After wandering aimlessly for the first couple of weeks, sleeping rough or sneaking into unused beds, Jessica tried to figure out how she'd get a home. After all, she was just a 16 year old girl. A 16 year old that could lift around 6 tons, but a 16 year old nonetheless. Her first priority had been getting out of NYC. She decided on Boston on a whim, being a city relatively unknown for its super powered humans. She was still afraid of enlisting in a school for fear that Fury would find her. She decided to wait until after the summer, maybe he'd forget about her. Despite the fact that he'd made up with Peter, he didn't seem to be a big fan of clones last they met.
After a month had passed, she had a more solid way of life. She'd started performing street tricks to earn money by day and by night she'd started back into crime-fighting. She started staying in what she assumed was an unused apartment and began sleeping there by night, storing food when she was more confident no one came to the flat often. There was no TV or heating (although she would have preferred some AC due to the near deathly heat that summer) or gas, but there was running water and a makeshift bed which made it better then sleeping on the streets.
"I doubt anyone would expect me to pay rent for this dump anyway." she figured.
As far as crime-fighting went, it had only taken her a few weeks before she'd built her own reputation, a female version of NYs Spiderman made for some interesting headlines on the papers. Not that Jessica had stopped any major criminals; she'd only stopped car thefts and minor robberies and assaults. Still, it seemed Boston was more tolerant of vigilantes dealing with the crime then the NY citizens, at least for now.
A few months later, Jessica was a lot more settled in her new "home". It wasn't perfect in the long term and neither was her lifestyle, but she was still free to try and be her own person. Then one evening, when she was on her way back to her uninhabited apartment after patrolling the city, Jessica saw something she hoped she'd never have to see again; one of Fury’s robot slayers.
Nick Fury, the head of the worldwide police force S.H.I.E.L.D had created these robots to take out super people that got out of hand, and given Jessicas last run in with Fury it was pretty obvious who the robot was after this time...
The mechanical droid hovered in the air, it must have only been a meter in length, but Jessica wasn't fooled, she'd seen two of these things tear through one of her clone "brothers" just before she escaped. The armour looked pretty thick, possibly adamantium.
"Ok, don't panic, it's just one of those things..."
Suddenly, a dozen or so more drones came out of nowhere.
"Note to self, in the future, when you see some small killer robots just run away!"
The chase was on.
She swung as fast as she could, feeling the heat from the searing lasers that were barley missing her.
"Dammit, I really should have been a little more subtle when I got back into the superhero game... I shoulda just sent Fury a "Hey Nicky, wish you were here!" card..."
She dodged and ducked, keeping her distance from the murder hungry droids. Fortunately, she knew the layout of this part of town pretty well and managed to gain a bit of ground on them. They were almost out of eye-shot when out of nowhere, half a dozen more drones popped up.
"Alright.. you guys want a fight you got one." she thought to herself.
She threw herself towards the nearest of the new droids, launching a fury of punches and kicks at while dodging the laser fire coming from the droids behind her.
"Crap, that armours as tough as I thought it was..." she mused.”Well, let's just see how much damage they can do to each other..."
She then used her organic web shooters to drag a far off droid and flung it at the droid closest to her. A satisfying explosion followed.
Then Nick Fury himself showed up. Jessica prepared to attack him, knuckles crunching, when suddenly he called off the droids.
"Jessica, Jessica wait! Drew!" Fury called after her.
"If you'd stop wrecking government property for two seconds then I can explain what this is about!"
She cautiously moved away from the droids, keeping her guard up all the while. She didn't trust Fury one bit.
"What do you want now?? I think I've proved I'm not crazy or whatever you thought would be wrong with me! I just want to be left alone, is that too much to ask for??"
The young girl was practically shaking with anger, fists clenched. She hadn't done anything wrong yet she was being targeted again.
Fury sighed.
"Listen kid, I know our first real meeting wasn't under the best circumstances but..."
"No doubt it wasn't, there's no reason for you to follow me! What, am I a "mistake" you want to rid the world of??"
Fury nonchalantly moved towards Jessica.
"Actually, those droids were set to stun kiddo. I needed to talk to you. If I wanted to kill you then you'd be dead five minutes ago." He told her, half looking sideways at her.
"Drop the cool guy act Fury, I've seen it all before... what do you want?" Jessica was already fed up with the crap that was coming from the head of SHIELD.
Then he turned away, looking a little bit uncomfortable.
He seemed like he was searching for the right words. Anger was replaced with curiosity. Jessica had never seen Fury at a loss for words.
"...What is it?" she asked after he didn't reply.
Fury turned back around and gave Jessica a hollow stare.
"It's Parker... Peter. He's dead."
Jessica was simply stunned. It was as if he told her that she'd died herself yet she was still standing to hear it. All her memories and experiences were those first felt by Peter and now he was gone.
"W...What happened...? Was this your fault?!?" Jessicas' temper quickly fired up again.
"Partly, I'm accepting the blame. Octavius got out again. Parker wanted a crack at him for what he did to you and your other clone buddies, not to mention for what he put Parker through. Ock was trying to get his hands on some weapons at a high profile science convention and held 30 or so people as a ransom. Parker asked to go in first. I reasoned that he'd have a better chance at keeping casualties to a minimum. He had Ock on the ropes, but, as you know, Octavius is a sore loser. He messed with the foundations of the roof and caused it to collapse."
Jessica could see a tinge remorse creeping into Furys normally cold stare.
"Parker managed to support the roof long enough for most the hostages to escape, but... he was crushed under the rubble."
Jessica turned to move, she didn't want to see anyone after hearing this sort of news.
"Drew, wait!"
She turned back to face him, tears in her eyes.
"Listen Drew, I know this is hitting you hard right now..."
"You don't fucking know! How can you know!? How can anyone know?? You just told me that the real me, the person I remember being, is dead! So don't fucking tell me you know!" she screamed, tears now pouring down her pale face.
"Why the hell are you even here!? I doubt the great Nick Fury cared so much about Peter Parker that you'd hunt down his clone with droids that you made to kill him just to tell me you feel sorry for me!!"
Fury didn't take that well.
"Listen Drew, Parker was going to be one of the best! The kid WAS one of the best. I was planning on training him to be our next Cap. I didn't trust anyone more than him."
"So that's all he was? Another part of your stupid super solider program? Someone that could be the next Captain America for a few years till he bit the dust? Yeah, I'm sure you're devastated." she replied bitterly.
"Ok kid, I'm gonna let that one slide. But now you gotta stop thinking about yourself for a second. What about your family? Your aunt?"
Jessica hadn't even considered aunt May or what this meant for her.
"Does she know yet?" she asked fearfully.
"No, I came here two hours after Parker died. His last request to me was to find you and to ask you to look after his family."
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she looked back up at Fury once more.
"Take me home." she said quietly.
Fury signalled for the droids to back off.
"Alright kid, we'll be back in NY in 10 minutes."
Fury turned back to the carrier that had brought him.
"And Fury?"
"Hm?" He asked, turning to face Jessica.
"When Ock turns up again, he's mine. I'm going to kill him."
Fury plainly looked at Jessica for a moment, seeing an anger he'd never seen in Peter Parker. He then nodded and gestured for her to follow him into the carrier.
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