Chapter Text
Marcus walks into the last drop and is hit with a sense of wrongness.
There's a little girl by the counter with hair as blue as - as whose? But he’s careful not to engage the girl because… because… she’s contagious? But not in a diseased way. In a-
‘Now, now you wouldn’t want to jinx yourself, would you?’ Silco chuckled without humour.
Jinx. Jinx .
Who the heck is - oh.
Marcus swore under his breath as he saw the man step out of the shadows like a dramatic sonofabitch, deceptively scrawny and lithe in form but his footsteps- It felt like he remembered his footsteps. Commanding when he demanded respect and attention. Utterly inaudible otherwise.
The man introduces himself as Silco.
Marcus had never thought he’d feel fear from the voice of a man alone. A thin and near-muscleless man at that.
And his eyes. Not just the deformed and glowing red one. The fully functioning eye looked at him like he was pinning him like paper to a corkboard, sadistically pushing in push-pin after pin with every calculated word and action that oozed from the man. From Silco.
Silco proposed a collaboration and offered information. Marcus skeptically criticised the unlikelihood that literal children were the only culprits behind a building explosion.
Silco said-
Grayson had been trying to placate the council and get them to ease up on the Undercity-wide search. And Marcus got so so so angry at the thought of being trapped by the kingpin of Zaun again (again?). Zaun .
Where the hell did Zaun come from?
And now his mind is putting two and two together; Silco and this blue twin-pig tailed braids jester-esque thing seated before him. He felt the light chime of bells ringing through his ears - or was it bullet shells? Or the flapping of metal butterfly wings -
He’s - oh shit he’s dead. He died . She killed him. Jinx had - Oh wait, fuck, did Silco know? Was that intentional?
Was he being trapped again?
“What can I get you?”
Marcus pauses at Vander’s voice.
Right. The kids. He nods over to the lieutenant behind him.
“Two sump rats.” Marcus feels the world spinning under his feet.
Vander frowns grimly, glancing at Jinx , in child form, sitting daintily next to Marcus while he looses his shit.
“Well, I’ll get you something to drink while you waste your time.”
Vander pours Marcus a drink and somehow his brain manages to completely dissociate his current crisis of realisation and his stubborn insistence on spitting on Vander - the Hound of the Underground - without actually involving spitted fluids.
Marcus chokes on his drink and uses every ounce of self control within himself, every bit of his training in the force to steel himself and refrain from plain staring at the little girl (and keeping all fluids in his mouth) or run the fuck away in fear because that’s all she is right now - a little girl. She’s not the same psychotic homicidal menace she was in the future -
He was…in the past…? Did he time-travel? What the hell? Or was he resurrected? He can’t even come back to life without being played by Silco again?
“Must be some strong stuff, huh?” The kid smiles at him but her grin is far more sinister and sadistic than any child should ever have. Marcus all but collapses onto the barstool in horror. “I’ve always wanted a taste,” she turns to Vander and her poison-tipped dagger for a smile melts into something more genuine and - was the kid always like this or does she -? How does Vander even know this kid?
“Just a little bit. Can I, Vander? Please?”
The burly man huffs with a laugh. “You’ll get your first sip when you can reach the shelf.” Jinx rolls her eyes as her attention returns to Marcus.
Marcus slams his glass onto the counter when his hands begin to tremble at the attention.
The kid is grinning. Again. The same one she used to give him whenever he passed her in this same room like she knew that Silco, the fucker, had just pushed Marcus further under his boot like a leashed cockroach using nothing but an unspoken threat of the one big fuck-up that haunted him for the rest of his life.
A fuck-up that hasn’t happened yet.
He could…yeah that works actually.
Marcus dares to glance at the murder-child-to-be who was also one hell of an arms and explosives manufacturer. He isn’t sure if it's his memories hitting him like a brick that’s giving him this massive headache or if it's his brain short circuiting from what he’s planning to say.
“Have you uhh-” Marcus sniffs and rubs his fist across his nose nervously, “you ever considered the Academy before? Kid?” Marcus winces at the sheer awkwardness of his question. Not smooth at all, literally came out of nowhere. Shittiest attempt to thwart the homicidal part of her future homicidal-engineer shtick.
The kid freezes at the question before her expression is sublimed to a heated glare. “You here to investigate a crime or be a pedo-creep picking up undercity kids?” She all but directly spits into Marcus’ face. At least they’re all on the same page about mouth fluids.
“Now now, Pow. I’m sure the good officer didn’t mean anything by it,” Vander intervenes, dropping his guise of clean-freak barman to peer down at Marcus, “Just making small talk while your enforcers ransack my establishment, no?”
Marcus refuses to keel to Vander’s intimidation, holding his head up. He’s not the same man he was. He was the current division 4 captain - the specific captain rank that also entailed being the sheriff successor-in-training - not the pathetic desperate man he was under Silco. Marcus was still clean.
“Just small talk,” Marcus agrees stiffly before adding, “guess I should’ve known better than to try be nice to gutter rats.”
With impeccable timing, his enforcer steps out of the backrooms and sends a shake of his head to Marcus. The enforcer steps towards Marcus motioning towards Jinx. Vander leans menacingly in protectiveness.
“Not this one, sir?”
Marcus contemplates it. The lives he’d save if he could just lock this kid away forever. He could save himself the troub- God he could save himself . He wouldn't have to die this time round and leave Ren all alone.
Ren!
Ren , his life, his world - his daughter. How could he -? How could she not have been the first thing he remembered when she was the very reason he woke up every single day?
Jinx raises her head from the counter, eyes locking with Marcus in silent confrontation.
And Marcus’ resolve crumbles.
He always remembered the kid having bluer eyes, but right now under this light in this moment he sees the specific grey-blues of the love of his life and Marcus could never do something so horrible to Ren.
And he hates that he understands and empathises with Silco for covering up for Jinx every single time she commits murder for fun. Or by sick madness.
“No,” he garbled out, “Stay off the streets, kid.” He says before barking at his junior enforcers to gather and clear off from the building.
“Will do, Mr Marcus!” Jinx calls just as he pulls away from the counter.
His stomach drops. He didn’t give the kid his name .
“It’s-“ he stutters. “It’s captain,” the correction comes out weak.
Jinx’s grin falls and that’s enough for both of them to come to the same conclusion.
“On second thought, a kid like you would probably know more about stuff like this right?”
“She’s not the kid you’re looking for, captain .” Vander all but pulls Marcus away from Jinx by his scruff.
“She’s not.” Marcus swallows but his throat is still dry. Hurriedly, he empties his holster onto the bar counter; gun, baton, cuffs - ah fuck it. He throws the whole thing onto the counter.
Instinctively, Marcus points to the second floor. Jinx doesn’t miss the way he hurriedly points away from where an office would’ve been, to a secluded enough table by the railings that left them in Vander’s view but not close enough where they could be heard.
“I just want to talk.”
“That’s how it always starts with pedos.” Jinx frowns.
“I’m not a-“ Marcus screams silently, “I have a baby. I’m not-“
“Then why are you hunting down a bunch of kids?”
“Look, I’m not happy that I have to go around the undercity on a wild goose chase for a bunch of kids who should be in school. But it’s my job and I don’t have a choice,” Marcus ignores the prickling of eyes from Vander and the rest of the bar who were half raised in their seats, ready to pounce on him.
“The way I see it,” Vander’s voice is a low growl, “you have the choice to walk away and leave my kid alone.”
“Your kid?” Marcus pauses to glance at Jinx who studies him with a blank expression.
“Adopted. Don’t mind the hair colour difference.”
Marcus really needs to sit down. First he’s dead then he’s alive and back in time and now Jinx is Vander’s daughter and he’s eighty percent sure she’s a time traveler too.
“Look kid, this is more than just the building blowing up and I have a strong feeling you know it too,” Marcus turns to Jinx despite Vander’s glare.
“We can save everyone a lot of time and pain if you just give me ten minutes of your time to point me in the right direction.”
Marcus locks into Jinx’s gaze as he emphasises his words.
Vander slams his fist against the counter and swiftly walks out from behind it. He places a crushing grip on Marcus’ shoulder, pulling him towards the door. “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome-“
“Ten minutes.” Jinx interrupts, moving fluidly as she slips off the barstool and pulls Marcus away from Vander by his sleeve.
“Powder-“
“ Relax , Vander! I’ll be fine,”
Despite sounding like a sweet little girl, Jinx somehow always manages to have eyes like a predator.
“Do you’ve got a timer?” Jinx swings her legs, arms crossed and already bored.
Marcus sighs.
“I met your old man earlier today.”
Jinx shrugs, eyes trailing downstairs to meet Vander’s watchful gaze. “Yeah, I was right there next to Vander, dumbass.”
He rolls his eyes. “Freaky-eyed, dramatic as fuck and can’t stop going on about the revolution? Ring any bells?”
That gets her attention by the way she glanced up at Marcus and feigns indifference. Marcus feels a migraine coming.
“Funny thing is, yesterday I kept getting these visions of Sheriff Grayson being dead. And then I met this guy that promises to help me get a promotion as long as I get Vander to him. But today, I walk in here and see you and I suddenly have memories from the fucking future. And I distinctly remember you being the reason I died on the bridge. Any thoughts, Jinx? Or are we going to keep on wasting each others’ time?”
Jinx keeps at the silent treatment for a good minute. Marcus has always been an impatient man by nature - but being forced to learn patience living under Silco’s shoe for almost a decade was one perk of getting hit by the truckload of memories from the future.
They wait in silence and finally Jinx caves.
“Can you not be so obvious about it? You literally looked like a nut job back there. And asking about the Academy was real fucking dumb,” Jinx drones tonelessly.
“There’s only ever been two Zaunites who got into the Academy and one of them had to help create Hextech so no one would question his fake acceptance papers.”
Marcus scoffs at that. “Never knew that Viktor cheated his way in. Didn’t expect that - seemed like a decent guy.”
Jinx glares at that. “He didn’t. He got a full score on the entrance test and impressed Heimerdinger in the interview. But the Piltie secretary deleted his name off the list when she saw that he didn’t have a surname .”
“Touchy subject - sorry,” Marcus offers the olive branch. “Didn’t know you and Viktor knew each other.”
Jinx taps at the table absently. “He patched me up a few times. Became a doctor in Zaun way after the whole-“ Jinx glances at Marcus, “long after your bridge thing.”
“Nice of you to remember that I don’t have a point of reference from after I die.”
Jinx’s lips twitch into a small smile. “No problem.”
“Now,” Marcus clears his throat, “since we’ve both confirmed that we’re time-travelers, I really did want to talk to you about what we should do about two days from now. If I’m counting it right.”
Jinx scrunches her eyebrows. “ We ?”
“You did catch the part back there where I was trying to say that we can save everybody, right?”
Jinx is silent again and Marcus starts to miss the snarky teenager that ran her mouth a mile a minute saying nothing and everything.
“What if we don’t change anything?”
Marcus blanches.
“I falsely imprisoned your sister for seven years. You do remember that, right? And I’m guessing Vander, your current dad , should be someone you’d want to keep alive?”
“You say that as if we have a choice. We’re not God .”
“No, but we can do something to change the circumstances leading up to their deaths- why on earth wouldn’t you want to do something? Silco ruined your life and you-“
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
Marcus raises his palms in surrender. “Okay, bad wording. He was the cause of several deaths of individuals close to you at this age. He withheld psychiatric treatment from you when you became his legal ward, he allowed you to be his arms manufacturer and explosives engineer - do I have to keep on listing? I hope you realise that child endangerment is also a crime.”
Jinx sighs deeply. “I would’ve kept at the bombs even if he told me to stop. And he didn’t know better about the psychiatric stuff - almost nobody in Zaun even knows that mental illness is a treatable thing. Sevika had it covered anyways.”
“Yeah, because I covered up for her regularly faking prescriptions for you.”
Jinx’s index finger continues to tap at the wooden table top.
“What do you want, Marcus? I’m pretty sure you’re not here to grill me about sticking to Sil all those years.”
Marcus frowns. “But you’re sticking to him even now, kid.”
“Not a kid.”
“You’re twenty at most.”
Jinx scoffs. “I was twenty-four, asshole.”
They sit in a moment of silence.
“You’re seriously not going to do anything?”
Jinx scratches at the wood grains. “The kid you’re looking for has blonde hair and one eye. About eighteen-ish. If you don’t hurry, you’ll be arresting a shimmer mutant instead.”
“Oh,” Jinx’s eyes widen suddenly, “and manners. How’s Ren?”
If the kid didn’t look too tired for a young body, Marcus would’ve laughed at the childish instinct.
“Three months old now. She’s learnt to smack me in the face whenever she wants to hear her music box.” Marcus offers, although his heart is warm at the thought of his daughter, his tone is as cold as ever whenever Silco used to ask him the same question.
Jinx nods. “That’s cute. And you still live- oh ,” she interrupts herself again. “Your apartment is across the building that I exploded.”
Marcus presses his lips, holding back a scowl. “She was alone at home when it happened. I always hated you and your sister for it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Marcus manages a shrug. “It happened a long time ago.”
“It was two days ago.”
He suddenly feels so exhausted. Jinx throws him a look of pity.
“Look I’m tired too, okay? No rest for the wicked, Marcus.”
“Kids like you should be in school.”
“And whose fault is that?” Jinx wonders aloud, somehow without malice. She suddenly reaches for her pouch, unclipping it and sliding it towards him at an odd angle.
“Careful- unrefined hexcrystals. Give them back to Viktor or the Golden-Boy for me, will ya’?”
Marcus stares dumbly at the pouch of highly explosive orbs on the table, obscured only by his cap and the weird way that Jinx generally stands.
“Anyways, ten minutes is waaay over up. I’ll see you around, Mr Marcus.” She taps on the table twice before skipping away, pattering down the stairs. Vander tugs her into a side hug as he looks her over.
“It’s sheriff, brat.” Marcus mutters under his breath.
Marcus takes a moment to collect himself before dragging his feet to the counter to gather his things.
“I’ll be back for you, kid. Stay off the god-damn streets.” He says to Jinx who sips on a glass of kid-juice without acknowledging him.
Vander glares at him the whole way down to the bar’s doors.
He feels like a ghost.
Vi’s heart trips over itself as Vander bursts into the living room.
“Are you all okay?”
Vi drops to the floor below with a grunt. When she looks up its with narrowed eyes. “Where’s Powder? What the hell, Vander - why didn’t you hide her? They could have took her!”
‘What would Dad say?’ her inner voice feels like an arrow to her chest.
“No one is taking any of you. I’d never let that happen.”
“It’s already happening! Where is my sister , Vander?”
Powder peeps her head into the doorway. “Vi, calm down, I was just in the hallway.”
In an instant, Vi is running up the steps and shoving past Vander to clip her sister between her arms.
“ Janna . God-” Vi melts as soon as Powder is secure within her arms. “Are you- Did he beat you up?” Vi studies the bruise on Powder’s forehead.
‘Blood from-?’
‘Mom was bleeding too,’
Mom’s dead-
“Wait no- that was from the town meeting right?”
“Vi,” Powder mutters, “I’m fine . He just wanted to talk.”
Vi stiffens at that, her heart running a kilometer a second. “But you heard him - he’s coming back. He said he’s coming back for you .”
“Vander,” Vi turns to the man, the room growing colder by the second, “if I can’t even trust you to keep my sister safe how can we trust you to protect the Lanes?” Vander looks wounded at that.
“They won’t stop. We need to fight back !” Vi slams her fist into the wall, the wooden boards creaking.
“And if you won’t, I will.”
Vander’s somehow still unphased. “I had it under control, Vi -”
“You so did fucking not! You let that captain put a target on my kid sister , Vander! She’s a kid - we shouldn’t have to live in fear of enforcers. She deserves better- we all do and if you won’t help me then get out of my way!”
Vander pauses with a sigh. “I’ve heard his kind of talk before.”
“Pull your hood on. Walk with me.”
“No,” Vi bristles, “this is a now problem and we should be addressing it here. Not- I’m not walking this one off.”
Vi glares up at Vander from the doorframe. “Did you know that they have medicine up there for her? There’s a way to cure- Please let me help my sister.” Vi’s voice wavers.
Powder shifts uncomfortably. Mylo and Claggor aren't even discrete about the staring.
“I’m not asking you to walk it off, Vi,” Vander gives her that look again like he’s about to tell her to breathe and sit because she’ll faint again- she won’t faint it was a one time thing, she’s just mad-
“I’m asking you to calm down so that we can talk this through.”
Vi simmers in thought.
Powder sighs loudly. “Can you not be so hotheaded for a second and just hear him out?”
She threw a chair over Powder’s head when she was four-
Vi feels her anger dissipate in that moment.
“Yeah- I can-” Vi breathes deeply, “Let’s go.” She pulls her hood and walks away into the bar.
Her fists feel white-hot when she unclenches them.
Jinx was annoyed. Sometimes she thinks that if she cross-sections Vi’s head, all she’ll see is a tiny goblin dancing around a bonfire.
“Great job, Pow - Thanks to you and your cuck-oo ,” Mylo whistles, twirling his index finger round his temple, “-Vi and Vander are fighting.”
Claggor makes a grunt of disapproval. “Stop it, Mylo. It’s not her fault she’s born with it.”
Jinx, using her maturity as an adult in a 9-year-old body, aptly responds by flipping Mylo off.
“Where’s Little Man?” Claggor turns to skim across the room.
“Here,” comes the weak response from behind the sofa.
Claggor stalks over to Little Man who is crouching behind the sofa’s backboard, rubbing at his temples. “Hey, man - what’s up with you?”
“I’onno,” he mumbles, “head hurts. Mayb’ Vi broke my eardrum.”
“Does it still hurt-?”
Jinx blinks away the sudden memory because gross gross gross they’re kids.
Claggor hums, patting at Little Man’s head gently. “You should get some rest. Powder’ll walk you back to Benzo’s.”
Jinx scowls. “When did I agree to go?”
“Come on, Pow. You want him walking alone like this?” Claggor gives her a warning frown. Jinx groans but walks towards the two of them anyways to help drag Little Man to his feet.
“Fine.”
Mylo tries to jab at her side as she walks past.
“I thought you guys are best buddies. What gives?”
Ekko sniffs dramatically as Jinx pulls the little shit upwards. “She’s mad at me for spilling about Vander’s deal with the enforcers.”
“What? No I’m not.” Jinx blinks.
Mylo sneers. “The fact that you hid it in the first place kind of makes you look pro-Piltie. Or a scaredy-cat. ”
“I’m not ,” Jinx glares back. “I’m not even mad at Little Man- Weren’t you the one just giving me shit about making Vi and Vander fight? This is exactly why I didn’t wanna say anything.”
“Didn’t have to, clearly ,” Mylo scoffs. “Seriously, you mess up everything. You’re such a-”
“-jinx.”
JINX-!
She flinches hard at the double whammy.
“Ouch! Dude , you made my head worse!” Little Man whines from the floor where Jinx had head-butted him.
“You okay, Little Man-?”
“Awh man, look what you-”
“SHUT UP!” Jinx screams, throwing her fist against her head.
It’s quiet again. Jinx sighs, crumpling to the floor.
“Powd-” Claggor starts but Jinx slams her palms against her ears.
“ Powder! ”The voice is closer.
She pushes her hands further into the head, sharp pain registering at the bottom of her scalp. She hoped that her brain would start fixating on that instead of making up voices of her dead foster brothers in her head.
Then someone tries to pry her hands away- Sevika really had to mind her own business. Jinx could handle this. She just needs a second and if Sev could just take the hint and let her breathe for a minute, everything would be back under control before Sil walks in and makes a thing out of this. And she’s heard his stupid trauma-bonding rant too many times to count.
But she took too long and now his bony hand grasps at her shoulder-
She gasps and latches onto Silco, only to fall over into a tangled mess of limbs. There’s a small bony hand pressed onto her face clumsily.
‘That’s not Silco-’ Jinx rolls over onto the floor, shoving Ekko aside and scampering for the nearest thing she could climb onto.
She lays on the lowest rafter beam, shrouded in darkness and dust.
“Now my head really really hurts.” Ekko whines.
Jinx sneezes.
Claggor smacks Mylo in the chest mildly. “Ow?”
Claggor settles onto the couch with his head in his hands.
“I am not qualified for this.”
Mylo wordlessly pulls Ekko off the ground and nudges the boy onto the single sofa before plopping himself down by Claggor’s side.
Jinx sneezes again.
“You’ll get sick.” Mylo says, uncharacteristically toneless.
They hear a garbled sound that resembles a muttered ‘good’.
Claggor sighs his soul out of his body. “We can’t afford to get sick right now. I don’t think anyone in town is going to be selling Vander’s kids any meds anytime soon.”
After a minute and a thud, Jinx trudges over to Mylo and Claggor’s bunk beds - on the farthest side of the room sofa from the three boys - kicks off her shoes, steps onto the worn cushion and slumps into the sheets, her face smothered into the old cloth.
They sit in silence, waiting for Vi and Vander to return.
Jinx sneezes into the mattress.
Claggor cringes and moves to pull Ekko into a piggy-back hold. “You know what? I’ll take him to Benzo’s. I’ll be back in twenty.”
If Marcus already felt shitty after his conversation with Jinx, and the trek through the undercity back to the station made him feel worse because even if Silco was a drug-lord, he was also an industrialist, and undercity crime-rates had somehow been lower when he was around-
Then standing at attention as he word-vomited out his report to Sheriff Grayson made him feel like a pile of stinking doo-doo (as Ren would later pick up from his frequent cover-up swearing at home).
“What were you thinking? Going into The Last Drop!” Grayson shoves Marcus, frustrated.
She raises her index finger to point angrily between his eyes.“ Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I was-” Marcus drags his palm across his face, as if that would somehow scrub off his own frustration.
“Look - you wouldn't even believe me if I told you but you’ve got to hear me out. I’ve got a lead and we can close this case tonight if we go back down and look for a guy with one eye and also the kid with one-”
“You're a fool. There’s no stopping what happens now.”
On cue, the messenger tube lands into Grayson’s personal basket with a thwink .
Her eyes widen at the sound, turning abruptly to the basket.
“Maybe it’s not too late.”
When this was over, Marcus was going to take the fattest nap. And then he’ll wake up and think of ways to make Silco’s life in Stillwater worse than hell.
When Vi comes home and hands her the bunny rabbit toy with steady hands, Jinx braces for the incoming wave.
Her fingers brush over the dried blood by her ears.
“What hap-?” Vi swallows the question with a sigh. She tidies Jinx’s hair as best as she can before pressing her forehead against her little sister’s.
Vi sighs as she locks Jinx into her gaze. Her eyes burn silently, almost glistening. She whispers, voice reserved only for Jinx.
“I know I’ve not always been a good sister-,” Vi starts and Jinx’s stomach drops from the deviation.
‘What makes you different makes you-’
“-and I hope you understand that the anger- this ,” Vi brings her dry blood-stained knuckles up for display, “this is the only way I know how to protect us. A-and I know you’re too young to remember when Dad used to throw his bottles at the wall whenever he- and I’m not trying to pass off the blame I swear-” Vi winces, breaking the almost-sacred eye contact for a second.
“Dad worked himself to death in the mines to put food on the table. He loved us, never hit us even when he was at his worst- and Mom fought on the bridge for a chance at a better life for us-
“What I’m trying to say is-” Vi presses their foreheads together harder.
“I’m going away for a long time - to fix this mess that I made. And I swear the moment I get out, I’ll come and find you.” Vi leans away, pulling a familiar metal tube from her jacket and places it into Jinx’s hands.
She drops it on the mattress, the cold metal leaving invisible burn marks on her skin.
Jinx mentally short-circuits. ‘So, when she came ‘round the last time she was saying goodbye to turn herself in-?’
“No- you’re- stupid , keep it!”
Vi smirks half-heartedly. “I’m stupid so I should keep it?”
“Yes,” Jinx huffs. “And I won’t need it because you’re not going anywhere.”
Vi’s smirk drops as she winces. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“ Violet , of all the tunnel-visioned things you could possibly think to do-” Jinx groans in frustration, “What if they don’t stop even after they arrest you, huh? What then?”
Her dumb-of-ass older sister has the gall to look offended in her confusion. “Topside’ll have their piece of meat. And everything will go back to normal. Vander will-”
“Nonono, Topside will say ‘ hey wasn’t there more than one kid there was at least twenty enforcers and four dozen eyewitnesses’ and then they’ll spin some bullshit excuse to mess us up more until someone with a big name - someone like Vander gets thrown into Stillwater with you!”
Vi’s eyebrows are furrowed in denial, even shaking her head at that, but her eyes show that she’s finally listening and following Jinx’s train of logic.
For once in both of her lifetimes, Vi poses the question to her little sister.
“What do we do now? It’s damned if we don’t, damned if we do - and I’ve sent the tube-thing to the Sheriff-”
“You what ?” Jinx blanches.
Vi raises her palms in surrender, “I thought I had a solid plan!”
“You had a selfless and low-success plan.” Jinx sighs. Would’ve been high success if she had just sit back and let things play out as they should have-
Her head spins momentarily.
How much of the timeline had she already changed?
Marcus was- holy shit - for once Marcus’ opinion could be right!
As long as she acted now and linked up with Marcus before they arrested Vi-
But they hadn’t arrested Vi, right? She came home saying that Vander had been taken and they had to rescue him from Silco . And Silco had once recounted to her how he played Marcus when they first met.
“Powder? You good?” Vi inserts her worry into Jinx’s very neat and coherent train of thought.
She swats at her sister. “Shh!” She presses her eyelids shut and visualises a workable plan.
Orange graffiti Vander, right side of the canvas: draw a roof, The Last Drop sign and no red paint. Pink Vi- baby pink for baby teenager Vi and blue frowny clown-face stickman Marcus (and the current Sheriff!). Wait no the enforcers should be dark blue because Jinx is bright electric blue and-
Red sharkman in a suit? Jinx wants to scream. Bright blue and red sharkman in a suit should both be on the left of the canvas, together, but now Jinx had to choose. Or rearrange. Maybe orange and red- no that defeats the whole purpose- pink and red? What if she leaves pink and orange under the roof and lumps the blues together? Or she could put red sharkman at the bottom, pink and the blues to the green ogre- nonono the blonde ogre!
“Okay,” Jinx sucks in a deep breath. “What do we do? We get Vander distracted. We both go down to meet the Sheriff,” she glares when Vi starts to protest, “- that captain that said he’d come back for me? Because I told him I saw Sevika meeting a weird guy down by the docks-”
“-when were you at the docks-?”
“Stop exploding my train -”
“Train?”
“- and he told me that he’s not actually looking for a bunch-a kids! He thinks that there’s another guy behind this and he thought it was Vander but I convinced him otherwise and now we can go and grab one of Sevika’s guys and close the loop. No framing anyone and we get close enough to the truth that everyone buys it!”
Vi looks at her with twinkling eyes. “What do I tell ya’? What makes you different makes you stronger, right?”
Powder- Jinx pauses. Vi takes the opportunity to press a rare kiss onto the top of her head.
“What are you thinking about for distractions?”
Jinx splutters. “I’ve got it. Just- gear up?” She glances at Vi’s dirty handwraps. “Wrap up?”
Vi responds with an honest chuckle. Jinx takes it as her cue to jump up and leave before she-
“Sometimes I wish I was strong enough to just kill you already, Jinx.”
Jinx feels her heart shatter as she musters a manic-looking grin. “Funny, I feel the same way.” She offers the pistol to the older woman, whose gauntlets shone with a distinct hextech blue.
“Consider this an open invitation, Captain Kiramman.”
Jinx swallows a traitorous lump when not even a moment of hesitation passes before the older woman reaches for the outstretched pistol.
Violet presses the barrel against her sister’s forehead. Jinx and Powder close their eyes. Her shoulders fall with a soul-deep exhale.
“Next block over!” A voice in the near distance is followed by the approaching thumps of metal boots.
Vi drops the gun, staring at her hand in shock as if her skin were burnt. She looks at her sister whose blue eyes hold pure pleading within them. Begging.
“I’m sorry,” Vi whispers. “Go. Run, please.”
Jinx backs away into the alley wordlessly though still facing the older woman.
“Glad one of us got to have the big pretty wedding,” Jinx’s voice is a wisp. “Congratulations on the wedding, sis. Mom and Dad would’ve loved her.”
She’s gone when Vi blinks.
When Jinx robs the national bank two months later, there’s a discrete ‘Happy Birthday’ note hidden underneath the chaos left for the Topsiders to clean up. As always, the sheriff and division 4 captain are called in when a ‘Jinx-threat’ is called.
Vi pockets it and stashes it with the rest of the small trinkets and scraps left of their relationship.
Jinx shakes off the lingering memory, hurrying out of the living room to where Vander was at the bar- oh. Where was he?
Whenever Chuck wasn’t at the bar like a robot, he was in the back doing other robot stuff. Like stock count.
Ducking past the bar-counter, Jinx plasters on a grin when she sees the room void of human beings!
She makes quick work of shifting bottles here and there and over there . She grabs two crates-
“Oof shit-” a bottle cracks and starts leaking alcohol so;
She grabs one- half a crate and hides it under the counter out front and goes back for 3 other halves to amount to two crates (two crates!) and breaks and disperses them around the almost empty Last Drop (besides the couple flirting at the table by the door without even an ounce of spatial awareness- ok thats getting a bit gross - like? For God’s sake, you live in the undercity and you don’t notice a kid faking a crime scene behind you? And now they’re leaving, fantasstic, emphasis on the ass because those dudes weren’t holding hands-) and trashes the place severely enough to keep Vander busy for a couple of hours at least.
Just as Jinx comes round the stairway, she sees the front door swing past Vander who takes the scene in - gobsmacked.
“Vander?” She calls out from the top of the stairs.
Vander looks at her, relief filling his eyes. “What happened here?”
“I heard noises and hid upstairs. One of them came up- I think they trashed the place because they’re mad at you. Or bar fight again. Not sure.”
Vander’s footsteps creak against the steps as he walks up. He sighs in disappointment but ruffles her hair nonetheless.
“I’ve got it from here, kid. Keep by Vi for now, alright? For the sake of my sanity .”
Jinx eyes a tuft of pink hair hiding in the hallway to the living room.
“Okay.”
Vander nods before turning to the broken glass nearest to the ledger room where Jinx had feigned to have hidden in. “ Janna , if you’d be so kind to knock over these ruffians with a little bit of wind…” his voice trails off as he enters the back.
Jinx stomps down the stairs hard enough to mask the bell of the front door, Vi holding it for her as she slips out of The Last Drop.
“So!”Jinx turns to her big sister, vibrating from the leftover adrenaline.
“Where to?”