promise | darcy/jessica jones (trigger warning)
She made it back to her apartment sometime the next morning, running to the bathroom just fast enough to throw up the contents of her stomach into the sink. She splashed water on her face, her hands shaking, but when she heard the sound of voices coming through the walls she ran back out.
Darcy stumbled out of her apartment, sobbing and shaking and trying to melt into the walls, and she heard a man’s voice ask incredulously, “Why the hell would you want to be locked up there?”
“Because supermax prison is a high-tech mousetrap,” her neighbor was saying, “and I’ll be the bait when Kilgrave comes for me… he can’t compel someone through seven layers of security – ”
The voiced cut off when Darcy banged on the door. She remembered half-listening to that one podcast of Trish Talk a while ago, and it was then that she wanted to throw up again, even more so because she had literally been in the same elevator with the man that made that poor girl shoot her own parents.
When the door opened, it was a man, the druggie from across the hall. He blinked a little, his mouth stretching into a fake smile, and he asked, “Can I help – ”
“You found him.” she whispered, and when his look of surprise shifted into suspicious Darcy didn’t give the other man enough time to speak before she started talking.
“He made me help him break in and watch,” Darcy said, hiccupping, and from behind the man’s wide-eyed expression of horror, dark eyes swiveled to focus on her. “He told me, “don’t go anywhere,” and I couldn’t… He made him stab himself twenty-five times. I counted, and I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I couldn’t – ”
The man whispered a shaky “Jesus Christ” but her neighbor surged forward, grabbing Darcy’s hand and hauling her into the apartment. Darcy let out a cry of surprise as she was dumped onto the couch, too shocked to say much else, but the other woman snatched a bottle of cheap bourbon off the desk and took a swig, before offering it to Darcy.
“It’s eight in the morning,” Darcy said, even though she still hadn’t slept from the day before.
“Trust me,” the gravel of her voice was rough and abrasive, in a way that made the hair on Darcy’s arms prick up. “You need it.”
Darcy grabbed the bottle and tossed her head back, letting the burning alcohol pour down her throat in two gulps. He hand was shaking as she lowered the bottle, violent enough that the remaining liquid splashed against the sides of the glass bottle. A hand clamped over her wrist, stilling the tremors, and Darcy looked up into fathomless dark eyes, fearful and desperate for a slip of a moment before they were beaten back.
“I’ve seen you around.” The woman sat on the coffee table, putting her face to face with Darcy. “You moved in next door… two months ago?”
Darcy nodded mutely, and the man – who she finally realized was Malcolm, only a lot less drug-addicted looking than before – hissed quietly, “But how do we know – ”
The woman slapped a hand over the man’s mouth and literally pushed him across the room, throwing a dark glare his way before turning back to Darcy. “Tell me what happened.”
And so Darcy told her.
She came home from work, and found herself in an elevator with a dark-haired man. He was dressed in a purple suit, glaring at the doors angrily and looking all the while like the world was just moving too slow for him.
“Bloody elevator,” he muttered, and Darcy pursed her lips when the man stalked out on her floor, making a beeline towards the end of the hall.
He tried the door, and when it was locked he hit it in frustration, the glass rattling in the frame. Darcy just raised her eyebrows and kept her eyes down as she looked for her keys, but huffed in irritation when the man said rudely, “Oy, d’you have a spare key?”
Darcy didn’t even look up from her bag as she said, “Nope, sorry.”
There was snarl, and a short, short order that latched itself into her head. “Look at me when you speak.”
She felt her head turning, her body following the command, and she couldn’t understand what was happening as she turned to face the man, wide-eyed and fearful for the first time since London over two years ago. “Nope, sorry,” she parroted as she panicked internally, screams lodged in her throat, and the man wrinkled his nose.
“Ugh. Bloody Americans, no account for courtesy,” he muttered, and waved her off carelessly as he turned back to consider the door. “Or rather…. Tell me, can you pick locks?”
And to her horror, Darcy could feel her mouth opening and saying “yes,” and the man’s smile was just a shade too wide to be sincere as he exclaimed cheerfully, “Delightful! Do it.”
And she did, and watched as he did something so terrible afterwards. Earlier commands of “oh, shut up,” and “now, now, don’t go anywhere,” kept her frozen in the middle of her neighbor’s apartment as she stared at the body on the bed, blood pooling on the sheets. No matter how much she strained against her own skin, it wouldn’t move, and instead she cried through the night for the dead boy in her neighbor’s bed.
“Holy Jesus Christ,” Malcolm whispered again, his face pale, and her neighbor’s face was grim and hard.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking uncomfortable as if she didn’t know what else to say, and after a moment of visible internal struggling she just offered Darcy the alcohol bottle again. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else again,” she said, and even though her tone was cold and hard the redness of her eyes and the way she flinched when her eyes passed over the bedroom said more than words ever could.
“By going to prison?” Darcy swallowed, and her neighbor looked back at her in surprise. “How… how is that going to help?”
“He’s trying to get to me.” Her eyes lowered in something like shame before hardening. “If I go, he won’t hurt anyone else.”
“Or, he’ll just send someone else,” Malcolm interjected, and her neighbor sent him a glare.
“If you’re not going to help, then you might as well go on that run,” she said harshly, and although Malcolm just stared back unflinchingly, Darcy looked up.
“… I can?” They looked at her, and Darcy swallowed. “As long as that bastard gets locked up for life… I’ll help you.”
Malcolm looked furious, spitting mad and about to shout, but her neighbor looked down at her with something that looked like empathy – like she knew what she’d been through. “Alright,” she said, leaving the unspoken ‘thank you’ lingering in the air. “Can you be ready in ten minutes?” Darcy nodded, and to her surprise the woman helped her to her feet, walking her out to her front door.
“And hey.” Darcy looked up, just about to close the door, and she caught the other woman’s gaze. “I’m Jessica.”
“… Darcy.” She let her lips curl up a little, small and timid.
“We’re gonna nail him, Darcy.” Jessica smiled back, all sharp teeth and fierce determination. “I promise.”