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Vander falls. Vi watches it happen. Saw the look in Jinx’s eye, the unspoken trust me. Vi couldn’t, not with something like this. She thought that was it. Or, at least, she did. It happens in a pink flash, a shouted NOW, and Vi throws out her arm (she never withdrew it) catching onto Jinx just before she can fall, one of her Chompers clipped to Vander.
Vi yanks with all her strength, practically pulling her sister on top of her and rolling with the motions, squeezing even when they both wince.
“Fuck,” Vi pants. “I thought—”
Jinx snorts. “I know what you thought. Too many hits to the head, hotshot.”
Vi laughs and even though it sounds strangled she doesn’t care because Jinx is still here and alive and she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the relief she felt when she appeared in that window, minigun propped up on the railing of her ship—and when the fuck did she get a ship? What has Vi missed in the past three weeks she’s been preparing with Piltover? She did hear that Jinx had been found safe and alive from both Sevika and Scar during their war meetings but nothing more than that, no details.
The rest of them are all—Janna, please let them still be alive—should be kicking around, likely having all planned the same entrance, and—
“Ekko,” Vi breathes out, and then Jinx is gone, pushed off her chest and wide-eyed.
“Ekko?” she asks. “What about Ekko?”
“He’s the one who crashed your ship—”
“He what?” Vi blinks when Jinx all but launches herself up, whipping around, eyes flashing as she scans wildly, head tilted up to stare at the remains of her ship, trying to catch a glimpse. “Did you see where he—”
Vi’s not sure she can keep her mouth from falling open. Clearly she and Jinx aren’t the only ones who have reconciled. Sure, she knew Ekko had been the one to take notice, to jerk his head for Vi to jump aboard his hoverboard, to take the wheel like he’d helped put it together, but she’d chalked it all up to simple heat-of-the-moment stuff, do-this-or-we-all-die stuff.
Part of her wonders if her surprise is warranted. She remembers more than anyone just how attached at the hip Powder and Little Man were, practically synonymous. It had relieved her greatly, when Pow and Ekko first started to bond. Claggor was kind enough to Powder but there was a gap, a disconnect, partially from the age difference and partially from Vi and her slightly overprotective tendencies.
Ekko, though? The little twerp that showed up at Benzo’s shop one day and stuck to Powder like glue, the two of them egging each other on, spending hours tinkering at the junkheap, not even noticing how low the sun had fallen until Vi, Mylo, and Claggor pulled up to drag them home, hosing them down in the alleyways.
Then again… the last Vi had seen of Ekko and Pow—Jinx together, they were beating the shit out of each other on the bridge.
Now? Jinx was practically climbing the walls, or she would have been if her leg, the calf bleeding and scraped from Vander’s claws clutching at her, hadn’t given out. She crumpled just out of reach of Vi, head still craned back, desperation beginning to creep into her gaze.
“Jinx—” Vi started.
“Ekko?” her sister shouted, raspy voice close to breaking. Her chest heaved. “EKKO!”
A beat of silence filled only with their own breaths, Jinx tauter than a bow, Vi in stunned silence.
Then—
“JINX!”
Jinx pushes to her feet again, ignoring the way her knee trembles as her head searches wildly.
“EKKO! EKKO, WE’RE DOWN HERE!”
Vi catches sight of the green chemtrail of his hoverboard first, feels her heart lift, and then he comes flying into view. She grins, is about to call out to him, but his next actions have her jaw dropping.
He nears them, and as he jumps off it, the board clattering to the floor behind him as he sprints, Jinx’s arms are already up, staggering forward. Her leg gives out with a yelp, and she all but falls into his open arms.
Ekko doesn’t even spare Vi a glance, burying his face in Jinx’s neck and holding her tighter than physics allow, like he’s trying to meld their bodies together. Jinx is just as bad, clutching with such ferocity Vi is certain her nails have to be leaving gouges in Ekko’s skin. If she is, he gives no inclination, only runs his hands—and, damn, chill out, Ekko, Vi thinks absurdly—all over her, presumably checking for injuries, but Vi zeroes in on something else.
She hadn’t made the connection earlier, too wired from adrenaline, but the two of them are absolutely covered in body paint. Janna above, almost every inch of Jinx’s skin was smeared with the stuff, and Vi blinks, catching for the first time the hourglass insignia with the crown on Jinx’s upper arm, the way some of the paint disappears under her clothes.
Vi’s brows shoot up.
Little Man…?
And Jinx? Jinx just huffs a breathy laugh as his hands span all across her back.
“I saw the wreckage—”
“What, and you thought I kicked the bucket?” Jinx’s voice is impossibly soft. They still have not pulled away from each other. If anything, they burrow even tighter into one another. “No way, mister. Can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Ekko’s turn to laugh, shaky though it is. “Good,” he says. “Because I don’t know how I’d tell the bug. I’d have to talk her off the ledge next.”
Jinx snorts. “She’d never.”
“She would. Takes after you.”
Vi has so many questions. As it is, all she can manage is—
“Huh?”
Ekko’s head snaps up at her voice. Without detaching from Jinx and even looping one of her arms over his shoulders, he makes his way towards Vi, looking her over.
“You good?” he asks. It’s not exactly the… erm… warm welcome he gave Jinx but Vi would rather avoid that, actually. She nods.
“Yeah. You?”
Ekko grins crookedly, gives her a one-armed shrug that jostles Jinx slightly. She barely reacts.
“Alright.”
With the two of them facing her, she can take in so much more of their body paint. They have matching pink X’s across their chests, and though he isn’t as covered as Jinx, there are more pink X’s down his legs, some pink smears along his arms, a cyan smear on his shirt.
Janna give me strength, Vi realizes. She’s marked him.
She points between the two of them (though, really, there’s barely a sliver of space separating them).
“When did this happen?”
Whatever she’s expecting, it’s not for matching smirks to cross their face, Jinx rolling her eyes as Ekko glances at her, smugger than Vi’s ever seen him. Jinx, catching it, scoffs playfully and uses her pointer finger to tilt his face back towards Vi, whose jaw aches from how wide she’s gaping. Her mind whirls.
“Who’s the bug?” is her second question. Jinx melts in real time, and Ekko’s not much better.
“Aw, c’mon sis,” Jinx teases, eyes gleaning. “You remember Isha, don’t you?”
Vi nearly loses her footing because how could she forget? The kid she hadn’t been able to look at without seeing Powder, who was Jinx’s mini-me, who fucking bit her in the tunnels and who Vi had accidentally smacked away on instinct.
Watched how Jinx tended to the kid with all the care that Powder used to show her toys, but somehow even softer.
Held Jinx back even as she wailed and clawed when Isha sacrificed herself.
“Isha?” Vi gasps, unable to help her reaction. Jinx looks so soft at that moment, cozied right up to Ekko who holds her like its second nature.
“It’s a long story,” Jinx drawls, jabbing a thumb in Ekko’s direction. “Having to do with him.”
“I was in an alternate universe,” Ekko says, and Vi blinks.
“What?”
“True story,” Jinx says, casting an eye in Vi’s direction like she’s daring her to doubt what Ekko’s saying and promising violence if she does.
Ekko just continues as if nothing’s happened. “Isha wound up there. Still no idea how, but she tracked me back to Jinx’s hideout.”
“He brought her home,” Jinx’s voice is softer than anything.
The ease at which they’ve told their story is enough to convince Vi and she can’t help snorting, recollecting on the tiny terror who had all but adopted Jinx’s stink-eye.
“Kicking and screaming, I’m sure,” she thinks she’s got a pretty good hold on the situation, which is why it throws her for a loop when Jinx groans and Ekko’s blinding grin turns just as smug as it was before. Vi can’t help but notice the way his grip tightens imperceptibly on Jinx’s waist.
“She’s an angel,” he says, and Vi’s brows shoot up into her hairline.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’re the one who told her I was a safe friend!”
“A what?” Vi can’t help asking. Ekko looks like the cat who got the cream.
“Apparently I’m the person Isha was supposed to find if she was ever lost or in trouble and couldn’t find Jinx.”
Vi immediately adopts a deadpan expression that she turns on Jinx, who scowls.
“It was a worst case scenario!” she defends. “How was I supposed to know it would ever come to fruition!”
“You picked Ekko?”
“Puh-lease,” Jinx rolls her eyes. “Everyone knows the Firelights have a soft spot for kids. And they wouldn’t have turned her away just for being mine.”
“Of course we wouldn’t,” Ekko says gently. “And we didn’t turn you away, either.”
Vi’s brain plays catch-up. “You’ve been staying with Ekko,” she realizes. “That’s why Scar knew you were okay when I asked Sevika.”
“You asked after me?” Jinx blinks.
“Of course I did.”
Ekko had picked up on something else entirely, already twisting and looking back at his hoverboard. “Scar…” he murmurs, glancing again at Jinx and Vi with a swallow. “We should head up there. Take stock.”
Check on our wounded went unsaid, as did count our losses.
Vi nods, following Ekko’s gaze to his hoverboard and then glancing unsurely between the three of them. “Uhh, how are we…”
“Like this,” Jinx says, shifting all her weight to her uninjured leg to throw herself against Ekko, who catches her like he was expecting it, hauling her in his arms in a bridal carry. She snakes her arms around his neck like they belong there as he walked over to step onto his board, clicking out the extension before mounting it. In sync, they turn and stare at Vi expectantly. She can only blink for a second, then huffs an almost-laugh and clambers right up behind Ekko. From here, she can see the way Jinx’s nails scratch lightly at the nape of Ekko’s neck. She catches her sister's eye, and whatever face Vi is making is enough to make her flush for the first time since Ekko flew down and threw himself at her.
“Vi?”
“Ready,” she says, one hand braced on Ekko’s shoulder as they lift off.
She has a lot more questions but they can all wait. At least until after Vi’s been reunited with her own sweetheart.