Chapter 14 - A Year's Supply of Jack
Hacking into the city's security and traffic cameras hadn't been nearly as productive as Tony had hoped, because the city's cameras more or less sucked. Half of them weren't working at all, others provided feeds that were intermittent or so grainy that he'd never have been able to recognize Loki in them even if she'd been within a few feet of the camera. "Who the heck sold the city this stuff? Tell me it wasn't SI, because that would just be embarrassing."
"The city previously contracted Hammer Industries to install and maintain its security and traffic camera technology, Sir," said JARVIS.
"Well, that explains that."
They really should have been able to find Loki by now. Really, how hard could it be to find one teenage kid in Manhattan? Samson and Bruce had been out looking for her on foot, but neither of them had called him with news yet.
He had gotten several hundred texts (or so it seemed, Tony hadn't actually counted) from little Petey Parker. He'd even read a couple of them:
Lil' Pete: abt2 get on bus going south on W 77 St
Lil' Pete: dw, we'll find yr daughter
Tony didn't have time to learn the nuances of Gen Z text speak, so he'd just have to assume that "bus going south on W 77 St" was slang for doing drugs, and that "daughter" was slang for crack cocaine. The kid seemed kind of young to be doing coke, but kids grew up fast these days. He'd turned off his text notifications, but he had JARVIS monitoring his texts. If the kid texted him anything useful, JARVIS would let him know.
Tony had already done one fly over the city in the suit, but he couldn't keep doing it, or it would attract attention. They were trying to keep it on the down-low that they had misplaced a war criminal that shouldn't have even been back on Earth. He'd wanted to send a drone looking for Loki, or maybe a dozen of them, but JARVIS had pointed out that it was illegal to fly a drone in Manhattan, and that breaking the law would also attract attention. (Technically, flying around NYC airspace in the Iron Man Suit wasn't legal either, but no one had tried to ticket him for that yet.)
It was already getting dark outside, and eventually the others were going to get back from their training exercise. Tony decided it was time to call in professional help. They couldn't go to the police, but he knew of a private eye he could trust to be discreet.
(－‸ლ)
The others got back from their "training exercise" early the next morning. In Tony's mind, that it had gone overnight only confirmed that "training exercise" had been code for "mission that Tony and Bruce didn't have the security clearance for."
Loki was still missing, and Tony wasn't sure how long they could keep it a secret. Luckily, Natasha and Clint had gone straight to bed.
Steve, on the other hand, had sought Tony out in his lab. "How's Loki doing?" he asked, sounding a little guilty. Tony didn't know what he had to feel guilty about, since he and Bruce were the ones who had lied to him and not the other way around.
Tony didn't look up from his phone, which he was using to go over some decent footage that JARVIS had managed to hijack from the MOMA's security cameras. Loki had visited the MOMA, and had spent twenty minutes just staring at Andy Warhol's 32 Campbell's Soup Cans. He had no idea where the kid had gone after the museum had closed for the evening, but maybe she'd gone to look for something to eat, given how much time she had spent looking at pictures of food.
"Tony, please don't ignore me. I'm sorry about how I reacted, although I still don't understand why you and Bruce would lie to us."
Tony let out a frustrated sigh. Bruce had probably been right about the others being upset mostly because of the lie (or at least it was true in Cap's case—Clint seemed to be upset that Loki existed, and Nat seemed more indifferent than upset). Here they were, lying again. "Well, to tell you the truth, Cap, Loki's kind of done a disappearing act on us."
Steve froze for about ten seconds before he asked, "What does that mean?"
Tony shrugged. "It means Loki left the tower sometime last night, and we don't know where she went. Bruce and I have been looking for her since yesterday morning, and Doc's out looking too. I also hired a private investigator."
"Is this your idea of a joke? Because it isn't funny."
Tony looked up from his phone, so that Steve could see how serious he was being.
"Holy mackerel—Tony, why didn't you call us as soon as Loki went missing? We should all be out there looking for her!"
Tony stabbed a finger in Steve's direction. "We don't need SHIELD involved with this, got it? Loki is just a normal human girl right now—or boy in a girl's body, possibly. And I'm really not concerned about her causing trouble so much as I'm worried she's going to get herself in trouble. For all we know, she's in some sleazy drug den right now, or she's been picked up by a sex trafficking ring, because at the end of the day, Loki isn't from Earth and she's going to be even more totally clueless than a normal teenager when it comes to that stuff."
"Where's her mother?" Steve demanded.
"New Orleans. I'm guessing she might be gone for a few days. I tried calling her hotel, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet."
"So she doesn't know Loki's gone?"
"Nope." And Frigga would probably strike them all dead with a twitch of her nose when she found out they had lost her child, but he would just have to worry about that later. Why hadn't he gotten Frigga a cell phone? Thor didn't have one either, plus he was in Asgard, as far as Tony knew. Tony was going to have to invent inter-realm cell phone service one of these days.
"We need to tell Natasha and Clint so they can help."
"No way. They'll tell SHIELD, Cap."
"Tony, maybe SHIELD should be informed—"
"No. Remember what Loki said about how SHIELD isn't what we think it is? I already had my suspicions after I saw their plans for the Tesseract. Loki wasn't wrong to want it out of their hands."
Steve nodded. "You're right."
"I am?"
"You're right that SHIELD can't know about Loki. But you're wrong about Clint and Natasha. We can trust them not to go behind our backs."
"Cap, as much as I'd trust Clint and Natasha to guard my back, I wouldn't trust them not to put a knife in it themselves if I handed them one."
"That doesn't make sense, Tony. We're a team, we have to trust each other. And right now, we should all be out there looking for Loki. The investigator you hired—this is someone you trust more than us?"
"I haven't actually told her who it is she's looking for—I just showed her a photo. And I trust her not to tell anyone I hired her to look for some random girl, but only because I happen to be in possession of a video of her holding up a minivan."
"Holding up a minivan—she's a car jacker?"
"No, I have a video of her holding up a minivan."
Steve quirked an eyebrow at him. "An enhanced private eye?"
"Why not? There are all sorts of enhanced people in this city. You didn't think you and Bruce were the only ones, did you?"
"Are they—have they all had some variation of Erskine's serum?"
"Maybe some of them have, I wouldn't know. But people get powers other ways, too. Science experiments gone wrong, freak accidents involving radiation or chemicals. Some of them are just born that way. You've heard of mutants, right? Who knows, maybe Earth even has magicians like they have in Asgard."
Steve shook his head. "The world is an even more dangerous place than I thought. I'm starting to think Loki might have been right about a few things."
"What, you want Loki to play God now?"
"That is absolutely not what I'm saying, Tony."
JARVIS spoke up. "Sir, the private eye you hired is on her way up. I believe she has found something. I also might warn you that she appears to be angry."
Finally, some good news, or at least news. "Thanks JAR—and don't worry, Jess always looks angry. She's just an angry person, I think. Maybe we should hook her up with Doc Samson and get her some help with anger management."
"You sure about that Tony, or does she just not like being blackmailed into working for you?" Steve asked.
"I didn't—" Okay, he sort of did. "Okay, I sort of did, but I'm also paying her well. And if she's already found Loki, I'm giving her a bonus."
The elevator dinged as the doors opened, and a young woman with long brown hair, a leather jacket, and a permanent scowl stepped off the elevator. She tossed a manila file folder down on the glass coffee table in front of Tony before taking a seat across from him. "Got her. She's staying in the apartment of a Karen Page. Works as a waitress, came to New York on her own a few years ago—oh, and I think she might have been a drug dealer back in her hometown, and she might have killed a guy. But she's probably not a serial killer or anything, so I don't think this girl you're looking for is in immediate danger."
"Steve, meet Jessica Jones," Tony said, and that concluded the introductions. "She was a drug dealer," he repeated, as he opened the folder and looked down at a photo of a woman with large eyes and long blonde hair. "She still do drugs?"
"Shouldn't we be more concerned about the 'killed a guy' part?" asked Steve.
Jessica answered Tony, ignoring Steve's question. "No, I don't think she does drugs anymore."
Tony spread the rest of the pictures out on the table in front of him. They had been taken from a distance with a telephoto lens, but were clear enough that Tony was sure it was Loki. She looked okay, at least. She wasn't tied up, and there weren't any pictures of her shooting heroin into her eyeballs. In fact, she was just sitting around watching TV, which was pretty much what she did in the tower. (Seriously, the kid snuck out and the most exciting thing she could find to do in NYC on a Saturday night was sit around someone else's place on her ass?) Tony bent down to examine a picture of Loki sitting on the couch with the blonde woman. "She some sort of sexual deviant?"
Steve's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"The woman did pick up a kid that looks like she's about fourteen and take her home."
"I think she was just being a good Samaritan," said Jessica, rolling her eyes. "I don't think she took her home so she could stuff her in a box and keep her under the bed."
"Careful, Nancy Drew. You'll offend Cap's virgin ears."
Cap's face had in fact turned red, and he looked away. Tony wondered sometimes if he really was a virgin. Apparently, he hadn't been too popular with the ladies before the serum, and since then, he'd been kind of busy to have a serious relationship. Somehow, Tony just didn't see Cap as a one night stand kind of guy.
Jessica leaned over the table to look at her own photos. "Who is this kid anyway?" she asked. "Your love child?"
"Yeah, mine and Cap's," said Tony. He didn't look up from the photos in front of him, but he heard Steve's sigh.
"Oh yeah? Which of you is the mom?" Jessica asked.
"I would have thought that would be obvious—"
"Enough," said Steve. "We need to go get her before she disappears again, or something happens to her."
Tony shook his head. "We've got to be careful, Cap, or she'll see us coming and run for it." He looked at Jessica. "Maybe you could get her for us."
"Sorry, collecting runaway kids is not part of my job."
"How would you like a bottle of Macallan 25?"
"I'm not really a connoisseur."
"Okay, how about a year's supply of Jack Daniel's?"
The corner of Jessica's mouth turned up. "You do realize just how much that is for me? I've got a high metabolism, so it takes a lot more to get me drunk—and I drink to get drunk. A year's supply would cost you twice as much as the Macallan."
"I can afford it. Except now you're sort of making me feel bad about enabling you, and I'm thinking maybe I should have offered you access to the Avengers' staff psychiatrist instead."
"No thanks. I don't need to see a shrink. I'll take the whiskey."
Oh well, he'd be a hypocrite if he denied the woman her therapy of choice. "Alright, we have a deal then. Just don't hurt her."
"You gonna tell me what her name is, and why she ran off?" Jessica asked. "Because that might help, you know."
Tony looked into her eyes, as if having a staring contest with her would tell him if she could keep a Loki-sized secret. The woman didn't flinch, but she did arch a questioning eyebrow at him. "Fine, but part of the deal is you can't tell anyone about this," said Tony. "Not even your own mother."
"My real mom's dead and my adoptive mom's a bitch, so whatever."
How was it almost everyone he knew had a family that was either tragically dead, emotionally abusive, or both? He'd give her the whiskey, but he'd also give her Doc's card in case she changed her mind about therapy. Was it weird that knowing her past was just as screwed up as everyone else's around here only made him trust her more?
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Jessica used binoculars to watch the door to Karen Page's apartment from her car, which she had parked half a block away. It shouldn't be that difficult to bring Loki in—the guy that had rained hell down on New York was now trapped in the body of a normal human girl, one that looked like she could be knocked over by a strong breeze. A full-grown human woman of average strength could have taken her easily, and Jessica wasn't just average. But Stark had warned her that the kid was some kind of genius, so she had to be careful that she (or he, apparently the kid went back and forth on the whole gender identity thing, not that it made a difference) didn't slip away from her.
She would have to figure out some way of keeping the kid from screaming for help. She probably should have brought a gag, and maybe handcuffs. But she didn't actually own either of those things, because as much of a freak as she was, she wasn't that kind of freak. Jeez—just how had she let Tony Stark talk her into being his henchman? It felt like she was planning a kidnapping, which, unless the kid came along quietly (never going to happen), she was.
Page didn't leave the apartment until four-thirty in the afternoon. She must have been working the late shift again at her waitressing job. Luckily, she was on her own. Loki had stayed behind in the apartment.
After fifteen minutes (walking up to the door right after the woman had left would have been too suspicious), Jessica crossed the street to the building. It looked like at one time, there had been a lock on the front door, and one of those buzzer systems that allowed residents to "buzz in" guests. However, the lock had been smashed off and the intercom had been pulled out, either by some criminal or by the residents themselves after one too many malfunctions of the buzzer system. That meant all she had to do was walk in—no waiting for someone else to go in so she could slip in behind them, or calling up to one of the residents, pretending to have lost her keys. A lucky break for her, which just made her nervous, because in her experience, a lucky break was usually followed by her luck suddenly running out.
Jessica climbed the stairs to the second floor apartment and knocked on the door. Hopefully, Loki would be dangerously stupid when it came to "stranger danger," and would open the door without hesitation. Given that she was currently sitting in a stranger's apartment watching TV, Jessica thought the chances of talking her way in were pretty good, but if not, breaking the door down wouldn't be too difficult.
To Loki's credit, she didn't open the door all the way. She left the chain on the door and opened it only a few inches. Not that the chain would keep Jessica from forcing her way in. She thought she'd try talking first, though.
"Who are you?" Loki asked, eying her suspiciously.
"I'm Karen's friend Jessica. Who're you, her kid sister or something?" She had already decided not to pretend to be someone else. The kid wouldn't know who she was either way, and it would be much easier to cover up a small lie, than to keep up an entire persona.
Loki frowned at her. "She went to work."
"Can I come in? I left some DVDs here. I need to get them."
Loki's frown turned into a full-on scowl. "Karen doesn't have a DVD player."
Well, shit. Who didn't have a DVD player in 2012? "I know she doesn't have one. They're new. I left them here accidentally after we went shopping the other day." Because women who were friends went shopping together, right? Trish had never asked her to go shopping, but that might have been because she had known what Jessica's answer would be.
Loki's scowl relaxed a little, but she still didn't look a whole lot like she was buying it. "Tell me where they are, and I'll go get them."
"I don't remember where I left them. Just let me look. What, you think I'm going to murder you or something?"
"You might be a thief."
"If I'm a thief, how do I know who lives here?"
"By looking at her mail. The mailboxes here have locks on them, but they wouldn't be that difficult to pick."
Okay, given that the kid was an alien and presumably hadn't grown up watching crime dramas on TV, it impressed Jessica that she had come up with that answer so quickly. "Tell you what. I'll give you my driver's license, and let you hold onto it until I leave. That way, if I steal anything, I'm not going to get away with it, am I?"
"Perhaps I should call Karen at work and verify your story."
Well, screw this. She just had to get the kid back to Avenger's tower. It would have been nice if she could have gotten inside without damaging anything and without the kid screaming bloody murder, but that didn't look likely. Jessica grabbed the door and forced it the rest of the way open, pulling the chain out of the door frame.
Loki stumbled backwards. "You're like the Captain."
Seriously, the kid was comparing her to Captain freakin' America? "Eh, I've got the super strength, but that's where the similarities end."
"Who are you and what do you want?"
"Your mommy and daddy sent me to bring you home."
"What?" Loki looked about to pee herself. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned "daddy." Apparently, her actual dad was kind of a twat.
"Tony Stark and Steve Rogers sent me to take you back to Avenger's Tower," she translated, hoping the kid would calm down. "Still haven't quite figured out which one of them is Mom and which one's Dad."
Loki continued to back up, all the while making furtive glances towards the door.
Jessica rolled her eyes. The kid had to be nuts if she thought there was any way she was letting her get past her. "Look kid, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"Why do they want me back?" Loki demanded.
"Because letting you run around the city on your own is dangerous, duh."
"I'm not going to do anything! I couldn't—I'm just a normal mortal without any powers."
"That's why they're worried, idiot. Just to clarify, they're not worried about the city, they're worried about something happening to you." Suddenly, that kind of pissed her off. "Do you have any idea how lucky that makes you, by the way? You have people who actually give a shit about you, which you probably don't deserve and obviously don't appreciate." Jessica had never appreciated her own family until they were dead, and Dorothy had been a narcissist. The woman hadn't even cared about Trish, her biological daughter. She'd just used and abused her, and probably would have been willing to sell her to the devil himself to save her own skin.
Loki shook his head. "Why would they care about me? Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah, they told me. I kind of didn't believe it at first, but honestly? Life is frickin' weird."
Loki crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her. At least she wasn't acting like she was scared anymore. Apparently, Stark and Rogers weren't nearly as scary as the her actual parents, and maybe after a night sleeping on a threadbare couch in a rundown apartment, she had realized that returning to Stark's luxury accommodations on Park Avenue might not be so bad. But that didn't mean the kid wasn't going to be obstinate just for the hell of it. "If they care so much, why not come to fetch me themselves?"
Alright, a year's supply of whiskey wasn't worth this shit. She wasn't here to play guidance counselor, just haul Loki's ass back to Avenger's Tower. She grabbed the kid by the arm and dragged her across the apartment into Page's bedroom closet, which was barely large enough to count as a walk-in. It was probably the only closet in the apartment, judging by the kitchen appliances and Christmas decorations on the floor underneath Page's clothes.
Loki tried to pull away, but Jessica was much too strong for her. Jessica grabbed one of Page's belts, looped the end through the buckle, and used it to bind her captive's wrists together in front of her. Still holding onto the end, she grabbed a couple of scarves—not winter scarves, but the kind Dorothy had worn with pant suits in the spring.
She stuffed one of the scarves in Loki's mouth, and tied the other one around to keep it in. Loki narrowed her eyes at her.
"Look, don't make a fuss. I'm gagging you mostly because I don't want to hear it. This is Hell's Kitchen, kid. Even if people see me dragging you down the street and you're screaming bloody murder, they're not going to get involved, and they're not going to bother calling the police. They know there isn't a point. The gangs run things here and the police stay out of it. Kids like you disappear here all the time, by the way. Do you know how lucky you are that this woman you're staying with didn't turn out to be a sex trafficker or something?" Okay, she might have been exaggerating how bad things were just a tiny bit, but she probably could get away with marching the kid down the street like this so long as she didn't scream bloody murder and attract the attention of some vigilante. "Come on, we're going now," she said, pulling her along by the "leash" end of the belt.
Loki didn't put up a struggle after that. Bound and gagged, she walked with her head held high all the way to the car, like Joan of Arc ascending her pyre. Jessica pushed the girl into the front passenger seat; she didn't like having people ride in the back, because she wasn't anyone's chauffeur. She'd thought about throwing her the trunk, but having a passenger in your trunk wasn't really safe, and Stark had specifically said not to hurt her. If she brought the kid back damaged, he might decide not to follow through on her payment. She hadn't exactly gotten their agreement in writing.
Jessica got in the driver's seat and buckled her captive's seatbelt for her. She had already switched on the child safety locks in her car, in case the kid tried to jump out in the middle of a traffic jam. She was pretty sure Loki couldn't move anyway, what with the seatbelt and her hands still bound in front of her, but issuing a verbal warning couldn't hurt. "Look kid, don't interfere with my driving. If I crash the car, we both die—actually, I probably won't, because, you know, powers. Just keep in mind that you're completely mortal."
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Author's Note:
I bought one of those mattresses that comes rolled up, and you have to roll it out and wait for it to expand. Watching it slowly turn into an actual mattress over the past 24 hours might be the most exciting thing that's happened in my life in the past year—other than having people read my writing and leave much appreciated feedback, of course.
I actually didn't do too much rewriting for this chapter, other than cleaning up Jessica's language. Originally, I'd made her worse than Tony. Thank you, MewWinx96, for your advice on using the f-word in T-rated fics. Limiting it to a couple of times seems about right; if you're using strong profanity every few paragraphs, it tends to come off as unnecessarily obscene, and it lessens the impact of the word anyway.
I might have to make an index at some point of all the emoticons I used for text breaks and what they were supposed to be. The second one in this chapter was meant to be Jessica Jones with a whiskey bottle, but it might look more like she's flipping someone off. Either could work, I guess. She probably did flip Tony off once she got back into the elevator.