Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Now essentially archived here: these are the trailers that originally appeared for the series that is being published (Jessica Jones 2.5 -- AKA Gimme Shelter).

I recommend you to straight to the series at this point. Thanks!

Jessica Jones Season 2.5 – The Trailers

A Marvel FanFic by Phil Kurtis

Trailers soundtrack playlist: JJ 2.5 Trailers Playlist

   ---> Playlist includes link to a Spotify playlist of the songs in order

Concept art: The Excelsior Wall

TRAILER #1

I just breathe in, I just breathe out
I've taken every hairpin curve by now
I may crack but I'll never shatter
I may crack but it doesn't matter

                      -- "Shatter", Meredith Brooks

[Jessica Jones – voice over:] Not everyone lives happily ever after. It’s just that no one wants to admit it.

Almost no one.

When you’re the kind of person who does admit it – AKA Jessica Jones – everybody takes that as hostility, or insanity, or stupidity, or anything else that isn’t simple reality. They don’t want to know what’s a sure thing, and what’s just a bet. Or a lie.  

So, when you’ve been forced to learn what I’ve learned – after being orphaned, tortured, kidnapped, raped, betrayed by friends, by family – you’re not allowed to work through the reality of it. I’m supposed to just get over it with a magic thought.

And everybody’s got to “help” me, let me know how much they care, in that Twitterface “thoughts and prayers” way that is caring today.

They’re all so blind they can’t see all of  that is really all about them. Not me.

They want to believe in the world they want to live in, one where what I’ve seen isn’t there. I don’t mean the powered shit. I mean the cruelty. The depraved need to control. The way power doesn’t just corrupt, it perverts.

The one thing I know, the only certainty I feel with every other breath I take from falling out of bed until I pass out early the next morning, is what they can’t stand to hear.

I will never live happily ever after.

*****

“And there it is again,” she sighed. Purple haze, and not the good kind full of slick riffs and Jimi’s raspy voice.

No, the voice snaking this haze together in her memories was silken, English, presumptively possessive. “How can he trust you, Jessica?” And then that damned cocky chuckle of – his. That one.

She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Shut up,” she told the voice. “You’re dead, remember?” Main Street.

Few accents mock as well as that of the English. “And does your smitten janitor know he’ll die next? Or perhaps this – Smithie? Is it?” A tongue clucked, dry and rasping. “She’s so so young and so convinced you can save anyone, when you can’t even save yourself.”

Birch Street, and .... damn it. She shoved her chair back, folding her hands over her stomach. “Leave her out of this. And Oscar’s not ‘a janitor’, he’s the building super, and a damned good artist on the side. He’s got a show coming up –"

“We always do, though, don’t we? Anyone who gets close to you. We all die.”

“Pffft,” she said. “You only wish you’d been close to me, you asshole.” Her eyes strayed to the now empty Tin Cup bottle. Higgins Drive.

“Didn’t get close to you, Jessica?” that voice laughed. “I was inside you, you silly little girl. Again. And again. And … oh, my, how many times? Amazing how one can forget even the most unforgettable fucks.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Kilgrave. I’ve been fucked more memorably by the state on my licensing fees.” She tilted her head, muttering, “Speaking of which, I need to figure a way to make Pryce Chen pay those without him knowing about it.”

“Oh, now, Jess-i-caaa,” the voice smarmed. “Comparing those screams of passion I compelled from you to your resentment of bureaucrats? I’m hurt. And here I died just for wanting to be near you, as anyone must expect, it seems.” He sighed. “Really should tell Smithie. And Oscar. And dare I say, little Vido? Hardly ‘spoilers’, at this point. And it obviously isn’t dead old me, face it, Jess – it’s you. I mean the dead dropped ‘round you after I was gone, so QED, eh?”

Humbolt … no, not Humbolt. Colon … Co – shit! What is it?  “We done here? You finished?”

He was never finished. “Sorry about your mum, by the way, Jess. Would love to have met her, although that would have meant she was around you earlier. And therefore died sooner, though maybe not at the hands of your bestie Trish. And how is sister Trish, Jessica? Ah, lips so sweet, that one. Still close to you? Or does she have a chance to live a full life?”

Jess dug through a desk drawer, found a pint of Maker’s Mark, loosened the cap, and tilted the lip of the bottle to her mouth. “Yeah, we’re done here, asshat.”

Screeching tires and a yelp she could hear all the way up to her office made her stop before she got even a sip. She swung unsteadily to the big window frame behind her. Confused a moment, staring down, she suddenly saw the source of the cry.

*****

[Jessica Jones – voice-over:] Cobalt Lane. It’s Cobalt Lane, dip shit. Humbolt? Seriously?

Anyway, thing is, when you publicly break a rapist’s neck with your bare hands while he’s threatening an entire crowd of innocents with horrific death? People start gathering around you after that, like they start thinking you’re their long-lost supermom.

But I’ll never be anybody’s mom.

I was a sister, once, and I thought I was the worst sister in the world, until the night I learned I wasn’t even the worse in our little duo.

Still. I’m nobody’s answer to any problem in their life.

I can’t keep my own shit straight.

I can barely remember Cobalt Lane.

*****

Blond, pale, and chill-handsome leaned on his elbow over the bar, turned toward her. He smiled again, ice eyes focused on hers. “Just a few moments of your time, Ms. Jones.”

She shrugged, then asked into her glass before the whiskey hit her lips. “What’s this about?”

“I’m here on behalf of your sister.”

She held the glass in place, then tilted it, drinking deeply, before clapping it to the bar. “And you are?”

“Daimon Hellstrom.”

“Your name is …” she dragged it out with incredulity. “Daimon Hellstrom?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “The thing I wanted to –”

“You know you can petition a court and get that changed, right?”

“Amusing.”

“No, seriously. I got a guy. Foggy Nelson.” She paused, then half-shrugged. “He’s better than his name.” She picked the glass up again, tilting the lip toward him. “I mean, not like you got a lot of room to snicker.”

“You don’t know who I am?”

“Lead guitarist for the Screaming Norgie Fascist Black Metal Devils? Help me out here, I’m just guessing.” She cupped the glass between her palms and muttered, “Weird. Never thought Trish would actually go death metal with this superhero bullshit.”

He chuckled but refused again to rise to Jessica’s baiting. She was seriously starting to hate this man. “Well, her tastes are not the same as yours,” he said, eyes going over Jessie’s boxy clothes and battered jacket. “But at the core, you’d be surprised how much you two are alike.”

“Yeah,” Jess said dryly, “she had a director for a couple episodes of It’s Patsy who ran that line by us looking for a hard candy threeway.”

“And you broke his arm,” he smiled.

“She told you?”

“No, but I do my research. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Wow, okay, you know what?” she shoved the stool back, hands flat on the bar. “This just got too creepy, even for me. Who, by the way, you don’t really know, and won’t be dealing with.”

“IGH,” he murmured.

She froze, refusing to look at him. And refusing, as much as it hurt, to reach for her glass. “You’re IGH?”

“Oh, hell no,” he said. “But I thought you should know she and I visited an old building of theirs. Thing is I see things that were. Even sense things that might come to be, but that’s a discussion for another time. I’ve been schooling her in the ways of the occult, raising powers within her, similar if faint echoes of my own. We went to this IGH facility, abandoned, locked down, because she insisted. Because she won’t let go what happened to you.”

“Okay, kudos for dialing back from creepy to just boring,” Jessica said. “But just because I don’t go around wearing the tee-shirt doesn’t mean I’ve not been there and done that.”

“Without our sight, though.”

“What, this, see-the-past bullshit? So, what, now you’re going to say you saw little Jessica there?”

“No, but Trish sensed a past presence. A violet fog, which for some reason terrified her. And she wouldn’t talk to me about it beyond that.” He paused. “Well, other than suggesting you’d know something about it.”

Jessica felt hollow, lungs dry.

“Ms. Jones?”

“Get out.”

“Two things, Ms. Jones –”

“Seriously, 666. 10-42 your ass out of here.”

He sighed, running a long finger up the side of his face, bracing his chin in his palm. “666. You do know who I am."

"Doesn't impress me. I've seen a devil die. A good one, too. You? Pffft."

"I offered the information as a peace offering,” he said quietly. “A way to open your mind just a bit to consider something that might bring you and your sister back together. Understanding –"

She pointed at the door. “I -- you really don’t hear words coming out of my mouth? Is that the problem right now?”

“Your powers, Ms. Jones. I know how you discovered them. I know when you first used them. And so I know what you won’t admit.” He leaned forward. “You weren’t the only one of the sisters who’d suffered abuse. Her mother beat her and starved her. And your powers, discovery, using them, all began out of an instinct to protect her, which is good. But you were the only one of the two of you with the power to feel even a little safe.” He sat back again. “And did you ever think about how even more helpless that made her feel?”

Jessica’s eyes were incendiary, her voice graveyard chill. “I said. Get. The fuck. Out. Now.”

*****

She’s underwater again
Somebody’s daughter, a friend
In the night in the dark in the cold
As she walks far away ...

                         -- Bird, Billie Marten

[Jessica Jones – voice-over:] They say they want nothing to do with me. They call me a “freak”. But guess who they run to when things get freaky?

Samuel Cross laid a fat expanding file folder, flap knotted shut, on the table. The cash envelope, he pushed toward her. She didn’t take it, but didn’t push it back, either.

He smiled. “No need for notes, you’ll find the info in that folder.” He shifted, easing back in his seat. “But the gist is this. I have a niece. She’s missing. Rebecca Cross.”

“Niece? How old?”

“Eighteen.”

She rolled her eyes. “A girl – or a boy – hits that age, they can go a bit crazy, run away from all they’ve known, take a few chances.”

“Without really knowing the odds,” he said, almost growling before he caught his temper and regained outward equanimity. “And there’s more to it than that.”

Jessica stared, finally snapping, “You gonna tell me? I’m not psychic.”

“No, but you’re powered. Like her.”

Shit.

“And,” he brushed lint that didn’t exist off a sleeve that probably cost a few hundred dollars in itself, “you’ve dealt with those who hunt your kind. So, with her suddenly gone, I’m thinking it’ll take Jessica Jones to figure out which and do something about it.”

She kept her face neutral, but her heart began ticking. She rubbed her left shoulder, then chased away a bad memory to focus on Cross. “She’s powered?”

He nodded.

“You’re sure about that?”

“For reasons. Yes.”

“Do tell,” Jessica said.

He did. And every bit of common sense told her to stop listening. Stop listening to the problems of a young powered in a bigoted family surrounded by hate-faith fundamentalists who wanted powereds burned to ash.

She couldn’t help but notice him fidget when he talked about Rebecca being gifted, hanging out with powereds.

Couldn’t help but notice that his gaze would wander to her hands, that same snatch of a glance at how small they were given that all of New York City knew she’d picked a man up by the throat with just one of them, and snapped his neck with the other.

Couldn’t help but notice the glaze in his eyes when they’d inevitably flicker back up to hers, as he kept talking about how he “just wants my niece back.” Yeah. Right.

Jess knew she should walk. She was flush with the cash from the job she’d pulled on that asshole congressman for Foggy Nelson.

But she kept remembering what this Italian suit with Mr. “Samuel Cross” inside it had said, what led her to sit down and listen. There was girl lost in the wind out there.

You are the only one that can actually help her.

No. She could figure out what she’d charge as a referral fee when Angela called to thank her for the job by the time she got back to her apartment. But right now, she needed to walk away.

The only one that can actually --

Walk ……….

…………. away ……….

Help her.

She sat back and stared at him, eyes wide, gaze flat.

“Start at the beginning.”

[Jessica Jones -- voice over:] I will never understand why people think I ought to give them a 'spoiler alert' before telling them the simple truth. Why the shock? Clearly, it's a fucked up world." 

Chapter Text

Now essentially archived here: these are the trailers that originally appeared for the series that is being published (Jessica Jones 2.5 -- AKA Gimme Shelter).

I recommend you to straight to the series at this point. Thanks!

TRAILER #2

Jessica Jones Season 2.5 – The Trailers

A Marvel FanFic by Phil Kurtis

Trailers soundtrack playlist: JJ 2.5 Trailers Playlist

   ---> Playlist includes link to a Spotify playlist of the songs in order

   ---> "I may crack, but I'll never shatter."

Concept art: The Excelsior Wall

Once it starts, it never stops
Discipline, it's all I'm not
Can't help myself, you listening?
Why can't I say just what I want?

You don't know anything
No, you don't know anything about me

                       – “Damage”, Fit for Rivals

[Jessica -- voice over:] I deal with my own shit. I keep the screams inside my head. I drink the screams down to whispers, and in the whispers, I hear ghosts. Mostly the ghost of Little Jessica. Mostly. But also Jessica Before Kilgrave. I loved them both, but they offer no remedies to Jessica Now.

Karen Page stiffened, but otherwise gave little away, when Jessica slid onto the sidewalk bench beside her. She kept her voice conversational. “There’s a gun in my purse.”

“Hello to you, too,” the detective said, glancing around, before looking up at the New York Bulletin’s building behind them. “Lunch always make you so tense?”

Karen set her brown paper bag aside. “Depends on the company. The others never said much about you, during that –” she faltered. “What happened at Midland Circle. But I’ve read … things. Heard about your rap sheet. Tendency to toss rivals through plate glass, that sort of thing.”

Jessica rolled her head around, eyes rolling upward. “Pryce? Come on, Karen, that was –"

“Super-strong and volatile, all I’m saying, that’s a bad combination. Add in God knows how many people want you dead these days, and it seems like sitting next to you may not be all that great idea.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

*****

[Jessica -- voice over:]  Jessica Now doesn’t have the right answers, especially for the rest of the world, which keeps asking the wrong questions.

Misty had just pulled keys from her pocket, looking back up at sound of boots clapping down hard on the pavement. The woman facing her, coming out of a crouch, leaned against the car.

“We need to talk,” Jessica said.

Misty looked up into the night, wondering from which of the landings or roofs the PI had launched, but didn’t break stride. She stopped an arm’s length away. “You could’ve called.”

“Yeah, well,” Jess’ eyes slid from corner to corner. “Better to keep it quiet as possible.”

Misty gestured, and Jessica stepped back, then around the car as Knight unlocked it. The PI slid into the passenger seat, turning to where her police counterpart sat behind the wheel.

“Why is there so much alien and “powered” agency weaponry pouring into Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Is there?” Misty sighed.

“Yeah. Not one source, not official online, not unofficial online, nobody on the phone, nobody on the streets – nobody– is seeing the slightest uptick in their markets. Not Syria. Not Chechnya. Not Chicago. Not even another borough, here. Hell, not even most of Manhattan. Everything is focused here, in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Seller’s market?” Misty suggested.

“For this level of a heavy metal dump, in this small a space?” Jess turned her head and snorted. “The profits would be a lot better moving this shit around. Somebody’s making money, but it’s more ‘cross-my-palm’, not ‘hand-over-fist’ bank, like it could be.”

“Why ask me? I’m Harlem.”

“I’d ask Costa, but it doesn’t his career a lot of good when people remember he doesn’t want to shoot me in the head.”

“You think I do?”

Jess held her hands out wide. “Clearly, I’m hoping you fly against popular opinion there.”

*****

And now I think I'm done caring
Too many mindless, self-obsessed, overbearing
Misogynistic, plastic hearts
Can't wait to see you torn apart

                                                  -- “Bad List,” Ayria 

Jones shoved the assistant to one side, pushing herself back, as air zipped past her ear. A split-second later something split into the brick just beyond them both and the side of the building cracked in a web pattern around the brand-new hole.

In the next second Jessica was on top of Smithie, covering her while rolling her back so they were using a car as a shield. Mentally, Jones was cuss-churning her headspace into blue haze, her glare seeing red, but her lips was lined tight, her palm curled over the girl’s mouth.

Silence. Smithie made a slight gulp-gasp and began shaking.

“You’re safe,” Jessica whispered. “Shooter Boy up there is the one who needs to start worrying.” She moved double-speed, ripping off the rear passenger door of the car on her way to a deliberately lop-sided jump that curved her leap onto the rooftop next to the one she’d seen the glint come from earlier. She figured the shooter would assume an arc directly toward the gun, not a side-slip.

She was rewarded with a shot whizzing by wide of its mark. She felt this shot’s air blast rather than heard it. Something very loud was roaring just past and below her.

She hit the roof running but pulled up short to scan the black clad figure on the next roof. Sleek, leather body armor over a tight form. With curves, short dark hair and a strong feminine face.

“Okay, clearly, I’m not proud of assuming you were a shooter boy,” Jess muttered, then flung the door straight at her, velocity maxed by her strength.

She smirked as the door smacked into her assailant hard on the left side, sending her stumbling back, the rifle clattering down before the woman collapsed on top.

It was a short hop for Jess to make that roof, but as she did the shooter scooped up the gun, turned and made the edge of the roof in long strides.

Damn good body armor.Jess ran desperately fast, hands bladed.

The shooter jumped.

Jones pulled up just at the lip of the roof, staring as her assailant landed on a Quinjet hovering below, rolling from a wing into an open topside hatch set just against the fuselage, and then down inside. The hatch closed, the jet kick-fired its engines, and then it was gone.

She kicked a heating / AC unit, denting it, steam gusting out a vent. It took three deep breaths to slow her heartbeat, and four or five more heartbeats before it truly sunk in with her what the black-and- grey eagle symbol on the jet’s wings meant.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

*****

Trish’s eyes lashed fury down with pain. “Jessica, can’t we just talk? Why can’t we just … talk anymore?”

Jess kept turned away, not wanting Trish to see the pain in her own eyes. “Little tip for New York’s newest super-sensation,” she snarked over her shoulder. “Killing somebody’s mom doesn’t promote intimacy. Usually.”

“Jess, I –”

“Fuck it!” She turned, salt stinging her eyes, tears shining on her cheeks. “And now this? This whole powers shit? Jesus, Trish, you know more than anybody alive what my life has been. Why do you have such a suicidally dangerous hard on to beme?”

Trish’s eyes were green crystal, the shock in them genuine. “Jessica, you can literally fly!”

“Again, it’s more like controlled falling. So, yeah, a perfect metaphor for my life.” She shifted, drawing a finger quickly under her nose, then several over her face, drying it. She half turned, but turned back, fidgeting. “And I didn’t ask for any of it.”

“I did. I’m just trying to be sure it’s not one more dead-end career choice.”

Jess scoffed. “When are you going to learn, there’s no such thing as a shortcut?”

“But you had it. Super powers. And then you got to be needed. By Hell’s Kitchen. And most don’t even know it, but you wound up needed by New York City, itself. A whole damn city needed you!”

“And in the whole damn world,” Jess replied, “you were the only person I needed. I’m sorry that wasn’t the hero you wanted to be.”

I bend, I don't break
If I want, I just take
If I bleed, I don't cry
I cry for love

If I fall, I get up
Am I tough?

Tough enough ….

                                                      -- "I Cry for Love", Carrie Rodriguez

Chapter Text

Now essentially archived here: these are the trailers that originally appeared for the series that is being published (Jessica Jones 2.5 -- AKA Gimme Shelter).

I recommend you to straight to the series at this point. Thanks!

TRAILER #3

Jessica Jones Season 2.5 – The Trailers

A Marvel FanFic by Phil Kurtis

Trailers soundtrack playlist: JJ 2.5 Trailers Playlist

   ---> Playlist includes link to a Spotify playlist of the songs in order

   ---> "I may crack, but I'll never shatter."

Concept art: The Excelsior Wall

Forget the fear - it's just a crutch
That tries to hold you back
And turn your dreams to dust
All you need to do is just trust

                          --  "Unbreakable" (Fireflight)

[Transcript]

Static. 

Male #1: “She’s on the street. Spinning.”

Static. Garbled flicker. Keyed snap.

Female #1: “She’s what?”

Male #2: “She’s … spinning. [Laughter] Looks upset or something.”

Female#1: “Drunk again, maybe? Think she’s seen the news?”

Male: #1: “Some people just can’t handle a little pressure.”

Male #2: “Hey – she’s got company coming up fast but I don’t think she knows it yet. It’s – holy shit.” 

[Audio spike cross-feed]

Female #1: “Repeat?”

Male #1: “It’s that girl – fuck is her code name?”

Male #2: “All these [static] code names, man.”

Female #2: “Can the chatter. Shoot a vid but otherwise we’re 10-3.”

[Two quick key snaps]

[Static]

[Silence eight seconds – run-time ends] 

***** 

Jess stopped. She plowed her hand through her hair. Focus.

She pulled her phone. Still nothing back from Avengers HQ. She anger-punched in a number, and texted: “U GOT 4 HRS.” She paused, then added: “ASSHOLE.” She assumed that would both authenticate her as the sender and specify who she wanted to talk to in particular.

Okay, Jess. Main Street. Birch Street. Higgins – wait.

Looking up, she peered very carefully in the direction opposite of the one she was listening to so hard if she was a wolf her ears would have swiveled. She counted the steps coming up behind her, then whirled, her left arm sweeping against a slender, approaching girl, moving her back against the wall even as the girl took Jessica’s wrist and spun her with an agility that Jess knew wasn’t merely human.

“Shit!” the brown-haired waif snapped, Jessica leaning into the spin, sweeping the girl’s legs from under her with her own, and using her own super-strength to put her on the sidewalk amid gasps and curses by those around them.

“What do you want?” Jess yelled. “Who are you?”

The girl stared back with preternatural calm. “You’re crark-crarking bezoomy,” she replied. “All’s droogie, ‘k?” The girl stared into Jessica’s eyes, and moved her hand so slowly Jess allowed it. She tapped the bulb of the PI’s nose, and pulled her fingertip back, a thick silken web in the wake. As she curled her finger, the web snapped away and wrapped around the tip.

 Jessica eased off of her, and both women took their feet. The crowd around them moved back and away, wanting no more part of – whatever this was.

The girl whirled her fingers as if to describe a softball, but an intricate web pattern formed, a cat’s cradle.

“It’s cool,” she said, soothingly, making Jess feel foolish, being talked to calm by a slip of a girl. “Name’s Mattie Franklin. I was just coming to see you.”

Trish might almost have been Spider-woman herself the way she swung from pipes to landings to roofs to ladders, rushing back to her apartment. Ian Soo’s short terse text (“YUR PLC NOW!”) had launched her there, mind racing with nightmare scenarios that the Watchdogs had him. She didn’t expect him to be there when she arrived but it was the only place to start.

She came through the window, sliding to a stop, to find Ian sitting wide eyed but unharmed.

Her step-sister was sitting across from him, legs crossed underneath herself, leaning forward, hands folded, staring at him from under the cowl of her hoodie.

“Tell her to keep her laser eyes cool, Hellcat!” Soo snapped.

“Ian?” Trish tilted her chin, shoulders slumped. “She doesn’t have laser eyes.”

“Said she did,” he muttered, staring at Jessica angrily. “She broke in here. I tried to stop her. She said if I tried to use my powers again on her, she’d fry me inside with her laser eyes.”

“And you just believed her?”

“No. I mean, maybe. Well – sure. Look, damn it, the word on the street is Jessica Jones has laser eyes.”

“Jesus, hang out in strip clubs much?” Jessica mocked him. She turned back to her sister. “Anyway, welcome home. Hellcat. Which, by the way – Hellcat? Seriously?”

“I didn’t come up with the name, Jess, it just sorta happened.”

She gestured at Hellcat's yellow and blue costume. “Well, somebody came up with that outfit. Nice horns, by the way.”

“They’re ears.”

“Potato, stupado.”

She poured the last splashes of Heaven Hill into her glass – operative word being splash as she wound up cursing, fingertips blotting fluid off the sheets she’d printed on Samuel Cross. She dropped the empty bottle into the trash can, the hollow ring reminding her she hadn’t been working as much lately as she’d hoped.

Lifting the glass, she paused, staring down at the strikingly paltry data she’d found. Rich (duh), reclusive (obviously), politically connected to both D’s and R’s (of course). Companies, and shell companies, and shells around those companies. Well-polished shells; hardly ever the same names on the boards. Made millions in arms sales, billions by churning the millions.

She threw the bourbon into her mouth, then leaned back, rolling the glass over her forehead while rolling the taste over her tongue, and went back to their chat at Josie’s. 

“So, Rebecca has powers. What powers?”

  “Her mother has been vague on that. My sister’s a Phineas devotee. Goes to Gatespring, so it was a thing between them. It’s why I took it on myself to watch over Rebecca … distantly, but carefully.”

“Distantly? So, you don’t stalk everybody you have an interest in?”

“Stalk? I merely came to observe you in what I understand you embrace as your natural habitat, Ms. Jones. And being as I’ve made my career here in the city, while she’s lived upstate all her life, then – yes, distantly.”

And Jessica had thought, more distance than just geography,I think, you rich prick. But he wants me in this for some reason, so either I’m in play or … I don’t know what happens to the kid.

She rubbed her eyes, knowing she had to be up in a few hours to hit the road for Lago, Orange County, New York, which Samuel Cross had assured her was beautiful. But then, he’d rolled his eyes so adroitly her competitive nature was jealous of his moves.

So straight into the mouth of Hell it is, she sighed, hearing Kilgrave's echo in her head. Stupid. Stupid stupid Jessica.

She looked over the Lago map she’d printed out. She’d marked key locations: Rebecca’s childhood home; Gatespring Church; Rebecca’s former high school; and, the Short Line Bus station, the schedule for which was printed and stapled on the map.

The last was simply a precaution. She hadn’t had as much time as she’d like to back-check the client, but what she’d seen – and had found – suggested he had money, which in turn suggested that whatever was going on, the opposition might bring some resources to bear.

She dug through a desk drawer, found a pint of Maker’s Mark, and loosened the cap, ready to liquor-blast the voices out of her head for now.

Jess whirled and saw that a blazing circle had opened behind her. A well-dressed man in Vegas shaded glasses was just stepping through, glancing at the ring with cool admiration.

“They’re right, this does beat Uber,” Tony Stark said to the man behind the desk. “Dr. Strange, I presume?”

He nodded once. “Mr. Stark.”

Tony stepped toward Jessica, refocusing on her. “Ms. Jones.”

“Tin Man.”

“It’s Iron Man.”

She shifted on her feet, flexing her fists. “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“Anyway, I’m here more as Tony Stark. You’ll have noticed the lack of hardware.”

“I didn’t notice. Couldn’t see past the ego. You know that’s your real exoskeleton, right? The ego?”

“Have we met?”

“I’m familiar with your work.”

“Just here to answer a couple questions, Ms. Jones,” Tony plowed on, ignoring her, which only tapped open another valve of steam inside her.  “And I’d appreciate it if you could keep this meeting between ourselves. Leave your street heroes club out of it?” He cut off a protest with his raised palm.

Circling around her, carefully beyond the reach of her arms and fists, he stopped forming a triangle point set between Strange and Jones. “I don’t see how it helps the other – Defenders? Isn’t it? You and –” he snapped his fingers, frowning, trying to recall the names. “Luke Cage, I think it is? And Danny Rand, of course.”

“Of course, you’d know the rich kid,” she muttered. “Not the Hero of Harlem.”

“Danny Rand? Well, he is the Immortal Iron Fist.”

Jessica leaned to the side, arching her eyebrows while looking at Strange and making a fist of her own bobbing it up and down in the international signal for wanking. “More like the Eternal Knucklehead,” she told the mage.

“Look, whether we’re talking about sweet Danny McKnuckleface or yellow shirted H.R. Puf-n-chest,  either one, there’s no sense in them carrying the burden of your own enmity toward the Avengers. Or the government. Or – well. You’ve got it in for pretty much the entire world, it seems. You’re not going to work your way out of this by getting mad and punching people.”

“Seriously, guys, this is starting to sound like my anger management class, and you’re not even court ordered. You’re like, Head Avenger, meaning tied close to S.H.I.E.L.D., who kinda tried to fucking kill me. So, first question, why should I believe a word you say?”

“Well,” Stark folded his hands in front of himself, stepping a bit closer, giving Stephen Strange a glance. “There is my famous sagacity.”

She scowled at him, half turned, then turned back and squared off facing him. “Sweet Christmas, you really area pompous piece of shit.” 

“I – really?” Stark winced and kept his brow knotted. “You think so? Because I was thinking of hitting on you after we wrapped up business.”

“You so much as blink a ‘come hither’, Stark, and I swear I will hand you your eyeballs.”

"It's a fucked up world."

Chapter Text

Now essentially archived here: these are the trailers that originally appeared for the series that is being published (Jessica Jones 2.5 -- AKA Gimme Shelter).

I recommend you to straight to the series at this point. Thanks!

TRAILER #4

Jessica Jones Season 2.5 -- The Trailers

A Marvel FanFic by Phil Kurtis

Trailers soundtrack playlist: JJ 2.5 Trailers Playlist

Purple haze all around
Don't know if I'm coming up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that boy put a spell on me

                         --   “Purple Haze”, Phe Cullen

Jessica crossed into Orange County an hour and a half out of the city and drove on to where New York State Route 94 merged into 17A. That was her cue that she was almost there, and in a few more minutes she’d indeed arrived. Lago, New York, looked recently rural but was rapidly being concreted suburban, like much of Orange County.

She glanced at the street sign as it passed and swallowed hard. Main Street.

She pulled over to the curb on Main, shut down the engine, and found herself awash in small town quiet. She closed her eyes. Birch Street. Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane.

Renewing her bleary gaze through her out-sized aviator shades, she scanned the two rows of quaint storefronts lining the road. She frowned at the men ambling past in suits and women in modest skirts that billowed in the breeze. Children’s giggles rode past when the wind picked up.

Holy shit, it finally happened, she thought. I’ve died and gone to Ozzie & Harriet Hell. Where’s the damn parking meter? Last thing I need is having a rental get towed.

She was out of the car, still getting oriented, looking up and down the street, when the cop came up behind her. The oppressive “normalcy” of the town was galling, reminding her of the sanitized version of her childhood home that Kilgrave had made of it as a prison for her. Birch Street. Higgins --

“Hey,” he said. “Been expecting you.”

She whirled, causing the uniformed officer to step back, hands held a bit wide of his hips.

“Woah. Don’t break my neck, lady, just saw you looked lost. Can I help you?”

“You’ve been expecting me?” she asked, vocal accusation sliding past her neutral expression.

“Well … yeah. It was in the city paper. ‘Famous super-powered detective Jessica Jones,’ looking into the disappearance of that girl. The runaway.” He folded his arms, grinding his jaw. “You know, the one we apparently can’t find without some city PI holding our hands? Had your picture and everything. Good PR you got, lady.” 

*****

Jessica was on her way back into her building, packaged whiskey under arm, when her cell buzzed, rattling in her pocket. She yanked it out and frowned at the blocked number, putting the phone to her ear. “Yeah?”

A woman chuckled back. “You’re hard to convince. I was hoping when you left town, you’d gotten the message and were staying out of town and in the ground.”

Jess sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who is this?”

“Well, I’d say just a friend, but that would be a lie. So, I’ll just pass this along. You’re out of your depth and you’re messing things up for your betters.”

Jessica boiled inside but maintained a steady breath into the phone. “Hang on. Just marking time. You’ll have thirty seconds. Start with a name or it’s fifteen seconds. Go.”

“No name but by now I’m sure you’ve sketched my face,” the woman laughed. “I let you see it on the roof, you know that, right? A friendly warning.”

Jessica fought with her breathing, tilting the phone’s speaker away from her mouth to give no tension away. She was pacing down the hall, her vision tunneled so dark around the edges she almost ran over the blind girl, who was scooted out of the way at the last minute. Jess mouthed, “Sorry, honey,” then realized how dumb that was given the child couldn’t see.

The voice snaking through her head wasn’t the very confident American female on the phone. He was supremely confident, and English. Stupid Jessica. My stupid stupid little girl Jessica.

“Silent? Silent is good, street rat,” the woman hissed. “You should have pursued that strategy to begin with. But you’re a distraction now. You washed out of the Avengers, and you aren’t good enough for S.H.I.E.L.D., and you’re unbalanced. We have enemies, and we’re trying to rebuild, Ms. Jones, and we can’t have you giving them fuel for their insane arguments. You have twenty-four hours to get out of town and never be heard of again, or we’ll take you out and make sure you’re never heard of again.” The voice went bemused. “And if you see your old boyfriend Cage, tell him he’s next.”

*****

[Jessica Jones – voice over:]  I’m an investigator. I believe there are answers out there. I’ve found some in the past, and they’ve been ugly, sometimes horrifying. I don’t expect anything better from the rest.  But if I take a break from finding them, everyone says I’m hiding.

The woman pulled her easily back up to her feet. “Sorry for the – ”

“Electro-venom sting-fucking me half to death thing?” Jess snapped. She folded her arms again, taking in the other woman’s curtain of black hair as she swung it behind herself, her facial angles stark in the light coming through the windows of the darkened office.er

“Yeah, that. That thing.” She flexed her hands. “The powers come with the body, the body reacts, and – anyway. Sorry.”

"Seriously, you know, I called you," Jess sighed. “So, you’re Jessica Drew.”

“And you’re Jessica Jones.”

The two women shifted on their feet, then each allowed a smile to ghost her face.

[Jessica Jones – voice-over:] I’m not hiding.

I’m getting ready.

I'm America, I'm your daughter
Nobody left behind

I've been bloodied, I've been muddied
Brought down to my knees
I stood in line waiting to shine
Now its my time

                         --  "I'm America", Cilver