Jinx took a deep breath to steady herself. She wasn't nervous. She was never nervous. She was just… Shaky. Cyborg, who was holding her hand, noticed. "You sure you want to do this?" He asked into her ear. She shot him a glare and put her hands on her hips.
"Of course I'm sure. I have never been unsure of anything ever. I am going to go in there, and I am going to be the most epic prison-designer-slash-tester on the planet. Got it?" She asked, silently thanking him for the chance to build her confident façade. Jinx's improved prison design had already been implemented, and from the looks of things, it was working very well. Of course, there was no real way to know until it was tested. Which is what Jinx was here to do. Which she was not nervous about. Nope, not nervous. Not at all. Not even if her old team was currently in detainment in the exact same prison she was about to spend a week in. Bad Jinx! Happy, confident thoughts! "Let's do this," she said, executing a triple handspring that brought her straight to the door and managing to turn around soon enough to see Cyborg roll his eyes. She aimed a smirk at him and leaned casually in the doorway. When he caught up, they walked through the prison doors hand in hand.
"You have to realize, we will not be treating you any differently from any other prisoner."
"And you have to realize that I will not be treating you any differently than any other prisoner would. So you may be punched in the face this w- Ow!" Jinx glared at Cyborg, who had elbowed her. The head guard of the prison was the same one as when she had actually been in prison, and she still hated Jinx with the same fury. Of course, the feeling was completely mutual. "I get it. No special treatment. I've been here before. I know what goes on. Thank you. Can we move on to the part where I get to be in prison instead of this He-" Cyborg gave Jinx a warning glare. "This board meeting," she said begrudgingly.
"Of course not. We still have to go through your strategy. For example, how will you deal with the other prisoners?" The board member seemed unaware of Jinx's impending explosion. Had Cyborg not been there, Jinx would have flopped her head onto the table and groaned. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried to keep her voice level and polite.
"I believe we already went over this. I gain their trust and attempt to recruit them to help with my escape? And the Titans are on call to round up anyone who gets out with me," she informed the slightly clueless woman. Jinx was beginning to think that she liked the head guard better, or at least she did until (He? She?) opened her mouth again.
"But you have to realize-"
"UGH!" Jinx groaned, flopping her head onto the table. What? Just because she wasn't a villain anymore didn't mean she was a saint.
After being forced to apologize to both the board lady and the prison guard, Jinx was searched, starched, and ready to begin re-assimilation into the prison environment. She said goodbye to Cyborg with a long, lingering kiss that only became longer and more lingering at the warning cough from the prison warden, and allowed herself to be escorted into the lunchroom, which was currently being used for a multitude of card games. Almost subconsciously, she scanned the room for familiar faces. When she saw her old team, she briefly considered bolting right then and there before even making contact with another prisoner, but her brief hope was shattered when Gizmo caught her eyes. "Jinx!" He shouted across the crowded room. Jinx took a deep breath to summon her old, overconfident, sarcastic, supervillain self. Well, actually, everything but 'old' and 'supervillain' still applied, but that's beside the point.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Hive Five? Or is it four now? What was up with the whole 'leaving me for dead' thing?" She asked, strolling casually up to their table and leaning across the top of Mammoth's chair.
Gizmo rolled his eyes. "We thought you were dead. I mean, getting hit with a starbolt, not moving, and then disappearing for months? Seems like a pretty solid formula for 'dead'," he said. Jinx gave a noncommittal shrug. "And anyway, if you'dve just stayed where you were, that blast would've hit a little kid instead. That'dve distracted the snotmunchers for long enough to escape," he told her. Jinx swallowed the feeling of wrongness that that statement brought up and sat in the chair Mammoth stole for her out from under a smaller inmate.
"What are we playing?" She asked.
"BS. We're apparently not allowed to say the actual word," Gizmo replied, already dealing her in. He took two cards out of his hand and placed them on the pile. "Two fours."
"BS," Jinx called.
"What?!" Gizmo spluttered. "How could you possibly know that?! I looked at your hand and you don't even have any-" He trailed off as Jinx raised an eyebrow. "Heh. Well. Look at that, Jinx is still the champion of making us admit to stuff. Your turn, champ," he said, poking her with his elbow in an obvious attempt to distract the attention from himself. Jinx rolled her eyes, but didn't press the issue further. It wasn't like cheating was uncommon in these games.
She took four cards out of her hand. "Two fives," she said, placing the cards flat against each other so that it was impossible to tell where the edges were. Her former teammates looked suspicious, Billy Numerous squinting and attempting to measure the cards between his fingers, but no one said anything. Jinx smirked. Just as it always had been and always would be, there wasn't anyone alive who could call Jinx on her BS.