The restaurant had been transformed. Tables pushed aside. Chairs arranged in a semicircle around a single central table set like it was hosting royalty. Candles everywhere, dripping wax like the building itself was bleeding. Waiters stood at attention along the walls, faces blank, bodies rigid, eyes staring through people instead of at them.
And there, at the center, sat two people.
A man and a woman.
The man wore a purple suit.
Not "tasteful rich guy" purple. Not "subtle accent color" purple. This was full-on, eye-searing, villain-coded purple. The kind of outfit that said either:
I have no self-awareness, or
I don't care what you think because I can make you clap on command.
I liked purple. I really did.
But this was offensive.
He was eating, smiling, talking with the easy confidence of someone who had never experienced consequences. The woman across from him sat stiffly and expressionless, lifting her fork when he gestured, chewing when he seemed to want her to.
Then my brain caught up.
And my blood turned into ice.
Kilgrave.
The Purple Man.
Mind control. Human rights violation in a tailored suit. The kind of predator who didn't need a weapon because his weapon was everyone else. He didn't blow up buildings or fight superheroes on rooftops. He destroyed lives quietly and left the wreckage too ashamed to scream.
And the woman across from him—
Black hair. Leather jacket. The posture of someone who could snap a lamppost in half, except right now her body was just following commands.
Jessica Jones.
Shit.
I had absolutely no intention of fighting Jessica Jones while she was controlled. That was suicide dressed up as bravery. She was strong enough to punch through concrete. Fast enough that "normal reflexes" didn't count. Durable enough that my best "don't hit me" plans would still end with me eating pavement.
But I didn't need to fight her.
I just needed Kilgrave dead.
One of us wasn't leaving that room alive.
I closed my eyes and began casting Occlumency—not with my wand, but with my mind. Mental discipline. Cold control. The same internal walls I'd built back when the biggest threat was magical mind-reading and not, you know, alien gods and pheromone dictators in purple.
Occlumency was designed to block Legilimency, not chemical manipulation, but it was still the best defense I had. If Kilgrave's control came with any psychological "hook," any compulsion that tried to slide into your thoughts and grab the steering wheel, I needed my mind to be a locked vault.
Please work. Please, please work.
I'd been practicing this for weeks, unconsciously, since my memories returned. Living in the MCU meant telepaths could exist. Gods could exist. Corruption could exist. If you didn't guard your mind, you weren't brave—you were food.
I let my eyes go a little distant and hollow as my emotions sealed behind iron doors. Anger boxed up. Panic buried. Fear flattened into something I could use later.
Focus.
I pushed the door open and walked in.
The candlelight hit my face. The air smelled like rich food and expensive wine and something else—something faintly sweet and chemical under the cologne. The moment it touched the inside of my nose, my muscles twitched like invisible threads had tightened.
So it's pheromones too.
Great.
At least now I understood why everyone looked like puppets. He didn't need to cast anything. He just needed to breathe near you.
I forced my breathing shallow. Minimal. Controlled.
And I walked toward the table.
Step by step.
No compulsion made me bow. No urge made me kneel. My feet stayed mine.
The Occlumency walls held.
I set the tray down with the practiced grace of someone who had watched restaurant staff enough times to imitate them. The dishes settled into place with barely a sound.
Kilgrave didn't even look at me at first. He was too busy enjoying the world like it belonged to him.
"Oh, wonderful," he said, voice smooth as silk. Then, to Jessica, like he was teaching a dog a trick: "Come on, Jessica. This dish is the restaurant's famous black truffle cream soup. You must try it."
Jessica picked up her spoon.
Robotic.
Precise.
Wrong.
Kilgrave waved his hand dismissively toward me, still not giving me the dignity of eye contact. "Alright, you can go now."
I didn't move.
"Hm?" He finally looked up, irritation flickering across his face like a candle flame catching a draft. "Didn't you hear me? Leave."
I still didn't move.
His eyes narrowed. "I said—"
I lunged.
My hand closed around his throat so fast his smugness didn't even have time to pack a suitcase. Fingers dug into his windpipe with controlled violence. Not rage. Not a wild choke. A precise grip designed to stop speech.
Because speech was his trigger.
If he couldn't talk, he couldn't command.
Kilgrave's eyes bulged. His mouth worked soundlessly, trying to form words that wouldn't come. His face flushed as panic finally hit him, raw and ugly.
Not today, you bastard.
Jessica didn't react at first. She just kept eating, blank-faced, like I wasn't currently trying to strangle the man controlling her.
Good. No command yet.
Kilgrave thrashed, clawing at my wrist with surprising strength for a guy whose main workout routine was probably "abuse of power." His hand scrambled inside his jacket.
My brain screamed warning.
Shit.
A gun.
The muzzle came up fast.
BANG.
The shot cracked like thunder in the candlelit room.
I twisted sideways on instinct, and the bullet screamed past my ear so close I felt the heat of its passage. My grip loosened for a fraction of a second—
Kilgrave ripped backward out of my reach, stumbling, coughing, clutching his throat. His eyes streamed. He looked like a man tasting fear for the first time in a long time.
Then he smiled.
Even half-choked, even shaking, the smile came back like a reflex.
"Jessica…" His voice was a ruined rasp, but the command didn't need volume. It needed intent. "Kill him."
Jessica's head snapped up.
Her blank eyes locked on me.
Oh, fuck.
She moved like a freight train wrapped in human skin.
She pushed off the floor—tiles cracked under her feet—and charged. Her fist came at my face with enough force to turn my skull into a philosophical question.
I threw myself sideways. Her punch missed by inches and slammed into the floor where I'd been standing. The impact spiderwebbed the tiles, ceramic shards exploding outward.
Yeah. I really, really didn't want to get hit by that.
My reserves were already scraping the bottom. Wandless Alohomora to get in. Occlumency at full focus. Adrenaline burning through whatever stamina I had left. I was running on fumes and spite.
But I didn't have a choice.
I raised my hand and snapped the word that had saved me in a hundred ridiculous situations.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Magic surged out—weak at first, then catching like a hook. The spell latched onto Jessica mid-lunge.
She froze in the air.
Her legs kicked. Her muscles strained. Her body fought gravity like it wanted to break the concept of "up."
And for a second, I saw the real Jessica beneath the control—rage, confusion, pain—buried under Kilgrave's command.
Hold. Just hold.
In my old world, lifting a person with Wingardium Leviosa wasn't really a thing. You needed other spells, other mechanisms. But in this universe, magic behaved more like raw telekinesis if you had the will to force it.
Which meant it was also far more draining.
My arm trembled. My vision swam.
Seconds.
I had seconds.
I flicked my wrist hard.
Jessica flew.
She became a blur of leather and limbs, smashing through the front window in an explosion of glass and splintered wood. She hit the street outside and rolled, momentum carrying her across the pavement. Car horns blared. People screamed. Phones rose instantly, because of course they did.
Sorry, Jessica. You'll heal.
I spun back to Kilgrave.
He was already raising his gun again, fury twisting his features—
I flicked my wrist again.
Kilgrave slammed into the ceiling like someone had thrown him upward with a giant invisible hand. The impact was wet and brutal. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed from his nose and mouth. The gun clattered to the floor and skidded away.
He hung there, suspended by my magic, gasping like a fish.
"Cough… Jessica…" he wheezed, voice barely a whisper. "Save me…"
I stepped forward, wand sliding into my hand, magic gathering for something final—
Glass exploded.
Jessica came back through the broken window like a missile.
She didn't hesitate. Didn't look at me. Didn't slow.
She grabbed Kilgrave out of the air mid-run, tucked him under one arm like a football, and launched herself back through the opening.
No.
No, no, no.
I couldn't let them escape.
Mom was still under his control. Marcus. The staff. Whoever else he'd turned into a puppet. If Kilgrave lived, they stayed trapped. And if he got away, he'd do this again somewhere else with a new stage and new victims.
He had to die.
Today.
I tore off the chef uniform, yanked my hood up, and sprinted toward the broken window.
Outside, pedestrians stood frozen, phones raised, recording everything. I ignored them. Ignored the screams. Ignored the part of my brain screaming that I was exposing magic to the entire city.
Don't care.
Find him.
Kill him.
Jessica landed on a rooftop across the street, Kilgrave still clutched under her arm. She didn't pause. Just kept running, leaping from building to building with superhuman grace.
I raised my wand, forced my magic into motion, and cast the Levitation Charm on myself—not elegant flight, more like giving gravity a stern lecture.
The world lurched.
My feet left the ground.
Wind slapped my face.
And I launched after them.
New York's rooftops blurred beneath me. Streetlights became streaks. Sirens wailed in the distance, blending into the city's constant panic-song. Jessica was fast—faster than me even with magic boosting my momentum. She bounded across gaps that would've killed anyone normal, never hesitating, never slowing, Kilgrave clinging to her like a parasite that knew it was about to be crushed.
My magic guttered.
Flickered like a candle in a hurricane.
Every second I stayed airborne, the spell drained me further. My arm shook. My breath came tight behind my teeth. My vision narrowed.
Just a little further.
Just catch them.
Just—
Jessica leaped again, clearing a gap that looked like it belonged on a parkour highlight reel. She hit the next rooftop and kept going. Kilgrave shouted something into the wind—commands I couldn't hear, but I could see the way his mouth moved, the way his face twisted.
He was trying to use the city as his weapon again.
I pushed harder, forcing more magic into the Levitation Charm. The air resisted. My body protested. My reserves screamed.
And then, ahead of us, a rooftop door burst open.
A man stepped out—eyes glassy, expression blank—holding a gun.
Kilgrave had already planted puppets up here.
Of course he had.
The man raised the gun toward me.
My wand arm shook so badly I almost dropped it.
If I dodged, I might lose them.
If I don't, I might get shot out of the sky.
Jessica didn't even look back. She just ran—because she wasn't running for herself. She was running because Kilgrave told her to.
I swallowed, forced my lungs to pull in air, and chose.
I aimed my wand at the gunman and hissed, "Expelliarmus!"
The red bolt hit his wrist. The gun flew out of his hand and skidded across the rooftop.
The man staggered, then lunged toward the edge—
Toward me.
Like he meant to tackle me off the air.
My stomach dropped.
Because Kilgrave didn't need to kill me directly.
He just needed me to fall.
And as the gunman leapt, reaching—
My Levitation Charm faltered for half a heartbeat.
I dipped in midair.
The city yawned beneath me like an open mouth.
And in that moment, with my magic failing and Jessica vanishing across rooftops with my target under her arm, one thought burned through everything else:
If I let him escape now…
He won't just keep my mother.
He'll come back for me.
And next time, he'll be ready.
I pushed every remaining ounce of will into the spell and shot forward—
—but my vision darkened at the edges, and the rooftops tilted, and I realized the worst possible truth:
I might catch Kilgrave.
Or I might hit the street first.
Either way, this chase was about to end.