a ‘drabble’ where jessica tries to save wanda from a fatal situation and ends up dying in the process:
Jessica shouldn’t even be here. But after what happened with Pietro and Trish, she decided she needed to face the asshole twins face to face. There were rumors that they’d fled the city, left the Avengers Tower far behind. No one knew where they had gone.
But she wasn’t a P.I. for nothing.
It took some doing, some less-than-legal activities, but she tracked Wanda’s cell phone signal to Chicago. Since she had $500 dollars that neither Trish nor Bruce would take (assholes), she’d bought a plane ticket.
She’s been following them for a few days. They’re good at this, but she’s better. She almost loses them a couple of times, but she always manages to track them down. She’s a woman obsessed, even if she isn’t sure what the hell she’s going to say when she finally corners them.
She tracks them to an abandoned house on the edge of the city. There’s a dozen of them in Chicago, the less run-down ones taken up by squatters, but Wanda and Pietro apparently aren’t picky. She doesn’t get it. They’re goddamn Avengers, they could get a fucking hotel for free if they used that card. But it would defeat the purpose of staying under the radar.
She watches from a rooftop across the street as Pietro zips out. Probably to go scrounge up some food, or maybe some new clothes. His are looking ratty these days. Her eyes flick back to the broken windows across the street, where she can see Wanda’s shock of red hair. She’s staring down at her cell phone almost longingly, a forlorn look in her eye. She finally tosses it aside, lays down on a moldy mattress in the corner.
The armored truck pulls up ten minutes later.
Jessica’s breath catches in her throat. She glances in the direction Pietro disappeared in, but there’s no silver blur racing back. “Shit,” she mutters, as men pile out of the truck. There’s an octopus signature on their armbands, and they’re clad in full body armor.
Not that it’ll save them from what Wanda can do.
She hesitates, hands gripping the rooftop ledge tightly. She can take care of her goddamn self, she thinks ruefully. But there’s dozens of them, and when a second truck pulls up, Jessica’s heart leaps to her throat.
“Goddammit,” she mutters, making her way to the side and jumping into the alleyway. She lands softly enough that they don’t hear her, she’s always better at jumping down than up. She watches them from behind a dumpster, as they approach the door.
They kick it in, and things happen quickly. The agents stream into the building. Upstairs, Wanda appears in the window again. Even from here, Jessica can see the fear in her eyes. The hesitance as she stares at her hands.
She bolts out of the alleyway, heading straight for the building. The drivers yell, reach for the door handles and their guns, but she’s fast. Not as fast as Pietro, but fast enough to prevent the first one from getting out, to slam his hand in the door and then rip it off. She drags him out, and one good punch leaves him limp in her hands. The second driver grabs her from behind. She twists, cocks an elbow against his eye, then whips around to punch him, too.
When she left, she thought Pietro would be the only to feel her fists.
She races into the building. The men are upstairs, and she can hear screams and shouts and gunfire. She takes the stairs two at a time, skipping the ones that look too broken to hold her weight. When she gets to the room, Wanda’s hands and eyes are glowing red, and it freezes her for a moment.
Minds aren’t something you can goddamn play with! But Wanda doesn’t look like she’s playing right now. Even as more agents fall to their knees, clutching their skulls and wailing with agony, more stream forward. She grabs the nearest one, throws him backward, out of the room, against the wall. He yells, and they notice her.
Wanda’s eyes meet her for a moment, The red fades from her irises minutely. Jessica doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know she’s wondering what the hell Jessica Jones is doing here.
Jessica doesn’t know either. But she doesn’t waste anymore time.
A handful of agents turn their guns on her. They fire, but she ducks, lunging forward. She kicks the feet out of one, imitating what Nyssa did to her, slams her fist against his skull hard enough to feel it rattle against his helmet. There are bright waves of crimson flying everywhere, scorching the walls, and more agents are on their knees. Jessica slams one upside the head, if only to make the screaming stop.
There’s too many of them. Outside, she can hear another truck arrive, more boots on the stairs. They want these twins, and as much as she (sometimes) hates them, Jessica isn’t about to let that happen. The room is chaos incarnate, a whirlwind of fists and gunfire and scarlet jolts of goddamn magic.
They swarm her. She punches, kicks, tries to twist away. One of them jabs their gun against her head, her knees buckle, and then they’re dragging her up.
“Stop! Or we kill your friend here,” a voice calls from behind her. The room stills. Wanda keeps her hands up, but the red glow fades from her fingertips. Men are still wailing. Jessica struggles, but her head swims, and there’s got to be five pairs of hands on her.
“She’s not my friend,” Jessica hisses, still squirming. She can’t break free, even with all her strength.
Wanda’s eyes are wide with panic and confusion. “Let her go,” she says slowly, taking a step forward.
The men tighten their grip.
“Absolutely,” the man says again. He steps forward to meet Wanda, gun still in hand. “As soon as you come with us. Quietly, if you please.” His voice is sickly sweet.
Wanda’s eyes narrow. “You’ll kill her anyway,” she says. Jessica’s heart thuds against her rib cage, not at the thought of dying, but because she knows Wanda has read his mind again. No one deserves that. Do they?
The man glances back at her. Jessica glares at him, wishes she had the energy to spit in his face. “She might prove useful,” he says. Then he lifts his gun, points it square in her face. “Your choice, Wanda.”
Jessica stares at the barrel of the gun, then up to Wanda’s gaze. Her eyes are bright red again, it sends a chill through her. She can see the thoughts whirling in Wanda’s eyes though. That hesitance. Time slows down for a moment. The wind whistles through the broken window, the one she’d been watching Wanda from. And that’s when she sees the silver blur on the horizon. Wanda’s back is to the window, she doesn’t know, doesn’t realize. But Jessica sees an out. For Wanda, anyway.
“Don’t do it!” she yells suddenly, struggling again. The men have to readjust her grip. “Goddammit, Wanda, don’t you fucking dare!” she screams. She scoffs at the men. “You goddamn morons,” she seethes. Her eyes flick to Wanda’s again. ”That mind-reader would never sacrifice herself for a piece of shit like me.”
Hopefully, Wanda gets the message. Jessica clenches her jaw, then thinks one thought, loud and clear. The window. Pietro’s outside. Get out, while they’re distracted.
Wanda shakes her head. Jessica thinks it louder. Get out before they take you and your goddamn brother. Do it for him.
“Is that a no, Ms. Maximoff?” the agent asks. He walks forward, presses the gun against her throat. At least it will be quick.
Wanda hesitates, then lowers her hands. “Thank you,” she says, and a look of confusion crosses the agent’s mind. But Jessica feels relief surge through her. “Do what you must. But you will never touch me or my brother again.”
And then she’s gone. She leaps from the window – Jessica just has time to see the silver blur catch her, and then there’s a shot.
Sometimes, it feels like all she has are bad memories. It’s too cold to go out tonight, with her jacket ruined, so she’s stuck pacing inside her apartment, walking in circles among the chaos. Stuck with her own thoughts, going back and forth, bottle tapping against her leg as she walks.
“I hate you,” she calls to the folder laying open on her desk. She has a folder on him, labeled ‘Asshole Twin One.’ (Above that, is a series of thick, heavy, sloppy lines, crossing out the name Pietro.) On nights like this, when sleep is a goddamn joke and she feels like torturing herself, she pulls it out. His photo is lying on top, staring at her across the room. “I really fucking do,” she slurs to it, but even now, the words ring hollow.
Because sometimes, she realizes she has good memories too – or at least ones that don’t hurt as much. Like meeting him in an alleyway, watching him twitch at the mention of crowds, laughing with him, talking about nothing.
Or the feel of his arms, slowly reaching for her while she shook and cried, for Luke, for Reva, for Kilgrave, for herself. The way he didn’t run. The way he whispered, your mind belongs here.
It’s hard to hate someone like that.
Even when they’ve also called you a monster.
In the end, she doesn’t know what to think of him. She keeps going in circles, walking from her office, to her kitchen, to her bedroom, and her mind spins right along with her. She hates him one minute, and the next she misses him. It isn’t until she goes into the bathroom, stares at her own reflection in the mirror that she figures it out.
She doesn’t hate him. At least, not as much as she hates herself.
clint:
“Shit,” she mutters, staring up at her ceiling. Her phone’s been going off like crazy, because apparently, Clint doesn’t sleep either. But she’s not even mad when it chimes again. She replies, mocks him a little, and then tosses it aside. “I think we might actually be goddamn friends.”
It’s hard to be annoyed at this inevitable fact. Because Clint has a way of laughing at the world even when it’s trying to knock him down. A way of treading lightly and never pushing too hard. Not to mention great taste in pizza – and women. He might actually be the best goddamn Avenger, if only because he doesn’t need a superpower to save the goddamn world. He’s just purely himself, and there’s something about that, something that seems so impossible to her, but he pulls it off so easily.
& frank:
She goes to visit the grave. Of the trafficker, the one she didn’t get paid for. She doesn’t expect to feel anything, standing there in the goddamn cold, kicking at a headstone with a name that means nothing to her. She doesn’t even think about him, how he looked as the EMTs carted him off on the stretcher. She thinks about the man who put him there.
She’s started looking for him on other rooftops. Casting glances over her shoulder whenever she has a summons to serve to another douchebag. But apparently, the Punisher is a sneaky motherfucker. Or maybe he’s just busy in a different part of the city.
She doesn’t know what to make of him. He reminds her of herself, rough and ragged and scarred the fuck up by life. She can’t imagine losing what he did – she’s never even let herself dream of a family, a normal life, not in any real detail. She lost her mind, her will, but she got them back in the end. What Frank lost, that’s not coming back.
She’s still jealous of him.
Because despite all that, he’s found a way to deal with it. A way to make it goddamn right, and he’s not fucking scared to stick with it. She doesn’t agree with his methods, but then, most people don’t agree with hers either. She finds solace in the bottom of a bottle, he finds it through a scope, fingers on the trigger.
She wishes she could have that kind of conviction. There’s something to be said for it, at least he doesn’t waver between guilt and shame and indignation. Like she does. Her mood changes on a dime – some days she’s proud of what she did to Kilgrave, proud to have been the one to finally end him. And some days… most days, it eats her up inside.
She’s not okay with being a murderer. That’s never been her way.
But Frank is, somehow. And she’s not exactly okay with him being a killer, but she isn’t going to stand in between him and a target again.
She’s not sure what that says about her. Not sure what bringing flowers to a dead trafficker’s gravestone says about her, either.
Send me a ؟ for a random thought kate has about tony.
Kate, as she walks by a cafe on a good day, wonders if Tony ever felt as low as she did. She’s heard the rumors and the stories, in whispers and conversations she wasn’t supposed to overhear, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the man who gave her an espresso maker for breaking into his vents. What are you really like, Starky?
Send me a ؟ for a random thought kate has about pietro.
After their heart to heart in the training room, Kate starts practicing double-time, trying to get her aim back to where it was. She thinks about Pietro’s words a lot, calling her a hero. But occasionally her minds wanders to weird places. I wonder if anyone calls him Sonic? I should get him a Sonic sweatshirt, that’d be hysterical.
a drabble where jessica sacrifices herself for pietro:
She was in an alleyway. Of course.
Honestly, when she’d texted Pietro, asking to meet up, she hadn’t been sure where else to go. She couldn’t stay home, she was too restless. She was almost as twitchy as he was, and he had so much nervous energy she seriously considered asking him if he was on crack.
It was probably just a speedster thing.
She sighed, and took another swig from her flask. She didn’t want to drink too much, didn’t want to vomit in front of him for a third time. Especially after their last meeting.
That’s why she’d texted him. To -- apologize, or thank him, or something. He hadn’t run away when he’d seen her. Breaking into a thousand pieces, sobbing and screaming at voices in her head. He hadn’t run, and he’d been surprisingly calming.
There was something about Pietro. Something a little like Malcolm, a little like Trish -- they all had that same spark in their eyes, that tiny little light. And they all had a soft, soothing smile.
Fuck. She had to make this right.
She told herself that she’d texted him so she could warn him out of her shit. So he didn’t start worrying or whatever. But maybe she just wanted to talk to him again.
Pietro appeared at the alleyway entrance, ambling along much slower than he would’ve liked, she knew. But he was approaching her with caution, like she’d run if he got too close. She didn’t blame him, she felt so tense she might actually bolt.
He raised his hand in greeting, and that was when it happened
A flurry of shadows descended and surrounded him. He tried to run, but he was covered, swarmed by black body armor.
Jessica rushed forward without a second thought. She wasn’t as fast as he was, they’d already started throwing punches, shooting at him -- but with some kind of specialized weapon, firing electricity, not bullets. They wanted him alive, she realized, just before she threw her first punch.
It landed hard against the asshole’s helmet -- but she felt his skull slam into the other side. He went down, and she grabbed at another, tossing him across the alleyway. Pietro was back up in a moment
She only caught glimpses of him, flashes as he darted among the men. She focused on her part, on taking down as many as she could, even as they hit her with shock after shock. More of them swooped down from the rooftop, like there was a goddamn battalion up there --
They were losing.
A group of six or seven had gotten Pietro down. He struggled, but two good blows to the head and he slumped over. Jessica yelled as one of them knocked her over the head with his own gun, and she went down too.
The men started securing Pietro, but they ignored her. She lay gasping on the ground, head swimming, the taste of blood in her mouth. Coppery, like she had a mouthful of pennies. “Wait,” she croaked out. But they ignored her, kept working on dragging Pietro away. “Just fucking wait. You Hydra motherfuckers!” she screamed. “Take me instead!”
They paused. Maybe there was a chance here. “Take me,” she said again, struggling to her feet. “You want superheroes? Gifteds, inhumans, what the fuck ever? Take me.”
She reached down, grabbed one of the weirdo guns that had been dropped. She bent it into a knot easily and tossed it towards the wall so hard it broke the bricks. Dust flew into the air, and she held up her hands. “I’m surrendering. I’m not as fast as he is, but I’m fifteen times stronger,” she said, lying through her teeth. She had no idea, honestly. “And I’ll give you a hell of a lot less trouble than he will when he wakes up,” she said, nodding towards Pietro.
“He’s got a sister,” she said, sucking in ragged breaths. “And a whole team of Avengers who will be pissed he’s gone. Me?” She spat blood onto the ground, then laughed. “I’ve got fuck-all.”
The men looked among each other. One of them stepped forward, regarding her. The men holding Pietro lowered him to the ground.
“It’s a good business decision,” Jessica said, through gritted teeth.
“What’s to stop us taking both of you?” the man who stepped forward asked. “We’ve already beaten you.” A couple men behind him chuckled.
Jessica spat again, and swiped at her lip. “Sure. But that took you time. And casualties,” she said, kicking at one of the unconscious men nearby. “You take my deal, or I spend the next few minutes stalling you until the rest of the goddamn Avengers arrive,” she warned in a low, gravely voice. “Or haven’t you noticed there are heroes in every goddamn corner of the city now?”
The men whispered among each other. The leader held up a hand, and they quieted instantly.
“Leave the Sokovian brat,” he said, and the men holding Pietro set him aside. “Grab the girl. She might prove useful.”
Jessica kept still as the men approached her. Every single cell in her body was screaming at her to move, but she wouldn’t. It wasn’t like before, when she’d gone with Kilgrave. She knew she could run, leave them to take Pietro and get away. But she chose to stand still. To let them walk up, and grab her roughly, to let them drag her down the alleyway.
It was her fault he was here in the first place. She wasn’t about to let someone else suffer for her mistakes. Not again.
“Sorry,” she called over her shoulder as they dragged her past Pietro. He was still out cold, but he’d be fine. Confused, maybe. But he’d be okay.
