Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Hero Business [Defenders -- Sigr & Virginia]

Ugh she still hated the fact that they had to use the word 'ninja'. She'd just used it, but every time the word came out of her mouth it was a tiny bit derisive. Matt said it so seriously. "Chopping the cop up would be super suspicious." It was too early for that. The arrest had just happened, if the cop disappeared everything would get all muddy. The Hand was sneakier than that, right? "We can find a metallic door." Or make someone find it, whichever. She knew he'd back her up if she needed it, which was a weird feeling. She did pretty much everything on her own, having backup was something she didn't really know how to deal with. Well she did, it was a comfort, but the communication and planning part was a little bit harder.

She put a smile on her face, though for a moment it was more of a grimace until she adjusted her face appropriately. Things were quiet when she walked in, and the woman moved promptly up to the counter like she was going to place a takeout order. 'Hiii!" Jessica dragged the 'I' out in the word, using the slightly higher pitched and more nasally voice she often used when she was trying to seem less threatening and... well, in general not like herself. "I'd like to order--"

It didn't matter what she wanted to order, what she got was a knife thrown at her head from large gap in the wall between the counter and the kitchen where the food was set to be taken by waiters to the people sitting at tables. The only reason she didn't end up dead was because that was pretty much what she'd expected to happen and Jessica responded in what she felt was appropriate manner - she picked up the cash register and hurled it through the gap. It didn't hit whoever had thrown the knife at her but it smashed into the wall so hard that it broke through the drywall and stayed there. Well that would alert Matt that there was an issue now. Two people she'd thought were patrons stood up far faster than any normal restaurant goer had any right being, and Jessica didn't really have much of an option but to engage. The person who'd been manning the now destroyed cash register had disappeared somewhere, which wasn't great, but it meant he could be dealt with later. She and Matt would need one to... wait, no. They didn't need to keep anyone conscious, if there was a hidden door Matt would be able to find it an she'd be able to open it. That made things easier.

The knife guy (or guys) were more concerning than the dudes who didn't seem to have knives, so she vaulted through the gap and into the kitchen. Two in there made five, but there could be more somewhere. They were ninja, they could be pretty much wherever. One of the ones in the kitchen swung a pan at her, straight off the stove, and Jessica caught her sleeve in her grasp to keep it from sliding down. Metal hit leather, the fabric enough to hold the heat back briefly. She could feel the heat soaking through though, and reached out to grab the man's wrist promptly. Nice thing about super strength was that having a hand on someone was pretty much all she needed, and the moment her fingers had finished closing she immediately threw him across the room.

There was very little need to be a graceful fighter with strength like hers, and Jessica had never really bothered to streamline a style that could best be described as 'annoyed street brawler'. Why did she need to flip when she could punch like a bus? Not that she ever hit anyone that hard. It had happened once and it would never happen again.

((apologies on this taking a little longer, my writing muse briefly tried to leave me))
 
"Bad stuff happening to a New York dirty cop would rise a few brows, but not too many" Matt noted. It was true that the department was cleaner now, but cleaner didn't mean pristine. Other than that, Matt just agreed that it was time for them to move, unable to avoid smiling when he heard Jessica's fake friendly voice. He was sure it worked to make sound harmless and shave her natural edges, specially on the phone, but for Matt that not only knew her but could pick up voice nuances more easily, it was funnier than anything else. His smile didn't last nor had he barely any time to circle the building around, as soon he noticed something odd, subtle at first. As he was deciphering that Jessica's hastened heartbeat and worked up breathing answered to what seemed to be a knife now stabbing the door frame, he got clued in by the notoriously less subtle clue of a noisy cash register being picked, thrown and lodged in a wall.

Covering his face from the nose up with Jessica's scarf once more, now looking like an asshole in her eyes, Matt went through the door assessing the situation without walls in the middle blocking sounds, heat, movement and smells. He grabbed the thrown kitchen knife with one hand, using the other to take hold of one of the wooden chairs and with a well placed kick, produce himself an impromptu club with one of its legs. As Jessica in her usual straightforward fashion was steamrolling into the kitchen, Matt grasped the attention of the two would-be-patrons, preventing them to attack her from her back as promised.

He wasn't going to stab anyone, at least not fatally, but the knife was useful to parry the small swords that soon flashed into view for everyone but him, although he could feel how they cut the air. Whoever those people were, they lacked the training that the usual Hand ninjas had, as he could easily make up their moves, heartbeats and gasps. Metal met metal as he stopped wide swoops, a kick sending one chair to delay one of the thugs as Matt stopped the assault of the other, managing to get a couple of good leg chair strikes to wrist and head that first unarmed him, then rendered him seemingly unconscious.

Sizzling pan sounds and heavy thuds of someone meeting their better on Jessica came from the kitchen, so Matt had one foe more to beat before joining her. This one goon seemed to have taken the kicked chair as a gift, using the strength that it came from his extra bulk to wield it as a shield to stop Matt's wooden club. A chair was of course far from an ideal weapon, as not only was unwieldy but blocked part of his sight, allowing Matt to further his advantage. He threw the knife low, nothing too dangerous, but enough to slash the thug's calve before clattering on the floor, injuring him and giving him pause.

Using that very moment when the pain stopped the goon, Matt let his other weapon fall, grasping the poorly held chair and turning it around on his foe, trapping him between its legs against the wall. The would be ninja was starting to lose breath, and his shorter sword had trouble reaching Matt. A quick twist of the furniture allowed Matt to bash face and ribs with the chair, sending the thug down on his fours for the count. Matt made sure he was out by breaking the ill handled chair on his back and head, ready to move through the mess towards Jessica.



No biggie, sometimes things take time, don't worry about that with me.
 
'Notoriously less subtle' was a pretty solid way to describe Jessica's fighting style and her personality in general, at least compared to how she acted while working. Subtle was tiring, and there wasn't a whole lot of point in acting in way that wasn't herself all the time. It wasn't going to get her any more friends that matter since any friends would only be there because she'd faked it. Like this she had... two whole friends. And whatever the heck Matt was. Ally, she figured. And... faking who she was wouldn't have done anything for her relationship with Luke. That had probably always been doomed and she'd just been too blind (oops was that phrasing offensive to Matt? Not that she cared) to recognize it. Or too unwilling to accept it.

She didn't like to think about it. This would have been the perfect time because she could have taken it out on the ninja, but when she lost her shit on people because of problems in her life she had to have been thinking about them before the fight started or have it brought up during. Otherwise fighting was just a thing she did. She got satisfaction out of it when the conditions were right, but times like now it was a thing she had to do like any other job, a step in the process she just needed to complete.

As the other man charged her the dark haired detective kicked the frying pan now lying on the floor at him. It skidded hard and the ninja actually moved around it, which was probably the smart move to make but was also a little bit funny. Then she kicked him in the leg and hit him with a tray, which would have been a lot funny if she was a more lighthearted person. It would be something to entertain Trish with later, for sure. The man went down, and she kicked him again for good measure before plucking at her sleeve to check and see if the hot pan from earlier had ruined it. It was a little discolored and while she didn't know if that was actually because of the guy or because of how long she'd had the jacket and Jessica let out an irritated grunt and then stepped over one of the unconscious bodies on her back towards the door that she had entirely ignored earlier.

She opened it up to the mess that Matt had made in the main room and arched an eyebrow but didn't say anything. It wasn't usual that somebody made more of a mess than her, but she supposed that she had been in an area with items that took a whole lot more to destroy. Normal fighting didn't cause enough mess to damage a stove. "I remembered that you could find the door," she said simply as an excuse for her behaviors, since even if he hadn't been able to see it Matt had definitely been able to hear her not leaving anybody conscious. It was what had been going through her mind, after all. "So find it. We gotta bang on the walls?" She would, but that didn't exactly sound like a grand old time to her. It sounded like a huge hassle, really. But she'd do it, because it was her job and she needed to protect Malcolm. "I think there was a big fridge back there and a door, but I wasn't really paying attention."

"Oh. There was someone else here, but they're gone now." Which probably meant they weren't actually gone, they were either wherever the police officer had have noticed. He was useful in that regard. And in the amount of work that he'd handled so that she didn't have to. It had made things easier, that was for sure. "Wouldn't take my order, which was rude." And now she was a little bit hungry. They could eat afterwards. And drink more, she was going to need more drinks. She had her flask, but right now wasn't the right time to whip it out. One of the nice things about doing what she did was that when things got serious it was an entirely different kind of distraction and emotional soothing and she didn't necessarily need the alcohol. So apparently the only time she didn't need to drink was when she was fighting or the detective work got interesting which weren't great signs when it came to her alcohol dependence. But Jessica already knew she was an addict, the issue was that she didn't have any real reason to try and fix herself.
 
Jessica had of course taken care of any other foes that pretended to be her match, so before he could get to the back of the place she was already coming to the front. Matt didn't care for the excuse, she did what she had to do and they could find any secret passageway or anything similar even if they had to tear the place down, so it didn't matter. It was somewhat amusing that she even felt the need to excuse herself, but that didn't matter much. With her scarf still on place, it didn't take long for Jessica to turn from excuses to demands. "Unless there is some crazy setup, banging won't be needed" Matt mentioned, trying to focus.

"The door leads to the back" Matt announced, sensing how the street noise came from there as well, even if faintly. "But the fridge is a dark spot" he frowned. "Besides humidity and some rank smells I get nothing" he said, so it had to be the place. Before moving there, Jessica warned him of a missing thug, but he didn't quite catch it during the fight, probably went into the fridge as it was doubtful he missed someone exiting the building. Another joke escaped her lips, as dry as it could be, so it seemed that being right about things and punching thugs did wonders for Jessica's mood. Matt had to admit that it felt nice to blame someone else for anything that happened and punch them, but there was of course a little Christian boy inside him that felt guilty about such a base pleasure.

"Lets see what prize awaits behind the door and then we can go eat something" Matt commented, falling into Jessica's pace, joking about it before heading to the back. The fridge seemed nothing special, maybe a tad too big for a place that size, but other than that it wouldn't make anyone bat an eye. "Ready?" Matt asked, grabbing on the handle. He pulled to no avail, as it seemed to be somehow stuck. Not giving up, Matt planted a feet on the wall, pulling harder and obtaining the same result. "Must have a secret trigger..." he mumbled, trying to locate such a switch but there were none. "Or maybe somehow closed from the inside?" he wondered. "You do the honors anyways" he shrugged, stepping aside to leave room for Jessica and the door in case she tore it apart.

How would it be to possess such a strength? How did one restrain themselves to not use it as a shortcut? Even with all her rough edges, Matt admired Jessica for what she was able to do, for how much restraint she showed. It wasn't telling that she killed a man, that was of course bad but forgivable given the circumstances. No, what it was attention grabbing was that for all he knew from the news and files that Killgrave had made her do, that she didn't kill him earlier. Even the altar boy in him could see the effort that may require, as he had been awfully close to the edge himself.



Inside the (fake) fridge there can be a room (perhaps with old drug stocks) or an passageway to a room with probably the missing guy and the cop. I was thinking that they probably killed the cop and wanted to dispose him in a way that made him look corrupt for drugs or something, if not just make him disappear, but sort things out as you feel appropriate.
 
She watched Matt strain against the door, hands shoved in the pockets of her jacket, and then stepped forward when he said she could do the honors. "Yeah, sure." Closed from the inside didn't mean a whole lot against her. Hands came out of pockets and she grabbed the handle of the fridge door and gave it a solid yank. The door groaned and the handle came off in her hand. She stared at the metal in her hand and let out an irritated sound, tossing it noisily off to the side and giving the door a shove. It didn't open, which meant that there were other locks. She took a step back and sized the door up before lifting a foot and kicking it hard, foot pressing over the hole where the handle had been. There was the sound of metal protesting and nails (perhaps screws) pulling out of their holes and the door swung open. "Door's open," she said dryly like he might not have noticed the steps that had gone into it.

There was something to be said about being around people who already knew what she was like and were weird too. She didn't care if people judged her on her powers, she used them often enough to mess with people, but there was some piece of a wall that could be let down around Matt that she couldn't let down around anyone except friends or Danny. She didn't need the bit of herself that expected the person watching her breaking something to try and attack her. Matt, like the others, just accepted it and directed her at what needed to be broken. Being used as a breaker wasn't an unknown feeling, but it also wasn't one that she got here. If that was all he wanted her around for, he was better at hiding it than most people were.

The restaurant freezer - for that's what it really was, though Jessica had described it dismissively - was as cold as one would expect, basically a normal one. Or it would have been, except that there was a panel in the floor that could clearly be pulled up. "Down we go, I suppose." Her opinion on that was obvious, and punctuated by the fact that she dug her flask out of her jacket and took a tiny sip. She wasn't a huge fan of the cold and the trip from this point on seemed like it might be chilly, though what was under the panel was unknown. Could be warmer down there. She couldn't hit the cold, and she wasn't resistant to it beyond being New York born and bred. "Can you hear what's going on down there?" Maybe it was too much to hope for, but it would sure make things easier.

Why she expected anything to ever be easy, Jessica wasn't sure. She should know better by this point.

"So does this count as a crazy setup yet?" She asked, stepping reluctantly into the freezer and shoving a box out of the way with her foot even though she definitely didn't need to. It would probably make the most sense for her to go down first, but she'd prefer to know what was down there first. Getting shot or stabbed would be a little easier on her than it would be for Matt, after all. "I signed up for exactly none of this." She didn't want secret passages or ninja or any of this. It was easier when it was just a shitty person who'd gotten a badge and it was possible that Matt could have just shown up in costume later to menace the dude.


((I wanted to keep him around for a while because handling a police officer is sort of a unique issue - making an enemy of him makes an enemy of the precinct, trying to get at him requires a gentler and more subtle touch since the law is his tool, and they can break into the guy's house and judge each other for how easily they both can do it. The fastest way to get Malcolm out of trouble would be to get the guy to admit that he planted evidence, so at the same time they're figuring out what to do about the Hand they also get to try and figure out why the cop is working for them. He can die eventually (and probably will before revealing the 'why' of his actions) but if he's dead immediately it kinda cuts the legs off of Jessica's investigation for Malcolm.
plus there are very few things that would delight Trish and annoy Jess as much as if she had to put on some kind of mask to go hassle a cop with Daredevil. And Matt would have the chance to tell her she looked like an asshole))
 
"Door's broken, but it suits us the same" Matt commented after Jessica had succeeded on what she proposed, crude yet effective. It was somewhat amusing that a private investigator with so much talent for impersonation, research and subtleties had been graced with that hammer of a gift. Curiously enough, Matt's power gave him uncanny perception and insight, even if the boxer's son was way more prone to punch people and ask questions than Jessica. Well, God's ways were indeed inscrutable, so Matt hoped that they were in the right path. Once the door was broken, the room was permeable to his senses and Matt could soon feel the heat, taste the damp boxes inside and find... nothing else.

Frowning, they got inside, feeling something odd with the sound of their steps betrayed the panel Jessica noticed, opening it for them. "Stairs, a small room and another corridor, probably with an exit. An old contraband passage?" Matt wondered, not an expert on architecture at all, just going with a hunch. "With the fight and all, the one that escaped and the cop are long gone, there is no one there, give me a moment..." Matt asked. Kneeling and getting his head into the gap, he lifted the mask-turned scarf to sniff a bit better away from Jessica's distracting presence so close to his face.

"None of us did, and with what we have seen this is far from crazy, at least for now" Matt mentioned, focusing longer. His nose felt the tinge of a bit of oil in metal, gunpowder, wood and paper. "No ninjas, no explosives, it should be safe" he said, hopping in before she did. Jessica could probably withstand some blows better, but if there was any surprises in there Matt should feel them coming earlier than she did. As it turned out, the room was somewhat disappointing in the impending danger department. Whoever fled from the kitchen and probably the cop had rummaged through a small room with simple furniture before leaving. Some printed pictures of known people to them were scattered on the floor, even if Matt didn't know who appeared on them they seemed similar to the ones in Karen's apartment. A table still had some bullets around from several calibers, as well as a few small packages of the old Madam Gao's drugs. A few dollar bills were around, probably a byproduct of a hastened retreat, but Matt couldn't feel much more aside from a couple of pistols left on a chair.

"They did pack up in a hurry" Matt observed, as the room finished in a corridor that as far as his senses could feel it went to another alleyway, a preferred means of escape. "I'm sensing photographic paper around, are they similar to the ones in Karen's?" he asked, now noticing that there was no printer or computer in there, maybe too much for such a quick retreat so they had been printed elsewhere. "Once we are done here, I'm calling the police so they get their hands in this place" Matt commented, as not only would that mean closure of that base, but also they would check for prints all around and for the serial numbers on the guns.

(that makes perfect sense and opens lots of chances for amusement, so it sounds great)
 
Jessica turned and raised an eyebrow at him. "Broken is open. If that wasn't what you wanted, you should have specified." There wasn't a whole lot of difference to her. She broke it and it opened, that was the end of the problem. It was faster than lock picking, and she wanted to be in and out of the area as fast as possible. They'd probably lost their chance to find whoever was down there, unless there was a dead end at the bottom of this weird little secret passage. In which case there'd be a fight underground with only one exit and that sounded like exactly zero fun.

"Old or new, who knows. There was that freaky business with the other building," and that elevator that seemed like it had been going to do directly into hell, "so clearly they can just build whatever wherever they want." Rich and well connected criminals were so much worse. Those were the people who could make threats that might actually cause problems and they required a different approach that she liked infinitely less. She stepped back to give him room to do his thing, instead taking a moment to poke around the freezer mostly to see if there was anything that she was interested in. Food she might want to take, really. But it was all frozen, so nope.

Matt was basically a ninja himself, so she didn't really believe that he hadn't in some degree signed up to fight them. She didn't say it out loud, but it was right there on her face and she still mostly assumed that Matt could at least partially tell what kinds of faces she made. "Danny signed up for this. Punched a dragon for it." All she wanted was to investigate a bunch of stupid shit, get paid for it, and then spend most of that money on alcohol and peanut butter. He said no ninja and no explosives and she moved back, ready to head down. Instead he went first and she trailed after, trusting his statement that there wasn't anyone there. Matt's senses hadn't let her down so far, though they hadn't shared enough experience for her to say for a hundred percent sure that he never messed up. If someone got shot it would probably be him since he was in the front, so it worked out.

She took a lap around the room, dark eyes scanning over everything lying around. "Yeah. And money, drugs, and some bullets." But nobody had stuck around to try and shoot at her and Matt, which was weird. Maybe they'd learned that trying to fight unprepared, even with guns, wasn't a great idea. "I'll take pictures." The room was dim and she hated how using the flash on her phone would change the colors and cause reflection, but she didn't want to touch anything and didn't understand what it was with nasty people either going without light or having a ton of really bright clinical light. Why couldn't they be more like her where there was usually a light bulb out because it was in a place that was a mild inconvenience to get to and wasn't really getting in the way? That was normal.

"Call the police from the phone upstairs." She'd say one of the cells of the guys they knocked out, but those dudes would have their phones locked unless they were idiots. He probably knew that, but it was better to warn someone about something they should know than smack something out of their hands because they were doing something stupid, they tended to be less mad about it.
 
Jessica's words about Danny signing up for that kind of stuff rang in Matt's ears as he had somehow signed in as well, and it wasn't that simple. Sure, she had learned a lot of what he knew from the late Stick, who turned out to be part of some ancient order, but he wasn't a devoted warrior, just a lost kid. Although for the little he knew, maybe Danny had been as well in such a situation after losing his parents so maybe the rich noisy kid and him had more in common that he had given him any credit for. "If there is a dragon at the end of this case, I'll let you punch it" Matt joked. "Don't make a face, it would be better than calling Danny to do it and then having to listen how he has punched two whole dragons" he said, nor really knowing if Jessica had indeed made a face, but just guessing so.

"This is feeling like paying a visit to the cop, although we can discuss that later" Matt commented, since he had bolted and visiting his house sounded more tempting than ever. "We could also wonder where those guns came from and if someone got a lot of artillery recently, I know a guy for that" he said, thinking that Turk may know something about it, although he wasn't too sure of where to find him at that moment. "This doesn't seem a skyscraper and crazy cult operation, not yet" Matt commented, "but it's clear that they aren't just some thugs that got a business out from a power vacuum, or they wouldn't be bothering our friends" he finished.

"On my way, I'll check the phones either way" Matt commented. If just one of those smartphones had a fingerprint scan active he could unlock it without needing much cooperation from the unconscious thugs, and maybe those had a clue. Location, pictures... anything, although he wasn't specially tech savy nor could see the screen, so beyond checking for fancy phones he wouldn't be able to do much. Once upstairs, leaving Jessica comfortably do her thing, Matt checked pockets left and right, but besides the usual things people got in their pockets, all their phones were cheap as hell burner ones.

"Hello? Police?" Matt said after taking the kitchen phone with his sleeve and dialing through a handkerchief to not leave any prints, as even if they didn't dust the whole place given it was a restaurant, they could do their job on the phone. "A fight broke in this place, a Chinese restaurant..." he explained, giving the cops the address, although given that it was a landline they probably had the location already. They probably wouldn't be in a hurry, since it didn't sound like an emergency, but unless Jessica felt the need to overshare Matt had no intention to stay there. "Done" he said, going back down. "We should probably get away soon" he pointed to the other exit, to check it on the go.
 
Jessica was in the middle of rolling her eyes when Matt told her not to make a face and immediately she wrinkled her nose and then rolled her eyes again. "If there's a dragon at the end of this case I'm out, you can backflip around and ninja it to death. Stab it with the horns on your helmet." At least she was calling them horns this time. Would she punch a dragon? Hard to imagine that ever being an issue in New York, even with everything that had happened up until now. "Seems like that'd be an Avengers thing anyway." And if they were around she'd be out of the way. Too many heroes, too much to deal with. "I like you but not enough I'd fight a dragon for you."

Oh yes, a visit to the cop would be required. She wanted to know what was up with the man, what secrets he was hiding. Or, she supposed, how good he was at hiding them. Sometimes just knowing that someone was hiding something was enough to put things in the right direction. Once you knew how someone was trying to hide secrets and who they were trying to hide them from, you could use that to get at the secrets themselves.

".....can you even see other people's phones?" What even was the point of him checking them, really? She could and probably should have been the one to go up and do that, but she'd probably get nothing. Unlock the phone and find that everything else had separate passwords on it, or they wouldn't have thumbprint enabled. She didn't, for the exact reasons that were being discussed right then. Someone would have to guess her password or beat it out of her and the former was more likely than the latter. It was a bit of a hassle but nobody got to read her emails but her.

While he was upstairs she poked around a little bit more, thinking that Matt should have been down here. Maybe he'd be able to... smell something. But he'd gone to do his civic duty and report this mess, so she kept taking pictures so that they would be able to refer to any part of the room that they wanted. Well she would, anyway. There was nothing here the she could see that answered the why of this weird situation. But if it was the Hand, of course they were gonna fuck with her. Less 'of course' was Karen, mostly the question she had there was if it was because of the articles she wrote or if it was because they knew who Daredevil was and that was infinitely more problematic. It was also possible that they just knew that she knew Daredevil, because that wasn't exactly a secret.

The footsteps caught her attention and Jessica moved lazily around the table. It was part investigation and part because there was the slightest chance that the person who appeared wouldn't be Matt and she wasn't going to be taken by surprise. He spoke before she saw him, which was a good choice considering it was her who was downstairs. If he was as paranoid as she was it would have been a toss up between 'the ninja could come back, should be quiet' and 'the person downstairs has super strength and a hair trigger'. When the lawyer came into view she came back around and tucked her phone into her jacket pocket. "Works for me. I'm not getting anything else out of this place."

"There wasn't a back door in the kitchen which seems like some kind of safety violation," she didn't know and she didn't really care unless someone was going to pay her to care, "so I bet they pass this off as that." It wouldn't be suspicious. Two back doors for a little restaurant might be weird but if instead of a kitchen door they had this, it wouldn't attract any attention.
 
Matt was still thinking that despite the puns and jabs, the easier and easier back and forth between them, he had managed to get Jessica to admit she liked him. Perhaps not enough to punch a dragon, but it was something to appreciate if they were going to work together, if they were going to solve that whole messy thing. "This looks small-time, and yet there has to be more to it" Matt commented as they went out. "Oh wait" he remembered, removing her scarf from around his face and returning it to Jessica. "It was nice, thanks" he couldn't help but add with one of his charming smiles. "Where was I... oh yeah, small-time. This doesn't look like the kind of business that moves money and men enough to get back at us like that, so there must be something more behind it" he reasoned, noticing that there wasn't much of interest in that other exit of the restaurant, soon back on the streets, even if it was a back alley.

He wanted to think that there was some elaborate plan behind that, some criminal mastermind that had to be stopped as they were trying to mess with the vigilantes that stopped the Hand. But if so, why the theatrics? Why the warning shots? The whole idea sounded more like a poorly planned revenge, a torture of sorts, but it seemed strangely armed together. It was of no use mulling it over while they knew so little, so it was better if they kept chasing what clues they had instead of making himself go crazy with wild guesses. Wanting to focus his mind on something safe before allowing it to drift away, Matt chose Jessica, close to him. With his awareness focused on her, he could hear the decision on her step, how her every muscle moved with a mission. Her heart calm but active, and that intoxicating aroma-

No. The city should suffice, always ready to overflow with stimulation. That was fine, safer, a welcomed distraction. "So time to pay the cop a visit I guess" Matt commented, wanting to get hands on with the trouble. "We could also try to find Turk, he probably knows something about such an amount of bullets, or maybe even the guns" he added. "But that can take a while if he's particularly well hidden, so the cop is our best bet I'd say" Matt finished. Jessica was the one that knew where he lived, not to mention that she was the expert investigator for all he cared, his methods more blunt, more violent.
 
She lifted her scarf up to take a halfhearted sniff because she was trying to figure out what was 'nice', and then frowned at Matt almost suspiciously because she didn't get what he was- oh, maybe this was flirting. Not something she was entirely opposed to, as long as he wasn't the sort who needed to get married or whatever. He was religious, after all. "If the smell of alcohol, coffee, and sweat are your thing, we can have a whole lot of fun." Drinking alcohol and coffee and running around fighting was what they were going to be doing, but she was leaving things vague and open because Jessica wasn't actually opposed. In a very short term way, dating didn't work out. Lots of good people out there and none of them deserved to be saddled with her. Matt was one of those, though she wasn't really considering him as any sort of partner. He was pretty high on the 'would have sex in a kinda dirty bathroom in a bar' list, though she wasn't sure that he was that sort of guy on account of the whole good person thing.

The subject was changed though, which was fine. He had started on the more important thing here. "They don't need a whole lot of money or manpower to do something like that. I could gather pictures and put them in your not-girlfriend's apartment, it wouldn't be hard." She was a detective who could jump several stories if she got a running start, sneakily putting things in people's homes was not a huge deal for her. Probably wouldn't be that hard for ninja, either. "All you need is a spiteful person with a printer for that." Jessica still figured that it would be easiest to get to the bottom of the 'who exactly' if they could figure out the 'why'. It could be people wanting to fuck with them just because she and Karen (or she and Matt) were on this person's shit list. It could be a 'back off' message, or it could be the beginning of a whole lot of worse things.

If Kilgrave were still here, that was what it would be.

“If you want to break into a cop’s house without a mask or having cased the place, you’re welcome to.” Jessica wasn’t really excited at the prospect of making the entirety of the New York police department her enemy. She wasn't usually the planning sort, though she'd done it a few times before most notably when trying to deal with Kilgrave, but there wasn't a whole lot of plan needed for her engagements. She was faster, stronger, and harder to injure than a normal person, and that itself was basically a strategy. "I need my camera." That was most of it. She wanted her camera and she wanted to guy to be out of the house. And his family if he had one - she'd do a lot of things but she wasn't breaking into someone's home while their kids were there.

"Who's Turk?" She didn't really have... informants. Jessica's jobs tended towards busting cheaters and finding missing people so she didn't have much need for a criminal informant of any sort. "And shouldn't finding people be easy for you what with the super senses?" Just like, listen for the guy. How far away could he hear, anyway?

((found a quote online that was like, 100% Jessica - "she was prickly, true. But more besides. People remark that roses have thorns, but rarely recall that brambles have their flowers."))
 
Jessica's remark caught Matt unaware, although he wasn't a stranger to playing around, specially during college, he has been entangled in all that Karen and Elektra drama for so long that he hasn't been paying attention to such things for a while, even if Jessica was growing on him. "I meant the usefulness. And maybe the soft texture" he said with a playful smile, "but we can come back to the fun parts later when we aren't as busy" he said, falling into Jessica's dynamic a bit, not something new, but still able to keep a clear enough head to see that the moment was far from appropriate. "Yes, you could do the pictures thing, but you aren't just a street level thug and there is still the fact that they would need to know what pictures would startle her, would unsettle her so far" Matt continued Jessica's reasoning. "It's not up to me to defend my not-girlfriend's endurance" he paused, borrowing her expression about Karen's and his relationship, "but she's not one that scares easily" Matt affirmed.

"The cop will be scared now, after thrashing that place he may know that we are after him" Matt commented, although the investigating professional was her. He didn't have much patience with anything, specially dirty cops, but if she had something in mind that required her camera so be it, he would defer to her private eye experience. "Then we can get your camera" he said, letting Jessica guide him. "I can help you with my senses and all that, but if we get some dirt on the cop, beating some answers out of him shouldn't be a problem" Matt said, as he wouldn't be able to really rely on the department if he was dirty. "Oh, Turk?" Matt was surprised, thinking that most crime fighters in the city would have heard of him, then again he should stop assuming that Jessica and her heroic reticence and him moved in the same circles.

"Turk Barrett is a surprisingly resourceful fixer, usually Harlem based but he gets anywhere if he can get profit out of it" Matt explained. "He's a coward that only deals in merchandise, usually weapons, and information. If someone moves any significant amount of weapons and ammunition on the city he's probably aware of it" he continued. "He's not some criminal overlord, he just seems to be aware of stuff he shouldn't be, I don't even know how, but that makes him easy and useful to pressure" he shrugged. "But even if it's not specially complicated to find him, I can't just sniff him out across the city" Matt said. "I can pick up enormous lots of details in short to medium distances" he tried to explain, "but the longer the distance the more it muddles with every other thing before fading, I'm not some superhero from the comics of old that can hear an earthquake in the other corner of the earth" he said with a smile.

- - -

Oh, lovely quote! Some brambles around here also have blackberries, so even if wild they can yield sweet fruit...
 
She rolled her eyes and made a 'yeah okay whatever' gesture with her hand, though it was cut a little short when Matt said they could come back to the fun part. That was a little surprising, and Jessica wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to do with that. She'd figure it out later when there was more alcohol in her. 'Not busy' was a weird thing for her because on one hand she basically always needed to be working to feel functional, but on the other hand work was ugh. "They're ninja from a weird ancient organization that came from.... wherever the hell Danny came from, that's not street level either." Even the ones who weren't a million years old or whatever had been trained by that group and that wasn't nothing. "Ninja should be good all that same stuff. I mean I'm better," she couldn't know for sure but she was definitely better at hitting and jumping, "but unless they're new or they suck, we have to assume they know shit." Always assume that people knew shit. Unless you were explaining something to them, in which case it was best to assume that they were idiots. "Didn't seem like she was." Jessica didn't actually know either way nor did she care that much, but it was best to agree with him here because he know Karen better and letting him talk about his ex-secretary meant that she got the chance to observe him doing so. She didn't know if it was important but she also didn't know if it wasn't important.

"I didn't see any cameras, so he may not have known it was us. Well he's probably pretty sure it's me." That would be the logical assumption, after all. "I can't beat a cop." She paused and then, realizing it might sound like she had weird morals, clarified "without getting arrested, since I don't have a secret identity and he knows I'm after him. We need evidence. You're a lawyer, you know what happens to people who start fights with the police." And the news headline Daredevil Beats up New York Police Officer wouldn't be a great look for him, unless they had enough evidence to prove the guy was dirty. They weren't words that came easily to Jessica, her fingers tightening in her pockets like she had to hold herself back, basically every atom of her being vibrating with distaste over the logic.

If she and Matt got killed or arrested, the Hand and the dirty cops could do whatever they wanted with the friends left over, and then move on to the others. Trish, Claire, that lawyer friend of Matt's, Danny's people, Danny, Luke....

Jessica Jones was not a hero. She was a private detective who just happened to sometimes fight crime, it wasn't what she set out to do. She'd given that a shot, and making that decision had led her right to him. It was easier now, but the darkness wasn't all the way gone. She'd cleaned the room of her mind, but instead of actually getting things entirely off the floor, she'd just shoved in the closet and under the bed. The sooner Matt got that through his pretty head the better, though she suspected that he, like Danny, might struggle with that message a little.

That was a good person to keep in mind, useful if they needed him. Or if she needed him later, she figured. "Pressure is easy." At least it was easy to pressure people when you could lift a car. "Okay. Well you're as helpful as I was hoping you'd be." It was blunt but not said with any kind of ill will. She wasn't really insulting him or his skills, it was entirely true that his skills couldn't do the things she wanted them to. "But a real solid partner for a break-in." He'd know if anyone was in the house, after all. "So camera and then crime." She needed some way to disguise her identity, too. A hoodie probably wouldn't cut it if she was going to break into a cop's house, at least if anyone was home.

((oooh new signature! I love it.
I'm so sorry about the time it took me to post this!

Do we want to have the adventure with the cop over promptly or give a reason they can't investigate everything tonight, drawing stuff out and making them spend downtime together for flirting and stress, or get that out of the way quickly an turn to just ninja?))
 
"Whoever they are they knew that Fisk's dead minion's picture would startle her" Matt said, somewhat dry, unhappy about the whole idea. Of course, Karen being threatened and scared didn't sit well with him, that much was obvious, but there was something else he didn't want to admit. Whoever had the information, they knew something about Karen that Matt didn't. The menace angered him, but not knowing, that chasm of mistrust that had opened between Karen and him poisoned Matt. Specially since he knew it was his fault and his fault alone. The whole thing was getting the worst out of him, and of course Jessica wasn't Foggy not Karen, as she did nothing to quench that fire. She wasn't Elektra, as she didn't feed it either. She just was, and Matt felt free besides her to do whatever he judged appropriate.

"He was in the basement before we went in" Matt commented, "but I think we can assume that they know, at least part of them, who we are" he said, since his secret identity was less and less of a secret each day it passed. "They are coming for our friends after all" he said, feeding his own fire. "I can beat a cop" he said, with the certainty of not only knowing that he could, but he also would, but then Jessica added some nuances to it. "If it gets to that, I'll do the beating then. What is he going to do? Say that a blind lawyer kicked his ass?" Matt mocked. "We'll see when we get there" he just shrugged, not exactly expecting it to get that bad, but a shameful and sinful part of him wanting it to.

"Camera then crime" Matt agreed with a smile. Jessica's no bullshit, getting things done approach was intoxicating. Matt was sure that both him and her, even if he didn't condone killing he could understand it, could clearly separate right from wrong. For all his guilty Christian conscience, Matt was sure that he could easily decide what was fine, what was foul, after all he was both a lawyer and a vigilante because he thought he could not only do the right thing, but also know, also decide what the right thing was. He may be a lawyer, but unless kept under check, he did resemble more of a jury, even a judge, and sometimes only the executioner part separated him from Frank Castle. Full of himself, Matt was blind in more ways than one.

(As I said on our other game as I didn't read this one first before posting, don't worry about any kind of schedule. Take your time and enjoy it, as BMR is to have fun, not pressure. Also, thanks for the signature compliment, I do love yours as well. I think that maybe the characters could sort out a first incursion quickly, perhaps gaining some data that needs to be sorted out later, like gps routes from his phone to see where has he been or something like that. Something valuable but that needs further examination due to the volume. Maybe emails too. Coming back to her place to sort things out could make them go back into the drinking and perhaps the flirting. What do you think?)
 
"It probably came with the assumption that she didn't tell anyone about it so it would work as a 'we're watching you and we know what you did' gesture. But lots of pictures tells me either they didn't know which one would get her, were trying to overwhelm her, or they didn't want someone else to know which one was the problem." Which seemed least likely by far. She didn't correct him with any kind of malice or superiority, it was just the thought process of a professional. Jessica wasn't much good at putting out people's fires. It wasn't that she couldn't, she was perfectly capable of putting together facts and soft comforting fictions together to make people feel better, she just... didn't usually. It didn't work very well on her friends, either. Comfort from Jessica, like many other things, came in the form of forward bluntness.

As she felt like she might have to remind him and the slightly-less-secretive-but-still-secretive Danny, everyone knew who she was. She had a record, she had a license as a private investigator, her name had been in the papers after Killgrave, though not the front page thank god. "It's not the first time, I've been through this before. I've made my feelings on this sort of thing clear." If this had been a movie she probably would have cracked her knuckles dramatically, but that was a weird sort of gesture that if someone did in front of her she'd have to mock, so she followed it up by taking a drink from her flask. The movement was as much a comfort as the sting of cheap alcohol.

She couldn't exactly say she didn't want to do what he was thinking about, but Jessica's hand had been kind of forced. She had to keep their enemies from turning on her friends. It wasn't like they couldn't get to Trish and Malcolm if they really wanted to. "If I tell you all the problems with your plan I'm not sure you'll listen to me, so you should think of them yourself." Because there were a bunch. "Don't get Malcolm hurt." Nothing about him not hurting himself, but he was an adult and he could choose if he wanted to do things that would hurt or not. She certainly made the decision often enough.

"Investigation," she corrected wryly, "never call it crime." Even though that's exactly what it was. Her stride, as she headed towards the door, was confident. It didn't quite match how she felt inside, but Jessica was good at the whole faking thing.


((I put together an 8tracks for Jessica if you're interested. Vanna could have one eventually but the sound isn't nearly as 'almost cohesive' as Jessica's ended up.
Maybe they get there and can hear his kids so they just break into his car instead? I can't picture either of them being fine with breaking into a house while children are home. Maybe it's a hot night so the dude left the car window partially open, enough that Jessica manages to get in there and get the lock pulled up or they're just willing enough to get in to take keys that are by the front door but not go further into the house because that'd risk engagement around said kids. That will then require more work from them to figure out how to corner and "talk" to the guy since they can't just go to his house and do it.))
 
Jessica's deadpan attitude and her professional insight should have quenched the fire inside Matt, but despite her warnings they did little to help. Sure, Matt wouldn't do anything stupid, not too stupid at least and not for now, but even if he had regained some of his normalcy, whatever passed as normal in his life, he was still a broken man. His own mistakes around Elektra's twofold return had driven a wedge between him and his only friends, not to mention that he had tried to fill the whole with her and then he had lost her. Twice. Jessica's request had pushed the drinking and fighting aside, once again filling one need for another, so while she was close Matt would be able to handle himself without resorting to going into a church for confession.

"It wasn't much of a plan to begin with..." Matt said, slightly defensive when Jessica called out of his recklessness. "As I have said before, and if not I'd say it now, you are the professional investigator" he conceded, smiling once more. "I scare, I interrogate, I puni- I punch" Matt said, consciously avoiding to say "punish" for a small fraction of a second. "So yeah, finesse isn't my thing" he admitted, which was an amusing notion to agree with a woman that could punch concrete off the wall, but that didn't make it less true. Matt was accustomed to roam the streets, take advantage of his senses and bring the pain to the criminals, but he had overestimated how much of an investigator he had been so far, specially when angry.

Without Foggy and Karen to do the real work, to do the research, to work their brains, Matt was even blinder. Sure, he wasn't stupid, and hell, he considered himself a quite good litigator, able to work both judge and jury. But all the work that took him to court? That wasn't his forte. Without them, Matt was but a gun without bullets. Now he had Jessica, she could do what he couldn't, although this time he doubted that anything of that would reach the court, specially with him involved in a suit that wasn't black and red. "Hey, you called it crime on the first place" Matt protested, even if not seriously. "I thought we didn't do self deluding. Or at least I try to" he sighed, following her.

(Very nice selection. Savannah's musical profile will get clearer as the time goes I suppose. One thing is giving a personal spin on a canon character and another creating an original one, her musical feel will get clearer the more she's embodied with each post. And yeah, something of sorts that catches Matt "blindsided" like the possibility of the bad guy actually having a family and makes them retreat even if Matt doesn't want to sounds great)
 
Matt did flips and fancy kicks and trained punches so she was pretty sure that he did in fact, have finesse. At least compared to her. Jessica could research, but she had finesse in much the same way a bulldozer did. "Scaring, interrogating, and punching are right up my alley." A lot of stalking, too. Or... investigating. That was the more professional word for it, she supposed. It wasn't the word the people she followed would use, but they were pretty much always doing something they weren't supposed to. Jessica skipped right over the fact that he'd almost said 'punish' because she didn't really care to dig onto his brain right now and try to handle his feelings. That wasn't something that she was good at in an honest way and it wasn't something she wanted to spend time on right now.

Research was.... well she couldn't say it was easy because it wasn't always, but it was easier than some things she did. It was easier than some of the choices she made. "I get to. It's weird when you do it, you're part of the law. Doesn't give me much faith in our justice system." Her tone said that she didn't have much faith in it to begin with. There was no reason for her to, the law had been entirely incapable of handling her biggest problem. And her second biggest problem. And another handful of problems that had for some reason never ended up on the radar even though somebody in some sort of position of authority should have noticed and helped. "You're supposed to correct and discourage me." Somebody had to, that wasn't a role that Jessica should ever be in. She was not a fantastic voice of reason, she should never be the angel on anyone's shoulder. That would be horrifying, honestly.

She was getting tired of flagging cabs. This was a whole lot of travel and they'd had to take so many cabs. It wasn't cheap, this was her alcohol money getting burned here. Hah. Haha. No, she'd use her rent money before she used her alcohol money. The cab ride was quiet, partially because she set the tone immediately by being silent and putting herself in a very 'don't talk to me' body position. It wasn't because she was angry or unhappy with Matt, it was mostly because she was about out of people energy. Jessica could fake it, obviously, but she wasn't a super social person and she needed time to recharge. Her introversion wasn't exactly something that'd surprise anyone who'd met her for more than fifteen seconds. Honest interaction exhausted her emotionally.

Still she opened the door for Matt when they got to her crappy, slightly run-down apartment and offered her arm so that he could walk with her into the building. It was done with reluctance and an exasperated expression, though she had the intelligence to cut both those off her face by the time she turned around to face the rest of the world. "The elevator works this week, so we can take that." It was a subtle complaint about the state of her apartment because at the end of the day that crap hole was perfect for her. Nobody here would call her out for anything. For a moment she had forgotten that her doorknob worked, and when they got to the end of her hall the dark haired woman gave it an annoyed jiggle and shove before remembering, letting out an exasperated 'ugh' like having a fully functional lock was an inconvenience to her, and dug out the key to unlock the door.

Her apartment was lived in, if you counted 'days spent drinking and stewing in dark thoughts and general hatred for the world' as a 'living' thing. Sparsely decorated, the biggest draw was the desk in front of the windows. It smelled like alcohol, coffee, and maybe a little bit the leftover Thai food containers that had been tossed into the wastebin next to the desk from breakfast that morning. Food was food, she didn't really care what she ate for each meal of the day. "Just gimme a minute to find it. Make yourself at home or whatever."

((Savannah has a lot of songs, but I feel like Jessica's make for a better 'album' because the genres and sound have more overlap.
It'll force them to re-strategize and probably also make Matt cool his head a little. It's not like Jessica had a whole lot of time to research so it's totally understandable she'd miss that the dude has kids if his social media is on lockdown))
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom