The girl's right leg had collapsed from under her. She tried to move so that she didn't land directly on it, but the landing was still like being shocked painfully with electricity. Jan gritted her teeth. Her leg had been threatening to give out for a while now, and she felt that her consciousness might have been fading. That was why she had handed Slade the drive without forcing him to take it from her.
Graham ran from his safe place, crouching down next to Jan. A fist, however, hit him in the shoulder. Instead of seeing a Jan grateful for his help, Graham flinched away from a deadly glare.
"I thought I told you not to call me Janus." The girl said ill-temperedly.
"Er- sorry."
"It's surprising your leg held out this long." Slade said, tucking the drive into a pocket on his belt. "You did well for your skill level. Still, I'm disappointed. I expected more."
Jan's attention turned to Slade. The man was walking away from both Jan and Mr. Graham. He had gotten what he wanted, so there was obviously no reason to stay. The girl felt that strange feeling again, trying to drive her to her feet and try again. Silently, she hoped she'd get to fight with the man again. It was more fun than messing with the Titans.
"Alright." Jan said, huffing out a brave breath. She grasped a wall that was near her and began to pull herself up onto her feet. "Here we go."
"What are you doing?" Graham sounded both angry and panicked.
"Walking to my room."
"No. I'll find someone to carry you."
"No you won't." Jan laughed. "Being carried is weaker than limping. You know they have spies. Think of what your rivals in the underground world would do if they knew your prized thief was wounded and unable to even carry herself."
Graham paused. Jan was right, of course. If his rivals believed Jan unable to even carry herself, the news would spread like wildfire and some of the girl's jobs might even be revoked. That would lose him so much money. Still, seeing his prized thief limp towards the stairs that lead to the lower levels, he couldn't help but accompany her in his worry.
"Well… I thought you had him." Graham said finally, as if this would help the fact that Jan lost.
Jan laughed painfully.
"You obviously weren't paying attention. I was nowhere near that man's level."
"You weren't?" Graham let his question trail off. Then he turned to her, a little angrily. "Why did you make the challenge, then?"
Again, Jan laughed. She stopped sharply in the middle, though, since her ribs felt like one or more had been cracked.
"I didn't make the challenge. He offered the deal, and you know he wasn't going to take no for an answer. In all truth, I lost the moment he decided to take the drive from me."
Graham didn't seem to want to agree. There was no way, in his mind, that Jan couldn't have somehow avoided losing so much money. Now the man was going to explain to his trusted buyers that his star girl had given the drive away. No, that wasn't right. He'd have to tell them she was forced to hand over the drive, upon pain of death. Yes, that would sound better. Not that the buyers would be interested in his excuses.
"I'm still doing my jobs this week." Jan said, leaning against the wall as she proceeded down the hallway after the stairs.
"In your condition?" Graham prodded gently with his words.
"Yes. No matter what the spies try and do, if I stop doing my work, we'll have a definite drop in customers."
"I thought you didn't care about the money." Graham said, his voice reminding Jan of a child.
"I need some for hair dye." Jan admitted, smiling sheepishly. She kept her eyes on where she was going, though, so that she didn't lose her balance.
"Oh, is that it?" Graham's voice rose huffily. He did this every time Jan asked for money. She gave him all her revenue. In return, she asked that he give her what she needed to survive. But he got possessive every time she asked for a nickel.
"The old dye has washed out. I'm sure you've noticed." Jan's tone suggested she was talking to a child.
"Why do you have to keep your hair anything but white, anyways? What's wrong with your true hair color? I like it."
"You don't know anything about subtly, do you?" Jan said, her voice a momentary deadpan. Graham glared. "We've talked about this before, Graham. Just get me the money. I'll take care of the rest."
They had reached her room now. It wasn't too large and it was in a hallway that was supposed to house temporary workers. In truth, it was more to make sure they didn't run than to accommodate them for their good work. That was just the way Graham was. But Jan had a permanent room here. She had tried having an apartment of her own once before. Things hadn't worked in several areas, and so the girl found it was easier just to stay in a place that few knew existed.
"And why do you have to stay here again?" Now he was just complaining. "You're taking up space, Jan!"
"Goodnight, Mr. Graham." Jan said kindly before shutting the door on her boss.
The girl eased herself to her bed, which she carefully seated herself on. Just from breathing, she could tell two ribs were cracked. She was going to be covered in bruises in no time, and it would take a miracle for her to be back at full health by the time she was supposed to perform her first thievery of the week.
Still, she couldn't go to sleep like this. She knew her mask would be returned to her eventually, but the now-tattered suit had blades broken off and sticking out of the wrong places. It wasn't something that she wanted to sleep on her bed with. So she got up and stripped herself of the skin-tight suit, tossing it in a corner, where she kept all her costumes. She looked briefly in a tall mirror and saw that dark spots were already starting to bloom on her skin. Great.
A half shirt and pair of shorts later, Jan was crawling under the covers of her bed. They were thin, but Jan wasn't looking for warmth. She didn't even think about how they might hinder her movement as she fell asleep, her left hand habitually reaching under her pillow for a knife she used to always keep safe.
Robin huffed in an annoyed fashion, glaring at the screen in front of him. He put his gloved hand to his face, tapping his index finger on his cheek with his suppressed aggravation. With another sigh, he leaned back in the chair, pulling that same hand through his spiky black hair.
"Robin, please come and enjoy the food our friends have made for us!" Starfire approached, holding a bowl of jiggling alien food that would inevitably only be eaten by her at the end of the day.
"I can't." The boy insisted. "I have to figure this out."
"Figure what out, dude?" Beastboy asked, momentarily pulling away from his wrestling match with Cyborg, who believed that meat (the most detestable thing to eat, in Beastboy's opinion) was the only food to consume.
"These robberies," Robin replied, never looking away from the screen, which had case files on everything he found suspicious. "and thieveries. We've been hit every week, numerous times in the last three weeks, by thieves that we've never met before, and never meet again."
As if to emphasize this, the case files cycled through the images of each of the thieves that had never been caught.
"Robin's right." Raven said wisely, much to the disappointment of her other friends, who were already stuffing themselves. "There have been more enemies getting away from us these last three weeks than ever, and I don't think it's because we've lost our touch.
"Stho wha'?" Beastboy asked through a mouthful of tofu.
"Yeah. What are you thinking?" Cyborg looked between Robin and Raven.
"We can't track them all down." Laughed Beastboy, now that his mouth was full. "It's not like they're all the same person."
"That might be exactly what they are." Robin typed at the keyboard.
"Excuse me," interjected Starfire apologetically, "but I do not understand. How could many really be one?"
"It's simple. You just wear a lot of different masks." Raven supplied.
"But why would someone do that? Why waste the energy?" Cyborg asked.
"Not to mention the money. Can you imagine buying a new costume every time we went to go save somebody?" Beastboy said, making a face.
"It's not a strain if you make enough money for it. Perhaps if you had many draws of money…"
"What, like an underground system?" Cyborg said, raising a brow.
"Yes. I remember you telling me about some rumors."
"Well, yeah, but most of them were never confirmed. There was something going around the phone lines about a thief for hire and the person who finds their jobs about three weeks ago, but it was shut off pretty quickly."
"Three weeks ago? You're sure?" Robin asked.
"That's exactly when this all started." Raven confirmed.
"So the one person could really be tricking us? There are many of them?"
"It just seems like it, Star." Robin assured her.
"But why? I mean, where's the motivation?" Beastboy asked, still quite confused.
"Maybe it's to protect their identity?" Cyborg suggested with a shrug of his cybernetic shoulders.
"Perhaps they have an obsession with colorful and elaborate costumes?" Starfire said with a raised hand.
"They're actually a child of some really rich dude?" Beastboy suggested, completely off topic.
"Or maybe they're just doing it for kicks." Robin said cynically, finally turning away from the computer screen. "It doesn't matter what their motivation is. We need to catch them. The next time an unfamiliar, extravagant thief shows up, we catch them and find out what connections they have."
"Maybe it's Red X!" Beastboy suddenly leapt up.
"Naw, too extravagant." Cyborg shook his head.
"I do not think he would be unsatisfied with the suit that he stole from Robin." Starfire frowned.
"Perhaps Slade…" Robin started, but his friends were quick to cut him off.
"Not this again, man!" Beastboy protested.
"Yes, I do think you spend too much time focused on that evil man." Starfire almost seemed upset.
"Besides, what would Slade have to do with this?" Raven said reasonably.
"Well, the people in Jump City have become less trusting in us." Cyborg admitted.
"But why would Slade spend three weeks just to unbalance the people slightly? No, I don't think Slade's involved." The blue-cloaked girl said with finality.
"Fine." Robin huffed. "In the meantime, let's see what we can find out about that underground system."
"Right after the barbeque, right?" Beastboy grinned, holding up a tray of tofu treats to Robin, who did his best not to show his distaste.
Of course, the alarm chose to go off at that moment.
"Trouble."
Jan woke up every time someone walked past the door. Or, at least, she usually did. This time, she was pulled out of her sleep by a knock on her door.
"Yeah?" Jan called out, pulling herself up into a sitting position and flinching.
Graham entered, looking both furious and frightened, as he often did.
"Y-you won't believe it! I mean, could you even do it? I don't think you can. Oh, I'm ruined. I mean we- we're ruined."
Jan held up a hand, trying to calm her boss down.
"Whoa, whoa. You're getting ahead of yourself. Start from the beginning. And close my door!"
The heavy door closed with a click, and Graham whirled to face Jan. He began explaining, many hand movements aiding his brief but startling story. There were times when Jan questioned his sanity; his eyes were bulging and looked a little crazy.
"Apparently the spies did see you yesterday. All of your jobs this week called me, saying a little birdy told them that you were out of commission. I, of course, said you were perfectly fine. And… and then…" The man grew pale for a second, and then forced the next sentence out like it was his undoing. "Now they all want their jobs done on the same day- the day your first job was supposed to be!"
Jan sighed and began to rub her forehead. This was making things far too complicated. She knew something like this would happen, but she hadn't expected it this quickly, and she hadn't expected it to be this painful. There was no way she could get all those jobs done in the condition she was in, and certainly not with only one day's prep.
"Alright. Tell them all that the jobs are on. I'll have everything done by the end of tomorrow."
"The- the end of tomorrow?" Graham did a double-take. He had to make sure Jan wasn't saying what he thought she was saying. "So your deadline is…?"
"Midnight Tuesday night. I'd better get to work, then."
Jan got up out of her bed, feeling like an old lady. She was still stiff and in pain from the fight the other day. A glance at the clock revealed that Graham had let her sleep in. She didn't know whether to be grateful or not, but she couldn't focus on it.
"But you healing enough to do a job properly, let alone three, by tomorrow would a-"
"A miracle, yes."
Now Jan was grabbing some clothes out of the small collection of normal wear that she had. She piled them all on one arm, which felt like jelly, and turned to Graham. He looked at her sheepishly, not sure whether he should be worried- not only for her health, but her sanity- or overjoyed.
"Did you get the hair dye?"
Graham frowned unhappily. He tossed a small box at Jan, who caught it with her free hand and looked at it. She then frowned and looked up at Graham.
"This is not black, Graham."
"I know. But you have to use so many more boxes of dye when you turn it black."
"I can't help my hair color." Jan said, irritated.
"No, but you could keep it the way it is."
"We've been over this before. It's too noticeable. If someone made the connection between my hair, me, and this place, you'd be out of a business."
Graham looked at the ground. Of course he knew those things. It still didn't make him want to lose another cent that he didn't have to, though.
"Oh, right. What about the suits?" Jan asked, hesitating at the door.
"They're still in the works. Why don't you use one of your old ones?"
"I need them done by Tuesday, at nine." Jan set down her stuff to pick up a piece of paper and a pencil. She scribbled quickly on it, writing out times and places. "I'll need the suits delivered to these places when they're done by these times, and I'll need them easy to put on and off. Call the manufacturers and tell them I requested it urgently." She handed him the slip of paper. "Now. I'll be in the bathroom. Don't come in, even if I answer a knock. I've got a lot of work to do."
The girl sighed and headed out of her room and down to the bathroom, which was down another hall. She would have to get her hair done in record time, because Graham got angry if the water was running too long.
Shieb: Ok, so this is a pause in the action, consisting mainly of talk. What I'm doing here is setting up the scene for a series of more intense scenes coming up. Next chapter, we'll be straight back to battle and taking things that don't belong to us. ;)
A note is that I'm unsure I portrayed the Titans believably. I don't know why I have such a hard time grasping their characters, particularly when they're together. If you have suggestions to help me write their characters, like little mannerisms that I'm missing, please inform me, and I'll be sure to take the suggestion.