Long Road Home (the_wolverine) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-08-15 15:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jessica jones, logan howlett (wolverine) |
Long time.
Who: Logan and Jessica
What: Drinks and chatting
When: Recent
Where: The Nightcrawler
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13
Volunteering all day was kind of tiring, but it a good way. Sure, Jessica was getting paid by one of her clients to do the volunteering - not that he knew that that was what he was paying her for - but it still felt, well, good. It felt like Jessica was actually doing some good in the world for once, instead of just bringing more pain and misery into it like her job often required.
It had been a long time since she’d last seen Logan, but his bar was nearby and Jessica figured that she deserved a drink after all her good work. “Hey,” she said, finding one of the bar stools and sitting at the bar. “Long time.”
“We get a lotta strangers in here,” Logan replied, already pouring her her favorite drink. He slid it across the bar with a grin. “Gonna have to refresh me on your name.”
They were both busy enough, so he wasn’t exactly put out. But it was fun to tease.
Jessica held her hand out and caught the glass of whiskey as it slid past her. “Just so long as you remember my drink, I couldn’t care less about my name,” she snorted.
Logan leaned on the bar, a grin on his face. “Guess you’ve got a lock on the important shit. I can respect that. But I got a nose for booze so it ain’t hard to remember that most of the time. Cept for this one guy who’s drink requires a spreadsheet.”
He jerked his head in her direction. “So what’ve you been up to?”
“I hope he tips well,” Jessica said flatly. Alcohol was alcohol, it didn’t make much sense to Jessica to dress it up when a whiskey got you just as drunk as a bloody mary.
She shrugged at his question. “The usual. Work. I’ve got some guy paying me a top dollar to go around volunteering all day.” Of course, Proudmouth wasn’t actually paying her to volunteer, but he hadn’t yet taken the time to figure out what it was that Jessica was actually doing with her time. “What about you?”
“Tips pretty well, but not well enough,” Logan admitted, but he wasn’t usually bartending himself so he had to hear it from his employees.
“Sounds like a good kinda scam.” Logan poured himself a beer, because why not. “The usual. Mindin’ this store, keepin’ an eye on the center. Occasional heroics in spandex.”
“I figure the scam part is cancelled out by the helping people in need part,” Jessica said. Maybe getting paid a lot of money to volunteer wasn’t exactly the Captain America ideal, but a girl had to pay her rent - and her liquor fees - somehow.
“You’re doing the hero thing?” Jessica asked, raising an eyebrow. “Complete with spandex? I didn’t take you as the type.”
Logan shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta do the right thing, if you’ve got the ability to. An’ sometimes it’s real fun to tear up a terrorist hide-out with claws an’ bad guys screamin’.”
“It’s probably more fun when you don’t have to worry about getting shot,” Jessica snorted. Not that Logan couldn’t be shot, but from what she’d seen of his powers, she doubted that could keep him down for very long. “You don’t ever worry about whether or not what you’re doing is actually the right thing?”
“I had to relearn how to fight without gettin’ shot,” Logan said, voice momentarily quiet. When his healing factor had been taken from him, he’d had to shift his fighting style. It was a lesson he still carried with him.
Just in case.
“These folks spawned from some of our dreams. It’s definitely the right thing to do. Basically a group that started as Nazis.”
“Oh, well, punching Nazis is always the right thing to do.” The idea of an evil Nazi group popping out of someone’s dreams didn’t exactly seem like the best thing though. It was like an icy hand reached into her stomach and twisted her insides as she thought about what might happen if someone like Kilgrave had ever come from her dreams. “So, people can come out of your dreams too?” she asked, trying, and not quite succeeding, to keep her voice casual.
Logan smirked. “Killed more than a few in that war, an’ then more than a few Hydra people. In my dreams anyway.”
Well, here too, just not in the war.
“Well, I met people who I’ve dreamed about. But organizations? Seem to be a bit more...floaty. I don’t know if the members come up whole cloth outta nothin’ or they just kinda form around this idea. Seen demons an’ other shit though, so I’m leanin’ towards the former.”
He glanced at her, somewhat concerned. “Worried ‘bout somethin?”
Jessica nodded, trying to swallow the idea of that. She had known that demons and the like had passed through people’s dreams, but there was something more… unnerving about the idea of actual people coming. It wasn’t something she had ever thought about before, and it wasn’t something she wanted to keep thinking about.
Jessica downed the rest of her drink and wordlessly indicated to Logan that she’d like a refill. “What makes you say that?” she asked. She hadn’t meant for her worry to appear on her face, though evidently it had.
“You’re tense, an’ your scent shifted.” Which was a nice way of saying she was perspiring just a little bit. “An’ your voice is a little shakier than usual.”
Which was a little blunt, but he wasn’t often subtle.
Jessica wasn’t necessarily surprised to hear that he had enhanced senses on top of his healing factor and those metal claws of his, but she was a little surprised to hear that people’s smells changed when they were tense.
“There’s a man in my dreams,” Jessica said after a moment. “If he came through… I’d just rather that didn’t happen.”
“Kinda get that.” There were people Logan would prefer not to see. The kind of people who could end the world -- and the kind of people who’d hurt him and those he cared about. Romulus in particular. “You ever need anyone taken care of, you let me know.”
Jessica should have taken comfort in that, but the idea of Wolverine meeting Kilgrave and being put under his thrall was something that sent chills down Jessica’s spine. Besides, accepting help from anyone, no matter what it was, wasn’t something that had ever worked out well for Jessica or the people who helped her.
Her feel-good feelings from earlier in the day had already disappeared just from thinking about Kilgrave, and now all she wanted to do was go home and finish drinking in the glow of her laptop.
“Thanks, but I can take care of myself,” Jessica said, pulling some dollar bills - enough to cover her drink and give Logan a small tip - and putting them on the bar counter. It was time for her to go.
“Offer is always open,” Logan said, taking the money and smiling tightly.