Black lives matter. If you're in a position where you're able to donate, this non-profit splits your donation between several different organisations supporting the movement: ActBlue (I keep trying to paste the link but when I save the document it gets shortened into something you can't follow).

It shouldn't be such a huge fight for people to treat other human beings with the respect and empathy we're all entitled to as living creatures. It shouldn't be so hard to see that the police utilise violent and deadly methods on black lives more often than white and know that this is a disgrace. Change has to come and soon.

Enjoy the chapter and stay safe and informed xx

Sleepover

Jessica slouches in the chair, her elbows leaning on the desk either side of the keyboard, face propped up by her fists on her cheeks. Stark had lead her to a computer in his lab that she could use, rather than giving her a laptop, which means she's having to sit here and attempt to focus on revisiting the investigative paths she walked down weeks ago, while straining to ignore the muttering Stark is doing on the other side of the lab with his technological butler, JARVIS. He occasionally calls out to Jessica to ask for an opinion about the multitude of New Yorkers rendered homeless after the attack and how he might be able to help them. So far, he has commissioned every building he owns in New York to advertise as a station for said homeless people to sleep, ensuring the buildings are stocked with all kinds of bedding and food supplies. She might have developed a whole new level of respect - as in developed one at all - for Stark today, but she'd still rather be at home with her laptop than in his overly-advanced lab completely out of her element.

She sighs when she hears a muffled vibration in her jacket pocket, knowing which name will be flashing across her screen. But she leans back anyway, reaching her hand down the back of the chair to find her pocket. Stark's lab isn't quite warm enough for her to take her jumper off and sit in just her tank top, but it's a pleasant enough temperature for her to have taken her jacket off and hung it on the back of her chair. Her fingers close around her phone and she pulls it out, the vibrations thrumming against her fingers and palm. And there is Trish's name on the screen, the green answer button taunting her, her thumb hovering above it. But goosebumps rise on the back of her neck as a whisper ghosts across it, and she tosses the phone onto the desk, using her hand to rub her face instead.

"Hey, Stark, you got a bathroom here or is that too mundane for you?" she calls.

When he turns to face her, his eyes are mid-roll. "Out the door and on your right." he answers.

His hands are up at his chest, one higher than the other, his fingers clicking before the higher hand slaps against the lower hand. Jessica wonders if it's a nervous tick and then tells herself she doesn't care and pushes out of her seat, the wheels rolling quietly on the floor. She leaves her phone on the desk and walks out of the lab, the door swinging shut behind her as she turns right and finds the sign for the women's bathroom.

She checks the four stalls when she enters to make sure no one is in here with her and then moves to the sink, bracing herself against it, head bowed. She breathes for a moment, working her jaw, eyes trailing over the split ends of her black hair as they hang down towards the basin. She closes her eyes as she breathes, willing the goosebumps on the back of her neck to go down, to smooth out, and she grinds her teeth against the inability to control her own body and mind.

Her neck tickles and she looks up sharply, eyes widening, heart jumping into her throat when she sees him behind her shoulder, smirking at her in the mirror. But she spins round, fist raised and flying to slam into him, and all she makes contact with is one of the stall doors. She leaves a dent in the wood, the door slamming into the stall and bouncing off the wall back towards her. She takes a few wild steps backwards, almost tripping over herself, neck twisting to scour every inch of the space around her, but she can't see him.

He's not here.

He couldn't be anyway.

He's dead.

She pants for breath, scowling at the room through her panic, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. She clenches her jaw, teeth biting into each other, and flexes out her fingers as she blows air out of her mouth.

"Main Street. Birch Street."

He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

"Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane."

The goosebumps on the back of her neck smooth into her skin again and her shoulders slump, her breaths coming slower and steadier. She lifts a barely shaking hand to run her fingers through her hair and shifts on her feet. Then she marches straight back out of the bathroom, purposefully avoiding looking at the mirror, and walks back along to the lab.

"You wash your hands?" Stark quips as she opens the door, moving up the lab towards her.

"What?" she frowns, her mind slowly settling.

Stark quirks an eyebrow at her, his smirk faltering slightly, but then something on the desk she's using grabs his attention. Jessica's phone is ringing again.

"Oh, hey, it's Trish," he says, his voice light with surprise as he picks the phone up.

"Don't," Jessica snaps, but he's already answered the call, giving her a fake wince as he tosses the phone to her.

Jessica catches it, pursing her lips, clenching her jaw, and looks down at the screen that's now counting the seconds of the active call. She can hear Trish's voice emitting from the speaker, and she scowls at the way her body tries to tense and relax all at the same time.

"-can't believe you actually picked up," Trish is saying when Jessica finally lifts the phone to her ear, sending a brief glare at Stark before turning away from him.

"Yeah, unprecedented circumstances," Jessica mutters, glancing over her shoulder again at Stark, who has sat down in her chair to look at the article she was reading. How can he seem to be reading her one minute and then be completely blasé and boundary-crossing the next?

"If that's what you wanna call it," Trish replies, a bitter laugh in her voice. "I saw you on the news."

"You alright?" Jessica asks awkwardly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Trish says pointedly. "I wasn't the one fighting off an alien invasion. Have you seen the news? They're calling you guys 'the Avengers'."

Jessica's face scrunches. "I don't care," she says. "I'm not with them."

"Uh, that's not what it looked like, Jess."

"Looks can be deceiving," Jessica intones.

"You fought with a bunch of superheroes," Trish counters. "You fought with Iron Man and Captain America, for god sake. You were a hero."

Jessica stiffens, her neck tickling again. "No," she retorts, her voice strong. "I was drunk and pissed off 'cos they destroyed my building."

"Wait, what? Your building's gone?"

"Yeah," Jessica mutters, fidgeting uncomfortably.

"Well, have you got somewhere to stay tonight? Or until you've found a new place?" Trish asks, her voice half-accusing, half-concerned.

"Yeah, don't worry."

"Where are you staying?"

"It doesn't matter," Jessica replies. "I said don't worry."

"Jess," Trish sighs. It's quiet for a moment, Jessica's brow furrowing, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. As happy as it made me seeing you out there saving the city, I know it's not where you wanna be right now. I just thought you might wanna talk to someone."

Jessica tilts the microphone away from her mouth for a moment so Trish can't hear her sigh. She lifts a hand to rub at her forehead, fingertips digging into her skull, guilt churning her stomach. "Thanks," she responds eventually, forcing the word out. "I'm fine."

"It's okay if you're not," Trish says gently. "I know we haven't spoken since you shut me out-"

"I needed breathing space," Jessica frowns.

"I'm here for you, Jess. Just.. call me sometime, okay?"

Jessica licks her lips, her finger tapping the back of her phone. "Yeah, okay," she nods. She takes the phone from her ear and presses the button to end the call, staring down at the screen with a frown.

"Sorry, I, uh, figured you'd wanna speak to her after you asked me to check on her earlier," Stark says from her seat.

She turns her face away from him, sighing through her nose, tapping her phone into her palm. She can just imagine the disappointment on Trish's face.

"Get outta my seat," she says sharply, turning back to Stark and stomping to the chair.

"Technically mine," he mutters, making an offended face as he gets off the chair.

Jessica sees him lift his foot, anticipates his childish move, and reaches a hand out to prevent the chair from skidding across the lab when he kicks at it. He sighs exaggeratedly, throwing his hands in the air in agitation. When they slap back to his hips, he purses his lips and cocks his head at her, watching with narrowed eyes as she slumps onto the chair again.

"How strong are you, by the way? What's your limit? You ever spent a day just punching shit harder and harder to see how hard your hardest hit is?"

"Stop saying 'hard'," Jessica bites out, scowling against the memories that surface. "And shut that train of thought down 'cos I'm not a goddamn lab-rat."

"I'm just saying, it'd be a fun-"

"And I'm telling you to shut the hell up," she snaps, turning a wild glare at him, her hands clenching into fists on the desk.

Stark sighs through his nose when he snaps his mouth shut, the corner of his lips pulling into his cheek solemnly. "This is the only way to do this, you know," he says.

Jessica wishes she had a glass of whiskey in her hand. "Do what?" she asks through clenched teeth.

He gestures between them both. "Get to know you. Establish a relationship. You've given us nothing but your name all day, and even that came at a push. The only way to get to know you is by pushing your buttons to see what's off limits and what's up for casual chatter."

Jessica scowls at him. "Really? The only way?" she says monotonously.

"Uh, yeah," he retorts pointedly. "You're not exactly game for a meaningful conversation, are you?"

"Maybe everything's off limits," she says.

Stark's mouth drops open to sigh loudly, his eyes rolling. "You're staying at my place and you won't even tell me a teeny little bit about yourself?"

"You invited me," Jessica reminds him, giving him a cold smirk. "You said you owed me this."

"Maybe I do; maybe I lied to get you to stick around a little longer," he shrugs.

Jessica stares at him. "I hunt and expose liars for a living," she says.

"That a threat?"

Jessica tilts her head, giving him a falsely sweet smile. "I thought we were just getting to know each other?"

Stark narrows his eyes at her, his lips pressing together as he works his jaw side to side. "You excel at keeping people at arm's length," he says, tucking his hands into his pockets and rocking on his heels. His dark eyes bore into her. "Even people who you might actually be quite close to, relatively speaking," he adds, nodding at her phone to imply Trish. "You act like you don't give a shit, you disguise doing good, decent things by acting like you're doing it all in your own self-interest, and your penchant for alcoholism is likely a coping mechanism or self-prescribed medication for some past trauma. You seem to despise or fear your power - or both. You don't hide, but you don't chase the spotlight either. You keep your head down and help where you can, how you can, even if it means using the strength you're afraid of. You're at war with something inside of you. And, because of that, you're constantly on the defensive whenever someone says or asks something that hits too close to home," he finishes, his eyes never dropping hers.

She's never seen him look so serious and earnest, but there is a wave of sheer indignation surging through her body, her heart pulsing a chilling numb down every limb, and her mind is throwing up walls around itself. She glares at him for another moment, and then she snatches her phone off the desk, steps off the chair again, and grabs her jacket off the back of it as she starts to walk away.

She barely makes it four steps before he has rushed up behind her, his shoulder threatening to press against the back of hers as he leans past her side to catch her eye. "Listen, I can only see that 'cos it's like I'm looking in a goddamn mirror," he snaps. Jessica scowls with confusion, abruptly halting to turn a fiery glare at him. "Except I can't jump a hundred feet in the air," he allows, tilting his head with a barely-concealed smirk. "And I've never been known to shy away from the spotlight."

"Great," Jessica snaps back sarcastically, throwing the hand holding her jacket in the air beside her. "You can interrogate your reflection, then."

Stark winces regretfully. "You're actually a lot easier on the eyes."

Jessica frowns at him incredulously, lips parted to facilitate words she can't scramble together at the moment, and she shakes her head at him.

Stark rolls his eyes. "You don't have to storm off every time someone tries to get to know you."

"Yeah, maybe I should punch them in the throat instead," she retorts. "Maybe that'd get the message across."

Stark actually laughs. A genuine, true, not in any way forced, laugh. It stretches his mouth into his cheeks, his cheeks pushing up into his eyes, the corner of his eyes crinkling, the warm brown gleaming with amusement, his eyebrows twisting upwards as if his amusement has come as a surprise to him, and it almost catches her off-guard.

"God, you're delightful," he beams at her. Jessica can only watch him, her eyebrows twitching downwards with the corner of her mouth. Stark nods to himself and turns to walk back down his lab. "You're more than welcome to storm out in the middle of the night and find one of those buildings I've set up," he says over his shoulder. "Maybe you'll prefer sleeping in a room with twenty other people over a private room with quality bed sheets and a personal bathroom, I don't know."

Jessica turns to look at his back, scowling now. "It's eight-twenty," she corrects him.

Stark shrugs, twisting to watch her as he walks backwards a few steps. "You wanna share a bathroom with twenty distraught New Yorkers, or do you wanna sleep in a room that can block out any sound coming from anyone, anywhere?"

Jessica grinds her teeth against each other, glaring down the lab at his smirking face. She's not even sure if tonight's gonna be a night for sleeping yet, but she knows that, if it is, she'd definitely rather be in one place over the other. She purses her lips and averts her gaze as she turns her body fully to stomp back towards the desk she adopted, tossing her jacket over the back of the chair and dropping her phone noisily onto the desk.

"Whatcha reading, anyway?" Stark asks cheerfully when she sits down.

Jessica frowns at her screen, hunching over the edge of the desk again. Stark's ability to go from reading her so intensely to chatting like they're all sunshine and daisies is enough to make her head spin. "I'm redoing research for a case," she replies shortly. When he says nothing in reply, she looks up past her screen to search for his face, wondering if he's suddenly passed out. But he's looking at her expectantly, an amused smile barely contained on his lips. Jessica rolls her eyes, looking back at the article in front of her. "Private investigator," she says, answering his unspoken question.

She can see his figure past the edge of her screen as he lifts his knee in the air and slaps it, the crack echoing through the room. "Bingo!" he cheers.

Jessica leans her elbow on the desk, pressing her fist into her mouth to hide the smirk she cuts short before Stark catches sight of it.

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Jessica has learned tonight that Stark is as much of a work-until-you-drop kind of person as she is. In fact, it seems he's even more of one, since he mentioned returning to the lab after showing her to a guest room a couple of floors below. She has also learned that no matter how fancy and swanky a bedroom is, the implication of getting into bed and surrendering to her subconscious is still largely ominous and dread-inducing. She had sat in the armchair provided in the large room for about fifty-three minutes before deciding sleep wasn't going to be an option and she had pulled her boots back on and left the bedroom in her jeans and tank top.

Her boots scuff the pristine floor of the hallway as the trudges along, brow furrowed, throat dry. She had glimpsed some kind of massive lounge area when Stark had brought her down here and she is making her way back there just now, hoping to find a bottle of some nondescript alcohol and a window to look out of. She comes to the doorway on her left and presses her hand flat against the wood, pushing it open to reveal a room bigger than her entire apartment.

The wall directly ahead of her is made entirely of glass and is slightly curved, opening up an impressive view of the city - which is still full of red and blue flashing lights from the attack, glowing eerily with the city lights in the darkness. Between Jessica and the wall of glass, there is an assortment of couches and armchairs and small tables and stools. It almost looks like a large company's staffroom, with the various clusters of furniture that look as though they could facilitate several small gatherings at the same time. On the wall to her left, there are TV screens dotted intermittently; on her right, there's a line of cupboards and countertops against the wall, stretching the entire length. And, there, in the bottom-right corner, is a small collection of bottles.

She sits for an immeasurable amount of time, eyes aimed down at the streets below but unfocused, fingers loosely gripping a glass of bourbon with the bottle between her feet. She's on the floor, her back against a couch, her knees bent up at her chest, her forearms leaning on her knees, and she is still not ready to face the bed that's waiting for her. She hasn't experienced so many whisper-triggering events in one day in a long time and she knows that it'll all just come rushing back in a tidal wave in her sleep, and she knows she'll have a nightmare and wake up sweating and heaving for breath and flailing to attack a ghost. She's so tired, but she's also tired of living with such debilitating paranoia.

The sound of clinking glass snaps her attention to the reflection of the room in the window in front of her. She can see Stark's silhouette illuminated by the lighting under the cupboards on the walls, and she watches him pick up a glass and turn to walk towards her.

"Mind if I join?" he asks quietly, as though not to startle her.

Jessica's neck twists as she looks over the couch at him. She expects to see some sort of cheekiness or teasing or smugness or humour on his face, but his face is relaxed, his smile small and a little sad, his eyes haunted. She wonders if he's worried that he'll relive his near-death experience in space when he closes his eyes, the way she worries she'll relive the moments her autonomy was stolen from her when she sleeps.

In answer to his question, she drops her left hand to the bottle between her feet and wraps her fingers around the neck, lifting it up into the air. She waits for him to sit down on the floor next to her and extend his glass towards her before she pours, averting her eyes from his gaze when she can't think of a way to react to him.

"You decided against the bed, then?" he asks rhetorically, lifting his glass to his mouth as he turns to look out the window.

"Don't take it personally," she responds, refilling her own glass.

"I wouldn't have a leg to stand on," he says when he swallows. "My bed is being willfully avoided right now."

Jessica lets out a small scoff. Part of her wonders if she should try to assure him that it'll get easier with time, dealing with the nightmares, but she's not even sure if her words would be genuine, never mind if she actually wants to say them.

"What're you gonna do tomorrow?" Stark asks, and she sees him glance at her in her peripheral vision.

"I dunno," Jessica sighs, leaning her head back against the couch. "Take your money and go find a new shitty place to rent. Get a new camera and laptop. Try salvage these goddamn cases I lost all my work for."

"You know, all you have to do is ask and I can get you a new-"

"I'm not a charity, Stark," she says firmly, turning to send him a look. "Alias is.. mine. Every piece of it." She doesn't know how to explain it other than that.

"I get it," he shrugs, allowing silence to settle on them comfortably for a moment. "So, Alias?"

The corner of Jessica's mouth twitches sadly. "Yeah. Alias Investigations."

"Very cool name. You come up with it?"

Jessica's fingers tap the glass in her hand. "Not really. I had help."

"Trish?"

She glances at him, and his face seems to soften in understanding. "Someone else," is all she says, and he doesn't ask any more.

They sit quietly for a long time, drinking and refilling glasses and staring out into the city still trying to recover from an alien invasion. Jessica feels like this day has been one of the longest of her life - she has a plethora of contenders for the longest day - and she knows she'll need to get some amount of sleep tonight, at some point, but she's still working up the courage. She can't help sifting through her memories of the day and picking out the moments that will likely feature in nightmares for the next couple of months, her subconscious warping the moments until they're tinged with purple and there's a presence standing over her shoulder, bearing down on everything she is and could be.

She stares at the reflection of her pale face in the window. She can see the bags under her eyes, the fear and rage in the hard line of her mouth, the stress in the greasy hair she's run her hands through too many times today. Her eyes drop to the hand wrapped around her glass, frowning down at the digits with so much power within them, so much potential and yet so much guilt and shame and regret.

"I'm not afraid of it, by the way," Jessica says quietly. She sees Stark's face turn towards her at her side. "My strength, my powers, whatever. That's not what scares me."

Stark watches her carefully, deciding whether or not to dig deeper. "What does scare you, then?" he asks, his voice as quiet as hers.

Jessica licks her lips, her gaze dropping to the floor as she tilts her head downwards. "Someone else controlling them. Controlling me," she mutters.

Stark stares at her. She can feel his eyes burning into the side of her head. But he doesn't say anything; he just leans over and pours more bourbon into her glass.

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter - I've caught up on the chapters I'd written for this story so it's quite likely that updates will come a little less frequently from now on, but I'll be trying my best to get them out as soon as I can.