Thanks to kenriot1214 for steering my message of support for the Black Lives Matter movement to another helpful direction. If you'd like to support minority-owned businesses who have suffered from looting recently, I found a website that is taking donations: formyblock . org (idk why FanFiction hates links and addresses so much - this was the only way I could write the address without the whole thing disappearing when I saved the document!). If you can't donate, please search for petitions you can sign to help people - there are sadly a vast number of people who need your help!
Hope you enjoy the chapter!
A Little Bunny Tail
"Listen, lady," Jessica bites out, struggling not to snap into her phone. "I get that you're impatient and you need answers; but I'm telling you that my building blew up yesterday and all my work was destroyed, so you're gonna have to wait while I-"
"You should have your work backed up somewhere, that's so unprofessional!" the woman interrupts loudly, her voice so shrill and piercing Jessica has to move the phone away from her ear a little.
"Oh, so you want proof of your brother's activities recorded in several locations so there's more chance of it being found?" she retorts, scowling as she stomps into her living room, kicking at a bag of recently-purchased clothes on the ground.
"It just seems irresponsible and unprofessional," the woman stammers. "How long will I have to wait for you to build it all up again?"
Jessica rolls her eyes. "I don't know, I have a couple other cases I need to-"
"I don't give a shit about your other cases - I need proof that my brother's stealing from my mother!"
"Would you let me finish a goddamn sentence?" Jessica snaps, face contorted in indignated anger. "Give me a week before you call and start hounding me again, and I won't charge you the hours I'll put in building the evidence back up. Deal?"
The woman is silent for a moment. Then, "Fine." And she hangs up.
"Asshole," Jessica mutters, pulling the phone away from her ear and scowling down at the screen as it displays the end of the call with her client.
Phoning the people who were expecting Jessica to provide them with evidence of their different suspicions and accusations and fears, and telling them she'll need twice as long as they'd all expected because she lost all of her work, is something she has not enjoyed doing. Three of the four phone calls went the same way this last one has and she had stupidly decided to do it before she'd filled her newly-appointed alcohol shelf, so now she's especially pissed off.
She stands in the middle of her new living room, looking around at the scarce furnishings and dim lighting. She had settled on a furnished apartment since she didn't have time to go around and buy a bunch of shit for living in it today, but it's not really made the place any nicer. It's old and smells of smoke and creaks wherever she walks, and the building is just as riddled with unfortunate souls as her last one was, which means noisy, nosy, drunken, high, aggressive, antisocial neighbours. But she's used to all of that, and she certainly feels more comfortable here than she did in Stark Tower. There's a couch against the wall, a dining table she'll use as her desk, a bed and bedside tables in the bedroom, and another small table in the kitchen - she really doesn't need much else. Maybe she'll get a plant. But it'll probably die.
Her phone buzzes in her hand and she looks down to see a text from Trish reading, "Let me know if you haven't got a place yet and need somewhere to stay. Or call me if you wanna talk about yesterday. I haven't forgotten, but I can imagine you're trying to."
Jessica's eyebrow twitches upwards, a bitter huff of air escaping her nostrils. Trish has a habit of offering things that they both know Jessica will never take her up on - but some of her observations or guesses at Jessica's behaviour are unnervingly accurate. Jessica is definitely planning to forget everything that happened yesterday - from the aliens, to her storming into battle like an idiot, to working with a bunch of nerds, to willingly spending a night in Stark's company. She doesn't know what she was thinking, involving herself like that, exposing herself to these people who then expected her to hang around and introduce herself and chat. It was stupid of her to do that. She should have just followed the crowds to safety and hidden out.
She realises just how stupid it was when she leaves the building and starts walking to the closest liquor store, and she glimpses a news reporter and her cameraman across the street. The reporter sees Jessica and does a double-take, and then turns to say something enthusiastically to her cameraman, pointing over at Jessica's side of the street.
"That doesn't look good," Jessica frowns to herself, turning her face away and shovelling her hands in her jacket pockets, picking up her pace as she stomps along the sidewalk.
"Excuse me! Hang on a minute. Excuse me!" a woman's voice calls out behind her.
Jessica grits her teeth and walks faster, but the reporter literally runs around her and thrusts a hand out to stop her. "Get out of my way, lady," Jessica says tiredly.
"You're the woman that fought yesterday, aren't you?" the reporter asks excitedly, eyes wide and gleaming. Her brown hair is ruffled from her effort to catch up to Jessica, her face a little pink. "I'm trying to make it big and if you gave me a statement, it'd-"
"I just wanna go to the store," Jessica winces uncomfortably, gesturing past the brunette. "I don't have anything to say."
But the reporter is too busy signalling for her cameraman to come over, her smile still wide and eager. "You'd honestly be doing me such a huge favour," she gushes. "I'd be the first person to get a statement from-"
Jessica shakes her head, frowning, and tries to walk past the woman. "I'm not interested."
But apparently the cameraman has arrived and started rolling. "I'm here in Hell's Kitchen and a real-life superhero has just walked past me on the street - the first recorded sighting of the woman since she was seen battling with the rest of the Avengers yesterday during the horrific attack that left an entire city devastated and shellshocked."
Jessica scowls, her mouth twisting with annoyance when the reporter appears at her side again, face schooled into something more professional, a microphone in her hand. And, walking sideways past her to get a shot of her speaking to Jessica, her cameraman holds his camera up on his shoulder, navigating his way through the people on the street without even looking.
"Would you like to introduce yourself to the city of New York, ma'am?" the reporter asks, and she thrusts the microphone in Jessica's face.
"No," Jessica grunts, glancing around her at the people starting to look at them and pursing her lips, whispers tickling the back of her neck.
"Humble and heroic, what a combination," the reporter improvises, grinning at her. "Can you tell us how it felt to be out there yesterday, fighting against aliens?"
Jessica scowls, her cheek pushing up into her eye, her lip curling. "No."
"A woman of few words," the reporter says, turning to the camera, hurrying to keep up with Jessica as she tries to walk even faster. "I'm sure it must be difficult to process. Witnesses have claimed you stayed at Stark Tower last night - was that a debrief with the team or a more personal visit?"
Jessica glares at her, fists clenching in her pockets. "I was at home last night," she bites out.
"How long have the Avengers been together before your appearance yesterday? How often do you all meet up?"
Jessica stops abruptly, catching the look of surprise on the woman's face before she thrusts the microphone back into Jessica's nose. "Back off," Jessica growls.
"I know some of this must be top-secret, but surely you can give the city some kind of insight into this team of superheroes! What's an average day like in the life of an Avenger?"
"Listen, lady," Jessica says quietly, stepping in closer to the reporter, voice low and threatening. "I'm not a part of the goddamn team, I'm not a goddamn Avenger, and I'm not a goddamn hero," she mutters. "Now get that microphone out of my goddamn face before I shove it down your throat and out your ass like a little bunny tail."
The reporter stares at her, stumbling back a step, and Jessica turns a brief glare to the camera before she pushes between them and stalks back along the sidewalk, her hands itching to rub at the back of her neck where she can feel the whisper of a breath along the skin, ghostly fingers brushing her hair aside. She grits her teeth and ducks into an alleyway, breaking into a jog to escape deeper into the shadows, her clenched fists pulling free of her jacket pockets at the imagined threat of an attacker.
She slows back down to a walk, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one followed her, and moves to lean her back against a wall. Her eyes clench shut, her mouth pulling downwards, and her heart hammers inside her chest painfully as memories threaten to resurface and overwhelm her. She tries to focus on her breathing, inhaling and exhaling at a steadier pace, listening to her breaths in the hopes that it'll drown out the whispers. And, slowly, mercifully, they start to fade away, the thumping of her heart slowing and weakening into something more subdued.
Jessica opens her eyes to stare down at the ground, her brow furrowing gently as hopelessness spreads cold and numbing from her chest to her toes and fingertips.
She's so tired of this.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The elevator door slides open in front of her and she pushes off the back wall, trudging out into her hallway. Her door waits for her at the opposite end, but there seems to be an intense conversation going on at the first door on the right from her apartment. The landlord she spoke to earlier this morning to rent her own place is now speaking to a young man who looks more than a little worse for wear, his eyes glazed and unfocused, skin pale and sickly. Jessica watches them for a moment as she walks towards them, but casts her gaze to her door when she walks by.
"Please, please, I really need this apartment. I have to get this apartment. Please," the young man is begging, his voice slurred and his movements sluggish, but there's a genuine desperation in his voice that has Jessica pausing at her door with her key hovering at the lock.
"I just don't trust that you're gonna pay your rent every month," the landlord says, his tone a little too harsh for her liking. "I can't take the risk."
Jessica turns her head a little to watch them over her shoulder, slotting the key absentmindedly into the lock.
"I'm good for it, I promise," the young man insists, fingers clawing and clenching in the air before his chest. "I got that money, right? I got the money from the fund, I-"
"Yeah, I get you can pay rent for this month, but what about next month?" the landlord demands impatiently.
"Please, sir, I have to have this apartment. I need it. You don't understand-"
"And I need rent."
"Hey," Jessica says, taking a step towards them, her fingers still turning the key in her lock. She makes an attempt to appear reasonable to the landlord, in the hopes that it'll encourage him to be the same way. "You're getting a month's rent, right? This is New York - if he doesn't pay up next month, you'll have no trouble finding someone who will. You never know, you might save his life giving him somewhere stable to live for a month."
The landlord frowns at her. "Am I supposed to give a shit? Look at him - what kind of trouble is he gonna bring to this place?"
Jessica glances at the young man, observing the signs of a drug addict and knowing the bag of bottles in her hand doesn't give her much of a leg to stand on. She'll probably end up being more trouble than this guy.
"I can deal with trouble," she answers the landlord, turning her gaze back to him with a shrug. "And, besides, you could wonder the same thing about several people in this building," she adds, shaking her head with bitter amusement. "You've probably got three people like him on each floor."
The landlord glares at her. "You gonna take responsibility for any messes he makes?"
Jessica grits her teeth, giving him a flat look. "No," she bites out. "If he makes a mess, kick him out. Just give him a chance right now. He might be able to turn himself around when he has a stable home for a month."
"He makes a mess, you're both out," the landlord says threateningly, pointing at them both with a chubby finger. "I'll get the paperwork. Stay there," he says to the young man, and he turns and stomps back down the hallway.
Jessica purses her lips and turns back to her door, twisting the key in the lock to open it. "Goddamnit," she mutters to herself, swinging the door open and trudging into her apartment.
"Hey, wait, thank you," the young man says behind her, hurrying to press a hand on the door when she turns to close it. "You didn't have to do that," he says, his words thick in his mouth as he strains to focus his eyes on her.
Jessica's mouth twitches downwards. "It better not bite me on the ass, kid," she says.
He lingers in the doorway, mouth opening and closing uselessly, and Jessica sighs to herself before she drops her hand from the door, walking over to the left corner of her living room where she's found a shelf to use as her liquor store. She pulls the bottles from the bag in her hand and lines them up along the shelf.
"You don't have any stuff," the young man says.
Jessica glances at him standing in the middle of her living room, frowning at her couch and desk. "I travel light," she responds.
He blinks, as if surprised to hear her speak, and turns to look at her again. "My name's Malcolm," he says, lifting a weak hand to his chest.
Jessica sighs again and picks one of the bottles on her shelf to unscrew the lid and pour a glass. "Good to meet you, Malcolm," she intones.
"What's your name?"
Jessica lifts her glass to her lips and moves to her desk, slumping into the chair. She swallows the mouthful of liquor and kicks her feet up onto her desk. "Jessica," she says, reaching forward to open up her new laptop and sign in. Her phone is lifted out of her pocket and dropped on the desk next to the laptop, the screen telling her she has a new missed call from Trish. She clenches her jaw and swipes the notification away.
Malcolm's feet scuff against her floor as he trudges towards her desk, moving to the side her phone is on. "Thank you for helping me, Jessica," he says.
Jessica glances up at him uncomfortably. "Just try not to cause any trouble," she mutters.
Her phone buzzes on the table and they both look down at it, frowns pulling at both of their faces.
"Who's Tony?" Malcolm mumbles, squinting at the screen.
Jessica snatches the phone up, scowling at the name with utter confusion and indignation. She opens the message, her thumb tapping the screen harder than necessary.
"Hey, Jones! You find a new place or do I need to take a stray in again tonight?"
Jessica grits her teeth, glaring at the message. "Touch my phone again and I'll break every bone in your body. I'm deleting your number," she types back.
"Who's Tony?" Malcolm asks again, almost coughing out the words.
"Nobody," Jessica grunts.
"Technically, I didn't physically touch your phone."
"I don't give a shit how you did it, Stark. Never do it again."
"Hey, crackhead!" the sound of the landlord's voice slaps through Jessica's open doorway.
She scowls up at it, leaning left to see past her door into the open space, watching him trudge down the hallway towards the apartment. She glances up at Malcolm, who is watching her with a blank expression.
"Who's Tony?" he repeats.
Jessica frowns at him, almost concerned. "Don't make him wait, kid," she advises. "Go out and sign the papers before he changes his mind."
Her phone buzzes again in her fingers but she keeps her gaze on Malcolm, watching as his face twitches as if in discomfort before he manages to turn around and stumble towards her doorway. Her eyes narrow at his back, not sure what to make of his behaviour.
"Why do you call me Stark?" the text message reads.
"It dehumanises you," she types back, distracted. She leans left again to peer out into the hallway, frowning at Malcolm and the landlord.
Her phone buzzes again.
"You intimidated, Miss Jones?"
She quirks an eyebrow at the screen. "No, just horrified that I have to interact with you at all. Why do you call me Jones?"
She hears keys jingling and leans left once more, watching the landlord reluctantly slap the keys to the apartment in Malcolm's hand. He catches her looking and scowls at her warningly, reminding her that her neck is on the line as well as Malcolm's.
She leans back in her chair, adjusting her feet on her desk, pressing the corner of her phone into her forehead with a scowl. Why did she have to involve herself?
The next vibration rattles her skull dully.
"Because I'm scared if I call you Jessica you'll crush my skull with your bare hands."
Jessica purses her lips in an attempt to stop an amused smirk. "That's the smartest thing you've ever said," she types, but then she remembers she was going to have deleted his number, and she still hasn't. She deletes the letters, watching them disappear one by one, her face slowly turning downwards with discontent.
The skin on the back of her neck starts to crawl and she shifts uncomfortably, her feet sliding off her desk and dropping with a thud to the floor below. She closes the conversation and goes into her contact list, which consists of Trish, Hogarth, Dorothy for emergencies, a local pizza joint and, now, Tony Stark. She goes into his contact information and glares at the screen, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her desk.
Her thumb hovers over the "Delete contact" button for a good minute.
She stretches it over to the corner and hits "Edit", changing the name to Stark.
The phone drops noisily from her hand onto her desk and she presses her fingers into her face, rubbing at her eyes and dragging her fingertips down her cheeks until they support her jaw.
"Damnit," she mutters.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Tony smirks to himself as he walks away from Bruce, leaving the man to play around with the gadgets alone for a moment. He'd invited Bruce back to the Tower to look at some of his latest ideas after the Avengers had briefly met to hand over the Tesseract to Thor and say goodbye to him before he took Loki back to Asgard. Jessica had left this morning, as early as she could, really, and Tony hadn't quite felt ready to come back to the Tower and wander the place alone, so he'd been more relieved than he'll ever let on to anyone when Bruce had accepted the invitation.
"Find something more interesting, would you, J?" Tony asks distractedly, glancing at the TV screen on the wall as he navigates the lab.
"Of course, sir," JARVIS replies, as polite as ever.
"-trust them? How do we know they're really on our side? We don't actually know any of these people - save for Tony Stark, who I think we can all agree we know too much about," a man is saying conversationally on the TV.
Tony stops walking and turns to look at the screen at the sound of his name, blinking in mild surprise when he sees the shaky, amateur footage playing in a box beside the speaker's head. Some civilian must have recorded him and the others fighting the aliens yesterday on their phone and sent it into whatever TV show this is.
"This is what you call interesting?" Tony mutters rhetorically, leaning his lower back against a desk, glancing away from the screen and the man's smug smirk to grab at a tool and a piece of abandoned machinery to fiddle with while he pretends not to listen.
"Think about it - we've got the recovering mess of a billionaire, Tony Stark, we've got the big green guy who destroys everything he touches-" the man rants on. Tony sends a quick glance to Bruce to see if he's listening, but with the scientist's back to him, he can't tell. "-we've got a wanna-be Captain America, some dude with a hammer, and, by the looks of them, a couple of secret agents. Can we really look at any of them and say with the utmost confidence that we trust them?"
Tony rolls his eyes, wondering why them fighting off an alien attack isn't enough proof that they can be trusted.
"Still not convinced? Alright, let's look at the last member of the team - the woman in the leather jacket."
Tony's fingers move out of sheer habit, his eyes flicking up to the TV screen and sticking. His brow pulls downwards slightly when the box beside the man's head shows a picture of Jessica, clearly taken from a video of her - but she looks a little distressed.. and pissed off.
"A reporter managed to catch her on the street this afternoon and- well, I'll let the video speak for itself."
The box enlarges until it covers the full screen, the video rewinding to the start, and Tony watches attentively as the reporter speaks quickly and eagerly to the camera, glancing over her shoulder at a leather-jacketed back and black hair.
"I'm here in Hell's Kitchen and a real-life superhero has just walked past me on the street - the first recorded sighting of the woman since she was seen battling with the rest of the Avengers yesterday during the horrific attack that left an entire city devastated and shellshocked."
The camera moves behind the reporter as she hurries to catch up with Jessica, and then overtakes them both, twisting to get a shot of their faces as they all walk along the street.
"Would you like to introduce yourself to the city of New York, ma'am?" the reporter asks, moving the microphone towards Jessica.
Tony's cheek twitches, his muscles torn between pulling a smirk or a wince.
"No," Jessica says simply, her voice flat and blunt. Tony watches as she glances at the people unseen by the camera, watches her full lips purse into a hard, bitter line, her forehead twitching.
"Humble and heroic, what a combination," the reporter persists, grinning at her. "Can you tell us how it felt to be out there yesterday, fighting against aliens?"
Jessica scowls at the question, and any amusement Tony feels is dropped when he notices the tension in her shoulders and neck. "No," she repeats.
"A woman of few words," the reporter says, giving the camera a quick look, her eyebrows raised and eyes widened as if to share in a snarky comment with the audience.
Tony frowns, his head tilting in something like indignation.
"Is that Jessica?" Bruce asks, suddenly appearing at Tony's side.
Tony relaxes his face quickly and glances at him, nodding.
"I'm sure it must be difficult to process. Witnesses have claimed you stayed at Stark Tower last night - was that a debrief with the team or a more personal visit?" the reporter continues.
Tony rolls his eyes, his fidgeting hands tucking into his armpits when he crosses his arms. He doesn't miss the glance Bruce sends at him when he huffs out an irritated breath.
Jessica glares at the reporter. "I was at home last night," she bites out. Tony wonders if he should be offended that she's so quick to deny it.
"How long have the Avengers been together before your appearance yesterday? How often do you all meet up?"
As the reporter is asking the questions, Tony slowly frowns again, taking a small step forward as he watches the tension in Jessica's body strain her muscles against her skin. He recognises the way her body is visibly reaching a bursting point, having witnessed it first-hand, and suddenly realises the video was taken a good few hours ago.
The next step Jessica takes brings her to a complete halt and she turns her body to face the reporter, glaring fiercely at the woman who still chases a statement, pushing the microphone back in Jessica's face despite the small jump she does.
"Back off," Jessica warns, her voice a low growl that unbelievably doesn't manage to shut the reporter up for good.
"I know some of this must be top-secret, but surely you can give the city some kind of insight into this team of superheroes! What's an average day like in the life of an Avenger?"
"Listen, lady," Jessica mutters, her shoulders rigid with tension, her dark eyes blazing with anger. "I'm not a part of the goddamn team, I'm not a goddamn Avenger, and I'm not a goddamn hero," she says, and Tony catches the bitter twist her voice takes when she uses the H-word. "Now get that microphone out of my goddamn face before I shove it down your throat and out your ass like a little bunny tail."
"Oh, wow," Bruce mumbles.
Tony is watching the screen with a clenching jaw, his eyebrows furrowed gently in almost reluctant concern. Jessica gives the camera one last withering scowl before she pushes out of shot, which is when the video reduces back into the box beside the presenter's head.
Tony takes one look at the man's judgement and amusement and says firmly, "Find something else, JARVIS."
The channel changes to something more trivial before the presenter can proclaim whatever ridiculous suspicions he has, and Tony turns away from the screen, attempting a casual saunter over to the other side of the lab. He knows that if a reporter had caught him and started hounding him with questions about going into space, he'd have likely reacted much the same as Jessica had. Clearly the woman has some sort of trauma in her past, something that makes her close up and lash out whenever she's reminded of it, and Tony has to admit that, while he wouldn't wish that kind of suffering on anyone, it is still a comfort to know that there's someone out there handling it as badly as he is.
"Jeez, she looked mad," Bruce comments from where Tony had left him. "How was she, by the way? When she stayed over last night."
"Hmm?" Tony replies distractedly, slipping his phone from his pocket and opening his contacts. He glances across the room at Bruce. "Oh, uh, fine. She was fine," he shrugs. Bruce frowns at him and he rolls his eyes, gesturing vaguely. "Still stubbornly closed off, but she didn't threaten me like that, at least."
Bruce makes a face at the reminder of the threat, shaking his head as he turns to walk back to the desk he left the gadgets on. Tony watches him walk away for a moment, his mind elsewhere, and then looks back down to his phone. She's listed as "The Not-Avenger Avenger", and there's an option under the name to send her a text.
He gets a flash of an image of her sitting in some dark, cheap apartment somewhere, nursing a glass of whiskey, her shoulders and neck solid with tension, eyes wild with panicked rage, and he taps the button, opening up a conversation with her.