Working Together
is a fanfic for The Defenders written by raise_a_glass.
Set some time after the events of The Defenders, the fic focuses on Danny Rand in the weeks after the heroes' defeat of the Hand at Midland Circle, as the other Defenders and their allies decide to help him and Colleen Wing through their mental issues.
Working Together provides examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: While the overall events of The Defenders are unchanged, the heroes' return from Midland Circle is changed in that Jessica knocked Matt out to keep him from chasing Elektra into the tunnels. This is done primarily so that Matt can participate in the action.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Matt and Jessica discuss how an outsider might explain away Danny's more bizarre ramblings and K'un-L'un.Matt Murdock: K'un Lun just being an extremely isolated village founded centuries ago by religious pilgrims seems a much more plausible explanation than it being located in a neighboring dimension only occasionally accessible through a time-sensitive dimensional gate. And those bones under Midland Circle? Undiscovered dinosaur, maybe? But the Hand could raise the dead. We know that to be fact. Almost anything seems possible in light of that impossibility. So who knows? Maybe Danny really did fight a dragon. Maybe K'un Lun really is a mystical city in another dimension.
Jessica Jones: Or he's just crazy.
Matt Murdock: Or he's just... psychologically troubled. - Berserk Button: The moment Colleen and Claire mention Davos' boasting about sexually assaulting Danny, Jessica looks ready to go out and murder him, being increasingly reminded of Kilgrave. Matt has to stop her to remind her to not act rash and impulsive:Matt Murdock: I know you're upset. We all are, and I know it strikes a particularly painful nerve for you. But we need to stay level-headed if we're going to help Danny. We can't go off half-cocked and just start murdering people, especially since we don't know all the facts. It's still possible that he was flat-out lying. Or there could be an element of truth that he was exaggerating to make it sound worse. Or it could even be that things did happen between them but they were completely consensual. We don't know yet.
- Chance Meeting Between Antagonists: Tracing Davos' movements, Matt and Jessica find him shacked up in a fancy Manhattan hotel. Of course, they've barely had time to inspect the lobby before they end up encountering Madame Gao.
- Continuity Nod:
- Jessica mentions to Matt how Joy once hired her to dig up dirt on the Rand board members.
- Some of Danny's first interactions with Colleen are brought up when Colleen reaches out to Luke and Claire for help.
- Ward mentions to Danny the hallucinations he had of blood and King's severed head when he's informed of Danny's hallucinations.
- Dark and Troubled Past / Dysfunction Junction: Jessica and Matt lampshade the fact that they, Luke, and Danny all seem to share the common bond of having troubled backstories.
- Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Harold did use his belt on Ward when Ward was a child.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Ward and Joy mention that they feel Danny has been way too easy on them for drugging him and throwing him in Birch Psychiatric.
- Colleen is still not completely over how the others tied up Danny and that led to him getting captured, but figures that since Danny has been willing to forgive them, she should be able to do the same.
- Faking the Dead: Because Joy's encounter with Davos is placed after the events of Midland Circle, Madame Gao was able to do this.
- Ignored Vital News Reports: When Ward mentions Danny's time at Birch Psychiatric to Matt and Jessica, Matt admits he hadn't been paying too much attention to the news at the time due to still processing Elektra's death at the time. He also realizes internally that he hasn't gotten around yet to looking up Danny's and Luke's backgrounds, having only looked into Jessica based on Foggy's files.
- Never Found the Body: Madame Gao made it out of Midland Circle. When Matt and Jessica cross paths with her, she makes remarks that hint that hint to Matt that Elektra may have gotten out too, even without him staying behind to stop her. And Murakami might be still around too.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Ward remarks how he and Danny have similar abuse stories, especially with Harold justifying his abuse as being part of grooming Ward to run Rand, while the abuse Danny endured came from being groomed to be the Iron Fist.
- Oh, Crap!: For Matt and Jessica, when they cross paths with Madame Gao in the lobby of the Lotte hotel.
- Parental Favoritism: Ward said in Iron Fist that Harold had "always been a bastard to him". Here, he elaborates: Harold once punched him a few times in the gut for getting a B on a math test. In typical abuser fashion, Harold never left bruises where they would show, and he never laid a hand on Joy, or did any of the abuse in front of her, which is why she had such a hard time understanding how things were with Ward when she first found out that Harold was alive. Joy had always been Harold's little princess. He never showed her his ugly side.
- Poor Communication Kills: Miscommunication means that it often takes some time for information to get relayed from one person to another. Especially when everyone's trying hard not to upset Danny in his fragile state.
- Rape as Backstory: Davos strongly implies that he molested Danny when he drops by the dojo as Colleen is discussing Danny's mental health with Luke and Claire.Davos: When someone is so desperate for a friendly face, so lonely for some human companionship, they can be quite... malleable to the person willing to provide it. Tell me, Colleen, does he still get that faraway, glazed look in his eyes after he comes?
- Retcon: For the purposes of the narrative, the scene in the epilogue Iron Fist where Davos approaches Joy at the cafe in Paris is set after the climax of The Defenders.
- Right Behind Me: Davos makes his introduction by dropping into Colleen's dojo while Colleen is discussing Danny's issues with Luke and Claire.Claire Temple: It makes absolute sense that if the hallucinations are coming from complex PTSD that they would be tied to the trauma that caused it. [beat] Davos is Lei Kung’s son, right? I remember him telling me once that "a weapon doesn’t know feelings." That's the kind of brutal training that guy was dishing out.Davos: That's an awfully rude thing to say about my father. He's a great man.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Ward has kept secret for a while that he's known about Danny's hallucinations.Danny Rand: How... how did you know?
Ward Meachum: [scoffs] Please. It's not that hard to guess when you know the signs, especially when you've lived some of them yourself. And she didn't give me any details, but I know you told Joy a little bit about growing up in K'un Lun and her demeanor when it's mentioned is pretty telling. But probably one of the biggest tells is that you said he's the one you hallucinate about most often. People don't hallucinate about happy things, Danny. Not when they're trauma-induced hallucinations, anyway. - Scapegoat: While Joy heard out Davos, he tried to blame everything that happened to Harold on Danny. But Joy refused to be swayed by this, aware with time away from New York that Harold made his own choices.
- The Spook: Davos isn't from a civilized country, so he has no ID or driver's license to work on. Danny has to go back through the security footage from Harold's penthouse to find a still of Davos that Jessica can utilize.
- Suspicious Spending: The fact that Davos, a K'un Lun native, is staying in a pretty fancy Manhattan hotel, tells Jessica that someone is probably paying him. Matt and Jessica learn in the most awkward way possible that Madame Gao is the one bankrolling Davos.
- Training from Hell: The training that Danny was put through in K'un-L'un, of course. Joy continues to harbor reservations about what descriptions Danny has given her of K'un-L'un. Matt realizes with hindsight that Stick's training was basically a fraction of what Danny went through.
- You Are Not Alone: The rest of the Defenders and their allies are there to tell Danny that they're there for him. Ward says this line verbatim when relating his own hallucinations to Danny. Luke says it later on.
