"Possessive much?" Jinx's eyes tried to sound playful despite her situation. "Does the alien princess know you go around pressing villains against walls in the moonlight?"
"Does the H.I.V.E. Headmistress know you flirt with your targets mid-mission?"
"Touché. So, is this the part where you do the whole righteous hero speech? 'Surrender peacefully, villain, justice prevails,' all that garbage?"
"Would it work?"
"Not even a little."
"Then I'll save us both the time." Hikaru's expression remained calm, almost amused. "Besides, you don't strike me as someone who responds well to lectures."
"Oh, so you have been paying attention." Her smile widened, pleased.
"About about as much as you. Any reason you know I'm close with Starfire?"
"Basic reconnaissance."
"That's reassuring, thought I'd picked up a stalker."
"You wish." She spat out. Hikaru smirked in response, enjoying the angry look Jinx gave in return.
"You know, most heroes would've already knocked me out or dragged me inside by now. What's the holdup? Here I thought I was just another name on Robin's villain database."
"You led the team that nearly killed my friends a month ago," Hikaru said evenly. "That tends to leave an impression… Though that's not the only thing that has."
Jinx's smile sharpened. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're better than this." The words came out casual, like he was commenting on the weather. Easier than acknowledging the tension still crackling between them. "The whole villain student thing. You're too smart to be someone's final exam."
Her expression shuttered immediately. The playfulness vanished, replaced by something cold and defensive. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know you coordinated a tactical assault on a fortified position with a team half the size of ours." Hikaru kept his tone infuriatingly calm, even as part of his awareness tracked how her jaw tensed when she got angry. "I know you adapted on the fly when things went sideways. I know you're the only one of your crew who actually thinks three moves ahead." He paused, watching her reaction. "And I know you're wasting all of that taking orders from people who just see you as a weapon."
Something flickered in her eyes—surprise, maybe, or recognition—before the walls slammed back up.
"At least they see me as something." The words came out sharper than she seemed to intend. "Better than being invisible. Better than being the girl people cross the street to avoid because her powers ruin everything they touch."
The raw honesty in her voice caught him off-guard. This wasn't banter anymore. He'd struck something real, something that hurt, and the defensive anger radiating off her felt too familiar. Different circumstances, but he recognized that particular brand of isolation.
But beneath that anger, beneath the hurt and defensive posturing, there was something else. Something he'd inherited from his father—not the wings or the divine energy, but a different kind of sight. The ability to sense sin, to feel the weight of corruption that clung to truly damned souls.
He'd felt it before. The greasy wrongness that emanated from career criminals, the ones who'd embraced darkness so completely there was nothing left to salvage. The kind of people who hurt others and felt nothing but satisfaction.
Jinx didn't have that.
Her soul—if he could even call it that—carried mistakes, sure. Bad choices wrapped in desperation and loneliness. But there was no rot at her core, no fundamental corruption. Whatever she'd done, whoever she thought she was, she wasn't damned. Not even close.
She could still be saved. The question was whether she'd let herself be.
"Is that what H.I.V.E. told you?" Hikaru asked quietly. "That you're lucky anyone wants you at all?"
Jinx's hex energy flared around her fingers—instinctive, defensive. The pink light cast strange shadows across her face. But he didn't flinch, didn't move, just held her gaze and waited.
"Because from where I'm standing," Hikaru continued, his voice dropping lower, "you're the most dangerous person on your team. Not because of bad luck." His gold eyes locked with hers, and he meant every word. "Because you're good enough that you don't need it."
For a long moment, Jinx just stared at him.
Her mouth opened. Closed. The defensive retort she'd clearly been preparing died somewhere between thought and speech. Her expression cycled through confusion, suspicion, something that might have been vulnerability before settling on carefully blank.
But her eyes—those told a different story. They were searching his face like she was looking for the punchline, the trick, the cruel twist that had to be coming. Like genuine praise was a language she'd forgotten how to speak.
The realization hit him harder than her hex bolts had. She actually believed what H.I.V.E. had told her. That she was lucky to be wanted. That her powers made her a liability instead of an asset. That this—criminal academy, villain exam, disposable weapon—was the best she deserved.
The worst part? He recognized that look. He'd seen it in mirrors during his first life, when his old parents made him believe he was the problem. When isolation felt like the only safe option because at least then you controlled when you got hurt.
It made him deeply uncomfortable, because he knew exactly how that story could end.
"You don't get it," Jinx said finally, and her voice had lost its edge. Just tired now, almost resigned. "This is who I am. What I am. Bad luck follows me everywhere—you think regular schools wanted the girl who made the gym collapse during assembly? You think normal people wanted to be friends with someone who hexes everything around her?" She shook her head. "H.I.V.E. was the only place that saw potential instead of a disaster waiting to happen."
"They saw a weapon," Hikaru corrected gently. "There's a difference."
"Maybe I'm okay with that."
"You're really not."
The hex energy around her fingers flickered, then died. She looked away, jaw tight.
Hikaru loosened his grip slightly—not enough for her to escape, but enough that it didn't feel quite so much like restraint. "I can tell, you know. When someone's past saving. You're not."
"What, you got some kind of magic redemption radar?"
"Something like that." He offered a small, knowing smile. "It's a skill I inherited from my father. He's good at judging souls, its kind of his job. And yours is far from damned."
"Seraph!" Robin's voice cut through the moment like a knife. "We need containment out here!"
Reality crashed back. The Tower was half-destroyed, his team was waiting, and he was having... whatever this was... with someone who'd literally just attacked his home.
Hikaru glanced toward the Tower, then back at her.
"Think about it, Jinx." He held her gaze for one more second. "You're worth more than whatever they're paying you to be."
Through the breached walls, he could see his teammates securing the other H.I.V.E. members. Mammoth was unconscious, slumped against a wall with Donna keeping watch. Beast Boy had shifted to an elephant, sitting on Shimmer to keep her from transmuting anything. Kid Flash had tied Gizmo up with his own gadgets, the small genius cursing creatively. See-More was out cold, his helmet cracked.
Hikaru hauled Jinx through the breach, keeping the light restraints active. She didn't resist, remaining silent throughout.
"Everyone okay?" Robin's voice carried through the damaged Tower as he did a headcount. His detective eyes swept over each teammate, cataloging injuries.
"Bruised but functional," Donna reported, rubbing her shoulder.
"Tower's gonna need repairs," Cyborg growled, surveying the damage to his home with barely contained fury. Scorch marks, broken walls, shattered windows—the place looked like a war zone. "Lots of repairs."
"How did they bypass our security?" Raven asked the question they were all thinking, her dark energy still crackling around her fingers.
Robin's jaw tightened. He pulled a small device from the rubble—a military-grade encryption cracker. "Someone helped them. Someone who knows our systems."
Then all at once they heard it. Steps gradually coming closer. Then a figure emerged and the temperature dropped.
Not literally, but it felt like someone had opened a door to the Arctic. The Titans shifted into defensive positions, powers flaring, every instinct screaming danger.
Jinx went rigid in Hikaru's grip. "Oh shit."
A figure stepped through the hole where Mammoth had first entered.
Orange and black armor, tactical and sleek. A bicolored mask completely covering the right side of his face, the left eye cold and appraising. Six foot four of augmented muscle and predatory grace. In one hand, his signature sword. In the other, a loaded pistol held with casual expertise.
Deathstroke.
He surveyed the scene—defeated Fearsom Five, destroyed Commandos, eight young heroes standing defiant in their ruined home—and his visible eye gleamed with something that might have been approval.
"Not bad," he said, his voice like gravel. "For amateurs."
Then he drew his promethium blade, and the world went to hell.