Jessica

Us Part One

Jessica was going on a walk around the city without a costume and without a mission. She only did this for herself. Anything to take her eyes off the freaky map of targets hanging in her wardrobe.

She was one of many in the sense that she walked among a crowd of pedestrians but she was also alone among them because none of them could begin to imagine the dilemmas in her mind.

Someone likely noticed her staring blankly ahead of her and others must have been looking at her for filthier reasons but she didn't care about them. She only cared about Miles.

He was the first person she willingly confessed her darkest secret to. Everyone else had either known from the start or just discovered it. She knew why she told him: because she cared about him and also needed him. That's no exaggeration, she really needed him. Despite all that, she was also scared of the consequences.

She thought that if he started texting her more often than that would mean that he found her more important simply because of her origins.

On the other hand, if they suddenly started talking less than the opposite would be true, meaning that the truth would make him uncomfortable.

She truly hoped, with all her heart, that neither of these would turn real. She just wanted things to stay the same, that would have been the proof she desperately needed that the way she was born didn't matter and only her actions did.

Another awful thought crossed her mind, one that in some aspects scared her even more. Now that he knew, what if Miles called her the wrong name... his name? What if he started misgendering her? (Would that be considered deadnaming?)

But she thought that was unlikely, Miles was a good hearted person and she was very vocal about the way she identified herself. She kept telling herself that there was nothing to fear, not from him at least... What about everyone else?

"Excuse me? Are you just looking around or do you plan to buy anything?"

That voice made her stop daydreaming and although she never closed them in the first place, her eyes worked again. It seemed that she had carelessly walked into a clothes shop without even paying attention so she made up an excuse on the fly.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm still searching. I'll call if I need help!"

With that, the clerk walked away allowing Jess to cope with her clumsiness alone. Her usual paranoid self started thinking about how embarrassing it would have been to walk out of the store without buying anything but then she looked at her hands and noticed that the red jacket she unconsciously took hold of was not half bad. Not bad at all...

She decided to try it on. It wasn't exactly her size, matter of fact it was a tad bit small but not uncomfortable. She could still move very well and tie up the sleeves when she wanted to.

But right as she started feeling well, she heard a sudden loud noise, one she had come to learn very well during her service at S.H.I.E.L.D. It was also a sound that shouldn't be heard in times of peace, let alone anywhere near a city.

The clerk proved how uncommon that was by asking: "What was that?! An earthquake?!"

Unlike her, Jess knew this wasn't mother nature, this was the product of her wretched child: mankind. She quickly grabbed a pair of sunglasses and told the other woman: "I'll take these and the jacket."

Without any more questions being asked, she paid for all of that and stormed out of the store putting on the glasses along the way. After that, she ran into the first alley she saw and ran up a wall until she reached the sky. Once she was all the way up, she could see a dust cloud and went in that direction.