Chapter Text
Powder has tattoos now.
Vi knows she’s being more than a little hypocritical. Her entire back is covered in tattoos, but a) she got them in prison and b) she was an adult for most of them. Powder is sixteen. She should be in school, not… whatever it is Silco has her doing. Vi barely got to speak to her before some rival gang showed up and they had to fight their way out. After that, they were separated.
She’s getting very sick of that happening.
She feels sick most of the time anyways, the queasy feeling never leaving her stomach as she sits in her small apartment, trying to figure out her next move. It’s too quiet, too much like prison, and it makes her want to break it all apart. But she can’t, because her current home, as shitty and small as it may be, is her best chance of getting Powder back.
Vi wonders if she was an idiot for thinking it would be so easy. She finally gets out of the hellhole that is Stillwater, and she gets the chance to help take Silco down. Only instead, it’s Marcus who takes the fall, and not enough evidence can be produced that Silco collaborated with him, despite Vi’s testimony. And look, she doesn’t feel a single bit of sympathy for the corrupt cop that threw a sixteen year old girl into maximum security prison to rot for years because he was too much of a fucking coward to do the right thing, but Silco is the one who killed Vander. And he’s still free.
With Powder. And he’s apparently her adopted father now, and boy did that news hit worse than any punch to the gut Vi has ever received.
She had a plan, one that kept her sane all those years in a small dark cell. Get out, find Powder, apologize and promise to be there for her, and then take down Silco. She managed step one thanks to Caitlyn, and Vi still doesn’t understand why Cait trusted her when no one else was willing to give a shit, but she’s grateful. More than grateful, really, but she doesn’t have time to be thinking about that just yet.
Because step two turned out to be a whole lot more complicated than Vi had anticipated. Finding Powder was easy, and at first it had gone just as she’d hoped. Hug her tight, apologise for everything, swear to make it better. And Powder had nodded and accepted, right up until it came to taking down Silco.
Because apparently, she cares about the bastard who murdered their family now. Loves him like a father, according to every fucking criminal Vi had beat the shit out of in her quest to get her sister back. And Vi working with the cops (not really, she would never work with those corrupt pieces of shit. It’s just Caitlyn, and Cait is different, she’s not even on the force anymore thanks to her whistleblowing antics, but she doesn’t know how to make Powder understand ) is a bridge too far for Powder to accept.
Powder is sixteen. And Vi can’t blame her for any of it, because she’s the one that left her, left her to get taken in by Silco, left her at the mercy of his manipulation for seven years. The things she’s done for him, the way she can’t trust anyone, not even her own sister anymore, that’s on Vi. It’s her biggest regret, and one she’ll never get to take back.
Jinx. That’s what she calls herself now. Every time Vi remembers it makes her want to break Silco’s face, to punch him until he stops breathing.
(To fight and fight until she was bloody and bruised, a penance for every mistake she made that night.)
Ekko was right about regrets driving her crazy. But Vi doesn’t know how to move past it, not when the lack of Powder is everywhere, all over her apartment, all over the custody laws she studies, all over every single memory she has.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive herself. But she knows that until she gets Powder away from Silco, she won’t even be able to start trying.
The law has never been on her side, and it still isn’t. But Vi needs to do something to get her sister back, and while her preferred method would be destroying Silco and his entire enterprise, she can’t do that one alone. Already tried it twice, and all she ended up doing was losing a tooth and convincing the only politician that might have helped her that the cost of shutting down Silco’s factories was too high.
(Jayce was such a fucking pussy for that. All that talk about taking action and then he backs out the second his hands get dirty. But whatever, Vi never expected him to be much help in the first place.)
So now, she’s turned to option two. Appeal for custody. Powder’s sixteen, and she would probably rather get emancipated than get taken from Silco, but Vi has to try. If she can just get her sister away from that man, even for a short while, it would give the two of them a fighting chance at reconciliation.
So here she is, trying to figure out her best shot at winning a custody battle. So far, it’s looking grim.
Silco has money, influence, power. Even if she can get a judge that can’t be bought or threatened to his side, what does she have to offer Powder that he can’t give her? She’s a criminal charged with terrorism and murder of her own fucking father and brothers, and as much as she knows that entire trial was just a show Marcus put on to get her away from Silco, it’s not exactly something she can fight in court. Thanks to Caitlyn and her campaign to expose the corruption of Piltover’s police force, her name is clear. But the fact that she was charged in the first place still exists, and she knows how those Piltover judges would see her, sham trial or not. She would be deemed just as shady as Silco, if not more.
All she has to plead her case is a shitty little apartment, and a job as a bartender. Plus the extra money she makes from fighting rings, but that’s not exactly something she wants to advertise in a custody battle. The real reason she wants Powder away from him isn’t that he can’t provide material comforts to her, but the damage he does to her psyche, and the danger he puts her in. But how can she argue that in court, what evidence can she possibly use that Powder herself won’t deny? Because Powder wants to stay with him, and she’ll go in there and deny every accusation Vi brings against him in regards to her mental health. She’ll lie her ass off if that’s what it takes to stay by his side, and Vi understands why but it makes the whole thing that much more difficult and frustrating.
So she can’t use the murder of Vander. He wasn’t charged with that, and the only other witness is more likely to blame it on Vi now than she is to tell the truth. She can’t use the whole gang thing, because according to the law and their bullshit investigations the gang doesn’t exist, and Silco is simply an industrialist. All evidence Vi and Cait had presented had been ultimately dismissed, and remembering that fills her with so much rage that she has to stop pouring over the custody case and get herself a drink.
Half an hour later, she’s sitting at the bar, pondering how it all went wrong. Not the first time, she had enough alone time in prison to map out every inch of that clusterfuck. But the second time, that one she’s still processing. How I found a way to get back to you turned into I’m working with a cop now and I’m just using you. How You need to get away from Silco turned into I don’t love you as you are now, I only love the old you, my baby sister. How everything she said seemed to get twisted and turned against her, used to drive that wedge further and further between her and Powder. Was there anything she could have done differently? Said differently? Some way to make Powder understand that she wasn’t trying to turn back time, just to help her, to care for her. Some way to get through to her that love doesn’t mean just standing by and letting your sister work for a crime boss, to let a teenage girl kill whoever she wants and spiral out of control, hurting herself over and over again and swearing that This is who I am now Vi. Why can’t you love me like this Vi? Why are you trying to change me Vi?
Well fuck that, Vi thinks. Powder may not want her love, but Vi’s still going to give it. She’s going to save her even if she has to drag her kicking and screaming to therapy herself.
(Again, she’s fully aware she’s being a hypocrite here. The number of the therapist Caitlyn offered her had been immediately turned down with a sharp comment to ensure it was never brought up again. But fuck it, she’s a big sister, and that means doing the right thing for Powder even if she isn’t ready to do it for herself.)
She has to get custody of Powder. Whatever it takes. She’ll use everything she can to knock Silco down and bring herself up in the eyes of the law. Proving he’s an unfit guardian will be difficult with both him and Powder fighting against her, but given the sheer amount of fucked up shit he’s done over the years Vi is hopeful that at least some of it will stick. Accusations of abuse would be tricky to prove, but proving that he's exposed Powder to unsafe situations? There’s got to be at least one example Vi can find.
Then she’ll need to prove that she herself is fit to be Powder’s guardian. Food, clothing, school, Vi is confident she can provide all that. But a stable home life? Not so much. Not to mention Silco’s wealth. Both things are going to be major challenges. An attorney will probably be able to help more, explain her chances and give her the best options. She’s no clue how to get a good one though.
Well, maybe she does.
Her mind goes back to Caitlyn as she downs her (fourth? fifth?) drink. She still doesn’t know what to make of this woman, the passion she shows towards righting the wrongs of Piltover, the genuine care and concern in her eyes every time shit went sideways and Vi felt that familiar despair creep over her. The way she broke Vi out of prison in the most insane gamble Vi has ever seen anyone pull, and how it actually paid off. Marcus is gone, the police are scrambling, and Vi is free. How Caitlyn let her go, but promised to be there for her if she needed anything.
“I can’t give back what was taken from you. But I can offer you my support, and my resources. For whatever you choose to do next.”
It’s so unlike everything Vi has come to expect from topsiders. Right up to when Marcus was finally thrown in jail Vi still expected the rug to be pulled out from under her, for Cait to cut some kind of deal and sacrifice Vi in exchange for power or wealth or whatever the fuck. Except that didn't happen.
Because Caitlyn already has power. And wealth. And a burning desire to prove herself that seems to manifest in this bizarre form of altruism and this steady trust she placed in Vi not to screw her over. Vi still sees her on the news, appealing for the government to give a shit, getting Ekko an audience with the city council. Nothing happens fast, but Caitlyn seems determined to keep going. Wide eyed idealism with a core made of steel and determination to rival Vi’s own.
It’s baffling. It’s intriguing. It occupies far too much of Vi’s thoughts when her focus needs to be on her sister.
Only now, her brain is wondering if maybe the solution to her problems is to combine those trains of thought. Silco is rich and powerful, but so are the Kirammans. At the very least, Cait might be able to get her a good attorney.
Vi pulls out her phone. It’s a brick, with terrible internet not worth the data cost and games she has no interest in, but she’s grown fond of it. She bought it with her own money, no help from Cait or Ekko or anyone else. There are three numbers on it, none of which she’s called yet.
She goes into her contact menu. Ekko is at the top, the only one with a name. The second one is Cait’s, but Vi just put her name in as C and now she’s not sure it feels right to change it. And the third is a number she wants to put a name on so badly, but something stops her every time.
Maybe it’s that she has no way of knowing if it’s Powder’s real number. So “in case of emergency” it is.
She moves back up to Caitlyn’s number. Looks down at her empty drink.
She’ll call her. She just might need an hour or so to do it.
Caitlyn Kiramman is busy with work.
Not job related work. Despite her mother's best attempts, she’s still currently unemployed after resigning from the force. Not friend related either, it turns out that coworkers don’t look favourably on you when you say their entire workplace is filled with corruption.
But that’s fine. Because there are still things she can do to help this city. Her original investigation into Silco’s drug empire hadn’t succeeded in taking down the kingpin, but she’d taken steps towards ridding the city of corruption and if she keeps at it, even without the resources of the police force, then maybe-
She’s cut off from her stream of thoughts by the shrill ringing of her phone. For a second, she’s tempted to ignore it, but then she sees who’s calling and immediately feels a jolt of fear and adrenaline.
Vi. Vi never calls. Caitlyn half expected to never hear from her again since they got Marcus sent to prison but failed to get Silco thrown in there with him. And she did her best to hide how she felt about that, to respect Vi’s boundaries, despite the childish voice in her head whispering about fairytale love stories and begging her not to let Vi just… walk away. But Vi is ringing her now, which means something is wrong.
“Is everything alright?” Caitlyn is halfway across the room as she answers, searching for her coat. “Is it Silco?”
“I have a favour to ask of you.” Vi says, and she sounds… different. Her speech is slower than usual, slightly slurred. “And it’s a big… a very big one.”
Anything. Caitlyn wants to say, but that seems like too much. Professionalism is required, even if she doesn't quite have a profession anymore.
“What do you need?” She says instead.
“What do I need.” Vi laughs, and Caitlyn feels the prickles on the back of her neck grow.
Vi may not be in immediate danger, but something is definitely wrong.
“I need my sister back.” Vi is mumbling into the phone now. “I need to go back in time and not walk off to cool down. I need to… I need to keep her safe. To not be such a failure of a big sister.”
She’s drunk. Caitlyn realises suddenly, and the relief makes her posture sag. She straightens up again when she realises the entire new set of problems she now faces.
Vi worked with her for five full months on the case to bring down Silco, two of them spent inside her prison cell, three of them out of it once Cait managed to pull some strings. She ended up pulling a whole lot, determined to get the investigation done as quickly as possible before Marcus had time to form a solid counterattack against her.
In all those five months, she’s never heard Vi sound like this. Not even after her first meeting with her sister, or when she took Caitlyn to her childhood home to gather evidence. Vi had been far more open with her than Caitlyn ever anticipated, telling Caitlyn candidly but with no shortage of emotion about the damage both Silco and the police had done to her family. Bit by bit over time, Vi painted a picture for her, and Caitlyn used that to get Vi some shred of justice.
There had been trust, and vulnerability on both sides, but never on this level. There was always a professional barrier between them. And Caitlyn is worried that Vi will wake up tomorrow and regret crossing it.
More importantly, she’s worried that Vi is going to do something reckless tonight.
“Where are you?” Caitlyn says, with a calm tone she does not truly feel. “I’ll come pick you up.”
“Thaaaaat’s… not the favour I need from you, cupcake.”
Caitlyn decisively ignores the reaction she has to that nickname. Yes, she hasn't seen Vi in three weeks. Yes, she may or may not have cried in the shower once they failed to get Silco thrown in jail with Marcus, and Vi asked to be left alone. But she is a twenty two year old woman and she refuses to go weak at the knees just because a pretty woman calls her cupcake.
"You can ask me for that favour face to face." Caitlyn let's a tiny bit of her annoyance slip into her tone, just enough to warn Vi that she means business. "Where are you?"
"At the bar."
"Which bar?"
"I can't… I can't remember the name, sorry. The Firelight one. You know, with all those weird cocktails Ekko loves."
Caitlyn does not, in fact, know what bar has cocktails Ekko loves. But she does remember the most popular bar frequented by his activist group and their local community.
"I'll be there in fifteen. Don't move."
"The room is spinning." Vi giggles, and Caitlyn chooses to take that as confirmation Vi won't be leaving the bar anytime soon.
She's never heard Vi giggle before. Not an important thought, but it crosses her mind regardless.
She reaches the bar in twelve minutes.
The bartender who she vaguely recognises shoots her a relieved look. Vi is slumped over the counter, and for a second Cait thinks she's fallen asleep. But then one hand shoots up and excitedly waves Caitlyn over.
"You made it!" Vi grins up at her, and Caitlyn's heart absolutely does not skip a beat being on the receiving end of that smile. "What are you having? Rum and coke?"
"I'm driving." Caitlyn answers, taking a seat on the worn leather barstool next to Vi. "So come on, let's get you home."
Vi lets out a soft little whine, slouching further over the counter.
"I still need to ask you for that favour."
"So ask."
"It's really dumb."
"So tell me and get it over with so I can roll my eyes and say no."
"Alright." Vi sits up, suddenly serious, and Cait's back straightens even more in response. "Fuck it, here goes nothing."
Cait waits, expectantly, as Vi stirs the dregs of her last drink with a straw.
"Remember when you said that if I ever needed anything I just have to ask? Well I’m about to lose my sister in a custody battle and I need you to marry me so I have a better chance at winning."
Of all the proposals that Caitlyn Kiramman, prodigy detective and occasional batman gambit enthusiast, expected to hear tonight, an actual proposal was not one of them.
She had twelve minutes on the drive over to come up with two hundred and seven potential favours Vi might ask her for, and now with the reality being something that completely blindsided her, Caitlyn finds herself speechless.
Vi seems to take her lack of response as a refusal, as she sighs and slumps back over onto the counter.
"Told you it was dumb." she mumbles. "Originally I was just going to ask if you knew a good attorney but the more I thought about it the more I realised that even if I got the best damn custody lawyer in the world it would still be a tough fight. I have pretty much nothing to offer her."
"That's not true." Cait finally finds her words. "You have so much love for her, I'm sure you can offer her more stability than Silco ever could."
Vi looks up at her again, with a smile and that soft rare vulnerability in her eyes that makes Caitlyn's throat go dry.
"Thanks, cupcake. But we both know that's not what the courts would see. I need money and influence, and you have that, but since the only way I can get it is by doing something as crazy as marrying you I guess-"
"I'll do it."
Vi stops, turning with a confused frown. Caitlyn is frozen, staring back, unsure of the words that just left her own mouth.
"What?"
"I'll marry you." Caitlyn says, half of her still unable to comprehend what her mouth is doing. "You need my help, I swore I would give it to you. If this is what it will take to make things right then I'm willing to do my part and try."
"You… you what? Do you realise what… do you get what I'm ask- How insane-I can't even-"
Any other time Cait would enjoy the chance at finally seeing Vi flustered and stuttering. But as it is, she's about as confused with this situation as Vi's drunken shocked words indicate her brand new fiancé is.
Except she's the one that agreed to it. So she can either laugh it off or commit. And she knows that laughing it off will not go over well with Vi. She's not willing to play with the woman's emotions like that, even if every rational part of her brain is screaming that this is a mistake of colossal, epic proportions.
"It's fine." Cait almost wishes she had a drink right now, to hide her face and her nerves. "We get a certificate, you legally become my wife, you go to court with the entire Kiramman estate behind you, you win and a few months later we get a quiet simple divorce. We don't have to make a big thing of it."
Vi stares at her. Caitlyn stares back, trying not to show how the inside of her head feels like it's in flames and every decision making neuron is running around screaming.
"Holy shit." Vi breathes out. "You're serious."
"Vi, I told you once that I was committed to helping people get justice. What Silco has done to you and your family is wrong. And it would be wrong of me not to help you just because this might be a slight… personal inconvenience."
"A slight person- Caitlyn I'm talking about marriage, not lending me some money."
"We're talking about a legally binding certificate, and six to twelve months of pretending to the world that we're madly in love and building a stable future together. I may not be a professional actress but I think we have a decent shot at pulling this off."
Vi's staring at her with that same confused wonder she had when the cell door opened and Caitlyn took her out of Stillwater. Less guarded this time around, but still with that something that makes Caitlyn feel like she's handling something precious. Vi's trust, she knows, is not easily given. And yet Cait has it.
She's not going to ruin this.
"So are we in agreement?" she asks. "We marry, I give you whatever resources and assistance you need to win this custody case, and we get your sister away from Silco. After that we wait an appropriate amount of time so as to not raise suspicion, then divorce quietly and return to normal."
"I…" Vi exhales slowly, spinning around in her chair so she's facing Caitlyn fully. "Shit. Yeah. Yeah, we have a deal cupcake."
She holds out her hand.
Cait takes it.
They get married the following afternoon.
It's just the two of them and Ekko at the courthouse. Vi wanted him to be a witness, as the closest thing she has to family that doesn’t currently hate her. He agreed, even though in his opinion "This is the dumbest decision I've seen someone make since Powder went to work for the man who murdered her family."
Caitlyn doesn't bring anyone. Vi doesn't ask why. She already knows this isn't something anyone in Cait's social circle would approve of. Hell, a real wedding for Caitlyn would probably involve more money and lavish decorations than Vi could ever earn in a lifetime.
But this isn't a real wedding. It's just two people signing a legally binding document acknowledging that they are, in the eyes of law, spouses now.
Caitlyn signs first, writing her name in firm, neat cursive. She hands the pen over to Vi with no hesitation.
Vi hesitates.
She tries not to focus on Caitlyn, or Ekko, watching behind her with concerned judgement. She thinks of Powder, of the sister she left behind, and the one she has now.
Powder may think Vi betrayed her, but she still needs Vi's help. Vi is her older sister, the only family she has left. There's no one else who can drag Powder out of the hell Silco has her in.
Vi signs her name.
Violet Kiramman.
It's only temporary, she knows, but it still looks wrong. Kiramman suits Caitlyn, it’s a name made for a topsider, a Piltover elite. Not Vi, who grew up without a last name at all, because neither her parents nor Vander had been born with one either. The legacy she inherited from them isn’t something that can be given by a surname.
She feels Cait’s fingers brushing against her palm. Vi takes her hand, and squeezes it gently.
The name may not feel right, but it’s something Vi can use to protect her sister. And that instinct, to protect the family, that’s one she’s always had. It sits comfortably in her bones, and eases the stifling air of the courthouse.
“Kind of wish we’d chosen Vegas instead.” she whispers to Caitlyn.
Cait gives her a familiar fond yet exasperated look, and the tension eases out of Vi a little more.
Maybe this was a mistake. But Vi’s made more than her fair share of bad decisions, and she knows the warning signs. Panic, anger, acting on instinct. This doesn’t feel like one of those decisions.
It feels like hope.