The elevator hummed down.
When it stopped, the door creaked open onto a dimly lit underground chamber. Heavy machinery thudded and groaned below, and the air smelled of oil, rust… and death.
"Holy hell," Jessica whispered.
The basement stretched wide—half-medical facility, half-construction site. Tables. Freezers. Digging equipment. The ground was cracked open, revealing tunnels being carved through concrete. It looked like they were digging deeper—far deeper.
And in the corner of the excavation chamber…
Remains.
Piles of them. Drained, butchered, half-preserved in bags and bins.
Mordred didn't speak. She walked forward slowly, staring down at the blood-slick tiles, the carved-out organs, the shattered bones.
She turned to the others.
"They're digging for something," she said coldly. "And they've already dug through too many lives."
A sound echoed from behind.
A small force—more guards—entered the basement from a side corridor, shouting and raising their weapons.
They didn't stand a chance.
Mordred exploded into motion again, rage now behind every movement. Jessica followed with fists that broke jaws and sent men flying. Matt moved like smoke and shadow, slipping through the chaos with precise violence.
This time, it wasn't just a fight. It was a warning.
No one here would walk away.
…
The apartment was quieter than usual.
No yelling. No delivery drivers. No flying bacon. Just a somber hum from the fridge and the faint buzz of some Stark-tech monitor quietly cycling in sleep mode.
Jessica slumped on the couch, an ice pack pressed against her knuckles. She looked tired—but clear-headed. Focused, in a way she hadn't been before.
Mordred was sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, flipping through channels with one hand while munching on a bowl of cereal the size of a mixing pot. She looked far less contemplative.
Matt stood by the window, arms crossed, brow furrowed beneath red-tinted glasses. His suit jacket was still singed from the night before.
"Still nothing from Stark?" Jessica asked, breaking the silence.
"He sent a text at four in the morning," Matt replied. "Said 'nice job wrecking a basement clinic, we'll talk later.'"
Jessica made a face. "Sounds about right."
Mordred grinned. "I told you we should've filmed the fight. I looked awesome."
Matt turned. "We found a mass grave."
The grin faded, but not entirely.
"Yeah," Mordred said quietly. "That too."
Jessica rubbed her temple. "That was the worst thing I've ever seen. Including stuff on TV."
Matt finally moved from the window and sat down at the table where scattered blueprints and maps—compiled from Arthuria's files and Stark's data—were still spread out.
"They weren't just harvesting organs," he said. "They were digging. That wasn't a standard basement. They were excavating something, and they were doing it with urgency."
"Which means they didn't finish," Jessica added.
"Which means they might come back," Matt said.
Mordred perked up. "To the murder-basement?"
"They put serious time and money into that place," Matt said, tapping one of the floor plans. "You don't do that unless there's something down there worth finding."
Jessica stood and crossed her arms. "So… what? We wait for them to crawl back in and jump them?"
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," Matt said. "They'll need to send people to clean it up, reclaim what's left, or at least secure it. And if we're lucky… someone higher up shows."
Mordred looked thoughtful for a moment. Then her grin returned. "We gonna ambush 'em?"
Matt nodded once. "We make it look like we're gone. Leave the place undisturbed. Then we watch."
Jessica cracked her knuckles. "So we stake out a murder pit, wait for evil ninja landlords to return, and then beat the truth out of them?"
Matt gave her a tired smile. "That's the idea."
Mordred raised her bowl. "To the murder pit."
Jessica groaned. "Please stop calling it that."
Mordred leaned over and clinked her spoon against the ice pack Jessica was holding. "C'mon. You had fun."
Jessica opened her mouth to argue… but didn't.
After a pause, she just muttered, "A little."
Mordred beamed.
Matt sighed and looked over the maps again. "We'll need a plan. Sensors, cameras, places to hide. Stark might be able to help with that if he ever gets off our case."
Almost on cue, the Stark-tech monitor on the wall blinked to life with a soft ping. A message scrolled across the screen.
[YOU STILL OWE ME A REBUILT DOOR AND HALF A CEILING. — T.S.]
Jessica gave a crooked smile. "He's not letting that go."
Matt muttered, "And he shouldn't."
Mordred waved a hand. "Bah. He's rich. He'll get over it."
Jessica leaned back against the wall, eyes thoughtful. "So… this is our life now?"
Matt nodded slowly. "Looks like it."
…
After that began the boring days of keeping an eye on things, there was no doubt that the Hand knew that their little operation had been hit, and people did come and go. But it wasn't many, and since they were fishing, they had to be patient.
Something Mordred wasn't very good at.
Yet, Matt still had his job, so he couldn't help much during the days, which just left Mordred and Jessica. And given they had to watch it around the clock, so they could act quickly. Mordred was forced to take many a shift, and she quickly got bored.
Really bored.
Mordred was on lookout duty. The rooftop was quiet, the streets below lit by a couple of flickering lamps and the occasional passing car. She lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, a pair of binoculars borrowed from Stark pressed to her face.
"Eyes on," she whispered into the comms. "I see movement near the alley."
Matt's voice came through a moment later, cautious and tense. "What kind of movement?"
"Small. Fast. Might be a scout. Could be a recon guy." Her voice dropped lower. "Wait."
Jessica's voice followed. "Is it armed?"
No answer.
"Mordred?" Matt asked.
Still nothing.
Silence stretched.
Jessica sat up from her perch across the street. "She went quiet."
"That's not great," Matt muttered, already moving.
Jessica followed, jogging across the narrow rooftop catwalk connecting their stakeout points. "Should we be worried?"
"With her?" Matt said. "Yes."
They moved quickly but carefully, scaling the last ledge and dropping onto the roof where Mordred had been posted.
What they found was not a fight.
Mordred sat cross-legged on the gravel, the binoculars discarded beside her. She was giggling softly, holding a string of hoodie-thread in one hand while a scrappy orange cat chased and swatted at the other end. The moment the two arrived, the cat darted into her lap and curled into a purring loaf.
Jessica stared. "Are you serious?"
Matt folded his arms. "You said you saw movement."
"I did," Mordred replied, beaming. "This little guy came out of nowhere. Thought he was sneaking up on me. Clearly, he's an assassin."
Jessica pinched the bridge of her nose. "You cut comms."
"I had to concentrate," Mordred said. "He's fast."
Matt looked like he wanted to say something else but chose silence instead.
"I'm naming him Agent Whiskers," Mordred continued, now rubbing behind the cat's ears. "He's earned it."
The cat bit her thumb.
"Traitor," Mordred muttered, completely unbothered.
Jessica shook her head and turned away. "Next time you're stuck doing recon with no backup."
Matt sighed. "We're supposed to be watching for Hand activity, not collecting strays."
"Speak for yourself," Mordred said. "This one's got instincts."
The cat sneezed.
Jessica raised a brow. "Yeah. Lethal."
…
It had been a long week. Matt needed one day to focus on his actual job—Murdock & Nelson still had bills to pay—and Mordred had been banned from recon after the cat incident. So that left Jessica.
"This is a very simple assignment," Matt had said that morning, locking the front door of their flat behind him. "Stay on the rooftop. Watch the clinic. Call me if anything happens. No drinking."
Jessica saluted with two fingers and a smirk. "Scout's honor."
"You were never a scout."
"Maybe in another timeline," she replied.
Matt didn't push it. Honestly, he needed to believe she'd hold it together for eight hours. Even Mordred, still wrapped in a blanket and watching cartoons with toast in her mouth, gave a thumbs up. "Don't worry, Matt. I'll make sure she doesn't completely mess up."
That should've been his warning sign.
…
The call came just after noon.
Matt was halfway through reviewing a property dispute case when his burner phone buzzed. The caller ID was restricted, but the voice on the other end was familiar and deeply unimpressed.
"This Matthew Murdock?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
"This is Officer Hernandez down at the 15th Precinct. We've got a... Jessica Jones in holding. She said to tell you she was 'doing spy stuff' and that you'd be 'eternally grateful' if we let you pick her up."
Matt sighed. "I'll be there in ten."
…
The station smelled like sweat, paperwork, and cheap coffee. Matt's cane clicked with every step as he made his way through the lobby, already regretting his life choices.
Jessica was slouched in a holding cell bench, sunglasses crooked, hair a mess, and smelling like a distillery on legs. She perked up when she heard his steps.
"Matty!" she called. "Hey! What a surprise!"
"Is it?" he asked dryly, folding his arms outside the bars. "I thought we agreed. No drinking."
She held up her hands. "Technically I agreed to no drinking on the rooftop. This was a controlled sidewalk experiment."
"She was yelling at a pigeon," Officer Hernandez said flatly. "Tried to fight it when it wouldn't 'yield its secrets.'"
"It looked shifty!" Jessica protested.
Matt ran a hand down his face. "Just... let her out. I'll take her home."
By the time they got back to the apartment, Mordred had completely redecorated the coffee table with pizza boxes and an unholy number of hot sauce packets.
Jessica stumbled inside first, dropped onto the couch, and groaned into a pillow.
Mordred leaned over from the kitchen counter, sipping soda through a crazy straw. "You last ten minutes up there?"
"Three hours," Matt muttered.
"She lasted longer than I expected," Mordred admitted. "But next time? Give her a leash and a GPS tracker."
Jessica gave a groggy thumbs-up from the couch. "Next time, I wear the sunglasses. They give me power."
Matt opened the fridge, he felt the soft rattling of takeout containers, the cheap plastics, he heard the sound of cans softly hitting against one another, and reached for what he knew to be an energy drink.
He might be blind, but honestly, it was probably for the best he wasn't able to fully see the mess this apartment had become, even as he detected the ever-growing piles of cardboard, which he knew to be pizza boxes.
When Tony Stark himself had given him a call about a superhero team-up, he hadn't known what to think.
"This," he said, "isn't a superhero team, it's the world's worst daycare."
Matt was halfway through rubbing his temples when the soft chime echoed from the far corner of the room. A sleek holographic panel flickered to life on the wall above the television, and JARVIS's unmistakably posh voice filled the air.
"Good evening. I apologize for the interruption, but I have been instructed to deliver a message from Mr. Stark."
Jessica groaned into her pillow. "Oh great. Now Dad's calling."
Mordred looked up from trying to turn pizza slices into a tower. "Didn't even hear the panel boot. That's kinda impressive."
JARVIS continued, tone as polite as ever. "Message playback beginning... now."
Tony's face flickered into view—shirt half-buttoned, sunglasses on indoors, holding a smoothie with a tiny umbrella in it.
"Hey there, Hell's Kitchen Avengers," he said, leaning back in a very expensive-looking chair. "Just checking in to see if you've successfully located a mystical ninja death cult yet. Or if Mordred's turned another monster truck rally into a demolition derby."
Mordred pointed at the screen, clearly pleased. "He liked it!"
"Anyway," Tony went on, swirling the drink lazily. "While you three were busy reenacting The Hangover, I went ahead and did some actual work. Cross-referenced Gao's alias, tracked a few shell companies, got a hit off an old Stark Industries routing signature—don't ask."
He smirked.
"Long story short? I found her. Gao's in town. Not far from you, actually. Little warehouse, real low-key, not listed on any digital maps. I'm sending coordinates. You're welcome."
Jessica sat up slowly. "Wait, seriously?"
"Oh, and one more thing," Tony added. "If any of you wreck that apartment again, I'm sending the invoice directly to Albion's royal treasury. Stark out."
The screen went black.
Mordred blinked. "...He totally stole our thunder."
Matt exhaled. "So all the rooftop stakeouts. The pizza towers. The drunk pigeon interrogation…"
Jessica flopped back onto the couch. "Completely pointless."
"No," Mordred said, standing up, eyes gleaming. "Now we know where to punch next. Let's go say hi to Madam Gao."
Matt rubbed his temples again. "Can we at least pretend to plan this time?"
Jessica reached for her coat. "Sure. We'll pretend really hard."
(end of chapter)
We are getting to the end of this little misadventure. This was some fun with Jessica, showing that she is still messed up, drinking, fighting, she is fucked up, but Mordred, as strange as it might be, is good for her.
I mean, who can stay mad around Mordred? That's just asking to be burned out real quick.
But it's finally time to take on a finger. And I'm sure you have all been looking forward to seeing some Mordred x finger action!