, before delicately crossing her legs and sitting down in the shade.
“No. Come here,” he says insistently, motioning to the space beside his legs.
“No,” she echoes flatly.
“I’m trying to be nice for once.”
“I’m not a dog, Silvercrow, treating me like one isn’t some grand gesture.”
“That’s not what’s happening here.” Quill scowls. “You keep hurting yourself. I’m trying to get you to stop.”
Valeria scoffs. “Right, because you think I’m your property or something equally degrading, and don’t like when someone else damages your toys?” There’s anger simmering in her frost green eyes now, and she pulls back against the chain even more, ever the petty one.
The chain still doesn’t budge. The asshole’s tight grip never wavers.
“Fine. Sit over there, then,” Quill says, crossing his arms and leaning his head back. He doesn’t seem interested in continuing the conversation, so they sit in silence. There’s chatter in the background, the faint sound of dull swords thudding against one another and her ears flatten in frustration at being dragged out here. She’d take the cell if it meant she could be alone and go to sleep.
She lies down on her back, looking up at the glass ceiling and then closes her eyes.
“When were you going to tell me Calix made it out?” She asks, again trying to strike a nerve.
“I wasn’t,” Quill says, unabashedly honest.
“Not a very good liar, Silvercrow. You would have punished him by now if you did have him. Did you think I wouldn’t ever figure it out?”
He shrugs, not giving her much. “I figured you would. I was just taking advantage of the time I had before you did.”
Valeria doesn’t give him the satisfaction of asking why. She’s past caring at this point.
“Come over here,” Quill asks again. His voice is softer this time. He’s still staring at the sky.
This is not the hill to die on, Valeria tells herself and pushes herself up. Save your breath for next time he decides to put you through some other hell.
She goes over, and crosses her arms, standing in front of him.
Quill blinks at her. “Want something?”
“You insisted I come over. I’m obliging,” she says bluntly.
“Yes. Sit.”
“I’m not a dog,” Valeria snarls at him, and paces off several steps, agitated by the phrasing of the command.
It reminds her too much of-
“How else would you like me to say it?” Quill asks, suddenly irritated.
“You could always just not say it at all,” she shoots back, glaring at him again.
“Fine. Keep standing, then. I’m sure that’s comfortable.”
“I was enjoying lying down. You’re the one who wanted me to get up and come over,” she snaps at him, starting to walk back to where she was. Quill reaches out and snags her wrist.
Valeria stops, turning to look back at him as her ears swivel forward in a brief display of unguarded curiosity, before they fold back again.
“Sit,” he says, and it doesn’t carry the same commanding tone as before.
She narrows her eyes, but she listens this time, sitting in the dirt. She doesn’t bother to look at him.
“Why did you care so much about Calix?” Quill asks stiffly, a mirror of her earlier question.
Valeria considers snapping at him, but instead, she decides to be honest.
“He reminded me of someone very close to me. Someone who died because I couldn’t save him,” she says carefully, unable to fully keep the pain out of her voice. She reaches up to pick at the wood of the bench to distract herself.
Quill hums shortly, acknowledging the loss without offering pity or empathy.
His hand falls on top of hers. Her hand goes still, and neither of them move. Valeria’s muscles are tense, poised, ready to have to pull away or lash out, but she doesn’t, waiting for the need to do so.
It doesn’t come.