Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jessica breathed deep of the fresh air and let the sweeping breeze wrap her in its soft embrace. If freedom had a scent it was the salt of the sea and fresh cut grass, baking bread and rose gardens, mountain pine and wet paint. It tasted like mint ice cream, and its sounds—oh, its sounds: the cry of gulls, horses galloping over fields, cows lumbering by a trickling stream, the wind tickling the leaves…

She closed green eyes, shutting out her visual senses to focus on everything else, from the pulsing beat of her heart to the sound of the warblers in the trees. She reveled in it, throwing her head back and catching the heat of the sun on her grimy skin as it warmed her cotton and leather. Her cabin was burning, the dry wood kindled by a stray grenade, but the wind was blowing in from her side of the structure and it kept the smoke away. But the soot and ash, blood, sweat, gunpowder, and the sparking electric tang of her melting security system—these were smells of freedom, too, and they returned in force as the swell of air died. Bodies lay scattered in gory stillness around the clearing, and some even into the trees. The peace of the Smoky Mountains had returned with the faded echo of the last bullet, the final stopped heart—a temporary reprieve, for the moment, she supposed, until the U.S. Marshals arrived. Oh, Pete would be furious with her when he discovered what she had done—that the camera she had asked him to mail her still had a tracking device planted in it by her kidnappers. Fitting justice, she supposed. Stopped once by a camera, now again by the same, and their curse on her turned against them.

The woman turned to the road and picked up her feet, moving one in front of the other in a steady plod. Her bag, prepared ahead of time in the event this risky ambush did work, was easily reclaimed from the end of the driveway. Now that this was over—and the idea was glorious—maybe Charlie could let her kip in his spare room until Pete came to pick her up. Of course, the retired police officer would be pissed, too, being sent to town on the guise of groceries when her sensors picked up on the group approaching through the trees, but she could hardly bring herself to care. She was alive, and so was he, and it was finally over.

She could hear a vehicle approaching on the road behind her, still a couple turns away if she guessed her distance right. It would be good for her to get off the road now, though, so she veered left to the bushes lining the asphalt. A wave of something like vertigo washed over her, and she stumbled. Then she blinked, her foot frozen in midair, and green turned to suffocating black and she fell.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

The feeling of being on a rapidly spinning drop tower seemed to last for several minutes before it ended and stillness, wonderful stillness, returned to her. When Jessica opened her eyes again she was in an alleyway, surrounded by the purring motors and angry horn blares of cabs and cars and busses. And there were people, up and down the street and outside of her alley and all were talking, all were laughing and shouting, all were ignorant of the woman in the hidden corner smelling of smoke and guns, smeared with dirt and blood and sweat, and quickly descending into hazy shock from the sudden dislocation and the explosion of noise. She breathed deep, tasting the smog and exhaust on her tongue as it burned her nose, and almost choked as her lungs nearly rebelled against her. Turning her senses inward, she could hear the rapid drumming of her heart and the stuttering gasp of her breath as she scrambled to remember any sort of calming technique which would push away the oncoming hyperventilation. The nausea wasn’t helping, and her stomach twisted up into knots until finally she spat bile onto the refuse already staining the concrete where it met the brick wall supporting her weight, followed by torturous dry heaving which was choking her as rabid breaths confused themselves with her body’s attempt at a system purge. The part of her beneath the numbness that could still process reason reminded her that she couldn’t afford to pass out here, of all places, and that if she wanted to lose consciousness it would be best done on a roof, and she tried to focus on the breathing problem by taking big, slow gulps of air between the convulsions.

She couldn’t be sure how long she fought her body’s rebellion in that alleyway, but she somehow had remained unnoticed in all that time. Perhaps the passerby all thought of her as a random drunk, and it was for this reason she was ignored. The stereotype of city folk was that all were too busy in their own lives to bother with someone else’s problems, and for now she couldn’t find any evidence to debunk the myth. But as she calmed and looked at herself, she knew the tendency to consciously avoid trouble might be what was averting eyes in her case. Her shirt, once white but now turned brown with dirt and dried blood, was torn in several places on the sleeves, the steel bands spiraling around her arms glinting through the holes. Fortunately, her vest, gauntlets, and jeans had fared far better and were intact except around the knees and where a close call had grazed her thigh. Her boots, sturdy and solid, were in good shape, but coated in mud that Jessica knew would be out of place for anyone who knew what color their local dirt was. As the haze fogging her mind began to dissolve, the battered woman realized she truly looked as if she had just been in a war, only to survive by the tips of her teeth (or was that supposed to be “skin of her teeth”?). She couldn’t very well go looking for a place to stay like this, she decided, and with a fierce effort at concentration she made the blood and grime dissolve away, leaving her far cleaner than she had been moments before. She would have preferred a shower for the comfort of the warm water, but she supposed that she couldn’t really afford to be choosy right now.

She pulled out her braid and retied the brown strands, mourning the frayed state of her ends for the sake of having something normal on her mind. Her sleeves still posed something of a problem, unfortunately, as the exhaustion washing over her left her unable to focus on the abilities that she had worked so hard to bring under her own control. Blank staring took over for a few moments, the dry heaving finally ended sometime in the last few minutes and the hyperventilation brought somewhat to heel for the moment, and then with a blink her mind was her own again. The metal bands were designed to look decorative, often etched with the day’s chosen pattern, and she didn’t think anyone would take issue with them if she tore her sleeves away. Maybe they would just think the steel was just a fashion statement. But the vest and gauntlets, black leather and military style, were too combatant, and would raise eyebrows, especially in combination with her boots, which covered her calves and were secured with three buckles.

With a groan, Jessica pushed herself away from the wall and her vomit to a cleaner patch where she could search through the duffel bag which now contained all she owned. She had a jacket in there, along with a spare change of clothes, a couple books she didn’t want to risk losing, and the DVDs she had felt a foreign urge to stow away as she was packing. She wrinkled her nose at them, but payed them no further mind as she unzipped her vest and stuffed it down into the bag, quickly replacing it with the blue denim jacket she had taken out. Her gauntlets, ribbed with steel to aid in blocking blades and to support a dagger should she wish it, were partly gloves which came to her first knuckle on each finger, and overall the style of them was out of place for the casual, normal look she wanted to achieve, so into the bag they went as well.

There: presentable, or marginally so.

It took the entire length of the alley to walk steadily again as she approached the teeming street before her. She still wasn’t sure her mind was completely right yet, though, as a newspaper tumbled past her feet, the header an impossibility, surely. Her eyes were playing tricks on her if she thought she read the words “Daily Bugle” in that annoying font newspapers used for their titles. But it had passed her too quickly for her to be sure, and she didn’t really want to turn back and investigate with her former relief gone and the adrenaline beginning to crash again. She needed to find a hotel, anywhere, and fast. But there was no way she would be able to afford anything in this nice of a business district, so she would probably have her best luck with hailing a cab. And then, stepping to the curb, her weariness was gone and the adrenaline was back again, sending her into another alley, this one with less trash and more fire escapes. Tall and gleaming, bold white letters glowing against the sky, the tower sent all sense of reality flushing down to the sewer. “STARK,” it read, but that couldn’t be right. She had hit her head, or maybe she had bled out more than she had thought and she was hallucinating. Stark Tower wasn’t real, and there was absolutely no way-

“Hey, uh, you okay?”

Jessica turned, eyes glazed over as the last of all she knew vanished away. A young male voice had spoken, the voice of one almost a man but not quite there in years yet. It spoke of old teen awkwardness and wary concern together, and for a moment she thought it belonged to no one at all and her mind had finally broken.

“I’m up here,” it sounded again, and she raised her eyes to the red and blue figure perched on the nearest fire escape. Spider-man waved, cautiously, and she gave a robotic wiggle of her fingers back at him. “Are you all right?” he asked, leaning down a bit further.

She blinked slowly, too much in shock to hyperventilate again. “I’m not sure,” she murmured. “Am I dreaming, or have I finally gone insane?”

Spider-man seemed to regard her a little differently for that. “You’re not dreaming, I don’t think, unless I only feel I exist because you dream it to be that way.”

“Existentialism is a pointless debate, either you believe you exist or you don’t.” Jessica gave her head a violent shake as she collapsed against the wall and rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “How can I not be dreaming, though?”

“Because reality is a five letter girl and hates people.”

That startled a laugh out of her and her eyes cleared a little. “True enough.”

“Seriously, are you okay? You look a little pale, and a bit green. The police and I aren’t really on the best of terms, but I could find somebody…”

“No. Yes.” Jessica breathed in and set a purpose in her mind so she could distract herself from the impossibility of it all, especially who she was talking to. “I’ll be fine. You know roller coaster days, yeah?”

“Yup.”

“That’s what today is, if you can believe it. So I’m going to find a cab, and a hotel, and I’m going to crash behind a locked door. You should go on, there’s probably someone actually in danger somewhere.”

The teen seemed hesitant to go, and she wondered what he would say if he knew she knew the face behind his mask. Her bag felt heavy in her arms, like lead, with the idea, and she turned to leave. “Thanks for stopping, though. And, uh, Spidey?”

“Yeah?”

“We are in New York, right? I’m not just imagining it?”

“We’re in New York. Midtown Manhattan, specifically. Can’t say much for your imagination if you think you’re imagining this place, though.”

Jessica chuckled and walked away. “No, I can’t imagine that you would.”

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

She found her hotel easily thanks to a cooperative cabbie who knew the poorer neighborhoods well. He dropped Jessica off on a street corner in West Bronx, thanked her for the small tip she felt she could spare, and left her alone to drag her weary body inside the establishment advertising itself with a flickering neon sign and a declaration of “vacancy.” She had enough cash for a cheap room for the night, and being unfamiliar with New York she was grateful enough to find somewhere inexpensive that she didn’t even consider how much bang for her buck she would get out of this. A bed was a bed, and she could do much worse than a roof over her head; she doubted, too, that she even needed to worry about the cleanliness of the place with her abilities.

It turned out that the room was fairly decent, and even smelled okay and not like the cheap motel that the Marshals had shoved her into once, back before—before. She swore something had died in that place’s air vent, and thinking back on it she couldn’t remember getting much sleep that night. But this was good, she could handle this. But now what could she do, with the task of finding shelter completed and her distraction gone?

She didn’t have the energy for a panic attack, not now. Maybe when she woke up in the morning, but now? Now she killed the germs on the bedspread and sat on it, hugging her knees to her chest. Now, she could do little more than stare blankly at the wall, the impossibilities of the day swarming her mind and leaving no room for comprehension. She passed out like that, the sun still high over a New York City not her own, overwhelmed and wanting nothing more than to wake up from this strange dream to not just a familiar face—there were too many familiar faces in this place, but they didn’t know her in the slightest—but to Pete, reminding her that it was over and telling her that everything was going to be okay.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

[Classified Location]: SHIELD New York Headquarters

Agent Coulson tapped his earpiece as he power walked to the elevators, the alarms shrieking on a scale that could compete with a toddler’s temper tantrum. Something was wrong, and home or in the field that meant he needed to find out what.

“Report,” he ordered, doing a mental tally in his head of who would have their radios turned on at the moment since the team—technically—was supposed to be on leave for the day. Ward and Skye probably wouldn’t, since Skye had dragged her mentor off to the movies on the basis of Ward’s needing to have fun. May might, but it was Fitz-Simmons who would likely have the best picture of what was happening, and were the least likely to have taken a break. A few heartbeats later, the female half of his team’s science duo answered him, out of breath and less than calm.

“This is Simmons. We aren’t entirely sure what’s happened, sir; it just popped up on the computer, and all the sensors are going haywire!”

“Slow down, Simmons.” There was never a quiet day, it seemed, even when he and his team were working from home base rather than the Bus, and half the team taking the day off. Ward would be definitely be giving him an “I told you so” the moment he got back, that was for sure. At least his scientists were still on the ball, on base or in the field. “I’m on my way down now. Now, what’s happened?”

There was the audible sound of a deep breath as the bio-engineer half of the Fitz-Simmons team gathered herself. “Fitz says there has been an energy event.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one.”

“Sorry, sir.” The elevator doors were closed when he got to them, and he pressed the button to go down before considering the stairs. “He says—”

“An energy event,” Fitz interrupted, “is really just that, a detected energy signature with unknown origins, lasting only for a few moments. I didn’t really know what else to call it. Because it’s not a surge, and doesn’t behave anything like one. In this case, the energy is strangely similar to those recorded by the Foster team of the Bifrost used by Thor’s people, but also reminiscent of Dr. Selvig’s experiments with the Tesseract, and the energy it gave off when creating the portal last year.”

The doors came open and Coulson stepped in. “Why do you say ‘strangely’ similar? Did the Bifrost open? Thor said it was still being rebuilt when he and his brother returned.”

“Well, that’s the thing, we don’t know. All records of the Bifrost’s activations indicate that this side of the bridge is normally near Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, but it didn’t happen there this time. Actually, the name itself means ‘old bridge’ in reference to ancient legends from the natives, indicating that the place has been the established point of contact for the Bifrost on this landmass for eons. Which is totally cool when you think about it, I mean—”

“Fitz,” he said to stop the engineer from rambling. “Where did it pop up?”

“Well, it’s here, sir. Here in the city.”

Coulson felt his spine stiffen, and he nearly stabbed the button for the level of Fitz-Simmons’ lab before he remembered pushing it again wouldn’t get him there faster. “Where in New York?”

“Manhattan, near Stark Tower, maybe a mile south at most. We haven’t been able to pinpoint it yet, but it’s definitely in Midtown. Mr. Stark is being alerted, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knows with the tech he has, and—”

“Call Fury, make sure he knows. I’ll get in touch with Agent Ward, you focus on figuring out what caused this, and narrow down the origin.”

“Doing now, sir. Will you be coming to the lab?”

Coulson considered, watched the doors open on the level he had chosen, and then pressed another button on the elevator panel. “Not anymore. Keep me updated, I’m going to Stark Tower. The way things have been going, something bad always ends up happening when these portals open. If this is a being of otherworldly origins, we need to be extra cautious, and our team may not be enough. The aliens that visit tend to have superior strength. It would be best to make sure the Avengers are on standby in case it’s a hostile force.”

“And if it’s someone friendly?”

“Stark offered Loki a drink when the guy was still under control of the Scepter’s mind gem and trying to take over the planet. If that’s not an ever-accommodating host, I don’t know what is.”

Chapter Text

Super Value Motel, western Bronx, NY

Morning brought hunger and a shower, and only a little more acceptance of her new situation than before. Jessica still felt numb to it all, like an arm raised over her head in her sleep for too long, and the tingles of a reawakening limb had not yet come to her.

The displaced young woman thumbed through her small stack of cash with a sigh. She had started with a thousand, courtesy of Pete for her emergency pack, and the room had cost forty dollars for the night, so that left her with nine hundred twenty after the cab ride. She could budget herself five dollars, maximum, per meal, and maybe get some bread and peanut butter so she could survive for less money, and with those figures she could last without any income for…almost two weeks, no more. One week, if she bought an extra outfit, but would she need to with her ability to transform them? She had her old clothes from the battle; she could take the tattered shirt and make it new, slip some of the moldy curtains into the deal or just change it into a t-shirt. That hole in her jeans was easily mended, and everything else was fine. She had two changes of clothes, total, and if she didn’t use her abilities to clean them she could use the bathroom soap and sink to wash her underwear and socks, at least.

The room she was currently in had only been paid through for the night, so on her way out she stopped at the desk and paid in advance for six more nights. She briefly worried at the thought of putting a thousand dollars of notes into circulation in all this, but considering everything she figured it was a drop in the bucket her old world had dumped on itself—trillions of dollars was way out of her comprehension, and that they had gone so much into debt was staggering. But that was there, not here, and the receptionist didn’t seem to think her cash was fake so it looked like she was fine.

“Hey, is there a diner anywhere close by that I can eat for cheap?” Darn it, she hadn’t even factored in more taxi fare or subway tickets. Maybe she could buy a broken bike and fix it up; a lock wouldn’t be hard to make, either, since she remembered the blueprints for a really nice padlock Charlie used to keep the bears out of his shed. And there were a lot of fences around to take some metal away from without anyone noticing, so she had the necessary materials.

The receptionist brought her back to reality and out of possibilities by pointing a finger to the left. “Down that way, about six blocks straight ahead. Place is named Don’s, and if you hurry you might find a table before the lunch rush hits.”

Jessica looked at the time. She had slept late, and spent more time in her room that morning than she had figured, so it was now almost noon. With a nod of thanks, she took the lady’s advice and hurried on her way.

The diner, when she got to it, was already quite busy, probably because of its location near a group of factories in the Bronx. Bronx—seriously, she needed to get further away than this, and avoid whatever reminded her of these movies hidden in her bag. Then again, perhaps the Avengers would be able to help her, considering that they knew Thor and would therefore be more open to the possibility of other universes.

The whole thing was too confusing. Yesterday she hadn’t even believed in the multiverse theory, and now here she sat in an entirely different world. It wasn’t fair—she had just rid herself of one problem, so why should it have to be her who had to deal with this one now? She just wanted to go home, or at least settle in one place and not have to worry about getting shot if she went out in public.

She sighed and went inside, knowing there was little she could do about this at the moment. Okay, five bucks limit . . . A hamburger almost fit her budget, and she let the half dollar slide since there wasn’t really much else on the menu that was cheaper than that. If she couldn’t find a McDonald’s in walking distance within the next two days, then she would worry about redoing her budget until she got a job. Dang it, and she needed a place to live. It just might be harder living without the Marshals’ directions after all, the way she was going.

There was only one table left in the restaurant, and Jessica slid into the booth with relief after putting her bag on the bench seat first. Its contents shifted, and she felt her brow furrow at the thought of what lay within: all the Marvel movies, from Iron Man to Iron Man 3 in chronology, as well as The Amazing Spider-man which Sony had released in order to keep their movie rights, and its sequel. But wait—if Spider-man really was here, in the same world as Stark Tower, did that mean the Fantastic 4 and the X-Men were real? By proxy, did that mean Dr. Doom and the Brotherhood were real? And what about Electro—or was he dead?—Dr. Octopus, and Harry Osbourne? So many potential villains; was she the only one aware? She took a bite of greasy food, and the meat turned sour in the pit of her stomach. Quite possibly.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

Clint Barton felt a little exposed without his bow and quiver of arrows. Granted, he could use any weapon, including the pistol at his ankle and the knife in his jacket, but the bow had become such a big part of who he was that to leave it behind at the Tower meant that this extension of his being was severed from his body. It wasn’t as if the rest of the Avengers weren’t a phone call away, and Natasha was right there with him on this job, but the principle of the matter left him reaching for a limb which wasn’t there.

The Russian SHIELD agent known as Black Widow seemed to read him like a billboard as his finger twitched to steady a nonexistent bow across his back. She reached over as his shoulder shrugged at the absence and placed a steadying hand on his arm. “You wanna get something to eat?” she asked him, understanding. “We’ve been looking all morning. We should keep our strength up.”

Right, yes, the “energy event” Coulson’s scientists detected. The two agents/Avengers had been up before the sun that morning to continue the search for whoever came out of that surge, and with noon having passed by not long ago they had yet to turn up any leads. It was time for a meal now, regardless, and Clint nodded to his friend. “Sure, sounds good. That place, there, fine?”

“Don’s Eatery?” Natasha asked, reading off the peeling blue sign atop the squat building nestled between taller offices. “Sure, looks decent, if busy.”

“That’s how we know the food is good.” Clint grinned at her, knowing he was right, and she agreed with a silent nod. “You want to get the food or find the table? One of us should try to find a place to sit.”

“I’ll get the food,” Natasha decided and pulled open the door before her partner could. “You get the table.”

Clint looked around at the busy place and made a face. “If I can’t get one for ourselves, you mind sitting with a stranger?”

The redhead let out a a rather unladylike snort. “Nothing new with that. Find us someone friendly so we don’t have to worry about our table mate.”

“On it.” Clint dove into the filled tables and cast around for anything with two open chairs. Nothing; nothing; ah, there, by the window with the tired-looking brunette. She was alone, and looked at the hamburger in her hands as if it offended her.

“Hey, do you mind if my friend and I sit here with you?”

The woman seemed to choke on her hamburger as she looked up, eyes wide. She said nothing, but she did shake her head, and Clint passed her off in his mind as one of the fangirls Tony had mentioned, one who actually recognized him. He settled into the booth, casually surveying his new vantage point, and decided it would be fine for the moment, especially with his partner to watch his back. “So where you from?” he asked his new table mate, deciding it couldn’t hurt to make conversation to pass the time until Natasha reached him with his food.

She blinked and shook her head, then swallowed what food had been in her mouth. “Gatlinburg,” she answered, voice a touch distant. “Cabin next to the Smokies.”

“Nice place. On vacation?”

Her eyes crossed and then she looked away. “Yeah. Vacation.”

Clint paused a moment to think about that reaction, and surveyed his companion with an eye to gauge truthfulness. It obviously wan’t vacation which brought her here, but it was probably something really personal and the archer was less than inclined to pry. Well, at least she wasn’t staring at him anymore.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

Jessica was amazed with herself at her ability to stay calm in this moment, to not hyperventilate as she desperately wished to do. Clint Barton was sitting at her table with her. Hawkeye, Clint Barton, was sitting at her table with her. Oh, gosh. Okay. Calm. She needed to stay calm.

“So where are you from?” he asked, looking a little bored, and his shoulder kept twitching as if he missed the weight of his bow.

She blinked and shook herself, then swallowed the bite of hamburger she had taken. “Gatlinburg,” she replied, figuring it couldn’t hurt. “Cabin in the Smokies.” Which was burnt to a crisp now, and totally unreachable by herself. She hoped Pete was able to get all the charred electronics dealt with properly. He knew where all her sensors were, too, in the woods, so maybe if they rebuilt the place and salvaged some of the hardware the Marshals would be able to use it as a safe house for someone else.

Barton seemed mildly interested. “Nice place. On vacation?”

Oh, how she wished. She spaced out for a moment, thinking of what she would do if this had been vacation, and looked out at the West Bronx street and faced reality. “Yeah,” she said. “Vacation.” And she knew he knew she was lying. He didn’t say anything, though, and she almost welcomed the silence between them as he let that strand of conversation go.

Jessica took another bite and noted absently that it was half gone by now. It wasn’t sitting as well in her stomach as she would have hoped, but given the stress she was under now she wasn’t very surprised. Mentally, she did the calculations for her budget again, and then silently begged her stomach to keep the food in it long enough to digest the majority, at least. Forty dollars a night for her room, paid for seven days total so far, with a discount of five dollars per night for booking several days together. She was down to seven hundred fourteen in her funds now after that, her taxi fare, and her lunch, and if she wanted to travel then a subway ticket would probably be ten dollars a day if they made all-day tickets. For the week alone, that would take her down to six-fifty; five-sixty would be left, then, after factoring meals in for twice a day. Almost half her cash gone in one week, not considering any other expenses that might come up, and no valid documents. She was stranded, probably needed to find a cheaper place to stay in order to stretch out the money a bit more, and it wasn’t likely she would be able to get a job anytime soon, either. And here sat Clint Barton, probably one of the few in this city who could even help her right now. But what would she even say, “Hi, I’m Jessica Gardener, and I’m from another dimension”? Oh, and not to mention, “By the way, I have movies in my bag here that are all about you guys, and you really need to know some things there is no plausible way for me to know, and if anyone unsavory got their hands on these DVDs then they would find out all of your secrets, which is probably a very bad thing.”

This was a bad idea, she decided, chewing on cheap ground beef to keep her mouth from blurting out just those words. She needed to take her food and go, before this impossibly-existing man tried to strike up another conversation. It was hard enough being here, but talking to one of the Marvel superheroes was probably going to send her into insanity if she couldn’t wrap her mind around this quickly.

A female form moved into her peripherals, and Jessica was startled to see the Black Widow sitting down across from her as Clint slid further into the booth. “Hey, Tasha,” he greeted the newcomer. “Sorry, I couldn’t find anywhere open.”

“That’s fine.” Natasha slid a sandwich over to rest in front of her partner, and passed him his drink as well. With a smile that almost seemed genuine, she then turned to Jessica and held out her hand. “I imagine he’s forgotten to introduce himself. I’m Natasha, and this is Clint.”

Jessica put her hamburger down, wiped off her hand and got rid of whatever grease remained, and accepted the greeting. “Jess,” she answered, figuring the less she gave them the less they had to go on for now if they did decide to look her up. It was a legitimate name on its own, and more importantly it was the truth, or part of it.

Clint took a bite of his sandwich, then with a bit of food still in his mouth, said, “Jess is from the Smokies.”

“Really? You don’t sound like a Tennesseean.”

Jessica was unable hold back a grimace. “It was only for a few years, and I stayed pretty isolated. I’m from Illinois originally, so that’s where the midwestern accent comes from.”

“I see.” Natasha took a sip of her drink. “What brings you here?”

This felt eerily like an interview, or an interrogation. But she couldn’t really refuse to answer that unless she wanted to draw their genuine interest, so she shrugged. “Necessity. Didn’t really mean to end up here, really. It just . . . happened, I guess. I just got in yesterday, so I’m still a little scrambled by it all. I’m really not sure where I’m going to find a job, though, before I run low on funds.”

“That’s all you have?” The spy’s sharp gaze was on her bag, and Jessica laid a possessive hand on it.

“Kinda,” she muttered, feeling irrationally embarrassed.

But Natasha was pulling out her wallet, and had started fingering through her cash, so Jessica threw up her hands and shook her head. “No. No charity, please. I’ll be fine.”

With a frown, the redhead put her money away. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Jessica took another bite and that was that. “Besides,” she continued when she saw the frowns they were sporting, “it’s not like I don’t know where to find the two of you if I do end up needing help. You were on TV a while back, right? I saw the YouTube videos.” And that was her cue to skeedaddle, she decided, and grabbed her bag and the remaining bit of her hamburger as she stood up.

“Look, thanks for the offer, really,” she said to the red-haired spy. “But I’m a random girl you met in a diner, and you probably have a gazillion things to worry about that are not me.” And with that, she stuffed the remaining bite into her mouth and walked away.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

The two Avengers watched Jess disappear into New York’s streets with a bit of disgruntlement. “This doesn’t feel right,” Clint muttered, turning back to his sandwich.

Natasha moved so that she was sitting on the bench the younger woman had vacated. “No, it doesn’t. But she’s right, the Avengers are no secret and everyone knows we operate out of Stark Tower, or at least that contacting Stark will help get the message passed on. And we do have other things to worry about, like that energy signature Coulson’s kids picked up.”

Clint chomped down on his swiss and turkey sandwich. “Fine,” he grouched through the mouthful of crumbs. “But if I see her again, I’m going to be indulging in my curiosity.”

The Black Widow pulled the wrapper off her straw, balled up the paper, and flicked the wad to bounce off her partner’s forehead. “Fine. But next time, swallow first.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, hey, it’s you again.”

Jessica jerked her head up to stare at the costumed figure sitting on a rusty fire escape. She had ducked into an alley in case Clint and Natasha had decided to follow her, figuring it was best to break the line of sight, but apparently it was already occupied. “Spider-man?”

“The one and only.” The disguised teen flipped her a mock salute, and she stepped to the opposite wall so she could see him better.

“What are you doing here?”

Spider-man shrugged. “Taking a break. You?”

“Escaping questions from practical strangers.” She figured vague honesty couldn’t hurt her here. “We need to stop meeting like this.”

There was a grin in the vigilante’s voice. “Yeah, I guess so. At least you’re looking a lot better. You find a place to stay?”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad.”

“Good. Still think you’re dreaming?”

Jessica gave him the best look of stink-eye that she could muster. “Dude, you have no idea.”

“Roller coaster week, then?”

Despite herself, she found herself smiling. The kid was funny, she would give him that. “Roller coaster life. I thought the ride would stop, and then… Well, I found myself here, and I don’t know how to get home.”

Parker seemed to lose some of his mirth. “Do you have enough money to get a plane ticket, or a bus?”

“That wouldn’t solve things. Can you keep a secret? I mean from everybody, bad guys and good guys.”

He threw up his hands in a shrug. “Who would I tell, anyhow? I don’t really mingle with the big shots. But yeah, I can keep a secret.”

Jessica marveled that she was telling anybody at all, much less one of her heroes. But he and the others had seen so many strange things, surely this would be believable. So she sighed, crossed her arms, and leant against the brick wall at her back.

“I’m not from this world,” she said. “And I don’t mean planet, because I was born in Chicago, thank you very much, and I am a White Sox, Cubs, and Bears fan all the way until I die. But, dimensions… This isn’t mine. It’s not my world. You all are fictional characters where I come from, and you have comic books and movies, and fan art, fan fiction, and all the memorabilia you could imagine. I know so much about you lot that it’s not funny, and I am not fully convinced this all is real yet. I mean, really, you? And the Avengers? I just ran away from sitting at a table with Hawkeye and the Black Widow, of all people, who tried to give me money. Seriously, how is this real? And if you are real, I’d imagine that the X-Men are, too, and that’s a whole bag of cats I don’t want to open.”

Her poor audience had gone stiff halfway though her rant, probably as her meaning sank in for him. “You… You know who I am?”

Jessica winced. Of course that would be worrying for him. “It’s been two years since Connors, right? I don’t want to say anything that can be overheard and reveal your identity, so I’m going to stick to vague references, okay? You went to Midtown for school, and you used to be friends with Harry Osbourne before he snapped and went evil mastermind. You snuck into Oscorp to find out about your parents, whom you have later discovered to have been killed by Osbourne’s people, and that’s where you were bitten by the spider you missed brushing off after sneaking into the web room. I know about your uncle, and that you started out as a vigilante in all of this. And…I know about the equation, and that there’s really no way for you to have known it all would have turned out that way. And I know you made those web shooters on your own.”

She took a breath, and rubbed the back of her neck as an awkward silence fell over them. “I’m not going to say anything to anybody without your express permission, not even to Fury if I run into him. He’s way too manipulative sometimes, and you’ve actually succeeded at keeping your identity a secret. I’m not going to ruin that for you.” Which left the problem of the movies in her bag, but she would deal with that later.

Parker sat in stunned silence for a minute, then dropped down to the ally floor to look her in the eyes. He was close to a foot taller than her, but he didn’t tower. Instead, he stood back a bit, as if watching a pit viper. “You do know me,” he stated, his voice a murmur. “How-?”

“Like I said. You’ve got a movie. Two movies. The comics and movie remakes all feature a slightly different version of you, and you’re from the latest versions.”

“So you’re from, like, a nexus world or something?” He was wavering a bit on his feet, and Jessica carefully reached out and steadied him.

“I guess that is the best way to describe it. Nexus. That’ll be what I call it, then.” She shrugged. “A Nexus of Worlds. World Nexus. It may make it hurt less than saying ‘home,’ anyway. Can I call you Andrew?”

The non-sequitur seemed to break him out of his shock, and he jerked his head as if to clear it. “Sorry, what?”

Jessica smiled. “I want to call you Andrew when I talk to you when you’re in your suit. That way, I don’t have to be saying ‘Spider-man’ so much. It feels awkward. And if I talk about you in any way to someone else, I can call you by that. It’s the name of the actor who played you in your movie, Andrew Garfield. Is that okay?”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s fine.” Parker took a step back, and her hand fell back to her side. “Can I trust you to keep this a secret?”

She made a fist with her right hand and placed it over her heart. “I swear to you, on my life and my secrets, I will not reveal your secret without your permission. It’s likely SHIELD already knows it, knowing them, but I will not be the one to confirm any suspicions.”

“Right.” His spine stiffened suddenly, and he turned his head to the side, and Jessica made a shooing motion with her hand.

“Go on. Spidey-sense, right? You’re a hero, no matter what J. Jonah Jameson III, his pompousness, says. Just take care of yourself, too, all right? I’ll see you around.”

It seemed having a sense of purpose was a cure-all distraction for shock for him as well, as Spider-man looked to be back to his peppy self in an instant. “Yeah, you too. And thank you. Next time, let’s see if we can meet somewhere other than a back alley, yeah?”

Jessica grinned. “Sounds like a plan. Go. Someone needs you.”

He saluted again, raised a wrist, and slung away. With a sigh, Jessica checked the street for the two lesser-known Avengers, saw neither, and slipped back into the flow of pedestrians.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

The following afternoon, Jessica decided to explore a bit more and stumbled upon one of the miniature parks nestled near the southern edge of the Bronx. She hadn’t wandered into any of the other boroughs yet, and especially not back into Manhattan. That part of the skyline, with the surreal existence of Oscorp Tower and Stark Tower peeking through the buildings, seemed like a forbidden kingdom at the moment, the one place she could not bring herself to be.

Yet here, this little place out of the way, she saw yet another familiar face. If they didn’t have Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies in this world, she was going to be upset, she decided, and then focused on the dilemma she had in front of her. Liv Tyler in her World Nexus, Dr. Betty Ross sat on a park bench alone, staring at the fearless pigeons mingling by the copper statue in the center of a ring of flowers. Anyone else might have seen her and walked on past, but with her awareness of this new world Jessica wasn’t even able to ignore sights such as this. And Betty… Did Banner know how close she was to him? What was even going on with her dad and the unhealthy fixation he had on the unfortunate scientist?

Again, Jessica’s duffel weighed heavy on her shoulders, and she shifted the straps as if to tell it yes, fine, I'll do it. It shut up, and she walked to the bench and sat down on the opposite end from that woman she knew too well. “I wonder what it must look like to them,” she remarked, resting her bag on her lap and holding it tight.

Betty Ross gave a start. “Pardon?”

Jessica nodded at the pigeons. “The statue. All big, green, and still, and they poop on it and eat at its feet. Does it look human to them, or is it something like a tree?”

There were some parallels here that were too close for subtlety, but it didn’t seem that Betty cared much beyond what they made her think about—or rather who they made her think about. “Maybe there are some that think it human.”

“Maybe by benefit of it having a human face, anyway. And studies show they can recognize a specific face and remember it.”

“That’s interesting.” The woman’s eyes seemed to cross, and Jessica sighed. Could she afford to be straightforward about this? A glance at her pondering bench-mate, and she made up her mind. She had ways to excuse her knowledge, since Culver University was in no way an unknown event.

“You know, you’re in YouTube videos; very small and hard to see, but you’re there. The Hulk was instrumental in the Battle of New York when the aliens attacked. And he knows you, and he likes you.”

Alarmed, Betty turned wide eyes to her. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”

“Because he saved you. He’s not a dumb animal, and you know that.” Jessica shrugged. “The Hulk saved the life of the man whose body he shares. He is the man in the skin, and the man in the skin is him. I doubt there will ever be a way to get rid of the Hulk, and I don’t think anyone should try.”

“You are being very direct for someone who has seen a couple internet videos.”

She winced at the suspicion in the doctor’s voice. “Yeah, I guess I am. What I’m trying to say is that it’s obvious you haven’t seen him in a while, and I think you should. And Tony Stark is obviously a big fan of the guy, so he’d be all for getting the two of you back together. Dr. Banner might get protective and try to push you away, but I think a guy like that could use a few more friends regardless of whatever relationship you choose to have.”

The seed was planted, and Jessica recognized that she should probably leave. “Just think about it,” she instructed. “I bet he misses you, and you are one of a small group of people the Hulk actually cares for. Don’t let that slip away.”

“Wait.” Betty lunged forward and grabbed her sleeve as she was rising. “Who are you?”

Jessica smiled at her, trying to keep any bitterness out of the expression. “Just some lost woman, that’s all. My name is Jess, and you should talk to your boyfriend.” Carefully, she disconnected her sleeve from the doctor’s grasp with her fingers and slipped away.

... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

She breathed in deep, letting the brick support her back as she stewed over what had just happened. It shouldn’t be something too worrying, she knew, and it wasn’t anything bad—if anything, Betty would be good for Bruce, a calming presence in his stressful life. But if she went to the Tower and said a girl named Jess told her she should, then questions were going to start being asked. The girl from the Smokies who was not on vacation, who had nothing to her name but a duffel bag and the clothes on her back, who was going off of YouTube videos and spotting details no one else did—who was she, and why was she encountering the Avengers, and why did she sound like she knew more than she let on? And so they would start looking for her, and they would find no one, or they would find someone who was not her, or they would use facial recognition and might find her appearing out of nowhere in that alleyway. SHIELD was good, Stark was better, and if JARVIS started searching for her then she knew there would be nowhere she could hide.

If she had the money, she would have hightailed it out of town and gone west as soon as she could, but as it was she was stranded, and unwilling to ask Peter Parker for help with the strain it would put on his and his aunt’s budget. And she couldn’t go to Natasha or Clint, she had already turned them down and to go to them so soon after a conversation like that, with the potential of Betty having already spoken to them by the time she got there, would raise suspicions about why, exactly, she wanted to get away from New York so quickly. After all, she had insinuated that she was looking to stay, and she couldn’t very well just up and leave so soon after declaring her intent to get a job in New York. But she couldn’t get a job without documentation, and she had none of that.

If she had the money… If. Fact was, she didn’t, and she was going to either have to find a homeless shelter or go to the Avengers within a week. And she would have to go to them, she knew, or else destroy her DVD collection and vanish into obscurity while hoping she never encountered a telepath. She was a liability, and she would rather the good guys got their hands on her than someone like…Harry Osbourne, or…VonDoom, or whatever his name was. Or, heaven forbid, Hydra, because she knew that was still around and AIM was a part of it. Had been. Was?

A throat cleared to her left, and she whirled to face the culprit. “Clint?” she blurted out, grasping at her jacket over her heart in shock. “Crap, don’t do that.”

He didn’t seem very apologetic, and smirked at her before leaning against the wall nearby. “I sure hope the job you’re looking for doesn’t involve street corners. Jess, right?”

“Yeah. And no, no, of course not.” She pulled a face and shuddered. “Never in a million years. That’s just… No. I’m not desperate enough that I’m forced to let others use me.”

“Good,” he stated, and looked up toward the rooftops. “How is that search going, anyhow?”

“Clint, we met yesterday. Progress is not going to be seen in one day. No, it’s not going well. And I don’t even really know what—” She cut herself off, recognizing that she was about to head into secret-spilling and questions if she continued that train of thought. “So, yeah, stuck.”

He stood straight, walked a few steps closer, and regarded her carefully. She fought the urge to edge away, knowing he might find that suspicious, and kept an eye on him instead. After a minute of silence, he spoke again. “You didn’t come to New York willingly, did you?”

“It wasn’t what I was expecting,” she admitted, trying to edge around the question, “and I didn’t have much left where I was. But if I had a choice I would have stayed.”

“Hmm. Were you kidnapped?”

“No.” Although, maybe she had been, just without physical touch. Kidnapping was legally defined as unwilling displacement, right? “No one coerced me into coming here, or dropped me in a trunk, or something like that.” But she had been snatched from her reality and dropped in the middle of an alleyway. “Was I…giving off that impression, or something?”

“Didn’t mean to end up here, just happened, still scrambled…” He ticked off his points on the fingers of his left hand. “That duffel’s all you have, and you’ve been on edge every moment at that table and now here.”

“Maybe I just don’t get comfortable with people,” she said, stiffening as he took a step closer.

He looked pointedly around. “You chose the wrong city for that.”

Jessica stepped away from the wall and away from him. “I’m fine when no one’s paying attention to me. It’s one-on-one that I’m having issues with right now. Seriously, Clint, I know of you but can you really expect me to know you? YouTube videos can’t tell me if you’re someone I’m able to trust, you know, and it’s hard for me to trust.”

Clint stopped advancing. “You seem to have that in hand well enough to tell Betty Ross she should reconnect with Bruce.”

Oh. “You heard that?” she asked weakly. “Never mind, of course you did. I just know what I saw, okay? And I can recognize faces well enough. She looked like she was already thinking about it anyway. I mean, she’s in New York, right? And—And I don’t really have problems with women,” she admitted.

Understanding entered his eyes, and he backed up a step. “Phobia?”

Jessica looked away. “It’s hard for me to trust,” she repeated. “The ones I trust, I’m not afraid of.”

“Jess, were you having problems at home?” Clint sounded alarmed. “You said you stayed pretty isolated, too.”

“No!” She waved her hands to cut that thought off at its source. “No, nothing like that. I was in a cabin on my own for a while, okay? That’s all I meant.”

“Okay.” Clint allowed her a wide berth and leaned against the wall again. “So you weren’t having trouble like that. That you’ll admit to, anyway.”

“It wasn’t my family,” she stated firmly, and clamped her lips shut when she realized she had practically admitted to…what, exactly? Something that broke her trust in men. That could be a number of things, or it could be one thing in particular. Had it ever actually escalated to rape? Her memory was spotty of that time, considering the nature of her captivity, and what she did remember was horrible enough.

She started to walk away, back stiff as she fought off chills. Quick steps followed, and Clint fell into formation beside her, a reasonable distance between them that gave her the comfortable illusion she could escape if she wished to. “Why are you here?” he asked.

Jessica figured a moment of honesty would be fine, especially if it got him off her back for the moment. “Because I had no choice. Because I can’t leave, or I’m not sure if I want to try.”

Clint made a noise in the back of his throat. “That doesn’t really answer anything.”

“It’s the only answer I can give for now.” She took a breath. “Look, you’re asking me to tell you what I don’t really know yet. I can’t indulge your curiosity, and I’d really rather not try. So I’m going to catch a cab, and I’m going to…I don’t know what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll splurge and get some ice cream. Maybe I’ll take the rest of my money and get a ride out of the city. Maybe I’ll just walk around exploring a bit of the city until it’s time to go back to my hotel, and hit rewind-repeat in the morning and every morning until I have no choice but to find someone for help or start begging on the streets.”

His fingers brushed the sleeve of her jacket over her right arm, but he made no move to grab her despite being fully capable of doing so. “Come to the Tower if that happens. I’m sure Tony could set you up with something, even on a temporary basis. I’m sure you don’t want to get tied up in nondisclosure agreements that SHIELD would require. But Tony, he’s a good guy. He’d help you if we asked.”

Jessica pulled a face at him. “You don’t even know me. Heck, I could be a bank robber or a murderer for all you know, or a spy for a super villain looking for a way in with you guys.”

“Are you?” he shot back, brows raised. She winced and grimaced, and he shook his head at her expression. “See, right there. You’re closed up, but open at the same time. I don’t get that vibe from you, and if you were looking to get in with us then you’d have accepted Tasha’s money yesterday, and wouldn’t be running away from me now. You’ve got too much pride to beg for help, and even cornered you’d be looking to fight your way out. And the way you were talking to Ms. Ross… There is no way you’re against us.”

Jessica frowned at him. “Maybe I’m that good of a liar.”

“In that case, keep your friends close but your enemies closer, right?”

“You don’t just— Clint, what?”

He laughed and grinned in his amusement. “Besides, we’ve got someone with us who’d see right through any lies you’d put up. Look, the offer is open-ended. Take it or leave it. It is your choice.”

Her breath caught, and she had her eyes wide open at his words. Choice was precious little for her now, and that he wasn’t trying to convince her to come with him, that he wasn’t ordering her to the Tower, that he was letting her pick what she wanted to do and when… “I’ll consider it,” she told him, turning to the road. “Don’t you have busy Avengers or secret agent stuff to do? You didn’t seem to be out casually yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’ve got an assignment, but without good leads on that so far I didn’t figure there was any harm in stopping to talk to you. You got a plan yet?”

Jessica smiled, a small pull of the lips as a taxi answered her hail. “Possibly. Goodbye, Clint.”

She left him standing on the curb without telling him she’d see him again. It didn’t really matter anyway. He didn’t need to know, and she didn’t want to give him the impression that he was growing on her. For all she knew, she could be yanked back out of this world at any moment, or she was here to stay and would need to come to terms with that. If she could avoid downtown, if she could avoid them, and the news, and anything to do with SHIELD and the Avengers, then maybe she could put that off…

It was avoidance, pure and simple, but Pete wasn’t here to remind her how badly that usually went. She could indulge in a few bad decisions, right?

Right.