Archive of Our Own

"You’re staring again," Matt said with an amused smile. "You should also consider chewing and swallowing. I haven’t practised my Heimlich in a while."

Jennifer did as he suggested, chewing half of the garlic bread that was in her mouth. She wiped the crumbs from her lips as she scrutinised him for a moment. Matt, despite being a funny guy, wasn’t always that funny. Right now proved that point to be exceptionally true.

When he had randomly texted her after two weeks of radio silence (mustard devil crap really took up a dude’s time) and asked if she was available and interested in dinner, Jennifer had certain expectations. Some of those expectations had included him feeling her up her very nice dress and noticing that it was silky smooth (just like her legs), he’d laugh at all of her jokes (he did chuckle at them, but Jennifer wasn’t interested in pity laughs), and that he’d come home with her for another night of She-Hulk Smash.

Instead, he wanted to talk business. He did realise she wasn’t green, right?

That was unfair. Jennifer knew that didn’t matter to him. Matthew Murdock saw who wore She-Hulk’s green skin and bulging muscles.

Purposefully chewing slowly to irritate him, she swallowed as he smiled and sent butterflies aflame in her gut. Jennifer leaned against the table and eyed him unblinkingly. "You’re talking about a literal duck, right? This isn’t some weird New York humour that doesn’t translate in any other state?"

Matt smiled that stupidly cute lopsided smile and shook his head. He even had the nerve to flush. "No, Jennifer. New York has the same jokes as California."

"I don’t know about that—"

"Howard the Duck," he said, correctly cutting her off before she went on one of her nonsensical tangents, "is missing."

"That’s a literal duck, right?"

He chuckled. "Yes. As we’ve established five times now—"

"Look, I’m just checking, okay? Do you take me for being the kind of lawyer who believes everything someone tells her without further investigation?"

Matt paused for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah. You didn’t question how the Frog was fuelling his flying boots. That’d be the first question that I’d have asked if I was his lawyer."

"Frog Man," she corrected uselessly, partly out of fear of Eugene Patillo randomly leaping onto their table as if he’d been signalled by the incorrect usage of his name. Jennifer shook her head and waved the garlic bread in her hand dismissively. "That’s beside the point—"

"That almost cost you—"

"Can we get back to the actual topic at hand, Matthew?" she asked, tilting her head to the side as she clicked her fingers. That summoned his stupidly dorky smile again. She liked the shape of his mouth. Jennifer was pretty sure he’d look cute frowning, too. "I’m busy, you know. A lot of amphibians need She-Hulk to represent her in court."

"Well, the Anatidae need you now, Jennifer."

"The what?"

He laughed and leaned back in his chair. "Howard the Duck," he began again, "is missing. And I need your help finding him."

"What does that have to do with the ana—" She sighed, closed her eyes, and collected herself. She was only proving his point that she loved her tangents when she felt she was losing arguments—and while this wasn’t an argument, it was a very embarrassing loss for her. Again. What was it about him that made her all tongue-tied?

When she glanced up at him and saw how he was smiling, she had her answer.

"Why?" she asked, furrowing her brows. While he rested his back comfortably against his chair, she leaned forward on her arms, wanting to invade more of his space. But she figured she already was with the scent of her shampoo and her perfume. Since meeting Matt Murdock, the mustard devil from Hell’s Kitchen, she’d learned of the numerous ways she could take up space as Jennifer Walters. She liked it.

"Because I can’t help him," he said, clearing his throat gently. The charming lopsided smile was gone now, replaced by something more serious. If Jennifer didn’t know any better, this was Matt’s courtroom face. It was still pretty hot. "Not as Daredevil," he said softly.

"Ah." Jennifer leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms against her chest. She immediately uncrossed them when her half of the garlic bread was squashed against the crook of her elbow. After tossing it onto the small plate she figured was meant for it, she ignored the crumbs in her lap and crossed her arms again. "So you need someone big and green to help you?"

"Kind of," he said, rubbing his neck. Jennifer wished he wouldn’t do that as it drew her attention to it and his arm. He really needed to find shirts that weren’t a size too small. "I have a friend who’s helping me, but she can only do so much. Seems we’re both kind of compromised with this one."

Jennifer cocked her brow. "Friend? You have friends?"

He chuckled. "Be nice."

"No, no," she said, smiling, "I am. I’m being nice enough to question the validity of your statement. Do you have evidence? Witnesses? Would this hold up in a court of law?"

Although he smiled, Matt sighed and shook his head incredulously. "You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?"

"Nah," she said with a wide smile. "I’m going to make this fun." When the waiter appeared with their meals, Jennifer smiled and thanked him as she opened the new bottle of wine with an easy twist of her wrist.

When she finished pouring herself a glass, she reached over the table to ask him for his. She found him staring at her. "What? Does your echolocation tell you I have something on my face?"

"No," he said with a smile. He furrowed his brows as he continued, "You don’t think eating duck is a little…"

"A little what?"

"Insensitive?"

Jennifer scoffed. "I think it’s hilarious. If real life had a laughing track, it’d be on nonstop for my comedic genius."

When Matt easily grabbed his glass and held it out for her, Jennifer expertly poured the wine without losing a drop. She sat back giddily and took her knife and fork in hand as she eyed her meal and delighted in Matt’s grimace.

"So, who’s your friend?" she asked as she sliced into her duck.

"You don’t find this disturbing?" he asked and winced as she bit into her duck. Jennifer ensured to chew loudly and in a fashion that wasn’t appropriate for a date, especially one where she wanted to impress the person across from the table, but she’d come to understand that she didn’t need to impress Matt Murdock. Her simply being herself was impressive enough.

With her mouth full, Jennifer prompted, "Friend? Did you want me to go on the spiel again about how it’s hard to believe you have any? Because I can. I just thought I’d spare you the humiliation."

He chuckled. "Okay, okay," he said as he grabbed his own knife and fork. He didn’t begin sawing into his steak. "My friend’s a private investigator. She’s the one who actually contacted me about the situation with Howard. Apparently, her friend found out through torturing a guy in an alleyway that Howard the Duck was hot property"—Jennifer snorted much to Matt’s amused dismay—"and she’s been trying to find him ever since."

"Did she find him?" she asked with her mouth full. It was best she didn’t ask about the torture. Some questions were better left unasked when it came to Matt and the devil in the kitchen.

"Yes," Matt said as he easily cut into his steak. "Except she can’t help him. She made a bit of a spectacle of herself. Jessica Jones hardly does anything subtly—"

Jennifer choked on her duck. "Jessica Jones?"

Matt stopped chewing as he looked up at her. "You know Jessica?"

She snorted. "Do I know—" She laughed, leaning back in her chair. She shook her head as disbelief washed over her. "That’s the dumbest question anyone has ever asked me. Other than the fact that she is a legend, I asked her for her help on a lawsuit a while ago. My client recommended her, actually. He’s from your neck of hell—Power Man?"

Matt furrowed his brows in confusion.

Jennifer waved her hand dismissively. "Someone wanted to sue him over the use of 'Sweet Christmas'. Luckily, it wasn’t Mariah. I think she likes him, actually." She cut into her duck and looked off into the distance thoughtfully. When she looked back at Matt and shovelled more food into her mouth, she found he was staring at her strangely. "Anyway, this semi-strong guy was trying to copyright everything as his own—kind of like Titania did with me—and we gave him a real bad Christmas that year."

When he didn’t respond or show any sign of appreciating her humour, she clarified with a deadpan, "We won."

He deepened his frown. "You’re not talking about Luke Cage, are you?"

She chewed thoughtfully as she tilted her head to the side. "You know him?"

This time when Matt laughed, he leaned back in his chair and rested his hand against his chest. It was one of those laughs that sent tingles down her spine and released the butterflies that were always fluttering in her chest around him. She supposed that he did know him and that she had met half, if not most, of his friends without realising.

While Jennifer had great difficulty wrapping her head around the fact that she was in New York because of a talking duck, she knew she wasn’t the only one. Jessica Jones sat behind her office desk in her apartment with a bewildered look on her face. Although the paint was peeling from the top corners, that hardly distracted Jennifer. Jennifer liked the fact that her poker face was as terrible as hers. Already, she felt a comradeship with Jessica.

"Right," Jessica drawled incredulously. She stared at Matt as if he had grown a second head, and Jennifer imagined that he had. He sat in the chair beside her with his hands on his lap and his back straight and a small shit-eating smile on his face. "So your plan is to send in the She-Hulk."

"Yep."

"She-Hulk. A Hulk."

"Yep."

Jessica leaned back heavily against her chair and made it groan from her strength. Jennifer did her best not to fidget in her cheap seat, but she felt she needed to given the metaphorical spotlight was on her.

This was Jewel. Jewel! Although her crime fighting days were disastrously short-lived, Jewel was what the Daredevil wished he was. Well-dressed. Epic. A headliner. Instead, he looked like a bottle of mustard that was misplaced outside of the diner. Granted, the suit did some wonderful things for his ass.

Probably shouldn’t be thinking about that ass right now with Jessica Jones sitting in front of her.

"I can help," Jennifer said, knowing that those three words were absolutely unhelpful. Jessica’s expression was a mixture of so many things—disdain, annoyance, disbelief, amusement—so Jennifer looked at Malcolm standing behind her. He was a quiet man who stared at her as if he expected her to turn into the She-Hulk and go on a rampage. He wasn’t like Nikki, although she felt as though he was in a sense. The partner-in-crime. The best friend. She doubted he was the funny type like Nikki was, but more serious and the voice of reason… like Pug. (Was Pug the voice of reason? She’d have to rethink that one.)

"I’ve seen you on television," Malcolm said calmly. "Everyone knows who you are."

"Isn’t that better for us?" she asked with an uncertainly wide grin. "I’m a hot commodity. I think it’s believable that I’d quit being a lawyer and want to join the circus."

Jessica scoffed.

"It’s believable that she’d want to leave a high-profile job for a quieter life," Matt said. Jennifer frowned at him. Did his echolocation thingy also include mind reading? She tried to make her mind go blank, but all she could think about were his thighs and how she really wanted a hotdog from the vendor they passed a few streets away. "The stress of maintaining a dual identity was getting to her. She wanted to be more than a marketing ploy for her firm. Take your pick."

Jessica stared at Matt so hard that Jennifer was surprised he didn’t have holes boring through him. "That’s dumb."

"Dumb can be believable."

"We have the problem of the cousin," Jessica said.

"Taken care of," Matt said with a wave of his hand. "Mr Banner knows now to interrupt this case."

Jessica set her jaw before she curved her lips into an amused smile. It could cut She-Hulk’s skin. "Really now?"

"Yes," Matt said without missing a beat. He continued to smile as if this conversation was amusing to him and not at all terrifying. While he was quick on his feet and light in the air, Jessica Jones was strong. Jennifer wondered if she had a powerful clap, too. "Trust me, Jones."

"I don’t."

He chuckled in amusement. "Okay," he said, leaning back against his chair. He slouched his shoulders as he relaxed.

"You still haven’t given me my scarf back."

Jennifer cocked her brow. Sensing it, Matt leaned toward her and explained, "I borrowed her scarf when Daredevil was needed. I didn’t have my suit."

"You still looked like an asshole," Jessica said in amusement.

"Like a bottle of mustard," Jennifer murmured. When Jessica snorted, Jennifer sat a little taller in her chair in pleasure.

Matt sighed in annoyance. "Look," he said, leaning forward, "we need to help him. Howard’s just one of many who have been victims of the circus. And you know what will happen if we don’t help him."

Jessica sighed loudly, slouching even more in her chair. She glanced at Malcolm who looked forlornly to the ground. "Hellcat will."

"And no one needs that," Matt said kindly.

Jennifer glanced between the two of them with a slight furrow of her brow. They were talking as though they knew Hellcat… and she supposed they probably would. Given how almost every superpowered person she’d come into contact with lately had some tie back to Matt Murdock, him knowing Hellcat shouldn’t be a surprise. "Hellcat’s your friend?"

Jessica sighed loudly and angrily this time.

"Yes," Malcolm said, looking up at her. "She means well. Her methods are just…"

"Volatile," Jessica said as she spun her chair to face the side wall. She licked her lips angrily as she set her jaw. "Passionate. Hellcat has a real hero complex."

"I heard she did time on the Raft," Jennifer said.

"She did," Matt said, turning toward her. "I helped her get out."

"She’ll listen to you," Jessica said as she turned her head toward them. She looked at Matt in defeat. It was something Jennifer didn’t particularly like. What she knew of Jessica Jones was that she was a force to be reckoned with. Anything and anyone who got in her way was mowed down with an incredible rush of strength and wit. But she didn’t look like she fit the stories. She looked like a woman who was tired of fighting everyone in her life.

Matt nodded. "Let’s not keep her out of this one."

Jessica spun back and forth in her chair before she twisted it to face them again. She leaned against her sparse desk and rested her chin on her hands. "I don’t like this. The only reason why I got out was that I’m immune."

Jennifer furrowed her brows. "Anyone going to fill me in? Or is this one of those things that get revealed mid-story? Because I don’t think we’re getting any chapters here to help break up the tension."

She ignored Jessica’s confused frown. Matt waved his hand dismissively. "She does that." Leaning forward, he rested his palms against the lip of Jessica’s desk. "I think you should tell her. You and Jennifer are of the same power set… kind of. It’s better it comes from you."

Jessica inhaled loudly through her nose as she kept her chin on her hands. Jennifer knew what she was doing; she was trying to appear unaffected. It was how Jennifer used her hands. Whenever she rested her chin on them and slouched her back, she wanted to show that her walls were down even though they were erected so high not even She-Hulk could leap over them.

"There’s this circus in town," Jessica began in a slight deadpan, "and they’re fucked. They have a reputation for being the only circus that successfully recruits people like us. So, after getting this information about Howard from Hellcat, I decided to try and get recruited. But the way that they recruit you didn’t work on me."

Jennifer furrowed her brows as she glanced between the two of them. "You can’t juggle, either?"

Malcolm chuckled as he ducked his head. Jessica curved the corner of her lips upward. "No. The ringmaster has this bullshit hat he doesn’t go anywhere without. Even shits with it on his head." Matt shook his head in amusement while Jessica smiled outright. "Anyway, the hat’s his magic trick. There’s something in the material that hypnotises you. That’s how he got Howard the Duck."

"Why was Howard even there in the first place?"

Jessica shrugged. "What else is a duck going to do?"

"He wanted to see the circus," Matt supplied.

"So he’s not like all the other ducks," Jennifer deadpanned.

Matt snorted. "Not exactly."

"A talking duck would bring in a lot of money," Jessica continued. "The circus has a history of always being on the brink of closure. It recruits someone with a strange talent and it saves itself, but it never sticks."

Matt shifted in his seat and leaned toward Jennifer. "Considering no circus on earth has a talking animal that isn’t animatronic, this could really save the circus and put it on the map at the same time."

"What circus is this?" Jennifer asked.

"The Circus of Emirc," Matt said, slowly pronouncing the last word. It was an awkward fit on his tongue.

"How the hell do you even spell that?"

Jessica made a noise of amusement. "And they wonder why no one wants to see them."

"So, they think Howard the Duck is going to bring them the moolah?" Jennifer asked. "Forever?"

"That’s the hypothesis," Matt said with a small sigh.

"And what do you need me to do? Go in and rip their tents up? Because I can do that."

While Jessica shook her head, Matt twisted to face her. "We want She-Hulk to be its next recruit. You’re a lot more subtle, and if the hat doesn’t work on you, the fact that you’re a hot topic in the press means that they’ll look that over."

"You’re a slightly better actress," Matt said with an easy shrug as a way of an explanation.

"Talking ducks are cute," Jessica said, smiling at her, "but a green woman who stands over seven feet and is related to the Hulk is even better."

"It is a pretty good selling point," Malcolm said with a helpless shrug.

Jessica tapped her fingers against the desk. "We think you might be able to sell the weird magic hat bullshit better than me."

"For one, you’re actually likeable," Matt said with a smile.

Jennifer pursed her lips thoughtfully. While she knew there was no way she was going to turn down the offer to help Matt and his friends save a talking duck from entering a circus and never being seen again, she couldn’t help but think this might be a job for Bruce. He knew how to help people on a grander scale than in the courtroom. He knew how to think on his feet and smash appropriately. The Hulk had stopped giving him trouble since his trip to space.

But she knew that Matt and Jessica didn’t have time for the Hulk to find his way to New York. She knew that Howard the Duck didn’t have time, either. And she knew better than anything that Bruce wouldn’t come because he wouldn’t think he was needed.

She sat taller in her chair and nodded. "All right, let’s assemble."

"So, how are you feeling?" Matt asked as he bumped his arm casually against hers.

Jennifer was busy wiping ketchup from her face as it seeped from her hotdog. After leaving Alias Investigations, Matt suggested that they walk a few streets away and grab something to eat. His specific choice of getting a hotdog not only proved why he was the perfect man, but that he had mind-reading capabilities amongst his echolocation. Jennifer didn’t bother to try and hide her thoughts about how good the hotdog tasted.

"Less hungry," Jennifer said.

Matt chuckled. "About the case," he said.

"This is a case?" she asked, cocking her brow as she looked at him. When Matt shook his head with a laugh, she bit into her hotdog and continued with her mouth full, "I thought it was a mission. You know? What superheroes do?"

"I guess—"

"And that’s what we’re doing, right?" she asked as she licked her lips and missed the dollop of ketchup on the side of her face. She didn’t bother to wipe it away as she took another bite of her hotdog. "Missions. We’re saving someone outside of the courtroom. This is totally a mission episode."

"You keep saying things like that," he said, twisting his body to face her. He furrowed his brows as he regarded her curiously. "It’s very…"

"What?"

"Cute."

Jennifer smiled, hiding her face behind her hand as she wiped at her mouth. "Well, that’s what I aim to be. A cute hulking lady."

Matt snorted as he finished eating his hotdog. "You’re the only cute hulking lady that I trust," he said, turning his head away from her. With the way that he angled his face, she thought that the was trying to listen to her heart again. She didn’t want him to hear how loud it was beating, so she began to cough and pretend she was choking.

"Sorry!" she said as she cleared her throat and smacked her chest with her fist. "Your lines made me choke on my delicious hotdog."

Matt laughed and the sound warmed her. "My apologies," he said while not sounding apologetic at all. "I didn’t mean to woo you."

"Woo?" Jennifer peered at him incredulously. "You think that was wooing?"

"Well, yeah—"

She snorted. "That was such a bad line that it wasn’t even a line! That was so sad. It’s like you have no game—which I would totally believe. You can’t dress."

"I am blind, Jennifer."

"Your echolocation needs to go into the shop, you know. You need that shit fixed."

He shook his head as he held out his arm for her. Jennifer didn’t hesitate in looping hers with his as she finished eating her hotdog. "So," he began as he bumped his hip against hers. They were walking so closely together that Jennifer was slightly afraid he’d finally sense just how clumsy she could be in her short legs and human skin. "Can you help? I don’t want you to feel obligated because I’m the one who’s asking."

While Jennifer had a quip on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to share, she swallowed it down with the rest of her hotdog. Wiping the hand of the arm he wasn’t holding against her pant leg, she shook her head. "I’ll help. And it’s not because I feel obligated to because you’re asking. No obligation is felt at all… except for taking your arm. I felt obligated about that."

He chuckled again, shaking his head.

"So…" Jennifer singsonged as she purposefully tilted toward him as they came to a traffic light. As they slowed, she looked at him and liked the way he hadn’t stopped smiling. He had a nice smile, especially with the stubble on his cheeks. "Do I get to meet Hellcat?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "She’s not as bad as she seems—"

"I didn’t think she was," Jennifer said quietly. "Meeting another female superhero would be so cool. You don’t really get a team made up of more women than men. Look at the Avengers—Black Widow was the only woman with a prominent storyline in the newspapers and yet the witch and CEO Pepper Potts hardly made headlines."

Matt smiled as they began to cross the road. "You have a great way of seeing the world, Jennifer."

She shrugged, feeling a little sheepish. "I like to see things for what they are, especially when others refuse to."

"I like that about you," he said quietly as they stepped onto the sidewalk. "I’ve spent most of my life seeing the world in flames, but with you… it feels more like a story."

"Fake and unbelievable?" she asked, cocking her brow.

He shook his head and didn’t laugh. "The way you see the world reminds me that there’s hope that it’s not all bad," he said. "Maybe Hell’s Kitchen’s story isn’t stuck in its trajectory but can change. It’s not all death."

"You make your own destiny, right? All you need is a few new writers for it to be born again," Jennifer said with an innocent shrug.

Matt turned to look at her and smiled. "Or She-Hulk."

"Why is it that you don’t let the world know who you are again?" Jennifer asked Matt late at night. As soon as she sat down with a bowl of popcorn, he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulders. They sat thigh to thigh on his couch in his apartment that didn’t look like it belonged to anyone at all, given how sparse and very impersonal it was.

He’d listened to the television while she spoke over it and gave her own inaccurate narration of the events playing out on the screen. His arm was heavy, but it was a heaviness that didn’t feel suffocating. Jennifer liked it a lot more than she’d like to admit.

Matt smiled, although he didn’t chuckle as she predicted he would. Perhaps she was losing her ability to predict the events that would follow from asking the same question over and over (sometimes not even rephrased). "Because there are people that I care about who would be in danger if people knew Daredevil and Matt Murdock were the same person."

She smacked her lips. "You know, I worry about that, too."

He cocked his brow. "About people knowing Daredevil and Matt Murdock were the same person hurting the people in my life?"

"Smartass," she muttered. Jennifer rolled her eyes and flushed at his chuckle. Smacking his chest a little too hard (on accident), she rubbed her hand over the sore area she hoped would bruise just a little. Matt deserved a reminder of how insufferable he could be every now and then. "I was talking about me. Of course, I worry about people piecing together who I care about and using it to get to me. I was kind of hoping having an Avenger as a cousin distracted people from doing that math."

"Being related to the Hulk can be pretty distracting…"

Jennifer smiled up at him. Twisting her body toward him, she stopped the movement of her hand on his chest. "You’re really worried about that, aren’t you?"

"Yes," he said with a nod.

"You know, it’s not so bad. I find it kind of freeing. People knowing She-Hulk is Jennifer Walters kind of makes things… easier."

He cocked his brow. "Never harder?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes…" Shifting against him, she rested her head against his shoulder. "For a while, I felt like all anyone ever wanted was She-Hulk. Men did." Matt scoffed. "What? They so did!"

"No, no, no," he chuckled in embarrassment. "Don’t get me wrong, She-Hulk’s great," he said, "but, you know… She-Hulk’s not She-Hulk without Jennifer Walters."

"And Jennifer Walters isn’t Jennifer without She-Hulk," she said with a pout.

Matt shook his head. "Not completely true," he said. He licked his lips as he took a moment to consider his words. Jennifer liked watching him weave together an argument. Matt could tell her the world was flat and she’d believe him. "You’re one of the lucky ones. You can be Jennifer and She-Hulk, but you can be Jennifer without the She-Hulk, too."

She furrowed her brows thoughtfully. "I don’t completely follow."

He smiled, although it wasn’t one of his bright smiles. Matt shifted gently beneath her as he relaxed. "You can exist without She-Hulk. I know you can, because you were She-Hulk before you got green and big and powerful. You don’t need her to do good. I need Daredevil. There’s only so much that I can do in a courtroom, but as Daredevil…"

"You can break the law?" she asked, smiling and wanting him to smile in return.

She was successful in her endeavour as he chuckled. "Exactly." But his smile dimmed somewhat as he returned to being serious. "Matt can’t do the things Daredevil can. I think a part of me is afraid that without the mask… I can’t help."

"I don’t think that’s true," she said gently. "You help a lot of people as you." She gently rubbed his chest in the hopes that she was making him feel better. He smiled, and she swore that his cheeks tinged a slight pink. That only encouraged her to tease him as she said, "I think Matt Murdock can exist without Daredevil if he tried really hard…" Jennifer pursed her lips before she smacked them. "I mean… Daredevil’s a bit of a loser. He watches legal dramas and thinks they’re real."

Matt laughed. "He is a bit of a loser."

"And the mustard?" She made a noise of disgust.

He sighed, shifting beneath her. She pressed her weight against him, turning a little green to ensure she kept him anchored. "How many times have I told you that the mustard’s a good colour? It’s a good look! A very big-name designer said so."

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "This is the designer who put me in polka dots—"

"Polka dots can be nice."

"Okay," she said, pushing against his shoulder so she could peer down at him. "If you think polka dots are so great, you wear them."

He shook his head. "Can’t. They don’t go well with my complexion."

Jennifer pulled her head away from his shoulder and side-eyed him. He chuckled, sensing her stare. "Who told you that? Jacobson?"

"No," Matt laughed, shaking his head. "My friend… Foggy. And before you say it, yes, I have friends. We’ve known each other for a very long time."

Jennifer narrowed her eyes as she studied him. He was smiling and flushing in a very attractive way. She wanted to see him smile like this more and more. "I don’t know if I believe you… I mean, what kind of grown-ass man calls himself 'Foggy'?"

"A man named 'Franklin'."

"Ah. It all makes sense now."

Jessica stared disapprovingly at Matt as he smiled proudly and leaned against his cane. Jennifer suspected he knew the moment Jessica’s eyes locked on his form. Jennifer was a little surprised he’d gleefully accepted her bet from the previous night and had been adamant in seeing it through the very next day. Jennifer thought him ballsy joking with the judge in Frog Man’s trial, and now she knew he was ballsy. Did he have any pride? She was beginning to think not.

Matt had traded in his tailored dark grey suit and Daredevil-red tie for a navy blue jacket with large white dots. His tie was the inverse.

"You look like a dickhead," Jessica said.

"Jess!" Trish reprimanded in hushed tones. She sat on the edge of Jessica’s work desk with her fingers wrapped tightly around the lip of it. Jennifer had done as much reading as she could on Hellcat—or Trish Walker—and she knew to keep her eyes on her claws in case those were the knives that could break impenetrable Hulk skin.

"What?" Jessica snapped, looking at Trish in annoyance. "He does."

Trish glanced down as if embarrassed by Jessica’s behaviour.

Jennifer shrugged. "He kind of does."

Matt immediately frowned as he looked at her. "You said I looked handsome. Actually, you said you wanted to sit on my—"

Jennifer clapped her hands, grateful that she hadn’t turned green or else the entire room might have been in ruins. "Wow!" she exclaimed and set her sights on Trish. With a big smile, she hurried over to her and held out her hand. "So! I’m Jennifer Walters. And you… well, I know who you are."

Trish reluctantly placed her hand in hers. Soft fingers. Weak grip. Definitely overplaying how strong she was not. "I know who you are, too," Trish said with a small smile. The media training that she went through as a kid and teenager had a wobbly grasp on her now. Jennifer had been expecting a big beaming grin showing off her pearly whites or veneers. "Jennifer Walters," Trish continued, letting go of her hand. She sat taller and tilted her chin upward. "Attorney at law. You represent the super division at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holloway, which is kind of a mouthful."

Jennifer smiled at her, a little grateful she’d let go of her hand. She clasped her fingers together and almost ripped them off out of nervousness. "Wow. You read me."

"I read up on you," Trish corrected. At Jennifer’s stunned look, she smiled proudly, "Your Wikipedia page is pretty impressive. You’ve got some really nice fans."

Jennifer glanced at Matt who only smiled. "That’s a change of pace. Usually people like to trash me on the Internet."

Trish chuckled. "Yeah," she said, looking down. Her confident farce broke. "I get that."

"Now that we’re done with introductions…" Jessica uncrossed her arms from her chest and walked heavily toward her desk. She dropped down into her chair and looked at them all as though they were gum beneath her feet. "Can we get back to the whole reason why we’re here? We’re burning daylight and the longer I look at Murdock, my eyes."

Matt smiled as he walked toward the chairs positioned in front of Jessica’s desk. He sat easily while Jennifer almost tripped twisting around and dropping into hers. Trish stayed where she was, perched on the corner as she toed the line of being a professional colleague of Jessica’s and perhaps a good friend.

"So," Trish said, swinging her legs for a moment before she stopped herself. She glanced at Jessica from over her shoulder before looking at the two of them. "I obviously can’t be spotted at this circus, but I can be there as backup."

"No fucking way," Jessica said immediately.

Trish rolled her eyes and twisted to face Jessica. "Come on, Jess. You said you’d work with me here."

Jennifer was certain Jessica’s unimpressed look could cut right through her green skin. "If these assholes catch onto something suspicious, they’re gone the next day. We need to play this safe."

"Which is clearly where I come in," Matt said with a smile. "We can’t risk anyone knowing about Trish Walker or Hellcat, no matter how well-intentioned she is."

Trish set her jaw and shook her head angrily. "I can’t believe you’re benching me. Roping in Murdock was my idea."

"Not benching you," Matt said, shaking his head. "You’re still a part of this, Trish. We just need Jennifer to help us get in. And then that’s when you can come in and assist. We need you, but not in the beginning."

Trish kept the tension in her jaw, but she conceded, reluctantly nodding. Jennifer watched Jessica peer at her friend with a vulnerability she wasn’t sure she should be witness to. There were some things Jennifer liked knowing, like useless facts about people she’d never met but had read up on Wikipedia, but this, the heartfelt, private stuff wasn’t something she ever felt comfortable with. She supposed that was why she was a lawyer and not a private investigator… other than the fact that she tended to draw a lot of attention to herself when she didn’t want to.

"So…" Jennifer began, glancing at everyone in the room. "It sounds like you’ve made like Beyonce and got a plan already in formation." Jessica rolled her eyes.

"You’re not going in alone," Matt began.

"Murdock’s going to be your manager," Jessica said, unimpressed. She leaned back in her chair and sighed as though the entire conversation pained her. "I’d prefer Malcolm—"

"He’s Plan C," Matt said gently. "If Plan B goes pear-shaped, we bring him in as the big gun."

Jessica rolled her eyes, but she didn’t contest it. She crossed her arms against her chest and looked away, much like a petulant child would when not getting her way. Jennifer supposed she should be offended on Matt’s behalf at the implication he would put their mission in jeopardy, but she couldn’t fault Jessica for being cautious. Jennifer knew from reading about Alias Investigations that Jessica Jones cared with her entire being and then some. The indifference was her way of protecting herself.

"You’ll go in," Jessica said, "he’ll keep tabs on the goons around you while you audition, and he’ll make sure he’s your ears while you’re the big star."

"It should be pretty straightforward," Matt said. "You turn green, do something impressive, and they give you a call back."

"But what if they don’t?" Jennifer asked, furrowing her brows. "I mean, yeah, the green thing’s kind of a draw… But I’m not the Hulk."

"You’ll do great," Trish smiled kindly at her. "We don’t need the Hulk when we have the She-Hulk." Jennifer ignored Jessica rolling her eyes at the saccharine comment and opted to preen instead, sitting a little taller in her chair.

"What’s the game plan for when we do find the duck with the quackitude?" Jennifer asked, glancing at all of them. "We just shut down the circus? Take him back? What about all the others who have been ducknapped?"

"I didn’t realise bad puns were one of your superpowers," Matt said with a sweet smile. Jennifer wrinkled her nose and swatted his arm a little too hard. "Ow."

"Don’t be rude," she said with a smile and rubbed at his arm. While Jennifer had felt his bicep before, she hadn’t from this angle… and it was bulging and huge for a man who was so lanky. God, Matt was like Shrek with all the hot ogre layers.

"I know someone," Trish said, shifting on the edge of the desk. She tugged her shoulders up to her ears and seemed like she was trying to appear smaller. There was shame in her posture. Jennifer immediately wanted to stop it from winding itself around her lithe frame. "When I was on the Raft… Matt helped me get out, but it wasn’t just his persuasive skills that earned me my freedom again."

"Trish entered a plea deal that she wouldn’t participate in any vigilante activities that were on par with the Avengers’ crusade," Matt said as though he was reciting his words from a piece of paper. "Since Trish doesn’t know the Avengers and we’re keeping it that way, we’ve been able to play in the loophole of that particular wording."

"And the Sokovia Accords being appealed," Trish said. Jessica remained quiet and still behind her as she watched her friend intently.

"Who?" Jennifer asked. When no one made a move to answer her, she glanced at them all, lifting her brows in the hope to prompt them to continue. "Is this the part where we take a scene break and leave everyone on a cliffhanger?"

The Circus of Emirc wasn’t as small as she expected it to be. Tents ballooned out across the short-cropped field with their tips peaking so high in the sky she thought the metal top would pop the world. The colours were an eyesore of bright mossy green with warm yellows bordering on gold. It looked like a dollar bill.

With her shadow elongating across the field and enveloping his, Jennifer did her best not to give in to the impulse to reach out and hold Matt’s hand. She liked how despite how small his hand was in hers, she still felt every callous on his fingertips as if he was holding her hand—or Jennifer’s hand. Jennifer wasn’t quite sure when she needed to stop separating She-Hulk’s unique physicalness from her own.

She cleared her throat as she tried to ignore the prolonged glances in her direction. It was hard to miss a large green woman casually walking the circus’ grounds. "So," she said as he walked beside her with his cane brushing against the ground in front of them, "we expect this to work, huh?"

"We do," he murmured, masking it with a bright smile. Matt hadn’t opted to wear the grey suit he seemed to have plenty of copies of. While Jennifer had remarked that he could do with a little spruce up in his closet ("The little Gucci dress or the little Gucci dress, Posh?"), Matt had surprised her by pulling out another eyesore of a suit. She doubted much could make Matt Murdock look like anything other than an impeccably dressed man, but the thick red-striped suit he wore was testing his ability to make anything work.

He looked like a candy striper.

"I thought 'Matt Murdock' would be a name every suspicious individual in New York would know about," she said quietly as she glanced around in an attempt to take note of their surroundings. Where there wasn’t a tent fluttering gently in the breeze, there was a caravan of a bright shiny yellow that sometimes looked like lumps of gold.

"Not every suspicious individual," he said warmly. Glancing at her, he said, "You didn’t know who I was."

She scoffed. "You are so self-important—"

Matt chuckled. "And you’re not suspicious?"

"I’m not suspicious—"

"You’re a seven-foot-tall green woman who got her powers from the Hulk, a known Avenger who isn’t exactly skilled in hospitality," he said easily. He smiled a little wider at her before looking away. She had no doubt he was using his Daredevil senses to scope out the scene. He probably saw more than she could from her height. "You were suspicious the moment you came on the scene."

Jennifer couldn’t help but smile. "You checked me out, huh?"

He sighed in exasperation, which only made her smile wider. "I wouldn’t say that."

"You did," she said, wrinkling her nose in joy. "You checked me out."

"I checked out Jennifer Walters," he conceded. Glancing at her, he turned his head away and seemed to focus his ears in a particular direction. Jennifer didn’t bother to quickly glance around to discern where he was focusing; sometimes being subtle was better than being overly obvious and too green. "She-Hulk wasn’t the one I was suspicious of," he said quietly. "It’s the person beneath the mask."

Jennifer looked at him for a long moment, wishing that he was facing her. While Matt was difficult to read on any given day, he was even harder to now. He kept so much close to his chest that she was surprised Luke Jacobson could make his Daredevil suit so fitted.

"All right," Matt said, standing a little taller. He wiped the smile from his face and seemed to shift into someone else entirely. "We’re on."

The Strongman was a large man mostly made up of big biceps and a lot of teeth. Jennifer did her best not to grimace as she smiled at him. He guarded the main tent where the auditions were being held with his big, bulging arms crossed against his even bigger and bulging chest. He wasn’t a pretty man by any means, but she could see how someone might be attracted to him. He had the most startling blue eyes she had ever seen.

With a grunt, he cocked his head and Jennifer had to pull back the tent’s fabric. The world inside of the tent was miraculous. She parted her lips as she glanced around in awe at the high top of the tent that seemed to never end, the silky inside of the dome, and the stands forming its circumference. In the very middle of the tent was The Ringmaster in his money green coat and knee-high boots and dark purple hat with a very obvious target stitched in its centre. An elephant yawned behind him.

"Damn it," she murmured as she looked at the empty inside. Aside from The Ringmaster, only a few circus members milled around. The Human Cannonball was a character Jennifer had always been so intrigued by; he had his back turned to her, but even then she could see what looked like his medieval costume glint inside of the tent as if the sun sat at its very apex. Blackwing followed him belatedly, cloaked in a midnight purple cape.

Aside from the elephant, she could only see tigers and lions. No duck. When researching the circus, Jennifer and Jessica hadn’t been as hopeful as Trish had been when it came to Howard the Duck being presented front and centre during the auditions. Neither of them thought the Circus of Emirc would be so blatantly reckless in the risk of tipping their hand to a rival circus’ spy.

"She-Hulk!" The Ringmaster called out with a bright, toothy smile. He held a black megaphone in his hand. She was sure she could’ve heard him without it given how obediently quiet the tent seemed to become. He kept the megaphone raised in front of his face as his purple hat bloomed on his head. "We’re so honoured to make your acquaintance!"

She cleared her throat as she forced a smile. "Your circus is… great," she said and tried her best to conceal her wince. She-Hulk was smoother than that. Jennifer wished that Trish had gone over a few small talk pointers. She seemed so blessed in charming those around her with a few choice words and a pretty smile.

The Ringmaster chuckled, the megaphone making it sound a little sinister as it echoed. As she towered over him, he still kept the megaphone in front of his face. His eyes were piercing as he took her in and ignored Matt standing beside her.

Lowering the megaphone, he kept it hanging heavily in his hand by his side. Tipping the brim of his hat politely at her, he smiled a toothy smile. "If I may be so brash," he said, his voice charming even though Jennifer knew it was put on, "we at the Circus of Emirc were very honoured and a little surprised when we heard the great She-Hulk had expressed interest in joining our ranks. To be quite frank, I couldn’t quite believe my ears! I had to have Cannonball wash them out." He chuckled. Jennifer grimaced.

Matt intentionally cleared his throat. "'The Sensational She-Hulk'," he reprimanded gently. "If we’re to believe you’re taking this audition seriously, we’d appreciate you use her appropriate stage name."

"'Sensational She-Hulk'?" Jennifer murmured, cocking her brow.

"Of course, of course," Ringmaster said, bowing low while keeping a hand on his hat. Jennifer supposed someone of lesser stature than her would find the gesture mesmerising, but from her height, all she could see was the top of his hat and the back of it. She found it curious that only the front had a target. "Please forgive me for my insolence."

Jennifer made herself chuckle as if she was flattered. "Please!" she said, imitating her best Patsy. Trish Walker had been a good teacher when it came to mesmerising the media, and Jennifer had a feeling she had been right in her assumption that The Ringmaster only needed a few kind words that suggested she was kissing his ass to make him putty in her hands. "I’m the one who’s honoured."

The Ringmaster rose to his full height and waved his hand away as he blushed.

"If we can please continue," Matt said sternly, clearly annoyed, "the She-Hulk has many other appointments to tend to today."

"Of course!" The Ringmaster said, clasping his hands together. His gloves were pearl-white. "I wouldn’t wish to waste the She-Hulk’s time. What we’re interested in at the Circus of Emirc is displaying our performers’ unique talents. We have some who are expert archers," he said with a wide smile, glancing toward where large targets of various sizes were piled in the corner of the tent. "We also have expert marksmen. Sometimes those marksmen and archers compete in a little friendly antagonistic match of 'Who can shoot better?'," he chuckled. Jennifer forced herself to chuckle as if she was enamoured by it.

"What about strength?" Matt prompted impatiently. "We wouldn’t want She-Hulk to be overshadowed by other strong performers."

The Ringmaster opened his mouth before he clasped his hands together and chose to stare at Matt instead. He smiled kindly, although Jennifer noticed the exasperated pull of his mouth. "I’m sorry," he said, chuckling sheepishly, "I don’t think I quite got your name."

"Michael Matthews," Matt said easily. "I’m She-Hulk’s representation."

"Of course, of course," Ringmaster said, nodding in understanding. "Someone of her status would, of course, need representation. That is only fair, Mr Matthews—and something I greatly respect."

"And your other performers?" Matt prompted.

The Ringmaster smiled, although Jennifer noticed the tension in his mouth. Despite being the ringleader of all performers, his performance was growing thinner the more Matt pushed.

"She won’t be overshadowed," The Ringmaster said. "We value our unique talent. While we have plenty of marksmen and archers, no marksman or archer is the same." He lifted his hand and wiggled his finger.

"I couldn’t help but notice you had the Strongman guarding the door," Matt continued.

"Ah, yes, Bruto," The Ringmaster kept his hands clasped as he bowed his head and nodded as though what he was about to reveal was a true tragedy. Jennifer stared at him, unable to look away. "Bruto the Strongman has been a prized performer of the circus for many, many years. But an unfortunate accident saw him greatly injured."

"So, once he’s recovered, he’ll be back on your roster?"

The Ringmaster stared at Matt for a long moment with his mouth not quite forming a charming smile. And then he curved the corners of his lips upward before he pressed them together and cleared his throat. "As you can understand, Mr Matthews, Bruto is family. It hurts me greatly to say that, well… unfortunately, Bruto won’t be returning to the ranks of the circus’ great performers. We’re afraid his injury is too great."

Matt didn’t offer a counter, staring at The Ringmaster unnervingly.

Jennifer licked her lips and smiled at The Ringmaster. "I wouldn’t wish to step on his toes…"

"There would be no stepping," Ringmaster said, smiling brightly at her. "Bruto the Strongman is strong in many ways, She-Hulk, and one of those ways is knowing when to step aside. It would be a great honour to have you as our only strong performer. It would be more than an honour. A privilege."

Jennifer refrained from rolling her eyes. "I would love to join this family," she said, glancing around whimsically. "Ever since I became the She-Hulk, that’s all I have been searching for. Somewhere that would accept me for who I am, not who I was before, well… She-Hulk came to be."

The Ringmaster’s eyes lit up. "You wish to shed yourself of your civilian identity?"

Jennifer ignored her desire to recoil when she nodded. "Jennifer Walters is my past," she said. "But She-Hulk, and perhaps the Circus of Emirc, is my future."

"Well," Ringmaster smiled widely and clapped his hands together, "we can only hope to welcome you into the family."

"I wouldn’t want you to do me any special favours," she said, wrinkling her nose as though they were sharing a secret. She leaned down somewhat, pleased to see The Ringmaster respond and stand on the tips of his toes. "I want to be treated like everyone else. I want to audition."

The Ringmaster clapped again in excitement. "I am most excited! To see the Sensational She-Hulk audition for our humble circus!"

"Yes," she said, chuckling as she tried to stealthily glance at Matt for help, "my audition. Which I will be doing…"

"She’ll be doing Bruto the Strongman’s audition," Matt said, resting his hands on his cane. "I think it only fair that if she’s to replace him, you see just how similar and different your two performers will be."

The Ringmaster clapped again, his hands beating one another so quickly Jennifer was certain they were going to fall off. "Oh! Oh!"

"Yes," Jennifer said, smiling. "Which was…"

"Holding an elephant above your head," Matt said, looking straight at The Ringmaster. Jennifer did her best not to widen her eyes in panic, but the way Matt smiled made her think that he kept this from her on purpose. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to hold an elephant over her head! She had never even been near an elephant before! "For five minutes. The Strongman’s record was two and a half."

"We have the perfect contender for your performance!" The Ringmaster said excitedly. "The elephant that Bruto auditioned with is, in fact, still with us. He’s right over there!" He gestured toward the elephant that was still standing in the same position as he had been before. He swung his trunk slightly but didn’t seem overly animated. But his lack of movement was made up for in spades by his size. Jennifer swore she had never seen an elephant of that size in her entire life.

She tried to smile, but she felt it take the shape of a grimace. "Great."

After her audition, Jennifer had ensured to give Matt the silent treatment for a good ten minutes before launching into a rant about keeping secrets. He wasn’t the best secret keeper, after all. All of his puns and silly jokes about being blind might distract others, but not Jennifer Walters! She always knew he was suspicious!

Thankfully, by the time they had arrived at Alias Investigations, Jennifer had cooled down significantly—and had decreased in size and returned to her flesh-coloured form.

"So your name is Matthew Michael Murdock," Jennifer said as she stared at Matt. He casually took a seat in the chair in front of Jessica’s work desk and leaned his cane against the lip of it. Jessica remained in her seat behind the desk and rested the heel of her black boot against it. She crossed her legs at the ankle and her arms across her chest and smiled at him as though she was truly enjoying Jennifer grilling him.

She was. Jennifer was a great interrogator. She didn’t need green skin and a handful of feet added to her person to be terrifyingly brilliant.

"Yes," Matt said with a smile and a nod. "It is. Has been for a while."

Jessica snorted. Jennifer rolled her eyes and shifted her weight on her feet. She stood to the right of Jessica and thought she looked quite intimidating. Two strong women standing—well, one sitting, one standing—side by side, staring down the very infuriating man known as the Mustard Devil. Jennifer was excited to push for his rebrand.

"So," Jennifer pursed her lips for a moment as she furrowed her brows, "when I said you were 'mmm', and you said you were literally… you were being a pig."

Matt laughed, shaking his head. "I was being cheeky."

"That’s what you call 'cheeky'?" Jessica asked in disbelief.

"It’s cute," Trish said, shrugging as she stepped into the living room-slash-office with a mug between her palms. "And while this is a really interesting conversation, don’t we have a little debriefing to do? We still haven’t found Howard the Duck."

"Oh, he’s there," Matt said, shifting in his seat. Jennifer was amazed at how he was able to switch it on and off. He could be happy and cheeky one moment and easily slip into his vigilante-slash-superhero mode within seconds. Jennifer always fumbled around like she was trying to pull on a pair of skinny jeans that were a size too small. "I could smell him."

"Gross," Jessica muttered.

Matt smiled close-lipped at her. "He’s there. He wasn’t in the tent, but he was there. So was a demoted Bruto the Strongman."

"Really?" Jessica asked, sounding interested. She remained slouched in her chair with her heel against her desk, but Jennifer could feel the resonating anger disappear from her. When she looked at her, Jessica was smiling in amusement. "Glad Cage got the bastard."

When Jennifer glanced between them with a furrowed brow, Matt supplied, "Bruto tried to make a mess in Harlem half a year or so back."

"He was a little sensitive to the idea of not being the strongest man in New York," Jessica said with great amusement. "Luke sure showed him."

"So did you," Matt said, smiling proudly.

"Aw," Jennifer cooed, smiling happily at the news of Luke Cage and Bruto the Strongman’s season-long antagonistic relationship. "You two so have friendship necklaces." At Jessica’s grimace, she laughed loudly. "Look," she said after a moment, "I don’t know if the circus even wants me. I mean, isn’t it suspicious that I went from a job that guaranteed I’d always be in the limelight to the circus? She-Hulk was just starting to get good press as a lawyer, too."

"Yes and no," Trish said as she sat in the chair Jennifer hadn’t taken. She leaned forward, seemingly more comfortable than she had been a few days ago. "Yes, because if word gets out that you’re trying out for the circus, it could do irreparable damage to the life you actually want to keep." When Jennifer’s face fell, Trish chuckled warmly. "But if word doesn’t get out, it’ll be fine and it’ll blow over. The circus is desperate enough to think of you stepping down from the guaranteed spotlight as a…"

"Compliment," Jessica supplied.

"They won’t question it," Trish said. "Why would they? They’ve just hit the jackpot."

"And they didn’t even have to get their hands dirty," Jessica said. She clucked her tongue before she moved, tugging her feet off the desk as she corrected her posture. "We need to make sure you’re by the phone. Ringmaster won’t call you right now—it’s too desperate—but he will."

"Maybe tomorrow," Matt said. At Jennifer’s cocked brow, he shrugged a shoulder and said, "He’s not desperate enough to show he’s desperate, but he’s desperate."

"Say 'desperate' again," Jennifer said, much to Matt’s amusement. "Are we sure he’s going to call tomorrow?"

Jessica nodded. "He wants Bruto out. What he did down in Harlem could’ve outdone The Clown’s unfunniest act. The Ringmaster’s ego is bruised and you’ve just soothed it."

Jennifer wrinkled her nose. "Ew."

"I know," Trish chuckled. "Show business is kind of cray-cray." Lifting her mug to her lips, she sighed heavily and murmured, "I’d know."

Unsurprisingly, Matt had been right in assuming The Ringmaster would call and confirm her successful audition the next day. Jennifer wished that she had been smart enough to bet he’d call after lunchtime, around the time when Matt took her hand as they walked around Central Park like they were two boringly normal people.

"So," Matt said as he looked at her from the bench he sat on. Jennifer continued to pace back and forth, incidentally kicking up tufts of grass as she did. She gripped her phone so tightly in her hand that it cracked slightly. "Talk to me, Jen. How are you feeling?"

"Um… maybe freaking out?" she answered, glancing at him. "Maybe? I think I’m freaking out. Am I freaking out?"

"A little."

"Okay, good," she said, excessively nodding. "I can’t feel my feet, so that at least confirms why."

He smiled at her kindly. "Sit."

"I can’t sit," she said, shaking her head as she pivoted on her foot. "I have to walk because if I don’t walk, I’ll She-Hulk out, and I really don’t want to She-Hulk out. Trish told me that it would ruin the premiere of me at the circus, although… I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the idea that this could extend to me actually premiering."

When she glanced at Matt, he was smiling at her. "Don’t smile at me," she said. "It’s confusing."

He chuckled and cocked his brow. "It’s confusing?"

She licked her lips and nodded. "It makes my heart go all fluttery and right now my heart is so fluttery I think it’s She-Hulking out."

"You’ve got this, Jen," he said. She didn’t slow down in her pacing despite wanting to. Matt Murdock believed she could do this. Jessica Jones believed she could do this (although, she barely seemed confident). Malcolm—who she needed to get the surname of so she could properly befriend him—believed in her wholeheartedly. Trish Walker knew she could do this. The only person left was herself.

When Bruce told her about a few of his adventures with the Avengers, all Jennifer wanted was to find those stories for herself. She always imagined herself to be bigger and braver than she was. While she was grateful that she had never been stranded on an alien planet as her alter ego, she wanted stories like he did. Bruce was always so cool, and when he wasn’t cool, he was put together. An adult. He was everything she wanted to be.

If he was auditioning for the circus, he’d be chill. He’d know what to say and what to do, and he wouldn’t need someone to coach him through it. They definitely had the wrong Hulk on the case.

With a heavy sigh, she turned on her foot and took a big step toward the bench and sat down. It creaked beneath her, but Jennifer didn’t rush to apologise to Matt or make up a story about it being made of weak planks of wood. Apologising or lying meant that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with being herself… and she was around Matt. Warts and all.

She stared at the ground where she had paced. It looked greatly disturbed, almost like an alien spaceship had wanted to crash land on the site but had chosen to pull itself up a quarter of the way through its descent.

"I don’t know if I can hold a live elephant over my head again, Matt," she said quietly as she continued to stare at the ruined grass. "I don’t even know how I did it the first time. It was clearly a fluke!"

He shifted on the bench, leaning his arms on his thighs. He was looking at her in his intensely perceptive way. Sometimes Jennifer was convinced he could see into her soul and access parts of her that she wasn’t even aware existed. And she supposed she was right—she had evidence to back up her case. He believed she could be a hero who made a difference when all she knew was that she fumbled every attempt she made over and over and over again.

"You can," he said seriously. She could see from the corner of her eye how he kept his face turned toward her. He could probably hear the raging beating of her heart. It was definitely She-Hulking out. "You’ve got this."

"You keep saying that," she said, "but I’ve never 'got this' in my life. I’m not Bruce."

"And you don’t need to be," he said with a furrow to his brows. "No one wants you to be Bruce Banner. In fact, it’s a good thing that you’re not. Jennifer Walters is the person that we need for this."

"Is she?" Jennifer asked incredulously, turning to face Matt. He was still staring at her, reading her in ways that she wasn’t sure she had ever been read before. No one ever took the time to page through her book.

He smiled gently at her. "Yeah," he said quietly. "She-Hulk is as confident and charming and well-meaning as Jennifer Walters, and that’s what helps people. That’s what helped me."

She cocked her brow. "I helped you?"

He nodded. "You don’t need to sound so surprised," he chuckled.

"I know I’ve definitely helped your sex life—"

Matt shook his head as he blushed. "You made me realise that Daredevil might be able to quietly take out a group of bad guys in a warehouse, but sometimes it helps to be loud. Sometimes it’s good to have a partner help you cut the time that all would’ve taken in half."

Jennifer smiled, flushing with pride. "She-Hulk Smash," she murmured warmly.

"She-Hulk Smash," he repeated just as warmly. "And you’re going to She-Hulk Smash this, Jen. You may be green"—she snorted rather ladylike at that—"but you’ve got heart, and I wish that I had been a lot like you when I started out."

"You still can be," Jennifer said as she leaned back against the bench. She extended her arm out and was grateful when Matt followed in her footsteps, leaning back and letting her wrap her arm around his broad shoulders. "There’s always time to turn over a new leaf."

He smiled as he turned toward her. "I’m not changing the gold."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "But it looks like mustard!"

"I like it."

Jennifer poked her tongue out. "Ugh."

Jennifer had been hoping Jessica and Matt had come up with an alternate plan to their original proposal, but no matter how many times she tried to pitch a different version, they shot it down with a judgemental curled-up lip and a shake of both of their heads.

As Jennifer stood in the centre of the main circus tent with her hands clasped gently in front of her, she wished that Matt had seen something in her plan to have him tag along. But She-Hulk had to appear like she trusted the circus’ process, and while Trish was adamant she didn’t like sending Jennifer in without someone else by her side, no one was willing to possibly jeopardise the mission.

Case. Mission. All of them insisted it was a 'case', but Jennifer knew better. This was the type of thing the Avengers would pursue.

Standing at her She-Hulk height of over seven feet, Jennifer felt as though the bustling activity within the tent was far away from her. The Human Cannonball was on the north end of the tent, speaking loudly and sharply as though his tongue was the cannonball he pretended to be. Livewire and Blackwing hardly spared her a second glance, which she was both grateful for and resentful of. When she looked at Bruto the Strongman in the west corner of the tent, she gave him a tentatively awkward smile. He grimaced and turned away, evidently sulking about his replacement being a few inches taller than him.

The Ringmaster was a tiny, slim man whose hat took up more space than his torso. He approached her with an eager skip to his step that almost made him appear like he was gliding along the hard earth. Jennifer wanted to stand taller and pull her shoulders back, but there was something so disarmingly earnest about him that made her instantly relax and slouch slightly.

"She-Hulk!" The Ringmaster clasped his hands together as he grinned at her with his pearly white teeth big and glistening. Jennifer ensured to smile, although she didn’t have to pretend to be utterly overwhelmed. "I’m so very grateful you accepted our invitation."

"I’m the one who’s flattered," she said, doing her best not to choke on how saccharine the fake words were. She wanted to bite off her own tongue for her dishonesty. While she had dreams of being the ringmaster of her own circus when she was six years old, she’d grown out of that desire when she realised she had to stand in front of a whole tent filled to the brim of people and actually speak. Standing in front of a judge in an often abandoned courtroom was a lot easier.

Jennifer purposefully let her gaze drift over his shoulder as she surveyed the growing backdrop of performers. Bruto the Strongman remained where he was, taking up more space than either of them would like. But where Livewire and Blackwing once stood was a white creature dressed in a green shirt.

She lifted her brows in surprise before she looked purposefully back at The Ringmaster. The last thing she wanted was for him to suspect she was here to retrieve Howard the Duck from captivity. The only bad thing about being the Hulk’s cousin was that the bad guys had to suspect she’d be all about the hero life like he was.

"I’m so glad you called me," she said, purposefully flipping her hair as Nikki had once taught her. It was meant to attract the eye… and perhaps a man, although Jennifer wasn’t quite as confident in the latter. "I know you had some strong auditions."

The Ringmaster chuckled as he smiled and stepped toward her. He held his hand over his mouth as he admitted in a conspiratorial whisper, "Between you and me, no one came close to you. No one."

"Oh," she chuckled, her face flushing. Jennifer wrangled her hands together to try and calm her nerves. The Ringmaster stared up at her with his wide smile that was both disarming and alarming. Something about his bony shoulders and tall hat with its spiral centre made her feel uneasy. "Surely someone took a good quack."

If Ringmaster thought her pun was strange, he didn’t so much as react. He had perhaps the best poker face she had seen in a long time—and that included Mallory’s expressionless stare.

"Rajah doesn’t take kindly to many people," The Ringmaster continued with a smile that made his dimples appear like pockets on his cheeks. "It’s how we actually judge the auditions. If the animals have a reaction, well…" he drew his bony finger along his throat as he sucked on his teeth. Jennifer flinched.

"Well, I’m glad Rajah didn’t mind being held up by me…"

"Seven minutes!" The Ringmaster exclaimed and clapped his hands. The sound drew the attention of a scowling Bruto who turned on his foot and crossed his arms as he continued to sulk. "A record! Groundbreaking! Utterly mesmerising!"

"Yeah…" Jennifer chuckled awkwardly. She brushed loose hair away from her temple in the hope that it made her appear sheepish. She felt it. "Um, so…" Jennifer clasped her big hands together and pressed the heels of her palms tightly, "what’s the plan? Do I fill in some paperwork? Get a trailer? Meet the fam?" She smiled excitedly as she said, "I hear you have talking animals here."

The Ringmaster chuckled, pressing his hand to the hollow of his throat. He had a long neck, and when he inhaled or chuckled, the hollow of his throat grew as deep as a crater. His hat remained steady on his head. "She-Hulk, oh, you are sensational!" Jennifer pressed her teeth together as she tried to smile. "Yes, of course. We have a trailer for you—and to your size, I hope! I had it personally made."

She cocked her brow. "That quick?"

The Ringmaster smiled. "We do things quickly here for our star performers!" he said, wagging his bony index finger in front of her. He quickly withdrew his hand and clasped them in front of his chest as he leaned all his weight on one foot and tilted toward her. In his conspiratorial whisper, he continued, "But before I take you to your trailer…"

Jennifer was slow to arch her brow in the hope to prompt him to continue. He remained tilted toward her like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and she had no other choice but to lower her head and lean toward him. "Yes?" she asked quietly.

The Ringmaster smacked his lips and threaded his long fingers together. He chuckled and sighed and let his shoulders sag as though he was about to ask her a very exasperating question. It was the posture Nikki often took before she delivered some disappointing blow or piece of office gossip she was trying to downplay. "I would hate to ask this of you so soon in your stay here…" he said quietly. He shook his head and clucked his tongue as though he truly was disappointed, and all Jennifer could do was lean closer toward him in the hopes she didn’t miss what he was about to say. The Ringmaster glanced at her a few times before he bowed closer toward her. "Could you do me a favour?"

"Of course," she said, feeling disarmed. Was he about to ask her if she could help escort Howard to his trailer? That would be utterly too easy… and a great plot point to escalating the tension.

He swiped his tongue along his bottom lip before he stepped back. With a skilled sweep of his arm, he tapped his fingers against the brim of his dark purple hat. "Can you please look up here? It’d only take a moment."

Jennifer furrowed her brows, but rose to her full height once more and did as he asked. "Okay, sure…" When she looked at his hat, she frowned at the stationary target in its centre. She dropped her gaze to his as she smiled incredulously. "What am I looking at here, exactly?"

"Just the centre, if you will," he continued in a soothing voice. He tapped his fingers against the brim of the hat to draw her attention upward once more.

When Jennifer looked at the centre of the hat, the target began to spin.

"So, you saw Howard?" Matt asked, eagerly lifting his brows behind his glasses.

Jennifer nodded as she crossed her arms against her chest. She didn’t feel as excited as her team did, which she supposed was strange. She’d successfully met one of the mission’s many requirements and had confirmed that Howard the Duck was, in fact, a kidnappee of the Circus of Emirc.

"That’s great!" Trish said excitedly. She sat on the edge of Jessica’s desk and crossed her feet at the ankles. She drummed her hands against the surface excitedly. "We can take down the circus soon. Tonight?"

"Hold your horses," Jessica said as though she was bored. She sighed heavily and her chair squeaked beneath her, suggesting that she was shifting in it. Jennifer didn’t bother to look. She kept staring out the window, yearning to return to the circus. "We need a game plan."

"I thought the game plan was that we confirm Howard the Duck hasn’t prematurely flown south for the winter and then we grab him?"

"Yes…" Jessica started reluctantly, "but these are criminals. We need to be somewhat smart about this."

Jennifer didn’t care to listen to their bickering. She glanced down at the bustling street below and wondered how these people who looked like ants could go about their days in such a mundane way. The circus was to the west, not the east, and yet all of them wandered in the wrong direction. All she wanted to do was clasp her hands around her mouth and scream at them to turn around and see a show that would change their lives forever.

"Jen?" Matt asked quietly. She was startled when he tapped her shoulder. Undetectable freaky ninja feet. "You all right?"

"Hm?" Jennifer reluctantly looked away from the window and felt herself grow cold at her lack of connection to the circus. Staring out the window made her feel like it was close by. When she looked at Matt, she felt nothing. "Yeah," she said belatedly, forcing a smile. "I am. I’m just tired. They made me hold Rajah above my head again."

"Rajah?" Jessica asked, her voice filled with disdain.

"The elephant," Jennifer said, smiling wide as she looked at Jessica. "He’s really cute."

"For a victim," Trish said as Jessica narrowed her eyes and regarded her strangely. "He’s just as much of a kidnapped victim as the rest of them. I wonder how many of them are genuinely there because they want to perform."

"And how many of them are there for criminal activity," Jessica said, staring at her. Jennifer lifted her brows before she looked away, uncomfortable beneath Jessica’s unfriendly scrutiny.

"The Ringmaster definitely has a team," Matt said from beside her. His voice was smooth like melted butter, but Jennifer didn’t shiver like she knew she should—or would. That was the right expectation, right? She would shiver at his voice, so thick and creamy like heated chocolate. "There’s no way he’s working alone."

"I was putting something together," Trish said as she pushed away from the desk.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Not the goddamn board."

"Yes, the goddamn board," Trish said happily as she disappeared around the corner and into Jessica’s small kitchen. Moments later, there was a loud sound as wheels rolled across the wooden floor. Trish pulled a portable whiteboard along the smooth ground and miscalculated how wide she had to turn. Once she had settled it in a position that brought her great pleasure, she looked at the rest of them proudly. "Well?"

"Someone’s going to have to tell me what it says," Matt quipped.

Jessica rolled her eyes as she leaned her arms against the desk. She squinted. "It’s a map," she said.

"Connecting everyone together," Trish said, shaking her head in annoyance at Jessica’s lack of description. "The Ringmaster is in the centre," she continued as she pointed at the name in the very middle of her board, "and I built a spiderweb around it as to who I thought were his henchmen."

"Based on?" Matt asked.

"Articles," Trish said excitedly. Jennifer licked her bottom lip and did her best to try and ignore the hard lead of discomfort that was settling in her gut. She didn’t like that Trish was investigating her new family like this. It was rude—and a total invasion of privacy! "Newspapers. The Circus of Emirc"—she tapped her long nails against the top of the board where she had written the words in big block black letters—"has been travelling for years. The Ringmaster has always been involved; so have Bruto, Livewire, Cannonball, and Blackwing. Rajah didn’t join until 21 April 1991."

"Uh-huh," Jessica said in disbelief. This only seemed to prompt Trish even more.

"And," Trish continued passionately as she turned to her board and tapped her fingers against her block writing of 'THE CIRCUS OF EMIRC", "did anyone else notice something peculiar about this?"

"She’s pointing at the circus’ name," Jessica drawled. Matt pursed his lips as he shook his head.

"We’ve been saying from the beginning how the circus’ name is practically unpronounceable," Trish continued loudly, practically buzzing with energy now. She regarded them with an expectant smile before turning back to the board. "Look."

Matt furrowed his brows. "'Emirc' is 'Crime' spelt backwards."

Jessica made a disgusted sound as she slammed against the back of her chair. "Jesus Christ."

Matt smiled widely, chuckling incredulously. "It’s been under our noses all this time."

"What has?" Jennifer asked, furrowing her brows as she looked between them. "What?"

"The Circus of Crime is a very well-known circus made primarily of criminals," Matt said, his smile not wavering. Jennifer didn’t like that. "They used to be pretty subtle about their activities, but over the last few decades, they’ve been as obvious as a green seven-foot woman in the courtroom."

Jennifer didn’t smile as she thought she should. She glanced back at the whiteboard and felt her heart lurch in her chest at the names circled on there.

"They tried to recruit Luke," Jessica said. "When that didn’t take, they tried to get revenge."

"Delicate egos?" Trish asked, smiling.

Jennifer stared at her as she narrowed her eyes. Her skin felt hot as her heart raced angrily in her chest. She gritted her teeth as she listened to Matt chuckle beside her.

"Seems like," Jessica said as she crossed her arms against her chest. "So, how do we take these guys down?"

"I don’t think we need to do much," Matt said. "Alexis—Howard’s daughter—filed a missing person’s report a day ago. It’s actionable now."

Jessica made an amused sound. "Jesus Christ," she muttered again. "There’s a whole flock of them."

"Technically, they’re referred to as 'a raft of ducks'," Trish said. That prompted Jessica to roll her eyes. She crossed her arms against her chest and bounced proudly on the balls of her feet. "So, I can call in my guy."

"Just who is your guy?" Jennifer asked coldly, tilting her head to the side. She crossed her arms so tight against her chest that she was convinced she could crush her own ribs.

Trish looked startled. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jessica held out her hand to stop her. Jessica stared at Jennifer unkindly. "Walters."

"I asked a question," Jennifer continued, shifting the weight on her feet. "Who is 'your guy'?"

"Jen," Matt said quietly, "calm down."

"I’m calm," she snapped.

"You’re turning a little green," he said quietly.

When he gently touched her elbow, Jennifer unwrapped her arms. She shoved at him, sending him flying toward the brick wall. Jessica was on her feet quickly, shoving her office chair away. Trish’s stance had shifted like a cat ready to leap, but Jennifer knew she could knock her down before she got a claw on her.

The apartment felt smaller as she grew in size, the seams of her shirt and pants fracturing as her bottled anger exploded. She gritted her teeth and growled. "Leave them alone!"

"Jennifer!" Trish called out, eyes wide.

"Walters," Jessica snapped sharply. "Get your shit together."

"It’s together," Jennifer snarled. She whipped around to glare at Jessica and raised her hand in time to knock Trish aside as she leapt. Trish slammed into the brick wall, cracking it as dust fell on top of her head. "Maybe you should get your shit together." It wasn’t her best work, but Jennifer was angry. "They’ve done nothing to you!"

Jessica stared at her for a moment too long. "It triggered you, didn’t it? Slandering them. The Ringmaster’s a piece of shit." Jennifer snarled, baring her teeth. Jessica lifted the corner of her lip up mercilessly. "You can fight this, Jennifer."

"My name is She-Hulk!" She swung her arm and knocked Daredevil down from behind, slamming him into the glass. It shattered behind her, but Jennifer didn’t think to look as he flew out the window. She advanced upon Jessica. "You’re going to leave them alone."

"Like hell I will," Jessica said as she shifted on her feet. Jessica advanced toward her, nimble and quick. Jennifer wasn’t quick enough to lift her arm to defend herself, but as Jessica laid a bruise-blooming blow against her bicep, She-Hulk snarled and roared. She smacked her against the wall, proud of the satisfying crack Jessica’s body made with the brick.

She heard a sound to her left. She-Hulk turned quickly and raised her arms and clapped hard, sending Trish rocketing through the kitchen wall as it collapsed around her.

She-Hulk stood proudly in the dust of Alias Investigations. The Ringmaster had requested she put the issue to bed six feet under, but She-Hulk knew that her job was done even with all of them still above the ground. Jessica groaned against the floor, shifting slightly, though she didn’t pull herself to her feet. Trish was still beneath the bricks that had toppled on top of her. And Matt…

Well, he got in her way.

She-Hulk ignored the uncertainty lingering in her chest and walked out of Alias Investigations to return home.

Bruto the Strongman begrudgingly opened the main tent’s flaps, revealing The Ringmaster standing happily and eagerly inside. He clasped his hands together as though he was trying to stop himself from clapping. He smiled at her from beneath the wide brim of his top hat.

"Ah, my sensational She-Hulk," he greeted warmly.

She-Hulk smiled, ducking her head ever so slightly. Although she had only visited the circus twice, she felt more at home here than she had anywhere else. The Ringmaster was so nice. And to hear those people speak so ill of him and the home he had created had made her so angry.

"I take it all went well?" he asked, standing on the tips of his toes before rolling onto the balls of his feet. He smiled toothily, peering up at her as she loomed over him. He didn’t cower as many men did. He lifted his gaze to hers proudly.

She smiled and nodded. "Yes," she said. Although She-Hulk hadn’t done exactly as The Ringmaster had suggested, she had acted on instinct. He’d wanted her to destroy the evidence of any alleged misgivings that her ex-colleagues had irrationally concocted in their jealousies. "I don’t think they will be bothering you anymore."

"And who are they?" he asked, batting his long eyelashes at her. "Your… ex-friends. I’m curious. If we have their names, we can put them on the ban list for life!"

She-Hulk cooed at that as The Ringmaster clicked his fingers and Howard the Duck obediently waddled over with a brown clipboard in hand and a scowl on his face. Even though The Ringmaster had asked him several times to smile, Howard the Duck never did.

"My friends?" She-Hulk furrowed her brows. Their names were on the tip of her tongue. Matthew Murdock, lawyer by day, Daredevil of Hell’s Kitchen by night. Jessica Jones, Alias Investigations lead and only investigator, previously known as 'Jewel', the superhero who gave up superheroing. And Patricia Walker, 'It’s Patsy', Hellcat who survived the Raft and came out with her nails polished and manicured. She knew she should tell him. It niggled at her to do so. But She-Hulk bit her bottom lip instead and shook her head. "Jess, Michael, and Patty are no one."

"Hm." The Ringmaster tucked his hand beneath his chin as he scrutinised her. She-Hulk stood tall and firm and smiled kindly down at him, not once breaking a sweat. Lying to The Ringmaster was the safe bet. It was for his own good.

Seemingly pleased with her silent response, The Ringmaster clicked his fingers quickly and barked at Howard the Duck to jot down those names. The duck did so begrudgingly. "Interesting, interesting…"

She-Hulk smiled and stood straighter, looking down at The Ringmaster as innocently as she could muster. She wanted to be his friend. She wanted to do good by the circus that had welcomed her when the world continued to stare too long with uncertainty at her. She could be She-Hulk and not the Hulk’s cousin. She could belong here. She could be herself completely at the Circus of Crime.

"Now, She-Hulk," The Ringmaster said gently, lowering onto the soles of his high boots. He shooed Howard the Duck away without a glance. Tipping his head down, he tapped the brim of his top hat. "Please, can you tell me if this is straight? It’s a daring devil, this hat."

She-Hulk furrowed her brows in confusion, but looked at his hat. When she opened her mouth to inform him his hat looked fine, the target began to spin and she forgot everything she wanted to say.

She-Hulk was a little surprised that The Ringmaster had let her keep her phone. The lock screen kept glowing every few hours with texts from her friends—or ex-friends, really; she didn’t understand why she kept referring to them as her friends—asking where she was, if she was at the circus, and what the fuck had gotten into her. Matt kept asking if she was all right. The fact he didn’t already know the answer to that was further proof to why she couldn’t be his friend any longer.

"Hm," said a deep voice. When She-Hulk looked up from her phone, she saw no one in front of her. After dipping her gaze, she saw the creature the voice belonged to. Howard the Duck was bigger than a regular-sized duck with bigger wings, bigger feet, and a bigger beak. He had the biggest scowl she’d ever seen, and she’d been on the receiving end of many of the Incredible Hulk’s.

"Um. Hello?" She-Hulk said before smiling awkwardly. Although she knew she was here because of him, she hadn’t had any plans on talking to him. After all, Trish hadn’t prepared her for how to hold a conversation with a talking duck. "I’m—"

"I know who you are," Howard the Duck said grouchily. He stood before her in a sailor’s outfit that she thought did nothing for his feathery complexion. The shirt he wore was a bright, warm blue. The child-size scarf around his neck was apple red. "You’re She-Hulk. Could hear you coming a mile away."

"Sorry?"

"You’re going to be," he said. He blew out a long and loud breath. "They’re screwing with you, She-Hulk."

"I’m not—"

He tapped his wing to his temple. "Up here. Screwing. I’m pretending that they’re screwing with my yolks up here, but that magic doesn’t work on me."

"It doesn’t?" she asked awkwardly.

He scoffed. Glancing uncertainly around them, Howard the Duck stood on the tips of his feet and whispered conspiratorially, "No. I’m a talking duck, She-Hulk. As if what works on you works on me."

She-Hulk glanced down at him with a furrowed brow. Standing before her was a talking duck, the very one who she knew was kidnapped. Should she gather him up in her arms and leap back toward Alias Investigations? No, she knew she shouldn’t. For one, she doubted Howard would appreciate that… and this was her home now. They both belonged here. But she couldn’t help but fail to fight that niggling feeling that she was here because of him.

"You can’t let them make you lose yourself," he said before he snorted and cleared his throat. "That’s how they get you. And I know you’re with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He’s a good one; terrible at poker."

"I’m not—"

Howard made a noise of annoyance. "The circus isn’t all it’s quacked up to be, She-Hulk. Remember that."

She frowned as she looked at him in amusement. "Did you just make a duck pun?"

Jennifer swore Howard the Duck was smiling. He winked at her before he barked, "Quack!" He turned on his feet and waddled away, but not without glancing over his shoulder pointedly. "Quack!"

Jennifer wasn’t entirely sure what to make of their conversation, but she had a feeling that he had just quacked something wide open that The Ringmaster had been trying to seal tightly shut.

Wherever She-Hulk was, The Ringmaster followed. While it wasn’t in her nature to be suspicious of a friend—he had been nice to her, after all, accepting of who she was for all of her green hulking nature—she felt uneasy every time she walked the circus grounds and saw The Ringmaster not too far away.

Despite wanting to track down Howard the Duck’s trailer, She-Hulk kept to the main grounds and steered clear of the talking duck. Her gut was telling her to keep her distance. Something wasn’t right with The Ringmaster’s kind smiles and overly hospitable nature. While she knew she was his latest performer—and his star, given how he kept uttering of her superior and incredible talents—she found his behaviour suspect. All of his performers were gifted in their own ways. Some were more untrustworthy than a tall green woman.

She-Hulk stood by the cotton candy machine, watching The Ringmaster approach in the murky reflection of the machine’s glass. She pretended to be struggling with working the machine when she knew that all she had to do was plug it in.

"Sensational She-Hulk!" The Ringmaster smiled brightly and clapped his hands together. She-Hulk disliked how his shadow crowded hers on the trimmed and dry grass. The afternoon was lukewarm and his presence made her feel as though she had landed on the sun. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

"You should know, you’ve been following me all day," she muttered.

"Huh?"

She smiled brightly and turned toward him. "Nothing! I’m just nervous. This is more frightening than a courtroom," she said, forcing herself to chuckle nervously. Trish had made her practice at great length her fake laughs. There was the nervous chuckle, the charming and light laugh, and the guffaw that would scare away men like The Ringmaster. She-Hulk had a feeling that laugh would only encourage him.

"Nerves are normal," he said, smiling at her. He looked at her as though she had grown a second head, and she wondered if she had. Something about this circus didn’t feel right. As much as She-Hulk wanted to remember what had prompted her to give up her career as a lawyer and join the circus, she couldn’t remember it. She knew she had a task to complete and it involved Howard the Duck, but informing The Ringmaster of such didn’t feel right, either.

Despite wanting to be the most trusting person at the circus, She-Hulk didn’t wish to expose all of her secrets. Her civilian name might be found in her past now thanks to The Ringmaster’s encouragement to embrace her true self, but something felt off. She couldn’t put her finger on what that was, and whenever she tried to remember, her head spun like she was on the world’s fastest carousel ride.

"Are you all right?" he asked, leaning toward her. His tone had changed and become motherly in an attempt to disarm her, but She-Hulk knew never to fall for such a vocal shift. It was always followed by some lecture from The Hulk. "If you are having doubts…"

"I’m not!" she said earnestly, purposefully taking the bait. Glancing away, she swept her long hair away from her temple and chuckled nervously. "I’m not having any doubts at all. I’m really grateful that the Circus of Emirc has welcomed me."

The Ringmaster brightened at that. "It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?" he asked. When she arched her brow in confusion, he chuckled lightly. "The name. We had to change it due to, uh… some rights, I suppose. It was easier to reverse it than to fight it in a court of law."

She-Hulk cocked her brow even higher. "Reverse it?"

"Isn’t that what you did?" The Ringmaster asked, peering up at her intently. "Go back on everything you thought you were to find your true self? That’s what we strive for at the circus, my dear. We accept everyone for who they are. In fact, we encourage it."

She-Hulk stared at him for a moment too long before she forcefully smiled. "You’re nice," she said for a lack of anything to say.

The Ringmaster tipped his hat in a gentlemanly way of accepting her poor compliment. If he suspected she was being disingenuous, he didn’t catch on. She suspected he didn’t hear many compliments these days.

When he righted himself, he quickly furrowed his brows as his top hat tipped slipped to sit askew on his head. "Oh, dear." He tapped both his hands against the brim to try and straighten it, but he only encouraged it to tilt more. "Is it straight?"

"No, uh…" She-Hulk tilted her head to the side. "More to the right. I mean, the left. My right?"

The Ringmaster fiddled with his hat before he righted it. "Is that better?"

She-Hulk bit her lip as she wondered whether or not she should inform him it was still slightly slanted, but then the spiral target in the centre began to spin.

"Now," he said kindly, his voice warm as though he was standing in front of a crowd ready to be entertained, "I need you to do me a favour, my sensational She-Hulk. The circus is at risk, and it’s up to you, my dearest star performer, to keep it safe."

She-Hulk didn’t think to look away. She couldn’t.

It took them a day and a half to enact their third act.

She-Hulk was in the main tent, glancing at Howard the Duck as he disappeared in and out with a clipboard in hand. He barked orders and flapped his wings to the disdain and annoyance of Bruto the Strongman and Blackwing. The Human Cannonball had taken to chasing Howard the Duck around the tent as though he was at a lake by a park and an overgrown child.

All She-Hulk wanted to do was scoop Howard up in her arms and disappear, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. The desire was strong, but the need to stay put and be on alert as The Ringmaster had suggested was stronger.

It was late in the night when the tent’s lights flickered until they died out. She’d luckily gotten a glimpse of seeing Bruto walk right into one of the podiums The Ringmaster stood on top of before the tent was blanketed in darkness. She-Hulk chuckled at Bruto’s cursing and kept her back to the entrance of the tent. She knew that wasn’t where they’d come from.

After moments of scuffling and loud cursing, Daredevil swung into view on the trapeze high inside the tent. The lights switched on to show him swinging gracefully, even though She-Hulk could see the gracelessness and uncertainty in some of his movements. She kept her gaze on him, ready to catch him if he fell—and didn’t question the urge as she should’ve.

With the performers distracted, the curtain ripped open on the opposite side of the tent. Before Bruto could even turn his bulk around, Jessica punched him so hard he went flying and collided with one of the audience stands.

She-Hulk pulled her shoulders back, but she kept her feet still. She stayed where she was as she watched Hellcat flip into view and kick Blackwing between his shoulder blades. He fell gracelessly onto the ground, winded for only a moment.

But that was all anyone needed.

She watched Daredevil as he gracefully descended from the trapeze high above them. She felt the urge to shadow him so she could catch him if fate chose to change the trajectory of his dive, but a more sinister inkling emerged from the back of her mind. She kept her gaze tightly focused on him as she clasped her hands into tight fists. And as Daredevil dove closer and began to curl his body into a ball like The Human Cannonball, She-Hulk easily extended her arm and swatted him as though he was a fly.

He crashed into the stands with a satisfying grunt. She-Hulk growled, baring her teeth, and turned on her heel to find Hellcat inching her way toward her. She stopped, her reflexes quick. As She-Hulk began to turn toward her, Hellcat leapt.

She-Hulk raised her arm to protect herself, but Hellcat was faster. She flipped in the air and landed on She-Hulk’s back, easily looping her legs around her middle. She wrapped her arms around her chest and pulled at She-Hulk as though she was something easy to command. But She-Hulk dug her feet into the ground and roared, the sound causing the world around them both to tremble.

The Ringmaster stood on his entertainment podium, positioning himself higher than She-Hulk. He held his megaphone in his hand as the target on his hat spun. "My sensational She-Hulk!" he cried, his voice echoing sharply around them. "You mustn’t let them hurt the circus! This is your family. Remember what I told you family does for each other!"

She-Hulk tensed beneath Hellcat and screamed when three sharp claws tore at her shoulder. She bucked Hellcat off of her quickly, sending her shooting through the air toward another set of stands.

The Ringmaster giggled in the megaphone as Bruto the Strongman took a punch from Jessica Jones. He barely stumbled back, but he took a brief moment to shake his head and catch his breath. It was all Jessica needed. She-Hulk advanced quickly, her purposeful footsteps making the earth shudder beneath her.

Before she could reach Jessica and throw her across the tent, Daredevil tackled her. She fell to the ground with a grunt as he sat on top of her, pressing his hands down against her shoulders as he tried to keep her at bay.

"Jen," he said breathlessly, his voice tinged sharp with desperation. He clung to her shoulders as though she was his saving grace. "Jen! You need to listen."

"I don’t need to listen to you, golden boy."

He quirked his lips. "You’re still in there."

She scrunched up her nose as though she had just sucked on a whole lemon. She didn’t know why that made her want to roll her eyes and tease him right back. Of course, she was still in there. Where the hell else would she be?

"You need to fight this," he said desperately. When she tugged her shoulders off the ground, he shoved her back down. She-Hulk knew that she could throw him off of her. All she had to do was pick a shoulder and focus all of her strength on that side of her body. But she didn’t want to.

She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to hurt any of them. But the desire to do so was so strong it drowned her, and all she wanted to do was give into that incredible sensation. All she wanted to do was be cradled by that comforting bliss of giving over to instinct and impulse.

"You can do this," Jessica shouted angrily. She grunted as she punched Bruto the Strongman square in the jaw. He went flying, not quite as high as Hellcat or Daredevil had under She-Hulk’s fist, but he went far enough to break a set piece.

With Bruto on the ground, Jessica easily smacked Blackwing away. Hellcat dove from the shadows and tackled Livewire, pelting him to the ground until he was unconscious. Jessica advanced toward the entertainment podium where The Ringmaster stood.

"She-Hulk!" he cried, his voice shaking. "She-Hulk! I need you!"

Despite his cries, She-Hulk remained on the ground beneath Daredevil. He pressed down hard against her shoulders as if he feared she’d try and fight him again… and something in that desperation made She-Hulk release a breath and the tension in her shoulders.

"She-Hulk! They don’t care for you! They care only about what you are to them! You make them feel normal! You make them feel—don’t touch that! Give that back!" The Ringmaster grunted as he tugged his megaphone back from Hellcat. But Hellcat was stronger as she dug her sharp heel into the podium and wrenched the megaphone from his hands.

But it wasn’t Hellcat’s voice that echoed around the tent. "You need to fight this," Jessica said. "I get that it’s easy. I get that falling into it makes you feel like everything’s better. But you’re Jennifer Walters," she said breathlessly as Hellcat easily captured The Ringmaster in a headlock. His hat fell to the ground. "And you’re She-Hulk. I have no idea how to do these stupid inspirational speeches, but you need to fight this. You’re more than anything he ever said."

"She’s right," Daredevil said from atop her.

"I like it," She-Hulk said quietly. "They accept me."

Daredevil shook his head. "They want She-Hulk," he said.

"Who do you want?" she asked. She-Hulk remained boneless on the ground beneath him, finding his weight grounding. The Ringmaster continued to squeal and struggle in Hellcat’s headlock.

He let out an amused breath. "You," he said. "Thought it was kind of obvious."

Jennifer stared up at him before she narrowed her eyes. "That’s the sappiest shit I’ve ever heard."

"But you like it, right?" he asked, releasing the tight grip on her shoulders. He didn’t slip off of her. Jennifer didn’t begrudge him that. After the life he had lived, she suspected he’d been in positions like this where things seemed to be going in the right direction before he was sucker punched with a twist.

She stared at him with parted lips, gently clenching her teeth together. The circus had felt like freedom to be who she could be as She-Hulk. An accepted member of society. Someone amongst a group of people just like her—outcasts. But She-Hulk was more than being different.

"You know," Jennifer smirked, "you’re kind of hot on top of me."

Matt chuckled, shaking his head.

"Are you blushing?" she asked. "I think you are. It’s cute."

"That’s exactly what I want to hear while I’m trying to save your life."

"Would you rather I insult you?"

He shrugged as he pursed his lips. "It keeps things fresh."

"If you two are done flirting," said a deeper voice, followed by a snort, "we have some ass kickin’ to do!" When she turned toward the voice, Jennifer was startled to see a determined and angry Howard the Duck standing beside them.

Matt shifted off of her and remained on his knees beside her. Jennifer rested her weight on her hands as she remained on the ground, lifting her back off the hard floor. They stared dumbly after Howard as he stomped toward where Jessica and Trish were.

"Do you think…?"

She shook her head. "He said he’s immune to the spinny thing."

"Mind manipulation," he murmured.

"Spinny thing."

"Which is how he controlled your mind."

"Thing that spins."

Matt sighed in exasperation as he glanced back at her in amusement. Jennifer shrugged a shoulder, ignoring her embarrassing flush. She was grateful he didn’t feel the need to inform her that she had been weak enough to be mind controlled. Making a joke of everything felt like the better way to handle things.

Howard approached the podium, taking great big steps to reach the centre. Trish glanced at him in confusion before he nodded at her. She reluctantly let go of The Ringmaster, who straighten the lapels of his jacket but not his lopsided topcoat.

Howard stood with his wings perched on his hips. "I’m a duck, not a chicken!"

"Mr Duck," The Ringmaster said, his voice quivering. He held his hands out in front of him in an attempt to placate him, but that only made Howard’s feathers fluff out in anger. "I mean no disrespect—You are a valued member of Circus Emirc. A very valued member—"

"Oh, shush!" Howard quacked. "I’ll give you a quack-a-doodle-doo!" He swiftly kicked The Ringmaster’s shin hard enough to make the other man crumble and grasp it.

Trish and Jessica glanced at one another and shrugged. "I think he’s got it," Trish said loudly, glancing toward them on the ground.

Matt nodded, looking around to see the other members of the circus sluggishly rise to their feet. "Anyone got some rope? Figure we could do a Spider-Man special here."

The fabric of the tent glowed red as the official backup arrived. Trish’s contact was a tall gentleman with a grey beard and thinning hair. He looked exhausted by the mere sight of the four of them. He seemed to grow more tired when he glanced beyond them and saw the circus performers tied to one of the tent’s pillars. Jennifer wished they had found a piece of paper so she could leave a Spider-Man specialised note.

"It’s about time you showed up," Jessica said, blowing her hair away from her face.

Secretary Ross glared at her before he shifted his gaze to Trish. His expression didn’t soften at all as Jennifer expected it to. "Thanks for helping us catch him again."

"Again?" Trish asked, furrowing her brows in confusion.

Secretary Ross sighed. "The Circus of Crime—or the Circus of Emirc, as they uncreatively like to call themselves at times—is well known to the authorities and the U.S. Government, Miss Walker."

Even Matt stared at Secretary Ross with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"So, why didn’t you guys shut them down the moment they came here?" Jessica asked as she frowned deeply.

Ross shrugged. "Been busy." When he looked at Jennifer, he exhaled roughly through his nose. His entire demeanour seemed to deflate. "Hulk business."

"But I didn’t—"

"Other Hulk business," Ross corrected.

Jennifer parted her lips in a silent 'Oh'.

"Ow!" Ross jerked sharply. Leaning down to rub at his calf, he turned and frowned at Howard the Duck.

"I’m still here!" Howard the Duck said, frowning deeply.

"Yes, yes," Ross said, rubbing at his leg still. He didn’t reprimand Howard as Jennifer expected him to. Instead, he sighed again and looked at them. "He was undercover." Ross looked at Jessica, clearly unimpressed. "We were trying to bring them down inconspicuously."

"That sure didn’t work out for you, huh?" Jennifer said, smiling. When Ross glared at her, she stopped smiling.

"Better get this over with," Ross muttered. Clearing his throat, he pushed past Jennifer and Trish as he declared loudly to a tied-up Ringmaster, "Maynard Tiboldt. You’re under arrest. Again."

"'Maynard'," Jennifer repeated quietly. When Matt pressed his hand against her hip, she turned to him and said incredulously, "That explains so much."

"So," Matt said, ignoring Jennifer, although she could see him smile. He looked at Trish and bowed his head slightly. "Ross was your guy."

She shook her head. "Actually…"

"Matt!"

Matt turned around with a wide, beaming smile on his face. A man around his height with big shoulders appeared from the throng of police and men in suits. He wore a suit himself; a navy blue blazer and tennis shoes that were brighter than the moon.

"Foggy, hey," Matt said.

Jennifer furrowed her brows as she looked at Trish. "Foggy? This is the famous Foggy?"

Trish smiled and crossed her arms against her chest proudly. "My inside man." She lifted her hand to wave at Foggy before she looked at Jennifer and explained, "Matt and Foggy are partners. I originally had Matt as my lawyer, but when he felt that he wasn’t getting through to Ross, he asked Foggy to step in."

"Because his natural charisma is a farce, right?"

Trish chuckled. "I think Ross was a little suspicious of how he knew so much about the Raft. The only people to ever escape it was the Avengers."

"Right."

"And considering that sore spot of Ross’…"

"He didn’t want to poke the bear," Jennifer said, nodding. "It all makes sense." She looked at Matt and Foggy as they glanced around the tent. Matt’s smile hadn’t waned. "I’ve been wondering if he was real. Matt having more than a few friends is such a strange thought."

Trish chuckled, bowing her head. "Sometimes a handful of friends is all you need."

Matt approached them again, still wearing his wide grin. He came to stand beside Jennifer, resting his hand lightly against her back.

"I’d love to hang around and catch up on everything that happened here," Foggy said, smiling at them all before he winced. "But I have to…" He gestured toward where Secretary Ross stood a distance away.

"Of course," Jennifer said, nodding. And she hoped to all the gods who were inside of this circus tent that she had made a good impression with just those two words alone. This was Foggy Nelson, Matt’s best friend and business partner. Nikki already loved Matt (granted, she didn’t exactly have the highest of standards) and all Jennifer wanted was for Foggy Nelson to like her.

"But uh…" Foggy smiled at her before looking at Matt. "Let’s catch up after this mess."

Matt nodded before he smiled a shit-eating smile. "We can have brunch."

Foggy curled up his lip in disgust. "We’re not brunchers."

"You two are definitely assholes who brunch," Jessica said, crossing her arms against her chest as she stood beside Trish. "Think we should give Malcolm a call."

"Of course," Trish said, nodding. She smiled big and wide and bounced on the balls of her feet in excitement, "I’ve got to tell him I won the bet. You gave an inspirational speech! I knew it!"

Jessica rolled her eyes and muttered, "Christ." She didn’t spare a glance toward any of them as she fished for her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and left with Trish by her side.

As Foggy reluctantly walked away, Matt turned to Jennifer and sighed as if he was exhausted. "Can we go home now?"

"Yes!" Jennifer said excitedly as she looped her arm with his. "Except… I mean… Can we stop by the cotton candy? I really need a sugar fix after that awesome performance of yours." Matt rolled his eyes and groaned. "You never told me how flexible you were."

"Can you see why?"

Jennifer scoffed. "No." Matt chuckled.

Howard the Duck approached them, appearing a little sheepish as he glanced back at Ross gathering the circus members and snapping handcuffs on them one at a time. The handcuffs had a small centre that glowed red once their wrists were cuffed.

"It’s meant to nerf them," said Howard, glancing at her and Matt. "A speciality from my Earth."

"Your Earth?" Matt asked. "I didn’t realise…"

"Yeah," Howard blew out his breath, unimpressed. "What? You think talking ducks exist here?" He snorted derisively and turned away, planting his wings on his hips as he surveyed the mess of the circus.

Jennifer gritted her teeth as she glanced at Matt and mouthed 'Awkward' and deliberately pointed at him. He shook his head and smiled as graciously as he could at Howard, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Jennifer spoke instead. "Thanks," she said to the duck. He looked up at her in confusion. "You looked out for me. I appreciated that."

"I figured you were here for me," he said, shrugging. "Was the least I could do."

She nodded, unsure of what to say. But then she turned to Matt and winced. "I’m really sorry I threw you out a window."

Matt waved his hand as he smiled. "It’s all right." At her cocked brow, he chuckled sheepishly and said, "I’ve had worse from girlfriends."

She only arched her brow higher, but this time it wasn’t out of incredulity. She smiled widely. "'Girlfriend'?"

"Ah…" He flushed a nice red.

"That’s cute," Jennifer said, smiling big and wide. She bumped her elbow into his arm. "I’m your girlfriend."

Howard began to gag. Matt laughed, blushing furiously beneath his mask. Even with most of his face obscured, she knew he was turning as red as his previous suit. That suit was nice. It reminded her of ketchup.

"Although," Howard snorted, his voice quacking sightly, "kind of embarrassing how you didn’t figure it out." He looked up at Matt and cocked his brow in a challenge. "Aren’t you meant to be smart with your echolocation? 'The Circus of Emirc'? Who would believe that trite? It was clearly 'crime' written backwards."

Matt laughed and shook his head incredulously as he looked at Jennifer. "Did you put him up to this?"

She waved her hands in an attempt to dismiss herself from being falsely accused. "No, no, no. Even though I was under the influence of the spinny thing—"

"Mind control."

"—I knew that Howard was one duck not to mess with. He does whatever he wants, whenever he wants."

Howard stood a little taller, puffing out his feathers proudly. "Echolocation," he said, shaking his head. When he looked at Matt again in his Daredevil suit, he narrowed his eyes before he gazed up at him respectfully. "The Badger."

"What? No!"

Jennifer snorted and hid her smile behind her hand in an attempt to stop herself from laughing. "That’s not even a Marvel comic, Howard."

Howard furrowed his brows deeply as he gave Daredevil a scrutinising once-over. "What’s with the ears?"

"They’re horns?" Matt glanced at Jennifer, chuckling incredulously. He licked his lips and said, "I’m a devil?"

"You don’t sound so sure."

She planted her hands on her hips as she stood tall and green over the small duck. He didn’t cower. He felt like just as big of a presence as she was. "You know Howard, you are one tough duck," she said.

"Well, my mother hard-boiled my egg so I would be," he said seriously before he shrugged. He muttered something under his breath about annoying humans.

Jennifer raised her eyebrows as she looked at Matt.

"Duck tales," Matt offered.

"Right," she said, nodding. She didn’t bother questioning it. Jennifer had a feeling that if she was going to be Matthew Michael Murdock’s girlfriend, she needed to get used to the impossible. "Well," she said, shrugging, "can this be a She-Hulk Tale? I figure I should consider merch, you know… considering I was the star of The Circus of Crime. She-Hulk Smash. She-Hulk Tales. Maybe She-Hulk Kiss?"

He smiled lopsidedly as he stepped toward her. "I think that sounds like a great idea," he said as he leaned toward her.

Howard gagged as he began to walk away. "Get a room! And tell Nelson I want a rematch at Pictionary! He cheated!"