Chapter Text
Valeria watches as Cookie tilts Quill’s head to the side, listening with a quiet bitterness as Quill makes small, fearful sounds while Cookie dabs a damp cloth against his neck, preparing it for a needle. His eyes are still glazed.
You were never so kind to me, she thinks, memories of her own wounds being jabbed at, of being forced to walk when on the brink of death from blood loss, all by him. Angry tears well in her eyes. She blinks rapidly to hold them at bay, grinding her teeth as she watches, tense and ready to hold Silvercrow down again if need be.
“Easy, now,” Cookie murmurs as she injects him with some sort of medication, likely a habit from dealing with skittish animals. Quill’s chest rises and falls frantically, although his breathing is near silent. It’s like he’s trying desperately to shut it out.
She knows all about how that feels. Suddenly the pity she'd felt so strongly is absent, leaving a fiery rage and unyielding bitterness in its place.
For the next few minutes, Valeria watches quietly as Cookie wraps blotchy bruises around his limbs where restraints must have been and works her way over to his busted leg.
“Do you know what happened?” Cookie asks, looking over her shoulder at her old friend. Quill is tense, staring with wide eyes as the short woman handles his leg.
“No,” Valeria says flatly, ears laying back slightly for a moment as she fights the urge add and I don't care. She carefully avoids looking at Quill, knowing she can't hide the fury in her eyes right now.
“Kitty cat,” Cookie says calmly, eyes shining with sympathy, “you know as well as I that it helps to know the cause to find the proper treatment. What I meant was break, sprain, or somethin' else?”
Anyone else she would have punched for calling her kitty cat, but Cookie had always been able to get away with it.
“Broken,” Valeria answers in a hoarse voice.
Cookie hums her acknowledgment and turns back to Quill, clearly hoping for any sort of lucidity when she asks, “Can you tell me what broke it?”
If he comes back to himself, it’s only in pieces, enough to shake his head. Valeria feels another sharp twinge of fury at his being difficult.
“Answer her.” It comes out in a snarl. “Answer so she can help you.”
Quill flinches, pressing back against his seat. “It– I don’t remember,” he stammers. “There– V-Vera liked to hurt m-me there—” His eyes welled with tears as he scrambled for an answer that would please them. Please Valeria. “I’m s-sorry, there was too m-many, I don’t r-remember.”
Valeria narrows her eyes. “She had two methods to break bones. A crowbar, or her boot. Which one did she use?” She asks it unflinchingly, but her voice isn’t as harsh.
“Both,” Quill answers, eyes glittering with unfallen tears. “A-and—” He stops.
“And what?” she presses.
“Sometimes she would l-let other– other people,” Quill says quietly. “Like, um, Wade.”
And just like that, the anger is gone, a chasm of grief opening to swallow it as she fights back tears once more. She takes a shaky breath, and looks away, focusing on the wall until she gets a grip. She still remembers how she worshipped her big brother growing up. It feels like a knife in her stomach as she thinks of what he's become.
“Alright, that’s enough...” Cookie starts, looking over at Valeria with a blank expression.
“Quill,” Valeria provides.
“That’s enough for now, Quill,” she says. “Wait here for a moment. I need to go grab something to eat before I expend any magic on you.” Cookie stands, motioning for Valeria to join her and they slip out of the room.
When the door shuts, Valeria is instantly greeted again by arms thrown around her. “You both look like you’ve been through the wringer,” the woman says, muffled by Valeria’s shirt. Cookie pulls back, big brown eyes searching her face. “What’s goin’ on? You didn’t tell me much before you showed up.”
“It's a rather long, unpleasant story,” Valeria replies, her voice still unsteady.
“Well, can you shorten it?”
“Silvercrow,” she says tiredly.
Cookie winces. “Been a while since I heard that name.”
“I truly wish it had stayed that way,” Valeria says quietly. “I didn't want to bring you into this, and I'm sorry.”
“I didn’t even realize he was still active after the war,” Cookie says, an expression of genuine discomfort crossing her face at the reminder of their past. It’s the first time she’s seemed distraught since they arrived. “Last I heard, he was stayin’ out of hero affairs and lettin’ his lackeys do the dirty work. What did he do to you?”
Valeria replies with a humorless smile, reaching up to unbuckle her choker, revealing the scars the collar had left her with.
Cookie’s hands came up on instinct, but she pauses before they touch. Her mouth wobbles in a sympathetic pain for her friend. She’s always been too kind. “Oh, hun. Do you…do you want me to heal that for you?”
Valeria hesitates, considering, then shakes her head. “I'm asking enough of you.”
“You’re certain?”
“They don't hurt,” she replies. “I'm fine.
“Okay,” Cookie says, shooting her a look. “What about Quill, in there? He’s hurt real bad.”
“I know… and I'm not sure why I feel at all sorry for him. I should be delighted.” Valeria sighs.
The other girl’s eyes narrow. “You’re mad at him. Why?”
Valeria blinks, then shakes her head. “Quill… He's Silvercrow.”
“Oh,” Cookie says, frowning. A second passes. “Oh.”
“I just… couldn't leave him with my mother.”
“Hmph.” Her fiery gaze turns to glare at the door that Quill sat behind. “I’ve got to go fix up that leg of his. Hopefully get some more information about his wounds. Why don’t you go rest in the livin’ room? You’re dead on your feet.”
“I'm going to get some fresh air.” It's a half truth. She doesn't mention she can't wait to see Cookie's face when she calls Aconite.
“Sounds good,” Cookie says, albeit distracted. Valeria watches as she heads back toward the room, sighing softly as the girl disappears inside with a firm closing of the door.
She goes outside, and starts to call softly to her Wind Viper. Over the trees of the forest a few miles away, she can see his wings.
Cookie waits until she hears the front door open and shut. She doesn’t want to risk Valeria overhearing anything if the conversation she’d planned went sideways. Not that being out of sight meant anything with Valeria's enhanced hearing. But, coupled with the doors, it should be enough.
“Quill!” she says brightly, stepping over to the chair he rests in. Cookie snaps her fingers in mock realization, clicking her tongue. “Or, Silvercrow, right?”
The man freezes, going tenser than he was before. His knuckles are white where he grips the sides of the seat.
Cookie grabs a damp cloth off the neck of the sink, easily playing into nonchalance. “Sorry for not recognizing you. Been a while since I’ve been in the business.” When she turns around, she makes sure to plaster on a sugary sweet smile. “You ready to work on those legs?”
Quill stares at her with wide, fearful eyes, legs posed as though he’s ready to bolt at any second. He wouldn’t make it far.
Unfortunately, Cookie is partial to big, scared eyes. She sees them a lot in her occupation. She’s also seen plenty of dangerous, rabid dogs turned into meek pets after abuse. She has empathy—it’s just her nature. It doesn’t mean she has to like him, though. Not after what he did to Valeria.
Cookie walks over and kneels in front of him, rolling up the fabric of one of his pant legs. This is the worse one. With her medical professional eyes, she can almost envision exactly where the break is beneath the black and purple splotches, and the severe layered scarring reeks of long-term, repetitive damage in the same places. She almost winces.
Pulling on her latex gloves (it isn’t necessary when dealing with powered healing, but it’s habit), she reaches for his calf.
“Please,” she hears, and looks up. Quill is staring down at her in poorly concealed terror. “Please don’t– they’re already broken. Please.”
“What do you think you’re here for, Mr. Quill?” she asks pointedly, rubbing gently at the bruises with the cloth. “You think Valeria would go all this way just to have you tortured some more?”
She doesn’t look up, and he doesn’t respond.
“No, we’re just gonna get rid of this excess dried blood so that the healing process is easier on you. Because Valeria brought you here to be healed, by me. Because she trusts me. Are you going to trust me?”
Quill, still speechless, nods frantically, obviously eager not to irritate her. Cookie rests her fingers just above the lighter wounds, the bruises around the greater damage, and offers him another toothy smile.
“That’s great, hun. I’m glad you trust her enough to know she wouldn’t go out of her way to hurt you.” He should be feeling a tingle in his leg right about now. “Because she wouldn’t, would she?”
“No,” Quill agrees quickly. “She wouldn’t.”
“Right, but that didn’t matter, did it?” Cookie asks. She can see the slight squirm he makes as her healing magic works at pulling together burst blood vessels and begins to travel toward the real problem. Her smile turns sharper. “It didn’t matter that she’d never hurt someone that didn’t pose a threat, someone like you, even now. You still hurt her anyway.”
The bones in her hands become more distinct as her fingers twitch, healing magic growing stronger. Quill gasps almost silently, a sheen glossing over his eyes. “It– it hurts.”
It probably does. The magic’s found the break and is now slowly shifting the bone into place to fuse back together properly. As a healer, she’d taken an oath never to harm an individual or deny them care—but there was nothing she could do about the natural pain that came with the healing process. The painkiller she'd given him earlier would curb the worst of it.
Cookie hums. “Did Valeria ever tell you it hurt?” she asks lightly. “Did you stop when she did?”
Quill whimpers. There’s a visible tremble in his frame now. Time to wrap things up.
“I trust you’re not stupid. That you’re taking the hint.” Cookie narrows her eyes, all pretenses of her lightheartedness gone. It was clear enough in his posture, in his behavior, that he wasn’t truly the same person who hurt her friend—but he had been, and could be again.
“I hope you’re not takin’ advantage of her kindness, and I hope you learned your lesson. The fact that Valeria let you and I be alone in the same room together is proof enough that she’s puttin’ some faith in you, whether she realizes it or not. So I’m going to go ahead and warn ya now—if you hurt her again, in any way, shape, or form, I will end you.”
“I won’t,” he whispers, shaking his head. “I won’t, I s-swear.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Cookie stands, calling out for Valeria. “You can come in!” Her grin slips easily onto her face as though it never left.
“I'd prefer it if you came out! I have something to show you,” Valeria's voice calls back.
Quill’s lips are pressed tight as he tries to keep the tears that are obviously welled up from falling.
“Sure! Be right there, I just gotta finish up real quick.”
Patching up his second leg goes much quicker without the interrogation. The damage isn’t as bad, either. When she’s done, she fixes his pants and stands up, satisfied from a successful healing.
“I’m gonna set you up in one of the more comfortable rooms to rest for a bit,” she says, heading over to one of the counters to grab something from her favorite top-secret, bedazzled drawer.
“Yes, ma’am,” Quill murmurs quietly behind her.
Cookie returns with a small slip of shiny paper and, plucking the treasure off the paper, sticks a tiny golden star with a smiley face on it right on his shirt. “There. Not your color, but it works. Come on.”
He follows her out of the room, limp noticeably gone but still walking tenderly, and Valeria watches from down the hall as Cookie directs him into one of the guest rooms.
“Take some time to yourself. Valeria and I will be in the livin’ room, so don’t stress too bad,” she says. Quill gives her an unsure look, but hesitantly pads over to the bed.
Valeria looks behind her again, eyes landing on something out of Cookie's line of sight. She moves off to the right, murmuring something.
Cookie shuts the door behind him, eyes still on Valeria. Hopefully, their little talk scared him enough for the night that he won’t be an issue—but then her eyes catch onto the scars around Valeria’s neck, and she does trust her friend’s judgement, but she can’t help it.
She locks his door and follows Valeria down the hall.
“Just outside,” Valeria tells Cookie, opening the door and walking out to the winged beast that stands on the lawn.
A loud, giddy squeal follows.
Aconite lowers his head to Valeria's hand, even as she uses her other to beckon Cookie over.
Cookie squeals again as she gets closer, black curls bouncing. “Valeria! Who is this sweet precious little angel?” She offers one hand up for the beast to scent, eyes practically sparkling.
“This is Aconite,” Valeria tells her, as her Viper presses the tip of his snout into Cookie's hand. “My partner in crime.”
Cookie giggles as Aconite’s puff of breath makes her hair blow back. She pets him gently, strokes following the direction of his downy feathers. “Hi, baby,” she says softly too him, already in cute-baby-animal-talk.
He snorts softly, leaning his head into her hand again as he makes a noise reminiscent of a purr.
Cookie’s smile turns smaller, nostalgic as she pets. “I remember learning about these for the first time. It was during the early months of the war. I thought they were just a myth, at first.”
Valeria watches as the other girl’s lips almost tug into a frown, and she thinks back to those months as well. Cookie had never wanted to be apart of it—she was training to be a veterinarian in a small town, not a wartime medic for people. But powered people weren’t an abundance, and the heroes had needed every hand they could get.
Especially ones that could heal.
Valeria was nineteen and Cookie seventeen when they met, right on the battlefield. It was an ambush from a small group of rogue villains that weren’t even affiliated with Wisteria Order, but hated heroes. Cookie wasn’t supposed to be on the field, but a hero had fallen, and she could never run when someone was hurt in front of her.
Valeria was special forces during the war, chosen for an elite team due to her training and combat skill. She'd shot two villains with arrows in the space of a breath, and then broken the third's neck with a twist of her bow.
It had saved Cookie’s life.
From there, they had caught on like a house on fire, even if it was a rocky start. Valeria had been determined not to get too attached to anyone, having already learned more than one painful lesson, but Cookie was new and inexperienced with heroes and wouldn’t leave her rescuer alone, and despite her best intentions, Valeria hadn't been able to resist the offer of a friend.
The occasional glitter bomb to the face had been worth it. Even if it did take years to sneeze all of the blasted stuff out.
They had been separated when Valeria decided to go rogue, figuring after three and a half years of war, she had done her service, and Cookie sought out a rural life to pursue her veterinarian and animal rescue career. War had done neither of them favors.
It wasn’t technically over when they left, but the last year or so had been mostly internal fighting amongst the villains over who would lead Wisteria, so the heroes had called it off from their side.
The few that stayed up to date knew that Silvercrow had stolen the top of the hierarchy, but he’d been smart and quiet about it. There hadn’t been any fighting since.
Seeing Cookie now settled something in Valeria she hadn’t realized she missed. Her laugh as she messes with Aconite still brings a smile to her face, until Cookie finally turns to Valeria and her face gets as serious as Cookie’s can be.
“So. You trust him?”
“No. I don't think he'll try shit with me ever again, though,” Valeria admits, sitting in the grass with a sigh.
“I only even ended up tangled up with him because I took a wrong turn in the woods while looking for Flashflood. It was a recon mission, I wasn't properly armed, and his men took me to him. I never did really find out why he did it.”
“Why does any cruel person do what they do?” Cookie asks, shrugging. “If you’re looking for the specifics, though, I don’t think you’ll ever know. Quill seemed pretty…different, back there.”
“You'd think, if you decided to keep someone captive and torture her for four months, you'd at least remember why. ” Valeria huffs.
She's quiet for a moment, then looks up.
“Want to ride him?” she asks Cookie. Cookie turns to her with a look of pure excitement, like a kid let loose in a candy store and told everything's free.
Quill shivers. He’s not cold, not really. The blanket on the bed is soft and smells like laundry detergent.
But it’s quiet, and the girls’ voices faded a while ago. His legs, while healed, still ache. Walking felt like trying to wade through shallow water. The woman with the light brown skin—Cookie, Valeria called her—told him to rest. He’s trying to obey, but he keeps seeing her eyes boring into his, keeps seeing her smile while his leg throbbed and suddenly burned.
He doesn’t like doctors.
Cookie’s threat rings through his head, but when he closes his eyes, there’s a different face, different words.
He sobbed. It hurt to arch his back, but it hurt worse when his open wounds pressed against the table. It was so slippery beneath his hands that he wondered how he wasn’t dead from blood loss yet.
“Does it hurt enough yet?” Vera sneered at him. “Or should I keep going?”
The words are cruelly familiar, but the punishment not quite this. He wanted to believe he’d never have gone this far.
“Pay attention, or do I need to cut deeper and pull your guts out to make you listen to what I'm saying?” she spits.
“No, no, p-please, M-Mistress, please, I’m listening, I’m l-listening,” he spluttered frantically, desperate to convince her before she made up her mind, because once she had there was no changing it. No begging in the world could change it.
He believed her, too. The cuts from before had been agony, the replicated stomach wound an even more devastating fire, but the sting of a papercut-thin wound across his chest in a suspiciously Y-shaped pattern had frightened him bone-deep.
“Answer the question, then, brat,” she snapped.
“It– it h-hurts, it r-really hurts, p-please.” He was crying so hard that he could barely understand the words coming out of his mouth. “You d-don’t have to- have to keep g-going, it h-hurts, Mistress—”
“Did you stop for Valeria?” Vera asked, though she places the scalpel back on the tray.
He’d never done this to Valeria. Never tortured her with a scalpel, never threatened to vivisect her or– or do other things to her—
He could barely think. The pain was becoming too great, too much, and it was overwhelming his mind and brain. The only thing that was left for him to do was pray that Vera was done with this session and he’d be sent back to his– his crate to recover for the night.
When Quill turned his head, he saw Valeria. She was looking at him in despair, gritting her teeth as blood spilled out of her mouth, then over her hand, onto the cold, cold floor.