Look ok just lemme have my hypothetical nonsense
Title: No Honour Among Heroes
Fandom(s): Marvel (comics, tv shows, movies...some kinda hybrid of the three)
Pairing(s): none, Jessica Jones centric, Jessica Jones and Wade Wilson friendship, background Jessica Jones/Luke Cage
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Descriptions of gory scenes and broken bones, mentions of alcoholism
Word count: 4,188
Summary: Jessica's a little more forgiving than people give her credit for, Wade's nowhere near as bad as the rumours make out
Also on AO3
In her weakest moments, Jessica will admit to herself that she loves this city. She loves the grimy backstreets paved in other people’s litter and painted in the messy scrawls of gang signs she never cared enough to lean. She loves the lights, glittering across the grid from on high. She loves losing herself amongst the masses as she tries to pretend she’s just another face in the crowd.
Pretense. There’s the rub. Just a few years ago she had let herself believe that however misplaced, her sentiments were romantic. Now she takes the scant few moments where all eyes aren’t on her and clings on tight to the illusion of anonymity. Ever since Killgrave, the eyes and ears of New York have descended upon her. Everybody wants something, everybody thinks they need saving.
“How do you do it?” Jessica groans down the phone at Trish.
Trish laughs, “You get used to it.”
She won’t get used to it. Not now, not ever. The strangers banging on her front door demanding justice are more or less old hat, but the wonder in their eyes when she answers is suffocating. People lay their problems at her feet with anticipation, such certainty that she can save them from their sad little lives.
“I’m not a hero,” she tells a woman looking for her daughter; a young girl seeking vengeance on her creepy old uncle; a man desperate to find his estranged ex-wife. The words feel tacky and cliché in her mouth, a little more hollow every time. It’s not that she doesn’t mean it, but she doesn’t know how to make people understand.
There are so many heroes, in all the colours of the rainbow, from this universe and the next. They find themselves plastered across the news whether they want to be or not, grouping themselves and funding themselves and reinvigorating the construction industry as they make the role of the police and military ever more redundant. Jessica doesn’t hold her breath any more when the television spits out tales of mutants and super powers, she has already thrown her lot in with them, by daring to exist.
Once everyone knows you’re Special, Gifted, whatever you wanna call it, you have to be a hero. If you’re not a hero, you’re a villain. It’s that simple. Sometimes Jessica jumps up and over the rooftops, looks down on the city around her, and wonders how many people were smart enough to not let on. Sure, she never advertised, but there’s nothing like taking down a mind controlling maniac to let the public know you’re One Of Them. The only protection from the dichotomy of good and evil is to never let yourself get dragged into the game in the first place.
She stops, somewhere in the lower east side, no longer concerned if anyone can see her silhouette across the top of the building. New York rumbles on below her, bright and dark and wild. Dear lord she loves this view.
The first time Jessica Jones meets Wade Wilson, he’s missing three of his four limbs and covered in someone else’s blood. In hindsight, there’s nothing particularly unusual about this by his standards, but he makes for a grisly sight. Surrounded by the remains of cops and criminals alike as his dismembered right hand twitches around the handle of a katana.
She takes a deep breath, doesn’t puke, then grabs him by the scruff of the neck and shoves his face into the pavement, “start talking.”
“Getting him to start ain’t the problem,” Luke wrinkles his nose as he approaches. Jessica’s never seen him look so disgusted.
Of course, she doesn’t know him as Wade just yet, but once the blood induced terror wears off and she can pick out the black-on-red suit, she knows she’s dealing with Deadpool. When he gets his head free enough to do as she asked and start talking, she matches him up to exasperated stories the Avengers and X Men alike tell of him.
“Jeez you sure are strong lady. And smart too, following my clues and all. Coulda been smarter though, white shirt and blue jeans ain’t a great look at this kinda party, you should have worn red.”
“Things look red enough from where I’m standing,” Luke snarls. Jessica leaps up and lets him grab the incapacitated mercenary, throwing the battered remains of his body back into the pool of blood, “who are you working for, ‘Pool?”
“For myself, thank you very much,” Deadpool replies. He squirms along the floor, trying to find purchase for his remaining leg. He seems unphased by the mess of dead bodies surrounding him, or by their blood surely soaking into his suit.
Luke steps forward and lifts him by the spandex so they’re eye to eye, “you saying you did this for fun?”
The white covering Deadpool’s eyes shifts unnaturally, and Jessica catches her breath as she realises it’s not fabric. Those glassy, pupil-less wastelands peering out at the world are all he has, two eyes, and he roles them because he hates stupid questions.
And it is a stupid question. Jessica’s sure of that.
“Of course not,” Deadpool tells Luke, “I did it for the children.”
Sirens sound, entirely too close. Regardless of public opinion, the police don’t take too kindly to those they find soaking in the blood of a massacre. “You sack of shit,” Luke spits out. He lets Deadpool go and turns tail, the unspoken expectation being that Jessica will follow suit.
She follows alright, she has no interest in dealing with due process tonight. But her eyes strain on Deadpool long enough to see the stumps of his arms already beginning to regrow.
“Take a picture, it lasts longer! Or better yet, buy my calendar. Gotta sell merch to justify the franchise,” he shouts after her as she leaves.
She retraces the trail that brought them out here in her mind, the missing data files, the red stripes tagged to street lights. The anonymous text picked up two blocks away from their destination telling her that she didn’t need to proceed after all. Even if she had trusted the sender, she would have come anyway, Jessica’s done leaving anything to chance.
“He led us here,” she says, falling into step with Luke.
Luke lets out a bark of laughter, cutting and crueller than Jessica would have expected of him, “he probably followed the same clues as we did the figured he could take credit. The guy’s a nutjob Jess, you can’t trust anything he comes out with.”
Maybe he’s right, Luke’s known Deadpool for a long times after all. Hell, Luke’s known Deadpool longer than he’s known Jessica. But when they’ve crawled into bed and she’s checking the police scanner app, just to be sure she can sleep in peace, reports are coming in about the decimation of a crime syndicate. The breakdown of drug routes, illicit arms dealers being taken down, child smugglers and sex traffickers stopped quite literally dead. They come from all across the city, accompanied by tales of mangled bodies and bloodied streets.
You wreck one hell, and you make another.
“The hell…” Luke reaches for her phone, just to make sure that written reports match up to what he’s hearing.
Jessica snatches the phone away, throws it to the bedside table, and offers him a wry smile, “he did it for the children.”
No matter how much she loves the cloak of anonymity that New York sometimes manages to offer, Jessica begins to resent the shoulders she rubs. From what she can tell, no other city on Earth offers the same wealth of vigilante justice, or at least not of vigilantes with Gifts. Despite her intentions to stay detached from the wider world of heroes and villains, she learns who’s who very quickly.
The X Men and the Avengers are just the tip of the ice berg. There are mutants and new mutants and Project X and the Fantastic Four and Uncanny Avengers and somewhere way out there in the universe there are Guardians of the Galaxy and all of these groups intersect and interlock. She gets asked to associate with this that or the other group on an almost daily basis, and finds herself more practiced than usual in telling people to go fuck themselves.
“It’s supposed to be a unity thing, reminding you that we accept you and consider you part of the fold,” Spiderman tells her over a rushed lunch burrito. He’s easier to deal with than most. Perhaps a little irritatingly self-righteous, but sharp tongued and for all his childlike enthusiasm for his position, brutally frank about his standing in the dog eat dog world of the superhero.
“I’m not a superhero,” Jessica scoffs.
“You are,” Spiderman insists. His voice has a familiar lilt that reminds her of a boy she used to know, “you are a hero whether you asked for it or not. In fact, asking for it rather defeats the purpose.”
Jessica shoves the last of her food into her mouth with a great smacking of lips, burrito juice dripping down her wrists, “tell that to Tony Stark.”
When the going gets tough, Jessica returns to playing paparazzi for the jilted lovers of New York. She’d rather be solving crimes and taking names, but people still pay more for photos of their loved ones taken into other people’s beds.
She has to return to old habits to get the job done, scurrying down alleys like a common rat as her camera thuds heavy at her hip. This time round, however, she doesn’t hold back when confronted with dead weights and impossible heights - Jessica shoves aside trash vans and leaps up buildings in lieu of the stairs. It doesn’t feel particularly heroic, but it’s exhilarating to let herself be super without intrusion.
And under these circumstances, it’s good to advertise that sort of thing. Particularly at night, particularly in this city. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen becomes a regular feature of her after hours wanderings, often seen off in the middle distance engaging in ruthless regiments of parkour, but sometimes dropping down next to her to offer timely words of advice.
“Deadpool’s on the move, coming this way. I’d stay out of it if I were you.”
Jessica blinks, “s’he dangerous?”
“Nope,” the Devil replies, “but he is an ass.”
Ten minutes later, Jessica turns a corner and comes face to face with said ass, this time bodily intact and inhaling a rather pungent selection of Mexican food.
“Jessica!” He crows around a mouthful of the stuff, pulling his mask back over his face before she can get a good look at him, “long time no see! How’s the boyfriend? How’s the illicit photograph business?”
“None of yours”
She can see his mouth twisting into a smile through the mask. He’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement, just because she’s here, to be talked to. Or at. Whatever his deal is.
“Aww c’mon Jess, no need to be like that! That’s where you’re off to, right? With the camera and the face like thunder yadda yadda.”
“I’m…working,” Jessica tells him, because it seems like the easiest way to put this delicately, “or I’m trying to work. Not getting anywhere fast though.”
That peaks his interest. In all of two seconds Deadpool has an arm slung around her shoulder and is ushering her down the block. He smells less than appealing, a bizarre mix of blood and junk food and a lack of decent showering facilities, “yeah? Need some help speeding it up?”
“Fat chance,” Jessica shrugs him off, “just gotta stay sharp.”
“Gotta stay sharp,” Deadpool parrots in what sounds like a poor imitation of the Devil’s voice, “man you sound like a proper hero over there.”
“Only according to Spiderman.”
“You know Spiderman?” once again, Deadpool’s excitement sounds ready to tear itself out of his body by force.
Jessica nods, “he’s a friend.”
“No way! Aww me and Spidey go way back. He’s a good pal of mine. Bit sanctimonious, but if we haven’t had some good fucking times together. Pretty sure I’m his best friend when you get down to it, I’m always helping him out with those second rate villains of his. Well, I say second rate, more like b-list. Still, it gives the kid something to do.”
And so he goes on, and on, and on. They’ve gone ten blocks before Jessica manages to tell him to get lost so she can get on with her work. She doesn’t interrupt him for anything else though, not to tell him to shut his mouth or to remark that Spiderman has never said a single nice thing about Deadpool in her presence.
The urge is strong, to hit him with a cutting remark and watch him stand down. Just to prove she can, that there’s power resting on her tongue as well as in her fists. But there’s something in his misguided babble that reminds her of Martin trying to maintain the illusion of normality and straining for the right words. So she lets him talk, and bites back her irritation.
“I ran into Deadpool the other night,” she tells the Devil the next time they meet.
The Devil doesn’t flinch, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jessica shrugs, “he’s not so bad.”
Jessica doesn’t mean to be there, but she has a habit of matching up the wrong place and the wrong time with her best intentions.
Not even her best intentions, if she’s being honest. She’s only down at the docks to snap filthy pictures of the harbour master for his weeping husband. She’d ducked into the warehouse to stay out of sight, she hadn’t expected to find company within.
“Why can’t you keep your great. Stinking. Ass. Out. Of. It?” Spiderman punctuates each word with a fist to Deadpool’s gut. On the second hit, Jessica hears something that sounds horribly like bones cracking within his body and before she knows what she’s doing, she’s rushing forward to help.
“Get off him!” she roars, reaching out to rip the smaller man off. The second after she’s done it, it occurs to her that this is none of her business, and Spiderman is a nasty enemy to make.
Spiderman sits up and stares at her, apparently unhurt, “Jessica?”
“My knight in shining armour!” Deadpool coos, “or leather, and denim. Whatever, the point is she saved me, did you see that Spidey? She’s my hero.”
Dusting himself off, Spiderman stands and walks forward like he means to continue, “I appreciate where you’re coming from Jessica, but believe me when I say he deserves it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He nearly blew my cover. Six months infiltrating the heart of the Mafia in this city and he almost has me cornered before I’d even started- you know what, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You said 'nearly',” Jessica reaches out to stop Spiderman passing. She’s sure that under that mask he’s furious.
Spiderman tugs ineffectually at the hand holding him back, “it’s personal, Jessica.”
Jessica knows personal, she knows not wanting to explain yourself before you take back what the universe owes you, and this doesn’t smell much like it to her. The only thing she sees before her is an angry man looking to lay out his frustrations on someone who, though probably deserving of a fist to the gut, doesn’t deserve this shit.
“I was only trying to help,” Deadpool whines, “how was I to know that this tall can of chicken noodle soup had a plan?”
“Chicken noodle soup?” Jessica raises an eyebrow
“Instead of a glass of water.”
“Your banter needs work.”
“Does not,” Deadpool makes a wet sort of buzzing that sounds like a failed attempt at a raspberry. It’s kinda funny, but mostly just pathetic.
Spiderman looks between the two of them, begins to take a step forward, then catches Jessica’s eye and thinks better of it. “I just-“
"So much for accepting people into the fold"
He tenses under her grip. For a moment, she thinks he might fight back, but there's too much good in him. When the time came to pick sides, Spiderman picked the Heroes, and unluckily for him, that stops him raising a hand to the people on his own side.
“Go home, Spidey,” Jessica says, shoving him only a little harder than she intended. He looks between her and Deadpool, shakes his head, and turns his back on them.
“He’s not worth it Jessica.”
“Sanctimonious prick,” Jessica growls under her breath.
“Ah he’s not so bad,” Deadpool says, getting to his feet and shaking himself out, “I mean, at least he’s only wailing on the guy who can bounce right back. Like a boomerang! Only with more sharp edges.”
Jessica looks him up and down, unable to spot any traces of blood on his suit, though she’s sure he must be bleeding somewhere. She supposes that’s what the red’s for.
“You shouldn’t let him treat you like that,” is all she can say. It comes out softer than expected, maybe she just doesn’t like seeing people kicked when they’re down.
Besides, she's never seen anything to indicate that this fast talking, foul smelling, trigger happy mess of a mutant is particularly villainous. He may be a little more fond of ending things bloody than she'd like, but Jessica can hardly say that Deadpool doesn't get shit done. He's a hero, after a fashion. Spiderman has no business coming after him.
Deadpool shrugs, “I shouldn’t get a funny feeling in my boy parts when I watch My Little Pony but here we are. It’s those damn unicorns, never could resist a stallion with a horn like that.”
“Whatever,” Jessica turns to leave. Through the busted windows of the warehouse she can see the skies beginning to grey, and suddenly she’s very conscious of the fact that her mark has probably left his post and is half way home.
She’s gone all of ten paces when she hears Deadpool stumbling after her, feet slapping against the concrete.
“Wait!” He shouts as he draws level. Jessica winces, “I wanna say thank you! Or something.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re friends! And you showed up in the nick of time to save me from the terror of Spiderman. I owe you a life debt y’know.”
“Thanks but I think I’ll let you have this one for free,” Jessica pulls out her phone and swears under her breath when she sees the time. Way too late. Her evening’s scuppered.
Deadpool wiggles further into her personal space, until Jessica’s having to make a concerted effort to ignore the persistent odour wafting up from underneath his suit. Whatever lies under that mask, he must have dimples. Because the red spandex covering his face is falling into the crevasses, emphasising his invisible smile.
“Not even if I vowed to repay you in greasy Mexican food and cheap liquor?”
That piques her interest. Jessica has no control over her basic urges at the best of times, and with someone else offering to pay that’s an offer too good to pass up.
“Wait, that line worked?” Deadpool asks, bewildered. He has to break into a semi-jog to keep up with Jessica’s pace as she marches them to her favourite drinking hole, “that never works.”
Jessica allows herself a bark of genuine laughter, and when she smiles at Deadpool, she means it, “then you ain’t never had a friend like me.”
They take their chimichangas to the rooftops, along with half a bottle of cheap whiskey that Jessica guards jealously. Deadpool tries to find an opening to steal it from her, his fingers wriggling in anticipation everytime he lurches forward. But this is booze and there’s no way she’s going down without one hell of a fight.
“Hey!” She laughs, catching one of his wrists, “steady there I wouldn’t wanna break you.”
“No need to worry about that, my dear,” Deadpool grins. He’s pulled the bottom of his mask up to eat and even through the dark, she can see the blistered skin shifting over his non-existent lips. It’s kind of gross, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t need her to tell him that.
First, he twists his arm unnaturally far to the left, then she hears a crack. In the moment shes distracted, Deadpool takes the bottle and leans back, triumphant.
The wrist he’s just broken is bent at a nauseatingly unpleasant angle. Jessica takes a deep breath and looks away before she pukes, “guess it's a good thing you don’t feel pain”
“Oh, I feel pain. There’s nothing wrong with my nerves,” Deadpool snaps his wrist back into line, hissing when it heels.
Jessica can’t imagine handling broken bones so easily, “so what? You just get used to it?”
“Kinda. I mean you can’t really make use of a power like mine if you’re not willing to feel a little pain.”
A little pain. Jessica remembers first meeting Deadpool when he was little more than a glorified torso; Spiderman hitting him in the gut with all that super strength behind his fist. She thinks of the stories Luke has told involving Deadpool, they never seem to end well for the guy.
"Looks like more than a little pain to me."
“Yeah well, you just sorta-“ Deadpool runs through a series of vague hand gestures that make more sense to Jessica than they probably should, “ya know?”
“You take your pain and you live with it.”
“Exactly!” He smiles at her, so wide and warm and honest that she’s compelled to feel touched, “shit girl, you fucking get it. You live with that shit, every damn day.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jessica smiles back at him.
Deadpool takes a swig from the bottle, and passes it back into her waiting hand. “My name's Wade, by the way.”
The city spreads out before them, lights flickering and changing like fire. The taste of spices on the back of her tongue and the whiskey burning in her belly make Jessica feel alive, make her feel real and significant. Especially sat up here, able to pretend that the people below are small matter to her. And in this moment, Jessica loves this city.
Luke arrives half an hour too early by Jessica’s reckoning. She’s still wrestling with the idea of showering before she heads out for another hard day’s stalking, and much as she appreciates his endeavours to make sure she eats breakfast more often than not, she feels an uncomfortable mix of guilt and irritation at his attempts to clean her kitchen every time she leaves him alone in her apartment.
“I’m just saying, the mould in here could kill you,” he chides, when Jessica’s managed a shower and is standing in the kitchen doorway, scowling at him only semi-seriously.
“My immune system’s tough, I can take it.”
“I know you can. You just gotta let me worry sometimes.” Luke puts down the dish cloth he’s so bravely using to tackle her dirty dishes, and throws an arm around her. Pulling her up and into a kiss as he presses a croissant into her hand.
Jessica kisses him again, and again, and again. Till he’s laughing against her mouth and gently pushing her down. Bemoaning the fact that, unfortunately for the both of them, he has places to be.
“You gonna be alright tonight? I hear Hell’s Kitchen’s been rough these past couple of weeks, might wanna steer clear.” Luke calls back to her as he’s making to leave.
Jessica shakes her head and takes a bite out of the croissant. It’s kinda nice. Not a patch on Robin’s banana bread, but she reckons she can get used to baked goods, “I got no need to be in Hell’s Kitchen today. If I run into any trouble I’ll give Wade a call.”
“Wade?”
“Oh…uhh…Deadpool.”
Luke’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, “Deadpool? Jessica you can’t be-“
“Relax! Its fine, he’s nowhere near as bad as you make him out to be.” Jessica snorts, “besides, he indulges my alcoholism everytime I save his life.”
“That happen often?” Luke’s voice strained.
“By his count, all the damn time.”
She can hear Luke muttering to himself as he moves down the corridor. Its fine, he’ll get over it. If he can cope with Jessica Jones there’s no way he can’t handle Wade Wilson. Though she supposes it's the two of them together that deal the real damage.
Flopping down on the couch, Jessica demolishes the rest of the croissant to the sweet sounds of the police scanner app, informing her that it’s just another day of criminal anarchy in New York City. She’d love to help, really, but she needs to cover the rent first. So until something too big for Spiderman or the Devil shows up, she’s content to let the city take care of itself.
Pastry crumbs flutter to the floor as she stands. Jessica watches them collecting into neat little piles at her feet. Croissants are nice, she decides, but they’re not a patch on chimichangas.
A/N: Woooowww this is my first Marvel fic in...a long time. Fun fact: Marvel was the first fandom I wrote more than one fic for in a row, and that was back in 2012. Now it would seem I'm back in Marvel hell so watch this space!
I've never written any of these characters before lmao, and I realised as I was writing this that I'm not nearly funny enough to do Wade Wilson justice so go easy on me. I think I did a better job with Jessica :P
Fandom(s): Marvel (comics, tv shows, movies...some kinda hybrid of the three)
Pairing(s): none, Jessica Jones centric, Jessica Jones and Wade Wilson friendship, background Jessica Jones/Luke Cage
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Descriptions of gory scenes and broken bones, mentions of alcoholism
Word count: 4,188
Summary: Jessica's a little more forgiving than people give her credit for, Wade's nowhere near as bad as the rumours make out
Also on AO3
In her weakest moments, Jessica will admit to herself that she loves this city. She loves the grimy backstreets paved in other people’s litter and painted in the messy scrawls of gang signs she never cared enough to lean. She loves the lights, glittering across the grid from on high. She loves losing herself amongst the masses as she tries to pretend she’s just another face in the crowd.
Pretense. There’s the rub. Just a few years ago she had let herself believe that however misplaced, her sentiments were romantic. Now she takes the scant few moments where all eyes aren’t on her and clings on tight to the illusion of anonymity. Ever since Killgrave, the eyes and ears of New York have descended upon her. Everybody wants something, everybody thinks they need saving.
“How do you do it?” Jessica groans down the phone at Trish.
Trish laughs, “You get used to it.”
She won’t get used to it. Not now, not ever. The strangers banging on her front door demanding justice are more or less old hat, but the wonder in their eyes when she answers is suffocating. People lay their problems at her feet with anticipation, such certainty that she can save them from their sad little lives.
“I’m not a hero,” she tells a woman looking for her daughter; a young girl seeking vengeance on her creepy old uncle; a man desperate to find his estranged ex-wife. The words feel tacky and cliché in her mouth, a little more hollow every time. It’s not that she doesn’t mean it, but she doesn’t know how to make people understand.
There are so many heroes, in all the colours of the rainbow, from this universe and the next. They find themselves plastered across the news whether they want to be or not, grouping themselves and funding themselves and reinvigorating the construction industry as they make the role of the police and military ever more redundant. Jessica doesn’t hold her breath any more when the television spits out tales of mutants and super powers, she has already thrown her lot in with them, by daring to exist.
Once everyone knows you’re Special, Gifted, whatever you wanna call it, you have to be a hero. If you’re not a hero, you’re a villain. It’s that simple. Sometimes Jessica jumps up and over the rooftops, looks down on the city around her, and wonders how many people were smart enough to not let on. Sure, she never advertised, but there’s nothing like taking down a mind controlling maniac to let the public know you’re One Of Them. The only protection from the dichotomy of good and evil is to never let yourself get dragged into the game in the first place.
She stops, somewhere in the lower east side, no longer concerned if anyone can see her silhouette across the top of the building. New York rumbles on below her, bright and dark and wild. Dear lord she loves this view.
The first time Jessica Jones meets Wade Wilson, he’s missing three of his four limbs and covered in someone else’s blood. In hindsight, there’s nothing particularly unusual about this by his standards, but he makes for a grisly sight. Surrounded by the remains of cops and criminals alike as his dismembered right hand twitches around the handle of a katana.
She takes a deep breath, doesn’t puke, then grabs him by the scruff of the neck and shoves his face into the pavement, “start talking.”
“Getting him to start ain’t the problem,” Luke wrinkles his nose as he approaches. Jessica’s never seen him look so disgusted.
Of course, she doesn’t know him as Wade just yet, but once the blood induced terror wears off and she can pick out the black-on-red suit, she knows she’s dealing with Deadpool. When he gets his head free enough to do as she asked and start talking, she matches him up to exasperated stories the Avengers and X Men alike tell of him.
“Jeez you sure are strong lady. And smart too, following my clues and all. Coulda been smarter though, white shirt and blue jeans ain’t a great look at this kinda party, you should have worn red.”
“Things look red enough from where I’m standing,” Luke snarls. Jessica leaps up and lets him grab the incapacitated mercenary, throwing the battered remains of his body back into the pool of blood, “who are you working for, ‘Pool?”
“For myself, thank you very much,” Deadpool replies. He squirms along the floor, trying to find purchase for his remaining leg. He seems unphased by the mess of dead bodies surrounding him, or by their blood surely soaking into his suit.
Luke steps forward and lifts him by the spandex so they’re eye to eye, “you saying you did this for fun?”
The white covering Deadpool’s eyes shifts unnaturally, and Jessica catches her breath as she realises it’s not fabric. Those glassy, pupil-less wastelands peering out at the world are all he has, two eyes, and he roles them because he hates stupid questions.
And it is a stupid question. Jessica’s sure of that.
“Of course not,” Deadpool tells Luke, “I did it for the children.”
Sirens sound, entirely too close. Regardless of public opinion, the police don’t take too kindly to those they find soaking in the blood of a massacre. “You sack of shit,” Luke spits out. He lets Deadpool go and turns tail, the unspoken expectation being that Jessica will follow suit.
She follows alright, she has no interest in dealing with due process tonight. But her eyes strain on Deadpool long enough to see the stumps of his arms already beginning to regrow.
“Take a picture, it lasts longer! Or better yet, buy my calendar. Gotta sell merch to justify the franchise,” he shouts after her as she leaves.
She retraces the trail that brought them out here in her mind, the missing data files, the red stripes tagged to street lights. The anonymous text picked up two blocks away from their destination telling her that she didn’t need to proceed after all. Even if she had trusted the sender, she would have come anyway, Jessica’s done leaving anything to chance.
“He led us here,” she says, falling into step with Luke.
Luke lets out a bark of laughter, cutting and crueller than Jessica would have expected of him, “he probably followed the same clues as we did the figured he could take credit. The guy’s a nutjob Jess, you can’t trust anything he comes out with.”
Maybe he’s right, Luke’s known Deadpool for a long times after all. Hell, Luke’s known Deadpool longer than he’s known Jessica. But when they’ve crawled into bed and she’s checking the police scanner app, just to be sure she can sleep in peace, reports are coming in about the decimation of a crime syndicate. The breakdown of drug routes, illicit arms dealers being taken down, child smugglers and sex traffickers stopped quite literally dead. They come from all across the city, accompanied by tales of mangled bodies and bloodied streets.
You wreck one hell, and you make another.
“The hell…” Luke reaches for her phone, just to make sure that written reports match up to what he’s hearing.
Jessica snatches the phone away, throws it to the bedside table, and offers him a wry smile, “he did it for the children.”
No matter how much she loves the cloak of anonymity that New York sometimes manages to offer, Jessica begins to resent the shoulders she rubs. From what she can tell, no other city on Earth offers the same wealth of vigilante justice, or at least not of vigilantes with Gifts. Despite her intentions to stay detached from the wider world of heroes and villains, she learns who’s who very quickly.
The X Men and the Avengers are just the tip of the ice berg. There are mutants and new mutants and Project X and the Fantastic Four and Uncanny Avengers and somewhere way out there in the universe there are Guardians of the Galaxy and all of these groups intersect and interlock. She gets asked to associate with this that or the other group on an almost daily basis, and finds herself more practiced than usual in telling people to go fuck themselves.
“It’s supposed to be a unity thing, reminding you that we accept you and consider you part of the fold,” Spiderman tells her over a rushed lunch burrito. He’s easier to deal with than most. Perhaps a little irritatingly self-righteous, but sharp tongued and for all his childlike enthusiasm for his position, brutally frank about his standing in the dog eat dog world of the superhero.
“I’m not a superhero,” Jessica scoffs.
“You are,” Spiderman insists. His voice has a familiar lilt that reminds her of a boy she used to know, “you are a hero whether you asked for it or not. In fact, asking for it rather defeats the purpose.”
Jessica shoves the last of her food into her mouth with a great smacking of lips, burrito juice dripping down her wrists, “tell that to Tony Stark.”
When the going gets tough, Jessica returns to playing paparazzi for the jilted lovers of New York. She’d rather be solving crimes and taking names, but people still pay more for photos of their loved ones taken into other people’s beds.
She has to return to old habits to get the job done, scurrying down alleys like a common rat as her camera thuds heavy at her hip. This time round, however, she doesn’t hold back when confronted with dead weights and impossible heights - Jessica shoves aside trash vans and leaps up buildings in lieu of the stairs. It doesn’t feel particularly heroic, but it’s exhilarating to let herself be super without intrusion.
And under these circumstances, it’s good to advertise that sort of thing. Particularly at night, particularly in this city. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen becomes a regular feature of her after hours wanderings, often seen off in the middle distance engaging in ruthless regiments of parkour, but sometimes dropping down next to her to offer timely words of advice.
“Deadpool’s on the move, coming this way. I’d stay out of it if I were you.”
Jessica blinks, “s’he dangerous?”
“Nope,” the Devil replies, “but he is an ass.”
Ten minutes later, Jessica turns a corner and comes face to face with said ass, this time bodily intact and inhaling a rather pungent selection of Mexican food.
“Jessica!” He crows around a mouthful of the stuff, pulling his mask back over his face before she can get a good look at him, “long time no see! How’s the boyfriend? How’s the illicit photograph business?”
“None of yours”
She can see his mouth twisting into a smile through the mask. He’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement, just because she’s here, to be talked to. Or at. Whatever his deal is.
“Aww c’mon Jess, no need to be like that! That’s where you’re off to, right? With the camera and the face like thunder yadda yadda.”
“I’m…working,” Jessica tells him, because it seems like the easiest way to put this delicately, “or I’m trying to work. Not getting anywhere fast though.”
That peaks his interest. In all of two seconds Deadpool has an arm slung around her shoulder and is ushering her down the block. He smells less than appealing, a bizarre mix of blood and junk food and a lack of decent showering facilities, “yeah? Need some help speeding it up?”
“Fat chance,” Jessica shrugs him off, “just gotta stay sharp.”
“Gotta stay sharp,” Deadpool parrots in what sounds like a poor imitation of the Devil’s voice, “man you sound like a proper hero over there.”
“Only according to Spiderman.”
“You know Spiderman?” once again, Deadpool’s excitement sounds ready to tear itself out of his body by force.
Jessica nods, “he’s a friend.”
“No way! Aww me and Spidey go way back. He’s a good pal of mine. Bit sanctimonious, but if we haven’t had some good fucking times together. Pretty sure I’m his best friend when you get down to it, I’m always helping him out with those second rate villains of his. Well, I say second rate, more like b-list. Still, it gives the kid something to do.”
And so he goes on, and on, and on. They’ve gone ten blocks before Jessica manages to tell him to get lost so she can get on with her work. She doesn’t interrupt him for anything else though, not to tell him to shut his mouth or to remark that Spiderman has never said a single nice thing about Deadpool in her presence.
The urge is strong, to hit him with a cutting remark and watch him stand down. Just to prove she can, that there’s power resting on her tongue as well as in her fists. But there’s something in his misguided babble that reminds her of Martin trying to maintain the illusion of normality and straining for the right words. So she lets him talk, and bites back her irritation.
“I ran into Deadpool the other night,” she tells the Devil the next time they meet.
The Devil doesn’t flinch, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jessica shrugs, “he’s not so bad.”
Jessica doesn’t mean to be there, but she has a habit of matching up the wrong place and the wrong time with her best intentions.
Not even her best intentions, if she’s being honest. She’s only down at the docks to snap filthy pictures of the harbour master for his weeping husband. She’d ducked into the warehouse to stay out of sight, she hadn’t expected to find company within.
“Why can’t you keep your great. Stinking. Ass. Out. Of. It?” Spiderman punctuates each word with a fist to Deadpool’s gut. On the second hit, Jessica hears something that sounds horribly like bones cracking within his body and before she knows what she’s doing, she’s rushing forward to help.
“Get off him!” she roars, reaching out to rip the smaller man off. The second after she’s done it, it occurs to her that this is none of her business, and Spiderman is a nasty enemy to make.
Spiderman sits up and stares at her, apparently unhurt, “Jessica?”
“My knight in shining armour!” Deadpool coos, “or leather, and denim. Whatever, the point is she saved me, did you see that Spidey? She’s my hero.”
Dusting himself off, Spiderman stands and walks forward like he means to continue, “I appreciate where you’re coming from Jessica, but believe me when I say he deserves it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He nearly blew my cover. Six months infiltrating the heart of the Mafia in this city and he almost has me cornered before I’d even started- you know what, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You said 'nearly',” Jessica reaches out to stop Spiderman passing. She’s sure that under that mask he’s furious.
Spiderman tugs ineffectually at the hand holding him back, “it’s personal, Jessica.”
Jessica knows personal, she knows not wanting to explain yourself before you take back what the universe owes you, and this doesn’t smell much like it to her. The only thing she sees before her is an angry man looking to lay out his frustrations on someone who, though probably deserving of a fist to the gut, doesn’t deserve this shit.
“I was only trying to help,” Deadpool whines, “how was I to know that this tall can of chicken noodle soup had a plan?”
“Chicken noodle soup?” Jessica raises an eyebrow
“Instead of a glass of water.”
“Your banter needs work.”
“Does not,” Deadpool makes a wet sort of buzzing that sounds like a failed attempt at a raspberry. It’s kinda funny, but mostly just pathetic.
Spiderman looks between the two of them, begins to take a step forward, then catches Jessica’s eye and thinks better of it. “I just-“
"So much for accepting people into the fold"
He tenses under her grip. For a moment, she thinks he might fight back, but there's too much good in him. When the time came to pick sides, Spiderman picked the Heroes, and unluckily for him, that stops him raising a hand to the people on his own side.
“Go home, Spidey,” Jessica says, shoving him only a little harder than she intended. He looks between her and Deadpool, shakes his head, and turns his back on them.
“He’s not worth it Jessica.”
“Sanctimonious prick,” Jessica growls under her breath.
“Ah he’s not so bad,” Deadpool says, getting to his feet and shaking himself out, “I mean, at least he’s only wailing on the guy who can bounce right back. Like a boomerang! Only with more sharp edges.”
Jessica looks him up and down, unable to spot any traces of blood on his suit, though she’s sure he must be bleeding somewhere. She supposes that’s what the red’s for.
“You shouldn’t let him treat you like that,” is all she can say. It comes out softer than expected, maybe she just doesn’t like seeing people kicked when they’re down.
Besides, she's never seen anything to indicate that this fast talking, foul smelling, trigger happy mess of a mutant is particularly villainous. He may be a little more fond of ending things bloody than she'd like, but Jessica can hardly say that Deadpool doesn't get shit done. He's a hero, after a fashion. Spiderman has no business coming after him.
Deadpool shrugs, “I shouldn’t get a funny feeling in my boy parts when I watch My Little Pony but here we are. It’s those damn unicorns, never could resist a stallion with a horn like that.”
“Whatever,” Jessica turns to leave. Through the busted windows of the warehouse she can see the skies beginning to grey, and suddenly she’s very conscious of the fact that her mark has probably left his post and is half way home.
She’s gone all of ten paces when she hears Deadpool stumbling after her, feet slapping against the concrete.
“Wait!” He shouts as he draws level. Jessica winces, “I wanna say thank you! Or something.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re friends! And you showed up in the nick of time to save me from the terror of Spiderman. I owe you a life debt y’know.”
“Thanks but I think I’ll let you have this one for free,” Jessica pulls out her phone and swears under her breath when she sees the time. Way too late. Her evening’s scuppered.
Deadpool wiggles further into her personal space, until Jessica’s having to make a concerted effort to ignore the persistent odour wafting up from underneath his suit. Whatever lies under that mask, he must have dimples. Because the red spandex covering his face is falling into the crevasses, emphasising his invisible smile.
“Not even if I vowed to repay you in greasy Mexican food and cheap liquor?”
That piques her interest. Jessica has no control over her basic urges at the best of times, and with someone else offering to pay that’s an offer too good to pass up.
“Wait, that line worked?” Deadpool asks, bewildered. He has to break into a semi-jog to keep up with Jessica’s pace as she marches them to her favourite drinking hole, “that never works.”
Jessica allows herself a bark of genuine laughter, and when she smiles at Deadpool, she means it, “then you ain’t never had a friend like me.”
They take their chimichangas to the rooftops, along with half a bottle of cheap whiskey that Jessica guards jealously. Deadpool tries to find an opening to steal it from her, his fingers wriggling in anticipation everytime he lurches forward. But this is booze and there’s no way she’s going down without one hell of a fight.
“Hey!” She laughs, catching one of his wrists, “steady there I wouldn’t wanna break you.”
“No need to worry about that, my dear,” Deadpool grins. He’s pulled the bottom of his mask up to eat and even through the dark, she can see the blistered skin shifting over his non-existent lips. It’s kind of gross, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t need her to tell him that.
First, he twists his arm unnaturally far to the left, then she hears a crack. In the moment shes distracted, Deadpool takes the bottle and leans back, triumphant.
The wrist he’s just broken is bent at a nauseatingly unpleasant angle. Jessica takes a deep breath and looks away before she pukes, “guess it's a good thing you don’t feel pain”
“Oh, I feel pain. There’s nothing wrong with my nerves,” Deadpool snaps his wrist back into line, hissing when it heels.
Jessica can’t imagine handling broken bones so easily, “so what? You just get used to it?”
“Kinda. I mean you can’t really make use of a power like mine if you’re not willing to feel a little pain.”
A little pain. Jessica remembers first meeting Deadpool when he was little more than a glorified torso; Spiderman hitting him in the gut with all that super strength behind his fist. She thinks of the stories Luke has told involving Deadpool, they never seem to end well for the guy.
"Looks like more than a little pain to me."
“Yeah well, you just sorta-“ Deadpool runs through a series of vague hand gestures that make more sense to Jessica than they probably should, “ya know?”
“You take your pain and you live with it.”
“Exactly!” He smiles at her, so wide and warm and honest that she’s compelled to feel touched, “shit girl, you fucking get it. You live with that shit, every damn day.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jessica smiles back at him.
Deadpool takes a swig from the bottle, and passes it back into her waiting hand. “My name's Wade, by the way.”
The city spreads out before them, lights flickering and changing like fire. The taste of spices on the back of her tongue and the whiskey burning in her belly make Jessica feel alive, make her feel real and significant. Especially sat up here, able to pretend that the people below are small matter to her. And in this moment, Jessica loves this city.
Luke arrives half an hour too early by Jessica’s reckoning. She’s still wrestling with the idea of showering before she heads out for another hard day’s stalking, and much as she appreciates his endeavours to make sure she eats breakfast more often than not, she feels an uncomfortable mix of guilt and irritation at his attempts to clean her kitchen every time she leaves him alone in her apartment.
“I’m just saying, the mould in here could kill you,” he chides, when Jessica’s managed a shower and is standing in the kitchen doorway, scowling at him only semi-seriously.
“My immune system’s tough, I can take it.”
“I know you can. You just gotta let me worry sometimes.” Luke puts down the dish cloth he’s so bravely using to tackle her dirty dishes, and throws an arm around her. Pulling her up and into a kiss as he presses a croissant into her hand.
Jessica kisses him again, and again, and again. Till he’s laughing against her mouth and gently pushing her down. Bemoaning the fact that, unfortunately for the both of them, he has places to be.
“You gonna be alright tonight? I hear Hell’s Kitchen’s been rough these past couple of weeks, might wanna steer clear.” Luke calls back to her as he’s making to leave.
Jessica shakes her head and takes a bite out of the croissant. It’s kinda nice. Not a patch on Robin’s banana bread, but she reckons she can get used to baked goods, “I got no need to be in Hell’s Kitchen today. If I run into any trouble I’ll give Wade a call.”
“Wade?”
“Oh…uhh…Deadpool.”
Luke’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, “Deadpool? Jessica you can’t be-“
“Relax! Its fine, he’s nowhere near as bad as you make him out to be.” Jessica snorts, “besides, he indulges my alcoholism everytime I save his life.”
“That happen often?” Luke’s voice strained.
“By his count, all the damn time.”
She can hear Luke muttering to himself as he moves down the corridor. Its fine, he’ll get over it. If he can cope with Jessica Jones there’s no way he can’t handle Wade Wilson. Though she supposes it's the two of them together that deal the real damage.
Flopping down on the couch, Jessica demolishes the rest of the croissant to the sweet sounds of the police scanner app, informing her that it’s just another day of criminal anarchy in New York City. She’d love to help, really, but she needs to cover the rent first. So until something too big for Spiderman or the Devil shows up, she’s content to let the city take care of itself.
Pastry crumbs flutter to the floor as she stands. Jessica watches them collecting into neat little piles at her feet. Croissants are nice, she decides, but they’re not a patch on chimichangas.
A/N: Woooowww this is my first Marvel fic in...a long time. Fun fact: Marvel was the first fandom I wrote more than one fic for in a row, and that was back in 2012. Now it would seem I'm back in Marvel hell so watch this space!
I've never written any of these characters before lmao, and I realised as I was writing this that I'm not nearly funny enough to do Wade Wilson justice so go easy on me. I think I did a better job with Jessica :P