The next few weeks passed, if not comfortably, at least tolerably for the young witch. She had tasted the cooking of every Titan, but decided she liked Cyborg's best. She learned to refuse anything concocted by Starfire. Raven saved her the embarrassment of sponge baths by using a magic cleaning spell, and although Jinx missed her trademark pointy hair, she had to agree that a ponytail was much more comfortable. Besides, the only Titan who even owned any hair gel was Robin, and she was not sharing with him. Cyborg managed to convince Robin to take off the pair of handcuffs attached to the bed. "It's not like she's goin' anywhere," Cyborg argued.
"Still," Robin told him, "she's a dangerous villain. For all we know, this could just be a plan to destroy us!" They were in another room, but Jinx could hear everything through the walls. They weren't exactly talking quietly.
Cyborg scoffed at Robin's comment. "You're tellin' me she faked being unconscious for three months for some kind of plot?"
Robin obviously knew the half-man, half-robot was right, but wasn't ready to admit it yet, so he tried a different tactic. "What if she tries to escape?"
Cyborg sighed, as if he was arguing with a child who wanted an excuse to skip school. "How, exactly, would she possibly escape? Her legs aren't exactly in the condition to be running away from anything, let alone five superheroes and a defense system engineered by me."
"Yeah, but… But what if her team comes back?!" Robin said, almost triumphantly, like he had found something Cyborg for sure couldn't argue with-
"Then they'd just cut off the handcuffs, wouldn't they?" And you could almost hear Robin's face fall. He spent ten more minutes going through useless "what if" scenarios before finally allowing Cyborg to take off the shackles. Jinx patiently, or perhaps not so patiently, waited for Raven's shift to end. When the empath's communicator beeped, Raven was glad to leave. The waves of impatience rolling off the pink-haired girl in the bed were getting to her even through her empathic shields. Cyborg entered the room. "Guess what I brought?" He said, holding up a key.
"The key to my cold, barren, empty heart?" Jinx guessed sarcastically.
"Close," Cyborg chuckled. "It's the key to those handcuffs. It took me forever to convince Robin, he may be named after a bird but he's stubborn as an… As a mule. Let's go with a mule," Jinx rolled her eyes.
"My hero." She said sarcastically. Cyborg smiled and walked to the bed.
"Now you gotta promise me you won't do anything crazy, all right?" He said, squinting playfully.
Jinx rolled her eyes again. "Cross my shriveled heart and hope you all die."
"That's not quite how it goes," Cyborg said, but unlocked the handcuffs anyway. Jinx immediately grabbed Cyborg's wrist and tried to pull him down, but the metal man didn't budge an inch. Instead he simply raised an eyebrow.
"Expecting that, huh?" Jinx said, almost sheepishly.
"I'd like to think I know you a little better than that by now," Cyborg responded dryly.
Jinx scoffed. "You don't know me at all. What's my favorite food?"
"Anything I make." Cyborg grinned. They both knew he had her there, but Jinx wouldn't admit it.
"Yeah, right. You wish." She lied.
"All right, fine, fine," Cyborg said. "I guess I won't give you any of the brownies I made-"
"NO!" Jinx jumped (well, as much as she could without moving her lower body) and grabbed Cyborg around the waist. He laughed.
"All right, fine. But you have to let go of me first," he responded. Jinx blushed and leaned back down on to the bed. Cyborg took a brownie and held it to Jinx's face. Jinx reached up to take it, but when she did, Cyborg pulled it away. Jinx tried to grab it again, but Cyborg moved away once more. Jinx put her hands down, and Cyborg moved the brownie back towards her. Jinx reached for it. "Hey, do I have to chain you back up?" Cyborg scolded. Jinx blushed when she realized he wanted to feed it to her, but covered it with an eye-roll and a giggle. She begrudgingly opened her mouth and allowed Cyborg to put the brownie in.
"Mmm," she sighed, letting her head fall back against the pillow, savoring the taste.
"So, how is it?" Cyborg questioned.
"Better than anything Starfire's ever cooked me," Jinx said, not willing to give a complement to someone who was just teasing her. Cyborg suddenly pulled all of Jinx's pillows out from under her head. "Hey!" Jinx exclaimed, but with a laugh. Cyborg laughed as well. Jinx attempted revenge, but then remembered the most depressing part of her paralysis: her powers were completely useless. She sighed. Cyborg noticed the immediate change in her demeanor and replaced the pillows.
"You okay?" He asked.
"Fine," Jinx responded, but her tone of voice gave her away.
"You want to talk about it?" Cyborg said.
"No. No I don't," Jinx snapped a little more harshly than she meant to. Cyborg shrugged it off and moved to the chair, giving her space without leaving her completely alone. Jinx turned away from him and bit back tears. The Titans hadn't been keeping her in the dark about her condition. No one even knew if she would walk again, let alone if she'd regain her powers, so there was absolutely nowhere for her to go. She couldn't stay in the Titans Tower infirmary and have Cyborg feed her brownies forever, but with her old team out of the question… Jinx just didn't know. There was no one out there who would take in someone like her: she was detested by the hero community, and with her months of absence, forgotten as a villain. With her pink hair and eyes, hiding out as a human wasn't an option either. There was no one, nowhere, for her; on Earth or anywhere else.