Summary:

kevin tries to fix things...

AKA I can deal with that

"I hope you won't mind if I convinced the hostesses that we were traveling first class." Killgrave murmurs as they take their seats on the plane.

"No nasty brats screaming or crying, lots of space and no harassing people around, oh well ... apart from you?" Jessica teases him, but he just smiles. "Yes, to be honest, I'd say I can deal with that."

Just then a hostess comes towards them holding a tray with two champagne flutes.

"Do you fancy a glass, Lady and Gentleman?" she smiles at them cordially.

"You betcha!" Jessica grabs her flute from the tray, unceremoniously.

"I very gladly do, thank you." Kevin smiles at the hostess, affably, teaching the free-range detective a lesson in manners.

"Yes, I can definitely deal with that." she reiterates, observing the bubbles with a satisfied air.

"A toast?" Kevin proposes.

"To what?"

"I propose a toast to fix the things I've done wrong." he raises his flute.

"I like it." she approves, making their flutes collide, before drinking.

Shortly thereafter, the hostesses show the routine instructions about the behaviors to be adopted in each situation during the flight.

"Except this little first-class liberty you took, only because I approved it too, I'd like you to stop using your powers." the super heroine dictates the rules, while the plan is taking off. "So yes, you can contact the bar service, as anyone would do, but, no, you cannot ask for things off the menu; yes, you can ask about the flight, but no, you can't hijack it! "

"Why should I hijack this flight if it's already headed to Chicago ?"

"To do things faster and go straight to James Ave without going through the airport and then take a taxi, you would be able to do such a thing." she argues, scrutinizing him suspiciously.

"I hadn't thought about it, you've just given me such a brilliant idea, my dear!" he replies, starting to caress his chin thoughtfully. "Well, if they had a garden big enough..."

"Killgrave, no!"

"I was joking." he calms her down. "But I don't put any limits on you, you know.? If you want us to lock ourselves in the bathroom later to get busy at high altitude, all you have to do is ask. "

"If you don't stop talking bullshit I swear I'll rip your seat belt off and use it to shut you fucking up!" she growls, but the takeoff forces her to stay still and calm.

"Look, all these constant threats can tire you, but if you fall asleep on my shoulder I'm certainly not complaining!" Kevin smiles at her, between irreverent and accommodating.

Jessica finds herself displaced by his change of goals, now decidedly more chaste and almost ... romantic?

However, she quickly recovers her fighting attitude.

"It's only two damn hours of flight, I'll be more awake than ever, don't worry!"

"Such a pity." he shrugs, before recalling something quite important. "You haven't told me yet how you found out about that guy I used as my personal driver ..."

"If you want to get mad at Hogarth go ahead, but, please, don't get mad at Trish," she gets ahead.

"And why should I do it?" the persuader frowns.

"Do you remember that episode of ' Trish Talk '... that was not very nice towards you? Geez, what a silly question, of course you remember, as well as the following one with the apology you liked so much... well, let's say that Trish has triggered a viral phenomenon, people who claimed to have had anything to do with you have begun to show up. "

"Interesting." he replies, intrigued.

"Uh! I'm glad you take it so well. The fact is that Hogarth had the nice idea of collecting them in her studio and making me examine them, so you see? Mainly the fault is only hers! "

"Go on," he urges her.

"So I started listening to them all, there were even those who claimed to have seen you emerge from the water, with bright red eyes or saying you were Chinese!" she makes him laugh. "But there were also those who were serious about it, I understood from certain things they said, from how they said it, that they had crossed your path."

"And among these ones there was my driver ..."

"Nope, I had the great idea of creating a listening group among those who had introduced themselves who had convinced me, it is at the first of these special evenings that he has also joined, I immediately understood that he wasn't a time-waster and he was the one who made me get to Malcolm, with a detail... which then made me get to you, you know the rest of the story. "

"Oh yes, my neck still remembers it very well!" he mumbles, pretending to massage his neck.

Jessica considers whether or not she should tell him that it was in those evenings that she managed to track Kevin's mother down, but in the end she decides that there is no need to bring painful memories back to the persuader.

- It's just because I need him to be in a good mood to get to work... certainly not because I care about him! - the beautiful detective convinces herself.

---------------------------------

Killgrave finally behaved flawlessly and that flight was as normal as possible , much to Jessica's complacency.

The taxi takes them to their destination, with Kevin paying the driver regularly, adding a tip to wait for them.

"No tricks about the taximeter that marks zero? I am more and more amazed. " comments Jessica, as they walk down the path in the middle of the lawn that leads to a cottage with creamy yellow walls.

"I know how to behave like an ordinary citizen, if necessary ... this certainly does not mean that I like doing that." he grumbles, before ringing the bell.

They have to wait a while but then a dark-skinned woman in her thirties opens the door for them. She's rather attractive, despite her visibly marked dark circles, dark curly hair gathered in a hasty hairstyle and the fact she looks exhausted.

"Yup? What do you wish?" she asks them, hiding better what looks like a toy car in her apron pocket.

"Mrs. Clay?" Jessica asks for confirmation.

The woman makes a disapproving face.

"Oh please, I don't want to hear that name anymore, even by accident, now I'm the proud, divorced Mrs. Bumper," she corrects her, letting them in. "Are you here to collect my former husband's last things?"

"Not exactly." Kevin replies.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, then," the woman frowns.

Just then a little boy is heard shouting from upstairs hysterically, as he throws things, perhaps his toys, against the wall.

"Avery, love, Mommy is coming!" the woman reassures him from downstairs.

"Well, Jessica, if you needed further proof, I would recognize the screams of that pestiferous child out of a thousand ones." the persuader whispers to the detective.

"My searches are never wrong." she whispers back.

"You haven't told me yet who you two are and why you're here!" the landlady begins to fidget.

Meanwhile, the kid, who can't be more than seven years old, came down the stairs and throwed his toy helicopter towards Killgrave, missing him just a few inches.

The detective and the persuader look up at him simultaneously.

"It's him, mom, it's him who was with dad. It's the Bad Man! " the boy yells, pointing to Killgrave at his mother. "He's the one who made dad become bad."

The mother picks up her agitated son and glares at Killgrave and Jessica.

"Get out of my house now or I'll call the police!" she thunders, furious.

Killgrave exchanges a look with Jessica, who nods.

"You don't want to kick us out." Kevin persuades her.

"I don't want to kick you out." the landlady repeats like an automaton.

Meanwhile the child continues to scream hysterically.

Killgrave already knows what to do.

"Mrs. Bumper, stay calm." he says quietly to the woman, who placidly places the child on a nearby chair. "You, Avery, sit there, shut up, stay still and do nothing but breathe!" he imposes him and the child can only obey.

"Let's go get comfortable, Mrs. Bumper, we should talk a little" Jessica announces, walking over to the sofa

"You know you made a rash decision, Mrs. Bumper." Killgrave continues, taking a seat next to the detective, while the baby's mother sits in front of them.

"I made a rash decision." she recognizes.

"Mrs. Bumper, let's face it, your son is fucking handful. Would you ever abandon him? " Jessica intervenes.

"No! Of course not! What kind of question is it? " the woman is beyond scandalized.

"Well, now he'll be asking you the same question." Jessica announces her and Killgrave has already figured out where the super heroine is heading.

"Mrs. Bumper, answer sincerely, when he is unmanageable and makes you despair, have you ever thought of abandoning your son?"

"Yes." the woman reflexively replies, closing her mouth in tears, a few seconds later. "Oh, my God! It's not possible, I love Avery with all my heart! "

"And no one is disputing that, but, can you see? They are very normal impulses that even the mildest among human beings can have, in the fraction of a moment. " Jessica picks up the conversation, leaning closer to the woman, still in shock. "Now let's say you meet a despicable being, a Bad Man, as your son has previously said, someone who has the power to bring this latent desire to fruition, someone who can give you an order that you will carry out with no chance to rebel. You would find yourself forsaking the blood of your blood, with a tiny, just a very tiny part of you knowing you would like to. "

Mrs. Bumper, still in tears, looks first at Jessica and then at Kevin.

"My god, but this means that... Alexander..."

"Yes, your former husband was one of the many victims of Killgrave's, the man you see now here with me. But do you know what I'm telling you? That if it had been you driving that car that day the result would have been the same, with the difference that now you would be the one excluded from the family, seen as a heartless monster, accused of a horrible crime."

"Why did you bring such a terrifying man into my house?" the woman turns to Jessica, trembling both from sobs, but above all from fear.

"Because if I had introduced only myself, it would have been just a detective's word against yours, without a shred of evidence. I brought the living proof with me, you saw with your eyes and heard with your ears and felt deep within yourself what he can do. Now do you believe what really happened?"

"Y-yes, I believe it..."

"Good. Because this Now-a-little-less-Bad Man is trying to learn from his mistakes and mend the pieces of what he broke, at least where it is still possible. " Jessica explains.

"That's right. Now that you know the truth, will you be able to forgive your former husband? " Kevin asks her, without resorting to his power.

"Yes, of course yes, I just did, but it's too late now. I told him not to look for us anymore, to disappear from our lives and he ... he did. " she cries desperately.

"We will take care of this. Now it's better that we go. " Jessica gets up and so does Killgrave.

"I'd better stop the command I gave your son." the persuader approaches him.

"No, wait ... I mean, if... if you don't tell him anything, how long is he going to remain so calm?" he dares to ask his mother.

"Oh well, three days for sure ... but before I give you all this quiet, let me correct a couple of things." he decides. "Avery, eat when you need to eat, sleep when you need to sleep, use the bathroom when you need it, but otherwise keep quiet, be a good kid and don't make your parents despair." Killgrave speaks to him mildly. "Here, it's all right now." he informs the woman before he and Jessica leave.

"After all it's true, with the first command you gave him, that poor child would have ended up starving ..." Jessica mumbles. "All this humanity is not like you, Bad Man."

"Could you avoid calling me that?" Kevin rolls his eyes as they walk back to the cab.

"No fucking way, it's too funny!" she enjoys teasing him, but then when he least expects it, she takes his hand. "You were good there. I'm proud of you." she adds, looking at him seriously.

"I just have a very good teacher." he smiles at her as the taxi takes them back to the airport.

"Now comes the hard part." Jessica announces him.

"Wasn't that the hard part?" he frowns at her.

-------------------------------------------

Jessica pushes the door of that place where the listening group used to reunite. At the appointed table he finds only Mr. Clay, as distinguished and elegant as she remembered him.

"You are on time." she recognizes.

"In the e-mail you sent me, you said at 10:00 p.m.," the man retorts. "I don't even know why I agreed to resume group therapy. When are the others going to arrive? " he mumbles, looking around.

"I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you. The others will not come. " she informs him, sending the SMS 'Now you can enter.' to the proper person.

"The won't? Will you only do single meetings? This is new... " he replies, paralyzed when he sees the door open, with his worst nightmare making his entrance undisturbed.

"Jessica, are you crazy? Why is he here? Is it part of the therapy? "

"There's no fucking therapy, I needed to find a way to get you here."

"So it's a trap, what are you? His accomplice? Does it mean that now he can control you again? " the man growls and is about to get up and run away.

"Oh, I wish I could!" Killgrave chuckles, earning a vitriolic glance from Jessica. "No, I can't control her and I'm not going to control you either, with the exception of two basic commands: stay seated and listen to me without interrupting."

The Afro-American man does as he has been told and the Englishman takes his place in front of him at the table in that pub so cheap to him.

"Let's say ... I owe you an apology." he begins.

Mr. Clay cannot interrupt him and he just widens his eyes in disbelief.

"Oh, don't think it's easy for me, generally I never apologise, but... someone made me understand that I should do it, at least with whom I can," he glances fleetingly at Jessica,who shows him a half smile. "Sorry for making you abandon your son, I'm sorry, I should have just told him to shut up and keep quiet."

Sitting next to Mr. Clay, Jessica reaches out from under the table to kick Killgrave in the shin.

"Ouch! No okay, I should have never gotten into your car and made you my personal driver. I'm sorry." Killgrave corrects himself, pleasing her. "Here, now, if you want, you can talk and move."

"You know what the hell I'm doing with your goddamn excuses? You ruined my life! " the man blurts out, but from the way the persuader glares at him the he falls silent instantly.

"And anyway, we're not here just because he owed you an apology." Jessica explains. "Believe me or not, Killgrave has been trying to fix things and I think he's been quite successful."

"Did you go to Wendy and Avery? What have you done? Jessica, you're here to tell me you stopped him in time, right? " Mr. Clay is alarmed, as tense as a violin string.

"Kevin, you shouldn't have taken that command away from him, obviously he is not listening!" Jessica rolls her eyes, looking only at the persuader, as if the other was not there, but she is only pretending, because then she moves her gaze back to Mr. Clay. "No, I didn't arrive in time, for the simple reason that I was already there. I went to your ex-wife's house with him. " she specifies.

"Then you really are his accomplice!" the man accuses her.

"Hey, you, mind your fucking talk, I overturned tables for less!" Jessica warns him, standing up. "If anything, it's the other way around, he's my accomplice. I'm teaching him to be better, I'm bringing him to use his powers in a good way, I'm giving him a second chance, the one your former wife has decided to give to you." she informs him.

Mr. Clay looks at them in amazement.

"Ar-are you telling me that Wendy forgave me?"

"Yes, but not because I ordered it, it would only last three days otherwise. Jessica and I opened her eyes, we helped her understand what happened to you, because of me; we made her see things from your point of view. This is something that will last forever. " Kevin points out.

"Yeah, so why don't you make your life whole again and run back to your family? Now they live here. " Jessica hands him a piece of paper, with the address written on it.

The man wastes no time and gets up, leaving the room.

"What the bloody...? Is he really going away like this, as if nothing had happened? At least he could have said a 'thank you'! " Killgrave snorts.

"You will still remain his worst nightmare, if anything he should have thanked me!" she mutters, annoyed. "Well Kevin, you're getting a taste of what it means to be a hero: you work very hard and nobody gives a shit!" she makes him laugh.

"If he gets home in time, he can enjoy the silent version of that little demon he gave birth to, at least for two days!" he makes her laugh, getting up from the table. "Now can we go home too?"

----------------------------------------------

Considering the two flights they faced and the meeting of that night, Kevin is rather strained and just wants to go to sleep, but Jessica seems to think otherwise.

"Don't you want your reward first?"

"We said that this didn't count as a resolved case, do you want to add the X anyway and take me to eight?" he asks hopefully.

In response, Jessica chuckles.

"There are various types of rewards, I have the feeling you will like this even more." she teases him. "Go to the bathroom in your room and wait for me there."

Kevin does as he has been told and within a quarter of an hour Jessica joins him in black shorts and a tank top.

Instead, he limited himself only to taking off his jacket and shoes.

Jessica walks over to the tub, turning on the hot water tap, and then walks towards him. She begins to unbutton his shirt, until he reaches the last button and takes it off.

Kevin prefers not to say anything, letting her do it, but he is somewhat amazed when he sees her lower his pants too, and then his boxers as well.

Jessica seems to notice his awkwardness.

"Oh come on, are you shocked for so little? After all the times I've seen you naked! " she plays down. "'I know the map of your moles by heart.'" she mocks him.

Kevin seems to regain some of his usual swagger.

"But if you join mine with a pen, you'll read the words 'Jessica, I love you.'" he smiles at her, pulling her hair away from her face.

"Geez, you have such sappy moles!" she pretends to complain, before kissing him.

The tub has filled up enough and Jessica makes him sit in, walking towards the door.

"So what? I thought we were having a bath together! " he sulks.

"You wish! That's not your reward, "she informs him. "I'll wait for you in your bedroom, when you're done."

When Kevin joins her in the bedroom, wrapped in his bathrobe, he finds a towel on the bed that wasn't there before, dim lights and lavender-scented candles lit in the corners.

Jessica is waiting for him sitting on the bed, holding a bottle he can't identify.

"Take off your bathrobe and lie on your stomach." she instructs him and he does not need to be told twice.

Jessica straddles him, sitting on his buttocks. She pours a little lavender and orange oil on her hands, to make it warm up enough and then she begins that sensual and relaxing massage, starting from the shoulders and the neck.

She massages them vigorously, but not too much, releasing all tension.

"Oh god, Jessica, so you're taking me to Heaven." he murmurs, while the girl's hands go down to his back.

"I remember how you looked at me at Christmas, with the turkey. Let's say you deserved it today, but don't get used to it too much." she continues, massaging his hips.

"If that's the prize, I have to do good things more often." he murmurs, happy, even more, when she moves, to massage his buttocks and the inner part of his thighs and legs as well.

"You shouldn't be doing this for the prize, but I guess it's still too early for you to understand this!" she comments, waiting for him to turn around.

She kneels behind him, making him rest his head on her lap and strokes his pectorals, sprinkling them with that scented oil.

"Jessica, later I can do it to you, right?" he ventures to ask her.

"No fucking way! Get content with that, because there will be nothing else. " she disillusiones him, continuing the massage around the dimple near his navel.

"I think I can deal with it." he murmurs, pleased.

"About the other guy, you know, the young, handsome one, from whom you took away the Zegna jacket you liked ... he will never recover!" she makes him laugh once the massage is over.

After a few more moments of relax, Kevin wears the bathrobe again.

Jessica, much to his surprise, instead of going back to her room, lies down on the other side of the mattress.

"Kevin, I'm not going to lie, things are changing between us. You are changing. I know you want more from me ... but, I can't do it, I'm not ready for that yet. I hope you won't be upset. " she mutters, fearing his abrupt reaction.

Kevin astonishes her when he bursts out laughing.

"Are you kidding?" he slides closer to her, leaning one elbow on the mattress, his hand closed in a fist, holding his temple. "Last year I wasn't even allowed to touch your hand and... look at us now," he smiles, reaching out for a tender kiss that she doesn't deny him.

"Besides, I was serious that night at the dock. I told you that I would wait as long as necessary until you understood that you feel what I feel, And I will continue to wait. " he smiles at her.

"Good, because I like the pace we're going at." Jessica murmurs, before she snuggles up with her head on his chest.

"I can deal with it." Kevin replies, as he strokes her hair until they both fall asleep.

TBC

Notes:

A minute of silence for the dandy guy and his lost jacket.
In the 1x4 episode 'AKA 99 Friends' then he has a phenomenal line, too.
In short, I love him XD (if I were an OC I would ship myself with him XD)
Seriously, I love all my J / K fics but this is really special for me, I call it 'my little happy island' where I allow myself to make anything happen, even at the limit of the OOC, because I tried to create the background to make it happen
If you want to stop following it because things seem too forced I will understand ... but in my opinion Kevin deserved it all and Jessica already started to feel something for him, many chapters ago, a step forward seemed only right to me.
If, on the other hand, you have not grimaced and you want to continue, unless I can think of anything else, the next chapter should resume more cheerful and comic tones and Trish and Malcolm will return to make their appearance.

For the moment from the Bad Man, from his accomplice and from me it's all ^^

Hugs

Lu