Chapter Text
Jughead would never forget the day he found out about the night job.
It was July 3rd, the day before he and Archie’s road trip, and he was busy folding his socks and tossing them into his suitcase willy-nilly. (Jughead always went overboard on the socks. He liked to have socks for every occasion. In his opinion, it was always better to have a suitcase full of socks you never used than to need a suitcase full of socks and not have them.)
His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to glare at it. The caller ID showed a shock of red hair with his arm around a half-cut-out Jughead, his other arm clutching a football while he grinned widely. Archie. Jughead pressed ‘Accept’ without hesitation.
“Hey, pal. What’s up?”
“Jug.” Archie sounded slightly out of breath. “I think I’m gonna have to...cancel. On the road tri--p.” (Halfway through ‘trip,’ his voice caught in what sounded like a wince, but couldn’t be.)
Jughead frowned. Archie had been totally stoked about the road trip--even going so far as to help Jughead with the playlist. “Football practice go bad?” he tried. If Archie had some sort of injury or something...well, it would suck, but it would make more sense...
“Uh--sort of.”
“What d’you mean, ‘sort of’?”
Archie exhaled shakily. “Just--I’ll--I’ll see you later, alright?”
Jughead’s eyebrows furrowed. “Archie, what’s wrong?” he insisted.
Click.
Jughead stuffed the phone back in his pocket, hastily unfolded and pulled on a pair of orange Bugs Bunny socks (they had been Jellybean’s, but one day he had grabbed them accidentally and stretched them out by wearing them all over the place, so they were his now), plunged his feet into boots, snatched up his beanie, and set out for Archie’s house.
Something was off, and Jughead Jones would be damned if he didn’t find out what it was.
-
The lights were off in Archie’s room, but it looked like there was someone in there anyway, so Jughead snatched up a handful of pebbles and started throwing them at his window. Plunk-plunk. Plunk. Plunk-plink-plunk—PLINK-plunk. The pattern of sound they made sounded eerily like one of Archie’s excuses. Jughead threw his last pebble and hissed as loudly as possible, “ARCHIE.”
No answer.
“ARCHIE!”
No answer.
Jughead took a deep breath. “ARCHIE ANDREWS, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, SO TALK TO ME RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR I WILL BREAK THIS FUCKING WINDOW.”
There was a moment of silence, before a familiar face moved to push the window up. Archie stuck his head out so that his neck rested on the windowsill. If the window had slammed down just then, he would have been decapitated.
“Jug, go away,” he said wearily. “I’m—” Another wince. What the heck? “Busy.”
Jughead crossed his arms, pursed his lips, and fixed his best friend with a glare. “Not until you tell me why you can’t go on the road trip,” he insisted.
“It’s complicated, okay?”
“I have time.”
Archie emitted a small noise of exasperation reminiscent of a boiling teapot. “Jug, it’s…really complicated. And sort of my business.”
“Dude, you can’t just keep things from me. It’s against the bro code. You’re really wanna violate the bro code?”
Another teapot noise. Archie glared at Jughead, who made a point of tapping his foot impatiently.
“Fine,” Archie groaned finally. “Come up, and I’ll tell you.”
Jughead gave him an incredulous are-you-kidding-me stare, gestured to the ground (where he was) and then to the window (where Archie was), and, for emphasis, added, “Qué?”
Archie rolled his eyes. “The door’s unlocked.”
The foot stopped tapping. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. Dad’s out of town, and he forgot to lock it when he left.”
Jughead shot him another are-you-kidding-me stare. “The door’s unlocked.”
“Yep.”
“And you’re aware of that fact.”
“Yup.”
“And yet it is still unlocked.”
Archie shifted uncomfortably. “Y—yeah.”
What was with him?
Jughead sighed noisily and shot Archie one last glare, to which he tried and failed to shrug apologetically (an attempt which ended in another baffling wince). Damn friend duty, Jughead thought viciously, but a glance at Archie’s wide puppy eyes, he softened.
“See you in a sec,” he muttered, and set off.
-
Archie was laying spread-eagled on the bed with his shirt off when Jughead arrived. He looked kind of dead. In fact, were it not for the fact that Archie had been talking less than a minute before, Jughead would’ve flipped out.
As he got closer, though, he noticed the huge mottled bruise across Archie’s chest, and, well…yeah, he flipped out.
“Wha—Archie! What the fucking hell —?”
“Jug, calm—“ Wince. “Calm down—“
“What—“ Jughead felt a surge of irritation nearly overpower his shock. “Arch, how the hell do you expect me to be calm right now?”
“It’s not what you think,” Archie assured him, but the way he grimaced as he tried to sit up told Jughead very clearly that it was exactly what he thought. “I—there’s a reason. A good one.”
Jughead bit his tongue in wordless frustration. “What?”
“Uh…” He struggled again to sit up, and this time succeeded. “I’m Archangel.”
Jughead’s eyes bulged out of his head. He was wordless for approximately 3 seconds before he burst out with, “Wait. What?”
Archie grinned lopsidedly at Jughead, who did not reciprocate. “Yeah, I’ve…I’ve been doing it for a couple months now. Going out, fighting bad guys, you know the drill. I wasn’t too big on the alias at first—it was a bit spur of the moment—“
{ “Who are you?” a reporter yelled, shoving her microphone in Archie’s face.
“Arch—“ Archie began, then blanched. “Arch--angel? No, wait--”
“ARCHANGEL, EVERYONE!” the reporter yelled to a roaring crowd. }
“—but I think it’s growing on me,” he beamed, then grimaced. “Anyway, this one burglar was in a really bad mood today, he got a bit more violent than usual, and…this happened. I think I have a bruised rib or something--it’ll be fine, don’t worry, but I didn’t exactly have the energy to do anything about the unlocked door besides be glad it was there.” He paused expectantly as though waiting for Jughead to say something.
Jughead was, once again, speechless. It lasted a bit longer this time.
“Arch, you could have died.”
Archie snorted. At Jughead’s glare, he clarified, “It’s funny, because when you say ‘Arch,’ it could be a nickname for Archie or Archangel—“
“I get it,” Jughead snarled. “That doesn’t change the fact that he could have had a gun, or a knife, or something, and then he’d have left you with a whole lot worse than a bruised rib--!”
“Of course they have guns and knives, Jughead,” Archie piped up again incredulously. “What, you think burglars go around without guns and knives?”
Jughead’s jaw dropped. “Archie!”
“What?”
He was still internally flipping out; when he tried to calm himself down, he failed miserably. “You, Archie Andrews, have been fighting…guys. With guns.”
“And knives, yeah.” Archie’s face was alight with eagerness. “That’s…literally what I just said, Jug.”
-
By the time Jughead finally got back home, he was positive that his day couldn’t get any worse. Then he turned on the TV.
Betty Cooper’s face was on the TV.
Ordinarily, this occurrence would have made Jughead’s day considerably brighter. Unfortunately, however, Betty Cooper’s face was accompanied by the words: UP-AND-COMING JOURNALIST EXPOSES RAMPANT CORRUPTION AMONG GOVERNMENT HIGH-UPS.
“Elizabeth Cooper of the Riverdale Register has received numerous death threats after her groundbreaking expose, but she has bravely refused police protection, citing her desire to continue and expand her investigation into the highest reaches and shadiest corners of our government,” the reporter droned. “Over to you, Cheryl.”
Jughead threw the remote at the TV; it bounced off with a ckrash and skittered to the floor. He stared glumly at it for a few seconds.
Then he picked up the phone to call Betty.
-
“Hi, this is Betty Cooper,” the nasal recording recited. “I’m out right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you right away!”
Beep.
“Betts…” His throat was dry, so he swallowed. “It’s Jughead.”
Betty Cooper had been the love of Jughead Jones’ young life since English class in 8th grade. March 18 th , to be precise. 10:36 AM.
{ “The relationship between Curley’s wife and Lennie is based on escapism and physical attraction,” Jughead snapped, “not anything real.”
“I don’t know, Jughead,” Archie said uneasily. “They seem to really like each other.”
“Yeah, and what do you know about love anyway?” Reggie pointed out, laughing. The class laughed along with him.
“It’s clearly unhealthy infatuation!” Jughead insisted.
“How do you define ‘real,’ Mr. Jones?” the teacher asked disapprovingly.
Jughead opened his mouth, but before he could get out more than “Uh—,” a new voice joined the fray.
“Jughead’s right,” Betty Cooper said, and the entire class quieted as though she were Tom Sawyer saying, ‘I stopped to talk to Huck Finn!’. “Lennie literally kills her. That’s not healthy.”
And with that, Jughead checked the time. He knew enough to recognize this moment as The One when he understood that he was madly, deeply, desperately in love with Betty Cooper. }
The problem was that she was really good at her job, and people who are really good at their jobs tend to get promoted. And as a reporter, the more promotions she got, the more death threats she got.
This, however, took the cake.
“I need to talk to you,” Jughead continued, because he did. Very badly. “Call me whenever, you know I’m always free. Anyway. Yeah.” He swallowed again. “Uh, bye.”
Only seconds after he hung up, the phone rang. It was Betty. Jughead rolled his eyes, tried to suppress a grin, failed to suppress a grin, and (of course) picked up.
“Betts?”
“Juggy! Hi!” Her voice sounded so much like her, the way she always sounded, and Jughead felt himself relax. “Sorry, I make people leave messages now, just in case I don’t want to talk to them.”
Jughead was forcibly reminded of his mission. “You mean, in case it’s someone with a death threat.”
Betty laughed. “Yeah, pretty much,” she admitted.
Jughead scowled. “Betty, you need to be careful.”
She sighed—“I’m being careful!”—but Jughead stood firm.
“This is too risky,” he insisted. “ Please accept police protection.”
“Jug, I’m sorry, but no informant in their right mind would spill to somebody under police protection.”
Jughead opened his mouth to continue, but she cut him off apologetically. “Look, Juggy, V’s calling me—I’m going to put her on, that way you both can rant at once, ‘kay?”
“V?” Who the heck was V?
He could just imagine Betty’s eyebrows raising, her mouth quirking. “Oh, you haven’t met Veronica? We were best friends in college, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. She’s so nice, you’ll really like her.”
Jughead snorted--Betty thought everyone was nice, and he rarely agreed. “I don’t know about that.”
“Jug!” She sounded equal parts irritated and pleading.
Damn it. He crumbled. “Sure, whatever, fine.” What could it hurt, anyway?
Crackle. A bright voice said clearly, “Elizabeth Cooper, you are going to kill yourself.”
Hmm. Maybe this Veronica person wasn’t all bad.
“Hi to you too,” Betty muttered.
“Don’t you dare act hurt. I’m about to lose my best friend—name’s Elizabeth, pale, blond, blue eyes, gorgeous, maybe you’ve heard of her?—and she refuses to even try to prevent my inevitable heartbreak by accepting the slightest ounce of protection while she risks her life over and over—! Honestly, if anyone has the right to act hurt, it’s me.”
“Thank you!” Jughead burst out. “Yes! Exactly!”
Veronica went momentarily radio silent. “Uh, Betty, who’s this?”
Betty paused, probably to bite her lip while she debated the pros and cons of introducing two of her best friends, thereby practically inviting a gang-up. “Veronica, Jughead. He’s been my best friend since…5 th grade, right?”
“I’m sorry, your name is Jughead?” Veronica sounded put out. “Pity. I was about to suggest we get coffee.”
Jughead recoiled. “Please, no. But seriously, Betty, you need to stop. You are literally going to die.”
Veronica added, “If you die, I’ll commit suicide, and it will be your fault.”
“Seconded.”
“Just one policeman.”
“Or two.”
“Or three.”
“Five couldn’t hurt.”
“Oh my god, guys, stop!” Betty complained. “Jug, please, this is important to me.”
“Betty Cooper,” Veronica snapped, “your puppy voice might work on him, but it will never work on me.”
“It worked on me,” Jughead admitted.
Veronica paused for a moment to disapprove. “You are weak,” she said disbelievingly.
Jughead sighed in reluctant agreement and rested his head on the arm of the couch. “Yeah, well,” he muttered, “it’s been a long day.”