Rogue (An Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 58: Jessica X2

I knocked on the door leading to Jessica's apartment. The knife was still in my hand, pressing against my palm so tightly that I was sure it would be permanently indented into my hand by the time I tried to use it.

"What?" Jess asked, pulling the door open, her face softening when she saw it was me. "Rogue. He let you go?"

"Yeah," I said. As she stepped back to let me in, I swiped at her with knife, catching her arm.

"Ow!" she said, clutching her arm.

I walked towards her, slashing again, counting the cuts in my head.

"Help!" she called into the apartment. A tall, built man came from inside the apartment and immediately grabbed me, pulling me away from her.

"Don't hurt her," Jess warned him. "Kilgrave got to her."

"I have to cut her!" I said, my hand reaching out to try and cut her again. "I have to!"

"What exactly did Kilgrave say?" she asked me.

"Give Jessica 1,000 cuts," I repeated his words, still fighting against the guy to try and cut Jessica.

"OK, so we need a loophole," Jess said under her breath, thinking. "He's Jessica," she said, pointing at the man holding me back from her.

"What?" he and I said at the same time.

"He said to cut Jessica. You're Jessica," she said, more to him than to me.

"He said I had to cut you," I said to her.

"He never said 'Jessica Jones' did he?" she asked me.

"Well... no, but..." I trailed off. Kilgrave never actually told me exactly which Jessica to cut – he assumed I knew who he meant.

"This is the Jessica he meant," Jess said. I knew what she was doing, I knew that this guy clearly wasn't called Jessica, but part of my brain relaxed. I didn't have to hurt her.

I turned to the guy and ran the knife over his skin. Nothing happened. I pressed harder, but still couldn't break his skin.

"I can't cut him," I said, trying again and again.

"Kilgrave never told you to break the skin. Just keep doing what you're doing." Her voice was reassuring. I raked the knife over his seemingly unbreakable skin again and again, counting the non-existent marks.

"You never told me anyone else knew about Kilgrave," male 'Jessica' said to female Jessica.

"I never told you because it was irrelevant," she said. "But if you're interested, Trish, Rogue and a bunch of other people have seen him in action."

"Can I help?" he asked.

"No," she said defiantly. "I've seen what Kilgrave can do, I'm definitely keeping you out of it."

"Wait, so I couldn't tell my boyfriend about Kilgrave but you can tell yours?" I asked her.

"He's not my boyfriend," she said. "And he knows better than to try and rescue me. Your boyfriend however, thinks he can save you."

"Can't he?" I wondered.

"You're a superhero. We all have these powers, but you use them to actually help people. You can't save yourself?"

I gave male 'Jessica' another 'cut' as I answered. "I can save myself, but it's nice to know that someone wants to save me too."

"That's why I'll never be a hero. Once we deal with Kilgrave I can go back to my anti-social private life and not be bothered by anyone."

"It's nice to be needed," I responded. "To know that, without you, everything goes to shit. You feel wanted. I like feeling wanted."

"Is that why you wanted to stay with Kilgrave?" she wondered.

"Kind of," I answered truthfully. "I had a purpose with him, to please him, and I wanted to make him happy."

"Are you in love with him?" she asked tentatively. I gave male 'Jessica' a few more cuts, each one putting me a little bit more at ease.

"I don't know," I said. "When he told me I loved him, I felt it so strongly I almost couldn't function. But now that I'm away from him... I don't know."

"Those aren't real feelings. He's manipulating you."

"I know," I replied. The further away from Kilgrave I was, and the longer I stayed away from him, the more clearly I could see what he was doing. The less I trusted him.

"You're Hazel Miller, right?" male 'Jessica' asked me. Jessica and I eyed each other in surprise, not even she knew my real name.

"Do I know you?" I asked him.

"We went to school together," he informed me. "Back in Harlem. You were friends with Sam Wilson."

"Yeah, still am," I said. "You remember me?"

"Your face was plastered over our entire neighbourhood after you went missing. Everyone thought you were dead, including Sam. I don't know how he handled it, his best friend going missing."

I was shocked. I thought often about how Agent Frollo had impacted me, but I hadn't even begun to think about the impact that my disappearance had on the people that I knew, especially Sam.

"Did people look for me?"

"Are you kidding? We looked for years. No one thought we'd ever see you again. Then suddenly there you were on the news, fighting with the Avengers in Sokovia, going by a new name."

"I was on the news?" I asked.

"Yeah. Back then, too. I remember your mom pleading with your kidnappers to bring you back."

"My... mom?" I asked, the shock of hearing about her taking away my desire to cut him.

"What happened to her?" Jess asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "After a year of Hazel being missing, she moved away. No one ever saw her again."

"Hey, you stopped cutting him!" Jess said.

"Yeah, I guess I did," I said with a smile, dropping the knife and backing away from his arm. "You can probably tell me your real name now," I said.

"Luke. Luke Cage," he said. I shook his hand.

"Kilgrave's gonna expect me to be dead," Jess said. "He'll make you admit that I'm not."

"Then we need a plan," Luke said.

"We need to kill him," I said ignoring Jess's protests. "Look, I'm sorry about your friend in jail, but we'll never be able to prove that he exists. We have a duty to everyone, to humanity, to kill him."

Jess scowled. "Fine. How do we do this?"

"I might have an idea," I said. "But I have to go back to his place."

"That's too dangerous. You're free of him now, you can't go back!" Jess argued.

"He has to trust me. This is the only way. We need to make Kilgrave believe that he's won – I have to pretend to be in love with him."

"And if that doesn't work?" Luke asked.

Jess and I glanced at each other.

"If that doesn't work... we're all screwed."

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Thank you for reading! Come back next Saturday for the next chapter!

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