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Jessica is sent flying back across the junkyard by the robot’s backhand, skipping across the ground like a stone until she crashes into something weirdly soft. Her whole body aches.
She groans. Yeah, whatever she’s lying on is squidgy and soft and that’s probably a bad sign in a junkyard. Comfortable, though.
Jessica pushes herself up, ignoring the way her body’s screaming at her to stop. Whatever damage she does, she’ll heal. As it turns out, she’s landed on someone’s discarded couch. It’s dark grey and in surprisingly good condition.
Before she can get up, though, there’s crashing footsteps and then a weighty, familiar hand on her shoulder. Luke.
“Jess,” he says. “You good?”
“Give me a second,” Jessica says with a grimace, then shoves to her feet. “Yep,” she pants out. “All good.”
“Danny’s distracting it,” he tells her. “Double D’s got a plan.”
Oh, goody. Only minimal life-threatening injuries, then.
All three of them crowd into Jessica’s apartment behind her. Danny and Matt head straight for the couch, but Jessica shoves her way into the end until they’re all squeezed in tight.
Luke collapses into one of her client chairs, head flopping back to gaze up at the ceiling. He took the brunt of the running around in this fight, and impenetrable doesn’t mean inexhaustible.
“You really need a bigger couch,” Danny comments.
“Or just another one,” Matt says.
“Well, excuse me for not being a billionaire like you, rich kid,” Jessica scoffs.
“I’m not exactly a billionaire,” Matt says with a huff of a laugh, “and I have two couches.”
With a roll of her eyes, Jessica says, “I can’t afford another couch.”
That night, the idea comes to her.
Trish does a double take when she comes into the living room and finds the new addition. “Jess!” she exclaims. “What’s this?” She sounds more excited than Jessica thinks a piece of furniture warrants.
“It’s a couch,” Jessica answers flatly. She dumps her camera on the desk, then moves through to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of alcohol.
“When did you get this?”
She comes back into the main room to find Trish sitting on the new couch, bouncing up and down like she’s testing it out or something. It’s small – not much bigger than a loveseat – but it fits in well opposite the old couch, on the other side of the door.
“Jeez, calm down, Trish,” Jessica mutters. She slouches back against the doorframe. “It’s just a couch.”
“But it’s not just a couch, Jess!” Trish is practically glowing. “It shows that you’re finally letting other people into your life.”
Jessica rolls her eyes and downs her scotch.
Trish hums happily, then runs a hand along the couch cushion. “Where did you get this, anyway?” she asks, curious. “It’s nice.”
“Surprisingly so, you mean,” Jessica says.
“No, I didn’t.” Trish sighs. Lifts her eyes heavenward. “I’m just curious, Jess.”
Jessica shrugs a shoulder. “Fine. I got it at the dump.”
Trish’s smile freezes on her face as she goes completely still. “I’m sorry, what?”
Huffing a flat laugh, Jessica says, “Yeah.” She pads across the room to lay a flat hand on the thick grey cotton. “It’s nice, isn’t it.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.” Jessica slumps onto the couch next to Trish, who immediately springs to her feet, brushing down the back of her designer skirt. “I found it when I was at the dump last week. It’s in pretty good condition and it’s good quality. Probably just thrown out because it didn’t match some rich family’s new colour scheme.”
“That…that’s from the dump.” One of Trish’s hands lifts to her face; she presses her fingertips to her lips. “And you put it in your apartment.”
“Why not?” Jessica asks.
Trish gapes at her. “Jessica.”
Danny staggers suddenly, legs buckling under him; Jessica catches him. He’s come down from the adrenaline high now, and the shrapnel buried in his thigh will be making itself known.
“Easy, there,” she says, then turns to the others in the mouth of the alley. “Danny’s injured.”
“I’m fine,” he mutters. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are, buddy.” To the others: “Are you guys finished up yet?”
“Just about,” Luke calls back. “Get going, we’ll get these guys to the cops.”
Jessica nods, then lifts Danny into a bridal-carry as she moves down the alley. It’s moments like these that she’s thankful for her strength; he barely weighs enough to slow her step. “My place is closest. Meet there?”
Luke nods, then looks to Danny. His gaze scans Danny’s body, settling on the wounds in his thigh. “Ouch, that looks nasty.”
Danny, who’s head is now resting on Jessica’s shoulder, says, “I’ll be fine. I just…I just need to summon my chi. Then I can heal.”
“Then summon it,” Luke says flatly.
Danny’s face screws up, but nothing happens.
“That’s what I thought.” Luke’s eyes lift to Jessica. “Your place sounds good. It’s closest. And he—” he jerks a thumb at Danny “—won’t be chi-healing anything until all that shrapnel’s out.”
“Call Claire for me?” Jessica asks. Luke nods.
One of the Albanian mob they’ve been fighting starts arguing with Daredevil, who kicks him in the side of the head to shut him up.
“Good luck with this lot,” Jessica says, then starts down the street.
Once Danny’s settled on Jessica’s new couch and has a dozen pop tarts in him, Claire shows up with a weary look on her face.
“Sorry for the late-night call,” Jessica says as Claire walks past her. “What did Luke tell you?”
“That you’ve got an Immortal Iron Fist with a bunch of metal in his leg that he wants to heal up inside of his body,” Claire answers tonelessly. She crouches down in front of Danny, who tilts his head to one side. “This is going to hurt,” she tells him. “And it might take a while.” She turns to Jessica. “Fetch your First Aid Kit and rubbing alcohol.”
Jessica fetches them, and pulls a chair over for Claire as well on her way back.
“New couch, huh,” Luke says. “It’s nice.”
Jessica nods. “Yeah.” They’re standing in the kitchen doorway, watching Claire fish shrapnel out of Danny.
“You said couldn’t afford a new one,” Matt says. He’s sat at Jessica’s dining table behind them.
“It’s good that this one didn’t cost me anything, then.”
Luke whirls on her. “You stole it?” he hisses out, eyes going wide.
“Relax,” Jessica says, patting his rock-hard shoulder. “Not stolen. I picked it up at the dump. It’s the one I landed in when we were fighting that asshole robot the other day, remember?”
“Oh, that explains the smell,” Matt says.
Jessica’s brow furrows. “It smells?”
“Only a little,” Matt says. “It can’t have been in the dump very long, but smells like that linger, even weeks later.”
“Huh.”
At last, Luke finds his voice. “It’s…surprisingly nice for a dumpster couch.”
“You mean you got this for free?” Danny asks, head turning this way and that as he looks at the couch around him, eyes round as coins. “That’s awesome!”
When Jessica opens her door to find Matt Murdock stood there, Foggy by his side, she grimaces. “What is it this time?”
“Why must you assume we’re here for a bad thing?” Matt asks, tone mild.
“Because it’s…” Jessica checks the time on her phone. “…three o’clock on a weekday.”
“That’s fair,” Foggy admits. He grips the strap of his satchel and straightens. “Miss Jones, would you mind if we come in?”
Jessica stares at him for a long moment, then turns to Matt. “What the fuck is this, Murdock?”
Matt lets out a deep sigh that has him deflating. “We’re here on professional business. A case, in fact.” He gestures through the door. “May we come in?”
After another pause in which Jessica studies the both of them – they remain straight-faced and calm-looking – she steps out of the way and pulls the door open further to let them in.
Once they’re through in the living area, Foggy does a double take at the couch. “Is this…I swear you didn’t have this before.” He turns to Matt. “She didn’t have this before, did she?”
“It’s a fairly new addition,” Matt says. He looks amused.
Jessica narrows her eyes at him. How long is that going to last?
“It’s nice,” Foggy says. He makes to move around Matt and Jessica, heading for the chairs in front of her desk, but that puts him in direct contact with the couch.
Overprotective bastard that he is, Matt exhales sharply, reaching out to yank Foggy away from Jessica’s couch.
“Ha,” she murmurs, too low for Foggy to hear. Matt, though, gets the message just fine.
“Whoa, Matt!” Foggy says. “What’s that about?”
“It’s a trash couch,” Matt says by way of explanation.
Foggy’s eyebrows draw together. “What?”
“She got it from the junkyard,” Matt adds.
Paling ever so slightly, Foggy takes a large step away from the couch. “From the junkyard?” he echoes, a little incredulous.
Jessica just shrugs, unrepentant. “It was free.”
“…Right,” Foggy says. “That’s—nice.” He turns to Matt. “You could have mentioned that before.”
“I didn’t want your nice suit to get dirty,” Matt says.
It is a nice suit, to be fair – a relic from Franklin Nelson’s Hogarth, Benowitz and Chao days. Their pro bono firm with Karen doesn’t pay enough for material like that.
“Aww,” Foggy says, softening.
Jessica grimaces, looking away from this display of affection. “Just tell me what business you’re here on, then get out.”
“Charming,” Matt says.
“Screw you.”
“So,” Karen says, a small smile on her face as she looks around. “This is the infamous Alias Investigations.”
Jessica gives her a strange look as she pushes up to sit on the edge of her desk, settling her booted feet on one of the client chairs. “You’ve been here before, Page.”
“Yes, but…oh, never mind.” Karen shakes her head and brushes her skirt down, straightening. “Matt and Foggy tell me you’ve been working on some stuff that might be connected to a case of mine.”
“Yes!” Foggy interjects enthusiastically. “Yes, she is.”
“That cheating husband you and Murdock wanted to know about?” Jessica leans back, opening a drawer in her desk to pull a case file out. She’d neatened it up after learning that the esteemed Nelson, Murdock and Page wanted to have a look at it, and there’s actual thought to the file instead of her usual vague chronology.
She hands it over to a Karen with a hungry gleam in her eye. “Thank you,” the other woman gets out as she grabs the file from Jessica and turns away to start flicking through the information.
“What’s the connection to what you’re working on?” Jessica asks, curious.
“Hmm?” Karen glances up briefly. “Oh, corruption. There’s some crossover between the major players.”
“Huh.”
Karen continues scanning through the pictures of the City Councilman fucking a number of different prostitutes (‘whores,’ as his delightful wife had spat out) in a number of different back alleys.
“He’s a dick,” Jessica says, “and his wife is a piece of work, but I’m not sure that he’s involved in any corruption.”
Karen just hums. She takes one step back, then another, where the backs of her legs collide with the grey couch. She goes to sit down on it, and Jessica stills – should she warn her?
Foggy does the task for her. “Karen!” he yelps, darting forward to catch her arm. “It’s the trash couch!”
Karen does a double take. “Trash couch?” she echoes, confused. She looks to Jessica. “What?”
Jessica winces. “Not the name I chose for it.”
“Oh.” Foggy turns to Jessica. “No offense, or anything.”
“None taken,” she mutters under her breath, feeling her cheeks heating.
“…What’s a trash couch?”
Karen is never going to come over again, Jessica realises with dismay.