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Daredevil lands smoothly on the sidewalk and Jean can’t contain a groan. “No, no, no, mister,” she says, shooing him away like she might a bothersome pigeon. “Don’t go getting Toad confused with Leap-Frog, alright? This is MY bad guy. Scram.”
“Just thought you might appreciate a little help.”
“Nope, I’m good,” Jean says. “My team is on the way.”
“They are?”
“They’re coming,” Jean assures him. “Go do your Daredevilling somewhere else. I’ve got this handled.”
A moment later, her “teammates” round the corner. Boom-Boom is panting from running. “Sorry we’re late Je— Marvel Girl,” she huffs. “Rictor slowed us down because he had to stop an old lady from littering.”
“It’s bad for the environment,” Rictor says.
“Go hug a tree, you fuckhead.”
“Oh now I’m the fuckhead? You’re the one who’s a fucking fuckhead—”
“GUYS,” Jean snaps. She can feel Daredevil holding back a laugh, and it makes the petty part of her want to kick him in his stupid shins. The teens are definitely rubbing off on her. “This is still a training mission. Okay? Act like professionals.”
“That’s a tight ship you’re running, there,” Daredevil comments.
Jean clicks her tongue at him. “At least I’m doing something for the next generation of mutants,” she says haughtily. “Instead of just flipping around doing impressive stunts.”
“So you think I’m impressive.”
“No. Shut up!”
“I do plenty for young mutants,” Daredevil says, idly spinning his billy clubs around with one hand. “I took down Bushwhacker.”
Jean doesn’t want to admit that she doesn’t know who that is. He sounds bad. It’s irritating. Daredevil is never more infuriating than when he’s being effortlessly decent. “The mutant community thanks you for your service,” she says icily. “Now, like I said, I’ve got this handled. Scram.”
His amused smile makes her grind her teeth. “If you say so.” Daredevil nods to Rictor and Boom-Boom. “Stay safe out there, kids.” And then he executes a perfect flip off a nearby dumpster to land on a lamppost before swinging himself away, bouncing from building to building until he vanishes from view.
Boom-Boom looks thoroughly impressed. “Are you friends with Daredevil?”
“No!” Jean says, pushing her hair out of her face. “If anything I'm enemies with Daredevil. Yeah. It's Kingpin, Stilt-Man, then me.”
It’s technically the end of Jean’s shift, but the only thing waiting for her back home is a bunch of scared kids and Bobby. She’s supposed to take over watching the kids so Bobby can take over for Hank, standing vigil at Warren’s bedside. She knows they need her. They always need her.
She just needs a few more moments in this greasy kitchen with the fry cook who never seems to demand any performance from her. She can be messy and strung out in front of Matt, and it’s okay.
“Now the courts have declared him incompetent and his wings are gangrened and it's— I don't know what to do,” Jean fills him in. “I don't know how to fix this.”
Matt takes his time picking bacon up off the griddle and setting it in a pan to the side. When he finally turns to face her, his jaw is set, tense. “You said the court declared him incompetent? That's something you can push back on.”
“How?” It’s the stupid real-world stuff she never learned how to do. Stuff the Professor always just hand-waved away for her. Stuff Warren, with all his money, never seemed to worry about.
Matt chews at the inside of his cheek before answering. “I know a good lawyer.”
The lawyer Matt recommends is brilliant. Foggy Nelson might have saved Warren’s wings— his agency and autonomy too— given time. Might have saved his life, given time.
There’s never enough time, with these things.
Foggy brings fresh-baked bread to Warren’s funeral and tells Jean he won’t be charging for his services. He also asks if she wants to pursue an investigation into the people who vandalized Warren’s family mausoleum, but Jean is too consumed with grief to even worry about it right now.
Weeks pass. Warren comes back different. Waitressing takes a backseat to outplotting Hodge and tracking down Scott’s baby. Manhattan goes a little crazy, and when the fires are finally dying down, Jean finds herself staggering into a bar.
She crashes down on the barstool next to Daredevil and takes his beer from him. “Good to see you're alive,” she says, drinking from his bottle.
“Same to you.” He tilts his head back toward the wreckage outside— demonic fire hydrants in ruins, the twisted remains of once-rabid mailboxes, communities and neighborhoods gradually coming back to their senses. “You have anything to do with all that?”
Jean groans. “My evil twin. Sort of. Not really.”
“Ah,” he says.
“Clones.”
“Mm.” He orders another drink to replace the one Jean stole. “I lost a fight with a vacuum cleaner.”
“I psychically experienced the deaths of both my clone and the cosmic entity that impersonated me once.”
“You win.”
They drink. As much as she can’t stand the guy, that irritation is comfortable and familiar. She thinks about Rictor and Boom-Boom, how they make an art form out of bickering. She just had her own soul split in three and braided back together like a friendship bracelet. It’s a pleasure to feel something as normal as annoyance.
“I mean, I guess one good thing came of all this,” Jean sighs. “My telepathic abilities are re-emerging.”
“Is that right?” Daredevil says, and Jean can practically hear him trying not to think something. And really, she doesn’t mean to pry , but it’s been such a long day—
“You motherfucker,” Jean hisses.
Matt Murdock at least has the decency to look sheepish. “In my defense, you never asked my name.”
“The whole time? At the diner?”
“That’s why I followed you that night, after you slipped up in front of me. With the salt.”
“This whole time I thought you were just a nosy bastard,” Jean says. “And I was right. You’re a nosy bastard fry cook lawyer.”
Daredevil— Matt— holds up his beer in a toast. “That’s what it says on my license.”
“You’re such a dick,” Jean says.
She clinks her beer bottle against his.