born broken.

Robbie Reyes was someone that Jess actively enjoyed spending time with, and one of the few people she could think of whose name appeared on her phone and didn’t make her groan. With her apartment literally torched, and Carol still searching through property listings as she spoke, Robbie’s couch seemed as good a choice as any, so when he dropped down beside her, interrupting her mid afternoon nap, she couldn’t exactly complain. She couldn’t blast him off the couch either, courtesy of her current … dysfunction. The words he was saying registered, and Jess opened one eye, looking up at him curiously. “Are you trying to hit on me right now?” she asked, voice thick with sleep. “Because talk of murder would’ve turned me on last month, but this week … it’s a no go. Sucks. You’re not terrible, face wise.”

The last thing Jess expected to deal with on a night out was someone starting a bar fight with a fork, but here she was. Jess seemed to pick the best drinking partners, truly. She sighed, pushing herself up from the bar stool she had been determined to park on for the rest of the night, grabbing some tape from her jacket pocket to wrap her knuckles. Super strength meant it was less for protection so much as to prevent too much blood being left at the crime scene – her own blood, safe to say. “You want some backup?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at the other woman.

[✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: yeah. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: yeah, and we were so creative we named her ‘olivia’.  [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: differences for sure [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: she looks at me and expects someone else and then throws the ‘ur not my mom’ card in my face [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: like i don’t know that already [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: i can’t be her mom [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: let’s do it. get out of here. girls weekend [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: i just have to take care of something first [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: and try not to get ollie pissed off at me [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: what’s it called when ur boyfriend cuts you off from the bank account?    

(✉ → unknown): but this time, it’s definitely not, assuming you’re talking about a nude, I barely know her, so it was not at all. (✉ → unknown): really? Duly noted, I will try to remember that. (✉ → unknown): I’m gonna guess you two broke up and things got awkward?

(✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): You want to hear it again?  (✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): I’ll talk legal to you any day.  

(✉ → J.Drew): You’ve annoyed me (✉ → J.Drew): Usually when someone contacts me with information it’s because they want something (✉ → J.Drew): So, tell me what you want or stop wasting my time

“Bullfutz you would,” Clint said, giving Jess a long look. “You won’t go to them for the same reason you stitch up knife wounds in your bathroom at the end of a night. Because this job – it’s everything, and you won’t risk getting benched,” he said, shaking his head. “Especially for something that might not heal.” 

Brains didn’t come back as easily as muscle. And hearts? Hearts never healed right, not really. Jess’ heart had been through more than most, some of the scars caused by him. And her heartbreaks kept ripping open it seemed. “Yeah, heard a little something about that,”  he murmured. Catching up on what SHIELD had become meant learning about what Ward had done. Meant finding another snake in the hen house. Clint hadn’t spent a lot of time on his farm, but he knew there was only one thing to do with a snake. 

I killed him. Clint nodded once, a deep frown on his face. He pulled Jess over to the couch, guided her to sit with him. “What happened between us had nothing to do with who you are,” Clint said firmly. “You know that, Jess. That one is on me. We both got enough weight without taking on what we don’t need.” He touched the side of her face gently. “And no offense – but you’re not perfect at anything. And that’s a good thing. Because humans keep growing, ya know? And so are you,” he assured her. “You’re not a weapon, Jess. You’re a human, and sometimes humans let their emotions get the best of them. Nothing’s more human than that.” 

Jess couldn’t help but sniff a laugh at that. “You know how long it took me to get cleared for active duty with SHIELD in the first place?” she asked. She had Fury Sr.’s sign-off, which was probably the only reason she made it through. She had no interests outside of work, no supportive personal relationships, no friends outside the walls of SHIELD HQ, and she didn’t want them. Jess found comfort in temporary homes and nothing else, and that didn’t make for a safe investment when it came to an agency. She learned how to bluff the system. She learned that asking for help only resulted in her being held back from her mission for atonement, from the one thing she was actually good at. “It kind of pisses me off that you do know that.”

Because Clint saw everything. He saw everything, and he adjusted to everything, and maybe that’s why Jess got so attached, why she felt he understood her more than anyone else before. It usually took people more time, but Clint and Natasha … they got through to the core of Jessica, of whatever was left. “I should’ve known,” she said, simply, because it was the truth. “If anyone could’ve known, it would’ve been me. I … I was with him, Clint. We were talking about … we were going to run away together, like idiots. I never even suspected.”

“See. Now, was that so hard?” Dinah smirked. This Jessica Drew was certainly keeping her attention. Losing her attention would be a dangerous move to make. “Now, what are you so eager to know?” she asked, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind Jessica’s ear. “What are you so interested in knowing that will take away the guilt for the naughty things you want me to do to you tonight?” she purred, loving any rise she could get out of the woman. “Is it Ollie? You don’t need to worry about him. My Ollie has been dead for years, and this world’s version of him is a pathetic excuse for one.”

A muscle clenched in Jessica’s jaw as she looked up at the woman, but the irritation that went through her wasn’t nearly the same level as usually did with that level of condescension, because the woman standing in front of her wasn’t just anyone else. This was Dinah, her friend, in the flesh and in the form she originally knew her. Dinah – this Dinah, she had to keep separating them in her mind – reached out, and Jess wanted to hit her hand away, but she didn’t. She just glared at the woman as she spoke, biting down on the inside of her cheek. “I have guilt about a lot of things, but what I think about you isn’t one of them,” Jess retorted, immediately knowing she’d given the woman an inch she’d turn into a mile. “This universe’s version of you seems pretty keen. I’m not crossing that line. I don’t care who you are.”

It was easy for Emma to pretend like she didn’t care about anyone else. It was easy for her to be cold and manipulative. It was even easier to push people away in those attempts. Of course, admitting that she actually had feelings, emotions - that was the difficult part. Emma tried her best to not feel anything. At least, that was what she did in public. Behind closed doors, she was much less composed. How could she be composed when the man she loved would never love her in the same way? When she pushed everyone away because she was too afraid of growing close to anyone else? Being cold was easy. 

“I know what you did,” Emma confirmed lowly, her eyes narrowing at Jess as she began to panic slightly. She barely had to look into her mind to see every painstaking detail. It was almost the only thing that this woman was focusing on. It wasn’t healthy. Emma knew because she’d been in the same position before. “Oh darling, it’d be easy. You wouldn’t remember a thing. The pain that you’re feeling. The suffering. It’d all be over with the snap of my fingers.” 

I know what you did. Jessica heard that very line almost every time she had nightmares – so basically every night she dragged herself from the sofa to go to her bed instead, hoping that this would be the night she could finally tell herself she left the past where it belonged. Unfortunately, after the war was won, you couldn’t just get everything you did in it and pack it into a cardboard box in the back of your mind. You had to live with it, had to work through it, and usually it took friends to do that – but Jess found it almost impossible to do that. She found it impossible to talk, even to the people that she was closest to, but then here was this stranger seeing through her instinctively, immediately.

Would he be better now if he’d embraced his grief as a child? Would he be more well adjusted if he’d been allowed to face his trauma, if he’d been taught to cope with it instead of pushing it down? To the monks who raised him, the things he felt were a hindrance. An inconvenience. Feelings had no place in a weapon’s heart, especially not feelings of grief. They’d always preferred his rage, always liked him for his anger. That fury, at least, could be harnessed. It could be used. So they’d taught him how to turn his grief into rage, how to replace sadness with anger, how to make his pain useful. Danny wondered if Jess’s upbringing had been the same. Was it a universal thing in people who raised children into weapons to pick and choose what feelings those weapons got to keep? Was it common practice to maintain their anger while shoving their trauma down to a place where it would one day overflow and tear them to pieces?

But… Maybe they still had a shot, in the end. Danny was far better adjusted than he’d once been, and Jess seemed to be doing okay, too. Maybe it was possible to come back from the way they’d been raised… and maybe it was possible for Davos, too. It was a nice thought, if nothing else. A nice thing to consider. She said that hating each other didn’t disqualify you from being a family, and Danny thought of Joy, who’d hated him so much she’d been willing to do anything just for a chance at hurting him. What did it say about him, he wondered, that so many of the people he considered family had tried to kill him at one point or another? Joy, Ward, Harold, Davos… So many of the people he’d loved had wanted him dead at least once, and it was hard not to wonder if the problem was with him instead of all of them. He looked up when she spoke again, a startled laugh coming from his lips. He had a feeling she wasn’t kidding, but he couldn’t help the sound. “I don’t — I don’t want to do that.” 

There were a lot of things that held Jess back in training, at least according to the Taskmaster. He said that she was afraid. He said that she was angry. As far as Jess was concerned, she needed to be some amount of either of those to force her through the gruelling processes he pushed on her, because it certainly wasn’t for the love of Hydra that she fought – not even when she knew no differently. Jess liked to think she had good instincts, and that they were a large part of the reason she was still alive now. Growing up, there’d always been something telling her that she was doing the wrong thing, that something was slightly off. There were people, of course, who got in under that. Jared, Grant … they were the most significant examples, and ones that she couldn’t quite get over. But in the grand scheme of things, Jess liked to believe she chose good people, and one of those people was sitting in front of her right now as she spoke.

(✉️ ➡️ Soulmate): Hill is usually right.  (✉️ ➡️ Soulmate): You’re a good person, too.  (✉️ ➡️ Soulmate): Alright, Jess. 

When you’d been to Hell and back, it wasn’t hard to recognize people who’d done the same. Robbie had seen the flames of the underworld reflected in Jess’s eyes the first time he’d met her, had understood as she’d approached him in a warehouse full of bodies he’d put down that she wasn’t the sort of person who was content sitting back and doing nothing at any given moment. She had the Devil in her, just like he did. And, just like him, she wasn’t afraid to let the Devil loose. It was necessary sometimes, something most people didn’t quite understand. They wanted the world to be generous, wanted forgiveness to fall from the skies like rain, but that wasn’t how things worked. The world never gave Robbie anything he didn’t take for himself, and he knew Jess understood that. People like them couldn’t rely on the kindness of angels. Sometimes, the Devil was all you had. “My experience wasn’t much like Mean Girls,” he admitted with a shrug, thinking back briefly. His high school experience had been teachers who didn’t understand the weight of the shit he was carrying and students whose lives seemed so goddamn easy that it was hard not to resent them. Gabe always made it seem like Robbie ought to regret dropping out, but he never had. He’d never felt more free than the day he’d walked out those doors with the knowledge that he was never going back. 

“I’ve thought about it,” he admitted with a shrug, still grinning. Of course he’d thought about it. When you grew up with nothing, it was hard not to imagine what you’d do if you suddenly found yourself loaded. “Upwards of $17 million, depending on the condition. They don’t come on the market often. Not many of them left.” Rarity was a sure-fire way to make things more expensive. People always wanted things they couldn’t have, after all. “Yeah? Shit, I might have to hitch a ride on the party boat, then. I get the feeling we could have a hell of a time with it.” He’d never been one for the water, either, but she was right — exposure therapy was a good a way as any to get rid of that discomfort. “Guess we run in the same crowds,” he shrugged. “Oh, Jesus Christ. You tell me werewolves are real and I swear I’m out of here.” Some things were just a little too ridiculous, even for a guy with the Devil riding shotgun. He raised a brow at her question, tilting his head to the side slightly. “You think, what, I just don’t feel anything? Nah, I still feel it. It doesn’t tickle, either.” 

Jess had friends in high places. She dated Clint, considered Natasha a soulmate, knew most SHIELD agents by both their name and their number. For some reason, people seemed to trust her. In the beginning, that was hardly unexpected. Jess was trained to shift like a chameleon into whoever the person in front of her wanted. It was only months or years later, when that facade started to shift (because not even the best spy in the world could maintain a ruse forever) that Jess began to have questions over why she was still a part of people’s lives. She could only come up with one explanation, and that was the fact that, against all odds, she managed to have good people caring about her. She managed to drag them down to her level, make it so they were indebted to her, or at least protective. With Robbie, she didn’t need to worry about that. He already had the Devil. He had far worse than she could offer, and there was something reassuring in that. “You’ll need to pull together a realistic high school movie for me, then,” she replied. “What if I’m undercover sometime and they ask me what I did in science class? I couldn’t answer them.” It was mostly teasing. Hydra covered many topics, and typical education programmes so she could bluff her way through was only one of them.

[✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: yeah, i get that. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: i ever tell you there’s an alternate universe where ollie and i have a kid? [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: cause she hopped universes after her parents over there died. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: idk what made them capable of being parents, but i sure as hell am not equipped for it. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: [UNSENT] literally and figuratively [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: easy as that. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: i mean, i’m really good at yelling at nurses if something happens. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: i can throw in some ‘i’ll sue ur ass’ for good measure too. [✉️ ➡️J.D. (jaw dropping)]: sue them with ollie’s money that is.

(✉ → J.D. (jaw dropping)): just how much endurance does a spider have? (✉ → J.D. (jaw dropping)): breathing helps with running, and we both know i have quite the set of lungs. (✉ → J.D. (jaw dropping)): my ass is the best. though yours is no joke.

(✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): Prefer to just get worked up for you, babe.  (✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): I’ll take that proposition.  

(✉️ ➡️ Jess D.): What’s wrong with Hallmark movies? I think they’re nice. (✉️ ➡️ Jess D.): Maybe Netflix just wants you to watch something nice, Jess!

(✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): I don’t think that they could handle it.  (✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): We can spar. So long as you know the end result.  (✉️ ➡️ Hot Spyder): Not as if I can keep my hands off of you either way.