Back again with a new story! I got some positive responses to the premise of this story on Finding Home and figured it was worth putting out there to see what everyone thinks. I'm not very far into the writing process and only have very loose ideas about different plot points, but I'm excited to see where the story and characters take me because it's usually not where I expect!
My story is likely to alter the canon of both the MCU and Jessica Jones TV show. I'm also leaning more into comic-Jessica's level of powers than the show's representation, but dealing with Jessica's reluctance and PTSD etc. Tony's PTSD will be explored a bit more than the films did, making it more prevalent and having it affect his relationships with his friends (e.g. I hate Pepper and Tony not being together but, in this story, Tony's baggage will have been too much for Pepper to ever have gotten romantically involved so that Jessica can swoop in and help him cope without any awkward ex plot points).
Anyhoos, with that out of the way, here's the first chapter! I hope you enjoy x
Prologue
She should really have every lightbulb in her small apartment switched on and glaring, since the darkness always seems to press in around her, hiding black eyes and soft-spoken words. She's always got that tension in her jaw, her teeth biting into each other, grinding and chewing, and it's because of that sliver of attention that is always directed towards the darkness, the shadows, always waiting for the monster to jump out or, worse, speak. So, yeah, switching the lights on would maybe give her jaw a break, let the tension headache ease off a little, prove to her paranoid chaos of a mind that she is, in fact, alone, and not being watched by black eyes and cruel sneers. But she's come to accept that she belongs in the darkness now, where she can slink away unnoticed, where her soul isn't illuminated and bare for all to see, where she can wince her way through half a bottle of whiskey without the bartender giving her that look - the you-look-pretty-fucked-up-maybe-I-shouldn't-give-you-any-more-drink kind of look.
And so she sits, in the wooden chair with the broken back that'll fall apart if she leans into it too much, at the desk that would wobble if not for the folded up take-out menu shoved under the stunted leg, her DSLR on her left, her whiskey on her right, her face in her laptop, and nothing but the glaring screen and the lights of the city outside to fend off the darkness that closes in around her body and mind, no matter what time of day it is. And, in the darkness, the emptiness of her apartment, the glaring lack of furniture and decoration, of warmth and personality, can't mock her and degrade her, can't promise how she deserves this, deserves the paranoia and cold and isolation, can't echo with the hollow reminder of what her life could have been, if not for him.
Yeah, the darkness is cold and harsh and a form of some self-inflicted punishment for actions that weren't technically her own but sure as hell felt like it, and, yeah, she's aware that she's made no real effort to do anything at all to break out of this suffocating cage of self-loathing and paranoia save for chasing the bottom of a shot glass; but, it's important to note, and she knows how angsty and cowardly it makes her look, that Jessica Jones just does not care anymore.
Because she's done too much wrong now to ever go back, because she's been warped and bent so harshly at her very core that she's come out the other side a completely different person, because it's already enough of an effort fighting against the whispers to simply exist, that fighting to be good and kind again and step back into the light seems utterly impossible - and fruitless, anyway, because she doesn't belong in the light. She's not sure she ever did.
The bitter truth is that she thrives in the darkness. Here, where she sneaks and blackmails and threatens, where she spends her days gathering evidence of affairs and corruption and violence, where her pessimism and cynicism is constantly and relentlessly proven useful and warranted, Jessica Jones has found herself a place in the world, somewhere she has a purpose, somewhere she can exist without tainting everything she touches, somewhere people can see as soon as they look at her that she belongs, that she deserves to belong. And, if she belongs, if this is her place in the world, why the hell would she try to belong somewhere else?
So she stares up at the man standing in the middle of the apartment, her elbow on her desk, her cheek resting in her hand, the tip of her ring finger resting in the corner of her eye, pushing the skin upwards, and the corner of her mouth twitches with hollow amusement.
"You wanna make a team of heroes," she intones, the brazen ridiculousness of the idea astounding her. "And you came here, to this run-down building, full of druggies and criminals, knocked on the door with the shattered window, walked into this shithole apartment, took one look at my sorry ass, and decided that, no, this isn't a mistake?"
The man lifts his chin, his bald head glinting with the light of the neon sign outside her window, and his one-eyed gaze flicks to the door of her apartment. His hands are hidden inside his knee-length leather jacket's pockets, his black turtleneck resting below his jawline, his black cargo pants tucked into a pair of black boots, and Jessica wonders if he thinks it makes him look intimidating.
"Well, if it wasn't for the sheet of cardboard taped over the window, this probably would've played out differently," he says, his tone serious, but the skin around his uncovered eye twitches.
Jessica meets his guarded and unyielding stare, her other hand resting at the wrist on the edge of the table, fingers curled lazily around her whiskey glass. She shifts a little in her chair to draw her feet towards her body, crossing her legs at the ankle, curving her chest towards the desk to crack her back. She looks over to the cardboard in question and lets a smirk pull at her lips.
"Good to know your opinion of my suitability would be so easily swayed," she comments, turning her flat stare back to him, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't blame you."
He lets out a short, flat hum of amusement, watching her. But he doesn't reply. Jessica blinks, licking her lips, her eyes dropping to her laptop and the scandalous article she was reading before his fist wrapped on her door at 9.37pm on this mundane Tuesday night.
"In case you're not catching on, I am definitely not suitable for your little do-gooder gang," she says, lifting her glass to her lips, letting the whiskey slip over her tongue and down her throat, swallowing the burn with grim satisfaction.
"I can think of a certain eight-month period that would prove you wrong," he retorts. "Certain tales woven by a little girl who ran out into the road, a family whose car went off a bridge.." he trails off, eyebrows lifting, the promise of a longer list on his tongue.
Jessica stares up at him over the top of her screen with her teeth clenched. She lowers her glass back down to the desk, the soft thud rocking the liquid gently. She tries to breathe steadily, in and out through her nostrils, her middle finger tapping her temple, and the darkness presses in.
"That was almost two years ago," she says hollowly. "You're looking at a different person."
His eye narrows at her, forehead flattening again. His head tilts. "I'm not so sure that I am," he replies. "You don't exactly hide, Miss Jones, and your clients - and victims - certainly have a lot to say about you."
Jessica's lips curl in a cold smirk. "I tear marriages apart, ruin businesses, air out people's dirty secrets," she says. "Generates a lot of bitching."
"You also save women from domestic violence, children from neglectful families," he retorts. "Find murderers when their killings were passed off as suicides. That generates a lot of praise."
Jessica shakes her head, straining not to roll her eyes. "Yeah, I'm not a sadist," she mutters, letting her hand drop from her cheek to land on the desk. His mouth twitches, eye gleaming, and she glares, lifting the hand holding her glass to point at him. "Doesn't make me a good person, though, or a candidate for this circus you're selling." She downs the rest of her glass and sets it back down.
"Maybe not," he allows, shrugging a shoulder. "But I'm willing to find out."
"Listen," she sighs, crossing her arms on her desk, levelling him with a flat look. Her bitter amusement is morphing into irritation, now. "Even if I was a suitable candidate, which I'm clearly not, I'm telling you right now that I'm not interested. I don't wanna be a part of some team of goody-two-shoe nerds."
His mouth curls into his cheek, an eyebrow lifting. "Who said they were goody-two-shoes?" he challenges.
She scoffs. "Don't tell me you're making a band of so-called heroes, and the people you're inviting are all as shitty as I am."
"I'm working on a healthy balance."
Jessica cocks her head, tonguing her cheek, her lips stretching wide. "A healthy balance?" she repeats, amused.
He shrugs, walking slowly to her window, looking out at the street below. "I do have a man driven by honour and a remarkable moral compass," he allows. "Figure I need someone such as yourself to balance it out."
"To piss on his good morals?" she asks flatly.
"To tell it like it is," he retorts, looking at her over his shoulder. "To dig deeper than what's on the surface. To make the tough call and follow through."
Jessica smirks. "You mean to be the paranoid, cold-hearted asshole." The man watches her, not moving to deny the accusation. "You want me on the team to do all the dirty work, say the shit that people hate you for, doubt the honesty and goodness of everyone around me, because that's what I do for a living, right? So why wouldn't I do it in a team?"
He turns his body to face her again, stepping back into the middle of her apartment. His eye watches her, staring, still guarded. He shrugs a shoulder again, eye narrowing. "So, why not?" he asks.
Jessica huffs out an unimpressed noise, reaching for the bottle of whiskey to pour herself another glass. "Because I don't do teams," she answers, watching the liquid slosh into the dirty glass. Her voice is lifted a little in volume, trying to block out the whispers that claw at her from the shadows.
"Doesn't make you special, Miss Jones," he retorts. "I'm only confident that two out of the six potential candidates can actually work well in a team. The rest would tell me the exact same thing you did, for varying reasons."
Jessica stares at him as she takes a sip of her drink. She swallows the liquid down, licking her lips, letting the glass hover in the air in her loose grip. "Is that supposed to make the team sound more enticing?" she questions, frowning.
He smiles, and there's a challenge in his eye. "Less intimidating."
Jessica actually grins, eyebrows lifting. "Oh, so you think you can imply I'm a coward and it'll provoke me into joining the team to prove you wrong?"
"I'm not implying anything, Miss Jones. Simply giving you all the information I can to help you make a decision."
"There's no decision to make," she says, taking another sip. She sets the glass down on the desk again. "I told you, I'm not interested."
He regards her for a moment, eye narrowing, glancing over her face. His boots make soft thuds when he stalks towards her, lifting a card out of his pocket and placing it on her desk, two fingers pressing it down as if to ingrain it onto the wood.
"There will come a time when the world needs you, Miss Jones," he says quietly, sticking her with a piercing stare. "And I don't think you'll turn your back on it so easy."
He holds her gaze for another breath, and then turns to walk to the door, the hem of his leather jacket swirling in the air around his legs. She watches the back of his head as he opens the door and steps out into the hallway, but he doesn't send her a backwards glance. The door closes behind him, a strip of tape holding the cardboard falling, the sheet slipping a little.
Jessica swallows, eyes dropping to the card he left on the table. Charcoal grey, with black lettering, the words almost seem to mock her with their severity.
"Director Nicholas J. Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D."
There must be a form of contact on the other side of the card.
Jessica picks up her glass and swallows the rest of her drink, wincing at the volume of fire burning down her throat. She opens a drawer on her left, fingers circling around something plastic. She deposits the glass at her side again and reaches for the card, bringing her hands together, glaring at the font and letters and colours. Her foot nudges the bin out from under her desk and she ignites the lighter in her hand, holding the flame to the corner of the card.
She watches it burn, feeling the darkness pressing in around her, whispers snaking into her ears, jaw clenched. The flame crawls up over the text, reaching for the logo of the organisation, and she drops the card into her bin, watching the grey turn brown and crinkled, shrivelling up into nothing. The flame finishes its erasure, extinguishing in a small puff of smoke, and she nudges the bin back under her desk again, eyes finding the sentence she was reading in the article before her visitor interrupted, hands reaching to pour another glass of whiskey.
No, there's no point trying to belong anywhere else. The world has treated her as it has, broken and beaten her to fit into this cramped, cold, pit of a purpose, and she doesn't care enough to try fit anywhere else, even if the world did somehow shape her into something else, someone else. The darkness is her enemy, a place to house the monsters in her mind, but Jessica is a monster too, and the darkness welcomes her as such.