Check Yes, Jinxie
AN and Disclaimer: My first Flinx. Yay! So excited. Ok, so yeah, this is based on "Check Yes, Juliet" by We the Kings, and I don't own it or Teen Titans or any other product or brand I mention that is already owned.
Jinx picked up the rose and saw, from the corner of her eye, a yellow and red blur vanish from the rooftop over her shoulder. She turned and walked down the dark alley, headed towards the Hive Five's base with an unreadable gaze.
...
Kid Flash was smiling madly as he ran. She saved him, she turned down a (chance at) robbery, and she accepted his rose. Finally! He chuckled a little, though. 'Silly little Hexer forgot her vase', he thought as he circled back around to pick it up. He knew right now that she probably needed to think, so he didn't want to show back up and tip the scale against him, especially just to pick up a simple, though very nice, flower vase.
He snatched it off the ground and buzzed back to his apartment to drop it off, only to turn and zoom back out into the night. Just because she couldn't see him didn't mean he wasn't going to be there. The speedster caught up to her just a few blocks away from the building he knew to be only the top level of the Hive underground base. He frowned as he watched her make for the building. Surely, she wasn't going to just go back like nothing had happened. She just showed a spark of something heroic back there, and the thought that it was only to be a blip on her radar made him sad. Then, she did something unexpected. She climbed the building to get at the roof.
...
The pink haired sorceress sat with her legs dangling from the edge of the building as she thought. Suddenly, the events of the day caught up with her and she released a yell of frustration to the night's sky. She had gone from a cold, heartless thief and all-around bad guy to someone who punched Madam Rouge and let the hero go (distinctly Not villain behavior) in less than twenty-four hours. Oh, sure, she could justify it to that Russian stretchy toy as an act of revenge all she wanted, but deep down, it had just honestly felt good. She scowled at that thought, but was determined to remain true to herself as she thought this through. Clearly, there was something wrong with her. Her whole career as a villainess was being called into question by some red and yellow… she searched for a word to call him…hero! who probably was going to head for the hills after messing with her career, home, team and head. What was worse, she now got the general impression that stealing anything was going to be entirely more trouble than it was worth because all she could hear in her head was a certain blue-eyed blur telling her she "could do better!"
"Argh!" She yelled again, with even more rage now. She couldn't sit anymore; she had to stand up and pace. As she did, she settled upon two facts. One, Madam Rouge said she would keep in touch, but in what capacity? To keep herself, and her team, safe something was going to have to be done. Two, just because she wanted them unharmed (Well, by Rouge anyway. She gave herself a free pass as payment for putting up with them.), didn't mean she wanted to be around them anymore. Oh, sure See-More was alright and he definitely listened to her more than the other Hive guys, but it still wasn't enough to convince her that staying was a good idea. Furthermore, they were bound to get suspicious of her if she stopped committing crimes so soon after Kid Flash had obviously taken an interest in her.
She huffed to herself as she saw her best option. She was going to have to leave.
...
Kid Flash almost ran over to her when he heard her yell, but at the last second stopped himself. She wasn't being attacked, she was just sitting. She would only resent him if he appeared to be swooping in to save the damsel in distress. So she yelled at nothing, so what? He'd see it done before. He almost did it himself, once.
Plus, as he discovered a moment later, it was fun to watch her thoughts play out on her face as she thought no one was around to watch her.
Suddenly, she yelled again and now she was up and cutting a path back and forth on the concrete of the roof. "Oh, two screams, Jinxie? Wow, you've had some day, huh?" He said, knowing full well that she had. He watched her stop and seem to make a decision. She looked over and shot a bolt of pink at a spot on the roof just a little ways away from her, then disappeared down the resulting hole.
Curious now, Kid Flash bolted down the building he had been watching her from and up the Hive headquarters. He peered down into the hole as it started to rain. He glanced at the sky and smiled to himself. 'Well, with a ready entrance, no need to stand in the rain,' he reasoned as he climbed in to the hole after her.
Not wanting to kick up his tale-tell gust of wind or come upon Jinx too fast, he moved slowly through the base. He made his way to her room at a quiet walk, ever listening for her presence in case she should be where she was not expected to be, and found her there after all. He grinned and had to restrain himself from running to her for the second time that night. She was packing. Packing meant leaving. What leaving meant, he wouldn't venture to say on the chance that his hopes would be dashed, but at the very least it meant that she realized that she wasn't happy here. Even if she went away from him (and that thought made his mouth go dry), he would be… content if she was happy.
He edged away from the door and back out the new skylight in the Hive Five's roof. The rain was coming down a bit harder now, but nothing too threatening, yet. He stood for a moment pondering what he should do, and her words from earlier in this little adventure of theirs came back to him. "What about the Hive? They'd come after me."
The thought made his blood turn hot and cold at the same time. Whether they would actually come after her or not, he had to make sure she had a good enough head start on them. Then, he smirked. Oh, yeah. There was a robbery in progress he could be stopping and some villains that could use a cool down period. Even if they broke out of jail in two hours or two days, it would give her extra time. And, since she wasn't with them, they could get arrested and she could stay safely out of it. He looked back and the hole and laughed, "Back in a Flash!" before speeding off.
...
Jinx knew she had to pack fast and light. She didn't know where she'd be going or how far away it might be, so whatever she took with her needed to be important.
At least she hadn't hexed her closet when he had been in here earlier. The rest of the place may be pretty well trashed, but she had clothes. Grimly, she noted that it seemed like either way this night had gone she wasn't meant to sleep in that bed again. Whatever dark star ruled her fortune, or lack thereof, certainly had a sense of humor.
The pink haired girl grumbled something about "speed" and "could have come helped pack" as she dug a large black backpack out of her closet and began to fill it, first with a couple sets of clothes, including a pair of tennis shoes that she would have to take the time to lace up right later, and her most basic toiletries, like her brush, toothbrush, and deodorant. She debated on shower stuff, but decided that she would scrounge up some later. She could always snatch some from a hotel supply cart, right? It wasn't stealing if they gave it out. Unfortunately, she didn't have much money, but what she did have went into the front pocket of the bag. That was going to be an issue, but she couldn't stop to think too much into it for now. Finally, she added her iPod, an extra sketchbook and pencils, and, after much internal debate, the latest rose.
She shouldered her pack, took a last look at her room (or what was left of it), and walked towards the hole in the roof. Using the door at this point would feel weird somehow. She briefly considered leaving a note, but just as fast dismissed the idea. If they didn't care when she was here, why would they when she wasn't.
Plink
Plink
Plink-plink
"What on earth is that?" she said as she approached the ground level and her exit.
The cat-eyed girl glared at the rain falling into the base. Naturally, it would be raining…
...
Plink
Plink
Plink-plink
Kid Flash sat throwing pebbles at a window on the above-ground portion of the base for something to do. The Five were tucked away in jail (for now), and he was just waiting for his dream girl to show herself again.
He heard a thud and ran for an alley to stay hidden until the right moment. And, there she stood. At the edge of the roof with a bag at her side, Jinx was peering down at the ground and seemed to be judging the distance. She tossed her backpack down to the rain-soaked sidewalk and prepared to leap after it.
Blue eyes danced with delight as Kid Flash counted down to himself, "Three…Two…One!" then shot across the street to catch her before her feet could touch the ground. He couldn't help but laugh at the look of shock and confusion on her face as she found herself in his arms.
For her part, Jinx only knew that one moment she had been in perfect form to land on the concrete with as little impact as possible and the next she had landed bridle style in Kid Flash's arms with him laughing his head off, at her or his own antics she wasn't sure. Trying to glare and blink through the rain at the same time, she held up one glowing hand and said darkly, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hex you into next week."
With those still sparkling eyes and a mischievous grin he looked at the girl and said, "As you wish", before dipping slightly but rapidly to retrieve her bag and then sprinting at top speed into the night.
She gasped at the sudden speed, shutting her eyes against it, and involuntarily hugged him, but only seconds later he stopped. She became aware that it was no longer raining at the same time that she heard him softly say, "You can look now." He lowered her feet to the ground and stepped back to shrug her bag off his shoulder, "Sorry, if I scared you there."
She snarled at him as her hands and eyes lit up with ready energy and she got into an attack stance, "It's you that should be scared, blur-boy! Where have you taken me, and why? And, I better like your answers."
He put his hands in the air disarmingly, but to his credit he didn't back away. He spoke calmly, trying to ease her back from her anger, "You won't hurt me. You'd have done it already if you were. But, to answer your questions, you are just outside Jump, in the mountains. I brought you here because you asked for it and because I wanted to share something with you. I'm going to move now, slowly which is hard for me might I add," he said with a grin, "and if you want to keep your eyes on me you're gonna have to see it."
She watched him with narrowing eyes as he began to circle around her, true to his word, slowly. When he got around far enough, she inhaled sharply at the sight and stifled the energy in her hands. She relaxed her stance and he put his hands down as she walked a little closer to the railing around the cliff to see better.
They were on a cliff with a mountain road behind them and Jump City in the distance before them. Lights twinkled and marked the presence of cars, buildings, and the Jump City Bridge, and the gentle rain that was falling back in town only barely distorted the image.
"Wow…I'll admit, this is beautiful," Jinx said as she gazed on the town that seemed so small from here.
Kid Flash was looking at her as he said, "It's better tonight." Then, the fastest boy alive blushed and turned to look at the panorama before him as she snapped her head around to look at him suspiciously. She searched his face in the low light, but thankfully couldn't see it well enough to spy the red coloring his cheeks.
Lady Bad Luck turned around to lean against the railing and frowned at him. "I should still hex you into oblivion, you know. Not only did you completely wreck my chance at getting a leg up in the villain world, now I've lost my team and my place to crash. And, I have this feeling that it's going to be hard for me to steal things again. For a hero, you've done a lot of damage today," she smirked at him.
He laughed at that, shaking his head slightly. "Well, sometimes you have to break something to fix it. You of all people should know what that's like," he said pointedly. "Besides," he added, "they were barely your team. Your team would listen to you better."
Jinx growled at this a little, but said huffily, "Fair point. And now, or once they figure out I'm gone, they're just as likely to come after me as they are to leave me alone, which brings me right back to not having a place to sleep tonight." She scowled at the thought of having to sleep on a damp park bench after the rain subsided. She'd done it before, but didn't relish the thought of having to do it again. And, God forbid she got someone's bench by accident. She furrowed her brow and massaged it a little. "Maybe I should just go back, anyway," she muttered.
Now, it was his turn to frown as he turned to her again and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. It made his heart leap a bit when she didn't immediately shrug it off. "Not that you want my advice, but I'm going to give it," he said, giving her a quick encouraging smile as she turned to face him, "Don't look back. 'Stay one more night' becomes 'Just this weekend', then, 'Might as well finish the week', and before you know it you're still there, and still unhappy, and still ignored."
Jinx stared at him as those blue eyes seemed to see her very soul. 'How does he do that?' she thought as he spoke gently to her. It felt like the world was melting away. Then, he said, with a huge mood-breaking grin, "Besides, I put the Five in jail to give you a head start. Not very nice if you don't take it."
She whirled on him angrily, knocking his hand off her shoulder in the process, and all but screeched, "You put the Five in jail?"
Kid Flash snorted a little and said matter-of-factly, "Well, yeah! They were stealing from a research lab."
She blinked at him for a second, then, "I know that! But why did you wait until now to put them in jail?"
The red-haired boy just shrugged, "Because before, I'd have had to take you, too. I told you, I want to get to know you. Kinda hard to do if you're in prison." He seemed to think for a minute, then added, "It's sort of like they lost their immunity idol and now they've been voted off the island."
She put a hand over her face and grumbled, "You would watch Survivor," then raised her head to glare at him, "Fine, so I won't go back to the Hive base. You got any other bright ideas, you running caution cone?"
He doubled over and laughed, "'Running caution cone', huh? I've never heard that one before. Creative. I like it." He chuckled a little more, then sobered and, still smiling, said, "Actually, I do. But, I don't know if you'll like it… I happen to have an extra room in my apartment."
She stared at him and raised what would have been an eyebrow, "You, Kid Flash, a hero, are suggesting that I, Jinx, a villainess, move in with you? As in, share the same living space, will probably see you without your mask on, know exactly where you live? Did your brain miss a turn on the way up here and fall out?" she asked with as much sarcasm as she could.
He looked thoughtful as he bobbed his head back and forth a bit and said, "No, it still feels like it's up there." The resulting face-palm from her made him laugh a little again. Then he was serious as he said, "Are you really still a villainess?"
"No. Yes! Argh!... look, I don't even know right now, ok?" she huffed as she looked down at the ground with intensity that should have made the little rocks roll away out of nervousness.
He nodded once to himself and said, "Ok. Then, no I am not asking a 'villainess' to move in with me. I am asking someone who is as of recently unsure about her path and homeless, partially because of me, to move in with me. As for the rest of that stuff…" he paused, then made a decision.
Jinx wondered where the rest of that sentence was and looked up to make a comment about his hesitation, but her biting words died in her mouth and were born again as a gasp. He'd pulled off his mask and was standing before her, letting her see his entire face. It was dark, yes, but she could still have identified him in a crowd. He had a light smattering of freckles across his nose and his hair was sticking to the side of his head from being trapped in his mask, which he held at his side as he smiled at her confidently. She regained her composure and didn't bother to hide her shock as she said, "Are you insane?"
Kid Flash's grin broadened. "Maybe," he said happily, slipping his mask back on in case someone ended up driving the road tonight, "but at least that gets one issue out of the way."
She looked at him with suspicious confusion and said, "I don't get it. Why would you do that? Why would you do any of this?" She motioned around herself to generally indicate his offer and his view.
He met her gaze with seriousness. "Because I like you and I trust you, and I want you to like and trust me. And, come on, Jinx, what better offer are you gonna get? It's rent-free, three or more meals a day (I have to eat a lot), and your room would be right next to the bathroom. You can stay as long as you want, whether that's until you get on your feet again or if you just decide to stay. By the way, I'm hoping for that last one."
She regarded him thoughtfully for a long time, examining his entire form, looking for any trace of deceit or pretense. Finally, she said, "I can cook."
"Huh?" Kid Flash said as he quirked an eyebrow.
"I can cook," she said again and added, "I won't be some charity case you take in. But you said you eat a lot, so I'll earn my keep by cooking. You do dishes, though. I hate that part."
The speedster grinned happily and said, "Deal! But I only think it's fair to warn you that I am getting the better end of this stick. All my meals cooked for me, and your lovely company? You need to work on your negotiation skills, Jinxie."
To his surprise, she smirked at him when she said, "You're gonna call me that even if I tell you not to, aren't you?"
"Yup!" he chirped, before laughing again. He regained his composure and with a gentle smile said, evenly, "Hey. Are you ready to run?"
Jinx eased herself off the railing and picked her bag up again. "As I'm ever going to be," she said with one part resigned hope and one part dog-tiredness. He had her in his arms again before she could protest and, once she was there anyway, the girl decided not to. Suddenly, a thought came to her and she inquired, "Hey, do you know the song 'Check Yes, Juliet'?"
Kid Flash searched his memory for a moment, then admitted, "No, I don't think I do."
She tilted her head to the side a bit and said, "It's oddly appropriate for tonight. I'll play it for you when we get home."
The boy grinned at the words 'we' and 'home', and despite the fact that he was carrying someone else and their bag, his feet never felt lighter.
Lyrics to Check Yes, Juliet:
Check yes Juliet
Are you with me
Rain is falling down on the sidewalk
I won't go until you come outside
Check yes Juliet kill the limbo
I'll keep tossing rocks at your window
There's no turning back for us tonight
[Chorus:]
Lace up your shoes
Here's how we do
Run baby run
Don't ever look back
They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance
Don't sell your heart, don't say we're not meant to be
Run baby run, forever will be
You and me
Check yes Juliet
I'll be waiting
Wishing wanting yours for the taking
Just sneak out and don't tell a soul goodbye
Check yes Juliet
Here's the countdown:
3,2,1 you fall in my arms now
They can change the locks, don't let them change your mind
[Chorus]
We're flying through the night
We're flying through the night
Way up high
The view from here is getting better with you
By my side
Run baby run
Don't ever look back
They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance
Don't sell your heart, don't say we're not meant to be
Run baby run, forever will be
Run baby run, don't ever look back
They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance
Don't sell your heart, don't say we're not meant to be
Run baby run, forever will be
You and me
You and me