Sins of My Father

Artie was about to reassure Jessica, looking into her eyes and shaking his head at the question.
"Of course she won't ha-" but he was cut off when his second adopted daughter entered.
Oh he knew that look she wore. He knew it well. She wasn't in much of a mood to hear excuses. Artie carefully slid from Jessica's grip, silently grateful that it wasn't her more iron hold she was so easily capable of. This threw a wrench into his plans......plans? No, reunion. No....plan...reunion.....both...? He looked wide eyed up at Laura and pulled himself to his feet as she approached, putting a hand out in a gesture of calm.

"Laura...no...." he said in a nervous warning tone, "It's all right. We've cleared up the issue, stay calm. Jessie came home because....that Kilgrave bastard is back. She needs to be kept safe. All right?"
He wasn't sure she'd buy it. She'd possibly think he was under some panic or duress from Jessica's presence. In truth of course he wasn't. If anything, he'd enticed Jones into his thrall. But no that was heartless...wasn't it? Kilgrave was dead. Artie had made sure. This was his trap. To keep Jessica Jones for himself? To have his daughter home? Again, he thought, both. For the moment.
"I won't have another brawl in here..." Artie said, still caution in his tone, "Not between you two. The police could come around any minute regardless, so....just stay calm, you two."
He looked back and forth between the girls, not trusting that to work, but...well at least he'd said it.

His mind turned to what could come next. If Tipton sent his men over that kept off Artie's payroll, that wouldn't do. He'd have to snuff em. He had no weapons on him. Laura would, surely. Jessie might? He wasn't entirely sure. All that he knew was that it was that uncooperative sergeant's time for rounds and seeing this wreckage might cause a stir. He limped quickly passed Laura and closed the doors, latching them and turning to face the girls again with his back against the wood.
"And the police means Tipton's men..." he half whispered, "If we're going to do anything rash what say we at least call a stalemate and move down to the Hole...."
Both of his girls could be hotheads, Jessica most of all. She wasn't in much of a state to cause trouble for Laura, it didn't seem, but he offered the notion meekly anyway. Why not try to keep the place from crashing down around them?

Laura didn't understand what she was feeling. she didn't understand what her Father must be thinking. She didn't understand any of this. She took a step back just from the instinctual confusion of hitting the brick wall of her Father trying to make her stop protecting him. that had thrown her on a loop as her instincts interfered with what she was being told to do.

'Killgrave'. that alone made Laura's eyes dart to Jessica with something close to concern. That told Laura exactly what kind of mental state Jessica would be in right now. panic would be an understatement. "i am calm." Laura lied, but she had to accept Jessica being controlled again was unacceptable. No one deserved that.

It was easy enough to let Father talk things out. He was a talker when Laura preferred to just wait things out before deciding what to do. and all the while Laura just watched Jessica, and try to ignore how clearly she was hurting. she wanted to comfort her older sister. wanted to stop her crying. but Father limped to the doors, not walked, and Laura couldn't let it go.

And then Jessica left. again.

"No." Laura growled and turned to run after her into the outside. "Jessica!" Laura called after her, determined not to let this happen. "you are NOT leaving like this again! I will not let you!" Laura pressed on the speed until she was able to reach out and grab Jessica's wrist. there was a good chance that was going to get her hurt but Laura would take whatever would make her stop. "you owe me answers!"

Jessica had made it most of the way out of the alley before Laura caught up with her. She felt a hand stop her, and she reflexively whirled around, fist raised, but stopped herself when she recognized the person attached to the hand. She froze where she was, hand shaking uncharacteristically. She didn't often shake like this, but when she did, it was a clear indication that something was wrong. If she had been here to cause harm, she probably wouldn't be so shaky.
She slowly lowered her hand, perhaps an attempt to hide it, but didn't immediately move away from Laura.
"I know you want answers," she said, voice cracking from stress. "I just don't know if the answers I have are going to be good enough."

She opened her mouth to talk before she heard a commotion come from the direction of the bar.
Artie had been left alone, and there was a commotion. And it didn't sound like one of his tantrums. Her hearing wasn't as good as her little sister's, but she knew the sound of someone being knocked around when she heard it.
"You left him ALONE?" she chastised, starting to make her way back to the bar. "The POLICE were coming!"

And then Tipton reared his ugly head.
Jessica instinctively dodged out of the line of sight and snuck up as close as she could from the shadows. At one point, he looked the other direction down the alley, and she took her chance to sneak up on him, standing in plain sight so he could see her inches from his face when he turned around.
"Finding what you're looking for?" she asked, sneering at him. "Because I don't see a warrant in your hand. You might want to get out of here until you have one."

Her stomach was in knots, switching back to what she used to be before she ran away. She wasn't sure if it felt right anymore. But if she wanted to earn Artie's trust back, or even Laura's, she was going to have to show that she was on their side. And to do that, she needed to threaten the police dog that was always hounding them.

Sergeant Tipton wasn't well regarded in the department. He was seen as abrasive, antisocial, too focused on his work. He never drank. He didn't smoke. He was loyal to his wife. A stiff suit if ever there was one. In the years since Artie Cade had come to power after his late boss took a rather nasty hit, Tipton and a handful of the men in his division were some of the only ones who wouldn't be bribed of coerced in any way to ignore Cade's activities. It had led to his roster of loyal men growing smaller in number over the years. There was no mistake, with Fisk being outside his range of coverage, Cade was the Moriarty to Tipton's Sherlock Holmes.

"I don't need a damned warrant..." Tipton growled at Artie, "Not when a disturbance of this kind is reported-"
His grumbling was interrupted when he felt a presence behind him, and upon turning to look his eyes widened in recognition as he and his men stepped back into the alley away from the door.
"...well well..." Artie hissed as he leaned on the door frame, looking out at the frightened men, "Must've slipped my mind."
"Y-yes I see..." Tipton said, trying to regain himself, "Out for a...stroll, were they, I suppose?"
His wrinkled brow furrowed as he looked between Cade's daughters. They were always his pair of aces. Freaks from all he could surmise. He'd seen the Jones girl shove a squad car down the street like a marble shot, and the younger one Laura cut a man twice her size right down to the pavement. They made him nervous. Cade may have been a slippery one but at the end of the day, without his entourage, he was a half formed barking little junkyard dog with a bum leg.

"I believe it's time you were off," Artie said as he lit a cigarette and stepped out into the alleyway so that he was flanked by his daughters, "Unless you'd like Jessie to give ya a few years' overdue smacks upside your ugly mug. See how well it stays attached."
Artie blew the smoke out of his nose and a wide grin spread. He knew she'd love to. Tipton's policy of turning guns on non-humans was well known.
The good sergeant flared his nostrils defiantly and stood his ground.
"You....people..." he spat, clearly hating using the word regarding them, "Your psychotic little 'family'...your day's comin. I'd watch your old man if I were you, girls. Every debt comes due eventually. And I'll be both creditor and collector. Maybe even...sooner than you think."
Tipton's eye shifted to just behind the trio before him.
"GENTS." he barked.
Artie had to act quickly. His adrenaline from the day had built up again and was roiling with Tipton's comments, he saw what happened next in a series of slow movements.

Two men. Behind them. They'd come around the back.
Pistols. Aimed.
Artie had to act quickly. No no no no...
Laura could take a bullet or three, he'd learned that the hard way. And Tipton would only want to see them injured, he wanted to haul the lot of them before a jury.
Artie dove with all his strength and rather inconsiderable body weight to push Jessica back into the bar and out of the line of fire, diving after her.
Damn it. He took a shot to his calf. On his bad leg. Not too much damage there.
He grabbed for his cane where he'd left it and shouted to Laura.
"LAURA!" he called, "ROUND EM UP INTO THE ALLEY IF YA CAN!"
He retrieved the pistol from within the crook of his cane leaned his hand out the door, firing into the alley, taking out one of Tipton's corners as he turned back to Jessica.
"Jessie!" he called, "I....if you don't want to help that's fine...! Unless...."
Artie's eyes looked down at the large pieces of scraps and still intact steel arms that used to be his Ticktockmen. He looked back at Jessica and permitted himself a grin.
She'd know what to do.

Meta-humans had unquestionably changed the face of war forever. if your side had people with powers and your opponents did not you were at a similar kind of advantage as being the only side with artillery. or air support. if you were the only one with Meta-humans, and they were in full control of their gifts that idea only magnified even further.

Or to put it simply, Laura expected Tipton to retreat the second he realised Jessica and herself were behind him. There was a satisfaction in putting him so firmly on the back foot merely by standing there and looking at him, which turned to a bubbling anger at the way he spoke about her, Jessica, and what he would probably refer to as 'their kind'. She didn't pop her claws simply because he already knew they were there. if he was going to dig himself into this hole he was already well aware of what waited for him at the bottom without none-verbal threats from her.

so focused, Laura had become, on dwelling on the stupidity of insulting them like this when they held all the cards, that she was only turning at the smell of more men when they were too close for her to stop them from interfering.

Laura growled and was already moving towards these new threats when she looked over her shoulder to see her Father dragging Jessica out of range of the guns. it was the reverse of how she'd expected them to find cover but they were safe and that was all that-

one of the bullets took her left ear from her head and her train of thought vanished in a spray of blood and a gasp of pain. She gave her full focus over to the two men in time for another shot to catch her calf, driving her to one knee. Laura held herself up by her good leg and one hand propped against the pavement, glaring with defiant challenge at the cops. This was 'freakshow' territory and the kind of thing that made people loose their cool. most of the next volley of shots went wide, aim breaking down under confusion and a creeping fear. a shot made her jerk back as she took a shot to the shoulder but they weren't able to make her break her gaze.

The taller cop pulled the trigger once again and his eyes widened when all that came out was the click, click, click, of an empty gun. Beside him his friend was already fumbling for the ammunition in his pocket, muttering under his breath. Perfect.

Bone claws slid from Laura's hands. "my turn." Even with a still healing leg, Laura sprung like a pouncing wolf, planning to strike both of them down in one go, but her shoulder had apparently been hit worse then she'd thought, and one of her arms didn't quite come up as well as she'd hoped. Nor had she gotten the distance she had hopped for. Changing plans mid-air, Laura landed just short of the two new arrivals and started heading towards the space to the left of them.

Not wishing to die, they instinctively started moving to the right, finding it the place the dangerous girl was not preferable, and giving zero thought to the fact they were heading in the direction her Father had wanted them to go. Laura let them for just long enough before running to catch up and stabbing the closest one in the back just as he reloaded his pistol. she wrestled the gun from his dying, suddenly numb fingers and fired supressing shots across the way. One of Tiptons fools had poked his head out just long enough to start trying to line up a shot on Jessica, and the bullets zipping his way made him rethink his ideas of doing anything but hiding. as it should be.

Her ear didn't matter, her leg was healing. her arm could be compensated for. everything was fine, and she simply used what was left in the gun to delay as much as she could to let her healing factor bring things closer to that idea actually being true.

It felt ... different ... to be back. To watch Laura cut down the police like they were nothing. But it wasn't simply that, it was that she now had a fresh perspective on everything. She had now worked with the police. She had a new respect for the police. And now she was back and working with people that didn't have that kind of respect. It was gut wrenching. Jessica tossed her scrap to the ground and watched as Artie beat Tipton.
He rarely soiled his own hands, but when he did, he always talked. Always. It was something she never really got used to about him, and being back in town reminded her that she never would. She preferred to let her fists do the talking, but he liked to reinforce that he was the one in charge. As if the person in the dust didn't already realize that if they were being beaten to a pulp by an emaciated dwarf with half a face ... and a bum leg.

She sighed and leaned against the wall, watching as Tipton ran off with some amount of satisfaction. As much respect as she had gotten for the police in the last few years, she still had no respect for a man that didn't respect non-humans.
Her eye caught Laura's again, and that voice came back.
Don't look at her. She won't want to listen to what you have to say.
Shut up.
She won't believe you.
Shut UP.
"Yeah. I guess that's that."
She wanted to go inside and drink so maybe she could silence that voice, but she knew better. She wanted to wait for someone else to go inside. She wanted to wait for the sign of trust that they wanted her there. Especially from Laura. If Laura wanted her there, she would know that maybe this wasn't a total lost cause.

She stood awkwardly, eyeing the bar from where she was in the alley. She needed a drink. Desperately so.
"So, where exactly does this leave all of us?" she asked, more to Laura than to Artie. She had a feeling she knew what Artie would say. Artie wanted her there. He offered her a place back in the family. But Laura? Laura would be harder to win back over. After what Jessica had done, she didn't really expect anything else.

With all his adrenaline quite spent, Artie nodded in agreement when Laura proposed they talk....well, more precisely, ordered that they talk.
Really, it wasn't often that she gave him demands. That meant that this was, to put it mildly, quite a serious matter. But why shouldn't it be? The last time Laura had seen her sister, she came upon the sight of Artie writhing in pain, his left leg all but shattered and bent backward against the knee.
He had done his best to replace his knee with prosthesis of his own design, but mostly it was a joint ligament that he wore like a brace under his clothes. It didn't entirely work, as evidenced by his prodigious limp, but it held unless his knee fell out of place.

Artie slowly limped inside, hopping up onto one of the barstools and ignoring eye contact. It was moments like these that that tiny voice in the far depths of his brain reminded him that these two young ladies could destroy him. At any time. He generally made an effort to keep tones light but this clearly wasn't the moment. Taking the drink gratefully, Artie made sure that the fabric around his bullet wound was tight as it could be to stop blood flow and looked at Laura seriously.

"Why...?" he asked, tilting his head, "Because I forgave her for what she did a long time ago now."
Artie took another sip of his Scotch.
"And you should have too," he nodded, "I know we never really talked about it, but....well here she is. And with Kilgrave out there, even though I'm still a little leery of her being back here, I'm....willing to take that chance. Why aren't you?"
The question he posed himself was said in a genuinely curious tone. Laura was far better in tune with her emotions than she would let on, he knew that. What was it that lent such a deep hatred of Jessie after all these years?