A few weeks post Kilgrave's death- the second and final one- Jessica has started to get back into some semblance of a routine. Unsatisfyingly enough, it somewhat resembling the one she had before she first heard of Hope Schlottman and realized her assumption of Kilgrave's death was just that, an assumption. She stayed out all hours of the night, stalking her latest client's cheating lover or faithless employee, snapping pics, and killing her bored cynicism with steady swigs from whatever bottle of whiskey or bourbon she had along for the ordeal. She finished out her nights drinking in a bar until they closed up or she grew obnoxious enough for them to kick her out, or else she bought some booze to take to her home/office and finish off until she managed, if she was extremely luckily, to pass out into something resembling sleep, even if it was nearly always plagued by nightmares that woke her up gasping, her back and neck slick with sweat.

That was her nights. In the day, she avoided texts and calls from her adoptive sister/best friend Trish, because she didn't want to see the aggressive caring and sympathy in her blue eyes or hear the judgment in her voice. She didn't want her asking questions about her flashbacks, nightmares, and drinking habits post killing Kilgrave that she didn't want to answer, and she didn't want to look in Trish's face and see the possible trauma lingering there after what she had forced her to endure simply by being involved in Jessica's life while Kilgrave remained obsessed with it. She also avoided any other activity that might involve civil interaction with semi normal humans, but that wasn't anything new.

But a girl had to work, if only to pay rent for her shitty home/apartment and to buy her booze. So at some point she had to suck it up and actually return the messages her assistant Malcolm had professionally and helpfully noted down from potential clients, and actually go out to work again.

Her latest assignment was nothing special. A jealous man in his sixties, suspecting his newest wifey of cheating on him and asking Jessica to follow her and determine if this were true. Seeing as his wife was in her twenties, Jessica had laughed in his face and told him that was a given, but Malcolm's glare in her direction and polite rephrasing of her words had meant she was out here after Britney Carter-Wright, age 23, following her to some new club that Jessica hadn't even bothered to note the name of.

She certainly hadn't bothered to dress to blend in with the other club-goers either; Jessica couldn't be bothered, when Britney was hardly going to pay her mind even if she stuck her phone camera directly in her face and told her to say cheese. Clad in her usual attire of dark skinny jeans, torn at the knees not for style but due to actual repeated wear, her dark jacket, and a plain t-shirt, her face free of makeup, dark hair loose and barely brushed around her face, Jessica snapped the pictures of Britney that were required. Tongue down random clubgoers' throats, both male and female, check. Hand down a guy's pants, guy's hands up her shirt, check check. Disappearing into back alley, check. And soon enough, Jessica would get a check of her own.

It was enough, paired with her earlier shots of the week, for Jessica to have more than enough evidence. Stashing her phone, she stood, weaving through the dancers to the bar, and slung herself onto an empty stool. Might as well start the drinking early.

It's been about 4 months since Luke Cage had taken over Harlem's Paradise. The place is doing well, not bad for a man with absolutely no experience running a club, but keeping the drugs out and thugs out is a major plus for business. They all know that Harlem's Paradise is the new Switzerland or Holy Ground…Holy Ground where you can come drink yourself stupid and grind on a perfect stranger, but safe.

Walking the floor greeting folks and pressing flesh is part of the business for him now days, as well as turning down things like strange women shoving their panties in his pockets like this woman just did…Just nasty! He makes his way over to the bar and slides around where the staff is, tossing the panties into the trash then washing his hands.

From the sink, he looks up and notices a new face. Not the typical kind of client that visits a club in Harlem. She damn sure ain't dressed for the place, anyway. Grabbing a towel and drying his hands, Luke looks at her drink and decides to introduce himself. He steps in front of her and leans down on the bar and gives a sly smile.

"Let me guess, couldn't get tickets to Hamilton so you decided to drown your sorrows in our cheapest whiskey…Ugh," He looks down at the bottle her drink was poured from and grabs a top-shelf bottle and a new glass. Raising an eyebrow at the woman, he pours it for her while trying to take the other one away.

"Come now, don't drink that. I think we clean the rust off the pipes with that stuff." Again he smiles at her. "The first one is on me."

Jessica slid her eyes up towards the deep man's voice addressing her, ready to respond with an uplifted middle finger and a bitter retort. She was used to being hit on in bars and rarely welcomed it; it was one of many reasons for her lack of effort in her attire.

But as she took in the person attached to the voice, an eyebrow rose, and she reconsidered. He was a lot more attractive than the men she generally encountered in dive bars. Truthfully, he could be described as hot, far more so than Jessica considered herself to be. Tall, at least six inches taller than her own 5'9 frame, very broad and muscled without it seeming overly so due to steroids.

Why the hell was he talking to her? Did he figure she was cheap so she must be easy?

Hell, maybe she was for a guy like him.

She accepted the drink and took a swig, nodding approval. "Good shit. Am I supposed to know what Hamilton is, or is that something boring and pretentious?"

Luke smirks when she addressed him.

" Pretentious? Oh, you definitely aren't from around here. But seriously, what brings you to our little neck in the woods? If you don't mind me asking, because…How do I say this and not offend…you're lilly white and this doesn't look like your kind of scene."

He is quite intrigued by her look, long dark hair, thin but still toned frame. She's a gorgeous woman despite being dressed more like she belongs in a biker bar instead of a nightclub in Harlem.

He waits for an answer, hoping he didn't blow his chance to get to know her by being so blunt, but ain't nobody got time to play games these days.

Jessica snorts at his comment about not being from around there, taking another long and appreciative swallow of the way nicer drink he had just served her. Looks aside, the man had good taste in booze if not who to try to pick up. "What gave it away, the clothes or the drinks?"

She actually barked a laugh, surprised he had the balls to actually comment on her skin color. It raised her respect, not to mention her interest, a few notches. "What, you think I prefer coffins or graveyards? Being ghost white makes me victim of shitty genes, not a vampire wannabe who didn't get the memo of the look being stuck in 1998."

Before he can follow up his bluntness with a more charming line, a bit of commotion catches his eye over her shoulder. At the moment it's just a couple of fools getting a little aggressive with some females, but they seem to be holding them off. Shaking his head, Luke decides to let things play out a bit, hoping it will solve itself. But they're getting worst and louder, actually starting to draw the attention of other people in the club.

One of the ladies sees him behind the bar and she starts to walk towards him, pulling her friends with her. Just as she's about to reach the bar one of the assholes grabs her by the shoulder, spins her around, and slaps her so hard she flies into the woman sitting at the bar. He is on her again and shoving her just as she's about to lift her glass again.

"BITCH DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

Luke is pissed. The glass in his hand is just crushed. The glass, as well as the very expensive whiskey, falls to the floor in big shards, but despite the sharp glass there doesn't seem to be any cuts or blood from his hands. Ignoring what he just did, he starts to move from around the front of the bar.

Jessica's head whips around at the commotion going on between the man knocking around the female club attender. Eyes narrowing, shoulders drawing tight with anger, she gets to her feet abruptly, barely noticing Luke shatter the bottle- but she did notice. No time to respond to that. Sliding her slim body past the other partiers in between, she nimbly seizes the aggressive man by his collar and shoves her face into his, not caring he is several inches taller and a whole lot heavier.

"Right, your ass called. It wants you to join it outside where it belongs." She then punctuated the words by heaving him over her head and out the door of the club, timing it so he flew through just as the door was being opened to admit another group. She almost knocked one out with his flying body, but just missed her.

By the time Luke made it around the bar, things had already gotten violent, just as he's about to grab a guy by the collar he's yanked out of reach and flung across the room and out the door.

"Sweet Christmas!" He thinks to himself. Did he just see this tiny woman throw a grown-ass man 30 feet and out the door?

He stands there a bit in awe as she pretty much handles these men like rag dolls, not noticing two of their friends coming at him with knives towards him, one from his left side tries to stab him in the stomach, the other swiping at his throat, both knives snapped instantly as they hit their marks, tearing his shirt but doing nothing to his skin. Luke looked down, more annoyed about his shirt than the attempt on his life. With little effort he lifts his fist and slowly drops it down on the first guy's head, barely tapping him but instantly knocking him out.

"Seriously, do you fools know who I am? " He grabbed the second man by the shoulder and squeezed it till he collapsed to the floor crying. "Get yo ass out of my club!"

Between the two of them he barely did a thing, but this woman just cleared the decks all by herself, meanwhile his own bouncers are just getting to the scene, unsure of what's going on except the white woman clearly not dressed to be here is in the middle of a commotion, so of course they make for her and try to grab her.

"I wouldn't do that!" he tries to warn and wave them off.

But he quickly jumps between her and the bouncers, taking her by the hand and trying to pull her away and addressing the people in the club as he tries to shuffle her to the stairs leading up to his office.

"Sorry about all that everybody, but it's cool now, everyone lets have some fun!"

He leans down to talk in her ear. "You come with me we need to talk..NOW!"

At this point in her life, Jessica does very little to conceal her powers, and doesn't much care who finds out about them. Short of Kilgrave, she isn't worried about what will happen if she is seen using them, as she can easily kick most people's ass. Seeing men push women around pushes her buttons hard, and she has had a few drinks too many to let it go.

Her vision narrows in on the men with knives coming towards the man she has been semi flirting with, and she starts to launch herself at them to stop him. Too late, the marks land…and do nothing but tear his shirt. Jessica stops, thrown, and blinks, convinced she must be far drunker than she thought. They had both stabbed with force, where the hell is the blood?

She starts to jerk back as the bouncers make a move to grab her, arms up and ready to detract herself however needed. Fuck if she is letting anyone she doesn't know touch her. But the large not-bleeding man got in between them, addressing them as if he has some pull in the joint. Could he be the owner? Shit, if she gets herself arrested…she is not in the mood for a Trish lecture, let alone one from Hogarth.

When the man took her hand, Jessica flinched, almost hitting out at him, until he leaned in and spoke near her ear. Relaxing only marginally, pulling her hand out of his, she hissed back, "Yeah, I wouldn't say one drink buys you time alone with me."

Luke didn't let go of her hand and continued to pull her to the stairs. He felt the need to assure her his intentions were not what she thought about him.

"Look, I just want to talk, I'm not trying to get in your pants or anything. Trust me, I just want to talk to you. In fact I have to insist on it."

Remembering she just threw a guy across the room, he lets go of her hand. "Look I'm pretty sure nobody can make you do anything you don't want to. But I have even better stuff upstairs in my private collection and it's free .Just want a little conversation, that's all."

After letting her go he proceeds up the stairs and down a hallway into a very nice large office with art and sculptures all around the room, a large white leather couch sits to the right of a nice oak desk. There's also a very large window overlooking the entire nightclub, and the room is quite soundproof so that normal conversations can be held in there. Luke stands in the doorway of his office holding the door open just in case she decides to take up his offer to talk.

Jessica looked at the man with some continued suspicion, but relaxed slightly when he showed enough intelligence not to keep holding her hand without her permission. That and his comment on having "better" drinks was enough to sway her. It wasn't like she couldn't kick his ass if she wanted, regardless of his size.

"Not a lot to say, but whatever." Following him into the office, she paid little attention to its expensive, comfortable looking decor, nor does she move to take a seat. Standing just a couple of steps within the doorway, making sure she had access to it faster in case of a desire to exit, she crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight over hip.

"I have powers. That's it. Not a hero, not a villain, just happen to have powers. Didn't ask for them, didn't want them, got them anyway. Any other questions?"

Luke looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Damn woman, can I ask a question?" Of course she did answer his biggest question but still let him ask first. " Anyway, you didn't want them? Were you born with them or did something happen?"

As he's asking this question he starts to take off his torn shirt, then grabs a letter opener off his desk. He places the tip against his chest right where his heart is and slams it into himself, the blade snaps and flies across the room.

"I'm asking because we're the same," showing her what's left of the letter opener, "someone did this to me against my will. So yeah I didn't ask for it, I'm no hero, no villain, I'm just me doing what I can to keep Harlem from sliding back into hell. Now how about we just talk .I get the feeling you're probably one of the few people on the planet that could get what happened to me and I'm probably the one person that you could talk to. Now can I offer you a drink and a seat?"

Jessica shrugged again, not uncrossing her arms. "You can ask, can't promise I'll answer."

She swallowed, a flicker of pained emotion crossing her eyes briefly at Luke's question about her power and its origin. She disguised the look nearly as soon as it became visible, forcing a bored expression.

"Car accident. Radioactive collision, or something. I never really cared enough to get the specifics, it happened, no point in knowing all the chemistry of how."

But her expression shifted into wide eyed incredulity when Luke attempted to stab himself. She made a sputtering noise, starting to move forward to snatch the letter opener and make an effort at keeping him from committing suicide in front of her- only to see that there was no mark on his skin. Again. Something clicked then, about the failed stabbings, and now this…

"The fuck….well, shit, you can't die, can you?"

Slowly she eased herself into the closest seat, then held out a hand for the offered drink. "Just so you know, you don't know how much I'm capable of drinking, but it's a lot more than my skinny ass looks like it can."

She looked the man over more fully, then gave a small but genuine smile. He was only the second person she had ever met who also had super powers…and the first one not obviously evil. Maybe. And from the sounds of it, he knew what it was like to have hell forced upon him, too. If he was being for real on the forced powers, anyway.

"I'm Jessica. Jones."

Luke laughs at her statement about him. "Honestly I don't know if I can die or not." Making his way around his des, he pulls a tee shirt out and puts it on." As far as I know knives, bullets, explosions, fires I don't feel them. I don't know the rules, they didn't exactly give me an instruction book when they did this to me in prison. Some crazy ass doctor wanted to play God I guess. Anyway, I'm gonna use this power to take care of my people, that's why I took over this place…It's Switzerland or Holy Ground. No gangs, no drug .Just music, booze, and fun. By the way thanks for helping with those clowns who broke the rules." He starts laughing. "Damn sure they'll never put hands on a woman like that again."

He steps closer…really close, only a few inches between them and holds out his hand.

"Guess I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Luke. Luke Cage, and you are, beautiful? I meant what should I call you? But I'm cool calling you beautiful. Yeah, you're the beautiful biker girl that can kick all kinds of ass."

He smiles down at her waiting for either a smile and a handshake or an uppercut. Either way worth it!

Jessica takes a not exactly subtle and admiring look at his pecs as Luke changed. Her eyes snapped up to his face, a crease forming between them at his mention of prison.

"Prison?" She had been arrested or close enough to it a few times, so not necessarily judging…yet. But why would someone give a criminal Luke's size the inability to die if he wasn't a villain?

She took his hand when offered, hers small and callused, swallowed up in his. Scoffing at his flattery, she rolled her eyes. She didn't care one way or the other about her looks most days. "Not a biker, sure as shit not a babe, and not dumb enough to fall for the beautiful comments. But I can kick ass, all right."

Luke knew the mention of prison is a 50/50 shot of scaring folks off, most just see a big black man and deserved to be there. But she hasn't bolted from the room just yet so he decides to take a chance, the worst case she doesn't believe him and leaves never to be seen again but if she stays…

"Look don't get it twisted but I got sent to Seagate for some shit I didn't do. I was framed but I've been cleared, so I'm no convict!. So don't you dare judge me!"

He walks over to the bar and pours himself a drink. "I don't even know why I bother with this stuff, it tastes awful and it takes gallons of it to even give me a buzz, but I still drink it. Some bad habits never go away do they? Anyway, it was in Seagate, I let some crazy doctor experiment on me but at the time I had no idea what he was doing to me. I can't even find him to see if it can be undone. Do I even want it undone? My life would be so simple. Of course, I'd probably be dead 30 times over by all the clowns I've pissed off. Easy to chase off dealers when you're bulletproof."

Taking his drink over to the couch, he gestures to her to take a seat next to him.

"Come on I don't bite, plus you'll probably kick my ass if I try anything. So sit, tell me about yourself, I mean I told you my name and a whole lot about my life and here I am and I don't even know your name."

Jessica listened closely to Luke's explanation of his time in prison, watching his gestures and expression. As a private eye she knew that the way someone told a story was as important as what they said, and the way Luke told his read to her as sincere.

"Hey, I'm an antisocial asshole who drinks more than Jack Sparrow, I have no room to judge, but I do deal out sarcasm pretty strong."

She hesitated, then took a seat next to him, taking a long swallow to finish off the drink in her hand. Relaxing beside him slightly with the drink as liquid confidence and ease, she let her leg brush his.

"You do know my name, but it's so damn generic i don't blame you for forgetting I said it. I'm Jessica Jones. What is it you want to know?"

Luke looked embarrassed but in his defense, he was probably staring at her when she said that.

"Sorry about that, I'm suffering from a mild case of foot in mouth. It happens when on the rare times a woman gets under my skin like you do. By the way antisocial, I don't think so. You're just picky who's worth your time or not. Which is why I'm trying my damnest to be worthy of your time right now. So be honest, have I at least earned dinner? There is a spot with some banging hot dogs and if you slip the guy a 20 he's got cold beer on the down-low."

Luke doesn't waste his time these days on women he doesn't see something special in and for him that's no cheesy line, he means what he says, Jessica was beautiful, powerful and intelligent, rare qualities in women these days.

Jessica smirked, trying to look unaffected, but shifted with slight discomfort all the same, twitching slightly when her leg brushed Luke's again. She could feel the bulk of his muscle beneath his pants and felt a flush of attraction that surprised her. Truthfully, she didn't know how to respond anymore to someone decent who was truly interested in her. They wouldn't be, in her opinion, if they actually knew her.

"Are you asking me on a date?" She laughed, not at Luke, but at what she thought of as a ridiculous circumstance. "You say that because you obviously don't know me. I have one friend, one, and that's my adoptive sister, mostly because she refuses to butt out of my life no matter how hard I push."

She dropped her eyes, then looked at him squarely. "I'm not being coy or self conscious, just honest. I would make a shitty date and a shittier girlfriend. I haven't been on a date that counted in…Jesus, like two years. I'm not some hot super hero because I can throw people around. I'm fucked up, ok?"

Surely he wouldn't be interested after that. But even as she said it, she was already disappointed at the polite goodbye she anticipated.

Not buying her reason for not wanting to go out with him, he cocks an eyebrow at her. "Are you being serious right now? Do you think that you being damaged is going to scare me off? Look if you don't want to go out with me just say it. But don't you dare say some bullshit like that. You think you don't deserve to be happy? Do you think you're so damaged that nobody would want you?"

He sighs than leans back from her.

"You're right, I don't know you, but I'm willing to put in the time. But I'm willing to bet my life you're not damaged or broken. You're a puzzle piece looking for a matching piece, one that fits you just right." He leans back in and smiles. "Besides I'm only talking about a couple dozen hot dogs. Don't worry I was gonna give you one or two, the rest are all mine…Got to feed the furnace right?"

He had a point. She didn't think she didn't deserve to be happy, she just didn't think it possible. And she certainly didn't think she could make someone else happy. But he was damn insistent, and she didn't mind a little more time with the one apparently not evil other super powered person she ever met.

Jessica hesitated, then let out a short breath. With a nod, she stood, stretching enough to pop her back. "Guess I could eat."