I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to come about! I really just needed to take time over the winter to prioritise my mental health and wound up writing a couple of silly, lighthearted stories for Teen Wolf instead to keep the creative juices flowing. But, finally, I've got a new chapter for you! And it's almost 8k so I hope you enjoy.
Also, you may like to know that I've watched all of season 1 and took notes and wrote summaries for each episode, and then went through and made plans for how I'm going to merge what's happened in this story with season 1! It'll mostly go the same way as canon, with little changes here and there, and then by about episode 10, things are gonna really diverge from canon. I'm gonna make a wee note down the bottom of this chapter regarding future chapters, if you could pretty please have a nosey x
In the meantime, I really hope you enjoy this return! I'm not 100% on it, to be honest, but I'm excited to get into JJ season 1.
Dashing Good Looks and Irresistible Charm
For someone whose entire income and therefore survival relies heavily on potential clients approaching her over the phone or physically at her apartment-slash-office, Jessica really hates it when potential clients send her a message or knock on her door. And, right now, it appears there's one of each, just to make doubly sure she wakes up in a peachy mood.
Sunlight is streaming aggressively through her window - apparently she forgot to close the blinds last night somewhere between finishing a bottle of bourbon and face-planting on her mattress - and her entire face crumples in an attempt to shield her eyes from the searing brightness. Wrapping her fingers around her phone and pulling it from the charging cable in the process, Jessica rolls onto her other side so the sunlight hits her back instead. Her eyelids are leaden when she pries them open, a hangover headache throbbing just above her left temple in protest of all the movement, and she glares down at the screen of her phone.
She reads the text from Stark - "I'm about to knock on your door fyi" - just as another series of knocks echo through her apartment. Two sharp knocks, a single knock, and then two more in quick succession. The beat feels infuriatingly jovial at this stage in Jessica's awakening, and she humours for a moment the idea of just ignoring the man and pretending she isn't home.
She rolls onto her back again now that her eyes have become more accustomed to the light bouncing around her bedroom and runs her hands through her hair, wincing when her fingers catch on stubborn knots. There's a sour, foul taste in her mouth after her night of drinking - although day of drinking would probably be more accurate - and her head rolls as she looks across her bedroom to her waiting bathroom.
Her phone buzzes on her bed again and she hauls her head over to the other side of her neck to look at the screen.
"I have food and coffee".
Groaning quietly to herself, Jessica drags her body out from under the tangle of sheets and stumbles around her room in search of a fresh pair of underwear and some jeans. Her mind clears as she moves, even as her headache throbs insistently, and she realises getting Stark out of the hallway and away from "Who's Tony?"-Malcolm is probably a good idea.
The door sticks a little when she jerks it open, as does her brain when she looks up at Stark. He flashes her a cheeky grin from under a pair of large sunglasses, a baseball cap, and a hood. The hood belongs to a zipped sweatshirt which he wears under a leather jacket, and he's in a pair of distressed jeans and black sneakers with white soles. His hands, which are in fingerless gloves, hold his phone at his stomach and balance a styrofoam container with two coffee cups on top. His chin is leaning on the tops of the cups to keep them balanced, and they don't even waver when he throws her that grin.
Even with his surprisingly-thoughtful heads-up, the sight of Tony Stark standing outside Jessica's apartment is utterly surreal and mildly disconcerting. But she steps to the side and opens the door wider, dropping her irritated gaze to the wall. Stark clears his throat and stoops to pick something up from behind his legs before striding across the threshold into her home.
He inhales deeply as she closes the door behind him, sending a quick glance into the hallway to check for Malcolm, and then lets it all out again in a contented sigh. "Wow, what's that fragrance? It's like a choking, melancholy, apathetic sort of perfume - very unique and absolutely unsurprising."
"I'll bottle it up for you so you can live somewhere that doesn't smell of clinical experimentation and narcissism," Jessica grunts, snatching one of the coffees from under his chin. She shuffles to her desk and stretches up on her toes to lift her ass on top of it.
Stark hums thoughtfully and moves to stand next to her, depositing the container and a simple, narrow gift bag at her side. "Speaking of bottles."
Jessica swallows a mouthful of coffee to wash away the taste of her hangover and frowns between the bag and Stark, but he swipes his sunglasses off his face and turns away from her to peruse her living room. "What's this?" she mutters, peering cautiously over the edge of the bag to see inside. "Whiskey?"
"Yeah, I dunno what about you spoke to me, but I just had a feeling it might be something you'd enjoy." His head tilts sideways as he swivels on his feet to face her again. "Maybe 'enjoy' isn't the right word. Lean on? Wallow in? Guzzle in order to make the agony of existence a little more bearable?"
Jessica glares at him. "Did you stop being a recluse for the first time in weeks just to come here and make me feel worse about myself?" But she grabs the neck of the bottle and pulls it from the gift bag to inspect it.
"It was the only logical thing to do," he shrugs, pulling his hood down.
Jessica blinks at the label on the bottle, recognising it from the shelf she avoids - not that she even frequents stores with that kind of shelf - as something far beyond her usual budget. She places it down on her desk with a dull thud and glances up at Stark again, sharing an awkward, unspoken look with the man. Because this isn't a bottle to taunt and mock her, it's a bottle to apologise.
It has been almost a week since he made a comment that cut a little too close to home, and she hadn't heard anything from him after she called him about confronting King. The only reason she hasn't forgotten about the unpleasant incident is because it makes her uneasy that she'd left another hint for him to pick up on about her past, her fears, her weaknesses. She remembers the quiet shame she felt admitting what she was afraid of to disprove his assumption of it being her powers, back when she'd stayed at the Tower after the Battle of New York - it itches uncomfortably under her skin whenever she thinks back to it, when she wonders if Stark remembers and thinks about it, too. She has already bared herself too much to this man, she doesn't need to make it worse.
"What's with the outfit?" she asks, silently accepting his apology-alcohol.
He grins roguishly. "It's my incognito mode," he boasts, lifting his arms at his sides and flaunting a leg in front of him. "What d'you think?"
Jessica swallows another mouthful of coffee. "You look like a paedophile."
Stark scoffs indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, you smell like one. And you live like one."
"No, I don't," Jessica denies, her brow furrowing even as her mouth twitches into a tiny, amused smile.
"I've gotta admit, it's not as abandoned and murdery as I was expecting it to be. I'm honestly very pleasantly surprised by the abundance of furniture and natural light."
Jessica shrugs, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Lotta pretences to uphold."
Stark huffs out a quiet laugh. "Yeah," he mutters, glancing around. "So, uh, not to bring the mood down from paedophilia, but have you heard anything since last week?"
Jessica clenches her jaw and lowers her coffee cup to her thighs, a pointer finger tapping it irritably. "No. You?"
Stark clicks his tongue and scuffs the toe of his sneaker against her floor. "Nada. Kinda seems like he's sticking to his abandonment, huh?"
Her cheek twitches uneasily. "For now. The puppeteer could still change their mind."
The sigh Stark heaves is weary and discontented, and it draws Jessica's attention to his face. He might be out and about for the first time - that she's seen, anyway - since they came back to the Tower after getting shawarma, but his face looks as pale and drawn as ever. The bags under his eyes are so heavy she can almost feel them, and his frown looks much easier on his muscles than his earlier grins. She wonders if it's always been that way, or if it was only reserved for down days and has been exacerbated since he nearly died saving the city.
"What's your boyband up to these days?" she asks, consciously twisting her lips into a teasing smirk. "No new gigs?"
He rolls his eyes. "Not at the moment - there was some bureaucratic riffraff to sort through, and all the supervillains have seemingly agreed to take a vacation so we can get some R and R."
"Do you have to do all of that cushy team-bonding shit?"
"There may be concerns that we are only capable of playing nice in the face of catastrophic danger."
Jessica scoffs. "To be honest, I'd expected something a hell of a lot more dysfunctional than what you bozos turned out to be," she comments.
"Oh, yeah, that's right. I forget the pirate tried to lure you out into the open seas."
"Yeah, I get easily seasick."
"It's not for everyone," he shrugs.
More for something to do than anything else, Jessica hooks a finger under the lid of the styrofoam container and flicks it up. Instantly, a warm breath of air wafts up to her nose, sweet and salty. She smirks at the waffles and bacon in the container and lifts a questioning eyebrow at Stark.
"Can't go wrong," he grins.
Jessica slides off her desk and wanders through to the kitchen. Her socks are probably picking up dried mud and dust from the floors she rarely remembers to sweep, but she hadn't really been planning on leaving her apartment today, so she'd neglected the boots abandoned in a corner of her bedroom. It's a stroke of luck that there are two clean forks in the kitchen drawer, but she keeps that to herself when she returns to the living-room-slash-office and hands one to Stark. She takes up the chair at her desk and he lifts a leg up to half-sit on the left corner, moving the container between them. They stab their forks into the waffles, using each other's movements to aid their own pursuits of separating a chunk.
A few minutes pass by silently, neither deeming it necessary to fill the empty air with anything other than the dull punctures of their forks in the styrofoam when they stab too far. It's almost comfortable - companionable.
Jessica wonders, then, if that makes her some kind of masochist when she licks the syrup from her lips and asks stiffly, "Have they spoken to you about me?"
There's a quick, sharp huff of air from Stark before he stabs into a section of waffle particularly-aggressively. "You assume they talk to me at all," he mutters. When he glances at her, all she can do is frown up at him, waiting. He takes a deep breath, straightening to crack his back, and shoves a chunk of waffle in his mouth. "No, they haven't spoken about you. I don't think they know we've had any interaction since the incident. Or, if they do, they don't care."
"I think Romanoff knows," Jessica replies, stabbing her fork into the waffle and leaving it to stand alone as she reaches for her coffee. "She came by one day and made a comment about.. having friends."
Stark sniffs, maintaining his attention on their shared food. "She must like you," he comments. "Banner comes by sometimes. He's alright to be around - gets on with science shit. I don't think the others know what to do with me."
Jessica leans back in her chair and huffs out a bitter breath. "God forbid they just spend time with you instead of doing something."
Stark clicks his tongue, shrugging again. "They have their own shit to deal with. Well, Rogers and Banner do, anyway. Hard to get a read on the assassins, and Thor's gone back to his world, so."
Jessica runs her tongue along her bottom lip, wrapping her hands around the warmth of her coffee cup as she leans it on her abdomen. She kicks her feet out under her desk and crosses her legs at the ankles, her toes twitching. They're doing it again, toeing around the edge of their shared problem, more explicit and revealing than their usual back-and-forth, and the two parts of her are at odds once more - one part wanting to kick him out and never get this close to talking about their feelings again, and the other part knowing how much it would have taken for Stark to come here and seeing that it might be helpful for him to have someone acknowledge this difficulty they're referencing.
"They mean well," she mutters eventually, her words stilted and pushed out between barely-open lips. "It's hard for them to know what to do."
Stark prods at the waffle some more with his fork, but he hasn't taken an actual bite in a while. "And it's hard to point them in the right direction."
Jessica takes a breath and looks away, rolling her shoulders back. There's a pressure pushing down on her chest from being so open, an instinctual drive to suppress it and close everything up again. She can remember, when she had finally managed to flee from him and went to the safest place she could think of, how Trish had been so good with giving her space at the start. Eventually, though, Trish had wanted to talk, to help Jessica face and move past her trauma, and the echo of repulsion and aggression from those times still burns in her stomach when she thinks about it. Communication has never been her forte, but she knows she was especially stunted when she had bent to Trish's will and opened up about everything that had happened, everything she'd done. She never really figured out whether the admitting part was the worst, or if it was the way that Trish was never once anything other than understanding and forgiving. After a few months, it had become too much, and Jessica had focused instead on isolating herself and maintaining her business, where she could safely suppress everything instead.
Coming so close to death and surviving it, that's something Jessica is familiar with. There's something so hauntingly raw about facing one's own mortality, about knowing yourself in that moment where your life is condensed and compressed into a tiny millisecond too elusive to comprehend. That moment before death is one thing, but coming back around afterwards to learn that you've survived - that is something altogether different. There aren't the words in any language to convey what it does to you, to your mind, to your sense of self, no poetry or psychoanalysis that truly grasps the horror of it to communicate it effectively. And every moment is different for everyone, in every different scenario. Jessica's experience will in no way compare to Stark's, and vice-versa. They are completely isolated incidents, incapable of being communicated and shared, and that's what makes you feel so alone even when there are people around you trying to pick you up and piece you back together again.
Jessica closes her eyes and bites down on her teeth when a whisper ghosts across the back of her neck.
"So, JARVIS hasn't picked anything up either?" she asks, shaking a lock of hair out of her face when she looks up at Stark again.
His chest expands on a deep inhale, his eyebrows lifting as his head tilts, and he spears another chunk of waffle to lift in the air. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he answers. When he removes the waffle from his fork with his teeth, he lets the fork drop down in the empty lid of the container and he sits up straight, brushing his hands together. "But we're keeping vigilant, as requested. Of course, the offer still stands if you need an extra pair of legs to do the investigative work. Turns out it's actually nice to get outta the Tower."
Jessica offers him a small smile. "Well, I appreciate the offer," she says.
His mouth twitches and he sniffs, nodding once, and she thinks he understands the unspoken addition - that she also appreciates the fact that it is an offer, and not a demand or forced intrusion. She wonders briefly if he's so keen to help her, has given up on convincing her it's nothing, because it gives them a reason to interact, a reason to hide behind when they might both be silently benefitting from the shared, trauma-avoiding, companionship.
Jessica pushes to her feet and Stark takes the hint amiably, swiping his coffee from her desk while he pushes off of it.
"And thank you for the hangover cure," she smirks, gesturing to the container that's now almost empty. She leaves her coffee on the desk and walks behind him when he saunters to the door.
"Oh, absolutely. Any time. Happy to deliver caffeine, sugar, and salt whenever required," he chirps. "And then, of course, allow you to abruptly escort me off the premises."
"I've got a lot to do today," she responds, giving him a false grimace when he looks over his shoulder at her.
He scoffs and reaches out for the door handle, but falters when she grabs his arm. It's easy to forget that he's actually well-built when his intellect seems to trump everything else, and easy to miss under his layers of clothing; but she can feel his bicep under her fingers, firm and curved.
Jessica pulls her hand back to cross her arms over her chest, nodding at him. "You're forgetting your incognito mode accessories."
He smirks and retrieves his sunglasses from his pocket, giving her a teasing, curious expression when he pulls his hood up over his cap again. "Concerned for my well-being, Miss Jones?"
"No, I just don't need all of this," she grunts, extracting a hand from under her arm to gesture at his person. "It's bad for business."
"What, dashing good looks and irresistible charm?" he smirks, quirking an eyebrow at her.
"No," she retorts flatly, rolling her eyes. "Fame." And Malcolm's obsession with figuring out who you are.
"You're right," he muses, but there's a gleam in his warm eyes that makes her narrow her own. "Fame would turn you into a monster, I'm sure. You'd be a diva. Uncontrollable. God, the fashion alone!" he hisses scandalously, a hand slapping to his chest.
Jessica fails to bite back her grin when she reaches past his chest to open the door for him. "Alright," she says, cutting off whatever he was about to say next. "Get outta here before I throw you out the window."
"You say the sweetest things, dear," he grins, giving her a quick wink before sliding his sunglasses back onto his nose. He walks through the doorway and takes a sip of coffee before throwing his fingers up over his shoulder, his pointer and middle fingers shaped in a 'V'. "Peace!" he calls cheerfully.
Jessica purses her lips together in a flat line, but the corners of her mouth fight against her, curving up into her cheeks. She closes the door on the image of him sauntering down her hallway, and turns back to the unfinished waffle and bacon on her desk. She supposes the least she could do is finish it off.
xXx
Jessica is no stranger to being intimidated. Well, she's no stranger to people trying to intimidate her. She wishes she could say she is a stranger to the police being the ones attempting the intimidation, but she's no stranger to that either. She's had her fair share of weird and reputation-threatening cases over her time as a PI. A few times she's had to come in to provide alibis for suspects, or evidence for victims, and there have been a couple of instances where she's been questioned about a client or target's injuries, or worse. On those days, when she's sitting at the cold table in the dimly-lit room with the black glass and the uncomfortable chairs, she's usually bored or irritated, more than anything - and definitely not intimidated.
Intimidated still isn't the right word for it, today; but there's definitely something uneasy swirling in the pit of her stomach.
The door to her right opens and she turns to watch the detective enter the interrogation room, a file clasped in his hand. "Sorry about the wait, Ms Jones," he says.
Jessica's eyes twitch disbelievingly. "No, you're not."
He gives her a flat smile, pausing to consider her for a moment. Then he takes a breath and approaches the chair opposite her. "I'm Detective Clemons." He lets the file drop to the table between them and presses his hand against his tie and badge as he sits down. "Something tells me you're a woman who appreciates getting straight to the point - and I am a man looking to solve a case as quickly as possible. So, let's just get started, shall we?"
Jessica gives him a dry smile. "I'm waiting."
He huffs out a quiet, unimpressed scoff. "Alright, Ms Jones. What can you tell us about your relationship with a man named Thomas King?"
Jessica shifts further back into her uncomfortable chair, licking her lips. "He came to me about three weeks ago with a job. He wanted dirt on Tony Stark."
Clemons' eyes narrow, his fingertips fiddling with the corner edge of his file. "Pretty big target. Did he say why?"
"I asked. Wouldn't give."
He nods slowly. "Alright. Did you accept the job?"
Jessica tilts her head, taking a breath. "I told him I'd look into it."
"And did you?"
She grits her teeth for a moment. "Not exactly. I looked into him instead."
"What does that mean, 'looked into him'?"
Jessica shrugs. "Standard PI shit. I followed him around, tried to figure out what he wouldn't tell me."
"Any luck?"
"No."
He nods again. "So, what did you do?"
Jessica sighs and licks her lips again. She really has no interest in divulging this information to anyone, let alone someone she doesn't know and trust. "I went to Stark to see if I could work out a connection from that end of things. And, no, there still wasn't any discernible motive even from that angle."
Clemons thankfully doesn't show much of a reaction to the information that she and Tony Stark are on talking terms. "Was that the only time you interacted with him?"
"No. He came back a week later to check on my progress."
"What did you tell him?"
"I fed him some bullshit line that Stark made up. We were gonna see if the media suddenly exploded with the story, or if someone would try to blackmail him with it or something."
"And they never did?"
Jessica gives him a humourless smirk. "No. And King apparently lost interest in the whole thing."
Clemons' eyebrow quirks. "Is that an assumption, or a quote?"
Jessica exhales sharply and leans forward onto the table. "Listen, we don't need to beat around the bush, okay? I'm guessing he or that random asshole ratted on me for confronting him in the alley, right?"
"We got an anonymous tip about the altercation, yes," he responds evenly. His fingertip slips under the file's cover and flips it open for Jessica to see. "But that's not the only incident I'd like to discuss today."
Jessica's eyes fall to the printed photograph at the top of the pile of paperwork on the table before her. Her brow furrows, lips parting, and a hesitant hand reaches out to touch the edge of the photograph. Her face twists away, but her eyes remain glued to the scene pictured. The hairs on the back of her neck stand on-end.
"What the hell is that?" she asks quietly.
"That is Thomas King," Clemons answers gravely. "Two days ago. We've got receipts for the gun he purchased thirty minutes before he shot himself in the head. No note, no explanation. We were ready to rule it off as a suicide. And then someone called in to tell us about you roughing him up in an alleyway and they claimed you were strong and angry enough to kill King and make it look like a suicide."
Jessica drags her gaze up to his face and glares at him. "That's stupid. Why the hell would I kill him?"
Clemons leans his elbows on the table and crosses his arms. "That's what I'm trying to figure out, Ms Jones."
Jessica slumps back in her chair again. "Look, I went to find him that day because he hadn't shown up to ask for progress on the Stark thing and my gut was telling me something was off about it all."
"And was it your gut that made you pin him against the wall?"
Jessica's jaw clenches. "He tried to run away without answering my questions. I just wanted to know if Stark was still in danger or not."
Clemons eyes her disbelievingly. "You thought that Thomas King was a danger to someone like Tony Stark? The Iron Man?"
"It's easy to underestimate people like him," she bites out. "I didn't think it was worth the risk."
Clemons hums thoughtfully. "You wanted to protect Stark," he comments. "What, exactly, is your relationship to him?"
Jessica glares at him again. "Irrelevant."
Clemons' head tilts. "Not if it's the reason you went after King."
"I didn't kill him," Jessica retorts. "I didn't know he was dead."
"You got an alibi to back that up?"
Jessica thinks back to two days ago. Stark came by with waffles and bacon and coffee, and she spent the rest of the day alone nursing her hangover. She lifts a hand to rub at her face, fighting off an aggravated groan. She doesn't want people to know that Stark came by like that, for that reason; she doesn't want them to assume and question and gossip. She doesn't need any of that.
"Ms Jones, if you don't have an alibi, we might have a problem. So far all you've convinced me of is you're overprotective of a billionaire superhero and you tend to act aggressively when someone does something you don't like."
"You said he bought the gun himself," she says, scowling as the words come back to her. The uneasiness in her stomach coils and writhes.
"His fingerprints were on the trigger, gun powder on his hands, bullet trajectory matched the suicide theory," Clemons lists. "But that doesn't exclude external factors. Who's to say you weren't there blackmailing him?"
Jessica gives him the most unimpressed and incredulous expression she can manage. "Blackmailing a man over something as dumb as attempting to blackmail Tony Stark?"
"If it was 'dumb', why were you so concerned you had to confront him about it?" Clemons challenges.
"Because I don't like having my time wasted and he rubbed me the wrong way. He came into my office like a goddamn robot and when I saw him on the street he was like a completely different person - it was suspicious as hell."
"Ms Jones, you-"
There's a knock on the door and another officer pushes it open a fraction. "Clemons, she's got an alibi."
Clemons turns back to Jessica with his eyebrows lifted curiously, and Jessica frowns back at him.
"Don't look at me," she mutters.
"Is it solid?" Clemons asks the officer.
The officer smirks. "Yeah, I'd say it's pretty ironclad."
Jessica sighs and rolls her eyes, leaning forward onto the table again. When Clemons eyes her questioningly, she grunts, "Stark."
Clemons' face slackens. "Tony Stark was your alibi, and you never thought to use it?"
The door opens wider and Stark himself steps up next to the officer, rolling his eyes. "She doesn't want anyone to think she might have friends - it'd ruin her reputation."
"You're not my friend," she intones.
"Right. Lord and saviour, then?"
Jessica inhales sharply to fuel her next retort, but Clemons cuts in before she can speak. "Alright, I've heard enough. I guess you're free to go, then, Ms Jones. I appreciate your cooperation today."
"Yeah," Jessica mutters, pushing up out of the uncomfortable chair and taking one last glance at the photograph of King's corpse.
The officer at the door steps into the room so that there's space for Jessica to slip by Stark through the doorway. The billionaire bids the cops a jolly farewell and follows closely as Jessica marches through the precinct, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. The uneasiness in her stomach has wound its way up under her ribs and into her chest, her heart thumping painfully and spreading it to every extremity. The image of King's lifeless gaze is burned into her memory.
When she gets out onto the street, she turns left and continues marching.
"Jones, are we not gonna talk about this?"
Jessica grits her teeth and keeps walking, twisting her head to try and shake off the whispers snaking across her neck.
"Seriously? You're gonna give me the cold shoulder after-"
"What d'you want? A thank-you card?" Jessica snaps, throwing a scowl over her shoulder at him.
"-after the police finding King dead," Stark finishes pointedly, his voice more heated than Jessica has ever heard it. He appears at her shoulder, making sure not to intrude on her space but close enough to force her to pay attention to him. "You're just gonna walk off and not tell me the plan?"
Jessica stops abruptly and turns to him. She watches as he takes another step before realising and spinning on the balls of his feet, throwing her an expectant look. He's wearing dirtied jeans and a white tank-top covered in oil and grime, but he has a clean, zipped sweatshirt on top. His face is dirtied, his stubble a little more untamed since she saw him two days ago, and the hood of his sweatshirt is up over his head and pushing curled locks of brown hair over his forehead towards his eyes. It's almost disarming - especially when she pieces together that he was probably in the middle of something when he must have heard about her being taken in for questioning, and that he didn't even stop to tidy up for the sake of his reputation before he came to help her.
"Plan?" she repeats, scrunching her face incredulously and focusing on glaring at his eyes, even if they're still somehow warm and a little soft even with the heat of his frustration. "He's dead. Case closed. There is no plan."
"Hang on, what?" he demands, bewildered underneath the aggravation. He takes a step closer, eyes blazing and narrowed, mouth twisted disbelievingly. "Since when did you think King was alone in this?"
Jessica closes her eyes for a moment, her shoulders and upper back rigid with tension. She tries to breathe steadily but it feels as though her ribs are constricting around her lungs. "He shot himself in the head," she says, opening her eyes again to stare up at him. "He was unwell. Maybe he got bored and thought he'd see what he could get away with. Maybe he really did lose interest."
Stark scowls at her, jaw clenched and lips pursed. His head is tilted down towards her, partly to preserve the shield of his hood around his face, and partly to really drive the whole what-the-fuck expression on his face home. "Someone forced him to come to you, right?" he says quietly, eyebrows quirking upwards. Jessica grits her teeth and shifts on her feet, the uneasiness in her veins thrumming. Stark glances around them before leaning in a little closer, dropping his voice again. "What if that person also forced him to commit suicide?"
Uneasiness turns into a cold, sharp fear that seizes her every limb. She glares up at him, blinking stupidly, aware that the furrow of her eyebrows is twisting from infuriated to scared. He doesn't know - he doesn't know the fucking weight of those words, the implications, the associations, the past that keeps Jessica shrouded and drowned in a darkness that she doesn't deserve to break free from. There's so much buried in her bones, in her skin, in her hands, that he doesn't know about - that he can't know about - and entertaining this case is only leading him closer to her darkness. She let him get involved, gave him the fucking flashlight, and opened the door to the shadows that plague her. She has no one to blame but herself. She has had so many chances to walk away, leave the case alone, prevent Stark from sniffing out all the clues, and look where it has gotten her.
His eyes are bouncing across her face, concern pulling the corners of his mouth down. His hand twitches at his side as if reconsidering an urge to reach out, and she's grateful he fights it down.
"Maybe he had a tenuous grasp of reality and there wasn't anyone but him involved," she forces out through a stiff jaw. "He wasn't the same person in my office as he was with his colleague-" and, while this is meant to persuade Stark that there was nothing else going on, the statement sends an ice-cold shiver of fear down her spine, "-maybe he was just a sociopath satisfying a curiosity."
"Maybe," Stark hisses. "Or maybe he was telling the truth and there's someone else involved. Someone who convinced or inspired a man to shoot himself in the goddamn head."
Goosebumps burst over Jessica's neck and she throws a quick, borderline-frantic glance over her shoulder, her eyes darting across faces in the crowd of pedestrians. "Let's just drop it, alright? It's not worth digging any further. Just leave it alone."
She can see the hesitation in his face, the reluctance to push any harder when he can see that she is distressed - and she sees the exact moment he decides this is worth sacrificing whatever little remains of her comfort.
"Why?"
She tries to fan the flames of her anger to cover up her fear. "Because I'm the PI and I know when a case has gone cold, alright?" she snaps. "And this case is-"
"What?" he demands, his voice growing louder. "What is it? 'Cos it kinda seems like you know who did it."
"I don't."
"Then what the hell is goin' on, Jones? One minute you're convinced I'm in danger - or, at least, my stellar reputation is - and the next you don't want anything to do with it! What about the people behind King that you believed in two days ago? Are they still a threat to me?"
"I don't know, okay? It just- I don't think we should keep chasing it! It doesn't feel right."
"Yeah, because there's some weird shit goin' on!" he insists, eyes wide and blazing.
Jessica can feel the twist in her eyebrows again, the almost-desperate pinch to her lips, and she has to lift a hand to rub at the back of her neck. Her heart is thumping erratically against her ribs, skipping a beat when the whispers solidify into a coherent word - "Jessica!" - and she feels an intense restlessness buzzing under her skin. She wants to turn and run and run and run but she shouldn't be running anymore because there's nothing to run from and he's dead, she saw him die and-
"Mr Stark! Could I take just a moment of your time to ask you some quick questions? I promise it won't take long!"
"Uh, sorry, not right now. I'm kinda in the middle of-"
Jessica needs to say her mantra. It's the middle of the day and there are people all around them and Stark is right next to her but she needs to say it-
"Please, sir, I know you're super busy as an Avenger now, but the people have so many questions about the team and what went down during the battle!"
"Yeah, I get that and I sympathise with those people, I really do - it must be such a hardship not knowing every excruciating detail - but I promise I'll do, like, a press-conference or something soon, alright?"
More people are starting to notice Stark. They are beginning to stop on the street and move closer, necks craning to get a glimpse at the billionaire even as he keeps his hood up and his face down by Jessica to try and protect himself. The increased attention is pressing even closer around Jessica's lungs. The whispers are growing louder and threatening to solidify into full sentences.
"How about a sneak peek? You could give us a quick summary of your time in space! What was it like to leave through that portal? How close were you to the explosion? Did you think you were coming back, or did you think it was a one-way trip?"
Jessica realises the strained breathing she can hear is not her own.
"Listen, seriously, I don't wanna talk about that right now, alright? I'll give you all the rundown another time; but I'm-"
"Of course, Mr Stark - God knows you all deserve some rest after what you nearly sacrificed for the city! You can't blame the people for wanting to know more about the aliens and the close-call with death you had to save the city from that bomb! Did you get to say goodbye to anyone before you went up, or was there not enough time?"
Jessica hears the wheeze in Stark's exhale, sees the clutching of his fingers around the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He clamps his jaw shut and it clenches aggressively against his cheeks, and something in her snaps when his eyes widen with panic.
"Back off!" she shouts, and she grabs Stark's wrist to throw his arm over her shoulder, lifting her head to find the closest and lowest building.
Stark barely has time to gasp out a "What the fu-" before Jessica bends her knees and launches herself into the air, an arm wrapped securely around Stark's back to carry him with her.
Air rushes past them, surging under the lapels of her jacket and writhing through her hair. Stark's hood falls back off his head and his free hand flails at his side as he lets out a clipped yelp. The weightlessness exilerates Jessica, for a beat or two, but then her stomach swoops as gravity takes hold of them again and they curve down towards the targeted rooftop.
Being a practiced superhero, Stark bends his knees appropriately when they land, feet scuffing and slipping a little on the gravel. Jessica drops her arm from his back and her hand from his wrist, and his arm slips from her shoulders.
"Holy shit," he breathes, lifting both hands to press and tap at his chest. "Oh my god, this is incredibly unpleasant. What the hell is it?"
"Panic attack," Jessica grunts, stumbling further across the rooftop to put distance between her and the crowd on the street, and to try and get out of Stark's earshot. "Main Street. Birch Street," she whispers, closing her eyes and running a hand through her hair. "Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane." She opens her eyes again and looks down at her upturned palms, assuring herself that they are steady before she turns to look for Stark again.
He's shuffling around, one hand fiddling with his hood at the back of his neck while the other pulls at the collar of his sweatshirt. His eyes catch hers by chance as they flitter around wildly. "Is it normal to want to tighten every article of clothing while also wanting to shed it all and run around butt-naked?" he asks, his voice strained.
Jessica strides over to him, the whispers quieting at the back of her neck as her heart thuds a more steady beat. She thinks of her own mantra, but it's not exactly going to mean a damn thing to Stark, and she doesn't want to divulge that information anyway. But her therapist had encouraged her to use those particular street names because they were a connection to Jessica's past, to her family - they were important to her. What's important to Stark?
"Alright, I want you to name the four most important people in your life," she says firmly, reaching for the wrist of the hand that is grabbing at his hood.
"What?" he pants, his features contorted with panicked confusion.
"Pick the four people you're closest to and tell me their names. First and last. Right now, Stark." She presses her fingertips into the pulse point on his wrist as she pulls his hand down from his shoulder, holding it between them.
"Uh, right. Okay. Alright. James Rhodes," he pushes out between strained breaths.
"Another."
"Pepper Potts. Happy Hogan."
"One more."
"JARVIS."
His chest is still heaving and his pulse is still fluttering quickly against her fingertips, but there's a definite improvement in his erratic movements.
"Say it again," she encourages him. "All of them."
Stark blinks, still confused, but lifts his gaze to meet hers. "James Rhodes. Pepper Potts. Happy Hogan. JARVIS."
His breathing has calmed significantly, the contortion of his features relaxing, his heartbeat steadying out.
"One more time. For good luck," she smirks.
The corner of his mouth twitches. "James Rhodes. Pepper Potts. Happy Hogan. JARVIS."
They breathe together, much calmer now, maintaining eye-contact as the quiet stretches on. The sounds of the outside world start to merge back into Jessica's awareness and she suddenly realises the warmth in the skin on Stark's wrist.
"How did you know that would work?" he asks.
She lets her fingers slip away from his wrist, falling back to her side, and she takes a step back. "It's just something you pick up along the way," she answers vaguely.
He looks down at his chest, watching his fingertips massage over the dirtied tank-top. "Gotta admit, I didn't see that on the cards for me."
Jessica watches him with a faint pinch between her brows. "Y'know, people say it's helpful to talk about the shit you go through." He looks up at her almost warily. "With a professional, obviously," she scowls.
"Yeah, I'm sure they'd have a field day over JARVIS being one of the most important people in my life," he mutters. "Forgive me if I don't go looking for some nerd who thinks they're smarter than I am to dump all my shit on."
Jessica scoffs quietly. "I'm not gonna say anything. Glass houses."
Stark lifts his eyebrows in a quick, silent agreement. He runs a hand through his hair, brushing the curled locks away from his forehead, and passes it over the back of his head before skirting the edge of his jaw. "Jesus, I'm tired," he sighs wearily.
Jessica averts her gaze and licks her lips, feeling a little uncomfortable. The reality of the situation is slowly dawning on her, reminding her that they both just suffered at the hands of their PTSD. Stark may have been too distracted by his own panic and confusion to have recognised her attack, but that doesn't change the fact that she still lost her composure so publicly in front of him. And it's putting her on-edge again.
"Go home," she says, and there's a gentle tone in the words despite the awkward bluntness of them. "Get some rest."
Stark meets her eyes, holding the contact for a moment as if he wants to say something in reply. But, eventually, he just nods and pulls out his phone. He hits a speed dial and brings the phone to his ear, turning his head towards the street they escaped from.
"Hey, Happy. Can-" he begins, but is obviously cut-off by Happy on the other end. "Yeah, I know I have four missed calls- I was a little busy, Happy, I couldn't- jesus christ, she didn't kidnap me, dummy- oh my god, Happy!" he bursts irritably, slapping a hand to his forehead. "Just pull the car around the other side of the building, alright? I'll meet you on the street. Yes. Shut up. Goodbye."
Jessica smirks despite herself, shaking her head at his antics. "One of the big four, huh?"
He throws her a flat glare. "Don't be jealous. It doesn't suit you."
She waves him off and he turns to start walking to the fire escape. His hand lifts to rub at the back of his neck, his face twisting to the side a little as if considering turning back to say something. Jessica can feel the tightness in her chest uncoiling as he moves further away, but her shoulders droop a little, too, and she isn't quite sure what that means.
"Hey, Stark," she calls out, burying her hands in her jacket pockets. He twists so that he faces her, but continues moving further away, eyebrows lifted expectantly. "I wasn't joking earlier. Just drop the case. In my line of work, you gotta learn when to walk away from something." She winces a little, her hands clenching in her pockets. "This is one of those cases you walk away from."
Stark's chest visibly expands as he heaves in a deep inhale, his head rolling backwards as he looks up into the sky. He tucks his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt and pulls it in tighter over his torso. There's something about the line of his mouth, the careful gleam in his eye, that makes her frown when he nods at her.
He goes to turn around again, but she realises she should probably thank him for providing an alibi at the precinct. "And… y'know," is all she manages, shrugging.
The corner of his mouth quirks into his cheek and a small breeze knocks a lock of hair back onto his forehead, and Jessica's jaw clenches. "Yeah, you too," he calls back.
And then he turns and walks to the fire escape, disappearing past the edge of the rooftop. Jessica blows out a wearied exhale, her gaze dropping to the gravel beneath her feet as her hair flutters around her face. She stands with the sun beating down on her, and she thinks about the darkness that festers inside her soul, her heart, her flesh and bones, and she half-heartedly wonders if there'd be any amount of sun and warmth and good that could seep into her and chase the darkness away.
But she closes her eyes and can practically feel the tainted, corrupted blood sludging through her veins, the weight of regret and shame and loathing on her chest, the twisted chaos of paranoia and terror in her mind, and a bitter anger burns inside her.
"Shit," she hisses.
She scuffs the toe of her boot on the gravel of the rooftop and opens her eyes again, looking around to find the direction of her apartment. And she considers again a trip to see Hogarth to find a new case.
"I need a drink."
xXx
Hope you enjoyed the chapter! My question for you lovely readers is this: when we get into season 1 next chapter, would you rather I covered the entire episodes and wrote them and any OC content as well, or would you rather I cut it down to the bits I think are most important? I'm not sure the best way to go about it, to be honest.
Also, review replies!
TinnedBeeny221: Thank you, that's so sweet! I hope you're still excited to get this update notification so long after the last chapter.. sorry again for the wait!
kenriot1214: So I finally have a plan for how the Big Battle is gonna go down at the end of all this, but I don't want to spoil it! I will answer your question though and say that by the end of the season, Kilgrave forces his dad to improve his abilities so that he ends up being able to control people over the phone.
Hearteyesmf: Yes, you're absolutely right about him going overboard to protect his loved ones! And he definitely sees a sort of kinship between him and Jessica that encourages him to look out for her, since it's easier to do that than look out for himself. We'll see if the stalkerish vibe gets him in trouble.. I'm the exact same with wanting the couple to get together at this point in a slow-burn, but I'm also known for sloooow-slow burns, so you might need to buckle in. These kids are flawed and self-destructive and a relationship isn't going to come easy; but friendship? That might be a little smoother, and I definitely want them to have that friendship set in stone, firstly and most importantly. As one of my most treasured reviewers, please accept my most sincere apologies for the delay in getting this chapter out, but I promise I've now got a plan going forward with this story and once I figure out whether to involve the full episodes or just highlights, I'll hopefully be quicker at firing out updates! Thank you so, so much for your reviews, they honestly make my day.
Archangel Writings: Hahaha! The shit is indeed ready to hit the fan. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
X23fanatic: Thank you! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
EmyEnna: Oh my god, I've been waiting to reply to your incredible review(s) for so long. I'm so happy I got this chapter out so I could finally respond to you. First of all, I hope the tension is maintained satisfyingly in this chapter! Things are gonna kick off real soon. Yes, it's amazing how narrow his vision is when he could literally do any-goddamn-thing he wanted! He's such a fascinating villain, and David Tennant does suuuch a wonderful job of making him so fascinating and yet not sympathetic. I don't want to spoil where the story's gonna go with the involvement of Tony, so I'm gonna keep my lips sealed in regards to whether he'll think bigger! Also gonna keep my lips sealed about Luke etc, too.. just to be mysterious and intriguing and keep you invested lmao. I am so, so glad you're enjoying the dynamic and the way I'm presenting it - it's a difficult balance to maintain when so much of their understanding is unspoken or implied, and when Jessica isn't someone to get all touchy-feely, even in the privacy of her own head. In regards to the timeline, I honestly was giving myself a headache trying to work it all out hahaha! Even now I'm like... oh man. How long has it been? What time of the year even is it? 'Cos Marvel can be a bit vague anyway with timeline shit, and then I think the canon timelines didn't match up so I've just kind of mushed it together and avoided explicitly mentioning it in case it makes absolutely zero sense. But I'm glad it worked for you, at least! Even if you weren't sure up until Malcolm showed up.. lol. Sorry! Also please never apologise for leaving a long review - seeing yours come through was honestly so heartwarming and I literally giggled seeing that you kept accidentally posting half-way through a sentence hahaha. It means so much to me that you were so excited and had so many things to say, it really made my day! Now I'm rambling on.. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'm sorry it took so long to come out!
IvoryC: Thank you so much! Sorry for the delay in updating; I hope you enjoy this chapter!