"I said sugar-free vanilla. Sugar-free. How many times do I have to tell you?"
The petite blonde winced as the hot coffee cup was thrust back into her hands. Liquid sloshed out of the tiny upper opening, splashing onto the cuff of her white silk shirt. A permanent stain, for sure.
"The reason I need you here when I arrive is to give me my coffee, to properly caffeinate me for the day. But you can't seem to get that right. If you're going to be the first person I see, you need to serve a purpose. Right now, you're nothing. I'm going to be in my office in five minutes, and there better be a fucking sugar-free vanilla coffee with just a touch of almond milk waiting on my desk. Understand?"
"I can't- I don't-"
"Stop thinking. Start doing."
The blonde nodded then rushed across the street, traffic screeching to a halt around her, the discarded coffee cup still clutched nervously in her hand.
"Ten bucks says she still gets the order wrong," Jessica Jones quipped from her perch on the thick stone railing leading into the offices of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz. She sat on one heavy boot clad foot, while the other hung off the edge, listing back and forth.
"It's not that hard," Jeri Hogarth reply, seemingly indifferent to Jessica's sudden appearance. "She should be thankful I hired her during a liquid cleanse. Imagine if she had to fetch me breakfast."
Jessica arched her eyebrow as Jeri ascended the stairs towards her. "I thought you would be happier to see me, Hogarth, considering how hard you've been looking for me."
Just hours before, when Jessica came to her epiphany, Matt Murdock had laid out what happened in the underground parking garage of Hogarth's firm. Jessica could tell it was a story he didn't want to share, given his assault of the two guards and the further threat on her own safety, but it all had to be said. It was another piece of the puzzle slowly forming before them.
If Hogarth was looking for the team, then it stood to reason that Jessica's hypothesis about her involvement in Fisk's blossoming criminal undertakings - thanks to mind control - was on the right track. Even if Fisk had said it was a male lawyer who came to see him, Jessica knew Hogarth had a way of making people do and say whatever she pleased. Looking out over the traffic, into the tight crowd on the other side of the street, Jessica spied the blonde assistant through a large coffee shop window waiting anxiously in a long line for the drink that might save her job.
Yeah, Jessica thought, Jeri Hogarth has to be a part of this.
"I haven't been looking for you," Hogarth replied, once they were eye to eye. Jessica failed to get up, instead slouching back against the cool brick building and sighing. She wanted Hogarth to know how bored she was with her lies.
"See, I almost believe you. I mean, I was in my apartment all night. So, if you had ordered someone to find me, say yesterday, and gave them an - oh, I don't know - 12 hour deadline, well, then they would be pretty shit at their job, huh?"
Hogarth didn't blink, but Jessica knew she was rattling her. She wondered if the lawyer would sweep the building for electronic listening devices as soon as she left. Maybe even increase security for the second time in less than 24 hours.
Jessica had been to Hogarth's office before, and while there were always men with guns around - the cost of doing business with some of the city's wealthiest, yet sleaziest clientele - there seemed to an influx of guys wearing black suits and sporting earpieces.
It was Matt's doing, of course.
Jeri leaned in, breaking through Jessica's observations. "What are you doing here, Jessica?"
"You might want to back up before someone gets hurt," Jessica replied, motioning to the man who was waiting for Hogarth at the door, trying to conceal the bulge of his weapon beneath his blazer so as not to scare any incoming clients.
"Guys like that protect me," Hogarth told her.
"I know," Jessica whispered, finally pressing herself off the rail, standing just inches from her former employer. Jessica's breath was hot on Hogarth's ear. "So, don't make me have to do something you're going to regret."
Hogarth gripped her briefcase tightly, the sound of leather squeaked against the sweat in her clenched palm.
"Now invite me into your office. We have things to talk about."
Hogarth let out an exaggerated sigh, before turning on her thousand dollar high heels and heading for the front door. Jessica followed.
Before security could even ask, Hogarth waved her free hand in the air and said, "Everything's alright. She's with me."
"She needs to sign in," one of the guards said, his hand hovering just above his belt, his eyes squinting against the morning sun as it pierced through the window and flooded the lobby.
He looked like a better dressed cowboy from those western movies Jessica fell asleep to late at night - well, before she had smashed her TV in a fit of rage. She couldn't remember why she had been so angry. Maybe it had been over Luke, or Matt, or Kilgrave. Or maybe she was just out of whiskey and so the cowboy had to go. Either way, she knew if the man before her actually reached for his gun he would find himself broken and on the floor, just like that old TV.
"I'll sign," Hogarth said, cutting between Jessica and the guard. She quickly scribbled something illegible on the paper, then grabbed Jessica by the elbow and ushered her to the elevator.
"You know, for a woman who makes threats as easily as you do, you seem awful scared right now," Jessica said, once there were out of earshot of anyone who would dare to eavesdrop.
"Things are different around here," Hogarth told her in a hushed, hurried tone.
"Yeah, I can see that."
The elevator dinged as it finally came to the first floor, and Hogarth quickly got on. Once inside, her shoulders lowered and Jessica watched as she released a breath neither realized she'd been holding.
"I was looking for you," Hogarth said, again her voice was low, her lips barely moving.
"Well, here I am."
"I see that, but why?"
"I think we should talk about this in your office."
Hogarth reached forward and pulled the stop control on the elevator, forcing it to jerk violently into place.
"What the fuck, Hogarth?" Jessica yelped.
"We are about to get off on my floor, a floor littered with more of those guys and their guns. So, you tell me right now what kind of shit you plan to pull up there, okay?"
Jessica smiled. "I'm not going to go all Rambo on them, if that's what you mean."
Hogarth nodded, seemingly believing her.
"I just want to have little chat about Wilson Fisk."
Hogarth didn't reply, but unlike their confrontation outside, she was finally showing her hand. Jessica knew she was on to something.
"Someone visited him in prison, and then a few days later he just walked out the front door. Now he's looking for me. And you're looking for me. So, it got me thinking-"
"We can't talk about this here," Hogarth told her, as she pushed the stop button again. The elevator whirred back to life and continued it's ascent.
Jessica rolled her eyes, but when the doors opened she followed Hogarth's lead down a short hallway, past a parade of people staring at her, and into the office.
Hogarth moved to her desk, placing her briefcase down before sliding her black pea coat off. She hung it smoothly on the coat rack by the door to her private bathroom, and then began turning on her company laptop.
Jessica loudly cleared her throat, the sound ricocheting off the beige walls. "Can we talk in here, or do you want to go to the roof?" she asked sarcastically.
Hogarth sat down and motioned for Jessica to do the same. Jessica declined with a shrug.
"Fine," Hogarth began. "My partners have been trying to push me out for a while now. No surprise, given that I don't have a dick and I refuse to play by their silly fucking rules."
"Uh, isn't one of your partners a woman?"
"Grow up, Jessica," Hogarth snapped. "I've known women with bigger dicks than any man you've drunkenly bedded."
Hogarth's in-office phone rang. Without looking, she pressed a button that made the noise stop, punctuated by a tiny, red, flashing light.
"I was looking for you because I heard Mr. Fisk was out. And given everything you, Luke Cage, Danny Rand," Hogarth stopped herself, her eyes lowering, "and Matt Murdock went through with The Hand I figured you might need some assistance."
"Assistance? From you?" Jessica asked, ignoring how Hogarth was certain her team included those members.
She had once overheard Colleen and Danny talking about a "Jeri" but since nothing Danny said was ever of any interest to her, Jessica had ignored the connection. Hogarth, of course, knew about Luke. There were times Jessica wondered who didn't know about Luke and the tether that still existed between them. And Matt… Jessica wasn't sure if Hogarth had simply put two and two together - the lawyer who died on the day Midland Circle came down - but it didn't matter. With her head slightly bowed, Jessica knew Hogarth was attempting to sympathize with her loss. So, even if everyone knew Matt was once on her team, most were still unaware of his resurrection from the dead.
"What kind of assistance could you offer?" Jessica continued.
"Did you know Wilson Fisk had friends among the ranks of The Hand?" Hogarth asked, her eyes now locked on Jessica's once again.
"Yeah, I figured that one out." She hadn't, of course. At least not on her own. It had been a morsel of information Fisk himself had provided. Sometimes it felt as if everyone wanted her to solve the problem, capture the bad guy, and save the day. But she just couldn't get there, couldn't come through for the people of New York... for Trish... for Matt.
"And you know The Hand was experimenting with altering the aging process, with trying to stop death."
Jessica nodded. They hadn't just been experimenting, they'd succeeded, she thought, remembering everything she'd seen with Alexandra and Elektra.
"You were right. Someone from my firm did visit Mr. Fisk in prison… shortly before he was released."
"Released?" Jessica cracked. "Is that what you're calling it?"
"Look, I wanted you found so I could give you something. I used an off-the-books contact."
"Well, he screwed you, because like I said, I haven't been hard to find."
Hogarth opened the top drawer of her mahogany desk. "I know that now. The asshole ran off with a grand of my money."
"A grand! Jesus, Hogarth. Why didn't you just call me?"
The sound of pens, a stapler, and sheets of paper floated from the drawer as Hogarth rummaged about the contents. Finally, she pulled a compact from the space in back and tossed it to Jessica.
"I couldn't call you. There are people watching me and I didn't want anyone to know we were still speaking. But then you showed up today and… well, you fucked that all up."
Jessica popped open the small, light blue compact to reveal the pale beige power. "Almost my colour." Knowing there was more than meets the eye, Jessica pushed the plastic disk holding the powder to the side, revealing the secret compartment for a small, flat USB key.
Suddenly, the door to Hogarth's office whipped open and her blonde assistant stepped inside. She was panting, a coffee cup clutched in her right hand.
"I said five minutes!" Hogarth barked.
The woman looked at Jessica, perhaps hoping for an ally, but instead Jessica shrugged. She knew jobs were often hard to come by, but anyone who let Jeri Hogarth repeatedly talk to them that way deserved what they got.
The blonde rushed forward, placing the coffee cup on the desk before scurrying back out again.
Hogarth took the coffee from it's perch near the outer edge of her desk and walked it to the bathroom. She dumped the contents down the drain then set the empty cup in the sink, letting a stream of cold water soak the wax coated paper.
"What are you doing?" Jessica asked. "That woman hates you, no doubt, but I don't think she's trying to poison you."
Hogarth didn't reply. She simply turned off the water and walked back to her desk. Jessica hadn't seen Hogarth this paranoid since well before Kilgrave's death. It wasn't a good look on her. For the first time since she arrived, Jessica noticed the dark shadow beneath Hogarth's eyes, the stiffness in her neck, the shakiness of her hands.
"That's all I have for you," Hogarth told her. It was her way of saying their meeting was over.
"That's it? You try to track me and my-" Jessica stopped herself, the word salty on her tongue, "-friends down to give us a USB? Bullshit, Hogarth. Talking about The Hand, about all their fucking experiments. You're trying to tell me they're doing the same thing with Kilgrave, aren't you?"
"Just read what I gave you."
"You're trying to tell me that your firm gave Wilson Fisk something, gave him Kilgrave's abilities. What? And you found out, so now they're trying to get rid of you? Is that it?"
Hogarth walked toward Jessica. "Just read what I gave you."
"Dammit, Hogarth," Jessica shouted. "I don't work for you anymore."
"And I never worked for you," she reminded the younger woman. "Read it."
Jessica closed the compact and stuffed it into one of the pockets on her leather jacket, one with a zipper. She didn't want to lose what could be the only piece of hard evidence they had. Although, knowing Hogarth as she did, Jessica couldn't be sure she wasn't leaving with a USB drive full of Gotcha memes or pictures of kittens.
Fuck, Jessica thought. This isn't going how I planned. But what does anymore?
Hogarth reached for the handle of her office door, but stopped before tuning it open. "I wrote a code word on the sign-in sheet downstairs. You showing up here really forced my hand, Jessica, and I had to let them know I was still on their side. I thought it was the only way I could get that information to you. The code word let them know I was taking you in here for five minutes, no more. Five minutes to learn everything I could about your investigation into Wilson Fisk, into this firm."
Jessica watched as Hogarth's hand gripped then released the door handle, as if she were debating with herself on whether to open it or not.
"Sometimes I wish you were more discreet. Everyone knows what you and your team are doing. You've been leaving too much wreckage behind for it to go unnoticed. Danny's deep dive into Mr. Fisk's financials sent up a red flag. I can use it, tell them you came here asking about Wilson Fisk and looking for help accessing more documents. I won't mention The Hand, and I certainly won't tell them you have any idea the firm is involved."
Jessica and Hogarth held each other's gaze. Hogarth's eyes were glassy. Jessica wondered if the paranoia was just making her tired or if the fear was real.
"I'm asking you, not as an employer, not as a friend, but as someone who's been in the trenches with you to please tread lightly with what you have there. My lies to the firm won't hold long, but the harder you kick down the door this presents you the easier it will be for them to trace it back to me."
Jessica nodded. She understood. Hogarth would tell her partners that Jessica Jones, the great private eye, had been played. It would buy Jessica and her team time. And it would, hopefully, keep Hogarth safe. It was a measure of the assistance Hogarth said she could provide.
"How do you know they're not listening? That they don't have your office bugged?" Jessica asked.
"I use a scrambler, I sweep the room daily, and I drench coffee cups provided by my shitty assistant in the sink just in case."
Jessica smiled. Sometimes Hogarth was good.
"So, when you open this door I'm going to have to fight my way out, aren't I?"
"Yeah," Hogarth replied. "I'm sorry."
"There better be something on this," Jessica told her, patting the jacket pocket that held the compact.
"Believe me, there is."
With that, Hogarth opened the door to her office revealing three suited guards, each with their handguns drawn.
Hogarth stepped back into her bathroom, immediately extracting herself from the line of fire. When Jessica heard the door close behind her, she felt safe to engage.
"Do you guys validate parking?" Jessica quipped. "No? That's okay. I don't drive. I do jump really high, though."
Jessica leapt up, her fist extended. She punched through the ceiling with ease, but instead of pushing herself all the way through to the next floor, she grabbed the plaster, insulation and wires that were within reach and pulled them down upon her aggressors. As the three men stepped back, their view obscured by drywall dust, Jessica picked up an errant piece of ceiling and whipped it at the man on her left. As it hit him, he fired his gun into the leg of the man in the middle.
Jessica rushed out of Hogarth's office, her full force connecting with the third man. He flew backwards into the desk of the blonde assistant. Jessica could hear her scream, but couldn't see her. She assumed the woman was hiding under the desk questioning herself on where it all went wrong.
As the men collected themselves, Jessica ran toward the elevator. She could see it was moving up, floor by floor. Having found herself in an office tower fight more than once before, she was sure the elevator would be filled with more men and more guns, so she made a mad dash for the stairs.
A few floors down, she realized no one was following her. Had Hogarth lied about using a code word on the sign-in sheet? Had she always planned on cornering Jessica in her office for a fight?
No, Jessica thought. Hogarth was smart enough to know Jessica Jones would win any fight against a bunch of hired help. They must have stopped following her because they were focused on Hogarth.
As Jessica reached the lobby, she darted across the marble tile and to the front door. For good measure, she made sure to punch the man waiting by the door - the faux cowboy. Her fist connected with the left side of his face, a satisfying crunch filling the air.
On the street, her boots heavily clacking against the sidewalk as she ran from the office, Jessica hoped Hogarth was true to her word. She hoped her former employer would be able to keep the likes of Chao and Benowitz at bay with her choreographed lies.
XXXXXXXXX
"Where have you been?" Luke Cage asked as Jessica bolted into the safe house, panting and holding her side. Being super strong sadly failed to make her super in shape.
"My apartment," Jessica told him. "Seriously, where do you guys go when you're looking for me?"
"The bars," Claire said from her spot on the couch.
Jessica shrugged. Good answer, she thought.
"Where's Colleen and the Iron Idiot?" Jessica asked.
"Right here," Colleen replied as she and Danny stepped from the backroom. Danny was wearing the makeshift cast Claire had made him. The white bandages wrapped around his wrist and over his thumb, setting his hand in place.
For a few hours there Jessica had forgotten about her fight with Matt on the roof. She had forgotten how Danny had rushed in, his heroics on full display. She had forgotten he was a good fighter, a good guy, and a good teammate.
"Hey, sorry about that," Jessica told him as he came fully into view.
"Iron Idiot is the least offensive of your chosen nicknames," Danny told her. "Don't worry about it."
"No, not that," Jessica said, reaching out for his bandaged hand. She stopped herself from touching it, from getting closer to him - or anyone - than she needed to be. "I'm sorry about your hand."
The look on Danny's face said it all, and the silence in the room confirmed it - sometimes she was a terrible person, a terrible teammate. So much so that a simple act of kindness was almost completely foreign to those around her.
She let them marinate in her apology for a minute more before continuing. "Anyway, I've got news."
"You found Matt?" Claire asked.
"No," Jessica lied. The agreement she and Matt had made earlier that morning, just before he left her apartment, still stood. She wouldn't tell anyone he was working undercover, she wouldn't tell them she had seen him at all.
"But I did some digging," Jessica went on, stepping past Danny, careful not to touch his injured hand. She found a spot on the wall opposite the couch and leaned back, her shoulder blades etching out a spot of comfort. "Fisk got his power while he was in prison, that much we can guess. And who gets to visit prisoners without supervision?"
"Lawyers," Colleen said.
Jessica nodded. "So, I went to the scummiest, most underhanded and well-connected lawyer I know. Jeri Hogarth."
"Is she okay?" Danny asked, the worry in his voice palpable.
Jessica followed his eyes to her own fists, dirtied by their time in the ceiling of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, and spotted with the blood of the man guarding the front door.
"Fuck, Rand. I didn't beat her for information or anything."
The group stayed silent, staring at her.
"I swear. She's fine," Jessica assured them. "In fact, she's been trying to find me… us. She wants to help. She promised to keep her lawyer friends off our back for a bit by telling them we know nothing - or close to nothing. Meanwhile, she gave us this."
Jessica fished the compact from her jacket pocket and tossed it across the room to Colleen, who looked at it curiously.
"Got a laptop?" Jessica asked.
Colleen smiled, opening up the compact and then the secret compartment.
A few minutes later, they were all huddled around Colleen's laptop. Luke and Claire sat on the couch, Colleen on the floor, her delicate fingers on the mousepad, navigating the contents of the USB. Jessica and Danny stood in the back. From the corner of her eye, Jessica could see him watching her. She turned to meet his gaze.
Looking down at his hand again, the partial loss of his strength, of his usefulness, struck her once more. She's the one who had made him go with her to the roof. She had been adamant they follow Matt, no matter the risk. And thinking back on it, Jessica was sure that Danny had been protecting her during that fight. He had been doing the work she was hesitant to do.
I'm sorry, Jessica mouthed to him, but before he could respond Colleen's voice cut through the stillness of the room.
"Whoa."
"What is it?" Claire asked, leaning closer to the laptop.
"I think these are medical files," Colleen told her.
Claire slipped from the couch, finding a spot next to Colleen. The laptop was perched on the coffee table before them. "Let me see that," she said.
Claire began reading the documents, quickly scanning each page. A flurry of pictures briefly took over the screen. To Jessica, they seemed to be shots of patients, men who looked sick, almost dead.
"Are you going to share with the rest of the class?" Jessica finally asked, as Claire clicked on another file.
"Yeah," Claire said. "Colleen's right, these are medical files."
"For who?" Luke asked.
"There's six total. They don't have names, just numbers," Claire told him. "But that's not the interesting part. This folder," she said as she opened it, "are logs from some sort of experiment. Each number is represented next to an amount."
"Money?" Danny questioned.
"No, milligrams," Claire replied, her finger hovering over the screen. "See here? This is the first patient. He was given dose after dose of something, each time a bit more."
"The concoction," Jessica said, forgetting it was the new word she and Matt had agreed to use to describe the serum that gave Fisk his new-found abilities.
"Sure, yeah," Claire nodded. "All six of them were given the stuff, or given something."
"Great," Jessica sighed. "We thought Wilson Fisk was bad, but it turns out we have a half dozen more mind controlling weirdos roaming the streets."
"No, we don't," Claire told her. She opened the last folder and the screen filled with an image of one of the patients. He was clearly dead, his grey skin thin and sagging, his face forever contorted in pain.
"They're all dead," Luke said. Claire nodded. "From the… concoction?"
"Looks like it," Claire said.
"I don't understand," Colleen told the group, taking control of the mousepad back so she could scroll through the information herself. "Is this what will happen to Fisk?"
"I fucking hope so," Jessica blurted out.
"I don't know. These guys died pretty quick," Claire said.
"Oh god," Colleen gasped.
She opened the photograph of an attractive man with dark hair and tanned skin. He was staring at the camera, a determined look in his eyes. Jessica wondered what he had been told before becoming a guinea pig in some science experiment. Was it willing? Was he promised God-like powers?
But before she could posit any theories aloud, Colleen opened the morgue photo. The side by side of Patient NY-4 was startling. His death face was so disturbing Danny had to look away. The sunken hollows around his eyes were what captured Jessica. It looked as if he had been awake for a year, and starved of any food or water for at least half that time.
"These pictures were taken seven days apart," Colleen revealed.
"What?" Danny cried. "A week."
"How long have we been tracking Fisk?" Luke wondered.
"Long enough that he should look at little less round in the centre by now," Jessica told him.
"So, maybe he's not being given what these guys were," Colleen suggested, her eyes locked on the images on the laptop screen.
"Or The Hand finally found someone who could take it, someone as strong as Kilgrave," Jessica replied.
"The Hand?" Danny croaked.
"We knew that was a possibility, Danny," Luke told him, reaching out for the arm of his partner, his friend. But Danny pulled away.
"We don't know for sure it's them. I mean, there's no one left, right? They're all under Midland Circle," Danny said.
"We thought Matt was under Midland Circle," Jessica reminded him. "Besides, Hogarth made me remember what they're capable of. She practically told me they're behind this."
Danny shook his head from side to side. He didn't want to believe his old enemy had returned. But to Jessica it seemed fitting. Her enemy had returned: Kilgrave. Matt's enemy had returned: Fisk. Why couldn't it be true that The Hand was regrouping?
"I have to run an errand," Jessica suddenly blurted out.
"What?" Luke asked, his eyes wide.
"Colleen, Claire, I need you to look over those files for any identifying details. We need to know the names of these men. If we can figure out who they were, maybe we can figure out why they were chosen. That could rule The Hand in or out as a suspect, okay?" The last part was directed at Danny. She wanted him to feel they were investigating - despite the fact that Jessica had made up her mind about The Hand's involvement before she'd even left Hogarth's office.
"We're on it," Colleen told her.
Jessica strode to the door, Luke in hot pursuit.
"Where are you going?"
"I told you, I have something to do."
He followed her out into the hall. Once again, Jessica was leaving them all behind. This time it felt different, this time she was stained with guilt.
"Do you know where Matt is?" he asked her, the door closing behind him.
Jessica didn't want to lie to Luke. Yes, she had promised Matt they would keep it a secret, but she knew that promise was built of her own fear. A fear that everyone would find out it was her that was pressuring him to stay undercover. But she lied anyway. "No, I just have some things to take care of."
"You'll be careful?"
Jessica looked into his eyes and saw the concern. "Of course."
"Yeah, yeah. That's what you say every time, but somehow someone always gets hurt."
Jessica smiled. "As long as that someone isn't me," she quipped as she marched down the stairs and away from the apartment.
Luke leaned over the railing and called after her. "Or us, Jess. Try not to hurt any of us."