It was supposed to be a fling. When the texts turned from taunting, to teasing, to flirting, that was all Vic dared hope for. A fling.
Six months ago, he wouldn't have considered even that option. Jinx had his number from his time as Stone and she took advantage to pester him about HIVE's escapes and villainous triumphs. Vic, for his part, was more than willing to dish it out as good as he got it.
Trash talk? C'mon, he can roast someone in his sleep.
Hard to say, looking back, where it changed. When the texts became daily and Vic started calling her 'babe' (jokingly, longingly). When he started waking every morning wondering if he'd hear from her.
The next milestone is easier to mark. Two months after the start of… whatever this is. That was when they met for the first time off the battlefield.
She convinced him of the idea and suggested the details: midnight on the roof of the Janus Cosmetics office tower.
Vic arrived half-expecting an ambush. A noxious stormcloud of anxious dread roiled above him, so potent it could be fully visible and he wouldn't be a bit shocked. But he kept his word, his unspoken promise, and showed up alone. Strung tight and more than a little suspicious, but alone.
(The other half wondered what she'd think of the new and improved him, more Vic than Cyborg. Only just that year he'd finally worked up the bravery to alter his metal components. To reclaim as much of the real him as he could. What would she think of the man beneath the battle armor?)
Vic found Jinx sitting on the edge, swinging her legs like the ground wasn't a hundred stories away and admiring the panorama of city lights. Dressed in ripped-knee jeans and an off the shoulder t-shirt. Her bobbed hair down and loose and blowing in the wind. Sending a single thought shooting across his brain like a flash of lightning through a black sky.
It wasn't Jinx waiting for him there. Not the way he pictured her, anyway. As the villain stealing his focus during their battles and his thoughts the rest of the time, making him second guess his own sanity. As the vengeful mastermind trying to pull the reverse of his undercover mission with HIVE.
Not up here. Here, she was a mystery with more layers than he could comprehend. A total and complete enigma.
She was a turning point, a curve in the path of his life, for better or for worse. He didn't know which yet.
She was dashing and debonair and tipping her head back at the sound of his voice to fix him with a look that said she was nothing short of thrilled to see him.
"Hello, Hero," she whispered. "Come to take me away?"
"To jail? Depends on you."
Talking tough, but there was nothing behind it. If Vic had to guess, he'd say she knew it too.
Taking him by the hand with a grin, she pulled him deeper into the night.
He let her.
They walked across rooftops, balancing on pipes (her) and weaving between electrical boxes and air conditioning units (him). A surge of instinctual fear flooded Vic when he made the jump from one building to the next. Jinx did it without thought, mid-sentence.
A new city unfolded obediently before them, silent if it weren't for the buzz of white noise. Filled only with the electricity of incoming rain. Empty to all appearances, lending the illusion of two lone souls slipping through the fog-damp dark. Unfamiliar and strange, like entering a mirror dimension where it was all just a millimeter off. Vic had never seen the city like that.
They talked for hours. About everything, anything, nothing off-limits or weird. She knew things and she wanted to know things. Easy to see in the moonlight that curiosity was her driving force. And impossibly, she understood how to spark the same in Vic, drawing him out with the perfect keywords and topics.
He only saw it looking back. A dance of subtlety and craft. Like Vic was a code she was itching to crack.
With every word, every second spent with Jinx, a wild, sharp freedom filled Vic's chest. The realization kept him up all night when he returned home, two hours before dawn: he could do this again. He could sneak out. He could meet someone forbidden, someone unusual, whip smart, and beautiful.
So he did.
It helped the gray days. Sometimes it was what got him out of bed, this promise of adrenaline rush and no inhibitions. They could go anywhere, do anything.
He couldn't admit at first that the promise of her winking attention drew him just as strongly.
They walked on the beach, through dark streets and alleys, in the woods a mile past city limits. They drove down pitch black country roads, up and down mountain sides, through the silent, chilled desert night. They met on rooftops, in parks, underneath bridges.
Anywhere secret. Anywhere they could be alone.
Vic thought she would touch him. That was the point of a secret fling, wasn't it? Hands on waists, lips on faces.
Jinx took his hand that first night. Leading him over the first rooftop gap. After that, she let go. Near, but not touching. Not even when he said goodnight.
The next time, she didn't do even that much, though he saw the impulse cross her expression as she greeted him with a clever line. Same thing the time after that. The consideration, the holding back. Even as her eyes swept over Vic with a desire very much like drinking him in.
Jinx respected his space. That was appreciated. And –a confession colored in guilt– nothing like what he expected.
So what did they do, on these covert meetings under every phase of the moon?
Most nights unfolded like this: find a new place, a new inch of the city and the surrounding miles that one or both of them have never seen. On foot, in the T-Car, even –heart pounding, caught in his throat– the subway once, when there wasn't a soul around.
Along the way, they talked. Voice so light it drifted lazily to the sky (no sign then of the mystery accent), Jinx would talk about anything. All it took was a couple well-aimed comments to pull Vic in too.
Their conversations were equal parts hypothetical and practical, crossing seamlessly from concrete to abstract in a dozen words. Common topics were faraway worlds, unusual observations, theories on what prompted people to act the frankly irrational way they did. Things Vic had turned over in his head once or twice but never found the space to discuss.
They talked hardly ever about their respective teammates and never about their peculiar arrangement. Plenty about what the world was, but nothing about what they were.
They could. An unspoken understanding lingered sepia-hued in every moment, a strange trust that whatever said in this confidence remained there. The option was ever present, tempting and terrifying. They could say anything.
They just didn't. Not yet.
Not until visit six.
"You're not what I expected."
Lying next to him on the rooftop, Jinx had glanced over, one eyebrow raised and a teasing smirk on her lovely face. "Neither are you. You're nothing like the others."
Vic frowned, turning his gaze from the stars to her face. "What does that mean?"
"It means I don't quite understand you." She winked. "That's a good thing."
"That why you started texting me?"
"Yes."
Her eyes were eternally mischievous. A combination of the unique pupils, narrow shape, and a mirthful light hinting that if the world was a joke, she was in on it. At night, this was accentuated by the way they reflected the streetlights, giving off a subtle glow that reminded Vic of his own artificial eye. But even in broad daylight her eyes shone bright and drenched with life. With excitement and ambition. Sometimes he stood a little too close, like the rays might leap to reach him and wash out his gray fatigue.
Vic shook his head, drowning in the ocean of conflict crashing against the walls of his skull. "What are we, Jinx?" he asked softly.
"Jemma." Her smirk faded to an expression with less edge. One more like a smile. "You can call me Jemma."
Something so secret, so precious, spoken so easily. A piece of her, freely given.
Jemma. Her name was Jemma.
Vic propped himself on his elbow, facing her. He took a deep breath. "Then… you can call me Vic."
"Vic." She rolled the name over her tongue, testing it and sending a shiver down his spine. "I like it. So, to answer your question…" Jemma held out her hand, palm up. "We're Vic and Jemma."
"And who are they?" He slid his fingers between hers. She gave them a gentle squeeze, almost reassuring in nature.
"Whoever they want to be."
That was then. Here and now, standing in the hallway, Vic makes the next in a long line of questionable decisions.
He presses a key into Jemma's hand.
"Don't want you to get caught out here when I'm not home," he mutters, examining the carpet.
Her fingers close over the key. His heart throbs, like he laid it across her palm.
"Thank you."
Shocked eyes leap to her face. No clever remark, no flirting, nothing?
Nothing but her own eyes tracing the angles of the key. In the depths, an emotion too quiet to read.
Vic gives a small nod. "You're welcome."