The first argument with Silco had been… pretty disheartening.

Powder knew how to handle verbal fights; there had been many with Mylo and Clagger, and many more with Vi. Even Vander had been disappointed in her once in a while, but it had always felt different. These people had been her family, and she knew that whatever happened, nothing could tear them apart.

At least so she had thought until a certain day.

And when Silco approached her, clear anger written on his face, Powder had thought that he, too, would turn his back on her. He hadn't beaten her, hadn't hurt her, but the volume of his voice, the way spit flew out of his mouth with every word, and just the wild expression in his eyes had been enough to frighten her. She didn't want to lose the only person Powder thought she could trust, and it hadn't helped that her tears had begun to stream down her cheeks hopelessly.

She knew that it wasn't good when one of her gadgets exploded inside the Last Drop! She knew that she had messed up with that one, but what was left for her other than to apologize? The gadgetry was the only thing left to her, the only option to make those long and monotonous days go by. And she had gotten so much better at it! Her bombs worked, no matter if she tried the nail bombs, the smokers or just those funny noise-makers. The failure rate had dropped noticeably, and her weapons became smaller and more effective with each new try. It was only natural that sometimes, experiments went wrong, right?

It hadn't been her intention to blow away half of the Last Drop, of course. She understood that Silco was angry, it was just… Powder was scared to lose him.

His words still rang in her ears; the way he had talked himself into a rage and barely managed to come out of it again. He could be scary when he was like this, showing his sharp teeth and bending his back even more like a predator ready to hunt.

Things had calmed down, eventually. Mood had been tense for a couple of days, but one evening, where Powder hesitantly walked into Silco's office and asked him to braid her hair again, this had been enough to cast away the last of the anger.

"I don't want this to happen again, Jinx", he had said to her that evening, face set and voice stern.

Powder had nodded, throwing her hair all around her face, biting her lip to avoid more tears coming. Silco didn't want her to cry. She was not a baby anymore, and she needed to grow up. "It won't. I promise."

To make sure she could keep that promise, Powder had searched some abandoned alleys of Zaun until she had found the perfect place: a huge vertical entrance to a mining shift that hadn't been used in years, with a huge ventilating system that probably stopped working while the mines had still been running.

It was a lonely place, sparsely touched by sunlight and isolated from the rest of the undercity, and it was beautiful. The abyss under her feet threatened to swallow her if she took only one wrong step, which frightened Powder at first, but she soon realized all the advantages of this place.

No one would hear explosions when some of her bombs went off, and she could even test them without any need to worry. The surface of the ventilation system was solid enough for her to walk and jump around, and the space was more than enough. No one else attempted to occupy this place, which meant that Powder was free to do whatever she wanted, and whenever she felt like it.

Every day, she would bring some materials there; first most of the stuff she still owned in the Last Drop, then more and more useful components she found either in the corners of the streets or in backyards of other people. Silco seemed to be the only person to notice her absence during the days, but he didn't ask. Maybe he was glad that Powder stopped lurking in the ceiling of his office all the time, as long as she came back in the evenings.

Now that she could test out all her ideas without any fear of destroying a building, Powder became more and more confident in what she did. In the beginning, her gadgets had been barely more than toys, but they slowly developed into actual weapons. Useful ones. So useful that she did not need to be afraid of the big boys lurking in the alleys any longer. She didn't need to hide in the shadows to avoid any confrontations, although the bombs she carried in her back made her over-confident now and then.

It wasn't rare that Powder returned to the Last Drop with a bleeding nose, a scratched knee or a black eye, and she made sure no traces of her tears were left once she approached Silco. But those confrontations, together with her memories of Vi, taught her how to fight and how to punch back when her gadgets were not enough. Silco never asked what happened, but he did ask one thing: "Who won?"

Powder hated the disappointment when she admitted that she had been on the loser side, however those moments became rare. Instead, she would be rewarded with acknowledging nods, and it helped her to keep her head up even though all she wanted was to curl up and cry.

"You need to be strong, Jinx", Silco said one evening while she sat on his desk cross-legged, waiting for the man to part her hair into three strands. "And when the others are stronger than you, you need to outsmart them. Always prove that you're better."

She hummed, since she could hardly move her head while Silco was working on the braid. Her hair had become quite long by now, and the braid was thick enough that it would soon be about time to braid two instead of one. "I am better."

Powder didn't know if that was the truth, but it was the one thing Silco wanted to hear. And maybe… the more often she said it, she would eventually believe it herself. She was not the strongest, or the smartest, she wasn't rich or famous or anything. But neither had been Silco, and in only a couple of months, he had managed to change the undercity more than anyone had achieved before him.

That he was spreading a drug called Shimmer all across Zaun was something Powder didn't really like, mostly because people seemed to become addicted to it until they were in a very bad state, but his name became widely known and no one dared to stand in Silco's way. He was the one to spread the idea that Zaun could be independent, that they didn't have to live in Piltover's shadows for much longer. It was a rebellion not everyone approved, but a change that was long needed. Even before Silco had taken over the Last Drop, the undercity had been in a miserable state because of the rich people living in the sun. Powder had grown up with hunger and violence, and the more she thought about her trips to the upper city, the angrier she became. Those people lived in luxury, they had unpolluted air to breathe, clean water to drink and so much food that they threw away enough each day to feed all of Zaun for a month. And the worst of all was that they treated Zaun like vermin, as if it hadn't been the mines bringing Piltover all its glory to begin with.

Powder reached for a piece of paper that lay close to her and tried to decipher the words written on it while Silco was almost done with her braid. Writing was still a bit complicated, but reading was something she became quite good at. There were still words she didn't know, things she didn't understand, but most of it made sense to her. Usually.

"What's this?" she asked when even the third time reading it didn't make its meaning clear to her.

Silco hummed questioningly and leaned forward to inspect the paper she was currently holding. He sighed. "Nothing too important for you. Plans to open a second factory since the demand for Shimmer is rising constantly."

"Why do people want something that is so bad for them?"

"They're weak. Shimmer makes them feel strong for a while; it helps them forget about the misery of their life. And once they have tasted the euphoria, they do not want to be without it."

Powder shuddered when images crossed her mind, of wild-eyed creatures lurking in the shadows, purple veins breaching through their skin and skinny hands being stretched out in hope for some coins to buy more drugs. "But they all feel so miserable afterwards."

"That's why they constantly want more", Silco explained with an uncaring voice as he finished the braid and leant back in his chair, signing that he was done. "Once they know how it is to be strong, they can't accept being weak any longer."

"There are other ways to get strong", Powder muttered and turned around on the table, the piece of paper still in her hands. Vi had taught her ways to be strong. Vander had. And so had Silco. Neither of them required taking a drug like Shimmer.

Silco's eye caught hers, and the stare was so intense that she couldn't look away. "Not everyone is like you, Jinx. Besides… it brings in money, which is needed for the coming revolution."

"To free Zaun from Piltover?"

"Exactly."

When silence fell over both of them, Powder realized that she did not bother to be called Jinx any longer. She had hated it at first, mostly because people who didn't like her used that name to peeve her, but quite some time ago, Silco had begun to use it too. Before that, he had barely called her by her real name – it had been 'child' or 'kid' most of the time. She was no child anymore, though. Powder was growing up, and becoming Jinx felt just right for that huge step.

You jinx every mission, cackled Mylo from above her head, but Powder just answered with a snort. Jinx would always be a troublemaker, but causing trouble to those who deserved it was actually fun. Thus it was fun to be Jinx. Stealing guns and other components from armory, tricking Enforcers and mean boys alike… All it had needed for her was someone to acknowledge her strengths and allow her to improve on them.

You always have been the weakest of us.

Just because you never realized that strength can be something else than pure muscles, she silently shot back. Powder wasn't Vi, and she would never be like the girl that used to be her sister. It had taken long to realize this wasn't needed at all, and now she understood. Mylo's harassing comments, Claggor's pitiful looks, they had always been a sign that neither of the boys ever cared for her abilities.

But Silco did, and she would show the world that he was right.

Said man exhaled another deep sigh and reached for the drawer, and Powder knew immediately what he was going to do. She was quicker than he to pull out the device for his hurt eye, and held it tightly in her hands. "Let me help you with that!"

She had witnessed it dozens of times already, how he injected the shimmering liquid into his eye, and he always struggled to keep the device in place because he couldn't see right on that side. Powder could do it better, even more since it didn't make her so uncomfortable anymore to watch it.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" Silco asked with slight doubt in his voice, and Powder nodded. Inserting the vial with the serum was easy – probably the most purified version of Shimmer that wasn't available anywhere else on the market and thus had the fewest side effects.

Silco tilted his head back and allowed Powder to climb onto his lap so she could reach the eye better, and she took a deep breath while she placed the device over the injured area. The needle thrust into the eye with a clicking noise, and Silco groaned in pain as the drug spread through his blood. For a short moment, Powder feared that she had done something wrong, but this was just his normal reaction to the injection. Silco wiped his eye with a handkerchief while Powder stored the device back in his drawer, leaning back to examine the older man.

"It's easier that way, right?"

He just grunted, but didn't disagree, which was a good sign to her. It didn't took that long when he did not have to search for the right spot himself, and Powder had proved more than once that her hands were calm enough to handle such things. No one else would have ever been allowed to get so close to Silco while he was vulnerable, and Powder knew how special it made her.

Wrapping her arms around his chest, Powder leant her head against the fabric of his suit. It smelled like tobacco, which only increased when he lit another cigar, and Powder was proud that not only she had the ability to help him, but that he allowed it as well.

This man was the only family she had left, and he had become almost something like a father figure for her. And for him, she would gladly become Jinx if it meant he'd continue to back her up. Because that was what family did, wasn't it?

AN:

Hello there! I know that updates are coming slowly, and I apologize for that. Although I'd love to hear how you think about this story, and if you have any suggestions for certain things you want to see happening, feel free to tell me (:
It is always nice to see that I'm not just writing this thing for myself.