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“I’m tired of talking.”
The moment the words fall from Jinx’s lips, she spares a final glance in Ekko’s direction wearing an apology written across her makeup-stained face. Then she pulls the pin on the grenade, and everything is supposed to go dark or whatever the hell it is that happens when you die except it doesn’t, and Ekko is just sitting there clutching that damn canister of his.
“Pow—” he visibly winces before correcting himself, raising his hands in the universal gesture of surrender— “Jinx, please. Just listen for a minute, okay? Just a minute, and then you can do whatever it is you wanna do. Blow us both up if you want. Just give me a minute. One minute. That’s all I’m asking you for.”
Reluctantly, Jinx lets the hand holding the bomb fall to her side. “One minute.” This is all just a big waste of time.
Ekko starts talking immediately, because he doesn’t put it past Jinx to be counting the individual seconds. “You believe that you’re evil to your core, right? You’re doing this because you feel like there’s no redemption for you, and that both topside and the undercity would be better off without you, right?”
Jinx nods. “There’s no good version of me, Ekko. You know that.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” says Ekko, “and I have proof.”
Jinx stills. “What kind of proof could you possibly have?”
In response, Ekko holds up his canister. “I’ve been able to stop you from killing yourself God knows how many times because of the good version of you.”
“I’ve told you already; there is no good version of me.”
“There is, and I’ll tell you about her if you just listen to me.” Ekko draws a sharp breath. “Okay, this is gonna sound crazy, but I promise you it’s all true.”
“Go on. You have thirty seconds left.”
“It’s kind of a long story, but my tree is dying and when I was looking for a cure I came into contact with the arcane and I’m not sure how, but I somehow ended up in an alternate timeline. And in that timeline, you were still Powder, okay?” Jinx doesn’t respond, so Ekko takes it as his cue to continue before she decides she’s tired of listening, too.
“You remember the tip I gave you guys when we were younger? The one about that Piltie’s apartment?”
This draws from Jinx a bitter laugh. “How could I forget? That was when Mylo first gave me my name.”
Ekko elects to brush over that last comment. “Okay, well, in this universe, that explosion killed Vi. I think Silco and Vander reconciled after that, and Mylo and Claggor never died trying to save Vander as a result. And because the explosion that killed Mylo, Claggor, and Vander never happened, and Jinx was never born.”
“Jinx…was never born.” Jinx takes a moment to contemplate that, taking the idea and rotating it in her brain, trying to decide how it feels to have the words roll off her tongue. It’s been longer than the allocated minute by now, but she can’t say she isn’t intrigued. She walks over and sits down beside Ekko, the bomb in her hand forgotten. “So then what?” she asks. “What happens in that world?”
“Well,” Ekko says, “Piltover and Zaun don’t have this whole class war thing going on, for starters. That Hextech stuff was never invented, and the Lanes were bright and colorful.”
“Really?” Jinx perks up at that. She’s always felt like the undercity ought to have a bit more color to it.
Ekko nods, smiling. "Really. And Vander and Silco run The Last Drop together, and when I went to that timeline you and I were just getting finished with our big project for this competition. And-" Ekko waves his contraption in the air— "you helped me make this. You helped me come back home." He smiles wistfully, staring out past the pitch-blackness of Jinx's hideout. "We were happy, Powder." Ekko makes no effort to correct himself on the name this time. Jinx doesn't move to correct him, either.
Instead, she picks up a stray marker from off the ground, yanking off the cap before absently beginning to doodle on Ekko's arm. Ekko doesn't flinch away.
“What about us?” Jinx asks. “How are we, in this universe?”
Ekko shrugs. “I already told you. We’re happy.”
“Well, at least one version of us gets to be, right?”
Ekko takes the marker from Jinx’s hand and begins doodling on her arm instead. An array of Xs in hot pink, just as she had done.
“We could be happy too, you know.”
Jinx laughs at that. “Look at us, Ekko. Do you really think we get to be happy?”
Ekko shrugs. “You didn’t think there was a good version of you out there, and I proved you wrong on that, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did.” Jinx gets to her feet, walking to the center of her hideout and returning a few moments later with an entire box of neon markers. “Though, who’s to say this version of me can’t be good, either?”
Ekko swaps his marker out for a purple one, leaning in close enough for Jinx to feel his breath brush against her face as he makes violet lines on her cheeks just below her eyes. “That’s the thing, Powder. It’s never too late to change the narrative, right? We can be whatever we want to be—no one gets to choose that for us.”
“Hmm.” Jinx tilts her head ever so slightly to the side. “And what do you wanna be, huh, Ekko?”
His answer is immediate. “By your side,” he says. “Whatever that entails.”
Jinx blinks. She certainly hadn’t been expecting that response…although, she can’t say she minds.
“And what about you?” asks Ekko, breaking her out of her thoughts. “What do you wanna be?”
Jinx’s answer is just as immediate—perhaps even more so. A wide grin breaks out across her face as she reaches into the box and uncaps a marker.
“A big fat hero.”