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It starts, just like so many things with Betty start, with an unrelated issue that he doesn’t really understand. He thinks it might have to do with spilled coffee somehow, or a promotion she was passed over for, but whatever it is; it leads to an obsession.
String slung across the walls of her office, photos—grainy from having been zoomed in too far. He goes there to look at it all sometimes, when Betty is away and won’t question him as to why.
The Black Pearl. Hero to some, villain to others, but always right where she was needed—saving and destroying with the same hand depending on her own personal whims. Betty says that she’s single-handedly upturning New York City, that if she would just stop everything would go back to normal.
Jughead bites his tongue to stop himself from asking her if the ‘normal’ of teens overdosing in back alleys and families dying in their homes for seeing the wrong thing at the wrong time was better then this, whatever it is. At least violence goes punished now, he thinks.
“What would you do to her?” he asks once, sitting across from her at the breakfast table, crumbling the leftovers of his toast onto his plate, “If you found her, I mean.”
“Expose her.” Comes the reply, as quick and easy as breathing, and then, “Do you want the rest of the coffee? Or should I throw it out?”
That’s the last time he brings up the topic, the last time he trusts her word. And the worst thing of all is that she doesn’t even notice.
It’s two fifty-three on a Tuesday and Jughead is sitting in the back corner of a crusty old cafe that serves decent coffee and muffins but not much else. The seat across from him is empty, but he knows that as soon as he drops his guard she’ll sneak up on him—sliding into the chair across the table so silently he won’t even notice.
“This seat taken?” A voice from behind him asks, and just like always he jumps before turning to face her.
“Seriously? Every time?” he cries, exasperated, and she laughs when she settles down across from him, table creaking under the weight of her fingertips when she leans on it.
“Oh come on, you know you’d get bored if I were like everyone else.”
“Would I though?”
She narrows her eyes at him, pushing her glasses up her nose, but accepts the cardboard cup he moves over the table to her without comment. The black frames are thicker then her usual pair, and Jughead can feel the corner of his mouth twitching up before he can stop it.
“What.”
“I...nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Jones,” leaning forwards and pointing a finger towards him in a pseudo-threatening air, “spit it out or I’ll break into your house and shift all your furniture an inch to the left.”
“Like you don’t already do that.” he scoffs—rubbing absentmindedly at his shin that he’d bruised on the coffee table only that morning—only to relent a moment later.
“It’s just the glasses, they’re just...Well, they’re a little on the nose, Clark Kent.”
She stares at him for a moment, uncomprehending. The afternoon sunlight is pouring through the window over his shoulder; illuminating the lines of her—thickening them in some places and thinning them in others. Jughead has to fight the urge to reach out and brush his fingertips against her chin, or the bridge of her nose; just to feel that she’s real.
“They’re temporarily—I smashed my normal ones.” she admits, hurrying to lean down and lift her coffee to her mouth to halt any further questions—and it would work if he wasn’t looking at her so intently.
As it is, he notices instantly when her sweater falls slightly lower on her arm; revealing a nasty and hastily sewn up gash across the curve of her shoulder. A single glance tells him how fresh it is, and the slight wince she can’t quite hold back when she tugs the fabric back into place shows it’s level of pain. Instinct screams at him move closer—to find some way to fix the hurt—but he knows Veronica is a big girl, fully capable of taking care of herself.
“When’d that happen?”
Nonchalance, sipping at his coffee and playing with it’s cardboard holder to hide the way his hands are shaking.
“A couple of days ago—but it was nothing I couldn’t handle, Jughead.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to! It’s written all over your face—all you want to do right now is come over here and fuss over me and try to kiss it all better, but I don’t need you to worry about me.”
“Damnit.” he grinds out, the word heavy on his tongue, “Damn it all, Veronica; don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I know that you’re going out and nearly getting yourself killed every other night and that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it? Every night I lie awake wondering if you’re out there somewhere, bleeding to death in some back street—but I’m not allowed to be worried about you?”
“Jughead,” she murmurs, reaching across the table to unlock his hands from his cup.
“If there was a way for me to stop all this and know that things wouldn’t go directly back to the way they were, I would—if only for you to be able to sleep at night; but I—“
“Can’t.” he interrupts, watching her fingers interlock with his, “I know you can’t, Veronica, and I’m not asking you to. All I’m asking is for you to find one person to clean your wounds, one person that you can be open and honest with, even if it’s not me.”
They’re both silent for a moment, listening to their fellow customers and the frantic whirring of a blender behind the counter. Light plays over their hands, speckled with dust particles, and when she speaks it comes out thick and hesitant.
“It would be you. It would always be you—despite the Betty of it all—you know that right?”
He hadn’t known, not really, but he nods anyway—still watching her. It’s a sting in the side to be reminded about Betty; to be reminded that every stolen afternoon or early morning jog could lead Betty to the thing she wants, the very thing Jughead wants to protect the most.
“She found a trace hair sample a month ago.” he blurts out, “It wasn’t one of yours but it—“
“Could have been easily.” she finishes for him, shaking her head at herself.
“It was an unplanned scuffle—I didn’t have any of my gear with me and they got me from behind. It ended up being okay and I got them delivered to the nearest precinct, no questions asked, but it was close. Too close.”
He nods again, numbly, and releases her hands with a sigh.
“You have to go now, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I should—I mean, I’ve got a meeting a few blocks from here about some...” she hesitates, gnawing at her lip, and Jughead fills in the blank for her.
“Stuff that I can’t know about for my own personal safety?”
“Something like that,” rising from the table and shooting him a smile, “but thank you for the coffee, and for being willing to meet me on which short notice. I’ll call you soon.”
“Not if I call you first.” he jokes, and he’s rewarded by her sending him one last smile before she slips out the door, quiet as the breeze, leaving him along with his thoughts and two cups of coffee.
The next morning during breakfast the story comes out on the news. A drug king pin and his first tier of distributors had been interrupted in the middle of a deal by the Black Pearl and were now safely behind bars; pending trial.
Beside him on the couch Betty practically growls before stomping of to the bathroom, and Jughead hides his face with his hand to cover the smile that’s threatening to break through.