Sorry for the delay, guys.
Shout-out to kenriot1214 and Hearteyesmf for giving me my only consistent reviews and supporting this story and my writing xx
Shout-out as well to Archangel Writings - I'm honoured that you've chosen this as an exception to the Tony/Pepper ship (which I agree is one of the absolute best) and I hope I can keep you interested! Thank you for your kind words xx
Hope you all enjoy this chapter. I'm not sure if it's particularly obvious, but I promise there is actually a plot that isn't just centred around Jessica/Tony interactions.. We're getting there!
Assessments and Theories
Jessica sits at her desk with her left leg bent at the knee, her ankle resting under her right thigh, her elbow leaning on the armrest to support her head in her hand as she stares up at Mrs Harper. The woman has been switching between angry and upset tears for the last ten minutes, sometimes incapable of looking at the file in her hands, sometimes glaring down at it as if she can set it aflame by sheer will. Jessica had finally found Rick Harper on the dating app she had downloaded and created a fake profile for, and the idiot man had taken the bait faster than she had expected, after how careful he'd been when he knew Jessica was onto him.
She breathes a silent sigh, her eyes dropping to the small, brown packet visible inside Mrs Harper's handbag, running her tongue along her bottom lip distractedly.
"I don't understand," Mrs Harper says shakily, lifting her bloodshot eyes to look at Jessica, who has to quickly and calmly tear her gaze away from the packet in the woman's bag so she doesn't get caught staring. "I went through his phone and I didn't see this app."
Jessica lifts her head away from her hand and allows the limb to drop into her lap. She looks away from her client for a moment, struggling to work up the energy to deal with a distraught wife of a cheating husband. "Maybe he didn't use that phone," she intones, meeting her gaze again. "Maybe he used the website instead of the app. But it's him."
Mrs Harper looks back down at the file, sniffing. Jessica glances again at the brown packet in the woman's bag and her finger taps against her thigh.
"How do people normally confront their partners about this?" Mrs Harper asks shakily.
Jessica's face scrunches a little. "Uh, my involvement in the case usually ends before that part," she says slowly, concerned that the woman's going to ask Jessica to confront him for her or something. But Mrs Harper's face is slowly paling. "Are you worried for your safety?" Jessica asks, her ankle slipping out from under her thigh so she can sit up straight in her chair.
Mrs Harper smiles sadly and sniffs. "No, not at all," she says, letting Jessica relax into her chair again. "It's just the thought of it all actually ending." She takes a breath and lifts her chin away from the file, her gaze finding Jessica's ceiling. "And telling everyone about it."
"Well, it's him that should be embarrassed, not you," Jessica mutters. "He's the scumbag who couldn't keep it in his pants."
Mrs Harper lets out a soft laugh, drawing Jessica's gaze in mild surprise. "He is a scumbag," the woman agrees. "Maybe I should make him tell everyone what he did."
Jessica nods approvingly, a smirk pulling at her mouth. "Seems fair."
Mrs Harper blinks, sighs, and meets Jessica's gaze. "I'm sorry for being short with you whenever we spoke. I've been so on edge for the last few months with not really knowing what was going on." She closes the file in her hand and pats it with a bittersweet smile. "At least now I know."
Jessica doesn't know what to say to that, so she just nods awkwardly and averts her eyes.
Mrs Harper reaches into her bag and retrieves the brown packet, reaching out to hand it over to Jessica. "It's all in there," she says.
Jessica opens the brown paper and does a quick skim of the notes, estimating that Mrs Harper is correct in her calculation.
"Thank you, Jones," Mrs Harper says earnestly, her voice a little hollow. "You saved me from wasting any more years of my life."
Jessica can only stare uncomfortably at the woman.
Mrs Harper gives her one last nod and then turns around and walks to her door, letting herself out into the hallway.
Deciding to shelve her discomfort, Jessica opens the drawer on her left and tosses the packet of money in. She slips out her phone to delete Mrs Harper's contact information and the dating app she used to catch Rick, and lifts her gaze back to her laptop to close down the tabs she had left open for the case. But something in her doorway catches her eye.
"Another happy customer?" Romanoff smirks.
The redhead is leaning her shoulder against Jessica's door frame, a hand lazily resting on the door handle. Her hair is styled poker-straight, a brown leather jacket on her shoulders with a white t-shirt and dark jeans.
Jessica watches her blankly for a moment, cursing SHIELD to hell and back, before she pushes out of her chair to retrieve a glass from her whiskey shelf and pour herself a drink.
"You know, you could really hurt a girl's feelings doing that," Romanoff's sultry voice floats through the apartment.
"You'll get over it," Jessica intones, screwing the lid back on her whiskey bottle and carrying the glass to her desk. She gives Romanoff her attention once she's sat down and taken a sip. "So, what does Fury want now?"
Romanoff's lips quirk and she moves into the apartment, closing the door behind her. "Who says Fury sent me? Maybe I just wanted a girls night."
Jessica takes another sip and cocks her head at the woman, licking her lips. "Yeah? What're we gonna do? Braid each other's hair and talk about our trauma?"
"Do you want to talk to someone about your trauma?" Romanoff counters, walking slowly around the room, taking everything in.
Jessica rolls her eyes and grits her teeth, turning her head to the side in an attempt to shake the whispers off her neck. "If this is another recruitment attempt, I'm gonna disappoint again." When she turns back to look at Romanoff, the redhead is already watching her, her head cocked slightly.
"Fury hoped fighting with us would have changed your mind," Romanoff admits, crossing her arms over her chest.
Jessica narrows her eyes with a twitch. "You knew it didn't."
Romanoff smirks, giving her a look. "Anyone with eyes could see that."
"Guess you can't fault Fury when he only has one," Jessica shrugs.
The redhead's smirk still curves seductively across her face, but her eyes are calculating as she stares down at Jessica. "Did you enjoy it?" she asks quietly, her smirk fading into a look that seems more curious than anything.
Jessica frowns. Mocking whispers crawl up the back of her neck and into her hairline. "'Enjoy' really isn't the word I'd use."
"Then what word would you use?"
Jessica reaches for her glass to take another drink. "Look, I don't know why Fury's so persistent with this recruitment thing. It's not gonna happen."
"He wants to help you help people," Romanoff says easily, shrugging a shoulder.
"I don't wanna help people the way he wants me to," Jessica mutters, irritated. "I barely wanna help them at all."
"If you didn't want to help people, you'd be intimidating and assaulting them for some bad characters."
"Who says I don't?" Jessica counters, lifting her chin with a hint of a smirk.
"Your last client, for starters." Romanoff retorts calmly. "She sounded pretty happy with the work you did. Something about saving her from wasting more years of her life?"
Jessica rolls her eyes. "Ask Jerry Hogarth about the work I do for her."
"We know about that work," Romanoff smirks. "Doesn't change anything."
Jessica takes another drink. "How long are you gonna stand there and try convince me to join your stupid team?"
"I'm not trying to convince you," Romanoff says. "You'd have said yes by now if I was."
Jessica throws her an unconvinced glance. "Then, what are you doing?"
"Just having a conversation," Romanoff replies innocently.
Jessica narrows her eyes. "You trying to figure me out, Romanoff?"
"I need to go back to Fury with something," the redhead retorts playfully.
Jessica's mouth twitches of its own accord. "What're you gonna tell him?"
"That you're not suited for the team."
Jessica wonders if Romanoff wants her to react defensively, to feel offended, to work to prove them all wrong. But, for once, she's in total agreement with the criticism from a stranger, the whispers tickling her neck, and the truth in her heart. "That's a relief," Jessica intones honestly. "How can you see it, but he can't?"
The question was somewhat rhetorical, but Romanoff quirks an eyebrow. "Honestly?"
"Sure," Jessica shrugs, taking another drink.
"There's a possibility that you'd be a liability," Romanoff explains. Her words are stated simply, without judgement or insult, and Jessica finds it refreshing coming from a SHIELD representative. "You're clearly still recovering from the trauma you suffered two years ago, and I'm not confident that it wouldn't get in the way of your ability to work in a team and concentrate in a fight. You did well in the Battle, but you were driven by your anger - and, even then, you slipped."
Jessica licks her lips at the mention of what happened, turning her gaze away a moment to concentrate on silencing the memories that flare. "How much do you know?" she asks quietly, her tone flat and dull.
"Enough," Romanoff replies.
Jessica grits her teeth, knowing that means SHIELD likely knows everything. She wonders how many of the team she fought alongside knew then, or know now.
She wonders if Stark knows.
"Fury only told me before I came here," Romanoff says. She leaves the rest unspoken: no one else knows. It unnerves Jessica that the woman knew what she was worried about.
"Well, you can tell Fury that I agree with your assessment," Jessica says, giving the redhead a tense smile before she takes another drink.
Romanoff nods in a way that signals she's done with the interaction. She uncrosses her arms to tuck her hands into her jacket pockets and walks towards Jessica's door. Jessica watches her back as the woman reaches out to open the door; but she pauses and looks over her shoulder.
"You never know," the woman purrs, a smirk pulling at her lips again. "In a few months, I might change my mind. Don't underestimate the effect a friend can have on a person." The look in her eyes is too knowing for Jessica's liking, but she turns back to the hallway and leaves, closing the door behind her.
And Jessica has a horrible feeling the spy is talking about Stark.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thomas King is an aggressively normal, boring person in everything that he does and everything that he is - except for the fact that he came to Jessica and asked her to find dirt on Tony Stark. She has followed him for five days and he hasn't done a single suspicious thing since he left her office. It doesn't make any sense and it's really starting to piss her off. She's even broken into his home - jumping from the alleyway to his third-floor window that he left open since no normal trespasser would have gotten to it - and there is nothing even remotely suspicious in his apartment. Sure, there are some weird things, but that just makes it more normal - if he was completely clean, that would be suspicious.
She's sitting on the fire escape across from his apartment again, watching as he turns his TV off and heads to his bedroom. All he has done is go to work, come home, watch TV, maybe phone a friend or family member, and go to bed. He doesn't look like someone who knows they're being watched, and he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would have received extensive training on building that facade. Jessica cannot, for the life of her, figure out why on Earth the guy would want dirt on Stark.
So, yeah, she's feeling pretty pissed off.
She takes a swig of whiskey from her flask and reaches her free hand into her pocket to retrieve her phone. Opening her text conversations reminds her of the seven unread texts from Trish, but she ignores them and opens up a message to Stark.
"I'm not getting anywhere with Thomas King. He said he'd be back in a week to see what I had, which means he'll be at my office in two days. Has JARVIS found anything I can use?"
She lets her hand holding the phone go limp, falling into her lap, and takes another drink. She winces a little at the taste as it burns down her throat, lifting her gaze to glare into King's dark apartment. What could this completely normal guy possibly want with dirt on Stark? He's not struggling to make ends meet, he doesn't seem to obsess over expensive materialistic things he can't afford, and he's not in debt to any loan sharks. He also doesn't seem to react negatively whenever there's anything about the Avengers on the news. If it's not money and it's not hatred, what the hell is motivating him to dig up dirt?
Her phone buzzes in her hand and she lifts it, twisting it so the screen points up. Stark is trying to video call her.
"Damnit," she mutters, but she answers it anyway.
When the video loads, it's clear that Stark has propped his phone up against something on his desk. Unsurprisingly, he's in his lab, tinkering with something in his hands. He's wearing a tank top that is smudged and a little singed, his arc reactor glowing brilliantly through the material, and his bare arms are covered in oil and are flexing aggressively with whatever tinkering he's doing. He's wearing a pair of safety goggles on an equally dirtied face and his hair is fluffier than she's ever seen it.
"Who's Thomas King?" he asks, his attention focused on his hands.
Jessica raises her gaze skywards for a moment to try and tame her irritation. "Your blackmailer, genius," she intones.
Stark tuts, drawing her attention back to the video. "I thought I suggested ignoring that dumbass?"
"Yeah, well, he's pissing me off, now," Jessica mutters, glancing over at King's apartment again. Still no movement.
"Why?"
"Because he has no reason to want to blackmail you," she answers, lifting her flask to her lips again.
"Sorry, I'm still getting used to the fact that you care," Stark says, his tone serious, but his words ludicrous.
"It just doesn't make any sense," she bites out. "That's why it pisses me off."
"You look cold, Jones."
Jessica rolls her eyes. "This keeps me warm," she says, lifting the flask into the camera's view. "Has JARVIS found anything interesting on this guy?"
"No, because he's the least interesting person on the planet," Stark retorts quickly, as if cutting in before his AI can answer. "You should wear a hat; we're getting into the colder months, now, Jones."
"He's made a few calls in the evenings - it'd be good to know who was on the other side," she says, ignoring the rest of his reply.
Stark's hands finally thump against the table when he lets out a dramatic groan and throws his head back. Jessica watches his neck stretch, his lips parting, stubble spread across the skin of his jaw, and tries not to smirk at his behaviour. He lifts the hand holding whatever tool he's using to reach up to his safety goggles and pull them down over his face, letting them hang around his neck. He leans forward in his seat again, bringing his chin down, and looks at his phone properly for the first time since he started the call.
"I don't like it when people don't do what I tell them to," he says.
Jessica's forehead scrunches judgmentally, shooing away the overly-paranoid fright her mind gets. "Okay, brat."
He purses his lips, cocking his head at her, and narrows his eyes. "You're just gonna keep chasing this, aren't you?"
"It's pissing me off that I haven't figured him out yet," she admits, glaring over at King's apartment.
Stark lets out a frustrated grunt. "Fine. Y'know, you could get it done quicker if you c'mere and use my resources," he muses distractedly, turning back to his tinkering. "It'd get you outta the cold, too."
"What's with you and my temperature?" she scowls confusedly.
"I'm just trying to reciprocate the obvious care you hold for me. Fake it 'til you make it, you know," he says, and he sends her a quick, cheeky grin before he swipes at the screen and the call ends.
Jessica feels indignation and irritation flare in her chest. She grits her teeth, whispers crawling up her neck and reaching for her ears, and takes another drink of whiskey. Nobody has ever got on her nerves the way that Stark does.
And, yet, she finds herself stomping along the hallway to the door of his lab not forty minutes later. "Does JARVIS have a phone number?" she asks when she pushes into the room.
"Are you breaking up with me?" Stark tosses over his shoulder. He's sat at a desk still, looking through a magnifying glass as he works on something in his hands, but he has changed out of his tank top into a black jumper.
Jessica glances at his now-covered arms as she walks further into the lab, heading over to the desk she's used before. "Did you freshen up for me?"
"Only at J's insistence."
"I thought it might be appreciated if Mr Stark did not smell of oil and burnt cotton," JARVIS explains.
"At least I'm smellable," Stark retorts defensively. "What've you got going for you?"
Jessica smirks and sits down at the desk, dropping her satchel on the floor before she shrugs out of her leather jacket. "Why's it so hot in here?" she frowns.
"Mr Stark asked that-"
"Mr Stark can speak for himself," Stark interrupts loudly, his tone sharp but not completely serious. "Can you get back to running those simulations for me, please?"
"Of course, sir."
"And I guess you can help Jones with this guy, too," the billionaire adds, though grudgingly.
"How can I be of assistance, Miss Jones?"
Jessica falters, staring a few desks ahead on her right at the side of Stark's face. He hasn't looked at her at all, focusing instead on whatever miniscule piece of the tech in his hands he's working on. Though she hasn't been in his lab many times, she knows for a fact it has never been this warm, and noticing that and his interruption of JARVIS reminds her of his comments on her temperature in the video call. She can't say for sure whether he kicked up the heating because she was coming in, but she's not sure how she feels about the idea of it.
So she decides to brush it off, too.
"Can you find out who King's been calling in the evenings?" she asks JARVIS, leaning down to her satchel to retrieve her flask. She takes a drink of whiskey while she waits for an answer, unable to stop a glance over at Stark's back.
"Thomas King made three calls in the last five days: one to his mother; one to his sister; and another to a childhood friend."
"God damnit," Jessica mutters, slumping over the desk to lean her elbows on the surface. She props a fist against her cheek and lifts the flask to her lips again with her other hand.
"Maybe he's bored," Stark comments. "People do crazy stuff when they're bored."
Jessica glances at a screen a few desks ahead of her, looking at the ten different suit designs on display. "What, like creating an army of suits?" she intones pointedly. She sees Stark pause for a moment, a muscle in his neck jumping, his jaw clenching, and she grits her teeth at the guilt that stabs at her. "I don't think this guy's smart enough to resort to blackmailing when he's bored. He doesn't seem that sociopathic."
"Maybe it has nothing to do with me," he shrugs, though his back is still lined with tension.
Jessica frowns over at him. "What d'you mean?"
Stark tilts his head, his hands slowly stilling, and his back relaxes. Then he finally twirls his chair round to look at her properly. His face is cleaner now than it had looked in the video call, and it's currently sitting in an expression of curiosity. "The only other motive he might have for coming to you with this, is interacting with you. Maybe the blackmailing is just an excuse to talk to you."
Jessica gives him a flat look.
"I'm serious!" he insists, holding his hands up defensively. "Maybe you pissed him off, maybe he saw you on the news and fell head-over-heels, maybe-"
"Okay, the pissing-off theory is valid," she interrupts, waving her flask dismissively at the other theory. "But I usually familiarise myself with the people connected to my clients or their targets."
"Maybe he wasn't connected to them at the time," Stark shrugs, twisting his chair back and forth.
Jessica drops her fist from her cheek and sits up in her chair, leaning against the backrest. "If it's about me, why involve you at all?" she challenges, deciding to humour the theory a little longer. It could possibly explain the fact that she hasn't seen King behave in the weird way he did with her with anyone else.
Stark pouts thoughtfully, his gaze slipping to a point behind her as he flushes out his theory. "If he knows that you have a connection here-"
"He does," she says.
"-Then he knows it would be possible for you to uncover some secrets. But you'd have to be careful snooping around me, and any secrets I'd have would be very well hidden." He twists his body to put the piece of tech and his tool back onto the desk so that he can stand up from his chair. His eyes seem bright with the thrill of figuring King's motives out and Jessica almost rolls her eyes at him, considering the fact that he couldn't be less interested when it was about him. "He'd know that this'd be a long-term job," he continues, slipping one hand into his pocket while the other gestures vaguely. "I mean, I know I've got an ego, but I'm sure nobody thinks you'd be able to walk in here one day and leave with a load of company secrets."
"Yeah, I think most people know that you wouldn't be an easy man to steal secrets from, Stark," she mutters. "Especially now you're part of the Avengers."
"So, maybe he figured he'd give you a case that he knew you'd have to spend a while on," he theorises. "Something that he thought would keep you away from him personally in case you figured out the exact thing you have: that the guy's painfully boring and really has no reason to contact you."
Jessica pushes her chair back so she has room to kick her feet up onto the desk. Her hand lifts her flask to her lips again and she swallows a mouthful of whiskey, the skin at the corner of her eye twitching at the burn. She's starting to dislike this theory.
"I've not seen him show any interest in me," she says.
"Maybe he's hiding it just in case you're watching him."
"I've seen him arguing with himself in the mirror," she retorts. "He's not worried about being spied on."
"I can't find a connection between Thomas King, or anyone in his family, and Miss Jones," JARVIS informs them.
"Back to square one, then," Jessica says, taking another drink.
"Uh, no," Stark retorts pointedly, turning to give her an offended look. "When J didn't find a connection between this guy and me, you still spent five days trying to find something - you can't just brush off my theory for the same reason."
Jessica rolls her eyes. "Of the two of us, who's more likely to be able to give this guy what he wants?"
Stark lifts his eyebrows, giving her a look. "Well, if he's interested in you, I don't think I can satisfy that particular-"
"Shut up, Stark," she snaps irritably, fighting against the amusement twitching her lips.
He grins at her, sending her an exaggerated wink. "At least we know he's got good taste."
"Either way," she says, allowing a small smirk.
Stark's eyes widen comically, his lips parting to form a shocked - but thrilled - expression. "Did you just flirt back at me?" he demands, lifting his hand to press his fingertips to his chest.
"I imagine you're not used to that, huh?" she responds, tilting her head at him with feigned sympathy.
His mouth snaps shut, eyes narrowing. "I think we all know I do very well with the ladies."
Jessica smirks, but she falters when she remembers him talking about nobody having standards low enough for him, and the sadness in his eyes. By the way his face almost imperceptibly falls, she knows that he's remembered, too.
Something in her decides to distract him. "King's gonna be at my office in two days," she sighs, slipping her feet off the desk and sitting up straight. "What am I gonna tell him when he asks what I've got?"
Stark seems a little deflated now, but he doesn't fully turn his back to her at least. He just moves to look further up the lab, giving her his side profile. "Uh, I dunno," he mutters. But then he looks over his shoulder at her. "You could tell him you've found some evidence of embezzlement, but you need more time to figure out who's doing it. If the reporters jump on the story, we'll know who his true target is."
Jessica nods approvingly. "Alright, sounds good," she says.
Feeling that the interaction is coming to an end, she screws the lid back on her flask and drops it into her satchel. She sees Stark turn away from her properly and take a few steps back to his desk. But when she reaches for her jacket, he speaks up again.
"Y'know, I really wanna watch Empire now, but I'd feel rude watching it without you."
Jessica pauses and looks up to stare at his back. His tone was nonchalant and easy, but she sees the slump in his shoulders. "I didn't know I signed up for a marathon."
Stark scoffs quietly, continuing his playful facade. "As if you can just start a franchise and ignore the rest."
Jessica licks her lips, taking a deep breath. She thinks of her cold, dark apartment, and the fire escape opposite Thomas King's building, and she begrudgingly realises she wouldn't mind staying a little longer. "Fine, whatever."
Stark looks round at her again, a smirk pulling at his lips despite the sombre look in his eyes. "You don't need to sound so thrilled about it," he jokes weakly.
"You don't need to guilt-trip me into spending time here," she counters.
They share a look, and they both know that the other's facade will likely not disappear just because they've acknowledged them. Jessica lifts a hand to scratch at her neck, trying not to let the effects of the whispers show on her face. Her and Stark are just learning to understand each other - she doesn't need to worry about getting close to him. They've both got too much shit going on that they clearly don't want to drag anyone else into, so they're safe from dragging each other in.
She can't let him in. She won't.