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It had been some time since Jessica had gone out on a good old fashioned peep-and-snap, or whatever Malcolm was calling these jobs now in an effort to make them sound less, well, shitty. Whatever, if someone's lousy partner wants to run off and bang the nearest hot waitress or some shit, she may as well profit from it. Besides, she's beginning to drift towards needing-the-money territory. No good deed goes unpunished by less than generous pay cheques.
So, it is with few substantial misgivings that Jessica finds herself looking up and down an orange-washed street to make sure nobody is around to see her launch up the side of a ten storey building, and run along a roof towards a naughty naughty Mr Cheater, who should theoretically be visible across the street from the other side of the apartment block. It is not the clearest night. Atmospheric, really. All drizzle and steam, mostly orange city lights splashing on every slick surface and throwing thick shadows in a bunch of different directions. Very noir. Maybe she should start monologuing or something. Might distract her from the cold, greasy rain that is continuously rolling off her pleather collar and down her neck, or the puddle water that is soaking steadily in through a hole in the toe of her left boot. Screw the rent, this paycheck might have to go towards something more substantial to go on her feet. Or a hood that is actually waterproof. It does mean though, that the affairees are unlikely to spot her.
Jessica hugs the back of a soggy air conditioning unit and pokes her head around the side. Sure enough, the lights are on in number 18 and the blinds up. Typical set-up, sofa, wine... You'd think these people would mix things up sometimes. She snaps a few pictures, capturing a good sloppy kiss before she has to pause to wipe the rainy lens. She sighs and prepares to settle down and wait for something juicer to start happening.
Jessica is leaning, bored, against the cold bite of the stainless steel that's steadily leeching all heat from her shoulder, hip flask half raised to her lips, when she catches a movement in the corner of her eye. To the left of Mr Cheater's building is a lower roof, and if she's not very much mistaken... She squints through the rain and stares. Very slowly, she looks from her flask of whiskey to the spectacle of a bunch of black clad acrobatic figures who look suspiciously ninja-ish fighting a dude who seems to be wearing an actual devil costume. She replaces the lid and slips the whiskey back into her jacket pocket.
"Ninjas." She says out loud, on the off chance that doing so will cause normality to return to the universe. "And that devil guy. Right." As if he can hear her from two roofs over, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen or Daredevil or whatever people are calling him now, turns his head right at her during a brief respite in his ninja-battle. She turns to make sure there are no more black clad flippy guys about to run towards him from behind her or something, to find that she is in fact alone on her roof.
Three of them come at him in quick succession and he takes three hits all at once. He reels backwards and just manages to weave out of the way of the next couple of attacks. Jessica realises she's half way through taking the camera from around her neck. She stops and frowns hard, looking between the unfolding adultery on the left and the admittedly much more exciting street fight (or roof fight, really) to the right. With a small, resigned sigh, she stashes the camera on a grate inside the air con chute and shakes her head.
"What are you getting into Jones?" She mutters, and then takes a running jump over the street and towards the action.
Ninjas are, it turns out, not above hair-grabbing, a realisation she manages to recover from by giving the offending guy a good smart two footed jump kick right into his buddy. They both end up in a heap at the bottom of the wall of the taller building. She picks herself up off the concrete, shouts out "Ow! Play fair!" in their direction, gesturing at her head, and then yanks another one away from the devil guy by his shoulders. He watches as she easily chokes him out despite his struggles. She swats one of the other two in his direction as he tries to assist his friend. Devil-guy punches him out. Jessica lets the now unconscious ninja drop to the ground. Devil-guy is panting a little from taking out the many black-clad figures spread all over the roof- presumably the fight had been going on for some time before she spotted him- head at an angle and presumably looking at her, though she can see now that the eyes of his mask are shaded out so it's hard to tell.
"Thanks." He says eventually with a little nod.
"No problem. What are you going as?" She can’t help but show her amusement at his outfit. It’s armoured though so she supposes it’s not entirely impractical.
"I'm uh, I'm the Devil of Hell's Kitchen." He says with an unsure little shrug.
"Yeah, I figured that one out. Didn't realise you actually dressed like that, with the red and the horns and the mask..."
"Not a fan of masks?" He waves a hand at her, well, lack of one. She shrugs and fishes the flask out of her pocket.
"Drink?" Jessica tilts it at him. He shakes his head. "Suit yourself. Heh. Looks like you did that already." She smirks and takes a swig.
"You seem pretty strong, Miss..."
"Hey hey hey, you don't get names if all I get is the whole..." She waves a hand vaguely at his costume. Probably doesn't recognise her from the news, then. He smiles at that.
"Fair enough."
"I did just save your life." She watches for a reaction but he doesn’t move. "From the uh, correct me if I'm wrong, ninjas." She takes another drink. "So what happens now, you just leave them there?"
"Can't really deliver ten ninjas to the cops." She snorts.
"You do that?"
"Sometimes."
"Jesus." She mutters and shakes her head. "Well anyway, you better get going then." She begins to consider the best position to get back across.
"Where are you going?" She glances at him over her shoulder.
"Someone is paying me a lot of money for some photos."
"Of me?" His voice is sharp suddenly, like he's been lurking around the edge of the subject for some time and now he has her.
"What?" She turns to him. "No? Someone's cheating husband. Dirty photos." She clarifies, speaking slowly like he's stupid, even though honestly it does seem like a huge logical jump. Pictures of The-Devil-of-Hell's-Kitchen would sell pretty well.
"You're not following me?" He says blankly. She laughs.
"Ego much? No, I was just over there and I spotted you flailing around. Thought you might need a hand." She shakes her head. "Honestly, you do a guy a favour..." She does a running jump back to her original rooftop. She checks behind her and he's gone.
It's not until she's snapping some very incriminating photographs that she hears footsteps behind her. He must have found some way around. Can't jump thirty feet in one go, then.
"See? Cheating husband, rich pissed off wife." She gestures.
"And this is what you do, is it?" He sounds disappointed of all things. Jessica doesn't look up from her perfectly focused view through the long lens.
"Uh huh. I know it doesn't face up to jailing crime lords and giving black clad Japanese men a concussion but some of us have lives outside of our hobbies." She takes one last shot and straightens up, rolling her head around her shoulders to give him a sideways look.
"So are we gonna part ways before someone sends more guys for you to kick in the head, or do you still not trust me about the photos?" He stands very still for a few seconds, but then he seems to relax a little. He nods.
"See you around, Jones." And then he's doing some fancy free-running business away across the rooftops before Jessica registers quite what he said.
*
"Jones." The voice is a dark whisper. Jessica spins on the spot and her vision flashes purple for the briefest moment, but then her eyes adjust to the darkness in the alleyway and she sees him. The horned silhouette would make any regular person less, not more, at ease, but Jessica is a little beyond thinking of herself as 'regular' by now.
"Oh. It's you." She takes a few steps towards him and out of sight. He inclines his head at her a little.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Close up, he's clearly pale and in need of a shave, even in the darkness. Whatever spectral quality he projects to the criminal underworld were sort of lost to her the moment she saw him out of breath on a rooftop.
“That your Batman voice?” She says, unconcerned. His melodramatics honestly serve to kill his intimidation potential for her. It’s like the damn haunted mansion at Disneyworld, just too cheesy to be a real scare.
“If you’ve been looking for me, you can’t have looked too hard, I actually advertise.” She shrugs.
He just sort of nods again. “I’m actually on my way to deliver some photographs for my latest money grabbing sell-out job so if you’re here to judge me you’re in luck…”
“I never called you a sell-out.” He’s hardly smiling but it’s there, lurking at the corners of his mouth like something he won’t allow to grow.
“Mm you’re right, I did that.” She smiles a little in an attempt to coax another one out of him, but he keeps his expression as stony as you’d expect from a guy who spends his nights punching his way around the criminal underworld of New York.
“I have information you might like to use.” He says, and his voice is kind of smooth all of a sudden. “Or my associate does.”
“Associate? I barely trust you enough to talk to you.”
“You’ll like her.”
“How can you know that? You don’t know me.” He just raises one shoulder minutely and remains otherwise impassive.
“Intuition.” And maybe it’s intuition that has Jessica take down the address and time in the little black notebook Malcolm bought her, maybe it’s just the reputation of this guy that lets her trust him just enough to believe that he’s returning a favour.
*
The woman is blonde and slender and Jessica reads her very pale eyes as soft for all of two seconds before she looks deeper. Karen Page shakes her hand and scoops her fingers along the line of her skirt to arrange it as she sits back down. The sun is behind her, illuminating her hair in a sort of halo and casting a beam of light through the dense coffee in the pot she seems to be over half way through. There’s something business-like about her posture. Not hard and dead inside from years of shouldering her way through a masculine profession like Hogarth, but a sort of eagerness that could be read as naivety were it not for the flare of focus in her eyes.
“So, Jessica Jones.” Karen says, smiling, at ease, or at least projecting that sense to put Jessica at ease. She’s going to have to watch this one. She slides a folder towards her, flat against the table, and releases it. “Here is what I have. I believe it will be a little further than you’ve dug so far, but we’ve been on this for a little longer than you have.” Jessica takes the folder and flicks through, letting a smile spread as she takes in some of the details.
“So it’s the Chinese. I had my money on straight up embezzlement.” Karen leans towards her a touch.
“Well there’s no concrete evidence that will stand up in court, but that’s where we are.” Karen says with a lip twitch that makes Jess want to smile right back.
“You a PI?” Jessica squints at her.
“Investigative journalist.” Karen says. Jess nods.
“Any idea how a PI might get a bit closer to some of this concrete evidence?” And Karen smiles and her eyes lock with Jessica’s like a vice. A red hot determination that has been tempered by lost causes and failure and has come out strong and unbent.
“No entirely legal ones.” She says at a slightly breathless undertone. Jessica feels her mouth twitch.
“Well that’s too bad.”
*
“Matt Murdock.” Jessica greets him with a smile she would punch off the face of anyone doing it to her. Doing a ‘background check’ on Karen (which makes it sound a lot less creepy than it probably was) was all it took to start connecting the dots. If she’s honest, the blind thing would have kept her off the truth, only he has a very distinctive mouth and jaw line. It’s the media coverage of the speech about vigilantism during the Frank Castle case that luckily for her had caused so much controversy that did it though. All she needed to confirm it was to pop in to see Hogarth and make idle conversation with Mr Frankin ‘Foggy’ Nelson about the trial and watch how his hands bunch up around his coffee cup when she says his name. A reaction she couldn’t even replicate by bringing up Frank Castle, despite the manner in which it all ended.
But to her extreme irritation, Matt Murdock smiles widely for the first time and nods his head in her approximate direction. She scowls because dammit, he knew she’d work it out and he could trust her with that and that’s annoying in ways that she can’t even figure out her way around. Later, he takes off his mask when they have their by now semi-traditional rooftop takeout. Neither of them say anything more about it, neither of them are much for chatting beyond their usual comfortably stinging banter anyway, only Jessica has something to call him now other than impersonal-sounding nicknames, and at least once he calls her ‘Jess’ without meaning to.
*
Some friendships are forged in fire, some in break-ins and dubiously named cocktails. Karen’s explosively nervous laugh, hand over her mouth the first time she witnesses Jessica boot in a door with a badly landed but nonetheless successful front kick, is enough to convince Jessica that it is time to introduce her to Trish. A mistake, as it turns out, because Karen and Trish click in a way that Jessica is wholly unprepared for and the next thing she knows, Trish is drunkenly insisting on Krav Maga lessons. Trish slaps the table with one hand. Her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is pressed together. Jess knows that look well and is mostly just relieved that it isn’t directed at her.
“-because guns are just traitorous when you least expect it!” Trish says, probably louder than strictly necessary. A few regulars glance around and then quickly back when they catch the expression on her face. They may be drunk but they aren’t stupid. Karen nods in fierce agreement, fervently insisting,
“Guns will let you down every time!” with more anger than she has any right to assign to an inanimate object. Jessica doesn’t ask. Before the night is out, they have regularly scheduled sessions, twice a week, one with Trish’s instructor and one without, and no amount of super strength can do anything to alleviate Jessica’s chilled spine at the thought of Karen with the ability to kill a man with her bare hands. She resolves to apologise deeply to Matt, first chance she gets.
*
"This place is a dump, Murdock."
"See, this is why I keep you around, for your helpful sighted person commentary."
"Pff keep me around. I only even see you twice a month, and that's if you're dealing with a particularly heavy ninja problem." She doesn't add that he's been known to appear and efficiently clear up brawls for her, mostly because it's annoying and she has those covered anyway.
"Well that's the idea, to change that." He says with a little smile. Jess frowns.
"I have enough of my own shit without being your sidekick, Matt."
"I was thinking more 'partner'." Jessica stiffens a little in surprise at that. He's got his head cocked at that weird diagonal angle that is his way of watching someone intently. “And it wouldn’t be just us. There’s a few others I can think of to recruit.”
"Can't you just work out it’s a dump with your like, nose or whatever." She says, kicking at a loose lump of brick off the edge of the platform and looking around again. Subway stations are pretty hideous when they're in use, add a good few years dilapidation on top of all that regular grime and you're left with... Well it didn't exactly look like a reasonable place to put a base of operations.
*
It’s Foggy who convinces her, in the end. They have this infrequent habit of falling into step if Foggy happens to be leaving the office at the same time as her, their feet conspiring against the both of them and taking them to the nearest, grimiest bar. He knows she knows by now, having sort of gravitated back to Matt who it seems is trying his hardest to keep nothing from Foggy now, however unimportant. Though, Jessica is important enough for him to use the word partner which is complicated enough to think about without accidentally saying the word to Foggy after a few drinks. He stops mid work-strained grin. It just topples out of his reach before he can catch it. He quickly hitches on another, faker one and tilts his head away from her. He only gives himself a second of hair-hidden privacy and then he’s back looking at her again.
“Hey great.” He says, and it’s genuine, if a little tired. “If Matt has an official babysitter that’s one less thing to worry about.”
“I’ll watch his back, OK?” Jessica says, even though she knows Foggy well enough now to realise that he’s always going to worry about Matt.
“So what’s the place? How does a blind guy go about searching out a base anyway?”
Jessica wrinkles up her nose.
“I dunno apparently he just sniffs out the most dirt, it’s an abandoned subway station.”
Foggy snorts into his vodka-and-whatever, but then his forehead folds in the middle.
“Isn’t that sort of how you guys roll, though? It seems pretty much in-keeping with your aesthetic.”
“I feel like I should be insulted.”
“Nah you’re always way up to your neck in whatever gross street-level bullshit you take it upon yourself to wade though, think of it like urban chic.” He holds up a hand like the words have appeared in the air and waves his glass cheerfully.
“Foggy.”
“C’mon you can’t deny it has a certain style to be making like a bunch of superpowered hobos.”
“Really?”
“Yeah I mean it’s gotta be an improvement from all that falling in and out of dumpsters you people are so fond of.” He’s edging towards bitter now so Jessica slaps him on the back and gets to her feet.
“I’ll think about it. Finish your drink, we’re getting some food.”
***
"What dumpster did you pull this one out of?" Jessica says, looking the new guy up and down somewhat critically. He's wearing all dark green sport-looking clothes with yellow trims and a dumb bandanna mask on his head. Though 'dumb' is sort of a relative concept with Mr-Devil-Costume standing a only few feet away.
"It wasn't a dumpster." The new guy says brightly. "It was a basement parking lot." Jessica drops her head and then swings it at Matt with an unimpressed expression that he presumably won't be able to fully appreciate.
"Really?"
"Danny, would you be so kind as to demonstrate for my friend here?" Matt says softly, a little smile dancing at the corners of his mouth.
"No problem, Matt."
"You're on first name terms?" Jess says despairingly. "I had to do research." She says and glares. Matt shifts and shrugs. He has the grace to look a little sheepish at least.
"That trash can over there has seen better days, maybe use that." Matt gestures and paces up beside Jess to watch. He folds his arms and smiles a bit. 'Danny' moves right down the other end of the alleyway and drags a banged up, knocked over bin over to stand opposite him. He slips into a loose kind of fighting stance, fancier than Matt's, does a weird weaving thing.
"What's he doing?" Jess says in an undertone.
"Just watch."
"He's still doing it."
"Yeah trust me."
Without warning, Danny moves in a ripple like an uncoiling spring and the motion flows through his body to his extending fist and right into the can. There's a sharp crack. It pings backwards and crumples against the opposite wall. It drops to the floor and Jess quickly closes her mouth from where it dropped open.
Jessica steps forward as he follows the motion through and then relaxes.
"What's your name?" She extends a hand.
"Iron Fist." He says seriously. She takes his apparently normal hand in hers and shakes it.
"...Really?" She says, looking from him to Matt with an eyebrow cocked, not sure if she should be laughing. He sighs.
"Daniel Rand."
"Jessica Jones."
*
Impromptu meetings in the base have been increasingly frequent since Danny, unexpectedly wealthy for a green onesie wearing ninja type, installed a staggeringly expensive coffee machine in the base. "Listen to this one." Jessica says, trying to keep the smile of delight from more than just twitching at her features. She's holding a newspaper she snagged off the subway. Matt is demonstrating his inability to simultaneously be a nocturnal vigilante and a morning person at the same time. Then again, he was probably not so much a morning person pre-heroing if she's any judge of character. He's sat on one of the breakfast stools nursing a mug of something with probably one too many espresso shots in it. "Green Man joins Red Man in quest for street safety." Jessica reads out. Matt groans loudly and Jess looks around in time to see him drop his head against the counter top.
"Another one?" He complains, voice muffled.
"You really started something Karen." Jess smiles.
"It's 'Iron Fist.'" Grumbles Danny.
"My title was catchier than that." Karen says, openly smug.
"Is this revenge?" Matt says faintly, forehead still against the counter. Karen smiles, and it's actually the scariest thing Jessica has seen since she first saw Claire hit full lecture mode at Matt.
"Would I do that?" She says with piercing innocence. Matt groans again, but sits up and takes a big dramatic gulp of coffee.
"Want some whiskey with that?" Jessica says, amused.
"I'm thinking about it." Matt says.
"Are they really calling me 'The Green Man'?" Danny pouts. "That's what catches on?"
"What and 'Iron Fist' is catchier?"
"It's..." Danny shrugs. "It's not any less catchy than 'Daredevil’, is it?"
"Man's got a point. Maybe I'll try and set a better trend for you next time, Danny, sort of a breakaway act from the uh, traffic signal thing." Karen muses.
***
Turns out, burning buildings don't disrupt cellphone signal. At least, Danny does appear to be leaving a voicemail message, not doing his “Iron Fist” voice, though it's sort of hard to catch the words through the roaring flames. Then again, Danny's grasp on technology and how to use it is budding at best. "Who did you call?" Jess shouts over the noise instead of coughing which is currently her only instinct.
"Told you, I know a guy, owes me a favour."
"Apparently not enough of one to pick up his phone!" Jess meant it to come out sort of darkly ironic but her voice has a bit of an unsteady edge to it and that makes it sound more or less as desperate as she feels. She can't really bring herself to feel bad about that, under the circumstances. Matt has gone a bit wide-eyed and has long since stopped trying to kick uselessly at the reinforced door. Jessica actually tried everywhere in the room before settling on the ground in the corner to avoid the thickening smoke. Danny has gone back to trying his stupid super punch thing on the lock but it has to be vibranium or some shit because even Jessica's repeated kicks did nothing. Everyone is sweating buckets and flushed, and to make things worse, the screaming from the other side of the door has got sort of weak sounding.
"It's ok kids..." Matt calls through, sounding more convinced than he looks. "Just stay near the ground ok? Try not to breathe the smoke."
"Ok- t-thank you-" the girl on the other side of the door says- the oldest at maybe fourteen at most- who has risen to the responsibility of looking after the others quite admirably, as if that will do them any good.
"We need a crowbar." Danny says for maybe the 5th time.
"I'm so glad you're here to tell us these things." Jess says, glad that Danny is giving her an easy target for her nervous sarcasm, and hoping his phone call gives her reason to say that again with more honesty. "Please tell me you mentioned that in your message."
*
The building is the hottest place Jessica has ever been, and she's been in the bed of the man who shoulders through the burning door with a crowbar in his hands and that familiar square-jawed scowl.
"Oh holy shit." Jess mutters without meaning to. Matt, of course, hears her over the roar and crackle and she is suddenly glad that the heat means her face physically can't get any redder. Luke hasn't seen her yet, he's crossed straight to Danny who is briefing him on what is happening, she guesses from the way he's nodding seriously. His shirt is on fire. He doesn't appear to mind.
"History?" Matt's eyebrow raises.
"Shut up." Jess avoids looking in Luke's direction. She's sees him double-take quite clearly in her peripheral vision. To his credit, he only stares for a few seconds before going to the door, working in the crowbar and heaving. The metal whines audibly but the door doesn't move. Jess wants to stand up and help but she's caught staring. It takes an actual tug on her arm from Matt to get her to move, and even then she's hesitant. Luke looks up at her and she forces her face in the direction of an apologetic smile but it is probably more of a grimace by the time the expression gets there. She bypasses speaking and gestures to the bar, because time is of the essence, even if nerves are trying to convince her body otherwise. He just nods before looking away and rearranging his grip on the bar so that there is space for her hands.
Between Luke and Jess, the door screeches open. They pile in and all grab as many kids as they can carry which turns out to be all of the smaller ones, then then it's just the race to leave the building before it collapses. Jess compulsively does one more headcount as the sirens draw close enough for Matt- who has replaced his helmet- to start edging towards the nearby alleyway through force of habit.
"You did good, kid." She tells the eldest girl, gives her a quick hair ruffle that feels awkward to her but makes the girl smile.
"Thanks strong lady!" She calls after her as Jess jogs to catch up with the other three who are already half out of sight when the flashing lights round the corner.
Somehow, the two ninja-y ones leave her to free run back to base and she's left to lead Luke there herself. Maybe it's by design. It's more or less impossible to know with Danny and in Matt's case it almost certainly is. Assholes.
"So uh, how you been?" She says in a voice that she maybe would have successfully wrestled into casual tone if her throat didn't still sting from smoke inhalation. She actually sort of wishes she wasn't covered in soot with a fair amount of ash in her hair, but it's not as if Luke ever cared about things like that anyway. He doesn't answer for some time, but then eventually he sighs a bit.
"Been out of town."
"You look good." She says because a shameless cliché is just about preferable to an awkward silence.
"You too, Jones." He says, voice surprisingly soft. "You got him, hmm?" She smiles a bit with her head down and kicks at a car-crushed can, hands in her pockets. It skips all the way across the road and rebounds off a wall.
"Yeah, yeah I did."
"Good." He says. She looks up to see him half smiling down at her. "Only way sometimes."
"Word of warning, uh Daredevil, he does sort of agree with that line of thinking, but maybe try not to say it out loud. You know, if you're going to be sticking around."
"So what do I pass your side of the interview process already?"
"I think you did that a while ago." Jess smiles but can't keep it from being a sad one.
They walk in silence for a bit.
"How is it you know D-Iron Fist anyway?" Jess saves quickly. Luke doesn’t necessarily know the whole secret identity. Luke snorts.
"Is that really what he goes by?" He shakes his head. "Met Danny a while back, he got me out of a tight spot and, well you probably know how he is. Easy company. Called each other in on some fights, I owed him a favour, here I am."
"Sounds like a story you should both tell over some drinks some time. Thought you weren't into the whole ‘saving people’ gig?” Luke shrugs.
“Seems like trouble kinda follows me around either way. Figured I may as well.”
Luke looks around doubtfully.
“This is your base?”
“That's what I said at first.” Jess says. “But that's before Danny got on board and installed an entire gym. It's in a convenient location, we have cameras set up, there's a coffee machine…”
“You sound like a real estate agent.” Luke has his arms folded but he's smiling.
“I liked it from the beginning.” Danny says smugly, lying flat on his back with his feet up on the arm of the couch.
“You would.”
“How often do you meet?” Luke is inspecting the little kitchen area now.
“We aren't that organised.” Matt says, leaning quietly against the wall in the corner. “Any time there's big trouble we just sort of…”
“Assemble?” Luke smirks.
“Something like that.” Matt’s doing the face he does when he knows he's won. Hogarth has one of those, it's a lawyer thing. Luke paces around a little, sticks his head through into the gym and smiles.
“Hey well it looks like you people could use a little structure.”
“Is that a yes.”
“It's a yes.”
*
Luke brings with him a pace and a sense of routine which Jessica wasn't expecting to thread itself so thoroughly through her haphazard excuse for a schedule. Her life previously was a mess of deadlines and inconsistent sleeping and working hours. Now there's a regularity to meetings, shared cases and social meet-ups. Luke didn't entirely suggest or enforce or really even direct most of it. There's a sense of a steady kind of enthusiasm, a clear direction. Jessica suspects he feels he is making up for lost time in a way, that his drive comes partly from avoiding doing just this for so long. It's certainly a clear 180 from his original stance. Avoid drama, avoid complications, head down, don't get involved. These days he still doesn't wear a mask but he gets a subtle little blaze in his eyes that Jessica recognises. A sort of excitement, but also the satisfaction that only /doing something/ can give you.
They start getting mentions in the papers. It's polarised, these things always are, in Jess's experience. They're a public menace or...
"Defenders." Karen says, slapping the paper into the kitchen counter. Jess immediately barks out a laugh. Trish is grinning in huge amusement but patting her on the back, as if this is some award they've won or something. Matt's chuckling quietly, sort of breathless and surprised sounding.
"Defenders? Really?"
"Sounds about right, if you ask me." Luke says with a small smile. His eyes are twinkling.
"Not the first article that calls you that." Karen clarifies. "It's your widespread nickname now."
"Well at least it's already short and punchy." Matt says with a small sigh. "So it's unlikely to devolve into anything shorter."
"Still not loving the whole 'Daredevil' thing huh." Karen says without looking up. There's an edge to her voice, even now, that gets Matt shifting uncomfortably.
"He's dramatic." Jess shrugs. "Prefers it all mystical." Trish lowers her voice and puts her hands over her mouth to get it as bassy as she can.
"Beware the Devil of Hell's Kitchen..." She rumbles and Jess entirely fails to keep her face straight.
"Well in that case you have nothing to worry about because trust me, 'Daredevil' is plenty dramatic." Jess opens her mouth to say /anything/ to diffuse the tension but Danny beats her to it with his customary mild lack of social understanding.
"Devil of Hell's Kitchen does have more of a ring to it." He says with total sincerity that melts into confusion when that causes a fair bit of giggling.
*
The whole "Defenders" thing doesn't seem like more responsibility, after all it's just a name they've been given as a result of what they're already doing. At least, that's what it's like until actual aliens are a thing they have to deal with. Or well actually, they turn out to be more robots, possibly alien robots, but nobody is clear.
"What's that word they say in sci-fi? Bio... Bio something?"
"Mechanoid." Luke supplies without pausing as one of the robots or whatever screeches, springs, and crumples itself against his unbreakable skin.
"Nerd." Jess says as she watches him turn to catch it so they he can rip it in half. It makes a few noises that are a lot closer to organic-sounding bone and gristle popping than anything made entirely from metal could possibly make. Jess sees a shape dropping from above out of the corner of her eye. She kicks away an attacking robot-thing and turns in time to see Matt break his fall by hopping on and off a leaping one midair, subsequently knocking it out of the air as he does.
"They aren't entirely made of metal." He informs them. "And they have something a bit like a circulatory system."
"That explains the juice." Luke mutters, wiping his forehead on the back of his hand. Matt weaves and casually sidekicks one of them towards Jess. She grabs it and spins it against a concrete wall with an audible crunch.
"So what, someone grew these?" Luke says.
"Hey don't ask me." Matt mutters, doing a highly unnecessary flip and punch thing. Danny spins lazily into view and manages to somehow outpace Matt in terms of irritating acrobatics.
"Why not?" He says. "You seem to know just about everything."
"All we know for sure is that waves of these things are popping up all over the city, faster than the police can keep them at bay." Jess says before Danny and Matt can start with the weird ninja banter.
"The military are fashionably late again, I take it?" Luke says, presumably for the same reason because there is quite clearly no visible support. She nods anyway, gestures upwards.
"Last I checked."
"So they have to be coming from somewhere right?" Matt says. There's only a few left now. The remaining take-down is swift. They handle it silently and then all stand in a loose circle looking at each other.
"Better get going before the police show up." Jess says shaking it off. "Regroup at base?"
Karen is already in, cross-legged on the largest couch with a laptop and papers balanced precariously the arms and cushions.
"Ok gang!" She gives them a vague sort of wave, other hand clutched around a disposable coffee cup. "I'm taking in the data and it looks like they are spread evenly meaning there's a vague area in which there could be a nest."
"We calling it a nest?" Luke sounds amused.
"Got a better word for it?" Karen smirks.
"Nest is fine."
"So all we have to do is-"
"Hey kids." Jess spins around. A man stands in the doorway, vaguely familiar, short brown hair ruffled at the front, a weathered sort of face. Everyone is standing defensively now.
"How did you get in here." Matt whispers dangerous, taking a few steps towards the intruder.
"Clint Barton?" Karen says loudly. "Hawkeye?"
"Yes ma'am." He nods lazily.
"Looks smaller than he did on TV." Jess says, frowning. It's actually not true, he looks bigger now he's not surrounded by aliens and the actual Hulk.
"Charming."
"What are you doing in here bird man?" Danny demands. Barton grins.
"Can I trouble you for a cup of sugar?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" He folds his arms and leans against the door frame.
"Look, my friends are out of town, this just happens to be where I'm laying low these days, home, you know, so I figured I'd help out the neighbourhood watch. Defenders, isn't it?" Karen suddenly grimaces and ducks behind her laptop screen. "Relax, I'm not here to arrest anyone, I'm kind of a criminal element these days, you might have heard."
"Heard something like that."
"Then you know we're kinda in a short-staffed situation here which is why I'm here speaking to you folks instead of my spangly pyjama-ed friend."
"And the tin man?" Luke says.
"Probably off feeling bad somewhere." Barton shrugs. "Anyway, I feel like you folks will probably solve this without, you know, the usual uh, craters." Matt sighs.
"How did you find us?" Barton shrugs again.
"I'm a spy."
"Really? That's it?"
"I followed Jessica Jones. Your identity isn't secret, sorry Jones but I took the liberty. You people don't exactly have a who-you-gonna-call ad."
"And you're here to help us?" Everyone is watching Matt now, his head at that angle he does when he's tracking something specific, like a heartbeat.
"Yeah. I think I have some info that may come in all kinds of handy."
"And what is that?"
"The nest ain't underground." He grins. "It's a ship, it's in the sky, and it's invisible." Jessica feels like here should have been some kind of cheesy TV show theme accompanying that, but as it is, they just all look away from Barton’s stupid smug grin, to stare at Matt until he sighs minutely.
"Fine. Come in."
*
Jess doesn't think of it as flying, but, just sometimes, when she's airborne and she's judged it right, she pretends she's flying. That's what it feels like now, just at the sweet spot of the very top of her arc through the air where everything seems to stop. She's untouchable, she's sure of herself, and she smiles just as she begins to drop. She bends her knees on landing, stands a little unsteadily.
The ship is all scattered with neon pellets courtesy of Clint’s ability to put a makeshift bomb type thing together and Matt’s alarmingly accurate throwing arm. Their shields, whatever they are, don't extend to cloaking against all the senses Matt uses to ‘see’ in lieu of eyes. A fact that Clint had actually figured out in record time, despite Matt still wearing his mask at that point. He’d handed Clint a cup of coffee where he was sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, up to his elbows in neon pellets and suspicious substances, and Barton had grinned with sudden delight.
“You're blind!” He’d exclaimed, brandishing a screwdriver and Matt had been all suppressed sighs and awkward foot shuffling. He nodded a reluctant confirmation in the face of what Jess had also assumed was amazed fascination, until he politely reached out to guide Matt’s fingers to the hollow just below his ear.
“Nah really dig your fingers in there or you won't feel it.”
“I feel it.” Matt grinned widely. “So uh, your eyes are pretty sharp huh?” Clint shrugged.
“I observe.” And then they'd chatted away like they’d both found a new best friend, and Jess was honestly surprised that Clint had been focused enough on the pellet bomb for it to actually work when it came down to it.
But it had worked, though knowing where a surface begins and ends is quite another thing entirely from feeling as if you're standing on an actual surface. Jess finds herself wondering how Matt does this all the time. And it moves. Not massively just a boat-like give under her feet.
“Jones?” Jess gets crystal clear in her ear, through an earpiece that Barton presumably had a stash of somewhere.
“Barton. Please tell me you have some way for me to figure out how I'm supposed to hold onto this thing enough to…” She squats as she speaks feeling around the metallic, so far edgeless surface. Out of no-where, that's literally how it seems to Jess, a screeching robobug launches right at her. She punches it, a messy cross that she's faintly embarrassed to think that Clint inevitably witnessed, and it plummets. Jess taps her earpiece.
“Look out below, Luke!”
“Got it.” He says almost lazily, and stays on the line for long enough for her to hear confirmation crunching. Gross. Still, that had to come from somewhere.
It takes a fair bit of crawling around to find it but when she does she allows herself a whoop. An opening. More importantly, a edge that she can firmly grip with her left hand. She holds out her right.
“Hey, Daredevil, I'm ready for you! Barton I swear to god, if you don't cover me I will haunt your sorry self.” She can see Matt and Clint on a roof below (dizzyingly, through the thing she is currently stretched across. She watches Matt throw and the handle of the billy club arcs almost gracefully over what she assumes is the edge of the ship. She has to roll to catch it and then dive back. She just gets her left hand safely holding on again before Matt’s entire weight tugs at the other end of the line and it starts buzzing, loud and metallic, as the line reels up. Matt’s entire weight isn’t exactly difficult to hold (now she's anchored, no amount of super strength has an effect against basic physics in terms of mass and Matt weighs quite a bit more than she does) but that sound it's making against the metallic-feeling surface of the ship...
A bug jumps towards her, she hears it coming before she sees it, reflexively ducking her head and pulling her legs up. There's a thunk alarmingly close to her head and she looks up again to see an arrow poking out of it. She looks down, through the floor again, in time to see Clint give her a salute that she chooses to read as sarcastic. Jess scowls. She manages to kick the next one and Clint takes out two more before Matt’s daft red boots start rocking the ship. She releases the grappling end of the club and stands.
“What was that throw?”
“I'm not used to having to throw it to be caught!” He snaps back and kicks two bugs from the ship in quick succession.
“That's two more can you tell the others?” Jess does to quickly. Matt tried the earpiece but having his hearing almost entirely blocked on one side didn't do him any favours.
“Ok just follow me.”
“This is going to be illuminating.”
“How so?” Matt says, wordlessly offering his hand to guide her after him and into the invisible ship.
“Well I don't usually get to see you use your powers other than sometimes throwing something in the opposite way to where you're looking.”
“I'm never looking, Jess.”
“Yeah but the muggers don't know that.” And her subconscious often forgets, too but that seems sort of rude to say.
Matt is having no trouble navigating the cramped and it seems to Jess maze-like interior. She keeps whacking her head on the ceiling.
“Is it invisible?”
“Huh?”
“Around us?”
“No it's not it's just dark. It's not really anything.”
“Better than the roof then.”
“What?”
“You didn't seem to like it up there.”
“I'm not afraid of heights, Murdock, I can basically fly.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about, Jones, it's instinct, happens to everyone.”
“Except you.” She says with a frown.
“Yeah well I can't see.” She can hear the mischievous smile in his voice. “Which is a bit like cheating when it comes to scary sights, if other people's heart rate is anything to go by.”
“Little bit creepy, Murdock.” Matt chuckles and keeps moving forward.
“Hey uh, Barton? How's it going on the ground?”
“All the bugs that thing has dropped since it’s been up there have all come out from wherever they’ve been hiding and started attacking at once.”
“What did you say this thing is?” Jess says with an attempt to sound casual.
“It's a probe, sent to start habitat conversion and then send back readings, all you need to do is deactivate it and it will sink to the ground gently and whatever agency has drawn the short straw when it comes to cleaning up this sort of thing with no SHIELD around can just safely cart it away -”
“Ok ok but there are… Eggs. They feel like eggs.”
“Pretty sure they're eggs.” Matt puts in helpfully. He seems to be fiddling with something on the wall, Jess can more or less figure from how close his voice is to it and the weird noises it’s making.
“Oh yeah it's also sort of a factory did I not mention…”
“No!” Jess snaps. “You did not.”
“Well uh, it’s a factory, surprise!”
“If there’s a mamma robobug in here about to come and kill us…”
“I know, I know, you’ll haunt my ass.”
“Oh I’ll haunt all of you, Barton.”
“Do the Avengers talk this much when they’re on the job?” Matt says, with a tone that Jess knows means passive aggression but you kind of had to know him to get that.
“Surprisingly, yes, only with less cursing.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Matt says with clear sarcasm this time.
“Don’t be a dick, ‘Daredevil.’”
“Done it.” Matt says, a little smugly. “A lot like breaking a safe.”
“You… break safes?”
“Uh.” Matt says, and opens his mouth to presumably explain that one, when there is a sudden clatter of metallic talons all around them. Or, well, it sounds a lot like being inside a tin can being pelted with hailstones.
“Matt…” Jess says slowly. “How many?”
“At a guess?” He says, with a tense little ‘huh’ of laughter. “Too many.”
“Great.”
“If that’s the factory floor, there should be a chute that’s been ejecting the scouts…”
“Oh now you tell us what they’re called?” Jess grumbles.
“I enjoyed your creativity.” Clint says. “Should be on the ground, touch activated in the same way as the override panel, tell Daredevil…” Jess relays and the clicking clacking sounds get closer and heavier as they both scrabble about on the smooth ground in search of something that feels like it could do anything… Jess can feel the ground vibrating and hear that creepy grating, chittering noise the scouts make as if they are right on top of her and braces herself for fighting them off in the pitch black-
“Here!” Matt yells, there’s a slap a thump and a sudden rush of orange street light, and no floor.
Matt had to be making shit up when he said he didn’t mind heights, because Jess is far more concerned with the shifting, bottomless sensation of an uncontrolled free-fall than she is about seeing the back end of Hell’s Kitchen rushing frantically towards her face. Matt’s dismantling the club mid air, presumably with the intention of an attempted grapple while falling. Her laugh gets whipped right out of her mouth by the rush of wind in her face. She swipes, fingers just manage to snag a wrist, and then she’s rolling in the air in time to break their fall with her bended knees. Matt groans and tumbles out of her arms.
“I never want to to do that again.”
“Ok man-without-fear how about next time I just let you smush against the pavement, huh?”
*
The team (and Clint) clear up as many of the scouts as they can before the sirens get close enough for Matt’s police-avoidance instincts to kick in, usually a sure sign to get out of there. Luke and Jess as usual are stuck picking up the takeout. Their favourite Chinese place is by now pretty much used to them wandering in looking faintly worse for wear, though the alien robot bug blood is still something of a novelty. All sat around stuffing their faces with cheap noodles, it’s as if Clint has always just been part of the furniture, but then he is a spy. Must just be a blending-in thing. Foggy wanders in with his tie undone. After a short stint of stuttering and staring, he and Clint hit it off on an almost obnoxious level and Matt looks faintly terrified by the whole scenario.
Clint checks his watch at around midnight and sighs.
“Sorry kids, I gotta be halfway around the world by this time tomorrow.”
“Where you going man?” Foggy tries with a bit of a grin. Clint jumps to his feet and sticks out his hand for Foggy to shake.
“That, my friend, is Classified.”
“Worth a shot.”
“Say hi to Captain America for me.” Luke says with a little salute.
“Until next time.” Karen gets a hug.
“You’d better be dropping in for a next time.” Jess says when it’s her turn to shake hands. “You can’t just be showing up here whenever you want and taking our help like that.” She tuts.
“Uh huh you didn’t need my help at all.”
“Nah, I mean a invisible ship in the sky filled with alien robots that we don’t understand or know how to stop? We had it under control.”
“Totally under control.” Luke grins and then just like that, Clint Barton has gone, leaving the rest of the group blinking and staring around at each other.
“So.”
“So.” A pause.
“We’re friends with an Avenger now.” Danny says, nodding as if they’ve qualified some kind of food safety certification or something.
“Yeah.” A scattering of nervous laughter.
“The Defenders have made it big time, looks like.” Karen says. Foggy has the widest grin Jess has seen on him recently.
“I think an Avenger coming to ask for help must make you guys sort of an official superhero team type thing, right?” He says. Jess leans over the coffee table and grabs a spring roll. She shrugs.
“Here’s to the Defenders!” She says cheerfully and holds it in the air. Matt frowns, but then shrugs and joins her.
“Defenders!” Danny doesn’t even question it, and it’s Luke who has to be hassled into picking up the last roll and tapping it awkwardly in the middle like a sort of toast made of slightly sad-looking leftover food.
“Why did we order so many of these things?” He grumbles a bit but they all eat them, Foggy and Karen watching with a kind of grossed-out fascination, like they're watching some kind of animal kingdom ritual unfold in a documentary.
“You making a move?” The others have left, Matt and Jess are standing in the entrance hall. There’s a trash bag by the door that Foggy insisted on scooping all of the discarded boxes and bags into before he left. Jess shrugs.
“I have some stuff to finish up. For a case.” She shrugs. “If I go home Malcolm will only be aggressively concerned at me for an attempted all-nighter when he finds me on the waiting room sofa in the morning. Matt nods.
“Ok, see you around, Jess.” He hugs her and she finds herself hugging back. Finds it’s nice actually. Matt smiles when they break apart, and it’s real. Jess feels strangely warmed by that, though she doesn’t remember noticing not liking his fake ones, really. She claps him on the shoulder.
“Catch you tomorrow, maybe. Call me if there’s ninjas, yeah?”