To Woo His Heart

Prologue

"Speedy."

Jinx had never been the sort of person to sit down and watch life go by without her--- or the type to sit back and watch a friend become consumed by worrying or confusion. At the moment, she was listening to a friend spill out romantic problems. "Of course," thought Jinx to herself, "it is always the love problems people have so much trouble with."

"He kissed me."

"I see," replied Jinx. She eyed the Asian assassin carefully, trying to see if she could detect any emotion. Annoyingly, there was none. "What did you do?"

"I stopped, naturally." The cat-masked girl's tone was a bit indignant, as if Jinx thought she would do anything else. "I was… on duty, after all."

That meant she had been on one of her jobs… as a thief, assassin, or whatnot. Jinx decided it was safer not to know so that she could truthfully claim she knew nothing of that. But as for the problems her friend had--- it was rather ironic that it would be Cheshire, of all people, to have the first maddening-obsessive love. She had been the one who always lived with herself and needed no one else… until now. Jinx had only met Cheshire when the Brotherhood of Evil had started their small party of teenaged hero elimination or whatever it had been called, but the assassin had made a lasting impression.

"But then he told me that he loved me… that he has loved me for a while and so on…" Cheshire paused here to sigh as she bent down to pick out another band for her hair. "He said he was tormented by my absence and how he was afraid my kiss would always be a scar upon his heart."

Jinx blinked. This was scaring her slightly, with the cat-masked assassin not being her usual stoic self. The untimely declaration she made next caused Jinx to lurch in surprise, spilling the tea onto the floor.

"I like them both!"

Little did the poor girl know that both were the same. Speedy was Roy Harper and Roy Harper was Speedy. Jinx debated with herself for a moment whether or not she should tell. Then, she remembered how vengeful the Asian female could be. If this assassin found out--- she might try to get some revenge on Speedy for not telling her everything. "All right…" thought Jinx. "Two alternatives. One is that Speedy likes chasing many different girls, so he has no idea Jade and Cheshire are the same person. Or, as Alternative Number Two, he knows they are the same person which is why he is chasing her with both his civilian identity and his alias." She winced a little in anticipation of the pain Speedy would feel. Either way, it would most likely not be very good for him. With the first, Cheshire might feel that he had just been playing with her and with the second, Cheshire would feel that he had been deceiving her.

"And I do not know what I am going to do!" ended Cheshire.

Poor Chesh.

Something definitely had to be done.

The question was… what?

"And how long…" started Jinx before trailing off.

"For Speedy, since the first time I chased him. For Roy Harper, since I met him on the street. It has been a while for both, but my feelings have not really changed."

"Have you told them how you feel?"

Cheshire took off her mask to reveal misty green eyes. Obviously, tears of frustration. Jinx sighed in sympathy. "I cannot," stated the assassin. "For Speedy, he is a… hero. Just look at how Kid Flash's and your situation ended up."

The luck witch made a face. She recalled only too well how the romance with Kid Flash had ended up. He had become too… it might have been a mistake for her to get mixed up with him in the first place. On the other hand, it had been an excellent relationship while it lasted. And furthermore, their very relationship had been made up of quarrels and reconciliations. Jinx had no doubt that they would have another more friendly reunion eventually… he was probably just waiting for her to apologize to him for her last few particularly unkind remarks or until he got tired of waiting and came over. Whichever happened first. It was a sort of competition sometimes.

"And Speedy… just think of his nerve at pushing my mask aside slightly to kiss me! Of course, I clawed him after for taking such a liberty."

The mental image was rather amusing to Jinx, but she decided to proceed with questions. "What about the Roy Harper person?"

"What if he does not feel the same? And besides… my job does not allow for attachments. And this scares me."

"Well," started Jinx, "we will have to do something about this, will not we?"