Raw Deal (Part III)
Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.
"So, anyway, Waller makes this offer. While I'm not the most perceptive, I'm still smart enough to figure out there are only so many ways you can use a group of supervillain inmates in the kind of deal that gets them out early."
With a sigh, Jinx takes the last bite, finishing off her steak, before sliding another plate of food over on top of the plate.
"So, she can tell I'm not exactly happy about the prospect. I mean, she as much as said she knew I wasn't a murderer, and here she was asking me to at the very least work with some serious hitters who didn't have any issues with it."
"So what changed your mind?" Raven inquires, placing the now empty teacup on the table and pouring another glass from the large glass container left with them.
"Who, not what," Jinx disagrees. "It was Harley. Waller told me that while I'd be running the risk of dying, obviously, probably for the government, I could also get out of prison, not just in my life time but in a few years. Depending on what I was sent to deal with. So, I'm sitting in this huge office, basically being told I can get out of being stuck there wrongly, if I put my neck on the line, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell I'm going to do. Then Harley showed up."
"She just walked into Amanda Waller's office?" Raven inquires, starting to get the larger picture.
"More like runs in like a kid on crack, but yeah, pretty much," Jinx says with a shrug. "Apparently, when I'd gotten sent to Belle Reve, Waller had found my ability… useful. For heroics, bad luck doesn't do much good, but for secret spy missions without any possibility of an international incident, where the target always needs to die? Yeah, that I could do, or so she thought. So she put me in Harley's cell, and had her run her psychoanalysis crap on me. Y'know, would I be able to handle the battle stress, would I be able to cope with killing willfully, would my mind be able to take the stress of my powers, that kinda' thing. Apparently I passed, and Harley liked me enough, so Waller decided to test me out."
"I wish someone had thought to look for you," Raven sighs. "When you vanished, a lot of people just assumed you went underground, and that you weren't going to be found if you didn't want to. If we had known-"
"I know," Jinx interrupts, her smile becoming a little warmer. "You're not quite the stoic, cold fish everyone seems to say you are, Raven."
"Thank you, I guess," Raven says, blushing at the meta's quiet giggle.
"So, I decide that if I'm ever going to get out of that hole, this was my chance. I wasn't exactly spy material, but very few have ever made it out of there via escape, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be one of them. So I took her up on her offer."
Remembered horrors quickly flash through Jinx's eyes, her grin souring in their wake.
"I got lucky, though. In more ways than one. I was out on several missions, and between Harley and Deadshot, I managed to keep my ass from being fried. Was even useful some times. That op you mentioned? That was the one that really saved my ass."
"I apparently did not do as much research as I thought. All I could get beyond the existence of your team was something vaguely resembling Deadshot's MO. Nothing that would've led me to believe Quinn or you were there," Raven muses.
"Kinda' the point. Anyway, we're in that hellhole, and while we're looking for the target, these cultists pinned everyone else. Deadshot's suit got messed up by their magic, and Harley was stuck in some kind of illusion. She never talked about it. The others… well, they weren't particularly helpful."
"And where were you?"
"Flanking their asses, albeit unintentionally. Part of the whole probability thing; I got separated from them, and came out on the other side of the forest when the explosions started. So, using some tricks that I picked up on other missions, I, uh… I sort've made the Earth eat them."
"A new trick, indeed."
"My hex energy's magical. It was only natural I'd figure out other magic eventually," Jinx shrugs off. "So, the cultists are all crushed, without any sign of them existing when the hole I opened closes after them. We get back to Belle Reve, thinking I royally screwed up, when Waller tells me that I'm going to be released."
"Just like that? When you were so useful to her team? I didn't picture the good warden to be so fair."
"I still have a death threat on my head, y'know. And I worked my ass off, and saved her team. But I think that Harley had mentioned something about when we'd talked, privately, about me finding that, after the first few ops, I found myself liking it. Not the killing, mind you, but the secrecy, the intrigue, and the being useful to people by preventing seriously bad shit from happening, with shocking ease."
"They don't… have you bugged or anything, do they?" Raven inquires, suddenly very worried.
"I… don't think so. You brought the name up first, so if anything, you would probably be the target, right along with me, and I'm sure you could kick their asses if they tried it, so my worry before was a tad unwarranted."
"Glad you think so highly of me, when you just said you made the Earth swallow a whole group while a trained killer was incapable," Raven monotones, the blush seeming to be perpetually with her now.
"You should hear the stories Dr. Light tells in there," Jinx giggles. "I don't know what you did to him, but he has everyone in that place that ever went against the Titans terrified of the dark."
"He caught me on a bad day," the psychic deadpans, sipping more tea to avoid revealing her own grin.
Apparently, her initial impression that Jinx was more tolerable than most during her brief time with them had not been an unwarranted one.
"Apparently. So, anyway, my record got completely expunged, and I'm let out with a lot more combat skills than I went in with, developing powers, and a sudden passion for saving people in a way that I can do. Have you ever heard of the D.E.O.?"
"Of course. Wonder Woman has dealings with them, which means the Justice League has records on them, which in turn means that Nightwing, nosy detective that he is, has said files."
"You are well informed, aren't you? Well, if you know about her, you know about the D.M.A. division inside of the department, yes?"
Raven nods, sipping her tea and waiting for Jinx to elaborate herself. Evidently, she'd been making good use of her freedom, even if her bosses were all, if Nightwing's data was anything to go by, utterly insane.
"Well, surprisingly, Waller gave me a recommendation when I got out. Of course, they never said who recommended me when I was blindfolded and driven to a spooky, undisclosed location for an interview, but nobody else I know had any kind of way to do something like that. Well, it might've been Mikron," she amends, seemingly to herself as a sudden thought occurs to her.
"Mikron?"
"Uh… Gizmo. He quit the whole villain game as soon as he got de-iced by whoever thawed out the Brotherhood of Evil. We're a team. He does the information, I hit whatever needs to be broken or removed to get the goal done."
"Ah, that'd explain why he hasn't had a presence in our radars, either, then. Don't suppose he knows who freed them?"
"If he does, he hasn't told me," the meta responds with a shaking head. "I bet that really didn't go over well with you guys."
"Mostly Beast Boy. Nightwing is too busy with… other… concerns, and I admit, I find it difficult to take a talking brain in a jar seriously, despite what horrors he planned before. So what of your other former teammate, Mammoth?"
"He agreed wholly with Giz when he said they 'didn't need to deal with no damn stinkin' brain gettin' them frozen for more'n half a year,' or so Mammoth told me," Jinx says, affecting a much more nasally voice. "He joined up with his sister Shimmer. Whatever they do, it's heavier than whatever we've got going on."
"So, you work for the D.M.A. now. Not to knock you, but I can see that being more your kind of thing than working with needing to play nice."
"Envious?" Jinx asks, affecting an almost flirtatious tone that darkens Raven's blush ever further.
"Truth be told? At least a small amount," Raven states, smirking at Jinx's scandalized gasp.
"Imagine that! Well, I'm not a recruitment officer or anythin', but I could always put a good word in for you with Steel, if you want. We could use the kind of power you throw around, even if Gizmo would pitch a fit."
"I'll think on it," Raven states, surprising both of them with her sincerity. "For now, though, we still have the bit about why you have the gem to go over."
"Oh. Right. So, a month ago, one of our data guys notices all these magical items getting pilfered. Me and Giz get sent out to hunt for them, working quietly to help the Justice League, and various other groups, to retrieve them. Only took us about a week to notice there were no other groups, and we had Giz send a little blip of data, to bring it to their attentions."
"It still amazes me, with their ineptitude on this one," Raven comments drily.
"You, too? Seriously, what the hell's with that? So, anyway, long story short a few items get back to the museums that will just end up being robbed again, and now here I am, with the gem of a cult stolen back from the original thieves. Can't believe that Wykkyd had the damn thing and didn't even seem to know what it really was, other than that it gave him a boost."
"And so, here you are," Raven agrees, her stoic mask becoming harder to keep up by the second...
Author's Notes:
D.E.O.- Department of Extranormal Operations (they're a group in the comics that deals with supernatural issues, working for the U.S. government, to generally protect the public from crazies with superpowers)
D.M.A.- Department of Metahuman Affairs (a subdivision of the D.E.O., not dissimilar to a Men in Black organization for dealing with metahumans)
Shimmer is a comics-only character, the sister of Mammoth and another member of the Fearsome Five, along with Gizmo, Psimon, and Jinx.
All those factoids out of the way, I hope you're enjoying so far. I feel like I'm giving more exposition than I should be, but I'm also enjoying writing it. Either way, let me know what you, the reader, thinks, so I know what I do and don't need to work on. See you next time!