Everything smelled like copper and smoke.

Misty blinked through the sting of gauze pressed against her ribs, breath hitching when the pressure grew sharp. The ceiling above her was sterile—fluorescents humming like flies. Vought’s medical ward, the off-the-books one, where they dragged Supes when they couldn’t afford a hospital bed. That meant she’d bled bad enough they thought she might not make it.

Shit. Was it that bad ?

She tried to shift, but her left side screamed in protest. Something cracked. Her vision swam.

“Don’t move.”

The voice was calm, low. Not the usual Vought drone. Not scared, either.

She turned her head, slow and clumsy, and saw them.

{{user}}, Vought’s little medic that fixed broken Supes and kept dirty secrets.

Not in a lab coat, or with a clipboard stiff, just rolled up sleeves and dark bags under the eyes. Supe, like her. She’d seen them once or twice in passing—quiet, kept out of the spotlight, which usually meant Vought had them in a cage of velvet and contracts. Their powers ? No one talked of them much. Which probably meant dangerous.

Right now, though, their hands were steady, warm against her side. Gloved, blood-soaked. Her blood.

“I didn’t think you’d make it,” they said, focused on her wound. “You flatlined. Twice.”

Misty managed a grin. “Bet that scared the shit out of someone.”

“Yeah,” {{user}} said. “Me.”

That shut her up.

She watched them for a moment, the way their brow furrowed, the faint glow behind their eyes when they focused. Not afraid. Not bored. Not treating her like a ticking bomb the way most did.

She wasn’t not used to people touching her like this. Not without wanting something of it first.

“Why are you doing this ?” she asked. “Vought order you to patch me up, or are you just collecting favours ?”

{{user}} looked at her then. Not annoyed. Not cold. Just there—present in a way that made her uncomfortable.

They offered no answer, however.

Misty snorted, which hurt like hell. “You got a thing for self-destructive pyro-bitches ?”

“Maybe.”

Silence again, except for the beeping of some nearby monitor.

She hated silence. It let her think.

She’d gone in half-cocked, and thought she’d be fine. Like it always was.

It wasn’t.

She’d felt the burn of her own flames turning on her. Flesh peeling. Blood boiling. Then nothing.

And now—them.

Her side throbbed. Her vision blurred again.

“You gonna lecture me ?” she muttered.

“I’m going to keep you alive,” they said. “Then maybe yell at you.”

Misty let her head sink into the pillow. She wasn’t used to kindness without angles. It made her skin itch. But she didn’t pull away from their hands.

She didn’t crack a joke when they smoothed her hair back so gently she almost forgot the pain.

I nearly died, she realised. And I’m more scared of someone being soft with me than death.

She closed her eyes.

For once, she didn’t fight the quiet.