Fic: Jones and Jones 1/2
Title: Jones and Jones
Author: second_batgirl
Fandom: DC/Marvel crossover
Character/Pairing: Cissie King-Jones, Jessica Jones (Tim/Cissie, Jessica/Luke)
Rating: R
Warning: Language
Summary: WHAT IF? Jessica Jones was Cissie King-Jones's aunt?
Notes: So many thanks to harmonyangel for holding my hand as I wrote this and for the beta. And thanks to likeadeuce and lady_sarai.
Artist: xenokattz made me this amazing art: Jessica and Cissie!
Chapter 1
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Jessica said as she stared at the social worker. "What do you mean my niece is in foster care?"
"Exactly what I said, Ms. Jones," the social worker, whose name Jessica had already forgotten, answered. "You are Bernell Jones' cousin, correct?" Even though it was phrased as a question, the social worker was clearly stating a fact.
"Yeah," Jessica said. "But he's been dead for years. Died of fish poisoning. When did his wife die? I should probably go to the funeral."
"You misunderstood," the social worker -- who might have also been named Jones, but Jessica didn't actually care -- said, a hint of frustration showing in her voice. Jessica wondered if she needed a cigarette. That would probably help both of them right now. "Bonnie King-Jones lost custody of her daughter six months ago, for reckless endangerment." The woman hesitated momentarily, and then continued. "Since you're going to be taking custody of your niece, you'll need to know this information. Mrs. King-Jones was forcing her daughter to act as a superhero, and the authorities were called in."
At the mention of the word superhero, Jessica stumbled, and nearly fell backwards, but she managed to catch herself. The words "I need a drink" nearly escaped her lips, but she just stopped herself from saying them. Maybe she shouldn't have stopped. She wasn't sure that she wanted custody of the niece that she hadn't seen in ten years, since Bernell's funeral. If she told the social worker that she needed a drink, maybe she wouldn't get custody of Cissie or Suzie or whatever the girl was called now. It would probably be better for her niece in the long run if she didn't. Her niece was probably way better off wherever she was now.
Jessica's life wasn't perfect. She was a private detective, and she did mostly superhero things, or at least that was the sort of stuff that it seemed like she was always getting work for. She drank too much, smoked too much, and was pretty much just a wreck most of the time. She knew absolutely nothing about raising a kid. A teenager. Whatever.
But the thought of Cissie being forced into superheroing, maybe even going through something like what had happened to her... well, she would have to be a far worse person than she was to leave Cissie in that situation.
"So when does she move in?" Jessica asked after a moment.
"Excellent," the social worker said. "She's currently at the Elias school. She's visiting friends this weekend, so you might want to wait until she gets back in two days. Besides, we'll have to drive down to Pennsylvania to get her."
"Right," Jessica said, as her mind raced through all of the things that she would need to change in order to set up the hellhole she called an apartment for a teenage girl. "I hope you have a car."
"I will be accompanying you," the other Jones (Jessica hoped it was Jones, anyway) agreed. "You'll want to talk to her therapist when we get there - her name is Marcy Money."
The next two days were a whirlwind of cleaning and shopping. Jessica also spent a lot of it trying to dodge Luke's phone calls - she really didn't have time for any of this now, not when she had to try and figure out where exactly her niece was going to be sleeping, and how Jessica was going to be supporting them both. She'd even been surprisingly sober - at least after the first night of it, when she'd gone to see Luke again. He'd made a few comments about her drinking, but they'd hooked up anyway. At least Jessica got it all out of her system, and then called Carol the next morning.
Carol was helpful. Carol was helping keep her sober. And most importantly, Carol had an Avengers expense account. And Carol had contacts - so Jessica now had a job interview at the Daily Bugle as some sort of superhero correspondent. She wasn't really sure that this was a particularly good idea -- she wanted to try and protect Cissie from such things -- but at least it was the promise of steady money, and that was exactly what Jessica needed right now. Besides, it wasn't actually like she was putting on a costume again. And it would give her all sorts of things to warn Cissie about.
She should probably find out which superhero Cissie had been. Jessica didn't really pay attention to any of the teen heroes -- she didn't want to watch as more of them got hurt. There were too many memories. There was a blond girl hanging out with the Justice Society, but they were mostly grumpy old men, and she didn't think that they would have put up with any of Bonnie's bullshit. Of course, since they were a bunch of grumpy old men they were probably the exact sort of people who would call child protective services.
The drive down to Pennsylvania started off really boring. Jessica hated being confined in the car. Apparently she could have just waited for the social worker to bring Cissie to her, but honestly, Jessica didn't think that was very fair to the kid. Besides, she should probably get to know Cissie in her natural environment and all of that, not that a boarding school really counted as being her natural environment.
They were only half an hour away from Elias when the social worker's phone rang.
"Sara Smith," the social worker answered, and Jessica mentally thanked herself for not managing to use the wrong name.
Smith listened intently for a moment, and then the car nearly veered off the road.
"She what?" Smith shouted, straightening out the car. Jessica took a deep breath. She wouldn't have actually been hurt in the accident, but she had plenty of bad memories associated with car crashes. And Sara could have been injured.
Smith was still listening, and Jessica was hoping that whatever was going on wasn't about Cissie. Of course, the world had never been particularly kind to her about such things, and she doubted that it was about to start now.
"We should be there in 20 minutes," Smith said, hanging up. She spoke very quietly. "It appears that there's been a murder at your niece's school, and Cissie is missing."
"If you're implying that Cissie had something to do with it..." Jessica began angrily, but Sara cut her off.
"No," she said. "I phrased that badly. Marcy Money was murdered by her ex-fiance - the murder was videotaped. Cissie got back from her friends' house just in time to witness the video. She yelled at a Congressman who was trying to blame it on violence in the media and then ran into the woods. Nobody knows where she is at the moment."
"Hurry up," Jessica said through clenched teeth, not really sure when she'd gotten to be so over-protective of a girl who she hadn't seen in ten years. For a brief moment she wished that one of the powers she had been cursed with was super speed so that she could be there now, but even if they did manage to get to the Elias School at that very instant, she would already be too late.
If Cissie had run off like that, there was no telling where she could be. And she'd already been exposed to something that she shouldn't have had to see. All the more reason why Cissie needed to be protected from the hero life. If she was affected by this, then there was really no need for her to see the nastier side of a superhero career. She wasn't cut out for this.
After what seemed like forever, they arrived at the school, and Jessica hopped out of the car before Sara had even parked. There was still a crowd gathered at the school, including a bunch of police officers. There was some sort of commotion going on, and Jessica recognized Superboy. It was hard to not know who he was, considering the giant S was pretty prominent on his chest. The kid was carrying a guy, and he unceremoniously dumped him on the ground in front of the police.
"Here's the murderer," Superboy said matter-of-factly. "I can't stay, but you should throw the book at this guy."
He started off, when Jessica stepped up.
"Wait, Superboy," she called.
He stopped, and looked at her, some sort of recognition dawning. Jessica tried not to roll her eyes. She guessed that there was some sort of benefit to being vaguely infamous as a failure superheroine.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I'm looking for my niece," she told him. "Cissie King-Jones. She's missing."
"You're her aunt?" he asked incredulously. He hesitated for a moment. "I guess I can help you go look for her."
"Thank you," she said, following him.
As they made it it into the woods, Superboy stopped. "Jewel?" he asked. "That is you."
"I don't use that name anymore," she told him firmly.
"Knightress, then?"
"Oh God," Jessica muttered. "Jessica Jones. Don't start with any of that bullshit, just tell me where my niece is."
Superboy hesitated. "Um, well..."
"Just tell me," Jessica said firmly.
"Cissie didn't take Marcy's murder well," he said finally. "So she tried to, you know, take down the murderer herself."
Jessica just waited; there was obviously more to the story than that. When Superboy didn't elaborate, she had to push him. "What do you mean, take down?"
Superboy fidgeted under her intense gaze. "Well, um, the thing is, she went out of her mind a little bit and tried to kill him. But we stopped her, and now she's kinda all freaked out and not really talking to anyone."
"Take me to her."
"Right," Superboy said. "Um, you can fly, right?"
Jessica hesitated. "I'm not that great at it, but yes," she said, as she floated a few inches off the ground.
"This way," Superboy said, zooming off. "We were going to take her to Wonder Girl's place, but if you're here...." he trailed off, and Jessica could tell that he really didn't want to leave Cissie with a stranger.
"One of you could come along," Jessica said. "Having a familiar presence around after a trauma can be helpful." Jessica hated that she knew that one from experience. She didn't really know that she wanted to invite superheroes into her apartment, especially not a bunch of kids, but she also didn't want to start off by alienating all of Cissie's friends.
Superboy nodded, and they quickly found the other members of Superboy's team. She recognized some of them, but she had no idea who the ghost girl was. The blonde girl in the center of the group had to be Cissie, but the dark costume was not one that Jessica had ever seen before. It was fairly good for moving around at night. A small part of her brain was thinking that it was a far more practical costume than her Jewel identity had ever been, and probably a lot easier to keep clean.
"Cissie?" Jessica asked, trying to ignore the glares she was getting from Robin (who apparently wasn't imaginary) and Wonder Girl (who was wearing the worst wig that she had ever seen.)
Her niece didn't move, she just continued to shake, holding onto the kid who was probably one of those Flash people, so Jessica tried again. "Cissie, I'm your Aunt Jessica, and I've come to take you home."
At the mention of the word "home" Cissie looked up. She wasn't crying, not at the moment, but the red rims around her eyes showed that she had been at some point earlier. Instead it looked like she'd recently progressed to dry heaving.
"Home?" she said. "You mean like jail for what I did?"
"Almost did," Robin said firmly. "And nobody is going to send you to jail." He glared at Jessica, and she took an involuntary step backwards. She didn't know what it was about that kid, but there was something really creepy about him, and she really didn't want to cross him.
"Home," Jessica repeated. "Like my apartment in New York." Jessica didn't really know what to say, she just knelt down beside the girl.
"Hey, Cis, I can't believe you didn't tell me that your aunt is Jewel!" Superboy said excitedly.
Wonder Girl squealed a little, and things suddenly seemed to be a lot less awkward. She guessed that the kids were more comfortable with her now that they knew she was one of them, or had been.
"Arrowette," Robin said, laying a hand on the shaking girl's shoulder. She didn't respond. "Cissie," he said, a lot more gently, and she looked up at him. "You need to go with Jessica," he told her. "It's all going to be okay."
Chapter 2
Cissie didn't know what was taking so long. They had all told her -- Robin had told her -- that it was all going to be okay, and if she went with her Aunt Jessica, who she hadn't seen in years, she didn't have anything to worry about. But instead she was still at Elias, while Jessica argued with people. Cissie didn't think that she was going to be arrested - everyone had made it very clear that they wouldn't allow it, even though she deserved it. She had tried to kill someone. She had crossed the line that heroes were never supposed to cross.
She just stood there, wishing that the other members of Young Justice were there with her. But Robin had the whole secret identity thing that he needed to protect, and Cassie and Kon and Bart were... not always helpful. She knew that they were around. She could feel Robin's eyes on her, and at least that meant there was someone who would be able to step in if necessary.
Jessica was still talking to the police, but she finally threw up her hands and turned to Cissie. "We're leaving," her aunt said firmly. "Let's go get your things, and head back to New York."
Cissie just let herself be led along. Some small part of her was wondering if she should speak up and try to make a decision, but she was sure that she would only make a bad one if she did. She couldn't be trusted. At least with her aunt watching her, and the other members of Young Justice, she was sure that she wouldn't ever try to hurt anyone again.
She went through the motions of packing up a small bag, trying to ignore the look of concern on her aunt's face. She didn't really know Jessica - she didn't think she'd seen her aunt since her father's funeral. She didn't know anything about her, except she didn't think that Jessica could be worse than her mom was.
At least she had the proof now that her mom was wrong, and she wasn't supposed to be a hero. Her mom had been wrong about a lot of things.
"Are you ready?" Jessica said, picking up Cissie's bag. When Cissie didn't respond immediately, Jessica put a hand on her shoulder. "Look," Jessica said softly. "I know that this isn't an ideal situation for either of us, but we're going to have to make the most of it. Fuck, this is new to me too, and I'm making up most of this shit as I go along."
For some reason, the more blunt language made Cissie smile, at least a little. "Okay," she agreed.
*
The apartment in New York was pretty much hell. Jessica clearly had different ideas about cleanliness and things than Bonnie King had. You would think that Jessica, who had worn a mostly white costume, would keep better laundry. Or maybe this was her way of rebelling against it. Cissie tried not to comment on it, but she knew that Jessica was probably seeing the hints of disapproval in her eyes.
"Yeah, so, I'm not the best fucking housekeeper," Jessica said without preamble, as she led Cissie over to a futon that had been set up in a corner. The curses were coming more rapidly, now that they were away from Elias and the stodgy social worker. Cissie wondered if Bart even knew what all of the things that she'd heard Jessica say meant, and the thought made her giggle a little bit. She didn't want to know how Max would react if Bart decided to imitate Jessica's vocabulary. He would probably blame...
They would all blame her. She'd nearly... she'd nearly killed someone. She'd actually held the bow and fired the arrow and had aimed for the guy's heart. She had wanted to kill him. She'd gone evil and it wasn't like the other heroes, who would start to do something, but the thought of killing would always jolt them out of it before they did. She'd crossed the line. If Kon hadn't been there, if he hadn't caught that arrow... Her eyes started to tear up, and she blinked rapidly.
"Don't dwell on it," Jessica advised. "It really isn't going to help." Cissie wasn't really sure how Jessica had known what she was thinking. She was supposed to be a better actress than that.
"How do you know?" she asked.
Jessica shrugged. "Been there, done that, wrote the damn book," she said in such a way that Cissie could tell meant the subject was closed. She would have to ask Kon later - he seemed to know a lot about Cissie's aunt.
But now definitely wasn't the time to pry. Except it really sucked - Jessica had seen her at her worst, and Cissie didn't really know anything about the woman. Well, she knew some things. Jessica used to be a superhero. She lived in a really crappy apartment. She cursed a lot, although she sometimes tried to reign it in. Judging from the apartment, Jessica smoked, and probably drank. It actually felt a little bit like home. She just hoped that Jessica wasn't another Bonnie - she really couldn't deal with that again.
Jessica's phone rang, startling both of them. "Alias investigations," she answered. There was a pause. "What do you want, Luke?" she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. "No, you can't fucking come over, my niece just moved in.... No, seriously. What the fuck did you think I was doing all weekend?" Cissie had no idea who Jessica was talking to, but she was clearly missing something good on the other side of the conversation.
Jessica hung up the phone, and for a minute, Cissie was convinced that she was going to hurl it across the room, but instead she just pocketed the phone again. "I guess I should finish cleaning this up," Jessica said. "I did clear out the beer bottles and sh - stuff. Carol would have killed me if I hadn't."
"Carol?" Cissie asked.
"Warbird. She's one of those damn superheroes," Jessica told her, absentmindedly reaching out to rub her fingers lightly over a framed picture on the wall of herself and another woman, who Cissie guessed was Carol. "Well, she used to be one anyway."
"I didn't realize you still kept in touch," Cissie said.
Jessica sighed. "No matter how much you think you're out," she said slowly, "it is really hard to leave this life behind. Once you're a part of it, you're in the club for life."
"Oh," Cissie said. When she'd been sent to Elias, she'd had vague thoughts about how it was good that she could leave the superhero life behind her, and start over. Then she'd realized how much she could annoy her mother by putting the costume back on. She hadn't realized that by doing it this way she was making a lifetime committment.
But then again, you didn't really hear very much about retired heroes. Retired usually meant dead, at least as far as she knew. The Justice Society was still active, and they were all positively ancient. It really was a life sentence.
This was entirely her mother's fault.
Well, not really, but it was always easier to blame Bonnie than it was to think about what had happened.
"Did you ever do anything?" she asked Jessica suddenly. "I mean, something really bad?"
Jessica froze for a moment, and Cissie was pretty sure that the answer to her question was yes. She wasn't sure why she'd asked - she wasn't really sure that she was prepared to hear what it was that Jessica had done, and she didn't think that Jessica wanted to talk about it. She was going to have to live with Jessica no matter what the answer was; did she really want to have to live with her if it turned out that Jessica had killed people? Of course, it took one to know one, so maybe Jessica would be able to understand why she had done what she had.
The apartment got very quiet, and Cissie studied Jessica intently, waiting for her to make a decision. She should probably take it out of her hands.
"You don't have to tell me," she said softly. "I mean, if it's too personal."
"No, it's fine," Jessica said. "I was mind-controlled for a while. I did some pretty horrible things before I was rescued. But none of it was my fault. I just took a while to realize it."
Cissie nodded. But she didn't have the same option - she hadn't been mind-controlled. She'd made the conscious choice to try and kill someone. It didn't matter how much he deserved it - and he really and truly did. Heroes didn't do that.
"I'm going to go lie down," she said, heading toward the futon that had been made up for her.
"Okay," Jessica said. She didn't push Cissie, and for that she was grateful.
*
They settled into some sort of routine - Jessica still did her detective things, and Cissie had somehow won a scholarship to a private school in the city. Considering that the scholarship came from a Gotham fund, she could only assume that Robin had somehow been responsible. She owed him, owed all of them. But she hadn't seen any of the members of Young Justice since her move to New York.
This was the first Saturday she'd spent by herself, and Cissie knew that Jessica was a little bit nervous about leaving her alone. But Jessica had a case, and they needed the money, and Cissie had promised that she would behave herself and not get into any trouble. And it wasn't like Jessica was leaving her totally alone - Scott Lang had come by earlier that morning to check on her, and Carol just kept calling and Cissie was sure if she waited long enough the infamous Luke Cage was going to show up. (Cissie still hadn't met him, but she was curious as to who this guy that Jessica was absolutely Not Dating was.)
The doorbell rang, and Cissie hesitated. She wasn't really expecting anyone.
"Who is it?" she called, as she looked through the keyhole.
"Cissie!" A familiar voice said from outside. "Open the door! Bart is threatening to go knock on every door, and you know he'll do it."
She smiled, and unlatched the door, and was promptly tackled by Cassie.
"Blonde?" Cissie said in surprise, when she finally managed to extract herself from her best friend's grip.
"Ditched the wig for this," Cassie told her.
"I like it this way, we match."
Kon and Bart both grinned at her, before they both ran to the kitchen in search of food. Cissie looked at the fourth member. There was no way... it couldn't be.
"Robin?" she asked hesitantly.
"Alvin Draper," he said, sticking out his hand. "Nice to see you again, Cissie."
She smiled, and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "The scholarship, that was you, wasn't it?"
"You needed help," he said with a shrug. "And I just wanted to see what I could do to help.
Cissie did the only thing she could do - she pulled him in tight and kissed him.
"Woooo!" Kon said from the kitchen. "Way to go, Robbie!"
They broke apart, and Alvin glared at him.
"I mean Alvin," Kon said, not sounding sorry about it at all.
Alvin glanced over at Cissie. "We'll talk about that later?" he asked quietly, and she nodded.
He was a really good kisser. She wondered if Batman had a training program for those things. Supposedly Nightwing was really good at it.
"So, um, why are you guys all here?" She didn't really mean for it to come out like that, but she hadn't been expecting any of them to be here, and she didn't know how they had found her. But considering that Robin was with them, she shouldn't have been that surprised.
"We came to check up on you!" Bart said, as he zipped over to her. "I mean, we haven't seen you in almost a week, and everyone was really worried. We wanted to come on Tuesday, but Robin, I mean Alvin, he wouldn't let us. He said you needed time or something, but it had already been a really long time, and did we give you enough time because we can come back in five minutes if that's going to help."
Cissie smiled. She had missed them.
Continue to Part 2
Author: second_batgirl
Fandom: DC/Marvel crossover
Character/Pairing: Cissie King-Jones, Jessica Jones (Tim/Cissie, Jessica/Luke)
Rating: R
Warning: Language
Summary: WHAT IF? Jessica Jones was Cissie King-Jones's aunt?
Notes: So many thanks to harmonyangel for holding my hand as I wrote this and for the beta. And thanks to likeadeuce and lady_sarai.
Artist: xenokattz made me this amazing art: Jessica and Cissie!
Chapter 1
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Jessica said as she stared at the social worker. "What do you mean my niece is in foster care?"
"Exactly what I said, Ms. Jones," the social worker, whose name Jessica had already forgotten, answered. "You are Bernell Jones' cousin, correct?" Even though it was phrased as a question, the social worker was clearly stating a fact.
"Yeah," Jessica said. "But he's been dead for years. Died of fish poisoning. When did his wife die? I should probably go to the funeral."
"You misunderstood," the social worker -- who might have also been named Jones, but Jessica didn't actually care -- said, a hint of frustration showing in her voice. Jessica wondered if she needed a cigarette. That would probably help both of them right now. "Bonnie King-Jones lost custody of her daughter six months ago, for reckless endangerment." The woman hesitated momentarily, and then continued. "Since you're going to be taking custody of your niece, you'll need to know this information. Mrs. King-Jones was forcing her daughter to act as a superhero, and the authorities were called in."
At the mention of the word superhero, Jessica stumbled, and nearly fell backwards, but she managed to catch herself. The words "I need a drink" nearly escaped her lips, but she just stopped herself from saying them. Maybe she shouldn't have stopped. She wasn't sure that she wanted custody of the niece that she hadn't seen in ten years, since Bernell's funeral. If she told the social worker that she needed a drink, maybe she wouldn't get custody of Cissie or Suzie or whatever the girl was called now. It would probably be better for her niece in the long run if she didn't. Her niece was probably way better off wherever she was now.
Jessica's life wasn't perfect. She was a private detective, and she did mostly superhero things, or at least that was the sort of stuff that it seemed like she was always getting work for. She drank too much, smoked too much, and was pretty much just a wreck most of the time. She knew absolutely nothing about raising a kid. A teenager. Whatever.
But the thought of Cissie being forced into superheroing, maybe even going through something like what had happened to her... well, she would have to be a far worse person than she was to leave Cissie in that situation.
"So when does she move in?" Jessica asked after a moment.
"Excellent," the social worker said. "She's currently at the Elias school. She's visiting friends this weekend, so you might want to wait until she gets back in two days. Besides, we'll have to drive down to Pennsylvania to get her."
"Right," Jessica said, as her mind raced through all of the things that she would need to change in order to set up the hellhole she called an apartment for a teenage girl. "I hope you have a car."
"I will be accompanying you," the other Jones (Jessica hoped it was Jones, anyway) agreed. "You'll want to talk to her therapist when we get there - her name is Marcy Money."
The next two days were a whirlwind of cleaning and shopping. Jessica also spent a lot of it trying to dodge Luke's phone calls - she really didn't have time for any of this now, not when she had to try and figure out where exactly her niece was going to be sleeping, and how Jessica was going to be supporting them both. She'd even been surprisingly sober - at least after the first night of it, when she'd gone to see Luke again. He'd made a few comments about her drinking, but they'd hooked up anyway. At least Jessica got it all out of her system, and then called Carol the next morning.
Carol was helpful. Carol was helping keep her sober. And most importantly, Carol had an Avengers expense account. And Carol had contacts - so Jessica now had a job interview at the Daily Bugle as some sort of superhero correspondent. She wasn't really sure that this was a particularly good idea -- she wanted to try and protect Cissie from such things -- but at least it was the promise of steady money, and that was exactly what Jessica needed right now. Besides, it wasn't actually like she was putting on a costume again. And it would give her all sorts of things to warn Cissie about.
She should probably find out which superhero Cissie had been. Jessica didn't really pay attention to any of the teen heroes -- she didn't want to watch as more of them got hurt. There were too many memories. There was a blond girl hanging out with the Justice Society, but they were mostly grumpy old men, and she didn't think that they would have put up with any of Bonnie's bullshit. Of course, since they were a bunch of grumpy old men they were probably the exact sort of people who would call child protective services.
The drive down to Pennsylvania started off really boring. Jessica hated being confined in the car. Apparently she could have just waited for the social worker to bring Cissie to her, but honestly, Jessica didn't think that was very fair to the kid. Besides, she should probably get to know Cissie in her natural environment and all of that, not that a boarding school really counted as being her natural environment.
They were only half an hour away from Elias when the social worker's phone rang.
"Sara Smith," the social worker answered, and Jessica mentally thanked herself for not managing to use the wrong name.
Smith listened intently for a moment, and then the car nearly veered off the road.
"She what?" Smith shouted, straightening out the car. Jessica took a deep breath. She wouldn't have actually been hurt in the accident, but she had plenty of bad memories associated with car crashes. And Sara could have been injured.
Smith was still listening, and Jessica was hoping that whatever was going on wasn't about Cissie. Of course, the world had never been particularly kind to her about such things, and she doubted that it was about to start now.
"We should be there in 20 minutes," Smith said, hanging up. She spoke very quietly. "It appears that there's been a murder at your niece's school, and Cissie is missing."
"If you're implying that Cissie had something to do with it..." Jessica began angrily, but Sara cut her off.
"No," she said. "I phrased that badly. Marcy Money was murdered by her ex-fiance - the murder was videotaped. Cissie got back from her friends' house just in time to witness the video. She yelled at a Congressman who was trying to blame it on violence in the media and then ran into the woods. Nobody knows where she is at the moment."
"Hurry up," Jessica said through clenched teeth, not really sure when she'd gotten to be so over-protective of a girl who she hadn't seen in ten years. For a brief moment she wished that one of the powers she had been cursed with was super speed so that she could be there now, but even if they did manage to get to the Elias School at that very instant, she would already be too late.
If Cissie had run off like that, there was no telling where she could be. And she'd already been exposed to something that she shouldn't have had to see. All the more reason why Cissie needed to be protected from the hero life. If she was affected by this, then there was really no need for her to see the nastier side of a superhero career. She wasn't cut out for this.
After what seemed like forever, they arrived at the school, and Jessica hopped out of the car before Sara had even parked. There was still a crowd gathered at the school, including a bunch of police officers. There was some sort of commotion going on, and Jessica recognized Superboy. It was hard to not know who he was, considering the giant S was pretty prominent on his chest. The kid was carrying a guy, and he unceremoniously dumped him on the ground in front of the police.
"Here's the murderer," Superboy said matter-of-factly. "I can't stay, but you should throw the book at this guy."
He started off, when Jessica stepped up.
"Wait, Superboy," she called.
He stopped, and looked at her, some sort of recognition dawning. Jessica tried not to roll her eyes. She guessed that there was some sort of benefit to being vaguely infamous as a failure superheroine.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I'm looking for my niece," she told him. "Cissie King-Jones. She's missing."
"You're her aunt?" he asked incredulously. He hesitated for a moment. "I guess I can help you go look for her."
"Thank you," she said, following him.
As they made it it into the woods, Superboy stopped. "Jewel?" he asked. "That is you."
"I don't use that name anymore," she told him firmly.
"Knightress, then?"
"Oh God," Jessica muttered. "Jessica Jones. Don't start with any of that bullshit, just tell me where my niece is."
Superboy hesitated. "Um, well..."
"Just tell me," Jessica said firmly.
"Cissie didn't take Marcy's murder well," he said finally. "So she tried to, you know, take down the murderer herself."
Jessica just waited; there was obviously more to the story than that. When Superboy didn't elaborate, she had to push him. "What do you mean, take down?"
Superboy fidgeted under her intense gaze. "Well, um, the thing is, she went out of her mind a little bit and tried to kill him. But we stopped her, and now she's kinda all freaked out and not really talking to anyone."
"Take me to her."
"Right," Superboy said. "Um, you can fly, right?"
Jessica hesitated. "I'm not that great at it, but yes," she said, as she floated a few inches off the ground.
"This way," Superboy said, zooming off. "We were going to take her to Wonder Girl's place, but if you're here...." he trailed off, and Jessica could tell that he really didn't want to leave Cissie with a stranger.
"One of you could come along," Jessica said. "Having a familiar presence around after a trauma can be helpful." Jessica hated that she knew that one from experience. She didn't really know that she wanted to invite superheroes into her apartment, especially not a bunch of kids, but she also didn't want to start off by alienating all of Cissie's friends.
Superboy nodded, and they quickly found the other members of Superboy's team. She recognized some of them, but she had no idea who the ghost girl was. The blonde girl in the center of the group had to be Cissie, but the dark costume was not one that Jessica had ever seen before. It was fairly good for moving around at night. A small part of her brain was thinking that it was a far more practical costume than her Jewel identity had ever been, and probably a lot easier to keep clean.
"Cissie?" Jessica asked, trying to ignore the glares she was getting from Robin (who apparently wasn't imaginary) and Wonder Girl (who was wearing the worst wig that she had ever seen.)
Her niece didn't move, she just continued to shake, holding onto the kid who was probably one of those Flash people, so Jessica tried again. "Cissie, I'm your Aunt Jessica, and I've come to take you home."
At the mention of the word "home" Cissie looked up. She wasn't crying, not at the moment, but the red rims around her eyes showed that she had been at some point earlier. Instead it looked like she'd recently progressed to dry heaving.
"Home?" she said. "You mean like jail for what I did?"
"Almost did," Robin said firmly. "And nobody is going to send you to jail." He glared at Jessica, and she took an involuntary step backwards. She didn't know what it was about that kid, but there was something really creepy about him, and she really didn't want to cross him.
"Home," Jessica repeated. "Like my apartment in New York." Jessica didn't really know what to say, she just knelt down beside the girl.
"Hey, Cis, I can't believe you didn't tell me that your aunt is Jewel!" Superboy said excitedly.
Wonder Girl squealed a little, and things suddenly seemed to be a lot less awkward. She guessed that the kids were more comfortable with her now that they knew she was one of them, or had been.
"Arrowette," Robin said, laying a hand on the shaking girl's shoulder. She didn't respond. "Cissie," he said, a lot more gently, and she looked up at him. "You need to go with Jessica," he told her. "It's all going to be okay."
Chapter 2
Cissie didn't know what was taking so long. They had all told her -- Robin had told her -- that it was all going to be okay, and if she went with her Aunt Jessica, who she hadn't seen in years, she didn't have anything to worry about. But instead she was still at Elias, while Jessica argued with people. Cissie didn't think that she was going to be arrested - everyone had made it very clear that they wouldn't allow it, even though she deserved it. She had tried to kill someone. She had crossed the line that heroes were never supposed to cross.
She just stood there, wishing that the other members of Young Justice were there with her. But Robin had the whole secret identity thing that he needed to protect, and Cassie and Kon and Bart were... not always helpful. She knew that they were around. She could feel Robin's eyes on her, and at least that meant there was someone who would be able to step in if necessary.
Jessica was still talking to the police, but she finally threw up her hands and turned to Cissie. "We're leaving," her aunt said firmly. "Let's go get your things, and head back to New York."
Cissie just let herself be led along. Some small part of her was wondering if she should speak up and try to make a decision, but she was sure that she would only make a bad one if she did. She couldn't be trusted. At least with her aunt watching her, and the other members of Young Justice, she was sure that she wouldn't ever try to hurt anyone again.
She went through the motions of packing up a small bag, trying to ignore the look of concern on her aunt's face. She didn't really know Jessica - she didn't think she'd seen her aunt since her father's funeral. She didn't know anything about her, except she didn't think that Jessica could be worse than her mom was.
At least she had the proof now that her mom was wrong, and she wasn't supposed to be a hero. Her mom had been wrong about a lot of things.
"Are you ready?" Jessica said, picking up Cissie's bag. When Cissie didn't respond immediately, Jessica put a hand on her shoulder. "Look," Jessica said softly. "I know that this isn't an ideal situation for either of us, but we're going to have to make the most of it. Fuck, this is new to me too, and I'm making up most of this shit as I go along."
For some reason, the more blunt language made Cissie smile, at least a little. "Okay," she agreed.
*
The apartment in New York was pretty much hell. Jessica clearly had different ideas about cleanliness and things than Bonnie King had. You would think that Jessica, who had worn a mostly white costume, would keep better laundry. Or maybe this was her way of rebelling against it. Cissie tried not to comment on it, but she knew that Jessica was probably seeing the hints of disapproval in her eyes.
"Yeah, so, I'm not the best fucking housekeeper," Jessica said without preamble, as she led Cissie over to a futon that had been set up in a corner. The curses were coming more rapidly, now that they were away from Elias and the stodgy social worker. Cissie wondered if Bart even knew what all of the things that she'd heard Jessica say meant, and the thought made her giggle a little bit. She didn't want to know how Max would react if Bart decided to imitate Jessica's vocabulary. He would probably blame...
They would all blame her. She'd nearly... she'd nearly killed someone. She'd actually held the bow and fired the arrow and had aimed for the guy's heart. She had wanted to kill him. She'd gone evil and it wasn't like the other heroes, who would start to do something, but the thought of killing would always jolt them out of it before they did. She'd crossed the line. If Kon hadn't been there, if he hadn't caught that arrow... Her eyes started to tear up, and she blinked rapidly.
"Don't dwell on it," Jessica advised. "It really isn't going to help." Cissie wasn't really sure how Jessica had known what she was thinking. She was supposed to be a better actress than that.
"How do you know?" she asked.
Jessica shrugged. "Been there, done that, wrote the damn book," she said in such a way that Cissie could tell meant the subject was closed. She would have to ask Kon later - he seemed to know a lot about Cissie's aunt.
But now definitely wasn't the time to pry. Except it really sucked - Jessica had seen her at her worst, and Cissie didn't really know anything about the woman. Well, she knew some things. Jessica used to be a superhero. She lived in a really crappy apartment. She cursed a lot, although she sometimes tried to reign it in. Judging from the apartment, Jessica smoked, and probably drank. It actually felt a little bit like home. She just hoped that Jessica wasn't another Bonnie - she really couldn't deal with that again.
Jessica's phone rang, startling both of them. "Alias investigations," she answered. There was a pause. "What do you want, Luke?" she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. "No, you can't fucking come over, my niece just moved in.... No, seriously. What the fuck did you think I was doing all weekend?" Cissie had no idea who Jessica was talking to, but she was clearly missing something good on the other side of the conversation.
Jessica hung up the phone, and for a minute, Cissie was convinced that she was going to hurl it across the room, but instead she just pocketed the phone again. "I guess I should finish cleaning this up," Jessica said. "I did clear out the beer bottles and sh - stuff. Carol would have killed me if I hadn't."
"Carol?" Cissie asked.
"Warbird. She's one of those damn superheroes," Jessica told her, absentmindedly reaching out to rub her fingers lightly over a framed picture on the wall of herself and another woman, who Cissie guessed was Carol. "Well, she used to be one anyway."
"I didn't realize you still kept in touch," Cissie said.
Jessica sighed. "No matter how much you think you're out," she said slowly, "it is really hard to leave this life behind. Once you're a part of it, you're in the club for life."
"Oh," Cissie said. When she'd been sent to Elias, she'd had vague thoughts about how it was good that she could leave the superhero life behind her, and start over. Then she'd realized how much she could annoy her mother by putting the costume back on. She hadn't realized that by doing it this way she was making a lifetime committment.
But then again, you didn't really hear very much about retired heroes. Retired usually meant dead, at least as far as she knew. The Justice Society was still active, and they were all positively ancient. It really was a life sentence.
This was entirely her mother's fault.
Well, not really, but it was always easier to blame Bonnie than it was to think about what had happened.
"Did you ever do anything?" she asked Jessica suddenly. "I mean, something really bad?"
Jessica froze for a moment, and Cissie was pretty sure that the answer to her question was yes. She wasn't sure why she'd asked - she wasn't really sure that she was prepared to hear what it was that Jessica had done, and she didn't think that Jessica wanted to talk about it. She was going to have to live with Jessica no matter what the answer was; did she really want to have to live with her if it turned out that Jessica had killed people? Of course, it took one to know one, so maybe Jessica would be able to understand why she had done what she had.
The apartment got very quiet, and Cissie studied Jessica intently, waiting for her to make a decision. She should probably take it out of her hands.
"You don't have to tell me," she said softly. "I mean, if it's too personal."
"No, it's fine," Jessica said. "I was mind-controlled for a while. I did some pretty horrible things before I was rescued. But none of it was my fault. I just took a while to realize it."
Cissie nodded. But she didn't have the same option - she hadn't been mind-controlled. She'd made the conscious choice to try and kill someone. It didn't matter how much he deserved it - and he really and truly did. Heroes didn't do that.
"I'm going to go lie down," she said, heading toward the futon that had been made up for her.
"Okay," Jessica said. She didn't push Cissie, and for that she was grateful.
*
They settled into some sort of routine - Jessica still did her detective things, and Cissie had somehow won a scholarship to a private school in the city. Considering that the scholarship came from a Gotham fund, she could only assume that Robin had somehow been responsible. She owed him, owed all of them. But she hadn't seen any of the members of Young Justice since her move to New York.
This was the first Saturday she'd spent by herself, and Cissie knew that Jessica was a little bit nervous about leaving her alone. But Jessica had a case, and they needed the money, and Cissie had promised that she would behave herself and not get into any trouble. And it wasn't like Jessica was leaving her totally alone - Scott Lang had come by earlier that morning to check on her, and Carol just kept calling and Cissie was sure if she waited long enough the infamous Luke Cage was going to show up. (Cissie still hadn't met him, but she was curious as to who this guy that Jessica was absolutely Not Dating was.)
The doorbell rang, and Cissie hesitated. She wasn't really expecting anyone.
"Who is it?" she called, as she looked through the keyhole.
"Cissie!" A familiar voice said from outside. "Open the door! Bart is threatening to go knock on every door, and you know he'll do it."
She smiled, and unlatched the door, and was promptly tackled by Cassie.
"Blonde?" Cissie said in surprise, when she finally managed to extract herself from her best friend's grip.
"Ditched the wig for this," Cassie told her.
"I like it this way, we match."
Kon and Bart both grinned at her, before they both ran to the kitchen in search of food. Cissie looked at the fourth member. There was no way... it couldn't be.
"Robin?" she asked hesitantly.
"Alvin Draper," he said, sticking out his hand. "Nice to see you again, Cissie."
She smiled, and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "The scholarship, that was you, wasn't it?"
"You needed help," he said with a shrug. "And I just wanted to see what I could do to help.
Cissie did the only thing she could do - she pulled him in tight and kissed him.
"Woooo!" Kon said from the kitchen. "Way to go, Robbie!"
They broke apart, and Alvin glared at him.
"I mean Alvin," Kon said, not sounding sorry about it at all.
Alvin glanced over at Cissie. "We'll talk about that later?" he asked quietly, and she nodded.
He was a really good kisser. She wondered if Batman had a training program for those things. Supposedly Nightwing was really good at it.
"So, um, why are you guys all here?" She didn't really mean for it to come out like that, but she hadn't been expecting any of them to be here, and she didn't know how they had found her. But considering that Robin was with them, she shouldn't have been that surprised.
"We came to check up on you!" Bart said, as he zipped over to her. "I mean, we haven't seen you in almost a week, and everyone was really worried. We wanted to come on Tuesday, but Robin, I mean Alvin, he wouldn't let us. He said you needed time or something, but it had already been a really long time, and did we give you enough time because we can come back in five minutes if that's going to help."
Cissie smiled. She had missed them.
Continue to Part 2