"Yes, it's me! Looks like I'm not completely forgotten yet," the girl said, a small, weary smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She pulled out the chair across from him and slumped into it, her movements heavy with a kind of fatigue that went deeper than just a lack of sleep.
"Of course not. I'm just... I'm glad to see you're okay, Jessica. Safe and sound," Rosen replied, making sure to inject just the right amount of genuine surprise into his voice.
Inside, his mind was already a blur of data. He'd been planning to look into her eventually, but the universe had a funny way of throwing curveballs when he least expected them.
Jessica Campbell. To the old Rosen—the one whose memories were currently integrated with his own—she was just a girl from high school. They'd been in the same grade until their sophomore year. Back in the tenth grade, Jessica had been the victim of a horrific car accident during a family trip. It was the kind of tragedy that made the local news for a week and then faded into a grim statistic. She was the sole survivor; her parents and brother hadn't made it.
The rumor mill at school had been brutal. The last anyone had heard, she was in a deep coma, with doctors whispering the word "vegetable" to anyone who would listen. The original Rosen had moved on, graduated, and struggled with his own mediocre life, eventually forgetting the quiet girl from the first echelon of his class.
But the new Rosen? The transmigrator who had spent his previous life absorbing every piece of Marvel lore he could find? He saw someone else. He saw Jewel. He saw the Knightress. He saw the future street-level powerhouse and private investigator: Jessica Jones.
The Multiverse Glitch
As Rosen watched her pull a loose thread on her leather jacket, he felt a familiar headache coming on—the "Multiverse Headache."
Based on the news reports he'd seen of Tony Stark's high-flying lifestyle and the overall aesthetic of New York, he had been almost certain he was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), technically designated as Earth-199999. But there was a glaring inconsistency sitting right in front of him. In the MCU series, her name was Jessica Jones from the start. Here, she had started as a Campbell. That was a detail straight out of the Earth-616 comics.
Is this a hybrid universe? he wondered.
He thought back to the meta-knowledge from his old life. Before he transmigrated, the "Sacred Timeline" had become a bit of a mess. There was Earth-199999, the pristine film universe where Loki died at Thanos's hand. Then there was the post-Avengers: Endgame reality, where Loki escaped with the Tesseract, went to the Time Variance Authority (TVA), and essentially became the God of Stories, weaving a new "Sacred Timeline" often referred to as Universe 616 in films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Rosen realized that since he was a variable—a transmigrator with a Warcraft-based "cheat" system—his very presence probably made this universe a unique branch. It didn't matter if it was the "Sacred" one or not. What mattered was the girl sitting across from him. He wondered if her mother, Alisa, was still out there in some secret laboratory, or if this world followed the more tragic comic route.
The Reality of the "American Dream"
"It sounds like you heard what happened to me," Jessica said, her voice dropping an octave as she stared into the depths of her own coffee cup. "I guess I'm pretty lucky. At least I'm not stuck in a hospital bed with a tube in my throat. The only downside is that I'll be graduating a year behind you."
"Hey, it could be worse," Rosen said, leaning back and trying to keep the mood light. He gave a self-deprecating shrug. "At least you still have a shot at college. I'm officially a high school grad with zero prospects. Turns out, colleges aren't exactly lining up to recruit academic slackers like me."
He wasn't lying. The original Rosen had been a disaster in the classroom—a complete waste of what people stereotyptically called an "Asian brain." He'd spent more time daydreaming about being a hero than actually studying to be a doctor or a lawyer. The current Rosen had no intention of changing that "slacker" reputation. It was a perfect cover. A guy who can't pass a basic calculus test isn't the first person the FBI suspects of robbing a high-security vault.
Jessica gave a dry, raspy laugh. "No college offers? That's their loss, honestly. I think you'll do just fine without a degree. Truth is... I don't think I'm going either."
Rosen blinked, playing along. "Wait, why? I remember your grades being solid. You were always in the top tier."
In his memories, Jessica had been smart—not just "passable," but genuinely bright. He'd always assumed she skipped college because of the "Purple Man" incident that would eventually shatter her life, but maybe the reasons were more grounded.
The Debt Trap
"The accident changed a lot of things," Jessica explained, her fingers tracing the rim of her cup. "The doctors told me the trauma might have... stimulated a nerve. Or something. My emotions are a total mess now. I'm on medication just to keep from snapping at people. My grades dipped to 'average' while I was recovering, so a scholarship is off the table."
She sighed, looking out the window at the morning commute. "I'm staying with an adoptive family now. The Joneses. They're nice enough, and they're well-off, but you know how it is in this country. College isn't a gift; it's a mortgage you wear around your neck."
Rosen nodded slowly. He understood the math all too well. In America, higher education was less of a ladder and more of a debt trap. Even a "cheap" public university could run you $20,000 a year in tuition alone. Once you factored in the inflated cost of textbooks, the "student health insurance" racket, and the predatory prices of on-campus housing, you were looking at $40,000 to $50,000 a year.
For a private school? You might as well just hand over your firstborn. The total cost could easily hit $100,000 annually.
"Unless you're coming from old money or you're a genius with a full ride, you're looking at decades of student loans," Rosen noted. "The interest alone is enough to drown a person."
He recalled the statistics from his mental library. Before he transmigrated, U.S. student loan debt had ballooned into a $1.3 trillion bubble. It had surpassed car loans and credit card debt to become the second-largest financial burden on the American public, right behind mortgages. People were still paying off their Bachelor's degrees while their own kids were starting middle school.
"Exactly," Jessica said, her jaw tightening. "The Joneses have been great to me, but I'm not their blood. I'm not going to ask them to drop a quarter-million dollars on a degree I might not even finish if I have another 'episode.' I'd rather just start working. It's easier to just... exist, I guess. Oh, and I go by Jessica Jones now. Jones is their name, and it felt right to leave the 'Campbell' part of me in the wreckage."
The Military Connection
So, the name change had happened. She was officially Jessica Jones. But Rosen was more interested in her mention of "unstable emotions" and "medication."
He knew better than any doctor in New York what was really happening to her. In both the comics and the show, her powers weren't just a miracle—they were a side effect. The car accident had involved a collision with a military transport. It wasn't just hauling cargo; it was carrying experimental chemicals, likely linked to the Super Soldier Serum.
Ever since Captain America went into the ice during World War II, the U.S. government had been obsessed with recreating the "perfect man." The Military, S.H.I.E.L.D., the CIA, and even the FBI all had their own black-budget labs trying to cook up the next Steve Rogers.
Rosen's mind drifted to General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. The man was a zealot for the serum, and the recent "Hulk" incident in Virginia—the one that had left a trail of destruction and a very green scientist on the run—was still fresh in the news.
If Jessica had been doused in a derivative of that research, it was no wonder her emotions were a mess. She was a walking, talking biological weapon who didn't know she had the strength to punch through a brick wall.
"I'm sorry, Jessica," Rosen said softly, and for once, he wasn't acting. "You've had a hell of a road. If you ever need... well, anything. If things get too loud in your head, you can find me."
Jessica looked at him, her eyes searching his for a moment before she gave a small, genuine nod. "Thanks, Rosen. I might just take you up on that."
She stood up, pulling her jacket tight. "I've got to get going. The Joneses expect me back before the morning rush really hits. It was... it was actually really good to see a familiar face that doesn't look at me with pity."
"Anytime," Rosen said, watching her walk out.
As the bell on the coffee shop door chimed, Rosen turned back to his sourdough roll. He had a lot to do. He needed Vibranium, he needed a workshop, and now, he had a future superhero on his radar.
The Marvel Universe was moving fast, but with 380 million dollars and a brain full of Goblin Engineering, Rosen intended to move faster.