Variants

Hunter B-41 hit the punching bag, working the nervous energy out of her hands.

“You’re holding back,” B-34 chided as he held the bag in place, smiling a bit. 

B-41 rolled her eyes, hit the bag a little harder. He staggered a bit, his smile grew larger. “Come on, that all you got?”

She hit again. This time he stumbled, nearly hit the ground, heavy weight of the bag swinging with him.

That ought to shut him up for a unit or two.

B-41 paused to catch her breath. She ran a hand through her hair, looked at B-34 trying to compose himself, regain a little dignity.

“We have the melt sticks,” she said, still a bit breathless. “So unless you want me to punch variants into a fine pink mist, I don’t think we need me to be much better than that, dumbass.”

A cheery voice came over the intercom. “Well hey there Hunter B-41! Miss Minutes would like to remind you that profanity is not allowed on hunter duty, and that all of us should strive to be our best at the TVA!”

B-41 bit her lip in annoyance. “Okay, Miss Minutes, you don’t have to announce it to the whole gym!” Her yell echoed off the ceiling, unanswered.

B-34’s smirk was back. 

“Shut up.”

“Didn’t say anything at all, 41.”

“Yeah sure you didn’t,” she replied, throwing a sweaty towel at him. He dodged it, grinning. 

Suddenly, the yellow gym doors banged open. The whole room rushed to stand at attention.

B-06 strode in, tempad in hand, uniform in perfect regulation. “Alright children, we just had a mission come through. New York City, Earth, 2015. Looks like a sequence violation. Make sure all reset charges are fully operational, and be ready in uniform in no less than 12 units.”

“Yes ma’am,” the room chorused. 

As B-06 exited, 34 smiled. “Well, I guess we’ll keep this going in the field, 41. See what you’re made of.”

“I don’t need to get into a dick swinging contest, thanks.”

“Well hey there, Hunter B-41!”

“Yes, I get it Miss Minutes, thank you!” she yelled to speakers by the ceiling. 

That bastard 34 was trying not to laugh. “I’m just saying, you want to be good out there. I’d hate it if we were all out kicking variant butt while you got bumped down to analyst.”

He rushed off to join the rest of the squad in the locker room. For a moment, B-41 stared after him, alone in the locker room.

She turned back to the punching bag, twisting her whole body into the hit. The chain holding the bag broke cleanly, the bag itself sailing across the room and hitting the wall. 

B-41 ignored Miss Minutes' protestations as she went to the locker room to join her squad. 

As they stepped through the time door, B-41’s first impression of 2015 New York was that it was loud, smelled godawful, and was pretty much exactly her speed. Yeah, she could see herself getting into a good fight here. 

Sadly she wasn’t sure she’d get one. As they approached the variant, she could tell he wouldn’t be much trouble. He was somehow even scrawnier than B-34.

The variant tried to flinch away from B-06 as she reached out with the collar. B-41 stepped up behind him quickly, holding his arms in place.

Dude was trembling. Pathetic. 

The man protested as B-06 clicked the collar in place. She paid his panic no mind, read out the charges. 

“On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred-”

“Jessica?”

B-41 froze. B-06’s voice began to fade, something else buzzing in her ears. 

“Jess, is that you?”

She knew that voice.

B-41 looked up.

A pretty blonde woman stood on the sidewalk, staring at her. Everything about her seemed familiar. B-41 would say she knew her from a dream, if Hunters were permitted to have dreams. 

B-34 was addressing the woman, trying to get her to move along, but the woman pushed past him.

“What is this? Did you become a cop or something? Is that why you haven’t been returning my calls?”

No. No, it was 2015. It was 2015 in New York City. She wasn’t returning calls because - 

She’d fought against something like this before.

A voice was filling her ears, curling through her synapses, telling her she was a dedicated agent of the Time Variance Authority. 

Then B-34 grabbed the woman roughly, and the voice snapped. 

“Don’t touch her!”

She rushed him, variant forgotten. Threw him hard against a brick wall, heard him hit the pavement below. 

It didn’t matter.

She brought Trish into a desperate hug, relief flooding her senses. 

Home. She was home. 

Voices were shouting behind her, yelling about variant energy and red lines. None of it mattered.

“Hey,” Trish said softly, pulling away from the hug to push a strand of hair behind Jessica’s ear. Her fingers caught for a moment on the lip of the clunky helmet. “Where have you been? Are you alright?”

No, she remembered. She wasn’t alright. 

The voice threatened to swamp her again, but she pushed it down. She’d done it before. Was doing it right now, somewhere across town, trying to come home. 

And like then, she felt compulsion, pain, lacing through her. But she’d face it. She’d face it a hundred times for Trish.

And Trish...Trish was here, but she’d be gone soon. They’d leave each other, and then Trish would become someone else. Someone she barely recognized. 

But it was 2015. None of that had happened yet. 

And maybe none of it would, if she could stay with her, watch her, help her.

She didn’t know how much time they had.

She grabbed Trish’s arms, looked at her, eyes desperate. “When I come back, stay with me. I’ll be an asshole about it, but promise me you’ll stay with me.”

Trish’s eyes were huge. “Jess, what’s going on?”

Someone was grabbing at her shoulders. She roughly pushed them off. 

“We need to stick together. And we can fix it all, but you need to remember. I need to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“That I love you, Trish.”

Someone pulled her away from Trish roughly, snapped a collar around her neck. “B-41 is having an episode, take her in and reset this branch immediately!”

“Fuck off!” she screamed. She tried to hit back at her opponent, but they slowed her motion, made her frozen in their arms.

The time doors were opening, they were charging reset charges on the sidewalk. 

No. No those would destroy this place, would take Trish away.

She tried to scream, but her body refused to comply, still trapped in a single moment.

Someone was forcing Trish back, though Trish was fighting him hard. It would have made her smile, if she could smile.

The hunters started dragging her through the door. She could see the charges sparking, disintegrating the sidewalk at Trish’s feet. 

Trisha looked up, met her eyes. 

And as the orange from the door clouded her vision, as the charges started to take Trish too, Jessica Jones heard a few last words.

“I love you too.”

Hunter B-41, no D-41 now, had an episode. 

They’d explained it to her when she woke up, a strange haze over her thoughts where the mission should be. It was apparently common among workers in the field, as frequent time travel could spark unpredictable side effects. 

She had, however, hurt B-34 rather badly. He would make a full recovery, but she was being put on an experimental diet regimen to ensure it never happened again. 

And she’d been bumped down to D squad, which meant limited field missions. 

Still, Hunter D-41 heard all this and accepted it. It was her purpose to serve the Sacred Timeline, and she would do whatever best enabled her to do that. Regardless of how much it annoyed her. 

She also had the sense she was on very thin ice.

So she went on the diet, didn’t complain as she felt herself grow weaker, did desk work without complaint. Even spent her rare breaks at the gym, reacquainting herself with how to fight according to TVA regulation. Strove to make herself the best possible soldier the timeline could require.

Yet during quiet moments in corners and shadows, sometimes she’d see a face. A woman who felt like home, whispering that she loved her. 

And D-41 told no one, wrapped the dream in fog, hid it away where no one else could find it. 

Just in case.