Chapter Text
The room Vera—Flashflood—keeps him in is dark, made darker still by the thick wooden bars of the cage he’s in blocking out what little light from the hall there is, barely seeping through the cracks in the door.
It’s dark here, and he’s lonely. It takes him back to his childhood bedroom. Barren, cold. His parents were the old-fashioned type. As soon as his powers started showing, they declared him a curse meant to punish them for their sins. Spawn of the devil.
Cursed little children don’t get toys or friends. They should stay locked away in their room where they can’t hurt anyone, and no one can get too close. No one would want to love a monster anyway—never mind that powers in the newer generations were more common. Never mind that there were plenty of programs for superpowered youth and studies that showed the rare genetic mutations were perfectly harmless and not inherently evil or malicious.
This cage isn’t his old bedroom, but they feel the same.
He doesn’t feel the uneven, splintered wood of the floor anymore. His body, legs mostly, are numb with pain. Dried blood crusts on the floor and under his knees. The cage is too small, leaving him curled up and cramping.
Recently, everything’s been…fuzzy. Blurry. Cotton stuffs up his head, and he tries desperately to focus when Vera yells at him or gives him a command, but the words blend together and his coordination is lacking. He doesn’t understand. Ever since he tried to run and failed, earning a brutal beating that left his legs broken, black, and blue, he’s become more of a failure.
He’s useless, and it’s only gotten worse, but he knows better than to complain now. Even though his head is murky and he’s hot and cold all over and it’s hard to breathe with the gag cutting into the sides of his face and blocking oxygen—
He hears a sound and his heart sinks, gut filling with dread. A feminine figure enters the peripherals of his bleary vision and makes a distinctly displeased, if not angry, sound. Quill ducks and makes himself smaller. He knows when Vera is mad at him.
It doesn’t matter what he’s done. The punishment will hurt regardless.
“Long time, no see.”
Vera’s voice sounds slightly off, but he can’t place what’s wrong with it. Has it been a long time? Quill’s perception of time has been nearly nonexistent lately. He knows he’s hungry and weak, so she’s probably starved him for at least a day or two.
Quill doesn’t get a chance to flinch when he sees the glint of metal but his heart rate increases with his terror. What used to be a comfort had been twisted into a trigger, and he’s surprised when the knife only catches the gag instead of his skin.
She’s– she cut off his gag? Why would she do that? Doesn’t she know he’s bad? He could bite, or– or something.
Well, if she’s giving him permission to speak, he knows she probably wants to hear him beg. Or ‘ask nicely’ as she says.
He braces himself, attempting to speak, but his mouth and throat are dry and sore and the first sound that escapes him is barely a broken syllable. He tries again. “Out? Ple– please.”
Apparently, this is the wrong choice. Vera makes another angry noise and the door to his cage swings open. “Get up,” she demands, the venom in her voice enough to turn him cold.
The clear order processes a second later and he panics to obey as quickly as he can. He crawls on bruised legs, swaying dangerously as he breaches the cage door. He whines softly when he finds that he can't get to his feet, instead collapsing and looking up at her with pleading eyes.
Mercy, please. I tried. I tried to obey, please, he begs fruitlessly in his head, tongue feeling thick and clumsy.
“Stop being difficult, you prick. Get up.”
The insult makes Quill wince, even if it’s the least of what Vera has called him. Tears prickle at his eyes, chest bouncing as he pants with exertion.
“I– I–” Quill hiccups, trying to organize his rampant thoughts as his feverish head pounds against his skull and he sways in place. “Please. Please. Wanna sleep. Wanna– please. Can’t– hurts—” he babbles before bursting into tears, humiliation coursing through him.
He realizes what an idiot he was a moment later. He should be apologizing for his cruel actions, not trying to take advantage of her. “Sorry. ‘m sorry. Sorry, sorry, ‘m sorry ‘m sorry ‘m sorry—”
Vera says something he can’t hear over his out-of-control breathing, which only makes him hunker down more, knowing the price for disobedience. Quill doesn’t know how he could possibly be brought lower than this, but he’s learned the woman will find a way.
There’s suddenly a hand fast approaching, and he can’t do anything but jump back out of pure instinct when it makes contact with his flushed and heated skin. He overbalances and topples over, crying out when the floor rushes up to meet him and all of his injuries scream in agony.
“Quill.”
Quill jolts. Vera usually calls him something degrading and cruel, so if she’s using his name, this is serious.
“Get up, come on, unless you want me to leave you here.”
Quill nearly sobs at that, begging no. His own mother’s face flashes before his eyes, twisted in repulsion: “Leave. We don’t want you here, you little freak.”
He’d protested. “But—”
“Out, demon!” she spat at him. “You’re old enough to take of yourself. No one wants you. No one will ever want you.”
He’d been eleven.
Quill tries to sit up, to focus on something, to bring himself back to the world of the living. But the scenes around him move in slow motion and he can’t feel Vera’s grip on his wrist (when had she grabbed him?) any longer.
“Wanna sleep. Wanna . . .” he mumbles, trailing off. “Can’t– legs. Not working,” Quill grumbles frustratedly, eyes unfocused and watery. “‘m sorry. ‘m useless.” He’s laying on the floor. When did he start laying on the floor?
Vera takes a step back and the sudden surety that she’s going to leave him to die alone rushes through him. Don’t, he says, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. At least he thinks he says it. He’s almost positive that he said it when she takes another step towards him, hauling him to his klutzy feet, and he nods to himself.
“M’kay. ‘m going. Please– please don’t punish. Going.” Quill’s quickly losing coherency, exhausting himself with his fear and the progressing illness. He stumbles along, focusing as hard as he can, but it’s not enough.
He tumbles into Vera, and the stabbing terror in his heart isn’t enough to keep him awake.
Valeria moves silently through the dark halls, ears straining to pick up any sound as her eyes dart into every corner. Everything indicates that she is alone, but she knows better than to let her guard down when her mother is involved. It’s only after a thorough perimeter check that she starts to relax.
The frustration of being too late is cut through by relief. Valeria’s mother is her greatest fear.
She pads silently deeper into the base, tense, ready to attack at every sound, even as she tries to relax. Being jumpy isn’t helpful.
She arrives at the top of a short staircase and pauses as the sounds of quiet shuffling reach her. Her stomach drops.
Someone is down there.
Gripping her knives tighter, she silently descends the stairs, listening for any sign whoever is down there is aware of her presence. It’s dark, too dark for anyone without night vision to be able to see much of anything.
In the center of the room, there’s a large cage with a figure lying curled up inside. Valeria listens, wary of a trap, before approaching. The cage is made of sturdy wood, not metal, and that piques her interest.
Mother never used wood for a cage before.
She hops deftly up on top of the crate, and peers down inside at the prisoner, curious, but still wary. The first thing she notices is silver hair. Silver not of old age, but something else. Something unnatural.
Valeria knows that hair, and suddenly the wooden cage makes a lot more sense. She bares her teeth, and snarls down at Quill, hot anger taking the place of concern as she glares down at her former tormentor. The sound that tears out of her throat makes the figure—smaller than she remembers, like he’s lost muscle mass—shrink in on himself.
Still hissing, she slides down off the cage, and crouches beside the man’s head, restraining herself from stabbing him then and there.
Instead, she reaches her arm through one of the bars and uses one of her knives to deftly slice through the strip of cloth that gags him.
“Long time, no see,” she hisses, though really, three months isn’t that long. Certainly not long enough for the rage she feels to have faded any.
Quill’s body tenses up so fast she nearly gets whiplash at the change, and then he goes limp all of a second later, like he can’t hold the tension. He makes a soft sound, a quiet “Mm—” before licking dry, cracked lips. “Out? Ple– please.”
Valeria growls, ears pinned flat to her head as she undoes the simple, resin latches that decorate the solid door of the cage, letting it swing open as she prepares to pounce on him.
Does he really think begging is going to work? Like I’m that fucking stupid. A thrill runs through her stomach as he shifts, a bloodthirsty near excitement causing her tense muscles to quiver.
When Quill doesn’t move, she growls in frustration, and, in an angry, sharp voice, she snaps.
“Get. Up.”
An odd expression Valeria couldn’t place (or didn’t want to place) crosses his face before he pushes himself up and makes for the cage door. He doesn’t stand, though, instead giving Valeria one last desperate look and slumping to the ground.
“Stop being difficult, you prick. Get up.” Valeria snaps, waiting for the act to drop.
Quill visibly swallows, throat bobbing. “I– I–” He gives a full-body shudder, hands clenching his own shirt as though trying poorly to hug himself. “Please. Please. Wanna sleep. Wanna– please. Can’t– hurts—”
Valeria realizes a second later that he’s started crying and blubbering out apologies. An odd feeling, somewhere between a vague relief and intense pity, washes over her and pulls her under like a riptide.
“What?” she asks, shaken to realize that she actually feels sorry for this bastard. She shakes herself and stalks forward.
It’s only once she puts the back of her hand against his forehead and feels the heat radiating off of his skin, that she realizes the man is not faking it. He pitches backwards, panic clear in his eyes, and Valeria jumps back in surprise before she steadies herself and crouches beside him again.
“Quill?” she asks, tone still cold and stern, hiding the uneasiness that creeps over her, she reaches out, hesitating slightly, before grabbing his wrist to pull him upright. His skin is slick with sweat, and she again feels a twist of pity which she angrily shoves away.
He does not deserve her pity. Not after what he’s done. To her, to Calix, and who knows how many others…
No, he doesn’t deserve her pity. So why does she still feel it? Why won’t it go away?
Quill pulls weakly against her grip on his wrist, eyes darting in different directions, unfocused.
“Quill.” she hisses again, not bothering to wait for a response before she tries to pull him upright. “Get up, come on, unless you want me to leave you here.” It’s cruel, she knows, to threaten that, but he’s done so much worse to her that she does her best to banish the guilt. He’d tortured her.
“No! No, no no no,” Quill yelps, looking abruptly horrified at the suggestion as he tries to stay upright and fails.
Valeria strains, trying to haul his deadweight up. Even though he’s certainly been somewhat starved by Vera, he’s still considerably bigger than she is. She gives up after a minute, letting him slump back to the ground. She steps back with a sigh, thinking, and she doesn’t have a second to think before a wave of jumbled begging spills out of Quill’s mouth: “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me, don’t go, don’t leave, don’t w’nna be alone, don’t go, don’t…”
Valeria freezes, her stomach twisting in a way that's almost physically painful. Pity for the supervillain is becoming harder and harder to deny.
And then there's the fucking guilt for having threatened to leave him.
He deserved it, her thoughts protest.
Quill’s eyes close, his brows scrunched together in some kind of quiet pain. “Wanna sleep. Wanna…” he mumbles, trailing off. “Can’t– legs. Not working,” Quill grumbles frustratedly, open his stormy gray eyes to face her, unfocused and watery. “‘m sorry. ‘m useless.”
Valeria takes a step back absentmindedly, about to start pacing, when Quill lurches towards her, silver eyes wild.
“M’kay. ‘m going. Please– please don’t punish. Going.”
She barely has time to catch him as he topples forward, unconscious, slumped into her arms.
Fuck.