"Well at least he was right about one thing, you do trust him." An ominous voice said from behind her. Jinx gasped and spun on her heel to come face to face with Robin.
"No! Please-" Jinx pleaded before the fist connected with the side of her face. She flew sideways and skidded across the floor, out of the corner of her eye Kid Flash's heartbroken face that seemed now to be looking at her for real flickered and disappeared.
Her survival instinct screamed at her and she pushed herself off of the floor with her hands and instantly broke into a sprint away from the leader of the Titans.
"You know Jinx," Robin drawled lazily as he followed her up the road, "you're a smart girl, you should have just quit while you were ahead."
"I was trying to!" Jinx shouted over her shoulder. Suddenly she felt a weight hit her in the back, cords swung themselves around her torso binding her arms to her side. The ropes swung around her a few more times before the weighted balls at the ends smacked her in the arms in a way that Jinx was sure would bruise.
She stumbled and spun around, she'd been too distracted shouting back at him to hear the trap flying through the air, she struggled against it, her breath hitching in her chest as she squirmed uselessly against her bonds.
"It is after all a dangerous life you've embarked upon, who knows what might happen to you." He said his voice like horrible syrup in her ears. Rage flared up insider of her, what made him think that he had the right to do this to her? To attack her in the street with no provocation and threaten her life? How dare he?!
She exhaled quickly and then with a mighty roar she let her powers loose and flung her arms forward sending burnt bits of rope flying out in every direction. With one quick blast she hexed the startled Titan to the floor and ran off in the other direction, this was not the time for witty one liners.
She fled down the alley to her right, her blood pounding deafeningly in her ears, a fence with barbed wires at the top blocked her path. Breathlessly she launched herself off of a garbage can and over the fence, just before her legs cleared it she felt fingers claw at her ankle by she was out of reach by now. Jinx landed on the floor awkwardly and felt her ankle protest at the sudden impact. She broke back into a run and flung a hex out from behind her which, from the sound of it, caused the barbed wire to spring free severely hampering the ascent of the Titan behind her.
Jinx's feet pounded out the route ahead of her, left, right, over that wall, around the corner, right exit, over that garden fence and… dead end. Jinx twirled around, Robin was closing in on her and here was no way out, she was just at the edge of the housing area and entering the warehouse district. She looked back at the wall before her, it was certain death the way she'd come, the walls around her were too high to jump and too smooth to climb, she refocused on the wall in front and took a breath, after all she'd always been in the school of thought that says 'if you can't find a door, make your own'.
She lifted her arms up before her and ran at the wall shooting the hex before her, the wall exploded violently outwards in a flurry of bricks and mortar, she stumbled over remnants of breeze blocks and kept running through the darkened warehouse she found herself in now.
"Stop!" Robin screamed after her like the voices of hell chasing her, her muscles kicked into high gear and propelled her forward away from him at speeds she'd never experienced before. Her muscles recognised the danger in that voice in the same way an antelope does in the roar of a lion, she was pretty and she was going to run faster than she ever had before to get away.
She exploded another wall and burst into the warehouse proper, floodlights from the ceiling alternately illuminated bright patches of the floor and left others in almost total darkness. She sprinted through the maze of crates and leapt over obstacles in her path plunging alternately into dark and light with the base beat of her heart beating rapidly in her head, the sensation was almost like being in a night club, flashing lights and overwhelming noise. Except instead of having fun she was fleeing for her very life and the ominous beat was her own terrified heart and the clang of her pursuers steel boots on the floor and obstacles behind her. She daren't look back but she was sure that she was running slightly faster than him, at this rate she might actually loose him soon if she managed to take enough quick turns in this warehouse.
The noise of the grappling gun firing reached her just before the blinding pain ripped through her left arm. She howled as the metal ripped through her flesh, ripping muscle and shattering bone before exploding messily out of the other side where the four blood-soaked red and yellow prongs of the hook snapped out and dug into what little undamaged part of her arm remained. The sudden cloud of spattered blood hit her skin as her momentum skidded her forward through it.
She choked on the pain and the tang of blood in her mouth, the instinctual tears were already spilling over her eyelids, the pain from her arm was unbearable. She turned her head to see him advancing on her slowly, he walked out of a patch of light and into the shadow and all she could see of him was the light shining off of his teeth as he grinned at her. The only sound other than her ragged breathing and her blood pounding was the whirring sound as the grappling gun automatically ate up the slack cord as he got closer to her.
"I gave you a chance, I give all of you scum chances, even though it's people lie you that ruin this world, kill people, destroy families and break people's lives. God only knows I try." He said with a sigh, Jinx's legs buckled from pain and she fell to her knees clutching her mangled bleeding arm, the pain made her want to throw up. She fought back bile as Robin spoke again.
"But you people… people like you, people like the ones who killed my parents, you just don't change. You can't, you're incapable of it. I put you away and you come out stronger, with new allies and all at our cost." He said angrily.
"Please… don't." Jinx rasped as blood started to pool on the floor as it ran in rivulets off of her fingers.
"This cycle just goes on and on and people get hurt, can you even understand that?" He said not even hearing her.
"Please! You can't do this!" Jinx yelled desperately staring up at him, his face was blank behind his mask, if she could have seen his eyes she would have bet they looked hollow, of course they would, there was no soul there.
"You all sound the same. But so do all your victims… the people you hurt, the people you kill." He said coldly.
"I've never!" She screamed uselessly.
"But you will! You all do eventually! You're all the same! Now we can do this quickly and painlessly, or we can do this the hard way." He said jerking back on the grappling gun and wrenching the grapping hook through her flesh backwards a little. Jinx let out a feral scream and a hex shot down the cable snapping it and shocking the Titan.
She scrambled unsteadily to her feet clutching her twisted arm with the hook still embedded in it and ran. She burst through a wall with a hex and another and another until her palm smacked uselessly in front of her against the next wall. Her head felt light and her body exhausted, her muscles quivered. She glanced back to see Robin rounding the corner towards her. Her body flared to life again and she stomped a hex into the floor with her foot, it hurtled along and took out the chunk of floor that the boy wonder happened to be running on.
She turned her eyes back to the wall and forced herself to focus on it and ignore the spots swimming before her eyes, she tried desperately to muster her strength and let a hex jump from her palm with a scream. An alleyway was finally visible beyond the rubble, instead of running out into it however Jinx stepped sideways wearily and tucked herself behind a crate and held her breath, barely daring to let her heart beat as the cursing hero pulled himself up out of the crack in the floor and ran past her hiding place and out into the alleyway. Jinx waited for just a minute before getting up and exiting into a different alleyway via a side door crammed behind some crates that she'd spotted too late when she ran by it the first time. She stumbled out of the door and scanned the contents of the alley. It wasn't actually an alley upon closer inspection but the back of some storage units that looked like garages. Feeling light headed from the blood loss she stumbled forwards along the narrow street until she came to one that was not only unlocked but open, barely thinking she stumbled in and dropped to the floor behind a crate.
Up in the sky unbeknownst to Jinx a hero hovered in the air.
"Two blocks to your left Kid." She said pressing the button on her Titan's communicator.
"Thanks Bee." Kid Flash said looking up in the air and waving at the Titan.
"No problem, anything to keep our spiky haired friend in his place." She grinned down at him.
"I knew I could count on you." He smiled turning off the communicator and zipping over to the open entrance.
Inside Jinx was catching her breath and poking at her new wound, her arm was numb but there was still blood pumping in her fingers so the grappling hook was probably pressing against a nerve rather than cutting off circulation, and miraculously despite breaking the bone it didn't appear to have severed any major arteries and the blood had stopped flowing quite so freely with some pressure. She was debating over whether it would be better to remove it now or to leave it and then go to a professional to get it taken out, it was like when some people got stabbed, they only bled to death after they removed the knife.
She heard quiet footsteps and her eyes fell on the familiar shadow across the wall in front of her, it was pointy with lightning bolts where ears should be. She tensed a glowing hand and peered around the corner.
"Kid Flash? Is that you?" She asked tentatively as she readied the powerful hex in case he wasn't who he said he was, the boy zipped over blowing papers and cloth that had been neatly stacked up around the room and all over her.
"It's you." She said rolling her eyes weakly as the papers slid off of her to the floor. She looked at him to see him glaring angrily at her.
"You!" He began angrily, "You humiliated me! In front of Robin no less, he had to untie me from the freezer!" he snapped poking her in the shoulder accusatorily. He stopped when he heard the pained hiss escape from Jinx's arm, he pulled her tattered sleeve aside as was confronted with the gory sight of her chewed up arm.
"What happened to you?" He breathed shocked.
"Your wonderful leader happened to me." Jinx grimaced as she pulled her arm closer to her.
"What? You-" Kid Flash said shaking his head already, it just wasn't possible, Robin would never do this to her… to anyone.
"God, you're so deep in denial. You can't even bare the thought that your precious leader could be a killer." Jinx growled at him, she tentatively reached her free hand over and wiped some of the blood off of a prong of the grappling hook protruding messily from her arm, the canary yellow and fire red colours shone through accusatorially, it was clearly Robin's hook.
"My god… it… it must have been an accident, I'm sure he didn't mean to Jinx!" Kid Flash stammered his hand frozen between him and her, he wanted to touch her but he didn't want to make the awful looking wound worse.
"You're an idiot. He's trying to kill me!" She shot back at him.
"He wouldn't… are you going to be okay? We should get you to a hospital." He said shaking his head harder and reaching for her arm tentatively.
"I'll be fine, it's not as horrible as it looks. Just… give me a minute." She said pushing his hand away roughly.
"I'm… I'm not going to give you a minute." Kid Flash said standing up and pulling out the containment field generator that he'd swiped from Titan's tower on his way here.
"We can get you some medical attention when I arrest you." He added looking at her arm worriedly.
"Why do you want to be like him? Why do you care what he thinks?" Jinx demanded as she shakily pushed herself up against the crates with her legs only until she was in something close to a standing position.
"I… I owe him. Robin gave me a place on the team when I needed their help, we're heroes, people respect us. They need heroes like us." Kid Flash said in a voice that didn't sound so certain to himself as he shakily pointed the control at her.
"You really wanna be associated with people who can do this to someone?" She demanded tugging her ripped sleeve aside and showing him her arm in all it's gory glory.
"He didn't do that, you're… you're lying!" He shouted desperately, it couldn't be true, Robin wasn't like that!
"Yeah, you got me, I shot myself through my own arm from behind myself with his grappling hook just on the off chance that it might make you doubt your commitment to the Titans. Use your damn brain!" Jinx screamed furiously at him, tears stung her eyes, how could he be so blind?
"Just- just shut up! He's a hero, I'm a hero, he would never!" Kid Flash shouted back fearfully.
"You don't have to be called a Titan to be a hero you know, because believe me, the ones I know are no heroes." Jinx murmured watching him carefully.
"Shut up!" Kid Flash yelled loudly as he pressed the button on the control. The beam shot out from it encasing Jinx in an electrical force field, she let out a yelp and fell awkwardly to the floor on her good arm. He tried to tune out her yells as he turned the dial up, he couldn't have her escaping again, Robin would get here soon and he'd clear this whole mess up, he'd tell him there was a good explanation.
He turned his back on her and spotted Robin nearing the entrance, he gasped and ran up to him.
"Robin! I caught her, just like I said I would." He said gesturing to the fallen girl in the garage.
"You did nothing, I was the one who weakened her. She was hardly going to run far with that in her arm." Robin said coldly as he advanced on Kid Flash.
"Wh-what? You did that to her? Why?!" He demanded horrified.
"I did what I had to to get her, some of us actually deal with villains properly. It's what has to be done, now unlike you I'm going to finish the job." Robin said flippantly as he looked at Jinx shaking to push herself up on her good arm.
"Please…" She coughed helplessly, her eyes full of fear. Kid Flash gasped, Robin wanted to finish the job? Wanted to finish off Jinx?
"No! You can't!" Kid Flash yelped desperately grabbing Robin's shoulder. Before he could even react Robin's arm came around and caught him across the chest, his elbow connecting with his stomach. He fell backwards as Robin turned to look down upon him with contempt.
"I can and I will. And you call yourself a hero, you're pathetic." He sneered.
"And to think, I used to think you were cool." Kid Flash laughed bitterly as he pushed himself back up onto his feet, "It seems you're not who I thought you were."
"Life is full of disappointments, you are one of them. Now hand her over to me." Robin said holding his hand out for the remote.
Kid Flash looked from the control in his hand to the debilitated Jinx and back again, he could see the lightning bolt on his chest if he looked down, that symbol stood for something. He and his uncle… they were heroes, they stood for better things, they had limits and principles. He had to stand for something too, it seemed now was the time to make that stand. His hand vibrated shaking the controller apart until it crumbled in his hand, he looked defiantly up at the shocked Robin and behind him he heard the field fall and Jinx stumble to her feet.
"Catch her yourself." He said darkly. Robin took a step forward his face contorted in anger but Kid Flash was already running at him in hyper speed, in what seemed only like a painful bang Robin stumbled suddenly knee deep in the snow.
"Did I mention I was giving her a head start?" Kid Flash asked casually, his body silhouetted against the setting arctic sun.
"You miserable-!" Robin yelled lunging at him but Kid Flash slammed his foot down at super sonic speeds, breaking the chunk of ice that Robin was on away from the rest of the iceberg, Kid Flash gave it a push with his foot.
"I don't care who you are, no one messes with me. No one gets to claim that attempted murder is heroic." He said as Robin began to drift away.
"You're looking pretty heroic to me. We'll be in touch." Robin shouted shivering against the wind. Kid Flash pulled his communicator from his belt and looked at it thoughtfully before throwing it at Robin.
"No we won't. But feel free to call the others, I wouldn't want you to die out here after all." He shouted back before zipping off.
The street and the row of garages came back into view as he dropped out of super speed, he looked around but Jinx was gone, maybe she still thought Robin was chasing her, or thought that he would.
"Hey, what happened there?" Bumblebee asked dropping to the floor next to him.
"I don't think you'd believe me if I told you." He sighed rubbing his forehead.
"So… where's Robin?" Bumblebee tried again.
"Away, when he gets back… ask him about Plasmus, about Control Freak and about Jinx. Look up their records." Kid Flash said distantly.
"Well… the Titans east and I are going out for a pizza, buy one get one free." Bumblebee offered uncomfortably. Kid Flash looked at her with a weary smile.
"No… I'm okay. You go on." He smiled walking off down the road.
"Yeah… right." Bumblebee murmured to herself before taking flight out of the alleyway.
Kid Flash walked along morosely. It seemed everything he'd known was a lie, he could never be a Titan again and he had no idea how deep Robin's corruption was spread or how many knew and just turned a blind eye. He'd have to do something about that. He hoped at least that Jinx would be okay… he had no idea where she'd run off to. Something bounced off of the back of his head and fell to the floor in front of him. He looked down, it was an old empty Starbucks coffee cup. He turned around to see two soft pink glows in the shadow of a building.
"Starbucks? Please tell me you don't drink this awful stuff." He grinned at her as he tossed the empty cardboard cup in the air and caught it again.
"Give me a break, it was the best I could do on short notice." She shot back as he walked towards her.
"That was a pretty good shot." He smiled down at her.
"I can see in the dark remember?" She pointed out.
"I remember. I can't though, so… maybe you can help me see how things really are?" He asked carefully as his eyes began to adjust, he could see her smirking at him.
"How about we talk about it over coffee then?" She suggested sweetly.
"Coffee and medical treatment I think." He said pointing at her injured arm which seemed to be free of Robin's grappling hook now.
"I've had worse." Jinx shrugged with her one good shoulder.
"I think maybe you should tell me about that too." He said as he followed her off down the alleyway through the dark and out into the well lit street beyond.
"I think I should." She agreed quietly.