(A/N)- I am SO happy that school is winding down now. Gives me more time to write. And become involved in new fandoms. (I've totally become addicted to the new Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon. It's corny and predictable at times but it's darn hilarious and awesome and I cannot get enough of it, particularly their version of Blue Beetle. Plus I've been archive binging on episodes of my favorite anime Mermaid Melody. I'm such a sad fangirl.)

A Jinx-centric one-shot this round. Started originally as a playful banter Flinx drabble and then morphed to become a little more serious and introspective but hopefully the fun dialogue still gets a few laughs. Those two are just a blast to write.

Disclaimer: Jaime Reyes! Huh, well, guess I don't own him either. Though if I did I'd treat him a HECK of a lot better than DC comics is right now... and put Nightwing and Starfire back together... When is it my turn to run the asylum anyway?

Back and Forth

The late night sky was a deep, deep blue tonight, speckled occasionally with a few stars that she could make out through the haze of the streetlights. Aside from a car or two passing by, the headlights framing her figure with a white halo as they past, there was no one else around. The streets were empty and deserted at this late hour, most people choosing to be asleep in their safe and warm homes instead of out wandering around. So much the better. It meant that things were quiet (aside from the sound of her own footsteps). Better for the restless thinking and pacing she'd been doing lately. The pink-haired girl dropped her eyes to the street again, relishing the stillness.

She didn't know how this nightly ritual had started. One night she just excused herself from the hideout with some half-muttered excuse about "needing to clear her head" and hit the streets and wandered around aimlessly just breathing in the cool night air until she felt calmer and more collected and then went back, finding everything dark and her teammates all asleep. It was almost like clockwork now. Finish dinner, file some reports, listen to beginning of yet another ever-irritating squabble between her roommates, head out and go for a long walk until her legs turned to jelly and her eyelids started drooping. That was usually around the one to two mark. It was only about eleven now, so she had a ways to go before she had to return home.

Home. Right. Like she'd ever really felt at home anywhere.

It was a realization that was beginning to occupy more and more of her thoughts nowadays, and especially on nights like these. She wondered often about what she really wanted from life. It sounded stupid and simple but she had to be honest with herself and realize that she'd never really, truly thought about it before. She'd just kept following orders and going with the flow without stopping to consider what her motives truly were. There'd been the superficial reasons of course-because villainy was fun, because she had friends-or at least very close associates she could count on in a pinch-because wrecking things and pulling off a successful heist gave her an adrenaline rush. But now that she thought about it, really thought about it, she recognized that what she really wanted was to fit in. To have a place where she would really… belong. And not just as a notation on the attendance record.

She'd thought she had fit in at the HIVE. Finally here she was, with kids her own age, who wouldn't think twice about her strange powers because hey, they were just like her. She could walk the school hallways and hold her head up high because the people here actually understood. They cared. They wanted her there with them, laughing and having fun and being part of something bigger than herself.

She sniffed.

That illusion had been shattered pretty quickly. Sure, she fit in nicely. Found a comfortable niche to slide into. Even made a few friends. But always at the back of her mind a nagging voice reminded her that these were villains she was hanging out with. Lust for power and treachery were practically in their blood. She couldn't trust anyone besides herself one hundred percent completely because you never knew who might turn on you.

It was that lack of trust that left her disillusioned with the whole bad girl shtick now. That and the fact that she was tired of having her butt handed to her time and time again, with no way to improve herself or move up in the criminal world because there were already dozens of evil scientists, costumed chaos-wreckers, gang leaders, and rampaging metahumans jostling for control, stepping on whoever got in the way, backstabbing anyone who slowed them down.

She wondered grimly if her own teammates would cut her loose given the chance, but then dismissed the thought on the grounds that the other members of the HIVE Five were way too stupid to want anything more than they already had now. Which was a lame cycle of stealing, fighting the Titans, going to jail, escaping, stealing again, getting their butts kicked, then crawling back to the hideout to lick their wounds and play video games and whine about losing all the time. Incompetents.

Even before the little red and yellow speedster boy scout had entered her life, her mind had been dwelling on it. She saw what the Titans had; how they worked together, how close they were, how happy they seemed all the time… and she resented it. She hated how there was absolutely nothing subversive about their relationship with each other. No backstabbing, no hesitancy to trust, no one ever using another person for their own gain… They were all just friends, pure and simple. Just five teenagers who hung out and lived together and enjoyed it. They were… almost like a family to each other.

And blast it all… she… she was jealous.

Jinx stopped walking for a minute, turned to the side and grabbed the frame of a random shop door and banged her head on it.

Come on, she scolded herself. That's stupid. I can't think about that right now.

She pulled away from the door, rubbing her forehead gently as she started up her trek again. The thought would not go away. She tried to shift her mind to a different subject but like a nail to a magnet it just kept latching back onto it. She almost groaned.

This was totally the speedster's fault. She'd never had so much trouble covering up notions that disturbed her before. Great. That meant the guy was actually having an influence on her. She was seriously tempted to go bang her head again. Great, just great, she thought.

As if on cue, she heard a small whooshing sound behind her. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of something ducking behind one of the buildings.

Jinx stopped in her tracks, sighed heavily and crossed her arms.

"You're wasting your ti-ime." she said aloud to the air, not bothering to look around.

In a blink there was a boy standing next to her, clad in skintight red and yellow spandex, emblazoned with a lightning bolt on the chest, beaming at her with that lopsided grin and those bright gleaming blue eyes. "Oh, I don't think I am." he said, in an annoyingly cheerful almost teasing tone of voice.

Jinx fixed the speedster with narrowed eyes and a calm, cool glare. "Still trying to convert me to side of truth and justice huh?"

"Aww, you remembered! That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

She rolled her eyes and started to walk past him. "Well you can forget it. The answer is still no."

A red and yellow blur whizzed by her and the next minute Kid Flash was once again blocking her path. "Are you saying that because you don't want to switch sides?" Here he threw her a flirtatious look. "Or are you just trying to resist my charm and good looks?"

"I'm trying to-why am I even talking to you?" Jinx sputtered, throwing her arms up aggravatedly. "I should be out stealing something or… something." she added lamely, her brain refusing to cough up examples of what she should be doing at this moment instead of arguing with the kid.

Said kid was still smiling at her, an eerily perceptive light in his eyes. "But you aren't. I wonder why that is."

Jinx exhaled deeply and crossed her arms again, hugging herself, then finally drew her gaze back up to the speedster's face. "You want the truth?" she asked softly.

"Honesty is the best policy."

"Lately it just doesn't seem to do anything for me." she confessed, looking off down the street towards the halo of light from the next street lamp. "There's no thrill, no fun. Not even the rush of victory since we keep losing all the time. It's just boring."

Beside her Kid Flash voiced a small, "Huh."

"What?" she asked, turning around.

"Well, I was just thinking…" the speedster said, scratching his chin. "If you do wind up deciding to switch sides I'd hope it'd be for something a little better than boredom." he told her, grinning.

Jinx shifted awkwardly on her feet. The deeper reasons she had been pondering earlier came back to hover acutely at the front of her mind. "Well… there is something else." she said.

"Such as?"

The sorceress didn't know how to begin. Her senses were on high alert, wary, cautious of spilling too much for fear it'd come back to haunt her. Her suspicion and mistrust was yet another thing that had been drilled into her through her experiences at the HIVE and beyond, ground practically into her own personality. And it projected itself onto the intentions of others, even the good guys, even the heroes.

Another thing she had to think about.

"You're friends with the Titans right?" she said finally.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"So you know how they're like with each other?" she went on.

His head tilted curiously. "What do you mean?" he asked.

A floodgate opened up inside her and she found herself spilling the thoughts that had been swirling around in her head. "How they work and fight. How they hang out. They're like a family. They can trust each other. They watch each other's backs all the time and they don't… there's no… I don't know what it is but they have something and…" Her face grew hot. She averted her gaze, hugging herself tighter. "…and I… I want it."

Kid Flash's tone and expression became serious. "Jinx," he said gently, "You can be part of that. You can have what the Titans have. All you have to do is make a choice."

She turned her back to him. "They'd never accept me." she said glumly.

"I wouldn't be too sure." he insisted, touching her shoulder and bringing her attention back to him. "They took Terra back didn't they? And she'd done way worse than you ever did."

"And then she turned into a rock." Jinx commented dryly. "That's not very encouraging." She gave a small wry smile. "Personally if I do decide to switch sides I'd rather redemption not equal death."

"Fair enough." Kid Flash shrugged. "I'll make sure there aren't any exploding volcanoes around when you make your choice."

"You're really immature, do you know that?"

He beamed. "You're too kind."

Jinx sighed. "Listen Red, I'm really not in the mood to argue right now. I'll give you a minute to zip off and go do your hero thing somewhere else before I send hexes at your head. Got it?"

He frowned, obviously disappointed that the sorceress didn't want to discuss things further and with his progress in trying to convince her to jump ship. But he nodded and said, "Okay Jinx. But think about what I said, all right?" Then he whizzed off in a swift blur and a small noise of wind, and left her alone on the street once more.

"Like I've been doing anything besides that since I got out here." she muttered sarcastically at his wake. She dropped her hands after a moment or two and resumed her long, slow walk through the city.

She didn't want to admit it, not to herself and definitely not to the speedster, but she knew she was close to a decision. Her mind had argued it back and forth for days, ever since Kid Flash had approached her and let her know that her paths weren't as limited as she thought, that there was more for her and her "evil" powers than following the road of least resistance. She had weighed the options, assessed her own desires, considered the consequences. Except for the one that occupied the forefront of her thoughts now.

She stared up at the sky.

If she did make a heel face turn, it would require one more act of villainy. In her attempt to find a place where she fit in, where she could trust the people around her, and rely on real friends without any hesitation… in her pursuit of a world without backstabbing and betrayal… she would have to betray and break the trust of the friends she had now.

Irony of ironies.

Jinx let out a short breath and then let herself smile faintly. Well, she'd never been one much for black and white morality anyway. Always preferred the gray tones. Kid Flash would probably start trying to scrub that out of her as soon as she moved into the Tower. Weird enough, she thought, she almost wouldn't mind. Darn him and his cheerful heroic influence. Maybe tomorrow she'd let him hang around longer. He was pretty fun to argue with. Even if his boy scout tendencies did get on her nerves.

Jinx glanced at a clock in a window, deciding she would turn in early tonight, and reversed her direction, starting the long trek back to the hideout.

Her choice hadn't been made yet.

But already she could guess what the outcome would be.

(A/N)- Heh-heh. Flinx banter is almost as much fun to write as Hotgent and BB/Rae banter.