#ironrand

The police arrived shortly after the mess had ended- while Jess was certainly not the biggest fan of the cops, especially not of Mercedes Knight, there wasn’t much more the heroes could do.  Not on Christmas Eve.  They all ducked out the back, hoping the papers would pin this ‘Christmas miracle’ on the Devil or something.

“Goodwill to all, and all that shit,” Jess spat, wiping her mouth with the back of her glove.  “I never went to Sunday school, but I definitely don’t remember ninjas in the nativity.  God, I can’t believe it’s Christmas in a few hours.”  Not that she particularly cared.  She never celebrated, but with Luke around… maybe they could have tried.  Jess had actually bought him what she imagined was a good gift, but she’d never given a good gift in her life.  Why start now?  She could give it to him later, when they got home.

To the apartment that had been set on fire.  Jess was going to have to do something about that, especially in light of this ninja business.

“Anyways, kicking ass worked up my appetite and honestly after not eating all day I’d like to take advantage of that,” she muttered, looking down the street to see if any neon signs were still on anywhere. Matt sighed, wiping the blood from his mouth on the back of his gloved hand. Ninjas weren’t going to be the death of him, but Jessica quite possibly was. “I was raised by nuns, and for once, you’re right about that. Merry Christmas, for what it’s worth.” Ah, shit, Christmas. Foggy. He wasn’t going to be able to hang around. Just as well. He didn’t want anyone else knowing his identity. “Look, there’s about a billion real noisy signs buzzing around here, but would you serve Daredevil?” He had to admit, he was hungry as well. He didn’t exactly eat well before he went out either. At least he wasn’t as bad as Jessica. “C’mon, you have to eat, when you’re - never mind.” Matt knew about the Hand, and he knew that it wasn’t going to go well if they got involved without him, but at the same time - he barely knew Luke and this new guy. Up until recently, his interactions with Jessica had been almost solely (somewhat) professional. Leaving the camera incident aside. “Look. I gotta go. But you have fun.”

“Oh, No, you don’t,” Luke said, grinning. “No way, man, you do all that parkour business, beatin’ bad folks up without even being able to see -- you eat with us. I know a Chinese restaurant owes me about a dozen favors, and we should be looking to hole up for a while. Don’t worry about the warehouse, Misty’s got our backs.”

And their numbers. And probably a whole lot of community service hours for Luke. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Luke slung an arm around Jessica’s shoulder, and another around Matt’s.

“Mushu pork! Szechuan beef. Enough dumplings to sink the Titanic. Come on, it’s Christmas Eve, I’m gonna be a daddy, and we opened a dozen cans of whup on those fake ninjas. We should be celebrating. … and probably hiding.”

After the fight came to its seemingly inevitable conclusion, Danny wasn’t sure what to…. do. Of course, he already had notions of a lean, mean, fighting team spinning around in his head, but he did his best to tamp down such expectations. Jessica and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen weren’t exactly the joining type. 

Luke seemed nice, though.

“You’re going to be a dad?” Danny couldn’t help but splutter. His eyes moved back and forth between Luke and Jessica several times. He pulled off his crappy ski mask to squint more meaningfully at them. 

Was Jessica….?

In any case, Chinese - especially off-brand American Chinese - sounded much better than Lean Cuisine. “Luke can pick the place, but dinner’s on me.”

Jessica saw the way the masked stranger was eyeing her after Luke’s excited blabbering.  She kept her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets and shrugged.  “Yeah, yeah.  But don’t go making a big deal about it, okay?”  Despite herself, she managed a smile and gave Luke a quick peck as he threw his arm around her.

When Danny removed his mask, she just about spluttered in surprise.  “Wait, Danny fucking Rand?  Are you serious with the- the… the dragon punching stuff back there?  I thought I told you not to worry about it on the phone.”  Jess paused.  “But at least you held your own in there.  Jesus, what an ass-backwards group we’ve got here.”

She shook her head, not wanting to fret about it.  And if Danny was paying for dinner, she wasn’t going to complain.  “Alright, alright.  Fine, let’s hash this out on the way to food.  Luke, Danny, Devil, you’re coming with.  I’m starved.”  Jess broke from her boyfriend’s grasp and made a move to find a restaurant.

“Look, yes, Chinese food is great and we need to lay low for a while but whatever this is, I -” His train of thought was interrupted by Luke’s casual arm-slinging. He sighed. “I’ve been down this route before, and these guys do not mess around. This isn’t the kind of decision you take lightly.” He also shrugged off Luke’s grasp, and moved in the same direction as Jessica. “You bring Misty into this, you’re putting her in danger.” Matt crossed his arms. “You’re really, really risking getting dead here. Just so you can make an informed decision. I’ll come with, because it’s Christmas, but this isn’t a movie and we’re not all one big merry band of vigilantes.”

Actually, Luke was pretty sure they were, at this point, most definitely a merry band of vigilantes. All the evidence pointed that was, what with the not having police jobs or uniforms and still kicking a pile of ninja booty. But Matt looked like… actually, just then, he looked like Jessica before her tenth cup of coffee in the morning. A little sour. Luke decided nodding sagely was a good way to go. 

Also.

“Misty is a cop in New York City. She’s in danger every day. We got a chance here to make things a little bit safer for her and all the rest of them. In a not-band of vigilantes way, obviously.” He winked at Danny. Danny looked on board with the whole merry band of vigilantes thing. They were going to need a name. 

“Here we are,” he said, pushing the door open. “We’ll close the blinds, order food, and Danny can tell us about the dragons.”

Was Danny the only one still caught on the whole ‘Dad’ thing? And the fact Jessica was pregnant? He decided to file that away for later.

“Surprise?” Danny said tentatively, fixing Jessica with an awkwardly apologetic smile. “Sorry, I would’ve told you earlier, but I’m-- trying to keep a low profile. Hence the whole mask situation.” He raised the cloth in his hand as if in explanation, though his gaze strayed momentarily to Daredevil. “...Think I might be due for an upgrade, though, especially looking at this guy.”

Luke was nodding sagely at the whole ‘we’re not a team’ speech, so Danny decided copying him would be the best course of action. He caught the wink at the tail end, and figured he didn’t do too bad. 

Although he was really starting to see the benefits, though. Of a team. 

“I’m actually thinking Daredevil should tell us what he meant when he said he’s ‘been down this road before’. And I can order.” He greeted the older woman behind the counter in Chinese, extending a hand and offering a charming smile.

“Yeah, the glowing fist just screams ‘low profile’,” Jess muttered as she slipped inside the restaurant, pretending she didn’t see that wink that Luke gave to Danny.  It smelled a bit like frying oil and chili spices in here, but it would do.  Empty on a Christmas Eve, surprisingly, but Jess checked a clock on the wall and realized how late it actually was.  And a grumble in her gut reminded her that she hadn’t really eaten anything that day to begin with.

She stood back as Danny began speaking Chinese, earning a grin from the older woman.  Jess rolled her eyes somewhat, grabbing a menu and finding a table in the center of the room for them.  She sat down and put one foot up on the chair next to her, flipping open the laminate pages to take a look at the food available.

“God,” she groaned.  “I think I took a few good hits to the face- that’s gonna bruise tomorrow.  At least those ninjas had the decency not to make any low blows.” “I can sense you winking, Luke.” Matt sighed, following Jessica’s lead to move towards the table. He chose the chair opposite her, as not to engage in a ridiculous power play over the seat she had her foot resting on. Luke and Danny could contend with that issue. He was actually hungry, and for once he wouldn’t have to defrost something or attempt to contend with inaccessible websites when he’d been hit in the head multiple times. That was a good enough reason to stay. It smelt like...pork dumplings, if he guessed right. “Look, the Hand? They’re immortal fanatics, but they’re secretive and everywhere - imagine if conspiracy theories were real, essentially. Low blows? Kidnapped about 20 innocent people purely to lure me into a fight. Doesn’t matter if you’re a cop, you got super strength, bulletproof skin, you’re a...dragon guy. The Hand will still Ruin. Your. Day.”

“You know what, I don’t even think you’re blind. Ain’t no one can sense a man winking. And even if they could, you’re being creepy about it. Lighten up, Matt. We can deal with The Hand, but not on an empty stomach.”

He listed Jess’s feet and put them in his lap, patting her ankles. And looked at her stomach as if any second the first of the bump might appear. Nothing yet, but he gave her a grin. Adrenalin still coursing through his veins, and pissed off or not he was feeling pretty good. 

Matt looked deeply, deeply unimpressed by that statement.

“They’re bad guys. Very bad guys. Bad guys trip ‘emselves up eventually, one way or another. And when they do, we’ll be there. We beat them, remember? We can do it again. Is that the sesame prawn toast?”

Danny gave the owner’s small, wrinkled hand one last squeeze before returning to the table, just in time to catch Matt’s comment about The Hand. Luke was pretty blasé about the whole thing, but Danny knew a thing or two about secret ninja cults. They were way old and way dangerous, stuff nobody in their right mind ought to fuck with casually. 

(Though he supposed ‘right mind’ would not be...  precisely applicable to the people sitting around this table.)

“Immortal fanatics?” Danny probed, turning one of the chairs around and taking a seat between Matt and Luke. He’d seen magic happen firsthand - literally - but nothing like immortality. “What exactly is their objective? World domination, or something?”

Connie - the old woman who owned the restaurant - set several plates of still steaming food onto the table in front of them. Danny offered her a smile and a brief thanks. 

“Luke’s right, obviously, I just think-- it’s important to know what we’re up against,” he loaded a couple onto his plate and handed Luke the sesame prawns. “Especially if we’re talking conspiracy theory levels of crazy.”

“Tch,” Jess hissed, frowning at Matt. “I meant ‘low blows’ in the sense that no one tried to punch me in the stomach. Because that could have ended badly. But yeah, sure, they’re bastards.”  She was so not here for the talks of crazy ninja cults and apocalyptic doom to Hell’s Kitchen.

Jess put one arm over the back of her chair as Luke pulled her legs into his lap. She gave him a little wink of her own- sense that, Matt. She then heaved a tortured sigh as if this was a massive inconvenience for her as the boys talked circles around this immortal fanatic situation. It made the days she complained about dealing with cheating spouses seem like a treat.

“Up against? We? I’m not exactly making these guys a passion project of mine.” Nor was she planning to make this ‘team up’ any more than a convenient and coincidental gathering of adjacently-familiar powered people.

The investigator straightened in her seat as several steaming plates of food were set down at the table. Jess reached for her pair of chopsticks, separating the flimsy wood sticks and quickly stabbing a few fried gyoza, shaking them off onto her plate. “Luke, pass the soy sauce?”

“At the risk of having this held against me for the rest of my life, I agree with Jessica.” For a quiet life, he chose not to comment on her wink. Matt’s reticence to commit to this was warring with his desire for sesame prawn toast. He settled for grabbing some - and maybe some of those pork dumplings - and sighing deeply at the same time. “You don’t want stopping the Hand to be your New Year’s Resolution.” He also got the sense that he was going to end up on this ride anyway. He’d not known the man long, but Danny gave off a sense of being far too interested in the concept of fighting immortal ninjas. 

“That’s just about it. They’ve built crime empires over centuries, and are willing to do just about anything to keep themselves going. I’m not being creepy about it. You’re being overly lax about it. When the suit’s on, you call me Daredevil. That’s it. Not all of us can afford to be so casual with our identities.” He wanted to cross his arms, to make the point, but that would have made it somewhat difficult to eat, so he settled for sullenly squeezing a gyoza between chopsticks harder than was strictly necessary.

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[AND THEY ALL HAD DINNER AND BECAME BEST FRIENDS AND JESS AND LUKE HAD NOTHING BUT CUTE TIMES BEFORE THEIR BABY CAME AND ALSO SOMEHOW DANNY GOT THE BABY NAMED AFTER HIM, AND MATT WAS THERE TOO BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL BEST BUDDIES FOR LIFE. XOXO THE END]

Jessica followed the woman all the way to a padlocked warehouse- she must have jumped the fence somehow, because the investigator saw no trace of her target, but there was nowhere else she could have run.  Jess jumped down to the ground, waiting for Luke to catch her before she kicked open the front doors to the place.  Flecks of dust fluttered down through filters of moonlight coming in through a rooftop skylight.  

“We’ve got your number, you bitch,” she called out into the cavernous dim space.  Jess walked in slowly, trying to look for any movement in the darkness.  “No one torches my whiskey and walks it off.”

Typhoid Mary watched from the rafters with amusement as the private investigator entered the building.  This would certainly teach her to stick her nose where it didn’t belong.  It wasn’t nice to make a living off of being an invasive bitch.  Mary launched a throwing knife down at Jessica’s feet, hoping to pierce the toe of her boot.  The villain followed quickly thereafter, dropping down almost catlike to the floor.

“My number?  I’m just one woman… but maybe you’d like to get my friends’ numbers too.”

On her cue, about a dozen cloaked assassins emerged from the shadows of the warehouse walls.  “Alright, detective, let’s dance.” Daredevil landed on the roof of the warehouse, biding his time for the right moment to intervene. He couldn’t help but grin slightly about Jessica’s choice of language. A bit like that woman in the wizard film. Not my whiskey, you bitch. Jessica didn’t have a daughter - well, maybe she would do. There were suddenly a lot more people around. About a dozen, by his reckoning. About time to even it up a little. The three of them could take four each, easily. He dropped through the skylight, rolling on the landing and drawing his batons. “May I have this dance?”

“Everybody’s got some cool line except me,” Luke complained, hands closing into fists at his sides, before he launched himself at a gaggle of ninja wannabes. No need to wear himself out too quick, he figured, swinging fists left and right without a whole lot of effort; but they were quicker than anticipated, dodged his first few blows, and he started to step it up -- just as a guy in a red leotard leapt through the roof.

“See, even him,” Luke complained. “White dudes can’t dance -- that should have been my line.”

He smashed a pair of heads together and left the guys unconscious on the ground before moving on.

Danny’s pulse was hammering as he dropped through a broken window, descending into the Warehouse to find the fight already in full swing. Apparently Jessica had a lot more backup than either of them realized.

--Was that Luke Cage?

He didn’t spare a second’s thought about revealing his identity to the three others, he just closed his eyes, centered his breathing, and summoned forth the Iron Fist, promptly slamming it against the spine of one of the assassins double-teaming Jessica.

He offered her a quick apologetic smile before dodging a punch from an oncoming cloaked figure, executing an efficient, deadly three-strike combo.

“Okay, I promise there is a rational explanation for this. --Maybe, like, semi-rational. It’s actually very dependent on how open you are to the idea that dragons exist.”

It wasn’t really a big surprise that Daredevil dropped his ass in the middle of the fight with a dumb one-liner and everything.  What she hadn’t expected was the other masked stranger descending and lighting up a glowing fist- but if he seemed to be on their side, they could deal with that later.  It seemed like these ninjas had a lot of enemies in the city lately.  

“She’s all yours, Daredevil,” Jess called out as she turned to slam her elbow into one of several assassins who wasted no time converging on her location.  Luke was already grabbing fistfulls of shadow cloak while Jessica kicked herself back into a solid mass in the darkness.  “I don’t need a rational explanation,” she barked at the new fighter.  “Just keep hitting them.”

Dragons?  Oh, this was going to be a lot longer night than she thought.

Typhoid Mary grinned a little too eagerly at the sight of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen dropping in to break up her dance with the detective.  She was happy to leave Jessica and Luke to the Hand soldiers.  The telekinetic mutant mercenary had unfinished business with this enchanting man in red.

“Well then,” she chuckled.  “It’s a date, devil.”  Typhoid lit up her fist and streaked an angry fireball at the man before drawing her swords and dodging around an oncoming flurry of fighters headed towards Jessica, Luke, and the third ally of theirs.

Her focus was singularly trained on Daredevil, although the light of the third fighter’s fist caused her heart rate to spike somewhat- could that be?

No.  There was no way in the seven hells that these fools knew the Iron Fist.

Daredevil threw himself to the floor, feeling the heat from the fireball over his back. It always had to be fire, didn’t it? He didn’t waste any time in getting back to his feet, running towards her and her swords in a way that he imagined would seem particularly insane to anyone except the present company. Because dragons? Really? He launched a flurry of hits with his own, non-energy-producing fists, seeking an opportunity to attempt a disarming move.

Whatever this newcomer was talking about, he’d elicited quite the reaction from his opponent. “You know, my ideal holiday season didn’t involve dragons or ninjas but here I am.”

“Jessie,” Luke hissed. “The dude with the glowing fist is the one who puked on my shoes and offered to buy me a house!”

His timing could probably have been better. Jessica did admittedly look fairly busy, and he was too. But later, Luke sincerely hoped he’d be hearing this thing about the dragons, because that was gonna be some very entertaining fisherman’s tale. With dragons. So, later. Also -- Jessica seemed to know everyone, which was mildly unsettling. Enough so Luke lost a moment’s attention, and felt a sword across his stomach.

“Man, how many t-shirts you think I own?” he asked, grabbing the sword by the blade and shattering it. He kicked the ninja-looking guy across the room, and enjoyed the very satisfying thunk when he hit the wall.

This clothing situation was getting ridiculous, and now Luke was annoyed. He lifted one recently disarmed ninja off the ground and threw him at one of his friends. All too skinny for Luke to steal their clothes, which was a pity, since they owed him. “Jess. Who’s the guy in the red?”

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