So, while thinking about the various ways I cursed myself by saying a chapter would be out 'tomorrow,' I realized I was kinda having a lot of fun with this one.. so I've abandoned the fic as it is and I'm going the long way 'round. So if you hate WiPs, back away while you still can!

Still not betaed. Please feel free to point out anything terrible!

Parker hadn't mentioned that the other person on the scene had been the spider guy. Hell of an omission. Jessica had tried to be pissed, but barely managed annoyed. Compared to everything else in the last couple weeks, it just didn't seem that big a deal. Hey, maybe she was growing as a person. Great.

Something didn't sit right, though: didn't fit. She'd looked into Peter Parker, boy genius (it turned out.) He'd seemed like a good - or at least, sincere - kid, but checking that he'd even been there that morning was one-oh-one. Trust, but verify the shit out of everything. Turned out his school had a community outreach program, so he had a reason to be at the shelter, but…

But.

It wasn't coming, but it would. There'd be a click, she could wait. The train of thought slipped away as she stopped at the edge of the scene of the 'kidnapping,' where reporters clutched mics and camera men hunted in packs. Every presenter seemed to be trying to outdo the next in grim solemnity, light on facts and heavy on speculation.

Resisting the urge to trip and accidentally take out the closest press van, she studied the aftermath instead. It was still light enough to see the fresh bullet holes in the brickwork, and torn-up road ran half a block in all directions. Nothing like the damage after the Circle quakes, though, and nowhere near the buildings themselves.

Someone had shown restraint as they fucked up her city. How sweet.

At an irrational, and completely unfamiliar, surge of possessive outrage, she stopped in her tracks. "Oh, hell no. No. I don't care. You hear that? I can say it again."

"Excuse me?" A tall man in a rumpled gray suit, with a detective badge clipped to his belt, was staring at her warily.

"Nothing. I was just talking to - no one. Probably. Depends who you ask." She shook her head and tried for something less Robyn. "Why are you guys still here? Does this even count as a crime scene."

"Well, it's the scene of the crime, so we tend to think so." The detective focused more intently, as if he was trying to place her face. "And you are?"

"A concerned citizen." Jessica tried a winning smile.

"You didn't sound so concerned a couple of seconds ago," he said, head canted, and not looking particularly impressed with the effort. "'I don't care,' right?"

"I knew a guy who cared a lot about this city. He'd be all over something like this. But he's incredibly dead now, so you see my problem." She dug in her pocket, retrieving her wallet and flipping it open to show her license. "I do care about money, though. I'm here on behalf of a client who wants to know what went down. The whole shit show."

"Jessica Jones," the detective read. His expression cleared with recognition and a nod. "Right. Heard a whole lot about you down at the precinct. Detective Brett Mahoney."

Jessica shifted with a frown - ready to defend herself, her actions, or possibly her camera work - but Mahoney went on in the same easy tone. "Relax. After that, I heard a whole lot more about you from Foggy."

"Foggy. Franklin Nelson," she said, slowly, because, seriously?

"Uh huh. Can't say I like him, mostly because my mom keeps telling me he's her favorite. But he's a good judge of character, I'll give him that. He said you were good people."

Jessica shook her head. "Yeah, no, he really didn't."

Mahoney snorted. "Okay, he said I should be grateful you weren't usually my problem." His eyes narrowed "This got anything to do with what went down at Midland Circle?"

"Jesus, I hope not. What happened here?"

He eyed her, but shrugged. "Most of it's on the news anyway," he allowed, and shot a look at the cameras, expression roughly as disgusted as she'd felt. He gestured at the shelter. "It's not a bad place, according to the locals. But they're not equipped for kids, and there's a lot of them in there. Waiting to be moved into group homes, or fostered. Or for family to be found, if they're lucky. No budget, no time, you know how it is."

Jessica nodded mostly by reflex, but, yeah. She did.

"So it turns out Spider-man swings by here every couple weeks. Entertains the kids for a while, helps out with anything the staff need lifting. Guess they just got lucky he was here when the feds came out the woodwork."

"Lucky? You don't think it's a kidnapping." Jessica considered Mahoney again, wondering if she should revise her original impression: a probably decent cop, putting in his twenty for a pension, and not asking that many questions on the way.

There was a hint of discontent in his expression - frustration, almost - and deeper frown lines than laughter lines. Only a true believer got that look. Law, order, justice, and the American Way, and all that crap. A good cop, but not, she thought, one who would stay up on his moral high horse when the fight was on the ground. Not if lives were on the line.

Mahoney smiled thinly and nodded, as if acknowledging her conclusion. "I don't like vigilantes, but there's wrong and there's right. Sometimes you get surprised by who ends up which side of the line.

"Witnesses say Spider-man showed up and wise-assed to the agents trying to take Elle Iwamura, but he didn't start anything. Another group turns up five minutes later, they throw the first punch. Bullets start flying, Spider-man grabs the kid and books it out of there. Stupid thing is, people would understand that, never mind crap they're spewing on TV. The city knows him - hell, half of them have probably asked him for directions. What's hurting him now is he hasn't brought her back. He could drop her off at any precinct in the city, so why hasn't he?"

"Maybe he thinks she won't be safe," Jessica pointed out.

For once, she hadn't been trying to be an asshole, but Mahoney scowled anyway. "She'd be safe," he said flatly.

"So if Homeland came through your door, you'd kick them out of it?" She smirked, maybe trying a little this time. "Yeah, I can see that happening."

"You got everything you need, Ms Jones?" Mahoney's tone had taken an unfriendly chill. Probably because she was right. But, if nothing else, Jessica knew when she'd outstayed her welcome. Didn't actually care, most of the time, but she knew.

"Does anyone?" She gave a grin finely tuned to grate, and turned away as her cell began to ring. A glance at the caller ID and she brought it to her ear. She headed towards the entrance to the shelter. "Trish? I'm-"

"-too busy to listen to my show, I'm going to guess."

"You know how I feel about people. And talking." Jessica scowled as she looked at the media presence again. "And people talking."

"Yeah, you've talked about it a lot, with a lot of people. Foggy called, he said you're looking into the kidnapping for a client."

"Hey, here's an idea for your next exposé: find the one person in New York who doesn't know Franklin Nelson. And Foggy is a really stupid name for a lawyer."

"Jess, this is the part where you listen." Trish paused; Jessica struggled not to stick her tongue out at her cell phone. "Okay, great. So, Tony Stark was on my show. He's been calling a lot of stations - mostly to push back on the crap they're saying about Spider-man."

"So?" Tony Stark talking trash wasn't news; Jessica would bother listening when it didn't sound like he was doing it through stacks of thousand dollar bills and a ton of hair product.

"So, S.H.I.E.L.D. hacked the call, apparently they were the other team at the scene. The woman called herself Daisy, she said she was delivering a message of support, like before, if you looked at it the right way."

Jessica stopped out of sheer disbelief, and glared at the man who bumped into her as he hurried on. "For chrissake, they have to be able to do better than that."

"Look, I have no idea what's happening, but it sounds like trouble and I'm guessing you'll find it sooner or later, so I want to help. Who's the client, anyway? Why would someone come to you? Wait, that didn't come out-"

Jessica's hand went lax and Trish's voice became a distant murmur, because there was the click: that one little thing that just didn't fit sliding into place.

No evidence, no reason, no clever deduction. She just knew. Christ, she was slow.

"Jess?" Trish sounded like she was yelling into the phone. "Hey! You there?!"

She brought the phone back up to her ear. "Yeah. And I'm pretty sure Spider-man's my client. So thanks, that was a lot of help."

"...What?"

"Gotta go."

"Jessica!"

"Love you, or whatever!"

-o o-

Sometime around eight, a combination of a long day and a failing sugar rush had finally pushed Ellie into sleep. Despite his best efforts, and several nodding attempts to stay awake, Ned had followed not long after. Peter couldn't say he blamed him, and in theory he could have done the same. The weirdness whenever he was in danger wasn't something he'd really been able to quantify yet, but he was pretty sure it would be enough to wake him if anything bad was going to happen.

But there was a long way between pretty sure, and a hundred percent confident, and wow was he not going to risk anyone's safety because he was a little sleepy.

Not on purpose, anyway.

Crawling back up to the roof, he'd crouched in the shadow of a vent, certain no one would make him out in the darkness. He'd hoped the chill night air might keep him awake, but the suit adjusted itself to temperature.

"Karen?" He asked tentatively, when he caught himself closing his eyes for the second time. The AI had come online hours ago, but she hadn't said anything and he hadn't really known what to say. Which was completely ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. "You there?"

"Yes, Peter. I have been monitoring city-wide communications."

Did she sound a little upset? He thought maybe she sounded a little upset. And, yes, he was officially losing it. He shook his head at himself and smiled a little. "Cool, which ones? Is it bad?"

"All of them. There have been no mentions of this locale; I do not believe your presence here has been discovered."

"Yeah, that's not what I meant. Good to know, though. Great. Thank you. You're doing a great job," he added, before he could stop himself.

"I know," Karen said placidly, apparently choosing to filter out the babbling. "However, past evidence suggests you prefer to remain positive."

Wow. Okay. "That bad."

"I'm afraid so, Peter."

"I missed you," he volunteered after a few seconds silence.

"Then I suggest you don't disable me, in the future."

If Karen wasn't talking to MJ, she was definitely talking to May.

"You were going to tell Mr Stark," he pointed out. "If those guys who tried to take Ellie really were government, he's on their side."

"All data gathered suggests that the agents who attempted to extract Ellie operated under the direction of Homeland Security."

Peter swallowed. And then swallowed again, this time against bile. Because he was pretty sure he was now a kidnapper and an enemy of the state. That would probably not look great on college applications, he thought weakly, and desperately tried to stuff the surge of panic down before it became a full-blown anxiety attack.

"Peter?"

He took a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly. And then again. Counted the number of car horns blaring below until he reached twenty, and felt his chest ease.

"M'okay."

"Though the agents themselves were legitimate, their actions were not. Several nations, including Wakanda, France and Germany, insisted that minors were excluded from the auspices of the Accords. If you were to inform Mr Stark, he would be able to help both you and Ellie."

"Maybe," Peter said, with another hot, uncomfortable feeling in his chest. This one was made of doubt and guilt, all mixed up. "But maybe he wouldn't. Wouldn't be able to, I mean," he added hurriedly, because of course Mr Stark would help Ellie. Of course he would. "Or maybe he'd try, and there'd be fighting, and Colonel Rhodes, I mean, he got hurt pretty bad last time. And no one knows where Captain Rogers even is. I already caused Mr Stark enough problems, Karen."

"I don't believe he would agree."

"He's literally said I have. One time, I came in and he said, 'here's trouble.'"

Karen fell silent, and Peter was thinking maybe he'd see if she wanted to play I Spy, or tell him the best ways to flee the country and take up bat farming, when there was a flair of warning so close to terror it made no difference. He flung himself to the side, moving before his brain even registered the impulse, already leaping again when he heard the first crack of the rifle.

This thing - this sense - wasn't anything he controlled, anything that even hit the thinking parts of his brain. It was wired directly into his nerves and he was almost a passenger as his body twisted and moved, dodging things he wasn't even consciously aware of - things that had barely even started, but as soon as could became had, set him moving.

He took cover behind the other side of the vent, hands over his head and in as small a ball as he could manage. "Karen! You said no one knew I was here!"

"I said there was no mention of this location!"

He had to move, he realized. The sniper may or may not know Ellie was there, but anyone who was drawn to the gunfire would definitely have suspicions if they saw Spider-man. Taking a breath, he flung himself away from cover and off the side of the building, at the last possible moment turning a dead drop into deep swing. Around the building and to the next, trying to keep hang time to a minimum, and always, always, working his way towards the shooter's position across the road.

"Second office block to the left; the third floor down," Karen directed.

Peter twisted hard, angled himself like a projectile and aimed for the open window.

First person to guess the sniper gets... to be the first person to guess the sniper? :P