Characters / born of hell('s kitchen)

Main Characters

Matt Murdock

Matt Murdock a.k.a. Daredevil

• Actor Allusion: Peter considers he's basically "Batman but cooler" and he disguises himself as the Dark Knight for Halloween. It's obviously referencing Ben Affleck who played Matt Murdock in Daredevil and Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: He got wasted to the point he had unprotected sex with Jessica into his law school's closet and completely occluded the memory afterwards. Foggy and Karen gleefully take the piss out of him for it, and his mother isn't impressed either.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Matt is genuinely a compassionate, sweet man. But Salinger abducting his son awoke such nastiness within him that Eric starts to feel very, very uneasy around him.
• Breeding Slave: HYDRA is really interested in his potential to sire enhanced offspring as it could give them an army of Super Soldiers. Understandably, Matt isn't very keen on this program.
• The Casanova: He's slightly discomfited by his unability to identify Peter's birth mother through their child's odor. He knows it's not Elektra, but it doesn't help that much...
• Doting Parent: The big, mean Devil of Hell's Kitchen completely crumbles when his seven-year-old son tells him he's a good dad.
• Education Papa: He's immensely proud of Peter's scholarship for Midtown Academy, and even had to be reined in a bit when grade skipping was talked about as a possibility.
• Family Versus Career: Downplayed; he's still working as a lawyer, but he's hanging the cowl back to give his emotionally fragile son all the attention the boy needs.
• Freakiness Shame: He compulsively wears glasses because his vacant gaze upsets and freaks people.
• Freudian Excuse: After losing his father, being (implicitly) rejected by his mother and having his Parental Substitute walk away from him, Matt is extremely insecure regarding his ability to be any kind of dad.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: He was distinctly unhappy to learn Jessica didn't care about informing him he was the father of her child.
• Guilt Complex: Matthew first refused to assume Peter's guardianship out of the belief he would only ruin the boy's life. Foggy has to scream at him to get over it for Matt to ask for custody.
• Hiding in Plain Sight: He doesn't exactly flaunt his Super-Senses, but he makes no mystery of the fact he does compensate his eyesight's loss through other means.
• House Husband: Quitting the superhero game because his son has the priority? Check. Being the more nurturing and social parent? Check. Able to cook and clean on his own? Check.
• Insanity Immunity: Downplayed. In the file HYDRA kept on him, Matt's laundry list of hangups and personal demons that gives him his suicidal tendencies made him unfit for capture and use in the Winter Soldier Program. That is if they would have been able to capture him in the first place, his Super-Senses making him impossible to ambush and fighting abilities too dangerous to face head on.
• Living MacGuffin: HYDRA first started to sniff around him for his powers, but since he's a bad fit for becoming a Winter Soldier, they're hinted to have switched gears and focused on his ability to sire gifted children instead.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: He lured Jessica into a closet at Columbia to have enthusiastic sex. Granted, he was drunken silly at the time...
• Mundane Utility: Jessica notes Matt's ease with his abilities relies on his constant use of it to cope with his blindness.
• Neat Freak: A justified example, since he's blind and a tidy house means he's less likely to trip on something or losing time while he's preparing breakfast.
• The Nose Knows: How he can identify Peter as his biological child — the boy partially shares Matt's own smell, mixed with his birth mother's.
• Papa Wolf: When Salinger appears as a possible threat to his son, Matt is ready to jump to extreme measures - such as summoning the Punisher to Hell's Kitchen. And when the Serial Killer abducts Peter, the Devil is let out with a vengeance.
• Parental Love Song: It's actually a Catholic hymn, but it works very well when he's singing Peter back to sleep, because the lyrics talk about "my treasure, highest in my heart".
• Parents Know Their Children: He had no idea whatsoever he sired a biological child before a small boy who happened to share his smell came to his workplace.
• Super-Senses: Such acute ones it effectively negates his disability.
• Terror Hero: While Daredevil used fear as a tactic all of a time, this is exaggerated when Peter is kidnapped, his tactics so horrifying that the local news and police noticed it.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Matt is the Lord; he's an intelligent, socially respected lawyer and vigilante who's now growing into his role as a father, but finds himself struggling with the difficulty of his various responsibilities.
• Triple Shifter: Averted with a prejudice. Foggy points he already was unable to juggle vigilantism and lawyering without messily crashing and burning, so when he finds himself the primary caretaker for a very emotionally fragile child, Matt decides to hang the cowl back.
• Unluckily Lucky: He had to drop Daredeviling in order to be the dad Peter needed him to be. Jessica later intuits it probably saved his life — as the most publicized enhanced person in the neighbourhood, Daredevil would have been prime victim material for Salinger. But since the Devil went dark and no one has the slightest hint of his Secret Identity, Matt is basically safe.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: To make Salinger moving the kidnapped Peter around harder, Karen arranges for him to be interviewed on TV as a blind man crying over his abducted son is guaranteed to whip New Yorkers into high vigilance.

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: As horrible Jessica had it in canon, here it's made a thousand times worse when Kilgrave had her unborn son cut out of her womb and forced her to give him up for adoption.
• Alcoholic Parent: Defied with her decision to go cold turkey when Child Services decide to give her Peter back.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Manages two of these.
  • When Malcolm bemoans his Commitment Issues, she asks him what he truly wants, provoking a Love Epiphany as his knee-jerk impulse is to answer he wants her.
  • As Trish still persists to defend her shooting Alisa in front of her daughter as the right thing to do, Jessica sneeringly ponders if Trish's need for "helping" would lead her to shoot Jessica herself in front of Peter, Jessica's son and Trish's nephew, if she believed it was necessary. Trish notably avoids answering.
• Breeding Slave: HYDRA is really interested in her potential to bear superpowered offspring as it could give them an army of Super Soldiers. Understandably, Jess isn't very keen on this program.
• But We Used a Condom!: Unfortunately for Jess, even if she remembered to take the pill, Matt did forgot the condom... And apparently, he still could shoot straight in spite of being utterly plastered.
• Children Raise You: Right after winning Peter's custody back, Jessica bought a flat and drastically cut down on the drinking, not wanting for her son to be affected by her lingering issues.
• Disneyland Dad: Jessica briefly muses how easy it would be to assume the "fun parent" role and spoil Peter senseless when he's with her, but ultimately decides it would be a disservice to Peter and Matt so averts it.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: She definitely comes as the Responsible one to Trish's Foolishness, as she's trying to clean her act and be a loving but firm mother.
• Friend to All Living Things: She almost works herself into a fury over a neglectful pet owner dumping their blind puppy into the gutter because caring for an handicapped dog isn't worth it.
• The Hecate Sisters: Obviously, Jessica is the Mother — fiercely loving, mature enough to deal with her problems, and not to be trifled with.
• I Have No Son!: As far as she's concerned, Peter has only a deceased uncle, her brother Phil, on the maternal side. He has no aunt named Trish since the woman shot and killed his grandmother Alisa in front of Jessica.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Kilgrave first enslaved her to her will as she was eight months pregnant, using his Compelling Voice to force a Traumatic C-Section upon her and make her abandon the baby barely two days after their first interaction.
• Insanity Immunity: Downplayed. On the file HYDRA kept on her, it is revealed that her Healing Factor, instinctually rebellious nature and laundry list of personal demons would have made the Winter Soldier Program's methods of brainwashing an exercise in frustration, needing constant memory wipes and anti-psychotics to keep her from hulking out on her captors.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eric Gelden can see she has tremendous amounts of empathy, but she keeps it tightly close to her chest.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: After understanding she actually would sink to murder someone to protect her child, Jessica muses she truly is Alisa's daughter.
• Living MacGuffin: Just like her son, she tends to attract bad attention for her powers. Killgrave was obsessed by her, and HYDRA only stopped considering her for the Winter Soldier program by deciding to focus on her ability to have enhanced humans as children.
• Mama Bear: She's got Super-Strength, she's already walked on the fine line, and she's not keen on losing the baby she finally retrieved back. Mess with Peter and she will destroy you.
• Motherhood Is Superior: Subtly, but Jessica finds the determination to deal with her issues and better herself when she's given her child back.
• Mysterious Parent: What she briefly was for Matt (who couldn't remember he impregnated her), but Peter spent seven years wondering about her.
• Pregnant Badass: She rescued Malcolm while heavily pregnant and due to give birth in a few weeks. The fact this rescue didn't end well for her isn't linked at all with the pregnancy.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Ned finds her very pretty.
• Super-Strength: Her enhancement, and it's very prevalent when she's feeling emotional. It worries her since she doesn't want to hurt Peter by hugging him too tight, yet he never complains...
• Textile Work Is Feminine: While she was preparing a room for Peter, she knitted him several scarves and blankets.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Jessica is extremely crass and an Action Girl who hits people with her Super-Strength. Yet she's able to knit and aspires to be a good mother.
• Traumatic C-Section: Kilgrave dragged her to a hospital, forcing the surgery on her and making her sign her baby's custody away right afterwards, without even letting her hold or see Peter. It contributed to her mental issues.
• You Killed My Father: The reason why she's currently avoiding Trish, for shooting her birth mother right in front of her and acting as if it wasn't traumatizing.

Peter Parker

Peter Parker

• Age Lift: Very much a preteen instead of a teenager.
• Blessed with Suck: As expected from any version of Spider-Man, Peter has a Spider-Sense that lets him sense danger when nearby. Whether due to the difference in his physiology or his age, his Spider-Sense tends to give him serious headaches that can last for hours, if not days. By the time Jessica and Matt find him, his face is covered in his own blood and starts to suffer from a seizure, the strain of his spider sense bursting the blood-vessels in his head.
• Brainy Brunette: He inherited Matt's brown hair and is already passionate about science.
• Changeling Fantasy: His birth parents are genuine superheroes who let him be adopted only because a villain intervened, and they take him back when he needs them the most.
• Child Prodigy: His mother barely manages to understand what his homework entails, and it's mentioned his teachers are pulling it from the superior grade.
• Children Are Innocent: Discussed. His parents think he's this because he's ignorant of his birth family being less than mundane, while Foggy believes he's this due to his idealism. It colours their attitudes about telling Peter the truth: Matt and Jess dread Peter resenting them, but Foggy insists Peter would admire them. So far, everything points to Foggy being in the right.
• Color-Coded Characters: He combines his father's red and his mother's blue, foreshadowing his superhero costume.
• Combo Platter Powers: A more justified example than canon, since this iteration of Peter inherited his mother's Super-Strength and his father's Super-Senses, with the latter sometimes kicking into overdrive to give him quasi-precognition.
• Cuddle Bug: A very clingy child, he's often holding hands, embracing his parents or leaning against them. The fact that he can literally cling to surfaces with a touch certainly helps.
• The Cutie: He's constantly driving his parents and entourage to Cuteness Overload. That's basically Matt's awkward charm amped up.
• Detect Evil: His Spider-Sense actually lets him know when someone able to hurt him is near, which means Salinger's proximity almost works him into a panic-attack. The Serial Killer himself acknowledges his talent, and curiously asks if Peter is related to Eric Gelden. It is later revealed that HYDRA had to keep a distance of at least four blocks since he was born because he would spontaneously cry if any of their agents got that close to him.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Matt and Jessica meet Peter face-to-face for the first time, his first assumption when he finds out that his parents aren't married was that they divorced and that it was somehow his fault. Then when he finds out that they live in Hell's Kitchen, he admits that Daredevil and Iron Man are his two favorite superheroes; the former because he doesn't kill people and the later (who Matt and Jess think as an Anti-Role Model) because he respects Tony more as a scientist than a Celebrity Superhero. This establishes Peter as a pure, if not deeply troubled, boy with a firm grasp of ethics, is gifted intellectually, has a very mature (though still optimistic) opinion when it comes to superheroes and vigilantes in the setting and possesses a selfless predisposition bordering on Self-Deprecation.
• Foreshadowing: Peter has a strong association with blue and red through his clothing, his mother nicknames him "spider-monkey" for being quite a clingy hugger, and he admires Black Widow because he thinks spiders are awesome.
• Generation Xerox: So far, his life went uncannily similar to his father's as he was repeatedly traumatized by parental figures leaving him (through death) and has to deal with unwanted superpowers. On the flipside, he has a very supportive best friend.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: He's stunned speechless when someone throws their puppy to the gutter for being crippled, and can't wrap his head around Salinger's justifications for hunting his mother.
• Goshdang It To Heck: Subverted. After Frank struggles not to curse in-front of Peter, Peter admits he doesn't mind. Apparently Jessica (practical mom that she is) taught him that it was okay to swear, but only in-front of adults who deserve being cursed at.
• Happily Adopted: By the Parkers until their demise.
• Heroes Love Dogs: He quickly grows attached to a blind pit-bull puppy he names Tessa, and readily makes friends with the Punisher's own dog Max.
• Heroic RRoD: His brief precognitive glimpses and malice-sensor reduce him to a quivering mess in Sensory Overload or unable to breath. However, Ned notes the current backlash is increasingly attenuated, so there's a chance for Peter to grow out of it.
  • He's later abducted by Salinger, barely escapes and is later pursued by HYDRA while worrying about his parents rejecting him over his superpowers and subsisting on a junk food diet. It results in him being utterly exhausted and bleeding from the nose.
• Hero-Worshipper: He's awe-struck by Tony Stark's technological genius and dreams to be just as brilliant an engineer. His second favourite superhero is Daredevil because he never kills anyone.
• I Am a Monster: The poor boy calls himself a freak for developing superpowers.
• Ideal Illness Immunity: Strongly hinted. Playing Sick apart, Peter doesn't remember being ill one single day in his life. Frank Castle hopes there's infantile amnesia at work, but grimly concedes it would be likely for the boy's metabolism to be the epitome of perfect health.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Whoo, boy.
  • Right after Pepper showed him the Twitter feed about "Iron Baby and the Justice League", Tony Stark outright begged to be allowed to keep him, and was visibly dismayed when his amused girlfriend points the parents wouldn't agree.
  • A variant with Claire — watching him interact with his new puppy was enough to awaken her desire for kids, at least ten.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Peter is noted to have Matt's awkward friendliness and optimism, with hints of Jessica's bluntness and sassiness. Like both of his parents, he is very smart for his age (Jessica being resourceful and Street Smart enough to make a living as a PI and Matt being a summa cum laude graduate in Law), possesses some form of depression and anxiety disorder brought on by frequent trauma in his life (things that both Matt and Jess have in-spades) and has a genuine altruistic nature (something Eric confirms Matt and Jess have). He also gained enhanced abilities from them, having Super-Strength like his mother and Super-Senses from his dad.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Downplayed, but Peter obviously takes a lot after his father Matt, be it in personality or looks.
• Living MacGuffin: For the better or the worse, he kicks a lot of the action in motion.
  • As Matt and Jessica's son, he forces them to reevaluate and commit to major changes in their daily lives.
  • Salinger abducting him out of hatred towards Jessica sends ripples in the whole of New York City's vigilante scene.
  • Being a natural-born enhanced with two superpowered people as his parents gives him a lot of value for unsavory people such as Pierce.
• The Maiden Name Debate: Even after going back to his birth parents, he's still referred as Peter Parker, not Peter Murdock or even Peter Jones.
• Morality Pet: Peter has a natural talent at appealing to the adults in his life just by being his adorable self, Karen describing him to Frank as "adult kryptonite."
  • Both of his parents straight-up abandon their worst habits — Matt's nightly excursions as Daredevil and Jessica's alcoholism — because Peter gives them a reason to do so. Especially justified in Jessica's case, considering one of the reasons she drank herself to sleep nightly was because she lost him in the first place.
  • Morally murky characters such as Frank Castle and Trish Walker markedly soften when Peter is evoked — Frank accepts to tone his usual bloodbath down so as to avoid traumatizing him, and Trish wants nothing more than meet her little nephew.
  • He manages to be one to the Winter Soldier and helps Bucky break through his mind control several times to remember fragments of his former life. Bucky changes his mission from trying to abduct Peter to protecting him from HYDRA and even saves Frank from a sniper.
• One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: Courtesy of his parents fooling around in a school closet while drunk. Matt couldn't even remember he had banged someone this night, he was that drunk.
• Parental Abandonment: He lived through it thrice, first when he was given away to be adopted, second when the Parkers were killed in a car crash, and thirdly when Aunt May suddenly fell sick and died.
• Playing Sick: Having learned that Peter's Spider-Sense is very real and accurate, Aunt May instructed him to tell her he is having an "asthma attack" whenever it goes off. It isn't until after Peter gets kidnapped does Jessica realize what it meant whenever he said this, as his health papers mentioned nothing about asthma.
• Race Lift: In the MCU context, this iteration of Peter Parker appears as a more-or-less faithful depiction of a mutant — having superpowers he gained through genetic transmission without undergoing a transformation process — instead of being a mutate — obtaining abilities through exterior factors.
• Related in the Adaptation: The whole point of the story was to make him Daredevil and Jewel's offspring.
• Scholarship Student: How he was entered into Midtown Academy, because he was too smart to let the opportunity pass him by lack of money. Matt is extremely proud of him for this.
• Strong Family Resemblance: His looks very much come from the Murdock side of his ancestry.
• Super-Intelligence: While every incarnation of Peter Parker was a prodigy, here it falls under his list of superpowers. Hydra's files list him as having been capable of the rational judgments and higher thinking of a teenager by the time he was four, and even then Tony thinks they were underestimating him even then. He however still has the emotional capacity of a boy his own age.
• Superpower Lottery: Peter's Combo Platter Powers are treated with a grain of realism. The fact that only seven years old Peter is a Child Prodigy, has Super-Strength and a Spider-Sense that detects danger and gives him Bullet Time vision, all of which brought on by chance of birth instead of deliberate genetic-engineering could make him the perfect superhero... or the perfect template for a superhuman arms race, hence why Hydra is after him.
  In their youth and ignorance of themselves and each other, Matt and Jessica had unintentionally created a Frankenstein's monster of their own powers through their union, and luck or nature had supercharged them to an unimaginable degree, and now they all lived inside of this little boy, like a bomb that was waiting for its timer to be set.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Peter inherited both his parents' powersets and is shaping up to grow even more powerful than them, Jessica noting he can handle her too-strong embraces without twitching and his Super-Senses sometimes pushing straight into precognition. This technically qualifies him as a "mutant" in Marvel-terms in-contrast to his "mutate" canon-counterpart.
  People who tracked humans with enhanced abilities, people fundamentally changed by accident or design, like Mom and Dad. His parents' one time college-age fling had resulted in, if Natasha was to be believed, one of the highest 'value' scoring people in the HYDRA database. Tony had called it 'splitting the atom' - in creating Peter, they had also accidentally created a world-defining, if not world-ending being. A true mutant created through inheritance rather than genetic manipulation.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Peter fits the Hunter role, being physically young, fearful of his uncertain future and still growing into his potential.
• Who's Your Daddy?: Actually, there's no doubt about Matt being his dad, this was identifying his mom that was a pain.
• World's Strongest Man: Frank Castle uneasily realizes Peter has the potential to grow into the most powerful superhuman ever seen, and it's going to make him a target.

Allies

Foggy Nelson

Franklin "Foggy" Nelson

• Friend to All Children: Mentions having several nieces and nephews, and is immediately protective towards his best friend's son.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A platonic variant which sees him encouraging Matt to become a father to Peter, as his best friend obviously wishes for the opportunity to care for his son.
• Muggle Best Friend: To Matt. Deconstructed a bit, as he finds dealing with Daredevil nerve-wrecking and as such encourages Matt to focus more on his civilian persona and identity.
• The Nicknamer: He's the one attributing the pseudos on the Defenders' chatroom.
• Pragmatic Hero: Foggy really doesn't like the Punisher, but will accept his help in the hunt for Salinger and Peter, only asking for Frank to bring Peter alive and untraumatized.
• Rules Lawyer: He coaches Jessica on retrieving Peter's custody by insisting she was giving him under duress and because she was terrified of Kilgrave hurting her baby. Even if the judge refuses to believe the Mind Rape argument, dismissing concerns of abuse is much more difficult.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Foggy holds the Prophet position by virtue of helping Matt with his issues through well-sounded advice.
• What the Hell, Hero?: His reaction when Matt considers giving Peter to his former orphanage, pointing it would only wreck the seven-year-old further and telling Matt to get over his crippling self-doubt and inferiority feeling.
  • Also his reaction when Matt considers letting the notoriously violent Punisher approach his seven-year-old boy.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: His opinion about Matt and Jess as parents — if they truly were bad ones, they wouldn't put so much care and love into their interactions with Peter.

Karen Page

Karen Page

• Beware the Nice Ones: Karen is quite bubbly and prone to Squee over her cute little godson. She's also friendly with Frank Castle, Gun Nut extraordinaire, and has no problems with unleashing him on a Serial Killer.
• Cool Aunt: She self-proclaims herself Peter's godmother.
• Foil: Both Karen Page and Trish Walker are blond women with dark leanings and poised to be considered as "Auntie" to Peter without a blood tie — Trish through adoption, Karen laying claim to godparenting. However, Karen can control her worse impulses or be remorseful for them, acting on them out of sheer, genuine love. Trish is completely unable to rein herself in, and tries to justify her deeds with a self-centered narrative.
• Heart Symbol: Constantly spams heart-eyes emojis when talking of Peter in the Defenders' chatroom.
• Mama Bear: Karen is unable to bench-press a car or kung-fu her way out of a paper bag, but she's got the Punisher on speed-dial and she will call him at the slightest hint of someone potentially targeting her godson.
• Running Gag: Gifts for her godson are shaping up to be this. She first grouses she was late for all the birthdays, then Jess steals her Christmas plans by giving a puppy to Peter.

Luke Cage

Luke Cage

• Embarrassing Nickname: What he thinks of "Harlem Homeboy" and "Mister Cage" (it makes him sound like a Bond villain!) on the Defenders' chatroom.
• Gentle Giant: His true character, when you get over the Scary Black Man first impression.
• Oh, Crap!: Played for Laughs when Claire gushes over a picture of Peter with his new puppy, telling she "wants ten of these". Luke is almost begging her to confirm she meant dogs, not children.
• Real Men Wear Pink: After constating for himself just how much Peter is adorable, he starts spamming the heart-eyes emojis.
• Scary Black Man: Subverted. His large frame obviously terrifies Peter at first glance, but Luke quickly shows himself a very peaceful, nice person.

Danny Rand

Danny Rand a.k.a. Iron Fist

• Cool Uncle: The image he's obviously seeking to give for Peter. He mainly looks like an overgrown kid.
• Manchild: His reaction to learning his teammates Matt and Jess had a child together is basically the same as Vido Estacado's, who's the preteen son of Jessica's neighbour. He also jumps on the opportunity to put on a disguise and eat candy for Halloween.
• Uncle Pennybags: A splash of it, since he bought an expensive tablet for Peter to call his friends.

Claire Temple

Claire Temple

• Massive Numbered Siblings: After being hit with Peter's cuteness, Claire declares her intention of having ten kids. Luke panics.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: A comical inversion — Claire does want kids, that's her boyfriend Luke who's freaked by the perspective... mainly because of the number.
• Official Couple: With Luke, since Matt and Jess are Amicable Exes.

Colleen Wing

Colleen Wing

• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Downplayed, but she has to remind Danny to tone down on the enthusiasm.
• Demoted to Extra: She mainly appears to gush over Peter and stop Danny from being too childish.

Assorted acquaintances

Malcolm Ducasse

Malcolm Ducasse

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed when Eric complains Malcolm is giving him a headache — he's not a fully-fledged Nice Guy, but he maintains decency and as such is merely rating as the average crappy person.
• Commitment Issues: Has this with Zaya. The fact he was steadily falling in love with Jessica might have a role in this.
• Everyone Has Standards: He may have his problems with Jessica, but he would never wish for her to lose Peter a second time.
• Heroic BSoD: He goes outright catatonic while processing his Love Epiphany, slightly freaking Jessica.
• It's All My Fault: Blames himself for the fact that Jessica was abducted by Kilgrave and lost her child. It's hinted he might start to forgive himself after meeting Peter and seeing he and Jessica are settling in happily.
• Love Epiphany: Realises that he loves Jessica while seeing her acting as Peter's mother, and when she asks what he truly wants in his life.
• Nothing Is Scarier: He had nightmares in which what happened to Jessica's unborn child was a recurrent element.
• Papa Wolf: Right after learning Trish might have set a Serial Killer on Peter's tracks, Malcolm is unusually vicious with her, verbally tearing her to pieces.
• Pining After Protagonist's Parent: An interesting example who refuses to actively pursue Jessica, partially because he knows she's still settling in her new family life and he doesn't want to add the pressure of romantic entanglement.
• Rescue Romance: How he first met Jessica, and circumstances conspired to keep him involved with her since, leading him to fall for her.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You: He had a fling with a stripper, an affair with Trish and is currently dating Zaya yet the one girl he genuinely desires is Jessica, whom he never even touched.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He's outright nasty towards Trish when she tries to ask Jessica's help to stop Salinger, sneering that Trish sought Jessica because she considers her own sister disposable.

Trish Walker

Patricia "Trish" Walker

• Entertainingly Wrong: After Eric talked about seeing Jessica on a date with a "hot, blind dude", Trish quickly realized Matt didn't die at Midlands, but since she had no reason to believe he wasn't Jessica's boyfriend, the misunderstanding stayed.
• Evil Aunt: Downplayed. She's not actively malicious, but her recklessness leads her to endanger Peter, justifying Jessica's refusal to let them interact.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Is trying to be a hero with her abilities, but lacks Jessica's control. Her sister outright calls her a child who just cannot understand the consequences of her actions.
• The Hecate Sisters: The blonde and well-intentioned yet naive Maiden, Trish looks like she would be a great person to know and rely on, but the truth of the matter is that her actions keep backfiring because she's too immature to know how to properly help.
• Heroic Wannabe: Trish is trying to be a hero, but she's too impulsive to realize the risks.
• I Did What I Had to Do: She stubbornly maintains Alisa Jones needed to be stopped. Jessica isn't convinced.
• It's All About Me: Rather subtle. Trish insists Jessica has no one but her to love when explaining about Salinger hunting his targets' loved ones, and immediately rails against her sister after learning Jess refuses to let her near Peter.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She doesn't take it well when she learns Jessica never informed her of the fact she won Peter's custody back.
  • She's also completely floored to hear that the blind Matt actually is Daredevil.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Trish left well-enough alone, Peter never would have been kidnapped by a cold-blooded killer to be used as a hostage to begin with. While she did not know that Peter was back with Jessica and thus would not know that he would be a target, the fact that she would kick the proverbial hornet's nest and hunt him down, knowing that he tends to go after his target's families to hurt them, was still incredibly reckless of her.
• Pet the Dog: In spite of his current difficulties with Jessica, Trish still thinks fondly of the baby nephew she lost, and visibly perks up at the opportunity to meet him.
• Secret-Keeper: Before her falling out with Jessica, she was one of the few people who knew what became of Peter, Matt having never known about him until years after his birth and Dorothy believing that Jessica gave him up willingly. After their falling out, the opposite becomes the case and she was the last person to know that he was back in Jessica's life.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Trish believes she can make everything okay if she pushes her weight hard enough, but the world is generally far too complicated and grey-shaded for this tactic to be effective.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Because she carelessly flung herself headfirst into vigilantism, she drew Salinger's attention upon her, and since his favourite tactic is harming his targets' families, he picked the vulnerable Peter as his newest victim.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She tries pulling this on Jessica when she finds out that she got Peter back without telling her, but gets a more legitimate one right back from Jessica because it was her impulsive vigilantism that got Peter kidnapped by a Serial Killer in the first place.

Eric Gelden

Eric Gelden

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Since Jessica refused contact with Trish, she wasn't there to stop Salinger from killing Brianna Gelden, and Eric lost his sister.
• Blessed with Suck: He's constantly plagued with headaches and seizures every time he walks past a crappy person.
• Demoted to Extra: In-canon, Eric had a much bigger presence in Season 3 of Jessica Jones, having been the one to get Jess involved with Sallinger and helping her locate him. Here, he goes to Trish instead, not officially meeting her until after Peter is kidnapped.
• Detect Evil: His power's main function. It's also inverted as he can find genuinely decent, altruist people with it.
• Mistaken for Romance: As he didn't know anything about Peter, his immediate conclusion when he saw Jessica amicably talking to a handsome blind man in a suit and planning to go at a party with him was to believe she had a boyfriend.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Following Peter's abduction, Jessica and Matt's negative emotions take such a sharp turn that Eric decides to avoid them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: No matter how much Matt or Jess protest they are not really heroes, Eric can feel their good intentions and natures saying otherwise.
• You Killed My Father: Here, he's much more motivated to take Salinger down for killing his sister.

Ned Leeds

Ned Leeds

• Children Are Innocent: Very much a sweet, cheerful kid who always looks at the bright side of life. To him, having superpowers means you're automatically a superhero.
• Foil: To Foggy Nelson, since his reaction when he learned his best friend had superpowers was to find it absolutely great instead of freaking out.
• Hero-Worshipper: He seems to admire any people with special abilities, so Peter having self-esteem issues because of his own powers lets him rather bemused.
• Muggle Best Friend: Ned is explicitly described as Peter's equivalent of Foggy.
• The Pollyanna: Contrasting with Peter's fears, Ned can see nothing but good issues, pointing that Matt and Jess must love Peter to take him back.
• Precocious Crush: His first reaction when meeting Jessica is calling her pretty. Peter almost dies from embarrassment.
• Secret-Keeper: Following May Parker's demise, he's the only person to know about Peter's growing powers.

May Parker

May Parker

• Death by Adaptation: Barely two years after her husband's demise, she went to join him.
• Good Parents: Neither Matt or Jess could bring themselves to intervene in Peter's life as long as May was alive to care for him, as she obviously loved him. However, she had her flaws.
• The Hecate Sisters: The Crone is associated with death and wisdom, so the late May fits this as she did her best to help her nephew to cope with his growing powers.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: HYDRA actually willingly infected her in order to gain custody over Peter.
• Muggle Foster Parents: She tried her best to help her nephew when his powers started to emerge, but it's obvious she floundered a bit.
• Parents as People: For all she loved Peter, she followed the Frozen (2013) method and asked him to hide his emerging abilities out of fear of the public reaction, which did a number on her nephew's self-esteem.

Sister Maggie

Sister Margaret "Maggie" Grace

• Broken Pedestal: When Foggy talks about his disgust at Maggie leaving Matt to cope with his father's loss and his loss of eyesight on his own, Matt's thoughts on his mother become bleaker.
• Doting Grandparent: Even if she's not overjoyed by the circumstances in which Peter was conceived, she's genuinely happy to learn her son has a baby boy of his own and later to be introduced to said grandson.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Downplayed with Jessica who doesn't like her for screwing with Matt's head but still respects her enough to be polite.
• Parents as People: She's painfully aware she utterly failed Matt when he needed a mother and considers herself lucky that he still desires having a relationship with her, or letting her meet her grandson.
• The Talk: She was completely unimpressed when Matt confessed he forgot Peter's conception because he was too drunk to remember banging Jessica in a closet, and submitted her grown-up son to a ten-minutes lecture about safe sex practices. Matt describes the experience as "horrifying".
• World of No Grandparents: Enforced via car crash, mob hit and vigilantism, making her Peter's only living biological grandparent.

Dorothy Walker

Dorothy Walker

• Foil: To Sister Maggie. Both women are related to Peter and contributed to his parent' difficult past and multiple issues. Where Maggie is somehow forgiven, a biological grandmother and allowed to know Peter, Dorothy is still mistrusted, a legal connection on paper only and kept far away from the boy.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Jessica is so utterly certain Dorothy would emotionally abuse Peter if she ever learnt of his existence, that she refuses to tell the other woman about him.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She knows Jessica fell pregnant and later waived her parental rights off, but she operates under the assumption Jess did it willingly and never tried to find the child afterwards. She's also kept in the dark about Peter being given back to his birth mother.
• Stage Mom: A thoroughly abusive one to Trish, and her becoming a Stage Grandmom to sweet and docile Peter is a possibility Jessica refuses to chance.

Frank Castle

Frank Castle a.k.a. the Punisher

• Badass Normal: In a world of super-soldiers, mecha-suits and god-aliens, Frank is just a well-trained veteran with no reservations for killing. With that said, even by comic book standards he is a One-Man Army who earned his title as "The Punisher." This is best illustrated in Chapter 7 in and made of silk and steel when he managed to knock the Winter Soldier — a heavily-trained, genetically-enhanced HYDRA assassin with decades of experience, an advanced mechanical arm and was able to catch Frank by surprise by shooting the tires out of his truck — unconscious in a fist-fight.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: How Karen tries to present him — for all his murderous strategies, Castle is great with kids and dogs.
• The Dreaded: Very much so.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: With Karen's exception, Hell's Kitchen's heroic community refuses to have anything to do with him. Even Matt — who likes to think they're kind of Friendly Enemy — wants to keep Frank very far from his family.
• Godzilla Threshold: Matt and Jess letting him come over to Hell's Kitchen and explicitly not caring about him blowing someone's head off, as long as he abstains from traumatizing a kid while doing it? That's how far Salinger pushed their Papa Wolf and Mama Bear button.
• Gun Nut: Peter mentions Aunt May didn't like him due to this.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: For all he is a Badass Normal, Frank is keenly aware he's a Badass Normal and as such, his best strategy when facing enhanced people is to run away. So when the Winter Soldier attacks his charge, he decides to bring the kid back to his parents as they're enhanced themselves and can ensure Peter's protection on this front.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Frank takes Peter in, he almost reveals to the little boy that his mother had powers and accidentally cements it into Peter's head the idea that his mom hates powered people by revealing that the man who took him away from her (Kilgrave) was powered himself.
  • Zigzagged when he takes the Winter Soldier down with a taser. On one hand, it left his opponent completely unable to confess who sent him, but on the other it allowed for Bucky to reemerge and assume a protective stance over Peter.
• Papa Wolf: After what happened to his own family, Frank has a thing about children needing protection. Not only did he immediately answered to Karen's plea for him to find and watch over the preteen Peter, Frank fought the Winter Soldier in spite of having barely escaped a car wreck because the assassin was trying to steal the boy.
• Pet the Dog: He's completely okay with Karen asking him to protect and later rescue Peter from a Serial Killer, even assuring he will do his best to avoid killing the scum right in front of the boy because it would traumatize him.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Some people such as Ned think he's cool, but mainly he's to be avoided.

Tessa

Tessa

• Ironic Name: When Peter first found her, her name was "Tinker Bell."
• Kick the Dog: Almost literally. When Tessa's original owners brought her home, their sister quickly noticed that the dog was blind and left the dog out on the street. Considering what New York is like, Matt points out how miraculous it was that Tessa survived up until Peter found her.
• Mythology Gag: She is based off of Tom Holland's real-life pug of the same name.
• Precious Puppy: Though Jessica was reluctant to bring her into their lives, the dog quickly grows on her.

Enemies

Kilgrave

Kilgrave

• Child Hater: Not only did Kilgrave make Jessica give up her newborn son, but Jessica recalls cases of him making children afraid of water go swimming, lock themselves in dark closets when they're afraid of the dark, or make a father leave his child behind just because Kilgrave wants the man to give him a lift.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He's visibly infuriated by Jessica's pregnancy, being proof she had another partner before him, and relishes her confessing Matt isn't around anymore.
• Domestic Abuse: Enslaving the woman he lusted after wasn't enough for him, he forced her to abandon her own baby.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's relegated to a flashback, but he caused the entire plot when he decided letting Jessica keep her son wouldn't do.
• It Is Dehumanising: He constantly calls the unborn Peter a parasite and a bastard, showcasing his Child Hater traits.
• Jealous Parent: His forcing Jessica to give her baby away strongly reeks of insecurity and refusal to let her love anyone else but him, even if he technically never had any kind of familial tie to Peter.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Very strongly implied; where he asked Jessica about "the little bastard's father" being around, Malcolm remembers he looked very much ready to take care of this potential obstacle.
• Wicked Stepfather: Can you do more wicked than force a woman into being your slave, sex and all, and making her abandon her baby just because you refuse to share her and loath kids as a rule?
• Would Hurt a Child: Jessica notes how much Kilgrave hated children and would routinely use his powers to make them hurt themselves whether they were in the way or not. The fact that he had Peter surgically removed from his mother's womb and put up for adoption could be considered him being merciful if Jessica is to be believed.

Salinger

Salinger

• Adaptational Villainy: Amazingly so. In-canon, Salinger was a Serial Killer who killed "frauds" he thinks don't deserve the praise and adulation they receive (or at least that's what he tells everyone) and his hatred for Differently Powered Individuals is nothing more than a by-product of his philosophy and Jessica and Trish's constant meddling. He also preferred to just outright kill them and only expanded his hit list to people who were a direct threat to him. Here, he is full-on anti-enhanced and chooses them as his favorite targets, often choosing their friends and loved ones as their first victims because he knows he can't simply walk-up and kill them like regular people. He also isn't above kidnapping and threatening children, either. Just the fact that Peter's Spider-Sense reacted stronger by his presence alone than when the Winter Soldier tried kidnapping him is a real sign as just how horrible he truly is.
• Bullying a Dragon: He managed to get away with killing superpowered people for a while, but the day he stole Peter Parker was his greatest mistake since it whipped all of New York City's vigilante community into a frenzy.
• Didn't See That Coming: Name-dropped by Jessica, who points that even if Salinger accounted for Peter's maternal family being less than ordinary, he has no way to know the boy's father is Daredevil... and as such is completely unprepared for the vigilante.
• Dirty Coward: Jessica reflects that he goes after the families of enhanced individuals because he knows he couldn't stop them directly.
• Entertainingly Wrong: A brief moment when he understands Peter can sense something wrong with him and wonders if Eric Gelden has fathered the boy.
• Ex-Big Bad: While the conflict of and made of silk and steel starts off with Sallinger as a looming presence before he kidnaps Peter, his role as the main antagonist declines rapidly after Peter managed to escape, being used as a punching bag for Jessica's Mama Bear angst right when Winter Soldier shows up.
• Fantastic Racism: He particularly enjoys hunting and killing superpowered people, seeing them as "cheaters" because of their abilities.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's impeccably polite while threatening Peter with a gun to force Karen to not rescue her godson, and casually insults Jessica in front of her son.
• Muggle Power: Option 2. To him, any and every Differently Powered Individual is a "cheater" unworthy of their abilities and as such ought to be murdered.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: After realizing Jessica would outright kill him for Peter's safety, Salinger praises her devotion to her son.
• Revenge Myopia: Salinger claims that he has grounds to have Peter locked in prison when he winds up getting himself hurt by Peter's runaway strength. Never mind the fact that Peter was his kidnap victim, he did it purely for self-defense and Salinger was intending on hurting him to vent his anger over Jessica.
• Would Hurt a Child: While he only abducted Peter to use as bait to lure out Jessica, after learning what he's capable of and working out that Peter has powers Jessica becomes terrified of the prospect that Salinger will kill Peter himself.

The Winter Soldier

Bucky Barnes a.k.a. The Winter Soldier

• An Arm and a Leg: He lost his left arm and replaced it by a metal prothesis — for which Peter dubs him Edward, after Edward Elric.
• The Dreaded: Everyone in the intelligence community holds him for the boogeyman and frets about gaining his attention. Yes, it includes Black Widow.
• Godzilla Threshold: Just the fact that a well-trained, enhanced cyborg suddenly showed up to kidnap Peter for some conspiratorial purpose is enough reason for Frank to bring Peter back to New York, convinced that as effective as he is in fighting, the safest option is to have the "Peter Protection Squad" around.
• I Want My Mommy!: Heartbreakingly, he can't even remember why the dark-haired woman with the beautiful smile he has fleeting visions of is so important, but he just knows he needs her.
• Knight of Cerebus: It is when Winter Soldier shows up to try and kidnap Peter does the story go from the street-level, Noir-esq level of the Netflix shows to a government conspiracy more at home in the Phase 2 films.
• Licked by the Dog: Seeing him gently petting the Punisher's dog Max is enough to floor Castle and make Peter trust him.
• Outside-Context Problem: Aside from Peter and a brief cameo from Tony and Pepper, the plot is centered exclusively around the Netflix show-characters, so it comes completely out of nowhere when the Winter Soldier shoots the tires out of Frank's truck and fights him, having been sent by Alexander Pierce to kidnap Peter.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: His handler Sitwell is frustrated to note that the Soldier's brainwashing tends to break down around civilian women, the elderly, young kids and pets.
• The Quiet One: He understands what people are saying, but the part that knows how to answer them is missing.
• Would Not Hurt A Child: Word of God claims that even though he wasn't in his right mind at the time, the part of Bucky buried deep inside would rather "be tased in the eye" than allow Pierce to do what he plans on doing to Peter.

Alexander Pierce

Alexander Pierce

• Greater-Scope Villain: As the one giving missions and orders to the Winter Soldier, he's directly responsible for the Super-Soldier attacking Frank Castle and Peter.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: On the paper, sending your most skilled operative to secure a potentially dangerous target makes sense. Unfortunately for Pierce, the Winter Soldier's conditioning completely went on the fritz when he laid eyes on the very sweet, helpless and young Peter. The fact that the instructions left for him explicitly says to keep children away from Bucky lest his brainwashing erodes only enforces the trope.
  • Just by virtue of involving an infamous HYDRA assassin in Peter's kidnapping winds up getting the Avenger's attention, Steve immediately recognizing Bucky when he sees the news footage.
• Would Hurt a Child: Whatever Pierce's plans are for Peter, Bucky (if he were in his right mind) would "rather be tased in the eye" than let it happen.

The Avengers

Iron Man

Anthony "Tony" Stark a.k.a. Iron Man

• Amazon Chaser: His reaction when watching a video of Jessica Jones terrifying a drug dealer into pissing his pants is almost begging her to dominate him.
• Anti-Role Model: Sure, he's a superhero now, but he's also a flaky mess of a human being whose favorite hobbies were partying, womanizing and doing drugs, so Matt and Jess feel a tad wary when Peter declares his admiration for Stark.
• The Engineer: The best in the world. This is also why Peter almost worships him.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Played for Laughs with his traumatized reaction in front of Clint's very unhealthy diet and messy lifetyle.
  • Played for Drama with his horror in front of all the mistreatment Bucky was submitted to by HYDRA. He's also disturbed by Jessica and Matt's obvious mental problems, and by HYDRA's cold assessing of Peter as a potential asset and weapon.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: He took a look at Iron Baby going trick and treating with the Justice League and immediately asked to adopt him. Pepper firmly said no.
• Running Gag: He appeared twice onscreen, and every time he fell victim to a member of the Murdock-Jones family's charm only to be told that no, he couldn't keep them.
• You Killed My Father: Subverted. In spite of learning the Winter Soldier personally murdered Howard and Maria Stark, reading Bucky's files horrified Tony to the point he can't bring himself to hold a grudge.

Pepper Potts

Virginia "Pepper" Potts

• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: No, Tony, you're not allowed to adopt this little kid, his parents would likely disagree. And you're not allowed to drool after this woman, what would her husband say?

Black Widow

Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow

• Cheshire Cat Grin: Tony briefly describes she's got a tiger's smile, right as she's watching a drug dealer being shaken up.
• Evil Laugh: Everyone with sense will hide away when she laughs, because terrible things always happen whenever she does.
• Ms. Exposition: She briefly summarizes that Iron Baby was abducted and that his mother is an enhanced person and currently pissed off for Tony's benefit.
  • She later identifies the Winter Soldier as The Dreaded in the intelligence community for her teammates' benefit.
• Unwanted Assistance: Her idea of helping is to manipulate people's less rational impulses. Rather predictably, no one wants to involve her in their little problems.

Hawkeye

Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye

• Men Can't Keep House: His floor on the Avenger Tower is so bad that even Tony — himself not the most organized or clean — thinks it's too much.
• Must Have Caffeine: His diet involves downing whole pots of black coffee, to his teammates' abject horror.

Captain America

Stephen "Steve" Grant Rogers a.k.a. Captain America

• Disappointed in You: His greatest weapon according his teammates. There's nothing worse than Captain America making a disapproving frown at you.
• Dramatic Drop: Downplayed. Seeing Bucky as a bleeding cyborg assassin involved in a high-speed chase on the road didn't make him drop his plate, but he lets his eggs fall on the floor.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Tony decides to keep him away from the Soviet file on Bucky, since it's really too nightmarish for Steve to read.
• Team Mom: He took a look at Clint's messy floor and diet and decided the archer needed to be mother-henned into behaving a bit more responsibly.

Hulk

Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk

• The Medic: He knows his way about field medicine, enough to give first aid while more qualified help is coming.