#but homegrown? fresh off the plant? they fuck SO SEVERELY.

[fantabulisticity]

I relearned a lesson recently: don't eat tropical fruit from the grocery store if you live way away from the tropics region. It so rarely is worth it.

[aka-willow]

Heroes, Pt. 3

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Words: 1732

Characters: Willow Wren, Jessica Jones, Kilgrave, Trish Walker, Jeri Hogarth

Prompt/Tag: “Well, that’s tragic.” x  /

Summary: Willow reveals her past while trying to discover Kilgrave’s

Timeline: April 2015

Song: Heroes – Peter Gabriel

A/N: Part 3/4

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“I’m sorry, so who are you?” Trish asks me later, as Jessica continues to rewind and replay the final moments of the fight on the camera. “And how old are you?”

“I’m Willow,” I say. “I’m in eighth grade.”

“Jesus, Jessica,” says Trish. “Why is she here?”

“Don’t let her fool you,” says Jessica. “You know the Manhattan Angel everyone was talking about? Yeah, that’s her.”

“Wait,” says Trish. “No.”

“Yup,” Jessica says dryly.

“So,” says Trish, lowering her voice. “She actually flies?”

“I’m right here,” I say.

“Sorry, Willow,” says Trish. “I mean, can you?”

I squirm at the question, and even my wings draw themselves tighter into the sides of my spine. “Yeah.”

I can tell that she wants to ask more questions, people always do, but she falls quiet. Jessica takes a swig from a bottle and replays the video yet again.

“He didn’t have to tell me to do a goddamn thing and he had all the control,” says Jessica.

“Got to admire his commitment,” I say, as we rewatch Kilgrave take hit after hit.

Jessica sighs. “Look at that.” She hits play again and scoffs. “Even I feel sorry for him. I just helped his case.” She takes another drink. “I’m such an idiot,” she says and clicks on Kilgrave’s childhood video again, like she’s turning on Netflix. Kilgrave’s eyes open.

“What if we just walked out of here right now?” Trish asks. “Locked the door and never came back. Just left him. Hope could take the deal. I have enough money to get anyone far away.”

Yeah, you know what? I could almost be on board with that. Wait, no. Could I?

“Trish…” Jessica starts.

“I mean it. As long as he has your attention, as long as you care, he’s in control.”

“I won’t let Hope lose twenty years of her life.”

“Why is she your responsibility?”

“That’s not you,” Jessica says. “That’s your boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” I ask, snapping back to the conversation at hand.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Trish says quickly. “And can you blame him? Kilgrave murdered Simpson’s buddies. He almost died.”

I need to find out who this Simpson guy is. Now things are interesting. I search for Simpsons in the city on my phone. Finally, something to do. As Trish goes on about something with a bomb, I’m scrolling through Whitepages. The video continues to play in the background, and I try to not let the experiments on the screen send my mind back to the Facility.

“Wait, okay,” Trish says again, turning to me. “Where are your parents? Do they know you’re here? Aren’t they worried?”

I pause. “It’s complicated. I don’t actually know them? My parents?”

“What, were you abandoned?” Jessica says, and I realize she’s talking to me.

“Uh… it’s a whole thing,” I say. “I’d rather…”

“Well, we’ve got time,” says Jessica. “This asshole’s not moving.” She’s slightly drunk and Trish shakes her head.

“Leave her alone, Jess, if she doesn’t want—”

“Yeah, abandoned,” I say, wondering if I should quickly make a PowerPoint on my trauma or something. I sigh and try to think of the best way to phrase everything. “My mom… okay… I don’t know who my mom was. But she was part of some secret experiment that I think involved manipulating the DNA of embryos. But instead of giving me in like she was supposed to, she was unreliable, or something. I don’t know. So, she ditched me when she saw how messed up I came out and the homeless guy who saw her leave me said she said something about not wanting to raise a demonchild. Whatever that means.”

“Eh, she got that part right.”

I glare at Jessica and continue. “So homeless guy brings me to the fire station on the same block and those guys take me in. They were going to turn me into the police until they saw the… you know.” I gesture to the wings. “Two of them were married and lived in an apartment above the station. So, I lived at the firehouse. In secret.”

“You were, like, what, a firehouse dog?” Jessica asks.

I cringe. “Basically. I couldn’t leave though. After I had been there for a few days, agents from the experiment started going door to door, looking for me. That’s why they decided to keep me there. In secret. So, yeah. I was there for six years. Didn’t leave much. Didn’t go to school. But my dads were great.”

“What happened?” Trish asks. “How did you end up…?”

“Well, they found me,” I say. “Eventually.” How do I explain this part? “There was a bad fire one night. All hands on deck and firefighters got trapped on the top floors. I left the station, flew in, saved the firefighters. But it got caught on camera.”

“I remember that on the news,” says Trish. “I thought they said it was a hoax.”

“Yeah, of course they did,” I say. “The Facility people came knocking the next day to take me away. And that was it. I went away for the next seven or so years. Until I got out almost a year ago.”

“God, I’m sorry,” says Trish, “That’s fucked up.”

“Eh, it is what it is,” I say, shrugging. “Things are fine now.”

“Are they still looking for you?” Jessica asks.

“Oh, definitely,” I say. “Invested way too much money and time into me and the others not to.” I pause to think again. “They were working on a second part to the experiments,” I say. “Obviously, the… wings… and the physical stuff, that’s all the embryo manipulation. But there was other stuff they were working on. Other powers.”

“What kind?” Jessica asks, looking wary.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “It involved exposure to this thing? It was blue? I don’t remember a lot of that.”

I think back to that phrase from the testing, again. October, shh. It’s time to play Monster.

“Helpful,” quips Jessica.

“I know,” I say. “Totally.”

“Well, that’s tragic as shit,” says Jessica. “Makes this look almost tame,” she says, nodding back at the Kilgrave video, still playing in the background.

“Nah, this almost makes me glad I didn’t know my parents,” I mumble to myself. “At least it was strangers.”

Trish shook her head, watching the video. “Who does that to their own child?”

“No one gets under a person’s skin like their parents,” Jessica says. She looked pensive. “That… could push him to the breaking point.”

“If they’re still alive,” I say.

“He thinks so,” Jessica says. “He looked for them for a long time.”

“Should’ve hired a P.I,” says Trish, and I laugh.

We start panning through the videos, pausing and analyzing. I pull over a chair and look over Jessica’s shoulder, listening, trying to hear something, anything that would indicate a location or a name. It looks more like a homegrown or school lab, not like the shiny and bright place I was raised. We spread out work into the hallways, as Kilgrave opens his food and starts each, chewing slowly and staring at us the entire time.

Trish dozes off on one of the cluttered countertops and as Jessica and I continue to work, I hear a squeaking noise on the glass, followed by a knock. I jump, and Jessica gets up to deal with Kilgrave, clearing her throat.

Exhausted, I sit down on the floor, up against the wall, and lean my head back, shutting my eyes. What time is it? How long have we been here?

“Who is Eric?” Jessica asks aloud, sitting back down. “His brother?”

I open one eye. “Could be another kid from the study?”

I hear her typing and I shut my eyes again, dozing off on the floor. I hear snippets of conversation, even while asleep, but most of it is hushed and scattered, although at one point I catch a halfhearted “She’s almost sweet when she’s asleep,” which I despise. When I wake up hours later, it’s just Trish in the room.

“Where did Jessica go?” I ask.

She tells me that Jessica has a lead on Kilgrave’s parents and went to go track someone down. I sit up and rub my eyes to see Kilgrave still staring at us through the glass.

“He’s been like that for hours now,” says Trish, turning to whisper to me.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

She searches in her bag and pulls out a granola bar. “Hungry?”

I nod, taking it and tearing it open. It’s the shitty crumbly kind, but I don’t complain. She rustles around in her bag a little longer until I hear footsteps from down the hall. Hogarth has returned.

“You’re back,” says Trish, and I see her shove something into her purse.

“Jessica said she had something urgent to show me.” She looks over at me. “She’s still here?”

“Jessica will be back soon,” says Trish.

“Why don’t you both go outside and get some fresh air?” says Hogarth. “Last thing I need is another woman losing her mind.”

Oooh. Drama.

“Yeah, I guess we could use a break,” says Trish. “Come on, Willow.”

We leave the room and take a walk to the end of the hall, where we push the doors open, clamber down the several flights of stairs and step outside for the first time in ages. I take a deep breath and suck in the fresh air. It’s nighttime, now, and the sky calls me, but I keep my feet planted to the ground.

“Sorry about… Jess making you tell us all that stuff,” says Trish suddenly. “I’m sorry that happened. To you.”

“I’m over it,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

“Would you tell someone if you weren’t okay?” Trish asks. “I mean, this stuff… it’s heavy.”

“No worse than what I’ve seen,” I say, quietly. “Trust me.” Eh, I could probably use some therapy or whatever.

She sighs. “I just wish Jessica would get back here already.” She picks up her phone to make a call.

I pace around the lot behind the warehouse, and finally start climbing the stairs of the fire escape, onto the roof, where it’s finally safe to take off my jacket and let my wings breathe as well.

I could just fly away, right now. Forget all of this. Run again.

But, no.

After a few minutes, I fold my wings back in and climb back down the escape, not even letting myself glide on down and enjoy the night. There’s more work to be done.