Chapter Text

1. Chasing Shadows

One second, Jinx was in the middle of walking down the street minding her own business. The next she was weightless and dropping with a screech that cut off in a grunt as she thunked down into a seat.

Which, rude. But also begged the question of how someone teleports her so she landed sitting like that without breaking her knees? Or why someone teleported her.

She tried to stand up and figured out pretty fast that her legs were stuck to the chair. Leaning forward with a thoughtful hum, she heard the chair give a sharp creak and then something tightened around her stomach. It pulled taut and she sprang back, drawing out a hiss at the feeling of ice on her spine.

So a metal chair. And a metal table in front of her. A quick look around found her in a dark, dingy black and silver room lit by a light recessed into an otherwise smooth roof. Squinting, she thought she saw lines in the walls, like they were made from panels. It felt kind of like the old HIVE base, but there wasn’t enough black and orange for that.

Humming, she looked down at her wrists. Not her first time in cuffs, and it wouldn’t be her last. These cuffs were different, though. She was wrapped in black metal that was definitely not standard pig edition.

She tried an experimental twist of the wrist. It was a basic trick, one she’d used probably hundreds of times while the gloating cop on the other side of the table stared on stinking of stale coffee and a sudden bout of fear sweats. These handcuffs twisted and followed her wrists like they were alive, easily keeping their grip.

So that wasn’t great. And the hum against her skin felt different from the D.M.A.’s power dampeners. Less electric, more like they were alive. They didn’t slip loose like they usually would when she moved her wrists in just the right way, either.

More worrying, she was pretty sure she could hear whispering by her wrists. It was a subtle, quiet thing, but in the silence of the room, she could swear she heard crackling like a distant fire and groaning voices. It was just on the edge of her hearing range, and focusing on it made the room feel a little fuzzy.

She looked around for anything to focus on that wasn’t that. And then her eyes fell back on that light above her head. It was recessed into the roof, but glowing down at her bright enough that she had to blink the spots out of her eyes.

Bright enough that it should have lit up the whole room nice and bright. And it did, mostly. Except for that corner across from her…

Humming, she leaned back in her seat and stared into the abyss. Something blinked back.

And suddenly the black portal she’d dropped into made some sense.

She brought her arms up and swung down in a violent arc. Her hands slammed against the table handcuff-first in a burst of pink sparks and an echoing metal clang. Her hex pulsed through the room, rattling the chair under her and making the table vibrate. The light reached the corner and died like it was drained out.

Flexing her wrists, she found them held as tightly as they were a second ago. The pressure on her ankles and stomach was gone, though, so that was something. At least the table felt the hit.

Jinx planted her elbows in the dent broken into the thick steel tabletop and cupped her hands under her chin.

She was a little impressed with whatever these cuffs were. Not that she’d ever tell Raven that.

Grinning at the shadow, she waved a hand trailing pink sparks.

“Hey, Rae! What? No hello, no dinner, just straight to kidnapping? I’m feeling the love, really.”

The shadow rippled and something moved inside. Whatever it was moved like it was bigger than the goth and her cloak. And like there was a lot more space in that corner than there should’ve been.

“When did you guys even get an interrogation room, anyway? Don’t remember this from back in the day… I mean, Boy Blunder does seem like the interrogation room type, but still. Do the JCPD know this is here?”

More silence, and Jinx huffed.

“Y’know, normally I’d be up for some handcuffs and chill, but you kind of grabbed me right when I was getting dinner. What do you say we take this somewhere less intimate?”

The shadows looked like they breathed, reaching further into the room before pulling back.

“Think about it, Sunshine. You could be giving me the silent treatment while I have some pizza right now.”

The shadows stretched again, pushing closer to Jinx. And then it shrank like an elastic band snapping, and the dark Titan was leaning against the corner. She had her arms crossed and her face was covered in darkness.

Not that she could see it on her face, but she was pretty sure she was annoying Raven.

“Well at least now I have something nice to look at while you’re not asking me questions for whatever this is. Definitely better, really. I love a dinner and a show, would love the dinner part. But seriously, could we get to the part where you let me go? And maybe give me money for pizza, because Mammoth was hungry before I left for the food run and I feel like it’s gonna’ take a while to get back.”

Raven twitched and, for just a second, the whole room seemed to flicker black. Jinx rolled her eyes.

“Cool trick. Sad for you, though, I’m not Arty. I like the dark. It’s all mysterious and sexy and stuff. Not joking, though. If I get back to the base and Mammoth ate our fridge? I’m sending the Titans a bill. Well, I’m sending you the bill. Since you kidnapped me and all. Seriously, this is not my idea of a fun Friday nig-”

In a blink, Raven was gone. Jinx’s head whipped around, looking for where she went. She found her sitting on the other side of the table, a steaming cup of something that smelled herbal and sharp sitting in her hand.

Jinx was pretty sure she would have made her old HAEYP teachers proud. She only nearly tipped the chair over when she jerked backward. She totally managed to suppress the very badass, cold-blooded shriek of terror.

“What do you know?” Raven rasped.

Granted, it had been a while since she’d bantered with the sorceress, but Jinx was pretty sure her voice hadn’t sounded that deep and growly before.

“I know you haven’t moved like that before!”

Raven just lifted a brow at her, and Jinx huffed. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and let her heart calm down. She met the Titan’s violet glare and shrugged.

“Gonna’ have to be more specific, Blackbird. I know a lot of things. Some of them I can maybe even talk about.”

She then lifted her arms and shook them at the Titan.

“If you could take the freaky, whispering cuffs off? It would be a great start for you. A please wouldn’t hurt, either.”

Raven tilted her head at that. For just a second, Jinx saw her eyes go wide in surprise before she forced that weird, stoic mask of hers.

“Is my soul-self actually whispering to you, or are you just being dramatic per usual?”

For a second, Jinx just stared at her. Because that was a real question, Raven sounded too surprised for her to be running a game.

Also? Soul-self had some implications.

“Is that not you messing with me?”

Raven kept staring in surprise, like she was trying to solve a really interesting puzzle suddenly dropped in front of her.

Jinx started sweating as she put her hands on the table and glared.

“Okay! Yep. Take the tentacle monster cuffs off. Now. Or I swear to whatever gods are listening I’m jinxing the Tower so hard they’ll have a blackout in Gotham!”

Raven seemed unsettled, which did not help calm Jinx’s sudden nerves. Fortunately for them both, the Titan nodded and made a quick gesture with her hand.

In a burst of black and white light, the color of the table under her fist inverted. And then the cuffs were off, curling like ink across the table and back to Raven’s palm like she was reeling it in.

Jinx’s shudder made the chair rattle under her.

At least Raven had the grace to blush, so it wasn’t intentional. Jinx wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

Dramatically rubbing her unharmed wrists, Jinx threw her a glare for good measure.

“Next time you want to grab me off the street? Use normal ass handcuffs and keep that shit to the bedroom.”

Raven’s blush faded as she frowned right back.

“Normal handcuffs would last all of a second if you were having an off day.”

“And they wouldn’t make me wonder what kind of mags you have sitting around under your bed.”

“Is your mind perpetually in the gutter, or is that just how you deal with stress?”

Feeling much less annoyed now that she was freed, Jinx leaned forward and stared back with a smirk.

“You got the joke, Sunshine.”

Another blush, and Raven actually looked away for good measure. Jinx filed that away for the next time the Titans stepped in on one of her heists.

Before she could follow up, Raven looked back at her with eyes just slightly darker than they’d been a second ago.

“You broke into my room. Why?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered you’re dreaming about me, but are you seriously having dreams about almost three years-”

“Yesterday.”

The room flickered and went black. For just a second, Jinx thought she was staring into red eyes.

The light snapped back on, and Raven hadn’t moved. Still there, still holding her tea, still normal-for-her pretty violet eyes. Jinx was suddenly feeling a lot less comfortable in a room alone with the dark Titan.

“You broke into my room yesterday, Jinx. You stole something. A book. Why?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I doubt you forgot it so quickly. White with silver gilt edges. About as big as your ego. Wrapped in black iron chains with glowing red runes.”

Raven leaned over the table and Jinx wasn’t sure if she was actually bigger or if that was just the effect she was having on her.

“I can feel its magic on you, Jinx. You’re filled with Chaos magic right now. You’ve always been strong, but never this strong.”

“You think I’m strong?”

Raven’s eyes narrowed, and Jinx gulped.

“I’ve never seen a book like that before, Sunshine. You’re talking me up, but I’m just a normal ass witch. If I found a book wrapped in glowing chains? I’m either burning it or running in the other direction fast.”

Raven stared at her, and it felt like the sorceress was looking through her. Jinx wasn’t sure if it was doing things for her, or if it was making her want to scream and run for the door.

Either way, she couldn’t clamp down on the shiver running down her back.

The Titan had been intense from the day they’d met. Always a woman of few words and heavy hits, she knew firsthand to beware this quiet one in particular. But this felt… off.

As creepy as the talking heads loved saying she was, Raven wasn’t the Titan she’d expect a random half-cocked abduction from.

Humming, she leaned forward and fought a grin when Raven jerked back. Moving around, she looked at Raven from different angles, but any way she looked, it was the Titan.

At least she assumed. She hadn’t seen her without the cloak and shadows hiding her face before, but she doubted they had a second girl running around with the scary dark gimmick.

“Is this some kind of mind swap thing?” she guessed.

When Raven frowned, Jinx stood up and pressed forward until they were almost touching.

“See, I’m seeing Raven, but I’m feeling like I’m talking to Boy Blunder when he’s in one of his moods.”

“Where’s the book, Jinx?”

“Probably with whoever took it.”

Raven reached forward and pressed a finger to Jinx’s chest. The hex-caster gasped when she pushed her bodily back into her chair with just that one finger.

“Jump City has exactly three magical villains. I have wards in place for Mother Mae-Eye after a recent incident. There are also reports that she was running a bake sale all day yesterday.”

Raven lifted a second finger with a narrowing glare.

“Mumbo is a circus clown with a powerful relic. A relic which he assuredly has not gotten back yet, since I pulled footage and found him stuck in his cell all day yesterday.”

Raven pointed at her and the room flickered again.

“And there’s you, Jinx. The only actual magician and the only one of the three who would maybe know what to do with my book if you stole it.”

“I mean, I was top of the class in Arcane Studies back at the academy,” Jinx admitted with a light purr. “And I’m loving the compliments, really. But all I did yesterday was finish sleeping off a cold.”

She still couldn’t believe it. Out of all things to waylay her, a cold taking her out for almost a week had been humiliating. Sure, it had been some weird alien cold from that Intergang tech Gizmo had stolen, but still.

Gizmo laughing his pint-sized ass off all week while she suffered, because of him, had been extra insulting.

Not that she was about to tell Raven any of that.

“There was an… incident… yesterday. The Titans were engaged and out of the Tower for most of the day. When I returned, I found my door open and my book missing.”

“And that’s real sad and all, but-”

“Someone broke into the Tower.”

“Oh, come on! You can throw a rock across the pond and hit a villain who’s done that by now… You really should talk to Chromedome about that sometime.”

“Someone broke into my room,” Raven hissed. “They got in and they got out and took something with them. There’s a short list of people who could do that, Jinx, and you’re the only one who’s a magician and has been in my room before.”

And okay, fair point. She remembered what kind of wards she had to break just to get in there when they took over the Tower forever ago. Her door, the rug, the closet, damn near everything had security on it. Even back then, taking some of Raven’s accessories had been the limit of what she was willing to touch or even look at in there.

That was back then. She couldn’t even imagine what kind of zap Raven’s room would have almost three years later.

So she could admit, she kinda saw where Raven was coming from. In Raven’s shoes, she’d probably be suspect number one too. Except she knew she didn’t break into anywhere yesterday, and she definitely wasn’t stupid enough to roll the dice robbing Raven. The Greenbean, Sparkles, or Chromedome, sure. Maybe Boy Blunder. But not Raven, and that had been before today.

Which did beg the question of who the hell did. With a quiet curse, Jinx leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. She could feel her curiosity rearing its annoying head and knew that this was going to end badly. But curiosity and cats and all that.

“I hate to break it to you, Sunshine, but I’m not your girl. Cause you’re right about one thing. Going into your room and messing with your stuff? That isn’t something a random goon off the street’s going to pull off. But, see, I have this condition where I like my atoms arranged just how they are. Despite what you might think about my acrobatics, I actually do like living.”

Letting her arms drop, she met Raven’s stare and willed the Titan to believe her.

“I’ve never seen a book like you’re talking about in my life. And I haven’t heard anything, either. Even with your whole black bagging thing here, we’ve been laying low for a while now. I haven’t even talked to my contacts in a few weeks.”

“It has to be you, Jinx,” Raven snarled.

Jinx paused and looked Raven over again. That didn’t sound like Raven was sure. It sounded like she was desperate for it to be Jinx. Like she needed Jinx to be an easy answer to her problem.

“I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry, Rae. It looks like you need to find another thief.”

Jinx sighed and pushed to her feet, letting her back pop with a satisfied groan.

“Can you do that whole ink dimension thing and drop me back off by the pizza place? Or are you gonna’ make me actually walk all the way back there?”

Raven said nothing, and Jinx took a step toward the door already reaching for the doorknob. With a whoosh of displaced air, the door turned black. The darkness spread and covered the entire wall in a second flat.

Jinx pulled back with a yelp, shaking her hand at the thought that she would’ve lost it if she’d been a second faster and grabbed the knob.

So apparently Raven upgraded from grabbing chunks of concrete and metal. Neat. Not at all terrifying.

Jinx whirled around, mouth open to shout at the dark Titan. And promptly let out a screech and hopped back with flailing arms, because holy shit Raven was standing right behind her!

She caught her balance and glared. She hadn’t heard Raven move. At all. No rustling fabric, no scrape of a chair being moved, not even a deep breath as Raven hopped over the table or did whatever she just did.

“Someone needs to put a bell on you, holy shit!”

Leveling a burning glare on the unmoving wall of Titan in front of her, she let out a hiss. And then she stepped forward and planted a hand firmly on Raven’s stomach. Which kind of felt like pressing on marble, the way Mammoth felt any time he had to carry her ass out of a fire.

Not what she’d expect from the Titans’ ranged support.

Joking Jinx was gone. Raven moving on her like that was a step too far. Somewhere, glass cracked and she knew if she looked at a mirror right then, her eyes would be burning bright neon pink.

“I don’t know about your book. I wasn’t in the Tower yesterday, or the day before that, haven’t been here in years. You have a choice to make now, Tall, Dark, and Spooky. Are you letting me out, or am I letting myself out?”

To Raven’s credit, her poker face held up great even without the hood. If she was impressed by the way the whole room was lit up like Livewire got loose in there, if she knew one twitch from Jinx could stop her heart right then, she didn’t show it.

She did growl through bared teeth, leaning into Jinx’s touch. Jinx locked in place, refusing to blink as she stared into solid black eyes.

“I’ve spent the entire day tracking this down. My book is gone. You’re the only thief who knows enough magic in this whole city to do this.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Jinx snapped back.

Raven’s eyes flashed red, and she knew she didn’t imagine it that time. The air turned heavier, pressing down on Jinx’s shoulders.

She shoved the voice screaming to bail now back in its box and loosened her iron fist around her powers. The room around them lit up in pink sparks, her magic dancing across her entire arm and down into the floor at her feet.

Metal whined as the chair she’d been in rusted and snapped, falling to the floor in a pile of scrap. The table bent and warbled and then, with a shrill whine that made Jinx ask where the hell the other Titans were, it snapped clean in two.

She didn’t plan on killing a Titan. She wasn’t even sure she could kill whatever the hell Raven was. But she wasn’t exactly giving her a choice.

So much for laying low.

Jinx channeled her power and her entire palm lit up. Magic gathered at her fingertips, ready to unleash and burn and ruin and destroy.

And suddenly Raven wasn’t there anymore.

Jinx yelped as her weight tipped without the Great Wall of Raven pushing back, sending her stumbling forward. The build-up snapped off her hand as she wildly swung her arms and half of the table’s remains exploded in a shower of shrapnel and fuchsia flames.

She hit the floor face-first with a grunt. The room turned black. Groaning, she forced an eye open and…

Jinx was sitting in a chair. Raven was sitting across from her at a metal table. The room was brightly lit and not covered in buzzing darkness and whispers.

Her heart raced inside her chest, feeling a second away from exploding.

It looked like the room was completely normal. Like the last few… seconds? Minutes? Whatever, it looked like none of it had happened. Except it did. Raven’s solid black eyes staring back at her and the scorch marks on the walls was enough proof of that.

“What the fuck was that!?”

“My apologies.”

Jinx jerked like she’d been slapped.

“Your apologies.”

Raven nodded, looking like she was embarrassed. Normally, Jinx would think the blush looked pretty on the Titan. Except she was a little caught up in wondering if she’d just seen Raven have a psychotic break.

Raven looked at her, then, and looked like she might cry. Jinx didn’t know what to do with that.

“It has been… a very bad set of days for me. I thought… I can see…”

Raven leaned back and pressed her hands into her face, letting out a deep sigh like Gizmo after one of his machines started sparking and smoking. When she opened her eyes, they were their usual violet again.

“Are you suffering from a magic build-up at the moment, Jinx?”

She stared at the Titan, wondering if she’d heard her right. With Raven staring at her expectantly, she was pretty sure she had.

Frowning, she gestured at the walls. And the scorch marks on the walls.

Now that she thought about it, she realized she still had the tingling buzz of her magic crackling under the surface. Huffing, she shook her hand out and let a few pink sparks bounce off the table. Something cracked and the light above them popped and flickered before turning back on.

Jinx ignored the rain of glass slivers, refusing to break eye contact.

“It’s been a while since I let loose. What’s your point?”

Raven nodded and let out a heavy sigh. And then she looked at Jinx, and she looked concerned. And boy did that set Jinx’s alarms ringing.

“How long exactly has it been since you’ve let loose?”

Jinx scoffed and glared back at her.

“Look, if you think this weird hot and cold thing you’re doing is going to get me to-”

“You’re glowing in the dark, Jinx.”

Jinx felt her mouth gaping.

“…What?”

“The book has a creature bound within it which can level this city in seconds. Even bound, I can feel his presence through the book nearly anywhere in the Tower, but it tapers off around the front door. I felt your Chaos magic from the sky and assumed you had it on you.”

Jinx would be lying if she said that didn’t scare the shit out of her.

Sure, it had been a few weeks. Since Brother Blood had his ass handed to him by Chromedome. Since the Five had gotten back to Jump and agreed they all needed some downtime after having their brains used as chewtoys by the geezer.

Even Gizmo hadn’t thrown a tantrum.

So maybe she’d been a little jittery. And maybe Giz had shoved her out the door tonight to do the food run after one too many of his cables shorted out. She hadn’t thought it was a big deal.

She’d had build up before.

Suddenly, she wondered how long it had been since the last time she had a good heist or fight or anything to really get her hexes flowing. Had Blood put her on any jobs while he was puppeteering them?

She couldn’t remember.

“I don’t know.”

The admission hurt. And she hated the way her voice shook when she said it. Hated still not knowing how much he’d messed with her head.

Raven paled across from her. Then, her eyes flashed red and she growled.

“Blood.”

Jinx shivered, the Titan’s growl making her stomach clench.

She nodded. Raven blinked, and her eyes were back to normal. Like it was some switch she kept having to flip back.

“I’m going to make you a deal.”

Jinx frowned and the chair under her whined ominously.

“I haven’t done anything. I don’t need a deal.”

“You need to burn off that magic. Immediately. I need to find that book before whoever took it opens it. If you help me, it will help you before you explode and black out the whole East Coast.”

“Neat. In case you forgot? You still kidnapped me and looked a second away from squashing me.”

“I can give you an outlet, Jinx. Someplace you can use as much of your power as you want without hurting anyone or anything, including yourself. No police, no arrest, you can let loose as much as you need.”

Jinx’s stomach clenched. A few years ago, she would’ve laughed in Raven’s face. Now that she was paying attention to how shaky she was feeling, though, she wasn’t sure she could refuse.

Not that she was going to give it up that easy. Now that she didn’t feel like she was about to die and her heart was slowing down, she realized she had something Raven wanted. Bad.

“Why do you even need my help? I still don’t know anything about your book.”

Because she wanted to know just how much she could use this. Paying her back was the least Raven could do after wrecking her whole night like this.

“You know the side of Jump City I don’t. You know where to look for anyone who would brag about stealing from a Titan.”

“And Birdbrain doesn’t? Nah, you could go bug the world’s third best detective if that was it.”

Raven looked distinctly uncomfortable. Like fidgeting in her chair, looking anywhere but at Jinx, nervous. So apparently her poker face didn’t hold up for whatever she was going to lie about. Jinx smelled blood in the water and forced the smile off her face.

“The Titans are… indisposed, currently,” she rasped. “They’re investigating the incident from yesterday. They need to focus, and I need to get this book back before it’s too late.”

She was absolutely lying. About why she wasn’t pulling them in on this, anyway. She had the distinct impression that Raven was going rogue on this.

Like, if Jinx walked out of the room and headed out to the lobby right then, Raven would have some uncomfortable questions to answer when Chromedome checked the footage later.

The rest of them being off somewhere chasing shadows would explain how no-one came running after she wrecked their room, though. And it wasn’t really her problem, either way.

Jinx grinned and leaned back, propping her legs up on the table.

If the Titans were away, their resident loner looking for any other magician in town would make sense. And she’d certainly laid it on thick how that list started and ended with Jinx.

“Fine.”

Raven jerked in surprise, and Jinx let out a chuckle. The hex-caster spun and planted her feet on the ground. The momentum carried her forward to lean over the table and right into Raven’s space. She loved the way the Titan leaned back in surprise. Apparently she wasn’t ready for the tables to turn.

“I need to give the boys a call so they don’t think I’m suddenly turning Cape if they see me doing this.”

Raven shrugged and nodded.

“You’re paying for the Five’s dinner for the night. And I need to eat something on the way. If you’d waited an hour to grab me,” she continued when Raven frowned, “I wouldn’t be hangry right now. So that’s on you.”

Raven sighed but gave her a nod anyway.

“Anything else?”

Jinx tipped back and stretched her arms with a series of satisfying pops.

“Say you’re sorry.”

Raven blinked and looked at her like she’d just grown a second head. Jinx let her arms drop and nodded at her. Stepping around the table, she sat on the edge and glared right into the dark Titan’s eyes.

“You kidnapped me off the street,” she hissed. “If Robin did that, he’d have broken legs right now. I want to know you’re never doing this shit with me again… without clearing it with me ahead of time, anyway,” she added with a wink.

Raven blushed hard and Jinx bit her cheek to keep from laughing. Sure, she wasn’t happy about tonight. Kind of ragingly pissed, actually. Still, it was almost worth it to see the look on Raven’s face just then.

What she wasn’t expecting was…

“I’m sorry.”

The smile trying to work its way onto Jinx’s face died. Because she was expecting some whining, grumbling fake ass apology. Maybe through clenched teeth.

If it had been Boy Blunder, he would’ve been fighting to keep from grabbing one of those staves of his.

Raven sounded completely, 100% genuine.

For all the rumors floating around about the Titan’s biggest mystery, everything pointed to her being some kind of stoic ice queen. The Titans’ weapon to point at the heavy hitters and pull the trigger.

This Raven didn’t sound stoic at all.

If Jinx hadn’t been interested before, finding out what would make the Titan like this would’ve been enough to drag her in on its own.

“Thank you.”

And then she slipped off the table and offered Raven her hand. Raven took it, and the ground beneath them turned solid black. Suddenly, Jinx felt herself falling…

Chapter Text

2. Give And Take

Jinx hummed around the last bite of pizza and finished her tightrope walk on a guard rail.

As much as the dark Titan hadn’t been happy about the detour, Jinx’s stomach growling like Beast Boy had suddenly joined their little adventure had done the convincing for her.

Having Raven grab her some slices to go had even saved them the hassle of needing to dodge any cops that would’ve shown up if Jinx had gone in. Like it was a crime to eat. Whatever.

She already felt less shaky as the food started doing its job. Dusting her hands off, she hopped down to the sidewalk with a flip.

Raven rolled her eyes, making her smirk.

“Shall we?”

Jinx nodded and Raven offered her hand. The hex-caster grinned and held a hand to her chest.

“I didn’t know you were so forward, Sunshine!”

“Just tell me where to move us,” Raven sighed.

Giggling, Jinx took her hand in a firm grip and stepped up to press into the sorceress’s space.

“5th Street’ll work. Old abandoned gas station, more weeds and scrap than station. Not where we’re going, but it’ll put us close without raising too much attention.”

Raven nodded and another black bubble wrapped around them.

The world resolved around Jinx as the darkness faded and disappeared up Raven’s sleeve. The meta shrugged and looked around.

The station was just how she remembered it. Shitty and standing like an affront to time. Any metal around them was more rust than actual metal by now, and the air had the strong stink of mildew and copper and something sharper.

Feline eyes caught needles and hoses and what she was pretty sure was a bloody knife in the deep shadows. She could see where the dust and grime had hosted some junkie or another, probably in the last week or so.

It hadn’t been nice when it had been one of their secret entrances, back before they collapsed the tunnel and left it to rot. Back before Blood came in and dragged them to his wanna-be Atlantis adventure. Now it felt depressing just standing in it, and Jinx felt like there was a metaphor in that somewhere.

She turned and found Raven staring at her like she was a particularly interesting puzzle. With memories of him at the surface, she found herself rubbing at her arm and glaring at a dark stain on the ground.

“What?”

“Most people have a rather… volatile reaction to being in contact with my soul-self.”

Jinx eased up and threw the Titan a grin.

“Oh, that. Ha! People are wusses. Y’know, I really don’t get what Arty’s always bitching about.”

Raven paled and looked distinctly uncomfortable. Now that they were outside of the Tower and she wasn’t trapped in an enclosed space with the witch, Jinx let herself grin like Cheshire.

“I mean, really. I didn’t see any tentacles in there. After how much the Doc built it up wetting himself that one time the power went out in the prison? I had such high expectations!”

Raven bit her lip and Jinx chuckled.

“I mean, seriously. You could hear him over in the women’s wing! Across the whole prison! After all the hype, it’s a little bit of a let down.”

Raven huffed and lifted a brow at her.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she deadpanned. “It sounds like you’d be more interested in my greener teammate.”

Some combination of the joke and the flat voice Raven said it with startled a laugh out of Jinx. She felt the last grips of the bad memories sliding away.

“You’ve got jokes! I didn’t know you knew those!”

Raven rolled her eyes, but Jinx knew she saw a smile fighting for its life on those lips. Cackling, Jinx turned back and started moving for the shattered hole in the wall where a front door had once stood.

“Alright. So! We’re on the edge of the slums. If you have some kind of disguise or holo ring like Chromedome, now’d be the time if you don’t wanna get shot. Not that I mind the leotard, but that’s gonna stand out here, down in the dirt.”

Grinning, she looked over her shoulder to see if she’d gotten another blush from the hero. Then she did a double take.

Raven was gone. Like, completely gone. In her place was some goth she would see over at the club. Light grey skin was now a much more ‘goth white girl’ shade of pale. The superhero costume was gone, replaced with a pair of ripped jeans that looked painted on and a black T-shirt proclaiming that black was Raven’s happy color.

The red gem was gone from her ajna chakra, now sitting on a black chain wrapped around her neck.

If Jinx hadn’t just been talking to her, and if she couldn’t still sense the general aura of hidden horrors Raven was wrapped in, she would never be able to guess this was the same person.

Jinx didn’t know what to do with what she was seeing. Her mouth felt dry. Swallowing and letting out a cough, she just nodded at Raven.

“Y-yeah, that, uh… How the hell did you put together a glamour that complex that quick?”

Raven lifted a brow and smirked at her, and Jinx felt like her face was burning. Shaking her head, she spun back around and started walking.

“Whatever. Personally, I think your actual skin works better for you, but that’ll work.”

She was pretty sure she heard a snicker behind her but opted to ignore it and pull out her communicator. A few quick taps and the line connected as they passed under the doorway.

The screen flashed and Baran’s face filled the screen. Before he even opened his mouth, Jinx could feel the hangry through her screen.

“Jinx! Where’s our pizzas? It’s been hours!”

“Sorry, big guy. Something came up I need to go do. You’re gonna’ have to order in, I’ll comp it when I get back.”

The behemoth frowned like she’d just told him she kicked his puppy.

“We gotta’ wait more!? C’mon, I’m starvin!”

In the background, a chorus of groans sounded. Jinx rolled her eyes and glared at the big lug.

“You can actually, y’know, cook for yourselves.”

Another series of groans, and Jinx sighed. Then Mikron dropped into frame, leveling a glare through his goggles.

“We’ve been waitin’ for an hour and a stinkin’ half! What the hell do you need to do that’s soo important?”

Jinx’s mind became a chorus of cursing as she realized she had not thought that far ahead. If Raven had still been, well, Raven, she could’ve just used her somehow. The goth standing off to her side would make it much harder to explain why she was taking her to meet one of their contacts.

Before she could come up with an answer, a warm arm wrapped over her shoulder and hung loose down her front. A soft body pressed against her back and Jinx felt her face heating at some obvious weights.

The feeling of Raven’s skin on hers burned and made her realize it wasn’t an illusion, she actually wasn’t wearing her uniform under there. She had questions, none of which her brain was in a position right then to ask.

An actual giggle sounded, like she had some random drunk hanging off her and not one of the scariest people in the whole city.

“Hi! I’m something.”

A warm breath passed over Jinx’s ear as Raven settled her chin on her unoccupied shoulder and Jinx felt her entire face turning red.

In any other situation, Jinx would’ve been laughing her ass off at the way Gizmo turned green. Mammoth let out a laugh and nodded.

“Nevermind, say no more, boss!”

“Who the hell is she!?”

If Jinx’s voice was working just then, she wasn’t even sure she would have an answer to that. Whatever her plan might’ve been, having Raven act like a booty call felt like it would’ve gotten her teeth knocked out.

Clearly, she really didn’t have a grip on the Titan’s chosen personality for the night yet.

Raven huffed a quiet laugh into Jinx’s neck, and the meta was glad for the body behind her keeping her standing up. She could feel the Titan’s smile against her skin and just knew she was having fun with this.

“Hi! I’m Rachel,” she rasped.

“Who asked!?”

Mammoth quirked a brow at the tiny nuisance and scratched his head.

“Uh… didn’t you-”

“Next time you’re gonna’ leave us starving to go get your rocks off? Call it in!”

Jinx felt Raven frown. Then, she leaned further against the hex-caster’s back and stretched her other arm down to take hold of her communicator. The meta didn’t put up a fight as it slipped out of numb fingers.

“This conversation is actually keeping her from doing that, and I’d like to move my night along. Feel free to keep whining about it, though. I’m sure getting loud makes you feel taller.”

Gizmo sputtered while Mammoth let out a startled snort. The giant clamped a hand to his mouth and fought for his life to keep his laugh down.

Jinx felt her soul leave her body and joined Mammoth. She’d never seen Gizmo look that red before.

“Who the hell do you think you are!? I’ll fry your-”

“I’m someone with better things to do than argue with a walking short fuse. I’m sure you’ll get it one day when you hit puberty. Have a nice evening,” Raven deadpanned.

And then she pressed a button and the feed went dead on the sound of Mammoth breaking and laughing his ass off.

Jinx stared at the black screen and silence stretched.

One heartbeat. Then two. Three. And then…

“Oh my god!” Jinx cackled.

Doubling over, Jinx held her side as she let herself really feel it.

“His face! I can’t… pfft… I think I can hear him shouting from here!”

Covering her face, Jinx’s shoulders shook as she worked to stay up on her feet. Turning, she shot Raven a look through reddened fingers. The Titan was standing back, arms crossed and a smirk on her lips that the hex-caster was pretty sure she’d be seeing in her dreams.

She tossed the communicator over and Jinx scrambled to catch it while another outburst took her breath.

“That was so good, Rae! H-holy shit. I-I need a-need a second hehehe!”

After a few failed attempts, she finally managed to catch her breath and stand up without risking falling flat on her face. Grinning, she pocketed her communicator and met Raven’s stare.

She was trying to be stoic and flat again, but that smirk was fighting a valiant fight. Huffing, Jinx shook her limbs out and tried to ignore the way her whole upper body was still burning wherever the Titan had touched her.

“Okay. That made my night! Seriously, though, where the hell did that come from?”

Raven’s head tilted to the side and she honest-to-gods pouted.

“Would you have preferred to come up with some cover story?”

“Oh, no, this works great! All’s forgiven on the kidnapping thing, that’s gonna’ shut him up for at least a week. I just didn’t know I had such an eager date tonight.”

“I’ve seen him and Cyborg argue in a call. We don’t have a few hours to burn right now.”

Jinx snorted and spun around to start down the street.

“Right, right. Well, let’s get a move on, then, Rachel.”

The Titan was at her side the next second, easily keeping up with her as Jinx started skipping down the road. If she noticed the way the pavement sprouted cracks as the meta went on her way, Raven didn’t mention it.

After the laughs finally tapered off, Jinx let herself think in the ensuing silence. With just the wind, occasional apartment noises, and a silent shadow to keep her company, her mind started processing what just happened.

She had so many questions she knew it wasn’t worth it to try keeping them stuck inside.

“I didn’t know you could sound like that.”

Raven startled at her side, apparently stuck in her head too.

“Changing a voice is a pretty simple trick.”

“Yeah, no. You and I both know I’m not talking about your voice pitch. But, I mean, that too? You sounded like you were channeling Space Cadet Barbie but if she knew what she does to people around her?”

“I’m trying new things,” Raven threw back with a shrug.

“If you’re gonna’ cling to me like that again tonight, more power to you! I’m all for trying new things.”

To her surprise, Raven chuckled at that. It was a nice sound, Jinx decided.

“So… Rachel, huh?”

Turning her head, she looked the Titan over again and nodded.

“Yeah, I can see a Rachel. Still Rae to your friends, too, so easy to keep straight in your head.”

“I get the distinct feeling there’s nothing straight about your head.”

“Ha! True. Still, giving up your first name to the bad guys isn’t a choice I would make. You sure your head’s in the game enough to be going into whatever fight you’re pulling me into?”

“I’m fine.”

Raven sounded distinctly not fine, but Jinx just shrugged. Not her problem, really. If things got too hot, she could always find a way out fast.

“I mean, I guess it did take us forever to figure out Cyborg’s whole thing, back at the HIVE. Giz was about ready to explode when he figured out Stone was staring us right in the face.”

Raven gave a light laugh and shook her head.

“I’m afraid Gizmo’s going to be disappointed if he looks for Rachel. I’m Raven. Just Raven.”

Jinx snorted at that.

“Right. And Robin’s just Robin. Spawned in with the mask and tights. I’ve only been talking to you for, what, maybe an hour? Even I know you’re not ‘just’ anything, Sunshine. Back before… well, before, the HIVE had more questions about you than the rest of your team combined.”

Raven shrugged but apparently didn’t feel like arguing. Then, her steps stuttered for a second and Jinx caught her smirking in her peripheral.

“How’d Gizmo fare looking up Starfire?”

“Bad. I heard him whining for days. Some kind of alien. He said she’s a Tama-something-an.”

“Tamaranean. From Tamaran.”

“Yeah, that. Not like there’s a social security number or something to find for someone over in the Vega system.”

Raven’s smirk got wider, and wow it was a good look for the goth.

“You’ll have an easier time learning about her than you would finding out who Rachel is.”

Jinx squinted at her, trying and failing to figure out if she was serious. She sounded serious, but the smirk was still there.

“You’re messing with me,” she decided.

Raven shrugged and her smirk dropped, replaced with the blank mask once again.

“Wait. You’re an alien?”

“I never said that,” Raven mused with another shrug.

Okay, so she was definitely enjoying this. Despite that facade, the Titan was messing with her.

“Metahuman? Is that what the weird umbrakinesis gimmick is?”

Raven flexed her hand and stones popped off the road. As Jinx watched, they turned solid black and started floating around the sorceress’s fingertips in a slow helix.

“Not shadows.”

With a slight frown, she flicked her fingers and the rocks faded out of existence.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“I’unno. Feels like you want to talk? Not like we’ve got anything better to pass the time since we gotta’ go here the slow way.”

“I could fly us there if you tell me where to go.”

Jinx sighed and shook her head.

“Wouldn’t that be convenient? But nah, that’d be a giveaway. Plus flight burns energy fast, and it sounds like you might wanna’ hold off on that. Back at the HIVE, I was matched up with Angel and just had to hold out for, like, two minutes before she kinda’ flopped and I beat her ass.”

“That sounds like a her problem,” Raven mused.

Jinx let out another surprised laugh. She was finding out she liked whatever personality Raven was apparently trying on tonight.

“That right?”

“I can’t fly indefinitely, but I can go for a couple hours without needing a break.”

“Wow. I do love a girl with stamina.”

Raven sputtered before flashing her an incredulous look.

“Is your mind always in the gutter?”

“Only most of the time, thank you very much!… I have to sleep sometimes.”

She grinned when the Titan rolled her eyes but let another of those smirks slip.

“But no, really. I’m stuck with a bunch of idiots I need to keep from getting themselves arrested or killed most of the time. Tonight’s the first night off I’ve had in a while.”

Still grinning, she sidestepped into Raven’s side and pressed a finger to her cheek.

“Which means lucky you, you get all of me to yourself tonight!”

Raven’s face turned bright red before she slapped Jinx’s hand away with a growl.

“Lucky me.”

Laughing, Jinx stepped back.

“You did this to yourself, Nightingale. But, uh, anyway. The flying thing. Even if you really can marathon that long, you’ll draw attention to us, flying me anywhere near where we’re going.”

“That would be… undesirable,” Raven admitted.

“I bet,” Jinx snorted. “You don’t strike me as much of an attention seeker by how shit scared of you every reporter in Jump is.”

“I’m pretty sure they talk more kindly of you between the two of us. I’m not about to complain if they leave me alone,” Raven threw right back with a shrug.

Jinx wanted to say she was full of it. Except she kinda couldn’t. The talking heads filled the prison damn near 24 / 7, and she heard how they talked about the witch. Any time something went wrong, any time some criminal got away? There was Raven to take the hit pieces.

She’d questioned that more than once. They talked about the Titan like she’d been caught eating babies. Like she didn’t pull their dumb asses out of the fire constantly.

“They do love running their mouths,” she conceded.

“They truly do. I heard I’m apparently Constantine’s daughter, now.”

Jinx snorted and shot her a wide-eyed look.

“I mean, that guy’s gotta’ have kids somewhere. Plus he’s got tons of firepower. Actually not too bad for a random stab at gossip. Coulda’ been worse and been Etrigan or Zatanna-”

The hairs on Jinx’s neck rose when Raven froze mid-step. In a night full of the sticky, cloying heat of mid-summer, there was something wrong about the sudden chill wind that brushed past her back.

Then Raven finished her step and everything was back to normal, sending a violent shiver down Jinx’s spine.

“I’d rather take a swim in the pit.”

Looking at her side, Jinx let out a chuckle. Despite that… whatever had just happened, Raven’s face was hilarious. She looked so offended!

“Not a fan?” she mused. “I thought you magic hero types are pretty close-knit.”

“We’re a close knit group if you’re friends with Justice League Dark. For many reasons, several specifically because of her, I’m not.”

Wow. Jinx could feel the bitterness from that. And it wasn’t hitting her as wanting to be part of the cool kids, either. She didn’t know what Zatanna did to the Titan, but she would not wanna’ get between them if she suddenly showed up.

A voice in the back of her head, sounding annoyingly like the old Headmistress, whispered that she should hold on to that tidbit for a rainy day.

Ignoring it, she pivoted on her heel and started walking backward. Raven just met her stare.

“Y’know, for all the supposed mystery, you’re kinda’ being an open book tonight?”

Raven chuckled. This one sounded a lot less happy than the others had been.

“You might be the first person to ever say that to me. Like I said, I’m trying new things,” she added with a stiff shrug. “After yesterday, there’s not much point keeping things close to the chest anymore… Mostly.”

There was a weird weight to the admission that Jinx couldn’t quite place. That curiosity reared its head again.

“Alright, what the hell happened yesterday? Like, I was out sick, but I would’ve heard if there was a major move, but this is like, what, the fourth or fifth time you’ve mentioned it today?”

Jinx watched as Raven closed off. She’d thought Raven had been masking before, but this was the stone-cold, completely dead face of someone trying to hold themselves together. Whether it was to keep herself from tearing Jinx’s head off or to avoid having some kind of nervous breakdown, Jinx wasn’t sure.

Either way, she cursed that curiosity.

“It was a bad day,” was all Raven offered.

“…Right. Well, whatever,” she scoffed. “If it’s something big, I’ll hear about it before too long.”

Raven’s shoulders dropped like she just found out a robbery had been called off.

A street sign passed by Jinx’s backward steps and she pivoted, heading down that road. The mostly clean paths of upper Jump City vanished in a blink. The air took on a stench made of sludge, grime, and copper. Her steps were uneven on broken blacktop.

“We’re almost there. Three more streets.”

Raven nodded and moved to once again match Jinx’s pace as she spun to face forward.

Ahead of them, streets curved off into deep, dark alleys and around dingy buildings like veins in a creature in the throes of rotting. Shuttered windows marked abandoned storefronts and “homes,” now host to whatever squatter needed a break from the elements for the night.

Curtains twitched as they went down the sidewalk, just enough to let Jinx know she wasn’t imagining the feeling of eyes on them.

Further down the road, a fire guttered and spurted its last breaths in a dented barrel near the corner, smoke curling up graffiti-stained walls that looked like they would smell moldy. A bottle shattered somewhere up and to her left, echoes of drunken laughs following and making her fingers itch with an unleashed hex.

Shoulders tightening, Jinx kept moving with her eyes on a constant swivel around the shadows. This was her element, her life once upon a time. The air had been more dense with smog, the faint traces of sand and ocean hadn’t been there, but she was still just as familiar now as when she’d been running and hiding in the Gotham alleyways at night.

She kept her hands loose and swinging at her side, waiting for someone to pull a knife or make some other equally dumb move.

Honestly, she hadn’t been sure how Raven would handle the sudden shift from the open, clean air of the rest of the city. Chancing a quick look at her side, she found she didn’t need to bother worrying.

For the lower level goons playing hideaway in the dark, the goth might have looked like an easy mark, carefree and unaware of the lurking danger. Anyone worth actually worrying about would know better, though.

Raven didn’t flinch under the weight of the stares. She didn’t even look at the shadows. She’d tucked her hands into her pockets and kept pace with Jinx as though nothing had changed. Her steps were slow and measured, not hurried at all, as though she couldn’t be bothered to care if someone suddenly did jump out at them.

It wasn’t bravado. She walked the streets with all the confidence that Jinx imagined Boy Blunder had, back when he was stalking Gotham in the Bat’s shadow. She was on Raven’s side for the night and she still felt her hair bristling.

She wasn’t just ignoring the danger. All put together, Jinx realized there was no danger in these streets for the Titan.

The hex-caster almost felt like laughing. Here she was, the big bad villain ready for a fight at any second while the hero next to her was walking through the filth like she owned these streets.

And for all of that, she was left with a nagging question that she really couldn’t ignore anymore.

“What’s in your book?”

Raven lifted a brow as Jinx relaxed and straightened up.

“We’re in the shittiest part of the city and it’s not even making you tense up. The book is bound in iron and still has you freaked out. Why?”

They turned a corner, and somewhere behind them metal creaked. There was a crack and a light pole at Jinx’s back went out. There was a yelp and the clang of someone dropping something metal, then slapping feet as they ran.

“The book has a monster in it,” Raven intoned.

“Yeah, no, I got that,” Jinx threw back with an eye roll. “Monster is vague here. You just scared that guy half to death and you weren’t even looking. Which, good catch by the way. But you’re worried enough to pull in a criminal to help get this thing back. I doubt this is some gremlin or wayward Fair Folk. And, on that note, if this thing’s so bad, why did you even have it in your room?”

A sudden idea came to Jinx and she flashed the Titan a smirk.

“Has the resident white witch been getting naughty with some spells Birdbrain wouldn’t approve of? Cause my bet’s a demon. This totally feels like some Solomon shit.”

Much to Jinx’s surprise, instead of rising to the bait, Raven let out another of those little chuckles.

“No,” she huffed as she straightened up. “It’s not a demon, Jinx. This would be so much simpler if this was about some lowly trade for a soul.”

Sighing, Raven flexed her hands and shot the hex-caster a look. Debating, if Jinx was able to guess at whatever the sorceress’s mood of the second was. Honestly, it was starting to give Jinx whiplash. At least the Titan was making it interesting, though.

“I did learn from the book once. I wouldn’t trust any information that came from it anymore. As for why the book was in my room…”

Raven’s hands fell still as something dark crossed her expression.

“I couldn’t destroy it, and I can’t trust anyone else to keep it secured.”

“You would be the kind of nerd who’d preserve knowledge,” Jinx snorted.

“Couldn’t, Jinx. I would turn the book and its inhabitant to ash if I were able.”

And boy wasn’t that ominous?

Before she could question that more, they took another corner and Jinx pulled to a stop. To their right was a storefront.

At first glance, it was completely uninteresting except for being one of the few shops around that didn’t have boarded windows. A small, hunched building on the corner sat like it was trying to disappear into the shadows. And it succeeded, if you didn’t know where to look.

If you did, you would find someplace distinctly Other. A crooked sign hung over the door, swinging on rusted chains. If you squinted, you would almost be able to read enough of the worn down ghosts of metal letters to learn you were looking at The Warren: Curiosities & Collectibles. She was lucky if she could make out Warren most trips here.

A window next to the door was covered in grime. Under the facade she could see a collage of cracked porcelain dolls with eyes that followed you, warped picture frames that looked blurrier the more you focused on them, and stacks of books so sun-bleached and worn down they might fall apart if you looked at them wrong.

The door itself was painted a sickly green and chipping for years but somehow never quite revealing the wood underneath. A “Closed” sign was tacked on the door, but the lights were on inside, casting a sickly glow on the street.

“Alright, so… putting a pin in that for a sec, we’re here.”

Next to her, Raven stared at the storefront with a curious frown. Jinx wondered what she was seeing.

Shrugging that off as questions for later, Jinx pushed the door. It swung open with a shrill groan that never made any sense for how it always opened smooth and clean like it was freshly oiled. Then she was heading inside, Raven scrambling to follow her in…

Chapter Text

3. Collision

A bell chimed off-key and way too loud and cheery for this time of night as the pair stepped inside. Dimly, Jinx realized the door was silent as it slid itself back shut behind them.

Taking a quick look around, Jinx felt herself easing up. The Warren hadn’t changed in the weeks since she’d last been there. Still filled with the vague smell of moldy carpet, old leather, and dead air. Still dim enough to make every shadow look just slightly suspicious.

Humming to herself, Jinx advanced down along the bookshelf like she was home. The shelves hung at awkward angles in the wood sporting books and jars of all sorts of sizes without a care for actually organizing any of it. Where there were gaps, there was enough brass, porcelain, and gold knickknacks to make a pirate jealous.

She ignored it all and kept moving. Avoid the creaking floorboard that might have a loose nail or maybe had teeth here, step around the reaching corner of a rug there. Raven followed her steps seamlessly, though the hex-caster wasn’t even sure she was paying attention to what she was doing.

Jinx turned the corner and smirked. Up ahead, the Broker sat behind the counter like he always was. Small, wiry, wearing a suit jacket two sizes too big, the Broker wasn’t much to look at on a first glance.

He’d look like any other sleazy pawn shop owner if you saw him out of the shop. Even the cigarette burning low in his fingertips curling oily blue smoke to the ceiling felt cheap.

Then he looked up at her from behind his sunglasses and leveled a razor-thin, utterly insincere smile her way. It was a snake’s smile, promising plenty of venom if she was wasting his time.

“Jinx,” he grunted in greeting, drawing it out like he was tasting it.

Smirk stretching into a full grin, Jinx sauntered up and planted a hand on the dusty glass case he used for a desk.

“Hey there, Mister Middleman!”

His lip twitched and fell flat as he leaned forward on his elbows. Behind the smoky glasses, dark eyes locked with hers and stared through her the way he tended to do. However long with Raven that night had made it lose its bite.

“Didn’t think I’d see you back here. Thought you’d gone and found yourself reputable work,” he sneered with a dramatic shudder.

For just a second, his eyes flicked behind Jinx, and then he was back without mentioning the superhero standing silently by the bookshelf. If the Broker didn’t know she was covering the exit in case he decided to run, Jinx would be disappointed.

“We’ve been laying low,” she quipped. “Starting to come up for air now. So tell me, how many broken toasters get me into your little black book these days?”

He flicked the cigarette into a tray that Jinx knew hadn’t been there a second ago and grinned at her.

“Depends. You buying or selling?”

“How bout a trade?”

Huffing a laugh, he pulled in a deep drag on the cigarette and blew a ring in her face. It stank like incense and made her fingertips tingle.

“It’s been weeks. There’s a lot on offer, but info’s not free and you don’t get any favors til you’re actually back in the game, kitty cat.”

Jinx said nothing, meeting his stare and giving him none of the reaction he was looking for. After a second, he snorted and tapped more ashes out.

“But you do always make it interesting around here,” he mused after a few more beats of silence. “I can maybe give you a discount. Depending on what you’re buying, of course.”

“Oh, a discount! That your way of saying you’ll take my money and still scam me?”

He laughed and gave a short nod before snubbing the rest of his cigarette out.

“Alright, alright. What are you trading for?” he mused with air quotes almost touching her face.

“Just looking for some info today. I’m hearing whispers about a magic book getting swiped. Know anything about that?”

The Broker leaned back and crossed his arms with a hum. His eyes flicked back over Jinx’s shoulder, where the air was starting to feel weirdly heavy. She refused to look back and find out what he saw, and he moved on pretty quickly.

“Tell you what. You tell me why I have a Titan in my shop, I’ll see about remembering whatever I maybe or maybe didn’t hear about.”

The air shifted and a warm body was suddenly pressing against Jinx. It felt like her whole left side was burning, going all the way up to her cheeks. The Broker didn’t even flinch at whatever Raven had just done to blink through space.

Weirdly, the lack of pissing himself or screaming felt like it actually made Raven relax next to her. She tilted her head, the movement slow and deliberate as she met the Broker’s stare.

“If this book isn’t found, Jump City could be reduced to a pile of rubble and smoke before the sun’s up. Not that I’m an expert on your line of work, but that seems less than ideal for your business here.”

“Pfft. Cute. She thinks she’s scary,” he laughed towards Jinx.

She wasn’t sure she’d be laughing in his shoes, but maybe the weird, creeping cold working around her feet hadn’t made its way to the other side of the desk yet.

She was sure she saw his hands shaking on the countertop before he noticed and started making them stay still.

“Scary or not, I like this city,” Jinx threw back. “I like it very much not a smoking crater. So. A trade. Whaddya want?”

For an awkwardly long drag of silence, his eyes bounced between them and he didn’t move. Just as she felt Raven starting to shake, he let out a puff of air.

“Well it’s your lucky day, Lucky. Cause it turns out there actually is something I’m interested in.”

With a huff, he lumbered to his feet and waved further into the room.

“Let’s talk shop.”

He took a step then paused, leveling a finger at Raven.

“No capes allowed in the back.”

Raven rolled her eyes but stepped away from Jinx and nodded. Turning, she met Jinx’s eyes with dark, almost black irises.

“Let me know if any convincing is required. And remember the deal.”

And then the Titan stepped around her and walked over to the other side of the bookshelf, pulling out a small red book with a thoughtful frown.

Jinx blinked and stopped following the sorceress’s movements as she took a seat in an ancient chair that looked seconds away from falling to pieces.

With a nod at the Broker, Jinx stalked after him when he passed under some beaded curtains.

She felt the air lighten as she crossed the threshold, whatever privacy and soundproofing wards he had in place keeping the room safe from Raven existing in the shop. Jinx followed him over to a table and took a seat, planting her feet on the tabletop and crossing her arms behind her head.

If the Broker had issues with it, he didn’t show it as he took his own seat. Leaning back on the cushy, soft wood, he let out a huff.

“Your new girl doesn’t do the foreplay so good. You have my sympathies,” he rasped.

Jinx almost jerked out of her chair as she shot a look at the door. She could see Raven sitting there, but she was looking at the book and didn’t seem bothered.

“Yeahhh… Maybe don’t say that out front. One, not my girl. Two, I’m pretty sure I can’t even make a joke like that and stay in one piece.”

He just snorted at her.

“Right. I imagined the doe eyes.”

“I have working eyes,” she tossed back. “Doesn’t mean hero’s suddenly my type.”

“Yeah, and it ain’t the Cat’s either.”

Shaking his head, he waved her off before she could snipe back.

“Ain’t my business. This time. Far as the fuzz cares, I run a respectable business anyway.”

“Like the cops come this far,” Jinx scoffed.

“That too, yeah. So whatever deal you cut with the Bat Junior’s pet monster? Don’t really care. Unless,” he snorted, “someone asks. Obviously.”

“Naturally,” the meta scoffed right back.

It wasn’t like it was news to her. The second Raven stepped inside with her, she’d known someone would be hearing about it. It wasn’t like she would’ve convinced Raven to stay outside, either. She was shocked she hadn’t stormed in here with her.

Then, Jinx froze. All the terms of their ‘deal’ had been Jinx demanding and Raven agreeing. And Raven had made it sound like she was strong-arming Jinx. Like she knew being there put a target on the hex-caster’s back and gave her an out.

Because being a rat got you shot. Being in for yourself and making a deal if it meant saving your own skin? That was just smart business in the shadows. So maybe Raven did know how this all worked, and that raised some interesting questions.

The Broker shifted and the chair squeaked, pulling Jinx’s attention back to business.

“A white and silver magic book. That sound about right for whatever your handler out there is looking for?”

“As far as she’s told me, yeah, that’s the one.”

He nodded and tilted his head back, rocking slightly in place as he thought. After a few seconds, he nodded and slouched forward to meet her eyes.

“Here’s the deal. It’s the only one you’re getting, which is more than you’d get if you weren’t one of my favorite customers, kitty cat.”

“Lay it on me,” she sighed back, ignoring the way he smirked.

“I’ve been having some… issues, lately. For some reason, my… international shipments have been going missing somewhere between the port and my doorstep. I had a perfectly fair deal in place with this guy down at the harbor, but the guy’s suddenly clammed up and just can’t seem to remember where my extra cargo went.”

“… So do you need a new ‘guy down at the harbor’ or…?”

“I need to know what leverage someone else got out from under me, who got the leverage, and what he’s done with who that’s a bigger problem for him.”

Jinx relaxed, letting her feet slide back to the floor.

“Can’t get to it today, for obvious reasons.”

“Naturally,” he snarked. “I think she said something about the city getting burned down? Kinda pointless to convince a dock master if there are no docks left for him to help me move antiques through.”

“Cool. Gimme what you got to make Blackbird out there happy and I’ll hop to it as soon as I sleep off whatever tonight’s going to do to me.”

He nodded and pulled a notebook open. Jinx didn’t question why he hadn’t had it a second ago, or how she hadn’t seen him pull it out. She was content to let him flip through looking for whatever he did or didn’t have written down in there.

With a quiet ah-ha, he stopped about halfway through the book and nodded at her.

“Bout two weeks ago, this guy came in. Jittery like a squirrel who forgot to stock up for winter, thought the idiot was gonna’ OD on my floor.”

“How inconvenient.”

“He was askin’ if I had the book at first,” he continued like she hadn’t said anything. “Guy got real touchy when I told him he should go to a library if he wanted books. Acted like he knew all about my business. Kicking his ass out and watching him stand there lookin’ all confused why he couldn’t find the door again made my day.”

“Does the squirrel have a face or, y’know, anything I can actually chase down?”

“Oh, yeah, I got him on my cameras, all time coded and labeled and fancy-like.”

Her eye twitched and he let out a coughing laugh.

“Easy, Lucky. Guy was in a robe like your new friend usually capes in. But tackier. Like he walked outta’ the shower and right into the slums. Big hood covered his face… Actually, I don’t even know how he got here without someone jumpin’ his ass.”

He flipped to the next page and hummed.

“Guy like that ain’t exactly subtle. Two weeks, I’ve been hearin’ the usual suspects bitching about this robed guy rockin’ up and trying to hire ’em. He wants a thief bad. Far as I heard, nobody was touching him, though. Guess he was freaky enough that even the biggest dumbasses knew to steer clear.”

Flipping his book closed, he flashed a grin her way.

“Sounds like he found someone to take the job.”

“Someone who stole it right from under Raven’s nose,” she added. “So not a dumbass. Someone skilled. Maybe suicidal or cocky enough to think they’d get away with it…”

“Yeah. And I’ll give you this for free, just cause the fire’ll be fun to watch. There’re no tourists in the last two weeks. Least, no thieves that I’ve heard of.”

Then, he sat there grinning at her expectantly. She stared back, mind whirling.

So it was a thief, skilled enough to get through the Tower and Raven’s security and not get fried. Someone who wouldn’t be put off by a client being questionable at best. Because they knew they could pull it off? Or they didn’t feel like they had anything to lose?

She went still.

Maybe it wasn’t some cocky or suicidal idiot. Maybe it was someone looking for the thrill of knowing they’d have the dark Titan hounding them. Someone who liked a high challenge and thrived on taking jobs other thieves were too scared to touch.

A thief who could evade Raven’s wards, and was smart enough to find the book in the first place. No fresh faces in town, no normal thieves dumb enough to take the job or smart enough to actually pull it off…

“Shit.”

The Broker grinned as Jinx hopped to her feet.

“I’ll reach out when I’m on the other side. Have what you do know about your sailor ready for me.”

“Pleasure doing business,” he laughed as she rushed back through the curtain.

Raven had moved since she’d gone back there. The book was nowhere in sight, and the Titan was leaning over a shelf. In her hands was a top hat with a grey band, and Raven was looking at it like she wanted to murder it.

Which, okay, that raised more questions about what Raven’s deal was with the League’s favorite showgirl.

Raven looked up and promptly dropped the hat like she’d been caught stealing. The horror.

Jinx just nodded her head to the side and went around the bookshelf, quick and light steps easily keeping pace.

The bell chimed again, and they were back out in the real world. Hinges squealed as the door closed behind them and Jinx stalked back out onto the street.

“Probably don’t need to say this, but just in case. Sending Boy Blunder out here will just get you a bitching session about an empty building.”

Raven nodded at her side.

“Naturally.”

Jinx froze mid-step, heart jumping. Head slowly swiveling, she looked over at Raven to find her smirking.

Snorting, she shook her head and picked up the pace.

“So were his spells that easy for you to get around, or were you actually in the room somehow?”

“His wards have a very specific oversight which I’m uniquely qualified to exploit.”

“Sure, why not? So I don’t need to play catch-up. Cool. Did you figure it out, too?”

“…I have an idea of who did this,” Raven admitted.

“Right. So… Cut back a few years ago. X showed up on the scene, bragging about robbing the Titans blind. Not really subtle, but people don’t exactly hire thieves who’re humble.”

“I’m aware. We’ve caught more than a handful of… less than talented individuals learning that they’d been misinformed. It didn’t take Robin long to connect the dots.”

Jinx snorted and nodded.

“So he staked a claim and built his name quick. It’s a smart move. It’s what we were gonna’ do, back when we booted you all outta’ the Tower.”

“Until we ‘booted you’ back out,” Raven tossed back, voice flat but just the tiniest traces of a smile to it.

Jinx winced and rubbed at her arm as they turned the corner.

“Yeah, well. Shoulda’ been our first clue, right? We only got steamrolled like that cause we were sitting around waiting for our next orders. If that one-eyed asshole Slade hadn’t set us up to eat dirt, you and I would have a very different dynamic right now, Sunshine.”

Beside her, Raven went rigid. Jinx paused and turned to look at her, confused what just happened.

Raven was pale. She was pale through her glamour, almost looking like her natural shade. Her hands trembled and her breaths were coming in fast and shallow.

Jinx frowned, wondering if she was actually concerned about the Titan.

As far as she’d ever heard, the Cyclops was Robin’s baggage. And the blonde girl who’d been palling around with the Titans, if the rumors and innuendo from a few years back were anything to go by.

She’d never heard of the mercenary even tangling with any of the others one-on-one.

Raven’s lips started moving, too fast to follow. It sort of sounded like her magic words, but it was coming too quick and too low to be sure. It sounded almost frantic, like she was underwater and gasping for air.

The air felt thick and heavy, prickling over Jinx’s skin like static. At the corner ahead of them, a streetlamp groaned and creaked then snapped clean in two in a flash of black and a shower of sparks.

Without thinking, Jinx reached out and put her hand on the Titan’s shoulder. It felt like she’d touched a live current and she pulled back with a yelp, shaking the black sparks from her fingertips.

Thanks to whatever god felt like giving her a favor, either the touch or Jinx’s shout got through to Raven and knocked her out of her sudden trance. Violet eyes stopped jumping all over the place like she expected the Terminator to spring out of the shadows.

Jinx remembered after she’d come out of the haze. Even watching blue lightning knock the geezer off a cliff, feeling the tendrils he’d shoved into her brain pull away, hadn’t made her feel clean. It had been weeks and she still stayed up late at night, staring at the shadows and trying to ignore her own personal ghost in her head.

Jinx found she suddenly had a very unpleasant guess at what Raven’s day had been like yesterday. And why she was so intense today. The hex-caster’s stomach clenched, and she found herself stepping forward before she could second guess it.

She took hold of the sorceress’s wrist, gentle and light and very easy for Raven to break loose from if she needed to. Raven’s skin felt cold. She was trembling under Jinx’s thumb.

“Okay. Breathe with me, alright? It’s just you and me here, Sunshine. Dollar Store Two-Face is nowhere near us.”

Raven’s gaze jumped to her, wide and frantic and, for just a second, filled with speckles of blood red. Jinx held her stare unblinking until Raven slowly nodded. The hex-caster felt the weight drain from the air around them.

Raven blinked and let out a harsh, shaking breath. Her eyes were their normal violet again. A tight fist unclenched, Raven’s wrist going slack in her hold. Jinx practically felt the tension draining from the Titan and breathed her own sigh.

Silence stretched, just Raven’s slowly calming breaths and the wind. In the quiet, Jinx’s senses sharpened and filled the gaps.

Her instincts fired off, loud and screaming in her head. Someone was watching them. Dropping Raven’s hand, Jinx spun and punched up.

A shadow leapt out of the cloud of debris as a rooftop corner lit bright pink and exploded. By the time the dust cleared, their stalker was already down on the street across from her.

His cape was flowing dramatically, because of course even his cape was a drama queen. She stared at the whites of his skull masked eyes and glared.

“Well isn’t this touching?” a synthetic voice quipped.

“Funny. We were just talking about creeps in masks.”

A hex rushed down the road like a neon missile. With that annoying, synthesized laugh of his, the thief hopped into a side flip, easily clearing the shower of concrete where he’d been standing. He landed on the other side of the street.

Somehow, even his posture was smug, leaning back against a lamp like he was posing for a shitty costume shop ad. She felt his stare slide off of her the same time Raven tensed at her side.

“The cat would look awful in a cape, but you’re rocking going without yours, Blackbird. If you’re looking to flip sides, we should talk. I’m the much better thief.”

Jinx felt insulted. Which was stupid. But she knew she looked great in Raven-chic. She would be glad to teach him who the better thief was, though.

Then Raven moved next to Jinx. If the night had felt spooky a second ago, it felt like a horror movie set now. The warm summer night turned cold and frigid in the time it took for Raven to finish her step.

A chilled wind whistled down the street and Jinx would swear she heard whispers in her ear. Fog started rolling across the road, thin and wispy and not possible. Even X shivered as the light over his head flickered and sparked.

“You have something of mine.”

Raven’s voice was deeper, the sound rattling at the base of Jinx’s spine.

X laughed and stretched his arms out wide.

“I’m innocent, officer, I swear! You can feel free to frisk me and check if you want, though.”

The lamp snapped without warning, metal and glass showering down as Red X threw himself into a sideways dive.

The whispering grew louder. Raven’s hand fell onto Jinx’s wrist. Despite the tension rippling across her arm, the dark Titan’s hold was gentle as she lightly pulled Jinx. She let herself be moved back and behind the sorceress without a complaint.

Her every sense was on high alert, screaming that she was in danger. She wasn’t about to tempt that by being a smartass here.

“I see its magic on you, X. You are no magician. I don’t know how you got into my room. But honestly? Right now, I don’t much care.”

Raven took a step, and X fell back with arms lifted and glowing red in wait for the Titan’s next move.

“I’m going to give you a chance, X. One chance. I’m in no state to be playing your games tonight.”

“Aw! But the games are what make it all so interesting though!” he snarked.

“You’re going to tell me where my book is,” she forced through grit teeth. “And then you’re going to leave. As fast as your legs can carry you. You’re going to go off to do whatever it is you do when you’re not baiting Robin. No police, no arrest, I have much bigger concerns than a petty child looking to get an adrenaline high tonight.”

Honestly? Jinx gave it a solid nine out of ten as far as intimidating speeches went. The crushing atmosphere, the way the Titan’s voice was making the ancient, primal monkey part of her brain scream to run, the way the shadows were reaching for them!?

All Raven was missing was a mask and a high rise roof to dangle X from and it would be one of the scariest, weirdly hottest things she’d ever witnessed.

Further proving why Jinx was the smarter thief, Red X laughed.

“You’re cute when you’re mad. Have you been taking brooding lessons from the Bat?” he practically sang.

Raven exploded forward, the road cracking where her foot had been. She landed on X with a punch that sent concrete raining around her, the thief moving around her side from a hasty dodge.

He landed on his feet, bouncing lightly as he swung his arms down. The glowing red x sent at Raven disappeared in a burst of black light before Raven had even finished turning.

“Not used to that,” he admitted. “Blind charges are Birdboy and the Chia Pet’s thing. Maybe you should-”

Raven’s body vanished in a blink. She popped into existence at X’s back in the middle of swinging a blindingly fast roundhouse kick, her whole lower leg wrapped in black. He ducked and rolled back under the swing, coming up from a handstand just as Raven’s foot connected with the wall behind where he’d stood.

The building and road vibrated as a spiderweb of deep, dark cracks tore through the brick. As soon as she touched down, she spun on the ball of her foot and leapt back at him with a kick aimed for his chest.

With a grating static whistle, he sidestepped the sorceress. A gloved hand wrapped around her ankle when she passed, and then he spun with a downward swing.

Instead of slamming face-first into the road, Raven caught herself on glowing hands and twisted her lower body. He caught her second kick with his forearm and staggered back when something metal cracked.

Raven rose back to her feet just as he slid forward and threw a vicious jab at her face. The Titan just glared and swept the punch to the side, spinning to throw her elbow to the back of his head.

Jinx held back, watching as the two danced back and forth and waiting for her chance to make X’s night very unlucky. This wasn’t really her fight. On the other hand, if he got the distance to use that annoying teleporter of his they were going to be chasing him and that was going to piss her off.

The two moved across the street, Red X’s flexibility and speed just barely keeping him from being turned into a puddle by Raven’s strikes. As fast as he was, as much as he was ducking and weaving and moving all over, the Titan wasn’t giving him a second to even try to land a hit. If Raven’s kick could turn a brick wall into powder, this was probably over the second she landed a clean hit.

He weaved around a punch and backflipped away. Right into a kick from Jinx, her foot planting square in his back.

Grunting, he rocked forward then dropped low and swept his foot for her ankles. Jinx hopped into a flip and landed with her hand on his leg. Shoving down, she planted his foot and used the swing to send a kick at his face.

An elbow slammed into her ankle and knocked her attack sideways, the sudden spin sending her flying to the ground.

“You should’ve stayed out of it, kitty cat.”

Sneering, she rolled and threw a hex at his face. He sidestepped and it hit the wall across the street in a burst of pink static.

“Maybe, but I don’t need to have a Titan breathing down my neck to wanna’ claw off that stupid mask.”

She leapt forward, spinning mid-air into a kick. He ducked under her and punched for her sternum, only for her to grab his arm and use it to pivot. Her feet planted in his stomach and she shoved, throwing him back and landing in a handstand.

He landed on his feet a few steps away, hand already moving. Before she could do a thing, one of those stupid x’s hit her wrist and burst. Grunting, she came down on her knees and started pulling at the red tar gluing her to the street.

Before he could follow through while she was a sitting duck, Raven was there swinging a haymaker for his side. The thief’s body curled and bent to curve around the hit and he moved into a spin away from the Titan.

A hex set off and her hand broke free as the substance hardened and cracked.

His hand flickered red and more x’s flew for both women. Raven blinked out of existence, the red splashing against a wall. Jinx pushed into a roll and clicked her fingers together, the weapons fizzling and going dim in the air.

Tracking X’s steps while he ducked punch after punch, Jinx let the static build and counted.

One step… Two… Three!

Jinx snapped her wrist forward and the road behind X cracked. His heel planted into the hole and he fell back with a grunt.

Raven’s next punch glanced off his chest when he twisted and dropped. He hit the ground and rolled, the back of his heel flying into the side of the Titan’s face. Landing on his front, he tensed and flipped over into a somersault. Raven shook her head and took off after him.

Jumping backward out of a jab from the Titan so fast Jinx could barely see it, he brought his hands together as he came down. The street flashed crimson and a massive red x shot forward trailing sparks. It stretched as it flew, getting wider and wider by the second.

The ends hit brick and the whole mass stretched and bounced as it caught. A solid red wall stretched between a pair of buildings, spanning across the entire road. It stretched for one more second, then snapped taut with a loud groan.

The walls tore apart in a rain of bricks pulled at Raven from all sides.

Jinx snapped her wrist down and the static building on her fingers unleashed. A ripple of pink magic lanced into the maelstrom. Bricks crumbled in fast forward, turning to a cloud of dust wrapped around the Titan. And then it collapsed as Raven vanished, leaving a void in the center.

Red X dropped into a stance, head whipping around and looking for wherever Raven would come from next. Both Jinx and X were surprised when the answer turned out to be under him.

Raven came up from the road with a brutal uppercut, and even dodging at the last second, the hit knocked X’s head up with a crack of snapping armor. He staggered back while Raven landed and threw a haymaker. Jerking to the side, the thief barely swiped her punch away and stepped into a sloppy punch for her throat.

Raven’s other hand whipped out and stopped the attack dead. Before X could do anything, the dark Titan turned her hand and even Jinx winced at the sound X’s wrist made under her grip. Probably not broken, but Jinx flexed her own wrist on reflex just imagining what that felt like.

X dropped to the ground with a grunt. Raven’s hand moved with him, giving him just enough leeway to plant his other hand and use it for leverage. His heel whipped up into Raven’s jaw, knocking her several steps back.

X carried through on his momentum, leg spinning over his head and letting him roll back into handspring. With a small flip, he spun in the air and landed facing Raven.

Letting out a screeching squeal of a sigh through his voice modulator, X shook his hand out and slowly rolled it in circles.

“Gotta’ admit, I always wondered why Boy Blunder keeps you in the wings. You’re sloppy, but you pack a hell of a punch.”

Rubbing at her jaw, Raven rolled her neck with a series of pops. Jinx was pretty sure she wasn’t even breathing hard yet.

“How did you even find the book?”

“All business and no pleasure, you’re making me feel bad for the cat,” he sighed with a shake of his head.

Before Jinx could snark back, his hands whipped out and about a dozen red shurikens launched for Raven. She didn’t even bother dodging.

With a sweep of her arm, Raven threw out a tide of black light. It disappeared and took his weapons with it with a chorus of electronic pops and a cloud of red smoke.

“You’re wasting my time,” she hissed.

“Oh, but we’re having so much fun, Sunshine! But I mean, really. Did you think I was just going to hand the info over? Confidentiality is guaranteed isn’t just a sales pitch.”

Raven hissed and threw her arm forward. He jumped up and away with another laugh, landing in a perch on a dumpster pushed out from an alley. Raven’s black blade swept where he’d been and carved a groove through the road.

“Your life isn’t worth your confidentiality.”

“Ha! You don’t have the eyes of a killer! Plus Boy Blunder has you on too tight a leash for that.”

Raven tossed out a hand and a wave of loose stones and bricks followed, flying like hail for his face. A glowing red x shot out spinning, the ends of the shape wrapping around the attack and dropping everything to the road.

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I found out where the book was last seen, took a little peek at the sales records, and went to go check in on your dorm of doom.”

Raven flicked her wrist and the dumpster split in half. X whistled from where he held on to a windowsill above it, the sound shrill and crackling.

“Robin’s not the only detective in the city, Sunshine. It’s not like it was hard.”

Raven’s eyes turned black and he hopped away, narrowly avoiding having his hand crushed when the bricks crumpled in a spray of powder.

“I mean, seriously. I go in and find the whole Tower dark. The Tin Can’s system is about as airtight as a butterfly net. You barely even hid your freaky spellbook, it was like it wanted me to find it.”

He landed, looking ready to dodge whatever follow-up Raven threw at the taunt. Except she didn’t.

The entire street had gone completely still and silent, like the air had been drained out. Jinx felt herself dropping into a stance, hexes pulsing against her skin without her even thinking about it.

A red glow spread over the road, and it took Jinx a second to realize it was coming from Raven. She wasn’t sure if the crimson tattoos had been hidden and finally broke through the Titan’s glamour, or if they’d just formed. Either way, looking at them had Jinx slowly stepping back and away like she’d just seen a lit bomb.

“Do you have any idea what you stole? Any notion of how dangerous that book is?”

Her voice was quiet, a rasp like wind passing through an empty graveyard. In the silence, Jinx flinched like a gun had just fired.

Somehow, Raven sounded equal parts angry and scared. All over this book. Jinx found herself asking what the fuck was in that book?

Red X shrugged, playing at being unaffected even though he started backing away, too.

“Don’t see how it’s my problem, Sunshine.”

The world twisted and tilted. Color vanished in a blink, the entire street coated in a filter of solid black and sharp white outlines. The only color left to be found was Raven’s arms, her tattoos glowing a hellish crimson.

The air exploded with the sound of hundreds of windows shattering and every light source in sight cracking and crumbling to dust.

The moon blinked and was gone, the sky turning into a stretch of pure obsidian. Somehow, Jinx could still see all the details around her. All of the details, in sharp and obvious relief better than her night vision had been in the moonlight.

All around them, the shapes of buildings warbled and warped like someone had swept their finger through a puddle. Jinx saw shadows where there was no light source and missing shadows where she would expect to find them.

So fast Jinx didn’t know what happened, something moved. Red X let out an electronic screech as his body lifted off the ground and slammed face first into a building with enough force to buckle the wall.

He dropped to the ground in a shower of plaster and rebar. A writhing black mass of something pressed him to the road and made Jinx’s head sharply ache just looking at it.

Jinx was pretty sure she was having a panic attack. Sweating, shaking, breaths struggling in her throat, heart trying to race its way out of her ribs? The world felt distant and fuzzy around her. Yeah, that was panic attack territory for sure.

Raven flicked a finger and Red X was flung across the road until he came to an abrupt stop against another wall. The darkness let him go, and he dropped in a shaking heap at the Titan’s feet.

Jinx had been so quick to laugh at Doctor Light before. So fast to dismiss him as a wuss, an idiot throwing some brightness at the shadow witch and getting scared when she punched his lights out. Staring at the solid black of Raven’s eyes, struggling to keep herself standing in the weird black and white hellscape she’d just been shoved into, Jinx wasn’t laughing anymore.

The road curled up and wrapped around X like a snake, thoroughly pinning him beneath Raven. Raven’s body blurred and she was suddenly kneeling over the struggling thief and staring him dead in the eye.

“I don’t care that you steal. I don’t care that you get some thrill out of tweaking Robin’s nose, that’s his blunder and you’re his consequence to deal with. But you broke into my room this time. That you’re alive at all is, frankly, as much blind luck as it is your admittedly impressive skillset.”

X went still, staring up at her in silence. Jinx didn’t know he could shut up.

“You took my book. A book holding a predator, my predator. One who very much wants me dead and wants to burn the world, in that order.”

Raven’s teeth snapped together and her eyes turned the same burning red as her tattoos.

“That I care about.”

Her hand shot out and X gasped as it clamped in an iron hold around his throat.

All around them, the shadows writhed and curled. The whispering Jinx thought she heard before started shouting in her ears. The meta wasn’t even sure if she was breathing anymore.

Even as her brain screamed to run, her legs decided it was a great time to give out and drop her to her knees, helpless to stare at the horror show.

She could hear Raven’s heavy breathing over the voices, somehow quiet but cutting through the noise. The dark Titan’s entire body was trembling in place, but her grip was firm and unmoving around the thief.

“You’re going to tell me where I’ll find my book. Or I’m going to rip the answers from your mind. I don’t want to hear your every secret and sin, but I will find what I’m looking for.”

Somehow, despite her chokehold, X let out an electric hum.

“Maybe you do make for a good villain.”

“I am not a villain! I spent my entire day yesterday being stalked by my worst nightmare come to life and ended my birthday with Slade’s filthy hands on me before he dropped me unconscious off a building. I come home, come to my room, my space, and find it violated and unsafe for a second time in under twenty-four hours.”

Raven’s breaths started coming faster, her tattoos going bright then dark in time with her rapid pulse.

“I shoved my first abuser into his book and bound him for a hopeful eternity of suffering loneliness and misery. Slade is walking free after being pulled from the pit and I can’t shove him back!”

Raven pulled back, drawing in a deep, violently shaking breath. Color flickered into the world and was gone again, Raven’s eyes pulsing black and red with the shift.

“You won’t survive. If you force me to make this choice, there’s no coming back. For either of us.”

Jinx froze, and she was dimly aware of Red X doing the same.

There was no threat here. Raven sounded like she was about a second away from snuffing the thief out and begging him to not give her a reason to pull the trigger.

Jinx wasn’t a stranger to violence. She’d been on the receiving end of more threats than she could count from villains, cops, and heroes alike. She had never heard someone sound so desperate and on edge to not hurt someone before.

It struck something deep in Jinx, the world blurring at the edges.

How hard did Raven have to work to be good, to help people, to get constantly spit on by the people she was trying to help if she had a struggle like this inside her?

Red X nodded. Raven dropped him to the ground and stumbled back like she’d been burned. She planted a hand to her face and breathed, sounding on the verge of hyperventilating.

“…About a week ago, this guy shows up,” X started, sounding disturbingly subdued. “Some junkie from Gotham. He was ranting about something called the Church of Blood and needed to find your book.”

The sky pulsed red before smoothing back into black. Jinx chanced a look at Raven’s face and found that, somehow, she was still panic-breathing while her expression was completely blank. She may as well have been carved from stone for all the reaction she showed.

After a silent beat of Raven saying nothing, X picked back up again.

“…I followed up on it, like I said. I dropped the book off about twenty minutes ago at the shittiest hotel down at the harbor. Right by the port. I don’t think he was expecting me to get it done so quick, guy looked like he was planning to be here for a few more days.”

Raven staggered to a full stand with a nod.

“I don’t know what views you hold about the afterlife or your sense of your own soul,” the Titan rasped.

Looking down, she stared into his mask as the black slowly cleared from her eyes.

“If you are ever approached again by the Church of Blood? If you care the slightest bit about what happens when your mortal flesh gives up, turn their offer down with extreme prejudice. No money or treasure in this realm or any other is worth being in service to what’s waiting for you.”

Raven stepped back before he could say anything and snapped her fingers.

The world was suddenly colorful again. The road next to where Jinx had fallen was whole and as smooth as they’d ever been, making her yelp and roll back. She fell under the light of one of the lamps, tall and struggling as always to fight the creeping shadows from the alleyway.

Moonlight shined down, bouncing off the dirty glass of a window over her head.

Raven grunted then shoved into motion, walking around Red X as he laid flat on a grimy, oil-slicked road gasping for air.

“…How much of what just happened was real?”

Raven kept walking, not bothering to look back.

“If you ever decide to use our home as a treasure trove again, stay clear of my room. I don’t know how you got in this time, but know that it won’t happen again if you try your luck.”

A static, high-pitched laugh sounded as Red X ran a hand over his cracked mask.

“Your talents are wasted on Bat Junior.”

“The Titans are good for my soul. You just saw what’s on the other side of that bridge.”

And then she was at Jinx’s side, looking down at her with worried purple eyes and an offered hand.

Jinx stared up at her. Really looked at her.

Her voice might be steady again, like she’d just put on some kind of show to scare X into giving the book up. Jinx could see the horror in her wide eyes and shaking hands, though.

The meta reached up and took her hand, and then the world turned dark…

Chapter Text

4. Reckoning

Jinx felt solid ground under her feet as the black faded. A quick glance found her standing on a rooftop that was pretty barren except for the maintenance shed and a ladder off to her side.

She felt Raven land next to her.

“So… I guess we’re going fish-”

“You don’t have to pretend to be okay with what just happened.”

Jinx’s mouth snapped closed.

Turning, she found the Titan staring down at the street below. The club goth was gone, hidden behind her purple cloak once again. The hood was pulled up, hiding her face back in the shadows.

Even hiding behind her armor, Jinx could see the Titan’s hands shaking at her side. Could hear the breath struggling to fill her lungs.

“Are you-”

“Go, Jinx… I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

The growl was back in Raven’s voice, but it felt forced. She was trying to scare Jinx away, and it was jarring to hear how different it was from the last however long that had been.

And Jinx was scared. Terrified, actually. She wasn’t even sure how she was standing on her feet again, holding herself so close to someone capable of so casually breaking reality. Or conjuring such a convincing illusion. Or, given Raven’s non-answer, maybe some nightmare combination of both.

Because Raven had shredded that street. But then it was like they’d never been there. Except for Red X’s shattering mask and broken sanity and spirit. Like she’d torched the interrogation room. Except she hadn’t, unless you noticed all the scorch marks.

Jinx’s head hurt.

And despite all of it, she wasn’t going to be walking away from Raven unless the Titan made her.

Because she’d seen that look in her eyes. Watched as her powers tore the world apart around her like Raven was lashing out at reality. And Jinx remembered.

The first day after the Five had gotten back to Jump, Jinx had thought she saw Blood looking back at her in her mirror. Gizmo had taken a week to replace all the shattered glass and broken electronics around the base.

She remembered the feeling of static burning under her surface, begging to be released and burn and tear and ruin until the nightmares were too scared to come back. And that had gotten her here, skin buzzing and dragged along by a Titan, a hero, worried she would explode if she didn’t let it out.

That same hero could rip a hole in reality and shove any threats deep inside. If she was a villain, it would be so easy for her. Jinx couldn’t even think of a handful of people who could deal with what she’d just witnessed.

By her own admission, she could’ve shredded X’s brain until she found every scrap of information she wanted to know. She could be like Blood. Worse. And she wasn’t. She chose not to be.

Raven chose to be a hero. Even when it clearly cost her, more than Jinx ever could’ve guessed.

“Sorry, Sunshine. I’m in this now.”

“Jinx-”

A shrill ring filled the air, nearly dropping Jinx a few stories when she jumped. Raven’s whole body froze with a sharp gasp.

The ring came a second time and Raven let out a growl. Darkness pulsed in her right hand and faded to reveal her communicator in her grip. It blinked blue on the seams and rang a third time.

“Damnit.”

Before Jinx could do anything, Raven whipped it open. The screen hummed as a video feed connected. Jinx quickly stepped to the side, putting her just out of view from Raven’s camera and giving her a better view of the screen and Raven’s face.

If Raven had a problem with her sticking around, she didn’t have the time to let her know. Robin blinked in, frowning at the camera. Jinx could hear bickering in the background, a deep voice shouting over Beast Boy’s high pitched whining.

“Raven! I went to ask you if you made any progress with your books. Where are… Are you okay?”

Jinx saw Raven’s face at the edge of her hood’s shadow, carefully slipping back into that mask of hers. It didn’t take this time, the Titan’s emotions too raw to pull it off again this soon.

The bickering died down in the call, the air turning tense.

“My apologies,” Raven rasped. “I’ve been otherwise occupied today and haven’t been able to consult my books.”

She almost sounded calm, if not for how her voice cracked around ‘otherwise occupied’ and the shaking breath at the end.

“What’s happening, Raven?”

There was scrambling around Boy Blunder as the other Titans spawned into view around their leader.

Raven was silent, a debate raging behind her eyes. For just a second, her eyes flicked up to Jinx. The meta didn’t know why Raven would want her opinion, but it was pretty obvious things were falling out of control fast and they could use whatever help they could get.

Jinx nodded because what else was she going to do here, and Raven looked back at the communicator.

“Malchior’s book was stolen from my room yesterday. I’m in pursuit now.”

Boy Blunder locked up like she’d just stabbed him. Around him, Greenbean went pale while Sparkles gasped and threw her hands up in front of her mouth. Behind them, Chromedome started looking around like the Tower was under attack.

“He’s out!?” Beast Boy squawked.

“He isn’t loose,” Raven cut in.

The growl in her voice made Greenbean freeze and Boy Blunder tense up.

“He’s not out. Yet. Cy, we need to talk about your security when I get back. I think Red X left something the last time he was in the Tower. He took the book yesterday.”

“Wait! Hold up! X was in here!? In my system!?”

“I convinced him to give up his client. He’s still in the city. I’m en route now.”

Jinx wasn’t sure if Boy Blunder was dense or if he was actually that good at reading between the lines with Raven, but he didn’t hang up immediately. And going by how all of them were reacting to the news that this thing might get released, Jinx was starting to hear the ticking clock Raven must’ve been feeling since she grabbed her.

“How sure are you that X didn’t feed you bad info?”

“How do we know he’s not out already!?” Greenbean chimed in.

Raven grit her teeth and Jinx heard actual growling. Human vocal chords were not meant to make a sound like that. As she watched, Raven started tapping a foot on the roof and thought she saw cracks spreading.

“I would have him breathing down my neck by now if he was. I don’t think X was in any state to lie to me.”

“What did you-”

“Robin.”

The leader froze up, mouth hanging open.

“I promise I will explain later. X handed the book off. I need to get moving, and you need to prepare. If he does free him and if Malchior does get past me, you need to be ready to try to contain him. It’s happening at the harbor. I’ll send you the coordinates as soon as I touch down.”

“How the heck’re we supposed to contain him!?” Beast Boy whined. “He beat all of us and threw us off the Tower last time!”

“Will the curse you used last time work?” Robin chimed in.

“It should,” Raven said with a nod.

Jinx didn’t love how her voice wavered, how unsure Raven sounded. Going by the way his mask scrunched up like he bit a lemon, Boy Blunder didn’t either.

“Should? Or will? Raven, you’ve been gone all day with this and you didn’t think-”

Raven’s fist clenched at her side, knuckles popping from the pressure.

Jinx hissed and stepped up to Raven’s side. The sorceress flinched and Jinx snapped the communicator out of the air when it jumped out of her hand. She dimly noticed the screen was cracked where the Titan’s thumb had been.

Camera on her, she ran a hand up and down Raven’s arm. To her surprise, she thought she felt the Titan relax, so just kept it going.

“Jinx!?” a chorus shouted.

“Yeah, me. Hi. We have shit to do here. If you don’t want whatever the fuck a Malchior is burning everything down? Save the twenty questions and bitching for after this is wrapped up. Cool? Cool. Bye.”

She slammed her finger into the spot Gizmo had put their End Call button when he’d come up with his totally original communicators and the screen blacked out. With a flick of her wrist, it flipped closed.

Raven blinked like she’d just come out of a trance, turning bewildered eyes to Jinx. On a different day, the stunned look on her face would’ve had Jinx cackling.

The hex-caster just rolled her eyes and slipped the communicator back onto the Titan’s belt.

“Jinx, what-”

“We need to go.”

“Why-”

“I like living in Jump City. Don’t love the sound of living in a pile of rubble. Plus you need backup, and it sounds like your friends aren’t it here.”

“I can handle him,” Raven snapped.

Stepping up to the Titan, she forced her to meet her eyes.

“You pulled me into this as the only other person in this city who’s worth shit with magic. I don’t know you, Raven. Obviously. Today’s the first time I saw your face without that hood. And I can tell that the idea that this guy, Malchior, might get loose has been setting you on a warpath.”

Raven tensed, eyes narrowing and drawing up like she was going to argue.

“We don’t have time for this, Sunshine. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re totally fine handling this if he breaks containment.”

Raven glared for a heartbeat.

One… two… three…

She looked away and seemed to deflate. Jinx relaxed and wrapped a hand around her arm.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Raven stared at her hand for a second then slammed her eyes closed and drew in a deep breath. It wasn’t shaking this time.

Violet eyes opened and locked onto her, and Jinx fought a shiver at the fire in that stare.

“I can’t portal us all the way to the harbor. I’ll need to fly us until we’re close enough.”

“Guess I get to see if you were just bragging before.”

Jinx sidestepped around the Titan and pressed into her back. She wrapped her arms around Raven’s neck, careful to keep it loose enough to not choke.

The sorceress went rigid.

“What-”

“You can carry me, I can hang with my face in your chest, or I’m on your back. I’m very okay with whatever your preference is.”

Raven huffed and Jinx was pretty sure she could feel her eyes roll.

“Hang tight.”

Jinx grinned and hopped up, wrapping her legs around the Titan’s stomach. Raven didn’t even stumble at the sudden weight and Jinx had to fight hard to keep the jokes inside her head.

Then they were airborne, the Titan soaring off the rooftop. Jinx chanced a look down and realized it was a much higher fall, her arms squeezing just a little bit tighter.

Seeing buildings rush by down below, Jinx needed a distraction. Going by how tense Raven was, she thought maybe she did, too.

“Do you think Giz or Boy Blunder are gonna’ have more questions when tonight’s done?”

Raven dipped slightly before leveling out. Then she hummed like she was actually considering it, and Jinx fought down a smile.

“Robin will probably have an interview rehearsed in his head by the time I’m back at the Tower. Gizmo thinks you’re getting laid, and I got the distinct feeling he won’t be asking any follow-ups.”

Jinx let out a startled laugh and felt some of the tension drain out of them both.

“Yeah, alright, that’s fair!”

Jinx wracked her brain for a few seconds, trying to come up with something else to talk about. She had so many questions, and almost all of them were guaranteed to make Raven shut down.

“Malchior is a dragon, by the way.”

Jinx startled out of her thoughts and frowned down at the Titan.

Raven having an abusive, manipulative dragon for an ex wasn’t something Jinx would’ve expected, but also kind of made total sense?

The book, too. If she’d bound Brother Blood in a book after his mind controlling bullshit, she’d burn the city down if it meant making sure nobody opened the book again.

“You deserve to know,” Raven rasped. “I don’t know how sincere you are about why you’re helping me, but it’s only fair you know why I’ve been… well, the way I’ve been tonight.”

“You don’t owe me answers, Sunshine,” the meta corrected. “Don’t get me wrong! I wanna’ know. Like, so bad! But I heard what you said to X. I’m not so evil I’d try to make you spill your guts about this.”

Raven was silent for a few beats, the wind whipping by them sending a chill down Jinx’s spine and sending her just a little closer against the Titan.

Raven shivered, too.

“Last year, I bought a book,” she started. “It was just supposed to be an interesting bit of magic history. The ancient wizard Malchior slaying the evil dragon Rorek.”

Jinx’s head tilted in confusion. Maybe the dragon was a body-hopper? That would be a good way to make things worse.

“I got into an argument with Beast Boy one day, and Malchior made me aware of his presence, still trapped in the book. Trapped by the dragon’s last breath as he slayed him. That’s how he sold it to me.”

Raven’s scoff was bitter and harsh.

“He was pretending to be a sympathetic ear. A helpful, kindly mentor, teaching me magic like I’d never seen before. Teaching me how to reverse his curse and free him after being trapped for over a thousand years.”

The Titan tensed then forced herself to calm down with a deep sigh.

“Malchior had altered the book before I ever opened it. Changed the names, the illustrations, the spells. Rorek gave his life to seal him in that book, and he used me to undo that sacrifice. And then he tried to kill my friends and I as thanks.”

Raven was trembling under Jinx. The hex-caster glared down at the road.

“It sounds like you kicked his ass right back into his book?”

Raven steadied and gave a nod.

“The curse Robin mentioned. It was Rorek’s spell. Why Malchior left that in, I still don’t know. He probably thought I wouldn’t be able to memorize it or use it.”

“Sounds like it’s kept him locked in for a year already. So at least we’ve got a backup plan if things go to shit?”

The Titan shaking her head did not do great things for her confidence.

“Malchior was aware of current events and the world around the book. He would reference things he overheard when we would have our chats. My binding has kept him inert while I’ve looked into methods of destroying him and the book, but it’s been almost a year. The curse will work in theory, but I don’t know if he’s worked out a counter.”

Jinx’s mind was a chorus of swears. If this thing taught Raven magic and knew everything that was happening around him even bound, things were suddenly looking a lot worse if he broke out.

“Was your whole chains thing something he taught you?”

The meta let out a breath of relief when Raven shook her head.

“I used a binding spell from a separate book, one I’d read before even buying Malchior’s book. I adjusted it and used magic unique to me. The binding shouldn’t be breakable by almost any magician on the planet.”

Jinx felt herself relaxing.

“Oh. Well… that’s good?”

“It would be.”

“So that’s a no,” Jinx sighed.

“…Out of any magicians on this plane, members of the Church of Blood are uniquely qualified to undo my spell.”

Jinx groaned into Raven’s shoulder.

“Working in our favor is that not all of their acolytes are magicians, themselves. Some are errand runners, others are simply everyday people tricked into believing it’s a path to salvation. There is a chance this man is simply here for retrieval. Possibly as a way to work his way to the next echelon of their ranks.”

“Great. So we might be fi- Wait.”

Jinx felt her whole body lock up, hands turning to claws around Raven’s shoulders. The Titan tensed under her.

“The Church of Blood? Like Brother Blood?”

So close to Raven, she could hear the sharp gasp she gave. The Titan felt like she was made of taut cables under her. For just a second, violet eyes flashed red and Jinx would swear she felt warmer where her body met Raven’s.

“Their leader is called Brother Blood, and the one you had the misfortune of meeting was the eighth.”

“…Was?”

“He is very much dead and gone.”

It should have felt like a crushing weight lifting off her shoulders. Knowing for a fact that seeing him around the base was all in her head should have been comforting.

And it was. But it also wasn’t. Not like she’d hoped, when she’d seen him drop and felt his hold breaking loose.

Jinx blinked and she was back on a road hanging over a tall cliff. The world was hazy and slow, filled with red light and a buzzing whine sending spikes through her brain. It had been so hard to think.

And then Cyborg lit up in blue light, and the geezer was screaming over the edge. And she was her again.

Jinx blinked and the image faded, leaving her shaking. He might be dead, but it didn’t give her over a year of time and empty spots in her memory back.

“Good. Who the hell even let a religious nutjob lead the HIVE?” she snarled.

“…You would be better qualified to answer on the hierarchy. I suspect that he saw your forces as cannon fodder for his cause, and likely did to your leaders what he did to all of you.”

There was venom in Raven’s voice, easily matching the fire burning through Jinx’s chest at her resurfacing nightmare.

“And what cause is that?” she hissed. “What holy war was that fucker gearing up to throw us into?”

“The Church will do anything for their supposed god. A cult made of useful idiots and desperate victims, all in service to a demon who will return the favor with a burning eternity. Only the highest members know what they truly worship.”

Raven’s head tilted, her forehead brushing against Jinx’s cheek. If she noticed the contact, she didn’t mention it.

“He was obsessed with Cyborg. Thinking about it, he probably knew on some level that it was all a farce. Perhaps he saw Cyborg as a means to immortality of a sort, some way that he, at least, would survive the fires as he helped raze the Earth.”

Raven’s venom was getting stronger the more they talked. She spoke about these people like she wanted to burn the entire thing to the ground. And honestly? If someone like Brother Blood was leading them, Jinx would be the first to help tossing matches.

“…So how do you fit into all that?”

“More than I would like. Slade works for their master, now, and he… Sorry,” she cut off with a sharp hiss. “That isn’t something I’m ready to talk about. Not tonight.”

Jinx accepted that and nodded. The move rubbed against Raven’s face, making her startle.

“Nothin’ to be sorry about, Sunshine. Thanks for tellin’ me.”

Raven reached up and grabbed Jinx’s hand and squeezed. The touch felt warm on her knuckles.

“Thank you for listening.”

They curved around a high-rise, and then Jinx saw the harbor in the distance.

Filing everything away for later, Jinx focused up.

“Okay. So. No dragon yet. That’s good. If he breaks loose, what powerset are we looking at?”

“Shape-shifting. He can turn into a humanoid paper construct.”

“So better maneuverability, less strength and speed?”

“Mmm. Fire breath. Obviously.”

“Naturally.”

“Flight, also to be expected. Black magic. That’s the wildcard. He threw lightning at me when we fought, it was just raw magical output. Not elegant, but it gave me enough difficulty that it didn’t need to be. The actual fight was over quickly enough that he didn’t get to do much else.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want it too predictable and get bored,” she snarked.

“We’re close enough now. Hang on tight.”

Jinx squeezed closer on instinct. The air in front of them turned pure black before they flew inside.

Jinx realized she’d been caught off-guard by Raven’s soul-self all night. This was the first time she actually saw it coming, and it was weird.

In the span of a second, she saw space fold and bend around them. The world twisted. All around them, there was a field of stars and red, glowing eyes staring at them from the dark.

And then the world snapped back together and she was hit with the stench of brine and stale fish. Jinx’s grip had gone slack in the face of actually seeing what she’d been moving through this whole time, and she felt herself slipping.

Before she could start screaming, Raven spun in mid air and Jinx’s falling body landed on the sorceress’s chest with an oof.

Arms wrapped around her as the world spun.

“You’re okay.”

Jinx slipped an eye open and gasped. She was staring right into Raven’s face. Taking quick stock, she felt like there were iron bands around her back and under her legs.

The metahuman scrambled and wrapped her arms around the witch’s neck, gasping and trying to get her racing heart back under control.

Looking for anything to distract herself from the death she almost just gave herself, she tried to smile up at the Titan while her hands took a death grip on her cape.

“W-wow. Usually you need to buy me dinner before you go holdin’ me like this, Rae.”

Raven rolled her eyes, but also pulled Jinx just a little bit tighter against her. Not that Jinx was doing a great job hiding how freaked out that had made her, but it still felt weird.

“I bought you pizza and am paying for the whole HIVE’s meals for the evening. Hang tight, I need to go higher to get a better vantage point.”

Jinx clamped tighter, her face practically buried in Raven’s neck as the Titan banked to the side and started rising.

“Feeding my roomies isn’t exactly my idea of a fun date night, Sunshine.”

“So your heart isn’t racing right now?”

Jinx’s eyes went wide and she would’ve covered her face if she wasn’t holding on for dear life. Her cheeks were burning as she gave in and pressed her face into the cape.

Raven’s ascent came to a stop and Jinx chanced a look down. And wow they were high!

Down below, the harbor spread out in a wide circle of grimy concrete. Rooftops stood below them, squat and short. At a glance, they looked close enough together that Jinx would be able to move between them and tall enough to give her a good angle if she needed to give air support. One held a billboard with something touting WayneTech’s ugly-ass logo, and the last of them held a big-ass water tower.

Further down the road, warehouses sat by a sea of shipping containers wrapped around a crane. The containers seemed like a great way to get herself eaten alive if they had to deal with a dragon, but the warehouse could make a good cover.

The ports were long and wide all along the outer curve of the road, boats and ships of all shapes and sizes docked and still for the night. Maybe something there? All the boards ended in dead ends, though, so she’d probably stay away from there if she had the chance.

“There.”

Jinx’s eyes jumped further down the docking bays and found where Raven was gesturing to. Raven started dropping fast as she curved over to the right.

Jinx took in the building as the Titan flew them to the road. X hadn’t been lying, it looked like one of the most run down roach motels the meta could remember seeing.

One floor in an L-shape, the “hotel” hugged the edge of the harbor’s road looking like it was straight out of a shitty horror movie. While one side faced the street, the other stretched out towards the docks in a curve that looked like it might’ve been an accident.

Rotting doors and grimy windows lined the exterior wall, wrapping around a “courtyard” mostly made of weeds with some cracked blacktop in between. Parking spots were chalked onto it, one of them ending about a finger’s length from a flickering lightpole that was struggling to fight the night’s shadows.

In the middle of it all was an “office” if you were being nice. A buzzing neon “Vacancy” sign glowed red over a door that looked like it was half fading, ugly wood paneling and half bulletproof glass.

All in all, it looked like the kind of place a mobster might pass out for the night after a hard work of dumping bodies in the harbor. A cultist lying low, waiting to burn the city to the ground probably wasn’t that far off.

Raven touched down and Jinx slid out of her grip. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she started to loosen the leash on her hexes. Skin buzzing, she took off to follow Raven’s sure steps to the far end of the L.

“We need to move.”

Up ahead, a door with a cheap, stick-on metal nine hanging at an angle on the wood stood next to an extra dirty window. Even through the filth, she saw white light flickering and felt the hairs on her neck raising.

“How’re we doing this?”

She really hoped Raven asked her to open that door. A Titan asking her to break in would make her year.

In answer, Raven stepped in front of the door and swung her arm out. A flat palm hit the wood and the door turned solid black. It exploded inside with an echoing crash as wood shattered and metal snapped.

Raven stepped through the cloud of debris, the door frame falling apart as Jinx followed her in.

The air inside was choking, stinking of rot and burning incense. Candles were lit all around the room, though Raven’s entrance had doused or destroyed most of them.

The survivors were all wrapped in a circle around blinding columns of white light waterfalling up into the roof from eight open books. And in the middle of the whole circle, a man stood tall wearing one of those creepy ass red robes she remembered from the academy.

His hands held a large white book open over a pile of smoking black chains on the floor.

A raspy laugh came from under his hood, sounding like he hadn’t drank a drop of water in a few days. The hood slipped up as his body jerked in place, revealing wide, bloodshot eyes locked on Raven.

“The Day of Skaath is upon us! The land will be purged in flames for his Coming!”

Raven let out a snarl that made Jinx’s bones shake. The white lights flickered and returned, and the cultist swept out a hand and started chanting, a crazed giggle sounding between each word.

The sorceress brought both her arms back and swung forward in a burst of black light. Obsidian claws lashed across the distance and slammed into his barrier with a bang. White light rippled and sparked as talons pushed, trying to tear through and grab the wizard.

But the barrier held, and the wizard was talking faster. The air got heavier.

Raven’s lips pulled back like she was baring fangs and her arms lit once more with those red runes. Her magic hands grew, now big enough to squash the man to paste once they broke through. Under her magic, the barrier started to shimmer and visibly ripple.

And yet it still held.

Letting out a growl of her own, Jinx stepped forward and brought her hands together with an echoing clap. Pink shockwaves tore through the room and hit the barrier under Raven’s spell.

The tips of Raven’s talons flashed red when Jinx’s spell hit, as though she’d lit the hands on fire. Under the assault, white light turned a dull rose pink and crackled.

One last word screamed out behind the barrier.

Raven’s claws pierced with a sound like shattering glass.

Pink and black light pushed through and slammed into something, the wizard’s laughs falling silent.

And then the entire room turned blinding white, forcing Jinx’s eyes shut with a screech. Grabbing at her head, she could only hear as a roar sounded, shaking the ground under her feet. The vibrations made Jinx trip and fall back with a shout.

The roar got louder and was followed by the deafening cracking and crashing of the building being torn apart around her. She started pushing magic into her hands, ready to decimate whatever debris was about to flatten her.

Strong arms wrapped around her midsection and she fell weightless through the air while the motel collapsed…

Chapter Text

5. Riding Lightning

The sound of exploding wood and metal snapped Jinx’s eyes open.

She could see the sky and the sea ahead of her. A cloud of smoke filled the air in front of her, coming from under the lip of what she realized was a rooftop.

Chancing a look over the edge, she found the motel sitting as a molten husk spitting sparks and smoke everywhere.

There was a whipping sound, heavy and thick off to her side. She spun to face it and found the world lighting up white and red and getting warm fast around her.

Darkness swallowed her again. She landed on a different rooftop in a roll, arms letting off pink sparks. Where they’d been, the building across from the motel ignited in a column of flames. And above it all, keeping itself in the air on beating wings at least twice as long as she was tall, was a black dragon.

Malchior snapped his jaws shut and whipped his head around, leveling a hateful, burning red glare at Jinx’s side. Raven tensed next to her as his whole body pivoted to follow his long neck.

Two beats of his wings had the dragon on their roof, landing in a crouch with a crash that shook the entire building. Jinx let more magic flow, not that she was sure it would do much now that she was taking in the actual size of the dragon.

“Raven.”

The growl made her teeth rattle. Jinx tensed, fully expecting another portal hop away from more fire. The dragon didn’t bother, maybe because he realized Raven could keep that game going for a long time.

His neck cracked and stretched down, coming close enough that Jinx felt like she’d stepped into an oven face-first.

“It’s been so long since we had a chat, sweet Raven,” he sneered.

“Eternity wouldn’t be long enough,” the Titan shot back, meeting his stare with solid black eyes.

The dragon let out a rumbling laugh that sounded like thunder. Then he tilted his head, gaze making Jinx’s skin crawl before he pulled his head back.

“Tell me, Raven. Have you learned anything new without my help?”

Raven’s mouth opened, but she was cut off as he lifted a claw from the roof’s edge. Gleaming white sat between black talons and Jinx felt her heart skip.

“Because I have.”

Before either of them could move, he flicked his ankle. The book went soaring into the air and met an abrupt end with a downward swing of the same claw.

White light burst from the book as Malchior split it down the middle, pages exploding out across the roof.

Raven turned pale while the dragon laughed.

“I’m afraid your curse doesn’t have a vessel strong enough to hold me anymore, child. No easy escape for you this time.”

Raven stared at the fluttering pile of paper and hummed, like she wasn’t just as worried as Jinx just then.

“I expected a more… academic solution from you.”

Jinx would swear Malchior was grinning around a hissing laugh.

“I always learn from my mistakes, witch. I didn’t kill Rorek fast enough, so fell to his binding. I thought you ignorant, and you used his book to seal me once more.”

His head tilted, staring at the Titan in consideration.

“I won’t be underestimating you this time, Raven. I feel the power under your skin. There will be no third time.”

He heaved his head back and dark lightning rained from the sky with an echoing roar, arcing for the pair faster than Jinx could think.

Raven’s wrist flicked and glowing obsidian pages leapt up from the rooftop. The remains of the book scattered and flashed.

Jinx was expecting them to burn as the lightning tore through them. They caught the lightning, deflecting each bolt out and around them in a shower of white sparks. The pages turned to ashes on the wind at the same time the last strike was knocked aside.

A black talon swept up from Malchior’s side, slashing for the dragon’s flank through the smoke of the burning shields. He leapt high into the air with a kick, chunks of roof sent raining down to the street below him.

Raven’s attack snapped closed, the air rippling where claws would’ve shredded through scales.

The Titan moved fast, her hand whipping down to her side and pressing something on the communicator. The seams started blinking red as she tossed it to Jinx, the meta scrambling to catch it out of reflex more than anything.

“I’m going to engage. Find a vantage point and hit him with all the power you have when he’s not looking. Try to keep that in one piece until the team shows up.”

And then Raven was airborne, a purple streak racing across the night sky. A swipe of her arm knocked aside a new wave of flames in a black tide, scarring the air with a roiling haze of smoke and heat in its wake.

Her other hand lashed out and a chunk of the roof crumbled then flew up like a wall of black daggers. Malchior roared as they slammed into his side. Not piercing, but they still had enough force to swing him to the side in the air.

His wings lashed out as he rolled, slamming Raven and sending her careening down before the wind caught him. His head snapped back then lunged forward, black magic spearing down after the falling Titan.

Concrete exploded, but Jinx noticed Raven wasn’t in the crater. It was good enough for her.

Shaking herself out of her stare, Jinx pocketed Raven’s communicator and started running over the roof, following the pair’s path down the road.

Two rooftops down held the water tower. Not that the dragon was close enough to use it, but the edge of the roof was higher so at least that would give her some cover. The building had a fire ladder on the other side, facing almost right into the warehouse across the street.

Not the worst assets she’d ever had to work with for a job, but it wasn’t great.

The road exploded down below while Malchior roared. Raven faded into the air from a black pool, the dragon’s claw racing to meet her. She wasn’t going to be ducking that one.

Jinx rushed to the edge of the roof and leapt. Her body arced high into the air and she sliced her hand at her side with a flare of pink light.

Gravity snatched at her and she came down, landing in a roll across the asphalt of the next roof. Her hex hit with a shower of neon pink and a startled yip. The slash went wide under Raven and Jinx grinned as the Titan vanished unharmed.

Her hexes could hurt a dragon. That was good to know.

Wings beat against the sky and the air over her head turned heavy. Eyes wide, the meta dove into a roll away from the raised edge of the roof, landing in a quick handstand into a flip that carried her over a claw swipe.

She landed as his claw gouged chunks from the roof, cracks spreading across where she’d been standing.

Pivoting on the ball of her foot, she spun and clapped her hands together. Waves of pink shot out, slamming into the dragon’s raised chest and lighting the edges of his scales with sparks like he was on a metal album cover.

Malchior reeled back and shook as her hex arced from scale to scale and plate to plate like a fuchsia light show. He came back down on the roof with a slam, a quick jump to the side all that kept her from being flattened.

She threw out two punches as soon as she landed. He batted the first hex away with a growl. The second arced over his swipe and slammed into his upper shoulder. The top joints of his wings flashed pink and Jinx’s ears ached from the dragon’s howl.

He hissed and shook his wing out, the movement stiff and awkward. Jinx moved on instinct, backing away fast as he dropped low to the ground and stretched his neck out. Jaws snapped shut on empty air with enough force to turn her bones to dust if she’d still been standing there.

He got another hex for his trouble, the bolt missing his eye but knocking his head to the side to slam into the roof. Shaking his head out like a massive dog, he leveled a glare on her that had Jinx backpedaling. She was running out of roof fast.

“You must be Jinx.”

“…Alright, I’ll bite. How?”

“She talked about you,” he hissed. “Your little hexes are quite vexing for her. Someone with magic like yours is not made for heroics, young agent of Entropy.”

He slithered towards her, the air rippling around him as his mouth started to glow. Black sparks started leaping all around his snout.

The air behind and above him rippled like a disturbed ink puddle and Jinx grinned.

“Yeah, maybe. Doesn't stop her though, and I don't need to be a do-gooder to want to kick your ass out of my city.”

He lashed out, aiming to crush her into paste. The hex-caster flipped backward, a swift kick blasting him in the jaw. Sparks burst from his closed mouth, smoke curling from his teeth and into his eyes as he started coughing.

All of which meant he had zero chance to see the black fist launching from beneath him. It hit with a bang like Raven had set off dynamite, catching the blinded dragon in the stomach with enough force to rocket him off the roof and high up into the air.

Grinning, Jinx slashed her hands out after him and caught him in the chest and neck with two more wide waves of hex energy.

The air next to her rippled and then Raven touched down. Black eyes stared up at the dragon as he wheezed and snapped his wings out to catch himself. As his wings beat, Jinx almost laughed as the wing she hit lagged behind the other to give him an awkward tilt in the air.

“I can hurt a dragon,” she nearly giggled. “Giz and his little nerd horde are gonna’ be so jealous.”

“Your Chaos magic can hurt almost anything,” the Titan corrected. “How much it hurts remains in question.”

As if in answer, Malchior spun in the air and dive bombed them like a spinning, scaly missile.

“Jump.”

Jinx didn’t ask twice, leaping into the black hole tearing open over her head. The world turned dark and echoey and then she blinked and was breaching the surface again. She landed in a crouch on another rooftop lit by the neon glow of that Waynetech billboard. Across from her, Raven’s shadow darted away and missed Malchior’s landing by an uncomfortably close margin.

Chunks of the building buckled and gave under the dragon’s landing, asphalt and brick snapping like paper mache and spraying debris into the sky under the impact. Malchior beat his wings and kept flying, tearing through even more of the rooftop like the world’s scariest shark as he chased Raven’s retreating form.

As fast as the Titan was, he covered the space in seconds and lashed a claw out. She curled around it then dropped from the sky to avoid his snapping jaw. His body spun and whipped a massive tail for her middle only for Raven to explode in darkness and reform at his back already swinging a black talon.

As fast as Malchior was, Raven was moving just as fast, if not slightly faster. The two danced through the sky, Raven dodging and blinking in and out of existence for every strike the dragon made. Each time he missed, the rumbling growl in his throat got louder until Jinx’s teeth started rattling.

Raven ducked under a wide swing and lashed out, catching him in the jaw with a fist wrapped in black. It knocked his whole body to the side, sending him into a roll that almost ended back in the burning motel.

He caught himself and exploded forward, smoke curling around his fangs.

“Just stay still and die! We both know it’s what you’re good for!”

Jinx’s heart stopped when Raven froze up. Malchior’s body slammed into her and carried through until he sent the Titan into and through the billboard in a shower of sparks and splintering glass.

Before she could move, he flew behind her and batted at her back with his tail. She was flung across the gap over to Jinx’s roof, bouncing right into the raised edge. Metal rails bent and snapped around the Titan’s body.

Raven’s arm was shaking as she pulled herself up on the broken end of the railing. Her legs spasmed and nearly dropped her before she caught herself. Copper hit the air as blood started leaking down the side of her face.

“That’s better,” Malchior rasped. “Did you truly believe I didn’t know?”

He landed on their roof and slithered forward, slow and drawing things out now that he’d clipped the blackbird’s wings.

“I told you, young Raven. I understood you. Knew why you were looking so desperately for someone who could see who you truly are. I warned you that the others would never accept the real you, and that it was a them problem.”

Raven stood on shaking legs, arms lighting in those red runes again. They were brighter now, and they’d spread to her forehead.

Her hand flung out and sent a wave of black lightning into his face. He laughed and jumped into the air, Raven’s attack making the remains of the billboard and chunks of the other roof explode.

“Tell me, Raven. Do you think your little family will look upon those warnings carved into your soul and see a friend? See a human?”

Jinx’s head whipped around, looking for anything she could use to give the Titan some space. She wasn’t sure what this sudden trip down memory lane was about, but it was becoming clear fast that it was the gap in the Titan’s mental armor.

Stuck on the same rooftop and on the same side as Raven, her options were annoyingly limited. The dragon might be content to ignore her, but she doubted he wasn’t aware of her.

Raven took a step and burst into black. She landed right in front of him, her entire arm igniting with her soul-self. Faster than he could move, she punched him right in the scaly face. Her magic set off, and Jinx had to blink the starburst and spots out of her eyes when his jaw violently whipped to the side.

With a snarl almost as deep as Malchior’s, the Titan reached forward and a hellish, crimson talon wrapped tight around his throat. Before he could do a single thing, she spun on her heel and whipped her arm up and over, taking the dragon with her.

His body snapped through the front of the building and down to the street, concrete dust and gravel spraying everywhere on the shattering street below. Malchior hit the road with a whoosh, the cloud sucked in around him in a shrapnel cloud.

Raven’s soul-self faded from her arm, red burning so bright it glowed inside her torn cloak. Her eyes were solid red, and her teeth were pulled back in a snarl.

Jinx resolved right then and there that she didn’t care how well a job paid, she was never getting up close and personal with Raven in a fight. Ever. Not that being at range would save her, going by all this… Maybe she needed to tell the team they were moving their contracts out of Jump.

Despite being dropped like a meteor and bleeding black blood into cracked asphalt, Malchior rose to his feet with a laugh. Jinx wondered if Raven had knocked something loose inside his scaly head.

“One year later and still a walking vessel driven by fear. You can feel it, Raven. I know you can. That burning in your veins? The hunger? The need to drown this land in flame and ruin?”

He tensed and launched into the air, narrowly dodging Raven as she landed her strike into the ground, foot burying deep into the concrete.

“Why bother with that weak disguise of yours? All that power, all that fire, wasted saving these pathetic mortals when you could be a god!”

Malchior floated above the shattered harbor and laughed, beating wings scattering the debris from the air.

With another snarl, Raven spun and threw both arms out wide. Chunks of the road as big as Jinx’s whole body burst and flew up at Malchior.

Who was floating in front of the building Jinx was still on, looking a bad wind from collapsing.

“Shit!”

Spinning, Jinx took off and jumped for the next building. Malchior turned and flew straight up. Jinx’s feet touched down the same time an echoing crash nearly knocked Jinx deaf.

Turning, arms raised in case she was about to get hit by a falling building, Jinx’s eyes felt like they might pop out of her head. The building was gone. She didn’t know what Raven had hit, or how much force she’d shoved into that attack, but if Malchior had stuck around even he would be dust. She would’ve been buried under three stories and several tons worth of crumpled steel, snapped bricks, and shattered glass.

Everywhere she saw below her was a grey-brown cloud. And above it all, a black shape blurred into existence above the dragon and swung a kick into the back of his skull.

With a howl, he dropped from the sky and right into the rubble pile. Broken metal sheared and snapped under thick scales. Raven hovered above, crimson eyes staring down as he shook himself free from the devastation and rolled to the ground.

He was pouring blood on the ground now, a claw-shaped scar cutting deep through the plates on his head. Jinx wished she could feel better about that, but her mind was stuck in a loop wondering what would’ve happened if she hadn’t jumped when she did. Wondering if Raven would’ve pulled her out of the way again.

Up above, Raven was breathing heavy enough that Jinx could hear it over the ringing and buzzing and crackling of the destruction she’d wrought. Burning eyes glared down at the dragon as she floated lower.

“I am not his tool!” she snarled. “And I won’t be yours, either!”

“Look around, Raven! I’ve been free for five minutes. Perhaps. Look at the lives you would’ve snuffed out in an instant if this had been under the sun when all the ants scurry around!”

Raven’s eyes went wide and she turned even paler when she looked down directly under her. Her head whipped to the side and Jinx felt her stare lock on her, shaking and pale by the edge of her rooftop.

“You would have a mountain of corpses and blood on your hands right now!” Malchior sneered.

Raven was shaking. Violently.

Which, normally, Jinx would laugh off. She couldn’t remember the last time she threw down with the witch in Jump without dropping at least part of a building. And it was the dead of night, so it wasn’t like there was anyone around to get caught up in this.

Except her. Watching Raven dropping from the air, trembling like a leaf, Jinx realized she hadn’t thought about Jinx standing there when she’d unloaded.

The realization sent a shiver down to Jinx’s soul. However much Raven had thought she had a handle on the dragon, she clearly hadn’t been ready for whatever they were philosophizing about right then.

“You stand there, acting like the hero. A gallant knight come to slay the dragon for all the lands’ praise. We both know that isn’t your destiny, Gemstone. You’re nothing more than an omen with a ticking down expiration date.”

The runes on Raven’s arms pulsated, red eyes still full of hellfire but falling duller and darker.

Raven was almost level with the roof. Jinx saw Malchior twitch and she started moving.

Fire spit from the dragon’s open mouth. Jinx reached out and grabbed Raven’s arm in a deathgrip before launching herself backward. The flames spiraled up by the edge, rails turning to molten slag while Jinx fell on her back with the Titan in tow.

Metal groaned as Malchior’s flames melted through the roof, a smoking hole burning beneath one of the water tower’s legs.

Grunting, Jinx kicked a leg out and rolled, putting herself kneeling over the stunned sorceress. Wide red eyes stared up at her like she was seeing a ghost.

Down below, she could hear Malchior lumbering and staggering over the crunch of buckling concrete. Good to know he wasn’t shrugging everything off any easier than Raven.

A claw tore through brick, shaking the building. Then another, higher up. He was climbing.

Jinx rose to a crouch and reached deep. Raven had said she had enough power to knock the whole city out. She knew she hadn’t used nearly that kind of power. Her mental reach touched something, and her entire body locked up with a feeling she could only describe as dunking her head in lightning.

The bands holding her hair snapped and she felt all of it standing on end. Pink fire raced down from the nape of her neck and over her arms. The glow danced between her fingertips and back up, then down to her feet. The asphalt started smoking under her.

She swept both arms out and her power released with a static snap. The roof burned pink as a neon crescent sliced through the air and hit the legs of the water tower in a shower of fuchsia.

It wasn’t nearly the power she felt coursing through her, but it was enough to do exactly what she needed right then. The entire tower shook like it was a rubber band she’d just flicked, bolts and supports snapping.

With an echoing groan, it tilted. And then gravity took over, and it crashed to the roof with a bang. A wave of breaking asphalt rushed through the roof away from the several ton steel drum. The lid popped and burst.

And several thousand pounds of water rushed to the edge. So cold Jinx felt it from halfway to the other side of the roof, the frigid water steamed as it rushed over the lip. More of the roof gave under the weight, turning in a blink into a ramp. Aiming straight down at the falling dragon.

The tower broke free and fell into the waves, and then water and steel was careening straight into Malchior’s stomach.

Everything hit the road and waves of manmade ocean rushed out in all directions. The smoke and dust was washed into the bay. Steam hissed as it hit the motel, the crackling fire doused in an instant.

Jinx rose to her feet and let the static keep coming.

“Take a breath, Sunshine. Whatever history lesson he’s going on about? We can hash that out after we slay the dragon.”

“J-Jinx-”

“Not gonna’ lie, I’m not thrilled about almost turning me to powder-”

Raven winced and seemed to fold in on herself.

“-but I’m not dead. Nobody else is, either. We’re all alone out here. I don’t know what you two are going on about, but the only thing you’ve hurt since we got here are some pocketbooks and To Catch a Predator down there.”

Malchior was on his back, stunned by the onslaught. Jinx stepped to the edge and brought her hands down in a burst of rosy light. All around the dragon, her hexes hit the ground and flash steamed the water.

His scales started glowing bright red as he writhed and howled. Jinx glared down, letting more hexes charge at her fingertips.

“It’s pretty obvious by now that you’re a hero because you want to be, cause there’s not a cop or cape alive who’d scare someone who can do what I’ve seen you do tonight.”

Raven was still behind her, a wide stare burning at Jinx’s back.

“I’ve always thought you were the smart one out of your merry band of goody-goodies. So smarten up, Raven, and stop falling for whatever Remedial Villainy 101 bullshit he’s spouting or we’re both getting fried tonight.”

Malchior finally rolled out of the small lake he’d been stuck in and landed in a crouch. Even from up high, Jinx could see the way his scales, a dragon’s scales, had started melting and were pouring steam and smoke around him.

His jaw was hanging looser, enough that she was pretty sure it was broken. There were holes torn through his wings, limp and useless at his side.

And for all the blood and pain and damage they’d done to his body, his eyes burned a steady red full of a kind of hate Jinx didn’t think she’d seen before. There was still a fight in him.

She couldn’t imagine how lucky Raven had been that the curse worked a year ago if he was still standing after this much punishment. She could see why the wizard had to give up his actual life to put him away the first time.

“I will rend you to ash!”

He raised a shaking hand and slammed it down through the ground. Above her, the stars vanished behind a rolling wall of pitch black. Arcing lightning spiraled into existence across the cloud.

Eyes wide, Jinx hopped back next to Raven. Her hands shot out and she unloaded as the black magic started to fall.

Hexes met lightning in a torrent of magic, the force dropping Jinx to her knee. She kept her arms raised and the power flowing.

For a few seconds, she actually thought it would work, too. Her hexes, by her guess, were just as powerful as his spell, matching strike for strike and blow for blow and keeping the pair of them safe. Even the dragon had to be running low by then, and she was still full of excess energy.

But the lightning kept coming. Her palms started heating up and cramping. And Jinx realized she made a mistake covering Raven instead of trying to bait Malchior’s spell down to the ground where she could maneuver.

Because Malchior’s spell? It was an actual lightning storm as far as she could tell. Instead of throwing what magic he had left into one big blast, the dragon had changed the weather over her head. She could feel the static in the air, ozone burning at her nose.

It wasn’t like the others, just a blast of raw magic like Raven had said. This was an actual spell, probably with whatever Malchior had left thrown behind it to make them both dead.

While she could keep up with the power of the storm with the overcharge flowing through her veins, she was not built for using her hexes like this. She was built for speed.

Agile, flexible, always on the move and hitting her enemies in the weak spot before they even knew she was there. She could topple a building with a pirouette and a burst of her power. She couldn’t outlast a storm standing in one spot.

Her arms started shaking and pink smoke curled off her hands. Sweat started to roll down her neck and into her eyes as the air got hotter. Her chest started aching as her magic, usually a second-long sharp rush of static through her limbs, pulsed like a torrent through her chest.

And the strikes kept coming, slamming into her constant wave of magic and driving it closer and closer to the hex-caster with each bolt.

She was going to burn out. And then she was going to die, right there, heart failing as about ten gigawatts of electricity coursed straight through her. It was going to hurt, but at least it would be over in under a second.

The sky rattled with echoing booms as Malchior let out a roar. The cloud seemed to shudder and flatten.

Jinx’s entire world turned black and she slammed her eyes closed. She braced herself to find out what was waiting for her on the other side. The stench of sulphur and smoke hitting her nose wasn’t promising.

She heard a sharp zap and…

Nothing. No pain, no burning as she shuffled off her mortal coil.

Cracking an eye open, she felt her heart skip.

Raven was crouching at her side, arms lifted out in front of her. Malchior’s lightning was pressing against a black dome wrapped all the way around them.

Raven’s arms were trembling from the effort, but the lightning wasn’t even making the Titan’s barrier shake. As Jinx watched, the sorceress rose off her knees and stood tall on steady legs.

“Thanks, Jinx.”

The Titan took a step. Her dome expanded and Malchior’s lightning was pushed back from the roof.

“You were right about one thing, Malchior. You should have finished things sooner instead of drawing this out. That was sloppy.”

Another step, and Jinx felt the air getting lighter as everything expanded. Another, weaker zap sounded as the lightning bolt started to fizzle out. From down below came a snarl that was sounding breathy and much weaker after his Hail Mary spell.

“You wanted to hurt me.”

Another step, and the dome hit the sky in a pulse of black light and a shower of dying sparks.

“You wanted to make me suffer.”

Her spell hit the cloud and it burst and spread like oily smoke in the air.

“You wanted my blood. And as you so poignantly said, we both know that comes with a price. One you can’t afford to pay.”

She took one final step and lifted herself up on the cracked lip of the roof. Her barrier burst. Jinx gasped as the air whipped out like an obsidian maelstrom, forming a small tornado above Raven’s raised hand.

“My birthday was the worst day of my life. Making sure I never have to worry about you again will almost be worth it.”

The dark wind rose up high above, moving faster and faster until it was pulling the water up from the streets.

“You didn’t break me, Malchior. And he won’t break me either.”

Raven’s spell sharpened and tapered, turning into a black javelin almost as tall as the water tower had been.

“Azarath-”

Malchior staggered and tried to take a step. His leg jerked to the side and sent him stumbling to the ground.

“Metrion-”

The dragon turned his head skyward, flames rising to his jaw then guttering and dying before he could even try to burn Raven.

“Zinthos!”

The spike crushed together and exploded in a starburst of black and red. A bird screeched, filling the sky before a massive raven streaked down.

The spell hit Malchior’s chest and vanished on impact.

For a second, the world went silent and still. Jinx stared down at the dragon, wondering what that spell had been. He stared up at her with shocked, dulling red eyes.

Then she blinked. Malchior’s body filled with black cracks bleeding white light. A final roar filled the harbor before tapering off sharply. His body twisted and then he was crumbling into black dust.

The dragon was scattered to the wind In seconds, his screams fading to silence. Slowly, the world around them faded to moonlit darkness once more.

Jinx staggered over to Raven’s side, fighting to stay on her feet the whole time. Her arms were burning, pink smoke still trailing from her hands smelling faintly of copper. She felt emptier than she had in months and knew she would knock herself out if she needed to throw a single other hex that night.

Beneath them, gravel crunched and water dripped and whooshed along the mess that had been the harbor. She reached the Titan and leaned into her, gasping for air.

Raven was sounding just as rough, the Titan listing and dropping against Jinx’s side.

Deciding that the edge of a roof was not the best place for them if they were both only held up by the dead weight of each other, Jinx wrapped an arm around Raven’s stomach and flopped backward in a slow drop.

They landed on the roof, heavy breaths and her racing heart the only sounds reaching the hex-caster’s ears.

At her side, she watched the red fade from Raven’s eyes as she stared up at the sky. They looked a little glassy and very tired.

Then Raven’s eyes slipped closed and she let out a breathless, sort-of hysterical laugh. Jinx groaned and pressed herself closer to the Titan.

“I’m not moving for a week. I’ll sleep here. Giz can bitch later,” she rasped.

“You’re setting very high expectations for Rachel,” the Titan mused.

Jinx snorted, then winced as her chest spasmed.

“Don’t think I need your magic lightning rod for a while.”

Raven nodded and let her head thump softly on the broken asphalt.

“I’m going to be drained for at least a day.”

“Wow. Brag about it.”

Raven rolled her eyes but didn’t otherwise move.

A second ago, the Titan had looked like Kali herself had come to lay waste to the land, and now she looked like just a girl. A beaten up, exhausted, haunted girl.

The difference was jarring.

“You did set a whole new standard, though,” Jinx admitted.

When Raven raised an exhausted brow at her, she grinned.

“Usually the dinner comes before I’m sweating and achey and can’t breathe right.”

Raven groaned and pressed her hands to her eyes, arms shaking like leaves from the effort.

“By the way? The overgrown iguana was wrong.”

“…About?”

“You’re bleeding red just like the rest of us mortals. And you’re a lot better at the hero thing than Etrigan dreams of being.”

Raven jerked to the side and gasped, wide violet eyes meeting steady pink.

“Look… I don’t know your whole… whatever you have going on. But like you said, I’m the only other person in this city worth shit with magic. And I wasn’t just saying shit, I really was the top of my Arcane Studies class. Like, not just in my year, but out of any student there, even with older kids in the class. This one time, Klarion the Witch Boy even got into the academy and had me help with pranks cause he apparently, I’unno, sensed I could maybe sort of keep up? It was weird, but I wasn’t about to say no and get atomized…”

Raven was staring at her in that same, puzzle solving way she had before. It felt less hostile now, at least.

“Anyway, I can’t read Infernal, but I’ve seen tons of languages at the academy so I could at least know what might be about to kill me. Those tattoos of yours aren’t exactly holy.”

Raven tensed up and Jinx waved a shaky hand with a sigh.

“If you’re worried about me spreadin’ it around? Don’t. We just slayed a dragon together. We both would’ve been extra crispy if you weren’t throwing around that kind of power… Or you can think of it as a birthday present, or whatever,” she scoffed.

Raven relaxed with a deep groan.

“…I didn’t know Malchior knew about that,” she whispered. “No-one does. Except for the Justice League and the Church of Blood, for equally annoying reasons… And you, now, I guess.”

Jinx froze as she processed that.

Somehow, the things Raven hadn’t said about Brother Blood and his stupid cult clicked into place and made a lot more sense. The wizard had mentioned Skaath before he immolated. She might need to do some reading.

…Or not. Letting out a laugh, she shook her head and slumped as the world started turning grey at the edges.

“This the part where you play Memento with my head?”

“Your mind is safe, Jinx. Whatever happens, whether things go back to normal after tonight with us or not, I swear on the River Styx I will never be like Brother Blood or Zatanna.”

Jinx felt herself smiling as she nodded. The world was getting blurrier.

“Tha’s good,” she slurred. “I kinda’ like the Raven I’ve been talking to tonight and would hate to reset that…”

“You’ve been more tolerable than expected.”

It sounded flat, but Jinx could hear the smirk hidden in the words.

Jinx snorted.

Down below, a car roared around a corner and pulled to a sudden stop at the gulf they’d opened in the harbor.

Doors slammed and through hazy, half-closed eyes, Jinx saw a red and purple comet flying overhead, coming at them fast.

“Your cavalry needs to work on their response time.”

She thought Raven said something back, some vague murmuring that probably would’ve made her laugh. But the adrenaline finally faded, and the world went with it before she could know for sure…

Chapter Text

Epilogue

Jinx awoke to the sound of a steady, rhythmic beeping. Following that, the always so pleasant smell of antiseptic and disinfectants.

Careful to keep still, she cracked an eye open and bit back a wince at the bright lights over her head. The expected black and orange was, instead, blue and white.

She felt her face scrunching in confusion. Before she could start panicking and throwing hexes at whoever had taken her, the memories came back in a flash.

Oh. Right. She was a dragon slayer now…

Humming, she took stock of her limbs and digits. No stiffness, she could flex everything like she should, and she could feel all of them. And no pain. So that was neat.

But also, that could mean she’d been unconscious in Titan Tower for at least a week. Which wasn’t great.

Or they had her on the good drugs that See-More always had a hard time swiping. Also not ideal, and it would put her at a serious disadvantage if Boy Blunder wanted to ask her questions. Painkillers were always a mess for her luck.

Or, she thought as she heard soft breathing nearby, maybe Raven had even more hiding in her magic bag of tricks. Like healing. That would be handy.

Except, no matter how she thought about it, her memories of being in the Tower put the med bay at least five floors off the ground and half a floor in from the elevator. So unless they’d moved it to a more convenient room, getting out quick and quiet was going to be rough.

Thin paper scraped together off to her side, interrupting her grand escape planning.

Tilting her head, she found Raven sitting on a pale plastic chair next to her hospital bed. The Titan was flipping through her book, face scrunched cutely in focus.

“It’s just a normal spell book,” she mused, her voice its usual rasp. “Nothing’s alive in this one.”

Jinx snorted.

“Funny enough, I didn’t assume I needed to worry ’bout that before.”

Raven hummed, lips curling into a small smirk.

“It never hurts to check.”

“Somehow, I think I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe. You’ve been out for around thirty-two hours, by the way.”

“How-”

“Always my first question after blacking out.”

Jinx… couldn’t tell if Raven was joking or not. Huh…

“You don’t need to be looking around for the nearest knife, by the way,” Raven continued. “You’re free to leave on your own once you feel up to it.”

Jinx’s brows shot up to her hairline.

“What put Birdbrain in such a good mood?”

Raven’s smirk flashed wider before she forced it to even out.

“I just made the case that technically, Red X’s break-in and the backdoor he installed in Cyborg’s security wouldn’t have been found without your assistance.”

“He found us.”

Raven couldn’t hold the smirk back that time.

“Robin doesn’t know that.”

Jinx let out a startled laugh.

“I really am a great influence on you. Well, I hope Boy Blunder’s not too broken up about letting me go.”

Raven snorted and, for some reason, blushed.

“He was fairly amenable after Starfire informed him she found you almost sitting on me.”

Jinx felt her face burning.

“Truthfully? I don’t think Robin knows what to do about this. Informing him that you saved my life and the whole city with it made things… complicated.”

“I do love being a mystery wrapped in an enigma,” Jinx said with a grin.

“Riddle, Jinx,” the Titan sighed, making Jinx’s smile get even wider.

“Nerd.”

Rolling her eyes, Raven slipped her book closed and met the meta’s eyes.

“Have you ever taken a life, Jinx?”

She jerked back like she’d been slapped. That was a sharp turn in the conversation.

“…What?”

Raven tilted her head and hummed.

“I think I’m supposed to feel guilty. About killing him, I mean. Everything aside, I ended a life that’s been here for over a thousand years. And I only feel relief…”

Relaxing, Jinx huffed and rolled so she was facing the Titan.

“So, just to make this so clear, I haven’t. I’ve hurt people. I’ve seen death, sure. But no, I’m not a killer. Just a former mercenary-in-training and thief. And now I'm a dragon slayer, I guess, but that's different.”

She leaned toward the Titan, forcing her to meet her stare.

“When the mind control broke, when I felt like I was finally free from Blood and saw him drop off that cliff? My first actual thought after everything was over was wishing I’d been the one to send him on his way for Saint Peter to kick him down the ladder.”

Rolling the tension from her neck, Jinx let out a deep sigh.

“When I tell the boys that he’s dead, like playing limbo with Lucifer dead, we’re going to throw a party for a week.”

Leaning back, she watched as Raven took in what she was saying. She had a cute, thoughtful frown on her face.

“Now, I’m just a thief and a lying scoundrel, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. But personally? I think you shouldn’t waste a single thought in that pretty little head of yours about wasting a literal evil dragon. They’ve written millions of books about how that makes you the good guy in all this.”

Raven hummed, though Jinx couldn’t tell if she agreed or not.

“How’d Boy Blunder take the oceanfront property expansion?”

The Titan rolled her eyes.

“Apparently there are reports from some of the houseboats of people seeing you and I engaging with him. They were appreciative enough about us keeping the battle out of the water and away from them, from what Robin is telling me.”

“…But?”

“The reporters, of course, are saying it's my fault. Snow Storm even suggested I let my pet dragon loose. There are calls for the Titans to pay for the construction project.”

She then chuckled and shook her head.

“They seem torn on whether I’ve turned to villainy and was auditioning with you, or if you were simply in the process of some crime or another and got mad about the interruption.”

“Naturally. Idiots.”

“Mmm. Cyborg says something he’s working on should be done today and will have the place good as new by tomorrow.”

“Goody. I guess I still gotta’ pay the Broker.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Hear what? Should I be worried you’re hearing voices?”

Raven rolled her eyes, but the smirk was fighting harder.

“You’ve met several of the voices in my head during our little adventure… More of them like you than I’m entirely comfortable with, truth be told.”

Jinx stared at her. Raven stared back, unblinking.

“You’re not joking.”

“Emotions are bad for me. Red X was a mild example of why. They’re usually separated and easily managed, more or less. As I told you, it was a very bad day for me.”

“I… don’t know what to do with that,” the hex-caster admitted. “It does explain the hot and cold, though.”

Then she tilted her head to the side and gave her a Cheshire smile.

“Which voice was the flirty one? I liked her. A lot.”

“…I elect to keep that to myself.”

Jinx laughed, almost rolling off the bed. Raven’s blush was glow in the dark bright and that told her plenty.

“You’re not exactly stoic right now, though?”

The blush faded some as the Titan nodded.

“My emotions were separated as a sort of failsafe. After what happened with… with Slade,” she hissed, eyes briefly flashing red, “and with Red X and then Malchior, it’s become clear that failsafe no longer works. I’ve decided that I need a new approach… I caused a great deal of destruction that night. The issues with questionable journalism aside, I’m only being as unconcerned about the harbor as I am because we truly were alone in that section since it was so late.”

“I mean… maybe? I think I remember there being a dragon launching fire and lightning everywhere, plus a walking cataclysm throwing around solid bad luck, though.”

Raven shrugged, looking pensive.

“Funnily enough, I did consider that… And yet there are calls for the Justice League to investigate me.”

Jinx went still. And then she hissed, her blood boiling.

“They can piss off.”

Raven startled, eyes going wide at her barely contained rage.

“Like I’m not gonna’ tell you how to feel or whatever, but putting it in perspective? Last week Superman threw down with that freaky-ass rock monster that killed him that one time and both of them almost leveled half of Metropolis. A lot of people died, including the rock monster for however long that sticks. I don’t see them calling for the League to reign in the Boy Scout, but they’re bitching over some property damage? They’re not even pretending to hide the bias.”

“…Thank you.”

Jinx nodded, letting the anger go with a deep exhale.

“I… would have thought you’d be more scared of me. Considering what happened?”

“Oh, you scare the shit out of me,” she shot back.

Raven flinched and hunched in on herself, and she pressed on.

“In the HIVE, you’re not doing things right if all your friends aren’t at least a little scared of you. Like, Gizmo could make machines that could wipe out cities if he was a real villain. Mammoth could literally snap me in half with the effort it takes a normal person to open a fridge if he wanted to. And they know that I could accidentally give them heart failure if my day has gone bad enough.”

Shaking her head, she focused back in on Raven.

“I’m not gonna’ pretend I’m fully okay with what happened. That shit freaked me out. But, and this is just a guess… your whole separated emotions thing is all about not feeling things, right? Because your powers go haywire when you’re in your feelings? Like breaking reality with Red X, or the way your eyes flash red every time you talk about the Cyclops.”

“…That’s part of it,” Raven offered cautiously.

“Cool. So, obviously I’m not working with all the information here. But my two cents? Whoever did that to you kind of screwed you over, because obviously you’re gonna’ get big emotions like anyone else. They basically set you up to fail and made sure you wouldn’t know how to handle the emotions when they got big enough that you can’t suppress them.”

Raven’s head tilted to the side, frowning in consideration. She bit her lip and Jinx battered down some very inappropriate thoughts.

“You… might be more correct than you know,” she finally said. “Something for me to consider.”

“Happy to help! If I ask what all of that is a failsafe for, would you tell me?”

“I’m… working on that. I need to inform the Titans first, and I don’t know how.”

Then she looked at Jinx, and for a second, the hex-caster felt a soul-crushingly heavy weight press down on her at whatever she saw in the Titan’s gaze. And then Raven blinked, and it was gone. Jinx shivered.

“Something bad is coming, Jinx. Something awful. And if the defenses put in place are no longer holding, I’m not going to be too particular about where we’re getting our help from. I could really use a Homo Magi’s help in the coming days.”

The chill down Jinx’s back spread. The way Raven talked, the Church of Blood, the way reality broke when the Titan was too emotional… she suddenly had some idea of what might be coming. And if she was right, villain or not, she would be throwing every scrap of her magic in to help Raven when the time came.

But it wasn’t happening today.

“Right! Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me when you wanna’. So I’m free to go?”

Raven nodded and stood, offering the meta a hand. The darkness faded from the room.

Jinx grinned and took it, letting herself get pulled to her feet. Raven let go, and Jinx blinked.

Looking down, she saw the weird scratching on her palm was a piece of paper. A paper with a phone number.

Looking up with a raised brow, she found Raven’s face almost as red as her eyes had been.

The Titan studiously looked anywhere in the room except at Jinx.

“In case you ever need to talk. About Blood and what he did. About taking me up on my offer the next time your magic’s backed up… About making plans. If you actually want that dinner some time, that is.”

Jinx felt warm. Grinning, she pocketed the page and dramatically put a hand to her chest.

“But what will Birdbrain think if he finds out you’re giving out your number to bad girls? The scandal!”

Raven rolled her eyes, but she was totally smiling.

“I’m pretty sure Robin would prefer you over the dragon.”

A startled cackle tore from Jinx and the meta had to fight not to double over.

Shaking her head, Raven met her eyes.

“You might be a bad influence, and it’s only been a few hours.”

Then, some of her smile faded.

“Regardless of everything, though, I was serious, Jinx. Your power was reaching critical mass. After seeing what you did, I do believe you could’ve survived it, but it would’ve been unpleasant for everyone, most of all yourself.”

And boy didn’t that send Jinx’s heart racing.

“Criminal or not, any time you feel like you were? Reach out. I have a place I can take you to burn your magic off. Consequence free.”

“Does your mystery place have a bunch of darkness and red everywhere?”

Raven huffed and nodded.

“It’s called Nevermore.”

“Of course it is, Lenore,” Jinx laughed.

“Ugh.”

“Does that mean you want to go rapping, rapping at my chamber door?”

“Oh my god.”

“I mean, I’m definitely going to be dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before,” she said with a snort.

Raven buried her face in a hand and groaned.

“Okay, okay. I gotta’ get going before the boys do something stupid like go looking for me. Or burning the base down. Could go either way, really.”

Raven’s smirk peeked out from behind her hand, making Jinx giggle.

“Alright, Poe. If you could drop me off across the bay, that’d be great.”

Raven lifted her face and smirked at her.

“I can always drop you off back home.”

Jinx laughed and shook her head.

“Pretty sure it’s out of Taxi Raven’s coverage.”

“I can put in some extra effort for you.”

Jinx snorted.

“As funny as Gizmo blowing a gasket would be, I actually like our base right now. I just got my art studio set up the way I liked it, back when we were underwater. Don’t wanna’ move right now.”

Grinning, she stepped forward until she was almost pressed against the sorceress.

“Nice try, though.”

She leaned in, lips almost touching Raven’s ear.

“Maybe after dinner.”

Raven went rigid as red flooded her ear and cheeks.

Jinx stepped back with a Cheshire smile to see the havoc she’d wreaked.

The Titan raised a hand and spun her wrist. The floor under Jinx turned black, and then she was falling, her laughs fading into the dark…