assholic | Open Post

"I like how you think," he commented in response to her idea about a converted warehouse. His fingertips lightly raked where they reached at the small of her back, still leading the silent slow dance. He enjoyed the scratch of her nails and mimicked the touch unconsciously.

His mind thought of the space being one they could live comfortably in and plan for a future. "So you'll be walking around naked too. I think a nice big walk-in shower but also a tub we can soak in. Then a big bed we can... sleep in." Among other things. The unsaid insinuation was heavy in his gaze and drop in octave when he spoke.

She let out a snort, but she was grinning as they shuffled, and he had that tone that dipped down and made something low in her belly tighten, then flip. "I could be talked into forgetting to put something on when I wake up. A big bed, huh?"

Jess was already starting to mentally pick out places she'd seen that weren't that dissimilar. What would work best, what wouldn't. A lot of warehouse conversions had basically an entire open floor plan, so that gave them a lot of space to work with. To piece together how they wanted in a way that worked best for him. She already knew that there'd be a section, if not a whole wall, dedicated to targets and knives. The fact that he wanted a tub to soak in had her smiling, glad he was thinking of indolent things, things he wanted, so she could get a better picture.

"Sunk into the floor or raised on a platform?"

He was relatively sure he'd do anything to get her to smile. Seeing Jessica light up had become a favorite thing, enough to have made him anxious a whole day over having a necessary conversation. All that anxiety had melted away and seemed like ancient history as they swayed to talk of their new place.

"A bed sunk into the floor? Personally, I like having height for leverage." He obviously was no longer thinking of just sleeping and didn't think about the tub as an option, having only ever seen traditional bathtubs. Diego pictured the upstairs solely for them but would have a small number of knives along with easy access to his full arsenal downstairs.

Maybe a defunct fire station would work if there was a way to baby proof the pole. Not that his mind ventured past the converted warehouse or the question of 'sunk' or 'raised'.

"There's loft conversions. Converted warehouses and lofts are hoity toity in Brooklyn and near the Park, but if we find something bigger and closer to the water, it'll likely need more work to put into living condition, meaning a better price." See? She was thinking ahead. Planning for funds that they could use wisely. It was a first for her. She didn't have a 401k or life insurance. She had been clinging a lot to her existence as just being there and trying to make it day to day.

Since he'd come into her life, she found she had plans. Dreams. A want for the future. "Loft or raised bed, then. We could have a bathroom inset that has a walk in shower and then a soaking tub. Maybe we can talk to Danny about having some of his nerds come in and tech up a few things under the guise of you being more accessible for any work he needs or for me to be able to store things like that whatever we dug out of me. Make it sound like it's to his benefit." Hey, Danny was mind numbingly rich. And generous. She'd make sure that she did enough for him, or let Diego give enough of his time to him to make them both feel comfortable that it was paid back in barter. Making fun of the younger man was one thing, but taking advantage of him wouldn't sit right.

"Danny," Diego repeated with a nod while pensive. He listened to what Jessica said, wheels visibly turning in his head. It was exciting to think of a real place with her. A place he'd share with only her and whatever their future would hold. He'd no longer only have a room to call his own or no longer live in a place that his soulmate had traumatic experiences.

Number Two had tilted his head to a side, his eyes looking in the distance as if peering into the past. He wouldn't ever want a big house like the Hargreeve Mansion. A house filled with many things yet empty and cold. While a warehouse might give an industrial feel that could be considered the very thing he didn't want, Diego only felt the opposite with Jessica. He knew he'd work off whatever Danny helped them with.

"Rand can take care of the bottom floor and we can focus up top. The bottom would cover work and security of the whole place. Upstairs, just us." He quickly looked at Jessica with a bright, happy gaze.

"Just us," she agreed, fingers still tickling through his hair. She watched him take in the idea, mull it over, then saw when his gaze sharpened back on her. Those pretty dark eyes drew her in, and she found herself leaning in to give him a kiss, humming happily. "Probably best not to wear the suit for that. Some of them might be scrungy, and if you wear anything from Iron Crotch's closet, they might think we have more money than we do and try to fleece us. I'd prefer to underbid. And be sneaky."

They still swayed, but it was slower, more just a shadow of before as she brought her hand up to draw a line on his chin with her thumb. "We'll figure out what works best for us."

He enjoyed the soft kiss; both the contact and the happiness Jessica conveyed in it. Diego hummed back appreciatively. He chuckled softly at her attempt to save them money by running a game on the contractors. "I can just practice knife throwing and you can show them your skills at demo while we get the bid. Pretty sure they won't try to rake us over coals."

His forehead gently leaned in and rested against hers while still fixed on her gaze. "You know, we might be able to do a lot of work ourselves." He wasn't the handiest of handymen but Diego did get by fixing a few things at the gym to earn his keep along with sweeping floors.

She snorted. "There's a reason that holes stayed in these walls until Malcolm got around to fixing them." One, she didn't care, and two... well. She also just didn't care. But it had been a long, long time since she'd had a place she'd feel anything special about. Kilgrave had ruined whatever happy memories she had in relation to her childhood home along with this place.

A place for just them? A place where they could make a whole bunch of new memories, ones not tainted by all the screaming skeletons in her closets... The glee she felt in that idea should have told her how much she needed to get away from ties to her old, painful memories. "There's Youtube tutorials. And Malcolm might pitch in. I can definitely take care of any walls that need to be demoed."

She hadn't realized how dark her life had been before he'd come in and shone his little light around. Until he'd given her a reason to want things again. "Our food's getting cold." Not that she cared. She could stand here swaying with him for hours.

"YouTube tutorials?" Diego shook his head immediately after. "I need one just to work YouTube." There was a crooked smirk on his features, slightly sheepish over his lack of skill with technology in his newfound universe. "I'm sure the library has an aisle for Do It Yourself books."

He didn't mind if any of her friends lent a hand but would rather use them as a last resort, determined to put their own stamp on the place. Home. Diego had always wanted one. The mansion might have held all his early memories but it never felt like a safe place that a home should be. His only happy memories were all overshadowed by dark ones.

"Yep, let's eat." Diego gave a wide smile and slipped his hand into hers, leading her to the kitchen table. The suit jacket was shrugged off of his shoulders after a hand undid the buttons in front. In one fell swoop, he slipped out of the outer garment and let it hang on the back of the chair. He remained in the button down dress shirt, tie and dress pants.

Jessica was likely used to him pulling her onto his lap rather than sit in separate seats and this time was no different.

"It's not that hard once we get you started. You'll be Youtubing everything." It still sometimes threw her that he was so behind on things she took for granted, but that was also a quiet little joy for her. Introducing him to things that could make things easier for him. That they could both enjoy. Maybe she wouldn't be the only one sitting up at night, sucked down the Youtube hole of watching a guy in the amazon making a village with a stick.

He moved fluidly, and she always enjoyed the show. The sweep of the jacket off his body, the way he moved like it was a dance. He pulled her into his lap and she laughed, but went willingly, settling in on what was fast becoming 'her' spot. Her arm went around the back of his shoulders, her fingers playing at the back of his head. So quickly, this man had swept into her life and brought her joy. Gave her something she thought she'd not only lost, but would never be allowed to feel again.

Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his, her other hand coming up to rest on his cheek as she kissed him. "I love you."

He chuckled softly, finding the frequent use of electronics still something completely foreign. Yet he appreciated it after Jessica called him when she’d been hurt. Diego’s heart belonged to her but he couldn’t help think of how that technology would have saved Eudora’s life, his mom’s and maybe the world in his original timeline.

Sadness in his past seemed like a faint memory with Jessica in his arms. He grinned lovingly into the kiss. “I love you back,” he murmured and returned the contact a little deeper. Diego kept a possessive arm around her as the opposite hand sat on her leg. He pulled back from the kiss and bit his lip for a second before concluding, “Dessert after dinner. Need the calories for all the celebrating we're going to do.”

His hand moved from her leg and started unpacking the takeout.

"Spoilsport." But she got a grin as she watched him start to unpack. "You know, there's nothing in the rulebook that says I can't have my dessert while you eat your dinner." Yep. She'd made that stupid innuendo and she was going to stick with it. She gave a slight wiggle on his lap, but she reached for one of the takeout containers. "I think I like your roll a lot better than these ones."

It was that look he gave her after he'd kissed her that put her in that impish mood. A mood she thought she'd lost a long time ago. Diego was bringing back a lot to her life that she'd thought she wasn't allowed to have anymore. The only thing she regretted was that Trish wasn't here to meet him. Jess had a feeling that Trish would actually approve, and that felt good somehow.

Of course, the fact that he kissed her like he wanted to devour her might have something to do with how quickly she got turned on around him, but that was hardly her fault.

"So now I'm your favorite takeout?" he asked through a husky chuckle. Jessica would undoubtedly rile him up by merely existing and any attention she gave him. As happy as he was, there was a wounded part of him that feared to believe in a future. It was what prompted him to work toward it rather than wait around to be thrown into another universe.

This was his. He was hers. Nobody could take him from a life that they couldn't easily find him. A husband and father? Diego was sure not even his mother would believe that. He believed it would make her proud while scared shitless over messing up and ruining what he had with Jessica. Yet the latter didn't seem possible. Not after the conversation they had tonight.

"When you were a kid, what did you wanna be when you grew up?"

The question was not really out of nowhere. He wondered if she liked what she did for work or if maybe Jessica had dreams of a different life.

"You're my favorite everything, Diego. I'm going to find a way to make you remember that." She leaned in and gave him another soft kiss, because he was there and she could.

"Not a P.I., that's for sure. But I kinda fell into it. I was good at being nosy and shit at doing nine to fives. The amount of middle age managers that I scared the piss out of while trying to smile and play nice is more than it should be on just attitude." She scared them. She'd tried to play good, tried to color in the lines like everyone else, be as normal as a person who wasn't could be.

Dipping into the box with her chopsticks, she picked up a bundle of noodles and moved to hold them up to his mouth. Things she liked doing; feeding him. She liked taking care of him. She knew he'd either been ignored growing up or felt he had to do the protecting. So when she could, when it wouldn't hurt his ego too much, she fussed.

"I don't really think I thought about growing up and being anything. Sometimes I might have wanted to be a musician. Or a journalist. Or... I don't know. Kid stuff. After the accident, I just tried to make it from one day to the next. Turns out, I don't do people very well. Or, they don't do me. I just don't have the capacity to keep bullshitting everything's okay when it's not. And I won't sit there and take the blame for some manager's fuck up, or be told I can't have a human life because I work in a box."

If her goal was to get Diego to smile bashfully, Jessica succeeded. Words evaded him but she initiated a soft kiss that he happily returned in acceptance of what had been said.

She started to answer his question while giving him something to eat. It was more than comfortable, almost second nature when they were together. Being with Jessica opened his eyes to what it was like to be really cared for. Cliche or not, he never knew love like that before.

Her response made him think. Jessica was the first person who he'd ask the question to that didn't have an immediate response. He thought about his upbringing and how what he wanted to be was more about what his father wanted him to be. The soulmates both had to grow up fast in different ways.

"So do you wanna stay a PI?" he asked as she took a bite. "Seems like a good fit. Maybe instead of people cheating, you can help them find missing people. The shit cops don't have time for. Or don't make time for." There were reasons why Diego didn't make it through the police academy. The main one was having to follow someone like his father who had an agenda and no real desire to help people.

Diego also couldn't help want to make their world safer, even if he truly believed Jessica was able to take care of herself.

"I do that too. There's just more cases of people trying to catch cheaters. Or needing proof they aren't. I've had missing persons cases. Insurance fraud. Court paper service. So far, it's what works best for me. I can put in my own hours, I'm my own boss, and it turns out, I'm pretty good at getting to the bottom of things." Maybe that came from so many years of never knowing all the answers. All those questions about what happened, what she was, her family...

She watched him eat, then leaned in and licked a bit of sauce from his lip. "What about you? You can be something here, Diego. Danny can always work his rich boy magic and whirl you up some papers to make you legit here. If he won't, I know people. So we get you an ID, make you unkickoutable, and then what? Do you want to take any classes? Any goals on what Diego Hargreeves wants to be? You don't even have to keep the same last name, you know. Diego Sexypants would work." She teased because she could, but she hadn't really asked him about how he felt about his given name. How he felt about ties to that man that hadn't done anything good for him.

It was difficult not to interject that she could stick with helping people instead of getting in the middle of someone screwing...literally. Yet it wasn't a subject he needed to push at the moment. Jessica also distracted him by leaning in to lick the corner of his mouth.

"I'm not already someone here?" he couldn't help but ask. Jessica knew where the defensiveness came from and hopefully wouldn't be offended. "Could always take the name Jones." His dark eyes started intensely into hers. They looked away for a second. "But I should keep Hargreeves if my brothers or sisters show up."

"You're the most important person here." She set the sticks down and moved her hand to trace around the edge of his eye, then under it. Dark. Such dark, pretty eyes, and they looked at her with all these feelings that she'd thought were bullshit. You couldn't tell what someone felt by their eyes-

Yet here she was, looking at him and seeing this whole orchestra of emotion play out there. "You could, if you wanted to. Diego Jones doesn't sound so bad." He mentioned his siblings and there were mixed feelings there. Siblings that held a long of tangled emotions, but it wasn't as if she didn't understand. Trish and her weren't related by blood, but by trauma and living under the same roof. "But I meant what do you want to do, papi? 'Making me ecstatic' isn't a financially sound employment plan." There was a grin there, then she gave him a quick kiss before she gathered more food to feed to him.

Whatever tension might've risen had quickly fallen as she immediately answered that he was the most important person. He was sure only his programmed version of a mother had ever thought that about him, if she could even actually think. Diego might never let go of Grace as his mom. She was the only light in a childhood of darkness. However, Jessica was true happiness. A future. His future.

Her green eyes grounded him and her spanish made him smile. He took the offered bite, mulling things over while he ate. Diego shoved the bite into his cheek and spoke. "I could make a sizable bank if I fought a few matches but..." His head swayed from side to side as he finished chewing the bite. "...you're not exactly a fan of that option."

Understandably so as he didn't want her to get hurt. "I'm good with teaching at the dojo and working security for Luke. I get a little dancing in at the club," Diego gave a little shake of his hips with a smirk and wink. Jessica was incredibly hot when her possessive streak showed.

"My thoughts on your fighting are that if you start trying to make bank with underground fights, I will too. In enhanced arenas." And he wouldn't want that at all, so she considered that a win on her side.

Of course, then he had to go say that, and there was a little spark of something close to territorial fury in her eyes before she grabbed at the neck of his tie and tugged. "Dancing at the club, huh?" So what if she felt a little shiver of pleasure at that wag of his hips. Everything he did seemed to be designed specifically to turn her on. She was learning to live with that. Diego was her walking aphrodisiac. "Do I need to come down to the club and stake my claim?" Because she would. Right in front of all the understandably interested hotties- and Luke. Some part of her knew that needed to happen sooner than later. Maybe sooner would be best.

"They don't have to be underground fights. I can fight regulation. But the only thing you're fighting is a cold."

Yet his objection wasn't much of one, admitting defeat because he'd commit murder if he ever witnessed someone hitting her. Jessica seemed ready to do the same just for someone hitting on him which amused him more than it probably should. His arms wrapped snug around her.

"You can put a ring on it, if you want but it's just dancing, Mami. You've got nothing to worry about."

"You haven't seen the way they look at you. Which is, incidentally, the same way I look at you. Like I want to put you in my mouth and suck on you until you melt down to gooey caramel." His arms went around her and she lifted her hand to smooth over his hair.

"Another reason to get you actual 'legal' papers. So I can put a ring on it." Just casually dropping that there, since they were already talking about a new home and a new life. She knew there was no one else but him, and if she was ever going to bind herself to someone, it was going to be the person that she actually loved. "They get handsy. They want to touch. I want to break their fingers. So keep your ass against the wall where they can't admire it, and then we get can you a ring you can flash at them. Then point to the convenient hole in the wall I'm going to make and tell them that will be their face if they don't screw off."

"They can look at me however they want. I only have eyes for you," he returned with a hand at her cheek as his dark eyes looked intently into her lighter set. Yet he wasn't going to dance if it worried her. "No touching allowed. With or without a ring. I'd never disrespect you like that."

Not that it seemed she thought he would. Diego enjoyed her possessive streak but he didn't want her to sour the relationship she had with Luke...even if there was something appealing that Jessica would make it known who she was with now. Number Two lit up when she brought up the reason for getting him legal papers.

"So for the record, you'll marry me and not just to ward off women at the club?"

He had to ask.

That catch. It broke her heart a little that she knew that he thought there might be strings attached to it. "I'll marry you because I love you. There's no one else for me, Diego. Never will be. And there's never been anyone that's come close to filling the spot you have in my life. So it just makes sense to make it legal. With all the shit that happens around here, I want to make sure if one of us winds in up in the hospital, the other can sign them out. Or be called if they wind up in jail. Besides," she said, wiggling in his lap a little, "I'm kind of looking forward to the day you threaten someone pissing you off with your wife breaking them in pieces."

She grinned, food forgotten as she sat there with an arm around his shoulders and the other playing with his hair. "It's not you, Diego. Not you I don't trust. Hell, a ring is just going to be a red flag to a bull to some of them. I want you to know I'd never think you'd stray. It's not about disrespect. I can feel how much you love me. No one's ever... I've never felt that before. I just want them to know ahead of time that if they're going to flirt with a married man, they shouldn't be shocked if they get slapped if they go beyond flirting to touching. No touchy."

Her answer made him light up. A full smile graced his lips, Diego mostly stuck on the fact that she loved him and felt there was no one else for her. It was the first that someone returned his feelings in the same manner that he felt them. Like Jessica, he was sure there was no one else for him. He'd been nervous about the M word and it took an enormous weight off of his shoulders that she was not only on board but comfortable with the idea.

"I'd never want my wife to get her hands dirty, but have no issues with you tossing someone around or the car they drive."

He nuzzled the tip of her nose with his own but then went to grab the chopsticks and get her a bite of food. Diego paused as she responded about trusting him. All the times he'd been hurt before, none of it mattered with Jessica. He believed what she said and felt the same way. His head leaned in to give her a tender kiss, then pulled back to meet her eyes again.

"No touching. But promise me you'll just snatch them off. A slap from you could be literal overkill. I'm happy to make out with my wife before every shift, wherever I work." And with that, he held a wide grin again and moved the food in front of her mouth for her to eat.

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