my dudes it has been so long and I am so very sorry. life has not given me much opportunity - whether it's time or creative motivation - to continue writing this story, so this chapter has been months in the making. it's a very particular headspace to get into as well to write this story and that can be difficult and not something I'm in the mood for any time I have a moment to spare. but.. I love this story and this pairing and I am NOT going to stop; it's just probably gonna take me a good long while to finish it lmao. if anybody's still here, I hope you enjoy!
The Curse of Caring
The collateral damage is getting out of hand.
In Kilgrave's plan to capture, kill, persuade - whatever - Jessica, people keep getting caught in the crossfire, stepping onto the slope she's barrelling down, whatever fucking metaphor suits best. They keep getting hurt. Luke, Thomas King, Mr and Mrs Schlottman, Hope, Malcolm, Trish, Tony, even the people telling their stories to Hogarth.
If Jessica had just turned back and killed him, all of those people wouldn't have been hurt the way they have.
She seems to just cycle through her memories: listening to Kilgrave's victims' stories; seeing the pictures of Thomas King's suicide; observing Luke's heartbreak and grief; hearing Hope's anguished wailing after killing her parents; listening to Malcolm stumbling and muttering incoherently; finding Trish with a cop's hands clamped around her neck; watching Tony walk away from her like he's not planning to come back-
Jessica's breath catches when she attempts a deep inhale to calm herself. She's terrified, she's livid, she's consumed by a sickening guilt for more than one shitty thing she's done, and it's her fault, it's all her fault.
The dream that woke her abruptly this morning had manifested her guilt and shame in a way that made the uneasiness linger well into her morning, assuring she'd find no peace in her waking hours. In the dream, she had seen the bus hitting him, saw his body go flying and land by Reva's. She was walking away. But then she turned around and went back to him. She saw him lying there in the dark, the clamour of panicked voices around her muffled in her concentration. His breath was laboured and weak. Blood splattered onto his lips when he coughed. But his eyes were open. "You'll have to do better than that, Jessica," he had said. So she had lifted her boot and smashed it down onto his head. His skull had given way and she had heard the repulsive noise of it crunching. And when she took her boot away and stared down at the grotesque remains of his face, she heard him speak again. "You can't escape what you are."
He turned her into a killer. And now he is banking on her only option being to kill him and prove him right. It makes her want to cave her own skull in.
It feels like Hope is the only thing keeping Jessica focused and sane. It's on the nose, sure, but the girl really is Jessica's one hope at resisting Kilgrave's plan. She can't kill him if Hope needs him as evidence of her innocence. She can't clear Hope's name if Kilgrave's too dead to prove his power.
Jessica takes a breath, closing her eyes and leaning her elbows on her desk. She can hear Malcolm stumbling around his apartment, bumping into walls, and she knows he's getting ready to leave for 9:45am. Her conversation with Trish loops in her mind incessantly - Malcolm is going to meet Kilgrave, she knows he is, which means he's the best lead she has right now, the best opportunity to capture Kilgrave and use him to prove Hope's innocence. She just doesn't know if she can handle seeing this transaction.
But her life is crumbling around her. Trish is terrified, Malcolm's vulnerable and being manipulated, Hope's spending her days in a cell, and Tony's being hurt by Jessica's inability to handle things. This could be a chance to put a stop to it all. This could be her chance to end this, for everyone.
She finds a hooded sweatshirt, a bleached denim jacket, and a red baseball cap in her closet. She goes next to the container of Sufentanil and takes both a syringe and the dart gun, tucking one into her pocket and one into the waistband of her jeans at her back. She eyes a bottle of bourbon as she waits for the sound of Malcolm leaving his apartment; but if today's the day she goes for Kilgrave, she'll need her wits about her.
Her hands are shaking though.
She allows herself a single mouthful.
Malcolm's door opens and closes, and she listens to him shuffle down the hallway. As soon as the elevator door slides over, Jessica pushes out of her apartment and heads for the stairwell, trying to pretend her steps are determined and purposeful instead of panicked and desperate. This has to work; she has to put an end to the collateral damage before someone else gets hurt, before she can't take it anymore.
It's dark and quiet. There are no windows to let in the light, if there is any natural light to be had right now, and the shadows stretch on as if it's an endless void Tony is standing in, rather than the basement of the Tower. It is so dark, and he has stood motionless for so long, that he's starting to wonder if he's even standing on the concrete floor he remembers anymore, if he isn't instead floating somewhere he has no power, no use. On the ground, he is in complete control; even in the air now, he spares no thought to the possibility of helplessness. But out there.. He slipped through a hole in the sky, had the Earth ripped out from under him too fast to fully process, and was left utterly debilitated and alone and lost and terrified-
Tony blinks and reaches a hand out quickly to turn the lamp at his side back on. He takes a ragged breath and tears his gaze from the darkness to seek out the shapes illuminated by the lamp - the classic car with its hood propped up, the engine parts rusted and dirty, the stained cloth left over the headlight, the lifeless grey of the concrete under his shoes, the shake of his oil-stained fingers. He clenches them into a fist and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the moisture pushed to the corners of his eyes waiting to be let free. His heart is thumping so hard he can feel the blood pulsing through his veins, an unhinged rhythm straining desperately to prove there's still life left in him, that he's not floating in the void of space thinking about the fact that he'd taken his last breath of fresh air on Earth and didn't even take the time to appreciate it.
A snap decision turned into a moment - a life - slipping away from him so fast he didn't even realise it happening until the oxygen ran out and his vision went dark. A snap decision to let himself be the one taking the hit so that the people around him didn't have to, because if anyone was as expendable as that, it was the billionaire who enabled the death of so many innocent people for so long and yet still sits on more wealth than most people will ever see in their lifetime. He can afford anything he wants in the world - affording that is a no-brainer.
And yet, a voice dry and scathing sounds in his mind, you get so angry about me throwing my life away so easily.
He can even picture the flat glare on her face, the slumped posture and pale skin, the haunted eyes.
He opens his eyes and unclenches his fist, lifting his aching fingers to rub at his chest. "Some pair," he mutters under his breath.
But he doesn't want to think about her. Not yet.
He looks at the switch on the lamp and debates turning it off again. Let the darkness close back in around him, feel it press in on him and steal the breath from his lungs. It makes his heart beat so fast he knows he'll faint, but it takes his mind off Jessica, off the look on her face when she said that-
Tony moves abruptly, urgently, sinking down onto the creeper by his feet and pushing against the floor to roll himself under the car. This is his version of a stress ball - except he disassembles and reassembles the engine over and over again instead of squeezing something squishy for thirty minutes. It leaves him filthy and often littered with small cuts, but it helps to turn his brain off - the emotional side, at least - and just go through the motions of something manual, physical, which won't hurt anyone other than himself.
But his heart rate has barely calmed. The lamp is on but it isn't enough to chase away the darkness, the void, and now there's something heavy above him and the wheels are on either side of him and it's dark under here and he couldn't sit up straight if he wanted to and it feels like the car is lowering closer to him and the air is getting tight and shallow and he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't fucking breathe.
His hands clutch desperately for a grip on the underside of the car to push himself back out from under it, turning his head to the side and gasping for breath like he'll be squeezing through a tiny gap. He rolls off the creeper onto the ground, his nails scratching against the concrete as his vision swims and blots.
"Lights!" he rasps, eyes wild and straining.
The basement garage suddenly flares white. Tony can hear a noise, disjointed and far away, but all he can do is crawl on his belly across the floor towards a wall, wheezing like a wounded animal moments from death. He slaps a hand against the cool brick when he reaches the wall and manages to get his knees under him, pressing the side of his face and his shoulder against it. His eyes seek out his surroundings, darting manically over the curves and angles of his cars, the various tool cupboards and trolleys, the posters on the walls and light fixtures in the ceiling. He presses himself as much as he can into the wall, surrounding himself with the feeling of solidity to counteract the imagined nothingness.
And the voice in his head comes to him again: name the four most important people in your life.
He breathes sharply, his eyes clenching and teeth baring in a pained grimace. Another panic attack. This isn't him. Tony Stark doesn't do this. Iron Man doesn't fucking do this.
He imagines the incredulous look on Jessica's face and hears: Right, I'm sure the headlines will just read "Tony Stark Suffocates in Room Full of Oxygen" instead, right? That makes more sense.
Tony hits the side of his fist against the wall and lets out a frustrated yell.
"Shit! James Rhodes." It's so hot. He's sweating through his shirt. "Pepper Potts." His heartbeat is basically one continuous thump, at this point. "Happy Hogan." Is he about to throw up? "JARVIS."
Your vision's still fucked. Do it again.
"James Rhodes." He imagines the weight of Rhodey's hand on his shoulder. "Pepper Potts." The sound of her laugh after a long day. "Happy Hogan." His genuine, ride-or-die loyalty from day one. "JARVIS." The excitement of his first snarky reply.
Everything slowly comes back into focus.
"Sir, an ambulance is on its way."
"Cancel it, J," Tony pants tiredly, running a hand down his face. "I'm good."
"You were-"
"Yeah, I got through it. I'm fine."
"Of course, sir."
He had felt powerless and alone and scared when he went through that portal, but he isn't sure he ever stopped feeling that way, even when he woke up in the street with Captain America leaning over him. Slumped on the floor against the wall of his basement after pushing Happy and Pepper away and refusing to talk or think about Jessica, Tony knows he isn't out of the woods yet. He isn't so sure they have an end.
It's the second time Jessica has seen him in person since she found out he was still alive, and it hits her like a fucking freight train. She darts back behind the bush's cover and closes her eyes against the way her vision swims, struggling to get a decent breath. Seeing Malcolm hand over the packet didn't help either.
"Main Street. Birch Street," she pants, sucking in air and trying to bolster her courage as she opens her eyes again. There's no time for this. "Higgins asshole Drive," she hisses, twisting to look past the leaves again.
She had followed Malcolm for fifteen minutes, watched him hesitate by a random tree in Madison Square Park for a moment, and then tailed him to a cluster of tables and chairs for people to play chess in the open - like that's a normal fucking thing to do.
Malcolm is hunched in his seat, his hands buried in his pocket, his chin tucked close to the scarf around his neck. Kilgrave is sat opposite him in his standard suit and jacket, as pristine as ever, opening the packet and taking out the pictures. If anyone looked at the pair even for a second, it'd be so fucking obvious that some kind of shady transaction was taking place; but Kilgrave isn't exactly someone who needs to worry about that.
"Oh, shit," Jessica breathes sharply, taking the syringe from her pocket and pulling the plunger out to get the Sufentanil ready. The dart gun is loaded and primed in her waistband, but it's too conspicuous a shape to take out just now - she'll use it as a last resort.
Kilgrave studies the first and second pictures in the pile with an unreadable expression before slotting them back in the packet, paying no heed to Malcolm's fidgeting. Eventually, he looks over at the young man and dismisses him. Malcolm snatches up his packet of payment and hurries away from the table.
He's heading towards her, but Kilgrave has got up from the table and is walking in the opposite direction, fading into the crowd. It occurs to Jessica, as she hisses a curse and steps out from behind the bush to hurry after Kilgrave, as she tries to duck her head from Malcolm's view but hears him sputter and falter when he recognises her anyway, that she has made a pretty fucking stupid decision. Because Malcolm has seen her, which means Kilgrave won't be able to use him anymore, which means Jessica will lose her strongest lead. So, if she doesn't get Kilgrave now, there's no telling how long she'll have to wait for another opportunity, how many more innocent people will suffer before she takes him down.
She can practically hear Tony snarking at her: Great plan, Jones - run after him and shoot him with a dart in the middle of Madison Square Park, and.. then what? Just kidnap an unconscious man in broad daylight? Carry him around the streets with you until you find an abandoned building? Very normal behaviour.
She grits her teeth and breaks into a jog to catch up with Kilgrave. She could use the building she followed Audrey Eastman to - the woman had been able to shoot a literal gun in there with her loud music on and nobody thought to question it. It's not like Tony is an option now, and Trish is even less so. She has to do this herself, now, before anyone else gets hurt.
She follows Kilgrave out of the park and watches him cross the road towards a black SUV.
Panic clutches her throat and Jessica starts to sprint. The door of the SUV opens, awaiting him.
Fuck it.
"Hey, shithead!" she yells, reaching for the dart gun at her waistband.
Kilgrave pauses and turns, and his expression loosens into absolute shock.
Adrenaline bursts through Jessica's body and she almost goes lightheaded with it. People around her dodge out of her way as she barrels closer to the street, and she hears their gasps and shouts as she pulls the dart gun out fully and lifts it to take aim.
What are you, a marksman now? When did you have time to complete the training between the booze shopping and attitude? Tony's voice scoffs.
Her finger is just ready to squeeze the trigger as Kilgrave tries to turn and duck into the SUV; but something heavy slams into her side and smacks her to the ground, the dart gun slipping from her grasp and scraping along the concrete.
"What the fu-" she tries, but cuts it off in a pained grunt when something hard is jammed into her ribs and she feels the pain of electricity forking through her body.
Not enough to keep her down, though. She gets her hand behind her and manages to shove off her assailant, instantly jumping to her feet and snatching the dart gun up to take aim again. Kilgrave is in the SUV now, though, his face staring out at her through the window, and the dart she fires pings off the back of the vehicle as it squeals away. The sadistic twist to his lips makes her blood boil.
She hears people around her chattering about 911 and cops, and she turns to glare down at the man she threw to the ground. He's in dark clothing, has an ear piece and a stun baton, and he's watching her with the calculated eyes of someone trained in combat.
"Where are they taking him?" she demands, marching over.
The man scrambles to his feet faster than she expected. "I'm not in the habit of breaking a contract."
He lunges for her again and she sidesteps him to grab the baton, ignoring the pain in her anger, wrenching it from his grasp and kicking his knee out to bring him back down to the ground. He flinches away when she lowers the baton to his face.
"What the hell do you mean 'contract'?" she growls out, eyes wild. "You work for him?"
"Isn't that the woman from the alien battle?" someone calls out.
Jessica ducks her head down further and snaps the baton in half. "Goddamnit," she mutters, turning to flee the scene.
She imagines the pained frustration on Tony's face: I could have helped.
Tony slumps in the driver's seat of the car and twists the key in the ignition, listening to the engine rumble to life. His hand drops to his lap and his head falls back against the headrest, a long sigh deflating his chest. The rumble echoes through the basement, bouncing off the walls and coming back to him like there are hundreds of cars, hundreds of himself, each angsting away in their own mechanical stress ball. But it's just him, alone.
He's been physically alone most of the time since the Battle of New York. He has purposefully made it so. But this is a different loneliness. Because this is a mental loneliness, one that stems from losing someone who understood, who felt similar, who looked at him and saw his fragility and called him an asshole anyway.
It would be wrong to rely on Jessica to help him through whatever the hell is going on with him - just because she has more experience with it, doesn't mean she wants to take him under her wing and show him how to deal with it all. He doesn't think she really knows how to, anyway. But he'd thought there was something there, something positive in their interactions - jagged and scathing as they were - that was some kind of comfort to them both, something to help them feel just a little less shitty about it all.
But, apparently, it was all a mistake.
It wasn't that her opinion surprised him, really - he knows who he is, what he is, what people think of him. It was more that something inside him dropped at the declaration, that he felt like the air had been knocked out of him, and he couldn't even face meeting her eyes as he walked away because he felt like, if he did, he'd beg her to tell him she didn't mean it.
Losing that - friendship? - kinship as suddenly as he had, made him feel like he'd once again moved a mere metre and had suddenly lost control and familiarity to isolation and debilitation. Here he is again, floating helplessly into an unknowable abyss, with no way to save himself. Maybe that's just how it's supposed to be.
"Tony?" a voice calls out, followed by the clip-clop of high heels along the ground.
Tony sighs heavily, but revs the engine to indicate his position. He's too tired to fight her off this time. "Wanna go for a joy ride, Potts?" he calls back. He hopes the hollowness of his voice is only noticeable to him.
His head rolls to the side when her heels get louder and he watches her come into view, hunching slightly to spot him through the windscreen of the low car. She's wearing a classy green pencil skirt and suit jacket over a white blouse, and her hair is neatly scraped back into a ponytail. The noisy heels are an elegant white. She's got a brown paper bag in her hand.
He expects her to chastise him and force him out of the car, but she surprises him by opening the passenger door and sliding into the car with him.
"It smells of oil and sweat in here," she comments, her nose wrinkled slightly, and then gives him a small, playful smile.
"Careful it doesn't get stuck on your fancy clothes," he warns, glancing at the brown bag. "Is that a gun? You know I used to make them for a living, right? I don't need one as a gift."
"It's a burrito," she corrects flatly, passing the bag over to him. "Cheese, meat, veg, and carbs. You need to eat."
"Sounds like you want me to spend the rest of the night in the bathroom. Did I offend you in some way to deserve such an act of aggression?"
A small crease appears between her eyebrows, a small flash of concern across her face, before she schools her features into something more admonishing. "It's 10:20 in the morning, Tony."
Maybe that's why his eyes are stinging and his limbs feel heavy as shit. Not that he gets much sleep when he tries, anyway.
"Then why aren't you out running my company, Pepper?"
She cocks her head at him a little, her lips pursing briefly. "Happy's worried about you," she says gently. "So is Rhodey. So am I."
Tony rolls his eyes and swings his head back to face out the front of the windshield. He snatches the bag from her hand and retrieves the burrito, knowing it's safe to satisfy one of his body's main needs right now, at least. He peels the foil back and takes a bite, wiping some sauce from his mouth when it dribbles down.
The food mingles uneasily with the twist of guilt in his stomach. Pepper is a very busy woman - busier than he ever was, because she does the job properly, and then some. She has obviously taken time out of her day, potentially rescheduling meetings, just to come here and force Tony to eat and get some company.
"I know," he mutters.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks kindly.
A small, bitter huff of air leaves his mouth between bites. It smells of burrito. "Which part?"
"Any of it. Anything."
Tony wipes an oily hand down his face, no-doubt dirtying it even more than it already is. "I don't know, Pep."
She's quiet for a moment. Then, "That's okay, Tony. I know we haven't been particularly.. flexible, when we've tried to see you. I'm sorry we keep trying to get you to talk."
Tony frowns and pauses mid-chew, rolling his head back to look at her.
She smiles gently. "Maybe you don't need to talk. Maybe we could just.. be there with you in whatever space you're in."
"I know a lot of your last job felt like babysitting, but that's not really what I-"
"Tony, I'm not trying to patronise you," she says, frowning at him. "None of us are."
He hides his opinion in the burrito.
"We're trying to be your friends."
Well, shit.
"But I've kind of realised lately that maybe we've been trying to do it on our own terms instead of meeting you where you're at," she explains.
Tony sighs heavily. "Listen, I don't even know how to deal with all this, so you guys aren't gonna know any better. I mean, I thought I was gonna get somewhere with- I don't know. I'm tired. I'm just real fucking tired, Pepper."
She reaches across to squeeze his forearm and he looks at her, watches the caring smile curve across her face. "It'll be okay, Tony. You'll be okay. We're here for you, however you need us."
He purses his lips in acknowledgement and pats her hand. He feels awful, knowing that she's doing the best she can, but it's still not quite what he needs. He doesn't know what he needs. He just knows this isn't hitting the spot.
"I don't know anything about the whole Jessica situation," Pepper continues, shrugging a shoulder concedingly. "But I've heard enough about this Kilgrave guy to guess that it's probably best if you're not involved. You need time to recover, Tony. I know you'll want to help, but please don't throw yourself into another dangerous situation. If not for yourself, then for your friends. We don't want to lose you."
Tony closes his eyes and leans his head back.
Lost, alone, and useless.
A mistake.
"Yeah, I guess the battery's running a little too low for hero shit right now, huh," he mumbles, and he knows this time that Pepper will be able to hear how hollowed-out he sounds.
"You'll bounce back. You always do."
It's supposed to be comforting. All it does is make the fatigue seep further into his bones - because that's the problem, isn't it? He bounces back, and he'll take the next hit, again and again and again. And maybe one day there will be nothing left to hit.
Jessica is wallowing. She knows she is. The lights are off, the shadows are crowding around her, the whispers are whispering, and she's further through this bottle of whiskey than she thought she was. She's wallowing because she's a goddamn idiot. Desperate and panicked doesn't make for a good kidnapper. It just made everything even messier. Made Hope's chances more slim. Made Jessica more bad.
Kilgrave will be done with Malcolm now that he saw Jessica in her clearly-spying get-up and that might mean Malcolm's life is in danger, but it definitely means that Jessica won't have a way of finding Kilgrave again anytime soon. He'll be more careful now that he knows she's on the offensive. He'll hire more fucking bodyguards.
She has let everybody down. Again. Mistake, after mistake, after mistake. It's all on her.
Every time she tries, she fails. She's not even trying to be a fucking hero anymore. She's just trying to do the right thing, trying to save a handful of people from experiencing any more trauma than they already have. Trying to rescue her own fucking mind. Trying to just win this stupid fucking game Kilgrave has her trapped in.
Maybe she should just hand herself over to him and let Tony or Nick Fury or Captain fucking America take her out. Maybe things will get better if she stops trying. Maybe that's the best way for her to help.
She downs another glass and is about to refill it when she hears shouting from Malcolm's apartment. Whoever is in there with him is louder than he is, angrier. He sounds more subdued. Jessica stares at the glass in her door, breathing slowly and licking the lingering whiskey from her lips.
She remembers the night Kilgrave found her, the night he took her. She had seen someone in danger and had acted instantly, taking care of the threat and rushing to see to the victim. She would have seen more of his face, made more of a memory of him, if Kilgrave hadn't stolen her attention away, made her think Malcolm was fine. She'd told him she enjoyed hurting the muggers because she was helping someone and making a difference. Her motivation was so pure back then.
The woman in Malcolm's apartment is loud and angry and it's fraying Jessica's nerves even more than they already are. If something happens and Malcolm can't pay rent or the woman trashes the place, Jessica remembers the landlord will blame her too. Her motivations now always serve her best.
"You made me come all the way over here, and you ain't even got the money?" the woman is demanding when Jessica approaches the open door of Malcolm's apartment. "Bitch, please!"
"No, but you can have my TV, alright?" Malcolm stutters desperately. "And- and this printer."
"I got a better TV than that. Got the HD and everything," the woman retorts. "And what the hell am I gonna do with a printer?"
"You don't understand, I need it. Now, please, just give it to me!" Malcolm yells out, advancing on the woman.
She pulls out a gun in an instant. "Come a step closer and I'll shoot your dick off," she threatens, circling around him towards the door as he lashes out in his anger at some boxes on the floor. "Stay back!"
Jessica steps into the apartment and disarms the woman - probably more aggressively than needed - ignoring the pained yell she barks out. She shoves the woman out towards the hall, but has to stand as a barrier as she surges back in again.
"Well, if your bitch here got any money, we can still do a deal if you want!"
Jessica shoves her back again and closes the door.
"No, no, what the hell are you doing?" Malcolm asks, ignoring the gun Jessica shows him before tossing it aside to keep him from pushing past her.
She grabs a hold of him and keeps pushing, forcing him further into his apartment.
"No, you let go of me!" he shouts, powerless against her.
Jessica pushes him down onto his mattress and he shouts a pained grunt.
She throws him down again when he tries to make another run for it.
"Goddamnit, you can't save me!" he tries again.
She tosses him down again.
He lays there, panting heavily, and Jessica meets his despondent, hollow gaze with one she's sure matches.
"You can't save me again," he says.
She stares down at him, frowning.
Jessica thinks she might not be able to save anyone anymore. Not with the moves Kilgrave keeps making and the useless firefighting she fails at every time.
Malcolm looks sick and he is so desperate and hopeless. He looked like such a good guy in the pictures on his social media, the posts she saw he'd made about how the city should have been doing more for the homeless, the vulnerable, the criminals that needed help instead of a prison cell. She has seen traces of that part of him still there, numbed and quieted by the drugs, but still peeking out. If he gets through this, he could reclaim the bright future it's obvious he'd once had waiting for him.
She isn't so sure the same can be said for her.
But from the numbness in her own mind, an anger creeps through. Because the only reason Malcolm is having to fight for that future is Kilgrave's sadistic determination to hurt Jessica. If she hadn't been on that street that night, then Kilgrave would never have had the reason to use Malcolm against her.
But she remembers what the muggers were about to do to Malcolm. If she hadn't been on that street that night, Malcolm would have been killed. Then he'd have never had the chance to see that bright future at all.
Maybe she can't save him. But maybe she can help him save himself.
Dragging him out of his apartment and into hers is easy. All he can do is drag his feet and protest loudly. She grabs a pair of handcuffs from her desk drawer and hauls him into the bathroom, chaining him to a pipe by the toilet. He calls out for her when she leaves, but she hears him slump to the floor, exhausted.
Ten minutes later, she returns to him, letting the anger fuel the life inside her again. "I made you a peanut butter sandwich," she announces loudly. "You ate all the chunky. All I have is smooth."
"I am sick," he mumbles as she puts the plate down.
"Yeah, and you're just gonna get sicker, so try not to miss the toilet," she replies flatly, holding out a bottle of water for him.
He scoffs and slaps the bottle from her grasp. "Go to hell."
Jessica considers picking the bottle up and trying again. But she lets it roll around on the floor. "Already been there. So have you."
Malcolm sighs. "Fuck, I just.." he sniffs. "I need a little bit, you know? Just- just to wean myself off."
Jessica slips her hands into her pockets and leans against her sink. "I'm not gonna help you kill yourself."
Malcolm breathes heavily, grimacing with utter bitterness. "I mean, why not?" he demands. "I'm useless to you. To anybody."
"Yeah, at the moment. Yeah," she nods. "But, a while ago, you were gonna help people."
Malcolm had been trying to get up on his feet, but he collapses back down on his ass, the handcuffs clanging against the pipe.
"Social work, right?" Jessica continues.
Malcolm slowly looks at the handcuffs, then back up at her. And he bursts out laughing. A miserable, bitter laugh that leaves Jessica's chest hurting. "Look at me. Who am I gonna help like this?"
Jessica flinches unintentionally, her anger sparking again. "You have a choice now."
He sniffs and looks up at her again. "I took pictures of you."
"Because he made you."
Malcolm pauses for a moment. Then, "Sometimes I did it just for the drugs."
And maybe that feels shitty to hear. Maybe Trish was right assuming that Jessica was hurting because someone she saved might have been using her as a trade for some drugs.
"Think about it - I met him once a day. 10am. His controls don't last that long, you know they don't," Malcolm says, stressing the words and clearly trying to make her angry at him.
But an addict making decisions out of desperation is still a victim.
"That's why he got you hooked, so you would show up."
"I'm telling you that I had a choice," Malcolm sighs frustratedly.
He's in the self-loathing and antagonisation pit and she knows better than anyone how hard the climb out of there is. She's not going to be able to change his mind about this particular thing. And when he gags and wraps his arms around the toilet bowl to throw up, she thinks of another angle she can play. She walks out of the bathroom to fetch the packet she stole from his dealer while the woman had fought against Jessica to get back into the apartment.
"Kilgrave will find me. I'll be dead anyway," Malcolm's voice filters out from the bathroom.
Jessica tucks the packet in her pocket and starts looking for a blanket and pillow.
Malcolm mutters something too low for her to hear, but then calls out loudly, "Just give me my goddamn drugs!"
"You're right," she says as she walks back to the bathroom, "I can't save you."
She throws the blanket and pillow down to the floor next to him and sits down against the door, watching him. If Malcolm wants her to get angry at him, if he wants her to acknowledge that he let her down and made bad choices, then she'll work with that.
"The whole time he had me, there was some part of me that fought. There was some tiny corner of my brain that tried to get out." She leans her head back against the door, knowing that despite her wallowing and her self-pitying bullshit, this isn't something she can turn her back on. "And I'm still fighting. I won't stop fighting." Because how could she live with herself if she did? "But if you give up," she says, glaring at him, "I lose. Do you get that? He did this to you to get at me. To isolate me. To make me feel like an infection - one more person dead, or dying, because of me." She lets the anger take the front seat. "So why don't you remember how to be a goddamn human being again instead of this self-pitying piece of shit that he turned you into, and save me for once?"
Malcolm looks at her and stares.
Jessica grabs the packet and slaps it on the floor. "You choose," she bites out. And she gets up from the floor to walk out of the bathroom, leaving the packet there within his reach.
As she moves through her apartment, she hears a scuffling noise and then the clatter of the toilet seat dropping. But she doesn't go back, and she tries to ignore the way her chest tightens.
She sits back down at her laptop and watches over Hogarth's tapes of Kilgrave's victims again, listening to their stories and trying to figure out if any of them could give her any clues. The night passes by and she manages to sleep a little on her desk, but her body feels like lead the next morning.
When her mind won't stop wandering, she finally pushes out of her chair to stretch out her limbs, and stands at the window, wondering if Kilgrave's already found someone new to take pictures of her; wondering if they're out there, right now, capturing her at this hollowed and exhausted moment while she waits for Malcolm to make it through his withdrawal.
And then her phone rings. She walks back to her desk, spotting the unknown number and what time it is, and the whispers instantly hiss in her ears in response. She knows in her gut who it is.
She accepts the call and brings the phone to her ear, saying nothing.
"Well, that was exciting, wasn't it?"
Jessica frowns, her stomach twisting. It's him. He's speaking to her. There's a very strong instinct to crush the phone and toss it as far as she can.
"For a moment, I thought you had one of those silly little guns you Americans are always waving around like it makes you special or interesting. Took me a moment to realise it was something quite different."
She walks slowly to the wooden chair on the other side of her desk and sits down, trying to not make a sound. Her back is rigid with tension.
"You clearly weren't afraid of making a scene, so you could have just used a gun and shot me dead in the street. But that wasn't your plan. You wanted me alive. Tell me why."
The chill that runs through her entire body at the command makes her jaw clench. It's at least a comfort to know he still can't use his power over the phone.
"I could just turn up on your doorstep and make you tell me."
It is a conscious effort to not snap back at him.
She hears him sigh through the phone. "Oh, you're mad about the junkie, aren't you? That is completely unfair. I didn't make him do anything he didn't want to do. He was- he was an addict waiting to happen."
He sounds like a child trying to defend themselves after a prank gone wrong.
"Come on, Jessica. Come on. Don't play the hero with me."
Her hand clenches into a fist.
"Fine, fine. Pretend you saved the junkie; but we both know that was down to me." He waits for her to speak again. "I tell you what. I will let him go down his own self-destructive path. I won't come near him. If.."
Jessica scowls, her jaw working slowly as she waits for his proposal, for the sick shit he'll force her or someone else into in order to save Malcolm.
"You do his job for him. Keep the pictures coming. Say one a day, at 10am?"
Sending a selfie to the man who kidnapped and raped her and turned her into a weapon. Every day. Starting her day like that.
"Don't forget to smile. Hmm? Send the picture, save the junkie. Sounds like an ad campaign," he chuckles.
It'd be yielding another bit of power and control over the situation to him. It'd be playing the game by his rules. It'd feel like another loss, every fucking morning.
"Let's start.. um, now. Come on, Jessica. Tell me we have a deal. Let me hear your voice."
He is so overwhelmingly cruel and merciless. Does he even understand the level of violation here? He must do. It must be part of the whole twisted power kink he has.
But speaking to him isn't part of the deal. She lowers the phone and ends the call, her body painful in its rigidity. His voice echoes in her ears, the sentences that could have stolen her autonomy once more if he had come to her doorstep.
Her phone pings. It's 10:03am and she has a text. She taps it to reveal the message: "I'm waiting Jessica…"
A quiet, bitter scoff escapes her. She wants to tell him to fuck off. To scream and yell and rage, to tell him she's not going to bend to his fucking demands.
But it's not that simple.
She tosses her phone on her desk and trudges back to her bathroom, remembering the noises she had heard yesterday after leaving the packet of drugs on her floor.
But when she comes in, Malcolm is shaking and twitching on the floor, his breathing laboured. The syringe is still in its packet, on top of the toilet. The sachets are in the toilet water, floating there, unopened and unused.
Malcolm made his choice. And, despite herself, Jessica feels hope.
Malcolm chose the more difficult path; he went against what his entire body was begging him to do. He did it for Jessica.
So Jessica chooses the more difficult path. She does it for Malcolm.
She sends Kilgrave a picture of herself.
The mug of coffee is warm in his hands. The sun is shining over the city below him. They've made quick work of rebuilding what was destroyed and patching up what was damaged, but if he stares too long he swears he can still see the fires and smoke and rubble. His body tenses in anticipation of a speeder whipping by or a giant floating monster swimming through his window.
Something suffocating and all-consuming looms at the top of his peripheral vision - something blue and black and endless.
He had tried to sleep yesterday evening - after Pepper had visited him and he'd succumbed to her ask to remove himself from the Kilgrave situation, he had spent the rest of the day moping around, barely finding the energy to even work on the next suit design, and he had finally admitted that sleep would be the only thing that could help him. But the nightmares had been worse than usual. He had seen the portal, felt the crushing abyss of space, looked over all his friends' corpses - the usual schtick.
But then he'd seen Jessica. First, he had seen her shouting and raging at him, but he couldn't hear her, and then he'd said as such, and she came so close and told him, as clear as day, that everything about him was a mistake. But then she had left a voicemail begging for his help. And then Kilgrave showed up at his door with Jessica dutifully at his side, and he had told Jessica to kill Tony. He woke up after she ripped the arc reactor from his chest.
His face twitches into a frown as his free hand lifts to tap the reactor reassuringly. The brain always has to put something visceral to vague fears, just as it has done to his fear of Jessica being controlled by Kilgrave again. It makes things even harder for him.
He told Pepper he'd stop involving himself. That he'd let himself recover.
But he doesn't know how to recover.
"Sir, something suspicious has been flagged up on Miss Jones' mobile device."
Tony rolls his shoulders back and takes a deep inhale, lifting his chin. He chews on his cheek as his stare goes blurred and unfocused over the bustling city.
What does recovery look like for him? Spending his days in his lab, immersing himself in science and technology and ideas until everything else is blocked out? Drowning everything in alcohol and then pushing it past the point of fun and winding up making his paranoia and nightmares worse? A god-awful sleeping pattern and pushing his friends away?
If he has something that lets him be useful, that lets him help someone, that takes his mind off things as well. But he promised Pepper.
"What is it, J?" he asks.
He hears his phone chirp and slips it from his pocket to look at what JARVIS is showing him. It's a text conversation between Jessica and an unsaved number.
"Someone contacted Miss Jones at 3 minutes past 10 with this message, and Miss Jones responded with an image of herself. This number had called Miss Jones for a total of 2 minutes 13 seconds just before the initial message was sent."
Tony stares at the image of Jessica. Her face is relaxed, she isn't smiling, but there's something in the way she's staring into the camera. Something despondent, something angry. There's a tendon in her neck that looks strained.
"Did her neighbour leave the building at 9:45?" he asks, his voice hollow and flat.
"He did not."
Tony's jaw clenches with a sharp exhale through his nose. The message she received reads "I'm waiting Jessica…" and the reply she sends is a tense selfie, which can only mean that the call was to arrange the sending of the selfie. The unsaved number, the time of the communications, the nature and tone of the messages, the hidden hatred in her face - it can only mean one thing.
"He's making her do the stalker's job."
"I could trace the number's location."
Tony hums frustratedly and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. It'd take JARVIS barely any time at all. He'd have Kilgrave's location. He could send it to Jessica, or go deal with the sick fuck himself. Trish had already said that Kilgrave's powers didn't work unless he was physically with the person - and, while Jessica had tried to caution maintaining that assumption, it seems as though she had a choice in whether to send the picture or not, which means Kilgrave didn't, and likely couldn't, command her over the phone - which means Tony could easily capture and contain Kilgrave while in the Iron Man suit.
Point him at a bad guy, and Tony will make sure he goes down, no matter the cost.
But Pepper wants him to recover. Rhodey and Happy want him to recover. Tony's sick of the nightmares, and the misery and fear and horror. He doesn't know how to stop them, though. Would helping Jessica help him too? Or would it be a band-aid slapped over a gaping wound? Maybe if he helps her, she'll help him.
But she said it had all been a mistake. She definitely got something out of their interactions, since she kept coming back even when she didn't need to, but she clearly doesn't want anything to do with him now. She made that clear. He has spent too much time in his life being made to feel like a mistake, like he isn't good enough, like he never will be. He doesn't need to put up with it from an alcoholic with anger issues - he has enough of that dealing with his own mind.
Jessica said everything about their kind-of-sort-of-friendship was a mistake. If he keeps trying to help her, keeps butting himself into her situation to try and make sure she doesn't get herself killed, she'll only say worse things. Clearly, she needs to separate herself from him and whatever bond they'd found between them - he doesn't want to see how cruel she can get to ensure that. He's already lower than he's ever been. That's why Pepper has pleaded for him to remove himself from the situation, because she can see he's close to crumbling into oblivion.
He can't go back on his decision.
He finally lets go of his nose and wrinkles it with a sniff, his expression twitching. His chin lifts again as his chest expands with a quiet breath.
"Keep an eye on it, J."
He also doesn't know how to stop involving himself.
hope you enjoyed this absolute angst-fest! lmao sorry. time for review replies!
maskedwriterguy: the time it took me to update this, you might have been able to get through the NMCU series lmaoo sorry it took so long! i hope the exam went well for you and you're doing well! thank you for your kind words, it's so nice of you. if you're still interested in this story, i hope you liked the new chapter! this is gonna be a long-haul so I don't blame you if you abandon ship!
Hearteyesmf: sooo if you're still interested in the story, this chapter will have hurt too... sorry! hahaha they are messy and angsty babies and there isn't much space for happiness right now for either of them which.. sucks.. but hey. you got a big chunk of Tony POV this chapter so i hope you enjoyed, if you're still here! thanks for the review :)
JennyElephant: thanks for the review! i hope you're still interested in the story and have come back to read the new chapter, and that you've enjoyed this chapter!