Infinity Era

by JDPrime22

Chapter 37 – Old Ties

All it took was a simple turn of the door handle for the man to enter the apartment room. No strength needed. It was unlocked, surprisingly. And unsurprisingly, lying face-first on her own desk was Jessica Jones, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s resting near her limp hand.

Luke Cage shook his head pitifully at the sight, gently closing the door behind him.

He didn’t make his approach quiet by any means, but even his loud footfalls against the apartment’s floor didn’t cause the woman to stir. She remained unmoved, her long, black hair tangled and lying in disarray over her head and arms. Luke sighed through his nostrils, wondering how it was even possible for Jessica to even force herself to get up in the morning. He couldn’t focus on that right now, instead choosing to stand directly in front of her desk, staring down at her limp form without a hint of humor in his expression.

“Hey,” Luke whispered, reaching down and gently prodding her left hand. Aside from his touch, she still didn’t move. He said louder, “Jessica, it’s me, Luke. Are you still alive?”

Not even a sound. The weak joke he made was starting to become more and more reality the longer he stared at her motionless body. Before he made the attempt to check for a pulse, his eyes shot over to the bottle of Jack still resting near her right hand. Raising a curious brow, Luke stuck out his lower lip and sighed, “I guess I’ll just help myself then.”

Once his hand gripped the bottle and lifted it from the table, Jessica’s hand shot up like a rattlesnake, striking Cage’s forearm and refusing to release. Luke smiled down at her, glad to see that her priorities still relied on booze. She threw her head back, her hair following her, revealing the disgruntled and drained expression of Jessica Jones. “Not on your life, douche—”

She paused once she opened her eyes fully, the blur fading and Luke Cage’s familiar face coming into view. Jessica’s frown loosened, only slightly. Not her grip, though. She held onto Luke’s hand, and more importantly, the bottle of Jack like her life depended on it.

Snorting in his direction, more so his grin, Jessica groaned, dropping her hand. “Oh… it’s you.”

Luke continued to smile. He noticed how her gaze was still latched to her bottle of Jack, causing Luke to let it rest back on the table. She clutched it with her right hand, dragging it across the wooden desk closer her way. “It’s me,” Luke sighed, his hands falling into his jacket pockets. “How have you been, Jessica?”

“Shit-faced,” Jessica replied, pouring the bottle into a small glass, the whiskey a dark, golden brown. Noticing Luke’s dull expression, she raised her eyebrows and said, “Oh, you mean… other than shit-faced. Not shit-faced, then.”

Luke breathed a chuckle at that, his smile falling down to Jessica’s attire. She wore a long sleeve gray shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was a tangled mess, her attention set only on focusing the stream of whiskey into her glass. “You know, you should really lay off the alcohol once in a while, Jessica,” Luke told her, meeting the heated glare from Jones shortly. “It might be good for you.”

“I’m sorry, did I ask for your opinion?”

“No, you did not.”

Downing the small glass of Jack, Jessica forced the liquid down her throat, feeling the sickening drink begin to calm her growing nerves. Barely. It burned like hell, but nothing she hadn’t experienced several times before. Lowering the empty glass, Jessica breathed steadily and wiped her mouth, studying Luke’s stance and clothes. He wore a black jacket over his favorite yellow T-shirt, blue jeans to go with it. He stood slightly slanted, like he owned the goddamn world.

“What are you even doing here, Luke?” Jessica asked with that same sickened frown.

He picked up a discarded chair, of which was thrown across the room during one of Jessica’s drunken rages last night. She watched as he settled it directly in front of her desk, taking a seat with the back of the chair pressed to his chest. “I came to talk… and maybe get some coffee. No offense, but you look like you need it.”

Her expression shifted, almost appearing disgusted at first. “Oh, my God, if you just came here for a booty call then count me in.” Her expression then changed to a calmer demeanor, her voice following, her eyes holding a pinch of lust in each orb.

Thankfully, before it could escalate to something further, Luke held out his hands, chuckling lightly. “No, no, it’s… not that,” he said, quickly losing her interest with that statement alone. It was all nearly gone when he said, “It’s just coffee. Nothing else.”

Jessica rolled her eyes, bringing the empty glass to her lips. “Whatever… you know you can’t handle me.”

Finally noticing she was out of Jack, she proceeded to pour herself another glass. Luke sighed at that, shaking his head slowly. He still couldn’t believe she could drink so much, especially so early in the morning. They may have held something together in the past—admittedly slept together a few times—but he never took her for someone who would end up killing themselves in alcohol. She obviously did it to hide her pain, her past, what she did to him and what others… did to her. Luke didn’t know all of her past. All he knew was what she did to him, what she took away from him… and how it was nearly impossible for him to forgive her.

How she murdered his wife.

Her life under the control of Kilgrave.

Eventually having to deal with the loss of her…

Luke exhaled through his nostrils, closing his eyes. Lowering the glass from her lips, Jessica stared at Cage quizzically. That puzzled expression changed instantly to pent-up fury when he spoke. When he said it.

“I heard about what happened to your mother.”

Jessica slammed her glass to the desk, not hard enough to shatter it—which she was clearly capable of—but hard enough to make a statement. “You know, I’m gonna stop you right there—”

“No, Jessica,” Luke stated, affirming his position and refusing to back down. Even to her. Even to her diamond-piercing glare. A glare that could probably pierce his bullet-proof skin. “All you do is push the past behind you and try to drown it in booze. You push others away who try to help. That hasn’t worked before, and it sure as hell ain’t working now. That’s no way to heal.”

Her hand tightened around the glass, causing small cracks to appear. “Maybe there are different ways to heal.”

Luke didn’t back down, furthering his own tone. “Not this way, Jessica,” he growled.

The glass shattered right in her palm, causing Cage to flinch. His eyes reverted back to Jessica, who was still shaking with anger as she continued to clench her gloved-fist around the broken glass. She pointed that fist to Luke, more specifically, her finger. “I don’t need you,” she hissed, “or Claire, or Danny, or whoever the hell else trying to tell me how to live my goddamn life! If I want to spend it… drinking the rest of it away… because I want to… then you have no right to try and change that.”

Seeing his expression shift from determination to concern—partially due to the cuts on her palm from the glass—Jessica eventually followed his gaze, her own anger deflating when she saw the blood dripping from her right hand. Letting the bloody glass fall from her palm, Jessica seethed at the cuts, pressing her other glove to it. She cursed silently, sitting back down in her chair.

Luke Cage watched her carefully, finally nodding. “Let me just offer my condolences.”

Jessica lifted her frown, her lower jaw outstretched as she centered said frown Cage’s way. Seeing his eyes, his desperation to do good, Jessica just shoot her head and reached into her drawer. She muttered, “Fine.”

She brought out and up a small medical kit, including bandages, cleaning alcohol, and disinfectant. Jessica only bothered with the alcohol and bandages, hissing slightly as the liquid touched the cuts on her naked palm. Her bloody glove lay on the desk, both it and Luke watching her work. After tightly wrapping the bandages around her hand, Jessica flexed it a couple time to see if it was good, which it was, causing her to sigh in the end.

That sigh turned towards Cage, making Jessica shake her head at his expression. “God, you make me feel like a dick sometimes.”

Luke almost laughed. “I make you feel like that.”

“Let’s change the subject, something that doesn’t involve me,” she interrupted, bringing the entire bottle of Jack close to her heart. Leaning back in her chair, Jessica asked, “So… what have you been up to since our last… excursion?”

The last word was laced with venom, like it was difficult for her to get out. She dowsed that venom away when she shot her head back, the bottle following, as she took a quick drink from the Jack Daniel’s. Obviously referring to the Hand, the fate of New York City, and all the madness that encompassed it, Luke slowly nodded his head. “I took over Harlem’s Paradise.”

Jessica almost choked on her drink. “No shit?”

Seeing the look on her face, the near-shock, almost made him laugh again. He smiled big and wide though, quite proud to be exact. “Oh, yeah,” he said, grinning like a madman.

“Why?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the bandages on her right hand. “I thought Harlem’s Paradise belonged to that bitch Mariah Stokes?”

Luke nodded, eyes shooting downwards. “It did… until she died.”

Jessica’s eyes slowly widened. Luke watched as she just shrugged it off, like it was just any other death in the city of New York. “Didn’t know you had it in ya, Luke,” she mumbled, the bottle pressed to her lips.

“Not by me, Jessica,” Luke groaned, his bemused expression shifting to her eyes, the eyes that couldn’t give less of a shit at the moment. “But in her will, she gave me control of Harlem’s Paradise. Still don’t know why… but I ain’t complaining.”

Jessica lowered the bottle, swallowing what accumulated in her mouth. “Really?”

“It’s fantastic,” he stated. Seeing the strange look on her face, Luke tried to back up his claim by saying, “Jessica, with me looking over Harlem’s Paradise, people know who’s in charge. They know who to fear. They know that I can protect Harlem better than any cop ever could.”

“Taking the law into your own hands, huh?”

“I’m just doing what the law failed to,” Luke said, his eyes holding a heavy promise. “Laying said law… down.”

That didn’t sound like the Luke Cage she knew at all. The Luke Cage she knew was hard on crime in the streets and even harder in bed. But most importantly—and being something she never could be—he was a saint, working closely with the law enforcement in order to bring down any drug lord, crime boss, or whatever came from Harlem. Sure, their last meeting dealing with the Hand required them to work outside the law, but other than that, he was as clean as a baby’s ass.

Maybe that last mission together changed him. Maybe…

Jessica shrugged, downing the bottle of Jack. “Whatever makes you happy.”

Maybe she didn’t give a shit.

Her words were slurred, Jessica’s face contorting into disgust with that last drink she forced down her gullet. Unlucky for her, Luke caught every second of it. “You’re fading, Jessica,” Luke stated, chuckling a tad to see her head sway back and forth, trying to glare at him but failing each time. Standing up from his chair, Luke held his hand out to her. “Come on, let’s go get that coffee.”

Turning her eyes from his hand, back to his face, then back to the hand, Jessica just sighed, resting her left in his right. “Screw it,” she mumbled, pulled to her feet and practically directed out of her own apartment room.

Almost having to lead her step by step, Luke chuckled, “No putting any Jack in it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Luke proceeded in front of her when Jessica waved him and his assistance away, watching instead as he stood in front of her door, ready to open it and proceed outside to the elevator. However, he stopped like he was frozen solid, Jessica unfortunately too hung over to pay close attention. She hit him face-first. “You mind moving?” she murmured in his backside, pushing away and watching as Luke turned fully around. “I thought the body came after the coffee?”

Her comment wasn’t acknowledged, nor was it even heard from Cage. She could see as his eyes were focused solely on what lied behind her, and all that really did was her window. Nothing special. Yet when he spoke, his voice was nearly at an ashen silence, saying, “Jessica…”

“What?” she muttered, finally following his eyes to her window.

And what they saw…

Jessica’s frown disappeared. Her jaw fell, her legs working on their own and proceeding to the window. Sunlight poured inside, the drapes out of the way and revealing all the sky to her and Luke. Jessica was at a loss for words, not even her own breathing being heard. The sounds of distress, of terror, from the city of New York was all they could hear.

They witnessed a stream of light shoot across the sky from Jessica’s window, falling left towards Central Park. It was so bright that it almost appeared like a second sun in the morning sky, causing Jessica to flinch accordingly as it nearly blinded her in its descent. A trail of fire and smoke accompanied it, the light eventually disappearing behind the buildings and the morning sun being all that remained.

Then all was still. Jessica finally heard her breathing.

“Jessica, get away from the window.”

The tremor hit, followed by the resounding screams. Car alarms, horns blaring, shattering glass and rumbling earth filled the air as Luke and Jessica stumbled and maintained their balance. Her apartment room fared no better, practically shaking from the movement of the earth beneath it. Her desk bounced and rattled, the bottle of Jack Daniel’s shaking violently and crashing on the floor. Normally, Jessica would have rushed to the spill to clean up and save whatever she could. However, she couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere except the window.

At the large cracks that appeared once the shock wave enveloped her home.

Jessica blinked. Breathed. Watched the buildings ahead of her get torn apart. “Oh, fu—”

“Jessica!”

Luke Cage wrapped his large arms around the frail woman, yanking her backwards like she weighed absolutely nothing to him. The following explosion sent both Luke and Jessica reeling back from the window, shards of glass shooting outwards like bullets, penetrating Luke’s back and inflicting no other damage than tears in his jacket. The eruption from outside, the collapse of the building, all of it both Luke Cage and Jessica Jones felt as they fell alongside her apartment.