You Have Two Choices Now

Vought Tower headquarters.

The marble floors gleamed like mirrors, and the air was filled with expensive fragrances and the scent of "success."

This place made Jessica Jones deeply uncomfortable.

She wore her usual black leather jacket and ripped jeans, her hair a mess, carrying the sour stench of cheap whiskey from last night.

She stood before the enormous Homelander statue in the center of the lobby, her expression complicated.

"Fuck," she muttered.

She hated this place. She hated everything about it.

She did not belong here.

Everyone around her, from the receptionist to the security guards, looked as if they had been torn straight from the pages of a fashion magazine. Their smiles were perfect and well-rehearsed.

"Ma'am? Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm here to see Homelander!"

Jessica slapped the black "V" card down on the reception desk with a sharp smack.

Ten minutes later.

The top-floor office.

Wu Yanzu stood with his back to her before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.

He was not wearing his uniform.

He wore a tailored Italian suit, his blond hair combed flawlessly into place.

From this angle, he looked less like a hero and more like a Wall Street asshole.

"Jessica Jones," he said calmly. "You look... terrible."

"Same to you." Jessica shoved her hands into her pockets and rubbed the mud off her boots onto the expensive Persian rug. "Your hair looks like a dog licked it. A golden retriever, specifically."

Wu Yanzu slowly turned around.

Damn...

Jessica had to admit that this guy's "face" really was God's handiwork.

That face carried both holiness and arrogance. In person, it was... even more fucking dazzling than on television.

"Did you come here to insult my hair?" Wu Yanzu smiled and walked toward her.

"I came here," Jessica said with her chin raised, "because I heard you were putting together some kind of 'super circus'... and I wanted to ask whether you might need a ticket seller."

"The Seven," Wu Yanzu corrected her. His voice was quiet, yet brimming with pressure.

He came very close.

Too close.

Jessica could even smell the scent of his... body wash. It made her cheeks redden slightly.

"Why do you think I need you?" Wu Yanzu leaned down slightly, his height casting a massive shadow across the room.

"Because I can twist someone's head off like a bottle cap." Jessica glared at him without giving an inch. "And you... you need someone who can do the dirty work. A 'perfect hero' like you can't get blood on his hands, right?"

"Ha."

Wu Yanzu laughed.

"Jessica... Jessica..." He shook his head as though he were looking at a disobedient child.

"Do you think what I need is 'strength'?"

He reached out his hand.

Jessica instinctively stepped back and assumed a fighting stance.

But his hand merely brushed over her shoulder, plucking a tiny piece of peanut from her hair.

"I don't need strength. Jessica, I have plenty of strength."

He slowly... lifted both feet off the ground.

He simply floated there before Jessica, looking down at her from above.

"Jessica Jones, twenty-four years old. Survivor of a car accident. Both parents deceased. Possesses strength beyond human limits and exceptional physical resilience. Suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and moderate alcohol dependence."

"You..." Jessica's expression darkened.

"I can see every old injury in your body. I can see your liver, slightly swollen from being soaked in alcohol. I can see that you... are afraid."

"You bastard!!" Jessica roared. Humiliation and fear drove her to throw a heavy punch!

She put everything she had into that punch!

"Bang—!!!"

Wu Yanzu raised one hand and casually caught her fist.

Jessica's fist, powerful enough to punch through a wall, was enclosed in his palm without moving an inch.

"No, Jessica." Wu Yanzu slowly descended, still holding her hand. "You are not afraid of me."

"You are afraid of yourself."

"Shut up!!!" Jessica tried to pull free, but his hand was like it had been welded in place.

"You are afraid of that helplessness. Kilgrave was the first, but he won't be the last. This world is darker than you imagine, Jessica. Without me... you are just a freak struggling in the dark."

"What you fear even more... is that you are still that useless little girl who could only watch her family die..."

"I—TOLD—YOU—TO—SHUT—UP!!!"

Jessica grabbed a brass ornament from the desk with her other hand and smashed it viciously toward Wu Yanzu's head!

"Smack!"

The ornament shattered into several pieces against his head.

Wu Yanzu did not even blink.

He released Jessica's hand.

Jessica panted heavily like a trapped beast, retreating into a corner.

"Fuck you!!" She cried, and it took a full ten minutes before she finally calmed down.

Wu Yanzu adjusted his tie. "Done venting?"

"..." Jessica wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, leaving only numbness behind.

"See?" Wu Yanzu became that "irresistently charming" Anthony Starr again.

He walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured a glass of whiskey.

"You have two choices now, darling."

He handed the glass to Jessica. She took it and gulped it down as if it were water.

"First, you walk out of this building, return to your doghouse, and keep being your 'Hell's Kitchen vigilante,' drinking that damned cheap liquor. Then one day, you might run into another Kilgrave. Or worse, S.H.I.E.L.D. or the military captures you, cuts you into slices, and studies why you can jump so high."

"..."

"Second."

Wu Yanzu returned to the window and spread his arms.

"You join me."

"I will give you... everything."

"Vought's public relations team will turn you into a hero. Not some street hero like you, who gets into brawls, but the kind of hero... people scream for, buy action figures of, and pin posters of above their beds."

"I'll give you money too. You'll have enough top-shelf whiskey to drink for the rest of your life."

"Most importantly..."

He turned around, and in his azure eyes shone a light that Jessica could not understand... yet found herself inexplicably drawn toward.

"I can give you recognition and... love!"

"Love?" Jessica froze.

"Don't you want... to be adored by everyone?"

"I..." Jessica's voice was hoarse. "I fucking... hate you."

"I know." Wu Yanzu smiled even more brightly. "That's a good start."

"I fucking... hate that name."

"Which one?"

"Jones... Queen." Jessica gritted her teeth. "It sounds as stupid as a stripper's stage name."

"Oh, no, no, no." Wu Yanzu wagged a finger. "You're wrong, Jessica. That name... is perfect."

"It represents strength, independence, and defiance. And of course, it sounds sexy when people say it."

"You'll get used to it."